J. Donleavy - The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B

Anointed with his own gracious infamies. A high stepper in all doggish demeanours. We both are led by the scruff of the neck. To the black long taxi. A light lit inside. To reload the girls. In this college square they call Botany Bay.

Under

The wild

Hair

Of the trees.

Across empty midnight cobbles of Dublin. Past the time tolling up in a tower clock. Down a steep street and by an ancient church. Beefy told the taxi to stop. He helped Rebecca alight. And said goodbye.

Balthazar B looking out the back window as the motor drew away. Four caravans on a wasteland site. Tinkers bundled up in sleep. Near an edge of lamplight Beefy stood, his arm around Rebecca. And there he seems to stay.

The taxi crossed the Liffey. White swans floating. Rolling now past the shuttered shops of Capel Street and out along an empty northern strand by a flat deserted park. Clontarf where so many times I sped through, hurrying by Landship to the races at Baldoyle. While little kiddies waved and shouted at me with joy. A flashing beacon of a lighthouse beyond the shadowy floating bumpiness of North Bull Island. Played a cold day of golf out there on those sandy hills. Dreaming far less sporty things as I struck the ball. Of a female I could call my own. To send tulips to. Have somewhere to put my pleasure as I lay my heart down against hers. Breda with her dark little eyes and bony narrow wrists.

"What will they be after doing to you at college."

"Rustication.' "What's that."

"They banish you. Send you down."

"Is that worse than up."

"Yes down's worse than up."

"I guess it doesn't make any difference to that Beefy. With his millions of pounds. Sure he could just laugh."

"Sometimes it's not that easy."

"I can't see what's hard about having all that money."

"Well someone like Beefy has trustees. And they can be troublesome,"

"If money's there what's trouble about that. You could give me all the trustees you like. He's some fellow the likes of him. That I've not come across before. Not that I've been anywhere in my life. I'm just ordinary working class. I've never been in a room like that before. It was like something you'd see on the films. With the carpets on the wall. And shiny things jumping out at you from the plaster. I guess I'm not what you might call educated."

"Education is learning only what you don't have to know."

"Is that a fact."

"I think so."

"You're a very funny person. Not like your friend. You're the quiet type. I guess you don't think much of me."

"Why do you say that."

"Well I won't say now but Rebecca she's my oldest friend because we were reared together down over in Irishtown. We're not exactly princesses. Are we. I don't live far now. You don't have to have the driver go any further. I can walk from here by a short cut. If you stop by the shop on the corner. Ahead there."

"We'll take you all the way."

"No I want to get out now."

"It's raining."

"I don't mind."

"Driver stop. There. By the post."

"Very good sir."

"How much do I owe you."

"Ah let's see now. Forty bob. This time of night. Been a lot of wear and tear on the tires. With the grain of cement lying the wrong way on the road if you understand me sir."

"All right."

"Now if it was another kind of road sir with the surface giving less trouble."

"Goodbye driver."

Balthazar B standing on this grey wet pavement. The rain falling through a halo of lamplight. A post office, butcher, grocer and newsagent. Lonely houses behind high hedges. The wind with a seaweed smell off the sea. This girl thinly standing, clutching her handbag. The rear red light of the taxi still seen after all its sound is gone.

"Sure you're stranded now."

"I'll walk with you home if I may."

"Sure you may and I'm glad of company. But it's an awful wet way and how will you ever get back."

"I'll manage."

"Ah God you'll catch your death of cold just in your suit."

"I'll be alright. You've only got a sweater."

"Ah don't worry about me, I'm used to it but the kind of life you're accustomed to leading. It wouldn't suit you to be wandering out here in the rain."

"You won't mind my coming with you."

"Sure you're welcome. Sure you know that. That you're welcome."

"Thank you."

"That taxi man has made himself a fortune this night, cheating like that after your friend gave him five pounds. That makes me angry."

"You musn't worry."

"It's a fortnight's wages to me."

Out into darkness. The lamplight left behind at the cross roads. All familiar just a short time ago. An afternoon expedition, a class outing looking for fossils. Students standing about in their belted up macintoshes, some in mountain climbing kit, with rucksacks strapped to backs. And I came roaring through in the Landship. Heading for the nags at Baldoyle. To stop awhile in the little gathering. I had not an acid bottle nor hammer, just the racing form. I thought I would be welcomed. That perhaps they had missed me. And all I seemed to see was a laughing Miss Fitzdare as she pedaled someone's bicycle around in a little circle on the road. Then she leaned back on the handle bars. I saw her stretched out legs in her blue stockings and they looked long and handsome. And I was so surprised.

"This is the short cut I'm taking. Up back here. That's the North Bull lighthouse in the bay and the other is the Poolbeg. Rebecca and I when we were only little would ride her bike down the wall all the way to the end. Where the lighthouse is. It was like being out on a ship with water on both sides of you. She's a bit of a wild one. She'd throw rocks at old men. Her father before he got sick himself beat her within an inch of her life night after night. Take her things and throw them out the window down on to the road when she'd try to run away. Sure all she owned was an old chocolate box full of bits of old pens and her Sunday hat for church. She was trying to write a book. She got no further than the title. You might say the book was commercial romantic. It was called The Price Paid For The Pearl of Purity."

'That's a rather good title."

"She scratched it out and wrote another one later, which wouldn't be proper for me to tell you. But she didn't go on long paying the price for purity. She was paid a price is more like it. O God look at you. Rain dripping off your hair. It's very nice of you to walk like this with me. I could have managed on my own. But it's nice. I like walking. I don't ever have much time but when I do there's no one to walk with. I go along the beach out there. And collect shells. Give me your hand now, across through here, it's awfully slippy in the wet and you can't see the path through the bracken. It's only a little ways now."

Mists against the face. A faint fog horn. Her hand small and strong, to feel strangely delicate and warm. Brown slapping fern wetting the knees. A pouring sound of water against the ground.

"What's that noise."

"Ah it's nothing, the sheep, they hear something passing in the night. I don't want to be bold or fresh, but they are peeing in the grass in fear. Now that's where I am. The little bit of extension out on the back. Sure you've got an awful long trip ahead of you."

"Fve done this before. Try my luck again. I'll be guided back by the lighthouses."

"You look chilled. Ah God it's not right. You coming all this way."

"It's fine."

"You look to me of delicate constitution. I'm small looking but as strong as an ox. Sure you're just but very wispy. It becomes you, like a saint starved you might say. You know a thing I want to ask you. About your friend. Is it true or all made up what he goes on saying. We're taught a poor opinion of the protestants. But myself I've always found them honest and decent. And my own kind I found would cheat you out of your sight. I've never known the likes of Church of Ireland people to get up to the devil and mischief of your friend. I'm broadminded but Rebecca allows him shocking awful liberties. Then if a fellow can give you a laugh he doesn't cheapen you. We're nearly here. Mind now this fence. There's broken bottle and barbed wire. Listen to that. The wind is getting fierce. North westerly. Always makes me homesick. I know it's blowing across Cavan. Many a night it makes me cry to sleep. I can't think of you out in the likes of this."