The Empire Trilogy (51 page)

Edward was penitent. He had behaved foolishly and deserved the Major's contempt. He had been weak and knew it. He had slipped but, by a miracle, he hadn't fallen.

The Major supposed Edward to be referring to his physical relationship with Sarah and for a moment was cheered. But no, Edward meant falling as Ripon had fallen: in other words. becoming like putty in the hands of a Catholic lady, becoming enslaved to Rome. This was a slippery path which ended in marriage, which ended in turn by having one's faith torn out by the roots.

“Don't be absurd, Edward,” sighed the Major, who would have asked for nothing better. “This notion of the Roman Church is puerile and your marvellous faith, if you ask me, is nothing more than a vague superstition which makes you go to church on Sundays.”

“You don't know what living in Ireland is like.”

“Oh yes I do. You forget that I've been living here for some time now.”

Edward's face darkened but he was too harrowed to argue the point. “It was I who gave her up, you know, Brendan. Not the other way round.” As the Major made no reply he added: “Could you give Murphy a shout to bring more hot water?”

They were in the laundry, where Edward was taking a bath. The boiler, strained beyond its powers by all the washing that had gone on before the ball, had gone wrong, but Edward's craving for a bath had been too strong to be denied. Sunk in the bath, a great urge to confess had come over him, or, if not exactly to confess (for he really hadn't done anything so very dreadful), at least to share his troubles with someone who might understand. Hence the presence of the Major.

At first the Major believed that he had been summoned to hear and sympathize about Ripon, because Edward had started to describe the scene that had taken place the evening before when, after supper, he had sought out his son to give him a cheque...how he had found Ripon skulking in the library, leafing through a book on urino-genital matters that he had idly removed the shelf. And what had he done with his wife? No doubt she was pining away in some ladies' retiring room. Ripon, in any case, was not showing much interest in her these days. On seeing his father he had started guiltily and replaced the book in the shelf. Then Edward advanced on him, flourishing the cheque. Ripon had taken it and read it (it was for a handsome sum) and had seemed puzzled...What was all this for?

“I know you must be getting short. Sorry it's not more, but I scraped up what I could,” Edward had told him gruffly.

“But Dad,” Ripon had cried, stuffing the cheque back into his father's top pocket. “You mustn't! I don't need it...Just take a look at this.” And he had proceeded to pull thick rolls of banknotes from one pocket after another, dropping them on the carpet in front of him until his shoes were all but hidden by the mound of money.

“Look here, Dad, why don't you take some to help out with your expenses? No, I mean, go on and help yourself. There's plenty more where that came from.” Ripon, his eyes moist with generosity, had stood there inviting his stiff-necked old father to delve into the pile of currency. “Take it all if you want to. Easy enough to get some more.”

Edward had stopped talking. The Major had glanced at him sympathetically but had deemed it best to say nothing, sensing that the worst was yet to come.

The laundry was a vast, desolate cellar, a continuation of the kitchens; ranks of Gothic arches fled into the dim, greenish distance, each arch made of thickly whitewashed stones. Tubs, basins, a gigantic mangle with rollers as fat as pillar-boxes, a few trays of shrivelled apples from some summer of long ago, pieces of greasy machinery carefully spread out on oilskin but long since abandoned (belonging perhaps to the defunct “Do More” generator)—the Major looked around with melancholy interest.

Edward's head, the only part of him visible over the dark soapy water, was grey and wild-eyed. Most likely he had not slept at all. The business with Ripon had no doubt been humiliating enough—but it was the question of Sarah that was really causing him pain. It did not seem to occur to him that the Major might also still be sensitive on this subject; he was too occupied with his own distress. “How selfish he is!”

Murphy now appeared carrying a jug of steaming water. As he passed he leered knowingly at the Major—that wretched maid must have spread the news below stairs! Edward waited for the elderly servant to pour the steaming contents of the jug between his knees, then went on with his rambling description of how he had nearly fallen into the papist trap. He had been lonely after Angela's death, intolerably lonely: the Major (his “only close friend”) in London with his moribund aunt, the twins not yet expelled from their school, Ripon away all the time and busy confecting his dishonourable marriage, the Majestic peopled as it was with its sparse platoon of guests from the last century, the melancholy Irish winter setting in...Was it any wonder that a cast-iron depression, like a bear-trap, had closed its jaws on him?

Edward, slumped in the bath, had sunk lower by degrees so that now the water rimmed his chin and a second haggard face floated on its placid surface.

A young person whom he was, literally, putting back on her feet. It had given him an interest. (“I can imagine,” said the Major sarcastically.) And it had been Sarah, of course, Edward continued, not noticing the Major wince at the mention of her name, it had been Sarah, of course, who had made advances, who had led him on. Not that he was blaming her. He knew as well as anyone that it was the man's duty to be honourable, that women are weak; but all the same...

Edward stopped speaking and there was a long silence. With the stillness of the water his body had become dimly visible: the hairy chest, the massive white limbs...From the nether regions, that darker area that might have been a submerged water-lily, the Major averted his eyes with distaste. “How could any young woman possibly be interested in
that
?” he wondered glumly.

At length the Major cleared his throat. He wanted to talk about the ball. Perhaps by talking about it one might make its memory less terrible. But so far Edward had not said a word on the subject. All morning the old ladies had been chattering like parakeets, discussing it with any sentient being who came within earshot, servant or fellow-guest, it made no difference. The presence of Edward alone had stilled their tongues. Though outwardly calm there was something in his face, a lurking pain or fury...whatever it was, it had silenced the old ladies just as now it silenced his “only close friend,” the Major.

“It was I who gave her up,” Edward repeated. “That's something to be thankful for.”

But the Major knew that he was not telling the truth. Besides, Edward's wounded pride seemed as nothing compared with his own absolute loss.

“You know, sometimes...” Edward began; his lips moving only a millimetre or two above the surface sent tiny waves out towards his knees.

“Sometimes what?”

Edward wearily rolled his eyes towards the Major and then dropped them again.

“Sometimes I even used to forget that she was a Catholic.” And he shook his head, perhaps at the narrowness of his escape.

And so at the Majestic everything returned to the way it had been before. The gleaming tiles became dulled. Sofas as sleek as prize cattle lost their glow. Rooms that had been cleaned needed cleaning again while those that had been locked up were reopened, and still nobody could find the heart or the energy to take down the Christmas decorations (besides, presently it would be Christmas again). Two or three litters of rapidly growing kittens had more than restored the population of cats, although, for the moment, there was no corresponding decrease in the number of rats sighted. Mrs Rappaport's marmalade kitten (fertilized by heaven knew what hideous monster on a moonless night) caused a surprise (everybody had assumed it to be a tom) by contributing no less than half a dozen of these kittens...enchanting little fellows, though, that one simply couldn't help adoring as they wobbled blind and mewing across the carpet. But the cries of delight became muted when the kittens at last opened their eyes and six pairs of bitter green orbs were seen to be staring around with malice at the new world in which they suddenly found themselves.

The groaning tables of the night of the ball were now only a distressing memory as the food served in the dining-room returned to normal. One day at lunch, while the guests were sustaining themselves with an Irish stew (“A Chinese Irish stew,” muttered Miss Johnston in disgust), a supplementary dish was brought in by Murphy. On it rested a large sirloin steak. Pushing aside his plate, Edward proceeded to cut the steak into small cubes and place the dish on the carpet in front of Rover who by now was almost totally blind, surrounded day and night by lurking horrors. Rover licked the meat experimentally, masticated one or two pieces, then lost interest. With a sigh Edward returned his attention to the Irish stew on his plate. A moment later the new favourite, the Afghan hound with golden curls, came skipping up, bent his long nose to the meat and wolfed it down in a flash. The guests watched him in thoughtful silence.

In the last week of April the Major, returning from a melancholy stroll in the park, met Edward crossing the drive by the statue of Queen Victoria. He stopped. Edward's service revolver dangled from one hand. From the other, dark spots of blood were dripping on to the gravel. He stared in alarm at Edward's stricken face.

“What on earth happened?”

“I shot Rover...He was getting old. I thought...” He peered at his dripping hand. “I thought I...” But with that he turned and went into the house, leaving the Major to borrow a spade from Seán Murphy and wander off in search of the body.

The hole he dug at the foot of an oak tree near the lodge was constricted by large roots. He should really have begun another hole in a more suitable place, but sadness made him stubborn. The result was that, in order to receive the entire dog, his hole had to be narrow and deep. So it was that Rover was buried standing on his hind legs, his shattered skull only a few inches below the surface of soil.

The Major had filled in the grave and was hammering it down with the back of his spade when he spied a delega-tion of old ladies approaching, well furred against the restless spring breezes. Miss Johnston was the spokeswoman. They had heard what had happened and had come with a suggestion: Rover should be sent to Dublin and stuffed. They would make a collection to pay for the work and present him to Edward on his next birthday. The Major thanked them but explained that the heavy bullet had smashed the dog's skull beyond repair. It would be hopeless, the dog was unrecognizable (all of which was untrue, but the Major could not bear the thought of Rover stuffed and in some debonair attitude, front paw raised perhaps, gathering dust for the years that still remained to the Majestic...It was bad enough to think of the poor dog begging below ground as the worms did their work). Later the Major learned that Edward, cradling the dog's head in his free hand, had accidentally wounded himself with the same bullet. But luckily it was only a flesh wound.

At about this time in Dublin a number of statues were blown up at night; eminent British soldiers and statesmen had their feet blown off and their swords buckled. Reading about these “atrocities” threw Edward into a violent rage. These were acts of cowardice. Let the Shinners fight openly if they must, man to man! This sort of cowardice must not be allowed to prevail...skulking in ambush behind hedges, blowing up statues...Had there been one, even one, honest-to-God battle during the whole course of the rebellion? Not a single trench had been dug, except perhaps for seed potatoes, in the whole of Ireland! Did the Sinn Feiners deserve the name of men?

“Of course, there
was
Easter 1916,” suggested the Major mildly.

“Stabbed us in the back!” Edward bellowed with a kind of pain, almost as if he had felt the knife enter between his own shoulder-blades. “We were fighting to protect them and they stabbed us in the back.”

“Well, not if one looks at it from their point of view, of course...Mind you,” he added soothingly as Edward's features stiffened, “one has to consider both sides.”

A dispiriting silence fell on the room. The Major decided that it would be a sign of strength not to press the matter. Edward inspired more pity than anger these days. Privately, though, he retained his conviction that it was rather amiable of the Sinn Feiners to prefer attacking statues to living people—a proof, as it were, that they too belonged, or almost belonged, to the good-natured Irish people.

“You don't suppose they'll have a shot at Queen Victoria, do you? Perhaps we should think of getting her moved a bit farther away from the house...” But Edward merely curled his lip contemptuously at this further proof of the Major's lack of martial instincts.

The Golf Club these days was thronged with members whom the Major had not ever seen there before: fat, wary men with copious moustaches who cupped their ears whenever the “troubles” were mentioned but said very little, contenting themselves with an occasional mild reminiscence of Chittagong or Cairo or some other place under foreign skies. They seemed to be waiting uneasily for something; perhaps even they themselves did not know what it was. They would stand there, hands in pockets, staring moodily out of the club-house windows at the acres of blowing grass. Nowadays not so many players would venture out there; and all those who did, like Boy O'Neill, carried rifles in their golf-bags. Once or twice, indeed, distant shots had been heard over the hum of conversation in the bar, causing the drinkers to fear the worst: a massacre at the fourteenth hole, bodies spreadeagled on the velvety green or bleeding in bunkers. But no, presently a laughing, windblown group would come into sight on the fairway of the eighteenth and as they came up towards the club-house one or other of the party would be seen swinging a putter in one hand and a dead hare in the other. Not that they would have minded a “scrap”—some of them were young and brave, others middle-aged and fierce, and none of them had been to the war in France.