Casanova's Chinese Restaurant - Anthony Powell [47]
Maclintick continued to hum.
‘Can’t imagine why people want a row of kids,’ he said. ‘Life is bad enough without adding that worry to the rest of one’s other troubles.’
Being given a drink must have improved Mrs Maclintick’s temper for the moment, because she asked me if I too were married. I told her about Isobel being about to leave a nursing home.
‘Everyone seems to want babies nowadays,’ said Mrs Maclintick. ‘It’s extraordinary. Maclintick and I never cared for the idea.’
She was about to enlarge on this subject when the bell rang, at the sound of which she went off to open the front door.
‘How are you finding things now that you are back in London?’ Maclintick asked.
‘So-so,’ said Moreland. ‘Having to do a lot of hack work to keep alive.’
From the passage came sounds of disconnected talk. It was a man’s voice. Whomever Mrs Maclintick had admitted to the house, instead of joining us in the sitting-room continued downstairs to the basement, making a lot of noise with his boots on the uncarpeted stairs. Mrs Maclintick returned to her chair and the knickers she was mending. Maclintick raised his eyebrows.
‘Carolo?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘What’s happened to his key?’
‘He lost it.’
‘Again?’
‘Yes.’
‘Carolo is always losing keys,’ said Maclintick. ‘He’ll have to pay for a new one himself this time. It costs a fortune keeping him in keys. I can’t remember whether I told you Carolo has come to us as a lodger, Moreland.’
‘No,’ said Moreland, ‘you didn’t. How did that happen?’
Moreland seemed surprised, for some reason not best pleased at this piece of information.
‘He was in low water,’ Maclintick said, speaking as if he were himself not specially anxious to go into detailed explanations. ‘So were we. It seemed a good idea at the time. I’m not so sure now. In fact I’ve been thinking of getting rid of him.’
‘How is he doing?’ asked Moreland. ‘Carolo is always very particular about what jobs he will take on. All that business about teaching being beneath his dignity.’
‘He says he likes time for that work of his he is always tinkering about with,’ said Maclintick. ‘I shall be very surprised if anything ever comes of it.’
‘I like Carolo here,’ said Mrs Maclintick. ‘He gives very little trouble. I don’t want to die of melancholia, never seeing a soul.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Maclintick. ‘Look at the company we have got tonight. What I can’t stick is having Carolo scratching away at the other end of the room when I am eating. Why can’t he keep the same hours as other people?’
‘You are always saying artists ought to be judged by different standards from other people,’ said Mrs Maclintick fiercely. ‘Why shouldn’t Carolo keep the hours he likes? He is an artist, isn’t he?’
‘Carolo may be an artist,’ said Maclintick, puffing out a long jet of smoke from his mouth, ‘but he is a bloody unsuccessful one nowadays. One of those talents that have dried up in my opinion. I certainly don’t see him blossoming out as a composer. Look here, you two had better stay to supper. As Audrey says, we don’t often have company. You can see Carolo then. Judge for yourselves. It is going to be one of his nights in. I can tell from the way he went down the stairs.’
‘He has got to work somewhere, hasn’t he?’ said Mrs Maclintick, whose anger appeared to be rising again after a period of relative calm. ‘His bedroom is much too cold in this weather. You use the room with a gas fire in it yourself, the only room where you can keep warm. Even then you can’t be bothered to get it repaired. Do you want Carolo to freeze to death?’
‘It’s my house, isn’t it?’
‘You say you don’t want him in the sitting-room. Why did you tell him he could work in the room off the kitchen if you don’t want him there?’
‘I am not grumbling,’ said Maclintick, ‘I am just warning these two gendemen what to expect – that is to say Carolo scribbling away at a sheet of music at one end of the room, and some cold beef and pickles at the other.’
‘Mutton,’ said Mrs Maclintick.
‘Mutton, then. We can get some beer in a jug from the local.’
‘Doesn’t Carolo ever eat himself?