‘Now now Kildare, you are a devil. I really have had quite enough.’
When I was sure that Mr Arland had indeed had a sufficiency, I had our coats fetched from our rooms and it was not at all difficult to get him out the door. To freshen up a bit with the night air. But I did indeed once or twice quite forcibly push him forward in front of me. Past the still begging tinkers who thrice blessed him. And the more he started to laugh, the more I pushed. Till I was really shoving him, right, as the saying goes, around the corner. But we had to walk yet another street. Which seemed quite pleasantly and thoroughly protestant. With a big grey Masonic lodge. And societies for the protection of Indigent Widows of the Gentry. Then crossing over into another narrow street we came to the door. Open on the latch.
Again I had to push Mr Arland forward. And also upwards as he kept stumbling still highly amused on the narrow stairs. Groping as we were noisily through musty blackness from landing to landing. Till at the very top we could hear voices and singing and light flooding out. We stood in the doorway. And then came the Count’s voice over the throng of assembled heads.
‘Hello my darlings. Come in come in. Of course you will know no one here. And it does not matter. Nobody I know admits knowing anyone else I know. Shall we just leave it that way and get you drinks.’
Candles burning in this low ceilinged room. Sound of corks popping. A bottle of stout shoved in my hand. Hanging between gilded framed mirrors, four illumined oil portraits of Popes of the Roman Catholic Church. One of St Gregory the Great. His light blue painted eyes staring out over the pillow stacked chaise longue. And there, away in a tapestried corner were the courtesan and her red haired friend Rashers Ronald from the Shelbourne rooms. While another blonde lady was eyeing me. Making me most uncomfortable And as I eyed her right back, she crossed the room towards me pushing between the tight packed people.
‘You’re a bit young aren’t you, dear boy, to be here amid all these flagrantly perverted people. But I like your eyes. Are you with your parents.’
‘I was in fact invited with my tutor.’
‘You were what.’
‘I suppose as part of my education. There he is, the tall gentleman talking with that lady who’s wearing that large blue hat.’
‘O you are a rich young man then are you. Having a tutor.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘O you must be. Although you certainly don’t look it. But you sound to the manner born. I am an impoverished artist late of Bloomsbury, Bloomsbury Place, Bloomsbury Square, London as it happens. And I want you to buy my paintings.’
‘I should be quite happy to see them but I do not have much money to buy.’
‘I think you must be lying or else you’re totally bereft of culture.’
‘And you madam are lacking in manners.’
Darcy Dancer stepping back a little from this lady whose face juts forward. And turning to apologize as his heels landed on a rather robust young woman’s toes. Who shoves him off. Right up against the artist advancing upon him in her green voluminous sweater. A look of some consternation in her eyes. Streaks of grey in her bundled blonde hair. Moist red lips and quite good quality teeth. A pronounced strong nose and flared nostrils and a blue vein throbbing on her temple. And pleasantly sweet smelling breath as it wafts on my face.
‘I say who the hell are you. I really want to know. I have a son older than you are and I would not let him attend such a gathering as this. But you do have rather feminine eyes. They attracted my attention the instant you walked into the room. Yes you’re quite extraordinary looking. Who are you.’
‘I’m from the country.’
‘That’s quite clear from that coat and suit you’re wearing, and your rather overly large ears. Not that I’m that pristine, but your hair is washed I hope. Let me smell. O I say it’s quite clean. At least you’re not one of those awfully dirty Anglo Irish always doing something greasy with axles or water pumps or if they’re not wringing chickens’ necks in the drawing room then they’re sticking their arms up cows’ arses.’
‘You are impertinent, madam.’
‘Impertinent. Good lord, you’ve got your damn nerve coming in here among many of my personal friends and telling me, a lady three times your age that I am impertinent. Who the hell are you.’
‘And you’ve already asked me that three times and I have my good reasons for declining to say.’
‘Cheeky little chap, aren’t you. It’s your immaturity of course. But I think I like you. Yes, there’s just the merest trace of hair on your upper lip. You shall have whiskers soon, won’t you. I am one of those dangerous women they call divorcees. Whose husband was a confirmed pederast. Which put it into my head to corrupt little boys such as you before he did.’
‘Why don’t you try it.’
‘What. What did you say. Try it. Surely you little fellow, you’re having me on. I wouldn’t dare. Corrupt you.’
‘I thought not. You’re all talk aren’t you. That silly kind of thing ladies like you of the Bohemian set think is the modern fashion.’
‘In one second I think I shall slap your little face.’
‘And should you madam, I will in turn, slap yours.’
‘Just who the hell are you, you brat.’
‘My father frequently refers to me as a bastard, but I don’t suppose that information will enlighten you much.’
‘It enlightens me a great deal. But I think you should be got out of here.’
This lady leaning close to Darcy Dancer’s ear, her lips touching to whisper. The softness of her mouth. Makes me rather shiver pleasantly. Just as Thunder and Lightning must do when Foxy on cold winter nights rubbed and squeezed his ears to make him warm and calm.
‘Dear boy, there is an unwholesome element. Not to mention the many mediocre minds present. But see those men. They are gunmen. Quite ruthless. Not the sort of type a young man such as you ought to be rubbing elbows with. The Count should be ashamed of himself for inviting you. Come. Come with me immediately.’
‘Why should I.’
‘Because I shall, dear boy, besides showing you my etchings, make you the most marvellous cocoa you have ever had.’
The lady casting her eyes for Darcy Dancer to follow across the room. Past a hefty bruiser wearing a red carnation in his buttonhole. A gentleman they said was a champion boxer. And a red haired beauty they said was his girlfriend who used shoes to bang his head as he used fists to bang her face. They were called all over Dublin the Bruises United. And to three gentlemen in caps and macintoshes standing about sucking on the ends of cigarettes, looking furtively at the doorway and indeed unpleasantly in my direction. Certainly cocoa as a beverage is not to be dismissed lightly. And always was, after wild blackberry jam that Nannie Nurse Ruby specially made for me, my second favourite food. Coming hot in a jug up from the kitchens snug under a tea cosy on the chill winter nights, when Nannie Ruby told me my bedtime stories of big green dragon monsters and wise old billy goats. There stands Rashers Ronald brushing a speck from his dinner clothes as he loftily intones to a shabby rain coated gent beside him.
‘Would you mind awfully getting out of my life, I prefer the company of people creative in the arts rather than criminal in the crafts.’
And now bodies jumping in the centre of this smoky room. The floor as well as the whole building shaking. A roaring shout.
‘Give him violence or give him death but don’t give the greedy fucker another bottle of stout.’
‘You’ll give me another bottle of stout by gob or I am going to kick the living bejesus out of you back and forth across the border till not a vestige of that division is left, you cunt, you.’