"Are you porters done. Dark beadles of injustice. How dare you burst in in this manner. Bringing plaster with you. Causing nuisance to a man who will one day follow quite closely upon the heels of Christ. He was an awfully good walker before they tacked him up."
"We are under orders sir."
"Well then. New orders. Vamoose. Take your lot out into the night. O yes, the Provost will hear of this. My trustees will certainly be assembling in front of the Bank of England over there in the land of fair play. And by God when the drummer begins to strike a cadence, they will march to the Holyhead, stepping of course right over Wales. Do you hear me. Put down that crowbar. Quite untoward. My trustees will be on the night boat soon and by God they will be scribbling out writs and the like, as well as many other beribboned documents."
"Very well sir, very well."
"You know I happen to be a scholar."
"Yes sir."
"Ranking of the fifth rank in this college. And a gentleman of the choir."
"We do sir know this.' "Scholar in classics, as well as a man who is to take holy orders. And you chaps break down doors and visit indiscriminate injury to the sensibilities of myself and Prince B. Your Highness my profound apologies. As your host one wants so much to blot out horrendous spiritual bruises which smite one in one's chambers. Quite odious."
"We are quite sorry sir to have incommoded you."
"All right. We all, here present, know our redeemer liveth. Let that suffice. I am tired."
"Goodnight sir."
Porters departing silent and open mouthed. Beefy examining his busted door. Sad bolts and latches hanging, screws twisted out of the splintered wood.
"Don't you find this all terribly unrefreshing Balthazar. Look what they've done to my poor door. What a waste of their broken shoulders to think they could outwit Beefy. Infantry captain extraordinary. I think cannibalism is next on my calendar of lusts."
"Let us out of here."
"Right with you girls now."
Beefy at the turf bin. Lifting up the lid top. Displaying the brown piles of turf. His hand choosing a crumbling piece.
"Quite real. You see Balthazar. Now. We close this up. And here, come watch, undo this and we draw back a little secret door. And the two morsels of our delight. Good evening girls."
In the shadows, sitting upon a low bench. Breda and Rebecca grim faced and unglad. Shuffling out sideways. Fitter patter of the rain. And the wind rising. The scullery window ashake. Helping the ladies back into the little game. Beefy so gallantly plays. With rules writ. For black bliss. Oblique and naughty. Smiling he bows. This boy of all those years ago. Whose purest voice raised such sweet threnody to sound across meadows blending the lightest green with daisies and buttercups. Taken by his friendly hand through woodlands gently away from fear. He made my Tillie well again.
"Get us out of here, I want to be gone out of here altogether."
"Girls I myself would dearly like to be lost at this moment. Amid the gaieties of the London season if possible. After all the recent rattings. Buggering up the stylish sauciness I had so hoped was to be our lot. And still can be."
"Til not be arrested in this college you chancer."
"Rebecca that's not an awfully nice thing to say. After risking all to keep you safe from harm. Allow me to take this strap from your tempting shoulder."
"You're the devil himself, you are."
"Please. Both of you are my honoured guests. Good grief. Abandon ship. The windows."
A woeful crash. The door falling flat into Beefy's chambers. Over it tramping three porters. A wave of dust rising. The Proctor rigid at the disembowelled entrance. All triumph buried unseen in the sad face. The sound of doors opening on the staircase landings below. To see what the earthquake is about. Windows squeaking, and others slamming shut. A college awake this night. For an awarding of a degree. In harlotry.
"Very well. I apologise to both of you young ladies. I'm sure you've been misled here. You Beefy, and you Mr. B. Attend tomorrow at three. My office. I shall appreciate your escorting these young ladies, again with my apologies, out of the university. A taxi has been summoned. That is all. Goodnight."
A roll of drums beating. Cannons firing salvos. In a coffin two blank parchments. Of ungranted degrees. Drawn on a gun carriage. Hooves echoing their clatter up and down Dublin streets. Sorrowing people wave their little flags and tap their tears. The wind awakes and blows. Bends and flattens highland grass. The bagpipes play. A purple music across the heather. Go down to death bravely. When you go. Neither to weep nor smile. Tomorrow will be a yesterday when nothing mattered at all. It rains tonight. This bishop born Beefy.
Anointed with his own gracious infamies. A high stepper in all doggish demeanours. We both are led by the scruff of the neck. To the black long taxi. A light lit inside. To reload the girls. In this college square they call Botany Bay.
Under
The wild
Hair
Of the trees.
19
Across empty midnight cobbles of Dublin. Past the time tolling up in a tower clock. Down a steep street and by an ancient church. Beefy told the taxi to stop. He helped Rebecca alight. And said goodbye.
Balthazar B looking out the back window as the motor drew away. Four caravans on a wasteland site. Tinkers bundled up in sleep. Near an edge of lamplight Beefy stood, his arm around Rebecca. And there he seems to stay.
The taxi crossed the Liffey. White swans floating. Rolling now past the shuttered shops of Capel Street and out along an empty northern strand by a flat deserted park. Clontarf where so many times I sped through, hurrying by Landship to the races at Baldoyle. While little kiddies waved and shouted at me with joy. A flashing beacon of a lighthouse beyond the shadowy floating bumpiness of North Bull Island. Played a cold day of golf out there on those sandy hills. Dreaming far less sporty things as I struck the ball. Of a female I could call my own. To send tulips to. Have somewhere to put my pleasure as I lay my heart down against hers. Breda with her dark little eyes and bony narrow wrists.
"What will they be after doing to you at college."
"Rustication.' "What's that."
"They banish you. Send you down."
"Is that worse than up."
"Yes down's worse than up."
"I guess it doesn't make any difference to that Beefy. With his millions of pounds. Sure he could just laugh."
"Sometimes it's not that easy."
"I can't see what's hard about having all that money."
"Well someone like Beefy has trustees. And they can be troublesome,"
"If money's there what's trouble about that. You could give me all the trustees you like. He's some fellow the likes of him. That I've not come across before. Not that I've been anywhere in my life. I'm just ordinary working class. I've never been in a room like that before. It was like something you'd see on the films. With the carpets on the wall. And shiny things jumping out at you from the plaster. I guess I'm not what you might call educated."
"Education is learning only what you don't have to know."
"Is that a fact."
"I think so."
"You're a very funny person. Not like your friend. You're the quiet type. I guess you don't think much of me."
"Why do you say that."
"Well I won't say now but Rebecca she's my oldest friend because we were reared together down over in Irishtown. We're not exactly princesses. Are we. I don't live far now. You don't have to have the driver go any further. I can walk from here by a short cut. If you stop by the shop on the corner. Ahead there."