‘and of course were never meant to.’
‘They’ve put our young friend here before their differences. You can’t but admire that. There’s been a side brought out in both of them.’
‘I wouldn’t go a bundle on admiration. I wouldn’t put money on a side brought out.’ Maidment draws in air, his lean nostrils tight for a moment in a way that is particular to him. He releases them while glancing at a line of print, noting that It’s the Business, K. Bray up, is favoured if the going doesn’t turn heavy, which is unlikely. Major Mack gives Rolling Cloud, P. J. Murphy’s Guaranteed Good ‘Un is Politically Correct. He favours The Rib himself.
‘One minute and it’ll be ready, dear.’ Zenobia smiles with this annunciation, hoping that Mrs Iveson’s advent will not deprive her entirely of the baby’s company. She tests the milk and returns it to the bottle-heater, considering it not yet warm enough. The survivors share the burden of a child: that’s what there is; the rest is wait and see. She does not press her conjecture of a moment ago, but deliberates instead.He has his ways, he has his right to an opinion. Servitude has made him what he is and has – though differently – made her. All that, Zenobia accepts, and expects no more of their calling. Childless themselves – as so often and so naturally their predecessors in this kitchen have been – they are a couple who hang on in whatever households they can find. They are out of their time, which was a time when servitude had a place reserved for it, part of what there was. Their lives are cramped as much by this as by the exigencies of domestic duty, yet on neither count do they complain. They have chosen this; they have sensed the stirrings of vocation in serving the remnants of nobility or the newly rich. They have found a place in the great houses that are now the property of popular entertainers, that are now hotels and schools and residential business centres. They have visited on their Sundays off places of local interest in the many counties of their employment, this in particular being Zenobia’s relaxation: Lydford Gorge and Mount Grace Priory, cathedrals and gardens, the narrowest street, the oldest tower clock. As they are presently settled so they hope they may remain, not moving on until age gets the better of them.
‘And it may not,’ Zenobia answers her own reflection, testing the temperature of the milk, squirting a drop on to her wrist. ‘We trust in Providence.’
In The Rib more like, Maidment’s thought is: O’Brien the trainer, The Rib will take some beating. Maidment has never been on a racecourse: what he knows, all he experiences of the turf, is at second-hand, but second-hand is enough. Epsom and Newmarket, the Gold Cup, the Guineas, the sticks, the flat: it is enough that they are there,that sports pages and television bring them to him. Rising from his chair, folding the newspaper away, he softly hums a melody he danced to as a boy, and prepares to go about his morning tasks, vacuuming and airing and dusting, setting things to rights. He tolerates old clocks and narrow streets, he does his best in gardens and in stately rooms that do not interest him. Other people’s lives, how they are lived and what they are, offer what the vagaries of the turf do: mystery and the pleasure of speculation.
Zenobia hears the humming of her husband’s tune continue in the kitchen passage and abruptly cease when he passes through the door to the hall. As he is unmoved by what she most enjoys, so she is not drawn to the excitements of the racetrack; and mystery for her is the mystery of the Trinity. Every night and morning she prays on her knees by her bedside; on Sundays her husband waits in their small red Subaru with the
News of the World
, while she attends whatever church they pass on their way to a place of interest. Disagreement between them no longer becomes argument, resentment does not thrive. Give-and-take patterns the
‘They’ve put our young friend here before their differences. You can’t but admire that. There’s been a side brought out in both of them.’
‘I wouldn’t go a bundle on admiration. I wouldn’t put money on a side brought out.’ Maidment draws in air, his lean nostrils tight for a moment in a way that is particular to him. He releases them while glancing at a line of print, noting that It’s the Business, K. Bray up, is favoured if the going doesn’t turn heavy, which is unlikely. Major Mack gives Rolling Cloud, P. J. Murphy’s Guaranteed Good ‘Un is Politically Correct. He favours The Rib himself.
‘One minute and it’ll be ready, dear.’ Zenobia smiles with this annunciation, hoping that Mrs Iveson’s advent will not deprive her entirely of the baby’s company. She tests the milk and returns it to the bottle-heater, considering it not yet warm enough. The survivors share the burden of a child: that’s what there is; the rest is wait and see. She does not press her conjecture of a moment ago, but deliberates instead.He has his ways, he has his right to an opinion. Servitude has made him what he is and has – though differently – made her. All that, Zenobia accepts, and expects no more of their calling. Childless themselves – as so often and so naturally their predecessors in this kitchen have been – they are a couple who hang on in whatever households they can find. They are out of their time, which was a time when servitude had a place reserved for it, part of what there was. Their lives are cramped as much by this as by the exigencies of domestic duty, yet on neither count do they complain. They have chosen this; they have sensed the stirrings of vocation in serving the remnants of nobility or the newly rich. They have found a place in the great houses that are now the property of popular entertainers, that are now hotels and schools and residential business centres. They have visited on their Sundays off places of local interest in the many counties of their employment, this in particular being Zenobia’s relaxation: Lydford Gorge and Mount Grace Priory, cathedrals and gardens, the narrowest street, the oldest tower clock. As they are presently settled so they hope they may remain, not moving on until age gets the better of them.
‘And it may not,’ Zenobia answers her own reflection, testing the temperature of the milk, squirting a drop on to her wrist. ‘We trust in Providence.’
In The Rib more like, Maidment’s thought is: O’Brien the trainer, The Rib will take some beating. Maidment has never been on a racecourse: what he knows, all he experiences of the turf, is at second-hand, but second-hand is enough. Epsom and Newmarket, the Gold Cup, the Guineas, the sticks, the flat: it is enough that they are there,that sports pages and television bring them to him. Rising from his chair, folding the newspaper away, he softly hums a melody he danced to as a boy, and prepares to go about his morning tasks, vacuuming and airing and dusting, setting things to rights. He tolerates old clocks and narrow streets, he does his best in gardens and in stately rooms that do not interest him. Other people’s lives, how they are lived and what they are, offer what the vagaries of the turf do: mystery and the pleasure of speculation.
Zenobia hears the humming of her husband’s tune continue in the kitchen passage and abruptly cease when he passes through the door to the hall. As he is unmoved by what she most enjoys, so she is not drawn to the excitements of the racetrack; and mystery for her is the mystery of the Trinity. Every night and morning she prays on her knees by her bedside; on Sundays her husband waits in their small red Subaru with the
News of the World
, while she attends whatever church they pass on their way to a place of interest. Disagreement between them no longer becomes argument, resentment does not thrive. Give-and-take patterns the
Similar Books
