‘Ah, you will and your dreams should not be nightmares.’
In the front hall. Barrels of Guinness stout and cider. Not a soul one knows. As here one is, in a distinctly makeshift variety of grandpapa’s white tie and tails. Wandering towards the ballroom, orchestra thundering the rafters blasting out a lightning polka. Step through the open double doors. Even the brass hinges shined. One looks. And a more ruinous sight one could never see. Kitty, Norah and Dingbats ferrying trays. Couples swirling upon the waxed gleaming floor. Crinoline satin and silks. The conductor fanning the air with a baton. Streamers flying from the ceiling. Beneath the great black marble chimney piece, a massive log fire blazing. Every flower Andromeda Park possesses, obviously wrested in from the hothouse. And the dusty bottles up from the cellar. With their rat nibbled labels of what could be my very last most precious irreplaceable, Madeira, port, claret. Not to mention rum and brandy. The four charcoal cooked hams from Smyth’s of the Green, the goose liver páté, caviar. All already quickly disappearing. Buns being thrown. Hand clapping me on the back. A face I have never seen before.
‘You’re Kildare I understand. All this is jolly nice of you.’
Even though a total stranger, at least one single someone being pleasantly politic. And then the grand finale entrance of Lavinia and Christabel. Both in my mother’s gowns. A trumpet voluntary of the orchestra blasting as they swept in the door. Nearly expected the pair of them in American neon lighted tiaras. With Crooks white gloved behind them his arms wide as if he were presenting them at the Court of St James. Surprised the whole staff of Andromeda Park weren’t laying rose petals before them.
‘I say there, do you mind, if we squeeze by. There’s a good fellow, waiter. Thank you.’
My god. That passing imbecile. One now not only squeezed but nearly crushed out of the limelight. And referred to as a servant. In my own ballroom. Relegated to a corner. Picking up a glass. And then having to find a discarded bottle of champagne to fill it with. I suppose if one must sink. Best to go down in the deep in one continuous swallow. Quaff this in memory of Rashers. This is the way to do it. A grand finale. Instead of like a nearby neighbour who set off for a day’s hunting, leaving his magnifying glass on his freshly pressed The Times newspaper from London. And on the particular rare sunny afternoon, the paper ignited and burned his house to the ground. And before being in a similar circumstance, one will make oneself heard in this throbbing din.
‘I should like to know the entire meaning of this entire night, Lavinia.’
‘It’s absolutely none of my business, ask Christabel.’
‘I have just asked her. And she said it was none of her business. And rudely suggested I shut up.’
‘Well shut up then, why don’t you.’
Amazing. To have to grit one’s teeth wanting to strangle them. Even as I forthrightly accosted them both in the centre of their toadying clusters of admirers. Neither one of them even deigned so much as to introduce me. To what they imagined were clearly their superior friends. One could hear the commissionaire still reverberating announcing their arrivals. Which would clearly go on till past midnight. Even the occupants of the great castle, noteworthy intellectuals, turning up. Whom one had not ever met oneself, as they were always on their world travels. Even heard this whole bloody ruddy financial débâcle referred to as a social coup.
‘I do think, don’t you that Lavinia and Christabel have rather pulled it off. All in aid of finding husbands of course.’
Could spot the faces of Catherine the cook, Henry and Thomas, the herds, peeking in at the ballroom serving staircase. One suddenly remembering a nice little game my sisters taught me as a toddler. Go Darcy dear, to the barrels in the hall, turn the tap as we showed you. Rush I would, to reach, and struggle to finally twist the tap, and stand marvelling at the dark brew flooding down over my knees and creeping out making an enormous black shiny lake in the hall. To then get, as my sisters rejoiced in laughter, a furious chastisement from an angry nanny. And so strange now. To feel so utterly alone. At least I shall munch on a thick slice of ham. In a house that hardly any longer seems my own. Where, were Rashers here, at least, even with his perpetrations of diabolical liberties upon my basic good nature, I would be cheered. Instead of gloomily despondent. Amid the perfumes. The plethora of ladies’ flesh. The pop of corks. And even this nearby debutante, not at all unpretty, giving me an inviting eye, as the musicians finish playing what she refers to as a foxtrot.
Darcy Dancer walking from the ballroom. Orchestra striking up the Blue Danube Waltz. Passing the still arriving couples. A crowded front hall. Coats hats now stacked everywhere. Ladies’ loud giggles. Men’s laughter. Shouts of greetings. My hand to be put upon the banister. To climb these stairs. Wait till the morrow to pay my last respects to Pete and Willie. Retreat now and retire asleep. Sexton in the morning will probably demonstrate to me some brand new winter flower he’s invented to make our fortunes. Heard someone say the stars were out. Take a tired step up. One at a time. To stop. And shudder. Heart pounding in my chest. The commissionaire’s voice. So loud. So utterly clear. Echoing in the hall.
‘The Marquis and Marchioness of Farranistic.’
Turn. Step back down. Just one two three steps. Near where my grandmother’s portrait hangs. So solemnly watching. Look out into the bright candlelit hall. That face shyly smiling. Her fur taken from her white shoulders. Her slender elegant figure in a clinging shimmery black satin gown. A tiara of diamonds sparkling on her black hair. The Mental Marquis’ flushed face beaming above his white tie. Making an introduction. To all those who would listen nearby. Who I knew heard him saying. Allow me to introduce you to the fourteenth Marchioness.
My wife
Leila
26
All one could remember were snatches of oblivion. And wondering how one would the. Ireland to sink. Covered in a tidal wave. Last night instead of to bed, I went down and out of the house. By the back servants’ stairs. Through the stable yard. The tunnel. And up out across the fields in the bright cold night to where Pete and Willie were being waked, each in their tiny adjoining cottages.
‘Welcome, come in, Master Darcy. Sure there’s room for one more sardine.’
In Pete’s a hooley in progress. Tearing corks out of the bottles of stout. A fiddler playing. Songs singing. Say hello to your uncle Finn me boy. Feet thumping round the cottage’s hard earthen floor, a dance called the whicheverway jump. The ancient turf fire aglow in the grate. Poteen poured. Fresh from a still hidden right in the confines of Andromeda Park. The voices appearing at the door.
‘Friend of the corpse, I am.’
‘Come in then, and welcome, friend of the corpse.’
Johnny Gearoid, his red face blazing out of his greasy coat. Asking, where was the whisky and where was the deceased, in that order. Kitty and Norah arriving with Dingbats. The latter entirely drunk. Hiking up her skirts. Unbuttoning her blouse. Whirling her reasty amplitude about. Making mock curtsies to Kitty and Norah taking turns to be the Marchioness of Farranistic. Until stopped by my angry glare.
‘Ah give us a tune there and I’ll show you a nifty pair of heels to cut ruts in the dust.’
Sexton, the patch fallen off his missing eye, doing a jig. And Pete, the deceased yet to be put in his waiting coffin, was propped up sitting in bed. Kitty and Norah playing noughts and crosses on his bald head with bits of charcoal. Until others of the inebriate, pulled Pete in his white chemise out of the bed and bedroom entirely, struggling in the middle of the cottage floor to hold up the corpse by the armpits to dance.