Troubles - James Gordon Farrell [148]
Edward himself seemed disconcerted for a moment; he had been talking with animation but had stopped suddenly on seeing the Major. Edward continued to look distressed until his eye fell on a bird-bath in the shape of a giant sea-shell proffered by a cement nymph. Her body was naked, clothed only in patches of yellow green lichen on her stomach and beneath her arms; one foot had been broken off, a rusty wire projected from the stump of her ankle. The Major studied her with feigned interest.
A great deal of snow had collected in the sea-shell and Edward was busy patting it together to make a snowball which he drolly pretended to throw at Sarah.
“Oh, for God’s sake!” she muttered testily.
A little farther on they reached the terrace balustrade from where they could look down on the frozen swimming-pool. The twins had made a slide on the ice by shunting back and forth along a track to make it slippery. They were busy there now, skirts hitched up to their knees, running down the frosted grass and leaping over the lip of the pool to skid with gracefully flexed bodies to the other end. They stopped to watch this game for a moment, then Edward hurled his snowball as Charity was bounding forward on to the ice. Although it missed, it startled her, causing her to lose her balance and sit down heavily. There was laughter from Edward and soon a snowball fight was raging. Sarah forgot her bad humour and soon her slender fingers had left the warmth of her muff to dig into the freezing snow.
The Major loathed this sort of thing but joined in nevertheless. Sarah and Edward were enjoying themselves so much—besides, he did not want Sarah to think he lacked a sense of fun. Soon he got his reward. A snowball hurled by one of the twins struck him on the ear and made his head ring. He retired at that, laughing like a good sport—but displeased nevertheless, cupping his tender ear in the palm of his hand. Faith afterwards apologized: the twins had learned in a hard school and put stones in the middle of their snowballs. But the one that had hit the Major had been intended to flatten Sarah, not him. She was dreadfully sorry.
“Good heavens, why Sarah?” asked the Major, astonished that anyone could fail to like such a lovely girl.
“Oh, because she’s so bloody awful,” Faith said vaguely. “She’s always hanging around Daddy.” The Major frowned then, to show his disapproval of swearing. He frowned later, too, on thinking it over. How he wished it were him instead of Edward that Sarah was always hanging around...!
What was going on between Edward and Sarah anyway? She still came to the Majestic quite frequently, but both she and Edward were always looking so grim these days. They did not behave in the least like lovers. Although his indifference to her had been amply demonstrated, the Major still could not prevent himself from haunting the couple, in the hope of getting further opportunities to demonstrate it. Thus it was that while flitting after them along a dim corridor one day he heard Edward exclaim: “You’re not the only woman in Kilnalough!”
“Who else would look at you twice?” jeered Sarah in a tone that the Major recognized only too well. After that she stopped coming to the Majestic.
* * *
TROUBLE IN INDIA
The centre of growing Indian unrest seems to have shifted from the Punjab to the United Provinces. Here, in the Oudh district, a serious land agitation has been in progress for the past month. It has given rise to violent outbursts and the United Provinces today are passing through a crisis not unlike that which reached its most acute phase in Ireland forty years ago. Hatred of the landlords is the cause of all the trouble and, undoubtedly, the peasantry has many grievances.
The trouble in the United Provinces has furnished a rare opportunity to Mr Gandhi. His object is the expulsion of the British from India, and he will welcome the aid of the Fyazabad farm labourers just as heartily as if they were Sikhs from the Punjab or Brahmins from Madras.