Casanova's Chinese Restaurant - Anthony Powell [46]
‘Is he looking after Matilda?’
‘A gynaecologist does that. He is not a music-lover, thank God. Of course, a lot of women have babies. One must admit that. No doubt it will be all right. It just makes one a bit jumpy. Look here, Nick, you must come to the Maclinticks’. It would be more cheerful if there were two of us.’
‘Should I be welcome?’
‘Why not? Have you developed undesirable habits since we last met?’
‘I never think Maclintick much likes me.’
‘Likes you?’ said Moreland. ‘What egotism on your part. Of course he doesn’t like you. Maclintick doesn’t like anybody.’
‘He likes you.’
‘We have professional ties. As a matter of fact, Maclintick doesn’t really hate everyone as much as he pretends. I was being heavily humorous.’
‘All the same, he shows small visible pleasure in meeting most people.’
‘One must rise above that. It is a kindness to do so. Maclintick does not get on too well with his wife. The occasional company of friends eases the situation.’
‘You do make this social call sound tempting.’
‘If nobody ever goes there, I am afraid Maclintick will jump into the river one of these days, or hang himself with his braces after a more than usually gruelling domestic difference. You must come.’
‘All right. Since you present it as a matter of life and death.’
We took a bus to Victoria, then passed on foot into a vast, desolate region of stucco streets and squares upon which a doom seemed to have fallen. The gloom was cosmic. We traversed these pavements for some distance, proceeding from haunts of seedy, grudging gentility into an area of indeterminate, but on the whole increasingly unsavoury, complexion.
‘Maclintick is devoted to this part of London,’ Moreland said. ‘I am not sure that I agree with him. He says his mood is for ever Pimlico. I grant that a sympathetic atmosphere is an important point in choosing a residence. It helps one’s work. All the same, tastes differ. Maclintick is always to be found in this neighbourhood, though never for long in the same place.’
‘He never seems very cheerful when I meet him.’
I had run across Maclintick only a few times with Moreland since our first meeting in the Mortimer.
‘He is a very melancholy man,’ Moreland agreed. ‘Maclintick is very melancholy. He is disappointed, of course.’
‘About himself as a musician?’
‘That – and other things. He is always hard up. Then he has an aptitude for quarrelling with anyone who might be of use to him professionally. He is writing a great tome on musical theory which never seems to get finished.’
‘What is his wife like?’
‘Like a wife.’
‘Is that how you feel about marriage?’
‘Well, not exactly,’ said Moreland laughing. ‘But you know one does begin to understand all the music-hall jokes and comic-strips about matrimony after you have tried a spell of it yourself. Don’t you agree?’
‘And Mrs Maclintick is a good example?’
‘You will see what I mean.’
‘What is Maclintick’s form about women? I can never quite make out.’
‘I think he hates them really – only likes whores.’
‘Ah.’
‘At least that is what Gossage used to say.’
‘That’s a known type.’
‘All the same, Maclintick is also full of deeply romantic, hidden away sentiments about Wein, Weib und Gesang. That is his passionate, carefully concealed side. The gruffness is intended to cover all that. Maclintick is terrified of being thought sentimental. I suppose all his bottled-up feelings came to the surface when he met Audrey.’
‘And the prostitutes?’
‘He told Gossage he found them easier to converse with than respectable ladies. Of course, Gossage – you can imagine how he jumped about telling me this – was speaking of a period before Maclintick’s marriage. No reason to suppose that sort of thing takes place now.’
‘But if he hates women, why do you say he is so passionate?’
‘It just seems to have worked out that way. Audrey is one of the answers, I suppose.’
The house, when we reached it, turned out to be a small, infinitely decayed two-storey