The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [115]
“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?