Temporary Kings - Anthony Powell [103]
‘You have?’
‘He’s been in hiding.’
She laughed. The laugh sounded a little mad.
‘You’ll never guess who gave me the address.’
‘I’m sure I can’t.’
‘A tart.’
‘Indeed?’
‘Does it surprise you, him knowing a tart?’
‘I’ll have to think about the answer to that.’
‘Perhaps you know her too?’
‘I’ve no reason to suppose so.’
‘She’s called Pauline.’
‘As it happens, I never met her.’
‘A girl of X’s.’
‘Of course.’
‘So it’s all above board, so far as Gwinnett’s concerned.’
‘I agree.’
The music began. She laughed again, and turned away. We found our seats. The Second Act took place, the drunken scenes, the setting to rest of fears that the girls might join the Pasha’s harem. When we came out for the second interval, Moreland reappeared. Gossage and Chandler came up.
‘I’m always fond of the English maid, Blonde,’ Moreland said. ‘Unlike the Pasha’s gardener, I find that vixenish touch sympathetic.’
‘I’m mad about Osmin,’ said Chandler.
Gossage giggled nervously, a giggle unaltered by increased age. He brought conversation back to more serious criticism.
‘The man’s more of a baritone than a bass. Some cardinal appoggiaturas went west in the last Act, I’m afraid. No harm in subordinating virtuosity to dramatic expression once in a way. Not least in a work of this kind. We can’t deny a lyrical tenderness, can we? I expect you agree with that, Mrs …”
Hesitating to call her ‘Mrs Maclintick’, after all these years of living with Moreland, at the same time, never having graduated to addressing her as ‘Audrey’, Gossage’s voice trailed gently away. Audrey Maclintick took no notice of him. She spoke quietly, but there was a rasp in her tone.
‘Have you seen the substitute Violin, Moreland?’
Moreland guessed from her manner of speaking trouble was on the way. He was plainly without a clue what form that might take, why she had asked the question.
‘Has he arrived tight, or something? I’ve conducted unshaved myself before now. One mustn’t be too critical. This one’s a substitute for the regular man, who’s ill. The orchestra wasn’t too bad. Allowing for Gossage’s just strictures on the subject of appoggiaturas.’
‘You haven’t noticed one of the Violins, Moreland?’
‘No, should I? Has he got two heads, or a forked tail emerging from the seat of his trousers?’
Moreland said that in a conciliatory manner, one he used often to employ with Matilda. Audrey Maclintick brought out the answer through her teeth.
‘It’s Carolo.’
Moreland was not at all prepared for that. It was not a contingency anyone was likely to foretell; at the same time, the musical world being what it was, one not in the least unheard of in the circumstances. At first Moreland looked dreadfully upset. Then, seeing the matter in clearer proportion, his face cleared. There were signs that he was going to laugh. He successfully managed not to do so, his mouth trembling so much in the effort that it looked for a second as if he might burst into an almost hysterical peal, similar to that brought on by news of Glober’s identity. Audrey Maclintick, for her part, showed no sign of seeing anything funny in the presence of her former lover – the man for whom she had left Maclintick – turning up in the Seraglio orchestra. Her demeanour almost suggested suspicion that Moreland himself had deliberately engineered transposition of violinists, just to disturb her own feelings. Seeing she was thoroughly agitated about what seemed to himself merely comic – another nostalgic enrichment of the Stevens party – he pulled himself together, plainly with an effort, and spoke soothingly.
‘Is this really true? Are you sure it’s Carolo? Musical types often resemble each other facially, especially violinists. I’ve noticed when conducting.’
Audrey Maclintick would have none of that.
‘I lived with the man for three years, didn’t I? Why should I say he was substitute Violin, if he wasn’t I got to know him by sight, even if he didn’t spend much time in the house.
Her fluster about the matter was unforeseen. On the whole, one would have been much more prepared for complete indifference.