J. Donleavy - The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B

"By God girls you will get what for. The battle is on. There'll be false eye lashes everywhere I can tell you. My trustees will have at you with their canes long after I am done. Swipes across the tit and arse with my cutlass is not good enough for you."

Balthazar B tip toeing out into the hall. The battle raged inside. An awful dog smell coming from the kitchen. In the disturbed peace of what was once my home. And will no longer be. After tonight. Because I am going to march up these stairs. An outsider in Beefy's games. I've only ever been able to play with one. Take away this vase full of dying yellow flowers. Pour all the unicellular animals down the sink. Pack up a bag of clothes. And do so without a sound.

The two girls chased by Beefy followed by the little doggies came charging up the stairs. Their heavy breathing as they passed and went up another flight. And the floor rumbles in Boats' former room. Then all is quiet. And echoing down the stairs the voice of Beefy, that's very fine girls, very nice. Thank you. More please. I now anoint you. Winetca of Ongar of the shallower navel. And you Edwina of the long nipple from Nuneaton. But dear girls I should much hate to serve supper to any of your distant relatives.

In darkness one turns away. To go and sit and wait in my study. So sobered by sadness. And too awfully shy to ever feel delight. Go down the stair. All Beefy's beatitudes. Blessed are they who wear God's garters and sip champagne from the cupped hands of naked women for they will keep their pricks and palates young. Beefy never casts a stone. Stands alone with his dark devilments held aloft victoriously. The scream of a little dog. Sounds just like the small person I fell upon in the bus. You are a big person and I am tiny and weak.

Balthazar B sat in his study chair. A tired head leaning. The sounds distant upstairs. One is all alone. When you stop somewhere in your life and look at the love spilled from your hands. Hear the little fellow chuckle. He would reach up and take my finger and tug. And try to see me with his wide open believing eyes. To grow I hope when he does to rear up anew from each misfortune. And never know the sad little secret untold in Beefy's stout heart. Read all those years ago, fallen on a tiny piece of paper from his diary he kept at school. I picked it up from the floor between our beds and saw his tight little scrawl.

I want

A mommie

And a daddy

Please

Help me

Somebody.

From a high sunny room in the red brick turreted hotel Bal-thazar B looked out over the trees of Hyde Park. At night the Serpentine waters glitter in moonlight and flash up sun in the morning. 78 Crescent Curve was up for sale. A family residence in a favoured part of town. Broken furnishings of its last gallant night were being repaired for removal with Uncle Edouard's desk and chair to Mayfair and the rest to Sotheby's for auction.

Beefy entrained for Scotland on one last heroic beseechment to his granny. I walked the longest and loneliest streets of London. Taking a bus this late afternoon to Putney to stroll along the river in a park. Tankers and barges swept past on the ebb tide. I put a foot on the railing and listened to the shouts of oarsmen lifting their racing shells from the river to put them away for the night. And the park keeper came ringing his bell. To close the gates and leave it quiet under the big old plane trees. The birds breaking evening silence in a little churchyard where I passed reading gravestones to wait for a bus on the bridge.

The lamplights on as we move along. The conductor pulling his buzzer cord on the ceiling. Handing customers tickets and rummaging in the pennies of his big leather bag. The houses pass to make one think of all the lands of London, from Paddington to Wandsworth, Shoreditch to Dulwich. Grey streets packed with lives under rooftops and rooftops. Chimney pots puffing slow smoke from the precious fires tucked away in the bricks.

The bus stops at a crossing. A shoemaker and an antique shop. Pavement stacked with bathtubs. A woman waiting on the curb. For the bus to pass. Her face. A brown cloth coat tucked up tight at her throat. Eyes staring ahead on this chilly night. The cheekbones and chin and eyes. The bus begins to move. Those bones and contours. In a face that seems so old. And gradually becomes familiar. As my mind peels all the time away. To hope that it isn't when I see that it is. That woman, careworn and sad. Must grab the handrail to get up. But no, sit back again. What could I ever say. Everything seems so late. That I can hardly believe but know that waiting there was Bella.

Back at the hotel a letter from my mother. From Paris to say she was poorly and hoped I would come. Please bring pictures of Millicent and the little fellow. I place her missive over another. A quite threatening one from solicitors. Not nice. And hardly knowing what I was doing. I took a taxi to Euston. Caught a night train. Stepping out in the morning after tea and biscuits in Liverpool. Stared at the big blackened building of steps and huge pillars across from the station Spent the day wandering to take a ferry across the muddy river to Birkenhead and go up and down along the rows and rows of red brick houses, reading the curious names of the streets. And at night to stand at the ship's railing to see again the iron birds high up on the Liver Building. The clock tolling a quarter to ten as the mail boat headed out on the water. Past the lightships. And great cargo vessels waiting to steam into the Mersey.

In the misty Belfast morning I took a taxi. Out through the smoky streets. The driver said he would ask his wife if he could drive me to Fermanagh. And he read a newspaper while drawn up by the side of the road. And I in this early afternoon went past the gate once held open on a broken hinge and now closed and padlocked. I stepped on stones and climbed over a broken part of the wall. And walked lost for a while. Brambles scratching through my trousers. To think I am here in trespass. Something I would never do. And look for where the land rises crowned by a wood. Cross this pasture. I know where I am. She lies just up there in the trees. Look down as I walk over her grass. And through the little iron gate in the wall. I come here to say hello and not goodbye. A piece of granite stands tall and plain. Next to another half its size. Two words make your name. And underneath the years that lived your life. Primroses and violets grow here where you lie. You will never go away. See all of you through the tears that cover my eyes. Wind blows in the yew. Soft red berries dropped with a green shadowy seed. The musty smell of boxwood. When you looked at me and I looked back we each said all our words. It matters only what private things we know and have never spoken. Or will ever speak. Take up the years that come. To carry you with me wherever I go. Face any loneliness. Know I'm not alone. You the only one I ever told about my lost little boy who was my first son. Wish I could blow hoots from the hollow of my hand and make the owls answer back. Tonight I will be in Dublin. From the train through Dundalk. I'll walk across Trinity in the morning. Around its flat green velvet squares. See you again as you passed beneath my windows. Fll look from the roadway where your bedroom window was and at the house in which I first heard you speak to me. Never to know all those suffering creatures your hand and voice gave comfort in hospital. Putting bravery in old men in fear of death. And these tears that fall from me, they'll help your grass to grow. Goodbye Fitz-dare. Goodbye.

The day windy as I went out to Collinstown. And the plane rose in the sky over Dublin south towards London. I could see along the coast and count the towns, Dalkey, Bray and Grey-stones. And the train we took through tunnels and up on cliffs looking down on a wintry shore in summer. Leave Ireland now. With part of it mine. Where it has your grave.