William Trevor: 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 Felicia’s 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 Trevor’s 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.

THE COLLECTED STORIES

WILLIAM TREVOR

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are

the product of the author’s 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 publisher’s 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

Contents

A Meeting in Middle Age

Access to the Children

The General’s Day

Memories of Youghal

The Table

A School Story

The Penthouse Apartment

In at the Birth

The Introspections of J.P. Powers

The Day We Got Drunk on Cake

Miss Smith

The Hotel of the Idle Moon

Nice Day at School

The Original Sins of Edward Tripp

The Forty-seventh Saturday

The Ballroom of Romance

A Happy Family

The Grass Widows

The Mark-2 Wife

An Evening with John Joe Dempsey

Kinkies

Going Home

A Choice of Butchers

O Fat White Woman

Raymond Bamber and Mrs Fitch

The Distant Past

In Isfahan

Angels at the Ritz

The Death of Peggy Meehan

Mrs Silly

A Complicated Nature

Teresa’s Wedding

Office Romances

Mr McNamara

Afternoon Dancing

Last Wishes

Mrs Acland’s Ghosts

Another Christmas

Broken Homes

Matilda’s England

1. The Tennis Court

2. The Summer-house

3. The Drawing-room

Torridge

Death in Jerusalem

Lovers of Their Time

The Raising of Elvira Tremlett

Flights of Fancy

Attracta

A Dream of Butterflies

The Bedroom Eyes of Mrs Vansittart

Downstairs at Fitzgerald’s

Mulvihill’s Memorial

Beyond the Pale

The Blue Dress

The Teddy-bears’ Picnic

The Time of Year

Being Stolen From

Mr Tennyson

Autumn Sunshine

Sunday Drinks

The Paradise Lounge

Mags

The News from Ireland

On the Zattere

The Wedding in the Garden

Lunch in Winter

The Property of Colette Nervi

Running Away

Cocktails at Doney’s

Her Mother’s Daughter

Bodily Secrets

Two More Gallants

The Smoke Trees of San Pietro

Virgins

Music

Events at Drimaghleen

Family Sins

A Trinity

The Third Party

Honeymoon in Tramore

The Printmaker

In Love with Ariadne

A Husband’s Return

Coffee with Oliver

August Saturday

Children of the Headmaster

Kathleen’s Field

Acknowledgements

A Meeting in Middle Age

‘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 Tanka’s of white leather or some material manufactured to resemble it, Mr Mileson’s 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.