J. Donleavy - The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B

"What have you done Beefy."

"Done. Dear man I should like to know. Mostly it is what another has done. In particular dear old granny. I came to the last five pound note in my deed box after a catastrophic series of races devoid of tips from Zutu. And then I made another awfully ill advised attempt to harass granny, I tried to get a mortgage on the insurance of her life. And I am now situated in chambers in Bayswater. A polite word which upon map scrutiny admits of one having been pushed into Paddington. The tale is simple. I'm ruined. As you know the Public School Appointments got me my job on the stock exchange. After a prolonged safari in Brighton with a most saucy but impoverished debutante, I was fired. Upon many subsequent interviews I was finally offered another position. As a clerk. Can you imagine. I said not on your life. I will go and tear up earth as a navvy before I will stand behind a counter. I sounded so convincing, I believed it myself. Mesmerised by those suicidal words that's what Fve done. After the first two days I was so blistered and tired I thought I'd soon die a natural death. Some days later climbing up the marble steps of the club, my hand touching along the reassuring brass gleam of the rail, I asked for mail. Hoping my trustees might have unearthed ownership of a deed to some country pub. But there wasn't even a bill. And just as I went across the lobby to the lift, an elderly rather red nosed member said to George the porter as I passed, that chap is soiled. Imagine. Soiled."

"O my God Beefy. You must let me help you."

"Wait there's more. Not all of it gloom. Just last week at my very bottom lowest when I'd returned to my tiny room. Put sixpence in the slot for a morsel of electric fire. Not for heat. Just for the encouraging glow in the gloom. I stared out back at the pipes and chimneys and the car parts yard below. Then I knelt down. God I was fervent. I really meant it. Knees sunk deeply in the threadbare broadloom. I promised and prayed, as a onetime member of the Church of Ireland, that if God would send some reasonable female creature of marriageable age across my path, in fact age immaterial, who was possessed of the wherewithal and whence I should get my hands upon it, I would forthwith, as decency allowed after the ceremony, covenant the church to two and a half percent of the income, after tax was paid. At that exact moment. Right over my head. The light bulb exploded. I was showered in glass and darkness. I also jumped ten feet. And as the room is six by nine I had to call my doctor. He bid me, tired as I was, to come round and he would look for breaks in the arm bones. Off I went to Harley Street. I was next to last at his ultra late Friday surgery. My unbroken legs crossed as I turned the pages of a magazine. And into the waiting room. There comes a young lady.

A rainbow of a smile bursting across Beefy's blustery freckled face, his wandering nose and wine tinted cheeks. As Balthazar B leaned forward in his light grey flannel suit sewn in the Rue St. Honore with two horn buttons requested on the sleeves. A matron near by, long nostrilled, green suited, her lorgnette held up to an auction catalogue. An audibly tender moment really.

"Yes. There comes a young lady, Beefy."

"Ah. By the way Balthazar, that is a fine blue tie you're wearing with that elegant shirt. You're marvellously turned out."

"And you Beefy have not changed one bit. And what happened. There comes a young lady."

"Ah. Wait. My God I have an erection. Of the volcanic variety once again. Visions of richness always brings it on. Ah so. Yes. To be sure. The young lady. Who that moment came delicately in, in the best of leathers and fabrics. And I who had just crawled searching for forgiveness, off the wintry Hornchurch Marshes near some borax works to face a committee of ecclesiastics lined up inside a glassed, centrally heated pavilion. They were chanting quietly, I Know That My Redeemer Liveth. And then at the sight of me. They pointed. Go back, they said. Back to the marsh, dirty deed doing profaner, your redeemer does not liveth."

The nearby dowager shifting uncomfortably in her seat, turning for a moment to survey Beefy. As he leaned back legs spread wide to regard airily the randy bulge upon his person. The lady made a high pitched noise down her nose and jerked swiftly back to her auction catalogue of ceramic antiques.

"My God Beefy, the young lady."

"Ah the young lady. But you are so splendidly turned out Balthazar, so frisky and one might say fresh from France that it does my heart fair good just to see you."

"Yes Beefy, I've come all this way. And a girl came into the waiting room and then what."

"You must let me tantalise myself Balthazar. To me these days it means much. Let me digress one more delicious moment. The chaps at my building site when they saw me giving the cement a little extra wetting down. They cheered. Said it was the biggest weapon ever seen. It rather improved my day. Of course I know it's achieved a further grandeur it did not know at prep school. And perhaps not even as one prepared to take holy orders. But to have these chaps cheer. It's given me courage to again present this instrument to a mare who would exchange all her riches lain at my feet for a guarantee of frequent thrustings. Ah but back at the doctor's."

"Yes."

"Ah. Her name, listen carefully while I thrill it out between my sober lips. Listen. Angelica Violet Infanta. Doesn't that tell you much already. Angelica, from the Greek, Violet from the Latin. Those delicate tiny flowers found on grassy banks through woods. Infanta. From that latter one catches a tremolo of Debrett. I swim back to the shores of privilege out of the sea of the dispossessed. Saved from a lifetime of discomfort. But back at my doctor's. Medical treatment is the only thing left that granny pays for these days. And the dear man while he was examining my bones said, now Beefy there waits downstairs in my waiting room a girl of not too great looks perhaps but a marvellous fortune. When I returned to the waiting room I gave my most charming smile. But she was of course aloof. In fact positively ignored me. Being as I was and still am, in a state of deshabille. But on the good doctor's front door step. I lurked waiting. And did pounce. With a long prepared stream of lies. When the door opened and she appeared. I said I'm awfully sorry. Then I left an enormous pause. To let my villainous vowels sink in. Her eyebrows were rising. I attacked. Said I'd just rushed from rehearsals. Left my bowler and brolly in my dressing room. I'm a navvy darling in an uproariously funny stage play. I didn't say darling I must admit. But I made a further thrust. As always Fm the first to believe myself. I said you, my dear, are just the one one has been looking for. My leading lady in the flesh. She began to open her mouth. I knew it would be fatal if ever she got anything out. Something odious like be gone cad. So I said. Say nothing please. Just come with me. I got her into a nearby wine lodge. Admiring her eighty quids' worth of tailoring she carried so presentably on her back. I extracted her address. Belgravia of course. I flung the necessary heirlooms into pawn. Bombarded her with red roses for a week. And now if only I can hold out. Keep the wool over suspicious eyes. Tonight I meet ma and pa."

"I'm terribly pleased for you Beefy."

"Balthazar so good to hear your word. When all is not well. When you know that out under the cloudy skies of London no one thinks in love of one. But now. The Violet Infanta. Niece of a Welsh peer. You know how utterly rich they are. She may mention Le Touquet a trifle too often for my comfort. Does rather hysterically laugh. But what matter. We'll get on. In wedlock I know I can grow to love her. For what she is. Stinking. Gushingly stinking rich. My doctor smiles every time he tells me of her ground rents and her father's connection with motor cars. Given me the runs, made me half demented. The slothful grandeur of it all. Our spiritual feelings are so in harmony. She's a rabid believer in the monarchy. And of course so am I. Ah Balthazar you look so untouched by life. The calmness of your existence. Back there in Paris. You must meet her. You must. Told her all about you. She thinks she has a friend you would adore."