Casanova's Chinese Restaurant - Anthony Powell [72]
‘Absolutely.’
‘I knew you would. I can’t tell you how good Norman has been for my mother. Brilliant ideas and helpful comment don’t exactly gush from Buster, with all his manly qualities. Besides, when it comes to doing odd jobs about the house, Buster is no good with his hands. What, you say, a sailor and no good with his hands? I don’t believe you. It’s the perfect truth. I sometimes tease him about it. He doesn’t always take that in good part. Now, at last there is someone in the house who can turn to when it comes to hanging a picture or altering the place of a piece of furniture without smashing the thing to a thousand fragments. Not only that, but Norman decides what detective stories ought to come from the Times Book Club, settles what plays must be seen, gives good advice to my mother about hats – in fact excels at all the things poor old Buster fails at so lamentably. On top of that, Norman won’t be bullied. He gets his own way. He is just about the only person who deals with my mother who does get his own way.’
‘Jolly good.’
‘Look here, Nick, you are not being serious. I want to be serious. People are always charging me with not being sufficiently serious. There is something serious I want to ask you. You know the Abdication?’
‘I heard something about it.’
‘Well, I thought it was a good thing. A frightfully good thing. The only possible thing. I wish to goodness Buster would abdicate one of these days.’
‘Not a hope.’
‘You’re right. Not a hope. I say, Nick, it is awfully nice meeting you again after all these years. Let me get you another drink. You see the extraordinary thing is that I don’t feel the smallest need for drink myself. I rise above it. That shows an advance, doesn’t it? Not everyone we know can make that boast with truth. I must mention to you that there are some awfully strange people at this party tonight. Not at all like the people my mother usually collects. I suppose it is them, and not me. You agree? Yes, I thought I was right. They remind me more of the days when I used to know Milly Andriadis. Poor old Milly. I wonder what has happened to her. Perhaps they have put her away too.’
While he was speaking his eyes were on Mrs Maclintick, who was now making her way towards us.
‘This lady, for example,’ said Stringham. ‘What could have induced her to dress like that?’
‘She is coming to talk to us.’
‘My God, I believe you’re right.’
Mrs Maclintick arrived within range. Cold rage still possessed her. She addressed herself to me.
‘That was a nice way to be spoken to by your husband,’ she said. ‘Did you ever hear anything like it?’
Before I could reply, Stringham caught her by the arm.
‘Hullo, Little Bo-Peep,’ he said. ‘What have you done with your shepherdess’s crook? You will never find your sheep at this rate. Don’t look so cross and pout at me like that, or I shall ruffle up all those dainty little frills of yours – and then where will you be?’
The effect on Mrs Maclintick of this unconventional approach was electric. She flushed with pleasure, contorting her body into an attitude of increased provocation. I saw at once that this must be the right way to treat her; that a deficiency of horseplay on the part of her husband and his friends was probably the cause of her endemic sulkiness. No doubt something in Stringham’s manner, the impression he gave that evening of having cut himself off from all normal restraints, played a part in Mrs Maclintick’s submission. He was in a mood to carry all before him. Even so, she made an effort to fight back.
‘What an extraordinary thing to say,’ she remarked. ‘And who are you, I should like to know?’
I introduced them, but neither was inclined to pay much attention to names or explanations. Stringham, for some reason, seemed set on pursuing the course he had begun. Mrs Maclintick showed no sign of discouraging him, beyond a refusal entirely to abandon her own traditional acerbity of demeanour.
‘Fancy a little girl like you being allowed to come to a grown-up party like this one,’