Casanova's Chinese Restaurant - Anthony Powell [10]
He leaned forward and deftly thrust a penny into the slot of the mechanical piano, which took a second or two to digest the coin, then began to play raucously.
‘Oh, good,’ said Moreland.‘The Missouri Waltz.’
‘Deacon is probably right in assuming some of the persons he associates with are sinister enough,’ said Maclintick sourly.
‘It is the only pleasure he has left,’ said Moreland. ‘I can’t imagine what Norman was selling. It looked like a bed-pan from the shape of the parcel.’
Gossage sniggered, incurring a frown from Maclintick.
Probably fearing Maclintick might make him a new focus of disapproval, he remarked that he must be ‘going soon’.
‘Deacon will be getting himself into trouble one of these days,’ Maclintick said, shaking his head and speaking as if he hoped the blow would fall speedily. ‘Don’t you agree, Gossage?’
‘Oh, couldn’t say, couldn’t say at all,’ said Gossage hurriedly. ‘I hardly know the man, you see. Met him once or twice at the Proms last year. Join him sometimes over a mug of ale.’
Maclintick ignored these efforts to present a more bracing picture of Mr Deacon’s activities.
‘And it won’t be the first time Deacon got into trouble,’ he said in his grim, high-pitched voice.
‘Well, I shall really have to go,’ repeated Gossage, in answer to this further rebuke, speaking as if everyone present had been urging him to stay in the Mortimer for just a few minutes longer.
‘You will read my views on Friday. I am keeping an open mind. One has to do that. Goodbye, Moreland, goodbye … Maclintick, goodbye …’
‘I must be going too,’ said Carolo unexpectedly.
He had a loud, harsh voice, and a North Country accent like Quiggin’s. Tossing back the remains of his vermouth as if to the success of a desperate venture from which he was unlikely to return with his life, he finished the dregs at a gulp, and, inclining his head slightly in farewell to the company with an unconcerned movement in keeping with this devil-may-care mood, he followed Gossage from the saloon bar.
‘Carolo wasn’t exactly a chatterbox tonight,’ said Moreland.
‘Never has much to say for himself,’ Maclintick agreed.
‘Always brooding on the old days when he was playing Sarasate up and down the country clad as Little Lord Fauntleroy.’
‘He must have been at least seventeen when he last appeared in his black velvet suit and white lace collar,’ said Moreland. ‘The coat was so tight he could hardly draw his bow across the fiddle.’
‘They say Carolo is having trouble with his girl,’ said Maclintick. ‘Makes him even gloomier than usual.’
‘Who is his girl?’ asked Moreland indifferently.
‘Quite young, I believe,’ said Maclintick. ‘Gossage was asking about her. Carolo doesn’t find it as easy to get engagements as he used – and he won’t teach.’
‘Wasn’t there talk of Mrs Andriadis helping him?’ said Moreland. ‘Arranging a performance at her house or something.’
I listened to what was being said without feeling – as I came to feel later – that I was, in one sense, part and parcel of the same community; that when people gossiped about matters like Carolo and his girl, one was listening to a morsel, if only an infinitesimal morsel, of one’s own life. However, I heard no more about Carolo at that moment, because Barnby could now be seen standing in the doorway of the saloon bar, slowly apprising himself of the company present, the problem each individual might pose. By that hour the Mortimer had begun to fill. A man with a yellowish beard and black hat was buying drinks for two girls drawn from that indeterminate territory eternally disputed between tarts and art students; three pimply young men were arguing about economics; a couple of taxi-drivers conferred with the barmaid. For several seconds Barnby stared about him, viewing the people in the Mortimer with apparent disapproval. Then, thickset, his topcoat turned up to his ears, he moved slowly forward, at the same time casting an expert, all-embracing glance