Leila: Further in the Life and Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman

15

It was entirely sad with Miss von B gone. Seeming like a whole lifetime ago, instead of this very morning. The feel of her breasts still on my chest. The sweet smells in under her hair. The warm cosy couch of her body. Making it so miserable to dislodge oneself from covers out into the cold. Legs still stiff from hunting. And Dingbats arriving to take away one’s tray.

‘Plus sir the gentleman Ronald had seven rashers, five cups of tea, six pieces of toast, sir, and quarter pound of the butter and nearly half the pot of marmalade and kept saying, will ye bring pucks now of everything so’s I won’t have to keep asking for more. And he was asking for more before he was finished any of it.’

While dressing, one could hear the wires pulled and clanking from my sisters’ rooms, ringing down to the kitchens for their breakfasts. And where one wonders are the eggs coming from. Since Catherine smashed so many sitting on them. And since Rashers may still be bellowing for more. Which Dingbats echoed as she left, making an unprecedented curtsey at the door.

‘Sir, an old nanny goat wouldn’t be safe from the teeth of him.’

Popping on my brown and most inconspicuous plus fours, one was not daring to even look down a hall or listen to a creak lest confronting Leila, who might then choose to tell me she had decided not to be at the boathouse. And I joined Rashers in the library for elevenses. Which he imbibed with as much relish as an Arab gobbling a goat. Nanny or otherwise. He had taken a turn about the gardens. And now, his tweeds as colourful as a vase full of wild flowers, he sits extremely comfortably, contentedly chuckling, and leafing through the more elderly volumes of Punch. But as one rattled off all the possibilities of the perpetrators of the silver theft, he seemed unconscionably sheepish and nervous.

‘Damned bloody strange nasty fearsome and unpleasant thing Kildare, that’s all I can say. But of course my dear chap, you did have a rather rum collection out here hunting you know. Of the lesser kind of the better people you might say.’

With one’s woe weighing hourly more heavily, one turned from Rashers sipping his coffee and chomping on oatmeal biscuits. Clearly and undubitably he was distinctly another mouth to feed. But before I reached the door he was bowing me out of the room and thanking me profusely for my continued hospitality.

‘You have no idea my dear boy how wretched life can be in Dublin when one is a little short of the readies. This sojourn really has, you know, set me back on my feet again. Such kindness shall not be forgotten. Neither by me nor my heirs. Do believe me when I say that. I know you are going to adore meeting my betrothed. Dinner soon dear boy. Jammet’s. My treat. Are you on.’

‘I should like very much Rashers to dine with you and your betrothed. But I couldn’t help concluding from his Lordship’s conversation last night that you, having borrowed from me, had not repatriated his fifty pounds.’

‘Ah. Ah. No indeed. You are quite absolutely and correctly right on that score as a matter of fact. Very astute of you to so observe. Very. But you see. Imagine. The expenses. My topper, tails extracted from pawn. And indeed I should like to have a night out with my dearest friends the day before the wedding.’

Suitably armed with walking stick one did set off for the stables forgiving Rashers further for his trespasses. And checking the horses, and then climbing the hill to the fields beyond the wood, I felt Rashers really did mean sincerely what he said in spite of his always contradicting it the next minute. Perhaps one should have taken him along to spy that damn stallion, or at least help me generally count cattle and attempt to cheer oneself with one’s only remaining disposable assets. How could so much silver be gone. And months before I can fatten some cattle. OI do so hope that the cold dreary days will quick dawn a blazing glory of blue skied spring. When the swallows and swifts can come soaring and perch chirping and the larks rise singing in the scent of a blossoming land. Never mind the thefts. One so needs encouragement against wind, sleet and rain. Which so secretly seep in and lurk in the labyrinths of one’s house. And cause some new rotting tribulation to quietly brew. And under Miss von B’s assault, one’s personal imperiousness does take a thwacking great thumping deflation. Watching her leave my bed, get dressed. That marvellous profile of her tit against the window light. And then brushing and combing her hair and setting so deliberately about her own life again. As if the pursuit of her daily business mattered so much more than me. As if, bloody hell, being manageress of the whole ground and basement floors of a Grafton Street shop was so important. When I could fit the place in one of my barns and have room left over to play soccer in. Dear me I should so love to pretend to be high powered. And damn it I am bloody sure I shall be. Soon enough.

Darcy Dancer walking back up the front lawn parkland. Shoes soaking up moisture through the grass. Despite all. There it still stands. Through the accumulated generations. And two black bikes parked so neatly against the front steps. By the staid sombre look of them, dear me, they belong to the Guards who have wasted no time in coming to question the staff.

Darcy Dancer crossing the hall to the east front parlour. The door just ajar. The sound of Rashers. And clearly entertaining guests it would appear. From this arrival on Crooks’ tray of a freshly opened whisky bottle.

‘Ah Master Reginald sir, all these years, polished all them spoons, forks and knives. Like they were pieces of myself. Gone. And we need not look for the scoundrel. A leopard never changes its spots. Sure I knew by the sight of Foxy Slattery in the hall. That we were in for trouble.’

From the previous glasses and the empty bottle of whisky in the library, one could tell there had been much and continuous imbibing. Rashers totally at home by the way he sits smiling, and not even bothering to announce me.

‘Ah my dear Darcy I’ve just been discussing fingerprinting with these good gentlemen of law enforcement, and other of the most up to date inventions in the detection of crime. In turn I’ve been treated to a lurid tale of rural murder. And I took the liberty of telling a tall tale or two myself about the underworld of Dublin. They were just departing.’

‘Ah sir, Mr Kildare, we’ve got the facts and we’ll have the culprit or culprits soon. Questioned the whole staff we have. As of this time we are keeping an open mind. But a suspicious character was reported seen struggling with two leather suitcases shortly after dawn and disappearing in a westerly direction. I’m sure under the mistaken misapprehension he was going east. For west he’ll get nothing but up to his oxters in bog. Just back over there beyond the orchard this silver spoon was found in the vicinity of the wall which we here produce to you for an accurate identification. Do you recognize any identifying marks.’

‘Yes I do. The Thormond crest. It is my spoon.’

‘Ah you might say now you were born with it in your mouth, would that be a fact.’

‘Yes possibly.’

‘Proof enough then of ownership. Well the blackguard won’t get far now, take it from me, I’m telling you. Not heading west he won’t. But bedad we’d best now get after him, he could sink the lot plus himself in a bog hole. Good day now to you sir. We’re about to be in a hurry about our serious business.’

Darcy Dancer ushering the Guards out into the hall, following in their wafting aromas of Irish whisky. The two giant gentlemen pausing and turning round craning their necks peering at paintings, pilasters and pendentives, not to mention the numerous chipped, cracked and broken objets d’art. And hard to know if, as connoisseurs, they are admiring the art or like most neighbouring farmers who have got a foot in the door, are thinking what a grand place to winter a hundred head of cattle.

‘Ah I’d venture to say it would be a thieves’ paradise here. But not your worry Mr Kildare. We’ll get the light fingers whoever he is. And we are not discounting the possibilities of a female being involved. As accessory before, during or by god even beyond the fact. Your friend, the interesting gentleman inside, has given us sufficient solid information to lead us to pursue a certain line of inquiry. And we hope it won’t be long now till your silver cutlery is slipping the peas and carrots, never mind the caviar, back in again between your guests’ lips. Crime detection these days is scientifically advanced. Sure I’ve heard tell of a theory now proving there is more room in a circle than in a square of the same area. And I’m not giving you statistics now. I’m giving you facts. As sure as Ireland is one nation, north and south.’

‘Well Guards, one might then say up the Republic. Sorry. Perhaps that should be up the whole Republic. Or even way up. In every geographical direction. And down too perhaps with crime. As well as in that general genealogical and geological direction.’

‘Ah now you’ve said it and as Aloysius Sexton, sir, your gardener out there with the Latin would say, it’s all a matter of them semantics.’

Darcy Dancer watching from the parlour window. Rashers at his shoulder. The Guards standing on the drive, brushing back their hair and putting on their caps. And mounting their cycles. Waving back at us as they unsteadily pedal over the gravel and knock off the edges of the grass verges as they weave and wobble away down the drive. They’ll be lucky to get to the front gates, never mind leap frogging across a treacherous bog.

‘Ah Darcy, my dear boy, what a pretty sight it is out there. That all of that is yours, as far as the eye can see. Cattle grazing among your ancient trees. Where you may take your spiritual ease without being disturbed by an interloper in the pursuit of your comfortable habits. And without some awful gurrier presuming upon one’s presence. As in the case of my regrettable condition, to be endured back in Dublin. You wouldn’t mind, would you my dear boy, if I just sort of catch my breath a day or two more before returning to town to face the flotsam and jetsam of human kind. Of course you know, disaster if it doesn’t at first finish you, always then, goads one on. To tempt it again to do to one its utter worst. And then, what is appalling, it always does.’

It was clear as one looked downwards, that Rashers had already made himself enough at home to commandeer a new and bigger pair of shoes. And I suppose if I told him he was no longer welcome, he would merely get up on his hind legs and sing a heart stopping aria. To reduce me to tears. And beg him not to go.

‘Rashers but of course you may. Do please stay.’

One’s sisters appeared for lunch. Arriving in the library in tweeds and wrapped up with silk scarves at the throat. And very much sniffling, coughing and blowing their noses when they weren’t very much daintily sipping at their sherries. Cross examining me for the umpteenth time on the Marquis. His ancestry, his entitlements, his ablution rooms, his horses, and the number of acres they grazed upon. Christabel especially. And very much pretending to be off hand.

‘His father, the Duke has rather a lot of English and foreign estates, hasn’t he.’

Rashers wearing his most pleased grin exaggerating to the ladies about something he knew naught about. Volunteering to describe the Duke’s chateaux in France and ranches in Canada. Crooks, as he came and went, being very hangdog subdued. My sisters, so expert at it, ignoring him as he served them. And returning from the water closet I came upon him, just outside the door in the hall, his head hanging forward one hand pressed up against the wall. Putting a nicely etched handprint thereon and obviously making a remark meant for me to overhear.

‘To spare you a bit of attention for merely a moment, a man has to go hang himself before they’d know you’d exist at all in this house.’

Throughout lunch, Dingbats, blatantly staring at me from the sideboard, did manage to put one off one’s feed. And despite the fact that Foxy’s brother was wrestling with her in the hay, the rumour was going round reported to Sexton by Crooks, that she was planning to marry me. And obviously now had no time for the lovesick male staff who were moaning, I love thee Mollie, up the servants’ stairwell. Must say her reastiness and fustiness which one found previously stimulating is, in the warmth of the blazing fire, reaching a most disagreeable pitch. As she leans in close, serving the cabbage, her armpit yawning near one’s nose. And she has Lavinia and Christabel wincing in their turn. But one does admit it, that one did, more than betimes want to let her have it deep in the bifurcation. And now dear me wouldn’t you know, there’s Crooks, in the hall doorway. Good god. His fly is open. The big black buttons undone. And revealing not only a pink satiny fabric but the most particular darker pink part of his private as well.

‘Sir, coffee is in the library whenever you are.’

There was a small gasp from Kitty and she nearly did drop the seconds plate of mutton for Rashers but thank god no one else turned to notice. And one was much relieved to take a change of air in another room. While Lavinia was getting some ancient horse scrapbooks out for Rashers, I managed behind Christabel’s back to indicate to Crooks’ crossed eyes the need to attend to his dress. But then when casting his eyes downwards, and in the panicked effort to fish back in the exhibited portion of himself, he also managed quite promptly to spill the serving tray of coffee, sugar and cream straight over Christabel’s knees.

‘He did that deliberately, I know he did.’

Crooks rushed from the room. Penis back in his trousers, head in his hands. Rashers jumping up, thought it all just too damn funny, and was much prolonged collecting up the crystals of sugar and dabbing up the moisture absorbed in the area of Christabel’s thighs. When first they were all getting on so famously, how was one to know amid so many other domestic hostilities that such ill feeling had now developed between my sisters and the staff. Although one knew Leila refused even to be in the same room with them. Of course, when growing up, until I learned to bite them, they trounced me unmercifully. I later added a growl to my bite, which former often sufficed instead for having to sink my actual teeth into them. And a couple of roars from me would send them screaming running for their lives. They soon learned to stop tearing toys out of my hands, I can tell you. Of course I had to go and find Crooks, searching all over, down the cellars and parlours until finally finding him in the hall outside the ballroom doorway, crying beneath the portrait of my mother.

‘O my dear Antoinette Delia Darcy Darcy Thormond, vouchsafe I implore thee to let me join thee out beyond the slabs far from the unkindnesses, and humbly lie by thy side to serve thee all our days in the eternal next world.’

‘Crooks, Crooks please, you mustn’t be so upset. Christabel was simply momentarily disconcerted.’

‘Spoke of me as she would a dog.’

‘Now now Crooks come with me. In here. Let’s get you sitting down for a start. There, there.’

‘She could have at least sir, directed her remark directly at me. Such behaviour never has and never would come from you sir. You are a compassionate man. A kind man. A feeling man. Like your mother was before you. Leave the door open. So I may see her. There she is. The most precious, beautiful and noble woman.’

Of course in the ballroom, one ended up opening a shutter and taking the dust cloth off a settee. Beseating Crooks with his feet up and bringing him a large brandy. Poor old stick, clearly would like to be a raving transvestite. And meanwhile he certainly does know how to acquit himself to be waited upon hand and foot, a pillow under his ankles, his collar open. I nearly was tempted to get him a cigar. But in spite of my alleged compassion one did think it would be going a little bit too far. Back in the library Christabel was now giving Rashers sidelong glances as he sat puffing his own cigar and twirling his own very large brandy. My, how he can, at the drop of someone else’s peacock feathered hat, so thoroughly enjoy life. Totally transforming the gloom. The pleased grin of his rabbit teeth flashing out under his moustache. One has never downright thought this before but he is quite a dashing figure. Sits there stretched out without rancour, regaling the ladies sipping their Drambuie, with risqué tales of last year’s Galway Races, Puck Fair, and Dublin’s night life. Hinting at the inhuman outrage committed down the depths of what appears to be a, by invitation only, midnight to midnight gathering in caves, cellars and tunnels located somewhere beneath one of the city’s most exclusive and elegant thoroughfares. And it would appear, so aptly called the catacombs. Christabel pretending not to want to hear of such bestial shenanigans but clearly in her faint protest, perking her ears eager for more.

‘You do don’t you, Ronald, seem to know so many wild and unruly characters, quite putting off to normal people. Doing such appalling things. What do you suppose, apropos of common decency, makes them behave like that.’

‘Ah my dear ladies because they are, in a word, simply dreadfully disgusting. Illbred by moonlight or any light. Castigators of the good. Worshippers of evil. But you see that’s the trouble with racing circles these days, embracing as they do rather too broad a class of jockeys, punters and owners.’

One sensed the moment to be gone. And one’s heart instantly beginning to pound walking down the parkland. Soft mist of rain from clouds tumbling out of the west. One’s silent voice already growing tight in one’s throat. Hidden by the deep grass, the little stream growing deeper and wider from other streams as it flows down through this valley of tall trees. Breath blows white in the air. Along this long unused path. Boots breaking through the thick crust of frost. No sign of her feet. That one so hopes have preceded me. In bed with another, and dreaming it were her flesh I held. Her swelling smaller quarters I pressed against. Her slenderer throat I kissed. Her spine I felt. That she alone was the true lady of my dreams. Servant though she is. And if only she were an aristocrat like Miss von B, she could, with the merest of schooling, then so naturally fit into one’s life. She does at least already have acceptable Christian names. Not that caste or status really matters. Even though it really desperately does. Due prominent ranking in the parish calls for disporting oneself with the dignity befitting the wife of a large landowner. As well as when up in Dublin, to keep up proper appearances as one enters say, up the steps and past the carved little monkeys on the sills of the Kildare Street Club. Of course such as my grandfather a life long member, never even entered the Club, not wanting to appear gauche and unknowledgeable, having to ask of the location of the latrine. And if one were passing through the lobbies of the Shelbourne or Hibernian, one would want to very much appear to be at home. Or having returned from a day’s racing, to suitably arrive descending the stair into the piquancies of sauces wafting about the main dining room of Jammet’s its hearth blazing. People knowing at the merest flick of a glance at the back or front of you, exactly who you are. Where you have come from and where you continue to go. Which are only to the most acceptable places. Even though one is not titled I am at least a minor major among the landed Irish gentry. Of course one might occasionally go to unacceptable places after dark. Although certainly for the sake of having a title, I should damn well not like to end up like the Marquis’ father, the Duke. And having in Dublin to summon large fish from McCabe’s the fishmonger in Chatham Street. Which anyway is closed in the dead of night. And then disagreeably and awfully smelly, have to belt the insolence out of a difficult lady. Swish, splat, smack. But then when one thinks of it a bit, why not. If such fishy corrective measures are deserved. It also could be such jolly peculiar excitement. The Marquis did say that the benefit of occasional chastisement served upon oneself was equally well served upon ladies. He had personally found that one should, while suffering what one thinks are the temporary blows of some women, attempt to rest comfortably, husbanding one’s reserves of fortitude, for that same woman is usually planning, later on, something even far far worse. Dear me, he does paint an unpretty picture of scheming ladies who hold sway out in the stylish world. Ah but I shall upon my arrival in London avoid such femmes fatales. Or further afield. As my dear Mr Arland advised me go. To hear the great organs in the great churches. Of Chartres and St Sulpice. When you are of age Kildare you must go to Vienna for opera. Moscow for ballet. And Sexton is quite right. One should sample the very latest philosophies being propounded in the cafés of the continental capital cities. Of course Mr Arland knew of whence he spoke but Sexton has never been to one of these places. Yet with both feet firmly in his potting shed he still unhesitatingly raves on about them as if he were there just yesterday. Master Darcy, ah by god you’ll have about your ears such incredible intellectual delights. Sure the Prado will knock you sideways. And if I do ever reach such foreign parts I know the first damn thing such as Miss von B will say to me, is that I am trying to shake from one’s heels the mud of the bog. Dear me, just murmuring Moscow, London, Vienna, Paris, Budapest. One feels a clutching thrill. Of course Miss von B made much of being a young lady in Vienna. Wearing her tiara and gown on the grand staircase of the Opera House, and betrothed to the grandest Count in the land. Waltzing her nights away under the chandeliers of only the very best palaces and castles from Linz to Klagenfurt. Of course I will ably demonstrate soon my own ball in my own ballroom to make her previous grand evenings look like the awfully trumped up occasions they probably really were. Heavens. A nasty pigeon has just deposited on me. A most stupendous long white load straight down my lapel and even, bloody hell on to my knee. Shows you, in the moments when one is tempted to be at one’s most eminent one is then most likely to be promptly besmirched. Of course, such shit does remind one that these foreign capitals are possessed of their debaucheries too. As are often required to sate one’s pent up desires. Leaving one able to return with an equanimity of spirit, to Andromeda Park and not be feverishly desperate to put it up one’s present or former domestic personnel. Ouch. What’s this. A damn snare. Hidden in the middle of the footpath. God, one would so like for some prolonged moments not to suffer yet another bloody damn nuisance. While one has already enough with the seedlings of staff plots, hangings, seditions, and the scheming craftiness of neighbouring farmers encroaching fences, plus the ruddy wiles of guests, and mad stallions. Not to mention now grand theft.

Darcy Dancer casting the snare away and striding near the deep channel of the brook. Now in spate from all the melting snows. Its racing current babbling beneath the thickets of fern in the darkness of the pine trees and the bare cold bark of great old elms soaring out into the sky. The stream slowed now from its winding way all through the wood, widening as it flowed into the lake. The little old wooden bridge which crossed it, now with its piers collapsed. Must take a jump.

Darcy Dancer stepping back into the ferns and running, leaping from the bank. One foot reaching the other side and one not. And sinking into the mud. Right over the top of my boot. And water damn it. Filling it up like a drain. As I grab plunging both fists and cuffs deep into the tufts of turf to pull myself out.

Darcy Dancer balancing on one foot, yanking off his boot. Spilling out the water. Wiping the mud from wrists. Straighten one’s cap. Now just as it begins to pour rain. How appropriate, dreaming of my grand ball, that one has all the worst appearances of a drowned rat. Ah. The sound of the whirl and whirr of wings out over the lake. Two swans. Gleaming white against a dark sky. At least that is an uncontaminated splendour. Gliding down, ploughing up their silvery paths across the blackness of the lake. O god. The great old oak tree uprooted. And crashed to the ground. Mouldering in decay. Up in those massive branches. Once was our tree house. Built for my sisters. And where they said I should, blindfolded, merely pretend to walk the plank out over the lake and merely pretend to plunge to my doom. But then they suddenly pushed me from behind and as I held on struggling screaming as they were trying to bloody well throw me down into the water, I got my teeth sunk deep into Lavinia’s arm. And I’m happy to say, in place of the chunk I nearly took out of it, there still remains to this day the little indentations of my fangs, pearly white scars like a bracelet on her skin. Badgers walk here at night. Rolling forward sniffing on their stumpy legs. All through these ancient trees. Owls hoot. Grab up the mice and rats. Hawks descend. Tear open the backs of pigeons. A bird house, put there by one of the men, was nestled up in the fork of that tree. So strange that little wooden house had been the most important thing in the world. Lying abed on stormy nights thinking I was a bird with a safe place to be. And will she be. There waiting. O god now even heavier rain beginning to fall. Run for it. Cold drops stinging my face. And she hasn’t come. Couldn’t have got here anyway. And will never be there. The soft satiny cheeks of her face. I so want to take between my hands and kiss. And kiss. Not that I bloody well am becoming suddenly religious. But Lord why doth thou so confound to send into my life such beauty. And yet keep it so untouchably far away.

Darcy Dancer vaulting over a vast fallen beech, uprooted and lying across the old boathouse path. Mushrooms and fungus sprouting on the decaying bark. Pushing further through the overgrown bramble. What an awful mistake, how could she ever find her way here. Mossy ground soft and muddy underfoot. Boathouse door open. Hanging askew on its hinges. Scurry of a rat. The old boat my grandfather fished from, the sides broken and rotted through and half sunk in the water. Oars still in the oarlocks. And go out of this darkness, creaking up this stair. To where in this small room above, other trysts and other rendezvous must have been kept.

Darcy Dancer standing. A shiver. The mirror cracked on the wicker table on the landing. The door ajar. Catch my breath back into my lungs. Push open the door. There. O god. Empty. Empty. Just as I thought. I’ve come late. And she’s not come at all.

Darcy Dancer stepping into the room. Crossing to the bow front leaded window. The little piles of wood worm dust on the floor. The big sill I used to climb and lay upon as a child and watched out on the summer water. To the buzzing of bees and whines of flies. Memorized my first poem here. That Mr Arland bid me read for its celebration of lyric rural Irish beauty. All about the nobility of the nettle, the thistle and the dock. All weeds as it happens. But I suppose you would, if you were a hard put peasant without an Ardagh Chalice you found ploughing in the field or a rusty old tin to piss in, even compose a poem to ragwort.

‘Hello.’

Darcy Dancer spinning round. That soft voice. There. Seated in the wicker chair behind the door of this cobwebbed room. Under this ceiling. Under this roof. Under all these tall trees along the shore. In the darkened late afternoon rising wind. And the rattling of a shutter. And patter of rain on the tiny panes of window. She sits. Long black lashes of her moss green eyes. Nearly hidden in the shadows. The swans. Sound of their wings smacking the water. To go away. Taking their whiteness up into the sky again. Flying lonely to other lonely lakes.

‘You came.’

‘Yes. I’ve come.’

A black cloche hat on her black hair. The rough navy blue material of her skirt. Her hands folded whiter and softer looking now than when first I saw them red swollen as she carried dishes in the dining room. Thick brown woollen scarf around her neck. Her black coat buttoned tight. The alabaster silken skin of her face. A blush of red on her cheeks from the cold. A sudden chill sunshine sweeping across the lake. Comes in the window. Lights the dead leaves strewn on the floor. Brings the gleam of green back to her sombre eyes. The steam of my breath on the air. The sun goes. Room all grey again. Does she hear my voice caught back into my lungs. So demure she sits on the old wet stained broken wicker chair. So pale and slender thin in another bit of sunlight. Breaking out through the clouds and splashing on the broken legged table under the window. Her knees together. Black stockings above her boots.

‘I didn’t think you would come. Or that I’d already find you here. The paths are so overgrown.’

‘I’ve come here many times. By a way from around the other side of the lake.’

‘You’ve been here just alone.’

‘Yes. Now what do you want to say to me.’

‘I don’t know. Except that I’m glad you’re here.’

‘Please. Don’t touch my hand. And please, don’t be offended. It’s not because I don’t want you to. There’s nothing more in this whole world than my wanting you to.’

‘Then why not.’

‘Because it is too late now.’

‘How can it be too late.’

‘You know nothing about me. And if you did, you would not any longer want to be with me. I am not pure and innocent as I appear. I know you have made something romantic of me. As all men seem to. What has happened to me in my life perhaps does not show worn wrinkles yet on my face. But inside me there are the wounds and scars.’

‘But why cannot I hold you or touch you.’

‘Because I could not stop myself letting you make love to me. From the first moment you came in the front hall that bitter cold winter night, so shy and kindly. Your eyes without greed and without suspicion. From that moment, I knew if you wanted to have my body, that I would give it to you.’

‘And why now, can’t you.’

‘Because I am leaving. And please, can’t we just leave it at that. I saw how you were when the blonde lady who is most attractive, came into the hall. Suddenly all the sad way you look sometimes seemed to lift. Almost as if you loved her. I feel you may have had many women and romances.’

‘But I do not And have not’

‘And I was angry. And jealous of her. And I hate being jealous. It makes me suddenly do things of which later I’m so ashamed.’

‘And you broke the vase.’

‘Yes. That is why. And why I must pay you for it.’

‘Of course you mustn’t. This is so mournful. Leila. So very mournful.’

‘That is the first time you have ever used my name. And that is mournful.’

‘Could we not make love. Even sometime.’

‘Please. Don’t ask me to do that.’

‘I must. Because I want to so much. And you say you are leaving. I must not let you go. And what would happen to you. Out in the world.’

‘But it is where I come from. Out in the world.’

‘But have you a job or somewhere to stay.’

‘When I go, you need not ever worry. I am well able to take care of myself. I’ve lived rough. I have run away many times from many places. I’ve been with travelling people on the side of the road. I went begging with them in the towns. And I could beg as much money in an afternoon than any ten of them could beg in a month. And they didn’t want me to go away from them. They’d watch me day and night. Take any money off me. Even kept me short of food. It is how I have this cough in my lungs. But to keep my teeth good I’d chew as much carrots and turnips as I could. I’m not complaining but the men would be forever pestering. And you’d never know whether they were more of a nuisance when they were drunk or when they were sober. But one day in Birr where we were begging I got away. I went as if I were begging at the station. I had extra shillings hid in my shoes and knew the time of the train. Asked the station master to let me use the bogs. He wouldn’t let the rest of them come. I got on the train to Dublin.’

‘And what did you do in Dublin.’

‘I got a job. A waitress in a cinema cafe in Grafton Street. Ah but I must not just sit here telling the tale of my life.’

‘I ran away once. And was a waif too on the road. Why do you smile.’

‘Because I would like to believe you but I think that I shouldn’t.’

‘I was found dying and delirious by some kindly monks. May I. Just to hold your hand. And I want so much to hold you close.’

‘No. Please. Please don’t.’

‘Why. Surely just to touch you.’

‘I should tell you too. I have already had a child. Who was torn out of my arms. A little boy I shall never see again. And I have also sold myself on the street. And I have had diseases. You see. You are. Although you pretend not. You are shocked. You want to run away out of this room, don’t you. Don’t you.’

‘But I have not run out of this room.’

‘I cannot tell you more now than I’ve told you. But I have reasons now to go away. And you must not ask me what they are. But there is one more thing I want to say. With all my heart. With all my soul and with all my sins. Even as I know my already spoken words one by one have closed all the little gates that lead to the garden of your heart. And all I want to say.

Is

I

Love

You