‘No.’
‘I do. You’ve got such beautiful teeth. I’ve lost two behind here. Not one in your head is missing. Open. God that’s pure radiant gold in the middle of your back molars. You’ve got a mouth like a tabernacle. You’d be at risk asleep with it open. Some of them would have that precious metal out of your head and into the pawn. I don’t know but that it wouldn’t be a relief to be ugly and know that the world will never like you anyway. With teeth or without. Don’t look at my hands. I’ve got the fingernails bit down to me elbows. I’d better be on my way about me chores or I’ll get fired.’
‘Don’t go.’
‘Your man Percival will be arriving any moment. He’s a one full of his authority. Thinks he has forty parlour maids and a dozen cooks when the few of us are standing down there in front of him in the kitchen of a morning. Telling us the boss wants this done the boss wants that. It’s Mrs L K L who never lets up. Yanking on the servants’ bell. You can hear the wires twinging in the walls. Propped up on the pillows as if she owned the place. She says in that high toned way of hers, I say you’re late with my tea. Then she wants me to stay and pour it out for her in the cup. I said you’re no cripple. She said how dare you. I hope you don’t mind but I told her she was an interloper, I wouldn’t know what that was but it sounded good. Some of the people you have staying here would bleed you white. I guess I better keep my place and keep my trap shut. I just don’t think it’s right that a kind and generous person like yourself should be put upon.’
Percival rapping with his door key. Charlene leaping up off the bed. Quickly pulling down her sweater which I slowly pulled up. She sails a cloth back and forth across the marble wash stand. And clanks a shovel full of light brown turf ash in a bucket. She backs away as Percival enters. Three ledgers stacked in the crook of his arm.
‘Good morning your worship. I trust you slept well.’
‘Yes thank you Percival.’
‘There have been I am sorry to report sir, shocking depredations in the wine cellars. A person or persons unknown have entered without authority and removed quantities of spirits. I have my suspicions who it was. I’ve taken precautions to stop further ravages. Elmer has downed two chickens. He was with me out in the yard looking mild as you please when four of them struts by. I turn my back to answer a call of nature and two are left. It would be as well if we put them wild ones remaining in a coop.’
‘But good news too sir. Tim is turning a few sods up there in the old kitchen garden sowing spuds and cabbages. He’s come across the old rhubarb beds, gooseberry and raspberry bushes. In no time crops will be pouring out into the markets.’
‘Percival I don’t think I can hold out that long.’
‘Sir aren’t you sitting on a mountain of priceless personal chattels, sure in the new world over there they go wild over the genuine worm holes.’
‘The worm holes may be authentic but we’ve been told the rest is imitation and fake.’
‘Ah now I know a thing or two meself about fine art. Sure your man missed the date of the mahogany davenport by twenty five years. It’s Mr Erconwald who I’d say knows a thing or two. Didn’t he tell me that the figurines in the Etruscan room alone would keep you supplied with cars and yachts for a lifetime. The broken bits glued here and there on them, the chips smoothed over and no one would be the wiser.’
‘Keep your eye on them anyway won’t you Percival.’
‘My eye, haven’t I got my foot knee and chin on them. Only the place is rumoured full of ghosts and mad dogs there wouldn’t be a thing left in it. Porcelain puts into a man such a thirst for destruction he’d cuff his own mother out of the way so he could break it into smithereens. And if he can get his hands on any living thing of beauty he will destroy it or kill himself trying. There was a little cherry tree miraculously up there in a bit of shelter, didn’t one of your bog men come along when it had blossoms and rip it from the ground. He flings it away and wipes his hands and says that’s that. I said to him that’s what. He says that’s that, that’s what what is, it’s that’s that. Now what could I say to that but that your man was a pig. It’s like life and breath to them to roar and ravage over the countryside, anything to get their hands on a sapling and tear it roots and all from the earth. Now to commissary matters. I thought with the bread we’d be all right keeping on with the fourteen loaves a day. Only five pounds of butter went yesterday. But it’s the bacon and eggs. Eighty two of your good sized hen’s eggs in the twenty four hours with nearly ten pounds of bacon. Your man above in the shop is lunatic trying to keep up the supply.’
‘O God.’
‘Now sir, don’t worry. We’re ready and able to carry on. In your ladyship’s day they’d go through three hundred eggs and twenty pounds of butter a day and three quarters of it would be left to be gobbled up by the pigs at night. And there’s a suggestion now. Pigs. There’s money in them. And a beast or two out there on the grass would not hurt you either.’
‘How much land have we Percival.’
‘Well now that might be a little difficult to figure straight off. With an exact figure that is. But you’d have a fair bit now on that mountain. I’d not be far amiss to say there’d be seven hundred acres. The demesne would have another nearly three hundred. There’d be fifty or sixty more down to the beach. And out that way on the headland you could reckon a hundred and seventy.’
‘If we tried farming.’
‘By God then you’d be right. Sure we’ve got Toro out there who’d have any heifer you’d bring near him in calf in no time. Sheep would be your man for the mountain. In springtime we’d have the lambs leaping and kicking across the meadows.’
‘All right Percival, we’ll look into it.’
‘Sir let me say I’m glad you said that.’
Days floating by while Bloodmourn played the Baron in chess. And I waited to play the winner. Paging through great leather tomes, standing by the table throughout the afternoons. The Baron shaking his cuffs down before he delicately lifted and placed a piece. Bloodmourn first leaning over the board then straightening and rising in his seat. Pouncing when he could capture. Rapidly sweeping up the Baron’s bishop or knight. To get from the Baron three rare slowly made words.
‘Ah is dat so.’
Putlog and Erconwald arriving in the library to frown, murmur and shake their heads. Bloodmourn and the Baron fighting bitterly to three consecutive draws. Franz entering, a miner’s lamp attached to his head, greasy clay sods from his boots wiped on the rug recently made presentable by Charlene. Smoke rising from cigars and cigarettes. The fourth match brooding on through the night. Percival opening the shutters next morning as the two seated figures still sat heads in hands.
Mrs L K L came out of hibernation. Carried by the three prisoners and Lead Kindly Light in a sedan chair unearthed from somewhere. The group approaching one down the hall with slow measured steps. I nipped smartly into the nearest room. Ear held to the door till it went by. One of her solicitor’s recent letters had a change of tone. Suggesting that perhaps a solution could be reached should a meeting be convened at the site of the various ugsome complaints.
And one casually calm night Bligh came up the stony little pathway from the beach leading his chorus of voices each carrying a candle. Making a glittering winding snake slowly crawling across the hillside in the dark. High on the ramparts, castle inmates waiting. A soft still evening of sparkling stars. Through the gates, front door and across the great hall they came. Up the grand staircase and along the corridor to the chapel. Percival nudging my elbow.
‘Sir the Charnel has never seen the likes of this before I can tell you.’
I sat left of the aisle. Erconwald and Franz first row on the right. Bloodmourn and the Baron sitting together. Taking time out from the library where they sat locked in their sixteenth game. After fifteen draws. The Macfuggers came. Nails bright eyed at the sight of three young blue eyed big bosomed singing sisters. Chaperoned by a big bosomed blue eyed mother. A cheerful gatheri
ng meek and mild.
Rose heard above the choruses roaring her head off. Percival with four of the staff kneeling at the rail in the loft where Putlog sweats over the keys and foot pedals of the organ. Tim keeping candles lit. Mrs L K L blocking the aisle with exprisoners and sedan chair behind which stood Lead Kindly Light in full armour. And the little voices raised in song.
Down in the valley
Up in the sky
Our voices singing
The armies marching by
At this verse Clementine turning to look behind. Might be the signal for the insurgents. Catch Macfugger red haired and handed. Standing much too close to the big bosomed mother. And Charlene by the stone font at the chapel doorway, a black lace mantle on her hair. Concave jowls of these children singing. Out through teeth missing here and there. Eyes wide and roving. Staring at the strange shrouded figure in the sedan chair. That little boy’s folded hands trembling. All their faces scrubbed red cheeked and clean. My brown skinned nurse April who said you are cured. See her face smiling up against the altar there. Death could come now. In the middle of this recital. Unnoticed. Take me to lay under sods beyond the granite walls. Out on the headlands. Waves white along the coast. The wild loneliness. And a moist wind wetting the soul.
After the singing the gladdened assemblage descending to the first state room off the great hall set for tea. Cakes and sandwiches spread on a table. Honeycombs and damson jam. Bloodmourn and the Baron rubbing their eyes. Whiskey poured. Bligh smiling to his congratulations. Tightly entwining his hands and nodding his head.
‘It was very impressive.’
‘Thank you Mr Clementine, I had a lot of work to do on them. I’m glad it showed results.’
‘Yes indeed.’
‘Now I wonder is there a little favour I could ask of you. I promised the kids one of these days a bit of an outing. There’s a row boat down there in the boat house. Could I borrow it to take the kids out on a row one day if it’s fine.’
‘Certainly. If it’s seaworthy most certainly.’
‘Thanks a lot. I’m a brewer by trade. I’m sorry now I haven’t had much time to talk to you. You feel kind of awkward in a stranger’s house. More than once I thought of leaving. But could never find you to say goodbye. With so many guests on your hands I thought it was best I keep well out of the way. I’d like to make amends for not being able to handle that bull. I’d always been told I had the strength to throw one.’
Lead Kindly Light clanking up in his armour. Standing between Bligh and Clementine as he pops sunflower seeds in the opening of his helmet now sporting purple plumes.
‘I am a seed eater. Abstainer from red meat. And Mr Clementine you awaken in me deep pangs of sympathy that you have around you so many ruffian flesh eaters. The onion gives one a long life free from heart congestion. Reducing eye wobbling, staggers and diarrhoea. The garlic clove benefits bowel movement, aids penoid erection, ball resiliency and eye whiteness. I am encouraged that since the blast, scurrility, blaspheming and fornication have noticeably abated. I clank here I clank there, I clank everywhere. I would like to clank through the Prado.’
‘Ah now L K L Mr Clementine here doesn’t want to listen to that kind of talk. Having heard an evening of singing from innocent young voices can’t we now hear something uplifting.’
Long silence in the armour. Mrs L K L taking titbits in her portable enclosure. Rose the opposite end of the room smiling worshipfully at Bloodmourn. Good lord it could lead to another blast. With whipped cream splattered from floor to ceiling. Bligh nervously enfolding his hands. Sweat on his upper lip. L K L’s armoured hand rising, pointing at Bligh.
‘I know your kind, like Erconwald you dream of fucking Rose over the flying kilometre. I could for your delectation measure the true distance with my calipers so you’d know to a millimetre when you’d had enough. But I won’t. Because you are bogus. An uncultured maker of beer.’
‘That’s a lousy thing to say L K L. That’s really lousy.’
‘I am firbolg.’
‘You’re a little fucking trouble maker that’s what you are.’
‘Down with you Bligh into the monk’s passage. I challenge you to the ball tug of the firbolg. And the worsened shall be flung from the tunnel into the sea.’
‘Don’t make me laugh I could bend you up into a Christmas decoration and sell you by the gross.’
‘Bligh, big idolator.’
‘I’m a fucking sight more religious than you and your wife will ever be selling your piss filled relics back in town to tourists. O Jesus forgive me the language Mr Clementine. But the likes of him there makes me see red.’
‘I challenge you to meet me in the monk’s passage you big cunt.’
‘By God. That the ears of the little lovely innocents should have to hear the likes of that. Now everybody knows I warned him. Warned him good and proper.’
The big bosomed blue eyed mother teacup and saucer in hand smiling bravely through the use of the language vile. Unfit for youth or ladies. Percival pouring madeira. Oscar stuffing cake in his mouth and swilling back bottle dregs just inside the door of the next room. Charlene and Imelda taking trays between the guests. Lady Macfugger tapping ash from her cigarette as she watches the proceedings open mouthed. Asked me if she could take a tour through the castle. To see the heraldic glass and plaster work. And maybe the rumoured Meissen piss pot adorned with a daisy chain of threesomed testicles.
Lead Kindly Light the Gladiator clanking from the state room out into the great hall followed by Bligh pressing a piece of damson covered barmbrack between his lips and draining a glass of madeira. The two figures pausing by the excavation. Bligh blessing himself hands moving swiftly in the sign of a cross. L K L raising an accusing arm. The voice from the helmet.
‘Jump down into that you fat eegit.’
‘You jump.’
‘Blessing yourself thinking religion will help you now. Are you ready for the pain. You big tub of ugliness.’
‘Say what you like about me but leave religion out of it. And I’m warning you by God don’t you mention the blessed virgin.’
‘The blessed virgin.’
‘You did it. You did it. Just do it once more and that will be the end of you.’
‘The blessed virgin.’
‘You did it again. I’m warning you. I love her. She is to me of the most purest gold.’
‘Would you kiss her arse.’
‘Blasphemy. Pure deliberate blasphemy. God above will strike. With a lightning that will curl your toe nails to a crisp.’
‘You big buffoon. Can’t you see I’m enclosed in armour. The bolt will pass harmlessly down around me into the tiles of the hall and further into the molten bowels of the earth where the uncouth likes of you should be undergoing fission.’
‘I’ll kill you. Even though we are here in the home of a respectable man. I’ll kill you. You and your wife conducting disgraceful jubilee gatherings back in town with lascivious grass skirt dancing. Dear God above be merciful to this wretched person here before us. Were I of the church militant you’d be getting measured for your coffin right now. But I am of the church mystic.’
‘You’ll be of the church crippled.’
‘Right then. You won’t be satisfied till I knot your bloody little limbs around your neck.’
Nails Macfugger’s arm tight about the azure eyed ample bosomed woman laughing from her big blushing face. Imelda’s passing eyes on one’s flies. I’m desperate to do a trick with my tool. A nice big erection loose in the castle would lend itself well to the floral grandeur. Palm trees sixty feet high in the great hall. Where people of taste and refinement could find spiritual refreshment. Instead of the generous serving up of multiple contusions that were rumoured going on giving members of the medical profession heart attacks in their tracks.
Erconwald holding up a hand at the doorway under the stair. Staying those who were following Bligh and L K L descending to the monk’s tunnel to have it out.
‘
Ah good people. Wait. One regrets that the nature of the contest is not suitable for the eyes and ears of mixed company. But those of you who are sticklers for fair play be assured that the Gaelic struggle to be engaged in below shall abide by the custom of the firbolg.’
Lady Gail Allouise Trudy Magfugger raising her glass. Swaying slightly in a long black clinging garment. Her hair swept in a bun at the back of her head. Three strands of pearls about her slender neck. Charlene narrow eyed, glowering. Nails Macfugger tap dancing the chaperoning mother in circles around the great hall. One more gathering slowly getting out of hand. Drifting towards turmoil. On a lubricant of madeira.
Down in the tunnel. Candles glowing in storm lanterns. Franz dismantling the lower parts of L K L’s armour. Body odour behold. Putlog behind Bligh with his trousers down. Legs bulging with immense muscles and veins. A small white arrow down the side of his socks. Erconwald whispering.
‘Now good person be not alarmed. Great kings and chiefs have fought thus before. Each partakes of a grip upon the other’s gonads. A signal is given of two slate stones clapped together. And the adversaries twist. Slowly inducing pain. A match of any other kind would be unequal due to Bligh’s great strength. The vanquished is he who can stand the torment no longer. Do take two of these wax ear plugs. The screaming will be otherwise unforgettable.’
The tunnel ceiling dripping moisture from matted corrugations. Erconwald said the vaulting was made squeezing in the propped up stones with a mixture of mortar, bulls blood and hair. Growing stronger with the years. A grey canopy for the light shining on the greasy cobbles. I could have settled in a small apartment. With a view out over the lake. Clocked in every five p.m. for cocktails and piano music. To just say hi to folks hanging around the hotel bar. What kind of a day did you have. I’m having a night of the firbolg thank you.