‘The subcontinent has its moments, Nicholas. It was a superlative experience, in spite of the Wingco’s foul temper. I had to tell that officer I was not prepared to be the Gunga Din of Royal Air Force Public Relations in India, even at the price of being universally accepted as the better man. There were a lot of rows, but never mind. There was much to amuse too.’
This clearcut vignette of relations with his Wing-Commander defined an important aspect of Bagshaw’s character, one of which he was very proud.
‘You’re a professional rebel, Bagshaw,’ some boss-figure had remarked when sacking him.
That was true in a sense, though not in such an entirely simple sense as might be supposed at first sight. All the same, Bagshaw had obtained more than one subsequent job merely on the strength of repeating that estimate of himself. The label gave potential employers an enjoyable sense of risk. Some of them lived to regret their foolhardiness.
‘After all, I warned him at the start,’ Bagshaw used to say.
The roots of this revolutionary spirit lay a long way back. Did he not boast that on school holidays he had plastered the public lavatories of Cologne with anti-French stickers at the time of the occupation of the Rhineland? There were all sorts of later insurgent activities, ‘chalkings’, marchings, making policemen’s horses shy at May Day celebrations, exertions which led, logically enough, to association with Gypsy Jones. Bagshaw was even reckoned to have been engaged to Gypsy at one time. His own way of life, the fact that she herself was an avowed Party Member, made it likely he too had been ‘CP’ in his day, possibly up to the Spanish Civil War. At that period Quiggin used to talk a lot about him, and had probably learnt a good deal from him. Then Bagshaw was employed on some sort of eyewitness reporting assignment in Spain. Things went wrong. No one ever knew quite what happened. There had been one of Bagshaw’s rows. He came back. Some people said he was lucky to get home. Politically speaking, life were never the same again. Bagshaw had lost his old enthusiasms. Afterwards, when drunk, he would attempt to expound his changed standpoint, never with great clarity, though he would go on by the hour together to friends like Moreland, who detested talking politics.
‘There was a chap called Max Stirner … You’ve probably none of you ever heard of Der Einzige und sein Eigentum … You know, The Ego and his Own … Well, I don’t really know German either, but Stirner believed it would be all right if only we could get away from the tyranny of abstract ideas … He taught in a girls’ school. Probably what gave him the notion. Abstract ideas not a bit of use in a girls’ school …’
Whatever Bagshaw thought about abstract ideas when drunk—he never reached a stage when unable to argue—he was devoted to them when sober. He resembled a man long conversant with racing, familiar with the name of every horse listed in Ruff’s Guide to the Turf, who has now ceased to lay a bet, even feel the smallest desire to visit a racecourse; yet at the same time never lost his taste for talking about racing. Bagshaw was for ever fascinated by revolutionary techniques, always prepared to explain everybody’s standpoint, who was a party-member, fellow-traveller, crypto, trotskyist, anarchist, anarcho-syndicalist, every refinement of marxist theory, every subtle distinction within groups. The ebb and flow of subversive forces wafted the breath of life to him, even if he no longer believed in the beneficial qualities of that tide.
Bagshaw’s employment at the BBC lasted only a few years. There were plenty of other professional rebels there, not to mention Party Members, but somehow they were not his sort. All the same, the Corporation left its mark. Even after he found more congenial occupations, he always spoke with a certain nostalgia of his BBC days, never entirely losing touch. After abdicating the air, he plunged into almost every known form of exploiting the printed word, where he always hovered between the sack and a much more promising offer on the horizon. He possessed that opportune facility for turning out several thousand words on any subject whatsoever at the shortest possible notice: politics: sport: books: finance: science: art: fashion—as he himself said, ‘War, Famine, Pestilence or Death on a Pale Horse’. All were equal when it came to Bagshaw’s typewriter. He would take on anything, and—to be fair—what he produced, even off the cuff, was no worse than what was to be read most of the time. You never wondered how on earth the stuff had ever managed to be printed.
All this suggests Bagshaw had a brilliant journalistic career ahead of him, when, as he described it, he set out ‘with the heart of a boy so whole and free’. Somehow it never came off. A long heritage of awkward incidents accounted for much of the furtiveness of Bagshaw’s manner. There had been every sort of tribulation. Jobs changed; wives (two at least) came and went; once DT was near at hand; from time to time there were periods ‘on the waggon’; all the while legend accumulating round this weaker side, which Bagshaw’s nickname celebrated. Its origin was lost in the mists of the past, but the legend emphasized aspects of Bagshaw that could make him a liability.
There were two main elucidations. One asserted that, the worse for drink, trying to abstract a copy of The Golden Treasury from a large glass-fronted bookcase in order to verify a quotation required for a radio programme, Bagshaw overturned on himself this massive piece of furniture. As volume after volume descended on him, it was asserted he made the comment: ‘Books do furnish a room.’
Others had a different story. They would have it that Bagshaw, stark naked, had spoken the words conversationally as he approached the sofa on which lay, presumably in the same state, the wife of a well-known dramatic critic (on duty at the theatre that night appraising the First Night of The Apple Cart), a clandestine meeting having reached emotional climax in her husband’s book-lined study. Bagshaw was alleged to have spoken the words, scarcely more than muttered them—a revolutionary’s tribute to bourgeois values—as he rapidly advanced towards his prey: ‘Books do furnish a room.’
The lady, it could have been none other, was believed later to have complained to a third party of lack of sensibility on Bagshaw’s part in making such an observation at such a juncture. Whichever story were true—probably neither, the second had all the flavour of having been worked over, if not invented, by Moreland—the nickname stuck.
‘There’ll be a stampede of dons’ wives,’ said Bagshaw, as we watched the train come in ‘Let’s be careful. We don’t want to be injured for life.’
We found a compartment, crowded enough, but no impediment to Bagshaw’s flow of conversation.
‘You know, Nicholas, whenever I come away from this place, I’m always rather glad I skipped a novitiate at a university. My university has been life. Many a time I’ve put that in an article. Tell me, have you read a novel called Camel Ride to the Tomb?’
‘I thought it good—who is X. Trapnel? Somebody else mentioned him.’
‘The best first novel since before the war,’ said Bagshaw. ‘Not that that’s in itself particularly high praise. Trapnel was a clerk in one of our New Delhi outfits—the people who used to hand out those pamphlets about Civics and The Soviet Achievement, all that sort of thing. I was always rapt in admiration at the way the Party arranged to have its propaganda handled at an official level. As a matter of fact Trapnel himself wasn’t at all interested in politics, but he was always in trouble with the authorities, and I managed to help him one way and another.’
Although not in the front rank of literary critics—there might have been difficulty in squeezing him into an already overcrowded and grimacing back row—Bagshaw had reason in proclaiming Trapneil’s one of the few promising talents thrown up by the war; in contrast with the previous one, followed by no marked luxuriance in the arts.
‘Then he got a poisoned foot. Trapnel was a low medical category anyway, that’s why he was doing the job at his age. He got shipped back to England. By the end of the war he’d winkled himself into a film unit. He’s very keen on films. Wants to get back into them, I believe, writing novels at the same time—but what about your own novels, Nicholas? Have you started up at one again?’
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I told him why I was staying at the University, and how work was going to be disrupted during the following week owing to Erridge’s funeral. The information about Erridge at once disturbed Bagshaw.
‘Lord Warminster is no more?’
‘Heard it last night.’
‘This is awful.’
‘I’d no idea you were a close friend.’
Bagshaw’s past activities, especially at the time when he was seeing a good deal of Quiggin, might well have brought him within Erridge’s orbit, though I had never connected them in my mind.
‘I didn’t know Warminster well. Always liked him when we met, and of course sorry to hear the sad news, but why it might be ominous for me was quite apart from personal feelings. The fact was he was putting up the money for a paper I’m supposed to be editing. I was on the point of telling you about it.’
At this period there was constant talk of ‘little magazines’ coming into being. Professionally speaking, their establishment was of interest as media for placing articles, reviewing books, the various pickings of literary life. Erridge had toyed with some such project for years, although the sort of paper he contemplated was not likely to be of much use to myself. It was no great surprise to hear he had finally decided to back a periodical of some sort. The choice of Bagshaw as editor was an adventurous one, but, if they knew each other already, Bagshaw’s recommendation of himself as a ‘professional rebel’ might well have been sufficient to get a job in Erridge’s gift.
‘A new publishing firm, Quiggin & Craggs, is going to produce the magazine. Warminster—Erry, as you call him—was friends with both directors. You must know J. G. Quiggin. Doubt if he’s ever been CP, but Craggs has been a fellow-traveller for years, and my old friend Gypsy toes the Party line as consistently as anyone could.’
‘What’s Gypsy got to do with it?’
‘As Craggs’s wife.’
‘Gypsy married to Craggs?’
‘Has been for a year or two. Quiggin’s an interesting case. He’s always had Communist leanings, but afraid to commit himself. JG doesn’t like too many risks. He feels he might get into more trouble as a Party Member than outside. He hasn’t got Craggs’s staying power.’
‘But Erry wasn’t a Communist at all. In many ways he disapproved, I believe, though he never came out in the open about it.’
‘No, but he got on all right with JG and Howard Craggs. There was even a suggestion he did more than get on well with Gypsy at one time. He was going to back the publishing firm too, though they are to be run quite separately.’
‘What’s the magazine to be called?’
‘Fission. That was thought to strike the right note for the Atomic Age. Something to catch the young writers coming out of the services—Trapnel, for example. That was why I mentioned him. The firm would, of course, be of a somewhat Leftward tendency, given its personnel, but general publishing, not like Boggis & Stone. The magazine was to be Warminster’s toy to do more or less what he liked with. I hope his demise is not going to wreck things. It was he who wanted me to edit it. There were one or two others after the job. Gypsy wasn’t all that keen for me to get it, in spite of old ties. I know a bit too much.’
Bagshaw’s lack of orthodoxy, while at the same time soaked in Left-Wing lore, was something to make immediate appeal to Erridge, once considered. Then another idea occurred to me. It was worth firing a shot at random.
‘You’ve been seeing Miss Ada Leintwardine about all this?’
Bagshaw was not in the least taken aback. He stroked his moustache, an utterly unsuitable appendage to his smooth round somewhat priest-like face, and smiled.
‘You know Ada? I thought she was my secret. Where did you run across her?’
He listened to an account of what had taken place in Sillery’s rooms; then nodded, as if understanding all.
‘Sillery’s an interesting case too. I’ve heard it suggested he’s been in the Party himself for years. Myself I think not, though there’s no doubt he’s given quite a bit of support from time to time in his day. I’d be interested to know where he really stands. So the little witch has ensnared this venerable scholar?’
‘She’s kept that to herself so far as you were concerned?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Is she a Party Member too?’
Bagshaw laughed heartily.
‘Ada’s ambitions are primarily literary. Within that area she’ll take any help she can get, but I doubt if she’d get much from the Party. What did you think of her?’
‘All right’
‘She’s got a will of her own. Quiggin & Craggs did right to sign her up. JG was much taken.’
‘You produced her?’
‘We met during the war—all too briefly—but have remained friends. She’s to be on the publishing side, not Fission. I’d like you to meet Trapnel. I really do think there’s promise there. I’ll call you up, and we’ll have a drink together. I won’t be able to arrange anything next week, as I’m getting married on Tuesday—thanks very much, my dear fellow, thanks very much … yes, of course … nice of you to put it that way … I just didn’t want to be a bore about a lot of personal matters …’
2
RATHER UNEXPECTEDLY, ERRIDGE WAS FOUND to have paid quite recent attention to his will. He had replaced George Tolland (former executor with Frederica) by their youngest, now only surviving brother, Hugo. Accordingly, by the time I reached London, Hugo and Frederica had already gone down to Thrubworth. Accommodation in Erridge’s wing of the house was limited. The rest of the family, as at George’s funeral, had to make up their minds whether to attend as a day’s expedition, or stay at The Tolland Arms, a hostelry considerably developed from former times, since the establishment in the neighbourhood of an RAF station. Norah, Susan and her husband Roddy Cutts, with Isobel and myself, chose The Tolland Arms. As it happened Dicky Umfraville had just arrived on leave from Germany, where he was serving as lieutenant-colonel on the staff of the Military Government (a job to which he was well disposed), but he flatly refused to accompany Frederica.
‘I never met your brother,’ he said. ‘Therefore it would be an impertinence on my part to attend his funeral. Besides—in more than one respect the converse of another occasion—there’s room at the inn, but none at the stable. Nobody would mind one of the Thrubworth loose-boxes less than myself, but we should be separated, my love, so near and yet so far, something I could not bear. In addition —far more important—I don’t like funerals. They remind me of death, a subject I always try to avoid. You will have to represent me, Frederica, angel that you are, and return to London as soon as possible to make my leave a heaven upon earth.’
Veronica, George Tolland’s widow, was not present either. She was likely to give birth any day now.
‘Pray God it will be a boy,’ Hugo said. ‘I used to think I’d like to take it all on, but no longer—even though I’d hardly make a scruffier earl than poor old Erry.’
His general demeanour quietened by the war, Hugo’s comments tended to become grimmer. He had remained throughout his service bombardier in an Anti-Aircraft battery, not leaving England, but experiencing a reasonably lively time, for example, one night the only man on the gun not knocked out. Now he had returned to selling antiques, a trade at which he became increasingly proficient, recently opening a shop of his own with a former army friend called Sam—he seemed to possess no surname—not a great talker, but good-natured, of powerful physique, and said to be quick off the mark when a good piece came up at auction.
Like Hugo—although naturally in terms of his own very different temperament and approach to life—Roddy Cutts had also quietened. There was sufficient reason for that. The wartime romance at HQ Persia/Iraq Force, with the cipherine he had at one moment planned to marry, had collapsed not long after disclosure of the situation in a letter to his wife. While on leave in Teheran the cipherine had suddenly decided to abscond with a rich Persian, abandoning Roddy to his own resources. Susan, who had behaved
impeccably during this unhappy interlude, now took over. When Roddy came back to England for the 1945 election, she worked exceptionally hard. He retained his seat by a few hundred votes. As a consequence, Susan’s ascendancy was now complete, Roddy utterly under her control. She made him toil like a slave. That was no doubt right, what he wanted himself. All the same, these factors were calculated to reduce high spirits, even in one so generally appreciative of his own good qualities as Roddy Cutts. His handsome, rather too large features were now marked with signs of stress, everything about him a shade less strident, even the sandy hair. At the same time he retained the forceful manner, half hectoring, half subservient, common to representatives of all political parties, together with the politician’s endemic hallmark of getting hold of the wrong end of the stick. He was almost pathetically thankful to be back in the House of Commons.
When George Tolland had been buried a few months before, Erridge had not been present at the funeral. He had, in fact retired to bed with an attack of gastritis—then very prevalent—but from the start this absence had been assumed almost as a matter of course by his sisters. That was not because any of them accepted too seriously Erridge’s own complaint about chronic ailments, but on the general principle that for an eldest son, no matter how progressive his views, it was reasonable to avoid a ceremony where a younger brother must inevitably occupy the limelight; in this case additionally so in the eyes of those—however much Erridge himself might deplore such sentiments—who felt an end such as George’s traditionally commendable; as Stringham had commented, ‘awfully smart to be killed’. This last factor was likely to be emphasized by the religious service, in itself distasteful to Erridge. There was therefore more than one reason to keep him away, as of late years he had become all but incapable of doing anything he disliked. It was agreed that, even without illness, he would never have attended.
A Dance to the Music of Time: 2nd Movement Page 4
