Till one morning. Coming to the top of a gently rising hill. In the first sunshine for days. I stopped at a large gateway bordered with lawns. A straight avenue down between great arching beech trees. To a house with its windows shining and a gravel drive to its yellow door. Walking trepidatious between these railed fences. Green velvet paddocks. Mares with foals gambolling on the close cropped winter grass. A clocktower entrance to a stable yard. Where a red crinkly haired groom led a horse clattering across the cobbles.
‘Begging your pardon sir, but I am inquiring as to there being a position open for a stable lad.’
‘Well now I wouldn’t know. But there could be. As we had to kick a little bastard out of here yesterday. You’ll have to talk to himself the gaffer, over there by that stable.’
‘Thank you.’
Darcy Dancer crossing to a checked coated and capped gent in flared twill breeches and boots. Touching one’s forelock. And approaching this figure whose pinched reddened face held a cigarette nodding up and down between his thin lips.
‘And what do you want.’
‘Sir I would be inquiring as to know if you might be needing the services of a stable lad.’
‘Who sent you.’
‘I made bold to come myself sir.’
‘Who gave you that belt in the eye. And them bruises. We don’t want trouble makers around here.’
‘I was after having a fall sir.’
‘Fell me arse. Looks more like a beating you deserved. I’m just after putting my boot flying into a cur was sent out the gate you just came in. What do you know about horses. Who have you worked with before. Come on. Who.’
‘Well sir. Sure I am a butcher’s son but I have spent me time in the stables since I was a slip of a gossoon. Serving me time in the big house that was near where my father had his trade. I know a good bit.’
‘Lay hand to that fork. We’ll see what you know now. Go in there and muck out that box. We’ll see what kind of a job you do. Plenty of your type around thinking you know it all. Go on. What are you waiting for. Put your shoulder into it.’
Darcy Dancer entering the box. Laughter in the courtyard as this stallion reared and bucked and sent sparks flying off the wall with lashes of his hind legs. Ears flat back and his great yellow teeth bared to snap off my arm. Love and affection calms the horse. Provided you can administer these before you are bitten, trampled or kicked to death. Meanwhile step back out of harm’s way. Murmur quiet peaceful words. There, there now. Easy there. Quietly now. Good old fellow. Blow soft soothing breath up in your nostrils. And put on your head collar. There you are. My big evil fellow. Lead you out. So I won’t be killed. While attending to your toiletries.
‘Who told you take that horse out of that box.’
‘You asked me to clean it sir. And that big fellow not knowing me yet would as soon send me flying over the moon.’
‘Well ask first if you can remove a horse out of a box. And stand up straight when you talk to me.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘You’re a little know it all I can tell.’
‘I’m sorry sir I didn’t understand you the first time. May I be taking the horse out of its box sir.’
‘Take him out. And into that box there. And next time you’d better know enough to ask.’
Darcy Dancer shovelling up the matted brown knobs of dung and heaping it in the barrow. Lugging and forking in yellow clean straw from a stack. Shaking it up with the fork. Spreading the golden fibres neatly and evenly across the floor. Heaping it gently up against the walls. And storing that little bit extra in the corners. The gaffer coming to peer in over the half door. And grunting begrudging approval.
‘Well you know how to do something anyway. Now there’s no quitting here till you’re told. You’ll sleep up there over that stable. We’ll give you a try for a few days. Twelve and six a week and your keep. What’s your name.’
‘Dancer O’Reilly sir.’
‘Named after the great stallion himself I suppose.’
‘It’s a fact I am sir.’
‘Dancer is it. Well I’m Matt. Named after me hard working father. And I’ve no bloody time for slackers.’
‘I’m not a one for slacking sir.’
‘Well we’ll see about that. Just let me catch you stepping out of line, and you’ll hop it from here in a hurry I can tell you.’
The loft room was up a narrow worm eaten wooden ladder. Musty and dusty, a pile of oats in the middle of the floor. Little brick built cubby holes in the walls for chickens to lay their eggs. A wooden bench of a bed with a horsehair mattress. Three old dirty grey blankets smelling of hay and straw. Under which one slept till wakened each morning by a gruff shout of a groom up the steps. Peeling back the damp covers and arising already dressed in the chill darkness. Eyes still glued together in sleep. Pushing cold stale stockinged feet into Father Damian’s priestly shoes. Day after exhausting day. To go down into the welcome warmth of the horses below. Their comforting snorts and movements through the night. And now know what the life of Foxy was like. And it would damn soon make you go round biting off ears and smashing heads with hammers.
‘Get a move on there’s fifteen mares waiting yet.’
My hair and the passing days growing longer. The weather milder. And dust rising in the sunlight forking over the straw. Carrying armfuls of hay. My red chapped hand churning in pails of crushed oats and water. Lugging buckets of warm bran. And the pleasant moments grooming a big old mare who would stretch her head to each side and snort in ecstasy as I brushed her down. And Matt growling when he could find nothing to complain of concerning my work.
‘What are you doing standing there, haven’t you something to do.’
Felt like shoving my fork up his mean arse. Never a complimentary word from his lips. At night, even as I sat on my bed, I hardly had the strength to pull up the covers. And was already asleep as I slowly lowered my stiff limbs back. Aching in every bone. By days waiting in the basement hall outside the big kitchen of this house, holding cap in hand. Murmuring me country accents. Begorra, bedad, and humbly bending me head. To take my breakfast of porridge oats, tea, bread and dripping. Lunch of bacon potatoes and cabbage. Sitting at the most inferior position of the table to eat. With the other household servants who suspiciously regarded me when I did not bless myself at the sound of the Angelus. With the cook mumbling.
‘What have we now, a pagan in our midst.’
Looking up and seeing them all stare. And the cook once correcting me for my table manners. God what bloody inglorious moments. To find servants more full of snobberies than one is oneself. The maids all so self importantly jumping at the dingling sound of their assigned bells, rushing to a grey swing door at the top of the stairs as if it led to heaven. And one called Assumpta looking back over her shoulder at me all snooty and superior.
‘Don’t you wish now you could come up here.’
But matters distinctly worsened. An officious overbearing butler appropriately called Smears arrived. Who pranced about in a military manner reeling off his previous service in previous castles to previous Earls. And who straight off presided at the head of the table as if he were conducting a symphony. Keeping a long silver skewer by his plate which he tapped for our attention.
‘So that lunch may begin, are we all now fully gathered. And you what’s your name again. I have difficulty remembering common ones.’
‘O’Reilly. Dancer O’Reilly.’
‘Do please do me the honour if not the pleasure of sitting straight and take your elbows off the table. Although you have brought in the smell of them you are not out in the stables now. And you, young lady what’s your name.’
‘Assumpta.’
‘You are not to exhibit amusement when I bring another member of the staff to order. Clearly there must be severe changes wrought here. Standards are distinctly slack.’
Five thirty in the morning I started. And the clock bell was tolling eight in the evening when my work was done. With har
dly a second through the day when someone didn’t have something unpleasantly new for me to do. Saddling and unsaddling. Cleaning tack. Hands now swollen red. Weals across my palms. Cut and blistered by bucket handles. Tumbling in under the blankets and merely a minute later it seemed tomorrow. Never again shall I treat the servants of Andromeda Park in a thoughtless and uncaring manner. Or attempt, as one was inclined to do in particularly shabby ways, to extract from them every last ounce of their daily energy. Not indeed that one could. For if they so wished they could be so jolly clever at avoiding work. Indeed one knew a servant’s trick or two oneself.
‘Now that I’ve got you all lined up. Who for the last time, thieved those five bananas.’
The mistress of the house in her persistent stingy mindedness was trying to keep track of every potato and turnip. Not to mention every biscuit and jar of jam. And she finally confronted us as well. But as I was usually out in the yard she seemed to think me unworthy of an accusation. And it was I indeed who did neatly thieve the bananas arrived one morning with peaches and black grapes in a great wicker basket from Smith’s of the Green. Later the cook was screaming at Assumpta, who also ruddy liar that she was, had stolen the remaining two herself. While trying to blame everyone else for the disappearance of the entire five. And Smears now went up and down the servants’ hall reciting.
‘I ain’t got no bananas.’
And one morning I was sent for to be given the embarrassing task of lugging baskets full of turf to drawing rooms and bedrooms. Which at first I at least found preferable to having to use a pick to clear away embedded big stones fallen from a wall in a paddock. Or collecting in from a field each day two mares who in their furious hatred of each other nearly kicked themselves as well as me to death. And I was surprised I was quite perversely enjoying dropping turf mould over the carpets as I went galumphing about. Till a bedroom door opened. And the mistress of the house stood there with a hair curling iron in one hand and holding her dressing gown closed in the other, promptly throwing a fit.
‘You. It’s you is it. Dropping turf all over. And in muddy shoes. You’re not to come traipsing through this house in muddy shoes.’
Only for a second or two did one worry about being sacked. One’s wages being hardly more than those of a slave. I was however momentarily mortified. But then clearly realized she simply lacked breeding and style to deal properly with servants. To first kindly approach smiling making some comments about the weather, and then to inquire after one’s health following which, and then only purely as an indifferent careless afterthought, to mention mud on one’s shoes. No damn ruddy wonder poor Irish peasants burned down so many of the sham gentry’s mansions. And left standing those belonging to the pure and true aristocracy.
‘And see that your hair is combed when next you come indoors. We’re not in the habit of tolerating scruffiness here you know.’
My god was I dying to let her have a piece of my mind. But instead pressed on choice wall areas a few blatant grubby hand prints so disliked by Miss von B. These regrettable people were not only known by a most common surname but were also glaringly nouveau riche. And even to be called upon to apply such a term makes one wince. I was of course supplied by Smears with an old pair of shabby slippers to wear. And another morning lugging in the turf baskets to the drawing room, I so longed to just flop down on the sofa. Not only from fatigue but with the persistent irritation of never being able to loiter and leisurely study the vulgarity of this house. With the ruddy grand piano covered with pictures of about a dozen priests and two dozen nuns, interspersed with photographs of what must be their son and daughter on their horses. The furnishings all so clearly contrived to give an appearance of expense. And just as one might have expected, there prominently displayed on a side table, was a copy of the most recent Tatler and Sketch. I picked it up. Thumbed the pages filled with photographs of recent hunt balls and other grand and fine happenings. And my god, there they all were. With their toothsome grins and tiaras. Assembled in the great castle hall through which I passed on my way to the Count’s dancing lessons. The Master of Foxhounds. Baptista Consuelo. The Mental Marquis. The amputating Vet. The Randy Major. The Slasher sisters. Even three of the bunch of flowers, Rose, Pansy and Marigold. Across whose elegant velvet lawns I wreaked such great hoof steps. The whole hunt. And sundry other layabouts, all having such a radiantly wonderful white tie time. And one particularly large laughing picture of the Mental Marquis and Baptista, captioned.
TWO HUNT MEMBERS TOGETHER EXCHANGING A JOKE
Can you imagine. Having a joke. When those two bare arsed people had long since had a blatant fuck in the woods. One did feel shocked. And forgetting myself completely, I just sat down. Plonking deep into the soft blue and pink sofa. Not knowing whether to weep or cry foul loudly up to the gods. And not exactly stunned but certainly feeling deeply sorry for myself. Till I turned towards a sound made near the door.
‘What is the meaning of this. How dare you.’
I of course now did sit momentarily stunned. Looking up from the glossy pages. The images of the happy faces of the hunt members still before my eyes. And for the moment totally oblivious as to where I was. Till I was looking straight up at this woman’s face. The mistress of the house. Glaring at me in a manner which was so demeaningly hostile I was tempted to slap her face. Of the eighty thousand things that came all at once into my mind to say. I selected the one hundred and twelfth. Wrapping my lips around my vowels in all my most haughtiest possible manner. Just as her next words were shouted accompanied by her raised eyebrows rising even higher.
‘Stand up at once.’
‘Yes ma’am. I’m sorry. I apologize.’
‘And don’t you use that affected voice with me.’
‘I’m after begging your pardon ma’am. Me accent slips betimes. Me ould feet were playing up the very divil with me and I did sit down to take the weight off for a thrice.’
‘You were reading that magazine, don’t tell me such fibs.’
‘Ah I was and all. You have me there ma’am. Twas the great grand things you’d see in them pages that I couldn’t tear the sight of me eyes away.’
‘Well you’ll tear yourself up and out of that sofa I’m telling you now and remove yourself at once.’
‘Ah yes ma’am. Fast as me ould legs will hop.’
‘And get back to your chores. Don’t you let me ever catch you doing such a thing again. The unbelievable nerve. Your dirty filthy clothes on my best damask sofa.’
‘I am sorry ma’am to have given trouble. Upon me word now it won’t happen again.’
‘You’re certainly right it won’t. You’re not to come up into this house again.’
The only thing to do was slink retreating out in the most menial manner possible. Bringing my hand up and down to my forelock. In nervous moments my accent seemed always to slip badly. But also as I so mortified headed out I bumped straight into and fell over a small carved and gilded Adam window stool. Crashing a vase off a nearby giltwood side table. By far the best piece of furnishing in the house. With its veined agate top held elaborately on six fluted tapered legs ending in gadrooned feet. Upon which one had presently bruised one’s vertebrae. And from which, O god, also was pouring a goodly amount of discoloured water. Dripping on to the light beige and bright blue and pink colours of the carpet. Which latter was, to say the least, in such excruciatingly bad taste anyway that it could benefit by an extensive dilapidation. The advantage of which was totally lost on madam who was now quite wildly hammering her fists around her head.
‘Get out, get out you clumsy oaf. Get out. And don’t let me ever catch you setting foot in this house again.’
Assumpta stopped me at the bottom of the stairs, trying to block my way past. Her eyes like saucers and her nosiness driving her crazy.
‘A thump from above in the drawing room has sent plaster down off the ceiling into the cook’s soup. Was that you did it.’
‘I couldn’t care less Assumpta if the entire fl
oor descends into the bloody soup. And it was me who did it.’
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, sure you’re not fit loose in a house.’
And this night now passing off to sleep, angrily pulling on my penis. And less angrily thinking thoughts of Miss von B. Her bosoms and all the parts of her beautiful body. Especially the soft silky loveliness between her legs to where I so feveredly wished again to bring my fingers, lips and prick. Were I of full age and out of one’s minority I would propose to her marriage. Bring her back to my estate. Sleep my body naked next to hers. Wake with her head next to my head. Far away from these musty smells. And the tapping of rain on these slates. I will descend the grand staircase at Andromeda Park. Wearing the court dress stored many years in my mother’s wardrobe. The whole staff in their best livery. Gathered assembled in the front hall bowing and curtseying as I make my way down the grand stairs and go between them in my black satin breeches and white silk hose. A sovereign’s crown perched on my head. With Crooks geared out in blue gold trimmed court vestments announcing my ruddy bloody appearance.
‘My Emperors, Lords, Ladies and Squires. The King.’
Honestly thoughts like that make one feel so damn good. To have them every night before going to sleep. There I was. Instead of under the flaking broken plaster of this ceiling I was standing there elevated on the stair as the ball commenced. The orchestra on the landing, its violins, oboes, flutes and harps sweetly making waltz music. And the ballroom pulsating with the latest chic two steps. And I even imagined swirling with Edna Annie who upon my word was done up like a queen.
Of course at meal times Smears now suggested snidely concerning my demotion from turf carrier. That although I had inferred a familiarity with a previous grand household, it was all too evident that when not trained to it, a stable lad simply could not elevate himself to that of a pantry boy. But also these days he had it in for the master and mistress. Who according to him, and I devoutly agreed, were simply not to the manner born. Smears taking this attitude following confronting the mistress in a state of nudity and when, as is customary at such time, a butler remarks that madam was looking her best, Smears got a swat across the cheek for his trouble. Big pompous idiot that he was.