The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [133]
“Oh well, if you actually want them to go...” the Major replied crossly.
The thing that most worried the Major was that the Majestic was literally beginning to fall to pieces. Edward was making no effort to keep it in repair. The Major supposed that the way he looked at the situation (if he looked at it at all) was logical enough. After all, the hotel had over three hundred rooms. Even if half the building fell down he would still be left with a hundred and fifty—which was more than enough to house himself and the twins and the servants and anyone else who survived the strangulation of the hotel’s trade. Meanwhile, no matter how much they might grumble, the residents adapted themselves remarkably well to the nomadic existence of moving from room to room whenever plumbing or furniture happened to fail them.
True, the amenities had gone from bad to worse (not that the Major really noticed any more). The foliage evacuated from the Palm Court now looked like taking command of the residents’ lounge; the mirrors everywhere had become more fogged and grimy than ever; the gas mantles which had until recently burned on the stairs and in the corridors had now stopped functioning, so that the ladies had to grope their way to bed with their hearts going pit-a-pat; the soup in the dining-room became clearer and colder as the days went by, and as the cook was left more and more to her own devices bacon and cabbage followed by baked apples appeared more frequently on the menu; outside in the grounds a tall pine keeled over and flattened a conservatory with such a terrible crash that two ladies (Miss Devere and a Mrs Archibald Bradley) packed their bags then and there; on the few remaining tennis courts a peculiarly tough and prolific type of clover continued its advance, so that if anyone had been thinking of playing tennis (which nobody was) they would have found that even the most firmly hit service would never rise more than six inches. But Edward these days had that far-away look in his eyes and if one of the recent arrivals went to com-plain to him he scarcely seemed to be listening, though he would nod his head rapidly and say from time to time, almost with eagerness: “I say, do you want your money back?” Or puffing at his pipe and looking at his shoes he would murmur: “Really, that is most unfortunate...Let me assure you that no charge will be made...I mean, none could possibly...” and his voice would trail off.
One unseasonably warm day the giant M of MAJESTIC detached itself from the façade of the building and fell four storeys to demolish a small table at which a very old and very deaf lady, an early arrival for Christmas, had decided to take tea in the mild sunshine that was almost like summer. She had looked away for a moment, she explained to Edward in a very loud voice (almost shouting, in fact), trying to remember where the floral clock had been in the old days. She had maybe closed her eyes for a moment or two. When she had turned back to her tea, it had gone! Smashed to pieces by this strange, seagull-shaped piece of cast iron (she luckily had not recognized it or divined where it had come from). Edward made a feeble effort to penetrate the submarine silence in which the old lady lived, muttering an apology and tugging nervously at his thickly matted grey hair. She wanted an explanation, she said, ignoring his words (which she could not hear anyway) but mollified nevertheless to see that his lips were moving and that his expression showed alarm. For a while she continued grumbling and it gradually emerged that her main grievance was that her tea had been demolished along with the table. It appeared that she had spent a good part of the afternoon shuffling along distant corridors trying to find someone willing to take her order for afternoon tea. In the end she had come upon Murphy taking a nap on a royal-blue ottoman behind a screen of ferns in a remote sitting-room (it was probable that he was the only person