Troubles - James Gordon Farrell [157]
All this blaze of light was picked up and reflected by the waxed and polished tiles on the floor (firmly cemented so that they no longer clinked underfoot); it glinted on the golden cheeks of cherubs, freshly dusted and holding mirrors (which were, however, still peeling behind their polished glass). The great sofas that slumbered round the walls had been dragged out on to the steps one morning and pummelled with carpet-beaters, which raised such a thick grey fog as to mask the sun to a pale amber disc, until at last no more dust would rise. But now they glowed a dark cherry red beneath the gilt oak leaves and tassels, and one could sit down without sneezing. The surface of the reception desk lay like a pool of dark water; had anyone leaned over to sign the register he would have seen his own distinguished features looking up at him as if from an ancient, much-varnished portrait.
The Major’s eye moved back with a hint of anxiety to the dancing flame of the torch at the foot of the stairs. He was not accustomed to seeing a flame allowed to blaze unprotected in the middle of a room—but it was, after all, safe enough, firmly bracketed over tiles with nothing but the spiralling emptiness of the stairwell above. At his elbow, close to the torch, the gracefully inclined face of Venus had taken on a sly vitality with the dancing of light and shadow. What trouble she had caused, the Major mused, before they had been able to restore her to the softly glowing purity of white marble; that descent of dust which, year by year, had grown like black hair on her head and neck, on her shoulders and sloping breasts, had also found its way into the crevices of scanty marble cloth that failed to clothe her. Quite impossible to get at it with a feather duster! But he and Edward, fanatical and perfectionist, had decided she must be as white as snow; nothing less would suit them. So Seán Murphy had been summoned and the three of them, with starting eyes and bulging veins, had lifted her off her pedestal and staggered out of the door, around the house, down through the kitchens and into the laundry where the maids were waiting for her with scrubbing-brushes and a steaming soapy bath. They had set to work, blushing and tittering and teasing Seán Murphy as if what they were doing was somehow indecent. Then, rinsed and dried and wrapped in clean towels, they had taken her back and set her up once more.
All their spring-cleaning had been fun! The Major was smiling at the recollection. But as his eye wandered over the gleaming black and white chessboard of tiles his smile faded —for sitting on a white tile in the very middle of the floor was a plump grey rat. Almost immediately, startled by the Major’s movement, it crept away under one of the sofas and vanished from sight. Frowning, the Major made his way towards the ballroom. This was something they had not envisaged when they had gone upstairs to make their grim harvest of cats. Those cats hadn’t been eating the air! A steady grey stream of nourishment had been coming up into the house: rats from the cellars and the pond, mice from the fields and the barn. A cat, however wild and savage, can always be passed off as a pet. Not so with rats. Fortunately there was still a sizeable residue of appetites in the upper storeys. Perhaps the rats would remain out of sight until the guests had gone home.
The orchestra was playing a foxtrot. As the Major made his way towards the ballroom, the lively melody of “Dreamland Lover” grew louder, blending with laughter and the chatter of voices, the rhythmic movement of the dancers on the parquet floor which was