J. Donleavy: Wrong Information is Being Given Out at Princeton

“Wake up you sleepy Irish bastard and fuck me.”

Strangely pleasant in the dawn to look out the window on a forested countryside and to have breakfast in bed. Then to perform ablutions on the warm tiles of the bathroom and following another fiercely fought fuck, to go taking in great lungfuls of the fresh clean country air as we then on this blue-skied sunny day walked out on the grounds and over grassy vistas. Sylvia twirling and executing balletic moves through the formal gardens of boxwood hedges. Then we went along a narrow trail into the woods, Sylvia’s mood seeming more solemn as she headed us along a disused path through thick foliage and saying that the snakes were safely hibernating. Under towering trees in a clearing, we came upon the back of a small lodge with a pitched roof of cedar tiles. Going around to the front, a veranda with two shuttered windows. Steps up to a porch approached by a straight, long pebbled avenue flanked by a strip of lawn and bordered by the woods. Sylvia taking an ornate golden key from a gold chain around her neck.

“Well, if you’ve ever wondered what this key is for, it’s for here, the Doll’s House and this door I’m about to open.”

A music box sound of tinkling “The Bells of Saint Mary’s.” A gaily carpeted room across which the woven shapes of dolphins cavorted as if alive, swimming in a sea. Seated on shelves, teddy bears and dolls balefully looking out. A desk. A pink tutu and pairs of ballet slippers. Photographs of ballerinas. A little library of books. A large stone fireplace. A variety of straw and felt hats hung adorning a wall. Berets and boaters, sombreros and sunbonnets. Framed children’s drawings and pictures. In a corner an enormous Georgian doll’s house, full of a perfection of miniature furnishings. Right down to a dining room table set for dinner with the tiniest candles in silver candelabra. I felt something woefully sad as I listened to the litany of Sylvia’s descriptions.

“This was always my cherished safe and secret place of refuge.

“This is where, while my parental usurpers were away, which was mostly always, I nearly spent my life as a little girl. My favorite haven in the whole world. Cool in the summer. Heated in the winter. At this little table I had tea with my governess in front of a fire at four. She taught me to play chess and honeymoon bridge. And, if I were alone, to sing, and I’d never feel lonely. On the record player we’d have Beethoven’s Adagio from his Piano Concerto Number Two. And if you ever wondered sometimes why I’m able to tolerate you when you’re intolerable, my governess was Irish. Guess she was designed to stop me becoming too much of an American. I still come here to be alone with myself. In there, that was my little kitchen where I could cook and bake cakes. See my little real dishes. All these pots and pans. And in here. My very own little bathroom. Tub, basin, and shower. And in this bedroom my governess could sleep. I loved it here. And if you’ve also wondered how I ever got so musically sophisticated. Here’s my collection of records. Beethoven, Bach, Mussorgsky, Handel, Bizet. My big radio could reach all the way to Europe. My skis are there. My snowshoes. And in here my bedroom, where, when I didn’t have a governess anymore, I was allowed to stay with that little girlfriend you see me holding hands with in that photograph. The two of us, when we were older, would go up those stairs to a little attic loft lookout window from which we could watch what the deer, possums, squirrels, and chipmunks were doing out in the woods. An enormous owl lived not far away in a tree. And sometimes on the hot summer nights you’d hear the big black snakes slithering over the leaves.”

Tears in her eyes as the Doll’s House door closed and was locked behind us. As we stepped back down the steps and walked away on the front-approaching drive, Sylvia’s eyes cast down, looking at the ground. And her little friend with whom she played as she grew up had mysteriously disappeared hiking across the arctic wastes of Alaska. Only later did I learn that the longing she felt for the world of all her small treasures of childhood, among which she had lived in this cozily lavish little hideout, was while she didn’t yet know that she was adopted and someone else’s child.

“Thank you Sylvia, for showing me.”

“Well thank you for the way you really looked and responded to everything. I’m beginning to think you’re really a softhearted and kind person. But God, look at the time. It’s time to meet the folks. Parker will have a writhing fit if we’re late for tea. He’s always harping on about the vulgar lack of manners and punctuality he suffers in America. Later I’ll show you the pool and tennis courts.”

In the drawing room, called the Pavilion Room, Parker had laid out cucumber sandwiches, scones, clotted cream, and imported black cherry jam to be scoffed back with a choice of India or China tea. Leaving the innocent with a plethora of urgent decisions. And what gave me a further few moments of contemplation, if not panic, was Sylvia’s slenderly tall and otherwise elegantly good-looking adoptive mother, Drusilla, her hair marvelously coifed back from a stunning profile, and who had a tic in her left eye which I could not have known, unless told, made her unpredictably wink. And stupid dunce that I was, made me once wink back. And bleep bleep, instantly returned were her two winks. I could feel the blushing blood go all the way out to the edges of my ears. Then the father turned up. I stood up to shake hands. The son of a bitch seemed to try to break my fingers. Perhaps not surprising, as I was crouched over like a cripple in a hopeless effort to disguise, despite all its recent use, a god-awful erection.

To escape my dire embarrassment and my tumescence adjusted as best I could painfully down my thigh, I took up her father’s invitation to go have a look at the horses. About at least thirty Arabians in a palace of a stable. Even the sawdust was spread like a palatial carpet, and the boxes were like luxury hotel rooms. I said wow, gee and gosh, to get me through the viewing. And pretended to know the difference as to what is meant by a fetlock or a pastern. I must have succeeded, for before we left, he asked to go have a drink with him at his club. My God. An emolument perchance, as I’d already been dropping hints to Sylvia. Or at least the opportunity to explore if one could be in the offering. I was finding that the difference with me, and anybody else in America in the circles in which I presently moved, was that I thought the world should be and maybe could be, a better place than it was. But all these people, having a mountain of money, seemed to like things just as they were. And above all to keep them that way. Nevertheless, I would adhere to my principles. That if composing music achieved such a purpose of bringing a little happiness to mankind, the composer’s goal was achieved and he should be applauded and aided without being subjected to snide remarks, such as could come unpredictably out of Sylvia, that while helpful could also be amusing.

“Hey, Chopin, here, take this. It will get you back and forth to Carnegie Hall and buy you a couple of beers and pretzels.”

I had an important meeting with a prominent conductor at Carnegie Hall and to take an odd taxi these days and have leftover spending money, Sylvia slipped me a twenty-dollar bill always got crisply new from a nice bank that looked like a country mansion on Madison Avenue. I objected to being called Chopin but found if I made an issue of it, it would mean taking the subway. Anyway, the son of a bitch prominent conductor who wore too much jewelry and pointy-toed shoes didn’t show up and I ended up having plenty of beers and tons of pretzels in the nearest bar. Indiscreetly of course, one took up a conversation with a nearby girl, who repeated that usual observation.