【荆棘鸟】第五章 08

她的脚上穿着进口的吉皮尔花边鞋，穿过基里的泥沼地。她挑挑剔剔，动不协就发脾气，她仪态庄重地和谁打招呼，他就得对谁陪笑，谈上几句，当她给"基兰博杯"的获奖者颁发祖母绿手镯时，他就得侍立在一旁。他想不通他们为什么把所有的奖金都花在买这么一个女人的小饰物上，而不是发一只金奖杯和一大扎票子。这是因为他不明白这个赛马会完全是业余性的，不明白那些参赛的人并不需要欲不可耐的金钱，相反，却可以漫不经心地把所得的钱扔给这个矮小的女人，骑着栗色马胜了金·爱德华的霍里·霍普顿把那只祖母绿手镯赢到了手。前几年，他已经赢得了一只红宝石手镯、一只钻石手镯和一只蓝宝石手镯。他有一位太太和五个女儿，并且说，在赢到六个手镯之前他是不会罢手的。
 
　　帕迪那件浆过的衬衫和加了赛璐珞硬衬的领子真磨人，蓝色的外套穿在身上太热，午餐招待会上的悉尼海鲜味加香槟酒也不对他那惯于消化羊肉的胃口，他觉得自己是个傻瓜，或是说看上去象个傻瓜。他的衣服料子很好，但缝制费很便宜，式样也土气。他们和他不是一类人；他们是粗鲁的、穿着苏格兰呢衣的牧场主，有身份的主妇，露齿而笑的、爱骑马的年轻女郎，是那些被新闻报纸称为"牧场霸主"中的精英。他们尽量忘记他们曾在上个世纪中霸占了这里的大片土地，将它们据为己有。他们对这片土地的所有权得到了联邦政会法令的默认。他们成了大击上最受人羡慕的人，管理着自己的政党，将子女送进悉尼的高等学府，和来访的威尔士亲王饮酒畅叙。他，普普通通的克利里不过是个工人，他与这些殖民地的贵族毫无共同之处；他们只能使他想起他妻子的家庭，使他感到不自在。
 
　　所以，当他来到神父宅邸，发现弗兰克、梅吉和拉尔夫神父正懒洋洋地围在炉子旁，似乎度过了美好的、无忧无虑的一天时，他便感到一股无名怒火从心头升起、他失去了菲那种有教养的支持是不堪忍受的；他依然不喜欢他姐姐，就像他在爱尔兰的单年时代那样，他从来就不喜欠她。这时，他发现了弗兰克眼旁的膏药和肿起来的脸。这真是天赐的好借口。
 
　　"看你弄成什么样儿了！你怎么回去见你妈？"他吼道，"我一天不见人你就犯老毛病，和路边多看你一眼的人打架！"
 

helping 1 her pick her fastidious, cross-patch way through the Gilly mud in imported guipure lace shoes, smiling and chatting with the people she greeted royally, standing 2 by her side as she presented the emerald bracelet 3 to the winner of the principal race, the Gillanbone Trophy 4. Why they had to spend all the prize money on a woman's trinket instead of handing over a gold-plated cup and a nice bundle of cash was beyond him, for he did not understand the keenly amateur nature of the race meeting, the inference that the people who entered horses didn't need vulgar money, instead could carelessly toss the winnings to the little woman. Horry Hopeton, whose bay gelding King Edward had won the emerald bracelet, already possessed 5 a ruby 6, a diamond and a sapphire 7 bracelet from other years; he had a wife and five daughters and said he couldn't stop until he had won six bracelets 8.
 
Paddy's starched 9 shirt and celluloid collar chafed 10, the blue suit was too hot, and the exotic Sydney seafood 11 they had served with champagne 12 at luncheon 13 had not agreed with his mutton-inured digestion 14. And he had felt a fool, thought he looked a fool. Best though it was, his suit smacked 15 of cheap tailoring and bucolic 16 unfashionableness. They were not his kind of people, the bluff 17 tweedy graziers, the lofty matrons, the toothy, horsy young women, the cream of what the Bulletin called "the squattocracy." For they were doing their best to forget the days in the last century when they had squatted 18 on the land and taken vast tracts 19 of it for their own, had it tacitly acknowledged as their own with federation 20 and the arrival of home rule. They had become the most envied group of people on the continent, ran their own political party, sent their children to exclusive Sydney schools, hobnobbed with the visiting Prince of Wales. He, plain Paddy Cleary, was a workingman. He had absolutely nothing in common with these colonial aristocrats 21, who reminded him of his wife's family too much for comfort. So when he came into the presbytery lounge to find Frank, Meggie and Father Ralph relaxed around the fire and looking as if they had spent a wonderful, carefree day, it irritated him. He had missed Fee's genteel support unbearably 22 and he still disliked his sister as much as he had back in his early childhood in Ireland. Then he noticed the sticking plaster over Frank's eye, the swollen 23 face; it was a heaven-sent excuse. "And how do you think you're going to face your mother looking like that?" he yelled. "Not a day out of my sight and you're back at it again, picking fights with anyone who looks at you sideways!"