The Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman

22

Sunlight streaming over the wall and through the bars of a gate. A cassocked figure leaning over the form of Darcy Dancer curled and crouched on the mossy grass. The black sleeved hand gently pushing on a shoulder.

‘Come now. Can you hear me. Wake up now. Wake up. Who are you. What are you doing here. Please speak. Can you hear me.’

Darcy Dancer groaning. Tuck in his arms and legs. Further away from the chill. But yes. I hear and see the sun in my eyes. Which way is it to heaven. I know that’s the way I’m walking now. Miss von B watched me go. She was just at my funeral. Wore her bowler she wears to hunt. So sad, she was nearly carried. By the elbows. Crooks on one side, Sexton on the other. Holding her. Her feet dragging. Sobs racking her. My coffin borne on the shoulders of the grooms. Slide down. Dead and done. In my grave. Held the bars of a gate as I died. Begging God not to let me. Yet like this. It’s so quiet just to be asleep. Till morning. Wake in time for Mr Arland. Coming down the hall now to the schoolroom. Books tucked up under his arm. His smile. Greet him. Just as he said I was once. A plutocrat in the pluperfect. His small admonitions. Young persons Kildare, should conduct themselves discreetly. And Mr Arland, please sir, is there anything indiscreet in the promiscuous exercises of etymological parsing. Don’t try to be funny, Kildare. Please sir, I am being absolutely serious and I am so glad that you were able to get to my funeral. You look so smartly turned out too. And hello Clarissa. What a very stylish looking couple you and Mr Arland make. So nice of you both to come all this way on the train. And be so smilingly happy, happy together. Waiting to wed. Soon. soon. How sad then, you must on such a splendid note, attend my obsequies. Yes it is rather a pity. Who said that. Uncommonly rude thing. I shall damn you sir demand satisfaction and climb right up out of my coffin. If someone, who is unnecessarily holding same will just let go of my shoulder. Let go. Is that you Sexton, did you hear me. Do please stop pushing on my shoulder.

‘Now. Now. You’re alright. Can you hear me. Who are you.’

That sunny cold Christmas morning three dark figures carrying Darcy Dancer by legs and arms along a gravel path. A fourth cassocked figure opening a heavy door. Into a stone flagged hall. And down a long corridor. Through cooking and waxy smells. And into a small vaulted white ceilinged room. A dim red glowing filament of an electric bulb burning straight above my head.

For six days Darcy Dancer laid abed. Face pressed in a creaking pillow and dark hair sticking out from thick mauve blankets. A thin faced man calling twice a day leaning over to put his hand on my brow. Quietly asking questions. As all these men in black and some with collars, come and go. Making me horrified to think that heaven might really be a Roman Catholic place after all.

‘Who are you young man. What is your name. Where do your parents live. You can understand me can’t you. You understand what I am saying. Can you write. You have been very sick. We need to know who you are. Do you speak Romany. Are you a travelling person. You have nothing to fear from us.’

For four more days I watched the light fade to darkness out the tall narrow pane of window. And then send a bright shaft across my little cell as breakfast came in the morning. Brought by a woman in a white uniform who had my first evening put hot soup on a spoon between my lips. The granite stone arch of this ceiling. Squeaking pallet under my back. Other faces come. They look. Nod, whisper and go away. And then two more tall priestly gentlemen in black.

‘I think father, the young man may have been struck dumb. Or suffered amnesia or such. He may require the treatment of a hospital. He was ranting something when found but hasn’t spoken since. He could quite possibly be retarded as well. I don’t suppose the disgraceful diary in his pocket means anything. The truth of the Daring Dancer’s activities. He could have found it. But he’s recovering well and is much stronger.’

‘Shall we see how he is again in the morning. Wouldn’t do now anyway to move him.’

Mornings, afternoons and evenings, there were choir voices singing. Chanting. So peaceful. The sound comes. A bell rings. Feet pass to and fro in the corridor under long webs of vaulted criss crossed ceilings and gothic arches. When lights were out one listened to the gales outside lashing rain against the panes of glass. The world seemed kept away. And the plainsong made me feel I was floating while I was dying. All through the grey days. Turned dark in my heart. Unable to speak. To these ecclesiastic gentlemen. Who seemed so calm civil and kind. Planning each night to say something and then in the cold light of day a stillness would stay my lips. Watching as I would the sunny pink of the rare sun coming in over my shoulder and warmly bathing the wall. Where a Christ is nailed on a cross. Just above a table and chair. As now this morning the door opens. And a tall cassocked figure steps in.

‘My name is Father Damian. It is I who found you out there against the wall. Now can’t you tell me how you got there. You’ve been here nearly a fortnight now. We would like to know who you are. So that we can help find or contact your parents or next of kin. Surely someone is missing you. You do speak. We know. Someone heard you last night in your sleep. And indeed you were mumbling when I found you. But we shan’t force you. But it would help us if you tried. Perhaps in your own good time. As the robin builds its nest. Have you run away from somewhere. Have you been in an institution. Do you speak Irish. No. Well I’m sure we won’t get anywhere trying you in Latin or Greek. But I’ll be back again. In the meantime you’re not to worry. We shall take care of you here. You understand that don’t you. Good. Well we can get a lot out of you anyway with yes and no. Yes. Good.’

The white uniformed lady who no longer had to push the bed pan under me twice a day, now smilingly helped me hobble on my first trip out into the hall. To make my way in overlarge slippers and faded white pyjamas and dressing gown thirty paces down the flagstone corridor. To a damp water closet with a cistern high up which dripped water down on my back as I sat. Till finally I got warmly dressed again. In my own clothes now cleaned and ironed and my diary back in my pocket. When I was put in a massive kitchen and given potatoes to peel and eggs to break each dawn into a great cauldron. I could with astonishing dexterity break one in each hand but of course did lose many shells in the mass of yolks. Father Damian came.

‘Good morning. Hard at work. You look much better. You’re feeling that way are you. Good. I think we might try to get you out and about a bit. And perhaps there won’t be so much shell then in the scrambled egg. Would you like to do some gardening. Good. Just let me know if you do not feel up to it.’

Darcy Dancer with an old man they called Deaners. Raking up the leaves and scuffling the winter weeds away between the pebbles. And often in dereliction of one’s duties sitting long moments on a garden bench in the fragrant fresh air and rare sunlight. Cheerful chirps of birds. Living on their wings. Here in these walled gardens. Perching over the gravel paths. In their winter darkened feathers. And the jackdaw who daily took a leisurely drink out of a roof gutter, went high flying beyond the turrets of this large building. With its big halls. Thick walls. And bells tolling. Where now at dawn before work began I attended at mass. Shuffling chilled from my bed into the chapel across a courtyard. Kneeling in the rear of all these black gowned figures filling the pews. An organ playing. Their voices singing Latin. And my soothed mind full of Miss von B and where could she be. In the big town of Dublin. With each week now passing. To await yet another. Feeling at least my strength returning if not my courage. Grunting to Deaners who never stopped asking me a lot of foolish questions. Was I out of the looney bin. Did I come from the land. And why didn’t I get a move on me just sitting there on my backside while he was doing all the sweeping up of the rotted leaves and spreading all the manure.

Then a wet old morning pushing a barrow of cut branches down the gravel path to where I’d dump them on top of the manure heap and where, when no one was looking I could squat day dreaming a leisurely hour or so hidden by the shrubbery and trees, my back suddenly stiffened and my pace quickened and I was altogether, albeit momentarily, a very energetic gardener’s helper indeed. For there right behind me came the voice of Father Damian.

‘Well now. We’ve been watching you.’

As one stops in one’s tracks. O my goodness. Here it comes. They’re going to fling me out. Shirking at work. Three helpings at meals. And putting lumps of clay in Deaners’ hat when he took it off. And laughing like a drain when he put it back on.

‘Young man you work with great intelligence. Now run and fetch me this list of books from the library. There’s a good lad.’

I was blissfully thunderstruck. And perfectly willing to be thought mentally capable. And now my afternoons were spent working in the library. Stacking and carrying books. Or when the librarian’s absence permitted, plopping myself behind a partition to most pleasantly and soothingly read these splendid tomes. Till a week later I sat on the verge of tears. Deaners at lunch saying that he heard tell they were on to me and that it was my last morning of gardening. And I saw once more the wet and winter cold stretching cross country. Instead of enjoying early mass and the murmuring prayers and the thundering organ sounds. And when Father Damian came in. I was ready to vocally beg there and then for another chance. Till a great smile across his face.

‘Now my boy. You are. Aren’t you. Finally going to speak to me. You’re an educated lad. And dare I say it, clearly of good background. I have recommended that you be entirely relieved of your gardening duties and that you be permanently assigned to the library and that you be permitted to attend classes here.’

‘Please sir.’

‘Ah good lord, at last. At last.’

‘Sir.’

‘Call me Father.’

‘Father. I am a runaway orphan.’

‘I see.’

‘I’m from the west. My father while he lived was a butler.’

‘So that explains this elegant voice. You are a rather surprising discovery. To turn up on Christmas morning. However we won’t read anything into that coincidence. You are clearly a young man of ability. We can do something for you here. But we should have to certainly make an effort to find those who as your next of kin may be responsible for you.’

‘There are none sir.’

‘I see. Are you Catholic.’

‘No sir.’

‘That’s a bit awkward. But doesn’t seem to prevent your devoutness at chapel. Well. That’s between ourselves. And we won’t press the matter further. But we must have information in order to seek permission from those in authority that we can provide for your further education. It’s not often one comes upon a young man whose aura and carriage gives promise of, how shall we say it. Future importance, perhaps.’

Promoted to cataloguing books in the library one now not only had a measure of authority but even a proprietory interest when sorting and restacking the shelves of dusty volumes. One also graduated to the end of a table in the large dining hall. With a group of young novices in training for the priesthood. Two of whom distinctly of peasant farming origins, constantly made snide remarks and behaved at every opportunity towards me in their most unpleasant ways.

‘What has our pukka boy there been up to today.’

I sat through meals in my secular attire silently looking down at my place. Just thankful to ruddy god that one had food three times a day and a warm place to sleep. With days now peacefully spent with much reading and scholarship in the library. The librarian with his massively thick spectacles seemed so often occupied with some vast work he was writing on the influence of the Old Testament on Gaelic literature that I indeed enjoyed a rather majestic privacy. Till one evening meal in the emptying dining hall. Just as I was leaving table. The more unpleasant of the two unpleasant clerics stopped in front of me. Who had so often passed his sour smirking asides in my direction. Just as I had often gritted my teeth instead of popping him a fist in his sneering face. And now he took his forbidden half smoked cigarette out of his mouth and threw it on the wide wooden scrubbed boards at my feet. To then lift his foot and with the sole of his shoe grind it into a small round smudge of ash and tobacco.

‘Clean that up pukka.’

‘No.’

‘Do as you are told, you phony snot. Or I’ll lay about you.’

‘No.’

‘So you are daring me. Come lads. Pukka is daring me. You are aren’t you. Pukka.’

‘Yes. I am. And I shall probably punch your face for you should you touch my person.’

The cleric’s muscles tightening across his cheeks, his teeth clenching in his jaw. His face grown white. A sickly smile slowly spreading on his lips. Staring at Darcy Dancer’s eyes staring back. The dishes clattering being collected from the distant tables. And the sound of my final evening chore when I worked in the kitchen. The barrels filled with leftover food being carted away out to the pigs.

‘I think we can settle this sudden display of bravery from our snooty pukka, outside. Is that right pukka.’

‘Yes.’

‘Well then outside. Have you heard that now lads. He’s challenging me. Imagine. Pukka is challenging me. What about it lads. Any wagers as to how long he’ll last.’

‘Why don’t you leave him alone Healy. He’s done nothing to you.’

‘He’s said he’ll break my face. That’s what pukka has said. In his pukka phony English accent. And I’ll be damned if a son of some butler’s bloody well going to tell me that.’

Rearing in my face, acrimony. When each day now I attended vespers. Then following dinner, had my cherished solitary long reads in my cell. Poring over dictionaries I had from the library. Of quotations. Of English proverbs and of English etymology. No longer a vagabond. With somewhere finally to be content. And even fencing with a Latin epigram or two with Father Damian.

The gathering from the table pushing back chairs and standing. With a noise of doom. Healy leading the way trooping out of the dining hall. Along down a wide vaulted corridor lined with paintings of previous presiders over these vast ecclesiastic stacks of stone. Walking one’s last mile, one sees now every crack and stain. Turning into another long corridor. Past the narrow stone steps I take up a flight to the library. Now through a narrow dark passage to a door and out into a small walled courtyard. And all the way, behind me Healy’s associate whispering.

‘Healy is going to break every damn bone in your damn body, you snot. And make you scream for mercy.’

Faint flashes of moonlight high up on the wet stone. And a sprinkle of rain. Healy in the semi darkness turning to stand and wait in the middle of the little concrete yard. The clerics gathered in a black circle. And suddenly confronting Healy, Fitzpatrick, a bushy browed blue eyed big farmer’s son who seemed friendly disposed towards me and with whom on the playing field I once hopelessly kicked a soccer ball.

‘Let the lad go, Healy. He’s been ill. Why don’t you fight a bully like yourself for a change.’

‘He’s challenged me.’

‘Well bloody hell I’ll challenge you.’

‘This is none of your affair Fitzpatrick.’

‘It soon damn well might be.’

‘Well why don’t you stand aside and see for yourself. Pukka has his fists already doubled up.’

Darcy Dancer two fists hanging rigidly down at his sides. The knuckles white. Fitzpatrick stepping back.

‘Well then I would just like to see him beat bloody damn hell out of you.’

In the faint light, the rain gently falling. Moon must have a halo tonight. The soft gurgling of the drains. The water pouring down pipes from the massive lead gutters on the great roofs. The two protagonists squaring off the centre of the dark circle. Darcy Dancer holding up his fists. Healy raising up the open palm of his hand.

‘Well just look at that now. The great Joe Louis himself. Note how he adheres to the classic rudiments of boxing. The left forward. The right held back in reserve to deliver the knockout when that time comes.’

‘Why don’t you put up your own fists and fight Healy.’

‘I am. I am about to do that right now.’

Healy feinting left and right. Darcy Dancer jumping back. And the cleric just nudging Dancer’s nose with a wild swinging right hand that whistled past the eyes. The two circling round. Suddenly a flurry of fists. Lights flashing. And Darcy Dancer facing the concrete. The wet cement growing red with drops of blood.

‘You damn bully Healy.’

‘He asked for it and now he’s got it.’

‘That’s it, get up, get up pukka. You can do it.’

Darcy Dancer pushing himself slowly to hands and knees. The left leg crouching up. Then the right. Now rising to his feet. Lifting his hands again. And another fist crashing into his face stumbling him backwards. Across the courtyard. The circle of clerics parting. Healy pummelling with both fists. The circle of spectators crowding round as Dancer crashes back into the wall. And falling forward grabbing around Healy to hold on.

‘That’s it, hold on pukka, hold on.’

Darcy Dancer closing his right arm around the back of Healy’s neck. Gripping his right fist with his left. Pulling Healy’s head forward and down. Squeezing tight with all one’s might. Tighter and tighter. This gruesome hateful head further and further down. Scratching and tugging at me. His breath gasping.

‘That’s it pukka, that’s it. You’ve got him. In a head lock. Hold on. Hold on.’

‘Come on Healy kill him. Don’t let him do that to you. Trip him. Pull back.’

Darcy Dancer hauling this head downwards harder. And the two entangled figures fall to the cement. Squeeze tighter. Dig my knee deep up into his guts. And as Foxy says put every living ounce of your energy into it.

‘What is going on out here.’

A voice in the doorway. Figures scattering. Authority arrives just as I’m winning. And loosen my grip. To stand up. Across from this still leering face. Lashing another fist at me. And laughter from the doorway.

‘That’s it Healy, let the ruddy pukka have it. Nobody has come. It’s only me.’

‘And you. You’re bloody well going to get a fist in the face.’

The voice of Fitzpatrick. A skirmish at the doorway. And the phony voice of authority now pleading for mercy. As my lip gets smashed cut over my teeth. Another blow landing on my eye. Sends half the world black. Taste of blood in my mouth. Get just one punch into his belly with all my might. Send his damn reeking breath out of his throat as my knee nearly did along with his dinner. My head like Foxy’s getting used to being bludgeoned. Bright sharp pain of fists landing. High on my forehead. Crouch low, knees flexed, step forward. Hide if I can my head behind a shoulder. Cock my right arm right down by my hip. As Foxy showed me once. Swing now with all my almighty strength. Land a fist he’ll never forget deep into his ruddy guts.

‘Holy Christ.’

‘Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.’

‘Begorra. Did you see that. What an almighty right hook into Healy’s belly.’

Healy bending over double. Wobbling. Staggering forward. Nearly falling to his knees. Then falling. His mouth exploding vomit. Someone shouting.

‘Get going lads there’s someone coming for sure.’

Darcy Dancer standing above this bully propped up on his fours. Before I depart give him something to remember me by. Bring a heel right crushingly down on the back of his hand. Make it a long ruddy time before it tightens itself in a fist again.

‘My hand. My hand.’

Healy howling in agony. A blissful sound. And now run. Last behind these figures. Back in through this door. The pounding feet echo down the hall. Just ahead someone trips. Headlong into a plinth and pedestal. Once carrying just these few seconds previously the marble bust of St Ignatius Loyola. Requires a detour with not indifferent haste, out this other door. Across the courtyard. Where I once dug and weeded the rose beds. The quickest way back to my cell. Shove open this heavy oak portal. Hammered together with copper nails turned green. And Christ. Crash into this figure pacing the hall reading his breviary.

‘Excuse me father.’

‘Damn you. Where do you think you’re going.’

‘To hell.’

Lights lighting up the windows. A hullabaloo arising. Darcy Dancer racing down through trees. Air colder. Snow beginning to fall. Moon behind the fast moving clouds. White specks on the white stone statues. The stations of the cross. Ghosts looming out here in the trees. The new pale blades of daffodils shoving up in the crush of frost under foot. Eye paining. Ears ringing. Head throbbing. Lips bloody and bruised. Keep running. Till one is finally far away out on the other side of the road. Crossing the frozen dew of the meadows.

Without

A single hope

In the world

Any more