‘Where’s my father.’
‘He’s down below with the agent in the rent room. And if you will be preferring to dine alone, I’ll take you up some hot supper whenever you’re ready. I wouldn’t let it be known where you were to anybody calling.’
‘Thank you Crooks. I’ll dine in my room. And I do appreciate what you’ve done.’
‘Well master Reginald, I wouldn’t be much of a gentleman’s gentleman if I didn’t look after one’s master’s business as well as I would look after my own.’
I supped behind my locked door and waited till just before dawn. And the household still. My father retired to the north west corner of the house over the ballroom. I dressed with two big thick pairs of boot socks, two woolly vests, cricket shirt and dark blue sweater under my shooting coat. And got my boots from the front hall. To go out into the world. Starting in the darkness of the morning. To make my triumphant fortune. And come back again to be master of this house.
But I fell down the whole flight of stairs. To the stone paving of the servants’ corridor. Without breaking any bones and no one stirred. Edna Annie and Catherine still snoring asleep. Finding a candlestick, I lit it to go flickering tiptoe into the warm kitchen. Returning into the long cold hall with a bag full of cheese, butter and bread. Catherine now groaning nightmarishly asleep in her cell. Blow cut this candle. Go past the old rent room. Its maps and map table. The door with two bullet holes. And its outside hall and stairway sealed up with brick. Where years ago the tenantry formed a line out the door to pay their tithes. The agent still attending at the round green leather topped table with its index drawers and pedestal cupboard to pay the men. Sexton said it was a chamber of misery.
Go out now that door. Past the steps and stairway to the schoolroom up and down which I often rushed. To hungrily steal goodies from under Catherine’s very nose. And share these with Mr Arland who as he chewed so pleasantly told me not to be rude and thieving. Where would he be now. Happy I hope in full employ. Attending theatre and opera with his lovely actress.
Darcy Dancer pulling back the great bolt. Open quietly this scraping big old portal. Through which so many lives have come and gone to toil and live in these cavernous damp rooms. Close it. And leave behind sleeping. Those souls working towards the end of their days. Down beyond the sunlight shut out high up by the wet dripping stone wall holding back the earth from the rusty barred windows. Catherine maybe will retire to her farm. And Crooks find another situation. And then. Just as it was doing before Miss von B came, all above in this house will moulder and tumble in a heap.
The grass frosty under foot. Makes one shiver. But must go. Never turn back. Forward. Through this iron gate and climb up over where the farm tunnel goes under. Shrouded in the shrubbery there, the old jam house. Head out past the cemetery. Its ivy leaves and great yew tree. Out to these lands. Where I know every copse, hill, and pasture. If I say goodbye. Can the dead hear you. Or listen as I say I stinking well can’t stand it any more. To be told what to do. And I’m getting the stinking god damn hell out of here.
Darcy Dancer sliding sidewards down the steep side of an incline. Bending to squeeze under a giant bough of a tree. Sown by a great great grandfather. Who was friends with the curator of Kew Gardens in England. And who planted all these strange trees. And o my god, the cold cold air. Feel it in the cut on my face. Made bleed again by my fall. Each step now crushing the whiteness underfoot. Fog again out on the sky. Keep tripping over the lumps of frozen cow dung. As I follow. Poor Miss von B. If only she gave him a good clout in the face when he had her on the carpet this morning. Her breasts so swelling in her grey sweater. I wanted to throw myself on my knees and clasp her round the thighs and just hold her. And I must go on. And in the morning chase after her train. Could I lie up hidden in the old game larder till full light. But without any hay or straw it would be so cold. Head now in that direction. That will take me somewhere. Safe from guards and make my headway cross country. Find the fastest way to Dublin. But travelling, each time one looks up, there are always more fields, hedges and hills ahead. The nights running from school I kept the moon at my back. And still did not know where the hell I was going. Except now I go away from home. Running from everything. Come back in a few months, when my fortune is made. And even before next hunting season has arrived, be again the lord and master of Andromeda Park.
Darcy Dancer trudging up the hill. Past this monstrous branched tree. Upon which I did lie on its great extending bough in summertime just staring up into the leaves and hiding from my dear sister Beatrice Blossom. Who got so jealous when she saw me pee standing, when she had to squat. And beyond across the parkland shadows, there stands the grove of oaks. To be mutilated again I’m sure, any day. And through the copse on the other side of the sheltery field. And five more stone throws away. Against a wall, the old disused pump house. Abandoned now to cattle. Where in its cool shade they escape the flies in summer. And where was kept their stock of hay for winter foddering. Go in there. To sleep. Be nearly like a little house with its leaded windows. Rest cosy and warm till daylight.
Darcy Dancer standing on the frost hardened mud at the entrance door. Lifting to dislodge it open. Something blocking behind it. A stone. Push harder. Reach in a hand to heave it out of the way. And close it again to keep out the fog and cold. The sweet smelling warmth of the hay.
‘Who’s that. Another step. And I’ll fucking well send this hammer in me hand fucking well through your skull.’
Foxy.’
‘Who’s that.’
‘It’s me.’
‘What are you doing atall.’
‘I’m looking for a place to sleep.’
‘Sure haven’t you got your bed beyond back there in the big house. What gave you the idea to come up here.’
‘I’m leaving. Perhaps forever. I’m now a criminal on the run. With the guards after me. Just like you.’
‘Don’t be daft since when was gentry ever criminals. What’s that on your head.’
‘It’s a bandage. I got a cut.’
‘Ah you’d want to rub a bit of dirt into that, that’s where the cure is, in the handful of sweet soil. But sure are you crazy to be going off. What’s the matter with you. For the likes of you to be sleeping rough. When you were dying there only a few days ago. Sure you only just arrived back from school.’
‘Are you hungry Foxy. I’ve got some food.’
‘Well I can always do with a bite to eat. Although it’s not yet time for me breakfast.’
‘Is this where you’ve been staying.’
‘I am for the time being. While the guards are looking for me. And while my father has been in his bed for a while groaning after I landed him a blow of this hammer.’
‘You’re always doing that Foxy.’
‘And me father and some others like him are always deserving it too. Did you read about me in the newspaper.’
‘Yes.’
‘Ah that’s all a cod. I have the account here in me pocket. They haven’t got any of them facts straight. Don’t listen to any of them lies. Sure wasn’t I having an old dig between the juicy legs of the good Father’s housekeeper’s daughter. That old bag gave birth to her eighteen winters ago and has been saying round the countryside ever since that it’s her niece from Dublin. It was the daughter. Herself one lovely bit o’ lass, who told me where the sherry was.’
‘It said in the newspaper Old Marsala.’
‘Now I don’t know the bloody difference. But it would come every bit as close to making you feel in your head the same as sherry does. She gave me the key to the sacristy. I was invited. Now that old bag says I’ve put her daughter in the family way four months gone. Demanding I take her up the aisle and put a wedding ring on her finger. With the eegit guards thinking I’m guilty of robbing.’