‘How dare you do that upon us.’
The poet continuing to indiscriminately piss on them. Puffing on a cigarette still hanging out of his mouth with a look of only slight amazement on his face. Having just two floors above in a water closet, his pockets weighted down, suddenly gone straight through the lavish and constantly pissed upon purple thick carpet covering the totally disguised rotted floor and the force of his descent taking him through the next rotted floor to deposit him where the ballet patrons stood now brushing themselves off as they looked up at the hole the poet had just come through and underneath which he was now trying to hold his water and get his penis back in his fly as the ladies were, with their patent leather handbags, taking swipes at his face. Rashers shouting from the front door.
‘That’s it, dear ladies. Smite him. He is a well known disgusting pervert.’
The jarvey leaping down to open the horse cab door. Tipping his cap as he slammed it shut. Rashers taking a flask from his coat pocket. Filling the cap with brandy.
‘Let justice triumph. Of course your man’s only a minor poet. Clearly Darcy the entire building is suspect. At least in the catacombs my dear fellow, if one goes downwards, it’s only on the way to hell.’
Hoofs clip clopping through the empty Dublin streets. Shiny and wet under the glowing pale light of the gas lamps. The mist and fog along St Stephen’s Green. Bells over the city tolling midnight. We go, mid the shadows passing. By the gloomy great old skulls of these houses. The musky dampness inside this unhandsome cab. Ancient broken leather cushions covered in old rugs and remnants of an overcoat. Awful reek of stale cat smells. Rashers, eyes burning like coals in his head. As he lowers his flask, his teeth smiling out his lips. Hands planted upon each of his stripe trousered knees. Cuffs of his coat sleeves drawn back. Veins standing out on his wrists.
‘Let us Darcy bash on regardless. To the catacombs. The cellars of nae hope. Although the class of people shall not be much improved, they do at least make abject attempts at being odiously revolting which one takes as cautionary as to whom and what one should avoid in life. Darcy we must remain friends. You see before you a man who for a brief but devastating period of his youth was thrust into an institution run by the Irish Christian Brothers. Unchristian would be a better word. In a trice those sadists turned me from a pure stainless spirit into an instant and unhappy reluctant masochist and liar. Slamming rulers down on my pathetic upraised innocent palms. Ridiculing me. Elegant as I was with my nice clothes and brave little British accent. Beating the poor pathetic bejesus out of me. Heroic sanctity one needed in abundance to sustain against their poisoned souls and brutally evil ways. Of course before it was too late, one did escape back to the civilized safety, albeit highly homosexual, world of an English public school. But those brief months of my tender youth in Dublin left their scars. I know I have been upon occasion a very bad boy since. But all done in pursuit of what I desperately require in life. Merely a modest simple detached house with a wee bit of lawn front and back. Perhaps a little garden too. Is that too much to ask for. With a non leaking jade or even pewter pot to piss in. Some decent bloodstock at a nearby training establishment to which I might venture after breakfast to watch them being ridden out of a morning. And my dearly beloved near. You see, I should not want to straight off reside on her very adequate acres until I have some of my very own wherewithal. Although she’s getting on, the dear girl does have a passably resilient pair of decent bosoms. Legs like a refectory table. And nipples not awfully attractive but then, I do find there are variations one can indulge upon them which are adequately exciting in pitch blackness. But Darcy, in what I say to you now, you must dear man believe me. There are many shameful deeds one has done. And I ask please pray accept my contrition. Pray accept. Will you.’
‘But Rashers of course. But I don’t quite know what on earth you’re talking about.’
‘Darcy. It was I. Me. Who is responsible for the theft of your silver.’
‘Good heavens.’
‘Find it in your heart to forgive me. Please. You see these tears. Coming out of my eyes. Don’t you. It is simply that I cannot bear to perpetrate the deceit any longer. I beg you. Do have it in your heart to forgive me. I’m so close now to ushering my dear one up the aisle. Do remain silent if you wish. I do understand that you may feel our friendship has been fatally breeched. Darcy there does, in all of us, exist some little semblance of worthiness. Even too, in me. Though I may have at times stooped unbelievably low. And done things which utterly rack me with shame. This silk hanky upon which my tears now fall. I give to you. Take it. Darcy, my dear Darcy. Take it with you. Through your life. Keep warm from the cold of the world. Keep aloof from its brash noise and fashion. Keep safe from its betrayal.’
And
Never forsake
Your sweet
Compassion
18
Up past the little park and terrace of bright doored houses around Fitzwilliam Square, the horse cab stopping in this shadowy street. Soft misty rain falling. A black cat stepping down from the kerb stone. Shaking its paws as it steps in a puddle of water. Rashers alighting, popping on his top hat and sweeping his cloak around him and holding up his hand to Darcy Dancer.
‘We are here, dear boy. And you’d never know it, would you, from this rather presumptuously refined and respectable street. Do follow me. And don’t be appalled.’
The driver, his whip left stuck like a fishing rod over the quarters of his nag, climbing down with his blanket to wrap himself in. A greasy parcel of potato chips tucked under his arm as he steps up into the back of his cab to wait.
‘That’s a good chap my jarvey. We shall be presently back.’
‘Right you are, no hurry your Lordship. Sure catching ten winks or forty winks is all the same to me.’
‘Dear me, Darcy, what do we see over there. A damsel. Perhaps in distress.’
Rashers walking away on the pavement towards an alley, a lone figure of a girl against a wall. Her head hanging down watching a puddle gather between her broken high heeled shoes as she stands peeing down her legs. Rashers putting a pound note in front of her face which she grabs clutching in her fingers.
‘Is it a short time you want.’
‘No my dear girl. I simply want you as desirable company. And who knows I may have a promising future for you. Come there’ll be another pound or two later.’
Rashers taking the girl by the elbow. Leading her with him to a gate he opens in the stone railings. Making his steep way down the steps in front of us,
‘Where are you taking me atall.’
‘Dear girl, your mother must have been a sensible lady to have christened you Sheena. Sheena you don’t know your luck, do you. You happen to be momentarily in the refined company of two gentlemen who wish you much profit and no harm. You see, if later we have a moment to talk to you, we would like to put the question for which I was banished when putting it to the Philosophical Society of Trinity College Dublin, that this house moves to find the greater truth in the statements, deep in every woman’s heart is a whore, or deep in every whore’s heart is a woman.’
‘Don’t youse be wasting me time. And how do you know me name. Why is youse dressed like that. Youse is students.’
‘Ah we are Sheena, of a sort, students of fucking, that’s how we know. And down here is the night school of comparative anatomy we attend. For spiritual autopsies on the mind.’