J. Donleavy - The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B

An ambulance was called to the ship. I was lifted out on a stretcher staring at the sky. Millicent said she was red faced with embarrassment and all the French letters were confiscated. At the red brick hospital over the Grand Canal bridge. They said I had a broken collar bone.

But one

Day

Soon

I would

Be well

Again.

Crescent Curve was awake festooned from attic to basement aflow with flowers. Carpets laid, cupboards and shelves fitted. Sideboards and suites of bedroom furniture. All lavender waxed and ordered by Millicent's mother and the bill sent to me. To await the arrival after the honeymoon. As one listened being taken on a tour of one's own house.

"In our way of life Balthazar a wife always has her own bed and dressing room. Then there's a time and place for everything."

My shoulder was just but out of its cast. After a few weeks of married life. Three weeks in Dublin. Where there had been the French and Irish Rugby match during our stay. I tried to smile winningly over my injury. As the French players swarmed about one's wife. Saying in their language to her as she smiled back. My God what a glorious cunt she is, how can we get rid of the husband who looks like a crippled English peer. And as I whitened and tightened my lips they licked theirs at the sight of Millicent. And shook their heads at the sight of me.

A Friday lunch I saw Beefy. Up in the top of Fortnum's. I walked in. Having strolled from Knightsbridge. To find him seated there. Resplendent in his lift operator's uniform, with a general's lapels. The world so balmy. The sun slashing through trees and streets. And he could tell that I carried a tale.

"My God Balthazar, you're thinnish. You must eat more. Dog food, that's where all the nourishment is these days in England. The selected meats, liver, vitamins and minerals. Honest nourishment at an honest price. Choice lean beef finely chopped with proteins. I take a tin a day. But my God Balthazar, what's the matter."

"Beefy. I don't quite know how to put this. Millicent and I have not yet cohabited."

"Good grief. Let's order lunch."

"My collar bone broke at the first try. Been in a cast ever since. But now I'm out. She doesn't seem to want me."

"Mandamus her. To commit the act"

"I couldn't do that."

"Then annul for God's sake. Annul."

"Do you think so."

"Get your trustees on to it. If you don't annul now you condone, you could be trapped celibate for the rest of your life."

"But I don't want to annul. That's a legal step and I somehow feel her mother would shout awfully loudly in court."

"Has she seen it."

"Seen what."

"Your tool, your private member. I mean does she hold it in horror or disbelief. Is she distressed at the sight of it."

"I don't know."

"Did she scream when she saw it."

"No. I think I may have when I fell. Is this usual in a marriage."

"But of course, I mean there are some who haven't laid hand to each other in all their years. Often makes for permanent unions. You mustn't worry. First thing is to get you some dirty literature and have it around the house. Few of these filthy books. You know the sort of thing, Lola stood there as the bishop or butler advanced his sheath upon the shaft well drawn back from the rosy knob of his stiff passion. Older members of the club who don't want to be bothered stimulating the wife often just throw her one of these tomes in the dressing room. Twenty minutes before dinner is served is thought to be a ripeish time. Millicent might just pick it up and get carnal minded."

"Isn't that a little distasteful."

"It's abominable but you must. I know a shop. Good chaps. Specialists. Answer your needs in a hurry. A portfolio of the male nude may be your man. In the usual erected poses. Hate to bring up nationalities but you know how you French chaps wear white gloves so not to leave fingerprints on your pricks. Well, such photos throw English women into uncontrolled fits of passion. Buck up Balthazar. Fm now tying the last little strings on the Violet Infanta. We've decided to live at the Ritz. When I shall like any other civilised human being be able to spend my afternoons at the usual auctions. Chippendale's cheap at the moment. My trustees are delighted by my prospects. But you know I miss work on the building site. Good chaps to a man. There was a Padrick from Tipperary. Wore a chefs cap while on the job. He employed his culinary deftness he said in mixing the cement into which I always took a pee. He could fart in unison with the pneumatic drill. And goose one with the mechanical digger. I mean he could make it dance, there he was in the glass operator's cubicle playing the sticks and levers like a prodigy. He'd dig a hole into anything. Down into gas mains, electric cables, nearly every day there'd be an explosion, like open warfare. Ah but you Balthazar, you will overcome."

And parting at Piccadilly on that sunny afternoon, Bal-thazar B sped to Knightsbridge by tube. To attend a fortnightly visit to the chiropodist with nail trimming and foot massage. Later leaving the male nudes and one volume of dirty literature carelessly in Millicent's pink walled dressing room. On the afternoon of the Palace Garden Party five days later, she asked me before leaving with her mother, a propos of nothing at all, did I ever do anything sexual with other boys at school. In a black chiffon dress and an enormous black straw hat against her silken tan, she said do come and pick me up.

One was mystified by the faintly scheming way she looked. I walked the afternoon slowly down through Green Park. The rows of cars all lined up. A loudspeaker calling them one by one. I stood by the Palace gates. The crowds of commoners standing aside to let through the chauffeured cars. The splendour and elegance passing by. Top hats, monocles, ebony canes and fluttering tails. Silks and hues and flowing veils. And many many pearls. And finally Millicent grim with fury. Where was the car to come in and pick her up. What did I mean by leaving her to this disgrace. And I suddenly said shut up.

There was silence on this warm evening as we walked towards home. Up Constitution Hill, the Palace tinted crowds thinning through Belgravia. Their high heels, wide hats and powdered noses. Puffs of low white clouds. A westerly wind blowing a smell of new mown grass across the fresh green of the park. Along Grosvenor Crescent, the pillared porches, the high walls painted cream. Across Belgrave Square and through an empty echoing West Halkin Street. And one took comfort from the calm mellow brick of Knightsbridge where the moss lies quietly between the paving stones.

In my little study off the drawing room I went to check through my cellar book and enter newly arrived wine. And as usual to stack up and count the bills. Pouring in from Fortnum's and Harrods. From dress and shoe shops up and down Bond Street. And Millicent came in. Walked over as I sat with my pencil and paper weights. She gave me a little push and I drew back.

"How's the shoulder."

"I think it's fine."

"Come upstairs."

"What for."

"Don't ask me questions. Just come upstairs."

I climbed up the stairs following Millicent into her pink and blue bedroom. Reviewing in my mind the legal interpretation of the presentation of one's member. Private and erect. To the spouse present and duly open eyed. In this so silent house. There were couples sunning on the grass in the park. Others wrapped in arms. Millicent's wide black garden party hat on her dressing table. Two foot stack of magazines by the bed. And she in her stockinged feet. The big blue diary next her telephone. Booked every day for lunch and tea and all the fashion shows. She pulls the curtains across on the window. Complained of the man across the street spying with binoculars. She could see the lens gleaming behind leaves of a plant he grew for camouflage. And I had walked in upon her once having a bath, to get a piece of her Paris soap. And she clutched her arms across her breasts and said get out of here. I made believe as I paused in the mirror that I was examining my eyebrows for dandruff. I had spent that day watching the men from Harrods come and go. With the latest samples in materials. Her mother brought friends to see our curtains and view the bathrooms, all four, and our big fat towels. Milli-cent's glass shelves covered in bottles of scent, her wardrobe full of shoes, handbags and scarves. And I sat staring at my laundry frayed cuffs, my missing buttons and holes in my socks. A man came to do her hair. And meals arrived from a restaurant. When one evening more than anything else in the world I wanted chicken kedgeree and rhubarb crumble. I asked her to make it. She just looked at me and said how dare you be so thoughtless and cruel. Now she looks at me, and is taking off her clothes.