J. Donleavy - The Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman

Darcy Dancer bending to cup hands to drink water. And wading through the tall grass to pick a palm full of bramble berries. Tasting unsweet and decayed. But at least one has had breakfast. And again last night I had a dream of being at sea. Where I’ve never been. On a great liner sinking. All of us first class male passengers in our evening clothed finery. Going down in the ocean’s icy waters. Like gentlemen.

A shadow over there. Rusty broken roof of an old hay barn. Next to a high broken brick wall. Beyond the hill through trees, chimneys of a big house. Roof slates gone. Windows broken and walls crumbling. And all around as I stand here, silvery drops of dew hanging off every blade of grass. Miles and miles I’ve gone. And with just a few hours on Molly or Petunia I’d be home. Singing down into Molly’s ears. She always kept in step with a tune. And changed stride to the rhythm of each new song I’d sing. Then go high stepping indeed if I sang It’s a Long Way to Tipperary. Got to be somewhere now. If I haven’t gone totally wrong with the hopeless muddle of road signs. Every one twisted or bent by the locals in the wrong direction. Some instinct tells you which way to go. Even when it means getting your feet all the way up to your knees covered in mud. Forearms soaked through. Tripped and fell over a tree root last night. Landed elbows deep in the turf. To just narrowly miss a nice man size deep puddle of water.

Climb to high ground. White mists hovering in the dells. Where as evening falls and you descend to the low lie of land, you feel the icy chill growing on your face. The sun rising warmer and bright now. The big purple cloud moving west. Grey landscape poking up out of the grass’s greeny green. When the sky opens blue and wide as it does now, it often freezes. A vixen barked last night. Always means frost is coming. And I’ll be dead. With my three pounds ten shillings in my pocket. And only my unexpurgated diary to tell people how shameful I am. And I should write down where I should be buried. Where the Thormonds are.

Sound of a donkey braying. And a beast roaring. Right bloody well behind me. Made me rush onwards. To promptly plummet straight down the steep side of a drainage ditch. After finding in the afternoon that I had for many hours been going in the wrong direction. Shouted out of a field to an old grey haired black shawled woman fetching her water. Gave her a fright. She took one look at me. And pointed. That the town I wanted was that way. I tarried thinking I might ask her for some scalding tea, fat rashers and a half a dozen fried eggs accompanied by a finale of soda bread, butter and damson jam. Then she turned to see me waiting. And made lickety split back to her cottage. Water bouncing out of her pail on her long black garb. Could hear both halves of her door slamming shut and bolts being drawn. I must look an awful sight. And not in the least resembling gentry. More like a common sort, dreg of society, low fellow and vagabond. Blamed for starting the school fire. O dear, one does not want to be treated that way ever again. Flail and strike at them. Defeat them all. One by one. No matter what they try. Boot in their balls. And tell the Viscount Nelson up on his pillar in Dublin that he can get stuffed.

Sun growing red. A thatched cottage three fields away. Smoke out of the chimney. In there all cosy. If I knocked and said all I want is to drink the cream off your morning’s milking and an hour warming beside your fire. And get lead pellets from a shotgun instead. Got to keep moving. Stop shivering. Take another drink. From this stream flowing here. With its dark green water cress. Chew some for further breakfast. Find a poor man’s cow tame enough to stand still. And have a drink of warm milk with another fist full of bramble berries. That would take away this cold pain all down my throat and rumbling in my belly. In the thick fog of yesterday. I went mooing with my hand out towards this grazing cow. Absolutely as friendly as I could be. She looked up with her suspicious big brown eyes. At my every step closer she backed further away. Even when I said in my best bovine accent, look my lady I am not going to harm you. Can’t you see. I merely want like one of your calves a friendly drink out of your udders. Don’t you understand. Mooooooo. Mooooooo. Damn dumb insolent beast went shaking her head at me. And then hooking her hostile horns from side to side. As much as to say don’t you dare touch my teats. Her bag swinging creamily swollen full between her legs. And the big foolish stupid thing continuing to back further and further away, head down and snorting steam out of her nostrils. Now one understood Foxy and how he’d flash out with a kick at the likes of her. Or land an old beast a belt of a heavy thorn stick across the haunch. Sheer starving anger made me chase her. Lunging forward, blocking her this way and that. Her long pink teats wagging running, her hooves digging churning deeply in the turf. Me skidding after her, arms astretch through the whorls of mist and smack bang into the roars of a farmer. Twine around his black coat, his eyes blazing in his red weathered toothless face. Erupting with growls of what are you doing. Go on out of that. And I did. Pronto as they said in the stupid cowboy film one recently saw. And he swung his pitchfork whooshing over my ducking head. And I took a flying leap through a thankfully near gap in the hedge, rending my trouser leg wide open and my skin as well from hip to knee with a barb of wire. Later tripping and tearing my trousers right down through the cuff with this flapping out behind like a flag. As I covered ground in the most indecent hurry for some time. All the while thinking I was the chased fox followed by baying hounds. Which, speak of the devil, or just hounds in general, I do believe I just then thought I heard, somewhere there, over the hill and brightly on to a scent. And indeed. That. The huntsman’s horn. Urging them on. O my god they could come this way and think I’m a lowly sneaky bog fellow or worse riff raff scum. And set upon me. With hunt members threatening me with their whips. Driving me before them. Of course, no silly such thing could ever happen to a Thormond. But dear god, soiled and cold, one does get awfully low in spirits with one’s tired limbs carrying an empty belly.

Crouch running to climb the top of this hill. Across the distant landscape. The galloping scarlet coats blazingly blatant, their red against the green. The blood’s up. Boiling. Find him. If they did and it was me. Torn to ribbons in a thrice. Wouldn’t even be my fly buttons left. All found later as black specks in the dog dung back at the kennels. With maybe a tooth or two of mine glinting out bright white. The screams and the shouts and whooping and yelling round me during the kill. Rip him up. O god I will never again hunt the poor ruddy fox. And again speak of the devil. There the ruddy fellow is, the very canny canine himself, loping casually as you please along beside that copse of ash trees. In a near one of which has just landed a magpie, shaking his black and white plumage. Letting me know the sight of him is bad luck. O no. But o yes. Ah. His mate thank god. Has just arrived alighting on a branch just over his head. And whoops. She lets fall a load of white shit right on the shiny black dome of her husband below. To my double good luck for the first time in days.

The sterns of the hounds wagging white with their heads to ground, descending the side of another hill only a field away. Now got to move. Or they’ll hunt me. Followed on horseback by the mean hardbitten faces, purple jowls jangling. Lips curled in lust. Pounding down upon me. And good lord I may stink of fox. Trying as I did to crawl into one’s hole my first awful night. If they lost the scent and pick up mine. Feet please go faster. Find me somewhere soon a big Protestant tree. To climb up. And don’t leave me aground forever streaking along all these barren Catholic hedgerows.