William Trevor - William Trevor: The Collected Stories

PENGUIN BOOKS
THE COLLECTED STORIES

William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork, in 1928, and spent his childhood in provincial Ireland. He attended a number of Irish schools and later Trinity College, Dublin. He is a member of the Irish Academy of Letters.

Among his books are Two Lives (1991; comprising the novellas Reading Turgenev, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and My House in Umbria), which was named by The New York Times as one of the ten best books of the year; The Collected Stories (1992), chosen by The New York Times as one of the best books of the year; the bestselling Felicias Journey (1994), which won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the Sunday Express Prize; After Rain (1996), chosen as one of the Eight Best Books of the Year by the editors of The New York Times Book Review; Death in Summer (1998), which was nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; and most recently, The Hill Bachelors (2000).

Many of William Trevors stories have appeared in The New Yorker and other magazines. He has also written plays for the stage, and for radio and television. In 1977, Trevor was named honorary Commander of the British Empire in recognition of his services to literature. In 1996, he was the recipient of a Lannan Literary Award for Fiction.

William Trevor lives in Devon, England.

WILLIAM TREVOR

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

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First published in Great Britain by Penguin Books Ltd 1992
First published in the United States of America
by Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc., 1992
Published in Penguin Books (U.S.A.) 1993

17 19 20 18

Copyright William Trevor, 1992
All rights reserved

PUBLISHERS NOTE
These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are
the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance
to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Most of the stories in this collection appeared in the following books by Mr. Trevor, all of which were published by Viking Penguin: The Day We Got Drunk on Cake and Other Stories, copyright William Trevor, 1967; The Ballroom of Romance and Other Stories, copyright William Trevor, 1972; Angels at the Ritz and Other Stories, copyright William Trevor, 1975; Lovers of Their Time and Other Stories, copyright William Trevor, 1978; Beyond the Pale and Other Stories, copyright William Trevor, 1981; The News from Ireland and Other Stories copyright William Trevor, 1986; and Family Sins and Other Stories, copyright William Trevor, 1990.

The Day We Got Drunk on Cake, The Ballroom of Romance, Angels at the Ritz, Lovers of Their Time, and Beyond the Pale were first collected under the title The Stories of William Trevor in Penguin Books, 1983.

Page 1263 constitutes an extension of this copyright page.

(CIP data available)
ISBN 0-670-84129-3 (hc.)
ISBN 0 14 02.3245 1 (pbk.)

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

ISBN: 978-0-14-192570-7

O Fat White Woman

Mulvihills Memorial

Honeymoon in Tramore

I am Mrs da Tanka, said Mrs da Tanka. Are you Mr Mileson?

The man nodded, and they walked together the length of the platform, seeking a compartment that might offer them a welcome, or failing that, and they knew the more likely, simple privacy. They carried each a small suitcase, Mrs da Tankas of white leather or some material manufactured to resemble it, Mr Milesons battered and black. They did not speak as they marched purposefully: they were strangers one to another, and in the noise and the bustle, examining the lighted windows of the carriages, there was little that might constructively be said.

A ninety-nine years lease, Mr Milesons father had said, taken out in 1862 by my grandfather, whom of course you never knew. Expiring in your lifetime, I fear. Yet you will by then be in a sound position to accept the misfortune. To renew what has come to an end; to keep the property in the family. The property was an expression that glorified. The house was small and useful, one of a row, one of a kind easily found; hut the lease when the time came was not renewable which released Mr Mileson of a problem. Bachelor, childless, the end of the line, what use was a house to him for a further ninety-nine years?

Mrs da Tanka, sitting opposite him, drew a magazine from an assortment she carried. Then, checking herself, said: We could talk. Or do you prefer to conduct the business in silence? She was a woman who filled, but did not overflow from, a fair-sized, elegant, quite expensive tweed suit. Her hair, which was grey, did not appear so; it was tightly held to her head, a reddish-gold colour. Born into another class she would have been a chirpy woman; she guarded against her chirpiness, she disliked the quality in her. There was often laughter in her eyes, and as often as she felt it there she killed it by the severity of her manner.

You must not feel embarrassment, Mrs da Tanka said. We are beyond the age of giving in to awkwardness in a situation. You surely agree?

Mr Mileson did not know. He did not know how or what he should feel. Analysing his feelings he could come to no conclusion. He supposed he was excited but it was more difficult than it seemed to track down the emotions. He was unable, therefore, to answer Mrs da Tanka. So he just smiled.

Mrs da Tanka, who had once been Mrs Horace Spire and was not likely to forget it, considered those days. It was a logical thing for her to do, for they were days that had come to an end as these present days were coming to an end. Termination was on her mind: to escape from Mrs da Tanka into Mrs Spire was a way of softening the worry that was with her now, and a way of seeing it in proportion to a lifetime.

If that is what you want, Horace had said, then by all means have it. Who shall do the dirty work you or I? This was his reply to her request for a divorce. In fact, at the time of speaking, the dirty work as he called it was already done: by both of them.

It is a shock for me, Horace had continued. I thought we could jangle along for many a day. Are you seriously involved elsewhere?

In fact she was not, but finding herself involved at all reflected the inadequacy of her married life and revealed a vacuum that once had been love.

We are better apart, she had said. It is bad to get used to the habit of being together. We must take our chances while we may, while there is still time.