By the stars I will find a way through these raging suburban jungles back to Dublin."
"There are no stars.'
"I will feel my way through the laurels. Please don't let me keep you from your bed you have already been far too kind to me. I am not popular. That is certain. Today I dined with a mother, her three daughters and a doctor guest in Rathgar. Refined members of society. I a poor Frenchman who does not know what it's all about. They sit and I sit. We make remarks about the weather, the races. I am asked will I have more trifle. I say that is most kind of you. But then I say whoops that perhaps my remark that it is most kind, is wrong, that I have trodden too heavily in the etiquette, should have just said please and thank you. And not that I should be too delighted to have more trifle. In such dilemmas I perspire heavily. Sometimes I am so nervous that I cannot take my leave till midnight, all of us sitting and beginning to shiver around a dying fire. I never know what to say to get myself out of the house. I never know how to refuse when they say do please, come next Sunday. I am to put it mildly Miss Fitzdare in an awful rut.'
"O but that's awful for you."
"Yes, I know."
"Can't you refuse."
"There is something wrong with me Miss Fitzdare. I do not know how to be unkind. I can suffer unkindnesses but I cannot be unkind. Again and again each Sunday I go back to Rathgar and we all sit on the settee. And the daughters change their frocks, one wears the frock the other wore the week before."
"How awful for you."
"But tonight. Beefy has taken me from all that. It is why I have had too much to drink. It is so kind of you to listen Miss Fitzdare to all my troubles like this. I must not keep you longer. I must take leave of you. I don't want to go. But already I've been far too much of an imposition."
"You mustn't feel that, please.' "What way do I go."
"If you proceed down to the end of this road and turn right it will take you straight to Dublin. But I really shouldn't let you go."
"Have faith in me Miss Fitzdare. I am really related to explorers. It's the absolute truth. Just give me some natural phenomenon to head for and my instincts will do the rest."
"Tell me you'll take every care."
"Yes."
"There's a river. Walk straight as far as you can go. The River Dodder. Then turn right along Donnybrook Road straight into Leeson Street and St. Stephen's Green."
Balthazar B bowing. Slowly stepping backwards. Miss Fitz-dare wore a silver jumping horse pinned to her coat. And she walks away between the high iron railings. Through a gate which creaks closed. A cement path to looming wide stone steps. A big shadowy house standing on dark lawns. Can see a stone porch and beyond looks like gardens. The fat upturned limbs of a monkey tree and others thick and tropical in the passing bits of moonlight. Door opening. She stands a silhouette. Her hand raised to wave goodbye.
My finger
Dips
Into the cold
Indelicacy
Of
Dublin.
15
Balthazar B raised his head from the wet grassy darkness. Moist patches of his clothes sticking to his skin. To remember forging bravely on some detour which seemed so quicker north west to Dublin town. Over a stone wall. To land in a ditch and field. Looking up at the sky for a guiding star. And then keeling over into empty darkness. And the steamy nostrils munching near. The ripping and tearing of grass. And sound of bone grinding jaws. To rise in terror as a cow reared and trotted away.
Miss Fitzdare's dancing blue eyes back there somewhere. In a white white skin and lips of redness that glowed. Must get up and back upon my strategic way. The bark of a dog. A cross. A convent. Nuns in nightgowns maybe. Fm utterly lost. Which way over these fields. Goodness, windows ahead with bars. And human anguished noises somewhere behind those walls. Civilization can not be far away. Must steer past this building of incarceration. Nothing now to do but flip a coin. Tell me which way is north. Uncle Edouard said always forge on. That way is north. Across there the faint shadows of a rooftop. In the wagging shrubberies and trees. Trudge muddily on.
Ah underfoot the firm feel of gravel. Will take me somewhere. A fence I see. And hear an owl hoot. Never had so much fresh air. Nor as much cold feet. Chilling me back to life. I am so lost any direction now will do. Should have stayed in her stable. Eating hay. Miss Fitzdare come out and give me a cube of sugar in the morning, and take me cantering round the lawn for exercise. Sitting up on me, moleskin riding breeches tightly clutched against my ribs. Could easily be an indecent thought. Good heavens, I'm wading through someone's flower beds, maybe azaleas ahead. Someone lives here quite comfortably. Beefy said an area of embassies, and bank directors, salubrious and subtropical.
Balthazar B stopping before the shadowy outline of a house. Gabled roof over faint squares of cozy windows. No question now. I am on private property. How utterly awful. I must tip toe away. Casually. Into the dark. Over there is a garage tucked into this secluded house. With panes of stained glass I can make out. That way must be north. Uncle Edouard says to tramp steadily in one continuous direction is better than wandering in discontinuous circles. He was in my dreams when I woke back there on the grass. Gave me some rather amusing advice. At least I've struck out for Dublin when all odds were against me. Without stars. Just a momentary moon. O my God what's this. A birdbath. I hope. Hands out now to touch carefully as I go. Perhaps a vegetable garden to be crossed. There's got to be a field. And maybe a river upon whose banks I can guide my way back. Or swim this time of night. No nerve to knock and enquire. As Beefy could do all plausible and winning. Make my heart resolute now. Onward chaps. Get around the side of this house. Make a dash before there is a flash of moonlight again. I have a horror of trespass.
Balthazar B moved swiftly in the moist soft darkness. Guiding his way. And suddenly smashing into an obstacle. Something falling. And crashing to the ground. An infernal thump. Be heard for miles. Must run. Around this back corner of the house. Make exit. O my God something has me tight across the throat. They've got me already. Never did I have a chance. Please I'm only a lost natural science student from Trinity. Wait. What's this. Wet cloth. Clothes. A washing line. Lord a giant foundation garment. Fit for an amazon. Must get disentangled at all costs. And quietly run like mad away from here.
A light switching on in the house. Balthazar tugging at the line. As it stiffens and the garments rise up from the lawn. Yanking harder. A rip and crash of cement from the wall of the stuccoed house. Just below an open and ablaze window. To be back in Rathgar now to say push me the pudding will you. Instead of here helplessly damaging property. After all the bomb escapes. To be befallen this perfectly disenchanting exploration. Out of one's wits in someone's private garden. I wanted so much to guide myself homeward by the stars.To test my instincts alone with nature. And tell Miss Fitzdare. That I just followed the bent of ancestors. And now goodness someone is shouting.
"Who is that down there."
Make for that shrubbery. Crouching now in under this thick rhododendron. In the pin drop silence. And pull in this washing line.
"O Lord God Jimmie wake up there's something down in the garden."
"What is it now."
"Wake up I'm telling you."
Balthazar B hauled in the vague pegged white cloths lying out across the lawn. Which will lead straight to me. Slowly. So indeed indelicate. A brassiere. More female undergarments. All of them. Whalebone corsets. Pink silk pantaloons. Outsize. The woman who fits these garments upon her person is not to be trifled with.
"Jimmy Jimmy wake up out of the bed Fm telling you. There's a long snake moving across the lawn so help me God Jimmy do you hear me."
O my God what does one do now. I've been spotted pulling in the washline. People so easily disbelieve St. Patrick. Uncle Edouard can you hear me. At this most ignoble moment. In which I've not meant to cause such upset. Honestly madam Pve only been trying to find my way back to my rooms. Somewhere north there beyond your garage. I would recognise
the grey walls and high green fence in an instant. Just beyond Merrion Square. Thump the nail once or twice on the big thick door and a porter will come from his curled up sleep at the fire. To let me in. To go abed within my thick walled rooms, so safe and cold. Dear St. Basil the Great deliver me from this shrubbery garden.
"Jimmy ah God, you'd sleep would you, and I'm being raped within an inch of me life, while you're snoring there, Fm being defiled. Wake up I'm telling you.'
To have quietly trotted to Miss Fitzdare's stables. And munched sweet hay there through the night. She said such kind things to me. Opened out a whole world of heathery flowers. In rain they sparkle down among their browny twigs even when the whole winter world is grey. Just as all this green is so dark and hopeless. Got to shift position now I've dragged in this suspicious line. Just nip over across there to the thicker bushes. And the washing line will follow.
"Ah God Jimmy there he goes. I'm calling the garda. I've seen him now. Trampling my best roses. Down there in the garden. With a length of snaky thing coming out of him so long he's dragging it. I'm telling you. Jimmy. Get up, get up. If it's ever rape with a thing like that he's dragging after him. I couldn't stomach it, the little fig stem you've got is bad enough. He must be crazed by sex to have the likes of that on him. Jimmy wake up I'm telling you. Jesus Mary and Joseph, he could be a Mohammedan. It's been in the Irish Times that a horde could be coming any time from the East. That Islam is on the march. It's shock enough to know you're in the minority without them running loose in your garden."
"Will you shut up now about the yellow peril while I'm trying to sleep. Sure not a man of them cares two hoots about Ireland."
"Sleep is it, while defilement is but a hair's breadth away.
And me raped following seventeen years of marriage."
"Shut up now about rape. There hasn't been such a thing in Ireland since the Danes and they were welcomed with open arms. Will you get back to bed."
"Jimmy for the last time."
"Shut up."
"I'm telling you Jimmy, not a bit of me will I let the rascal have."
"Too much of you anyway for him to want you all. Put out the light. And batten your gob."
"Abandon me is it. To men with the corkscrew things on them."
"Abandon you. Fm sleeping that's all."
"Batten your gob is it."
Balthazar crouched in the thicket of laurel and sinuous boughs of rhododendron. When trapped across the chippendale on a light note of conversation, an opera seen, a recital at the Music Hall in Fishamble Street, and one never knows that there are conditions and positions worse. Agony to ask to pass a sauce boat. Now, my God, the fear of running through unknown darkness. Just trying to get home madam, Fm no Moslem. Her shadow is at the window. She carries two portly breasts. By the feel of this brassiere.
"He's still there with the big long thing he's dragging. You lie there like that while your wife is raped out of her wits. Fm going to give you something to remember the occasion by. O Jesus Mary and Joseph what heinous new trials have you sent me to bear."
Damp and dripping in the rhododendrons. To know which way to run. Wait till the action dies down. Between this woman and the Far East. What was that. Bloodcurdling scream. And sound of broken glass.
"That'll teach you to lie there snoring and making dirty filthy remarks to your wife while a heinous rapist wanders in the garden. That'll teach you. Till the garda get here. To leave me panic stricken and defenceless against an immoral intruder."
A light bursting on, flooding yellow rays across the grass and gravel. A fallen ladder. Jimmy what did she do to you. I do apologise for all the needless upset. Crawled away here to cover. Just to wait now for the all clear. And the light out to give me a chance to run. Too late to offer one's card. By the silence ensued. The witty husband from whom there seems now no sound. Better advised to withhold a social overture. If I had my Landship now. I could suddenly emerge from the shrubbery. And twelve cylinders pumping, would get me back to college. Where I am but a harmless student of science.
Irish bugs fluttering at the glowing porch light. The grass pale white green. Crouch stiffly. O please, it's not the sound of tires on the road. It is. And twin beams of light through the branches. O God. Let it be some milk man and not the police. Tires sliding to a stop in the gravel. Car doors slamming. Flashes of torchlight. Three garda in their thick blue uniforms, yawning and rubbing their sleepy eyes.
"Can you see anything Milo."
"Nothing suspicious.'
"Ah it's what I thought, what would a good Mohammedan be wanting wandering nowhere on a soft night such as this. Give the Mrs. a knock. And well put her mind at rest. It's a nice place they've got here."
The front door opening. Gentlemen of the Garda Schicona standing on the gravel. Helmets held in the crooks of their arms.
"Nothing so far madam, where last did you see the culprit complained of, described as Mohammedan."
"He was right over there with this long thing hanging from him."
"I must caution you now madam, we're three members of the Legion of Mary present here. Let that be understood. And I have to tell you to be careful in talk like that."
"Sure I'll have you know then that I'm a member of the Royal Dublin Society. Roses have been named after me. Only last year I exhibited myself."
"Ah now, madam, none of that. I must caution you again."
"You oaf."
"Now now. That's a matter neither here nor there. It's decency first. I'm ready to take down particulars."
"And let the scurrilous intruder escape."
"Now if your man, madam, was as desperate as you say, he'd be as far now as the Kilcool, in the County Wicklow.
After waving goodbye to the protestants in Greystones."
"Eegit, eegit."
"Calm yourself madam, and be a decent lady."
"Didn't I see him five minutes ago."
"Describe his dress and distinguishing features."
"How many times do I have to tell you he was a Mohammedan." "Ah well well have no trouble then, catching the likes of him, but sure madam he's as likely to be a prince travelling with, forgive the expression, his harem. There's one of them lives in the Rathgar. But from what we know of him he's a jolly gentleman. And it's the women we've got to protect him from. They're banging on his door, poor man, all times of the day and night. The gentleman can't get a moment's rest. I'm sure he thinks we're not civilized."
"How dare you, when Ireland preserved culture through the dark ages of mankind."
"Ah now madam what's a few old trinkets and pages of a book compared to the refrigerators some of these gentlemen have in their very cars."
"I'm going to faint."
"Boys catch her now. I've got holt of her. She's no lightweight, I'm telling you, any Mohammedan gentleman would have his hands full with the likes of her. In the door now.
She'll come round. Milo you make a search there through the shrubbery for footprints."
Flash of garda torches approaching across the lawn shooting between the branches and leaves of rhododendrons. Balthazar crouching low. A weary wave of sleeping chill across my head. How did I ever wake up into this. Out of dreams of a white bull goring a man in a brown suit. And of Uncle Edouard who stood in a pulpit preaching. About the routes to follow through life. Lighthearted on the boulevard, gay in the cafe, a good shot at the shoot. A flower delivered each morning to the door for the buttonhole. Put a smile on the face. Keep the collar worn loose at the throat. Be skittish laughing and droll. Wear the garter always for the sock. And Balthazar my dear little one. As the prickly problems of life assail, or get dumped on you all at once, then. Ah. Take the walking stick, put back the shoulders, chest out, emerge into the world, stare up at the sky, watch where you're walking and show them what you are made of. Move the bowel in the morning like the roar of a lion. Hum a lullaby while you pee. That is my dear boy, joy. Soar up in the heavens in the balloon. When you come down again and you find that your mistre
ss has had a little on the side. Give her a small slap and say do not again be naughty. You hope that it was not with a rogue or swindler. That it was a gentleman of stature. Who knows his wine. And would always know his women. If he is black so much the better, and you then become completely white. For a change of pace. And last of all, let me say my dear boy. A little something about baldness. If you want to wear the toupee, which I do not suggest, always carry two. One for the white wine and one for the red. And when you drink the brandy you must of course be completely bald. And ah. For the great frisson. To press the top of the head against the breasts. It is perhaps one of the noblest of man's pleasures. The brain feels the breast right through the follicles. Undisturbed by the useless hair. You are not perhaps bald yet but there is hope. And then. You spin like a top upon madam's precious matters. After which death has no fear.
"Ah come out of there with your hands up. I've got him. Fve got him. There he is. Up now. We've got the black Mohammedan for sure. Come out of there youse. Attempting rape on a good catholic woman and running around your own country without so much as a farthing piece shielding you from shame."
Balthazar rising to his knees. The drops of moisture falling from the leaves. Stumbling forward into the torch light. Eyes blinking.
"Ah. Sure your man is dressed like a gentleman. He's the whitest thing I ever saw. Ah now wait a moment now. He's got ladies undergarments dragging after him. That's lawlessness enough for me I can tell you."
"Milo don't let that fool you. Mind now. We have caught a dangerous desperado here. Easy boys."
"Look of the way he's bending over double to avoid presenting too large a target, sure he's learned that trying to escape from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in America. Get the handcuffs now will you Sean from the car. He's no local criminal. I know the stance when I see it I'm telling you."
"Enough of your Yank folklore Milo. I'm in command of this arrest and will give the orders. Sean get the handcuffs from the car and me note book. Youse now. Let me caution you before you speak that what I think and see here will be used against you."