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

21

On that miserable eve in the smoky noisy fug of the packed bar, one did take a subdued funereal champagne. Amid the bubbling voices. The greetings. The plans for parties, hunt balls and other race meetings. Rashers buying a magnum. Pouring the grapy ash white delicious fluid, refilling and refilling my glass. And again attempting to shove fifty pound notes in my pocket. And as I would push his hand away, I would catch a glimpse of the treasury script’s etched purple woman and her harp. Like Leila. And me. Like the back of the note. A sad green bearded face. And a three pronged spear sticking up from oak leaves. A bowl of wheat sheaves and fruit. All of Ireland’s plenty. For the rich few who lord luckily over all the impoverished many. Of whom Foxy Slattery, grinningly coming in, is no longer one of them. One did try desperately to hide the disaster on one’s face. And pretend that he was yet again saver of one’s life.

‘Boss what did I tell you.’

‘Thank you Foxy. Thank you. You’re the maker of my fortune. Please join us in a glass of champagne.’

‘And boss maybe I can sell you a car now on the riches.’

‘Perhaps Foxy. Perhaps.’

One simply did not have the heart to disappoint him. To tell him one’s best asinine friend bare faced took one’s last bloody money and lost it on a losing nag. But I could see the cheer on Foxy’s face vanish in a second. Beyond his shoulder, Baptista Consuelo, her mink coat sweeping open revealing a tight plunging neckline. And just at the moment I was about to effect his introduction to her, she promptly turned her wide backside on him.

‘Ah boss, I may not be good enough for some people, but we did it again now didn’t we. Never get a repeat of odds like that till Rumoured Ghost’s ready for the knacker’s yard.’

Motoring back the country lanes to town and finally across the Liffey, one was, astonishingly at the moment sporting an erection. And had the uncontrollably strange urge. To fuck Baptista Consuelo straight up her big stuck up arse. With one’s present prick that could just bloody well do the job. For her sake, sand in the lubricant. Plunging it in her dog style till she went barking across the floor on her naked hands and knees with a suitably dumb and entertained look on her overly pretty face. Rashers humming. The Lark In The Clear Air. And one had to admit, in one’s champagne swirling mind, to being soothed by the sound. But to know that one was feeling again somehow, the same shattering shock that one always feels poor and skint. Making one avoid taking any notice, as one steps out of the warm confines of the Shelbourne, of the resentful passing faces of discontent. As one’s own face goes displeased in this dear desecrated dirty Dublin. But at least presently insulated by the soft upholstery and shiny elegant fittings of this Daimler. John, Rashers’s endlessly patient chauffeur, changing gear to pull us up the cobblestone narrow hill. Past these gates of Steevens’ Hospital. Rashers again nervously pushing towards my hand another sheaf, this time of big white English fivers instead of Irish fifties, as if the brand of denomination or currency made a difference.

‘But then I proffer you this by way of interest dear boy. On the loan of your family heirlooms.’

‘Rashers I’m sorry. But I’ve already made it eminently clear I cannot accept money from you in this fashion. It’s just a bit of bloody bad luck that’s all. The same I’ve already had on innumerable previous races. And you could, just as easily, have been quite right. Ulidia Princess might have won by a whisker instead.’

‘Dear boy but I was wrong. Not to abide by your instruction. Life itself is lost by such whiskers. Are you trying to break my heart. You are. Of course you can take a few measly old crumpled fivers. And of course you must. Never could I have been bankrolled into my modest present prosperity without the assistance of your august family’s silverware. You will never have faith in me again will you. Well at least tell me you had some previous faith in me.’

‘Yes. I had. For a few minutes after we first met. And you thought I was a promising con man. And I nearly believed it.’

‘Well dear boy. You were. The way you took a fiver from the Mental Marquis. But see in there. Those gates we presently pass by. As a medical student, I took post mortem notes down in the basement over dead cold Dubliners’ cadavers. Sorrowful work. When it’s children. But I would have, I think, in the end, lacked dedication. To spend the rest of one’s life listening to rumbling rotted lungs or up to one’s elbows in guts. But did you ever wonder why I ceased my stuthes and took my detour in life out of the professional classes.’

‘No. Actually I haven’t.’

‘Well I suppose, why should you. But I’ll tell you why. I did have many girlfriends I’ll admit. But there was a fellow student, a very tweedy slender pretty lady with most wonderful legs, of whom I became much enamoured. For her shy and strange ways. Never would she join me for tea or coffee at Johnston, Mooney’s and O’Brien’s out the back gate. And try as I did she would take but little notice of my attentions. I knew there was something much wrong with her hair. She constantly wore cloche hats. And one afternoon. Which one cannot ever forget. At a pathology lecture. She sat without her hat on the tier directly in front and below me. And I took my fountain pen just to tease. And reached down and devilishly poked in her hair. The clip got caught in the strands. And as she turned, pulling away to look back up, a wig came off her bald head. Darcy.’

‘For heaven’s sake Rashers.’

‘Darcy. Yes. There are tears in my eyes. Because she ran from lecture hall. Tripping and squeezing past her fellow students’ knees. There were no jeers but there was cruel involuntary laughter chasing her. And from the hall window. She jumped. And was found lying dead on the steps. The brains shattered out of her skull.’

Our car heading in the direction of the Coombe back streets. Passing the shadowy great elevations of Guinness’s brewery walls. The smell of hops. Up Robert Street. Into Marrowbone Lane. The prolonging silence. I turned to look at Rashers. Sitting but a hand’s touch away. Tears dropping down his cheeks. His chest heaved once.

‘Not my happiest day Darcy I can tell you. I never returned to college. And I am grateful to you. For at least not severely dressing me down all this ride back to town as you have, even sportingly, every reason to do. Would you in the very near future contemplate catching the mailboat with me. Sometimes the sound of steerage passengers drunkenly vomiting does require the company of pleasant distraction. One doesn’t want to pitch and roll across the Irish Sea completely alone even in the safe confines of one’s state room.’

‘But surely my god Rashers, you’re not really leaving Dublin are you.’

‘Yes. I shall be. Not hard to do. Uncomfortable yes, but following a good breakfast in the one and only palatial hotel in Liverpool, one slips on a train from Lime Street. To whisk hopefully at speed through those midland industrial slag heaps. Deposit oneself at journey’s end in one of the better London hotels. And I shall thence to Paris. And thence, dear boy, entrain from the Gare d’Austerlitz to Monte Carlo.’

‘But Rashers this is madness. It’s not because of that silly old bet.’

‘No. It’s not. It is my dear boy, because one must occasionally shake from one’s heels this unfortunate broken city’s tatters and grime. And its even more broken and tattered citizens. Minions who grimly drag feet back and forth, to and from their malingering toil. Whose hearts daily beg Saint Jude or somebody for the impossible. To hide somewhere to escape their thankless lives. But don’t think me on the side of socialism, dear boy. I’m all for exploiting people. But I have, you know, been turning over in my mind your remarks. I am a fortune hunter. No. Say nothing dear boy. It’s true. But believe me too when I say I do not seek from my beloved her goods. Even as I admit I am a con man. You know, before the advent of your silverware I actually had presented myself to the Association for the Relief of Distressed Protestants in Molesworth Street, and did as a left footer, without shame or nervous quiver, prise three quid out of them.’

‘You’re not a con man Rashers.’

‘I am. And so kind of you to say that I am not. Nor do I presume, despite my reasonable good birth and acceptable demeanour, to regard myself as a gentleman.’

‘You are Rashers. A gentleman. You are at least that. Most of the time.’

‘No I am a cad. Albeit of a sporting nature. But you see Darcy, the real fact of the matter is, and I know you will laugh as I tell you. That I did so much want to be an Admiral. That broad band of gold braid upon my cuff. Gold upon the peak of my cap. My flotilla of ships. And my father’s army pushed by the enemy to the edge of the sea. But ah perhaps I wouldn’t, as I dream that I would, weigh anchor to sail my fleet away and to leave the pompous bugger and his army trapped there on the shore. Just a thought, dear boy. But a more important thought. The greatest of casinos calls. My portmanteau is fairly filled with fivers. To manoeuvre there. There is a hotel on a hill where one takes one’s calm, comfortable and pleasant refuge. One’s window shall look out and down over the yacht filled harbour. And conveniently one merely strolls across a verdured street or two to mount the wide imposing steps of the casino. You see Darcy the moment for my coup has arrived. Which shall be wrought into reality under those enormously high glorious ceilings. And I shall not return unless it is to pull my own true weight with my beloved.’

‘Yes I can understand Rashers. Hers would be considerable. To pull.’

Rashers sulked until we arrived in front of the Shelbourne and he whispered a message to John. Handing him a fiver. But he hardly spoke another word to me. Just polite nods and grunts. I was merely, after one’s own dismal disappointment, trying to be somehow amusing. As one does at such times. My heart now utterly sinking at the thought of Rashers’ departure. And not entirely because it meant not ever seeing one’s silverware again. Which one was certain, somehow, he had in fact sold. But he did, for all his endless faults and presumptions upon my good will, at least encourage one to bolster against the dismal chilling winds whirling round one’s soul. And as we alighted to the pavement John the chauffeur had to push a way clear for us to pass. Rashers assuming his best aristocratic poise as a gang of newsboys clustered around him, their hoarse voices calling out.

‘Give us a penny mister Rashers. Give us a penny.’

‘I beg your pardon boys, but please, it’s Lord Ronald Ronald to you.’

Clanging bell. And a crowded tram roaring by. Through its steamed up windows, shadows of heads and newspapers within. The barefoot newsboys, clutching their papers under arm. Rheumy eyed, scabbed and scratched. Their faces streaked with phlegm. Torn garments hardly covering their chests. Hands and feet blue with cold. As grimy fingers touched upon one’s sleeve.

‘Come on mister, give us a penny.’

The smoky mists swirling over the wet glistening granite. Rashers scattering a handful of coins into the gutter. Newsboys rushing after them. Kicking, punching and pushing each other. Amid the furtive faced pedestrians hurrying home. And a voice shouting to Rashers as he entered in under the glass canopy.

‘Rashers, give us a song, will you, Rashers.’

In the lobby’s warm smells, of coffee, whisky and perfume. Folk in from the country still in hunting clothes, throwing their weight about, proudly mud spattered, recently scratched. Rashers collecting his key, attended by two page boy acolytes, one carrying his binoculars the other his newspapers. And I watched him move on quickly between the pillars, entering the lift. And as I looked up, his feet and trouser legs disappearing from sight, a strange sad shudder went through me. That I had grievously offended him. But just around the corner, who should one nearly bump into, her large arse conspicuously present, and her loud voice haughtily demanding.

‘I must have at least three hot water bottles in my bed. And my hot toddy was cold last night. And please haven’t you got anyone available who knows how to lay out clothes. I don’t want to be late for the theatre again tonight.’

Baptista Consuelo sweeping her fur up to drape it over her shoulders. Hardly wasting a second to breeze past me with her most withering look. The soft silken lustre of her breasts in the light. Heading for the lift where she waited for it to descend again. Making, as she turned around, a rather too large an effort to ignore me.

Next morning on my breakfast table a note, compliments of the Manager to communicate with him. Wouldn’t one know it was time to be evicted for non payment of my bill. And following my bath and a long look out at the mountains, I thought why not go out into the elements before Rashers appeared and purloined me off to the races. Or the glooms descend as I think of Leila, not knowing where she is and in whose arms she may lie clutched. Go instead to mend some social fences. And in a moment of sunshine one strode through the busy morning pedestrians down Grafton Street. A time of day when a hint of prosperity seemed afoot. Through these shop doors. But Miss von B, she was so bloody icy. Making me speechless trying to expiate my unpardonable rudeness. In fact it’s exactly how I put it.

‘Please I do beg you forgive me for my unpardonable rudeness. I am quite speechless attempting an apology. But I was waylaid by the Count on my way back from visiting Mr Arland whose plight in an appalling room the worst end of Mount Street is desperate.’

She did not exactly snub me but entertained the first opportunity of a customer taking her attention. Leaving me standing there far too close to the edge of the ladies’ lingerie department. With one fat female acting as if one were focusing binoculars on her while she was being measured up for her monster sized whale bone corsets. I ventured for a quick reconnoitre of the delft department and returned after I thought Miss von B might have got her little revenge out of her system. I even attempted to impress her.

‘Lois the accomplished and very fashionable artist is to do my full portrait. Mounted.’

‘Vas mounted.’

‘On my horse of course.’

‘Ha ha vas a good joke. That you should keep quiet about. She has been mounted. By all zee pricks in Dublin. And I suppose of course she is taking up residence in Andromeda Park to do it.’

‘What an awfully vulgar thing of you to asperse. She happens to be a very fine artist whose work is much sought after by Americans. And I think you are just jealous.’

One was of course planning to invite Miss von B for coffee at the Oriental Café up the street. And to find out where she lived. And if she had a bowl we could both eat out of, and a bed we could both get into. But instead, worried out of my mind that indeed if Lois was mounted by everyone in Dublin, as indeed I really knew she must be, one was bound to have a grave social disease. I went back up the Green. Imagining my shrivelled testicles dropping off down my trouser leg and being squashed on the wooden street blocks by a motor vehicle. With no one to pass the time of day with, one realized one needed swift distraction. And I did present myself into one’s grocer. Stepping over the well worn granite step. Pushing on the brass handle. Open these mahogany and glass gleaming doors. To be greeted by the white coated, smiling manager.

‘Good morning sir. How nice to see you. My it’s been a considerable time since we had the pleasure.’

‘Yes. Indeed I think it has, hasn’t it. I’m just popping in rather to peek about, as it were.’

‘But of course, please. We’re getting now many of what one might refer to as some very nice exotics indeed. And your order including the bananas and pineapples just in this morning is entirely ready. Ah you’d nearly think it was her Ladyship herself back at Andromeda Park. Shall I add another tin of the caviar, our very last. There’d be every bit of two pounds of the best Beluga in it. First we’ve had for years. Two were sent last week.’

‘I don’t believe I have in fact ordered anything. Certainly not caviar.’

‘O but you have sir. But of course please do let me check. Yes. Now there was last week’s. Here we are, Andromeda Park. I knew I was not mistaken on the caviar. Even in such a substantial order. Ready to be taken to the station to be sent down on the afternoon train. Now just among some of the items, sir. Four charcoal cooked hams. Three dozen tins of our terrine of goose liver with truffles. Three dozen tins of our páté maison with green peppercorns, petits fours, toffee assortments, mint humbugs, selection of marmalades, our own apricot and almond. Four dozen of our own jars of chicken breasts in aspic.’

‘Good lord.’

‘Is there something wrong sir. We’ve even succeeded in getting some double Devon fudge for you.’

‘I think more than possibly yes there is something wrong. I most certainly haven’t ordered one of those items including double Devon fudge.’

‘O dear sir. But I myself spoke with your Mr Crooks.’

‘Spoke.’

‘Yes on the telephone.’

‘I don’t have a telephone.’

‘Might he have called from the town. I know his voice, Mr Kildare.’

Tears in Mr Hamilton’s eyes. Of course no need to get one’s grocer as alarmed as oneself. And certainly one could not give him offence. Nor could one make him think I was a ninny and one’s butler a nut. Better to promptly reel out of Smyth’s of the Green. Attempt to erase from one’s mind the columns upon columns of itemized figures in the flowing embellished script. Fancy victuals listed as long as your arm. Click clacking on the train to Andromeda Park. In my utter absence. Extravagances behind my back. Seeing with one’s own eyes, caviar, smoked salmon, even wines, port, even bloody hams and bacon sides which at least could have been provided from one’s own bloody pig pens. It only confirms, as one was already convinced, that the whole world is against one. And one always did, with the exception of Sexton, Leila, and old Edna Annie, suspect the worst malingering whenever one saw a member of the household or estate not with their hands actively on some tool in violent motion. Impoverishment does deepen loneliness. Now nearly reaching a pitch where I’ll soon be street dramatizing like Horatio the actor. Screaming incoherently at baskets of brown eggs in shop windows. Instead of walking smack into Rashers, equine journals under his arm, a bright crimson carnation in his button hole, his black silk tie decorated with tiny white diamond shapes, and his mouth grinning from ear to ear.

‘Ah my dear Darcy, missed you for breakfast. Dear me you do look a mite peakedly poorly.’

‘I am.’

One thing had to be said for Rashers. His mind was certainly alert to savouring mention of a long list of fancy edibles, his eyes sparkling and his tongue licking his lips. And he listened to one with such sympathy, one was nearly sorry one had only one disaster to unfold.

‘Ah but calm dear boy, calm. Your grocery bill I’m sure can last a year or two on credit. But there is one wonderful aspect your complaint has from which you should take much comfort.’

‘I would certainly like to know what it is.’

‘Ah hasn’t it dawned on you.’

‘No. It has not.’

‘Well, for a distinct change, it is not I who is responsible.’

Of course I immediately did conjure up Rashers imitating Crooks into his hotel phone. But one’s suspicions waned as I could sense his mind was miles away. And towards the top of Dawson Street, strolling through the coffee bound mid morning stream of solicitors, bank clerks, and accountants, Rashers stopped to purchase a bouquet of red roses. And one was nearly too embarrassed to inquire of him if an utter nymphomaniac like Lois could have lodged up one’s urethra a fatal long simmering microbe. But I did ask.

‘Rashers. I think I may have the dreaded pox.’

‘You what dear boy.’

‘Syphilis.’

‘Come directly with me this instant into the basement gents of the Dawson Lounge.’

It was an appalling embarrassment to have to present one’s prick to Rashers in this lavatorial manner especially as someone in the next cubicle had already got the wrong idea seeing two pairs of feet and the trousers of one pair around its ankles. But after careful perusement he pronounced.

‘Dear chap you are quite free of the pox. Not a chancre for miles. But if you must plunge into love, you must also say to hell with venereal disease.’

We did pause to take morning refreshment down these dark confines. And in order to change the subject from medical to cultural matters I inquired of Rashers over his armful of roses.

‘Rashers why don’t you sing. You really do, you know, have a voice which I’m sure would bring you riches on the concert stage.’

‘So kind of you to say dear boy. That is nice to hear this tender time of morn. But you see the answer is as surprising as it is simple. My voice is the only thing I have never compromised, sold, bartered or prostituted. Well dear boy. Shall it be down with betrayal. Shall it be down with back stabbers. Put the begrudgers and unfaithful to the sword. And on to Monte Carlo. And Darcy. You are my good friend. And even in the débâcle of your fear of the dreaded pox, always a joy to meet. Let’s make another appointment soon shall we. Ta ta.’

Standing on the pavement of Dawson Street in front of a ladies’ hat shop Rashers threw a kiss in at a most pretty lady arranging a hat in the window and then waved goodbye to me and strutting off, seemed to disappear into the entrance of the Royal Automobile Club. Not to be outdone by Rashers’s seemingly lofty principle. I foolishly opened an account in the flower shop and extravagantly charged my own bouquet of a dozen red roses. And I proceeded to Lois. Still terrified out of my wits. That if I did not have the pox, I may, as Rashers suggested, have the gleet.

‘So it’s you. Well come in.’

‘These are for you.’

‘Well thank you very much. And it’s not that I am not appreciative but I hope you don’t think I am putty in your hands. It just so happened I was having a low moment when I asked you to stay.’

Going up her steep stairs. Ushered into an actually warm studio. Two eggs simmering in a pan on her stove in the middle of the room. Her Afghan rug hanging where she’d been cleaning it. Of course Lois was now out of her mind, preparing for her secret commission. And one must suppose the rug would be a backdrop. As clearly she had borrowed a rather regal chair from the Count’s School of Ballet. Much gilt, gold and satin, which stood up on the dais. Such whoo haaa you never heard or saw. Actually sweating in her four or so thick sweaters. But one did make the whole thing suddenly even more hysterical, accosting her with my worry. Just as she’d put the roses in her one and only vase.

‘I think Lois it is entirely possible for you to have given me a venereal disease. Which I meant to ask if you had one before we went to bed. Heavens. I am putting this rather badly.’

Astonishingly in a corner behind Lois, the rat peeked out, then ventured out. And sat amusedly back on his haunches, his nose, whiskers and even ears twitching in the much ensuing silence. Lois pale with shock. And slowly growing red with anger.

‘You most certainly are putting it badly. You mean to say dear boy, that you would go willingly to bed with someone you thought might have a venereal disease. How dare you, having abandoned me, how utterly dare you, accuse me of giving you a venereal disease. It is more likely that you are the one who might have given a venereal disease to me.’

‘But I’ve been told you’ve been mounted by everyone in Dublin. And perhaps I should go to the doctor’s.’

‘How heinous. How dare you. I should slap your face. You stupid Irish boy. And if you think you have such a thing, you had it before you slept with me and I should be the one to go to the doctor’s.’

‘But Rashers has told me I have no sign of the pox.’

‘That dreadful philistine rascal told you did he. Well I’m telling you. Get out. Out of my studio.’

Dear me. How quick one’s social life becomes a shambles. In the very middle of my discussion of the possible pox. Here I am being shown the door. And of course Lois screamed at the sight of Mr Rat. Whose own social life was clearly recently much improved. I did my usual tripping over her bloody pictures and paints, and I must say, deliberately squashed one tube beautifully under heel. The contents squirting out like a calf plopping from a good old cow. But mindful of chivalry one did seriously try to put paid to the rat. And flung her pan of simmering eggs at the rodent. You never heard such an insane outburst.

‘My eggs. My only eggs for luncheon. O my god. Splattered. Right on my watercolours. You slanderous little monster. For the final time. Get out.’

‘Lois I am most awfully frightfully sorry. I thought the eggs were hard boiled.’

‘Well they weren’t. Please don’t ever ever again come back.’

Well of course Mr Rat could nibble up the yolk for a midnight snack. But I did go to the doctor’s. For a second opinion. Another agonizing wait. Looking out his waiting room window at the bare trees and green lawns one could see stretched across to the amber brick the other side of Merrion Square. Asking the highly sceptical physician if one could have caught something from a door knob or lavatory seat.

‘I’m afraid not. But all I can see is evidence of perhaps a trifling bruising and contusion. The result perhaps of a little too energetic activity. But we certainly can if you prefer get laboratory results. And send specimens straight over to Trinity College for a quick report.’

One was mortified to find the doctor occasionally hunted and even knew my Uncle Willie. The whole of next afternoon I spend at the Grafton Street Cinema. Safe momentarily in the dark, viewing two westerns and the usual tropical travelogues. Afterwards relishing to be as those people were, on their great cruise ship, just delighting in the flora and fauna of exotic foreign lands. Instead of taking a tasty tea reading the matrimonial column of the evening paper. Of serious minded bog trotting farmers wanting ladies under sixty of stout build to be mutually suited with a view to marriage. But at least one did sit utterly alone in some baronial splendour upstairs in the cinema café. Dreaming and thinking every moment of Leila. She worked here. Touched these cups. Fetched back and forth these trays to the kitchen lift there behind the screen across the room. Where the waitresses bringing the endless supplies of bread and tea all peek out to watch me eat.

I returned alone to my room. And I found myself for some reason, writing my last will and terrified testicle so to speak. Then in sleep having a desperately violent erotic dream about Leila. Who was nakedly running from me chased by Baptista Consuelo who with a whip was lashing red weals across her white slender body. Next morning feeling no pain in one’s prick, but needing a breath of fresh air in one’s brain, it was I who went to knock at Rashers’ suite. Trying to invent something to thank him for or even to pay my apologies for dragging him down the bowels of a pub to examine my prick. And not least, to request his medical advice for my amorous future. I banged and even kicked his door. And with no one answering, stopped to inquire of him at the lobby desk.

‘Ah yes Mr Kildare. His Lordship departed last night. His car collected him for the mail boat. Exactly following supper in his apartments with the Countess, Lady Ronald Ronald. No forwarding address. Is there something we can do.’

‘No thank you.’

‘Ah but isn’t the Earl one of the great singers. Did you ever hear him now render O Danny Boy.’

‘No. I regret I haven’t.’

One never imagined to take Rashers seriously. Always expecting to find his joyful knock on my door in the morning. Or that he would be any more than just amusing one with his bizarre plan. But clearly now he is dislodged from Dublin. Where he enlivened every block of granite his heels clicked upon. Lit up the lobbies, made the Buttery and Jammet’s glow with life. Not to mention, I suppose, some darker pawn shops and catacombs. But nevertheless a comfort like a familiar field or horse one knew so well. And here I am stranded having somehow to busy about one’s life.

The days of Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Attempting to dislodge from one’s own trough of despair. Searching every street, peeking in every shop for a sign of Leila. Just hoping to meet her. As one finally pauses conspicuous on a street corner. Watching the bicycles, the trams and hooting motor cars go by. Do as Rashers said. Keep my options open. Have one’s hair cut. Attend fittings at one’s tailor. Shoes at one’s shoemaker. Order cartridges at the gunsmith’s. Keep moving lively in the world. Yet one did so miss him. Waking waiting, soul submerged, for his jovial momentum to take him in the door. And his entrepreneurial endeavours lugging my family silver, all the blue cloth wrapped little bags, in another door under three balls to the pawn.

Now as I walk wandering lonely still on the utter verge of utter complete and absolute despair. One’s butler should make one glad to be alive instead of making one think one is dying in bankruptcy. Eaten out of house and home by staff. How can I return. To find at every little strong breeze, the great slates crashing from the roof. Rot in floors, walls and ceilings. What tools there are, disappearing. Machinery rusted and broken. Rashers said take the long term view. Dear boy, the land isn’t going to get up and run away. My god. No. Instead one will, with worry, drop dead on it and melt away to one’s bones. Leaving them white and criss crossed on a meadow’s emerald soft bosom. Having no way to find my love I loved. From whose loins my sons and daughters could have come. And do I now go searching for my mother’s jewels, so long rumoured hidden somewhere out on that land. Do I flog the paintings. The delft. Now as I go around the Green. In this Dublin. Up past the College of Surgeons. Its thick giant fortress walls. Throw this tinker lady a penny. Cross the street. Go into the park. Sit on a bench. Watch the seagulls. And the ducks glide in. A hawk high up chasing some large slowly flapping bird across the sky. The grounds keeper sweeping up the wet leaves clinging to the paths. A softness falling. Shall I westwards homewards depart. On the train. Await an end of winter at Andromeda Park while still a small ember of hope within me burns. That reassuring sign of spring is sure to come. The first swallow zooming over the orchard. Or hang on. And the operative word. Being I suppose. Hang.

Darcy Dancer emerging from the park. Walk by the fence, cross into the strange streets. Sound of engines puffing. Trains. Harcourt Street Station. Something cold, alone and wretched along these pavements. Go in this archway down this alley. Stout and whisky inside. One feels so many of these Dubliners leave their dead dreams on the smoke stained walls of a pub. Turn left, turn next right. A timber merchant’s. What on earth do all these people do in there behind all these twitching curtains. This blank day. When no fox is found. Ride on to another covert. I suppose in adversity I must continue to hold my head up high. Be worthy of my acreage. Even now one remembers. The day as a child I was sick and dying. All one’s servants led one by one into my room to hover their spooky heads above my bed. Sexton placing his plaster statue of the Blessed Virgin on the dresser. A Catholic candle burning. For my Protestant soul. I could, out in the country, be hunting today. Hear Foxy Slattery telling me when we were boys, as he gave me a leg up. Ah now this would be a horse so safe if it would throw you sky high in a jump it would run and catch you squarely as you somersaulted down from the clouds. And now tacked up, this little unprepossessing sign, stuck on this doorway as one passes here in some foot discomfort, is exactly what one presently requires. Carefully hand printed. Footcare Specialist. Late of London. At least one’s presence in Dublin can be occasioned by a visit to the chiropodist’s. And indeed by all indications of this foot note ha ha, a sophisticated big city one at that. At this lonely three o’clock in the afternoon.

Darcy Dancer proceeding up the stairs and to the end of a cold bereft hallway. Flowered wet wallpaper peeling. Knock and enter it says. A chair. A table. Shiny waxed linoleum squeaking underfoot. And ah. A most ancient and dog eared copy of Tatler and Sketch. A lady’s voice in the next room saying come in.

‘Is this the chiropodist’s.’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m sorry I don’t have an appointment.’

A white coated chilled lady creature getting up from writing what appears to be a letter. Steps to look in a book whose pages are clearly congealed closed by the damp. Rubbing her hands together. Obviously hasn’t had a previous customer for years.

‘Yes. I think we can just fit you in.’

‘Thank you so much.’

And sitting in her rickety chair, as she switched on a bar of an electric fire, it was rather nice having someone take off one’s shoes. Drag down one’s socks. Listening to her. Begin talking nearly a mile a minute. As if I were going to run away. Telling how she spent the war in England. Saved to take a course. Now returned to set up professionally in her native land. Where the rent was cheap. But from whence she planned to expand to Grafton or Nassau Street soon. In the tiny windowless room, she did take the longest time to trim a corn on my toe, and then ages to clip and file my nails. Pushing back the cuticle exposing the moons. As if one were entered in a beauty contest. Then she did rather deliriously massage my considerably chilly feet. With a nice, very nice circular motion applied to the instep. And then one’s ankles. Asked if one went skiing. And I lied. With two little words. Yes. Frequently. And even added. Down the Matterhorn. When wartime travel permitted of course. Then asking me rather leading questions. Where I was from. Was I English. Of course I had the incredible notion to say I was an Austrian. But thought being French might give a more pleasant impression. And yes of course one was educated in England. Harrow as a matter of fact. I was astonished how lies could so easily spill out of one. But as it was fast appearing I would soon have to be a con man it was as well to start practising. I used the word chateau just as she remarked on my elegant bone structure which she said was especially apparent about the inferior tibio fibular articulation. At least it was evident she knew her anatomy. Indeed she was beginning to sound like Rashers.

‘You have an extremely fine ankle. This is the external malleolus of the fibula. And this muscle I am rubbing is the flex or brevis digitorum.’

One really didn’t give a fig about what muscle any muscle was, for at the moment going through one’s mind was a vision of Lois, stark naked at the top of her narrow steep stairs, a line of men waiting out her front door and down her alley. And she wore a sign around her neck. Which said. One at a time only. Of course the vision completely vanished as the chiropodist’s hands, having nicely massaged my Achilles tendons, were now venturing upwards upon the back of my legs. And one was slowly but surely becoming utterly transfixed with this albeit most embarrassingly bizarre but rapidly increasing enjoyable frisson. As she had now both her hands deep up my trouser leg. All ten of her brightly crimson nail varnished fingers, five to the left, five to the right, engaged caressing my calf muscles.

‘Skiing has made your legs strong. And you do don’t you, do a lot of walking.’

‘Yes as a matter of fact I do.’

‘Yes I can feel. In your soleus. And especially along here in your gastrocnemius. Only one tendon actually reaches the sole of the foot.’

‘O does it really, that’s considerably interesting.’

‘People don’t really pay enough attention to their leg muscles these days.’

‘No I’m sure they don’t.’

A lot more awfully Latin sounding words erupted from her as her hands fondled between two prominent ligaments at the back of my knee. Of course the creature was beginning to tremble like a leaf. I certainly was not exactly as calm as any old cucumber either. With her actually tickling down the sides of my legs in among my hairs with her fingertips. My trousers now conspicuously bulging.

‘At the tarsal and tarso metatarsal articulations there’s so much that can go wrong.’

‘I entirely agree.’

I took Rashers’ silk hanky upon which his tears had fallen and wiped my brow. Around her neck a silver chain with a gold cross hanging forward out her open white coat. Surely she’s not intending to do anything irreligious. Or break her vows as a chiropodist. But her lungs are distinctly heaving under her brown sweater. While her fingers, my goodness gracious me, are, good lord, unbuttoning my fly. I must say one is on the verge of saying something utterly daft. As to whether, in dealing with one’s ligaments higher up, to which naturally one’s leg is attached, did this still comprise part of the foot treatment. Involving one hopes, no additional charge. But as, at the presently awfully awkward moment, she cannot find the entrance to my complicated drawers, one does not ask niggling questions. Particularly now her fingers have finally got into the confines of my underwear. Where I am bulging so madly that bloody hell even with both of our pairs of cold hands, it is going to be a major engineering feat to get my member free of its clothed encumbrances. Especially as these drawers, also embarrassingly a dim shade of white, happen to have also been once my grandfather’s. And nearly of woven metal made traditionally by a Manx mill specially for farmers shepherding their sheep on their wintry windy moors. And I did only last night have such a severely erotic dream. Involving of all people, Dingbats and her big hefty red tinged tits. Nakedly serving me supper in my apartments. A late summer dish of mushrooms. She danced around showing off her fine points. And Sexton came bursting into the room. Pointing an accusing finger at my plate. Ah I wouldn’t Master Darcy touch that fungi or be caught dead eating a mushroom that one would pick. Sure she’s here in the house, with murder on her mind for the inhabitants. With a bag full of toadstools collected as deadly as a dozen cobras keeping warm in your bed. Them’s death caps and destroying angels in that sauce. O god will she never get it out.

‘I hope I’m not hurting you.’

‘No no. My undergarments are a little old fashioned that’s all.’

Ah at last. In now this cool afternoon air, one’s regenerative organ is out. And instead of Dingbats one is looking down on this chiropodist’s dark reddish brown roots of her dyed blond hair. With nothing but an unprotesting groan blurting out my lips. Her warm mouth. Is indeed nothing but a welcome bit of bliss on my mind. As she does rather hungrily suck. Her hair parted down the middle. Her head bumping up and down like the old ram pump used to do, before it conked out, down in the cleft of the meadow in the rushy field by the oak wood. My goodness what treatment would she give one for a sprained foot. Daren’t read her surname. But her Christian name is Qoadagh, it says on her diploma on the wall. More to this chiropody business than meets the eye. Certainly much more to it than can be said in a mouthful. Has an orange bow tied at the back of her hair. And Leila’s purple one. Of which Crooks once said. Youse will take that bow out of your hair, or youse will be terminated in this employment. O god. I nearly had apoplexy when first I saw Leila’s pretty legs. Not believing the beauty which started at the top of her head could go all the way down to the tip of her toes. Which talking about toes, this foot specialist’s hand is presently wrapped squeezing upon my goolies. As her mouth is gobbling and sucking like a starved pig in a swill of molasses. Teetering me exactly on that knife edge of pleasure verging on pain. O my god, I’m exploding.

Darcy Dancer’s head flying back, his feet upwards. One foot kicking over her whole tray of instruments. Bottles and scalpels and talcum powder scattering across the floor. Footsteps out in the next room. The door opening. And a high pitched bark. Behind my busy chiropodist’s back. As I groaningly stiffen in terrified delirium. And sit bolt upright. Staring straight at this grey headed lady. In a blue tweed coat and crimson cloche hat speckled with rain drops and sporting several flowers. Each petal of which along with the expression of her pug dog’s sniffling yapping face will be, I am absolutely sure, forever emblazoned on my mind. The lady’s eyes saucer round looking up at me. Her half open umbrella dripping rain.

‘Is this, is this, is this, the chiropodist’s.’

Of course the visiting lady, poor dear, having seen over my foot specialist’s shoulder the full treatment in progress, was with a leash, hysterically choking back her equally hysterical tiny squashed faced pug dog from biting the chiropodist’s heels. And lifting the canine into her arms she backed rapidly out the door. Which some wind from somewhere unmercifully blew further open. And another breeze mercifully then slammed shut. But good lord, the door opening again. The pug face mutt, his daws scrabbling on the shiny linoleum, snarling. The lady craning her head in, this time with a lorgnette held poised tiptoe on her nose.

‘I didn’t think I could believe my eyes. I have a good mind to summon the police.’

My poor chiropodist creature, her one hand still absolutely stuck caught entangled in my grandfather’s inpenetrable Manx drawers as I sprang up. Both of us yanking and pulling and skating on the talcum powder, and falling. The two of us crashing on the cold slippery floor. The chiropodist ashen faced ready to faint, but with her other hand still unfortunately firmly holding my obvious penis. And the awful ruddy bloody pug mutt snapping and growling at the lumps of cotton wool and finally sneezing uncontrollably in the raised dust of white powder. Having listened so often to Rashers dispense quips to quell all kinds of ignoble faux pas, I simply could not, racking one’s brain, venture what I thought night be practical as well as reassuring information. Which might allay the lady’s concern in requiring the attention of law enforcement. And exaggerating one’s refined English I opened my mouth.

‘Yes, madam, it is the chiropodist’s, but my condition requires me to have massaging of the musculature.’

‘You disgusting disgusting people.’

Should the Garda Siochana come charging in the downstairs hall, there is no exit out these windowless walls. Nor any room to retreat. For the lady lowering her lorgnette, merely had to raise her umbrella to easily clonk my poor chiropodist on her head. But the angry way my foot specialist eyed her scalpel on the floor, she obviously had a sense of life preservation. And indeed murder. As she grabbed the sharp blade. Various evening newspaper headlines already flashing across one’s brain. Member of landed gentry indecently found concerned in stabbing of elderly blue stocking by prostitute chiropodist. Rashers anyway could take comfort that this is yet another disaster he is not responsible for.

‘Don’t you dare raise that knife to me young lady. As a devout Protestant I object to this absolutely shockingly beastly sight. I happen to have come all the way in on the train from Greystones. And if you don’t mind I shall take my custom elsewhere. Since the war’s been over, Dublin simply isn’t safe any more. And you in your notoriously Catholic profession in this place, should be reported to the appropriate parish priest.’

Without taking any notice whatever of what her pug mutt was doing, which was lifting its stumpy leg on the skirting board, the lady from Greystones gave the door such an unmerciful slamming that plaster fell from the ceiling and the bare light bulb swung back and forth on its flex. And in a delayed action the diploma, already hanging askew, plummeted to the floor, the glass in the frame smashing. Good god. At Lois’s it was the stink of turpentine and squishy paint tubes, and now it’s scalpels and the stink of alcohol. Out on a bloody innocent walk. I have just time to flee this sorry mess and get to the barber to have my non pubic hair cut for tea. An alarm clock loudly ticking on a shelf among her bottles. If one can diplomatically get my damn fly buttons done up, my socks on, shoes laced. I will ruddy well gallop out of here. And join the rest of the field who must, by now, have roused a fox. As my chiropodist friend is now bent over against her damp wall. Hair falling forward around her face. Her thumb going back and forth on her red fingernails.

‘O god. I was so lonely. I’ve never done a thing like this before. I’ll be driven out. Into the streets. The likes of her will have the scourge of the tongues upon me.’

‘Well hypocrisy being what it is these days it isn’t exactly the type of tootsy wootsy treatment of which a member of an older generation, I think, would approve.’

‘Are you trying to make a joke of this.’

‘No. Certainly not.’

‘And you don’t sound French. You’re English. And the likes of you will be gone by the mail boat. How would you know what could happen to me.’

‘Well the likes of me thinks you do have a very good point there. Yes. I am very very English. But please don’t think I can’t appreciate your difficulty.’

‘And don i you think that I do this all the time.’

‘O no. Of course not. But perhaps, please, you might tell me how much it is please.’

‘The treatment is four shillings a single foot. And seven and six for both.’

‘I mean, I fear madam, that I must at least ask, in view of the situation, is there an extra charge or something to that effect.’

‘Are you trying to insult me. I’m a real chiropodist.’

‘Yes of course you are. And I assure you.’

I am

A very

Satisfied

Customer