Troubles - James Gordon Farrell [191]
The Major went amongst them and intimated vaguely, nothing definite yet, of course, that one of these days it mightn’t be such a bad idea if they gave a little thought to where they would be moving on to after...well, after what? After Edward went completely off his head, perhaps...After the I.R.A. established their headquarters at the Majestic (and good luck to them!)...After the unforeseen, whatever it turned out to be, had happened...What could the Major say that would not be unsuitable?
He was so vague that he succeeded only in alarming them. They listened unsympathetically. Gradually they became indignant. The Major fell to a lower point in their esteem than he had reached since the day he had put an end to their punitive shopping expeditions. First they found themselves having to “fight it out” with the servants for the use of the bathrooms (the axiom that the servants “never washed” and at home kept coal or potatoes in the bathtub seemed to have proved faulty). First that and now this. It was intolerable. They had a jolly good mind to leave! The Major, eyes on his shoes, nodded miserably and looked chastened, having forgotten for the moment that this was precisely what he wanted them to do anyway.
“All I really meant was that Mr Spencer has decided against taking in any new guests—with a view to closing the place down eventually.”
But the ladies were not soothed, particularly as Murphy chose this moment to shamble forward and announce that a party of young gentlemen had arrived.
“But that’s impossible!” cried the Major, dismayed by the speed with which he had been unmasked. “Tell them they can’t stay.”
“But the master does be saying they can,” countered Murphy with relish.
The Major hurried off to find Edward and remonstrate with him. But Edward had already welcomed the party, half a dozen young undergraduates from Oxford spending their vacation in Ireland in order to get to the bottom of the Irish question. He was full of enthusiasm. They were Oxford men! At last a chance for some intellectual discussion...They had chosen to make a special study of Ireland and discuss matters with various strata of society, a real attempt to get to grips with the feelings of the Irish people, not just the Shinners! There was no gainsaying the fact, young people today took a more direct, more sensible and generally less hypocritical approach to politics than the older generation. They were imbued by a new sense of social justice...“No, no, Brendan, I can see you smiling but it’s true. We can learn from the young if we keep our ears open. Besides, they’re only here for a night or two.” And Edward went on to describe how, long before the war, he had eaten a splendid dinner in All Souls... Ah, the quotations from Aristotle and St Thomas Aquinas! The shellfish, too, had been magnificent. And the port peerless.
There was nothing to be done about it. The Major was turning away when Edward added: “By the way, a parcel didn’t arrive for me from London, did it?”
“Not that I know of. Something from Fortnum’s?”
“No, as a matter of fact. I wrote away for one of these things I saw advertised in the paper.” He fumbled in his pocket and at last located a newspaper clipping which he handed to the Major. With raised eyebrows he read that Messrs Wilkinson’s Sword Company was offering bullet-proof waistcoats—steel within silk, weighing only five pounds. “Send us the following particulars and we guarantee you a perfectly fitting garment. Waist and chest measurements, sloping or square shoulders, hollow or round back. Five guineas well spent would be the means of preventing a fatality.”
“Would you say I have a round back?”
“Oh, I shouldn’t have thought so.”
“Ah, well, thanks...D’you suppose they’re any good?”
“Afraid I never met anyone who wore them.”
“Just