Troubles - James Gordon Farrell [137]
“Brendan, what d’you think? Doesn’t he make a gorgeous girl?”
“We’re all frightfully jealous of him.”
Smiling (though still a tiny bit dismayed by the pleasure he had derived from touching “her” soft body a moment earlier), the Major agreed that black velvet suited Padraig to perfection. It was some time before the mortified Padraig could be enticed out of the adjoining dressing-room. Indeed, it took a great deal of cajolery from the girls and a hearty appeal from the Major before he would agree to show himself again. And then what laughter there was when Charity lifted the hem of his skirt to show the Major what slender, well-turned ankles he had! And his hair was so fine and curled so naturally that if he grew it a bit longer he wouldn’t have to wear a wig at all! Besides, according to some magazine they’d been reading there were girls in London who had cut off all their hair and wore it short like men.
“So with his lovely soft hair...”
“And his skin and colouring...”
“And his dark eyes with their long lashes...”
“And my ankles, don’t forget them,” added Padraig.
“And his ankles, of course, we mustn’t forget them, and his hands, just look how slender and white they are!”
“With all those things there’s hardly any difference between him and a girl at all!” cried Viola enthusiastically.
There was a moment of silence after this remark, perhaps for reflection that there were, after all, one or two small but essential differences (although a well-brought-up girl like Viola might not be expected to know much about them). However, the general good humour was such that in no time at all everyone was bubbling over with laughter and compliments once more and Faith was showing the blushing but gratified Padraig how a girl should walk: this walking was more like gliding, the twins explained (and they ought to know, they’d been to enough different schools with enough deportment classes). They made him walk to and fro with a book balanced on the top of his head until he could move without it falling off. Padraig took to this with a splendid natural aptitude and soon they could safely balance a glass of water on top of the book without him spilling a drop.
Presently someone decided that Padraig should be taken on a tour of the hotel to see if any of the ladies recognized him. He should go on the Major’s arm! What a brain-wave! But the Major turned out to be a spoil-sport and refused point-blank.
“Oh, oh, why?” pleaded the girls.
“Because.”
“Because what?”
“Just because.”
And there was no shifting him. Usually the twins could get round him without difficulty, just by telling him that they thought him handsome and interesting, that he looked like Alcock, say, or Brown. But this time, for some reason, he remained adamant. Well, never mind. They would take him on a tour themselves!
The Major, like the spoil-sport he was, tried to dissuade them, but he did not make his case very eloquently. He kept pointing out that although a joke was a joke, enough was enough, and that sort of thing. Padraig, he suggested hopefully, should put his clothes back on and then everyone should think of another, different, game.
“But he’s got his clothes on!” screamed the girls indignantly. The Major was too boring!
“Yes, I’ve got them on,” agreed Padraig.
Were there any actual reasons, the girls wanted to know, enunciating carefully, as if to an idiot, why Padraig shouldn’t be taken on a tour of the hotel? Well, yes, there were reasons, but they were so nebulous that the Major found it difficult to specify them. They were certainly not tangible enough to satisfy the girls.
So the tour got under way, Viola leading the way with long button-booted strides, displaying her pearly teeth like the principal boy in a pantomime. Padraig followed with a twin on each arm, chuckling or whispering into one ear or the other while he himself