‘Anyone here who is interested to know. Better know that I’m on the side of Darcy Thormond Dancer Kildare. And that the end of this will have your jugular cut before it’s jammed deep in your face. Just any of you make one move to put a hand on him.’
The candlelight flickering. Distant sound of singing. The Old Orange Flute. And in the doorway. The broken dark green thick jagged glass of a champagne bottle held up. Glinting in the fist of Foxy Slattery. Full of courage just as his smaller brother is full of cunning. And here. An ally. Braving all this assembled brawn. Just as he did in the battles of our childhood. When he taught me how to fight the world. In the uneasy silence. His voice speaking so sure and solemn.
‘Now that that’s understood. One by one, each of you. Vacate out of here.’
Out the brick arched entrance, the figures slowly departing past Foxy. Off up the passage back into the mêlée of this bleak underground jungle. The last one, the interrogator. Stopping. Looking back.
‘We’re not finished with you yet.’
Darcy Dancer putting out his hand. To clamp it gratefully hard upon that of the Foxy Slattery as his brow furrows and he noddingly grins.
‘Foxy you saved my life.’
‘You can bet I did and all. And if it wasn’t for the man with his face pouring blood, coming out front there where I nearly had a horse and car sold, and hearing them say they were stringing up a man called Dancer who did it, named after the racehorse, I wouldn’t have bothered coming back here. But follow me, we’d be as well to wander out of this place as fast as our feet can take us. And you can be bloody sure they’d be this second gathering up a bigger gang. There’s a way by the back we can go.’
Past more dungeon rooms. Opening a door. Out into the misty night. Soft rain still falling. Darcy Dancer and Foxy clambering over broken bottles, dead rats and a dead cat. Vaulting up on the roof of a water closet. A woman inside screaming, as the toilet flushes.
‘Don’t mind the lady in distress now boss, she’d be that way anyway when she gets back inside.’
Climbing a wall, jumping down the other side into an alley. Foxy shimmying up a drainpipe. Darcy Dancer following. Past a window. And higher on to a roof. Hands scratching clawing crawling up the wet slippery slates splitting under their weight. Clambering over the ridge tiles. Knocking one loose to tumble clattering down. A voice from a window shouting.
‘Call the Guards that’s the second of them tonight from out that bloody sewer over there and breaking this place down.’
Darcy Dancer and Foxy lowering on another drainpipe to the pavement. And running along an alley and out another. To emerge on the street. And cross over to slowly walk along the banks of the canal. Its still water flowing past under the flecks of lamplight. Catching their breath.
‘Well that’s a nice little bit of exercise boss I don’t mind telling you.’
‘It was Foxy. And I can’t thank you enough.’
‘Well you just remember that I’ve not ever forgot. Your own footsteps coming once. When I was huddled cold up hid hardly with shelter saying the act of contrition thinking I was already dead from starvation when you brought me the bit of a bite to eat that saved my life. And it’s only just and fitting that I had at last the chance to save yours. I’ll be going now boss. Can I drop you anywhere. My car’s not that far.’
‘No thank you, Foxy. I’ll walk here a bit by the canal.’
‘Slán agat go fóill, boss. See you again.’
‘Goodbye Foxy. And thank you.’
The great heavy timbers of the canal locks, over which the water pours. Two gleaming white swans cruise. A dead bloated dog floats. The weeds and rushes. There goes Foxy. A moment of brief kindness given once, repaid this day with my life itself. Walk now under this lamp light. Take out Rashers’ cufflinks and the pawn ticket to redeem my own silverware. Stare at them in my hand. And wouldn’t you believe it. A bloody punched tram ticket to Dalkey. And as for priceless cufflinks. These trinkets, aside from being most awfully garish, are clearly nothing but imitation jewelry.
Darcy Dancer walking the path along the canal. Houses the other side with big gardens up to their entrance doors. A light on in a window. Only sign of life. Man standing in dressing gown in the middle of the room looking at a book held open in his hand. And out here. Wet. Cold. Bereft. My trousers torn. Shoes scuffed. One hears Sexton’s voice. Telling of when he was a little boy, often without a shoe. Up at two in the morning to drive his dead father’s cattle ten miles over the hilly winding roads to the market in the town. Arriving at dawn, waiting soaked and chilled by his scrawny hungry bullocks for a buyer. And sometimes no one would even look at him, never mind the cattle. And then drive the beasts home again unsold. Many a sad time that happened Master Darcy, many a sad time. It would drain your heart of blood, but it would never stop you doing it again.
Darcy Dancer walking north across the empty city. Past shop fronts. The mist lifting. The air chilling. A star or two blinking in the sky. One does miss loyal old Sexton. With his razor sharp hedge hook, he’d have been a help down in the catacombs. If he weren’t shocked rigid by the goings on. Knuckle of my thumb swollen where my fist landed. Stood up Miss von B. A heart searing glimpse of Leila, I walk with. As I go from one sadness to another. The damp penetrating one’s bones. Nearly hear the huntsman’s horn calling to the hounds. Out there westwards on the wild lonely land. And without a horse, quicken my steps back to the Shelbourne and a warm bed. What bleak desolation through these streets. One has no one at all. And is it, that all anyone really wants in this world, is just each other. One body enfolding another in comfort when it carries so much pain. Turn now. North. Charlemont Street. At least a name bespeaking some elegance out of the past.
The sky widening with more stars. A faint moon lighting clouds. Darcy Dancer’stopping to stand on a corner. Where this road divides. Look up. A sign over a pub. The Bleeding Horse. Such a name, Mr Arland mentioned once. Said he came here to buy cheap vegetables, haggling with the barrow women. Took him from the walled safety of college out into the harsh world. Sexton used to say, know about horses and you know all there is to know about the rest of life. A cinema over there. Camden Street. Must go on. Just as I feel I am bleeding. And need someone. With whom to console. A friendly voice to hear. While the whole city is asleep. Eggs, butter and cheese in this glass front. Nice nourishing name on the sign, Monument Creamery. Down this way somewhere is Lois’s street. Am I hearing things. A voice. This utterly ancient hour of the morning. O my god. There’s Horatio Macbeth. Declaiming at his reflection in a shop front window. I suppose I’m not that lonely that one feels the need to pass the time of night with him. But what a convenient way to amuse oneself. And avoid thinking how sad life is. I know no lines to orate. To put alive again my hopes and dreams. I had that night as Leila stood in my mother’s room. When I should have reached out for her. Gathered her into my arms. Without fear of rebuff. Even with all the household’s spying and listening behind doors. Not let her have escaped. As my mother’s admirers had let her in her scrapbook. Their love poems. I worship thee from afar. And had one of them worshipped my mother from near, she would not have married a gambling waster called my father. With his whisky reddened face, mean and pinched. And shall I now. Sell land. Go away forever somewhere. Preferably sophisticated. Rid one’s mind of Leila. Of mad stallions, butlers, rot, falling slates, dying cattle and other troublesome servants. To London. Where I shall of course avoid the Marquis’ most stupid sounding club. Go instead to one of those hotels where during the season, my mother stayed. A suitable one I remember called Claridge’s. Yet is there anywhere or time when one can ever be safe from grave injury to the spirit. Or the more mortal of embarrassments. Such as one, once befallen my mother’s mother. Gone bald in bereavement over my great grandfather’s death. The scarves she wore over her pate often blown off by the wind. Till family members insisted she get a wig. Which, the first time she wore it out hunting, was knocked off with her hat. And there her red tinged hair lay against the green grass. And as it resembled a fox, it was instantly set upon and eaten by the hounds. She did however jovially say to the huntsman. O dear, little left isn’t there, not even the tail.