The Empire Trilogy (33 page)

“That's not against the law. Burning people's houses is.”

“But how can the police possibly be expected to find who's guilty and who isn't when they're all in it together?” shouted Edward, losing his temper. “Dammit, man! Be reasonable.”

“If they don't know who's guilty they should find out before going berserk and punishing people at random the way they did at Balbriggan.”

“I don't want to hear any more of this. If you don't care about the poor fellow who was killed doing his duty, I
do
!” And with that Edward strode away, clenching and unclenching his fists furiously. After a few strides he paused and shouted back: “Are you disloyal, Major, or what?” Then he departed without waiting for a reply.

Edward muttered an apology later in the day for this last abusive question and the Major, who was ashamed of himself, murmured sadly that that was quite all right, he hadn't taken it to heart. Later the Major wondered why he should feel ashamed of himself. After all, he genuinely believed in what he had said to Edward.

“If the R.I.C. take to behaving as badly as the Shinners,” he remarked to Miss Archer, “pretty soon the whole country will be in chaos and it'll be every man for himself.”

Later again the painful image of Edward and Sarah walking together on the terrace came to his mind.

“She's a Catholic and he's old enough to be her father,” he told himself sourly.

“This is no place for a young man to spend his time, surrounded by a lot of old women,” Miss Archer said to the Major with a smile.

“Yes, perhaps I shall still go to Italy...Florence maybe, or Naples. But I hear that travelling abroad is becoming impossible. All the papers one needs...not like before the war when all you needed was a ticket. But you're quite right, Sybil. I must make up my mind.”

And yes, the Major was seriously thinking of leaving Kilnalough. Now that relations were strained between himself and Edward there was even less reason to stay. He could go anywhere in the world. He no longer had any ties, either in London or elsewhere. Yet this was precisely the trouble. In all the aching void of the world where should he go? Why should he choose one place rather than another? For wherever he went, Sarah would not be. Sarah would remain behind in Kilnalough.

The Major still had hopes, although now somewhat insubstantial, of establishing once more the intimacy which had existed between them during Sarah's brief visit to London the previous winter. He still sometimes, at his writing-desk or in bed with a book open on his chest, fell into a reverie for minutes on end, day-dreaming delightfully about Sarah in the Strand with her arm through his, asking him questions, Sarah in a restaurant not knowing which knife and fork to use, sad and sweet, page after page of an old photograph-album...with himself at her side, amused, paternal, indulgent, and a tiny bit world-weary. He still had hopes.

She often came to the Majestic in the afternoon. He did not know what to make of her relationship with Edward: it was not as if she took any trouble to be alone with him. She seemed to enjoy the Major's company just as much. Of course, the wide-eyed Sarah whose excitement at finding herself in a strange city he had found so touching was a very different person from Sarah in Kilnalough where she was so sure of herself. She was sometimes impatient with him. Sometimes, it was true, she laughed at him as if she found him ridiculous (he was still nettled by the thought of the bunch of roses and the chocolates). She enjoyed teasing him but she enjoyed flirting with him too, sometimes.

“You may kiss my hand, Brendan, if you want to very badly, as I can see you do,” she would say, laughing.

“Nothing could interest me less,” the Major would reply gruffly, laughing also but in a rather strained manner (he dimly divined that if he was to get anywhere he must refuse these tempting little offers, although the effort of doing so wore him out).

In front of the fire in the gun room stood an old leather sofa, a first cousin of the one in Edward's study, buttoned and bulging like a sergeant major. Sitting on this one evening while Edward was away at the Golf Club, idly playing with a large family of new-born kittens that lived in the turf-basket, the Major suddenly found himself being kissed by Sarah. When they paused for breath elated thoughts sped through the Major's mind like scared antelope. He was unable to speak. Sarah, however, merely remarked: “Your moustache has a taste of garlic,” and went on with what she had been saying a moment before about the races at Leopardstown. This comment staggered the Major but he said nothing. It was clear that he was a traveller through unmapped country.

On the other hand she was also quite capable of falling into a cold rage for no reason that he could perceive. At such times she could be very cruel. One day when he had been speaking, though impersonally, about marriage and its place in the modern world, she interrupted him brutally by saying: “It's not a wife you're looking for, Brendan. It's a mother!” The Major was upset because he had not, in fact, been saying he was looking for either.

“Why are you so polite the whole time?” she would ask derisively, while the Major, appalled, wondered what was wrong with being polite. “Why are you always fussing around those infernal old women? Can't you
smell
how awful they are?” she would demand, making a disgusted face, and when the Major said nothing she would burst out: “Because you're an old woman yourself, that's why.” And since the Major maintained his hurt and dignified silence: “And for Jesus' sake stop looking at me like a stuffed squirrel!”

After one of these outbursts the Major might climb tragically to his room and in front of the mirror decide that it was all over, his hopes had been illusory. And then perhaps he would draft a curt note explaining that circumstances obliged him to leave Kilnalough never to return—debating with himself for half an hour whether one
could
actually say: “Circumstances oblige me to leave Kilnalough never to return,” or whether it did not sound a bit foolish. Anyway, by the time he descended the stairs again, armed to the teeth with polite, coldly glinting words which would skewer Sarah's heart like a shish kebab, well, her mood would have changed completely. Without the slightest hesitation she would grasp his wrist and say that she was sorry, that she was a pig, that she hadn't meant whatever awful thing it was she had said. And no matter what stern resolutions the Major had taken five minutes earlier, he would allow himself to be mollified with indecent haste. Later he would be sorry that he had allowed himself to capitulate so quickly because, here again, he had dimly begun to perceive that it was poor strategy.

Until now, incredible though it may seem, the Major had never considered that love, like war, is best conducted with experience of tactics. His instinct helped him a little. It warned him, for instance, against unconditional surrender. (“Do with me as you see fit, Sarah.”) With Sarah he somehow knew that that would not work. He was learning slowly, by experience. Next time he had a love affair he would do much better. But to the love-drugged Major that was not much consolation.

All the same, he had hopes, mainly of a practical nature. He was wealthy and independent. He had no relations to placate. Sarah was entirely without money; and about her “family” the less said the better, for even his present state of narcosis was powerless to furnish the unspeakable Devlin with attractive qualities. Could the girl refuse such a dazzling opportunity? Well, the Major gloomily fancied that she
could
—but all the same, and however undernourished, he did have hopes, in spite of everything.

While the Major, with neither chart nor compass, was thus wandering at large through the minefields of love, a letter arrived for him. He recognized neither the postmark nor the handwriting. “Curious!” he mused, and tore it open. It was from a girl he had known before the war. She said that she was going to get married and that she hoped he didn't mind. (Not only did the Major not mind, for a few minutes he could remember nothing about the girl at all; even the circumstances of their meeting escaped him.) But she had waited for him—that is, if at a certain stage he had made the right move, or rather (the letter was somewhat confused, as if written while intoxicated), any move...that is to say, it had become clear to her, after all one can only wait so long, but she would always think of him, would always remember him with love and affection...one can't, after all (why should one want to?), pretend that the Past hasn't happened...tear it out of one's life by the roots...the fun they had had together. She could close her eyes even now and still see him, Lieutenant Brendan Archer, as she knew he would always be. She hoped he would also. Life goes by so quickly.

The Major did remember her now, of course. She had been someone's sister, not particularly attractive but with a reputation among the young men of that circle. He was glad that she had managed to find a husband in spite of the reputation (which had turned out to be justified, he recalled). He had liked her, really. She had been a good scout, in spite of the other thing. She had oppressed him, though, by the intensity of her feeling for him, and that was the principal thing he now remembered about her. She had had a tendency to hug him violently, squeezing the air out of his lungs—it's distressing to be squeezed very hard if you are not trying to squeeze the other person back. One feels trapped. The Major had felt trapped. As to what had inspired this passion he had no idea; in those days, not long after leaving school, he had been an intolerably stuck-up young prig. Well, perhaps that was what women liked. Insufferable young prigs striking attitudes. “But no, I mustn't be bitter. And the insufferable young prig was
me
! That should make a difference.” Well! But women liked other kinds of men too. The thought of Edward crossed his mind again. “Women have appalling taste in men,” he decided gloomily.

The Major sat down then and there and unscrewed the cap of his fountain pen, thinking how strange it was that all this time a girl, whom he could still only think of as someone's sister, should have been harbouring fond thoughts of him and now, after so many years, should send him a letter saying she hoped he didn't mind that she was going to get married.

He wrote to her immediately. He said that
of course
he minded (after all, one could hardly say that one didn't mind in the least), but he hoped that nevertheless she would be very happy. In fact—he wrote, warming to the task—in fact, he was positively gnashing his teeth with despair, but richly deserved to be passed over in favour of someone who was, without a doubt, a better man than he. It served him right—he wrote, feeling a flood of compassion for this other person wandering, like himself, at large in the minefields—that she should choose someone else and leave him for ever outside in the cold and clammy darkness. And, it went without saying, he would always cherish his memories of the good times they had had together. He remained, with devotion, her Lieutenant Brendan Archer.

He sealed this letter and posted it. As he retired to the residents' lounge to wait and watch for Sarah he wondered lugubriously how it was that the tyrant one moment could become the slave the next. Moreover, certain misgivings began to awaken. Had he not written with too much haste and warmth?

“My God, supposing she regards it as a counter-proposal, calls off the wedding and comes over here to get me!” He wondered whether he should not dash off another letter disclaiming the first. But no, he could hardly do that. Fortunately, however, the days passed without any word and it gradually became clear that he would not be held to account for his rash outburst of sympathy.

“At the first favourable moment I shall propose and the business will be settled one way or the other.” But his efforts to lead up to the subject were constantly disappointed. It seemed as if Sarah could hardly hear the word “marriage” even in the most theoretical and general way without being seized by one of her cruel moods. Naturally the Major was dismayed, but persevered nevertheless, telling himself that it was just a question of finding the right mood.

One afternoon, sitting on a sofa in the residents' lounge and screened by an ornamental pillar, he almost brought himself to broach the subject. They were at the farthest extreme from the ladies playing whist by the fire. Sarah had been unusually warm and affectionate following a dire clash the day before (stimulated by some observations the Major had attempted to make about the Islamic wedding ceremony). For some moments they had been sunk in a contented silence, Sarah had idly slipped her hand into his, nothing was happening, she seemed rather sleepy. There was unlikely to be a better opportunity, so the Major cleared his throat.

“Look here...” he began (he had chosen his words days ago and knew them by heart). But at that moment a blue-veined, bony hand, fingers bright with diamonds, appeared from behind a bay tree in a tub (a refugee from the Palm Court next door, brought into the lounge on Edward's instructions so that it could “breathe”). The hand knocked rather sharply against the ornamental pillar, then caressed it. A moment later old Mrs Rappaport was standing there, her head on one side, listening.

“Is that you, Edward?”

“No, Mrs Rappaport, it's me, Brendan Archer.”

“I could hear you breathing.”

The old lady stepped forward; her other hand, dry and freckled, held a walking-stick. She advanced cautiously until she was standing beside the Major, looking down at him with her empty, unfocusing orbs.

“Angela's Major,” she breathed, reaching forward with her free hand. “Where are you, my dear?” The Major frowned with annoyance but grasped her hand and guided it rather roughly (he was still keyed up from his attempt to propose) on to the top of his head, where it remained for some moments. He glanced at Sarah out of the corner of his eye. She was grinning at his discomfiture.