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

Taking the train, this empty lonely Dublin day of Sunday. Staring out the stained streaked window, westwards. With the sweet smell of turf puffed whitely by the engine out into a purple darkening sky of Ireland.

The snow deeper across the white frozen countryside. Streams and the canal iced over. Cattle standing dumb and still. A line of black figures on foot following a horse drawn hearse waiting at a barrier to cross the railway track. Ivy clad trees passing like multi armed dark green monsters. Fluffs of snow blown off the shiny green leaves in the carriage’s thundering windy wake. A farmer tossing forkfuls ofhay from a cart to his hungry shivering bullocks.

Nearing the big midland town. Horizon glowing pink, the winter afternoon grown dark. Faint lights in the houses after the gnawing painful solitary stretches of empty fields and bereft boglands. Compartment doors opening. The bangs as they slam shut. Flurries of snow blowing along the cold concrete of the station platform. A large ring and key handed to the driver. A shout. And off again. Rumbling along the lake’s sparkling blackness and by the gentle whitened moonlit hills. Till the train wheels squeak and screech again against their brakes. Heft down my two bags from the luggage rack. Say goodbye to the pictures of watering places in the county of Kerry. Unhook the leather strap and drop the window. Push open the door. And alight at last on this familiar station.

A priest, two nuns and a farmer with a box of pullets huddled out of the wind, emerging from the little waiting room, to board the train further west. The station master stopping to stare as if he were seeing some interloping stranger until recognition suddenly overcame his face.

‘Ah it’s yourself sir, Reginald Darcy Thormond Dancer Kildare. I didn’t recognize you from the size of you.’

Approaching in a battered dark trilby hat, the brim pulled down fore and aft, and a long black coat tied closed with a piece of twine. Sexton. Straw and cow dung frozen on his boots. The station light flashing across his face. A tear in his only eye and moisture seeping down from his eyepatch.

‘At long last welcome home Master Darcy. And apologies for me appearance. I was out foddering the cattle when Crooks jumped at me with the message you were coming.’

On the apron outside the station a cart collecting packages and mail off the train. Station master calling all aboard out of the darkness. A silent world so far away from the lights of a city. Sexton throwing up the bags behind the box seat of the victoria. And helping me by the elbow to sit up on the rugs.

‘This weather with the snow and the wind biting the very skin off the face, would make you think you were living in Zhigansk Siberia.’

Sexton’s big horny hand so delicately guiding the reins, to the gende beat of Petunia’s hoofs muffled on the roadway. An automobile passing skidding and sliding along. Its lights blinking out and then on, and fading out again. Petunia shying and Sexton giving her a belt across the quarters. The sputtering choking automobile suddenly silenced behind us.

‘Any fool out in horseless carriage a night like this deserves a ditch in the darkness. Ah Master Darcy, the moral tone of the nation of this moment is very sadly low. There should be a requiem for the national anthem. And I see you’re without a nosegay. Well out of the conservatory I’ll have a selection laid out for you in the morning. That’ll knock your eye out. You’d be a foot taller. And it’s a grand bit of smartly cut thorn proof tweed you’re wearing.’

‘Kind of you to say, Sexton.’

‘And I’d also say now Master Darcy you’ve had an adventure or two. You’d learn lessons a litde differendy in the city than you would in the country. And I heard tell you became the owner of a great motor car up in Dublin that would give goose pimples of envy to them teetering on the very highest pinnacles of the aristocracy.’

The cold moonshine casting black black shadows across the countryside. The straight road up and down these little hills and over the stone bridge of the canal. Another familiar mile. Another stone bridge over the river. Ivy clutched on the broken walls. Cottages, thatches white, faint yellow light in the windows. Through their turf smoke, the air sudden sweet. Ahead on the left, from this hill. That vast dark expanse of trees. Andromeda Park. In the magic silence. Strange drums thumping. Who doth it be. Awake. What stranger. Takes me by that grabbing hand. A music weeping. To lead me back. Under the purple bright stars. To those long lain now, faded in the grin of death. And to those still alive in the pain of living.

Who ride

Out of their troubles

On a good horse

Beyond the snow capped walls, the moonlit towering shadows of the chestnut, oak and elm trees. Turning through the front gates, the lodge’s broken door and windows, a sapling growing through the roof. Petunia shying, nearly overturning the carriage. A shadow at the side of the drive suddenly bolting behind the rhododendrons, swinging two rabbits by the ears.

‘Ah by god, look at that now, no longer content are they to skulk around stealing and crawling out through a hole in the wall, they have the nerve now to try to come in and out the front gates. A blast of shot across the backside is what he’ll get next.’

The victoria’s wheels crunching the gravel where the thick pine woods sheltered the drive from snow. Petunia’s hoofs resounding, puffing like a train up the incline to the last turn between the plantation of rhododendrons. The looming great black silhouette on the landscape. Shutters closed on the windows. White curls of smoke from chimneys caught in the moonlight. Kern and Olav rushing out barking from around the house. Bigger, greyer, shaggier monsters. Their unbridled delight hooting yelping and howling. Jumping to put their massive snowy paws up on my shoulders.

‘Only pups when you left, they’ll be glad to see you now, Master Darcy.’

Footsteps frozen on the snowy granite steps of the porch. Sexton reaching to turn the latch. The door already sweeping open. In the candle lit hall, Crooks. More aged and considerably more cross eyed and infirm. His unentitled old Etonian tie flagrantly hanging down his rather soiled detached shirt front, which breaking out from his lapels displayed beneath, a rugby jersey sporting his equally unentitled colours of Trinity College.

‘Good evening and welcome home Master Reginald, trust you had a pleasurable journey.’

Reginald Darcy Thormond Dancer Kildare, crossing the hall. A fire blazing in the hall grate. A tiny glow against the chill clammy damp. Crooks taking his hat and coat in hand. Heels clicking on the black and white tiles. Darcy Dancer’s long hair pouring over his shirt collar. A yellow silk handkerchief stuck in the greeny brown tweed pocket of his jacket. Stopping by the staircase hall under two mournful portraits of my mother’s father’s two wives. A whiff of whisky from Crooks’ breath. Stains thicker on his coat. Larger swatches of grey in his hair, his cheeks hollower and his neck thinner. And here, all of them stand. Except Edna Annie. Perhaps finally indisposed by her ancient age. The familiar and fatter faces of Kitty and Norah. Catherine the cook, her hair coffied in a mountain of grey, brushing her hand down her apron to shake mine. The others curtseying as I nodded to each. Crooks, displaying his best butlering, his ecclesiastical voice echoing.

‘Edna Annie sends her best Master Reginald.’

‘Is she alright.’

‘Ah her fragile but willing bones are still washing and ironing. And this is Mollie. And this is Leila.’