Troubles - James Gordon Farrell [115]
The Major still had hopes, although now somewhat insubstantial, of establishing once more the intimacy which had existed between them during Sarah’s brief visit to London the previous winter. He still sometimes, at his writing-desk or in bed with a book open on his chest, fell into a reverie for minutes on end, day-dreaming delightfully about Sarah in the Strand with her arm through his, asking him questions, Sarah in a restaurant not knowing which knife and fork to use, sad and sweet, page after page of an old photograph-album...with himself at her side, amused, paternal, indulgent, and a tiny bit world-weary. He still had hopes.
She often came to the Majestic in the afternoon. He did not know what to make of her relationship with Edward: it was not as if she took any trouble to be alone with him. She seemed to enjoy the Major’s company just as much. Of course, the wide-eyed Sarah whose excitement at finding herself in a strange city he had found so touching was a very different person from Sarah in Kilnalough where she was so sure of herself. She was sometimes impatient with him. Sometimes, it was true, she laughed at him as if she found him ridiculous (he was still nettled by the thought of the bunch of roses and the chocolates). She enjoyed teasing him but she enjoyed flirting with him too, sometimes.
“You may kiss my hand, Brendan, if you want to very badly, as I can see you do,” she would say, laughing.
“Nothing could interest me less,” the Major would reply gruffly, laughing also but in a rather strained manner (he dimly divined that if he was to get anywhere he must refuse these tempting little offers, although the effort of doing so wore him out).
In front of the fire in the gun room stood an old leather sofa, a first cousin of the one in Edward’s study, buttoned and bulging like a sergeant major. Sitting on this one evening while Edward was away at the Golf Club, idly playing with a large family of new-born kittens that lived in the turf-basket, the Major suddenly found himself being kissed by Sarah. When they paused for breath elated thoughts sped through the Major’s mind like scared antelope. He was unable to speak. Sarah, however, merely remarked: “Your moustache has a taste of garlic,” and went on with what she had been saying a moment before about the races at Leopardstown. This comment staggered the Major but he said nothing. It was clear that he was a traveller through unmapped country.
On the other hand she was also quite capable of falling into a cold rage for no reason that he could perceive. At such times she could be very cruel. One day when he had been speaking, though impersonally, about marriage and its place in the modern world, she interrupted him brutally by saying: “It’s not a wife you’re looking for, Brendan. It’s a mother!” The Major was upset because he had not, in fact, been saying he was looking for either.
“Why are you so polite the whole time?” she would ask derisively, while the Major, appalled, wondered what was wrong with being polite. “Why are you always fussing around those infernal old women? Can’t you smell how awful they are?” she would demand, making a disgusted face, and when the Major said nothing she would burst out: “Because you’re an old woman yourself, that’s why.” And since the Major maintained his hurt and dignified silence: “And for Jesus’ sake stop looking at me like a stuffed squirrel!”
After one of these outbursts the Major might climb tragically to his room and in front of the mirror decide that it was all over, his hopes had been illusory. And then perhaps he would draft a curt note explaining that circumstances obliged him to leave Kilnalough never to return—debating with himself for half an hour whether one could actually say: “Circumstances oblige me to leave Kilnalough never to return,” or whether