The Empire Trilogy (11 page)

This impression was reinforced when, with glistening eyes, Miss Johnston read aloud to Miss Devere, Mrs Rice, and Miss Staveley an account of the Great Victory Parade. “The faultless alignment, perfect unison of step, the smartness with which salutes were given and eyes righted, was a matter of general comment. Demobilized men in ‘civvies' were plentiful, and, in spite of orders to the contrary, they could not refrain in the majority of instances from lifting their hats in homage to the King.” But the Major, slumped in an armchair, was observed to have a dazed and listless expression on his face as he listened (there was no option) to Miss Johnston's ringing tones echoing through the residents' lounge.

“On they marched, through the Mall, Admiralty Arch, Fleet Street, Ludgate Circus, St Paul's Churchyard, Cannon Street and Queen Victoria Street to the Mansion House where the crowd was densest. A pandemonium of cheering greeted every detachment...”

A thick blue cloud of tobacco smoke was to be seen swirling around the Major's armchair when Miss Johnston next glanced up. The ladies exchanged significant glances when it had cleared. The Major had vanished.

As it happened, the Major had vanished on an important mission. He really
had
to find out what was wrong with Angela, otherwise he might find himself here for weeks! He had resolved to cultivate the cook, spend sufficient time with her to get to understand her dialect, accent, or speech-infirmity, whichever it was (he suspected that there might be something wrong with her palate), and then find out how things stood.

But this plan was a failure. He made a sudden appear-ance in the kitchen and began the sort of cheerful, slightly roguish banter which he expected would be irresistible to a fat Irish cook, ignoring her unintelligible (though clearly embarrassed) replies. He had somehow seen himself sitting on the edge of the table and swinging a leg as he chatted, winking a great deal, chaffing the cook about her boy-friends, stealing strawberries—or, at any rate, apples, of which there was a better supply—dipping his finger into bowls of sugar-icing and being chased laughing out of the kitchen with a rolling-pin. It soon became clear, however, that the cook was paralysed with embarrassment in his presence, flushing horribly and looking round for some place of escape. Anyone might have thought he was some kind of sexual deviate the way she behaved! It was simply no use at all. He was obliged to give up almost as soon as he had begun, afraid that the stupid woman might give notice or tell Edward that he had been molesting her. In future he thought it best not to nod to her when they passed on the stairs (though he could not prevent himself from glancing greedily at the tray as usual).

There were two other ways in which he could find out about Angela: one was to ask Ripon, the other was to ask the doctor. But Ripon was plainly avoiding him (the Major's brusque manner had evidently offended him) and, besides, he spent a great deal of time away from the Majestic. The doctor was another matter. He had taken to visiting every day now, usually in the morning or afternoon but sometimes even quite late at night. Long after the great building had been steeped for hours in darkness and silence and he had assumed everyone to be fast asleep the Major, sitting in the Imperial Bar with the tortoiseshell cat on his lap and reading a book with the oil lamp at his elbow, would hear the deep chug of the doctor's motor as it swept up the drive spraying gravel. At the window he would see Edward leaving the porch with short, anxious steps, carrying a lantern to light the old man's laborious progress from motor car to door.

These visits normally took a long time. The reason was that Dr Ryan, however alert his mind, had to cope with a body so old and worn out as to be scarcely animate. Watching him climb the stairs towards his patient was like watch-ing the hands of a clock: he moved so slowly that he might not have been moving at all. One day the Major saw him on his way upstairs, clinging to the banister as a snail clings to the bark of a tree. After he had smoked a cigarette and glanced through the newspaper he happened to pass through the foyer again and there was the doctor, still clinging to the banister and still apparently not moving, but nevertheless much nearer to the top. The Major shook his head and hoped that it was not an emergency.

After his visit to Angela (though no one admitted that this was the purpose of his ascent) the same process of clinging to the banister would be gone through in reverse. Afterwards he would doze in an armchair in the Palm Court or the residents' lounge and around him would gather a group of chattering old ladies who looked, by contrast to his immense age, as sprightly and exuberant as young girls. And maybe, reflected the Major, in Dr Ryan's presence they did become a little intoxicated with their youth again. He found it touching, this recovery of youth, and enjoyed hearing them chatter in this girlish and charming way and thought that, after all, there is not so very much difference between an old lady and a young girl, only a few years diluting the exuberance with weariness, sadness, and a great sensitivity to draughts.

However, the presence of the old ladies made it a little difficult for the Major to bring up the subject of Angela. And perhaps, too, the doctor resented their enjoyment of his extreme old age, because one day, after his usual ascent of the stairs, he was to be found in none of his usual haunts. Disconsolate, petulant and elderly, the ladies took their knitting from one room to another and back again...but in vain. The old man had disappeared.

The Major, however, soon came upon him (though by accident) while searching for the place where the tortoiseshell cat, who had grown suddenly and eloquently thinner, was hiding her kittens. He was dozing in a wicker chair in the breakfast room behind a great oriental screen inlaid with mother-of-pearl dragons, pagodas and sampans. Seizing his chance the Major said: “How is she, Doctor?”

“Eh?” The old man started guiltily. “Ah, it's you.” Reaching out with a blue-veined, freckled hand, he dragged the Major down into another wicker chair at his side. “It's nothing. Nothing serious. A chill. Touch of fever. But that's nothing...It's her future here in this town that I'm worried about. Her father has no guts. She's a fine girl but what will become of her? She's of a different metal from the rest.”

“I'm glad to hear it's not serious,” replied the Major, surprised to hear the doctor say that Edward had no guts. There was a silence, broken at length by the doctor saying with a sigh: “Why are you young men so stupid? You'd marry her if you had any sense. What's your name, did you say?”

“Brendan Archer.”

“He's as spineless as jelly. What'll become of the girl? Ireland is no place for a girl like her with a bit of spirit...”

The doctor's eyelids stole down over his eyeballs and he slept, or seemed to sleep. The Major told himself that this was the news he had been waiting for, that he was liberated, that since Angela was only suffering from a chill she would surely be up and about again in a day or two so that everything could be settled. He got to his feet quietly so as not to disturb Dr Ryan, but the old man was awake and watch-ing him.

“Don't tell them where I am, Mr Archer. Ach! Old women!” And he chuckled faintly, with disgust. “She's the only one worth a farthing in the whole of County Wexford,” he muttered, half to himself. “What fools!” He paused and sighed heavily once more. “The English are fools; they'll lose Ireland if they go on like this. Do they even want it? Do they even know what they want? Ach, the Protestants will die of fright in their beds and serve them right!”

One afternoon, tired of sitting in the Imperial Bar reading the newspaper while the kittens played with his shoelaces and romped on the carpet, the Major set out for a walk in the company of Haig, a red setter. On his way across the fields he passed the grey stone buildings that before he had only seen from a distance, pointed out to him by Edward as the home of his ungrateful tenants. There was no sign of life: a dilapidated farmhouse built of loosely matched grey stones rising out of a yard of dried mud, once grass perhaps but long since worn into deep ruts. For a moment he considered having a look round, but as he climbed over a stile and made his way along the edge of a cornfield (the corn was still as green as grass) a dog started barking angrily; then another took up the cry, and another, and he imagined he could see a grim face staring at him from a window, and then, all around him, dragging on chains somewhere out of sight behind walls, beyond hedges, inside closed doors, a whole pack of dogs was fiendishly barking.

After he had crossed two more fields and a stream a gravel road came into sight which the Major judged would take him into Kilnalough. The day had turned chilly now that the sun was declining. The thin grey smoke of turf-fires rose from one or two of the chimneys of Kilnalough, very faint against the opal sky to the west where there were no clouds; the horizon looked very cold and clear, as if it were already winter. He shivered. Winter 1919. A peacetime winter: skating on frozen ponds, roasted chestnuts? He had forgotten what winter in peacetime was like and through the unbroken bubble of bitterness in his mind, inches thick like plate glass, he tried to visualize it. But the war was still there. He had not yet finished with it. Although he no longer attended morning prayers to be confronted by the photographs from Edward's memorial, there were other photographs, smudged and accusing, that still continued even now to appear on the front page of the
Weekly Irish Times.
The harvest was not yet complete. And what about the survivors? The pathetic letters inquiring about pensions and employment printed in “Our Servicemen's Bureau” and signed WHIZZ BANG, DUBLIN TOMMY, DELVILLE WOOD, 1916, IMPERIAL RULE, DUBLIN and suchlike? When would it all be finished and forgotten?

On his way down the main street he was hailed by a man whom he at first did not recognize. Nearer at hand, though, he recalled the dapper appearance and the obsequious smile: it was Mr Devlin, Sarah's father. He had been spotted by Sarah from her bedroom window. She was bored and had nothing to do, confined to bed by a slight chill, it was nothing really, the doctor said, but the Major knew how young people were... they were inclined to be fretful. She was over the worst, of course, thanks very much, but she was so highly strung...In short, she had asked him to ask the Major, if it wouldn't be too much of an imposition (he needn't stay more than a minute—it was more for the sake of variety than anything else) if he wouldn't mind stopping by for a chat...just to say “Hello.”

“I'd be delighted. I'm afraid the dog is rather muddy, though.”

“Well, we could shut him up somewhere,” replied Mr Devlin, looking at the dog with distaste. He led the way through a side door of the bank.

“Careful he doesn't gobble up all your bank-notes,” laughed the Major as the dog shook itself and frisked cheerfully about the room. Mr Devlin did not appear to find this funny, however; indeed, he looked quite upset. The dog was shut in the kitchen and the Major was shown upstairs to the room where, propped against pillows, her eyes shining, her cheeks flushed and looking, as her father had said, fretful, Sarah was waiting for him.

“I'll be downstairs,” Mr Devlin said, adding with a cough: “I'll leave this door open in case you need anything.” And he withdrew. They could hear his footsteps descending the stairs.

“Well, what's this I hear about you being sick? You've had a chill, I understand, but you're better now. I must say you look as if you're sparkling with health.”

“Major, do stop talking nonsense and come and sit down. Here on the bed...don't worry, I won't bite you. And where's the lovely dog you were with? It was really the dog I wanted to see, not you. And now I suppose you'll be thinking it was for yourself. Men are so conceited, young as I am that's one thing I've found out. And you needn't bother to contradict me, Major, because I
know
it's true, and I'm perfectly sure that you're more conceited than anyone, I can tell instantly by that absurd moustache you have on your lip, it's written all over your face, not to mention your ridiculous ‘ramrod posture' which is the most arrogant thing I ever saw in my life. Why can't you let yourself droop a bit like a normal person? Well, it's none of my business, thank heaven. And you needn't smile like that either in that condescending way you have, as if I know nothing at all because I'm a country girl. I'm sure you think I'm a complete fool who knows nothing at all; I expect you're used to these young women they have in England who paint their faces and stay out all night—the magazines are full of talk of such creatures—smearing paint on one's skin, I must say it sounds disgusting!” And she laughed, a trifle hysterically.

“Dogs? Painted women? Really, what nonsense you talk. I think you must be more ill than I supposed.”

“When I saw you walking down the street (look, from the window I can just see people passing by) I said to myself: ‘There goes that absurd English person with a beautiful dog. How nice it would be to have a chat with him...' But now you're here I can't think of a single thing to say and I can't imagine for the life of me why a few moments ago I wanted to talk to you...But never mind, I shall make the best of it and surely think of something. And there you sit looking uncomfortable and really it almost looks as if your hand is sitting beside you, it hardly looks like a hand at all; it looks like some big leathery creature, like a toad or something, and it looks so rough and dry, is the other one the same? Yes, I can see that it is. They look as if they're made of leather dried out in the sun...You know, Brendan (I shall call you Brendan since I no longer recognize the British Army which is a force of occupation in Ireland against the wishes of the people, you don't mind, do you?), when I was a child I used to dream that I was lying in bed with a toad sitting on my chest and although that sounds rather frightful it was really a pleasant, warm feeling. This toad used to be a particular friend of mine, I wish I could have dreams like that now. But tell me (I mustn't bore you with my childhood or else you'll make some excuse and hurry away), tell me why you were looking so miserable when you were walking along. Has Angela been making you miserable? But no, don't tell me, because I really don't want to know anything about your private affairs. They're of no concern to me, you'd simply be wasting my time. Instead I shall tell you something about Ireland since you clearly know nothing. Have you even heard of the Easter Rebellion in Dublin?”