Troubles - James Gordon Farrell [32]
Since it was early and he still felt wide awake he set off for a stroll, hands in pockets and whistling mournfully, through the deserted hotel rooms (he had taken to roaming about the house at will by now, no longer caring whether the Spencers might suppose that he was spying on them). Presently, on the first floor, he stumbled upon the Imperial Bar: curtains drawn and in total darkness, it was to all appearances just another empty room. Having felt his way cautiously inside, embracing on the way a slender lampstand which slipped between his outstretched arms to bump against his chest, he drew the curtains. Outside, a fortress of black clouds towered towards the Majestic from the west.
There was a faint mewing sound. A dark shadow slipped off the bar and approached him. It was the tortoiseshell cat, arching her back and rubbing herself against his ankle.
“So this is where you live, is it?”
On the bar he discovered an oil lamp which still contained a trace of oil. He turned up the wick and lit it. Behind the bar, ranks of bottles picked up the glimmer. Having vigorously dusted a brandy glass with his handkerchief he searched among the array of bottles until he found some cognac, poured himself a drink and went to stand by the window.
The light was poor by now. It had been raining heavily for some time. Nothing moved except for the occasional flutter of a bird, almost invisible against the background of leaves trembling under the downpour. The cat leaped up on to the sill and sat there looking out, its tail neatly curled around its feet.
Presently Edward materialized out of the rainy dusk that lay beyond the statue of Queen Victoria, followed at some distance by a whitish object that might have been a newspaper blown in the wind, rolling a few feet, halting, rolling forward again. The white object was Rover, still wearing the chicken round his neck. The Major sighed and took a sip of cognac.
Edward was clad in a streaming hat and sodden overcoat and seemed oblivious of the rain. The Major was appalled by his unexpected air of abandonment: it was as if he had received some terrible shock and no longer knew what he was doing. What on earth could be the matter? Rapping sharply on the window-pane, he shouted for Edward to come in out of the rain. But Edward failed to hear him. He continued his sightless walk, sloshing through pools that lay here and there on the grass, then crunching his way over the gravel in the direction of the clump of lavender planted by his wife “before she died.” At the lavender he froze into an attitude of despair. A little later Rover struggled up and under the impression that something was being hunted did his best to align him-self and the dead chicken in a pointing position. The master, the dog and the dead chicken remained there motionless as the rain pelted down on them in the gathering darkness.
The Major drank off the rest of his cognac, shuddered, and picked up the oil lamp to light his way to bed. In a day or two the Spencers would no longer be his affair. It was only when he was half-way up the stairs that he realized that he still had no sheets on his bed. And