‘It’s Moreland – and another man.’

Mrs Maclintick shouted, almost shrieked these words, while at the same time she twisted her head sideways and upwards towards a flight of stairs leading to a floor above, where Maclintick might be presumed to sit at work. We followed her into a sitting-room in which a purposeful banality of style had been observed; only a glass-fronted bookcase full of composers’ biographies and works of musical reference giving some indication of Maclintick’s profession.

‘Find somewhere to sit,’ said Mrs Maclintick, speaking if the day, bad enough before, had been finally ruined by arrival. ‘He will be down soon.’

Moreland seemed no more at ease in face of this reception than myself. At the same time he was evidently used to such welcomes in that house. Apart from reddening slightly, he showed no sign of expecting anything different in the way of reception. After telling Mrs Maclintick my name, he spoke a few desultory words about the weather, then made for the bookcase. I had the impression this was his accustomed gambit on arrival in that room. Opening its glass doors, he began to examine the contents of the shelves, as if – a most unlikely proposition – he had never before had time to consider Maclintick’s library. After a minute or two, during which we all sat in silence, he extracted a volume and began to turn over its pages. At this firm treatment, which plainly showed he was not going to allow his hostess’s ill humour to perturb him, Mrs Maclintick unbent a little.

‘How is your wife, Moreland?’ she asked, after picking up and rearranging some sewing upon which she must have been engaged on our arrival. ‘She is having a baby, isn’t she?’

‘Any day now,’ said Moreland.

Either he scarcely took in what she said, or did not consider her a person before whom he was prepared to display the anxiety he had earlier expressed to me on that subject, because he did not raise his eyes from the book, and, a second after she had spoken, gave one of his sudden loud bursts of laughter. This amusement was obviously caused by something he had just read. For a minute or two he continued to turn the pages, laughing to himself.

‘This life of Chabrier is enjoyable,’ he said, still without looking up. ‘How wonderful he must have been dressed as a bull-fighter at the fancy dress ball at Granada. What fun it all was in those days. Much gayer than we are now. Why wasn’t one a nineteenth-century composer living in Paris and hobnobbing with the Impressionist painters?’

Mrs Maclintick made no reply to this rhetorical question which appeared in no way to fire within her nostalgic daydreams. She was about to turn her attention, as if unwillingly, towards myself, with the air of a woman who had given Moreland a fair chance and found him wanting, when Maclintick came into the room. He was moving unhurriedly, as if he had arrived downstairs to search for something he had forgotten, and was surprised to find his wife entertaining guests. Despondency, as usual, seemed to have laid an icy grip on him. He wore bedroom slippers and was pulling at a pipe. However, he brightened a little when he saw Moreland, screwing up his eyes behind the small spectacles and beginning to nod his head as if humming gently to himself. I offered some explanation of my presence in the house, to which Maclintick muttered a brief, comparatively affirmative acknowledgement. Without saying more, he made straight for a cupboard from which he took bottles and glasses.

‘What have you been up to all day?’ asked Mrs Maclintick. ‘I thought you were going to get the man to see about the gas fire. You haven’t moved from the house as far as I know. I wish you’d stick to what you say. I could have got hold of him myself, if I’d known you weren’t going to do it.’

Maclintick did not answer. He removed the cork from a bottle, the slight ‘pop’ of its emergence appearing to embody the material of a reply to his wife, at least all the reply he intended to give.

‘I’ve been looking at this book on Chabrier,’ said Moreland. ‘What an enjoyable time he had in Spain.’

Maclintick grunted. He hummed a little. Chabrier did not appear to interest him. He poured out liberal drinks for everyone and handed them round. Then he sat down.

‘Have you become a father yet, Moreland?’ he asked.

He spoke as if he grudged having to make so formal an enquiry of so close a friend.

‘Not yet,’ said Moreland. ‘I find it rather a trial waiting. Like the minute or two before the lights go out when you are going to conduct.’

Maclintick continued to hum.

‘Can’t imagine why people want a row of kids,’ he said. ‘Life is bad enough without adding that worry to the rest of one’s other troubles.’

Being given a drink must have improved Mrs Maclintick’s temper for the moment, because she asked me if I too were married. I told her about Isobel being about to leave a nursing home.

‘Everyone seems to want babies nowadays,’ said Mrs Maclintick. ‘It’s extraordinary. Maclintick and I never cared for the idea.’

She was about to enlarge on this subject when the bell rang, at the sound of which she went off to open the front door.

‘How are you finding things now that you are back in London?’ Maclintick asked.

‘So-so,’ said Moreland. ‘Having to do a lot of hack work to keep alive.’

From the passage came sounds of disconnected talk. It was a man’s voice. Whomever Mrs Maclintick had admitted to the house, instead of joining us in the sitting-room continued downstairs to the basement, making a lot of noise with his boots on the uncarpeted stairs. Mrs Maclintick returned to her chair and the knickers she was mending. Maclintick raised his eyebrows.

‘Carolo?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘What’s happened to his key?’

‘He lost it.’

‘Again?’

‘Yes.’

‘Carolo is always losing keys,’ said Maclintick. ‘He’ll have to pay for a new one himself this time. It costs a fortune keeping him in keys. I can’t remember whether I told you Carolo has come to us as a lodger, Moreland.’

‘No,’ said Moreland, ‘you didn’t. How did that happen?’

Moreland seemed surprised, for some reason not best pleased at this piece of information.

‘He was in low water,’ Maclintick said, speaking as if he were himself not specially anxious to go into detailed explanations. ‘So were we. It seemed a good idea at the time. I’m not so sure now. In fact I’ve been thinking of getting rid of him.’

‘How is he doing?’ asked Moreland. ‘Carolo is always very particular about what jobs he will take on. All that business about teaching being beneath his dignity.’

‘He says he likes time for that work of his he is always tinkering about with,’ said Maclintick. ‘I shall be very surprised if anything ever comes of it.’

‘I like Carolo here,’ said Mrs Maclintick. ‘He gives very little trouble. I don’t want to die of melancholia, never seeing a soul.’

‘What do you mean?’ said Maclintick. ‘Look at the company we have got tonight. What I can’t stick is having Carolo scratching away at the other end of the room when I am eating. Why can’t he keep the same hours as other people?’

‘You are always saying artists ought to be judged by different standards from other people,’ said Mrs Maclintick fiercely. ‘Why shouldn’t Carolo keep the hours he likes? He is an artist, isn’t he?’

‘Carolo may be an artist,’ said Maclintick, puffing out a long jet of smoke from his mouth, ‘but he is a bloody unsuccessful one nowadays. One of those talents that have dried up in my opinion. I certainly don’t see him blossoming out as a composer. Look here, you two had better stay to supper. As Audrey says, we don’t often have company. You can see Carolo then. Judge for yourselves. It is going to be one of his nights in. I can tell from the way he went down the stairs.’

‘He has got to work somewhere, hasn’t he?’ said Mrs Maclintick, whose anger appeared to be rising again after a period of relative calm. ‘His bedroom is much too cold in this weather. You use the room with a gas fire in it yourself, the only room where you can keep warm. Even then you can’t be bothered to get it repaired. Do you want Carolo to freeze to death?’