J. Donleavy - The Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman

Darcy Dancer standing on the frost hardened mud at the entrance door. Lifting to dislodge it open. Something blocking behind it. A stone. Push harder. Reach in a hand to heave it out of the way. And close it again to keep out the fog and cold. The sweet smelling warmth of the hay.

‘Who’s that. Another step. And I’ll fucking well send this hammer in me hand fucking well through your skull.’

Foxy.’

‘Who’s that.’

‘It’s me.’

‘What are you doing atall.’

‘I’m looking for a place to sleep.’

‘Sure haven’t you got your bed beyond back there in the big house. What gave you the idea to come up here.’

‘I’m leaving. Perhaps forever. I’m now a criminal on the run. With the guards after me. Just like you.’

‘Don’t be daft since when was gentry ever criminals. What’s that on your head.’

‘It’s a bandage. I got a cut.’

‘Ah you’d want to rub a bit of dirt into that, that’s where the cure is, in the handful of sweet soil. But sure are you crazy to be going off. What’s the matter with you. For the likes of you to be sleeping rough. When you were dying there only a few days ago. Sure you only just arrived back from school.’

‘Are you hungry Foxy. I’ve got some food.’

‘Well I can always do with a bite to eat. Although it’s not yet time for me breakfast.’

‘Is this where you’ve been staying.’

‘I am for the time being. While the guards are looking for me. And while my father has been in his bed for a while groaning after I landed him a blow of this hammer.’

‘You’re always doing that Foxy.’

‘And me father and some others like him are always deserving it too. Did you read about me in the newspaper.’

‘Yes.’

‘Ah that’s all a cod. I have the account here in me pocket. They haven’t got any of them facts straight. Don’t listen to any of them lies. Sure wasn’t I having an old dig between the juicy legs of the good Father’s housekeeper’s daughter. That old bag gave birth to her eighteen winters ago and has been saying round the countryside ever since that it’s her niece from Dublin. It was the daughter. Herself one lovely bit o’ lass, who told me where the sherry was.’

‘It said in the newspaper Old Marsala.’

‘Now I don’t know the bloody difference. But it would come every bit as close to making you feel in your head the same as sherry does. She gave me the key to the sacristy. I was invited. Now that old bag says I’ve put her daughter in the family way four months gone. Demanding I take her up the aisle and put a wedding ring on her finger. With the eegit guards thinking I’m guilty of robbing.’

‘But you were in the curate’s robes.’

‘I’m in them this very second, can’t you see up here. And warm as a hand up a cow’s arse they are too. Ah but that’s another cod. The daughter’s doing entirely. Didn’t she say she wanted to see what it was like to get it from a priest. Sure what harm is there in that. To put on an old cassock. And even though I couldn’t get the white collar around me neck to make me look the real part, I was suitable enough for her when I took out me prick. And that had a white collar of skin around it I’m telling you. I fucked her all over the sacristy. Sure she was consuming the sherry as well. Wanted me to do her on the altar. I told her to fucking well go on out of that and get some manners on her, that I wasn’t going to commit sacrilege. And I never broke into any ould church. And I wasn’t doing her where we might leave clues up in front of the tabernacle. I did her at the side altar instead. Where not so much attention is paid. And that eegit. Inquiring what I was doing on the gravestone. I was taking my fucking ease was what I was doing. After a good hump. Couldn’t he fucking well hear me singing. And then the old hag the mother has three of them at the dance hall attacking me for what she says I did to the daughter in the family way. I took a few knocks but I beat and belted and kicked the bejesus out of all three. Put two of them lying in the hospital. And the other in church praying I don’t come after him to belt him again. Bring up now some of that cheese.’

‘It’s warm up here.’

‘Sure it’s as fine as the big house. I’m back and forth there when there’s a need. They think they have me locked out. Come up from under the slab in the pig curing room where I took you. And have nearly everything brought back here except the kitchen stove. Hid in here behind this old bit of straw. Crock from the kitchen, only borrowed mind. To keep the food in or the rats will get at it. Be another month before foddering up here in these fields. And I hear tell plenty about you. Shagging the kraut herself.’

‘You’re not to speak in that fashion of her.’

‘Ah you’re a bit sweet on her. Sure I don’t care. I don’t mean to be disrespectful like. O but god be praised hasn’t she got the greatest body now on her. It’s the rare time when I wouldn’t mind being gentlemen gentry like yourself. That such as the likes of her would give me a tumble. I speak with respect now. But they’re on to you. So I hear in the yard.’

‘Someone snitched on me.’

‘Sure it’s the agent. Don’t you know that. Fancies her, he does. Slathering after her like a lapdog at every meeting of the hunt. And making up to her, rolling his eyes and tipping his hat and begging her pardon from one end of the big house to the other. Sure I’ve seen the crafty piece of work at it. And you wouldn’t blame him for that I’m telling you if you ever clapped eyes on the wife he’s got. With her face like the innards of the gears in the old mowing machine. Sure he cottoned on to it all going on between the two of yez from that stupid eegit Crooks with his big stupid mouth mumbling about the house. And sure I hear tell the agent’s buying your land. Has a mind himself to be the big boss in the big house. Maybe even have her ladyship kept on as the housekeeper. Live like a Protestant. Set up himself and the ugly wife like a king and queen over all these acres. A grand bit of cheese this. What I’m telling you is gospel. Did you ever hear tell of me lie to you. Sure he’s busy taking over the whole place. Selling the trees and buying the ground they stand in.’

‘He will not. No one will. It’s mine.’

‘Well I don’t know a thing about that now, but if it’s yours you’d better soon start minding it. And where now are you going.’

‘I don’t know yet. Maybe Dublin.’

‘Stay out of that place. The gurriers there would carve you up with knives and have you raw for breakfast. Sure you wouldn’t be crazy enough now to step out forever and be gone. Do yourself a permanent mischief. That’s daft. A roof, one of the biggest anywhere, over your head. Them gardens. And anything you want flowing to your mouth with the snap of your fingers or yank of a bell. With the grass growing, the beasts grazing and calves popping out of cows all over the place. You’d be daft and all. And meaning no disrespect now, but haven’t you got a fuck laid on now like hot water in the pipes. You wouldn’t get me out of there with the likes of that kind of living, I’m telling you. Sure your father for a start won’t be around forever. Don’t go abandoning anything that’s a bit of use to your comfort. I’ve learned a bit. Me now, my whole life is discomfort. And I wouldn’t know a bit of differ. But you now, gentry, who has to kow tow to nobody. And here you don’t know where you’re going or what you’re doing.’

‘I could get work on a farm.’

‘What kind of place would give you a job. They’d take one look at your hands and know you weren’t suited. But maybe you could try a stable at one of them big stud farms. You’d know plenty enough about horses. And what I taught you. But you’d be daft. With your own stables right here. But never mind me telling you. All I’ve got is lumps on me head, busts in me arms and scars all over me body. With kicks as well in the shins from them old ewes when I’d shove it up them. And two black eyes you can’t see on me. But I’ll tell you one bloody thing. At least it wasn’t me like the guards and everyone are saying it was who ran off with the master’s horse over there and led the hunt thundering down on that old bald bastard the Marquis digging it in there between the legs of that blonde bloody raring to go bitch. I would have loved to have seen that. To put among my memories. The like of that hunting mob over there now is doing their nut now to catch whoever it was.’