At Swim-Two-Birds

  It’s funny, said Mrs Furriskey. Curiously examining it, she replaced her reminiscence.

  The blind are great harpers, said Lamont, great harpers altogether. I knew a man once by the name of Searson, some class of a hunch-back that harped for his living about the streets. He always wore a pair of black glasses.

  Was he blind, Mr Lamont?

  Certainly he was blind. From the day of his birth he hadn’t a light in his head. But don’t worry, it was all made up to him. My brave man knew how to take it out of his old harp. I’ll swear by God he did. He was a lovely harper certainly. It would do you good to listen to him. He was a great man altogether at the scales.

  Is that so?

  Oh, by God he was a treat.

  Music is a wonderful thing when you come to think of it, observed Mrs Furriskey, raising her gentle countenance until its inspection had been duly accomplished by the company.

  Here’s a thing I was going to ask for a long time, said Shanahan, is there any known cure for blackheads?

  Plenty of sulphur, said Mrs Furriskey.

  Do you mean pimples? inquired Lamont. Pimples take time, you know. You can’t clean pimples up in one night.

  Sulphur’s very good, of course, Mrs Furriskey, but it’s for the bowels they give you sulphur unless I’m thinking of something different.

  To clear away pimples in the one go-off, continued Lamont, you’ll have to get up early in the morning. Very early in the morning, I’m thinking.

  They tell me if you steam the face, said Shanahan, the pores will – you know – open. That’s the man for blackheads, plenty of steam.

  I’ll tell you what it is, explained Lamont, bad blood is the back of the whole thing. When the quality of the blood isn’t first class, out inarch our friends the pimples. It’s Nature’s warning, Mr Shanahan. You can steam your face till your snot melts but damn the good it will do your blackheads if you don’t attend to your inside.

  I always heard that sulphur was the best thing you could take, said Mrs Furriskey, sulphur and a good physic.

  There would be less consumption in this country, continued Lamont, if the people paid more attention to their blood. Do you know what it is, the nation’s blood is getting worse, any doctor will tell you that. The half of it is poison.

  Blackheads are not so bad, said Furriskey. A good big boil on the back of your neck, that’s the boy that will make you say your prayers. A boil is a fright. It’s a fright now.

  A boil is a fright if you get it in the wrong place.

  You walk down the street and here you are like a man with a broken neck, your snot hopping off your knees. I know a man that never wore a collar for five years. Five years, think of that!

  Well sulphur is good for that complaint, said Mrs Furriskey, people who are subject to that complaint are never without a pot of sulphur in the house.

  Sulphur cools the blood, of course, concurred Lamont

  There was a girl that I knew once, said Mrs Furriskey rummaging anew in the store of her recollections. She worked in a house where they had a lot of silver, pots, you know, and that kind of thing. She used to polish them with sulphur.

  Ah, but the boil’s the boy, said Furriskey with a slap of his knee, the boil’s the boy that will bend your back.

  I’ll tell you what’s hard, too, said Shanahan, a bad knee. They say a bad knee is worse than no knee at all. A bad knee and an early grave.

  Water on the knee, do you mean?

  Yes, water on the knee is a bad man, I believe. So I’m told. But you can have a bad cap too, a split knee. Believe me that’s no joke. A split knee-cap.

  Where are you if you are gone in the two knees? asked Furriskey.

  I knew a man and it’s not long ago since he died, Bartley Madigan, said Shanahan. A man by the name of Bartley Madigan. A right decent skin too. You never heard a bad word about Bartley.

  I knew a Peter Madigan once, said Mrs Furriskey, a tall well-built man from down the country. That was about ten years ago.

  Well Bartley got a crack of a door-knob in the knee…

  Eh! Well dear knows that’s the queer place to get the knob of a door. By God he must have been a bruiser. A door-knob! – Oh, come here now. How high was he?

  It’s a question I am always asked, ladies and gentlemen, and it’s a question I can never answer. But what my poor Bartley got was a blow on the crown of the cap…They tell me there was trickery going on, trickery of one kind or another. Did I tell you the scene is laid in a public-house?

  You did not, said Lamont.

  Well what happened, asked Furriskey.

  I’ll tell you what happened. When my hard Bartley got the crack, he didn’t let on he was hurt at all. Not a word out of him. On the way home in the tram he complained of a pain. The same night he was given up for dead.

  For goodness sake!

  Not a word of a lie, gentlemen. But Bartley had a kick in his foot still. A game bucko if you like. Be damned but he wouldn’t die!

  He wouldn’t die?

  Be damned but he wouldn’t die. I’ll live, says he, I’ll live if it kills me, says he. I’ll spite the lot of ye. And live he did. He lived for twenty years.

  Is that a fact?

  He lived for twenty years and he spent the twenty years on the flat of his back in bed. He was paralysed from the knee up. That’s a quare one.

  He was better dead, said Furriskey, stern in the certainty of his statement.

  Paralysis is certainly a nice cup of tea, observed Lamont. Twenty…bloody…years in bed, eh? Every Christmas he was carried out by his brother and put in a bath.

  He was better dead, said Furriskey. He was better in his grave than in that bed.

  Twenty years is a long time, said Mrs Furriskey.

  Well now there you are, said Shanahan. Twenty summers and twenty winters. And plenty of bedsores into the bargain. Oh, yes, bags of those playboys. The sight of his legs would turn your stomach.

  Lord help us, said Furriskey with a frown of pain. That’s a blow on the knee for you. A blow on the head would leave you twice as well off, a crack on the skull and you were right.

  I knew a man, said Lamont, that was presented with an accidental skelp of a hammer on the something that he sits on – the important what you may call it to the rear, you will understand. How long did he live?

  Is this a man I know, asked Mrs Furriskey.

  He lived for the length of a split second, long enough to fall in a heap in his own hall. Something, you understand, gave way. Something – I forget what they call it – but it was badly burst, so the doctors said when they examined him.

  A hammer is a dangerous weapon, said Shanahan, if you happen to get it in the wrong place. A dangerous instrument.

  The cream of the joke is this, but, continued Lamont, that he got the hammer on the morning of his birthday. That was the present he got.

  The poor so-and-so, said Furriskey.

  Shanahan gave a whisper from the screen of his flat hand and a privy laugh, orderly and undertoned, was offered and accepted in reward.

  He died by the hammer – did you ever hear that said? A finger of perplexity straying to her lip, Mrs Furriskey presented the troubled inquiry of her face to each in turn.

  I never heard that, ma’am, said Furriskey.

  Well maybe I am thinking of something else, she reflected. He died by the hammer. I see they have great coal-hammers in that place in Baggot Street for one and nine.

  A shilling is plenty to pay for a coal-hammer, said Furriskey.

  There’s another gentleman that I advise ye all to avoid, counselled Shanahan, cross the road if you see him coming. Our old friend pee-eye-ell-ee-ess.

  Who might he be? asked Mrs Furriskey.

  He’s a man that’ll make you sit up and take notice if you let him into your house, explained Furriskey, a private wink for the entertainment of his male companions. Eh, Mr Shanahan?

  Oh, a bad man, said Shanahan. I met him once but I may tell you he got his orders. Out he w
ent.

  It’s the blood again, said Lamont.

  Here a loud knocking at the door became audible to the company. Mrs Furriskey moved quietly from the room in response.

  That’ll be Mr Orlick, said Shanahan. I was talking to him today. I think he is going to do a bit of writing tonight. Conclusion of the foregoing.

  Biographical reminiscence, part the ninth: It was the late summer, a humid breathless season that is inimical to comfort and personal freshness. I was reclining on my bed and conducting a listless conversation with Brinsley, who was maintaining a stand by the window. From the averted quality of his voice, I knew that his back was towards me and that he was watching through the window without advertence the evening boys at ball-throw. We had been discussing the craft of writing and had adverted to the primacy of Irish and American authors in the world of superior or better-class letters. From a perusal of the manuscript which has just been presented in these pages, he had expressed his inability to distinguish between Furriskey, Lamont and Shanahan, bewailed what he termed their spiritual and physical identity, stated that true dialogue is dependent on the conflict rather than the confluence of minds and made reference to the importance of characterization in contemporary literary works of a high-class, advanced or literary nature.

  The three of them, he said, might make one man between them.

  Your objections are superficial, I responded. These gentlemen may look the same and speak the same but actually they are profoundly dissimilar. For example, Mr Furriskey is of the brachycephalic order, Mr Shanahan of the prognathic.

  Prognathic?

  I continued in this strain in an idle perfunctory manner, searching in the odd corners of my mind where I was accustomed to keep words which I rarely used. I elaborated the argument subsequently with the aid of dictionaries and standard works of reference, embodying the results of my researches in a memorandum which is now presented conveniently for the information of the reader.

  Memorandum of the respective diacritical traits or qualities of Messrs Furriskey, Lamont and Shanahan:

  Head: brachycephalic; bullet; prognathic.

  Vision: tendencies towards myopia; wall-eye; nyctalopia.

  Configuration of nose: roman; snub; mastoid.

  Unimportant physical afflictions: palpebral ptosis; indigestion; German itch.

  Mannerisms: tendency to agitate or flick fingers together in prim fashion after conveying bread or other crumbling substance to mouth; tooth-sucking and handling of tie-knot; ear-poking with pin or match, lip-pursing.

  Outer clothing: D.B. indigo worsted; S.B. brown serge, two-button style; do., three-button style.

  Inner or under-clothing: woollen combinations, front buttoning style; home-made under-tabard of stout moreen-cloth (winter) or paramatta (summer): abdominal belt or corset with attached unguinal protective appliance.

  Fabric of shirt: tiffany; linen; tarlatan.

  Pedal traits: hammer-toes; nil; corns.

  Volar traits: horniness; callosity; nil.

  Favourite flower: camomile; daisy; betony.

  Favourite shrub: deutzia; banksia; laurustinus.

  Favourite dish: loach; caudle; julienne. Conclusion of memorandum.

  The door opened without warning and my uncle entered. From his manner it was evident that he had seen the note-books of Brinsley below-stairs on the hall-stand. He wore a genial and hostly manner. His cigarette-box, the ten-for-sixpence denomination, was already in his hand. He stopped with a polite ejaculation of his surprise at the presence of a guest by the window.

  Mr Brinsley! he said.

  Brinsley responded according to the practices of polite society, utilizing a formal good evening for the purpose.

  My uncle conferred a warm handshake and immediately placed his cigarettes at the disposal of the company.

  Well it isn’t often we see you, he said.

  He forestalled our effort to find matches. I had arisen from the supine attitude and was seated on the bed-edge in an uneasy manner. As he came round to me tendering his flame, he said:

  Well, mister-my-friend, and how are we this evening? I see you’re as fond of the bed as ever. Mr Brinsley, what are we going to do with this fellow? Dear knows I don’t know what we’ll do with him at all.

  Without addressing my uncle I made it known that there was but one chair in the room.

  You mean this lying in bed during the day? said Brinsley. His voice was innocent. He was intent on discussing my personal habits in a sympathetic manner with my uncle in order to humiliate me.

  I do, Mr Brinsley, said my uncle in an eager earnest manner, I do certainly. Upon my word I think it is a very bad sign in a young lad. I don’t understand it at all. What would you say is the meaning of it? The lad is healthy as far as I can see. I mean, you would understand an old person or an invalid. He looks as fit as a fiddle.

  Putting his cigarette-hand to his head, he shut his right eye and rubbed the lid in perplexity with the crook of his thumb.

  Dear knows it is more than I can understand, he said.

  Brinsley gave a polite laugh.

  Well we’re all lazy, he said in a broad-minded manner, it’s the legacy of our first parents. We all have it in us. It is just a question of making a special effort.

  My uncle gave a rap of concurrence on the washstand.

  We all have it in us, he repeated loudly, from the highest to the lowest we all have it in us. Certainly. But tell me this, Mr Brinsley. Do we make the effort?

  We do, said Brinsley.

  Oh, we do indeed, said my uncle, and faith it would be a very nice world to live in if we didn’t. Oh, yes.

  I agree with you, said Brinsley.

  We can say to ourselves, continued my uncle, I have now rested. I have had enough. I will now rise and use my God-given strength to the best of my ability and according to the duties of my station in life. To the flesh we say: Thus far and no farther.

  Yes, said Brinsley nodding.

  Sloth – Lord save us – sloth is a terrible cross to carry in this world. You are a burden to yourself…to your friends…and to every man woman and child you meet and mix with. One of the worst of the deadly sins, there is no doubt about it.

  I’d say it is the worst, said Brinsley.

  The worst? Certainly.

  Turning to me, my uncle said:

  Tell me this, do you ever open a book at all?

  I open and shut books several times a day, I replied in a testy manner. I study here in my bedroom because it is quiet and suitable for the purpose. I pass my examinations without difficulty when they arise. Is there any other point I could explain?

  That will do you now, there is no need for temper, said my uncle. No need at all for temper. Friendly advice no wise man scorns, I’m sure you have often heard that said.

  Ah don’t be too hard on him, said Brinsley, especially about his studies. A little more exercise would do the trick. Mens sana in carport sano, you know.

  The Latin tongue was unknown to my uncle.

  There is no doubt about it, he said.

  I mean, the body must be in good condition before the mind can be expected to function properly. A little more exercise and study would be less of a burden, I fancy.

  Of course, said my uncle. Lord knows I am sick sore and tired telling him that. Sick, sore, and tired.

  In the speech of Brinsley I detected an opening for crafty retaliation and revenge. I turned to him and said:

  That is all very well for you. You are fond of exercise – I am not You go for a long walk every evening because you like it. To me it is a task.

  I am very glad to hear you are fond of walking, Mr Brinsley, said my uncle.

  Oh, yes, said Brinsley. His tone was disquieted.

  Well, indeed, you are a wise man, said my uncle. Every evening in life I go for a good four-mile tramp myself. Every evening, wet or fine. And do you know what I am going to tell you, I’m better for it too. I am indeed. I don’t know what I would do without my walk.

>   You are a bit late at it this evening, I observed.

  Never you fear, late or early I won’t forget it, he said. Would you care to Join me, Mr Brinsley?

  They went, the two of them. I lay back in the failing light in a comfortable quiet manner. Conclusion of the foregoing.

  Synopsis, being a summary of what has gone before, for the benefit of new readers: ORLICK TRELLIS, having concluded his course of study at the residence of the Pooka MacPhellimey, now takes his place in civil life, living as a lodger in the house of

  FURRISKEY, whose domestic life is about to be blessed by the advent of a little stranger. Meanwhile

  SHANAHAN and LAMONT, fearing that Trellis would soon become immune to the drugs and sufficiently regain the use of his faculties to perceive the true state of affairs and visit the delinquents with terrible penalties, are continually endeavouring to devise A PLAN. One day in Furriskey’s sitting-room they discover what appear to be some pages of manuscript of a high-class story in which the names of painters and French wines are used with knowledge and authority. On investigation they find that Orlick has inherited his father’s gift for literary composition. Greatly excited, they suggest that he utilize his gift to turn the tables (as it were) and compose a story on the subject of Trellis, a fitting punishment indeed for the usage he has given others. Smouldering with resentment at the stigma of his own bastardy, the dishonour and death of his mother, and incited by the subversive teachings of the Pooka, he agrees. He comes one evening to his lodging where the rest of his friends are gathered and a start is made on the manuscript in the presence of the interested parties. Now read on.

  Extract from Manuscript by O. Trellis. Part One. Chapter One: Tuesday had come down through Dundrum and Foster Avenue, brine-fresh from sea-travel, a corn-yellow sun-drench that called forth the bees at an incustomary hour to their day of bumbling. Small house-flies performed brightly in the embrasures of the windows, whirling without fear on imaginary trapezes in the limelight of the sunslants.

  Dermot Trellis neither slept nor woke but lay there in his bed, a twilight in his eyes. His hands he rested emptily at his thighs and his legs stretched loose-jointed and heavily to the bed-bottom. His diaphragm, a metronome of quilts, heaved softly and relaxed in the beat of his breathing. Generally speaking he was at peace.