J. Donleavy - The Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman

‘How dare you. I am not a servant.’

‘But you are the housekeeper.’

‘So who are you.’

‘I am the gentry.’

‘I too dear boy am gentry. I am plenty gentry.’

‘You are not.’

‘Well get out. If you are gentry and I am housekeeper. Get out.’

‘Give me the key.’

‘Go find it for yourself.’

‘Where is it.’

‘I have it right here, under the covers. What do you know about gentry. You are all peasants. With everything falling down around your ears. Who teach you these stupid things to think you are so magnifico.’

‘They are not stupid. It is how people like me are brought up to live. I am gentry and you are not.’

‘Shut up. Shut up you stupid boy. I am a Schlesgluckwigsonderstein, a princess before your ancestors could piss properly into the pot. You are nothing but a little peasant pig. Take off your clothes and get into bed. Or else I sock you. You are to be sure, so full of shit.’

You need

How do they say

Das Klistier

The enema

The day dry and fit for fine hunting. Everyone who was anyone among the gentry and peasantry was hacking, walking or staggering to the pub at the crossroads from all over the countryside. With members of the hunt, their mounts plaited beribboned groomed and gleaming.

The early activity at Andromeda Park was feverish. With the clank of spurs and boots down the halls. Shouts around the stable yard for bindings for manes and bandages for tails. Crooks rummaged through my father’s wardrobe and fetched out a pair of cavalry twill breeches and polo boots. And a top hatted Mr Arland looked rather smart up on Petunia, overly fat though she was.

Our little contingent left in the blazing blazing blue of mid morning, preceded by Luke and Foxy’s father and followed by Miss von B, Mr Arland and lastly my exhausted self and Foxy. The latter up on top of the eighteen hands high Thunder and Lightning whose tail was tied with a great scarlet bow. Warning all to stay well out of kicking distance.

Beneath the bright chirp of birds up in the tall pines, making our way along the drive. To where it turned between the thick rhododendrons. And upon my shouted instructions we went through a gate to short cut across the old deer park field. Hooves pounding on the velvet soft pasture to the entrance gates. Where most of the lodge had recently further collapsed with a tree fallen through the roof and now could hardly be seen under this new mountain of beech branches and ivy.

Heading westwards. By a babbling swift flowing brook. Then along a straight road with its little hills. From the top of each, one could survey miles across meadows, bogs and lakes. The yellow and moss green lichen spotting the grey stone walls which went criss crossing the distant green. Tiny puffs of clouds sailing the horizon. A chill in the slight breeze. And joined now by other members of the hunt heading out their gateways or coming down lanes and connecting roads. The sound of horses’ hooves thickening. Past two cows and three grazing goats and the cart of a shawled old lady, a nail stuck in the end of a stick prodding it into the haunches of her donkey. As Miss von B turned back to stare in disapproval. Till finally ahead were the pink walls of the pub on the village crossroads. And the scarlet coated hunt servants armed with their horn handled hunting whips.

Miss von B’s face this morning looked pale. Last night when she finally fell asleep she lay snoring. Her head deep sunk backwards and her long flowing hair across the crisp linen pillow. I lay crouched under the mountain of her blankets. A rather unpleasant stale smelling breath coming from her open mouth. Wondering what I had learned about women. And she cried out something like wo sint do, followed by much other German sounding words. Tossing herself up and over again on her side. As I watched the light of dawn breaking on the tinted blue window panes. Her bottom, two big cool mounds pressed against my knees. And now I see her lean forward over the neck of her horse to fix her stirrup. Her blonde hair all neatly gathered in a hair net under her bowler. Her thighs snug in her white leather breeches parted over her saddle. The whole thing strange that was down there between her legs. If every woman had one. Soft and wet inside. Covered by crinkly curly hairs. Where she pushed my hand and brought it back again each time I pulled it away. And she leaned on her elbow watching me in the shadows undress. I said please don’t look. While I filled her pot with pee. And as I shivered towards the bed she threw back her head and shook her hair. She climbed all over me, her head crushing down with kisses and German words whispering in my ears out of her lips. Furiously pumping on top of me. Telling me later in my long silence to speak. When I couldn’t think of a thing to say. About her brothers and parents killed. And her husband, a blue eyed army lieutenant, crushed under the tracks of a tank. And a second brown eyed husband, a captain disappeared somewhere around Smolensk on the Russian front Her family’s town house flattened by a bomb. And their country Schloss desecrated. Soldiers shooting holes in the eyes of family portraits and trying on their silk underwear and sleeping with their muddy boots on their silk sheets while swilling champagne from the cellars. Rape drunkenness and death. And that she lied to Mr Arland. She had escaped from Poland. With her diamonds up her arse and twat. Through Czechoslovakia. Hiding in Prague deep down in the cellars under the old town square. And in Vienna in another cold basement. To Salzburg. Till she got to Switzerland, to Italy, France and to Spain. And seasick all the way on a ship she finally landed nearly destitute in Dublin. And there, calling herself Miss von B, she established in an attic where she slept, ate and designed and made fashionable ladies’ hats. She met my father surrounded by women in a pub they called the gilded cage. After he had a winning day at the races. Stood buying everyone drinks and quaffing black velvet. Said he needed a hous keeper who could saddle and ride a horse. He peeled off her first three months’ wages and the next day she bequeathed her hat business to the landlord and stood freezing in the gloomy cold station for twelve hours waiting for the train. And when she saw me first she thought I had such startling and stunning eyes.

Locals leaning against the pub wall and standing in little groups huddled whispering under their dark rain stained and weather beaten trilbys. Their collars upturned in the sunshine and taking long sucks on their cigarettes. Girl pumping a pail full of water at the village pump. Her big pink knickers showing on her fat legs as she bent over. The green telephone kiosk to which a person not afeared of speaking over wires, was dispatched from Andromeda Park, to ring westwards to find out when the train was coming. And when with the birds singing I was climbing out of her bed, Miss von B said don’t go, don’t leave me. Her soft blonde skin, a mole on her throat growing little blonde hairs. And her eyes in her face looked as if at any moment she might laugh. But down deep in all the specks and flecks of colour they were eyes full of fear. And I slipped from the covers and stood with one foot tripping over the piss pot on the rug. And she said why did you have to do that. And I said shut up.

The masked singers, the wren men, came and went into the pub with their tambourines and spoons. The dogs barking and wailing in the pub yard when they began to play. And the hounds arrived. Noses in a row sticking out the slats of the cart. From down the road with a clatter of cantering hooves, Baptista Consuelo approached. Accompanied by three top hatted pink coated gentlemen. And as her horse went prancing by. It chose to blast out several farts. Right at our Andromeda Park contingent. Bang, boom, bang, boom. Bringing, I thought, some dispirit across Mr Arland’s face. Haughtiness upon this champion hunting dav was quite prevalent. But I discerned at close range that Baptista had a somewhat stupid looking and quite unnoble little upturned nose. Unlike the firm straight features and nicely curved nostrils of Miss von B. Who was also astonishingly strong and able to hold my arms pinned. As she did while banging down on top of me in some kind of crazed delirium out from under which I tried to get in case she’d suddenly gone nuts like everyone else in the household. But after some prolonged gasps groans and wails she lay quite content for a while before trying it again. And during these between times with my head and ear pressed on the soft soothing flesh of her breast, I felt a lazy cosy comfort as her arm tucked me in.