Troubles - James Gordon Farrell [144]
But then the doctor seemed to realize that he was being disagreeable and wandered away, returning almost immediately with two wine glasses and a bottle of sherry. So they had a drink and wished each other Merry Christmas...However, while the chicken was in the oven and they were waiting in vague desperation (the Major, too, had become horribly hungry, as if he hadn’t eaten for days) for the wretched thing to cook, the old doctor, although he was plainly trying to be nice to the Major, kept bursting out “British blackguard!”, which distressed the Major considerably.
Soon a tantalizing smell pervaded the kitchen, the smell of roasting chicken—but if anything this made them more hungry and bad-tempered than ever and, besides, there was still a great deal of work to be done. It was time, the Major judged, to put the vegetables on to boil. Should one put salt in the water with them?
“British blackguard!” muttered the doctor irritably. But then his mood changed and he murmured almost tenderly that the Major shouldn’t worry, that life was a fugitive affair at best, he should know, he’d been a doctor for sixty years... Then he shuffled away to the lavatory, for the cold weather and the port he had been drinking made him incontinent, and when he came back he was saying that, really, people are insubstantial, they never last. He himself wouldn’t last much longer, but that was a law of Nature, the body wears out... the Major wouldn’t last very long either, but one had to accept it and make way for one’s children and grandchildren... he himself had accepted it long ago because he had had to, long ago, when he was still a young fellow of the Major’s age. But here he was interrupted by the need to go to the lavatory once more, though he had only just been there, and the Major poked desperately with a fork at the bubbling potatoes and Brussels sprouts which were still as hard as stones. Strange, said the doctor coming back, to think that a beautiful woman who seemed like a solid thing, solid as granite, was really no more solid than a flaring match, a burst of flame, darkness before and darkness after...People are insubstantial, they never last...And so he rambled on while the Major ground his teeth and prodded the vegetables with a fork.
At long last everything was ready and they sat down to eat at the kitchen table. Once more they toasted each other and really, thought the Major as they began to eat, it wasn’t half bad considering everything, though the potatoes were still not completely cooked. The doctor was tired, however, and could eat very little—the wine had no doubt made him sleepy. The Major helped him back to his armchair in the other room and made up the fire, banking it down with wet slack so that it would last through the evening. Then he carved some breast of chicken and left it on a plate by the old man’s side with a glass of port, in case he should feel hungry later on. Dr Ryan was dozing already, his head lolling against one of the wings of his armchair. The Major said goodbye, that he would call in tomorrow and perhaps bring Padraig. Without open-ing his eyes the old man made a faint, murmured reply that might have been: “British blackguard!”
Edward had fired his shotgun at Murphy! He had gone berserk and tried to slay the elderly manservant. The strain had been too much for him.
All afternoon the downpour had continued, so that by now the roads were flanked with bubbling pools; the wheels of the Standard sent out great bow-waves that saturated the hedges and stone walls. But the Major’s eyes were on the winding road ahead, alert for signs of an ambush. No civilized person, of course, would wait behind a hedge in a downpour on the off chance that an ex-British-Army-officer might come driving by. But were the Irish civilized? The Major was not prepared to risk his life on the assumption that they were.
Nevertheless he reached the Majestic without incident. It was as he strode cheerfully into the lounge and found himself surrounded by pale excited faces that he realized that something