The Empire Trilogy (52 page)

For the most part, though, the members stayed in the bar drinking whiskey-and-sodas and waiting. There were still a few ragged, shivering caddies waiting to besiege any plus-foured gentlemen willing to risk themselves in the open spaces—but their numbers had decreased considerably over the winter. Now only the very young and the very elderly remained. And the others? Perhaps instead of hefting golf-bags on their shoulders they were roaming the hills with some flying squad carrying rifles for the I.R.A.

“Hello, Major.”

“Oh, hello, Boy...Didn't see you there.” O'Neill was leaning on the bar, his shoulders two great bunches of muscle outlandishly swollen by the thick sweater he was wearing. More aggressive than ever, he had recently acquired the habit of grinning sarcastically after anything he said, whether it was supposed to be humorous or not. The Major found this habit upsetting.

“Seen old Devlin?”

“Can't say I have, Boy.”

“Giving us a wide berth these days. Too bad because I've a joke to tell him. Listen. It's about a girl called Mary from Kilnalough. Mary goes to England in rags and comes back a year later in fine clothes and throwing away money right and left. Meets Father O'Byrne who says: ‘Tell me, Mary. How did you get all that money?'

“Says Mary, shamefaced: ‘Oi became a prostitute, Father.'

“‘What's that you say?' cries Father O'Byrne in a fury.

“‘Oi became a prostitute, Father,' says Mary again.

“‘Ah, sure that's all roight,' says Father O'Byrne with a sigh of relief. ‘Oi was after thinking you said you'd become a Protestant!'”

Laughter from one or two of the men at the bar near by. But these were the old hands. The Colonials (as the fat, wary men with moustaches had come to be called) looked blank, being more used to a division of people by race than by religion. This sort of thing was too subtle for them. After all, a white man is a white man when all is said and done.

“Very funny,” said the Major without enthusiasm. He had heard the story before.

Across the room, sitting in an armchair under a portrait in oils of the Founder, the Major noticed young Mortimer. He went over to ask him how Matthews was getting on. Mortimer stood up politely and offered the Major a chair, causing him to think: “At least some of these young fellows have been properly brought up.” And really there was no denying it. Mortimer was a fine young fellow, been to a good school, nicely spoken, good at games...really Charity (or was it Faith?) could do a lot worse. The only trouble was that although he obviously came from a decent family, this family just as obviously had no money or they would hardly have allowed one of their offspring to join the riff-raff in Ireland for the sake of earning a few shillings a day. Still, it was a shame. A nice young fellow, though rather more nervous than one realized at first sight.

Matthews, it seemed, was much better. Still a bit groggy, of course. That bump on the head had turned out to be rather a bad one. But Mortimer had another, much more sensational piece of news. Had the Major heard about Captain Bolton? He had left Kilnalough after a frightful row with his superiors. Dismissed for insubordination. In short, he had told them to go to hell! And he'd immediately gone off to Dublin with an Irish girl. Who would have thought it of Bolton... having a love-affair on the quiet?

“The girl was at the ball at the Majestic. You may remember her?” The Major remembered her.

“You wouldn't have thought it of old Bolton, would you? I mean, he always seemed such a man's man. They say that if she so much as looks at another man he knocks her cold on the spot!”

“How d'you know about all this?”

“One of our chaps was up in Dublin the other day and saw them together in Jammet's. There was a scene with some fellow who was staring at her. Personally, I thought she looked a bitch, didn't you?”

At the end of April the last of the great spring storms blew in from the north-east and once more all the windows in the Majestic were rattling in torment, while the chimneys groaned and whined like unmilked cows, half threatening and half pleading, and draughts sighed gently under doors like lovelorn girls. At the same time curious cracking sounds were heard, difficult to identify; perhaps the sort of sound one might associate with the breaking of bones. Difficult, also, to say where they originated; they seemed to come dully through the walls or the ceiling, even up through the floor once or twice—or so it appeared; with the howling of the wind and the noise of the breakers outside it was impossible to be sure.

The Major was worried, of course, and sometimes went to investigate. Something had snapped, he could
feel
it, the special vibrations of something breaking somewhere; one can always tell when something breaks. But when he pulled himself out of his armchair and, puffing his pipe thoughtfully (so as not to alarm the ladies), sauntered into the next room or the one above, expecting to see diagonal cracks appearing in the walls...well, there was never anything to be seen. All was silent. He must have imagined it. But one knows perfectly well (thought the Major) whether one is imagining something or not, and he
knew
this was real. Besides, other people heard it too. Crack! And one or two of the ladies would look up vaguely, not wanting to make a fuss and not really trusting their worn-out old ears. Then, since nothing had actually happened, they would drop their eyes to the fingers which nowadays seemed all joints, one joint on top of another, strung like fat beads, all this time patiently knitting in their laps (but no longer able to sew)...and then a few minutes later: Crack! It would happen again. And this time even the Afghan hound on the hearth-rug would prick up his ears and go sniffing round the walls or doors before he was diverted by noticing someone asleep in a chair who needed to be licked awake, or one of the ladies trying to smuggle a peppermint from handbag to mouth without being nuzzled by his long greedy snout.

“Did you by any chance hear a cracking sound just then?”

But Edward, concerned about the possibility of a tidal wave swamping his piglets, shook his head.

“Listen for a moment.”

But there would only be the sound of wind and rain, the groaning and the sighing, and Edward would become engrossed in his problems once more so that when it did come, he still did not hear it.

Remembering the bulges, real and imaginary, which he had discovered with Sarah, the Major moved aside the sofa in the lounge. The root throwing up the parquet blocks had swollen from a forearm into a thigh—thick, white, hairy and muscular. The Major thought it best to roll the sofa back promptly over this obscenity.

That night he lay awake listening to the wind and the waves, thinking that he might have been alone in a great ocean liner, drifting in the eye of a storm. Instead of decreasing with daybreak, the storm continued to mount throughout the following morning. By the afternoon Edward had become seriously concerned about the welfare of the piglets. They had not been fed since noon the day before. All this time they had cowered without physical or moral comfort in the roaring black squash court. Something must be done. But in this weather one could scarcely put one's nose outside, let alone walk a quarter of a mile, so he waited for a lull standing by one window or another with an unread newspaper trailing from his fingers.

“Almighty God! Did you see that?”

The Major had glimpsed a volley of slates climbing out into the driving sky from one of the roofs to windward, perhaps from one of the out-houses. He waited to hear them smash on the rain-scoured terrace beyond, but he heard nothing.

At four o'clock it grew dark. They decided to wait no longer. Wrapped in oilskins they battled across the drive and round the Prince Consort wing in order to get to windward of flying slates, Edward carrying half a sack of cakes and currant buns. Head lowered, one hand crammed on to his hat and eyes half shut against the lashing rain, the Major struggled in Edward's footsteps. The air was full of dead leaves, twigs and branches stripped from the creaking limes and maples beside the potato field. Cold rain seeped into his collar. So difficult was it to see where one was going that when Edward stopped a few paces ahead to gaze back at the hotel the Major blundered into him.

Edward's eyes were lifted to the black, rainswept hulk of the Majestic, his thick locks of grey hair writhing and flickering like snakes in the screaming wind. In that dim light his head appeared more massively sculpted than ever; beneath the heavy frontal bone his eye-sockets were pools of shadow and his cheekbones, glistening with rain, might have been carved by crude strokes of a chisel. With one hand he grasped the sodden sack of confectionery, with the other he pointed up at the building, shouting wordlessly at the Major. But the Major did not need to be told that there was something wrong; he could see for himself the gaping black hole in the roof of the servants' wing, he could see the slates blowing away into the swirling rain, free as petals...a sudden strong gust and a flurry of them would lift to soar away end over end into the darkness. And the black hole grew steadily larger like a woollen sleeve unravelling. Presently white wooden beams became visible.

Edward tugged at his arm and plunged on into the rain. They reached the lee of the high wall that ran down to the sea from one terrace to the next. There was a narrow path here which the Major had never noticed before, and broken steps thick with weeds which clung wetly to his ankles. It seemed strangely quiet in the shelter of the wall and the going was easier. But as they made their way down towards the lowest terrace the rain increased to a deluge. The Major licked his lips and tasted salt from the clouds of spray whipped up by the wind to cascade on to the boiling mud around them. By the time they had turned and headed with the wind behind them at a reluctant gallop towards the invisible squash court, the water had seeped inside the Major's oilskin and he had lost his hat which had blown off his head and sailed ahead into the darkness.

“That's strange. They usually come to meet me. They must be frightened.”

With the outer door dragged shut it seemed, by comparison with the roaring wilderness outside, very still and quiet in the squash court, despite the drumming of the rain on the glass roof and the muffled thunder of the breakers, now only a few feet from where they were standing. Edward had taken a lantern from its nail on the wall and while he was lighting it the Major peered into the darkness in search of the piglets, listening for the rustle of straw. The ammonia smell was even more intolerable than on the Major's previous visit; with every breath it seized his nose and throat. He longed to be back outside in the gale of fresh air. Edward did not seem to notice it, however. He was emptying the contents of his sack into a filthy wooden trough and cooing gently to attract the attention of the piglets. The iced cakes, buns and barm-bracks had amalgamated inside the sodden sack into a glutinous mass and dropped into the trough with a carnal, sucking sound...But even this failed to produce the piglets. The interior silence remained unbroken.

“Can they have got out?”

Frowning, Edward lifted the lantern and took a few steps forward on to the squelching straw. The Major, who had stayed where he was (the thought of treading in that mess revolted him), watched the rim of light creep up the far wall—on which, crudely smeared in scarlet, were the words: SPIES AND TRAITORS BEWARE! And he knew instantly what the scarlet was and where it had come from. Edward's eyes were on the ground, however, expecting to see sleepy piglets emerging to greet him, so he continued to advance until his lantern light stole over a friendly, pliable snout, on to illumine the sleepy eyes and drooping, pointed ears...and then over emptiness (except for a dollop of intestines and a discarded corkscrew tail). Between the ears and the tail there was no longer any pig. The pig had gone.

A sharp intake of breath—a sound which the Major never forgot. And then Edward stumbled forward with his wildly swinging lantern, making the walls rock.

When Edward emerged and stood beside him once more (not yet having spoken a word) the Major glanced down and noticed that his shoes were bright scarlet, oozing, the lace-holes bubbling with scarlet liquid. On the threshold of the door he left one, two, three red footprints...But then they dissolved under the lashing rain.

“If she looks at another man he knocks her cold!” Of all the Major's troubles (of which there was no shortage) this was the one which preoccupied him the most. It was also the one he could do least about. More precisely, it was the only one which he could do nothing at all about, except wonder and distress himself.

He knew that it was futile. After all, he was not a complete fool. He knew that now there was really no further hope on earth of a successful union with Sarah. Apart from everything else, he now bore her a considerable resentment. Even if they met, this resentment would prevent him (probably against his will) from being friendly. Doubtless one day it would fade into indifference and allow him to be friendly again; but it would only disappear
on one condition
: namely, that he was no longer in love with her. Thus, his only hope of success depended on his not wanting to succeed! An appalling but not uncommon situation in the game of which the Major was so painfully learning the rules.

Meanwhile, although he did his best to put her out of his mind by concentrating on the other manifold troubles at large under the roof of the Majestic, she continued to emerge in random but painful thoughts that sprang sharp-clawed out of the hidden lair in his mind to which they had been banished.

“What sort of gentleman would ‘knock a girl cold'?” he found himself wondering with amazement, even while he was examining a truly alarming crack which he had discovered in the wall of the writing-room behind the faded tapestry. But for all he knew this crack might have been there for years! And then, what sort of girl would allow herself to be repeatedly “knocked cold”? It was all quite beyond him, both the man and the girl (and, come to that, the crack in the wall). He simply did not understand. He tried to imagine himself knocking a girl cold; but it was easier to imagine himself flying up into a tree and singing like a blackbird.