Troubles - James Gordon Farrell [120]
“She wouldn’t notice if someone called her an old aitch...ee...en to her face,” sighed Miss Johnston. “We shall simply have to make sure she isn’t left alone.”
One afternoon the Major happened to accompany an expedition which included Miss Devere, Miss Johnston and Mrs Rice, all of whom had some business to conduct at the post office. He was astonished by the speed with which battle was joined. Half-way across the bustling market square, without a moment’s hesitation, Miss Johnston locked antlers with a craggy-faced old farmer whom she had observed spitting on the ground some twenty yards away with obvious reference, she said, to herself and her companions.
“Oh really!” protested the Major. But Miss Johnston was already berating the surprised farmer and even waving her umbrella in his face in a threatening manner. Later there was more trouble when a clerk at the post office spoke to her with his hands in his pockets.
It didn’t take long for the Major to perceive that the ladies found these expeditions a source of rare excitement. Almost every afternoon a party was formed to go and buy something in Kilnalough. Those left at the whist-tables would await the return of the shoppers with eager anticipation, and rare were the afternoons when the returning ladies had no encounters to report. The Major was dubious about most of these alleged insults. Miss Johnston, in particular, stimulated by the admiration of her companions, already appeared to have refined her skill to the point where she could sense an insult before it was delivered. He suspected that, as with the unfortunate farmer in the market square, she very often administered correction to entirely innocent passers-by.
One day, genuinely alarmed by their immoderation, he permitted himself to suggest to the ladies that this “lack of respect” was more imagined than real...but that if the shopping expeditions continued to behave like war-parties there really would be trouble. The ladies received this suggestion coldly, but perhaps it had some effect. In his company, at any rate, the subject was brought up less often. It had never been mentioned, except obliquely, when Sarah was present. Dimly he was beginning to realize that the old ladies of the Majestic had little affection for her.
The Major had grown weary of whist, although the fever for the game showed no sign of relaxing its grip on the old ladies. Besides, the ladies themselves with their snobbish gentility and complacency had begun to grate on his nerves. Anyone would think, to see them whispering, that Sarah was nothing but a servant-girl! Not, of course, that individually they still could not be as charming as ever. All the same, one could have too much of a good thing.
These days he wanted to be alone in order to think clearly, more clearly, about Sarah. But where? His room was without comfort, the Imperial Bar overrun by cats, all the other rooms in the hotel (of which there was, of course, no shortage) seemed somehow wrong. He hardly knew why. There would be one thing or another which failed to please him. He would simply look at them and see that they were unsuitable, hardly bothering to detail the reasons to himself. But at last, on the second floor, he opened a door he had not tried before —and found exactly what he wanted.
It was a linen room, long and narrow and rather dark. Sheets and pillows lay in piles everywhere. Blankets, hundreds of them, were stacked to the ceiling against each wall; no doubt they had been there since the old days when every room in the place was in use. It was dry here, too, and rather warm, which was a great advantage now that the weather had turned chilly. At certain times of day it became positively tropical because the master chimney from the kitchens passed along one wall. But the Major did not mind; he would simply take off all his clothes and lie naked on a pile of