‘That’s you Irish all over,’ he said, ‘one boot on and the other off, permanently in transit, so to speak, and accelerating mercilessly.’
‘Go to hell.’
Jones didn’t, but walked slowly back to the dining-room, and sat down at Mrs Gandell’s table. She would soon be down. Thoughts rocked in his head. The night, the reading, the Gandellian moods, the precarious position of the hotel.
‘That Prothero chap’ll be going today, and after that there’ll only be Vaughan. Damn February.’
Suddenly he felt her there, knew her there, and instinctively looked up. And there she was stood at the top of the stairs, and coming slowly down, tall Mrs Gandell, redoubtable Mrs Gandell. Jones often thought of her in purely nautical terms, ‘sailing along’, and sometimes yawing.
‘Are you there, Jones?’
Jones jumped to his feet and gave her a mock bow. ‘Am here.’ And the moment she reached the bottom of the stairs gave forth a blast.
‘Aren’t I always here? Where in hell would you expect me to be?’
‘Temper, Jones,’ she said, as she came into the dining-room. And the Decent Hotel positively drowned in her first morning smile. No matter from which compass point, Mrs Gandell’s approach always placed him in a diminished condition, an eternal reminder to him of her initial observation, when she described him as being ‘painfully Welsh, and the height of the chamber pot’. She sailed up to the table, and sat down. Mrs Gandell draped chairs, and never sat comfortably anywhere. Jones leaned across to her.
‘Aren’t I always here, Mrs Gandell?’ he asked.
‘Of course you’re always here, where else could you ever be, Jones, but here,’ and she beamed on him, and Jones sat well back in his chair. ‘And now,’ she said, and sweetly, ‘will my grey-haired boy please to bring in the coffee.’
She flung him a cigarette as he got up, and Jones caught it deftly enough, lit it, then rushed off to the kitchen, whilst Mrs Gandell sent smoke clouds ceilingwards.
Like Jones, she too, thought of February, and March, and April but alas, how heavily they were still anchored in February and its fanged days. She shrugged in sheer disgust. And then Jones arrived with the breakfast.
‘Jones!’
‘Yes, Mrs Gandell?’
She heaved it out, inevitably. ‘How I wish the spring would come.’
Jones tittered, then supped noisily at his coffee.
With an almost magisterial solemnity, she said slowly, ‘Miss Vaughan had her light on again all night, Jones.’
‘Again?’ and Jones sat up.
‘Sometimes I wonder why I bothered to accept her.’
Jones was at once incisive. ‘Because you were glad to,’ he said. After a short silence she announced that the downstairs closet was blocked again.
‘The heavy rains, Mrs Gandell,’ he said very casually.
‘The rain practically weeps in Wales,’ Mrs Gandell said.
‘That sounds to me philosophical,’ he said, ‘and certainly not my way of looking at it,’ and Jones supped even more noisily.
‘Strange,’ she said.
‘Search me,’ replied Jones.
Silently sipping her coffee, she studied Jones over the rim of her cup. And he in turn studied her, and was fully prepared for the great Gandellian sigh that soon must follow.
‘How I wish March were here, Jones.’ He put down his cup, folded his arms, and sat back.
‘Very soon, Mrs Gandell, the lads and lasses from Lancashire will be here, having lifted themselves off their heavy backsides, and made for Wales, of which place they are very fond, yes indeed.’
‘And the girls with their horrible print dresses,’ Mrs Gandell said.
‘And the little trout with their mouths wide open, just waiting for the lovely shiny hook, Mrs Gandell,’ he cried, sing-song fashion, only to hear her give out another sigh. He leaned to her, stroked her arm, smiled encouragement.
‘Soon the wind will lie down, Mrs Gandell, and the ice will crack, and the sun will come up. Lovely.’
Mrs Gandell surveyed the room, and Jones surveyed Mrs Gandell.
‘You won’t forget to put a low wattage bulb in Miss Vaughan’s room, Jones?’ and she resumed sipping her coffee.
‘Won’t forget,’ he replied, his tone of voice both incisive and sepulchral. ‘That Pritchard the Stores says daylight is cheapest of all. Sometimes they sit in the dark just to save on the devil’s fluid.’
Mrs Gandell groped. ‘Devil’s fluid?’
‘Electric,’ Jones said, very curtly.
‘Oh!’
‘Oh what?’
‘Nothing,’ she replied and gave him a penetrating look. ‘Jones!’
