Flann O’Brien - The Dalkey Archive

– Not exactly. But I have had a long talk with John the Baptist. A most understanding man, do you know, you’d swear he was a Jesuit.

– Good heavens! Mick cried, while Hackett hastily put his glass on the table with a click.

– Ah yes, most understanding. Perfect manners, of course, and a courteous appreciation of my own personal limitations. A very interesting man the same Baptist.

– Where did this happen? Hackett asked.

– Here in Dalkey, De Selby explained. Under the sea.

There was a small but absolute silence.

– While time stood still? Hackett persisted.

– I’ll bring both of you people to the same spot tomorrow. That is, if you wish it and provided you can swim, and for a short distance under water.

– We are both excellent swimmers, Hackett said cheerfully, except I’m by far the better of the pair.

– We’d be delighted, Mick interrupted with a sickly smile, on the understanding that we’ll get safely back.

– There is no danger whatever. Down at the headquarters of the Vico Swimming Club there is a peculiar chamber hidden in the rocks at the water’s edge. At low tide there is cavernous access from the water to this chamber. As the tide rises this hole is blocked and air sealed off in the chamber. The water provides a total seal.

– This could be a chamber of horrors, Hackett suggested.

– I have some masks of my own design, equipped with compressed air, normal air, and having an automatic feed-valve. The masks and tank are quite light, of aluminium.

– I think I grasp the idea, Mick said in a frown of concentration. We go under the water wearing these breathing gadgets, make our way through this rocky opening to the chamber, and there meet John the Baptist?

De Selby chuckled softly.

– Not necessarily and not quite. We get to the empty chamber as you say and I then release a minute quantity of DMP. We are then subsisting in timeless nitrogen but still able to breathe from the tanks on our backs.

– Does our physical weight change? Hackett asked.

– Yes, somewhat.

– And what happens then?

– We shall see what happens after you have met me at this swimming pool at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. Are you going back by the Colza Hotel?

– Certainly.

– Well have a message sent to Teague McGettigan to call for me with his damned cab at 7.30. Those mask affairs are bothersome to horse about with.

Thus the appointment was made. De Selby affable as he led his visitors to his door and said goodbye.

Hackett was frowning a bit and taciturn as the two strolled down the Vico Road towards Dalkey. Mick felt preoccupied, his ideas in some disarray. Some light seemed to have been drained from the sunny evening.

– We don’t often have this sort of diversion, Hackett, he remarked.

– It certainly isn’t every day we’re offered miraculous whiskey, Hackett answered gloomily, and told at the same time we’re under sentence of death. Shouldn’t other people be warned? Our personal squaws, for instance?

– That would be what used to be called spreading despondency and disaffection, Mick warned pompously. What good would it do?

– They could go to confession, couldn’t they?

– So could you. But the people would only laugh at us. So far as you are concerned, they’d say you were drunk.

– That week-old gargle was marvellous stuff, he muttered reflectively after a pause. I feel all right but I’m still not certain that there wasn’t some sort of drug in it. Slow-acting hypnotic stuff, or something worse that goes straight to the brain. We might yet go berserk by the time we reach the Colza. Maybe we’ll be arrested by Sergeant Fottrell.

– Divil a fear of it.

– I certainly wouldn’t like to swear the truth of today in court.

– We have an appointment early tomorrow morning, Mick reminded him. I suggest we say nothing to anybody about today’s business.

– Do you intend to keep tomorrow’s date?

– I certainly do. But I’ll have to use the bike to get here from Booterstown at that hour.

They walked on, silent in thought.

It is not easy to give an account of the Colza Hotel, its owner Mrs Laverty, or its peculiar air. It had been formerly, though not in any recent time, an ordinary public house labelled ‘Constantine Kerr, Licensed Vintner’ and it was said that Mrs Laverty, a widow, had remodelled the bar, erased the obnoxious public house title and called the premises the Colza Hotel.

Why this strange name?

Mrs Laverty was a most religious woman and once had a talk with a neighbour about the red lamp suspended in the church before the high altar. When told it was sustained with colza oil, she piously assumed that this was a holy oil used for miraculous purposes by Saint Colza, VM * , and decided to put her house under this banner.

Here is the layout of the bar in the days when Hackett and Shaughnessy were customers:

The area known as ‘The Slum’ was spacious with soft leather seating by the wall and other seats and small tables about the floor. Nobody took the hotel designation seriously, though Mrs Laverty stoutly held that there were ‘many good beds’ upstairs. A courageous stranger who demanded a meal would be given rashers and eggs in a desultory back kitchen. About the time now dealt with Mrs Laverty had been long saving towards a pilgrimage to Lourdes. Was she deaf? Nobody was sure. The doubt had arisen some years ago when Hackett openly addressed her as Mrs Lavatory, of which she never took any notice. Hard of hearing, perhaps, she may also have thought that Hackett had never been taught to speak properly.

When Hackett and Shaughnessy walked in after the De Selby visit, the ‘Slum’ or habitat of cronies was occupied by Dr Crewett, a very old and wizened and wise medical man who had seen much service in the RAMC but disdained to flaunt a military title. A strange young man was sitting near him and Mrs Laverty was seated behind the bar, knitting.

– Hello to all and thank God to be back in civilization, Hackett called. Mrs L, give me two glass skillets of your patent Irish malt, please.

She smiled perfunctorily in her large homely face and moved to obey. She did not like Hackett much.

– Where were ye? Dr Crewett asked.

– Walking, Mick said.

– You gents have been taking the intoxicating air, he observed. Your complexions do ye great credit.

– It has been a good day, doctor, Mick added civilly.

– We have been inhaling oxygen, theology and astral physics, Hackett said, accepting two glasses from Mrs Laverty.

– Ah, physics? I see, the young stranger said politely. He was slim, black-haired, callow, wore thick glasses and looked about nineteen.

– The Greek word kinesis should not be ignored, Hackett said learnedly but with an air of jeer.

– Hackett, Mick interjected in warning, I think it’s better for us to mind our own business.

– It happens that I’m doing medicine at Trinity, the stranger added. I’m out here looking for digs.

– Why come out to this wilderness, Hackett asked, and have yourself trailing in and out of town every day?

– This is a new friend of ours, Dr Crewett explained. May I introduce Mr Nemo Crabbe?

Nods were exchanged and Hackett raised his glass in salute.

– If you mean take rooms in Trinity, Crabbe replied, no, thanks. They are vile, ramshackle quarters, and a resident student there is expected to empty his own charley.

– In my days in Egypt we hadn’t even got such a thing. But there was limitless sand and wastes of scrub.

– Besides, Crabbe added, I like the sea.

– Well, fair enough, Hackett growled, why not stay right here. This is a hotel.