Leila: Further in the Life and Destinies of Darcy Dancer Gentleman

  ‘You have an extremely fine ankle. This is the external malleolus of the fibula. And this muscle I am rubbing is the flex or brevis digitorum.’

  One really didn’t give a fig about what muscle any muscle was, for at the moment going through one’s mind was a vision of Lois, stark naked at the top of her narrow steep stairs, a line of men waiting out her front door and down her alley. And she wore a sign around her neck. Which said. One at a time only. Of course the vision completely vanished as the chiropodist’s hands, having nicely massaged my Achilles tendons, were now venturing upwards upon the back of my legs. And one was slowly but surely becoming utterly transfixed with this albeit most embarrassingly bizarre but rapidly increasing enjoyable frisson. As she had now both her hands deep up my trouser leg. All ten of her brightly crimson nail varnished fingers, five to the left, five to the right, engaged caressing my calf muscles.

  ‘Skiing has made your legs strong. And you do don’t you, do a lot of walking.’

  ‘Yes as a matter of fact I do.’

  ‘Yes I can feel. In your soleus. And especially along here in your gastrocnemius. Only one tendon actually reaches the sole of the foot.’

  ‘O does it really, that’s considerably interesting.’

  ‘People don’t really pay enough attention to their leg muscles these days.’

  ‘No I’m sure they don’t.’

  A lot more awfully Latin sounding words erupted from her as her hands fondled between two prominent ligaments at the back of my knee. Of course the creature was beginning to tremble like a leaf. I certainly was not exactly as calm as any old cucumber either. With her actually tickling down the sides of my legs in among my hairs with her fingertips. My trousers now conspicuously bulging.

  ‘At the tarsal and tarso metatarsal articulations there’s so much that can go wrong.’

  ‘I entirely agree.’

  I took Rashers’ silk hanky upon which his tears had fallen and wiped my brow. Around her neck a silver chain with a gold cross hanging forward out her open white coat. Surely she’s not intending to do anything irreligious. Or break her vows as a chiropodist. But her lungs are distinctly heaving under her brown sweater. While her fingers, my goodness gracious me, are, good lord, unbuttoning my fly. I must say one is on the verge of saying something utterly daft. As to whether, in dealing with one’s ligaments higher up, to which naturally one’s leg is attached, did this still comprise part of the foot treatment. Involving one hopes, no additional charge. But as, at the presently awfully awkward moment, she cannot find the entrance to my complicated drawers, one does not ask niggling questions. Particularly now her fingers have finally got into the confines of my underwear. Where I am bulging so madly that bloody hell even with both of our pairs of cold hands, it is going to be a major engineering feat to get my member free of its clothed encumbrances. Especially as these drawers, also embarrassingly a dim shade of white, happen to have also been once my grandfather’s. And nearly of woven metal made traditionally by a Manx mill specially for farmers shepherding their sheep on their wintry windy moors. And I did only last night have such a severely erotic dream. Involving of all people, Dingbats and her big hefty red tinged tits. Nakedly serving me supper in my apartments. A late summer dish of mushrooms. She danced around showing off her fine points. And Sexton came bursting into the room. Pointing an accusing finger at my plate. Ah I wouldn’t Master Darcy touch that fungi or be caught dead eating a mushroom that one would pick. Sure she’s here in the house, with murder on her mind for the inhabitants. With a bag full of toadstools collected as deadly as a dozen cobras keeping warm in your bed. Them’s death caps and destroying angels in that sauce. O god will she never get it out.

  ‘I hope I’m not hurting you.’

  ‘No no. My undergarments are a little old fashioned that’s all.’

  Ah at last. In now this cool afternoon air, one’s regenerative organ is out. And instead of Dingbats one is looking down on this chiropodist’s dark reddish brown roots of her dyed blond hair. With nothing but an unprotesting groan blurting out my lips. Her warm mouth. Is indeed nothing but a welcome bit of bliss on my mind. As she does rather hungrily suck. Her hair parted down the middle. Her head bumping up and down like the old ram pump used to do, before it conked out, down in the cleft of the meadow in the rushy field by the oak wood. My goodness what treatment would she give one for a sprained foot. Daren’t read her surname. But her Christian name is Cloadagh, it says on her diploma on the wall. More to this chiropody business than meets the eye. Certainly much more to it than can be said in a mouthful. Has an orange bow tied at the back of her hair. And Leila’s purple one. Of which Crooks once said. Youse will take that bow out of your hair, or youse will be terminated in this employment. O god. I nearly had apoplexy when first I saw Leila’s pretty legs. Not believing the beauty which started at the top of her head could go all the way down to the tip of her toes. Which talking about toes, this foot specialist’s hand is presently wrapped squeezing upon my goolies. As her mouth is gobbling and sucking like a starved pig in a swill of molasses. Teetering me exactly on that knife edge of pleasure verging on pain. O my god, I’m exploding.

  Darcy Dancer’s head flying back, his feet upwards. One foot kicking over her whole tray of instruments. Bottles and scalpels and talcum powder scattering across the floor. Footsteps out in the next room. The door opening. And a high pitched bark. Behind my busy chiropodist’s back. As I groaningly stiffen in terrified delirium. And sit bolt upright. Staring straight at this grey headed lady. In a blue tweed coat and crimson cloche hat speckled with rain drops and sporting several flowers. Each petal of which along with the expression of her pug dog’s sniffling yapping face will be, I am absolutely sure, forever emblazoned on my mind. The lady’s eyes saucer round looking up at me. Her half open umbrella dripping rain.

  ‘Is this, is this, is this, the chiropodist’s.’

  Of course the visiting lady, poor dear, having seen over my foot specialist’s shoulder the full treatment in progress, was with a leash, hysterically choking back her equally hysterical tiny squashed faced pug dog from biting the chiropodist’s heels. And lifting the canine into her arms she backed rapidly out the door. Which some wind from somewhere unmercifully blew further open. And another breeze mercifully then slammed shut. But good lord, the door opening again. The pug face mutt, his claws scrabbling on the shiny linoleum, snarling. The lady craning her head in, this time with a lorgnette held poised tiptoe on her nose.

  ‘I didn’t think I could believe my eyes. I have a good mind to summon the police.’

  My poor chiropodist creature, her one hand still absolutely stuck caught entangled in my grandfather’s inpenetrable Manx drawers as I sprang up. Both of us yanking and pulling and skating on the talcum powder, and falling. The two of us crashing on the cold slippery floor. The chiropodist ashen faced ready to faint, but with her other hand still unfortunately firmly holding my obvious penis. And the awful ruddy bloody pug mutt snapping and growling at the lumps of cotton wool and finally sneezing uncontrollably in the raised dust of white powder. Having listened so often to Rashers dispense quips to quell all kinds of ignoble faux pas, I simply could not, racking one’s brain, venture what I thought might be practical as well as reassuring information. Which might allay the lady’s concern in requiring the attention of law enforcement. And exaggerating one’s refined English I opened my mouth.

  ‘Yes, madam, it is the chiropodist’s, but my condition requires me to have massaging of the musculature.’

  ‘You disgusting disgusting people.’

  Should the Garda Siochana come charging in the downstairs hall, there is no exit out these windowless walls. Nor any room to retreat. For the lady lowering her lorgnette, merely had to raise her umbrella to easily clonk my poor chiropodist on her head. But the angry way my foot specialist eyed her scalpel on the floor, she obviously had a sense of life preservation. And indeed murder. As she grabbed the sharp blade. Various evening newspaper headlines already fla
shing across one’s brain. Member of landed gentry indecently found concerned in stabbing of elderly blue stocking by prostitute chiropodist. Rashers anyway could take comfort that this is yet another disaster he is not responsible for.

  ‘Don’t you dare raise that knife to me young lady. As a devout Protestant I object to this absolutely shockingly beastly sight. I happen to have come all the way in on the train from Greystones. And if you don’t mind I shall take my custom elsewhere. Since the war’s been over, Dublin simply isn’t safe any more. And you in your notoriously Catholic profession in this place, should be reported to the appropriate parish priest.’

  Without taking any notice whatever of what her pug mutt was doing, which was lifting its stumpy leg on the skirting board, the lady from Greystones gave the door such an unmerciful slamming that plaster fell from the ceiling and the bare light bulb swung back and forth on its flex. And in a delayed action the diploma, already hanging askew, plummeted to the floor, the glass in the frame smashing. Good god. At Lois’s it was the stink of turpentine and squishy paint tubes, and now it’s scalpels and the stink of alcohol. Out on a bloody innocent walk. I have just time to flee this sorry mess and get to the barber to have my non pubic hair cut for tea. An alarm clock loudly ticking on a shelf among her bottles. If one can diplomatically get my damn fly buttons done up, my socks on, shoes laced. I will ruddy well gallop out of here. And join the rest of the field who must, by now, have roused a fox. As my chiropodist friend is now bent over against her damp wall. Hair falling forward around her face. Her thumb going back and forth on her red fingernails.

  ‘O god. I was so lonely. I’ve never done a thing like this before. I’ll be driven out. Into the streets. The likes of her will have the scourge of the tongues upon me.’

  ‘Well hypocrisy being what it is these days it isn’t exactly the type of tootsy wootsy treatment of which a member of an older generation, I think, would approve.’

  ‘Are you trying to make a joke of this.’

  ‘No. Certainly not.’

  ‘And you don’t sound French. You’re English. And the likes of you will be gone by the mail boat. How would you know what could happen to me.’

  ‘Well the likes of me thinks you do have a very good point there. Yes. I am very very English. But please don’t think I can’t appreciate your difficulty.’

  ‘And don’t you think that I do this all the time.’

  ‘O no. Of course not. But perhaps, please, you might tell me how much it is please.’

  ‘The treatment is four shillings a single foot. And seven and six for both.’

  ‘I mean, I fear madam, that I must at least ask, in view of the situation, is there an extra charge or something to that effect.’

  ‘Are you trying to insult me. I’m a real chiropodist.’

  ‘Yes of course you are. And I assure you.’

  I am

  A very

  Satisfied

  Customer

  22

  Shoelaces still loose, one reeled out of the chiropodist’s quite apoplectic. And totally unprepared for what was about to unfold. With the lady of Greystones lurking in a doorway. And then as I innocently passed and stopped to put up a foot to tie a bow in one’s footwear, she jumped out shouting, and with her mutt growling and barking, both hurried after me down the street. Clearly she and her ugly yapping canine were together criminally insane. Her umbrella pointing. Everyone hearing her extremely well enunciated shouts.

  ‘That gentleman is a debauché. He is unchaste. He is licentious.’

  The use of the term gentleman attracted much more attention than the simple word man would have done. And I found myself actually running outright across the Green. The park bloody attendant choosing this moment to tell me it was against the rules to run. Somehow one didn’t want to discourteously ignore his very polite good intentioned caution. And as I slowed to a rapid walk the bloody mad lady catching up once more.

  ‘I saw you. Don’t think I didn’t. You Catholic. All you filthy Catholics.’

  Of course not even a Protestant could flee back into the Shelbourne with this diatribe following. Especially right in the bloody thick of the afternoon tea time swarm. I skipped over Dawson Street nearly being run down by a tram. And still unable to shake off my pursuers. Thought I might duck down the steps to the Country Shop for tea but it was just the bloody sort of place such as the better bred insane might choose to hang out in, amid the Aran Island sweaters and socks and good nourishing cakes and scones.

  ‘There he goes. That’s him. Necromancer who thinks he will escape the wrath of the gods. And I vouchsafe, as my redeemer liveth, that he shall not.’

  On the pavement one did make a spurt. In and out folk, until of course knocking a little old lady flat. Tears were on the verge of descending my cheeks. There I was. Lifting the poor dear up to her feet. And my adversary again close up pointing her umbrella.

  ‘Rid us of evil.’

  Had one had one’s Purdey barrels handy I do honestly think I would, quite without hesitation, rid the earth of her and her mutt. But just as one was despairing, a begging gang of newsboys collected. And I pointed to my adversary.

  ‘She, my dear fellows, is the richest lady in Dublin chock full of halfcrowns.’

  Hurrying another forty paces. I finally escaped from her sight. Nipping into an auction room. And there the other side the gathering, was Horatio the actor. A beaming young auctioneer calling out the bids. Horatio waving up his catalogue to rather adamantly signal his purchase. Then another. And another. My god he must be furnishing an entire large house. Ah he smiles at me. As he appears to be doing at everyone watching him. And now that I’ve again come back to my senses momentarily, I do think it is absolutely ruddy time to escape round the corner for a haircut, shampoo and scalp massage. But as I paused to examine close up some of the auction items for sale, the young auctioneer down from his dais, suddenly literally was reeling in a state of near collapse against the wall. As I manoeuvred over closer. To overhear his hysterical conversation with Horatio.

  ‘But sir, you did, you clearly did bid.’

  ‘I was declaiming sir, as I rehearsed my Macbeth and was merely signalling my words with my arm.’

  ‘Good grief. But I’ve knocked down everything to you. I’m ruined. The entire auction will have to be held over again.’

  It was reassuring to find that others were having their troubles too. But as one looked about, O dear god. She’s found me. Just as I am to go out she’s come in. To denounce me.

  ‘There he is. I point him out for you all to see. The wicked. The unvirtuous. The evil doer, accursed.’

  Of course her words were taken in the present situation to mean poor old Horatio, who was already in some hot water. With even some pushing and shoving taking place. Which thank god was causing someone to take a humorous view. Crashing about the place laughing. And in the mêlée someone did step on her damn mutt. Who let out such a yowl. And coupled with the heated debate going on with the auctioneer and Horatio and the lady from Greystones loudly summoning the president of the league for the prevention of cruelty to Protestant animals, I slipped out back into the street. Darkness having fallen. Hopping as quick as I could around the corner into Kildare Street and smartly doing a turn on my left articulated ankle into the barber’s. Who I must say seemed happy to see me.

  ‘How would you like it styled this time Mr Kildare, sir, the usual. Or the latest.’

  Of course I couldn’t remember for the life of me what my usual was. Nor did one much care for the latest. Which, recent accusations being what they were, might make me look like a rapist. And one suggested merely a tidying up. And as my barber clipped me carefully about the ears and brought down the big whirling brushes from the ceiling to spin upon my head, I was regaining my senses. I opened a recent edition of The Field and was actually staring at a photograph of the hunt gathered in front of, of all places, Andromeda Park. And just as I was lapsing into some delicious reverie that here in front o
f me was evidence of one’s status in the world, lo and bloody behold. A tap tapping came a knocking on the barber’s street window. There she was. Her hat lopsided on her head. Rapping her umbrella. Staring and pointing and audible enough.

  ‘There sits he. Wallower in carnality.’

  Only Rashers would know what to do at a time like this. This bloody woman is not only in the process of ruining my haircut but the bloody rest of my ruddy life. She seemed reasonably sane enough when barging into the throes of my convulsively writhing intensive foot care. But obviously pondering that piquancy has thrown her for a ninny noodled loony loop. Being as she has now decided to pursue a lifelong career of hounding me with some crazy bee in her bloody bonnet. Which can only be put to rest by wrapping her mutt’s leash around her neck and stringing them both up to the nearest lamp post. Or introduce her to Horatio. Pair of them avec canine could go around the Dublin auctions bidding for everything in sight.