Casanova's Chinese Restaurant - Anthony Powell [93]
‘Dragging up your past.’
‘Barnby went straight to the point,’ said Moreland. ‘I was struck by that. One ought to make decisions where women are concerned.’
‘What are your plans-roughly?’
‘I have none, as usual. You are already familiar with my doctrine that every man should have three wives. I accept the verdict that under the existing social order such an arrangement is not viable. That is why so many men are in such a quandary.’
We drove on to where I lived. Moreland continued in the taxi on his way to find Matilda. Isobel was asleep. She woke up at one moment and asked: ‘Did you hear anything interesting?’ I told her, ‘No’. She went to sleep again. I went to sleep for an hour or two, then woke up with a start, and lay there thinking how grim the visit to Maclintick had been; not only grim, but curiously out of focus; a pocket in time; an evening that pertained in character to life some years before. Marriage reduced in number interludes of that kind. They belonged by their nature to an earlier period: the days of the Mortimer and Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant. Maclintick’s situation was infinitely depressing; yet people found their way out of depressing situations. Nothing was more surprising than man’s capacity for survival. Before one could look round, Maclintick would be in a better job, married to a more tolerable wife. All the same, I felt doubtful about that happening. Thinking uneasy thoughts, I fell once more into a restless, disenchanted sleep.
The atmosphere of doom that hung over Maclintick’s house, indeed over the whole quarter in which he lived – or so it seemed the night Moreland and I had called on him – proved categorical enough. Two or three days later a paragraph appeared in the evening paper stating that Maclintick’s body had been found ‘in a gas-filled room’: no doubt the room in which he worked designated by his wife as the ‘only one where you can keep warm in the house’. The escape of gas had been noticed; the police broke in. The paper described Maclintick as a ‘writer on musical subjects’. As with the passing of St John Clarke, new disturbing developments of the European situation prevented Maclintick’s case from gaining the attention that a music critic’s suicide might attract in more peaceful times. The news was horrifying, yet there was no shock about it. It was cold, slow-motion horror, the shaping of a story recognisably unfinished. I tried to get in touch with Moreland. There was no reply to the telephone. The Morelands’ flat seemed always empty. Then one day when I tried again, Matilda answered. She began talking about Moreland at once.
‘The poor boy has been having an awful time about Maclintick,’ she said. ‘You know how he hates even the mildest business talks. Now he is landed with inquests and goodness knows what.’
Matilda had always got on well with Maclintick. He was one of those uncomfortably poised men whom she handled to perfection. There was every reason to suppose that Maclintick’s death would distress her. At the same time, I was immediately aware from the sound of her voice on the line that she was pleased about something; the fact of Maclintick’s suicide had eased her life for one reason or another. We talked for a time about Maclintick and his affairs.
‘Poor old Carolo,’ she said.
‘You think he is in for it?’
‘He has caught something this time.’
‘And your play?’
‘Coming on soon. I think it will be a success.’
I arranged to see Moreland. The meeting took place a day or two later. He looked as if he had been having a disagreeable time. I asked about Maclintick.
‘Gossage and I had to do all the clearing up,’ Moreland said. ‘It was pretty good hell.’
‘Why you two?’
‘There did not seem to be anyone else. I can’t tell you what we were let in for. It was an awful thing to happen. Of course, one saw it coming. Nothing more certain. That didn’t make it any better. Maclintick was a great friend of mine in a way. He could