The Onion Eaters

  ‘Holy heifer.’

  ‘The one in your palm tree you will see extends its body out more than half its length. Note the exquisite stillness it possesses. Yet in an instant that delicate small green head can bring death. The specimen lying coiled on the right is an older specimen. Unfortunately agitated at the moment and one cannot enter.’

  Erconwald’s impenetrable courtesy. From a little pocket casket he offers me a cheroot. His white long delicate fingers closed over the dark fibres. His emerald glowing mamba green. He waits ready to administer a kindness wherever the opening yawns. Might be found at any street corner shepherding old ladies in an ever constant stream across the roadway.

  ‘Good person might my associates and I be permitted to examine your testicles.’

  ‘Wait a minute.’

  ‘But of course.’

  ‘I mean wait a minute.’

  ‘Ah I do understand your quite natural hesitation to grant scrutiny of your gonads. But I assure you it will be entirely painless and conducted with every dignity that such an exploration might require.’

  ‘Who told you about my testicles.’

  ‘Ah, it is good person, a rumour we have heard. We merely want to measure and weigh, and should it be necessary, to tabulate as well.’

  ‘I’ve not even found my feet in this place and you guys are trying to count my balls.’

  ‘Permit me Kind sir.’

  Erconwald putting aside his sweet scented cheroot and undoing his trousers. Frowning as a button pops off and rolls in a circle on the stone floor to disappear down a drain hole.

  ‘What are you doing.’

  ‘Good person I am displaying to you my own organs of regeneration so that you should not think me unmindful of another’s trepidation in doing so.’

  ‘Please stop.’

  ‘Would it not help for you to be made easier in this matter by my presentment.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I am distressed that I have failed to reassure you.’

  Clementine backing towards the door. Erconwald’s fly wide open. Might have an apparatus quite out of the ordinary. Coils up and strikes like one of his snakes. Seems like years ago I sat alone cold and damp in the library thumbing through the ledgers. Pages of inventories flashing by, the Porcelain Room, Pump Room, South Cloisters, Verandah and by the look of this one I’m trying to get out of, it must be a combination guard room and fire department. Adjoining what is now the snake pit.

  ‘Please Erconwald don’t get upset. I just can’t see that anything can be gained by your showing me your privates. I’ve always been unreasonably shy about exhibiting my own. I think a little girl playmate may have laughed at them once, something like that. But good lord if you feel that way about it, show me.’

  ‘Thank you good person.’

  Erconwald undoing his belt. Dropping his trousers and lifting up shirt tails to uncover a large and somewhat engorged copulatory machine and pair of balls. His privates with an athletic quality about them absent from the delicate rest of his person. How long is one required to look. Can’t see this gives me the nerve to flash mine.

  Clementine turning as the door behind squeaks open. A head peering in. Of a strange female face. A lady of riper years in a thick white wool sweater over a flowered skirt of a dress. Her smooth skin and wet lips. A smile breaking on her face as she looks from Erconwald’s privates to the raised eyebrows of Clementine.

  ‘Ooo. I’m awfully sorry. Do carry on. Sorry, I mean to say I was just looking for someone. Who might help me. As I am completely stranded about two miles from here without petrol. But I beg your pardon. Clearly I’m intruding. I must have come in the wrong way. I do believe I’m lost. If someone could just tell me how I get out, I’ll go. Instantly. I do apologise.’

  Erconwald bowing. Most embarrassing to witness during this stranger’s conversation Erconwald’s private protuberance horizontally stiffening out and jumping up and down between his stripey green, blue and white shirt tails.

  ‘Well, won’t you say something someone. I know this is cruelly embarrassing but good lord I don’t know my way out. Please help me. A gallon of petrol would get me to the next town. I’m on my way to visit friends. Please believe me I had no intention of barging in this way. Into what is clearly a very private moment.’

  ‘I’m just being shown his regenerative organs merely to accustom me to showing my own.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, I don’t think I quite follow you but surely it doesn’t matter. Do you know who the owner of this place is.’

  ‘I am the owner.’

  ‘O. I see. Well would it be possible for me to buy a gallon of petrol. I do apologise most contritely to you and your friend. I know I seem to be persisting here at the door but quite honestly I’m covered in mud and have been scratched with briars in my struggle to get in here at all. I’m really feeling quite wretched.’

  ‘Erconwald. would you mind if this lady stepped in and waited while I get Percival.’

  ‘Most surely madam you are deeply welcome.’

  ‘Simply awful to gate crash like this but honestly I am at my wits’ end. I tried one door and fell down steps. I heard water below. It quite has frightened me.’

  Erconwald attempting to get his penis back into his grey flannel trousers tugging them up and turning away from the visitor. Buttoning above and below the projecting waving organ while stepping backwards and stumbling into a fire apparatus. The lady visitor pushing back on her forehead a wave of greyed blonde hair which keeps falling. I’m going to make a run for it. Taste blood on my lower lip where I have bitten myself.

  ‘I’ll be back. Quite quickly. If you feel you’re all right madam.’

  ‘Yes, may I just sit down please.’

  ‘Of course. You’re all right Erconwald.’

  ‘Yes good person. And ah to you madam my most profound apologies if I have in any way given offence. I don’t think it has subsided sufficiently for me to return it as promptly as one might wish into the privacy of my trousers. I will of course deflect my front away from you and do hope you will not think me discourteous if I speak over my shoulder.’

  ‘Quite frankly young man provided that it’s not to be used, ha ha, on me, I don’t in the least mind. Do for heaven’s sake if you are more comfortable, sit down. Honestly I’m quite grown up. I have, ha ha, seen them before.’

  ‘Ah truly madam is most kind, generous and of modern demeanour.’

  ‘Please don’t apologise, I am after all a total stranger intruding as well as I believe, trespassing.’

  ‘Well folks, please, I’ll just run off now. And be back shortly.’

  Clementine heading south along the passage. Towards darkness and a door at the end. Opening out into the great hall. Saw a dangling rope of a clapper to a fire bell one could have pulled. Announcing to the castle a viewing of an erection. Ring in series of two and continue until assistance arrives. Whole mob could have descended. Upon Erconwald’s prick upended. The recent elevation measured by Franz. To fire salvos at a growling Rose dancing in strangling poses among the mambas. As the rest of the household assembles and sambas. And all maybe later to scrimmage awhile.

  For

  The circus

  Continues

  More crazy than cruel

  One of us now

  Will spin like a top

  On the end

  Of his tool

  7

  Clementine hastily through the door under the grand staircase. Could get lost going down these steps. The air colder. Which way. To the kitchens. Of which according to the ledger there are six. Push open this white door. Explore while one is on the way. Give Erconwald ample time to get it back into his trousers. And out of the sight of that woman who has a rather musical laughter. Which might keep Erconwald’s pecker up till the cows come home. Or he gets blown.

  A room the walls lined with cupboards from floor to ceiling. Barred windows peeking out on the courtyard. Shelves with earthenware pots. Cloves, cinnamon, bay lea
ves. A spice room. The scientists could add seasoning to the distillate. Of which Erconwald must slam back a dram for breakfast. Get it to pop up and poke the stranded lady right on the red bump on her nose. Between pretty blue eyes. Which will sparkle throughout the eight or nine years of good screwing she must have left. Tonight my first social engagement. And I’m searching for petrol. To motor a matron out of this menagerie.

  Clementine pushing through another door. A large candle lit room, round stone pillars holding an arched ceiling. Cavernous fireplace with iron gears, chains and skewers. Along a wall a vast black cast iron stove. Batteries of pans hanging on racks. A girl catching her breath. As she turns suddenly with a dripping ladle in her hand.

  ‘Lord save us.’

  ‘I’m sorry to barge in. I’m looking for Percival.’

  ‘Sir I do be thinking he is down the tunnel doing a bit of fishing, sir.’

  ‘I don’t believe I know who you are.’

  ‘I’m from beyond sir, a friend of Imelda. She asked me to give her a hand and I’m after stirring up the soup for tonight’s dinner. A gentleman was down before with the onions to put in the cauldron. We have this hour before been trying to prise the pig loose from the darknesses beyond in the tunnels and into the pot, Imelda and Mary are after him this minute.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Is there anything now I can do for you sir.’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Thank you sir.’

  Clementine stopping in the spice room. One comes away from that confrontation trembling in every limb. A girl of flowing dark hair. Slender white arms from the blue rolled up sleeves of her sweater. Go back and ask her name. One more mortal on the staff. An incredible beauty found down in the cellars. Move her higher up in the castle to stardom.

  ‘I’m sorry to trouble you again.’

  ‘Ah it’s no trouble.’

  ‘But I don’t know your name.’

  ‘Charlene.’

  ‘Ah. That’s a nice name.’

  ‘It is after me grandmother’s. She worked here in the castle her whole life, died out beyond there in the laundry room by the stables where she lived her last fifteen years, never did she stir out of it till they took her in her coffin, she was fond of the warmth from the few heated pipes. She loved folding the linens and stacking them in the airing cupboards that you would cut your hand on the edge of them.’

  ‘Are you permanently here.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know sir. I would be thinking that you would be the one to say sir.’

  ‘I hope you’ve heard that I may not be able to get around to steady wages but I think I can manage to reimburse you now and again. Would this be enough for the moment.’

  Clementine pulling the wad from Erconwald out of his pocket. Charlene wiping her hand on a thick grey skirt and taking the large white bill. Holding it out pinched by her hand, a little dirt under her worn fingernails.

  ‘Sir there’s no need to give me this. What use have I for it with pucks to eat and a place to sleep.’

  ‘You’re staying in the castle.’

  ‘I am sir. I have my own room above.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘It suits me fine. I am crowded with me family with seven little brothers and sisters. We only have the one room and a loft above. It’s a nuisance at times to get a night’s sleep with the scratchings and kickings.’

  Boots and thick brown stockings on Charlene’s legs. She smiles when she talks with white teeth which look like her own. A little mole next to her nose. Castle full of surprises. Jammed with arrivals. Those summoned by morse code and others crawling through briars. Wake up out of haunted death throes on one side of the ocean and gallivant with big bosomed ravenous dolls on the other. Charlene’s are from the bulges in her sweater of refined proportions.

  ‘The soup smells good.’

  ‘It’s only a few old ingredients put boiling in a pot, same as we do at home. I’ll be bringing you some fish tomorrow when my father comes in with the boat. Do you like fish sir.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would you like it fried.’

  ‘That would be nice.’

  ‘Well I’ll do that. Miss Ovary was saying she’d like to do a bit of shopping in the town, so I’ll fix the fish for you. I’ll tidy up around here a bit as well. Have it clean as a stone after the rain.’

  ‘Don’t you find it gloomy down here in the dark.’

  ‘Not at all. Sure I’ve never been fond of the outdoors lashed by the wind and the rain. With the stove going it’s nice enough here.’

  Clementine taking one last sip of this delicate creature. A tiny figure under the massive stone ceilings. Alone down in these damp endless cellars. Got to save her from that kind of life. And fix up some light duties nearer my apartments.

  ‘I wonder Charlene if you could direct me to the tunnel where Percival is fishing.’

  ‘Surely sir, it’ll just require a candle or two. Now if you come this way. Past the spice room and the downstairs pantry.’

  Charlene opening a thick oak door into a room. More shackles on the walls. Under an archway and down circling steps. A narrow tunnel at the bottom. A stone alcove with two iron gratings in the floor.

  ‘Down there sir are the dungeons. They be an awful dangerous place. They put them poor creatures down into them on a ladder and you couldn’t get out with a lifetime of trying. The sea waters get into the lower ones, full of dead bones. They would shovel the food down to them through the bars there. With them fighting over it among themselves and the rats.’

  The tunnel slanting downwards. Wet stones slippery under foot. The walls glistening with beads of moisture. The sound of waters and low whine of the wind. The candles wavering, Charlene’s hand up sheltering the flame. Poor Erconwald only wanted to inspect my balls and ends up with his own apparatus on display.

  ‘Now sir, hold tight along here to the rail. There’s more steps. There now you can see the bit of daylight ahead.’

  A blue expanse of sea. Headlands and coast rising to the north. Westwards an ocean. Downwards the jutting cliffside, stairs cut from rock, moorings twisted and rusting. No sign of Percival.

  ‘I wouldn’t want sir to be causing needless worry but it’s a long fall to the sea and it wouldn’t be the first time a soul had been dragged into the deep by the monster that lurks down there in the water.’

  The wind blowing Charlene’s wavy tresses back from her soft white skinned face. A pair of eyes bright blue. She bites lips red and moist. Her hands and wrists pink with chill. She stands on a step gripping an old twisted railing in the rock and leans out to look down.

  ‘There’s not a sign of him, you couldn’t be at the bottom there in the thrashing of them waves and ever get back up here alive. God forbid that he went into that deep to be torn to pieces by the conger.’

  ‘He could have fallen.’

  ‘Yanked would be the case.’

  ‘We’d better go for help.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say Percival would require help sir, all he needs now is a bit of blessing as you would give to any soul of the faithful departed. He was a holy terror in his early days with the ladies but these last few days he’s made amends enough. Often I’ve seen him on the bicycle helter skelter to do his spiritual duty. As the years edge them closer to the hammer and tongs of God they soon enough get down on their knees and make friends with the on high, offering him cigarettes, mea culpas, hiccups, coughs and greasy pennies.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Sure if he was injured we’d see him impaled below. And if he’s been made a meal of by the conger you can forget attending to the remains.’

  Charlene leads Clementine back in the tunnel. Past the dungeons, up the spiral stairs, through the pantry and kitchens and by a back passage and servants’ hallway to a narrow door opening into the antechamber of the Octagonal Room. Put hands up over eyes and lie next to the evening clothes neatly arranged by Percival. Dead out there on the water. Charlene said she would search through the castle
. With Miss Ovary and Oscar and Imelda. One waits. Momentarily out of the castle traffic. And where is Elmer. Someone pounding on the door.

  ‘Come in.’

  ‘Excuse me sir but so far there isn’t a sign of Percival. But we’ve come upon goings on that would make the devil himself blush with shame. Sure God there is the old fire department in flames you might say with impurity. A gentleman in no fit state to be seen. Inviting us in he did. The manners on him would make you think he was asking us to a ball. Miss Ovary has run out sir beyond screaming she’d have nothing to do with the likes of the goings on. Said she did that snakes had landed upon us. I’d say she suffered hallucinations brought on by your man not taking a proper attention to his dress. Can I get you anything now.’

  ‘No thank you.’

  ‘Sir do you mind if I say something.’

  ‘Please do.’

  ‘Well if Miss Ovary does not come back as she was saying, is it in order if I take over in the kitchens. She’ll have nothing to do with men and we are besieged down there by gentlemen jumping out at us from behind the pillars and waiting in the scullery. Would it be proper for me to tell them to hop it.’

  ‘Yes of course.’

  ‘Now sir I believe in speaking me mind. The bunch here are eating you out of house and home and not one of them lifting a finger to so much as pour their own tea. Sure one of them a beast of a woman was down there in the kitchen the middle of the night frying up rashers and eggs enough for an army, ordering me out of the way when I was trying to get the morning fires going. Are you all right sir. Is your head bothering you.’