Troubles - James Gordon Farrell [118]
“Angela will be so glad you’ve come,” the old lady murmured, and her hand, delicate as a moth, began to model the Major’s features. “How handsome you are, Major!” she whispered, fingers spreading like cream over his forehead, rimming his eyes and returning to slither down his nose, smoothing outwards over the firmly clipped bristles of his moustache and on to the jawbone. She paused again, still holding the Major’s chin lightly between finger and thumb, listening.
“There’s someone with you. It’s not Angela, is it?” Her hand left the Major’s face and began to make slow sweeps beside him, reaping the air, nearer and nearer to Sarah. The Major got to his feet. Sarah was looking up at Mrs Rappaport with an expression of revulsion, mesmerized by the bony diamond-clad fingers that were groping towards her.
“There’s no one there, Mrs Rappaport,” the Major said abruptly, taking her by the elbow. But she shook off his hand and edged nearer to Sarah, her fingers still desperately trawling back and forth through the empty air. Sarah was shrinking right back now, holding her breath, unable to retreat further.
“Come along now. Let me show you to the fire.” Grasping the old lady’s arm firmly, he pulled her away, still clawing at the air. As they made their way across the lounge the corners of Mrs Rappaport’s mouth came down and a single tear stole over her powdered cheek. When she had been deposited in her seat by the fire the Major hastened back to the sofa hoping to resume his proposal. But Sarah was no longer there.
The glass in the towering windows of the residents’ lounge was already stained blue-black, but the ladies, engrossed in their interminable game of whist, had not yet thought to summon Murphy or one of the maids to draw the curtains and stem the tide of night seeping into the room. Far overhead, beneath the white ceiling encrusted with plaster roses, laurels, fleurs-de-lys and three-pronged crowns, a trapped sparrow fluttered helplessly from one darkening pane to another. Deep in an armchair, the Major, no less helpless, pondered Sarah’s bizarre behaviour. That afternoon she had been even more taunting and capricious than usual. In particular she had let fall two remarks which he was finding difficult to interpret: “I should be mad about you, Brendan, if we had more in common,” and a few minutes later: “Who should I like to marry? I should like to marry someone just like you, Brendan, only with brains.” Should these remarks be regarded as increasing or decreasing the chances of his proposal being accepted?
He sighed. Soon it would be time for dinner. He attempted to decide whether he was hungry or not, but even the answer to this question eluded him. Compared with his feelings for Sarah all his desires were tepid. Cries and laughter at some incident at the whist-table awoke the echoes of the cavernous room. The sparrow fluttered out once more to beat against the dark glass. There was silence then, except for the beating of its wings and presently a rapid, heavy tread that the Major had come to recognize at great distances. He pictured the gleaming leather shoes with dove-grey spats which were making the tiles of the corridor ring louder and louder. In a moment Edward’s massive and elegant frame (“the tailor’s dummy,” as the Major was in the habit of describing him these days)—silk tie and snowy shirt, silk handkerchief in top pocket—would make its appearance. Edward would smile mechanically in the direction of the ladies, who would probably be too busy to take any notice of him; maybe he would add a puzzled frown in the direction of the Major, as if to ask: “What ails the fellow?”
But Edward’s collar was hanging by a thread and completely divorced from his tie, the knot of which had shrivelled to the size of a raisin. His shirt was ripped and muddy; one lapel of his jacket had been torn out at the seam and hung to his waist; his trousers too were mudstained and the spat of one shoe flapped like a broken bird over the instep. The other shoe had lost its spat altogether. A bruise had swollen and darkened one of Edward