Troubles - James Gordon Farrell [183]
“Hello, Major.”
“Oh, hello, Boy...Didn’t see you there.” O’Neill was leaning on the bar, his shoulders two great bunches of muscle outlandishly swollen by the thick sweater he was wearing. More aggressive than ever, he had recently acquired the habit of grinning sarcastically after anything he said, whether it was supposed to be humorous or not. The Major found this habit upsetting.
“Seen old Devlin?”
“Can’t say I have, Boy.”
“Giving us a wide berth these days. Too bad because I’ve a joke to tell him. Listen. It’s about a girl called Mary from Kilnalough. Mary goes to England in rags and comes back a year later in fine clothes and throwing away money right and left. Meets Father O’Byrne who says: ‘Tell me, Mary. How did you get all that money?’
“Says Mary, shamefaced: ‘Oi became a prostitute, Father.’
“‘What’s that you say?’ cries Father O’Byrne in a fury.
“‘Oi became a prostitute, Father,’ says Mary again.
“‘Ah, sure that’s all roight,’ says Father O’Byrne with a sigh of relief. ‘Oi was after thinking you said you’d become a Protestant!’”
Laughter from one or two of the men at the bar near by. But these were the old hands. The Colonials (as the fat, wary men with moustaches had come to be called) looked blank, being more used to a division of people by race than by religion. This sort of thing was too subtle for them. After all, a white man is a white man when all is said and done.
“Very funny,” said the Major without enthusiasm. He had heard the story before.
Across the room, sitting in an armchair under a portrait in oils of the Founder, the Major noticed young Mortimer. He went over to ask him how Matthews was getting on. Mortimer stood up politely and offered the Major a chair, causing him to think: “At least some of these young fellows have been properly brought up.” And really there was no denying it. Mortimer was a fine young fellow, been to a good school, nicely spoken, good at games...really Charity (or was it Faith?) could do a lot worse. The only trouble was that although he obviously came from a decent family, this family just as obviously had no money or they would hardly have allowed one of their offspring to join the riff-raff in Ireland for the sake of earning a few shillings a day. Still, it was a shame. A nice young fellow, though rather more nervous than one realized at first sight.
Matthews, it seemed, was much better. Still a bit groggy, of course. That bump on the head had turned out to be rather a bad one. But Mortimer had another, much more sensational piece of news. Had the Major heard about Captain Bolton? He had left Kilnalough after a frightful row with his superiors. Dismissed for insubordination. In short, he had told them to go to hell! And he’d immediately gone off to Dublin with an Irish girl. Who would have thought it of Bolton... having a love-affair on the quiet?
“The girl was at the ball at the Majestic. You may remember her?” The Major remembered her.
“You wouldn’t have thought it of old Bolton, would you? I mean, he always seemed such a man’s man. They say that if she so much as looks at another man he knocks her cold on the spot!”
“How d’you know about all this?”
“One of our chaps was up in Dublin the other day and saw them together in Jammet’s. There was a scene with some fellow who was staring at her. Personally, I thought she looked a bitch, didn’t you?”
At the end of April the last of the great spring storms blew in from the north-east and once more all the windows in the Majestic were rattling in torment, while the chimneys groaned and whined like unmilked cows, half threatening and half pleading, and draughts sighed gently under doors like lovelorn girls. At the same time curious cracking sounds were heard, difficult to identify; perhaps the sort of sound one might associate with the breaking of bones. Difficult, also, to say where they originated; they seemed to come dully through the walls or the ceiling, even up through the floor once or twice—or so it appeared; with the howling