Troubles - James Gordon Farrell [45]
Already the leading contingents had turned the corner from the Castle Yard and were moving up Dame Street beneath the tossing, brilliant roof of flags and bunting. First came the Mounted Police, men with granite faces on su-perb, caracoling horses; as the Major made his way through the crowded entrance to Jury’s a great cheer was sent up to welcome their arrival at the Viceregal Stand. The hotel foyer was deserted. Everybody was either on the street or at some vantage-point on one of the upper storeys. But as the Major, without impatience, was climbing the stairs to his own room, he almost collided with a gentleman coming down in great haste. He glanced at the Major and then cried: “Man, what a stroke of luck! I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” It was Boy O’Neill, wild-eyed and in a great state of excitement.
“Edward told me you had a room with a view. You don’t mind, do you? Can’t see a blessed thing from the street. Left the ladies up on the landing above. Quick, we’ll miss it all.”
Mrs O’Neill and Viola, looking tired and rather cross, were standing near a window entirely blocked by a group of very fat and ecstatic ladies. They brightened up when they saw the Major.
The Major opened the door of his room and stood aside for the ladies. Boy O’Neill thrust them aside, however, sped across the room and threw the window up with a crash. The skirl of pipes filled the room, diminishing gradually as they passed on towards College Green.
“The Irish Guards,” groaned O’Neill. “We missed the pipers.” He craned out over the street. “Here come the demobbed lads.”
While her father and mother gazed hungrily down at the passing troops and recited the names of regiments (the Royal Irish, the “Skins,” the Royal Irish Rifles, the Connaught Rangers, the Leinster, the Munster Fusiliers), Viola O’Neill, who had stationed herself at another window with the Major, kept turning to bestow smiles and lingering glances on him.
“Will there be tanks, Major?” she inquired, opening her eyes very wide.
“I expect so,” replied the Major gloomily.
“I’m sure I shall be frightened if there are,” Viola went on, running the tip of her tongue around her parted lips. “I mean, just the sight of them.”
“Wait! Is it them?” barked O’Neill from outside the other window. “Is it them or is it not?”
With feigned interest Viola leaned out to see what her father was looking at. “I’ve no head for heights,” she assured the Major. “I’m afraid I’ll fall if I lean any farther.” And her small hand slipped into the Major’s large paw, gripping it tightly. Frozen with alarm, the Major stared down at the grinning, jauntily striding Munster Fusiliers. The child was flirting with him! And she was certainly no more than fifteen years old. Although today her hair had been released from its pigtails and hung in thick shining tresses, she looked if anything younger than she had on their previous meeting in the Palm Court of the Majestic. What if the O’Neills should suddenly look back into the room and see him holding hands with their daughter?
“It is!” roared O’Neill from outside. “It’s them! It’s the Dubs! I can see them.”
The volume of cheering below in the street increased to a deafening roar as the Dublin Fusiliers swung into sight. Viola withdrew a little from the window, making a face at the noise, and the Major took the opportunity of relinquishing her hand. But under the pretext of looking at something in the street she changed her position so that her perfumed tresses brushed against his chin. A scent of warm skin rose from her bare neck. The Major stepped back hurriedly and busied