J. Donleavy - Leila - Further in the Life and Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman

‘You do don’t you, Ronald, seem to know so many wild and unruly characters, quite putting off to normal people. Doing such appalling things. What do you suppose, apropos of common decency, makes them behave like that.’

‘Ah my dear ladies because they are, in a word, simply dreadfully disgusting. Illbred by moonlight or any light. Castigators of the good. Worshippers of evil. But you see that’s the trouble with racing circles these days, embracing as they do rather too broad a class of jockeys, punters and owners.’

One sensed the moment to be gone. And one’s heart instantly beginning to pound walking down the parkland. Soft mist of rain from clouds tumbling out of the west. One’s silent voice already growing tight in one’s throat. Hidden by the deep grass, the little stream growing deeper and wider from other streams as it flows down through this valley of tall trees. Breath blows white in the air. Along this long unused path. Boots breaking through the thick crust of frost. No sign of her feet. That one so hopes have preceded me. In bed with another, and dreaming it were her flesh I held. Her swelling smaller quarters I pressed against. Her slenderer throat I kissed. Her spine I felt. That she alone was the true lady of my dreams. Servant though she is. And if only she were an aristocrat like Miss von B, she could, with the merest of schooling, then so naturally fit into one’s life. She does at least already have acceptable Christian names. Not that caste or status really matters. Even though it really desperately does. Due prominent ranking in the parish calls for disporting oneself with the dignity befitting the wife of a large landowner. As well as when up in Dublin, to keep up proper appearances as one enters say, up the steps and past the carved little monkeys on the sills of the Kildare Street Club. Of course such as my grandfather a life long member, never even entered the Club, not wanting to appear gauche and unknowledgeable, having to ask of the location of the latrine. And if one were passing through the lobbies of the Shelbourne or Hibernian, one would want to very much appear to be at home. Or having returned from a day’s racing, to suitably arrive descending the stair into the piquancies of sauces wafting about the main dining room of Jammet’s its hearth blazing. People knowing at the merest flick of a glance at the back or front of you, exactly who you are. Where you have come from and where you continue to go. Which are only to the most acceptable places. Even though one is not titled I am at least a minor major among the landed Irish gentry. Of course one might occasionally go to unacceptable places after dark. Although certainly for the sake of having a title, I should damn well not like to end up like the Marquis’ father, the Duke. And having in Dublin to summon large fish from McCabe’s the fishmonger in Chatham Street. Which anyway is closed in the dead of night. And then disagreeably and awfully smelly, have to belt the insolence out of a difficult lady. Swish, splat, smack. But then when one thinks of it a bit, why not. If such fishy corrective measures are deserved. It also could be such jolly peculiar excitement. The Marquis did say that the benefit of occasional chastisement served upon oneself was equally well served upon ladies. He had personally found that one should, while suffering what one thinks are the temporary blows of some women, attempt to rest comfortably, husbanding one’s reserves of fortitude, for that same woman is usually planning, later on, something even far far worse. Dear me, he does paint an unpretty picture of scheming ladies who hold sway out in the stylish world. Ah but I shall upon my arrival in London avoid such femmes fatales. Or further afield. As my dear Mr Arland advised me go. To hear the great organs in the great churches. Of Chartres and St Sulpice. When you are of age Kildare you must go to Vienna for opera. Moscow for ballet. And Sexton is quite right. One should sample the very latest philosophies being propounded in the cafés of the continental capital cities. Of course Mr Arland knew of whence he spoke but Sexton has never been to one of these places. Yet with both feet firmly in his potting shed he still unhesitatingly raves on about them as if he were there just yesterday. Master Darcy, ah by god you’ll have about your ears such incredible intellectual delights. Sure the Prado will knock you sideways. And if I do ever reach such foreign parts I know the first damn thing such as Miss von B will say to me, is that I am trying to shake from one’s heels the mud of the bog. Dear me, just murmuring Moscow, London, Vienna, Paris, Budapest. One feels a clutching thrill. Of course Miss von B made much of being a young lady in Vienna. Wearing her tiara and gown on the grand staircase of the Opera House, and betrothed to the grandest Count in the land. Waltzing her nights away under the chandeliers of only the very best palaces and castles from Linz to Klagenfurt. Of course I will ably demonstrate soon my own ball in my own ballroom to make her previous grand evenings look like the awfully trumped up occasions they probably really were. Heavens. A nasty pigeon has just deposited on me. A most stupendous long white load straight down my lapel and even, bloody hell on to my knee. Shows you, in the moments when one is tempted to be at one’s most eminent one is then most likely to be promptly besmirched. Of course, such shit does remind one that these foreign capitals are possessed of their debaucheries too. As are often required to sate one’s pent up desires. Leaving one able to return with an equanimity of spirit, to Andromeda Park and not be feverishly desperate to put it up one’s present or former domestic personnel. Ouch. What’s this. A damn snare. Hidden in the middle of the footpath. God, one would so like for some prolonged moments not to suffer yet another bloody damn nuisance. While one has already enough with the seedlings of staff plots, hangings, seditions, and the scheming craftiness of neighbouring farmers encroaching fences, plus the ruddy wiles of guests, and mad stallions. Not to mention now grand theft.

Darcy Dancer casting the snare away and striding near the deep channel of the brook. Now in spate from all the melting snows. Its racing current babbling beneath the thickets of fern in the darkness of the pine trees and the bare cold bark of great old elms soaring out into the sky. The stream slowed now from its winding way all through the wood, widening as it flowed into the lake. The little old wooden bridge which crossed it, now with its piers collapsed. Must take a jump.

Darcy Dancer stepping back into the ferns and running, leaping from the bank. One foot reaching the other side and one not. And sinking into the mud. Right over the top of my boot. And water damn it. Filling it up like a drain. As I grab plunging both fists and cuffs deep into the tufts of turf to pull myself out.

Darcy Dancer balancing on one foot, yanking off his boot. Spilling out the water. Wiping the mud from wrists. Straighten one’s cap. Now just as it begins to pour rain. How appropriate, dreaming of my grand ball, that one has all the worst appearances of a drowned rat. Ah. The sound of the whirl and whirr of wings out over the lake. Two swans. Gleaming white against a dark sky. At least that is an uncontaminated splendour. Gliding down, ploughing up their silvery paths across the blackness of the lake. O god. The great old oak tree uprooted. And crashed to the ground. Mouldering in decay. Up in those massive branches. Once was our tree house. Built for my sisters. And where they said I should, blindfolded, merely pretend to walk the plank out over the lake and merely pretend to plunge to my doom. But then they suddenly pushed me from behind and as I held on struggling screaming as they were trying to bloody well throw me down into the water, I got my teeth sunk deep into Lavinia’s arm. And I’m happy to say, in place of the chunk I nearly took out of it, there still remains to this day the little indentations of my fangs, pearly white scars like a bracelet on her skin. Badgers walk here at night. Rolling forward sniffing on their stumpy legs. All through these ancient trees. Owls hoot. Grab up the mice and rats. Hawks descend. Tear open the backs of pigeons. A bird house, put there by one of the men, was nestled up in the fork of that tree. So strange that little wooden house had been the most important thing in the world. Lying abed on stormy nights thinking I was a bird with a safe place to be. And will she be. There waiting. O god now even heavier rain beginning to fall. Run for it. Cold drops stinging my face. And she hasn’t come. Couldn’t have got here anyway. And will never be there. The soft satiny cheeks of her face. I so want to take between my hands and kiss. And kiss. Not that I bloody well am becoming suddenly religious. But Lord why doth thou so confound to send into my life such beauty. And yet keep it so untouchably far away.