‘Who gave you the damn leave to drink these wines.’
‘They are the property of this house and therefore mine.’
‘Like blasted hell they are. What do you think you are running, a private whorehouse here. Shut that door. Damn you. And who do you think you are to contravene my orders and interfere in the affairs of running this estate. Burning down a school. Shooting shot guns at people. And think you’re squire here. Well I’ll bloody well squire you, you little bastard.’
‘Why don’t you shut up. You thief.’
Amazing how few words one has to use to gain one’s desired effect. As this odious person pushing his chair back slowly gets up. Crumpling his napkin in his fist. I could of course just wait till he lunges and slam the door shut in his face. Have the concussion of the entire monstrously heavy mahogany swinging on its hinges stop him in his tracks.
‘You little bastard, I’ve had just about all I shall take from that insolent mouth of yours.’
Most amazing thing, his flies are open. As he strides, hunched forward. Approaching me with the napkin clutched in his hand. Although I moved away along by the sideboard I was horrified I was not immediately making my hasty departure. But in fact it appeared he was just judiciously closing the door from which I had just as judiciously stepped aside. He then turned and crossed to the pantry door and bolted it. Returning now to confront me across the gleaming surface of the table. Including the silver mounted fluted glass mustard pot. Which I may yet have to use flinging it and its contents at his head as he stands there so deliberately holding back his coat as he unbuckles and removes his gun belt.
‘I’m going to teach you a lesson.’
His lips drawn in a mean tight line, approaching me around the table as I back away. And I don’t know how on earth he did it so accurately. But the first swipe he took at me with the belt came whizzing around and caught him right across his own face which paled. A hissing noise coming out of his mouth with his eagerness to land a blow on me. I merely pulled out the chairs from under the table to impede him. He slapped and pushed at them. And while jumping one he stumbled to a fall breaking a brace between a chair’s legs. I kept moving gracefully. Not even bothering to stop to open a door.
‘You damn little cunt you. I’ll flail you alive.’
Darcy Dancer dodging left and right. The swishes of belt landing everywhere. Just a matter of a discomforting but safe distance behind me. And once wrapping around a decanter neck to snap it off the side table to land it thumping on the floor. Round and round the table one went. The candelabra crashed over and candles flying. His thin red veined face getting redder. As I dragged one chair behind me as my adversary tried to extend the lashes of his belt past the obstacle and I raced bumping and crashing it down one end of the table and up the other.
‘If I ever catch you, you little bastard, I’ll kill you.’
Stopped in front of the chimneypiece, more objets d’art were sent from their repose to their desecration as he struck out trying to reach me across the table. The seats fallen out of nearly all the chairs. Over one of which this crazed madman crashed straight into the sideboard. Everything trembled as it was sent back against the wall. And the massive painting of the Irish Wolfhound, Prince of Errold, the great great grandfather of Kern and Olav, crashed down. The bottom edge of the giant frame breaking an array of Meissen vegetable dishes and crushing the silver tea service recently put sparkling there by Miss von B. And just as my pursuer stopped and was estimating the pawn shop value of these drastically cheapened items, a sympathetic vibration also brought crashing down another monstrous painting of one of my mother’s uncles, a founder member of the Kildare Street Club. One did not mind this latter loss. A tiresome looking chap anyway. Especially the supercilious manner in which he appeared to gloat down in his dress colonel’s uniform. And one thing had become absolutely apparent in one’s life. That even despite my recent bed ridden state and all my other shortcomings, and even the boggish demeanour Miss von B says I display in peeing off the front steps, that at least there were few if any persons abroad anywhere now capable of catching me on foot, wheels or horseback.
‘I’ll bloody your bloody head yet.’
‘You will like bloody hell.’
‘You little bastard. Fucking christ.’
Happily and exactly upon these latter two hissed words, he put his foot through another section of flooring previously opened up by the heavy member of the Garda Siochana. And indeed even penetrated the ceiling below. Landing on one knee while the other completely disappeared beyond floor level. And as he tried to pull up his foot he pitched forward right on his face. His monocle dropping out of his eye and rolling in a circle into the hole.
‘Fucking damn christ you little bastard I am going to get you if it’s the last bloody damn thing I do on earth.’
I nearly collapsed backwards laughing. For I had just taken the drape still hanging half off where someone had attempted to put it back up and I threw the dusty heavy brocaded folds right over him. Lashing out as he was now at everything. And distinctly getting out of breath.
‘There you are you stupid bully find your way out of that.’
Darcy Dancer leaning in close to shout his words into the rising dust and shape changing drape. And suddenly to try to jump back as he felt his ankle caught by a big strong hand. Upending his leg. And then a thumb and finger sinking deep into the side of my neck. As we grappled and crashed back again into the sideboard, knocking off another decanter or two and scattering the broken pieces of dishes among the salt and sugar grains under foot. Mixed with the greasy fare of the breakfast plate now off the table. Lowering my head I butted him. And twisted free of his hand. He fell backwards, holding on to the table and catching his breath. The sound of his angrily hissing voice. Silenced when I opened and slammed shut the door of the dining room. In the hall my hand going up to my face, wet and cool as I ran. My fingers covered crimson. Blood pouring in a cascade. On my chest and pumping knees. As I raced up the grand staircase.
Miss von B hysterical as she saw me. Coming into her room. Throwing myself in her arms. There beside her bed. Packing her luggage. And I felt my own few tears between her sobs. She cleaned the wound. A deep gouge down my cheek. And covered it with gauze and bandage. Which went right round my head and under my nose. Her photograph album open on top of a neat stack of her clothes on the floor. Two pictures removed from their mounts. One of her as a tiny child and another I had not seen before. Of her side faced and laughing. Her hair shortened in curls at the side of her head.
‘I want you to have these please of me.’
And on that morning, grown grey and cold again after a sunny sun, the pictures in my hands, I begged her not to go. That this was my house if she would but wait. But then I knew and could understand. What she meant when she said the drums were beating. That throughout the household were furtive frightened looks. From Norah and Sheila, rushing past just nodding their silent heads. And Crooks quickly exiting from rooms and Catherine the cook working behind a closed kitchen door that was usually always open. The breakages still left in the dining room. Crooks’s crossed eyes seemed now heaven and hellwards turned instead of in their usual east and west directions. And Miss von B said I should have careful stitches in my face. But I would not let her have the doctor summoned. That I was quite content to be scarred for life. And then I heard her voice. Down in the north east parlour. Shouting. As I was descending the grand staircase.
‘Haven’t you done enough to the poor boy. To cut and disfigure his face. When he has only been recently out of his sick bed. You brute.’