Troubles - James Gordon Farrell [76]
All the parties, who were in evening dress, were huddled together under a ditch while the destruction of the engines was carried out, and some of the ladies were very much frightened. Other horsed carriages came on the scene shortly afterwards and the raiders decamped, leaving their victims to get home as best they could.
Yesterday morning six motor cars were lined up on the side of the road, and the engines appeared to have been smashed with some heavy, blunt instrument. In the corner of the field where the drivers and passengers were placed there were remnants of chocolate boxes and cigarette packets.
* * *
Little had changed in Edward’s study since the Major had first seen it on his first day in Kilnalough when they had come to arm themselves against “the Shinner on the lawn.” There was the same solidly tangled mass of sporting equipment on the sofa. The drawer containing ammunition still lay on the floor, though the Persian cat (wisely disdaining the community in the Imperial Bar) had forsaken it for the superior comfort of an enormous greyish-white sweater that lay in one corner like a dead sheep. From under the window there came a steady creaking sound: the Major leaned out to investigate. In the yard below was a circle of brick surmounted by a huge horizontal cartwheel with worn wooden handles; against these handles two men were toiling, heads bowed with the exertion, round and round, straining like pit ponies.
“What on earth are they doing?”
“Pumping water up to the tanks on the roof. The other well by the kitchens is for drinking water, fills up from an underground spring. Lovely water...though for some reason it makes a weird cup of tea. You may have noticed, Brendan, that we sometimes get peculiar objects in the bath-water. Can’t be helped. One of the old ladies was complaining she had a dead tadpole the other day. Better than a live one, I suppose.” Without changing his tone he added: “Life has been hell these last few months.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you about Ripon. I heard they were living in Rathmines.”
“Ripon is a wash-out,” Edward said bleakly. “I don’t want to hear his name mentioned again. It’s not that he took up with a Catholic girl, it’s not just that. I’m not so narrow-minded that I don’t know there are decent fellows among the Catholics in Ireland and plenty of ’em. I’d have put a stop to it if I could, of course, because mixed marriages don’t go down well in this country, with one lot or the other... Besides, I don’t want grandchildren of mine to be brought up believing all that unhealthy nonsense they teach them. All the same, if that’s what the boy had set his heart on I wouldn’t have stood in his way. He could have come to me and talked it over, man to man. He knew that. I may be an old fogey but I’m not a tyrant...” Edward paused and moodily looked at his watch. For a moment there was silence, then he said: “Come along to the lodge with me. There’s something I want to show you.”
They put on their hats and set off down the drive. The day was mild, overcast; although it had not been raining there was a smell of damp grass which the Major now always thought of as the smell of the Irish countryside.
“Ripon’s a wash-out,” Edward repeated. “I suppose everyone knew that except me. I suppose you realized it, Brendan, as soon as you set eyes on him...”
“Well, no,” murmured the Major diffidently, but Edward was not listening.
“Going behind my back and doing what he did...playing the cad with an innocent young girl (and a Catholic at that!), getting her in trouble as if she were a common housemaid, that’s something I’ll not stand for. He’s disgraced me and he’s disgraced his sisters.”
They walked on in silence. The Major could hear the dull continuous roar of the sea from somewhere behind the trees which were thickening into dense woods, matted with undergrowth and strung with brambles like trip-wires. They reached the end of the drive and the ruined lodge came into sight. Edward led the Major through some low bushes to the side