More Pricks Than Kicks (14 page)

The one ground lay under Mr bboggs's contempt for Belacqua and Thelma's consent to be his bride: he was a poet. A poet is indeed a very nubile creature, dowered, don't you know, with the love of love, like La Rochefoucauld's woman from her second passion on. So nubile that the women, God bless them, can't resist them, God help them. Except of course those intended merely for breeding and innocent of soul, who prefer, as less likely to upset them, the more balanced and punctual raptures of a chartered accountant or a publisher's reader. Now Thelma, however much she left to be desired, was not a brood-maiden. She had at least the anagram of a good face, while as for soul, sparkling or still as preferred, it was her speciality. Which explains how Belacqua had merely to hold out against
no
and its derivatives to have her fly in the end, as a swallow to its eave or a long losing jenny down the whirlpool of a pocket, into his keycold embrace.

Mr bboggs, on the other hand, was of Coleridge's opinion that every literary man ought to have an illiterate profession. Indeed he seemed to go a step further than Coleridge when he asserted, to the embarrassment of Mrs bboggs and Thelma, the satisfaction of his elder daughter Una, for whom an ape had already been set aside in hell, and the alarm of Belacqua, that when he looked round and saw what they called a poet allowing his bilge to interfere with his business he developed a
Beltschmerz
of such intensity that he was obliged to leave the room. The poet present, observing that Mr bboggs remained seated, plucked up courage to exclaim:

“
Beltschmerz
, Mr bboggs sir, did I hear you say?”

Mr bboggs threw back his head until it seemed as though his dewlap must burst and sang, in the slight sweet tenor that never failed to electrify those that heard it for the first time:

Belacqua said in a grieved tone to Mrs bboggs, appreciation being most penetrating when oblique:

“I never knew Mr bboggs had such a voice.”

This endowment Mr bboggs, when the dewlap, like a bagful of ferrets, had settled down after a brief convulsion, proceeded to demean further:

“Otto” cried Mrs bboggs. “Enough.”

“As clear as a bell” said Belacqua “and I was never told.”

“Yes” said Mr bboggs, “a real quality voice.” He closed his eyes and was back in the bathrooms of his beginnings. “A trifle fine” he conceded.

“Fine how are you!” cried Belacqua. “A real three dimensional organ, Mr bboggs sir, I give you my word and honour.”

Mrs bboggs had a lover in the Land Commission, so much so in fact that certain ill-intentioned ladies of her acquaintance lost no occasion to insist on the remarkable disparity, in respect not only of physique but of temperament, between Mr bboggs and Thelma: he so sanguine, so bland and solid in every way, which properties, observe, were no less truly to be predicated of his Una; and she such a black wisp of a creature. A most extraordinary anomaly, to put it mildly, and one that could scarcely be ignored by any friend of the family.

The presumptive cuckoo, if not exactly one of those dapper little bureaucrats that give the impression of having come into the world dressed by Austin Reed, presented some of the better-known differentiae: the dimpled chin, the bright brown doggy eyes that were so appealing, the unrippled surface of vast white brow whose area was at least double that of the nether face, and anchored there for all eternity the sodden cowlick that looked as though it were secreting macassar to discharge into his eye. With his high heels he attained to five foot five, his nose was long and straight and his shoes a size and a half too large to bear it out. A plug of moustache cowered at his nostrils like a frightened animal before its lair, at the least sign of danger it would scurry up into an antrum. He expelled his words with gentle discrimination, as a pastry-cook squirts icing upon a cake. He had a dirty mind, great assurance and ability towards women, and a cap for every joke, ancient and modern. He drank just a little in public for the sake of sociability, but made up for it in private. His name was Walter Draffin.

The horns of Otto Olaf sat easily upon him. He knew all there was to be known about Walter Draffin and treated him with special consideration. Any man who saved him trouble, as Walter had for so many years, could rely on his esteem. Thus the treacherous bureaucrat was made free of the house in North Great George's Street where, as formerly he had abused that privilege in the bed of his host, so now he did out of his decanter. Indeed he was subject to such vertiginous satisfactions in his elevated position on Saint Augustine's ladder, the deeds of shame with Mrs bboggs beyond recall in the abyss, that the power to tell himself when would desert him completely.

Bridie bboggs was nothing at all, neither as wife, as Otto Olaf had been careful to ascertain before he made her one, nor as mistress, which suited Walter's taste for moderation in all things. Unless some small positive value be allowed her in right of the fascination which she seemed to exert over her domestic staff, whose obstinacy in the employment of a mistress neutral to the point of idiocy moved such others as were better equipped and worse served to expressions of admiration that were not free of malice, no doubt.

The elder daughter was very dull. Think of holy Juliana of Norwich, to her aspect add a dash of souring, to her tissue half a hundredweight of adipose, abstract the charity and prayers, spray in vain with opopanax and assafoetida, and behold a radiant Una after a Hammam and a face massage. But withal she rejoiced in one accomplishment for which Belacqua had no words to express his respect, namely, an ability to play from memory, given the opening bar, any Mozart sonata whatsoever, with a xylophonic precision and an even-handed mezzo forte that scorned to observe the least distinction between those notes that were significant and those that were not. Belacqua, anxious to improve his position with Una, who held him and all that pertained to him in the greatest abhorrence, would control these feats, choking with admiration, in Augener's edition; which trouble, however, he very soon learned to spare himself.

A little bird whispered when to Walter Draffin who, with his right hand thus released, drew from his pocket a card and read, printed in silver on an azure ground:

Mr and Mrs Otto Olaf bboggs

request the pleasure of

Mr Walter Draffin's

Company

at the marriage of their daughter

T
HELMA

with

M
R
B
ELACQUA
S
HUAH

at the Church of Saint Tamar

Glasnevin

on Saturday, 1st August,

at 2:30
P
.
M
.

and afterwards

at 55 North Great George's Street

55 North Great George's Street                    R.S.V.P.

How like an epitaph it read, with the terrible sigh in the end-pause of each line. And yet, thought Walter, quenching the conceit as he did so, one might have expected a little enjambment in an invitation to such an occasion. Ha! He drew back his head from the card in order that he might see it as a whole. A typical Bridie bboggs production. What did it remind him of? A Church of Ireland Sunday School certificate of good conduct and regular attendance? No. They had his in the old home locked up in the family Bible, marking the place where Lamentations ended and Ezekiel began. Then perhaps the menu of an Old Boys Reunion Dinner, incorporating the School colours? No. Walter heaved a heavy sigh. He knew it reminded him of something, but what that something was, over and above Bridie and her sense of style, he could not discover. No doubt it would come back to him when he was least expecting it. But his little enjambment joke was pretty hot. He slaked it a second time. The only thing he did not like about it was its slight recondity, so few people knowing what an enjambment was. For example, it could not be expected to convulse a snug. Well, he must just put it into his book.

Under separate cover by the same post he received a note from Mrs bboggs: “Dear Walter, Both Otto and I are most anxious that you, as such an old friend of the family, should propose the health of the happy couple. We do hope, dear Walter, and I feel confident, that you will.” To which he hastened to reply: “Dear Bridie, Of course I shall be most happy and honoured to perform.”

Dear Otto Olaf! Wrapped up in his tables and chairs and allowing himself to be duped, as he knew, by Walter and, as he thought, by Belacqua. Let Mr Draffin, who had been of service, drink his whiskey; and Thelma, that by-product of a love-encounter, bestow herself on whom she pleased. Let there be a circus wedding by all means, his house invaded and his furniture wrecked. The days that came after would be of better rest. Dear Otto Olaf!

Belacqua prepared to negotiate a loan sufficient to meet his obligations, which fell heavily on a man of his modest condition. There was the ring (Lucy's redeemed), the endless fees relative to the ceremony, duties to vicar, verger, organist, officiating clergymen and bell-ringers, the big bridal bouquet, the little nosegays for the maids, new linen and other indispensable household effects, to say nothing at all of the price of a quick honeymoon, which fiasco, touring Connemara in a borrowed car, he had no intention of allowing to run away with more than a week or ten days.

His best man helped him to work it out over a bottle.

“I do not propose—” said Belacqua, when the average of their independent estimates had been augmented by ten pounds for overhead expenses.

“Overhead!” cackled the best man. “Very good!”

Belacqua shrank in a most terrifying manner.

“Either I misunderstand you” he said “or you forget yourself.”

“Beg pardon” said the best man, “beg pardon, beg pardon. No offence.”

Belacqua came back into the picture at his own convenience.

“I do not propose” he resumed “to affront you with a gift on this delicate occasion.”

The best man bridled and squirmed at the mere suggestion.

“But” Belacqua made haste to extenuate this refinement of feeling “if you would care to have the original manuscript of my
Hypothalamion
, corrected, autographed, dated, inscribed and half-bound in time-coloured skivers, you are more than welcome.”

Capper Quin, for so we must call him, known to his admirers as Hairy, he was so glabrous, and to the ladies as Tiny, he was so enormous, was not merely a bachelor, and thus qualified to attend Belacqua without violence to etiquette, but also one of the coming writers, which accounts for his alacrity to hold the hat of a member of the Cuttings Association. He now choked with gratification.

“Oh” he gasped “really I … really you …” and broke down. To construct a sentence with subject, predicate and object Hairy required a pencil and a sheet of paper.

“Capper” said Belacqua, “say no more. I'll have it made up for you.”

When Hairy had quite done panting his pleasure he held up his hand.

“Well” said Belacqua.

“Thyme-coloured” said Hairy, and broke down.

“Well” said Belacqua.

“Sage-green” said Hairy. “Am I right?”

In the dead silence that followed this suggestion Hairy received the impression that his patron's spirit had left its prison, on ticket of leave at all events, and was already casting about for something light and hey nonny that would serve to cover his own departure when Belacqua made answer, in a voice blistered with emotion:

and bust into tears.

Hairy rose and trode with penetrating softness to the door. Tact, he thought, tact, tact, the need for tact at a time like this.

“Study our duties” sobbed Belacqua “and call me not later than twelve.”

The bboggses were gathered together in conclave.

“Thelma” said Una with asperity “let us kindly have your attention.”

For Thelma's thoughts, truant to the complicated manoeuvres required of a snow-white bride, had flown on the usual wings to Galway, Gate of Connaught and dream of stone, and more precisely to the Church of Saint Nicolas whither Belacqua projected, if it were not closed when they arrived, to repair without delay and kneel, with her on his right hand at last for a pleasant change, and invoke, in pursuance of a vow of long standing, the spirits of Crusoe and Columbus, who had knelt there before him. Then no doubt, as they returned by the harbour to integrate their room in the Great Southern, she would see the sun sink in the sea. How was it possible to give them her attention with such a prospect opening up before her? Oh well is thee, and happy shalt thou be.

Otto Olaf sang a little song. Mrs bboggs just sat, a big blank beldam, scarcely alive. Una struck the table sharply with a big pencil. When some measure of order had been restored, some little show of attention, she said, consulting her list:

“We have only five maids: the Clegg twins and the Purefoy triplets.”

This statement was not disputed. It seemed to Otto Olaf that five was a very respectable haul. It would have been considered so in his day.

“But we need nine” cried Una.

By good fortune a thought now presented itself to Mrs bboggs.

“My dear” she said, “would not seven be ample?”

For two pins Una would have walked out of the conference.

“I think not” she said.

The idea! As though it were the wind-up of the football season.

“However” she added “it is not my wedding.”

The ironical tone conveyed to this concession provoked Thelma to side with her mother for once. At no time indeed was this an easy matter, Mrs bboggs being almost as non-partisan as Pope Celestine the fifth. Dante would probably have disliked her on this account.