Troubles - James Gordon Farrell [151]
But Edward, of course, did nothing of the sort and gradually, although Mrs Roche continued to sit at the end of his table, the afternoon drives declined in frequency and were forgotten.
“One needs every now and then to escape from the company of women into a place from which women are excluded. After all, unless he has sisters or comes from the lower classes a young Englishman is likely to grow up entirely among males. Later in life he simply isn’t accustomed to a heavy dosage of female company. And surely, if the English gentleman is respected throughout the world for his courtesy towards the gentler sex, it is because he takes care to provide himself with a room in which he can be alone in the company of other men.” So the Major was thinking as he sat in the gun room with Edward on a frosty moonlit night.
It was very quiet. There was no movement in the house or in the trees outside the window. Edward was gazing abstractedly into the fire, enjoying a rare moment of tranquillity. Presently, however, a small oak leaf of white plaster dropped from a wreath on the dim ornamented ceiling and shattered into pieces on the tiles by Edward’s feet. He gave a start and peered up at the ceiling.
“We really must do something, Brendan, about the old place. It needs doing up badly. One simply can’t let things slide.”
The Major raised his eyebrows dubiously but said nothing. He remembered Edward’s indifference about the piece of the façade which had almost crushed the dog Foch. By comparison the distintegration of the ceiling plaster was trivial. But Edward had begun to interest himself in what he was saying.
“There’s so much wrong with the place no wonder we get complaints from some of the guests (because we do get complaints, Brendan, from time to time). Heaven only knows when we last had a lick of paint and some new wall-paper, not to mention the things like mending broken windows and replacing some of those old curtains that the moths have been getting at...And then we need to have a look at the roof, I hear there was a positive waterfall cascading down one of the servants’ staircases during that spell of rainy weather we had over Christmas. And of course we must get that M put back up there...it looks too absurd the way it is... “AJESTIC”...whoever heard of such a word?...and make sure none of the other letters are going to fall off...After all, if one’s going to run a hotel it may as well be a good one, what d’you think?”
“I quite agree,” the Major said with a sigh, doubtful that Edward’s enthusiasm would last long enough to become action. “I should think the first job is to make sure none of the masonry falls on anybody’s head.”
“Absolutely! That’s the ticket. Really put the old place back on its feet again. We could clean out the swimming-pool and maybe try to get that wretched ‘Do More’ generator working again...”
“And maybe the Turkish Baths,” added the Major, who at that moment felt like taking a Turkish bath and was prepared to join Edward’s romancing. Edward was being serious, however.
“The Turkish Baths might present us with a tiny bit of a problem, actually. We did try to get them going again some years back but it was a disaster. The boilers suddenly went haywire and before anyone knew what was