19
As a bright orange dawn broke I crept from between the covers and tiptoed out. Leaving Miss von B finally asleep, her breathing making a strange high pitched sound like a singing bird. In my room, under my chilly blankets, I stared out the corner of the window at a now snow threatening sky till Crooks brought me tea. His crossed eyes as ever made it rather more than impossible to discern what expression he was wearing and what on earth was going on in his mind.
‘There are the two boiled eggs this morning, Master Reginald. To keep your pecker up.’
Of course one could make no other comment than thank you. And I applied one of the more common egg cutters of an inferior nature kept in the kitchen. Decapitating the brown shell to dig out silver spoonfuls of the deep orange yolk swimming in melted butter.
The sun suddenly blazing golden white on my bedroom wall. And the beads of moisture on the blue tinted glass window panes hung like strings of diamonds. Through the night with the foxes barking, I was held clutched by her. Her body and bosoms pressed warm on my back. She wakened again and again from her sleep to clutch me even tighter. Her whispering voice all hoarse from crying. You’re not gone. And other words in German I could not decipher. Our tall candle now a stump and nearly burnt out. I wanted so much to tell her that everything was going to be alright. She seemed so exhausted. Her eyes swollen and red. But magically, still so tenderly attractive. Her dress she wore was black and hung on a hanger inside her cupboard door which had opened in the night. And I thought it was a ghost. With a whole face of eyes and fountainy head of hair.
Darcy Dancer descending the main staircase this morning. Someone’s feet departing from the front hall. Where the fire was blazing. And somewhere outside a faint roar of a cow for its calf. I had gone into the whim room for a brief think. Kept seeing Miss von B hanging suspended, hung by her neck. Her eyes popping and tongue hanging out. And indeed I opened the whim room window to look down to see that her body wasn’t already thrown there lying broken and lifeless on the front steps.
Passing the dining room door I thought I heard a noise. And peeked in. Sheila with a tray just departing pushing through to the pantry. My father in a brown shooting tweed sitting at the head of the table presiding over a dish of rashers and eggs. A bottle standing near by which said Powers Gold Label. And a half full glass of whiskey next to his cup and saucer of tea. A great bunch of household keys on a plate and the wine cellar book open beside him. And as I stepped back to leave and close the door, I winced at the sound of his voice.
‘Who gave you the damn leave to drink these wines.’
‘They are the property of this house and therefore mine.’
‘Like blasted hell they are. What do you think you are running, a private whorehouse here. Shut that door. Damn you. And who do you think you are to contravene my orders and interfere in the affairs of running this estate. Burning down a school. Shooting shot guns at people. And think you’re squire here. Well I’ll bloody well squire you, you little bastard.’
‘Why don’t you shut up. You thief.’
Amazing how few words one has to use to gain one’s desired effect. As this odious person pushing his chair back slowly gets up. Crumpling his napkin in his fist. I could of course just wait till he lunges and slam the door shut in his face. Have the concussion of the entire monstrously heavy mahogany swinging on its hinges stop him in his tracks.
‘You little bastard, I’ve had just about all I shall take from that insolent mouth of yours.’
Most amazing thing, his flies are open. As he strides, hunched forward. Approaching me with the napkin clutched in his hand. Although I moved away along by the sideboard I was horrified I was not immediately making my hasty departure. But in fact it appeared he was just judiciously closing the door from which I had just as judiciously stepped aside. He then turned and crossed to the pantry door and bolted it. Returning now to confront me across the gleaming surface of the table. Including the silver mounted fluted glass mustard pot. Which I may yet have to use flinging it and its contents at his head as he stands there so deliberately holding back his coat as he unbuckles and removes his gun belt.
‘I’m going to teach you a lesson.’
His lips drawn in a mean tight line, approaching me around the table as I back away. And I don’t know how on earth he did it so accurately. But the first swipe he took at me with the belt came whizzing around and caught him right across his own face which paled. A hissing noise coming out of his mouth with his eagerness to land a blow on me. I merely pulled out the chairs from under the table to impede him. He slapped and pushed at them. And while jumping one he stumbled to a fall breaking a brace between a chair’s legs. I kept moving gracefully. Not even bothering to stop to open a door.
‘You damn little cunt you. I’ll flail you alive.’
Darcy Dancer dodging left and right. The swishes of belt landing everywhere. Just a matter of a discomforting but safe distance behind me. And once wrapping around a decanter neck to snap it off the side table to land it thumping on the floor. Round and round the table one went. The candelabra crashed over and candles flying. His thin red veined face getting redder. As I dragged one chair behind me as my adversary tried to extend the lashes of his belt past the obstacle and I raced bumping and crashing it down one end of the table and up the other.
‘If I ever catch you, you little bastard, I’ll kill you.’
Stopped in front of the chimneypiece, more objets d’art were sent from their repose to their desecration as he struck out trying to reach me across the table. The seats fallen out of nearly all the chairs. Over one of which this crazed madman crashed straight into the sideboard. Everything trembled as it was sent back against the wall. And the massive painting of the Irish Wolfhound, Prince of Errold, the great great grandfather of Kern and Olav, crashed down. The bottom edge of the giant frame breaking an array of Meissen vegetable dishes and crushing the silver tea service recently put sparkling there by Miss von B. And just as my pursuer stopped and was estimating the pawn shop value of these drastically cheapened items, a sympathetic vibration also brought crashing down another monstrous painting of one of my mother’s uncles, a founder member of the Kildare Street Club. One did not mind this latter loss. A tiresome looking chap anyway. Especially the supercilious manner in which he appeared to gloat down in his dress colonel’s uniform. And one thing had become absolutely apparent in one’s life. That even despite my recent bed ridden state and all my other shortcomings, and even the boggish demeanour Miss von B says I display in peeing off the front steps, that at least there were few if any persons abroad anywhere now capable of catching me on foot, wheels or horseback.
‘I’ll bloody your bloody head yet.’
‘You will like bloody hell.’
‘You little bastard. Fucking christ.’
Happily and exactly upon these latter two hissed words, he put his foot through another section of flooring previously opened up by the heavy member of the Garda Siochana. And indeed even penetrated the ceiling below. Landing on one knee while the other completely disappeared beyond floor level. And as he tried to pull up his foot he pitched forward right on his face. His monocle dropping out of his eye and rolling in a circle into the hole.
‘Fucking damn christ you little bastard I am going to get you if it’s the last bloody damn thing I do on earth.’
I nearly collapsed backwards laughing. For I had just taken the drape still hanging half off where someone had attempted to put it back up and I threw the dusty heavy brocaded folds right over him. Lashing out as he was now at everything. And distinctly getting out of breath.
‘There you are you stupid bully find your way out of that.’
Darcy Dancer leaning in close to shout his words into the rising dust and shape changing drape. And suddenly to try to jump back as he felt his ankle caught by a big strong hand. Upending his leg. And then a thumb and finger sinking deep into the side of my neck. As we grappled and crashed back again into the sideboard, knoc
king off another decanter or two and scattering the broken pieces of dishes among the salt and sugar grains under foot. Mixed with the greasy fare of the breakfast plate now off the table. Lowering my head I butted him. And twisted free of his hand. He fell backwards, holding on to the table and catching his breath. The sound of his angrily hissing voice. Silenced when I opened and slammed shut the door of the dining room. In the hall my hand going up to my face, wet and cool as I ran. My fingers covered crimson. Blood pouring in a cascade. On my chest and pumping knees. As I raced up the grand staircase.
Miss von B hysterical as she saw me. Coming into her room. Throwing myself in her arms. There beside her bed. Packing her luggage. And I felt my own few tears between her sobs. She cleaned the wound. A deep gouge down my cheek. And covered it with gauze and bandage. Which went right round my head and under my nose. Her photograph album open on top of a neat stack of her clothes on the floor. Two pictures removed from their mounts. One of her as a tiny child and another I had not seen before. Of her side faced and laughing. Her hair shortened in curls at the side of her head.
‘I want you to have these please of me.’
And on that morning, grown grey and cold again after a sunny sun, the pictures in my hands, I begged her not to go. That this was my house if she would but wait. But then I knew and could understand. What she meant when she said the drums were beating. That throughout the household were furtive frightened looks. From Norah and Sheila, rushing past just nodding their silent heads. And Crooks quickly exiting from rooms and Catherine the cook working behind a closed kitchen door that was usually always open. The breakages still left in the dining room. Crooks’s crossed eyes seemed now heaven and hellwards turned instead of in their usual east and west directions. And Miss von B said I should have careful stitches in my face. But I would not let her have the doctor summoned. That I was quite content to be scarred for life. And then I heard her voice. Down in the north east parlour. Shouting. As I was descending the grand staircase.
‘Haven’t you done enough to the poor boy. To cut and disfigure his face. When he has only been recently out of his sick bed. You brute.’
And I could not hear what he said. But it was something that made Miss von B shout all the louder.
‘How dare you, how dare you say such things to me.’
By the time I got to the north east parlour door, Miss von B was opening it and slamming it behind her. Tears again welling in her eyes. Her face and neck all flushed red above the edge of her grey sweater and string of pearls. Her hand reaching out for my arm.
‘Come. We both shall go. Leave this place. I will take you away with me.’
And the parlour door opening behind us. And there he was in the same brown tweed with its faint line of red squares. His monocle back in his eye. Miss von B her arm around my shoulder standing together in the middle of the hall. Under my every important ancestor’s eye.
‘And Miss von B I will have you arrested for kidnapping.’
‘And you squander this boy’s birthright.’
‘It is none of your damn business what I’do. And the quicker you can get the hell out of here the better.’
‘I shall go. I shall go instantly. I am packed. You need not worry.’
‘Damn good riddance to you too.’
The door slammed. My stupid so called father gone back into the parlour. Miss von B and I went to her room. All the work she’d done mending and fixing, dusting and cleaning. And I tightened some leather straps around her bags. Of this woman. Who’d stopped the whole place from completely tumbling down. If only I could see Uncle Willie to ask his advice. Or even Sexton. Who regrettably imparted even more dismal news when I came across him in his potting shed. Separating out bulbs.
‘Ah Master Darcy, now, it’s a pretty kettle of fish. None of my business. What goes on in the big house. It’s not for the humble likes of me to comment upon. But they’ve got the guards alerted to keep an eye out at the station and around the roads. Sure now the disgraceful accusation is that it was yourself who took the master’s horse that led the gallop into the gossip concerning that poor innocent girl.’
Crooks was standing on the front steps as Luke came up the hill from the farmyard with the float. Miss von B in a long grey wool coat, a dark blue boubouska tied around her head. She seemed so suddenly really scared that she could be accused of kidnapping.
At the station, we waited for the train. Under the eggshell blue of a cold evening sky. Tiny clusters of clouds grey and underlined in pink. The sun setting. The trees’ branches so stark. The fields a faded green in the dying light. And two great swans coming overhead, their wings beating their white powerful strokes.
‘Look swans. Flying together. I hope that’s like us.’
‘I too my sweet, hope they are like us. Flying together.’
And chugging around the turning a little faster than usual came the train. Thundering and blowing and hissing steam into the station. Kern and Olav had run behind us on the drive out to the gates. And they sat really looking sad as we went down the road. Miss von B said to say goodbye to Sexton. And Crooks in parting clearly had tears in his twisted eyes. Luke looked all solemn and furtive. And all the way taking me back, to my every desperately cheerful comment he would say, ah now you’ve said it. Till I said nothing at all. And Miss von B with her four bags. None of which were awfully grand. Or marked with coronets. But I had made them at least secure with the big leather straps’ I tightened around each. And helped stack them over her head in the carriage. Silk stockings on her legs. Which curved she said in the true manner of an aristocrat. And as her skirt lifted getting her into the carriage, a gentleman already in the compartment was falling all over himself to help her in too. I was quite ready to punch him. But with my bandage attracting so much attention I thought best not to attract any more.
I held her gloved hand in each of mine, feeling through the thin kid skin the heat of her fingers. I was now going to say goodbye. My face looking up at hers as she leaned forward and down out of the compartment window. The wind and fresh air of the drive had brought a new freshness to her skin and colour to her cheeks. And it may have been the evening light but something seemed lost in her eyes. As if they looked over my shoulder and far away into the past. Or even remembering how she found me unaristocratically peeing that night off the front steps of Andromeda Park. But maybe it was because she had said goodbye on other trains. Even sadder than this. And all now that would be left of her would be the smell of pine and lavender she used in her cupboards and drawers.
‘My sweet, my sweet, my sweet. Just kiss me.’
In the scent of turf smoke to put my lips upraised towards hers. And feel the softness of their flesh. And suddenly the train was gone. I couldn’t somehow believe it. That I would see its lights going away down the tracks. And leave everywhere I looked so empty. Hearing the engine growing fainter now. Puffing and chugging and pulling. To roll. Big steel wheels clicking and clacking on this track. Out of this grey station to go past the miles of empty winter countryside. Over which the hounds give tongue. The scent taken. Watching from a hillside. Their distant white specks running across the low land of a valley. As they did one day. When Miss von B and I were gaily hunting. Standing with all the horses sending up a cloud of steam so that we all vanished from sight. Till away we went again. Over the beige rushes against the green. Find him. Run. Flying. Out under the scattered clouds. Gallop thundering on the endless green. Find him.
For he
Discourses
Somewhere
20
The carriage lamps lit as darkness fell. I had Luke take me round the country roads beyond the village. To delay returning to Andromeda Park. Petunia knowing her unerring way over the winding lanes. Passing the graveyard and church where Foxy had committed his sacrilege. And then the entrance gates and the curve of the rhododendron lined drive up to my mother’s elegant clerical friend’s little grey Georgian house. Whose sallow freckled face I remembered so quietly sere
ne when once he talked of his travels abroad before the war. To hear opera in the strange distant romantic cities of Europe. And faintly recall my mother leaning forward like a bird to pour him tea and before he would reach for his cup he would always press his handkerchief further up under his silk cuff.
The shadowy trees go by. And the looming hills and walls. A moon alight behind the clouds. Smoke rising from a cottage chimney and mists settling on the great rusty black bogs. Across which the train now takes her. So that I may never see her again. I looked up at the window of the pub where Mr Arland had stayed. A lace curtain there. Nearly discern him standing just beyond its secret whiteness. The loneliness he must have suffered all those months. Pining for a lady whose ample backside would readily bare itself to open up her legs for anyone rich and titled. And whose grey stone house we also passed. What are her activities now. Having so conspicuously degraded herself. With me to thank for her downfall. Or even triumph. If ever she becomes a marchioness.
Cold windy and pitch black as we came in the back farm gate of Andromeda Park. Went splashing through the puddles and pounding over the broken branches and leaves collected on the road. As the float stopped at the steps, Crooks was standing at the south east parlour window. Not used since my mother’s death. And full of damp sofas stacked with pillows and faded prints of the hunt all over the walls. Then Crooks was opening the door and looking extremely concerned judging by his frown.
‘Master Reginald, I’m glad to see you. The guards were here. Looking for you. Did you see them.’
‘No. We came in by the back road.’
‘Thank our merciful saviour for that. I said you’d gone by the train up to Dublin for a few days. Which I thought was as well. As something told me by their attitude that, and god forbid such a thing, that they wanted to take you into custody. I told them it was that cur Foxy who did whatever they thought you did.’