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Authors: William Trevor
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protested.
He couldn’t have burnt the books; he couldn’t have so casually destroyed the pages on which he had first encountered Miss Havisham and Mr Verloc, and Gabriel Conroy and Edward Ashburnham and Heathcliff, where first he’d glimpsed Netherfield Park and Barchester.
‘I’m a sentimental reader,’ he admitted to his visitor.
‘A general disposal, would it be?’
‘It would. I’ll help you with them to your car.’
He had kept a few books back to read again while the house was being sold, which he assumed would take all summer.
‘Ugly business, emptying a place,’ the man remarked.
‘Yes, it is.’
A modest payment was made and, alone again, Florian put a record on the radiogram. The needle slithered, a dance tune lost and then returning, a woman’s husky voice. He turned the volume up and opened one of the drawing-room windows, picked up The Beautiful and the Damned from the trestle-table. Jessie padded behind him to the garden.
‘Falling in love again,’ the woman sang there too, and Florian lay on a patch of grass, his dog stretched out beside him. A tangle of wild sweet pea grew through berberis and fuchsia; deep scarlet peonies poked out of undergrowth. He lit a cigarette, and while the slurp of romance continued he wondered if Scandinavia might be the place of his exile.
The thought was not a new one. He had imagined Scandinavia before, uncluttered, orderly, the architecture of Sweden, Norwegian landscape, Finland in winter. He had seen himself - now saw himself again - in an out-of-the-way town, its houses clustered around a tidy square, a church’s wooden spire. He had a room there, in its gaunt old hotel.
The music ceased, the whine of the needle on the empty centre of the record so faint it was hardly anything. Still dwelling on his exile, Florian finished his cigarette and stubbed it out on the grass. The sun was slipping away, the evening light becoming dusky. Jessie clambered to her feet when he did, went back with him to the drawing-room, where he lifted the needle off. In the kitchen he put sausages on to fry.
He had spoken to the girl in Rathmoye because, seeing her again, he had wanted to. When she’d led him to the shelf he was looking for her voice was soft and shy, unhurried, of the country. He had noticed first her grey-blue eyes, and while they talked had found himself liking, more and more, her unaffected features.
He carried his food, and Jessie’s, back to the garden when the sausages were ready. The air was scented now, as often it was at this time. Not yet silent, the birds were quieter than they had been. Sometimes in the garden on a summer’s evening he fell asleep and woke to the dampness of gathering dew. But tonight he knew he wouldn’t.
She put on a light coat and a quaintly piquant Napoleon-hat of Alice-blue , he read in bed . . . and they walked along the Avenue and into the Zoo, where they properly admired the grandeur of the elephant and the collar-height of the giraffe, but did not visit the monkey-house because Gloria said that monkeys smelt so bad .
Hours later Florian dreamed of the Zoo, and the elephant’s grandeur, and Gloria’s hat. But Gloria was not Gloria, she was his Italian cousin, Isabella, and then she was the girl in Rathmoye. ‘Lovely as an orchid,’ his father said the first time Isabella came to Shelhanagh, but when he said it in the dream he meant the girl.
There were other dreams, but they faded into the darkness, passing outside memory, and when Florian woke, just after dawn, it was his father’s voice that still remained, saying he meant the girl. And Florian’s mother - without insistence, which was particularly her way - said the bird that came in the mornings to the lake was a squacco heron. And somewhere there was Schubert on the piano.
Florian tried to sleep again, to make that dream go on, which often as a child he had tried to do but never with success. His dog was sleeping, undisturbed, on the landing beyond his
He couldn’t have burnt the books; he couldn’t have so casually destroyed the pages on which he had first encountered Miss Havisham and Mr Verloc, and Gabriel Conroy and Edward Ashburnham and Heathcliff, where first he’d glimpsed Netherfield Park and Barchester.
‘I’m a sentimental reader,’ he admitted to his visitor.
‘A general disposal, would it be?’
‘It would. I’ll help you with them to your car.’
He had kept a few books back to read again while the house was being sold, which he assumed would take all summer.
‘Ugly business, emptying a place,’ the man remarked.
‘Yes, it is.’
A modest payment was made and, alone again, Florian put a record on the radiogram. The needle slithered, a dance tune lost and then returning, a woman’s husky voice. He turned the volume up and opened one of the drawing-room windows, picked up The Beautiful and the Damned from the trestle-table. Jessie padded behind him to the garden.
‘Falling in love again,’ the woman sang there too, and Florian lay on a patch of grass, his dog stretched out beside him. A tangle of wild sweet pea grew through berberis and fuchsia; deep scarlet peonies poked out of undergrowth. He lit a cigarette, and while the slurp of romance continued he wondered if Scandinavia might be the place of his exile.
The thought was not a new one. He had imagined Scandinavia before, uncluttered, orderly, the architecture of Sweden, Norwegian landscape, Finland in winter. He had seen himself - now saw himself again - in an out-of-the-way town, its houses clustered around a tidy square, a church’s wooden spire. He had a room there, in its gaunt old hotel.
The music ceased, the whine of the needle on the empty centre of the record so faint it was hardly anything. Still dwelling on his exile, Florian finished his cigarette and stubbed it out on the grass. The sun was slipping away, the evening light becoming dusky. Jessie clambered to her feet when he did, went back with him to the drawing-room, where he lifted the needle off. In the kitchen he put sausages on to fry.
He had spoken to the girl in Rathmoye because, seeing her again, he had wanted to. When she’d led him to the shelf he was looking for her voice was soft and shy, unhurried, of the country. He had noticed first her grey-blue eyes, and while they talked had found himself liking, more and more, her unaffected features.
He carried his food, and Jessie’s, back to the garden when the sausages were ready. The air was scented now, as often it was at this time. Not yet silent, the birds were quieter than they had been. Sometimes in the garden on a summer’s evening he fell asleep and woke to the dampness of gathering dew. But tonight he knew he wouldn’t.
She put on a light coat and a quaintly piquant Napoleon-hat of Alice-blue , he read in bed . . . and they walked along the Avenue and into the Zoo, where they properly admired the grandeur of the elephant and the collar-height of the giraffe, but did not visit the monkey-house because Gloria said that monkeys smelt so bad .
Hours later Florian dreamed of the Zoo, and the elephant’s grandeur, and Gloria’s hat. But Gloria was not Gloria, she was his Italian cousin, Isabella, and then she was the girl in Rathmoye. ‘Lovely as an orchid,’ his father said the first time Isabella came to Shelhanagh, but when he said it in the dream he meant the girl.
There were other dreams, but they faded into the darkness, passing outside memory, and when Florian woke, just after dawn, it was his father’s voice that still remained, saying he meant the girl. And Florian’s mother - without insistence, which was particularly her way - said the bird that came in the mornings to the lake was a squacco heron. And somewhere there was Schubert on the piano.
Florian tried to sleep again, to make that dream go on, which often as a child he had tried to do but never with success. His dog was sleeping, undisturbed, on the landing beyond his
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