‘That’s him, guilty of concupiscence.’
The lucky thing of course is, with all five chairs occupied I am midway in the row. Each chap thinking that it was he at which she pointed. And you’ve never seen such a cowering collection of guilty looks in all your life. One having to laugh into one’s towel as the chap in the next chair inquired of his barber.
‘Is there a back way out of here.’
‘Yes sir, as there happens. But I fear it does require scaling a wall or two and even perhaps breaking and entering. Unless of course you are a member of the club around the corner on the Green. Then all you have to do is climb the first wall.’
My own barber, liberally pouring on the best of smell juices to massage my scalp, found the matter of this looming shadowy lady part of his daily entertainment and chose to confidentially inform my ear.
‘Ah sir we get them all the time. Shouters. Harmless enough.’
One stole a look at the window. Just darkness out there. The figure gone. Lie back in the hot towels wrapped about one’s head. Well into tea time on this late afternoon. One is so abysmally sad. Here in Dublin. Think and think so much about death. Voices singing. Slowly marching across one’s brain. A figure on a catafalque. Mr Arland’s Clarissa. Tinkers carrying her. And those long black tresses of hair hanging down. And not Clarissa’s. Leila’s. Small white flower either side of her brow, tied with a bow of purple ribbon. Cold alabaster skin of her face. Make tears well in my eyes. O god. Is she dead. The winds in requiem over her. Can one ever hope to have another woman in one’s life to make me completely forget her. Today I could have been at Punchestown. Racing. Amid the gently rising hills. The distant horses across the green striding in their blur of colours. Bookies standing on their boxes. All the names up on their signs. Little trays for chalk and rags for wiping. As they await the next runners. Rashers gone. Just like these late winter afternoons die so soon, fading in the sun. And leave a cold cold chill to blow. As the last races are run. More and more losing faces getting longer. In the smoky bars, the crowd thickened. Drink flushing down their throats. And there was a moment when I thought I saw Leila. Just a fraction of her face. Thought I saw her exquisite teeth and a corner of her soft eye when she turned to smile. And I pushed through to reach her. Shoving and nearly punching. No one budging or getting out of the way. Till at last I came to where she stood and she was nowhere to be found.
‘Now sir, Mr Kildare. Are we right now. Do you find yourself tonsorially suited for the evening.’
‘Yes. Thank you so much.’
Darcy Dancer departing the warm perfumed air of the barber’s. Out in the cold damp, looking left and right up and down the street. Staring back over the shoulder for signs of the lady from Greystones. In this darkness. Safety. But even so. One does not want to be followed into the side entrance of the Shelbourne. Best to detour down into Molesworth Street. Go right past the door where Rashers prised his three quid out of the Association for the Relief of Distressed Protestants. And where, in the few minutes I have to spare from my débâcles, I have a good mind now to present myself. Clearly Rashers’ toilet water he gave me, which he said was direct from London, smells just like that from my ruddy own barber. O my god. Can I believe this. There she is, passing under the lamplight, coming directly at me, dragging her mutt behind, as if she has been reading my mind.
‘You who are not pure. Who are not unblemished. Who are not immaculate. Repent.’
‘Holy and immaculate shit lady, I’m not going to repent. I’m going to bloody well run.’
Darcy Dancer reversing course charging past the Masonic Lodge. Feet pounding on the pavement. Guard in front of Dail Eireann leaving the big gates and giving chase. As the two pairs of feet went sprinting down Kildare Street. Flying around the corner along by Trinity. Into Merrion Square. Past the doctor’s waiting room window. Poor Guard left in the mist. He doesn’t even know why he’s chasing me. But now he is about to know that no one has ever run a faster mile than this in Ireland. The Zoological Museum. Past the government buildings. Turn right. Keep up the speed. Unless he gets a bicycle and she a racing car. I’ll be at last home and dry. Shoot past the Huguenot cemetery. Don’t even pause a second as one usually does to peek in on these peacefully deceased Protestants. Past the steps to the Shelbourne Rooms. At last now, through the newsboys.
‘Mister, mister where’s your man Rashers. Give us a penny, mister.’
Scatter behind at least a threepenny bit or two as I go in the door of the Shelbourne. Panting, sweating, and hopefully at last safe. Get up to my room into the bath. Don’t wait for the lift, two at a time up the stairs. And of course the nation’s parliament has no doubt all this time been left completely unguarded.
Darcy Dancer stretched out in the bath. Paddling the warm waters. What a day. Through no fault of my own, turned into nearly a permanent nightmare. At last it’s at least now seven o’clock. And the final last bloody train will have left Westland Row for Greystones. Such bliss privacy. And by god I shall not cower in poverty. In spite of yet another note with the compliments of the Manager. I think, not think, I shall, with a total change from my grandpapa’s underwear, repair down to the Shelbourne Rooms where I shall request for myself an entire bottle of champagne.
Darcy Dancer in black thornproof tweed wearing Mr Arland’s Trinity College graduate’s tie, descending into the front lobby hall. Clink of glass and cutlery coming out the door of the dining room. A long triple barrelled name being paged. Folk departing and arriving to dine. Many monocles everywhere. Ah what nice fragrant fumes doth tempt the nostrils. Makes one nearly as famished as Rashers. Dear me it is nice to feel free. With not a sign of any accusers. For the moment at least. Unwatched. Unwitnessed. Bathed. Soothed. Night of pleasant contemplative champagne induced reveries ahead. Must purchase a copy of The Field. And peruse further and better particulars of the hunt reported therein.
‘The Field please.’
‘Sorry copies all gone sir.’
‘O dear.’
That is a sure sign. That a lawn meet at Andromeda Park is the very tops. Everyone rushing to buy. To scan with a microscope their identities. O well. Detour through the always empty residents’ lounge here. Go up the stairs. Along the hall. Down the stairs. So comforting the white splendour of Georgian medallions on these egg shell blue walls. Ah quite a little bit of activity this evening. Amid the wicker chairs and glass topped tables. Redolent of some romantic verandah somewhere on the banks of the Nile. Only eighty-five degrees cooler. Ah a nice empty table left in a peaceful corner. Just go over here and sit down. Ah someone has left a book behind on this chair.
‘Good evening Mr Kildare. We haven’t had this pleasure for donkey’s years.’
‘No indeed. It’s been rather rush rush rush. Out there in the country. And equally rush rush in town.’
‘Ah now that hardly allows for a little healthy recreation.’
‘Well as a matter of fact I fear that’s what the rush has been all about. Recreation.’
‘And I’m sure well deserved. Why wouldn’t it be. What’s it to be sir.’
‘A bottle please. Of champagne. Heidsieck. Charles.’
‘Ah I see what you mean now about the recreation. Very good sir. How many glasses sir.’
‘Just one.’
Never in all one’s too brief life has one ever savoured one’s semi anonymous loneliness so much. Pity watching these ears here, that they do not, as a horse’s might, tell you what they are thinking. My god that waiter would do as butler at Andromeda Park next time Crooks hangs himself. Dear me. What have we here. A book. Heavens someone’s erudite. Ah a novel. Light reading. Clearly that is what it is. Someone then wants to be entertained. Flick open the pages. Dear me. Do one’s eyes set upon the obscene. Threw her down with his mouth eagerly hard upon hers. How did this ruddy piece of saucy literature get into the country.
‘Do you mind. That happens to be my book.’
Hardly dare look up. In fact. I won’t. No. It can
’t be. But if it is. That ruddy bloody woman from Greystones. I shall commit murder. Steal just a peek. Ah these are rather elegant high heeled shoes. Attached very pleasantly to a distinctly young and trim ankle. Pretty skirt. O my god. It’s even worse. Baptista. Consuelo.
‘I am sorry. The book simply happened to be here on the chair.’
‘Well I was in fact sitting at this table.’
‘I am frightfully awfully sorry. But of course I shall move.’
‘Well you needn’t do a song and dance, not on my account.’
Darcy Dancer getting to his feet. Handing the red bound book across the table. Into this rather surprisingly long fingered bejewelled hand, with an absolutely monumentally large diamond sported on one of her phalanges. Thick gold bracelet on her right wrist. And an equally thick one on her left. Each set with three acorn sized rubies. This bloody bitch kicked me in the head. Spurned my Mr Arland. Was even whipped in the nude across an hotel floor by the Mental Marquis. And now has the unmitigated gall to pretend that I was trying to steal her filthy disgusting book. And now with every table occupied I shall have to decamp. Ah. The waiter. Have him serve me on another surface as many miles away as possible. Even out on the stair steps in the hall will do.
‘Sorry madam, I thought you had left.’
‘No, I was just getting my reading glasses I forgot in my room. Perhaps you can find me another table. I’ll sit over there at the bar and wait till a table’s free.’
‘Very good madam.’
‘There’s no need to you know, I’ll move. I’ve clearly taken your place.’
‘No. That won’t be at all necessary I’ll move over there. I see at least a chair free. Or it was free.’
‘No I insist. I’ll move.’
‘Well pardon me ladies and gentlemen, may I, as the servant at your disposal, do the Solomon here. Since there is nowhere else to sit for the time being. Would it solve the problem now, if you both sat down, right here with the four chairs available, and two extra for an arriving guest if need be. Now if I may make so bold it isn’t as if you were cat and dog is it.’
‘No it isn’t. Do you mind, Mr Kildare then if I sit down.’
‘Do please sit down if you wish.’
‘Ah now ladies and gentlemen that’s better now isn’t it. Sure if the big world out there worked as well we wouldn’t have had a war. And what may I now get for you madam. Or are you waiting.’
‘No I’m not waiting. As a matter of pleasure I’ll have the same as Mr Kildare is having. Only a snipe will do.’
‘Well, do please. Then. That’s a whole bottle. Have some of mine.’
‘Are you sure you don’t mind if I do.’
‘No not at all, please do.’
‘Then I shall.’
Our immaculately white coated waiter having safely placed one’s ice bucket, now flourishing his tray as if he were throwing the discus, and bowing deeply.
‘Ah there’s now a satisfactory solution to a dilemma. Requiring as it merely does. Just one more glass.’
God. What a day. Here I am. Seated with the last person in the world I could imagine I’d ever be saddled with. At least her voice seems to have slight overtones of friendliness in it. Suppose one merely starts off with some utterly inane non leading question. Avoiding all and any mention of hunting of course. Since I’m supposed to have attempted to have raped her or something. When in fact I nearly killed myself saving her life. Astonishing how such an upstart from a small country town, just because she is pretty, can put on such airs to float all by herself into the Shelbourne Rooms and even pretend to include me in the same social bracket as if she were a member as one is oneself of the landed gentry. I suppose she could just scrape by as an adherent of the professional classes, having, as she has, a monkey tree growing in her front garden. In spite of rumours of her father owning a butcher’s, chemist’s and haberdashery. All one knows is her mother threw tantrums merely to get her dancing lessons from the Count when he was teaching us in the great castle, and has since been taking her to every bloody race meeting in Ireland in the biggest hats in order to get her picture in the papers.
‘And what are you doing up in town Baptista. If one might inquire.’
‘You might. I am here because my husband is not here.’
‘I see.’
‘No you don’t actually. It so happens my husband is a bit of a pompous ass.’
‘I see.’
‘Do you really see, or are you being like every one of those people one meets, full of their ad nauseam euphemisms. My husband who used to absorb all his time playing rugby, now absorbs all his time at his mills in Bradford, Manchester and Leeds, and is mostly interested in the weft and warp of his cloth. Less than a fortnight after our wedding, his bolts of gabardine plus a certain piece of fluff, seemed to take up far more of his attention than I did.’
‘Why don’t you divorce him then.’
‘He may be an ass, but I’m not exactly one. There are as it happens, considerable compensations. Which we won’t go into here and now.’
The champagne poured into our glasses. One had somehow, in distaste of her, forgotten how spectacular her golden hair and blue eyes could be, albeit so slightly marred by an overly upturned nose. As she sits, highly perfumed, sleeves pulled back from her rather nice wrists. As well as all the conspicuous jewelry, she is actually wearing a smile on her lips. My god she doesn’t sound like the Baptista I so recently pulled by her legs and hair up out of the muddy ditch. Or when she was so full of her priggish social climbing snobberies and far too good for my Mr Arland. Sucking up to her betters all over the parish.
‘I suppose Darcy Dancer you’re sitting there thinking I’m still full of my former priggish snobberies.’
‘O no. No. Of course I’m not.’
‘Well that’s exactly the look you’re wearing on your face, changed now of course to your one of utter amazement. You see I’ve found something which replaces my snobberies entirely.’
‘I’m not amazed, but I would like to know what it is new you’ve found. Sorry. I didn’t quite mean that.’
‘Of course you meant it. But what I’ve found in a word. Is money. And you are amazed aren’t you. Money simply buys people. Buys them anywhere, anyplace, anytime. And one no longer need ride on one’s high horse. But I think you should come down off yours. Or do you prefer instead we bore each other with stupid little bits of contrived small talk.’
‘Well, the champagne, I hope, if you pause to taste it, is not the least contrived.’
‘Ha ha, touché. Well perhaps you are not then, completely the stuck up little gallant one has come to regard you as.’
‘Heavens. You don’t appear to entertain a very high opinion of me.’
‘Nor, wouldn’t you admit, do you entertain one of me. But then, really when you look into it close enough, we’re nothing but a pair of Irish country yokels, up in town behaving as if we weren’t. But at least you do, I must say, have rather good taste in your choice of champagne.’
‘I really don’t, except for the champagne, feel as if your description aptly applies to me as a matter of fact.’
‘O dear, you see. Because you happen to have some modestly good paintings and statuary in your house, you want so much to pretend that your taste in champagne is merely natural to you. That your grandfather and his grandfather drank it. It’s been in your cellar for years.’
‘Certain vintages of champagne can vary considerably. And even the best champagne can fade after a generation.’
‘Well I did notice how democratic of you to have been drinking with your previous sergeant at arms. Or whatever that Foxy Slattery did or was at Andromeda Park. He certainly had a filthy gossiping mouth.’
‘Madam, would you rather I leave you to your racy novel and move to another part of this building.’
‘No I would not rather you did. As a matter of fact I’m thoroughly enjoying giving you a piece of my mind.’
‘I see. But one does sense I think
a slight embitteredness somehow, perhaps not mitigated by our previous somewhat embarrassing encounters.’
‘You allude of course to your fancying the cut and fit of my breeches. Which I hope you haven’t entirely forgotten all about. Well I didn’t take you up on the occasion because, since gentlemen seem frequently to prefer being on top, I didn’t exactly relish being rolled about in a field where one’s backside is likely to get awfully wet and muddy. And quite possibly too, people after the fox might come jumping over one. Now. Has the cat got your tongue darling.’
‘No the cat has not.’
‘Am I scaring you out of your wits. Pour me, please, more champagne. You see. Truth of the matter is. I think you hold it against me ever since I had a whipping match with that now shop assistant and former whore housekeeper of yours, and spurned your poor Mr Arland. As a matter of fact. Although I did spurn him. I did think he was sweet to come kneeling with his posies on my front stoop trying to sing his love songs.’
‘My Mr Arland never knelt to do that.’
‘Well. Whether he did or not is not the problem. But I have a mother. Who I admit is utterly raddled with her small town ambitions, and who nearly killed herself in her attempts to make me a Marchioness. And of course we both know the Marquis I speak of. I was forced. Forced. To do every rotten low cruel deceitful toadying and contemptible thing to become what would probably be the thirteenth or is it now fourteenth Marchioness. And for my pains. I got as the vulgar expression has it, royally buggered. And ended up still a commoner but without perhaps a commoner’s bugger all. And then again, had I ever become a Marchioness, I could have, as was one of the Marquis’ grooms, been burned to a crisp in his horsebox. But don’t you realize people like your Mr Arland have not a chance in this world.’
‘I do not think that’s entirely so. People of high principles do occasionally rise to the top.’
‘Do they.’
‘Yes they do.’
‘Well blow me down. At times, you do sound quite righteous. Perhaps then I should not ask will you dine with me. I could pretend of course I’m not at a loose end. As in fact I am. I have absolutely nowhere to go this evening. In spite of these various men earlier making their goggle eyes at me. Well, will you dine with me. That’s an invitation.’