"How awful for you."
"But tonight. Beefy has taken me from all that. It is why I have had too much to drink. It is so kind of you to listen Miss Fitzdare to all my troubles like this. I must not keep you longer. I must take leave of you. I don't want to go. But already I've been far too much of an imposition."
"You mustn't feel that, please.' "What way do I go."
"If you proceed down to the end of this road and turn right it will take you straight to Dublin. But I really shouldn't let you go."
"Have faith in me Miss Fitzdare. I am really related to explorers. It's the absolute truth. Just give me some natural phenomenon to head for and my instincts will do the rest."
"Tell me you'll take every care."
"Yes."
"There's a river. Walk straight as far as you can go. The River Dodder. Then turn right along Donnybrook Road straight into Leeson Street and St. Stephen's Green."
Balthazar B bowing. Slowly stepping backwards. Miss Fitz-dare wore a silver jumping horse pinned to her coat. And she walks away between the high iron railings. Through a gate which creaks closed. A cement path to looming wide stone steps. A big shadowy house standing on dark lawns. Can see a stone porch and beyond looks like gardens. The fat upturned limbs of a monkey tree and others thick and tropical in the passing bits of moonlight. Door opening. She stands a silhouette. Her hand raised to wave goodbye.
My finger
Dips
Into the cold
Indelicacy
Of
Dublin.
15
Balthazar B raised his head from the wet grassy darkness. Moist patches of his clothes sticking to his skin. To remember forging bravely on some detour which seemed so quicker north west to Dublin town. Over a stone wall. To land in a ditch and field. Looking up at the sky for a guiding star. And then keeling over into empty darkness. And the steamy nostrils munching near. The ripping and tearing of grass. And sound of bone grinding jaws. To rise in terror as a cow reared and trotted away.
Miss Fitzdare's dancing blue eyes back there somewhere. In a white white skin and lips of redness that glowed. Must get up and back upon my strategic way. The bark of a dog. A cross. A convent. Nuns in nightgowns maybe. Fm utterly lost. Which way over these fields. Goodness, windows ahead with bars. And human anguished noises somewhere behind those walls. Civilization can not be far away. Must steer past this building of incarceration. Nothing now to do but flip a coin. Tell me which way is north. Uncle Edouard said always forge on. That way is north. Across there the faint shadows of a rooftop. In the wagging shrubberies and trees. Trudge muddily on.
Ah underfoot the firm feel of gravel. Will take me somewhere. A fence I see. And hear an owl hoot. Never had so much fresh air. Nor as much cold feet. Chilling me back to life. I am so lost any direction now will do. Should have stayed in her stable. Eating hay. Miss Fitzdare come out and give me a cube of sugar in the morning, and take me cantering round the lawn for exercise. Sitting up on me, moleskin riding breeches tightly clutched against my ribs. Could easily be an indecent thought. Good heavens, I'm wading through someone's flower beds, maybe azaleas ahead. Someone lives here quite comfortably. Beefy said an area of embassies, and bank directors, salubrious and subtropical.
Balthazar B stopping before the shadowy outline of a house. Gabled roof over faint squares of cozy windows. No question now. I am on private property. How utterly awful. I must tip toe away. Casually. Into the dark. Over there is a garage tucked into this secluded house. With panes of stained glass I can make out. That way must be north. Uncle Edouard says to tramp steadily in one continuous direction is better than wandering in discontinuous circles. He was in my dreams when I woke back there on the grass. Gave me some rather amusing advice. At least I've struck out for Dublin when all odds were against me. Without stars. Just a momentary moon. O my God what's this. A birdbath. I hope. Hands out now to touch carefully as I go. Perhaps a vegetable garden to be crossed. There's got to be a field. And maybe a river upon whose banks I can guide my way back. Or swim this time of night. No nerve to knock and enquire. As Beefy could do all plausible and winning. Make my heart resolute now. Onward chaps. Get around the side of this house. Make a dash before there is a flash of moonlight again. I have a horror of trespass.
Balthazar B moved swiftly in the moist soft darkness. Guiding his way. And suddenly smashing into an obstacle. Something falling. And crashing to the ground. An infernal thump. Be heard for miles. Must run. Around this back corner of the house. Make exit. O my God something has me tight across the throat. They've got me already. Never did I have a chance. Please I'm only a lost natural science student from Trinity. Wait. What's this. Wet cloth. Clothes. A washing line. Lord a giant foundation garment. Fit for an amazon. Must get disentangled at all costs. And quietly run like mad away from here.
A light switching on in the house. Balthazar tugging at the line. As it stiffens and the garments rise up from the lawn. Yanking harder. A rip and crash of cement from the wall of the stuccoed house. Just below an open and ablaze window. To be back in Rathgar now to say push me the pudding will you. Instead of here helplessly damaging property. After all the bomb escapes. To be befallen this perfectly disenchanting exploration. Out of one's wits in someone's private garden. I wanted so much to guide myself homeward by the stars.To test my instincts alone with nature. And tell Miss Fitzdare. That I just followed the bent of ancestors. And now goodness someone is shouting.
"Who is that down there."
Make for that shrubbery. Crouching now in under this thick rhododendron. In the pin drop silence. And pull in this washing line.
"O Lord God Jimmie wake up there's something down in the garden."
"What is it now."
"Wake up I'm telling you."
Balthazar B hauled in the vague pegged white cloths lying out across the lawn. Which will lead straight to me. Slowly. So indeed indelicate. A brassiere. More female undergarments. All of them. Whalebone corsets. Pink silk pantaloons. Outsize. The woman who fits these garments upon her person is not to be trifled with.
"Jimmy Jimmy wake up out of the bed Fm telling you. There's a long snake moving across the lawn so help me God Jimmy do you hear me."
O my God what does one do now. I've been spotted pulling in the washline. People so easily disbelieve St. Patrick. Uncle Edouard can you hear me. At this most ignoble moment. In which I've not meant to cause such upset. Honestly madam Pve only been trying to find my way back to my rooms. Somewhere north there beyond your garage. I would recognise the grey walls and high green fence in an instant. Just beyond Merrion Square. Thump the nail once or twice on the big thick door and a porter will come from his curled up sleep at the fire. To let me in. To go abed within my thick walled rooms, so safe and cold. Dear St. Basil the Great deliver me from this shrubbery garden.
"Jimmy ah God, you'd sleep would you, and I'm being raped within an inch of me life, while you're snoring there, Fm being defiled. Wake up I'm telling you.'
To have quietly trotted to Miss Fitzdare's stables. And munched sweet hay there through the night. She said such kind things to me. Opened out a whole world of heathery flowers. In rain they sparkle down among their browny twigs even when the whole winter world is grey. Just as all this green is so dark and hopeless. Got to shift position now I've dragged in this suspicious line. Just nip over across there to the thicker bushes. And the washing line will follow.
"Ah God Jimmy there he goes. I'm calling the garda. I've seen him now. Trampling my best roses. Down there in the garden. With a length of snaky thing coming out of him so long he's dragging it. I'm telling you. Jimmy. Get up, get up. If it's ever rape with a thing like that he's dragging after him. I couldn't stomach it, the little fig stem you've got is bad enough. He must be crazed by sex to have the likes of that on him. Jimmy wake up I'm telling you. Jesus Mary and Joseph, he could be a Mohammedan. It's been in the Irish Times that a horde could be coming any time from the East. That Islam is on the march. It's shock enough to know you're in the minority without them running loose in your garden."