The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [144]
At long last everything was ready and they sat down to eat at the kitchen table. Once more they toasted each other and really, thought the Major as they began to eat, it wasn’t half bad considering everything, though the potatoes were still not completely cooked. The doctor was tired, however, and could eat very little—the wine had no doubt made him sleepy. The Major helped him back to his armchair in the other room and made up the fire, banking it down with wet slack so that it would last through the evening. Then he carved some breast of chicken and left it on a plate by the old man’s side with a glass of port, in case he should feel hungry later on. Dr Ryan was dozing already, his head lolling against one of the wings of his armchair. The Major said goodbye, that he would call in tomorrow and perhaps bring Padraig. Without open-ing his eyes the old man made a faint, murmured reply that might have been: “British blackguard!”
Edward had fired his shotgun at Murphy! He had gone berserk and tried to slay the elderly manservant. The strain had been too much for him.
All afternoon the downpour had continued, so that by now the roads were flanked with bubbling pools; the wheels of the Standard sent out great bow-waves that saturated the hedges and stone walls. But the Major’s eyes were on the winding road ahead, alert for signs of an ambush. No civilized person, of course, would wait behind a hedge in a downpour on the off chance that an ex-British-Army-officer might come driving by. But were the Irish civilized? The Major was not prepared to risk his life on the assumption that they were.
Nevertheless he reached the Majestic without incident. It was as he strode cheerfully into the lounge and found himself surrounded by pale excited faces that he realized that something was amiss. Everyone was talking at once, so that it was a few moments before he was able to understand what it was all about. Edward had summoned Murphy about an hour ago. After a brief, heated discussion a terrible boom had reverberated throughout the building. A few minutes later Murphy had staggered out of the ballroom more dead than alive (though physically unscathed) and was now lying down somewhere.
“Where’s Edward?”
“Still in the ballroom. But you’d better not go in.”
“Don’t worry. It was probably just an accident. I’ll go and have a talk with him.”
In the ballroom it was still light enough, thanks to the glass dome of the roof, for the Major to see Edward sitting at his table in the middle of the floor. He was scribbling rapidly on the top sheet of a thick stack of paper; a number of curl-ing pages lay beside him, already written on. As the Major watched, he came to the end of a page, threw it aside without waiting for the ink to dry and immediately started on another, the nib of his pen making a faint rasping sound, barely audible against the dull, steady roar of the rain drumming on the glass roof.
The Major took a few steps forward. Scattered on the parquet floor around Edward’s table were a number of pinging jam-jars, two or three of which were already brimming. But more jam-jars were needed. Here and there shining puddles had already formed.
“Edward.” The Major advanced with caution. “What’s all this I hear about you firing a shotgun at Murphy?”
“Eh? Oh, it’s you, Brendan. Watch out where