Anthony Powell - Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant

‘You are getting a divorce?’

Maclintick nodded.

‘Why not,’ he said, ‘when you’ve got the chance? She might change her mind. Let me fill your glasses.’

All this talk was decidedly uncomfortable. I did not think Moreland, any more than myself, knew whether Maclintick was in fact glad to have ridded himself of his wife, or, on the contrary, was shattered by her leaving him. Either state was credible. To presume that because they were always quarrelling, Maclintick necessarily wished to be parted from her could be wholly mistaken. In the same way, it was equally difficult to know whether Maclintick was genuinely relieved at ceasing to work for the paper that had employed him until the previous week, or was, on the contrary, desperately worried at the prospect of having to look for another job. So far as the job was concerned, both states of mind probably existed simultaneously; perhaps so far as the wife was concerned too. Moreland clearly felt uncertain what line to take in his replies to Maclintick, who himself appeared to enjoy keeping secret his true feelings while he discussed the implications of his own position.

‘Did I ever tell you how I met Audrey?’ he asked suddenly.

We had been talking for a time about jobs on papers. Moreland had been pronouncing on the subject of musical journalism in particular; but sooner or later Maclintick abandoned the subject in hand, always returning to the matter of his wife. The question did not make Moreland look any happier.

‘Never,’ he said.

‘It was through Gossage,’ Maclintick said.

‘How very unexpected.’

‘There was a clerk in Gossage’s bank who was keen on Sibelius,’ said Maclintick. ‘They used to talk about music together whenever Gossage went to the bank to cash a cheque or have a word about his overdraft – if Gossage ever has anything so irregular as an overdraft, which I doubt.’

‘When Gossage went there to bank the bribes given him by corrupt musicians who wanted good notices,’ suggested Moreland.

‘Possibly,’ said Maclintick. ‘I wish some of them offered an occasional bribe to me. Well, Gossage invited this young man, Stanley by name, to come with him to a private performance of some chamber music.’

Moreland laughed loudly at this, much louder than the story demanded at this stage. That was from nerves. I found myself laughing a lot too.

‘Stanley asked if he might bring his sister along,’ said Maclintick. ‘I too had to go to the chamber music for my sins. The sister turned out to be Audrey.’

Moreland seemed as much surprised by this narration as I was myself. To produce such autobiographical details was altogether unlike Maclintick. The upheaval in his life had changed his whole demeanour.

‘I took a fancy to her as soon as I set eyes on her,’ Maclintick said. ‘Funny that, because she hasn’t much in the way of looks. That was a bad day for me – a bad day for both of us, I suppose.’

‘What happened?’ asked Moreland.

His curiosity had been aroused. Even Moreland, who knew Maclintick so much better than myself, found these revelations surprising.

‘Do you know,’ said Maclintick, speaking slowly as if still marvelling at his own ineptitude in such matters, ‘do you know I did not exchange a word with her the whole evening. We were just introduced. I couldn’t think of anything to say. She drifted off somewhere. I went home early.’

‘What did you do next?’

‘I had to make Gossage arrange another meeting. It took the hell of a lot of doing. Gossage didn’t care for the idea at all. He liked Stanley, but he didn’t want to get mixed up with his sister.’

‘And then?’

‘I didn’t know anything about the machinery for taking women out, even when Gossage brought us together again.’

‘How did you manage to get married then?’

‘God knows,’ said Maclintick. ‘I often wonder.’

‘There must have been a moment when some agreement was reached.’

‘There was never much agreement about it,’ said Maclintick. ‘We started having rows straight away. But one thing is interesting. Gossage told me afterwards that on the night of the chamber music Audrey only opened her lips once – that was to ask him to tell her my name again and enquire what I did for a living.’

‘No use fighting against fate,’ said Moreland laughing. ‘I’ve always said it.’

‘Gossage told her I was a musician,’ said Maclintick. ‘Her comment was “Oh, God”.’

‘I find that a very natural one to make,’ said Moreland.

‘She isn’t absolutely tone-deaf,’ said Maclintick, speaking as if he had given the matter deep thought. ‘She has her likes and dislikes. Quite good at remembering facts and contradicting you about them later. She’d been dragged by her brother to the chamber music. I never quite know why.’

‘Brought her as a chaperone,’ said Moreland.

‘All the music in the family went into Stanley,’ said Maclintick. ‘I shall miss seeing Stanley once in a while. We used to have beer evenings together twice a year. Stanley can’t drink Irish whiskey. But you know, it’s astonishing what technical jargon women will pick up. Audrey would argue about music with me-with anyone. I’ve heard her make Gossage contradict himself about his views on Les Six. Odd the way music comes out in a family. I get it through my mother who was half Jewish. My father and grandfather were in the linen trade. They may have gone to a concert occasionally. That was about the extent of it.’

Moreland took this opportunity to guide conversation back into general channels.

‘You can’t tell what families are going to throw up,’ he said. ‘Look at Lortzing whose family were hereditary hangmen in Thuringia for two hundred years. Then suddenly the Lortzings cease to be hangmen and produce a composer.’

‘You could be a musical hangman, I suppose,’ said Maclintick. ‘Hum tunes while you worked.’

‘I could well imagine some of the musicians one knows becoming hangmen,’ said Moreland.

‘Surprising Lortzing didn’t become a critic with an ancestry like that,’ said Maclintick. ‘Had it in his blood to execute people when need be – would also know the right knot to tie when it came to his own turn to shuffle off this mortal coil. Lortzing wrote an opera about your friend Casanova, didn’t he? Do you remember that night at Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant years ago? We talked about seducers and Don Juan and that sort of thing. That painter, Barnby, was there. I believe you were with us too, weren’t you, Jenkins? For some reason I have often thought of that evening. I was thinking of it again last night, wondering if Carolo was one of the types.’

Moreland winced slightly. I did not know whether or not Maclintick was aware that Carolo had once been married to Matilda. Probably did not know that, I decided. Maclintick was a man who normally took little interest in the past history of other people. It was even surprising to find him showing such comparative interest in his own past history.

‘Carolo doesn’t come into the Casanova-Don Juan category,’ said Moreland. ‘He hasn’t the vitality. Too passive. Passivity is not a bad method, all the same. Carolo just sits about until some woman either marries him, or runs away with him, from sheer desperation at finding nothing whatever to talk about.’

Maclintick nodded his head several times, showing ponderous enjoyment at this view of Carolo’s technique in seduction. He filled the glasses.

‘I suppose one of the tests of a man is the sort of woman he wants to marry,’ he said. ‘You showed some sense, Moreland, and guessed right. I should have stayed out of the marriage market altogether.’

‘Marriage is quite a problem for a lot of people,’ Moreland said.