Temporary Kings (31 page)

‘For
a year now.’

‘Dictator?’

‘We
don’t call it that.’

‘Your
mother must enjoy being Dictatress – Dictatrix, more correctly.’

Polly
Duport laughed. She was charming, in spite of resemblance to her father, much ‘nicer’,
one felt, than her mother, but without, so far as I was myself concerned, any
of her mother’s former bowling-over endowments. Glober must have felt the
reverse. Her professionalism of the Theatre, a seriousness her mother could
never have achieved, in the Theatre, or any other of the arts, possibly
exerting some of that effect on him.

‘I
think Mama would certainly rather do the job herself.’

‘And
your father?’

‘Do
you know him too? You are well up in our family. Papa’s in the crude still.’

‘The
crude?’

This
seemed an enormously suitable calling, whatever it was, for Duport to follow,
but one could not in the least imagine financial or administrative shape taken
by such employment.

‘Crude
oil. That’s how it’s known in the trade. His business is mixed up with
importing into Canada for processing. He doesn’t do too badly. That’s his life.
Has been for quite a long time now. He’s rather crotchety these days. Trouble
with his inside. He never really recovered from that upset in the war. Still,
Papa has his moments.’

The
way she said that recalled Jean again. Glober, who had been explaining to Isobel
how he was going to shoot
Match Me Such Marvel
in Spain, returned to holding Polly Duport’s arm.

‘More
Mozart now. We’ll see you at the next intermission.’

The
Widmerpools, Tompsitts, and Short, were standing not far away, the men
discussing something in an undertone. Mrs Tompsitt, no beauty, looked less than
pleased. As Stevens remarked, she had the air of being rich. She and Pamela
were not talking together. Pamela’s eye was on us. She was still smiling a little
to herself. Glober glanced in her direction, raising his hand slightly in
greeting. From the gesture, they appeared not to have met earlier that evening.
Pamela made no sign in return, not altering her faint smile. If Glober felt
himself in a delicate position, he gave no outward evidence of that. As he
strolled away, hand on Polly Duport’s elbow, he was perfectly at ease.

‘That
was the American who planned to run away with Lady Widmerpool, but is to do so
no longer?’

‘That’s
the one.’

‘She’s
looking rather frightening tonight.’

Isobel’s
comment, although it could not possibly have been heard by Pamela at that
range, appeared in some manner to react on her. As we approached the marquee
again, she broke off from the Tompsitt group, and came towards us. We said good
evening.

‘I’ve
just this afternoon found where Gwinnett’s staying.’

Pamela
spoke that like a comment on something we had already discussed together.

‘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. Objecting to the presence of Matilda
was another matter. The intensity of feeling that bound Audrey Maclintick to
Moreland was all at once momentarily revealed. Moreland made a face in my
direction. He must have been wondering whether Matilda – actually married to
Carolo for a short period in her early life – had also noticed the presence of
her former husband. All this talk caused Gossage to suffer one of his most
severe conjunctions of embarrassment. Like a man playing an invisible piano, he
made wriggling movements in the air with fingers of both hands, while he mused
aloud in a kind of aside.

‘I
did hear Carolo was not so very prosperous some years ago. No reason why he
shouldn’t have substituted tonight, prosperous or not. Did it to oblige, I
expect.’

Chandler
disagreed.

‘Who
ever heard of Carolo being obliging, since the days when he was fiddling away
at Vieuxtemps, in a black velvet suit and lace collar? He’s not dressed like that
tonight, is he? Now that we’re none of us so young, I’m wearing quieter clothes
myself.’

That
gave Moreland a chance to deflect the conversation.

‘Nonsense,
Norman, you’re known as London’s most eminent Teddy Boy.’

The
measure was successful so far as putting an end to further discussion about
Carolo, until time to return to the marquee. On the way there, Gossage was
still muttering to himself.

‘They’ve
got polish. Vivacity.’

That
was safely to relegate Carolo to a collective group. The orchestra could not be
seen from where we sat. So far as I know, direct contact was never made during
the further course of the evening between Carolo and his former ladies, but, at
the termination of the opera, expression was given to a kind of apotheosis of
the situation. This juncture, brief but striking, to be appreciated only by
those conversant with Carolo’s earlier fame, was too dramatic, too trite, to be
altogether good art. Nevertheless, it had its certain splendour, however banal.
This happened when, praise of the Pasha’s renunciation of revenge chanted to a
close, the curtain fell to much applause; then rose again for the reappearance
of the cast. The audience was enthusiastic. The curtain rose, fell again,
several times. The cast bowed their way off. It was the turn of the orchestral
players. They trooped on to the stage.

‘Which
is Carolo?’ whispered Isobel.

I
was not sure I should have recognized him among the Violins without prompting.
That was not because Carolo’s appearance had become in any manner less picturesque
than when younger. On the contrary, the romantic raven locks, now snow white,
had been allowed to grow comparatively long, in the manner of Liszt, to whom
Carolo bore some slight resemblance. His whole being continued to proclaim the
sufferings of the artist, just as in days gone by, in the basement dining-room
of the Maclinticks. He bowed repeatedly (without the warmth of the old singer
in Venice) to the charity-performance guests, with his colleagues, the general
acknowledgment of the orchestra.

Then
the orchestral players turned, in unison, towards the side of the auditorium,
where Rosie and Stevens sat, together with Matilda, the Cabinet Minister and
his wife. To these, as begetters of the show, Carolo and his fellows now made a
personal tribute, Matilda, of necessity, included in this profound obeisance.
The faint smile she gave, while she clapped, was not, I think, illusory. It
marked her recognition that rôles had changed since Carolo, young and promising
musician, had picked up, married, a little girl from the provinces, just
managing to keep afloat as an actress. Matilda’s attitude, more philosophic
than Audrey Maclintick’s, had not been of the temperament to remain married to
Moreland. A few minutes later, illustration was provided of unlikely ties that
can, on the other hand, keep a couple together, without marriage, probably
without sexual relationship. This took place on the way to the supper-room. Odo
Stevens came up with two people for whom he wanted to find a place.

‘Do
you remember, when you and I lived in that block of flats during the war – just
before I went off with my Partisans? Of course you do. Here’s Myra Erdleigh,
who was there too, and this is Mr Stripling. Jimmy Stripling is teaching me a
lot about my new passion I was talking about in Venice, vintage cars. Let’s
find a table.’

Age
– goodness knows how old she was – had exalted Mrs Erdleigh’s unsubstantially.
She looked very old indeed, yet old in an intangible, rather than corporeal
sense. Lighter than air, disembodied from a material world, the swirl of capes,
hoods, stoles, scarves, veils, as usual encompassed her from head to foot, all
seeming of so light a texture that, far from bringing an impression of
accretion, their blurring of hard outlines produced a positively spectral
effect, a Whistlerian nocturne in portraiture, sage greens, sombre blues,
almost frivolous greys, sprinkled with gold.

Jimmy
Stripling, certainly a lot younger than Mrs Erdleigh, had become old in a
different, more conventional genre. Tall, shambling, what remained of his hair
grey, rather greasy, his bulky figure, which took up more room than ever, was
shapeless and bent. Even so, he seemed in certain respects less broken down,
morally speaking, than in his middle period. To be old suited him better, gave
excuse to a bemused demeanour, pulled it together. Stevens was delighted with
both of them.

‘Myra
and I met again in Venice. That was after you’d left. We talked a lot about
those wartime flats, and the people who lived there. All those Belgians. Myra told
my fortune then. She predicted a
belle guerre
for me. I didn’t have too bad a one, so she prophesied right.’

Mrs
Erdleigh took my hand. As in the past, her touch brought a sense of
intercommunication, one conveyed by vibrations that imposed themselves almost
more by not-being, than by being. They emphasized the inexistence of the flesh,
rather than, by direct contact, extending its pressures and undercurrents.

‘We
have not met since that night of dangers.’

She
smiled her otherworldly smile, misted hazel eyes roaming over past and future,
apportioning to each their substance and shadow, elements to herself one and
indivisible. I asked if she had been staying at the Bragadin palace. She shook
her head in a faraway manner.

‘I
went only a few times to see Baby Clarini. She is a very old friend. Under
Scorpio, like that other lady at the Palazzo, who is here tonight. Baby has had
a sad life. She has never delved down to those eternal foundations, of which
Thomas Vaughan speaks – Eugenius Philalethes, as we know him – that transform
the hard stubborn flints of the world into chrysolites and jasper.’