J. Donleavy - The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B

Love,

Beefy

Alphonsine laughed as I read her the card. And we rejoined to bed. She took each stocking carefully down from her legs and asked if I could feel a breeze come through the space between her thighs. She blew me as I watched the ceiling turn white. Which it was already. And I asked would she come with me when my new flat was ready, no one would know we were there. But her cheeks flushed and she sat up still and silent, the pink buds on her breasts, to shrug her shoulders. Till one knew there was nothing else one could say. And dressed I turned in the hall. She stood on the bottom stair. Beefy had rung on his return. I said I was off to see him. She stepped up to me in the hall and stood on tip toe to kiss me on the brow. She gave a sad and silent little smile. A mist in her eyes and watched me go out the door.

High in the grey great hotel. At the end of a long hall. A door swung open in greeting. The tanned brimming face of Beefy in a purple kimono, straw hat and Trinity scarf. Cowhide bags in an open bedroom closet. The Violet Infanta sitting demurely, her dark hair waved back and two blue eyes in her triangular face. She said a shy hello, grabbed her bag, swung her tweed skirt and left for a hair appointment. To leave me sitting in a fat chair as a bucket of champagne came in.

"Isn't she an absolute darling. My honeymoon was more than I ever anticipated. Little sad the Infanta was no virgin for the occasion. But excellent sport. After years of struggle at last washed up safe on a secure financial shore. Drew out cash at her bank this morning. Chap called me back and said there was some mistake. I riposted right sharpish, I said yes, that you leger scribblers are not at prep school learning a bit of civility. People of course hate to be invited to love you. But it is an awful responsibility guiding her riches through the shoals. So many fortune hunters around these days. Haven't had a look see at her share certificates but when one does one will know what sand banks to avoid. But Balthazar you look thin. Strained. How is all your little farm."

"Millicent vacated."

"Good God. That is sad. For good."

"Yes."

"And the little fellow."

"Took him too."

"O Lord no. That's awful. O dear I don't like that one bit. I mean she did once or twice try to brain you but that's all part of it. But buck up. Come, there now, have a sip. Better and more gracious days are coming."

Good to see Beefy looking so well. But not to put a pall upon his triumphant return I withdrew. The trains trumpeting in and out of Victoria Station. To points south and east 382 across the Continent, Paris, Vienna and Istanbul. Gentle fall of soot and smut. Newspaper hawkers shouting over the roar of traffic. London in its shallow bowl of tidy green squares and parks. The distant hills rising north, south and west around the Thames. To walk away from that hotel with a strange sense of sad. Cross Belgrave Square and pass a stream of ladies in flowery dresses and big straw hats. Back up the steps of Crescent Curve. To an empty house. With none left but me.

And an envelope under the paper weight on my desk.

Dear Balthazar,

I have left because I think it is best. I go back to Paris. I leave your dinner, nice mayonnaise lobster, in the fridge.

Love from

Alphonsine

To wake this day in a lonely house. As Beefy phoned. Moving from hotel to hotel. In search of one befitting his future. While I sat staring at Uncle Edouard clinging to the side of his cliff on my wall. Unable to see further than tomorrow. Wandered at a late hour across the park to the Bayswater Road. To hope by accident to run into Breda. But never a sign of her. Until Beefy stood suddenly in the hall of 78 Crescent Curve with his arms outstretched in doom.

"Balthazar, they've done it to me, I've been had. It will mean prison. It may have all been planned and plotted. She hasn't a sausage to her name, my violent Infanta. God help me if she hasn't Irish blood and relatives, all without social credentials. And what is worse, quids."

"Beefy, this is unexpected news."

"My dear boy I'm bankrupt. Fortunately I had lunched off oysters and a dozen gull's eggs out of season. Before my bank manager says to me, when I was just calling to pass the time of day, he said what on earth do you think you're doing. And the dismal facts were revealed. A huge Infanta cheque I'd paid into my account bounced right over St. Paul's. Everyone who has eyes in London saw it. I taxed the creature with it. I said your cheque bounced. She looked utterly innocent and asked why. I said because you don't have sufficient funds. Then the awful words came. She has had all these months a credit of eighty seven pounds fifteen shillings in her account and could prove it. I said if you do my dear girl, I am up the spout for thousands as I stand here. My bank manager thinking all this time that granny had been shoveled under. All rather hysterically horrid. I was found last night dear boy in a Mayfair doorway, protruding onto the pavement. Some gentle kindly taxi driver lifted me up and I groaned to him an address. Took me to the club. Had a little note pinned to me, Dear Guv, you are no lightweight, but good luck to you. You are a merry gentleman. And I did the worst possible thing. The most heinous thing of my life. I confronted the Infanta. Just over an hour ago. I struck her and she went down. I haven't got it in me to commit murder. I fell upon her sobbing. Worst thing of all is, I love the dear girl. I mean weVe had our awkward moments when I wanted to put it where I have done previously in others. And where too she finally welcomed it with delight. Although radiantly new to such proclivity."

"Beefy I am to the cellar. I will be back."

Beefy's words so loud in the silent house. As he sat there in his plus twos. At any minute he would make for the highlands and lie himself amidst the heather. To creep down at darkness into his granny's manor. And scare her to death. With a goat's skull. The time come to take slowly now upon one's palate two rare bottles of golden wine. Full of musky death sipped by the living to give life. With fresh lobster to go with Alphonsine's leftover mayonnaise.

"Balthazar you are a brick, to purvey this gonadal wine when it is most needed. And you know what else happened.On this fatal day. Only moments ago. A marvellous thing to befall any British subject. But me. I was on my way in one awful hurry to the merchant bankers in the City. Can you imagine, Masterdon. A power in the banking world. Actually ready to help me. Well my God, what happens but I get instantly into the most atrocious traffic jam. Thought best to get out and run the remaining three or four miles. And there I am standing on the pavement. Motors bumper to bumper, choked in all directions. When a car, a large vehicle of polished glass, coat of arms, flags on front fenders, stops right in front of me, my nose nearly at the window. I thought for one instant it was granny, so help me God. That's the way she goes about terrorising all her tenants. I had simply so much on my mind I froze. Dressed of course like this I should have been miles away in heathery landscapes. But there I was a British subject standing a little to the left of the middle of my prime. And sitting barely two feet from my incredulous face was the Monarch. Locked right in the traffic. Facing me, Beefy, just before bankruptcy. My first instinct is as always to check one's personal dress. Then I instantly came to attention. My hand half way up to salute. I was the only one on the pavement for miles. And I dropped my arm again. The Monarch turned and looked at me. I knew it was written all over my face that I had been corrupted by my nannie at the age of six and thereafter led steeply down the path of infamy and wretchedness. And that this morning I had to take an umbrella to crap under the drips from the club cistern above. I was not worthy of the Monarch's gaze. But I knew it was essential to look back with all the fair play and loyalty at my command, right in the Monarch's eye. One realises in a moment such as that, that the Monarch is always there, head of the ship of state to whom one can appeal in spirit when life is most rough. That the Monarch speaks for truth when you know damn well everyone is lying through their litigation. The Sovereign, always the resistor to the irresistible impulse, steadfast in jostling. Never unnerved in national turmoil and sorrow when from the Monarch's eyes the tears must fall. And it was clear from the very polite indifference in the present gaze back at me that no tears were shedding for my disaster. I knew I had to salute at that instant, hoping desperately the car would move on. But it didn't. The Monarch stared at me. I thought I saw an imperceptible raising of one eyebrow. And you know it's a feeling no foreigner would ever understand. That I wanted it somehow known that I was loyal, unbought and non fishy. Locked as one was in this eye gripping awkward manner. I couldn't hide my face in my hands. Or run. I wanted to almost say finally. Please don't look at me shattering the atoms down my spine. God how unworthy I was at that moment. Then the traffic began to move again. And the Monarch smiled at me. God help me if I didn't grow faint. And rushed straight here."