Troubles - James Gordon Farrell [97]
As the Major reached the last flight of steps, from the top of which Edward and Sarah looked down at him smiling, he slowed to a more dignified pace and thought: “Why am I in such a hurry? Really, she’s only a friend. She’ll think me a silly ass for running all the way.”
He reached the top at last. Edward was saying: “A very dear friend of ours, Brendan, has come to see us...” and he smiled at Sarah with an expression of great warmth and kindness.
“Ouf!” gasped the Major. “I’m out of breath...” And he was silenced again by the need for air.
“It’s nice to be back. How are you, Brendan?”
“Oh, fine, fine.”
“Sarah and Angela used to be great friends, you know,” Edward explained unnecessarily, eyes sadly lowered for a moment to the still heaving, sagging stripes of the Major’s chest. “Angela used to think the world of you, my dear.”
“And I of her,” Sarah said calmly, almost indifferently.
And the Major, while nodding piously to indicate that of course everyone thought the world of everyone, as was only natural, and there need be no doubt in anyone’s mind on that score (he was still flustered from his rapid climb and anxious to agree with everyone), made a rapid and oblique appraisal of her and decided that she looked older and less beautiful. It was a number of months, mind you, since he had last seen her and sometimes a girl in her twenties will change enormously, yes, just from one year to the next, he had often heard it said...something to do with the glands, most likely. Her eyes were still a delightful grey, of course, and her face and hands still attractively sunburned (the Major not being the sort of indoor fellow who likes his ladies lily-white) but her features had a fretful cast; she was probably still weary from travel. What changed her appearance most of all was her hair, which no longer fell freely over her shoulders but was now very neatly secured in a chignon. It was that, more than anything, which made her look older. It made her look like a governess—which was exactly what she had become.
Edward had asked her a polite question about her stay in France (although he already seemed to know all about it) in order to give the Major time to recover his breath, and Sarah was saying that the family had been charming and as for the children, her charges, leaving them had been (the Major listened in vain for a change in her measured, indifferent tone) ...had been heartbreaking. Now it was the Major’s turn to say something and both Edward and Sarah turned to him. But he could hardly express the critical thoughts which had been passing through his mind with regard to Sarah, so he panted artificially a little longer. At last he exclaimed: “I must have left my pipe on the beach,” but then he noticed that his fingers were still curled round a dark wooden object. He stuck it in his mouth and then removed it. Both Sarah and Edward burst out laughing.
Sarah said: “Brendan, you look positively absurd in that bathing-suit.”
Sarah was expected home, she said, and had just looked in for a moment. But she seemed in no great hurry, so the Major went upstairs to wash the sand from his skin and change into more suitable clothes, rubbing macassar oil into his hair and brushing it meticulously smooth. This effort was wasted, however. By the time he went downstairs there was no sign of Sarah. The twins had come up from the beach but they were sulking for some reason and when he asked them if they knew where Sarah was they shrugged their shoulders and said that they hadn’t the faintest. Nor was there any sign of Edward.
He noticed that some of the old ladies were throwing meaning glances in his direction. “What’s the matter with them now?” he wondered irritably. Whatever it was, he had no time for them at the moment. Moreover,