The Empire Trilogy Part 1

THE EMPIRE TRILOGY.

by J.G. Farrell.

Introduction.

In Derek Mahon's great poem A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford, a pair of travelers find themselves "Deep in the grounds of a burnt-out hotel, / Among the bathtubs and the washbasins"; forcing open a long-locked door, they come upon a host of mushrooms crowding in the darkness. They have been there, the poet imagines, for decades, waiting for the blessed light to break in upon their fetid, liminal world: "Save us, save us," they seem to say, "Let not the G.o.d abandon us Who have come so far in darkness and in pain.

We too had our lives to live..."

The poem is a threnody for disappeared worlds-"Lost people of Treblinka and Pompeii!"-especially, although it does not mention it directly, the world of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. This hardy strain, which had endured for some eight centuries, came to its sudden withering in the Irish War of Independence, which ended with the treaty signed between the British government and Michael Collins's I.R.A. in 1922. Under the treaty Ireland was part.i.tioned, with twenty-six southern counties becoming a Free State, and the six northern counties remaining under British sovereignty. The result was civil war.

Effectively the country had been portioned out between the Protestants of the North and the Catholics of the South. It seemed at the time, to the bellicose Collins no less than to the British Prime Minister Lloyd George, the only possible solution to an insoluble problem. One of the results of part.i.tion was that in both the North and the South a religious minority was left to fend for itself as best it might among a more or less hostile majority. In the North, that fending continues to this day; in the South, the Protestants, some 5 percent of the population, largely withdrew from public life, a matter of bitter regret to many of the more perceptive among them, from W.B. Yeats-"We are no petty people!"-to Hubert Butler. Butler, an essayist of genius, never ceased to bemoan the loss to the life of Southern Ireland of that energy, intransigence, and often fierce radicalism which marked the Protestant tradition, especially in the North.

Mahon's poem is dedicated to his friend J.G. Farrell. Farrell was an elusive, intensely private man, something of an enigma not only to the reading public but to many of those who knew him well. His parentage was a mixture of Irish and English. He was born in Liverpool in 1935, and spent much of his youth in the Far East. In his first term at Oxford he was afflicted with polio, which left him with a partially disabled arm. Nevertheless he was extremely attractive-in looks he resembled, and indeed had something of the aloofly playful manner of, Marcel Duchamp-and had affairs with an impressive number of women, as Lavinia Greacen revealed in her 1999 biography. He wrote seven novels, the best-known of which are the three which comprise the so-called Empire Trilogy, The Siege of Krishnapur, The Singapore Grip, and Troubles.

In the spring of 1979, Farrell moved to Ireland, living in a cottage on a remote promontory in Bantry Bay. Four months later, in August, while fishing in stormy weather off rocks near the cottage, he was washed into the sea and drowned. His death at forty-four, a tragically early age, especially for a novelist, led to an inexplicable decline in his reputation. Had he lived, no doubt he would have done wonders, but even in the relatively short span of his career he erected an enduring literary monument, the capstone of which is Troubles. Although The Siege of Krishnapur won the Booker Prize in 1973, Troubles is surely his masterpiece, and the book of his that is certain to endure.

The "Troubles" of the t.i.tle is the euphemism which the Irish-peasant, merchant, or Protestant aristo-applied to the ragged, sporadic, but brutal war that began in 1919 between Sinn Fein/I.R.A. and the British army of occupation. In fact, that war might be said to have started three years earlier, with the abortive Easter Rising of 1916, which lasted a week and ended with the summary execution of fourteen of its leaders. The uprising had been deeply unpopular among the majority of the Irish people-legend has it that lady pa.s.sers-by belabored with their umbrellas the rebel force as it entered to occupy the General Post Office in Dublin on that Easter Monday morning-and both the English and the Anglo-Irish regarded it as a stab in the back by an ungrateful rabblement at a time when thousands of young men, many of them Irish, were dying in the defense of liberty in the killing fields of France. However, the haste and brutality of the exe- cutions of the leaders of the Rising provoked a surge of resentment among the native population that would not be asuaged until British rule was ended, at least in the Twenty-Six Counties.

Although Troubles, first published in 1970, was set fifty years previously, it was unintentionally well-timed, and uncannily prescient. That year saw the onset in b.l.o.o.d.y earnest of a new round of Troubles which at last, it is to be hoped, are coming to an end. In 1970, as in 1920, battle was joined between two mutually uncomprehending tribes; now, it was between the Catholic and Protestant working cla.s.ses of Northern Ireland, with the British army in the middle; then, between the Catholic peasantry and the Protestant Ascendancy, with a force of British irregulars, the Black and Tans, supposedly set to keep the peace but in reality waging punitive retaliation against an elusive army of rebels.

In Troubles, Farrell catches with appalling accuracy the brutal yet peculiarly farcical nature of that war that was never quite a war. Nowhere in the book do we see a single live I.R.A. man; even when one of the central characters, Major Archer, is being buried up to his neck on a beach to await drowning by the incoming tide, the hands that dig the hole and place him in it are anonymous, and might from the description of their ministrations be in the act of saving him rather than attempting to murder him. When we do get a glimpse of a rebel, a dead one, it is in one of the novel's more gruesomely comic, closing scenes-the body of the young man has been laid out on a table in a gun room, where his executioner, Edward Spencer, lets his gaze wander around the trophies of wild animal heads on the paneled walls, and "for an instant the dreadful thought occurred to the Major that Edward had now gone completely insane and was looking for a place on the wall to mount the Sinn Feiner."

Edward Spencer-a name that will have an allusive echo for anyone who knows the history of Elizabethan Ireland- is one of the great comic portraits in modern literature. He is the proprietor, if that is the word, of the Majestic Hotel, a crumbling pile somewhere on the coast of County Wexford. It is to the Majestic that the haunted war veteran Major Archer comes, with wan reluctance, to claim Edward's daughter Angela as his bride. But Angela will not be wed, and as the weeks become months, and the months years, the Major lingers, an only faintly more vivid ghost among the hotel's ghostly guests, ancient ladies, for the most part, who have taken up permanent residence under the tottering former magnificence of the Majestic, along with a steadily burgeoning pack of half-wild cats which roam the upper stories like the building's bad dreams. Meanwhile Edward's surviving daughters, the terrible twins Faith and Charity-another wonderful, and curiously erotic, invention-are growing half-wild too, the staff and servants lurk like wood-sprites, the boy Padraig is turning transvest.i.te, and Murphy the major-domo is going quietly but dangerously mad.

This may all sound like the cod-Gothic of Cold Comfort Farm or the deliciously cruel absurdities of early Evelyn Waugh, but Farrell's vision and voice are unique, inimitable. If there are faint echoes here, they are the most finely harmonious: Elizabeth Bowen's masterpiece, The Last September, perhaps Henry Green's hypnotic Loving. The tone of Troubles throughout is one of vague, helpless desperation, while the wit is dry to the point of snapping. Since the bulk of the action is seen through the Major's war-damaged sensibility, there is an air of permanent, pallid bafflement before the mundane mysteries of Irish life.

Yet the book is horridly, irresistibly, achingly funny, even, or especially, when it is at its most violent, or most poignant. The Major's doomed love for Sarah, the dissatisfied daughter of a-Catholic-banker in the nearby town of Kilnalough is at once heartbreaking and comic. Farrell's touch is robust yet delicate, and always sure. In the midst of a masterly set piece describing a ball at the Majestic which is meant to be grand but turns out grisly, there is a fleeting moment of exquisite sorrow when Sarah, bored with the Major's mutely pleading presence at her side, drops her eyes to her gla.s.s: "She flicked it idly with her finger-nail and drew from it one thin, clear note of a painful beauty, over which the honeyed sighings of the violins on the platform had no dominion."

If Troubles is the expression of the end of a world, it is one of the most finely modulated and magically comic whimpers the reader is ever likely to catch.

-JOHN BANVILLE

Part One:

A Member of the Quality

In those days the Majestic was still standing in Kilnalough at the very end of a slim peninsula covered with dead pines leaning here and there at odd angles. At that time there were probably yachts there too during the summer since the hotel held a regatta every July. These yachts would have been beached on one or other of the sandy crescents that curved out towards the hotel on each side of the peninsula. But now both pines and yachts have floated away and one day the high tide may very well meet over the narrowest part of the peninsula, made narrower by erosion. As for the regatta, for some reason it was discontinued years ago, before the Spencers took over the management of the place. And a few years later still the Majestic itself followed the boats and preceded the pines into oblivion by burning to the ground-but by that time, of course, the place was in such a state of disrepair that it hardly mattered.

Curiously, in spite of the corrosive effect of the sea air the charred remains of the enormous main building are still to be seen; for some reason-the poor quality of the soil or the proximity of the sea-vegetation has only made a token attempt to possess them. Here and there among the foundations one might still find evidence of the Majestic's former splendour: the great number of cast-iron bathtubs, for instance, which had tumbled from one blazing floor to another until they hit the earth; twisted bed-frames also, some of them not yet altogether rusted away; and a simply prodigious number of basins and lavatory bowls. At intervals along the outer walls there is testimony to the stupendous heat of the fire: one can disinter small pools of crystal formed in layers like the drips of wax from a candle, which gathered there, of course, from the melting of the windows. Pick them up and they separate in your hand into the cloudy drops that formed them.

Another curious thing: one comes across a large number of tiny white skeletons scattered round about. The bones are very delicate and must have belonged, one would have thought, to small quadrupeds...("But no, not rabbits," says my grandfather with a smile.) It had once been a fashionable place. It had once even been considered an honour to be granted accommodation there during the summer season. By the time Edward Spencer bought it on his return from India, however, it retained little or nothing of its former glory, even if it did retain some of its faithful guests of the year-by-year variety, maiden ladies for the most part. The only explanation for their continued patronage (since under Edward's management the hotel went swiftly and decisively to the dogs) is that as the hotel declined in splendour the maiden ladies became steadily more impoverished. In any event they could keep on saying: "Oh, the Majestic in Kilnalough? I've been going there every year since 1880..." and the man who sold the place to Edward could claim that he had, at least, his few faithful customers who kept coming every year without fail. In the end these faithful customers became something of a millstone for Edward (and later for the Major)-worse than no customers at all, since they had their habits of twenty years or more; the rooms they had been staying in for twenty years were dotted here and there over that immense building and, though whole wings and corners of it might be dead and decaying, there would still be a throbbing cell of life on this floor or that which had to be maintained. Slowly, though, as the years went by and the blood-pressure dropped, one by one they died away.

From the London Gazette London Gazette, General List: The undermentioned relinquishes his commission on completion of service, Temporary Major B. de S. Archer, and retains the rank of Major.

In the summer of 1919, not long before the great Victory Parade marched up Whitehall, the Major left hospital and went to Ireland to claim his bride, Angela Spencer. At least he fancied that the claiming of her as a bride might come into it. But nothing definite had been settled.

Home on leave in 1916 the Major had met Angela in Brighton where she had been staying with relations. He now only retained a dim recollection of that time, dazed as he was by the incessant, t.i.tanic thunder of artillery that cushioned it thickly, before and after. They had been somewhat hysterical -Angela perhaps feeling amid all the patriotism that she too should have something personal to lose, the Major that he should have at least one reason for surviving. He remembered declaring that he would come back to her, but not very much else. Indeed, the only other thing he recalled quite distinctly was saying goodbye to her at an afternoon the dansant the dansant in a Brighton hotel. They had kissed behind a screen of leaves and, reaching out to steady himself, he had put his hand down firmly on a cactus, which had rendered many of his parting words insincere. The strain had been so great that he had been glad to get away from her. Perhaps, however, this suppressed agony had given the wrong impression of his feelings. in a Brighton hotel. They had kissed behind a screen of leaves and, reaching out to steady himself, he had put his hand down firmly on a cactus, which had rendered many of his parting words insincere. The strain had been so great that he had been glad to get away from her. Perhaps, however, this suppressed agony had given the wrong impression of his feelings.

Although he was sure that he had never actually proposed to Angela during the few days of their acquaintance, it was beyond doubt that they were engaged: a certainty fostered by the fact that from the very beginning she had signed her letters "Your loving fiancee, Angela." This had surprised him at first. But, with the odour of death drifting into the dug-out in which he scratched out his replies by the light of a candle, it would have been trivial and discourteous beyond words to split hairs about such purely social distinctions.

Angela was no good at writing letters. In them it would have been impossible to find any trace of the feeling there had been between them during his home leave of 1916. She had certain ritual expressions such as "Every day I miss you more and more-" and "I am praying for your safe return, Brendan" which she used in every letter, combined with entirely factual descriptions of domestic matters: the buying of skirts for the twins in Switzers of Dublin, for example, or the installation of a "Do More" generator for electric light, the first of its kind in Ireland and destined (they were sure) to restore the Majestic's reputation for luxury. Any personal comment, any emotion was efficiently masked out by this method. The Major did not particularly mind. He was wary of sentiment and had always had a relish for facts-of which, these days, his badly rattled memory was in short supply (in hospital he had been recovering from sh.e.l.l-shock). So on the whole he was glad to learn the size and colour of the twins' new skirts or the name, breed, age and condition of health of Edward Spencer's many dogs. He also learned a great deal about Angela's friends and acquaintances in Kilnalough, though sometimes, of course, his defective memory would cause whole blocks of facts to submerge for a while, only to reappear somewhere else later on, rather like certain volcanic islands are reputed to do in the South Seas.

After he had been receiving a letter a week for a number of months he acquired a remarkable skill for reading these letters and totting up the new facts, even sometimes peering past them into the lower depths where the shadow of an emotion occasionally stirred like a pike. There would be a list of Edward's dogs again, for example: Rover, Toby, Fritz, Haig, Woof, Puppy, Bran, Flash, Laddie, Foch and Collie. But where, he would wonder, is Spot? Where are you, Spot? Why have you failed to answer the roll-call? And then he would remember, half amused and half concerned, that in an earlier letter the vet had been called because Spot had had "a touch of distemper" but had p.r.o.nounced it "nothing serious." In this way, thread by thread, he embroidered for himself a colourful tapestry of Angela's life at the Majestic. Soon he knew the place so well that when he went there at the beginning of July he almost felt as if he were going home. And this was fortunate because by this time, except for an elderly aunt in Bayswater, he had no family of his own to go to.

On leaving hospital he had paid a visit to this aunt. She was a meek and kindly old lady and he was fond of her, having grown up in her house. She hugged him tightly with tears in her eyes, dismayed at how much he had changed, how thin and pale he had become, but afraid to say anything for fear of annoying him. She had invited some of her friends to tea to welcome him home, feeling no doubt that a young man returning from the war deserved more of a welcome than a solitary old lady was able to provide. At first the Major appeared put out to discover her house full of guests holding teacups, but then, to the old lady's relief, he became very cheerful and talkative, talked gaily with everyone, leaped around with plates of cakes and sandwiches and laughed a great deal. Her guests, alarmed at first by this gaiety, soon became enchanted with him and for a while everything went splendidly. Presently, however, she missed him and after looking for him everywhere finally came upon him sitting by himself in a deserted drawing-room. There was a bitter, weary expression in his eyes that she had never seen before. But what else could one expect? she wondered. He must have been through horrors that peaceful old ladies (such as herself) might not even begin to comprehend. But he was alive, thank heaven, and he would get better. Tactfully she withdrew and left him to his thoughts. And in a little while he returned to the tea-party once more and seemed perfectly cheerful, his moment of bitterness amid the silent, hooded furniture forgotten.

The Major, of course, was aware that he was distressing his aunt by his odd behaviour. He was annoyed with himself, but for a while found improvement difficult. When on another occasion, hoping to divert him, she invited some young ladies to tea he dismayed everyone by the hungry attention with which he stared at their heads, their legs, their arms. He was thinking: "How firm and solid they look, but how easily they come away from the body!" And the tea in his cup tasted like bile.

And there was yet another thing that disturbed his aunt: he declined to visit any of his former friends. The company of people he knew had become abhorrent to him. These days he was only at ease in the company of strangers-which made the thought of a visit to his "fiancee" doubly welcome. It was true, of course, that he was slightly uneasy as he set off for Ireland. He was about to be plunged into a circle of complete strangers. What if Angela turned out to be insufferable but insisted on marrying him? Moreover, his nerves were in a poor state. What if the family turned out to be objectionable? However, it's hard to be intimidated by people when one knows, for instance, the nature and amount of the dental work in their upper and lower jaws, where they buy their outer clothes (Angela had delicately omitted to mention underwear) and many more things besides.

TROTSKY'S THREAT TO KRONSTADT.

The situation in Petrograd is desperate. According to a manifesto issued by the Soviet, the evacuation of the city is going on with nervous eagerness. Trotsky has ordered that Kronstadt shall be blown up before it is surrendered.

It was the early afternoon of July 1st, 1919, and the Major was comfortably seated in a train travelling south from Kingstown along the coast of Wicklow. He had folded his newspaper in such a way as to reveal that in Boston Mr De Valera, speaking about the peace treaty signed the day before yesterday, had said that it made twenty new wars in the place of one nominally ended. The Major, however, merely yawned at this dire prediction and looked at his watch. They would shortly be arriving in Kilnalough. In Kingstown Theda Bara was appearing as Cleopatra, he noted, Tom Mix was at the Grafton Picture House, while at the Tivoli there was a juggler "of almost unique legerdemain." Another headline caught his eye: SAt.u.r.dAY NIGHT'S SCENES IN DUBLIN. IRISH GIRLS SPAT UPON AND BEATEN. A party of twenty or thirty Irish girls, a.s.sistants of the Women's Royal Air Force at Gormanstown, had been attacked by a hostile crowd... jostled, maltreated, slapped all along the street. Whatever for? wondered the Major. But he had dozed off before finding the answer.

"As a matter of fact, it is," the Major was now saying to his fellow-pa.s.sengers, "though I'm sure it won't be my last. To tell the truth, I'm going to be married to a...an Irish girl." He wondered whether Angela would be pleased to be described as "an Irish girl."

Ah, sure, they smiled back at him. So that was it. Indeed now one might have known, they beamed, there was more to it than a holiday, sure there was. And G.o.d bless now and a long life and a happy one...

The Major stood up, delighted with their friendliness, and the gentlemen stood up too to help him wrestle his heavy pigskin suitcase out of the luggage net, patting him on the back and repeating their good wishes while the ladies grinned shyly at the thought of a wedding.

The train rattled over a bridge. Below the Major glimpsed smoothly running water, the amber tea colour of so many streams in Ireland. On each side mounted banks of wild flowers woven into the long gleaming gra.s.s. They slowed to a crawl and jolted over some points. The banks dived steeply and they were running along beside a platform. The Major looked round expectantly, but there was n.o.body there to meet him. Angela's letter had said without fuss, factual as ever, that he would be met. And the train (he looked at his watch again) was even a few minutes late. There was something about Angela's neat, regular handwriting that made what she wrote impossible to disbelieve.

A few minutes pa.s.sed and he had almost given up hope of anyone coming when a young man appeared diffidently on the platform. He had a plump, round face and the way he carried his head on one side gave him a sly air. After some hesitation he approached, holding out his hand to the Major.

"You must be Angela's chap? I'm dreadfully sorry I'm late. I was supposed to meet you and so on." Having shaken the Major's hand, he retrieved his own and scratched his head with it. "By the way, I'm Ripon. I expect you've heard about me."

"As a matter of fact I haven't."

"Oh? Well, I'm Angela's brother."

Angela, who recorded her life in detail, had never mentioned having a brother. Disconcerted, the Major followed Ripon out of the station and threw his suitcase, which Ripon had not offered to carry, on to the back of the waiting trap before climbing up after it. Ripon took the reins, shook them, and they lurched off down a winding unpaved street. He was wearing, the Major noted, a well-cut tweed suit that needed pressing; he could also have done with a clean collar.

"This is Kilnalough," Ripon announced awkwardly after they had ridden in silence for a while. "A wonderful little town. A splendid place, really."

"I suppose you've lived here some time," the Major said, trying to account for Ripon's absence from his sister's letters. "I mean, you haven't recently returned from abroad?"

"Abroad?" Ripon glanced at him suspiciously. "Not really, no. I'm afraid I haven't." He cleared his throat. "I suppose the smell of the place seems strange to you, turf-smoke and cows and so on." He added: "I know Angela's looking forward to seeing you. I mean, we all are...jolly pleased."

The Major looked round at the whitewashed walls and slate roofs of Kilnalough; here and there, silent men and women stood in doorways or sat on doorsteps watching them pa.s.s. One or two of the older men touched their caps.

"It's a splendid town," repeated Ripon. "You'll soon get used to it. On the right a little farther down is the Munster and Leinster Bank...on the left O'Meara's grocery and then the fish shop, we're near the sea, you know...beyond, where the street bends, is the chapel of Our Lady Queen of Heaven, fish-eater, of course...and then there's O'Connell's, the second best pork-butcher's..." Curiously, however, they pa.s.sed none of these places. The Major, at least, could see no trace of them.

They were now on the outskirts of Kilnalough; here there was little to see except a few wretched stone cottages with ragged, barefoot children playing in front of them, hens picking among the refuse, an odour of decaying vegetation in the air. Reaching the top of an incline they saw the dull sparkle of the sea above a quilt of meadows and hedges. The smell of brine hung heavily in the air.

Abruptly Ripon was in good spirits, almost jubilant (perhaps even a little drunk? wondered the Major) and kept recognizing landmarks of his childhood. Pointing at the middle of a flat, empty field he told the Major that that was where he had flown his first kite; in a hawthorn hedge he had once shot a rabbit as big as a bulldog; in the barn over there he had had a rewarding experience with the peasant girl who in those days used to be cast in the role of the Virgin Mary every year for the Christmas pageant mounted by Finnegan's Drapery Limited...and yes, in the copse that lay on the other side of the barn young Master Ripon, watched by all the servants and all "the quality" from miles around, had been daubed with the blood of the fox (a not dissimilar experience, he added cryptically)...and on this very road...

Not far away the two ma.s.sive, weatherworn gateposts of the Majestic rose out of the impenetrable foliage that lined the sea side of the road. As they pa.s.sed between them (the gates themselves had vanished, leaving only the skeletons of the enormous iron hinges that had once held them) the Major took a closer look: each one was surmounted by a great stone ball on which a rain-polished stone crown was perched slightly askew, lending the gateposts a drunken, ridiculous air, like solemn men in paper hats. To the right of the drive stood what had once no doubt been a porter's lodge, now so thickly bearded in ivy that only the two dark oblongs of smashed windows revealed that this leafy ma.s.s was hollow. The thick congregation of deciduous trees, behind which one could hear the sea slapping faintly, thinned progressively into pines as they made their way over the narrowest part of the peninsula and then returned again as they reached the park over which loomed the dark ma.s.s of the hotel. The size of the place astonished the Major. As they approached he looked up at the great turreted wall hanging over them and tried to count the balconies and windows (behind one of which his "fiancee" was perhaps watching for his approach).

Ripon brought the trap to a halt and, when the Major had alighted, kicked his suitcase off the back on to the gravel (causing the Major to wince at the thought of the fragile bottles of cologne and maca.s.sar that it contained). Then without getting down himself he shook the reins and moved away, calling that he had to take the pony round to the stable but that the Major should go ahead without him, up those steps and in through the front door. So the Major picked up his suitcase and started towards the flight of stone steps, pausing on his way to inspect a life-size statue of a plump lady on horseback, stained green by the weather. This lady and her discreetly prancing horse were familiar to him from Angela's letters. It was Queen Victoria, and she, at least, was exactly as he had expected.

The Major had considered it possible that his "fiancee" would be waiting to embrace him inside the front door, a ma.s.sive affair of carved oak which was so heavy that it was by no means easy to drag open. There was no sign of her, however.

In the foyer at the foot of the vast flowing staircase there stood another statue, this time of Venus; a dark shading of dust had collected on her head and shoulders and on the upper slopes of marble b.r.e.a.s.t.s and b.u.t.tocks. The Major screwed up his eyes in a weary, nervous manner and looked round at the shabby magnificence of the foyer, at the dusty gilt cherubs, red plush sofas and grimy mirrors.

"Where can everyone be?" he wondered. n.o.body appeared, so he sat down on one of the sofas with his suitcase between his knees. A fine cloud of dust rose around him.

After a while he got to his feet and found a bell on the reception desk which he rang. The sound echoed over the dusty tiled floor and down gloomy carpeted corridors and away through open double-leafed doors into lounges and bars and smoking-rooms and upwards into spiral after spiral of the broad staircase (from which a number of bra.s.s stair-rods had disappeared, causing the carpet to bulge dangerously in places) until it reached the maids' quarters and rang in the vault high above his head (so high that he could scarcely make out the elegant gilt tracery that webbed it); from this vault there was suspended on an immensely long chain, back down the middle of the many spirals from one floor to another to within a few inches of his head, a great gla.s.s chandelier studded with dead electric bulbs. One of the gla.s.s ta.s.sels chimed faintly for a brief moment beside his ear. Then all was silent again except for the steady tick-tock of an ancient pendulum clock over the reception desk showing the wrong time.

"I suppose I'd better give this gong a clout," he told himself. And he did so. A thunderous boom filled the silence. It grew, he could feel it growing throughout the house like a hugely swelling fruit that would burst out of all the windows. He shuddered and thought of the first moments of a heavy barrage before a "show." "I'm tired," he thought. "Why don't they come?"

But presently a plump, rosy-cheeked maid appeared and asked if he would be the Major Archer? Miss Spencer was expecting him in the Palm Court. The Major abandoned his suitcase and followed her down a dark corridor, vaguely apprehensive of this long-delayed reunion with his "fiancee." "Oh, she won't bite!" he told himself cheerfully. "At least, one supposes she won't..." But his heart continued to thump nevertheless.

The Palm Court proved to be a vast, shadowy cavern in which dusty white chairs stood in silent, empty groups, just visible here and there amid the gloomy foliage. For the palms had completely run riot, shooting out of their wooden tubs (some of which had cracked open to trickle little cones of black soil on to the tiled floor) towards the distant murky skylight, hammering and interweaving themselves against the greenish gla.s.s that sullenly glowed overhead. Here and there between the tables beds of oozing mould supported banana and rubber plants, hairy ferns, elephant gra.s.s and creepers that dangled from above like emerald intestines. In places there was a hollow ring to the tiles-there must be some underground irrigation system, the Major reasoned, to provide water for all this vegetation. But now, here he was.

At one of the tables Angela was waiting to greet him with a wan smile and the hope that he had had a good journey. His first impression was one of disappointment. The gloom here was so thick that it was difficult for the Major to see quite what she looked like, but (whatever she looked like) he was somewhat taken aback by the formality of her greeting. He might have been nothing more than a casual guest for bridge. Of course it was true, as he hastened to point out to himself, that their meeting had been both brief and a long time ago. As far as he could make out she was older then he had expected and wore a fatigued air. Though apparently too exhausted to rise she held out a thin hand to be squeezed. The Major, however, not yet having had time to adjust himself to this real Angela, seized it eagerly and brushed it with his s.h.a.ggy blond moustache, causing her to flinch a little. Then he was introduced to the other guests: an extremely old gentleman called Dr Ryan who was fast asleep in an enormous padded armchair (and consequently failed to acknowledge his presence), a solicitor whose name was Boy O'Neill, his wife, a rather grim lady, and their daughter Viola.

The foliage, the Major continued to notice as he took his seat, was really amazingly thick; there were creepers not only dangling from above but also running in profusion over the floor, leaping out to seize any unwary object that remained in one place for too long. A standard lamp at his elbow, for instance, had been throttled by a snake of greenery that had circled up its slender metal stem as far as the black bulb that crowned it like a bulging eyeball. It had no shade and the bulb he a.s.sumed to be dead until, to his astonishment, Angela fumbled among the dusty leaves and switched it on, presumably so that she could take a good look at him. Whether or not she was dismayed by what she saw she switched it off again with a sigh after a moment and the gloom returned. Meanwhile the Major was thinking: "So that that was what she looked like in Brighton three years ago, of course, now I remember"; but to tell the truth he only half remembered her; she was half herself and half some stranger, but neither half belonged to the image he had had of her while reading her weekly letter (an image he had been thinking of marrying, incidentally-better not forget that this fatigued lady was his "fiancee"). was what she looked like in Brighton three years ago, of course, now I remember"; but to tell the truth he only half remembered her; she was half herself and half some stranger, but neither half belonged to the image he had had of her while reading her weekly letter (an image he had been thinking of marrying, incidentally-better not forget that this fatigued lady was his "fiancee").

"Did you have a good crossing, Brendan?" she was inquiring. "That boat can be so tiresome when it's rough."

"Yes, thank you, though I can't deny I was glad when we got into Kingstown. Have you been well, Angela?"

"Ah, I've been dying"-a fit of weary coughing interrupted her-"of boredom," she added peevishly.

Meanwhile, without taking her eyes off the Major's face she had stretched out a leg under the table and begun a curious exercise with it, grunting slightly with the effort, as if trying to tread some slow-moving but resilient beetle into the tiled floor. "Is she trying to find my foot?" wondered the Major, perplexed. Then at last, after this curious spasm had continued for a few moments (the O'Neills were either accustomed to it or pretended not to notice), a distant bell rang somewhere away in the jungle of palms. Angela's leg relaxed, an expression of satisfaction appeared on her pallid, fretful features, and an aged and uncouth manservant (whom the Major for a moment mistook for his prospective father-in-law) shambled out of the jungle breathing hard through his mouth as if he had just had some frightful experience in the scullery.

"Tea, Murphy."

"Yes, Mum."

Angela switched on the lamp long enough for Murphy to collect some empty cups in his trembling hands, then turned it off again. The Major noticed that old Dr Ryan was not asleep as he had supposed. Beneath the drooping lids his eyes were bright with interest and intelligence.

"I wish we could trust ours ours," Mrs O'Neill was saying.

"It is a problem," agreed Angela. "What do you think, Doctor?"

Dr Ryan ignored her question, however, and silence descended once more.

"In a lot of ways they're like children," Boy O'Neill said at length and his wife a.s.sented. "What an extraordinarily inert tea-party!" thought the Major, who had become aware of a keen hunger and looked up hopefully at the sound of a step. But it was only Ripon, sliding apologetically into a chair beside Mrs O'Neill.

"Did you wash your hands, Ripon?" asked Angela. "After that horse."

"Yes, yes, yes," replied Ripon, smiling furtively across at the Major and lounging back in a self-consciously casual manner. A moment later he threw a leg over the arm of his chair, narrowly missing Mrs O'Neill's face with his shoe (which had the wandering contours of a hole worn in the sole). "Where are the twins?"

"They've gone to spend a week in Tipperary with friends from school. But one wonders whether the roads are really safe these days."

"Trees have been felled on the road to Wexford. It really can't go on. Three policemen killed in Kilcatherine. The Irish Times Irish Times said this morning that a levy of six shillings in the pound has been put on the whole electoral division. That should make them think twice." Mr O'Neill spoke with the fluted vowels of an Ulsterman; his drawn, yellowish face had reminded the Major of the fact (recorded in Angela's letters) that the Spencer family solicitor was thought to be ill with cancer, had been up to Dublin to see specialists, had even travelled to London to see doctors there. Though the verdict had been omitted from Angela's letters to the Major, this omission was eloquent. Death. The man was dying here in the Palm Court as he nervously discussed the abomination of Sinn Fein. said this morning that a levy of six shillings in the pound has been put on the whole electoral division. That should make them think twice." Mr O'Neill spoke with the fluted vowels of an Ulsterman; his drawn, yellowish face had reminded the Major of the fact (recorded in Angela's letters) that the Spencer family solicitor was thought to be ill with cancer, had been up to Dublin to see specialists, had even travelled to London to see doctors there. Though the verdict had been omitted from Angela's letters to the Major, this omission was eloquent. Death. The man was dying here in the Palm Court as he nervously discussed the abomination of Sinn Fein.

"Those who live by the sword..." said Mrs O'Neill.

"Ah, more tea," exclaimed Angela as Murphy once more appeared out of the jungle like some weary, breathless gorilla, pushing the tea-trolley. Mustard-and-cress sandwiches. The Major took one and cut it in half with a small, scimitar-shaped tea-knife. Weak with hunger, he put one half in his mouth, then the other. They both vanished almost before his teeth had had time to close on them. His hunger increased as he took another sandwich from the plate, ate it, and then took another. It was all he could do to restrain himself from taking two at a time. Fortunately it was now getting quite dark in the Palm Court (though still only mid-afternoon) and perhaps n.o.body noticed.

Meanwhile Angela (who had once, so she said, sat on the lap of the Viceroy) had begun to talk languidly about her childhood in Ireland and India, then with a little more energy about the glories of her youth in London society. Soon she became quite animated and the tea grew cold in the cups of her guests. Ripon, while champagne was being quaffed out of his sister's slippers, kept catching the Major's eye and winking as if to say: Here she goes again! But Angela either failed to notice or paid no attention.

Handsome young rowing Blues in full evening dress plunged into the Isis or the Cam at a word from her. Chandeliers were swung from. Her hand was kissed by distinguished statesmen and steady-eyed explorers and ancient pre-Raphaelite poets and G.o.d only knew who else, while Boy O'Neill sucked his moustache and grunted in surprise and alarm at each fresh act of immoderation and his wife took on a primly disbelieving look, rather hard about the mouth, as if to say that not everyone can be taken in by all the nonsense they hear; while Ripon smirked and winked and Dr Ryan appeared to doze, motionless with age. The Major listened with amazement; never would he have suspected that this was the same person (part girl, part old maid) who had written him so many precise and factual letters, filled as they were with an invincible reality as hard as granite. Angela talked on and on excitedly while the Major pondered this new facet of his "fiancee's" character. At the same time, with the gloom thickening into a mysterious, tropical night, he guiltily wolfed the entire plate of sandwiches. At last it was so dark that the light had to be switched on, which brought everyone back to earth with a b.u.mp. The sparkle slowly faded from Angela's eyes. She looked tired, hara.s.sed and ordinary once more.

"Ah, things were different before the war. You could buy a good bottle of whiskey for four and sixpence," Mr O'Neill said. "It was those beastly women that started the rot."

"They took advantage of their s.e.x," his wife agreed. "They blew up a house that Lloyd George was going to move into. They damaged the Coronation Chair. They dug up the greens of many lovely golf-courses and burned people's letters. Is that a way for a woman to behave? It never pays to give in to such people. If it hadn't been for the war...."

"...In which the women of England jolly well pulled their weight in the boat, more than their weight, I take my hat off to them. They deserved the vote. But the British public doesn't give in to violence. They didn't then and they won't now. Take that Derby in which the woman killed herself. The King's horse was lying fifth and was probably out of the running...but if Craiganour had fallen the anger of England would have been terrible to behold."

Abruptly the Major noticed that Viola O'Neill, whose long hair was plaited into childish pigtails, who wore some kind of grey tweed school uniform, and who could scarcely have been more than sixteen years of age (plump and pretty though she was), was nevertheless looking him straight in the eye in a meaningful way. Embarra.s.sed, he dropped his gaze to the empty plate in front of him.

As for Ripon, he was plainly bored. He had resumed a more orthodox sitting position and, with legs crossed, was tapping experimentally at his knee reflex with a teaspoon. The Major watched him drowsily. Now that he had eaten he was finding it an agony to stay awake and at the same time was pain-fully aware of being hunted by Miss O'Neill's importunate eyes. Fortunately, just as he was feeling unable to resist for a moment longer some overpoweringly sedative remarks that Boy O'Neill was making about his schooldays, there was a diversion. A large, fierce-looking man in white flannels stepped from behind a luxuriant fern at which the Major had happened to be looking with drugged eyes. He said: "Quick, you chaps! Some unsavoury characters have been spotted lurking in the grounds. Probably Shinners."

The tea-drinkers goggled at him.

"Quick!" he repeated, twitching a tennis racket in his right hand. "They're probably looking for guns. Ripon, Boy, arm yourselves and follow me. You too, Major, delighted to make your acquaintance, I know you'll want to be in on this. Come on, Boy, you're not too old for a sc.r.a.p!"

In the semi-darkness the old doctor stirred imperceptibly.

"d.a.m.n fool!" he muttered.