The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [6]
“I suppose you’ve lived here some time,” the Major said, trying to account for Ripon’s absence from his sister’s letters. “I mean, you haven’t recently returned from abroad?”
“Abroad?” Ripon glanced at him suspiciously. “Not really, no. I’m afraid I haven’t.” He cleared his throat. “I suppose the smell of the place seems strange to you, turf-smoke and cows and so on.” He added: “I know Angela’s looking forward to seeing you. I mean, we all are...jolly pleased.”
The Major looked round at the whitewashed walls and slate roofs of Kilnalough; here and there, silent men and women stood in doorways or sat on doorsteps watching them pass. One or two of the older men touched their caps.
“It’s a splendid town,” repeated Ripon. “You’ll soon get used to it. On the right a little farther down is the Munster and Leinster Bank...on the left O’Meara’s grocery and then the fish shop, we’re near the sea, you know...beyond, where the street bends, is the chapel of Our Lady Queen of Heaven, fish-eater, of course...and then there’s O’Connell’s, the second best pork-butcher’s...” Curiously, however, they passed none of these places. The Major, at least, could see no trace of them.
They were now on the outskirts of Kilnalough; here there was little to see except a few wretched stone cottages with ragged, barefoot children playing in front of them, hens picking among the refuse, an odour of decaying vegetation in the air. Reaching the top of an incline they saw the dull sparkle of the sea above a quilt of meadows and hedges. The smell of brine hung heavily in the air.
Abruptly Ripon was in good spirits, almost jubilant (perhaps even a little drunk? wondered the Major) and kept recognizing landmarks of his childhood. Pointing at the middle of a flat, empty field he told the Major that that was where he had flown his first kite; in a hawthorn hedge he had once shot a rabbit as big as a bulldog; in the barn over there he had had a rewarding experience with the peasant girl who in those days used to be cast in the role of the Virgin Mary every year for the Christmas pageant mounted by Finnegan’s Drapery Limited...and yes, in the copse that lay on the other side of the barn young Master Ripon, watched by all the servants and all “the quality” from miles around, had been daubed with the blood of the fox (a not dissimilar experience, he added cryptically)...and on this very road...
Not far away the two massive, weatherworn gateposts of the Majestic rose out of the impenetrable foliage that lined the sea side of the road. As they passed between them (the gates themselves had vanished, leaving only the skeletons of the enormous iron hinges that had once held them) the Major took a closer look: each one was surmounted by a great stone ball on which a rain-polished stone crown was perched slightly askew, lending the gateposts a drunken, ridiculous air, like solemn men in paper hats. To the right of the drive stood what had once no doubt been a porter’s lodge, now so thickly bearded in ivy that only the two dark oblongs of smashed windows revealed that this leafy mass was hollow. The thick congregation of deciduous trees, behind which one could hear the sea slapping faintly, thinned progressively into pines as they made their way over the narrowest part of the peninsula and then returned again as they reached the park over which loomed the dark mass of the hotel. The size of the place astonished the Major. As they approached he looked up at the great turreted wall hanging over them and tried to count the balconies and windows (behind one of which his “fiancée” was perhaps watching for his approach).
Ripon brought the trap to a halt and, when the Major had alighted, kicked his suitcase off the back on to the gravel (causing the Major to wince at the thought of the fragile bottles of cologne and macassar that it contained). Then without getting down himself he shook the reins and moved away, calling that he had to take the pony