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 GoldenTreasury 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 Trapnel’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?’
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.’