‘We’ll not come next year, of course. While I’m out with the rod, my dear, you might scout around for another hotel.’
They never brought their car with them, the headmaster’s theory being that the car was something they wished to escape from. Often she had thought it might be nice to have a car at the Slieve Gashal so that she could drive around the countryside during the day, but she saw his argument and had never pressed her view. Now, it seemed, he was suggesting that she should scout about for another hotel on foot.
‘No, no,’ he said. ‘There is an excellent bus service in Ireland.’ He spoke with a trace of sarcasm, as though she should have known that no matter what else he expected of her, he did not expect her to tramp about the roads looking for another hotel. He gave a little laugh, leaving the matter vaguely with her, his eyes like the eyes of a fish behind his rimless spectacles. Boys had feared him and disliked him too, some even had hated him; yet others had been full of a respect that seemed at times like adoration. As she struggled with her watery turnips she could sense that his mind was quite made up: he intended to remain for the full fortnight in the changed hotel because the lure of the riverside possessed him too strongly to consider an alternative.
‘I might find a place we could move to,’ she said. ‘I mean, in a day or so.’
‘They’ll all be full, my dear.’ He laughed without humour in his laugh, not amused by anything. ‘We must simply grin and bear it. The chicken,’ he added, ‘might well have been worse.’
‘Excuse me,’ Mrs Angusthorpe said, and quickly rose from the table and left the dining-room. From a tape- recorder somewhere dance music began to play.
‘Is the wife all right?’ Doyle asked Mr Angusthorpe, coming up and sitting down in the chair she had vacated. He had read in a hotelier’s journal that tourists enjoyed a friendly atmosphere and the personal attention of the proprietor.
‘We’ve had a long day,’ responded the headmaster genially enough.
‘Ah well, of course you have.’
The dining-room was full, indicating that business was still brisk in the hotel. Mr Angusthorpe had noted a familiar face or two and had made dignified salutations. These people would surely have walked out if the hotel was impossible in all respects.
‘At her time of the month,’ Doyle was saying, ‘the wife gets as fatigued as an old horse. Like your own one, she’s gone up to her bed already.’
‘My wife –’
‘Ah, I wasn’t suggesting Mrs Angusthorpe, was that way at all. They have fatigue in common tonight, sir, that’s all I meant.’
Doyle appeared to be drunk. There was a bleariness about his eyes that suggested inebriation to Mr Angusthorpe, and his shaking hands might well be taken as a sign of repeated over-indulgence.
‘She wakes up at two a.m. as lively as a bird,’ said Doyle. ‘She’s keen for a hug and a pat –’
‘Quite so,’ interrupted Mr Angusthorpe quickly. He looked unpleasantly at his unwelcome companion. He allowed his full opinion of the man to pervade his glance.
‘Well, I’ll be seeing you,’ said Doyle, rising and seeming to be undismayed. ‘I’ll tell the wife you were asking for her,’ he added with a billowing laugh, before moving on to another table.
Shortly after that, Mr Angusthorpe left the dining-room, having resolved that he would not relate this conversation to his wife. He would avoid Doyle in the future, he promised himself, and when by chance they did meet he would make it clear that he did not care to hear his comments on any subject. It was a pity that the old man had died and that all this nastiness had grown up in his place, but there was nothing whatsoever that might be done about it and at least the weather looked good. He entered the bar and dropped into conversation with a man he had met several times before, a solicitor from Dublin, a bachelor called Gorman.
‘I was caught the same way,’ Mr Gorman said, ‘only everywhere else is full. It’s the end of the Slieve Gashal, you know: the food’s inedible.’
He went on to relate a series of dishes that had already been served during his stay, the most memorable of which appeared to be a rabbit stew that had had a smell of ammonia. ‘There’s margarine every time instead of butter, and some queer type of marmalade in the morning: it has a taste of tin to it. The same mashed turnip,’ said Gorman, ‘is the only vegetable he offers.’
The headmaster changed the subject, asking how the rivers were. The fishing was better than ever he’d known it, Mr Gorman reported, and he retailed experiences to prove the claim. ‘Isn’t it all that matters in the long run?’ suggested Mr Gorman, and Mr Angusthorpe readily agreed that it was. He would refrain from repeating to his wife the information about the marmalade that tasted of tin, or the absence of variation where vegetables were concerned. He left the bar at nine o’clock, determined to slip quietly into bed without disturbing her.
In the middle of that night, at midnight precisely, the Angusthorpes were awakened simultaneously by a noise from the room beyond the new partition.
‘Put a pillow down, darling,’ a male voice was saying as clearly as if its possessor stood in the room beside the Angusthorpes’ bed.
‘Couldn’t we wait until another time?’ a woman pleaded in reply. ‘I don’t see what good a pillow will do.’
‘It’ll lift you up a bit,’ the man explained. ‘It said in the book to put a pillow down if there was difficulty.’
‘I don’t see –’
‘It’ll make entry easier,’ said the man. ‘It’s a well-known thing.’
Mrs Angusthorpe switched on her bedside light and saw that her husband was pretending to be asleep. ‘I’m going to rap on the wall,’ she whispered. ‘It’s disgusting, listening to this.’
‘I think I’m going down,’ said the man.
‘My God,’ whispered Mr Angusthorpe, opening his eyes. ‘It’s Jackson Major.’
At breakfast, Mrs Angusthorpe ate margarine on her toast and the marmalade that had a taste of tin. She did not say anything. She watched her husband cutting into a fried egg on a plate that bore the marks of the waitress’s two thumbs. Eventually he placed his knife and fork together on the plate and left them there.
