There was a tugging at his leg. Slowly opening eyes to see the irate face of Marion looming over him on this Monday morn of chaos.
"Good God, what's happened to the house? Why weren't you at the station to meet me? Look at you. Gin. This is horrid. I had to take a taxi out here, do you hear me? A taxi, fifteen shillings."
"Now, now, for Christ's sake have some patience and let me explain everything."
"I say, explain? Explain what? There's nothing to explain, it's all quite evident."
Marion holding aloft the gin.
"All right, I'm not blind, I see it."
'O dear, this is frightful. Why you honestly are a cad. If Mommy and Daddy could only see what I've got to come back to. What are you doing on the table?"
"Shut up."
"I won't shut up and don't look at me like that. What are these feathers doing all over the place? Dishes broken on the floor. What were you doing?"
"Goat dance."
"How frightfully sordid it all is. Disgusting. Feathers in everything. You damn, damn drinker. Where did you get the money? Didn't meet me at the train. Why? Answer me."
"Shut up. Be quiet for the love of Jesus. The alarm didn't work."
"You're a liar. You were drinking, drinking, drinking. Look at the grease, the mess, the filth. And what's this?"
"A sea bird."
"Who paid for all this? You had smelly O'Keefe out here. I know you did, I can smell him."
"Just leave me alone."
"Did you pay the milk?"
"Yes, now sweet Jesus shut up, my head."
"So you paid it, did you? Here it is. Here it is. Exactly where I left it and the money gone. Lies. You blighter. You nasty blighter."
"Call me a bugger, I can't stand the gentility on top of the yelling."
"O stop it, stop it. I don't intend to go on living like this, do you hear me? Your brazen lies, one after the other and I was trying to get Father to do something for us and I come back to this."
"Your father. Your father is a sack of excrement, genteel excrement, as tight as they come. What has he been doing, playing battleship in the tub?"
Marion lunged, her slap landing across his jaw. The child began to scream in the nursery. Sebastian up off the table. He drove his fist into Marion's face. She fell backward against the cupboard. Dishes crashing to the floor. In tattered underwear he stood at the nursery door. He kicked his foot through and tore off the lock to open it. Took the child's pillow from under its head and pressed it hard on the screaming mouth.
"I'll kill it, God damn it, I'll kill it, if it doesn't shut up."
Marion behind him, digging her nails into his back.
"You madman, leave the child alone, I'll get the police. I'll divorce you, you blackguard, coward, coward, coward."
Marion clasping the child to her breast. Sobbing, she lay her long English body and child across the bed. The room echoing the hesitations of her wailing voice. Sebastian walked white faced from the room, slamming the broken door, cutting off the sound of suffering from a guilty heart.
Dangerfield took a late morning bus to Dublin. Sat up the top side in front, clicking the teeth. Out there the mud flats and that windy golf course. North Bull Island shimmering in the sun. Cost money to leave Marion. Vulgar blood in her somewhere, may be from the mother. Mother's father kept a shop. Bad blood leaks out. I know it leaks out. And I ought te get out. One way on the boat She doesn't have the nerve for divorce. I know her too well for that. Never gave me a lousy chance to explain the account. Let her rot out there. I don't care. Got to face the facts of this life. The facts, the facts. Could square things with her. She's good with the cheese dishes. Few days without food will weaken her. Maybe I'll come back with a tin of peaches and cream. She's always airing the house. Opening up the windows at every little fart. Tells me she never farts. At least mine come out with a bang.
Fairview Park looks like a wet moldy blanket. Feel a little better. O'Keefe broke a toilet bowl in that house. Fell into it when he was trying to sneak a look behind a woman's medicine chest. Long suffering O'Keefe, bent over tomes in the National Library studying Irish and dreaming of seduction.
Amiens Street Station, Dangerfield stepping down from the bus, crossing and using the ostrich step up the Talbot Street. My God, I think I see prostitutes with squinting eyes and toothless mouths. Don't relish a trip up an alley with one without wearing impenetrable armour and there is no armour at all in Dublin. I asked one how much it was and she said I had an evil mind. Invited her for a drink and she said the American sailors were rough and beat her up in the backs of taxicabs and told her to take a bath. She said she liked chewing gum. And when she had a few drinks she got frightfully crude. I was shocked. Asked me how big it was. I almost slapped her face. With it. Provocation I calls it. And told her to confess. Dublin has more than a hundred churches. I bought a map and counted them. Must be a nice thing to have faith. But I think a pot of Gold Label run from the barrel in the house of the aspidistras. Settle the nerves. No time to be nervous now. With youth on my side. I'm still a young man in the late twenties, although the Lord knows I've been through some trying times. A lot of people tell you, caution you. Now young man, don't get married without money, without a good job, without a degree. E. E. E. They are right.
Into the pub with stuffed foxes behind the potted plants. And the snug stained brown. Reach over and press this buzzer for action.
A young man's raw face flicked around the door.
"Good morning, Mr. Dangerfield."
"A fine spring morning, a double and some Woodbines."
"Certainly, sir. Early today?"
"Little business to attend to."
"It's always business isn't it."
"O aye."
Some fine cliches there. Should be encouraged. Too many damn people trying to be different. Coining phrases when a good platitude would do and save anxiety. If Marion wants to make the barbarous accusation that I took the milk money, it's just as well I took it.
A tray comes in the discreet door.
"On your bill, Mr. Dangerfield?"
"If you will, please."
"Grand to be having some decent weather and I think you're looking very well."
"Thank you. Yes, feel fine."
I think moments like sitting here should be preserved. I'd like friends to visit me at my house and maybe have a cocktail cabinet, but nothing vulgar. And Marion could make nice little bits. Olives. And kids playing on the lawn. Wouldn't mind a room a bit on the lines of this. Fox on the mantelpiece and funereal fittings. Outside, the world, I think is driven. And I'm right out in front. To keep friends, photographs and letters. Me too. And women stealing alimony for young lovers. Wrinkled buttocks astride rose wood chairs, weeping signing each check. Become a lover of women over fifty. They're the ones that's looking for it. Good for O'Keefe. But he might balk. A knowledgeable man but a botcher. And now get that check. I want to see dollars. Thousands of them. Want them all over me to pave the streets of me choosey little soul.
"Bye, bye."
"Bye now, Mr. Dangerfield. Good luck."
Across the Butt Bridge. Covered with torn newspapers and hulking toothless old men watching out the last years. They're bored. I know you've been in apprenticeships and that there was a moment when you were briefly respected for an opinion. Be in the sight of God soon. He'll be shocked. But there's happiness up there, gentlemen. All white and gold. Acetylene lighted sky. And when you go, go third class. You damn bastards.
And walking along Merrion Square. Rich up this way. Wriggle the fingers a bit. American flag hanging out there. That's my flag. Means money, cars and cigars. And I won't hear a word said against it.
Spinning up the steps. Big black door. With aplomb, approaching the receptionist's desk. Unfallow Irishwomen of middle age and misery. Belaboring poor micks headed for that land across the seas. Giving them the first taste of being pushed around. And ingratiating to the middle western college boy who bounces by.
"Could you tell me if the checks have arrived?"
"You're Mr. Dangerfield, aren't you?"
"I am."
"Yes the checks have arrived. I think yours is here somewhere. However, isn't there some arrangement with your wife? I don't think I can give it to you without her consent."
Dangerfield warming to irritated erection.
"I say, if you don't mind I will take that check immediately."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Dangerfield but I have had instructions not to give it to you without the permission of your wife."
"I say, I will take that check immediately."
Dangerfield's mouth a guillotine. This woman a little upset. Insolent bitch.
"I'm very sorry but I will have to ask Mr. Morgue."
"You will ask no one."
"I'm terribly sorry, but I will have to ask Mr. Morgue."
"What?"
"You must remember that I am in charge of handling these checks."
Dangerfield's fist swished through the air, landing with a bang on the desk. Receptionist jumped. And her jaw came down with a touch of obedience.
"You'll ask no one and unless that check is given me this instant I'll have you charged with theft. Do you understand me? Am I clear? I will not have an Irish serf interfering in my affairs. This irregularity will be reported to the proper authorities. I will take that check and no more nonsense."
Receptionist with mouth open. Trickle of spittle twisted on her jaw. An instant's hesitation and fear forced a nervous hand to deliver the white envelope. Dangerfield burning her with red eyes. A door opening in the hall. Several bog men, watching from the staircase, slipped hurriedly back to seats, caps over folded hands. A final announcement from Dangerfield.
"Now, God damn it, when I come in here again I want that check handed to me instantly."
From the door, a middle western accent.
"Say buddy, what's going on here?"
"Twiddle twat."
"What?"
Dangerfield suddenly convulsed with laughter. Spinning on his heel, he pushed open this Georgian door and hopped down the steps. The rich green of the park across the street. And through the tops of the trees, red brick buildings on the other side. Look at these great slabs of granite to walk on. How very nice and solid. Celtic lout. I'm all for Christianity but insolence must be put down. With violence if necessary. People in their place, neater that way. Eke. Visit my broker later and buy a French Horn and play it up the Balscaddoon road. About four a.m. And I think I'll step into this fine house here with ye oldish windows.
This public house is dark and comforting with a feeling of scholarship. With the back gate of Trinity College just outside. Makes me feel I'm close to learning and to you students who don't take the odd malt. Maybe I put too much faith in atmosphere.
Put the money away safely. A bright world ahead. Of old streets and houses, screams of the newly born and grinning happy faces escorting the lately dead. American cars speeding down Nassau Street and tweedy bodies of ex-Indian Army officers stuttering into the well-mannered gloom of the Kildare Street Club for a morning whiskey. The whole world's here. Women from Foxrock with less thick ankles and trim buttocks shod closely and cleanly with the badge of prosperity, strutting because they owned the world and on their way to coffee and an exhibition of paintings. I can't get enough. More. See Marion like that. Going to make money. Me. A sun out. With Jesus for birth control. This great iron fence around Trinity serves a good purpose. World in resurrection. Yellow banners in the sky, all for me, Sebastian Bullion Dangerfield.
And dear God
Give me strength
To put my shoulder
To the wheel
And push
Like the rest.
