Troubles - James Gordon Farrell [13]
“Good heavens!” exclaimed the Major. “What an incredible story! Frankly, I find it a bit hard to believe that people would throw things at an unconscious man. Did you see all this happen yourself?”
“Well, no, I wasn’t actually present. But I’ve spoken to a lot of people who were there and...but what I wanted to say...”
“I must ask Dr Ryan, the ‘senile old codger’ as you call him.”
“But I haven’t finished,” cried Ripon. “The thing is, it turned out later that this fellow wasn’t a Shinner at all. He was just repairing the bridge with another workman.”
“Ah, but that’s absurd,” the Major began. “Why should they be running away if they weren’t...?” But Ripon’s attention had been diverted and he was no longer listening. With a contemptuous smile he was watching his father lead the way into the cedar grove, beyond which the “unsavoury characters” were thought to have been seen (though by whom was still unclear to the Major).
Revolver and tennis racket at the ready, Edward had now reached the broken wall of loose stones that separated the cedar grove from the orchard. The orchard was a large one (there was an even bigger one on the other side of the road and in better condition, the breathless and yellow-faced O’Neill had just informed the Major), thickly planted and stretching over almost three acres from the kitchen garden to the road; at one time this orchard alone must have provided a great harvest of fruit, but for some years the trees had gone without pruning; consequently the apples were left for the most part sunless, shrivelled and bitter on trees that had grown as thick as hedges.
Edward was looking around cautiously. He stepped over the wall. There was a rustle in the undergrowth. He fired two deafening shots. A rabbit flew away, careering wildly through the trees. A man in flannels at Edward’s side snapped shut his shotgun and fired both barrels. The noise made the Major’s stomach lurch. It was the first time in months that he had heard gun-fire.
The sergeant was looking dismayed but helpless as Edward stepped back over the wall, smiling.
“Both missed. No shifty individuals in the undergrowth. Perhaps we’d better have a look through the out-houses just to make sure, though.” He led the way through the orchard and into the kitchen garden which was protected from the north-easterly wind by a high wall. A number of cabbage whites fluttered peacefully here and there in the late afternoon sunlight, but there was no other sign of life. One by one they trailed through potting-sheds, a laundry house, a small conservatory glowing with ripe red tomatoes, the apple house (in which great mounds of green apples had been piled almost to the ceiling without any apparent thought for their preservation), an empty barn, the garages which housed a Daimler and a Standard, empty stables with feed-boxes still stuffed with dusty straw...and then they straggled back again into the sunshine.
“Let’s finish that set,” one of the men in flannels said. “I think the whole thing was just a bally ruse of Edward’s to avoid facing my deadly serve.”
The party disintegrated. While the tennis players strolled back to the courts, unloading their guns, the policeman continued, though somewhat resentfully, to poke through the buildings that had already been searched. The Major was uncertain what to do: should he return to his “fiancée’s” side? Perhaps by now the tea-party would be over and a tête-à-tête would be possible. He lingered with Ripon, however, and accompanied him to retrieve the javelin which he had just hurled at a mudstained plaster nymph arising incongruously from a bed of cabbages. It had missed the nymph’s plump stomach by a few inches and transfixed a giant cabbage