‘I must say it was quite amusing.’
‘Amusing! My dear Edward, it’s the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened! Oh, goodness me!’ she cried, picking up the cat again and hugging it to her bosom. ‘Isn’t it marvellous to think we’ve got Franz Liszt staying in the house?’
‘Now, Louisa. Don’t let’s get hysterical.’
‘I can’t help it, I simply can’t. And to imagine that he’s actually going to live with us for always!’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Oh, Edward! I can hardly talk from excitement. And d’you know what I’m going to do next? Every musician in the whole world is going to want to meet him, that’s a fact, and ask him about the people he knew – about Beethoven and Chopin and Schubert –’
‘He can’t talk,’ her husband said.
‘Well – all right. But they’re going to want to meet him anyway
, just to see him and touch him and to play their music to him, modern music he’s never heard before.’
‘He wasn’t that great. Now, if it had been Bach or Beethoven …’
‘Don’t interrupt, Edward, please. So what I’m going to do is to notify all the important living composers everywhere. It’s my duty. I’ll tell them Liszt is here, and invite them to visit him. And you know what? They’ll come flying in from every corner of the earth!’
‘To see a grey cat?’
‘Darling, it’s the same thing. It’s him. No one cares what he looks like. Oh, Edward, it’ll be the most exciting thing there ever was!’
‘They’ll think you’re mad.’
‘You wait and see.’ She was holding the cat in her arms and petting it tenderly but looking across at her husband, who now walked over to the French windows and stood there staring out into the garden. The evening was beginning, and the lawn was turning slowly from green to black, and in the distance he could see the smoke from his bonfire rising straight up in a white column.
‘No,’ he said, without turning round, ‘I’m not having it. Not in this house. It’ll make us both look perfect fools.’
‘Edward, what do you mean?’
‘Just what I say. I absolutely refuse to have you stirring up a lot of publicity about a foolish thing like this. You happen to have found a trick cat. OK – that’s fine. Keep it, if it pleases you. I don’t mind. But I don’t wish you to go any farther than that. Do you understand me, Louisa?’
‘Farther than what?’
‘I don’t want to hear any more of this crazy talk. You’re acting like a lunatic.’
Louisa put the cat slowly down on the sofa. Then slowly she raised herself to her full small height and took one pace forward. ‘Damn you, Edward!’ she shouted, stamping her foot. ‘For the first time in our lives something really exciting comes along and you’re scared to death of having anything to do with it because someone may laugh at you! That’s right, isn’t it? You can’t deny it, can you?’
‘Louisa,’ her husband said. ‘That’s quite enough of that. Pull yourself together now and stop this at once.’ He walked over and took a cigarette from the box on the table, then lit it with the enormous patent lighter. His wife stood watching him, and now the tears were beginning to trickle out of the inside corners of her eyes, making two little shiny rivers where they ran through the powder on her cheeks.
‘We’ve been having too many of these scenes just lately, Louisa,’ he was saying. ‘No no, don’t interrupt. Listen to me. I make full allowance for the fact that this may be an awkward time of life for you, and that –’
‘Oh my God! You idiot! You pompous idiot! Can’t you see that this is different, this is – this is something miraculous? Can’t you see that?’
At that point, he came across the room and took her firmly by the shoulders. He had the freshly lit cigarette between his lips, and she could see faint contours on his skin where the heavy perspiration had dried in patches. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I’m hungry. I’ve given up my golf and I’ve been working all day in the garden, and I’m tired and hungry and I want some supper. So do you. Off you go now to the kitchen and get us both something good to eat.’
Louisa stepped back and put both hands to her mouth. ‘My heavens!’ she cried. ‘I forgot all about it. He must be absolutely famished. Except for some milk, I haven’t given him a thing to eat since he arrived.’
‘Who?’
‘Why, him, of course. I must go at once and cook something really special. I wish I knew what his favourite dishes used to be. What do you think he would like best, Edward?’
‘Goddam it, Louisa!’
‘Now, Edward, please. I’m going to handle this my way just for once. You stay here,’ she said, bending down and touching the cat gently with her fingers. ‘I won’t be long.’