‘Ah I see, not only paid your bill but you cashed my cheque as well. Shades of your ancestors. That was rum of you if I might say. Judging by the amount of money that appears to be in your hand. Of course, if it is a ridiculously large sum I simply shall stop payment on the cheque. Now darling. Here are your orders for the afternoon. Three saddles to be fetched from Callaghan’s down Dame Street. Do take a taxi. They are quite heavy. We shall meet for tea in my rooms at four. Please be packed for the mail boat by nine. We’ll dine on board. En route of course for Paris. Is that all agreeable, my darling boy. Now exactly what amount have you attempted to defraud me of.’
Darcy Dancer taking the creased and folded piece of paper from his pocket. Opening it up and smoothing it out in his hand. Seizing it by a tiny corner the pink slip of paper hanging from two tweezing fingers, and handed across to Baptista.
‘O I see. What’s this.’
‘Your cheque. The truth is I certainly would have cashed it. And become your fancy man. But the fact is, I suddenly had no need to. And so shall not now be, my dear sow, your nancy boy. Perhaps we can have tea and go to Paris another time.’
‘I suppose now you’re going home to play squire lording it over your peasants. And when you do please just remember you walked out of that bedroom this morning with my cheque.’
‘And do I as a result madam, now know how to accommodate your kind of lady.’
‘You are, aren’t you, in fact a rather cruel, mean conceited contemptible little son of a bitch. And believe me, there’s no shortage of your kind of young man.’
‘Do madam please then let me say upon parting, that I think you are quite a bit more marvellous than I ever thought you were previously. Goodbye.’
Darcy Dancer in the Shelbourne lobby. The din of voices swelling from dining room and public lounge. Side step out of any possible sight of any possible ladies from Greystones. And these three prowling figures. The Royal Rat hunched forward in his baggy grey tweeds. Followed by Buster the Beastly and Danno the Damned. Purchase a London newspaper. Hide behind the pillar. Concentrate on the well bred agony of the personal column of The Times. And be no longer myself unpleasantly haunted by my hotel bill. Tip toe in and around the narrow pillar to avoid the more familiar faces in the lobby. In the middle of her insults, Baptista suddenly had tears in her eyes. Black kid skin gloves on her folded hands. Sitting so alone in her chair. My prick suddenly aswell rigid in one’s trousers. Wanting to make love to her. Could be my mistress without too many attachments or ties. Fetch her a bunch of violets from a tinker lady at the door. Take insult. But I suppose one does not, no matter how deserving insult a lady. Following the performance of a few chores, she was after all, inviting me to stroll with her on easy street. Temporarily allowing respite from having to sell household paintings and objets d’art. Waltz up or is it down the Champs Elysées in Paris. Do what Sexton so many times said I should. Ah now you would broaden the vistas of the brain you would, hobnobbing with the very latest in intellectuals. Baptista can stew a moment in her own highly perfumed juice, blatantly betraying her husband Harold. Seems quite a popular trend these days not to give a tinker’s damn about loyalty. Ah but perhaps that moral question on this noonday is best left back in the bedroom. Especially while my person is insulated with quids. Which one merely unpeels to pay my bill.
‘Mr Kildare.’
‘Yes.’
‘There’s a letter for you. Just arrived sir.’
This envelope, soiled and battered. My god. Monaco. Gracious me, rip it open. A picture postcard of chandeliers ablaze over a roulette table. In a vast empty Salle des Jeux du Casino.
The Cathedral Steps
The Old Town
Monaco
Darcy my dear boy, hope this reaches you still comfortably ensconced in that so pleasantly homespun elevation of mellow red brick on the Green. Having embarrassingly outstayed my welcome here on earth and in the elsewheres, I have decided in my state of nae hope to do the decent thing. By all accounts in the fish museum and aquarium here from which I have just emerged, there are predatory pisces nearby in the waters. By the time you read this I shall have heaved myself off these steep cliffs and down into the thrashing waves of a presently raging Mediterranean Sea. Jockey Club members do enjoy a full two minute silence of remembrance held by other members. And so no need for you to mourn. Although I hope you bloody well will, a tiny little bit. A cheaper final departure cannot be got. But more sad because I had for two nights straight practically won a fortune. And on the third, distracted unduly by an awfully nice and pleasantly rich lady and basking in her flattery my concentration wavered and, as one should have known one would, I lost all. Including the lady who turned out not to be so rich and departed on the train for Paris. I did croon for coins in the Market Place and alas on the steps of the Casino, thereby compromising my only remaining dearly held principle, till the police intervened. They were quite civil about it, but following this social if not spiritual disgrace, only enough coin was collected for a decent meal, bottle of champagne and cigar. I was however, offered a job to butler on a yacht moored in the harbour and to sing after dinner, but can you believe it, I was finally turned down on my handsome looks being too much a temptation to the ladies. I suppose this more than anything convinced me it was time to put an end to it all. Please believe me. When I say. How sorry I am about your silver. Herewith pawn ticket. I am and shall be always your undoubted friend. Ta ta,
Rashers
One’s tear fell plop upon the word sorry. Smearing the letters S and O and R. And he once said. My dear boy. If ever I did die. It would be so nice to have been an admiral. Bared heads would be bowed. My cocked hat unworn. Boots reversed in the stirrups of my riderless charger. A piper’s lament. To the slow throbbing drums. And folding the letter. My eye caught sight of a further scrawl.
PS. Alas dear boy, pride is the energy of survival just as it is the substance of defeat.
Beyond veils dark
Mourn for me
Buried in the deep
25
One walked the dismal empty streets. Saw Sheena, Rashers’s whore from the catacombs, plying for trade under the railway trestle. Called on Mr Arland, no answer, his window dark and I went down the quays. Past ships. One sailing out silent in the swell. Port and starboard lights. Red and green like Christmas. Crossed over the canal lock. Walked by the great coal bunkers and gas works as I had once before on such a night of sorrow.
‘Ah yes. The note will be delivered to await the gentleman’s next arrival in the Common Room.’
At Trinity College’s front gate, I had stopped at the porter’s lodge, a fire aglow in the cosy interior. And suddenly approaching, limping from under the gas lamp, there was Mr Arland. We went to sit for a coffee in the wicker chairs and under palm fronds in the welcome warmth of Jury’s Hotel down Dame Street. He spoke of the American girl, Clara Macventworth, and I could see he was again so sad.
‘Kildare, I suppose I never knew it possible even to remotely fall in love again. Especially as she seemed forever going off somewhere. To Rome, Madrid or the south of France. Now she’s moved out of my building to another address. The appointments we make to meet, either she turns up hours late to rush away, or turns up not at all. Said she was ill and needed an urgent operation and was leaving to go to the American Hospital in Paris. And then I saw her, only yesterday, arm in arm with another man, laughing and gay on the steps of the Gresham Hotel.’
Sorrow looming in the world everywhere. Somehow there upon Mr Arland’s face, the same resigned anguish one had seen with Baptista. And the crushing sorrow with Clarissa. Women. Pretty women do, when they want to, demolish men. As he stared down at his cup of coffee.
‘Mr Arland, I do think this lady has done you an injustice.’
‘No Kildare. One does that to oneself. And even when one expects little, it is always prudent to expect much less.’
‘Mr Arland now you promise, you will, won’t you, come and stay with me at Andromed
a Park.’
‘I promise, Kildare. I promise. But I wonder if it is not for some men to always stub their toes on women and make arses and fools of themselves.’
‘In that case, I shall, when you come, provide ladies galore.’
‘Kildare ah, you do cheer one up. I truly sense you’ve become now in your destiny, a man of the world who will outflank his adversities.’
Returned to my room back in the Shelbourne. Took a solitary supper. As I lay abed, listened to a concert on the wireless. Staring through the shadows out my window. Towards the night clouds. My own voice pleading. Don’t be dead. Rashers. Help peel back these fingers agrip squeezing all joy out of one’s heart. Please come back. Rashers please. To the land where even if we waste all our time in hope, at least some of our laughter is not in vain.
Next morning under the squawk of seagulls, I stood on the summit of the little stone bridge in the Green. In memory of Rashers, threw down a carnation in the water which floated slowly away pushed by the breeze. Then took a taxi to alight under three golden balls. Of this dark shuttered shop. An ancient toothless crone pawning clothes beckoning me ahead of her. The proprietor summoning me past a woman, her young thick black hair streaked with grey, three tiny shoeless children in tow.
‘Ah after you sir, please now. He’d have us know there’s plenty of time for the likes of us.’
Into a private cubby hole. For the attentions of the gentry. Funereally suited broker lifting up the suitcase of one’s silver on the counter. Could hear Sexton’s voice. Ah an Irishman would do anything for ready money, sell his birthright as quick as spit. So that he could take his ease at Dublin’s crustacean counters, feasting his life away, with destiny behind him instead of in front, Master Darcy keep away from bad company.
‘Ah it’s fine stuff that is now sir. The very finest of the very best. Heirlooms, generations in his family, escutcheon engraved on them handles. Deposited by the peer himself, Ronald Ronald, the Earl of Rashers. Who said his equerry in waiting might be calling, which I assume is your distinguished self.’
One did manage to smile. At the pawnbroker’s so appropriate title. Of that bloody lovable impostor. Never missing an opportunity as he ascended in his self styled nobility to reduce his victims in rank. And now sadden me further to hand over nearly the remainder of Leila’s money. To retrieve my own property. Helped by the taxi man to load it in his desperately soiled boot. The whole rear of his vehicle swaying as the rear wheel verged on wobbling off.
Then how swift the darkening afternoon came. Like a great strange thunderclap. Exploding in my life. Hotel bill paid, decamping from the Shelbourne. Amid the late tea time lobby bustle.
‘All packed sir ready whenever you are.’
Getting back in my taxi, one could not believe one’s eyes. To look out the departing back window in case the lady from Greystones was chasing us and instead see the Royal Rat, Buster the Beastly and Danno the Damned, all escorting a fur coated Baptista out the front door of the Shelbourne Hotel. And as we pulled past the small Huguenot cemetery gate, Horatio the actor, an arm stuck through the bars, was declaiming to the long dead buried inside.
‘Will you look at that crazy nut sir, isn’t he everywhere in town, speaking his mind to no one in particular.’
The whole of this city. Its crazy carnival. Leave it to its fog lowering on this rotten cold Dublin winter night. Leila. Every moment to think of her. So gone. Mists coming up the Liffey. Approach up the long grey ramp. Rough blocks of stone topping the wall. Up to the station. Porter flickering me suspicious glances with clank and weight of my luggage. A solitary cattle dealer buying a ticket in front of one. The last train of the day out to the country. And whispers that coal was firing the boiler of the train. At the barrier my ticket being punched.
‘Ah god you’re on the Meteorite, it’s going to be a fast trip west tonight sir.’
Then the long wait, as the Meteorite and its creaking squealing cars, waved ahead by a lantern, finally backed their way into the station platform. How dim the lights glow. Grey sacks of mail. Wind sweeps along the platform. Stamp one’s feet waiting in the chill. The sweet smell of turf in the air. Nun climbing in ahead of me to the first class compartment. A woman wrapped up in her tweeds in the corner. Beckoning the nun.
‘Ah there’s plenty of room. Come sit here beside me, sure I had a sister worked for the nuns and I know all about them.’
The train slowly pulling out. Pale yellow light flickers in the carriage. A farmer and his wife jumping aboard. Nearly look like tinkers. Sitting roaring and raging in the corner that there was no drink to be had on the train. The wife listening in stoic silence wrapping her ancient tatty fur coat tighter around her as they both puff cigarettes. The farmer continuing to curse and blather. Finally asking me.
‘Hey boss give us the time on your watch boss.’
Halfway chugging in the darkness across the final bog lands. A boom. The train lurched. I had fallen asleep. Head against the cold glass of the window. Clanks and squeals and screech of wheels. Sparks flying. As we slowly came to a stop. The conductor with a lantern announcing.
‘All disembark.’
The boiler blown up. Right out here in the bog. So much for the Meteorite. At a standstill. Could not now see the time on my watch. Nor the hand in front of my face. Out of a nearby cottage, a civil old farmer insisting he carry my case, led us knee deep through the muck and water, scaring up the snipe across the bog. Finally taking the nun, tweedy lady and myself on his donkey and cart out to the main road. Where we stood in wind and drizzle. My arms nearly broken carrying the silver. Till a travelling salesman stopped and took us in his car to the main street of the town. And I went to knock up a taxi. Visiting three doors before I could find one which happened to be on its way from the west through the town and actually had petrol in its tanks, not to mention wheels and an engine that worked. And appropriately enough. A hearse. The eager to please gombeen man from the town of Sligo, putting my bags up on the catafalque. He was also a butcher, an ironmonger, a publican and an undertaker. One learned a thing or two about the quality of coffins.
‘Ah now sir, believe me when I tell you to your surprise, no better coffin was ever made than one of the American oak.’
On the road passing a horse and carriage. A whiff of candle fume in the air from its lights. Driving up through the rhododendrons. A motor car ahead and now the lights of another behind. My god. In front of the house, myriad vehicles. As well as lurking members of the Garda Siochana. The front lawn fence down and cars parked. And more being directed. Doors opening and closing. Lights beyond the cracks in the shutters of nearly every window. People in top hats, tails and tiaras packed at the door. And in my soiled appearance, actually shoving and pushing me out of the way. From entering my own house, as one went nearly backwards down the ruddy steps again. And then to face a commissionaire inside the door.
‘And who shall I say sir.’
‘Say.’
‘Yes the name sir. To announce you sir.’
‘You are not announcing me.’
‘I’m sorry but have you an invitation sir.’
‘I have not an invitation. And do please get out of my way.’
‘Sir I must please have your name sir.’
‘The name is Reginald Darcy Thormond Dancer Kildare. And this is my ruddy bloody house.’
The Garda did leap to my aid. And Crooks one spotted. Looking astonishingly regal, but something like a dissatisfied host among all these myriad strangers. As his eyes surveyed in their three different directions.
‘Ah Master Reginald. What an utter relief to see you. Imagine a hired commissionaire. A bloody Brit, forgive the expression. From bloody England. With them false epaulettes. Ersatz is the word. After all the years of me faithful service. I am disgusted.’
‘Please calm down Crooks and tell me what on earth is going on.’
‘It’s the ball sir.’
‘What bloody ball.’
‘I respectfully
submit the ladies, Christabel and Lavinia, your sisters sir. The cream of the land have been invited but by the look of it already, it will be an assemblage of gatecrashers and interlopers before the night’s done.’
‘Good heavens Crooks what’s that music.’
‘The orchestra sir.’
‘That’s Haydn’s symphony number forty in F major.’
‘Well master Reginald it could be his fiftieth for all I know. They have even got the old organ opened up from in behind the wall in the ballroom. And the pipes hooting with that lad down in the basement, pumping the bellows for the pressure.’
‘Damn thing’s out of tune.’
‘Exactly what I was thinking sir.’
‘And what lad.’
‘Ah a lad that’s been living rough down the cellars for months sir. Caught him when you were gone. He’d do polishing a boot here and there now and again. Train him up, I will.’
Chandeliers lit. On every console table, candelabra that had not seen the light of day for many a year. Damask white, the tables. Crystal. Tureens. The great punch bowl. The old lead lined caskets full of ice and bottles of champagne. Strangers everywhere. Except for the hunt secretary with his brimful glass. My god I am about to be eaten, drunk and waltzed out of house and home. And into utter destitution.
‘This is a mighty damn good show Kildare. Nice to see the right sort all back together again. And see the old place looking its best. Didn’t I see you up in Dublin, having a chat with Baptista.’
‘I’m sure you’re mistaken. Excuse me. I must, as you can see, dress.’
Out of the rapidly increasing din of voices, candle smell and smoke, to mount the stairs. Past Dingbats coming down. One arm bandaged. Beads of sweat uncharacteristically on her brow. As she is actually going right by me without a sign of recognition.
‘I say Mollie.’
‘O god. It’s you sir. Forgive me.’