"We'll take you all the way."
"No I want to get out now."
"It's raining."
"I don't mind."
"Driver stop. There. By the post."
"Very good sir."
"How much do I owe you."
"Ah let's see now. Forty bob. This time of night. Been a lot of wear and tear on the tires. With the grain of cement lying the wrong way on the road if you understand me sir."
"All right."
"Now if it was another kind of road sir with the surface giving less trouble."
"Goodbye driver."
Balthazar B standing on this grey wet pavement. The rain falling through a halo of lamplight. A post office, butcher, grocer and newsagent. Lonely houses behind high hedges. The wind with a seaweed smell off the sea. This girl thinly standing, clutching her handbag. The rear red light of the taxi still seen after all its sound is gone.
"Sure you're stranded now."
"I'll walk with you home if I may."
"Sure you may and I'm glad of company. But it's an awful wet way and how will you ever get back."
"I'll manage."
"Ah God you'll catch your death of cold just in your suit."
"I'll be alright. You've only got a sweater."
"Ah don't worry about me, I'm used to it but the kind of life you're accustomed to leading. It wouldn't suit you to be wandering out here in the rain."
"You won't mind my coming with you."
"Sure you're welcome. Sure you know that. That you're welcome."
"Thank you."
"That taxi man has made himself a fortune this night, cheating like that after your friend gave him five pounds. That makes me angry."
"You musn't worry."
"It's a fortnight's wages to me."
Out into darkness. The lamplight left behind at the cross roads. All familiar just a short time ago. An afternoon expedition, a class outing looking for fossils. Students standing about in their belted up macintoshes, some in mountain climbing kit, with rucksacks strapped to backs. And I came roaring through in the Landship. Heading for the nags at Baldoyle. To stop awhile in the little gathering. I had not an acid bottle nor hammer, just the racing form. I thought I would be welcomed. That perhaps they had missed me. And all I seemed to see was a laughing Miss Fitzdare as she pedaled someone's bicycle around in a little circle on the road. Then she leaned back on the handle bars. I saw her stretched out legs in her blue stockings and they looked long and handsome. And I was so surprised.
"This is the short cut I'm taking. Up back here. That's the North Bull lighthouse in the bay and the other is the Poolbeg. Rebecca and I when we were only little would ride her bike down the wall all the way to the end. Where the lighthouse is. It was like being out on a ship with water on both sides of you. She's a bit of a wild one. She'd throw rocks at old men. Her father before he got sick himself beat her within an inch of her life night after night. Take her things and throw them out the window down on to the road when she'd try to run away. Sure all she owned was an old chocolate box full of bits of old pens and her Sunday hat for church. She was trying to write a book. She got no further than the title. You might say the book was commercial romantic. It was called The Price Paid For The Pearl of Purity."
'That's a rather good title."
"She scratched it out and wrote another one later, which wouldn't be proper for me to tell you. But she didn't go on long paying the price for purity. She was paid a price is more like it. O God look at you. Rain dripping off your hair. It's very nice of you to walk like this with me. I could have managed on my own. But it's nice. I like walking. I don't ever have much time but when I do there's no one to walk with. I go along the beach out there. And collect shells. Give me your hand now, across through here, it's awfully slippy in the wet and you can't see the path through the bracken. It's only a little ways now."
Mists against the face. A faint fog horn. Her hand small and strong, to feel strangely delicate and warm. Brown slapping fern wetting the knees. A pouring sound of water against the ground.
"What's that noise."
"Ah it's nothing, the sheep, they hear something passing in the night. I don't want to be bold or fresh, but they are peeing in the grass in fear. Now that's where I am. The little bit of extension out on the back. Sure you've got an awful long trip ahead of you."
"Fve done this before. Try my luck again. I'll be guided back by the lighthouses."
"You look chilled. Ah God it's not right. You coming all this way."
"It's fine."
"You look to me of delicate constitution. I'm small looking but as strong as an ox. Sure you're just but very wispy. It becomes you, like a saint starved you might say. You know a thing I want to ask you. About your friend. Is it true or all made up what he goes on saying. We're taught a poor opinion of the protestants. But myself I've always found them honest and decent. And my own kind I found would cheat you out of your sight. I've never known the likes of Church of Ireland people to get up to the devil and mischief of your friend. I'm broadminded but Rebecca allows him shocking awful liberties. Then if a fellow can give you a laugh he doesn't cheapen you. We're nearly here. Mind now this fence. There's broken bottle and barbed wire. Listen to that. The wind is getting fierce. North westerly. Always makes me homesick. I know it's blowing across Cavan. Many a night it makes me cry to sleep. I can't think of you out in the likes of this."
"I'll be alright."
"Ah God look at you. You won't be. You're shivering."
"I always do that."
"Ah don't cod me."
"No really."
"I don't know what to say. But. But I don't want you to get the wrong idea. That I'm being bold. It's two by now in the morning. I could be murthered for it."
"What's that."
"You would say in English now, murder. In Ireland we say murthered because it takes us so much longer to do it. And I could be murthered but I mustn't let you go."
"I'm fine."
"Ah I'm no good. No good at all."
"Why."
"I'm just not that's all. What I'm really trying to say to you is I don't want you to go back. But stay. Go ahead you can say no, it won't be then for lack of me trying. Goodnight. If you go out the alley now and be careful of the barrels it will take you into the road and you go left then and keep to the sea.' "I want to say yes."
"O."
"If you're asking me to stay, and it won't be any inconvenience to you."
"It's yes then."
"Yes."
"O."
"What's the matter."
"I don't know. I didn't think you would say yes and now I don't know what to do."
"Do you want me to say no."
"No."
"But if it's upset you."
"No. I'm glad you said yes."
"Yes I said yes."
"I'm scared out of my wits. I could use a bit of your friend Beefy's nerve. O but it's not to worry. That's my room up there."
"I don't want to cause you distress. It's no trouble for me to go. If it's difficult for you."
"You're the most beautiful man I've ever seen in my life. O God. Just give me a moment. I'll collect myself now. I'll be giving you an awful swell head. And mine I may get knocked off me. Now I have got to go in and when I get up to my room. I only have to open the window and you get on that barrel and step to the roof of the gents and it's easy to pull you in off there. You won't mind, my quarters are not grand."
Balthazar B stood in the yard, a cold shadow under the eaves. Fat raindrops landing to flow down between the roots of hair and drip from eyebrows, ear lobes and nose. Water gushing from a broken gutter pipe. Shadows of crates stacked. My wet silk shirt sticking to my ribs. A smell of hay. Somewhere warm and dry. In the sheltered opening of this old cow shed. An unending night. If Miss Fitzdare ever hears. I'll never see her again. Mid fingerbowls, linen and lace. Here now in mud, manure and rain.