Dream of Fair to Middling Women (19 page)

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.