Troubles - James Gordon Farrell [46]
The parade dragged on for another hour—an eternity it seemed to the Major, who presently retired to sit in an armchair with a newspaper. When at last the O’Neills had been granted their first view of armoured cars and tanks (Viola had gasped with emotion at the sight of the monsters creeping along Dame Street and silently besought the Major for comfort with her lovely grey eyes) and the parade had come to an end, Boy stepped back satiated from the window and remarked cryptically: “That should give the blighters something to think about.”
His face appeared less drawn and yellow than when the Major had seen him at the Majestic and his listless manner had been replaced by a disquieting nervous energy. He’d never felt better, he assured the Major. Found a new doctor who’d done him the world of good...indeed, he felt a new man. He wouldn’t give a farthing for your Harley Street specialists. “I feel a new man,” he repeated categorically. Saying this, he looked angrily round the room, as if expecting the Major to disagree with him.
The O’Neills were going to spend the afternoon and evening in Kingstown. There were two ships in Kingstown harbour, H.M.S. Umpire and H.M.S. Parker, which were to be illuminated that evening to supplement the bonfires and fireworks. It should be a splendid sight. Would the Major not care to come along? The Major, whose patriotic zest had lapsed once again into apathy, declined. He said vaguely that he had to go and visit an acquaintance. When the O’Neills had gone the Major had lunch and went for a stroll. The streets were still packed with rowdy, enthusiastic men and women of all classes, many of them still wearing rosettes or Union Jacks. But now (or so it seemed to the Major, who was out of sorts) their enthusiasm had already begun to wear an aimless air. Peace had been celebrated; now there was the future to think about. The pubs were doing a thriving business, full of shouting and good cheer. As he passed their open doors he kept hearing the same song: “Tipperary” and other songs from the first year of the war. To the Major they sounded incongruous and pathetic. Dublin was still living in the heroic past. But how many of these revellers had voted for Sinn Fein in the elections?
On Monday morning the Major read in the Irish Times that Peace Day had been a splendid success: “The section of demobbed soldiers and sailors revealed the spirit of camaraderie that prevails in their ranks and the democratic side of army life. Men with top-hats walked beside men in their working clothes. Spats moved in time with hobnailed boots.” There was also an account of how an ex-Dublin-Fusilier had marched over the whole route from the Castle to St Stephen’s Green on crutches. By the time he reached the Green his palms were bleeding from the friction. When asked why he did not fall out he replied: “No, I knew it was my last march and I wouldn’t fall out while I had a breath left in my body.”
Only towards evening had a rowdy element manifested itself. Young men carrying Sinn Fein flags and singing “The Soldier’s Song” had gathered outside the Post Office in Sackville Street. There had been a few scuffles before the po-lice arrived to disperse them. Later in the evening a large crowd had threatened to throw a soldier into the Liffey at Ormond Quay. A police sergeant coming to his rescue had been shot at close range and was now lying gravely ill in hospital. But when one considered the magnificence of the occasion, the nobility of the marching troops, the enthusiasm of the cheering crowds, perhaps these incidents might represent only the tiniest flaw in the smooth and majestic edifice of Peace Day—a flaw that was scarcely visible to a man of broad vision.
The Major was now faced with the alternative of abandoning Angela and crossing to England or returning to Kilnalough to assume his heavy but nebulous responsibilities as her fiancé. Unable to make up his mind to do