Troubles - James Gordon Farrell [179]
“Stand up straight, Paddy, and stop your fidgeting or you’ll get what’s what.”
Of the three of them only he was permitted to move. But still, it was hard on them standing there with nothing to do.
Presently, however, a peahen came in through the French windows with nervous steps, looking for the long-tailed blue-green magnificence that had been her mate. She picked around for a while amid the broken glass, watched by the three silent men in white hats and aprons. At length Mr O’Flaherty tore off a corner of buttered toast and, bending with a sigh, offered it to her in the palm of his plump hand. She took it and ate it distractedly, a faint breeze ruffling the biscuit-coloured feathers of her breast. Then she hurried fretfully back to the terrace to continue her search. She was Mr O’Flaherty’s only customer that morning.
It was almost noon when the Major awoke. The maid was opening the curtains to let in a cascade of golden sunshine and the twins were still in bed with him, giggling fit to burst. For an instant he and the maid stared at each other in silent horror; then he had rolled the girls out of bed in a flash and with as much bravado as he could manage sent them on their way with a ringing slap on their fat bottoms. A furtive glance at the maid, however, was enough to tell him that this playfulness had, if anything, made the situation worse.
Edward was penitent. He had behaved foolishly and deserved the Major’s contempt. He had been weak and knew it. He had slipped but, by a miracle, he hadn’t fallen.
The Major supposed Edward to be referring to his physical relationship with Sarah and for a moment was cheered. But no, Edward meant falling as Ripon had fallen: in other words. becoming like putty in the hands of a Catholic lady, becoming enslaved to Rome. This was a slippery path which ended in marriage, which ended in turn by having one’s faith torn out by the roots.
“Don’t be absurd, Edward,” sighed the Major, who would have asked for nothing better. “This notion of the Roman Church is puerile and your marvellous faith, if you ask me, is nothing more than a vague superstition which makes you go to church on Sundays.”
“You don’t know what living in Ireland is like.”
“Oh yes I do. You forget that I’ve been living here for some time now.”
Edward’s face darkened but he was too harrowed to argue the point. “It was I who gave her up, you know, Brendan. Not the other way round.” As the Major made no reply he added: “Could you give Murphy a shout to bring more hot water?”
They were in the laundry, where Edward was taking a bath. The boiler, strained beyond its powers by all the washing that had gone on before the ball, had gone wrong, but Edward’s craving for a bath had been too strong to be denied. Sunk in the bath, a great urge to confess had come over him, or, if not exactly to confess (for he really hadn’t done anything so very dreadful), at least to share his troubles with someone who might understand. Hence the presence of the Major.
At first the Major believed that he had been summoned to hear and sympathize about Ripon, because Edward had started to describe the scene that had taken place the evening before when, after supper, he had sought out his son to give him a cheque...how he had found Ripon skulking in the library, leafing through a book on urino-genital matters that he had idly removed the shelf. And what had he done with his wife? No doubt she was pining away in some ladies’ retiring room. Ripon, in any case, was not showing much interest in her these days. On seeing his father he had started guiltily and replaced the book in the shelf. Then Edward advanced on him, flourishing the cheque. Ripon had taken it and read it (it was for a handsome sum) and had seemed puzzled...What was all this for?
“I know you must be getting short. Sorry it’s not more, but I scraped up what I could,” Edward had told him gruffly.
“But Dad,” Ripon had cried, stuffing the cheque back into his father’s top pocket. “You mustn’t! I don’t need it...Just