Troubles - James Gordon Farrell [161]
“I told you. Because you aren’t the man I want! Isn’t that enough for you?”
“I suppose you want Edward, then.”
“I want a man who isn’t always trying to agree with people, if you must know. There! Now perhaps you’ll let me go and wash my face...And for heaven’s sake don’t look so wretched. I’m sorry...but it would serve you right if I did marry you. You wouldn’t like it in the least. No, don’t come with me...I’ll find my own way.”
Left alone, the Major took off his coat and fanned his flushed, unhappy face with a pillow-case starched as stiff as cardboard. Craving sweetness, he delved into his pocket for the bar of chocolate he had put there. But the chocolate had melted into a mass of oozing silver paper.
When the Major had composed himself a little he went downstairs. The ballroom was empty except for an effete young man with a monocle who was strumming on the abandoned piano while a thick-set lady sat on a stool beside him eating trifle. This young man was G.F. Edge, the racing motorist, so the Major had been told (but somehow he found it hard to believe). In any case, they paid no attention to the Major and so, although he was not in the least hungry, he wandered towards the dining-room where supper was being served.
Not for many years had such a magnificent display been seen in the dining-room of the Majestic: the snowy linen that cloaked the tables, the silver winking in the candlelight, the golden-crusted battlemented pies filled with succulent game, pheasants and ducks in quivering aspic, brittle and juicy hams cured with sugar and cloves and crowned with white frills, spiced beef the colour of mud, and steaming pyramidal vol-au-vents overflowing with creamed chicken, mushrooms and seafood. On long silver platters salmon stretched themselves, heads and tails shining and perfect as if caught a moment before (if one forgot the clouded, resentful eye) while, in between, all that glorious pinkness was gradually scooped away by the deft and deferential waiters imported from Dublin for the purpose. And besides all that, the salads and the soups, the pâtés and the hors d’oeuvres, the sucking pig (which at that very moment, as his eye fell on it, caused Edward to knit his brows pensively and think of his own plump darlings), the smoking pasties and pies, the delicate canapés, the cheeses that came not only from Ireland but from certain other countries as well (these cheeses, however, had been set at a table apart lest their smell offend the ladies). Nor must the desserts be forgotten: the mountainous creamy trifles that gave off the fumes of sherry and cognac, the trembling fruit and wine jellies, both clear and cloudy, aquamarine and garnet, pearly blancmanges and black fruit puddings smeared with melting slabs of brandy butter...and, of course, many, many other things besides.
On all this the Major, for whom life had become empty, cast a listless eye. Instead, he stationed himself by the sugar bowl on the coffee table and into his mouth morosely popped one lump after another, crunching them noisily. Sarah was not in the room. He was glad. He would never be able to speak to her again.
The other guests, their appetites unimpaired by love, were doing full justice to the magnificent food prepared for them. The elderly guests ate with dignity but more than was good for them, remorselessly, a little of this and a little of that (the Majestic’s old ladies making the most of this opportunity to acquire a little nourishment), the others out of a mixture of gluttony and surprise that Edward should do things so well. Only the very finest of the guests (Lady Devereux, Sir Joshua and his wife and a sprinkling of other titled gentlemen) were heard to murmur “Wonderful!”, “Absolutely capital!” but were not seen eating anything. Such groaning tables, of course, were an everyday sight for them—besides, people without wealth are obliged to eat not only for today but a little for tomorrow as well, “just in case”...Aristocrats and millionaires (and men of letters), on the other hand, scarcely have to eat at all: they can survive