Anthony Powell - Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant

‘And you want the Communists?’ asked Maclintick.

‘Not necessarily.’

‘And Marxist music?’

‘I long to hear some.’

‘Shostakovich, Russia’s only reputable post-Revolution composer, not allowed to have his opera performed because the dictatorship of the proletariat finds that work musically decadent, bourgeois, formalist?’

‘I’m not defending the Soviet regime,’ said Moreland, still laughing. ‘I’m all for Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District – my favourite title. Wasn’t there a period in the Middle Ages when the Pope forbade certain chords under pain of excommunication? All I said – apropos of the war in Spain – I am Pinkish. No more, no less.’

This attempt to lighten the tension was not very successful. Maclintick leaned down and tapped his pipe against his heel. Mrs Maclintick, though silent, was white with anger.

‘What about Toscanini?’ she demanded suddenly.

‘What about him?’ said Maclintick.

‘The Fascists slapped his face.’

‘Well?’

‘I suppose you approve of that.’

‘I don’t like the Fascists any more than you do,’ said Maclintick. ‘You know that perfecdy well. It was me that Blackshirt insisted on taking to the police station in Florence, not you. You tried to truckle to him.’

’Anyway,’ said Mrs Maclintick, ‘I want the Government in Spain to win – not the Communists.’

‘How are you going to arrange that, if they do defeat Franco? As it is, the extremists have taken over on the side of “the Government”, as you call it. How are you going to arrange that the nice, liberal ones come out on top?’

‘What do you know about it?’ said his wife, speaking now with real hatred. ‘What do you know about politics?’

‘More than you.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Doubt it, then.’

There was a moment during the pause that followed this exchange of opinion when I thought she might pick up one of the battered table knives and stick it into him. All this time, Carolo had remained absolutely silent, as if unaware that anything unusual was going on round him, unaware of Spain, unaware of civil war there, unaware of Communists, unaware of Fascists, his expression registering no more than its accustomed air of endurance of the triviality of those who inhabited the world in which he unhappily found himself. Now he finished the beer, wiped his mouth again with the pocket handkerchief, and rose from the table.

‘Got to remove myself,’ he said in his North Country burr.

‘What time will you be back?’ asked Maclintick.

‘Don’t know.’

‘I suppose someone will have to let you in.’

‘Suppose they will.’

‘Oh, shut up,’ burst out Mrs Maclintick. ‘I’ll let him in, you fool. What does it matter to you? You never open a door for anyone, not even your precious friends. It’s me that does all the drudgery in this house. You never do a hand’s turn, except sitting upstairs messing about with a lot of stuff that is really out of your reach – that you are not quite up to ‘

By this time everyone was standing up.

‘I think probably Nick and I ought to be going too,’ said Moreland, the extent of his own discomposure making him sound more formal than usual. ‘I’ve got to get up earlv tomorrow… go and see Madlda… one thing and another…’

He succeeded in suggesting no more than the fact that the Maclinticks’ house had become unbearable to him. Maclintick showed no sign of surprise at this sudden truncation of our visit, although he smiled to himself rather grimly.

‘Do you want to take the book about Chabrier?’ he asked. ‘Borrow it by all means if you would like to read the rest of it.’

‘Not at the moment, thanks,’ said Moreland. ‘I have got too much on hand.’

Carolo had already left the house by the time we reached the front door. Without bidding us farewell, Mrs Maclintick had retired in silence to the kitchen, where she could be heard clattering pots and pans and crockery. Maclintick stood on the doorstep biting his pipe.

‘Come again,’ he said, ‘if you can stand it. I’m not sure how long I shall be able to.’

‘It won’t be till after Matilda has given birth,’ Moreland said.

‘Oh, I forgot about that,’ said Maclintick. ‘You’re going to become a father. Well, good night to you both. Pleasant dreams.’

He shut the door. We set off up the street.

‘Let’s walk by the river for a bit to recover,’ Moreland said. ‘I’m sorry to have let you in for all that.’

‘Was it a representative Maclintick evening?’

‘Not one of their best. But they understand each other in an odd way. Of course, that is the sort of thing people say before murder takes place. Still, you grasp what I mean when I insist it is good for Maclintick to see friends occasionally. But what on earth can Carolo be doing there? Everyone must be pretty short of cash for Carolo to live with the Maclinticks as a lodger. I should not have thought either party would have chosen that. All the pubs are shut by now in this area, aren’t they?’

Cutting down to the Embankment, we walked for a time beside the moonlit, sparkling river, towards Vauxhall Bridge and along Millbank, past the Donners-Brebner Building dominating the far shore like a vast penitentiary, where I had called for Stringham one night years before, when he had been working there.

‘Married life is unquestionably difficult,’ Moreland said. ‘One may make a slightly better shot at it than the Maclinticks, but that doesn’t mean one has no problems. I shall be glad when this baby is born. Matilda has not been at all easy to deal with since it started. Of course, I know that is in the best possible tradition. All the same, it makes one wonder, with Maclintick, how long one will be able to remain married. No, I don’t mean that exactly. It is not that I am any less fond of Matilda, so much as that marriage – this quite separate entity – somehow comes between us. However, I expect things will be all right as soon as the baby arrives. Forgive these morbid reflections. I should really write them for the Sunday papers, get paid a huge fortune for it and receive an enormous fan-mail. The fact is, I am going through one of those awful periods when I cannot work. You know what hell that is.’

Moreland and I parted company, making arrangements to meet soon. The subject of marriage cropped up again, although in a different manner, when Widmerpool lunched with me the following week.

We will not take too long over our meal, if you do not mind,’ he said, speaking only after he had hung his hat topcoat and umbrella on a peg in the hall. ‘I am, as usual, very busy. That is why I am a minute or two after time. There is a lot of work on hand as a matter of fact. You probably know that I have accepted the commitment of advising Donners-Brebner regarding the investment of funds for their pension scheme. Sir Magnus, in general an excellent man of business for immediate negotiation, is sometimes surprisingly hesitant in matters of policy. Unexpectedly changeable, too. In short Sir Magnus doesn’t always know his own mind. Above all, he is difficult to get hold of. He will think nothing of altering the hour of appointment three or four times. I have had to point out to his secretary more than once that I must make a schedule of my day just as much as Sir Magnus must plan his.’

All the same, in spite of petty annoyances like Sir Magnus’s lack of decision, Widmerpool was in far better form than at our last luncheon together, two or three years before, a time when he had himself been thinking of marriage. He ate more than on that occasion, although for drink he still restricted himself to a glass of water, swallowing pills both before and after the meal.