"O God my lad. What makes you cry."
"I'm dying."
"Ah surely you are."
"And that's so terribly sad."
"Ah not so in the land where everybody does it. The only thing they're good at at all. Come lie now with your head here. A woman's breast is the best place for you feeling like that. What's troubling you."
"I don't know."
"There's something deep is troubling you. The way the tears come welling up. Otherwise dying would be your only worry. I've spent years terrified of my last moments. With the hand of God waiting up there to slap me across the face. And me ready to give back to him a kick in the shins he wouldn't soon forget. One day soon enough my time will come. I won't have energy left to care. Cuddle in close to me. You're like the little boy I had once. In my arms but three short days. My father was a cobbler. Drank us out of hearth and home. When he wasn't doing that he was beating my mother with his fists and us little kids with a razor strop. Or screaming round with the pain of hammering his thumb. There was howling all day long. My uncle kept the farm in Cavan. I was sent out there to fatten up they thought I was going to die. I'd be back and forth to Irishtown. I liked Cavan and the country ways. The little beauties. Tadpoles and toads. Catching eels in the grass. Gave me a fright when I first saw one of them. I was frightened it was a snake. My uncle got me a situation in a hotel away in Kerry. A beautiful young priest on his holidays stopped me in the hall. I was carrying an armful of sheets. He said was I behaving myself. Had I been yet to Lourdes. I said I had not. He says did I hear tell of the talk of the scandal up the coast. A bunch of Americans in a castle raising cain. He says to me was I sure I wasn't up there. Where poor innocents had already been impurely enslaved. I looked at him. He was as serious as they come. Wanted to know of my company keeping, whether I was thinking of getting married or did I think I had a vocation. I said yes, carrying sheets like I am doing this minute. O he was a smarmer. He said how is your immortal soul. I said fine thanks. He asked if my room where I slept was of a hygienic standard. I laughed in his face. But God it wasn't long before he was up there hearing my confession as we sat on the side of the bed. I am telling you my life's story. And maybe you're dying in my arms."
"I'm feeling a little better thank you."
"It's a woman's breast every time. To put a little comfort in a man. A woman's dream, you are. I had my dream ruined soon enough. Dominic was the priest's name. Fie says to me he says blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God. Carrying on like your friend Beefy. Giving out the religion before taking out the other thing. I was daft enough. He said have you had a holy familiarity with God my child. I said who do you think you're talking to I said. He said don't be boastful to me. Imagine. Boastful. Says he, God's divine plan is that one day you should be a mother, my child. I told him get out of the room as the housekeeper was coming. That scared him across to the window. He nearly went through only it was four floors up. Left him time enough to tell me not to let self abuse mar my immaculate purity. Or become a ruined temple as he put it. Well he marred it three days later. Busted the door of the temple. And a black car comes collects him away. Leaving me pregnant. And hounded by nuns trying to lynch me with rosary beads. I was away from there. Went by lane-ways, fields and carts all the way to Dublin. Sleeping in the hay at night. Milking a cow I'd catch in the morning. Munching an apple I'd find. Or a turnip out of a field. He put his religion into me. And I said to him to look me up on judgment day and mind not to trip on the last step to heaven. Ah you're cheering up now. That was a smile. For such a sad story. Maybe you're not dying."
"What happened to you in Dublin."
"Ah it was miserable enough. I found I had not a friend in the world. Went from door to door. For any kind of work. But before I left for Dublin at all I went by the castle the priest was telling me about. The scandal was unabated they said, raging within the walls. But the clergy had it watched. The Americans were in there, protected by insurgents. The whole countryside agog with the goings on. With me as scullery maid in a house in Fitzwilliam Square, sure I was destitute. Working seven in the morning till eight at night for twenty seven and six a week. I stole my fare out of the good lady's handbag on the evening I took the boat to England. Ah God I had a little boy. The sweetest little thing. Taken out of my arms. He was gone away from me to a better life I suppose. Missing the love of a mother. They said he was cursed, the son of a priest. I tore at the eyes of the first nun they let near me. Ripped her rosary out of her hands as she was at the bed praying to save my soul. Found a job as a barmaid up the Edgeware Road. Until one day my uncle from Cavan walked in. Nice as you please. Ah poor lad, are you going to sleep on me there."
"No. Listening."
"I couldn't tell a word of this to anyone before. Makes me laugh that I feel at home with a pagan."
"I'm not pagan."
"Ah it doesn't matter. Would you be able for a little breakfast in awhile."
"I think so."
"I'll go down there and use a few of their rashers of bacon and old hen's eggs before they, the two of them, know what hit them."
"What happened when your uncle found you in the Edge-ware Road.'
"You're an interested one. The kind as might write a book. He came in, like I said. Did the uncle. Sat down at the bar and took off his cap and scratched his head. He put the cap back on again and wagged his head from side to side. Like a monkey in a zoo. I said to meself what's this now. Have they come from Cavan to string me up on the cross. I served him without a word, he could have been a wall in Jerusalem. He was having pints of cider. Fd put one before him and he would look straight up at the ceiling staring at one spot. Then he would say out loud with everyone looking at him. It's so. Four times and four pints till I couldn't stand it anymore. Staring up at the ceiling and saying, it's so. I came up to him across the bar and I says what's so. And he looks back up at the ceiling again. I left him to it. Every ten minutes till closing time, up at the ceiling he'd look and say it's so. Well he did that five nights running. I lost my appetite and thought I was dying. The bar was full of Irish like himself. Saying ah your man's behaviour is quite correct you know, what's wrong about saying it's so. If it isn't so, someone else can say so, they said. The stupid eegits. Well on the Saturday night he came in again. I said how would you like to see me selling myself down around the Piccadilly I said. I took the pint of cider and threw it in his face. I said there that's so. It was the first laugh I had for months. And that's exactly what I did, I went down to the Piccadilly. I nearly had my face cut open. And just as I was going to try the Bayswater Road instead, a nice gentleman from Pakistan came along. I was living in a filthy basement hovel in Paddington. He bought me presents and I got a good bed sitter. I nearly landed on my feet. Sure I had a radio bought. It was a miracle lying there listening to the music. I can play some of the programs over in my head now. But one morning I woke up and found myself answering questions to the police. Your man was an embezzler. Known in other circles as the Tricky Turk. Starting companies all over London. He was good to me and I didn't worry. If it wasn't for him I'd be ruined forever as a woman. The kindnesses he gave me brought back my self respect. He had an Irish accomplice educated at Clongowes Wood College. To give the whole fraud a style as you might say. He was a grand man was the accomplice, only decent Irishman I ever met. When he laughed the ceiling would shake. He went by the name of Percy. He had another name of Ferdinand. Ah God you're passing off to sleep. Fll get you breakfast. You poor darling, sure the fever is raging in you by the feel of your cheek."
"May I have some water please."
"I'll get you anything you need. I'll slip to make the fires below or there'll be murther. The two should be still asleep. Last Friday I had a little peek of them through a crack in the door. He was up on her. I was gripped with such fascination I couldn't tear my eyes from the sight. There he was going away strong and she has her arms out either side holding open the Evening Mail and reading it over his shoulder.
I laughed so loud I was nearly caught. But the two of them have an awful way of leaping out at you in the morning. Snooping and looking for cigarettes they hide from each other around the house. Now don't do a thing if you hear any strange sounds. You poor lad. God love you lying there. Aren't you trembling now. Sure wait. I'll have the breakfast and water to you."
Knobs of vertebrae down her back. Phylum chordata. Two pointed pink tipped little breasts. The white slender legs that went twinkling from her dress. Blue veins behind her knees. She twists up her hair. And pins it high on her head.
"I feel no shame standing in front of you. Would never let the poor old Pakistani see my body. It would give him fits. He'd kick his turban round the room. If you really go for someone. You don't mind what they see."
"I have to relieve myself."
"Ah God now wait a minute I knew that must come. I can't let you out to the water closet. But wait now, a second."
Breda going out the door. From the bare walls of this barren room. A film star's face tucked in the corner of the mirror. And death around me. My chest tight, throat sore. The light painful coming in my eyes. Squeezed the night with her on this bed. Escape away to the watering places. As Beefy came roaring out of the Dublin Quays. Wake one more damp morning. And hope as this door opens it's not my last.
"It's the best I could do. Two pint milk bottles."
Balthazar rising up from the bed. Putting legs down from the torn sheets. With each step all pain. Cool airs blow up on the soles of my feet through the cracks between the boards. Drop backwards out the window to the barrel below and crawl. Two feet. Found dead in bracken and broken glass. Student rusticated. Formerly sent fears of the Asian peril through Donnybrook. Take up the bottle. Can hardly hold my prick. Half hearted swollen. As she watches me wee wee all dark yellow and filling it to the top.
"God you're going to need the other."
"Yes."
"Here we're ready now for the flow. I've got you. Sure where does all of it come from. O God you're getting to the brim again. Holy murther it's going to overflow. Don't mind, let it go on the floor. It'll go below. Won't do the stout a mite of harm. I heard a woman out in Mayo was cured with a vial of the pope's pee. Like everything else you hear you wonder. But not long afterwards you could get a vial of pope's pee all over the West. His Holiness would have to be peeing his heart out, poor old gent, to keep up the supply. They'd sell an edge off a fart of Jesus if he were still around. But you're not to mind, get back to bed. That's the way. Ah you beauty sick as you are. Keep the blanket up snug."
Bottles of pee put on the dresser at the side of the door. Breda nodding a smile stepping out into the hall. Just through a corner of the window, a wet gleaming blue slate roof. Rubbed with leaves of a holly tree so oily green. Fog lifting. Patch of blue. Ridges of cloud. Sea gulls sliding down across the wind. And squawking as they do sitting high on college rooftops. Stepped out into life. Holding this naked kindly little creature. Upon whom I laid my head resting in the night Felt her arm come across my ear and pressed my face against her breast. Teasing her nipple in my mouth. Suckle there and eat. Near black little tufts of hair. Smell her sweet and musky sweat. How much did I drink from my mother. When she was my milk. To splash away all the growing up fears and terrors. And sent my Bella away. That day under the high skies of France. White dust on lips. That will never go away. Mine so hot and dry. Breda in this black loose dress, a tear across the backside. Sunday best she said. A creaking in the hallway. The door pushed open. A tray comes in.
"God I hope they are not on to me. She has every grain of sugar counted in the house. It's about time I had two eggs and a bit of bacon once in a blue moon and eat it by myself in the bedroom. Her with the hair up six feet high in curlers. Zombie slave driver. Now. See if that doesn't put life into you. Taken with a bit of sauce."
The tray laid across the bed. Balthazar propped up against the pillow. A brown tea pot. A plate covered with rashers and eggs. Two sausages and halves of two tomatoes. A stack of bread and butter. Warm tinted smells. A big fork curling up at the prongs. A knife with a melted ivory handle and blade from Sheffield.
"I didn't know if you wanted them sunny side up. Don't mind it's hard to find a plate not chipped or cracked. The good delft is locked away."
"This is very kind and it looks awfully good."
"You poor man you can hardly see at all. Here get the hot tea into you first. Sit up a bit more. We'll put this sweater of mine up here round your shoulders. You're not to worry about a thing. You look smashing sitting there in front of your feed."
A creak in the hall. Breda stiffening and turning. The door slowly pushed open. A head in curlers peering round the door.
"What's going on in here. I thought I heard voices and I did."
"Don't you come in here."
"What's this."
"It's my sick big brother from home, he arrived feverish in the night with nowhere to stay. He's not well at all. And I'd be pleased if you got your head out of the door."
"I'll do no such thing in me own house. A likely story. A man lying in the bed. I know your tricks. You dirty little slut. You won't be raising cain in this house I can tell you. Come down like that bare faced and go off with two eggs, six back rashers, half a loaf of bread and quarter pound of butter for breakfast. Whose food do you think it is. And you get whoever that is there out of here in a hurry. And I'll thank you to give that tray back to me now. Keep your dirty habits with your girl friend down there on the Quays. The filth of it."
Breda sprang like a cat from the side of the bed. One bounding swift leap across the room. Her two hands came down flashing across the woman's face. And reached up to plunge a grip in the mountain of curlers. Dragging the landlady's head downwards till she fell face forward on the floor. Her outstretched arms grabbing at Breda's ankles as she stepped backwards kicking at the clutching hands.
"Slut. She's trying to kill me, Myles. Myles. Kicking me is it. Scum. Soon deal with you."
Landlady scrabbling up to her feet. Curlers dangling from streaming hair. Large breasts heaving. A red patch at her throat. She rubs her hands off on her bosoms and belly showing through her dress. As she plunges forward grabbing at Breda's white thin shoulders, pushing her back against the dresser. Bottles of pee falling and crashing and breaking on the floor.
"Filth. It's piss. Drown me in piss will you. Slut."
"Pope's piss you hag."
"Vermin. Godless vermin. Time to remedy you for good."
"I'll rip you to shreds you maggoty old bitch."
Sound of tearing garments, a flashing hand cutting across the woman's huge bosom. The landlady's hands clutching downwards at Breda's throat. And sharp little knees kicking up 236 into the fat belly. They clinch together, spin round, and brushing by the bed, plunge crashing to the floor. Breda buried beneath the great grey bulk. Landlady's mousey scattered hair as her fists pound up and down and suddenly reach upwards spreading fingers as she gives out a blood curdling scream of agony.
"I'm bit. O Myles I'm bit. Myles. Get her chained the dirty thing. Myles hurry. Get her off me. The cat. I'm clawed and bit. Get her off me before Fm kilt. Myles."
Feet pounding up stairs and running down a hall. Dark curly haired man, sleeves rolled to his elbows stopping in the doorway. Blinks his eyes. Surveys the scene. Gives a nod of greeting to Balthazar sitting up thin and feverish in the bed. The two figures on the floor panting, grunting, and their clutching hands buried in each other's hair.
"Myles can't you see Fm kilt by this one, get her off."
Myles putting his hand to his chin and rubbing back and forth. He leans left and leans right. He looks down close. And puts out a finger to tap Breda gently on the shoulder.
"Ah now, what have we here. Have we here a little misunderstanding. Sure we have now. Nothing more. Some cross purposes. Nothing more than that sure. Just a little bit of involvement every house has in its good time. Breda now. That's a good girl now. Let's have a calm analysis. Sure the cock's
crowed twice now and we all know it's morning, don't we now. Know it's morning. Sure we do. As why wouldn't it be morning if the cock himself knows it and is crowing. And start the day now afresh. Ah let's go easy here now."
"Myles she has the teeth in me."
"Breda now. Enough now."