The Empire Trilogy (10 page)

“Eh? Good heavens!” said the Major, astonished by this flight of fancy.

“Hm...actually, one of our guests wrote a sort of poem, you know, about how the place probably used to look in the old days. Lovely bit of work. Angela embroidered some of it for me on a cushion. I'll show it to you later on. I think you'll appreciate it.”

“I'm sure I shall,” agreed the Major.

The dog barked, doubtfully.

“What is it, Seán?”

A handsome, grinning young man had appeared on the steps that led up from one of the lower terraces. In his hand he swung a white feathered object which turned out to be a dead hen.

“Oh, he hasn't killed another, has he?” Edward grabbed the mutinous spaniel by the collar and thrust the chicken under its nose. The dog whined unhappily, averting its eyes. “I know the way to cure him of this. Get some twine, Seán, and tie the hen round his neck.”

A few moments later the hen's neck had been tied to its legs and the dog, whose name was Rover, was shaking himself violently in an effort to rid himself of his heavy white boa. Then they walked on, the Major somewhat disturbed by this administration of justice.

Dinner that night closely resembled the lugubrious meal of the previous evening (old Mrs Rappaport once again stepping out of the broom-cupboard on the given signal) with, however, the important difference that Angela again failed to appear. Edward and Ripon faded away into the shadows after the meal, leaving the Major to play whist in the comparative comfort of the residents' lounge, in the company of Miss Porteous, Miss Archer and Mrs Rice. The ladies, though well muffled in shawls and cardigans, were nevertheless skewered at intervals by the invisible daggers of draughts leaking into the room from the many enormous windows. Whist continued until at length the Major's partner failed to respond to suggestions that it was her turn to play (he had been shuffling and dealing for each of them in turn). She had fallen asleep. Her companions interpreted this as a sign that it was time for bed and so they packed up swiftly, wishing the Major good night and leaving him with three unplayed aces.

Since it was early and he still felt wide awake he set off for a stroll, hands in pockets and whistling mournfully, through the deserted hotel rooms (he had taken to roaming about the house at will by now, no longer caring whether the Spencers might suppose that he was spying on them). Presently, on the first floor, he stumbled upon the Imperial Bar: curtains drawn and in total darkness, it was to all appearances just another empty room. Having felt his way cautiously inside, embracing on the way a slender lampstand which slipped between his outstretched arms to bump against his chest, he drew the curtains. Outside, a fortress of black clouds towered towards the Majestic from the west.

There was a faint mewing sound. A dark shadow slipped off the bar and approached him. It was the tortoiseshell cat, arching her back and rubbing herself against his ankle.

“So this is where you live, is it?”

On the bar he discovered an oil lamp which still contained a trace of oil. He turned up the wick and lit it. Behind the bar, ranks of bottles picked up the glimmer. Having vigorously dusted a brandy glass with his handkerchief he searched among the array of bottles until he found some cognac, poured himself a drink and went to stand by the window.

The light was poor by now. It had been raining heavily for some time. Nothing moved except for the occasional flutter of a bird, almost invisible against the background of leaves trembling under the downpour. The cat leaped up on to the sill and sat there looking out, its tail neatly curled around its feet.

Presently Edward materialized out of the rainy dusk that lay beyond the statue of Queen Victoria, followed at some distance by a whitish object that might have been a newspaper blown in the wind, rolling a few feet, halting, rolling forward again. The white object was Rover, still wearing the chicken round his neck. The Major sighed and took a sip of cognac.

Edward was clad in a streaming hat and sodden overcoat and seemed oblivious of the rain. The Major was appalled by his unexpected air of abandonment: it was as if he had received some terrible shock and no longer knew what he was doing. What on earth could be the matter? Rapping sharply on the window-pane, he shouted for Edward to come in out of the rain. But Edward failed to hear him. He continued his sightless walk, sloshing through pools that lay here and there on the grass, then crunching his way over the gravel in the direction of the clump of lavender planted by his wife “before she died.” At the lavender he froze into an attitude of despair. A little later Rover struggled up and under the impression that something was being hunted did his best to align him-self and the dead chicken in a pointing position. The master, the dog and the dead chicken remained there motionless as the rain pelted down on them in the gathering darkness.

The Major drank off the rest of his cognac, shuddered, and picked up the oil lamp to light his way to bed. In a day or two the Spencers would no longer be his affair. It was only when he was half-way up the stairs that he realized that he still had no sheets on his bed. And once again it was too late to do anything about it.

But a day or two passed and the Major was still at the Majestic. By now he had succeeded in doing something about the most obvious sources of misery (finding sheets, avoiding morning prayers by having breakfast in his room), but there was a sadness hanging in the empty rooms and corridors like an invisible gas which one could not help breathing.

Angela remained behind a closed door (it was impossible to tell which, there were so many) and was quite certainly ill, though nobody said so. Indeed, nobody made any reference to her at all in his presence. Perhaps they thought he would “understand”; perhaps they thought he had not even noticed that she was not there; perhaps this was the Spencers' method of dealing with unhappiness, by simply failing to mention it, as, in one of Angela's letters, a reference to the dog called Spot (who had presumably been carried off by distemper) had been omitted. At this moment, for all the Major knew, Edward was compiling lists of the living beings at the Majestic which failed to mention his daughter Angela.

One day, passing through the Palm Court on his way to the Imperial Bar, which he had taken to sharing with the tortoiseshell cat, he heard an elderly lady, a new arrival, asking in a ringing whisper if that was poor Angela's unfortunate young man. Turning involuntarily, he had been met by a battery of pitying, interested glances.

Once or twice again (in truth, several times), before or after meals, he had met the cook on the stairs carrying the invalid's tray. Whether she was struggling up or down the stairs it seemed to make very little difference, he noticed, to the amount of food on the plate. Only, coming down, the meat and vegetables might be somewhat disarranged, mixed up together, one might suppose, by a listless hand. And a fork might be lying on the plate, though the knife was rarely touched; most often, on the way down, it lay beside the plate, clean and shining as it had been on the way up. Similarly, the apple on the tray usually made the return journey with its skin unflawed; if baked, though, with custard, it might be squashed a little or the meat dug out of the skin and spattered with the yellow, viscous fluid; if stewed and sprinkled with brown sugar as much as half of it might disappear. Apples—after all, there was a mountain of them in the apple house which had to be eaten—played a significant part in the diet of those living at the Majestic. One day, however, he noticed a raw apple travelling upstairs that looked so fresh and shining that it might even have been an early arrival of the new season's crop. On the way down it was still there on the tray but one despairing bite had been taken out of it. He could see the marks of small teeth that had clipped a shallow oval furrow from its side, the exposed white flesh already beginning to oxidize and turn brown, like an old photograph or love-letter. He was extremely moved by this single bite and wanted to say something. He paused and almost spoke, but the cook, as if in fear, was already hastening clumsily down the stairs away from him. Every time they met on the stairs now she would nervously avoid his eye and once or twice she even blushed deeply, as if she had caught him doing something indecent. And it was true that he had become fascinated with this tray and often tried to be on the stairs when it was going up or down. Usually, though, he tried to limit himself to one casual, greedy glance that would note everything.

Most afternoons, he would take a walk with Edward here or there in the Majestic's immense grounds accompanied by four or five of the dogs, freed for the occasion and ecstatic, leaping and bounding, chasing birds or butterflies over the meadows or through the trees, delirious with their sudden freedom. Very often the dog Rover would struggle along obstinately behind them, stopping and starting like a blown newspaper, the no-longer-white hen swinging from his neck, scarcely able to keep up, he and the hen getting caught in a hedge from time to time or having to be helped over a stone wall.

Edward was unpredictable. Sometimes he would say nothing at all for the duration of the walk. At other times he delivered ringing speeches on a general topic, usually to do with Ireland, the state of the country, the impossibility of making progress in a country ridden with priests, superstitions and laziness, the “blighter Redmond” who had put ideas into people's heads, the cynical indifference of Westminster to the Unionist predicament, the splendid example of Sir Edward Carson and his militia in the north...Did the people of Ireland want to govern themselves? They most certainly did not. They knew on which side their bread was buttered. Ask any decent Irishman what he thinks and he'll answer the same thing. It was only criminals, fanatics, and certain people with a grudge who were interested in starting trouble. I ask you, is Murphy capable of governing himself? He couldn't even govern his Aunt Fanny! The “decent” Irish (they were ninety-nine per cent according to Edward) were still friendly to the British and as appalled as anyone by the outrages that occurred every now and again.

But on the day after Edward made this claim the Major read in the
Irish Times
:

Exciting scenes in which baton and bayonet charges were a feature took place at Newtownbarry, Co. Wexford, following the arrest shortly after midnight of John Mahon, a small farmer, living at Gurteen, about a mile outside the town. When the police arrived at the barracks with the prisoner they were hissed and booed by a crowd of over three hundred people, accompanied by the members of the local brass band who started to play...Some of the civilians ran away but the majority remained and a struggle between the crowd and the police ensued. The latter used their batons freely while the members of the band employed their instruments with which to beat the police.

The Major smiled when he had read this and thought: “How splendidly Irish! The brass band fighting the police with their instruments! I wish I'd been there.” All the same, it was hard to avoid the conclusion that Edward was exaggerating the number of “decent” Irish. And since Newtownbarry was hardly any distance from Kilnalough surely there was cause for concern here too? But the Major was not concerned, at least not for the time being. For the moment he was merely diverted by the spectacle of the Irish behaving as Irishmen are supposed to behave.

The Major laughed aloud. But a day or two later there was a more sombre description of how the crowd had jeered at District Inspector Hunt as he lay dying on the street in Thurles, having been shot from behind. The Major was busy however, and hardly glanced at it. He had made up his mind to tackle Edward about Angela.

Though she was certainly ill, perhaps it was nothing too serious. On the other hand, she was eating so little that at this rate she might starve herself to death. He must know the truth. He was on the point of asking a direct question when Edward said gruffly: “Look here, Brendan, I'd like to thank you for all you're doing in these...well, trying circumstances. No, no, don't say a word...I know how it is. I just want to say that I appreciate it, that's all.”

The Major stared at him in astonishment.
What
was he doing? And
what
were the “trying circumstances”? Once again he was about to ask, bluntly, make an end of the mystery and get down to brass tacks...But Edward was visibly moved; the harsh lines of his face had softened, reminding the Major of how he had looked the other evening standing under the downpour in an attitude of despair. How defenceless one is when one is beginning to get old in a country where they are killing the policemen, with a son agin the government, with a daughter ill in bed! Later he realized that he really should have spoken up (by that time it was too late, naturally) because his position had become more delicate than ever. Supposing that, without realizing it, he should stop doing “all that he was doing” (whatever it was), or just as bad, once the “trying circumstances” were over, should continue doing it, thereby revealing that he had not been doing it deliberately. He shook his head sadly (but could not help smiling) over this absurd situation.

* * *

BUY VICTORY LOAN!

“We have won the fight, but we have gone into debt in buying the ‘gloves.' It was a glorious fight for humanity, but the creditors call regularly for interest on the loan nevertheless. They are about to demand the whole amount...hundreds of millions of pounds fall due for payment within the next few years.”

HELP YOUR COUNTRY OUT!

* * *

Two or three of the elderly ladies who resided permanently at the Majestic had approached the Major to ask his advice on the Victory Loan, alarmed at the thought that England had got herself into debt (although, of course, in a perfectly respectable way). But the Major disappointed them. He listened politely, of course, but his indifference was plainly visible. He contented himself with murmuring: “Afraid I don't know much about that sort of thing. Perhaps Edward or, let me see, that bank-manager fellow Devlin might be able to give you some tips.” To tell the truth, the ladies were somewhat distressed by his attitude; after all, in a manner of speaking the “gloves” had been bought expressly for his use. They retired with tight lips and the ill-defined but somehow distinct impression that the Major, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, suffered from a lack of patriotism.