Casanova's Chinese Restaurant - Anthony Powell [46]
‘Find somewhere to sit,’ said Mrs Maclintick, speaking if the day, bad enough before, had been finally ruined by arrival. ‘He will be down soon.’
Moreland seemed no more at ease in face of this reception than myself. At the same time he was evidently used to such welcomes in that house. Apart from reddening slightly, he showed no sign of expecting anything different in the way of reception. After telling Mrs Maclintick my name, he spoke a few desultory words about the weather, then made for the bookcase. I had the impression this was his accustomed gambit on arrival in that room. Opening its glass doors, he began to examine the contents of the shelves, as if – a most unlikely proposition – he had never before had time to consider Maclintick’s library. After a minute or two, during which we all sat in silence, he extracted a volume and began to turn over its pages. At this firm treatment, which plainly showed he was not going to allow his hostess’s ill humour to perturb him, Mrs Maclintick unbent a little.
‘How is your wife, Moreland?’ she asked, after picking up and rearranging some sewing upon which she must have been engaged on our arrival. ‘She is having a baby, isn’t she?’
‘Any day now,’ said Moreland.
Either he scarcely took in what she said, or did not consider her a person before whom he was prepared to display the anxiety he had earlier expressed to me on that subject, because he did not raise his eyes from the book, and, a second after she had spoken, gave one of his sudden loud bursts of laughter. This amusement was obviously caused by something he had just read. For a minute or two he continued to turn the pages, laughing to himself.
‘This life of Chabrier is enjoyable,’ he said, still without looking up. ‘How wonderful he must have been dressed as a bull-fighter at the fancy dress ball at Granada. What fun it all was in those days. Much gayer than we are now. Why wasn’t one a nineteenth-century composer living in Paris and hobnobbing with the Impressionist painters?’
Mrs Maclintick made no reply to this rhetorical question which appeared in no way to fire within her nostalgic daydreams. She was about to turn her attention, as if unwillingly, towards myself, with the air of a woman who had given Moreland a fair chance and found him wanting, when Maclintick came into the room. He was moving unhurriedly, as if he had arrived downstairs to search for something he had forgotten, and was surprised to find his wife entertaining guests. Despondency, as usual, seemed to have laid an icy grip on him. He wore bedroom slippers and was pulling at a pipe. However, he brightened a little when he saw Moreland, screwing up his eyes behind the small spectacles and beginning to nod his head as if humming gently to himself. I offered some explanation of my presence in the house, to which Maclintick muttered a brief, comparatively affirmative acknowledgement. Without saying more, he made straight for a cupboard from which he took bottles and glasses.
‘What have you been up to all day?’ asked Mrs Maclintick. ‘I thought you were going to get the man to see about the gas fire. You haven’t moved from the house as far as I know. I wish you’d stick to what you say. I could have got hold of him myself, if I’d known you weren’t going to do it.’
Maclintick did not answer. He removed the cork from a bottle, the slight ‘pop’ of its emergence appearing to embody the material of a reply to his wife, at least all the reply he intended to give.
‘I’ve been looking at this book on Chabrier,’ said Moreland. ‘What an enjoyable time he had in Spain.’
Maclintick grunted. He hummed a little. Chabrier did not appear to interest him. He poured out liberal drinks for everyone and handed them round. Then he sat down.
‘Have you become a father yet, Moreland?’ he asked.
He spoke as if he grudged having to make so formal an enquiry of so close a friend.
‘Not yet,’ said Moreland. ‘I find it rather a trial waiting. Like the minute or two before the lights go out when you are going to conduct.