J. Donleavy - The Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman

‘Yes perhaps they are. Women are cruel. They are much crueller than men.’

‘Are you cruel.’

‘Yes at times I am cruel. But if I am not cruel. Cruel people they are cruel to me.’

‘How old are you.’

‘Ah you ask the personal questions. How old do you think.’

‘You are thirty.’

‘Ha I am not going to tell you how old. How old is Mr Arland.’

‘He is quite old too.’

Miss von B’s eyes seem blue. When always they were colours I could not remember before. She smiles around her lips. And one brow rises. She stares down at me. Like a matador must do at a bullfight. Only I have never seen one. But Miss von B appears to be crossing the arena with her gently shifting hips. And she goes. With her long legs. So slowly. Back to her seat. With her brazen bosoms. To turn. Blazing them at my eyes. And then so carefully. To sit. And raise one thigh and knee over another.

‘Old. My dear boy. What do you mean. I am not old.’

‘Mr Arland is twenty six.’

‘That is young, my little fellow. Surely he is older than that.’

‘Mr Arland is a little balding on the front of his head and that makes him look older than he really is.’

‘He takes this what do you call it.’

‘Snuff.’

‘Ah, der Schnupftabak. His Taschentuch, it is brown from wiping his nose. Sexton says he is in love. With the little beauty on the hunt with the golden hair. That he follows on his bicycle when she is on her horse. And he goes with the banjo to play outside her bedroom window in the rain at night. Sexton says it make the cats and dogs of the village howl while he sings.’

‘Sexton is a shocking liar, sometimes. I don’t really think it is anyone’s business what Mr Arland does.’

‘Ah, you are loyal.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you are so young.’

‘Please stop saying I am young.’

‘But so you are.’

‘You are really trying to say that I do not have knowledge of the world.’

‘Yes perhaps.’

‘I have more sense and intelligence than people twice or three times my age.’

‘Yet you do not know about women.’

The candles flickering low. Miss von B raising her glass to me. Signalling for another brandy. I watched her return the chess pieces to the game box, one by one placing each in its proper place, and with her fingers gently on the veneer, close the leaves and snap the top shut. She rises tireless to adjust a drape or straighten a picture on the wall. And now I smell her faint perfume as I lean towards her to pour. And she asks raising her smiling face up to mine why I didn’t have one as well. And I spilt a little of the spirit in a glass and twirled it round as my father did. During other wintery evenings as he sat alone in the library in front of the fire, long sticks of incense burning on the chimneypiece, a cigar in one outstretched hand, a glass of brandy cupped in the other. As he lay back his head on the chair pillow, his eyes closed, listening to choirs and mournful singing chants on the gramophone. And once with his brandy bottle empty he sent me for another and I woke him as I clonked it on the table marble. His one eye opening and his monocle slipped to rest on his chin. And without moving lips or a muscle, he bid me pour him a dram. I took a considerable time to engineer the contents of the bottle into the glass, and he turned to see me sniffing my nose in the strange aromatics. And then told me to get another glass and pour myself a drink and bid me take a cigar from the humidor and light it up. I stood there sucking in the horrid smoke and feeling the liquid sting my mouth and burn my throat. Holding the distasteful things away. And he said be a man about it, take a good long puff and a good deep drink. I exploded coughing in smoke and spluttered out brandy across the room. My father put his monocle back in his eye and informed me.

‘Well you little bastard, you’re not much good at smoking and drinking either.’

Next morning I came back down again to the library before the shutters had been opened or servants attended the room. And as I made my way across to a window to let in some light I felt brittle broken matters underfoot on the carpet. And saw bottles and glasses smashed in bits. Chips knocked out of the marble where they had hit the chimneypiece. A side table with its ormolu embellishments blasted as Sexton would say to hell. The pages of books ripped out, strewn and torn all over the floor. And taste this brandy now as I had-planned to do again that morning till a strange fear made me leave that musty book lined chamber.

‘I have not had the occasion to know about women.’

‘Ah they are funny ones.’

‘Are you funny Miss von B.’

‘Ha who is to know or who is to care out here in all the rain. But please. Can we not now no longer say Miss von B. Is it not time now that we drop such formality.’

‘If you wish.’

‘I think it would be more camaraderie, for you to call me by my christian name. Yes.’

‘That might set a bad example. Crooks may come along and call you by your christian name.’

‘Ha Crooks. The crook.’

‘He is no such thing.’

‘Ah his room, in there he has a locked door. Behind the locked door is kept the whiskey. His breath all the time it smell of whiskey.’

‘That is the room where our butlers commit suicide and it is always kept locked. But your breath too I have noticed on many an occasion smells of drink.’

‘Ah but of course. I admit I have the little bit of sherry perhaps or I would commit suicide. Or would you want me to freeze to death. Tonight I am warm perhaps for the first time. But now you must call me Gwendolene. Ah you are a little love dove. So sweet. I want to take you up in my arms and be a mother to you.’

‘Don’t you dare. Attempt such a thing.’

‘Ah I frighten the poor little boy.’

‘Madam I do think you are taking liberties with me. Assuming as you do that I am young and innocent and not able to protect myself.’

‘Ah but this madam, she knows something.’

‘What do you know.’

‘Ah that you have spied on me.’

‘Who told you that.’

‘I have no need to be told. I saw you. You went down the hall after the fight of Crooks and Foxy. What is the matter. Have you not got something to say. Of course I understand. It is entirely natural. That you should climb up on the chair and look through the little window. It is merely playful. But of course it is not what a gentleman would do.’

‘I think, if you will excuse me Miss von B, that I shall retire for the evening.’

‘Ah what a pity. Why don’t you wait a moment and I shall sing for you.’

‘There’s the meet tomorrow. And I have promised Mr Arland that he would be fitted out.’

‘Ah Mr Arland is to hunt. We all shall have, how do you say, a merry spin. But I would like to sing for you. Please. Sit down. And listen. Just a moment.’

Miss von B opened her lips and a low humming voice came out. Growing slowly louder. And turning into German words. As the vein on her throat grew big and blue. And I feel that clearly this is the most terribly embarrassing moment of my entire life. Especially when one is fuzzy in the head and so little schooled in music. And hardly knows what a rondo is. Ich liebe dich. I do believe she is singing. Was seen escaping down the hall. Nothing one does in this house is private. With blame whispered up the stairwells and in every nook and cranny. Eyes always watching. Every footstep heard. The window boarded over that Foxy jumped through. The landing dark now both by night and day. And worse haunted by the staring suit of armour. Her ankles crossed. The black shiny leather of her pointed high heeled shoes. With small silver sparkling buckles. In the shape of a butterfly. One does not know quite where to look during this aria. And I feel that somehow any second now Count MacBuzuranti Blandus O’Biottus will, with pink ribbons flying from his wagging extremities, come dancing and skipping through the salon door entirely otherwise unattired in the altogether. With the three of us dancing a quadrille.