Casanova's Chinese Restaurant - Anthony Powell [66]
Maclintick continued to ignore his wife, although he must have heard all this.
‘What did you think of Moreland’s symphony?’ she continued. ‘Not much of a success, Maclintick thinks. I agree with him for once.’
Maclintick caught her words. He swung round in such a rage that for a moment I thought he was going to strike her; just as I had thought she might stick a dinner knife into him when I had been to their house. There was certainly something about her manner this evening which would almost have excused physical violence even in the circumstances of Mrs Foxe’s party.
‘I didn’t say anything of the sort, you bloody bitch,’ Maclintick said, ‘so keep your foul mouth shut and don’t go round repeating that I did, unless you want to get hurt. It is just like your spite to misrepresent me in that manner. You are always trying to make trouble between Moreland and myself, aren’t you? What I said was that the music was “not Moreland’s most adventurous” – that the critics had got used to him as an enfant terrible and therefore might underestimate the symphony’s true value. That was all. That was what I said. You know yourself that was all. You know yourself that was what I said.’
Maclintick was hoarse with fury. His hands were shaking His anger made him quite alarming.
‘Yes, Maclintick was just saying that very thing, wasn’t he?’ agreed Gossage, sniggering nervously at this display of uncontrolled rage. ‘The words were scarcely out of his mouth, Mrs Maclintick. That is exactly what he thinks.’
‘Don’t ask me what he thinks,’ said Mrs Maclintick calmly, not in the least put out of countenance by the force of her husband’s abuse. ‘He says one thing at one moment, another at another. Doesn’t know his own mind in the least. I told him he was standing about as if he was in the Nag’s Head. That is the pub near us where all the tarts go. I suppose that is where he thinks he is. It’s the place where he is most at home. Besides, if the symphony was such a success, why wasn’t Moreland better pleased? Or Matilda, for that matter? Matilda doesn’t seem at all at her best tonight. I expect these grand surroundings remind her of better days.’
‘I didn’t say the symphony was “a great success” either,’ said Maclintick, speaking now wearily, as if his outburst of anger had left him weak. ‘Anyway, what do you mean? Moreland looks all right to me. What is wrong with him? Of course, it was insane of me to express any opinion in front of a woman like you.’
‘Go on,’ said Mrs Maclintick. ‘Just go on.’
‘And what reason have you for saying Matilda isn’t pleased?’ said Maclintick. ‘I only wish I had a wife with half Matilda’s sense.’
‘Matilda didn’t seem to be showing all that sense when I was talking to her just now,’ said Mrs Maclintick, still quite undisturbed by this unpleasant interchange, indeed appearing if anything stimulated by its brutality. ‘Or to be at all pleased either. Not that I care how she speaks to me. I bet she has done things in her life I wouldn’t do for a million pounds. Let her speak to me how she likes. I’m not going to bring up her past. All I say is that she and Moreland were having words during the interval. Perhaps it was what they were talking about upset them, not the way the symphony was received. It is not for me to say.*’
Further recrimination was terminated for the moment by the butler bringing a decanter for Maclintick with Buster’s apology that no Irish whiskey was to be found in the house. Buster himself appeared a moment later, adding his own regrets for this inadequacy. I withdrew from the group, and went over to speak to Robert Tolland, who had just come into the room. Robert knew Moreland only slightly, as a notable musical figure rather than as a friend. He had probably been asked to the party at the instigation of Mrs Foxe, had perhaps dined with her to make numbers even. I had not seen him in the concert hall.
‘I expected to find you and Isobel here,’ he said. ‘I was asked at the last moment, I hardly know why. One of those curious afterthoughts