The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [181]
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