Troubles - James Gordon Farrell [30]
As she wheeled her chair forward the Major saw that in her lap lay a number of religious ornaments. Two plaster saints, painted in bright colours, she arranged on the piano within a few inches of his head. A wooden crucifix was propped on the mantelpiece while a crudely coloured and alarming picture of the Sacred Heart was placed on the bookcase backed by a pile of books removed from the shelf. That left another wooden crucifix which she put on the tea-table itself. The Major watched all this in amazement but said nothing, allowing himself to be given more tea and more cherry cake (which really was delicious). He munched it cautiously under the eye of the saints.
“I lease them the land at a price that’s so cheap they laugh at me behind my back. I mend their roofs for them and give them seed corn and potatoes in return for a miserable percentage of their crop. I send them the vet when their cows get sick. I help them make ends meet when they spend all their money in the pub. Am I entitled to some loyalty, Major? Answer me that.”
The Major had come upon Edward with a hoe in his hand, standing motionless beside a rose-bed sunk in thought. With the hoe he was now poking at the horizon to the south where a cluster of grey farm buildings stood on a ridge in the distance. Shading his eyes against the sun which for the first time that day had just appeared from beneath smooth carpets of grey cloud, the Major agreed that someone who did such things was indubitably entitled to loyalty.
“You know what I did to ‘aggravate my tenants,’ as old Ryan says? I asked them to sign a piece of paper saying they were loyal not to me, mind you, not to me but to the King... and that they wouldn’t get mixed up in any of these Sinn Fein goings-on. Is that so terrible? Is it aggravating them to ask them to abide by the law? Well, I’ll be damned if the blighters don’t refuse point-blank to sign. It’s Donnelly that’s put them up to it, an old fellow with no teeth...‘What’s the meaning of this, Donnelly?’ I ask him. ‘Ah sure,’ says he, ‘we’d be in danger.’ ‘In danger from who?’ He can’t tell me the answer to that one. ‘You’d never know,’ he says. ‘Well, Donnelly, I can tell you,’ I said to him, ‘if you don’t sign it quick sharp you’ll be in danger from me!’” Massive and imposing, Edward punctuated his explanation with sharp jabs of the hoe.
There was silence for a moment. The Major was surprised to see that Edward, who had been scowling angrily, now had a rueful smile on his face. He threw down his hoe with a sigh and fell into step beside the Major, who had decided to take a stroll round the southern corner of the hotel. “The joke is that I don’t really give a damn about all that. I only lease them the land because I have to; they’d starve if I didn’t. But I have no interest in it and it only causes me endless trouble. I’m not a farmer, never have been. I’d sell them the land in a trice but they couldn’t even pay me the half of what it’s worth. I’m not as young as I was but I often think I’d like to do something with my life. Yes, do something completely different...go back to the university, maybe, and do some research (I still take one or two scientific journals, you know, but in Kilnalough it’s impossible to keep up). Have you ever thought, Brendan, how many completely different lives there are to be lived if only one could choose? I can tell you one thing, I certainly wouldn’t choose to be a landlord in Ireland. One gets no thanks for it. However, that’s the job I’ve been called to, so I suppose I must make the best of it.”
As they walked they were joined by a shabby spaniel that appeared out of a clump of rhododendrons and trotted along behind Edward.
“Does old Ryan even know his doctoring? Frankly I doubt it. He must have been in the College of Surgeons when all they knew was leeches and bloodletting. And yet he’s the only doctor in Kilnalough, so everyone treats him as if he’s God Almighty.” Edward was scowling again. He halted suddenly at a diamond-shaped bed of lavender and his scowl faded.
“Planted by my dear wife.” After a moment,