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

Leaden skies above this morn. Flurries of snow swirling across the grey of the granite. A nosegay of heathers in one’s overcoat buttonhole. Above the trees of the distant wood a flock of crows circling. Waiting here on the front steps of Andromeda Park. The clatter of hoofs from the stable yard. Up the road, Sexton driving the victoria. Wheeling it to stop precisely in front of one. Wield up to his hands my portmanteau. Step down one step and step up.

‘It’s not a bad old morning now, Master Darcy. There’d be a bit of kindness lurking in the air behind the present bitter bit of breeze.’

Overgrown rhododendron leaves down the drive brushing against our faces. Out across the grey fields a momentary distant ray of sun. The only seldom brightness to come in one’s life these many past days. Leila gone one morning. Departed as I still lay asleep. And woke nearly knowing when I heard the distant sound of the train whistle come in my open window on the chill silent air.

‘And how are you Sexton. How is your back keeping.’

‘Ah a mite more than middling you’d say, if you had to say anything. But it would be me soul I’d be more worried about. I was, not long after dawn’s early light, planning to say me Stations of the Cross around the garden.’

‘That’s very commendable, Sexton.’

‘Ah by me prayer be exalting the humble and weak. And putting the Pharisee and the Philistine to flight. But wasn’t that brazen butcher banging with his stick on me door. With a bill tabulating up two years he was collecting, he was.’

‘Awfully impromptu of him that hour Sexton.’

‘He said he wouldn’t want to approach you himself in the big house direct. As you might not understand. Sure he knows quite right that you’d have blown him off the porch with a shotgun. Ah god now, they’ll give you credit in the town Master Darcy. Up to your eyebrows. And you’d think with the slabs of bacon he’d be giving you a little extra, throwing in the offal and the dog bones and the like for nothing but by god when he’s got the bill high enough giving you what he wants to get rid of and what you think is a good luck penny, then by god you’ll get the bill counting up the whole lot of it. Deceit. Fraud. No other name for it.’

The roar of a motor car. Horn beeping past. Petunia shying and Sexton reining her in along the verge. Wheel hitting a stone nearly upturning us. A wave out the window, exhaust smoke pouring out. Foxy Slattery, a smile across his face leaving consternation across Sexton’s.

‘Look at the like of that lout now. Driving a motor car no less.’

‘Foxy Slattery Sexton.’

‘Don’t I know it’s him. And now an even bigger lout than he was then. The country is sine dubio going to the dogs, I’m telling you. They’re kicking in the teeth of the holy Roman Church that’s protected the moral fibre of their souls all these centuries. While at the same time they’re parading their vain-gloriousness as members in good standing of Fatima and the Legion of Decency.’

‘You’re taking a very poor view this morning Sexton. Don’t we as a race and people have something to boast about.’

‘Well as a race we’ve never wasted time rushing anywhere. But no one can beat us at the speed with which we break up your grand piano into your anonymous atoms. Or at destroying your objet d’art into useless smithereens. Or your best architecture burned to the ground.’

‘I may remind you Sexton that soda water was invented in Dublin. And the bubbles are reputed to be of the highest quality.’

‘Well you could say too Master Darcy our lies are of the purest falsehood. Without one redeeming semblance of truth in them. We’re a nation of champions at least in that I can tell you.’

‘We are waxing eloquent in and Irish propaganda this morning Sexton.’

‘Well I caught your blind man Mick McGinty and his swamp trollop wife. Over in our bog stealing turf. You’d think the lesson I taught them when they attacked you when you were a lad would be enough. Sure they were rushing away to beat the band when they see me coming a mile away. But their old horse idling making a contrary fuss. Wouldn’t get on pulling home his cart full of turf. Eager to be out of there. The pair of them. And doesn’t the blind McGinty give the poor horse such a clatter of his fist. I could hear it where I stood. And didn’t the eegit knock the poor horse dead in its tracks. And then didn’t the wife attack him with the spade. Ah it was a great scene of justice. The pair of them running. And leaving of course the poor old horse there dead for us to bury. But now isn’t the pair of them back to me now for the cart. Sure they’re related to another whole slovenly family like themselves, beyond the edge of Thormondstown, brother, mother, sister, old father and sons, and a more treacherous bunch never walked the face of the earth.’

‘You mustn’t get so upset Sexton. We surely won’t miss a cartload of turf.’

‘Sure who’s upset. I put the turf and cart in our barn. Nor am I near yet like Crooks to dancing the Tyburn jig. But it took long enough to get anyone to stack the turf. No shortage on indolence. Sure your mother’s father had signs posted up on the wall down in the servants’ hall that lying down on the job or lying with words is strictly forbidden in this household. And Master Darcy I wouldn’t mind so much either kind of lying. But it’s the guile, cunning and duplicity of them. Sure some master thief among them would have got off with that silverware. If they could grab hold of it, they’d steal the very piece of sky you were standing under. Then tell you while you’re staring at it that the colour of it was bright green. And not sky a’tall. The only time such a thing as the truth is spoken would be when it’s a bit of scurrilous gossip. Then it would be gospel you can be sure of that. Didn’t I catch that one Mollie with the young Slattery out in the hay. And more than once catch him pulling on himself out in the warmth of the greenhouse. Two of them said they were having a smoke of a cigarette. That one will have her belly as big as her tits, popping out a bastard soon I can tell you. Devoted loyalty is all fake and sham these days. Now I’ll tell you the difference Master Darcy between a Protestant and a Catholic. And it’s as much as if one was black and the other was white. One lies. The other tells the truth. One steals. The other is honest. One is dirty. The other is clean. One is treacherous. The other is loyal. And one would have to be a foreigner to think one was charming and the other dull.’

‘And which Sexton, pray, is the Protestant.’

‘Ah now, Master Darcy, that would be telling wouldn’t it.’

‘Ah Sexton, you are indeed telling a good deal this morning.’

Reaching the station up the little incline. Icicles hanging down from its roof gutters. Another flurry of snow. Two farmers huddled in their black coats, one with a pair of bright new shoes. Amid the pigeon droppings. There was no doubt as to the lighthearted attitude towards travellers this morning. Turf smoke smell of the turf fire in the ticket office. The station master saluting, with his ever cheery greeting.

‘Ah up to town now is it Master Reginald Kildare. The metropolis of the east is your destination. Where there’d be them swanks now wouldn’t there, as would have champagne delivered to their doors of a morning instead of milk.’

Dear old Sexton carrying now my portmanteau. Lugging it ahead of me. And clearly taking exception to the station master’s liberty. Which if I do say so myself is a damn good bloody suggestion. But you’d think I was heading off on the grand tour. Not to return for years. A tear in his eye. His massive hand opening my compartment door. And putting up my case. Suspiciously regarding another inmate.