J. Donleavy - The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B

"Well I can sound awfully prim I imagine but if there is no Christian answer, then I should think to follow one's heart is best."

Miss Fitzdare bowed her head. She picked up her pearls and put them in her mouth. Can I ever say. May I take them, your reins, your pearls, hold them. A bit between your lips. Miss Fitzdare. And ride you. All your white galloping skin. Lord I mustn't think of such a thing. That could warm me in all these shivering months. To let us go dancing quite indelicately in the sky. Would she. Touching under her satin and my silk. Embrace me to taste all her splendid little bits of beauty. I've had an awful lot of sherry. Chaps. Surrounded by all of you. Glistening with your welcoming gentle smiles. Faces scrubbed and shining. I just somehow know there are no motives low. I know it just as I thought I knew so many years ago that my redeemer liveth. That each gentleman here will one day walk up the aisle in his freshly aired and pressed morning suit solemn and above board. Between the collected tinted relatives and friends, titles and all described. From one whisper to another. Some winking above their smiles. Marriage. The organ music. O God Fitzdare. Have I found you. Can I hold back my unspeakable desperations. Till a ring is put along your finger. As wedded we will be. All the friends waving and maybe hating for us to go. Hand in hand to a honeymoon. Where God help me I would want to ride you in the bed. Across all the good racing years. Looking out from windows of our country house. To the grey and winterish conditions. Sherry in inclemencies. Vintage port in storms. Of a time. In June. When the white and delicate wine flows. A sun beaming over England. Gentle breeze that blows tender puffs of sky. Westerly fair across Britain. Over Henley's quiet straight waters. Down upon Ascot's perfumed carpets of turf. All the hues. Gay lads and maidens. We newly wed. Wicker hampers. Early afternoon feasting upon one's lap. Chicken, asparagus and yummy plums. One noble day after another. And like. The pound sterling. How does it waft, how does it wane. As England's flag waves. Fitzdare. Fluttering high over its parliament. You will be nervous. Just like the pound. In all its foreign markets. And I will admire you for being so. As sterling tends lower. But tomorrow always nudges forward again. Like we in our marriage do. Or remain quiet. For so many years. To never be devalued. As we get old together. The pound looking strong. Sterling firming up. You have two faces now Miss Fitzdare. I see them there. I shall point to one of them now don't you move.

"Are you all right Mr. B. You're swaying."

"Am I. Whoops."

"Heavens."

"I'm a little elevated. I think. A little. But I know. O God I know that my redeemer liveth. I mean Miss Fitzdare he could lead me and you beside the still waters. You know."

"Mr. B I don't want to say. But really I do. I think I must say. I do hope you're not blaspheming.' "O God no. Really I'm not. Not blaspheming."

"Ought you to have any more sherry."

"Just a jot."

"Steady now. Dear me. Steady."

"Forgive me. I think. Yes. Put my elbow on the mantel here. Firm up matters."

"Do you always drink as much as this."

"O I'm an old roue Miss Fitzdare. Drink like a drain.

Always did. Glug glug. I mean that's the sound of it going down. The hatch I think. But surely we were talking. Yes of the Irish. They always lapse into what they call Urdu. Miss Fitzdare. Can you explain that."

"O yes. The Irish never want to be what they are. It's why they so envy the black men. The three black men rumoured to be in Dublin and the two in Trinity are always followed by a little crowd wherever they go."

"O God if only I were black."

"Yes."

"You feel that way too Miss Fitzdare."

"Yes. It makes one's teeth so white."

"O God Fitzdare."

"Is something the matter."

"No. Nothing. I just have to say. O God Fitzdare. O God."

"You're not, are you, blaspheming."

"No no. You see. This somehow is like walking into heaven. Meeting you. Being here. Every Sunday I am in Rathgar for an arranged Sunday dinner. I speak boldly I know. But it must be said. I simply must find some outlet.

Your frock looks black but it's really purple isn't it."

"Yes."

"And what rustles. When you move."

"Mr. B7 now now."

"What rustles. Please. Tell me."

"My petticoats.'

"O God."

"Mr. B. Really."

"You know Miss Fitzdare you hurt me to the quick a moment ago."

"O."

"Yes. You did. When you said steady. Steady now."

"O."

"Just as if you were talking to a horse."

"O I never meant, honestly, such a thing."

"Well. I did feel I might be being led back to the stables."

"Heavens I hope I didn't sound like that."

"I suppose it's all right, really."

"You baffle me. You do Mr. B."

"Stepaside Wednesday."

"Yes."

"We can look down on Dublin."

"I'd like that very much."

A hall door swung open. Faces slowly turning. The beatific grinning face. Of Beefy. Grey top hat on his head. Morning coat and striped trousers. An ivory cane held in his grey gloved hand. He cut a quick motion on the parquet. Lifted his hat.

And choo choo choo. The locomotive shuffle he said.

"Mr. B, that's your friend Beefy, wherever did he get those clothes."

Beefy went choo choo choo. Out on to the drawing room dance floor and back again into the dining room. Followed by a flushed hostess. Who put her hands up to her eyes and face.

As Beefy climbed up on the dining table. Hurrying hands clearing his way of drinks and saumon fume. His boots carving swirling ruts on the dark red gleaming mahogany.

Amid claps and laughter and our hostess's dismay.

"O poor Philippa, I fear her party is about to end on a rather expensive note."

Beefy capered. The gathering laughed. Some doubled up and clapped. And the band tippled. Miss Fitzdare on her pleasant slender legs, took her leave. Followed by me. Said she had not far to go. Just down the road. I said no I must see you out and home. And with coats donned in the cool hall.

And the gay stamping noise left behind. Here with all the hats and canes. The silver salver for calling cards. Architectural prints of Dublin city. And our hostess. Face alarmed and creased with an ever friendly frown. Shaking hands goodbye.

Outside on the dark roadway covered over with arching trembling branches. Balthazar tripping down the steps. Between the white globes of light and on the pebbles underfoot. His arm held by Miss Fitzdare. Her warm understanding smile. The moisty night lies out around us. From Ailesbury Road all the way across a green Kildare. To the Curragh stretched flat as a moonlit land. Where horses apounding go. And with me. To England, perhaps, Miss Fitzdare might you come. To my little house there. Where we would be and no one else would know.

"Balthazar. Balthazar. Can you see."

"I think so."

"You'd better hold my arm."

To feel close to her. Through our respective thick woollen garments. All those weeks she sat so untouchable. Distantly far away. In her own world huddled over her drawing of plasmodium. I watched the tip top of her pencil moving back and forth on the drawing paper. And mine an empty whiteness. Save where my pencil had wandered. Making round faces of little men, some who smiled and others who were awfully sad with their ears very small.

"I never thought we would meet like this Mr. B."

"Nor I, Miss Fitzdare."

By a high iron fence Balthazar paused, swayed and leaned against the black spokes. Slowly he slid down and down. Miss Fitzdare holding him by the arm as he sank to his knees and looked up at her face and into her cool blue eyes. A gleam of silk flowing with colour between her black lapels. Balthazar shaking his head and pulling himself up again. Looking round at this large stone entrance.