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

18

Up past the little park and terrace of bright doored houses around Fitzwilliam Square, the horse cab stopping in this shadowy street. Soft misty rain falling. A black cat stepping down from the kerb stone. Shaking its paws as it steps in a puddle of water. Rashers alighting, popping on his top hat and sweeping his cloak around him and holding up his hand to Darcy Dancer.

‘We are here, dear boy. And you’d never know it, would you, from this rather presumptuously refined and respectable street. Do follow me. And don’t be appalled.’

The driver, his whip left stuck like a fishing rod over the quarters of his nag, climbing down with his blanket to wrap himself in. A greasy parcel of potato chips tucked under his arm as he steps up into the back of his cab to wait.

‘That’s a good chap my jarvey. We shall be presently back.’

‘Right you are, no hurry your Lordship. Sure catching ten winks or forty winks is all the same to me.’

‘Dear me, Darcy, what do we see over there. A damsel. Perhaps in distress.’

Rashers walking away on the pavement towards an alley, a lone figure of a girl against a wall. Her head hanging down watching a puddle gather between her broken high heeled shoes as she stands peeing down her legs. Rashers putting a pound note in front of her face which she grabs clutching in her fingers.

‘Is it a short time you want.’

‘No my dear girl. I simply want you as desirable company. And who knows I may have a promising future for you. Come there’ll be another pound or two later.’

Rashers taking the girl by the elbow. Leading her with him to a gate he opens in the stone railings. Making his steep way down the steps in front of us,

‘Where are you taking me atall.’

‘Dear girl, your mother must have been a sensible lady to have christened you Sheena. Sheena you don’t know your luck, do you. You happen to be momentarily in the refined company of two gentlemen who wish you much profit and no harm. You see, if later we have a moment to talk to you, we would like to put the question for which I was banished when putting it to the Philosophical Society of Trinity College Dublin, that this house moves to find the greater truth in the statements, deep in every woman’s heart is a whore, or deep in every whore’s heart is a woman.’

‘Don’t youse be wasting me time. And how do you know me name. Why is youse dressed like that. Youse is students.’

‘Ah we are Sheena, of a sort, students of fucking, that’s how we know. And down here is the night school of comparative anatomy we attend. For spiritual autopsies on the mind.’

‘Would there be any rashers, eggs and chips.’

‘Quite possibly my dear, quite possibly. A spud or two at least.’

Rashers pressing a button and knocking on the big black door. Piles of empty stout bottles. Rancid smell of cats. Bars on a large window. Light inside and voices shouting and singing. A rat scurrying into a coal cellar under the pavement. The door opening. Behind a whisky bottle, Binky’s face at the end of a long cigarette holder, peeking out the door.

‘Ah it’s you my dear. Welcome back. Even though you still owe me last month’s rent. Come in and bring your nice friends. Whose bothes I’m sure someone will be interested in. And who is this male lovely with you I’m sure I’ve seen somewhere before. And I do love the way you are attired. So many of my tenants go walking out of here in the morning in their pyjamas to return by evening in their opera cloaks. But instead of arias of course, you’ll hear nothing but a lot of choking croaking. Of pricks my dear, down the throats. Ah. That’s very nice. Thank you for the six pounds. And my girl do pardon my nudity.’

Binky’s thin shanks and arse disappearing with a mincing skip. Through another door and out into the light of this large stone paved room. Figures in little groups around the walls. A kettle steaming on a great cooking range. A copper tank in the corner. A table covered in grey parcels full of bottles. Drawn corks and broken crockery strewn everywhere. A man huddled over an egg stained plate stuffing bacon rinds in his mouth.

‘My dears, do make yourselves at home among the other dears. Too many of whom tonight I’m afraid resemble condoms full of custard. Then of course there are so many among us with arse holes like deck quoits that the two can easily fit together.’

A man rearing up out of a corner. Collar up on his coat. Hat pulled down on his head. And waving his arms.

‘Ah you’re making a great attempt at originality you poofta whore, you. But them’s all platitudes and clichés.’

Rashers leading Darcy Dancer aside. A burlap bag of potatoes and one of cabbages. A pile of wet turf stinking of cat shit.

‘Dear boy we stand next to what did keep me alive. And slightly unfrozen for miserable weeks. A sack full of Wicklow potatoes. And these mouldering cabbage leaves. And dear boy, you won’t. In this dungeon of nae hope. Promise me you won’t. Lose your faith in human nature. I do know in the present circumstances that that does sound rather sham coming from me.’

‘And I suppose too Rashers, one should keep the safe locked in which one keeps one’s silver, to prevent the thefts perpetrated by one’s friends.’

‘I deserve that, dear Darcy. I do. But borrowing is such a better word. Can’t you see looking about you in this place how one was driven to it. All the long months during which one hardly had said to one a single endearing thing. And even now, having managed a new start, when nice things are said to one, one simply does not believe them to be true. Just look at these wretches. From whence I have torn myself. Of course I was led into temptation by that pissing poet chap. Spouting his awful impertinent verse. I mean there he was, an utterly uninvited guest at Andromeda Park. Helping himself greedily to your hospitality. Stuffing his face at your expense. I did give him a piece of my mind. I said to him, I said, how dare you arrive here, creeping sneakily about and eating from my esteemed friend’s table when you have not earned the remotest right to be referred to as a friend. Fuck off out of my sight, I said. Before your arse gets kicked into the shape of your face and makes you less ugly than you are. I really did say that Darcy, you know. Of course the wretched chap paused a microsecond in chomping down his fistful of greasy sausages and glass of brandy, and suddenly turned on me to say the only thing he has ever said that has impressed me. He said, ah jesus now, wouldn’t you at least be letting me be treated as well as the horses that’s out there in the stables of this place. It did make me think Darcy. That all over Ireland, even in the worst stables, horses live better than most of the humans. It was in fact his heartfelt words which incited me to procure him as intermediary in the temporary taking of a loan of your silver. And I absolutely shall return all. Even the leather suitcases I took the liberty of borrowing in which the poet lugged away the less valuable Sheffield plate, spoons and knives. Of course I took the most precious silver back with me on the train.’

‘However, you did Rashers, despite this long elaborate tale behave like a common thief.’

‘Please Darcy, don’t use such language. I mean I have already suffered such spiritual agony over it all. That’s how the wretched poet fell through the floor. Still loaded down with some of your poorer quality cutlery.’

‘Are you bloody well now telling me my silverware is of poor quality.’

‘No. No. Never. And I assure you the better stuff is with the most reputable pawn merchant. Whose ticket I shall be at any moment placing in your hand. You see I did successfully bet the proceeds but I fear previous debt and recent expenditure have been high and I regret that I do not have sufficient funds left to repatriate the silver items back into your hopefully forgiving hands.’

‘Are you now attempting to perpetrate a further spiv con upon me.’

‘Darcy you do take such a poor view of my person. When I shall in only a moment now place in your hands my cufflinks as collateral. Each has a diamond as big as a decent sized petit pois. Also hidden in the wall is the pawn ticket that I shall also give you. I mean your continued friendship is everything to me. Everything. I know I have done the unforgivable. But who but me would have confessed to your face. Here have a nip of brandy. Do you like my flask. I’ve had it emblazoned with the escutcheon of the Earls of Ronald Ronald. You see. Two stallions rampant. With crossed erections.’

In this battered Hessian draped cavernous room, Rashers his opera cloak thrown back from his shoulders, its crimson lining blazing in the bleakness as he turns in each direction bowing and smiling to faces he has clearly bowed and smiled to before. Of course one’s compassion was also to the fore, even though between his heart rending profundities, he spoke such utter tripe and onions. But it is I suppose the way one says things which matters. And even if morally fraudulent he does have such a warmly effusive manner.

‘Of course, Darcy that stench you are noticeably recoiling from is the odour of yearly unwashed bothes. Utterly appalling isn’t it. If they didn’t assemble in these little groups, the smell of one big group would simply asphyxiate. Imagine having to face one’s breakfast every morning in such a fume. But such woe happily shall no longer assail me. As you notice by the graphic priapic and testicular designs, my dear Darcy, Lois has done the wall decor. Some of the best known pricks in Dublin. She complains of course that Binky who commissioned her has not paid her. But ah now let me a moment Darcy point out to you the various habitués. Driven by their poverty here. Valentine, that balding chap with the well rounded gut there is from that important provincial town Mullingar on the Grand Canal. You’d never know now would you that he is the former whistling champion of Ireland. Ruddy chap can polish off a stone of raw steak at a sitting. He has an equally fat sister with a pair of tits the size of the Atlantic shelf who is a champion bridge player. Regard him lecherously eyeing Sheena, poor sad whoring girl, her new name is about the only distinctive thing she possesses. I don’t know why on earth I didn’t simply leave her up there on the street pissing in her knickers. Except that I plan to wash and brush her up. Put her back on the road to respectability as a much more highly paid whore. And of course our whistling champion thinks she is free of charge.’

A cauldron of potatoes boiling on a cooking range. Rancid smells fuming variously in the fug of steam and smoke. Children’s eyes peeking in from behind a coal scuttle door. A fearful tiny auburn headed girl standing shrinking back under a water tank in the corner. Perhaps Crooks in his spare time might emulate Binky, the Black Widow’s butler. Binky his fist full of pound and ten shillings notes he collects, nakedly rushing back and forth with drinks for three terrified wide eyed American tourists.

‘Now my dears, the black mass presently in progress in the first wine cellar is being said by the Rev. MacNamara. Bishop of Kilburn. It’s all very cheap at the price my dears. You won’t see anything like it in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This additional admission price, not included at the front door does entitle you to entry into the back passage, no pun intended, nevertheless it is where you might do anything to anybody my dears and anybody may, if you are pretty enough, do something to you too. Then you can tell everyone back in Dayton, Ohio how excitingly devout you found holy Catholic Ireland to be.’

A bull like figure with long black cascades of hair, the hump of a broken nose jutting on his face, waddling out into the middle of the room. His shirt torn open over his belly and stumpy fingers clutching an overflowing pint glass. Tongues bent forward out his shoes, their worn sides turning over as he walked. Whites of his feet and ankles showing through the tatters of his trousers. Like some tiny king. He licks his lips smiling. Standing contentedly surveying his kingdom. Crouched by his elbow, a mild little man in a grey suit, with bottles in each hand replenishing his drink. Pouring port, and poteen every time he took a swallow. And nodding a smiling yes every time he throws back his head to sing.

Our father

Who art in bliss

Down here in hell

Hallowed be thine orgasm

Thy kingdom come

Like we have lately done

All over his

Or her fucking face

‘That’s disgusting the song he’s singing.’

‘Did I hear you say disgusting, madam. Sure your name must be Eeena. The female insult to humanity. Peeking out from behind the aspidistra. Deigning to come among us. To take your filthy gossip notes to flog to the British gutter press. Now Madam if you’ll keep your emotions to a minimum for a moment I’ll give you a taste of the low and scurrilous to fill your fucking column to the full. For a start report this. Bang. The most unfragrant fart laid this century.’

‘You’re a most dreadful person.’

‘And how Madam would you like to be sentenced to the horrible tragedy of marrying me. With me life an intoxicated celebration devoted to the constant and relentless protest against death. I sang for you the liturgical plain song of the catacombs. In order that you wouldn’t give up hope in your suburban desperation for catharsis. Did you know that by day right above me head is a chair screwed to the floor where a reputable dentist drills and yanks out rotted teeth. And the screams up there drown out the calls for help down here. Did you know that. Now Madam, the next time I make my annual speech to the members of the royal society of coprophagists anonymous, I’d like if you would demonstrate how you gamarouched the last bit of rusty old sperm out that bollocks of a husband you married for his few miserable quid.’

‘How dare you say such things to me. Hit him somebody.’

‘Madam, don’t please encourage unnecessary violence before the necessary violence commences. Instead now meet me at the pawn shop and kiss me under the balls. Sure I was baptized in a money lender’s. And remember that as a dirty filthy Catholic you’re among clean pure Orangemen down here. And may the beatific light sparkling from the pontiffs ring shine upon the sins you’ve committed in your commodious and semi detached residence in Rathgar. With its one and a half water closets, where the gombeen likes of you and your mean bollocks of a husband are over your souffle supper giving blessed thanks for your safe deliverance from socialism. While the noble illustrious likes of me is having to kip down in the Dublin shelter for men at thirty one Tara Street if I’m not over at me Iveagh House address in Bride Street, having to take me daily morning walks in fucking working class infamy up and down Grafton Street looking to quell me pangs of thirst and find a few bob for the few bottles of Mountjoy Nourishing Stout served over the north side in Madigan’s of Earl Street at a penny cheaper than the Guinness variety so that when I’d have six drunk you’d have the price of a seventh free. While the fucking likes of you bred in hypocrisy are on your rayon smooth arse on your imitation Louis the cat’s torts chaise longue drinking your Rathgar pink gin pinched delicately between your manicured fingers in front of your three bar electric fire. Fuck off then back there if you don’t want to listen to the likes of me rearing up out of the gutter in your face. Sure what would the sham cultured likes of you know of black shawled and bare foot women coming a wintry wet night shivering with death into shops to buy a pennyworth to eat, or a single rasher or egg or small pat of butter or a quarter a loaf of bread to take back to give the tiny crumbs to a dozen childer clutched together on the same rotted mattress up the fucking freezing stairs of some Georgian rat hole. Who the fuck are you to say I’m dreadful. Don’t I know as well as you do, that my redeemer liveth. And when he has a moment free from making his personal appearances, getting his pucks of publicity all over the kip, you may be sure that the first fucking thing he’ll tell you is that he fucking well loveth me. For the tiny bit of honesty that passes me lips once in a while, more than he fucking well loveth you, for your phony pose of Irish female sincerity. Here come kiss this. The pale priestly skin of my prick. Take thou a sip of this spit from this holy horn most high. And may the red star in the east, shine like the star of Bethlehem. Up the Republic. And may the good Lord bless me while defenceless I sleep.’

‘You are the most filthy disgusting person.’

‘Ah with me hands in prayer, close me eyes now, and I will seek the intercession of the Blessed Gainor Stephen Crist, who one day soon will be canonized as the patron saint of those driven to drink when the bedevilment of the fucking significance of life makes them think it has no meaning better than that found in another jar of stout.’

‘Can’t someone stop him blaspheming.’

‘Of course I am Madam all those things you mention. But as to what I do in my diabolism, is me own fucking business. Sure, the letter E beginning as it does your name, would give you a bad start in life. Being as it is the first letter of such words as evil not to mention ebb, eczema, edema and electrocution. But eftsoons, egad, if you give us the velocity of your viscosity of your bifurcation, madam and get out your big pair of bosoms. I’d get out my cock. And during my premature ejaculation spattering your purity you could beat me to death with your bound copies of the Catholic Herald’

‘Why doesn’t someone kick him flying.’

‘Madam, I’m flying already. Wait while I take a read of me altimeter. Meanwhile did you hear what the toilet bowl said to the arse. Thank you for dropping that in. Give me Vat Sixty Nine now. And it’s not the Pope’s telephone number I’m after. And while I put my yarmulka on give the woman in bed more petroleum. And would someone ever divulge to me this instant the fucking melting point of tungsten.’

‘Three thousand degrees centigrade.’

‘Give the Phi Beta Kappa man who knew that a bottle of stout. And Madam that’s about the likes of the heat that it would take to melt you into a decent piece of arse.’

‘Someone please take me home out of here.’

Eeena in her big black hat, hands up to her face, rushing for the door. Two men in attendance upon her turning to look back. A bottle smashing on the wall next to one of their heads as they hasten their departure. Buster the Beastly putting his pint glass to his lips, his Adam’s apple going up and down in his throat gulping down the contents in one long swallow. Murmurs of disapproval. Growls of objection. A man, arms folded across his chest, grey weatherbeaten hat clamped down on his skull, looks round as he shouts.

‘Now the evil likes of you is nothing but a treacherous gurrier only fit to be a rat down in the likes of this vile place.’

Buster the Beastly rocking back on his heels, face contorted in a snarl and jutting his head towards the man in the battered grey hat.

‘With your phony quaint innocent verse dotted with primroses, go back and piss on the soil from which your refreshingly natural rhymes grow. You fucking bog peasant. Sure aren’t you cricking your neck kissing the arse of the visiting London intelligentsia, and still up to your bollocks in nettles and wiping your own arse with dock leaves.’

The man tearing off his grey battered hat throwing it to the stone floor and jumping up and down on it. Wagging his fists around his balding skull.

‘I won’t be insulted by the likes of worthless trash. Scum you are. Nothing but the worst slandering vicious wickedness, a poison so foul it would kill an oak tree standing a mile away from you.’

‘So long as you drop dead with it, you cunt, I’d be content.’

Rashers coming to the side of Darcy Dancer. His hand gently on his shoulder and smiling into his face. The sound of a fist socking flesh. And of a skull thumping and cracking on the floor.

‘I do apologize my dear Darcy for the unseemly unfeeling sentiments you’re hearing expressed. The world of art. Nothing but a nest of vipers of course. But soon a better class of café society will be arriving. But I see you’re just quiey here watching and listening. And even a litle bemused. Ah but I see our big bellied champion whistler is joining us who’s long been a fellow tenant of mine down here. Ah my dear Valentine allow me to introduce you to Marquis of Delgany and Kilquade. I was just explaining to his Lordship how you and I, products of good schools and families, have had to be incarcerated here in this malevolent homespun condition.’

‘And a worse place for barbarians you couldn’t find. And you whore you, don’t know your old friends now, over there in the Shelbourne stretching your legs out over an entire floor.’

‘Ah now Val, that may be temporarily true. But you see what I’ve brought for you. Sheena, over there. Price is usually a tenner. But as she’s a litde laggards tonight there is a fifty per cent reduction. For you of course there is a further discount of a quid making four pounds and only requiring two pounds and ten shillings in advance if you please.’

‘You’d sell the pubic hairs off your mother in her coffin, you whore you. I’ll pay you two and a half thumps in the gob. And have the lady for nothing.’

‘Please Valentine, I can see you’ve already shocked his Lordship here. That’s the type of uncalled for vulgar intransigence that really does try one’s patience. Don’t please fuck up my litde enterprise now, which has been such a long time organizing. Sheena needs some sprucing up, one admits, but you’ll find beneath her rags an awfully curvaceous creature. And there’s more where she came from. Her mother who presides over an assorted vegetable barrow in Henry Street is from a long line of genuine Mecklenburg Street whores, her poor dear father, a Guinness barrel having fallen upon his toe, is now an incorrigible invalid drinking to excess the very thing that crippled him in the first place.’

‘OK you awful whore you, here’s thirty bob and even that’s too much. Goodbye now, you bloody awful chancer.’

‘Ah Darcy, see what a brilliant ponce I am. I’ve sold Sheena not only to the whistling champ, but to four other insanely sexually frustrated chaps who I hope will all have the patient decency to peacefully wait in a row.’

‘That’s absolutely disgraceful.’

‘Ah I knew dear boy you’d disapprove. But you know, strange fact of life, the least expense is often involved in the making of the most profit. You do, don’t you, find this place unfitting. O dear. So do I. But take heart. There in the dark suits the far side of the room, stand gentlemen members of the Legion of Decency. Who are also on the government censorship board. Indeed I think I also spy militant members of the Legion of Mary. Dear me. I actually do. They are, bless their hearts, a most deadly serious inteioned people dedicated to stamping out Dublin vice. And although you may not believe it, these catacombs have produced more than their share of candidates for sainthood. In fact the Legion are here in such force, to investigate an apparition. Seen by four of the children. Yes. Happened one morning. I was the other side of that wall. Playing as it would unseemly happen, with my very lonely prick. While a miraculous and beautiful vision took place right in that corner where the water tank stands, and where you now see the statue of the Blessed Virgin in front of which burn those votive lights and candles. It appears that she said she had come to dispense hope to those most without hope. Indeed my dear boy, this hellish hole of Calcutta is now the Lourdes of Dublin. And take no notice of that gesticulating chap in front of the statue of Our Lady. He is, from the end of his foreskinless prick to the top of his red curly head, entirely Hebrew. From a good Jewish Qanbrassil Street family. Those are merely his traffic signals which he frequently employs directing Dublin traffic in the evening rush. Without him the whole city would be a nightmare of entangled bicycles and horsecarts not to mention motor vehicles. You don’t believe a single word I’m saying, do you Darcy. Think I’m spinning a fantastic yarn, don’t you.’

‘No, not actually.’

‘Ah I worship you dear boy. For your tolerant understanding. May I interject then the merest bit of fantasy. One of my former professors in Senior Freshman physics is actually over there, incognito of course, among that strange lot discussing astro nuclear quirks and quarks. He maintains that the atmosphere of this dungeon of despair allows them to reach the very heights of their theoretical explorations.’

‘And who is that next to them, talking to himself in the mirror.’

‘Ah dear boy, I’m entirely glad you noticed a lost soul. He is Horatio Macbeth. Sundays past, when both he and I were often low and lonely he visited for tea in my college rooms. Poor devil, banished to Dublin by his rich mill owning family, albeit with a very nice little private income. Fellow couldn’t restrain himself pinching ladies’ bottoms all over the better parts of Manchester. His great ambition, like us all, to be an actor. You will see him just before pub closing time mouthing his lines into any nearby mirror. Most impressively too. Frequently an entire jammed pub has ended up shouting bravo. He rehearses late at night at his reflection in the better shop windows up and down Grafton Street. Dear boy. I must but I must leave you here a moment. Do have another bottle of stout. While I slip away to see if Sheena is earning her keep. And also to collect for you the pawn ticket and my cufflinks. Despite this being the new Lourdes, arguments do appear to continue to rage in a blaze of insult and blame. And dear me, neither souls, morals, principles and especially chattels, are safe.’

Rashers disappearing under the arch of the passageway. The stench of bothes, smoke and fumes thickening. A cold swirl of air around the ankles as the doors to ante room and the street open and shut. Corks popping, songs singing, and one stands here a sore thumb. In this conflagration of discontent. The cold country night would have long settled now on Andromeda Park. My head on my pillow. Frost white over the fields. Beasts lonely mooing. And O my god, as I stand here deceived and thieved from, I’ve also stood up Miss von B. A girl grins from across the room. And Leila. Could she have once been someone like Sheena. Women must do anything, anything at all, for money. And now who’s this slipping up next to me. Leaning in close to one’s ear to whisper.

‘Excuse me now. I’m a bit of a nut. Been nineteen years in Grangegorman. Let out an odd weekend now and again to be enjoying a pint of stout among normal people like yourself. But I was once meself a gas meter reader. And a devout Catholic. And if you don’t mind me saying it’s a disgrace that the likes of that Buster and a worse friend of his, Danno, should be allowed down here in the vicinity of the holy happening of the apparition. I’m reformed now. And haven’t made an impure suggestion to any mother superiors on the doorsteps of their convents when I’d come a calling in me guise as a monk. And that’s a fact. And hear that roaring and drum pounding now. That’s Danno. And he’s coming in here by the sound. And I can tell you sir, I’m going. Goodbye to you. And thanks for your kindness to me.’

Emerging from the dark passage, a massive figure, sweat pouring from his brow. Yellow and black rotted teeth in his yawning open jaws. As he grins and holds up a half full whisky bottle in one hand and beats his other in a fist on a great drum strapped to his shoulders. Lurching in to stand next to Buster the Beastly.

‘Me name is Danno, when I’m not abroad under me nom de plume of the Reverend Felix de Gascoigne Dilettante, blessing nuns up the bifurcation with me genuine beeswax candles. Shut up now. The bunch of youse. I am here waiting for your emotional attention. And youse now, with a belch out his arse, just heard me friend here in the shoes too short for him give you a fucking valuable piece of his mind. Give us your wet kiss of fealty youse whore British debutantes. While I’d be playing football with the preserved head of Cromwell youse would be playing football with the head of the Blessed Oliver Plunkett off his altar in Drogheda and kicking the last dry old tooth hanging from his cheek out of him. Dehumanized now he may be. But by god he’ll be canonized yet. And if any of youse don’t have faith in me predictions or so much as mildly offend me friend Buster here doing his fucking utmost to entertain you, I’ll stuff the lot of your heads in the fucking Wicklow gap. Listen now while I beat me Lambeg drum I took off an Orangeman. I’m a mental and physical demolitionist. To the animate and inanimate. Pull the fucking lead pipes out of houses. And before pawning them would wrap them around youse necks who don’t pay attention and listen to me while I’m telling you. I have just come from singing Ave Maria up there at the top of Nelson’s Pillar. With a pint of stout in one hand, me prick in the other. Pissing down one hundred and thirty eight feet on top of the populace waiting for the tram to Dalkey and them all thinking it was a spot of rain. That will give you just an introduction to the fact that I am the most evil scoundrel that any of youse ever met. I am an itinerant. And betimes I am a hospital porter. Humping the female corpses. The breath out of some of them would kill you. When I don’t like the look of someone dying in the bed, I give the undertaker measurements six inches too short for the coffin so’s the legs have to be broken to get the dead bugger in. When it comes to living and breathing women I am mad on them graduates of the higher institutions of learning. When I am not fucking a woman in peace then I am at war and am given to violence of a violent nature. I am an unreformed informer. Sentenced to death in the absence of my presence, by the high command of the Irish Republican Army. I would beat an old defenceless lady out of two pence. Ah, you’d ask, what is there good about me, I’ll tell you. As a true example of the native treachery and viciousness I could be a great tourist attraction. And a living warning of the villain that you’d do well to keep well away from.’

‘You should be put in a cage.’

‘Who said that. Sure behind me drum with this bit of chain now I’d undo round me waist I would remove the head off the fucker in this room who said that. That’s a threat. I am only just after lifting a publican up by the scruff down there on the Aston Quay and stuffing his grey old head in his own brown old shit bowl. No one will tell me I’m barred from a premises. And don’t any of youse use the wrong tone of voice with me.’

‘No Danno, I’m Buster your friend. Put away your chain, give us a beat of the drum and tell us about the holy revelation you encountered down there on the quay.’

‘Me friend here now in that suggestion stated a fact. Never mind the apparition in this place. Didn’t I down there on the quays a June summer evening passing a tree look up in the branches to see the Blessed Virgin herself. She said hello Danno. Instead of saying hello or praying back up to her asking for a fucking miracle on the spot, didn’t I look up her sky blue habit instead. By god by the look of youse faces listening, if I said she had no knickers on you’d dance out of your minds with rage at the blasphemy. And be next asking me to swear on a stack of bibles the height of Nelson’s Pillar, that the immaculate lady had no cunt. And that I swear. She did not have one. And she said, go Danno from this holy spot and spread the news from Inchicore to Sandymount. And now here’s a recent poem now I wrote meself.’

Sure as

Me name is Danno

I’m a fucking terror

To trust me an inch

Is a mile of error

While some ladies love me

I’m still held in dread

For the rest of the hypocritical bunch of you

Would fucking love to see me dead

A figure emerging from the shadows of the passage. Stepping up behind Danno with a bottle raised and swinging it downwards smashing on the back of Danno’s head.

‘And that’s the way you’ll be by god you disgusting insult to religion.’

A fist flying catching Danno mid nose as he falls forward like a giant tree. His face crunching and bouncing off the side of his drum. Whisky splashing and broken glass scattering across the floor. Buster the Beastly rising slowly on his toes and turning to look down over his shoulder upon the horizontal unconscious body.

‘Ah me flattened friend, most prostrate. Sucked every sup your mother had to give you from her breasts. The poor woman in her consternation watching you grow from a babe in arms swinging from her apron strings, into the big violent whore you are lying there. I will give you another poem now, an epitaph commemorating you in case you are coffin stretched ready for Glasnevin cemetery where they’d have to deconsecrate the ground to lie you in it.’

Behold

Many times and oft

In the course of his life

Was he sad

But it was nothing

Compared to the times

He was mad

And absolutely nothing compared

To the times

He was fucking bad

Sound of bagpipes outside. The door opening. A voice calling attention. Six tweed capped macintoshed gentlemen, their coats bulging, stepping in. Another shout of command. And the platoon taking up positions over the prostrate Danno. A hand reaching to turn over the unconscious face.

‘Commandant, he’s in no fit state now to be executed.’

A seventh gentleman appearing in the doorway. Wavy curly hair above a domed forehead, taking a butt of a cigarette from his lips and crushing it on the floor.

‘In that case remove that fucking criminal’s body from the room and if he wakes up, keep him under close arrest.’

The body of Danno carried disappearing into the back passage. Conversation and voices seeping back into the hushed gathering. O my god, that broad skulled curly haired visage, the very gunman whose kinky head I baptized with the leg of some piece of furniture one night in Lois’s studio as he was waving both his prick and his Polish nine millimetre Parabellum about the room. Still wearing the same mustard coloured sweater I remember so well. And he’s walking straight towards me.

‘And what have the tweedy likes of you got to say for yourself. Is it nothing. Well keep it that fucking way. Now the rest of you bunch of British homosexual bollocks here gathered, hear this. Ireland integral is Ireland free. And no one is to touch another bottle of stout on that table which is of this moment commandeered until my men have had their fill. Pass me a bottle of stout, put out that electricity and let’s have a candle or two.’

‘Don’t you dare.’

Naked Binky shouting from the passageway. A man jumping to pull the light out of the ceiling. A flash of blue flame and in the darkness cigarettes and candles lighting up. Buster the Beastly now disappeared down the passageway, and the Mild Man in the grey suit, previously in attendance, raising up his own bottle of stout among the newly arrived.

‘Ah it’s grand by this candlelight to see patriots of the purification squad in action. Up the Republic lads. And will someone sing us Stephen Foster’s My Old Kentucky Home.’

The commandant lowering his bottle from his mouth and wiping his lips, shouting above the heads.

‘Sing the man his song, and that’s a fucking order.’

‘Never mind the old kip in Kentucky, sing us, would you live on woman’s earnings.’

‘Who said that.’

‘It wasn’t me.’

A voice yodelling. The platoon of patriots in close order drill. Corks pulled out and their bottles at the ready. As their elbows bend to the commands called out.

‘Bottles to the lips. Drink.’

The squad in clockwork unison. As the foaming black beer pours down the stretched back throats. And their arms lift over their heads to throw the empty bottles whistling across the room to smash against the sackcloth draped wall. Strains of a violin coming from the dark passageway. The feet of more arrivals on the steps outside. The door opening. The Mild Man in the grey suit shouting.

‘Begorra it’s the socialites.’

Binky stepping over the supine figures, as he crosses the room. An apron tented out over his erection. His wiry arms outstretched towards the newcomers.

‘Just so long my dears that you are not the gobshites, you are my sweetie pies welcome to my litle tea party.’

Beads of perspiration on Rashers’s brow returning to Darcy Dancer’s side. A nervous smile on his face. His fingers gently touching Darcy Dancer’s arm.

‘Darcy it’s so good of you to remain so silently patient. Road’s not yet quite clear back there. I fear the dangerous atmosphere down here grows even more dangerous by the second. Some awful gin and lime spivs have just come in the door whom one occasionally encounters in the gilded cage of Davy Byrne’s when one is imbibing one’s Black Velvet. And dear me, they are in the company of a chap from your neck of the woods, a Master of Foxhounds. That lady likes being fucked standing on her head, and is the wife of a top government minister. The chap in cowboy boots and hat, armed with two revolvers, with her is mad, as well as being a damn good bridge player. O dear I do apologize for having brought you here.’

‘Well I am about to leave.’

‘But dear Darcy, you mustn’t yet. I so need your reassuring company you know. I am a fragile person, really. Among such as this lot. There’s the Sober Judge, his inebriation on the bench is legendary. Just behind him, the Royal Rat, my erstwhile associate who runs our little casino. Pawned his own mother’s sick bed. While she was still in it. Imagine he was pushing her on a handcart down the road when the heavy rain woke her up. You wouldn’t believe such a hunched decrepit figure could also be the brother of Clarissa and the Black Widow. And that man with the hanky is the Mourner. Never without a tear or sob. Tréslugubre, mélancolique, funebre, to put a French word on it. Attends funerals by day. And wakes such as this, at night. A sad evening to be made even sadder. He’ll bring this entire room sobbing uncontrollably to their knees. Tiresome of course if one had more randy things on one’s mind. You mustn’t go.’

‘Rashers, I really do feel one wants to return to the Shelbourne to bed.’

‘But ah wait, here’s the very chap now, getting on the table with his contraption. The vacuum cleaner salesman. As to who would have use of such in Ireland one will never know. Under the suction most carpets would vaporize in dust anyway. You mustn’t miss this demonstration. Ignorant or clever man, one doesn’t know which, but I suppose in our backward way of life, having the end of a vacuum cleaner to stick one’s organ into would help relieve the nationwide celibacy. Summer time he demonstrates how it catches flies. Dear me, he’s engorged already.’

A single candle left lighting the room. Jeering and cheering. Fist shaking and laughter. The salesman on the table entangled with his vacuum hose, tripping and landing bare arsed among the parcels of unopened bottles.

‘There are ladies present.’

‘As a decent Catholic and native born Irishman I object.’

‘Dear me, Darcy it would seem there are prigs present. And I sincerely hope the root of his penis is firmly connected to the rami of the os pubis and ischium. Else his organ will end up in his dust bag. Of course so many demonstrations have distorted the obtuse cone of his extremity. But by the look of that copious substance coming out of the orifice of his urethra, everything is working. I think I’ll have him deliver me a vacuum at the Shelbourne.’

Rashers pulling the cork and handing Darcy Dancer a bottle of stout. Smiling as he puts one to his own lips. And reaching to squeeze Darcy Dancer on the arm.

‘Dear boy this may I know be the sort of environment you abhor. But you see. We are this moment to be joined by dear friends.’

In the semi darkness, a commotion at the front door. Binky waving a horse whip, riding on the shoulders of another naked gentleman, plunging their way through the ever tightening throng. Shouting over the heads.

‘No more please allowed tonight into Binky’s royal enclosure. O but yes. We do make an exception for my most esteemed and most worshipped employer. Forgive me madam, my perch up here. And welcome too, to distinguished members of the aristocracy. Of course we all know your Lordship that you were previously a Major in the army before joining the Royal Air Force. And that you are also title in the French peerage. So pleased to have you, and your particularly pretty lady friend.’

Blowing a kiss to Binky, the Black Widow sweeping in. Followed by the Mental Marquis in his kilt. Someone at his side, a lady in an elegant black coat and black gloves, her black hair shadowed by a hat. And she turns her head. And the faint candle light throws a shadow across her face.

Rashers turning to Darcy Dancer who groans and shrinks backwards, his heels banging against a crate on the floor. The preliminary insults of a fight, concerning the colour of the sky, erupting nearby.

‘Darcy, what’s the matter dear boy. You have haven’t you, found the present company too appalling. You’ve gone completely pale white. Even in this light. Here, sit down. On this soda water crate. I’ll only be the briefest instant nipping again into my hara kiri room. To put pawn ticket and cufflinks into your possession. And take you away. I promise. I absolutely promise.’

Rashers pushing through the shrieking laughter, tears and growls. His intrepid head, beyond the smoke, disappearing into the dark passage. And across this room. It is. I know. Standing by the Marquis’ shoulder. Beneath the wide brimmed hat, that satin skinned exquisite face. Luscious lips crimson soft. Your purple ribbon. The flash of your eyes. Which have already seen so much woe of the world. With their green that looks so black. So full of mellow sympathy. He dare. Bring your gentle demeanour, your silent presence here. The neck of your coat open, a jewel sparkling at your throat. I crouch. I cower. Hide away from you. Tremble and shake. Heart crushed and damned. Utterly betrayed. As Mr Arland must have felt. When he thought his preciously beloved. Was severed from him by another man. Are you now Leila to be from me. After all the months you seemed so safely waiting in my mind. While I did nothing. To reach and touch you. Before any other should say. Be mine. How late is it now. To plead and pray. Please leave open all the little gates. That lead to the garden of your heart. That once I heard you say. Out of all your sins. And with all your soul.

Would

Never

Close