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

‘And you clearly are a very rich young man. While I haven’t had a holiday by the seaside for years. I can’t afford it. Nor can I afford tubes of paint.’

‘Here please, take this Lois.’

‘What. Take money from you. How dare you attempt to bribe me. I have no intention to compromise myself or my art.’

‘Bloody hell, I’m not bribing or compromising you. I’m just trying to shut you up a moment in your complaining. And you can buy your tubes of paint.’

‘In that case, I shall shut up and take it. But insist I give you an etching. It may not be signed of course. And dear boy even though you have become quite rude, it is quite nice to see you. Come closer. I shall stick my tongue deeply in your ear.’

‘Thank you. I am as a matter of fact more than rather mildly randy.’

‘You poor dear lecherous boy. You may come home with me. But you do realise I can’t promise you anything. In fact you may have to masturbate. Since this is my celibate period. One must be celibate to exact from one’s inner spirit the full use of the self in the creation of one’s work. Without the emotional havoc pricks inside one can cause. It is a contradiction in terms but my celibate period is my most fertile. I’m sure any number of our dear friends here will gladly accommodate you.’

‘O god. I am not a homosexual.’

‘Why o god. So despairingly. Most of my nicest friends are homosexual.’

‘I’d rather go home with you.’

‘That’s nice to know. But as I’ve just told you, there’s to be no hanky panky.’

‘You have you know considerably steamed me up by your tongue.’

‘Well I appreciate your telling me. I should hate to bring you back to my studio and have you then attempt to rape me.’

‘Why are you then arousing me kissing me like this.’

‘I shall immediately stop then.’

‘Please don’t.’

‘Well I shall. You see. You are so utterly indifferent to the requirements of my life. I am not saying I am not quite glad you have given me five pounds. Please don’t misunderstand me. But it is so simple for you to find another outlet for the erection I may have given you. And if you remember I haven’t completed your portrait yet. It’s there in my studio gathering dust. Of course if you can manage another payment on account, I shall prepare another sitting for you and get a bag of coal for my stove.’

More arrivals up the stairs. Gas meter readers. Stars of stage and radio. Deafening noise of voices. All the louder now that Lois’s tongue is no longer plunging deep in one’s ear. At least it did shut up her complaining. My god, what a mob. The floor is quaking with the weight. Whole damn building could fall Georgian faced flat down into the street. The poet smirking across there in the corner. And goodness. How sad. Clara the poetess. With about four macintoshed, battered trilby hatted, criminal looking, doting men in tow. Poor Mr Arland. It was at such a party as this he first met Clarissa. She laughed at his jokes. Now not another inch to stand in this room. Smoke smarting one’s eyes as the grinning face of Rashers comes near. And Lois with a haughty sneer and snake like lick around her lips, turning away. As one recalls Rashers’s remark about her paintings. The insane ravings of an alley cat in heat. Now of course they’ll be the wild deliriums of one in celibacy.

‘My dear Darcy. Please. Just allow me to contemplate you a moment. Just to see you is like music reigning in the bright key of E major. Come spring. Come Ascot. Tea at the Paddock Bar. Gentle goosings up the best arses in the Royal Enclosure. But meanwhile of course, you will, won’t you, join me in my pilgrimage. Back to the sacred evil confines of the catacombs. From whence I have finally escaped. The stench. The gurriers. I hid my best cufflinks in the wall. And must retrieve them. Well dear Darcy, I see Lois has your trousers sticking out. Most women pretend they’re mad. And I think perhaps the only charming thing about Lois, is that she really is mad.’

‘I just heard what you said, you awful man. And you’re not, Darcy Kildare, leaving me for that dreadful fortune hunting philistine person are you. Well go then and don’t you ever speak to me again.’

One did think sadly as one departed with Rashers that a piece of arse in the hand in the Count’s dancing institution might be worth two in the rumoured underground tunnels of where one was going. However, hardly a moment to dwell on such problems as other matters were quickly afoot. Just as one was coming down the last flight of stairs of the MacBuzuranti School of Ballet. An almighty sound of a crash. Screams coming up from the front hallway. Where the poet had just landed showered in plaster and rotted lumps of wood, prick in his hands and peeing right upon the hysterical legs of two of the Count’s refined female ballet patrons who must have been loitering too shy to advance up the stairs into the thick of things.

‘How dare you do that upon us.’

The poet continuing to indiscriminately piss on them. Puffing on a cigarette still hanging out of his mouth with a look of only slight amazement on his face. Having just two floors above in a water closet, his pockets weighted down, suddenly gone straight through the lavish and constantly pissed upon purple thick carpet covering the totally disguised rotted floor and the force of his descent taking him through the next rotted floor to deposit him where the ballet patrons stood now brushing themselves off as they looked up at the hole the poet had just come through and underneath which he was now trying to hold his water and get his penis back in his fly as the ladies were, with their patent leather handbags, taking swipes at his face. Rashers shouting from the front door.

‘That’s it, dear ladies. Smite him. He is a well known disgusting pervert.’

The jarvey leaping down to open the horse cab door. Tipping his cap as he slammed it shut. Rashers taking a flask from his coat pocket. Filling the cap with brandy.

‘Let justice triumph. Of course your man’s only a minor poet. Clearly Darcy the entire building is suspect. At least in the catacombs my dear fellow, if one goes downwards, it’s only on the way to hell.’

Hoofs clip clopping through the empty Dublin streets. Shiny and wet under the glowing pale light of the gas lamps. The mist and fog along St Stephen’s Green. Bells over the city tolling midnight. We go, mid the shadows passing. By the gloomy great old skulls of these houses. The musky dampness inside this unhandsome cab. Ancient broken leather cushions covered in old rugs and remnants of an overcoat. Awful reek of stale cat smells. Rashers, eyes burning like coals in his head. As he lowers his flask, his teeth smiling out his lips. Hands planted upon each of his stripe trousered knees. Cuffs of his coat sleeves drawn back. Veins standing out on his wrists.

‘Let us Darcy bash on regardless. To the catacombs. The cellars of nae hope. Although the class of people shall not be much improved, they do at least make abject attempts at being odiously revolting which one takes as cautionary as to whom and what one should avoid in life. Darcy we must remain friends. You see before you a man who for a brief but devastating period of his youth was thrust into an institution run by the Irish Christian Brothers. Unchristian would be a better word. In a trice those sadists turned me from a pure stainless spirit into an instant and unhappy reluctant masochist and liar. Slamming rulers down on my pathetic upraised innocent palms. Ridiculing me. Elegant as I was with my nice clothes and brave little British accent. Beating the poor pathetic bejesus out of me. Heroic sanctity one needed in abundance to sustain against their poisoned souls and brutally evil ways. Of course before it was too late, one did escape back to the civilized safety, albeit highly homosexual, world of an English public school. But those brief months of my tender youth in Dublin left their scars. I know I have been upon occasion a very bad boy since. But all done in pursuit of what I desperately require in life. Merely a modest simple detached house with a wee bit of lawn front and back. Perhaps a little garden too. Is that too much to ask for. With a non leaking jade or even pewter pot to piss in. Some decent bloodstock at a nearby training establishment to which I might venture after breakfast to watch them being ridden out of a morning. And my dearly beloved near. You see, I should not want to straight off reside on her very adequate acres until I have some of my very own wherewithal. Although she’s getting on, the dear girl does have a passably resilient pair of decent bosoms. Legs like a refectory table. And nipples not awfully attractive but then, I do find there are variations one can indulge upon them which are adequately exciting in pitch blackness. But Darcy, in what I say to you now, you must dear man believe me. There are many shameful deeds one has done. And I ask please pray accept my contrition. Pray accept. Will you.’