J. Donleavy - The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B

"Miss Hortense where do you come from.' "Huddersfield."

"Where is that."

"It's in Yorkshire where they make cloth."

"Is it nice."

"No. It's all foggy, smoky, but I liked it well enough."

"Is your father in good health."

"Yes."

"What does your father do."

"He is an impoverished clergyman."

"What is impoverished."

"It's when you make fires in the sitting room only in the evenings and on Sundays."

The waiter bowed over Miss Hortense and she quickly put her hand up to the frilly neck of her blouse. What Beefy said about them was true, they were white swellings and made you stare. And made the waiter bend his neck and the gent across the room missed his cup with the pot of tea and now the waiter was running with a cloth to mop it up.

Balthazar dug and cut into his toast, bacon and egg. And filled his cup from a big brown pot under a thick cloth cover which nannie lifted up and said was very much like a bishop's hat. Her eyes are smiling and the world is so bright and cheerful. Bend the wafer of bread and sweep it into the red broken yolk and through the white sweet bacon fat. Tip upon it tiny specks of salt and lift it up between the lips, the yummiest thing for weeks. And chew with bulging cheeks the rich warm goodness washed down with splendid tea.

The gent bowing up to nannie as we left the dining room. He took a little book from his pocket and wrote in it. And crossed it out when nannie laughed and shrugged her shoulders as he grinned unhappily. Again he waved his hands, crinkled up his eyes and held his pencil to his book. And when nannie wasn't looking while she held her hand for change he lifted one of his shoe tips to shine it on the back of his trouser leg.

"Miss Hortense, what is wrong with that man.'

"He fancies himself."

"Why do you say that."

"He invited us to Le Touquet."

Balthazar and nannie came out of the large green breezy shed, stepping across tracks. A white hull stood high along the quay and on the bow it said Invicta. Cranes hoisting great nets of luggage and mail bags. Stewards crowding at the top of the gangway. Tickets ready, please. This way to first class.

All first class this way. Second class that way please. A porter packed their luggage on a shelf in the front lounge. White table cloths, green wicker chairs and potted palms.

A sailor said the sea was fresh to moderate. The ship's whistle blew. Coffee and refreshments would be served in ten minutes. Nannie's eyebrows curved like big rainbows above her eyes. And they were grey like the sea. She spoke with lips apple bright and gently soft. Her skin was smooth and nose upturned. And I wanted to lean over and touch her on her soft silky elbow.

"I hope you will be quite content to take care of me for the 67 holidays. I am really able to take care of myself so you won't have much to do. Are you looking for a husband.'

"O dear what kind of question is that."

"My last nannie was looking for one. And a gentleman admired her. On this very boat. But she vomited. She was very good at mending. But now she will never get married.

Because she must care for her father."

"That's very sad.' "Yes. But all the gentlemen look at you."

"Do they now."

"My Uncle Edouard will too."

"My goodness."

"He is very hairy and big and strong. I think that he can bend an iron bar. He kills animals with his bare hands. But now I must be very quiet all the way to Calais. To memorise my Latin verbs."

The ship's engines rumbled. The hatch doors banged closed. Sailors hammering wooden wedges under iron clips.

The wind gathering up and blowing down the decks. And inside the lounge a peace descended. Nannie smiled and cast her eyes gently down under the gaze of a French gentleman with a monocle who swung up the edge of his grey cape with a swagger stick. He too came and bowed. Presenting a white little card upon which he wrote and nannie tucked it in her bag. His suit was checked and two of his teeth were gold when he smiled.

A tall tower above the town of Calais. The seaweedy smell from the shore. The dressing huts along the beach showed summer colours faded and cold on the lonely sand. Fishermen at the end of the pier. They all looked like peeing. Their serious faces. The ship crushed up against the wired bundles of sticks and the stout ribs of oak along the quay. Miss Hortense holding him by the shoulder at the railing. With a shiver to suddenly feel a touch of her lips warmly on top of my ear.

A stream of porters rushing up the gangway. A smell of garlic, cigarette, wine and onions. Officials' lower lips protruding looking up as they held hands folded behind the back of their neatly pressed uniforms. A red pompon on top of a sailor's blue beret as he casts a line up from the pier. This squat brown eyed porter rushing up to Miss Hortense, as a breeze billowed open her grey coat. The swell of one of her bosoms tightly against her poplin shirting. The porter making a quick sign of the cross. As he whispered to another porter behind him, I say hello to the women and to hell with the men. And to Miss Hortense he said, madam may I carry even your handkerchief. Down to the gay shore of France.

Where each

Little fellow

Is a

Citizen.

Balthazar's mother moved from the big house off Avenue Foch to a sprawling apartment overlooking the gardens of the Palais Royal. Miss Hortense with her tall flowing gay willing way came each Christmas, Easter and summer holiday. Taking Balthazar back and forth to Paris by taxi ship and train. While his mother went hither and thither to Baden Baden, Liechtenstein and Biarritz, to one for a cure, to the next for taxes and to the last to swim.

And this summer now hot and dry. A white dust rising to whiten leaves in the Tuilleries. Balthazar's mother asleep till late afternoons. At nights to dinners and balls and weekends away from Gare St. Lazare to the country. A Czechoslovakian woman came to cook and a Russian to clean. They had their lunch in the big kitchen with the high walls hung with pots and pans.

Mornings Miss Hortense would sit doing the English paper crossword puzzle and play dominoes between the plates with Balthazar. And in the warm cool at night, hand in hand they sat on the balcony above the garden. The shadowy stone urns with upturned seventeen spears, and four fish hook prongs to keep out intruders. And one year ago Miss Hortense said I think it's time you called me Bella.

Each day to laugh down the steps and out across the gardens. To sit a while where the solemn little children played under the thick chestnut trees. Or watch the marionettes in the Tuilleries. And the favourite hours to quietly read away an afternoon on the sentinel pale green chairs. Miss Hortense to be seated with her pillow, her elegant long legs crossed in the hot sunshine. By a bed of pink roses while the sparrows pecked and scratched and bathed.

The mornings at dawn Balthazar heard the keeper open the gates. And sometimes alone and dressed, Bella asleep, to go down and skip along the brown and black tiles of the arcade and pirouette on each four leaved shamrock. Bella said it was good for Irish luck. Then pause to read the garden rules which said no writing on the walls, no sound instruments and no games which can bring trouble to the tranquillity of the pedestrian.

And on this soft summer Saturday night. As Balthazar and Bella walked hand in hand past the black fence bars topped with golden spears. By the stamp shop and where the old strange watches stood in the window with coloured pictures on their faces. And near to me was Bella. The close up of her grey eyes was green. And her breath as sweet as roses. When she told her secrets in wide eyed words. And whispered dreams. And laughed when she lost at chess.