"You must let me tantalise myself Balthazar. To me these days it means much. Let me digress one more delicious moment. The chaps at my building site when they saw me giving the cement a little extra wetting down. They cheered. Said it was the biggest weapon ever seen. It rather improved my day. Of course I know it's achieved a further grandeur it did not know at prep school. And perhaps not even as one prepared to take holy orders. But to have these chaps cheer. It's given me courage to again present this instrument to a mare who would exchange all her riches lain at my feet for a guarantee of frequent thrustings. Ah but back at the doctor's."
"Yes."
"Ah. Her name, listen carefully while I thrill it out between my sober lips. Listen. Angelica Violet Infanta. Doesn't that tell you much already. Angelica, from the Greek, Violet from the Latin. Those delicate tiny flowers found on grassy banks through woods. Infanta. From that latter one catches a tremolo of Debrett. I swim back to the shores of privilege out of the sea of the dispossessed. Saved from a lifetime of discomfort. But back at my doctor's. Medical treatment is the only thing left that granny pays for these days. And the dear man while he was examining my bones said, now Beefy there waits downstairs in my waiting room a girl of not too great looks perhaps but a marvellous fortune. When I returned to the waiting room I gave my most charming smile. But she was of course aloof. In fact positively ignored me. Being as I was and still am, in a state of deshabille. But on the good doctor's front door step. I lurked waiting. And did pounce. With a long prepared stream of lies. When the door opened and she appeared. I said I'm awfully sorry. Then I left an enormous pause. To let my villainous vowels sink in. Her eyebrows were rising. I attacked. Said I'd just rushed from rehearsals. Left my bowler and brolly in my dressing room. I'm a navvy darling in an uproariously funny stage play. I didn't say darling I must admit. But I made a further thrust. As always Fm the first to believe myself. I said you, my dear, are just the one one has been looking for. My leading lady in the flesh. She began to open her mouth. I knew it would be fatal if ever she got anything out. Something odious like be gone cad. So I said. Say nothing please. Just come with me. I got her into a nearby wine lodge. Admiring her eighty quids' worth of tailoring she carried so presentably on her back. I extracted her address. Belgravia of course. I flung the necessary heirlooms into pawn. Bombarded her with red roses for a week. And now if only I can hold out. Keep the wool over suspicious eyes. Tonight I meet ma and pa."
"I'm terribly pleased for you Beefy."
"Balthazar so good to hear your word. When all is not well. When you know that out under the cloudy skies of London no one thinks in love of one. But now. The Violet Infanta. Niece of a Welsh peer. You know how utterly rich they are. She may mention Le Touquet a trifle too often for my comfort. Does rather hysterically laugh. But what matter. We'll get on. In wedlock I know I can grow to love her. For what she is. Stinking. Gushingly stinking rich. My doctor smiles every time he tells me of her ground rents and her father's connection with motor cars. Given me the runs, made me half demented. The slothful grandeur of it all. Our spiritual feelings are so in harmony. She's a rabid believer in the monarchy. And of course so am I. Ah Balthazar you look so untouched by life. The calmness of your existence. Back there in Paris. You must meet her. You must. Told her all about you. She thinks she has a friend you would adore."
Beefy's sun reddened hand reaching to lightly touch his cravat. And a finger flicks away a morsel of hardened mud from his knee. As mothers, aunts and nannies march by, irregularities of figure neatly corsetted under their tweed. Children in tow. On their way to measure for the school uniform.
"Balthazar, you do tolerate me so much. Why."
"Your charm."
"For that I shall send you by foot messenger six gull's eggs. Imagine though how God answered my prayer. Nearly within the hour. I even thought I might have caught a glimpse of him as the light bulb overhead exploded. I knelt with the backside out of my underwear and untold guilts from nursery days blushing on my face. Fm on my way. My rich mare lassoed. And till I get to the altar, I smash back my emulsion of poppy juice to keep my spirits up. I really know now that one's redeemer damn sure liveth."
"Beefy. I don't want to trouble you or be presumptuous. But I do think that you need a little help. And Fd like very much if you would accept from me an early wedding present."
"Balthazar, my goodness, you are a brick. You really are. What an awfully nice thing of you to say. Were I a heretic denying the transubstantiation and you minded, I must say Fd mend my ways forthwith. And my Lord I haven't really asked you how you are. How are you.' "Fm fine. Very fine. I had one or two low moments in Paris perhaps. But at the same time I rather caught up on some aspects of zoology I had missed."
"God suddenly the world at this moment seems so good. I mean one couldn't help wondering what was going to happen to us. To our caste. Me wheeling a wheelbarrow on a building site. Marvellous thing is, amazing how many places one can go, a wheelbarrow in front of you, shouting out gangway. Fm planning to use it to enter the Enclosure at Ascot with champagne buried in my little load of ice cold sand."
"Would you excuse me Beefy. Just for a few moments."
Balthazar passed to the end of the waiting hall. Between the elevators. And down the steps into the vaults. Pressing the black little button. A buzzer ringing along a corridor and footsteps approaching. Dark uniformed man lifting up his rings of keys to unlock and swing open this iron barred entrance.
"Good day, sir."
"Good day."
Heels clicking over the tiles along this passage and turning right into a mirrored room, a fan whirring quietly. The tinkle of keys and clank of a safe door. Great steel box lugged forth. Placed on a high table shelf behind the frosted glass door of a panelled booth. Turn the key, lift up the lid. Reach into the loneliness. To choose a stack of white storage crisp five pound notes. From the other stacks of French, Swiss, Dutch and Danish. Uncle Edouard always said keep a balance of currencies dear boy to cushion your horror if they all devalue at once.
And climbing back the carpeted marble stairs. Left between the phalanx of lift doors. Step aside politely for a high heeled toy poodle carrying perfumed customer. Beefy, my goodness, engaged in eager conversation with the dowager. He must practice on all old ladies. In the hope of handling granny. He lights up one's whole lonely life. With his fighting flaming flesh and bone. Now my God she's handing him her card. Enmeshed in his magic. And once he said at a distance people look different but when you talk to them they all become the same.
"Beefy. Here."
"Balthazar. I don't really feel I ought to take this."
"You must. Because it's my wedding present."
"You are a brick you know. But if the wedding should never take place."
A silence. And their both eyes look down. Upon the packed sheets of money. The dowager clears her throat. A waddling American goes by through the cocktail murmur of voices on this splendidly tremulous afternoon.
"Thank you unforgettably Balthazar. With the world gone dotty with greed you alone stand uncorrupted."
Beefy with a gentle gesture touched Balthazar. And put the wad of notes with all their curlicued embellishments in under his tweed. Giving them a reassuring little pat. He turned to his dowager friend and smiled. She smiled. One can weep with joy. To be at home again in London. Beefy's eyes as they always look for something in the middle distance. Never too close nor too far. He will hit yet the world a stunning blow. Crumple it in the mid section. And bring it back to life again with a dram of his poppy juice.
"Balthazar may I introduce you. Lady Bicuspid. I've just been telling her about great grand uncle. Who contracted fever tracing the source of the Nile. He was the first to find the source of the Shannon for the Irish. It foxed the Erse for years. Poor devils. They were delighted when great grand uncle with a sample given him by my great grand father identified the water as being from a particular lake in China, called Shah Nun. For millennia it had leaked right through the earth. To trickle out in Ireland. That's how Shannon came to be its name. They gave uncle an immortal potato. The very original one they kept buried in a box at Tara. From which came all the others. Poor uncle. After his success in Ireland he thought he'd solve the Nile. Got knighted for his religious work among the savages. Who later, God rest his soul, knighted him with a spear where one does not want such a thing. They offered him up as a sacrifice in honour of the God uncle had revealed to them. They ate him. Without salt. It was awful. And dear lady. It appalls me still. The utter lack of gratitude and charity. Must rush now, but so pleasant meeting you like this."