J. Donleavy - The Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman

‘Even though I like you doing that to me isn’t it filthy and disgusting.’

‘You Irish, your minds are as stupid as your bodies are usually dirty.’

The train now passing by bleak black rooftops and over a trestle bridge in the misty darkness. Lamplights up streets glowing on the shabby red bricked tiny houses. Smoke curling thick from chimneys into the hovering fog. And as the train pulled into the station, the legal gentleman again smiled at me. He also civilly bowed to Mr Arland who bowed back as he was leaving the carriage. The priest however appeared to like one even less now at the end of the journey and took his black case down from the rack with an impatient long sigh.

The great glass roof over us in the terminus. A porter, already shouting his services to the emerging first class passengers, pushed a noisy iron wheeled barrow in front of him and at Mr Arland’s direction took our luggage. Turning continually to speak back to us.

‘This way now gentlemen if you please.’

And Mr Arland absent mindedly turned right down grey granite steps. To then hear the porter calling after us from the top, to say he had a carriage waiting at the other entrance. Where he hefted our luggage up on the brougham’s roof and then made vague mutterings over his tip until Mr Arland gave him an extra shilling.

‘Well there you are Kildare, evidence of the greed overcoming modern society.’

The horsecab driver with his big crimson nose sticking out from under his top hat, folding his whip and climbing up on his perch to sit pulling an old piece of burlap across his legs. Giving his thin nag a feeble belt across the quarters, and off we trotted down this incline, the candle fluttering behind the gleaming glass of our sidelights. Turning right, out through great grey gates to suddenly stop. This morning Kern and Olav loped beside us all the way to the lodge and then just sat, their great hulking shaggy shapes, disconsolate as we disappeared down the road. And this city street aswarm with bicycles. Coming by in a great wave as we waited. And here and there were motor cars. The huge garda finally putting up his white gloved hand to halt them all. And we pulled out, passing this policeman nearly as tall as the roof of our horse carriage and as wide as a full grown bull across the shoulders.

‘Well Kildare, we made it multa gemens. Five hours nearly, to go sixty miles. Translate please.’

‘With many an agony.’

‘With many a groan Kildare, with many a groan.’

A sign at the door of a dirty red bricked building said Coroner’s Court. And next to it written on closed big dark wooden gates, City Morgue. Newsboys on the street corners shouting out Herald and Mail . Their tattered jackets too small and their white naked legs and blue white feet on the wet blocks of granite, phlegm streaming from their noses. The evening herd of cold pinched dark coated figures waiting to cross at the pavement’s edge, their breath making steam from their mouths. The strange purple of the sky. A ship hooting on the river. Great stack of barrels quayside being loaded by a ship’s derrick under lights. And bouncing on the cobbles, clattering huge carts tugged by massive horses. Followed here and there by impatient automobiles. Must be sadness where so many of the lower orders live inside the big broken windows. Behind these mournful unloved walls.

‘Kildare cheer up. It will appear much better to you in the morning, I assure you.’

‘It looks so appalling. Down those streets.’

‘In a moment or two and just over this bridge we shall be in a better part of town. A bath, a little supper in you, will put a completely new complexion on it. Now in that building there, once when the college baths were closed, I cleansed myself as an undergraduate.’

Past pubs, a coal merchant, gentleman’s clothiers and a shop selling yeast. And on the right, a massive edifice with porticoes and pillars blackened by age and bleached by rain. Another garda even as big as the previous one, his nose and face red in the cold mist, directing traffic outside the gates of the college. At which Mr Arland seemed longingly to look. Beyond the railings either side of the entrance path, a statue standing up out of lawns flat velvet and green. And we trotted on behind a tram, clanging its bell, roaring and grinding on its track. Indeed one felt without being jubilant, at least a little more hopeful. And now the tram with its two tiers of dim yellow lighted windows, turning as we head straight. The horses’ hooves slipping on the wet wooden blocks.

‘That Kildare is the Provost’s House and here we are now in the lap of elegance. On your left, Mitchell’s for yummy creamy cakes and tea. Now Brown Thomas’s for the best in silks, cashmeres, lace, linen and I suppose ladies’ knickerbockers. And coming on your right. Bewley’s Oriental emporium of coffee, spice buns, butter balls and jersey milk.’

Turning left at the top of the street. The winter shadowy trees of St Stephen’s Green. Trotting along, a sweet smell of turf smoke pushing down from the roof top chimney pots on the terraced row of tall Georgian houses. Standing cheek by jowl like the giant faces of people who sit with big empty eyes staring. Pulling up in front of a big red brick building. The doorman opening the horsecab, assisting Mr Arland to alight. Two porters attentively collecting down our luggage. Mr Arland plonking two half crowns into the jarvey’s upturned hand. And turning to me as we mounted the step under the hotel’s glass awning.

‘Well Kildare, whatever amenities this city may possess most are, to use that favoured expression of Sexton’s, sine dubio to be found right in here.’

There was welcoming warmth and bustle in the lobby of the hotel and faint smells of ladies’ perfume passing. And with some interest I regarded their legs. And with much interest their bottoms, especially those well delineated by snug tailoring. Mr Arland made reservations for dinner, while a boy much smaller than myself, hair slicked back and parted in the middle, carried my bags as the porter led me with his big key into the cage of the lift and up we went three floors. My room long and narrow. Thick crimson carpet on the floor. I could see out my window across the winter trees of the park and all the way to the far outskirts of the city. And beyond the faint outlines of the rising mountains. And there downward just below on the street, those tinker women to whom Mr Arland gave a coin, squatting on the wet pavement with the patched red and blue skin of their legs showing and babies held in their arms. And their toothless mouths begging.

‘Give us a couple of coppers mister, will you now, and may no burden after ever be too much for you.’

Darcy Dancer holding aside the curtains from the window. The sky clearer, the clouds moving. Patches of blue purple and pink. Down there, a lake and a summer house. And big dark buildings the other side of the large square of Stephen’s Green. Small figures scurrying along the park’s black fence. Without friendly company. In this city. Where my father somewhere is. And where behind walls and under roofs, books and records are kept. Juries sit and cases are heard by big important judges. Mr Arland seemed so pleased when we passed his University. There behind its high wall and railings. I hear a seagull cry. This port where ships come up the river. And away in the world across the water there has been all sorts of war. My feet still chilled and hands cold. And as I always wished at the whim room window, like my mother did when February came. That soon it would go.

And come

Summer

With your

Swallows

Swimming in

The air

Stylishly wrapping a towel at my throat and after peering to see that no one was about to witness my rather tattered dressing gown, I hurried to bathe in the piping hot waters of a monstrous tub down at the end of the hall. The steamy slightly brown water came blazing out of the taps. Lying back in the liquid comfort, my red knob was soon sticking out of the water like a periscope. If Miss von B were here she would lunge with her mouth upon it and I think I might howl with rapture. As I did anyway when I pulled it Feeling warm once more.