Dream of Fair to Middling Women Page 15

  Now he was dead, we thought it more reverent to put that into a paragraph by itself, dead, grinning up at the lid. The dead fart, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities, and the quick whistle. Blessed be the name of Thanatos.

  The Polar Bear:

  cursing, blaspheming, purple in the face with a terrible apprehension, he stampeded miserably through the vortex. He lurched up safe and sound on the sidewalk.

  “God b--- the bastards” he snarled “merde and remerde for the bastards.”

  He snatched off his huge old hat and his head shone high above the crowd. He was an enormous stout block of a man. “Merde” he snarled “merde, merde.” Still it was a relief to be across at all. It was only the mercy of God that he was across at all with what little life was still in him. Now, what the hell had he got to get now? Oleum ricini for his ailing sister. Merde for his sister. Then there was some other bloody nonsense he had said he would get. What was that? Straining every nerve he suddenly got it: a two shilling chicken for his ailing family. Merde for his family. Though they really were darlings, they were pets, with all their little faults and shortcomings, and so good to him. He ground his teeth together, he gnashed them in the extremity of his affection for his ailing family. Hawking oleum ricini and two shilling pullets (they do not exist) all over the fornicating city.

  He set his course now for where he knew he could pick up the oil on the cheap, he stumped along now, gasping and humped and enormous, ponderously in the middle of the sidewalk. He was gone in the legs. Hearing himself named he drew up, and on perceiving Monsieur du Chas he raised the old hat courteously.

  “If you like” he said in his distinguished voice, tinged with a lallation, “you can come along and help me buy a bottle of oleum ricini for my blasted sister.”

  They made ground together.

  “Merde” said the Polar Bear agreeably “for my sister.”

  “Hoffentlich” said Chas.

  That was a quip, so the P.B. loosed a great guffaw.

  “You can carry my bag, you know” he said “if you like.”

  Chas took over the bag.

  “It's full of bloody shockers” said the P.B. “for my ailing family.”

  “What ails it?” enquired Chas.

  “That is why it is such a weight” said the P.B. “I am tired, truly I am tired out, hawking the bastard round. And you are young and I am old…”

  He turned now and stormed venomously through the flux of pedestrians and made irruption into the pharmacy where he was known.

  “And so he fears” carried forward Chas “to be a…”

  That was the worst of Chas, that was his weakness, the ham that his any foe at any time could slit and string, this abominable production of text, as well as a great number of original and spontaneous observations, to a mysterious terminus of fitness closing the line or the couplet or the quatrain or the phrase or the period, whatever the area to which he felt dimly closure should be applied, we don't presume to know how that point was established. Anal complex anyway. Many a time had Belacqua, responding to the obscure need to verbalise a wombtombing or such like, murmured a syllable or two of incantation: “La sua bocea…”, “Qui vive la pietà…”, “Before morning you shall be here…”, “Ange plein…”, “Mais elle, viendra…” “Du bist so…” “La belle, la…”, only to have this filthy little hop-me-thumb Bartlett-in-the-box pop aloft with a hod of syllables, gash a glaring Caesarean in the nightfall of the ambiente, stitch and hemistich right left and centre the dying meditation, and drum the brain back into the counting-house. Then Belacqua loathed his dear friend. Not but that Chas was not a modest man, not but that it ever occurred to him, we feel sure, to preen himself however little on this infallible instinct of his for context. Twas as has been said, the alto of an inhibition, like the Platonic prancing and gallivanting before the Ginette seen through the glass rose-darkly, through the tissue of tears.

  Why, why this sudden dart at Chas of which no good can come? He fades soon away. That we hope we can vouch for. Then why the sudden dart? Stuffing or padding, flagrant concealment, élan acquis, catamenia cúrrente cálamo.

  We know (are we likely ever to forget!) that early on we said we would look to Chas to garrot this chronicle. Well now on second thoughts we find we can do very well without his help. It is even possible that we be pricked into anger to marry him away to a slick Shetland Shawly we have in mind, not Ginette Mac Somebody, another, she shall be made get him with a tale told at twilight of tears idle tears shed in the heather (extraordinary when we come to think of it the amount of tears and twilight in this book), it comes just up to her navel she is such a snug little maid, she is just one plump little snug little odorous spasm of Nietzsche, Freud, oppoponax and assafoetida, Dublin is full of them. Let him push us just a little too far and that is what is coming to him. We shall pack off the pair of them to a thalamus that by day folds up for psycho-analysis. On no account does he get a curtain or share in one. And that is the least that can befall him.

  We also mentioned we might have to whistle up Mammy for a terminal scena. But now thinking it over again from the point we find we have reached of view, we think no, we think it would be better, less trouble, if we left her fairly respectably where she is, cuddling and coddling and chiding for her good her lovely daughter and building her up for a German match on Fleischsalat and Ungarischer Gulasch… A passing reference, a fleeting evocation of that competent multipara doing the handsome by the Madonna and even putting her own expert lips in the interests of her pecker in moderation to the Krug, that ought to dénouer that. Let her stay where she is.

  About the final curtain: if there be one to be taken, instead of which you know it may flicker down like Pecksniff s palpebra in the full flowering of the antepenultimate turn, say, come suddenly asunder, if there be any final curtain to be taken we rather fancy Belacqua is the boy that will take it, all on his own, bowing left and right, bowing slightly to the plaudits. Now the figure solicits to be carried forward. It proffers fire-curtains, emergency exits, the green room and the stage door. We harden our heart and will not let ourselves go. Are we a tram of burden, trolley-plumed? We say courteously to the figure that perhaps some other evening.

  And so he fears to be a…

  “Where” the P.B., inexpressibly relieved now that he had the oil safe and sound in his pocket, would be interested to know “is it possible to acquire a chicken for the sum of two shillings? At the great poulterer's of D'Olier Street, at Brady's of Dawson Street, or in the Market?”

  “You would need to keep vigil all night” said Chas “and go to the Halles with the first streaks of morning.”

  “Haffner's pork sausingers” the Polar Bear narrowed down the field of research “are prime, but their birds are dear. And if my family thinks” cocking the jaws “that I am going to burst myself sweating up George's Street…”

  “Well sir” said Chas, tendering the gravid bag, “now I must fly. I have an A.P.”

  “Well” said the Polar Bear “I hope she is very nice.”

  “With Belacqua” said Chas, refusing to play,” aven't you seen him?”

  The P.B. admitted gloomily to having seen him but the day before. He had found him very much—how would he say—changed.

  “Not altered?” Chas hoped.

  That was not for the Polar Bear to say.

  “Other” was as far as he cared to go. “A lot of people have been asking after him tenderly.”

  “That so” said Chas “well” advancing the bag “I must fly”

  The Polar Bear raked his nose and swallowed it.

  “Notably” he said “the Alba.”

  “Alba?”

  “A girl” sighed the P.B. “wunnerful girl. Great friend or was of your friend and colleague Monsieur Liebert.”

  “Indeed…”

  “Well” the Polar Bear was tired of Chas “now I must fly.” Suddenly he became aware of the bag. “Here!” he growled “don't run away with the bag. If I went home without
the bag” he said slyly, when he had it safe in his grasp, “do you know what would happen?”

  Chas had no idea.

  “I'd be beaten” said the Polar Bear.

  They flew apart.

  He found the pullet, hard and taut and small, tant pis, but for the budgeted amount. That was a great satisfaction. Beat the thieving bastards down. Half-a-crown for a sabre-breasted hen! Merde. The Baby he could buy on his way home. The oil and the bird entered the bag.

  “Now” he said, scraping his throat and swallowing it, launching a high red cacklebelch of duty done, “now.”

  Silence now we beseech you, reverence, your closest attention. For whom have we here. Follow us closely. Behold it is she it is the

  ALBA.

  Behold her gliding ahead of schedule—for to keep him waiting is not her genre, no, that is too easy,—into the hotel lounge where she has granted him rends-toi. She was alive, there she was, living in pain, alive and in pain. She would have brandy, hijo de la puta blanca! but she would indeed and be damned to the whole galère. Carajo! but she would have brandy and in a glass of degustation what was more into the bargain, Hennessy in a tulip in a bucket. Salt in my mouth, she thought, salt and sand for ever and ever. Forth from her balmy brassière she drew his last letter her latest's last. He applied for a gage of her affections.

  He was a terrific lump of a chap, quite the reverse of her frail Princess-ship, our ladysloop, our Lope flower, positively at the opposite pole.

  “Massive!” exclaimed the Venerilla “a massive man.”

  Massive was the Meath, the West Meath, for épatant, and the Venerilla was the Alba's abigail. Devoted! She would most gladly have laid down her life without the slightest velleity of salvation in corollary, for Miss Alba her little royal mistress. She is not to be wondered at, not for a moment.

  His name it was Jem, a weight-lifter, a Rugby man, a pugilist, not even a shinty or camogie man, a feller of ladies with the pillared muscle-fluted thighs bulging behind the stuff. He applied for the gage of the horny-handed prelude, the gage was to take the form of the marginalia of the penetralia, it was to be handed over in the anticham-bers of the arcana.

  “You little she-devil” he had been moved to write “you little witch you have bewitched me. I am not much of a hand at writing as you may know, I am not a literary cove in any sense of the word, but you have stolen my heart away and I am yours body and soul and I love you more than words can utter. From that first wonderful night we met never again to part if I had my way I felt that nothing else mattered if I could be yours some day and you could be mine, in the highest sense of course I mean. I need not tell you…”

  The Alba broke off to guffaw with great heartiness and openness on the divan. Carajo!, she giggled, achieving a superb aspiration for her own pleasure, body and soul and in the highest sense of course he means!

  “… need not tell you. I would give over all, work and play and career and all the little tarts that for some reason I can't think why make a great fuss of me as you may have heard…”

  Ciel ! but he would give over the little tarts!

  “… if I could think that you loved me half as much as I love you that is more than all the world. I'll be loving you always!’ I will always dream of you whenever I hear that air. May I bring you out for a run in the car next Sunday? You were divine that evening in that stunning evening frock, where on earth did you raise it? All the fellows I knew there think you are marvellous. I am so crazy about you I can hardly sleep thinking about you. You were like an angel come down from Heaven in the middle of all those little tarts. Do say I may. And do please send me a photo or snap if you have not anything better and please do not think me impertinent or pushing if I ask you for a photo so soon after so short an acquaintance. I would rather have a side face one if you have one, in evening dress if you have one, you look so divine in evening dress, or on the beach, I am sure you can rake up the very thing I want. I enclose a snap of myself taken by a pal at Douglas this summer for the T.T., not much good, just a little souvenir. We were just over for a few days and we had a pretty hot time I can tell you. But that is all over now, now that I know you I would not be bothered any more.

  Do write and send me that and say I may call for you Sunday afternoon about three if you do not think that would be too early. It could not be early enough for me. You will make me the happiest man in the world if you say yes. I could go on in this strain for ever, but will only bore you probably if I go on. Saturday we are playing the Rangers. May I send you a touchline seat? I lead the forwards you know. It should be a good game. We could meet after for tea at Fuller's or if you prefer that Bon Bouche place in Dawson St.

  Hoping to have reply by return.

  Ever your passionate but respectful admirer Jem (Higgins)

  P.S. I know now that I never knew what love was until I met you. J.”

  Alba sighed. More money for jam. That she might thus sigh alone in pain with brandy she turned her eyes on him, she pulled off the petticoats and outwards of her gaze, she unleashed the claws and crotchets of her brain, they crept out and grappled the bosthoon. Or put it this way, that she showed herself at the high turret window so that the birds came flying through the evening; she appeared as Florina at the high window and sang her couplet so that the birds, settling furtively on the great cypress of swords and daggers, gashed suddenly their wings, flittered their talons. Then they cawed the bloody caw: Never knew, what Love could be, till I met you, ’n you met me. And not a blue feather in the entire colony.

  Trincapollas! sighed Alba, raising her glass, but all men are homo-sexy, I wish to Christ I'd been born a Lesbian.

  The sooner, since she had not, that she became Mie-Souillon and slept and wept in a Cabinet of Echos and ate astrologers and doctors and musicians in a pie, the better, par la vertuchou! Yes, but would her health stand it? No, her health would not stand it. She must build herself up a little first, she must lead a simpler life, Benger's and a dander daily in the gardens. Then she would take the rags of her Venerilla, her scullion, her foil, and she would set out.

  She would set off through the forests and she would take her time. No forced marches. The birds would scuttle above bleeding in the tree-tops. A fizz of scampering birds, it would lead her to the honey. What honey? They would not fly, their wings were in tatters, she would not see them, desperately they would sprawl and flounder high overhead through the treacherous stools, it is a poor shoal of wounded noddies threshing aloft. In the heat of their endeavours they loose their siftings unashamed, they cannot help it, a dew of white dung it lapses down through the green sunlight, it drenches the leaves, the fizz of their endeavour leads her forward to the court of honey. What honey? The green of Circe? Alas, a pint of that and a gallon of gall, salt in my mouth for ever and ever.

  She plunged her hand into the stuff of her hat as though it were a tuft of grass growing, she extirpated the smart bowler in a rage. With a scroll of the blackest hair she swathed the eburnine distemper of her temple. She tottered to her feet, she disengaged herself from the divan, till she was a slight, vigilant figure, still, erect, the big head lowered, the finger-tips earthing her through the low table, cabling her fast to the earth. She waited. She listened for the lounge to be centralised. She thought she had fever. Then ten to one the waiter would come.

  “Madame” said the waiter.

  “My coat” she said, breaking the circuit, “and I ordered another glass of brandy” she said, reseated, “if you remember.”

  She had not, and the waiter remembered nothing of the kind.

  “Hennessey!” she cried “3-star—double—degustation—hurry!” she cried “can't you see I am dying?”

  She folded up her high-bred legs, she nested against the arm of the divan. The lounge had slipped back to its natural slipshod, tangle of private spirals and foci.

  But the heated brain of the beautiful Alba was off: why am I thus abroad, why in the name of God do I come thus abroad, maltworm, girlfish, frog in a
puddle? Am I then to be baptised? married? buried? Then why am I not in my chamber, giving ear to the big wind. And the eyes of a man are upon me, as those bloodshot of Orestes up and down his sister's rags. The old ruffian, why does he not come, and entertain me?

  “Sugar” she said to the trembling waiter.

  Now the day was over, it was quite the busiest hour of the day for the lounge-attendants, the better-to-do of the city were taking refuge from the dusk. It was the hour of the nimble lamplighters, flying through the suburbs on bicycles, tilting at the standards. The local poets, in this respect differing from the better-to-do, crept forth at this hour and came abroad, each from his public-house, for the daily snipe of inspiration. It was soon known in the snug that Seum or Liam or Harry or Sean had gone out but was expected back ere long. They would not have long to wait for him. He would return, his voice, his familiar step, advancing down the body of the public-house, would make it known that he had returned. He would pay his round, for was he not a very decent man and a great bard and a great man to talk later in the evening?

  Belacqua cowered beneath the battalions of the sky. He had disembarrassed himself rapidly of his dear friend who had said:

  “He mentioned some Alba who had been enquiring tenderly after you.”

  She had not. The Polar Bear used words loosely, he threw them about.

  Now Belacqua is on the bridge with Nemo, they are curved over the parapet, their bottoms are outlined and not in vain in the dusk descending. He lifts his head in due course to the doomed flowers, the livid tulips. Very poignant, yes, they lancinate his little heart, they seldom fail to oblige. His lips are brought down and his head again, yes, the gulls were there. They never miss an evening. They are grey slush in the spewing meatus of the sewer. Now it is time to go, it is yet time. They lapse down together and away from the right quays, they have ceded, they are being harried from the city. It is the placenta of the departed, the red rigor of post-partum.