‘This way,’ he repeated. ‘This way.’
He tried to encourage the more obdurate loiterers with smiles and beckonings. They would not be persuaded. He gave it up for a moment Dr Brightman pinned him down again. Glober reappeared beside Widmerpool and myself.
‘Mr Jenkins, I want you and Signora Clarini to meet. Signora Clarini is stopping in the Palazzo too. Her husband’s name you’ll know, the celebrated Italian director.’
I explained Baby and I had already met, though contacts had been slight, ages before. In those days, soon after her own association with Sir Magnus Donners, the Italian husband had then been spoken of as satisfactory to herself, even if of dubious occupation. Now he was no longer dubious, he must also have become less satisfactory, because Baby seemed displeased at his name being dragged in. Glober, on hearing she and I had met, struck an amused pose, as always personal to himself, if to some extent drawn from that deep fund of American schematized humour, of which, in a more sparing and austere technique, Colonel Cobb had been something of a master. Glober was not at all displeased to find earlier knowledge of Baby would unequivocally demonstrate the sort of woman prepared to run after him; an undertaking on which she certainly seemed engaged.
‘Baby, I believe you’ve met every man in the Eastern Hemisphere, and quite a few in the Western too.’
Possibly a small touch of malice was voiced. Baby may have thought that She looked sulky. I remembered Barnby’s passion for her, his comment how Sir Magnus never minded his girls having other commitments. That was hardly a subject to bridge our once slender acquaintance. Her manner, not outstandingly friendly, minimally accepted former meetings had taken place.
‘Aren’t you fed up with this heat?’ she said. ‘Everybody’s dripping. Look at Louis. Isn’t he a disgusting sight?’
Glober murmured consciously good-natured protests. ‘Am I, Baby? But not everyone. Look at Lord Widmerpool, he’s fresh as a daisy. I believe he’s right to take that Milan route. I’ll do the same myself next time.’
Drawing attention in this manner to Widmerpool’s appearance was indication that Glober made no pretence of liking him. Baby did not even smile. Her demeanour wafted through the Tiepolo room a breath of the Nineteen-Twenties. Like one who hands on the torch of a past era of folk culture, she had somehow preserved intact, from ballroom and plage, golf course and hunting field, a social technique fashionable then, even considered alluring. This rather unblissful breeze blowing across the years recalled a little Widmerpool’s former fiancée, Mrs Haycock (Baby’s distant cousin), though Baby herself had always been far the better-looking. She stopped a long way short of displaying the stigmata a lifetime of late parties and casual love affairs had bestowed on Mrs Haycock. Nevertheless, she had developed some of the same masculine hardening of the features, voice rising to a bark, elements veering in the direction of sex-change, threatened by too constant adjustment of husbands and lovers; comparable with the feminine characteristics acquired from too pertinacious womanizing.
‘Are you hopping over to the Lido for a dip this evening, Louis? A bathe will do you good. Freshen you up. Then I’m going to visit Mrs Erdleigh, the famous clairvoyante, who’s in Venice. Why don’t you come there too? She’ll tell your fortune.’
Glober shook his head glumly at the thought of looking into the future. He showed no great keenness to bathe either.
‘I’ll have to think about the Lido. Get my priorities straight.’
Widmerpool was becoming impatient again.
‘Your Dr Brightman is talking for a very long time,’ he said. ‘Who is she?’
‘A very distinguished scholar.’
‘Oh.’
Jacky Bragadin was as eager to get away from Dr Brightman as Widmerpool to be put in contact with her. In Jacky Bragadin’s efforts to escape, the two of them arrived beside us. Dr Brightman swept everyone in.
‘I’ve been talking to our host about his Foundation. I thought something might be done for Russell Gwinnett. Where’s he gone?’
‘It must be on paper,’ said Jacky Bragadin. ‘Always on paper. The name sent to the Board. They look into such matters.’
He sounded desperate. Dr Brightman, pausing to explain that I wrote novels, ignored his misery. The information made Jacky Bragadin horribly uneasy, but at least resulted in a let-out from further discussion of his Foundation. I told Dr Brightman that Widmerpool wanted to meet one of the Executive Committee. At that she began to question Widmerpool too. Without great originality of subject matter, I spoke to Jacky Bragadin of the beauty of the ceiling.
‘Nice colour,’ he said, his heart not in the words.
‘We were discussing the story —’
Jacky Bragadin’s despair began rapidly to increase again at that. He laid his hand on my sleeve beseechingly.
‘You must see the other rooms … They all must …’
He peered, without much hope, at Baby, still trying to persuade Glober to bathe. Widmerpool and Dr Brightman went off together, presumably to try and find a member of the Executive Committee. Most of the other members of the Conference, including Ada and Shuckerly, had begun to filter into the next room, a small backwash of Tiepolo enthusiasts from time to time borne back on an incoming current to take another look. Among these last was Gwinnett. Pamela was no longer to be seen. Gwinnett seemed by then rather dazed.
‘How was it? You seemed to be making good going?’
‘Lady Widmerpool’s agreed to talk about Trapnel.’
‘She has?’
‘That’s as I understand it.’
‘Fine.’
‘If she sticks to that. She’s said some amazing things already.’
‘You brought off quite a quick bit of work.’
‘Do you think so?’
He appeared uncertain.
‘At least we’re going to meet again,’ he said.
‘What could be better than that?’
‘Where do you think she’s arranged to meet?’
‘I can’t guess.’
‘Try.’
‘Harry’s Bar?’
Gwinnett shook his head.
‘St Mark’s.’
‘In the Piazza?’
‘In the Basilica.’
‘Any particular place in the church?’
‘She just said she’d be there at a certain time.’
‘On, on …’ pleaded Jacky Bragadin. ‘On, on…’
3
Daniel Tokenhouse rang up the following morning to acknowledge my notification of arrival in Venice. I was still in bed when he telephoned, though breakfast had been ordered. In keeping with an instinctive determination to hold the moral advantage, he made a point of ascertaining that I was not yet up. On the line, he sounded in tolerably good form, brisk, peremptory, as always. I had not expected him to be in the least senile, but the sharpness of his manner may have been amplified by some apprehension, shared by myself, that changes must have taken place in both of us during the last twenty years, which could prove mutually disenchanting.
‘How are you, Dan?’
‘In rude health. Working hard, as ever. Been up painting since half-past six this morning. Hate staying in bed. You’ll find developments in my style. I shall be interested to hear what you think of them.’
Complete absorption in himself, and his own doings, always characterized Tokenhouse, a temperament that had served him pretty well in getting through what must have been, on the whole, rather a solitary life, especially of late years. He had in no way relaxed this solipsistic standpoint.
‘When can your works be seen?’
‘I’ve been thinking about that. Sunday morning would suit me best. You will not be in conference then, I trust, with your fellow intellectuals? I hope they are proving themselves worthy of their proud designation. Come about twelve o’clock midday – half-past eleven, if you prefer. That will give us more time. Do not fear. I shall not be attending matins.’
He gave his high, unamused laugh.
�
��How do I reach you, Dan?’
‘I live, I am thankful to say, in a spot quite off the beaten track of that horrible fellow, the tourist. Among the people of Venice. The real people. I could not remain here an hour otherwise. My flat is in the quarter of the Arsenal, if you know where that is, a calle off the Via Garibaldi. You take an accelerato, then a short walk along the Riva Ca Di Dio and Riva Biagio. Let me explain the exact whereabouts, for it is not at all easy to find.’
He gave minute instructions, forcibly bringing back the years when I had worked under him, something establishing a relationship which can never wholly fade.
‘Afterwards, I thought, we might walk as far as the Biennale together. I have not seen the latest Exhibition yet. I should like you to lunch with me at the restaurant in the Giardini.’
‘I’ll be with you, Dan, between half-past eleven and twelve on Sunday.’
‘You may not care for the sort of work I am doing now. I warn you of that. Are you sure you know how to get here? Let me repeat my instructions.’
He went over the directions with that pedantic attention to detail natural to him, dilated by army training.
‘Have you got it? Remember, an accelerato. When you disembark, turn to the right, walk straight on, then bear left, left again, then right – not left, remember – then right again. It’s over a greengrocer’s. Walk straight up.’
When Sunday morning came, the place turned out quite easy to find. It was a characteristic Tokenhouse abode, which, freedom from sound of traffic apart, might have been situated in an alley-way of some down-at-heel district of London, or anywhere else, all architectural and local emphasis as negative as possible; exceptional only insomuch as to discover – elect to inhabit – so featureless a location in Venice was in itself a shade impressive. I climbed the stairs and knocked. The door opened immediately, as if Tokenhouse had been already gripping the handle, impatiently awaiting someone to arrive.
‘Hullo, Dan.’
‘Come in, come in. Through here. This is the room where I paint.’
The windows faced on to a blank wall. Except for a pile of canvases, none of great size, stacked in one corner, the room showed no sign of being an artist’s studio. It was scrupulously neat, suggesting for some perverse reason – possibly actual by-product of its owner’s intense anti-clericalism – sense of arrival in the study of an urban vicarage or rectory, including an indefinably churchly smell.
‘Did it take you long to get here? No? Not after my detailed instructions, I expect. They were necessary. How are you? What is your hotel like? I know it by name. I can’t bear that fashionable end of the Canal. It gets worse every year. I continue to live in Venice only because I am used to the place by now. At my age it would be a great business to move. Besides, there are advantages. One can make oneself useful.’
He rapped his knuckles together several times, and nodded. In spite of the parsonic overtones of the sitting-room-studio, Tokenhouse himself did not look at all like a clergyman; nor even the very reasonably successful publisher of art books he had been in his time. Acquired erudition, heterodox opinions, expatriate domicile, none had done anything to alter deep dyed marks of the military profession, an appearance, one imagined, Tokenhouse would not have chosen. At the same time, if aware of looking like a retired soldier, even heartily disliking that, he would have considered dishonest any effort at diminishment brought about by artificial means, such as wearing relatively unconformist clothes. His clothes, in one sense, certainly were unconformist, but not at all with that object in view. Spare, wiry, very upright, he could be thought dried up, wizened, ascetic; considering his years, not particularly old. His body seemed made up of gristle, rather than flesh; grey hair, trimmed severely, almost en brosse, remaining thick. He peered alertly, rather peevishly, through gold-rimmed spectacles set well forward on a long thin reddish nose. An all-enveloping chilliness of manner hung about him, sense of being utterly cut off from the rest of the world, a personality, even physique, no sun could warm. Unlike Widmerpool, sweltering in his House of Lords suit, the ancient jacket Tokenhouse wore, good thick serviceable tweed, designed to keep out damp wind on the moors, his even older flannel trousers punctiliously pressed, seemed between them garments scarcely substantial enough to prevent him looking blue with cold, in spite of blazing Venetian sunlight outside.
‘How are your family? You have children of your own almost grown up now, I believe? Is that not so?’
He spoke as if procreation of children were an extraordinary fate to overtake anyone, consequence of imprudence, if not worse. We talked for a time of things that had happened since our last meeting.
‘Your father and I parted on bad terms. There was no other way. He could never see reason. An entirely unphilosophic mind. Childish view of politics. Now he is dead. Most of the people I used to know are dead. I don’t find that makes much difference to me. I have learnt to be self-supporting. It is the only way. No good thinking about the past. The future is what matters. But you said you would like to see some of my work. Then we’ll go to the Exhibition. The Gardens are within walking distance. The pictures aren’t much good this year, I’m told, but let’s look at my work first, if that is what you would like.’
Moving jerkily across the room, he returned once more with some of the unframed canvases, chosen from the pile that lay in the corner. He spread out several of these, propping them up against chairs.
‘You’ve certainly changed your style, Dan.’
‘True, O King.’
That had always been a favourite expression of Tokenhouse’s, especially when not best pleased. I tried to think of something to say. The Camden Town Group had been wholly superseded, utterly swept away, so far as the art of Daniel Tokenhouse was concerned. What had taken its place was less easy to define; a sort of neo-primitivism. The light was bad for forming a judgment. So revolutionary was the transformation that a happy phrase to cover just what had happened did not come easily to mind. The new Tokenhouse style, in one of its expressions, suggested frescoes, frescoes on a very small scale; not at all in the manner of, say, Barnby’s murals once decorating the entrance to the Donners-Brebner Building. After some minutes, Tokenhouse himself making no comment, I felt compelled to pronounce a judgment, however insipid.
‘The garage scene has considerable force. Its colour emotive too, limiting yourself in that way to an almost regular monochrome, picked out with passages of flat heavy black.’
‘You mean this study?’
‘Both of those. Aren’t they the same group from another angle?’
‘Yes, this is another shot. Three in all. The subject is Four priests rigging a miracle. The rather larger version here, and its fellow, are less successful, I think. At the same time both have merit of a sort.’
‘You always make several studies of the same subject nowadays?’
‘I find that produces the best results. I work slowly. That comes from lack of early training. My difficulty is usually to get the values correctly.’
‘The browns, greys and blacks seem to create an effective recession.’
‘Ah, you have misunderstood me. Having, so to speak, forged ahead politically myself, it is easy to forget other people remain content with old notions of painting, formalists ones. I meant, of course, that it is not always plain sailing so far as political values are concerned. I am no longer interested in such purely technical achievements as correct recession, so called, or making a kind of pattern.’
‘Still, incorrect recession can surely play havoc – unless, of course, deliberate distortion is in question. Was your change of technique gradual?’
Tokenhouse gave a restive intake of breath to show how wildly he had been misunderstood.
‘One forgets, one forgets. Let me explain. I had begun to feel very impatient with Formalism, the sort of painting that derived from Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, not to mention their successors, such as the Surrealists – as I prefer to call them, Pseudo-Realists. I thought about it all
a lot. I long pondered the phrase read somewhere: “A picture is an act of Socialism.” I don’t expect you’re familiar with that approach. You may not agree anyway. Your dissent is immaterial to me. I made up my mind to embark on a fresh start. I began by taking a bus over the bridge to Mestre, and attempting some plein air studies. I set about one of those large installations there – hydro-electric, or whatever they arc – a suitably functional conception. Absurd as that may seem, I created the impression of being engaged on some sort of industrial espionage. Nothing serious happened, but it was all rather tedious and discouraging. Much more important than the interfering attitude of the authorities was my own fear that Impressionist errors were creeping back, just as fallaciously as if I was one of the old ladies sitting on a camp-stool in front of the Salute. In short, I comprehended I was still hopelessly aesthetic.’
‘I’d never call you an aesthete, Dan.’
Tokenhouse laughed shortly.
‘Certainly not in the nineteenth-century use of the word. All the same, you have to watch yourself. We all have to. That was specially true of my next phase, when I thought I would try Political Symbolism. The effect was very mixed. I’ve painted-over quite a lot of them, wiped them out completely. This is one of the rather better efforts I preserved. It was completed quite soon after my breach with retrospection – accepting the past, I mean, simply as a point of departure. The important thing was I had learnt by then that Naturalism was not enough.’
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