The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [203]
“I shan’t be leaving tomorrow, Edward. There are still a number of things I have to do here.” The Major had delayed informing Edward of his decision to stay for fear that Edward too might change his mind. This fear had been illusory, he decided, seeing the stricken, anxious expression that appeared on Edward’s face.
“But you must leave! It’s dangerous here.” Calmly, but feeling that he hated Edward, the Major said: “I don’t intend just to walk off and leave the place to the bloody Shinners.”
“But Brendan, you must face reality. You’ve read the newspapers. You know as well as I do that it’s all over here. It’s finished. Any day now that blighter Lloyd George is going to throw in the sponge and then there’ll be hell to pay for people like you and me who’ve been loyal.”
“I’m damned if I’m going to take to my heels, Edward, just because there’s a possibility of trouble. If I go at all I shall go in my own good time.”
“But good God, Brendan! Things are bad enough already. When they send the army home it’ll be the law of the jungle. Every Unionist in the South will have his throat cut. Go to Ulster if you want to stay in Ireland.”
“I’ve made up my mind that I’m staying, Edward. At least for a while.”
“But you can’t stay here. The old place is falling to pieces. It’s dangerous. You’ve been telling me for months how dangerous it is...Think of the writing-room ceiling! That could happen anywhere at all in the building, anywhere.”
“I’ll stay in the rooms that have the fewest cracks in them,” said the Major smiling.
“Without servants?”
“Oh well, there’s always Murphy.”
“Murphy! Besides, just look at the size of the place, it’s absurd. You can’t live here all by yourself. And you just told me the place is up for sale.”
“I’ll wait until it’s sold, then. But I refuse to be hounded out of the place by a handful of labourers with guns in their hands.”
“Well, I shall stay with you, of course,” Edward murmured unhappily. “But I must say I think it’s most unwise.”
“There’s absolutely no question of you staying, Edward. You have the twins to think of.”
Edward had dropped his sledge-hammer and was sitting on the stone steps facing the shattered statue, watching the jagged, freshly torn edges of metal glimmer in the sunshine. A faint breeze stirred the shaggy mass of grey hair above Edward’s grim, defeated face. “Absurd,” thought the Major, “that we should go on competing when the thing that we were competing for has long since vanished.”
“I agree that it’s maybe not wise,” the Major said gently. “But my mind is made up. Besides, I’m getting to be too old a dog to learn new tricks. Now let’s forget about it and talk about something more pleasant on our last afternoon.”
Edward was looking relieved. His eyes wandered away from the statue and came to rest some distance away on the bed of lavender planted by his wife “before she died.” What was he thinking about? wondered the Major. Of his dead wife, perhaps...of his eldest daughter, the dead one whom he had loved the most and even now continued to love more than he could ever love Ripon or the twins.
And presently, as if the Major had been able to divine his thoughts, Edward said: “I remember the day we brought Angie home in the snow. She was only a baby. It hardly seems any time at all.”
The telephone was ringing in Edward’s study. So still was the afternoon and so silent the house that the Major heard it ringing from outside in the park. District Inspector Murdoch was calling from Valebridge.
“Is anything wrong? Did they get on the train all right?”
Well, that was what he was calling about. The train hadn’t yet left Valebridge because of some trouble on the line between there and Dublin. It wasn’t yet clear what was wrong but it might mean a considerable delay.
“They’re all elderly. They