Darcy Dancer walking along this shadowy dingy street. An undertaker’s. Can smell the stables. Black horses who pull the carriages. A church. Outside a statue to the Blessed Virgin. Inside it must have walls lined with boxy wooden confessionals where the whole city pours out their sins. Now every Dubliner will be rushing down into the dungeons of the catacombs instead. And I’ve not yet come to Lois’s street. Gone the wrong way. Remember looming a big grey granite hospital on the corner. Perhaps if I turn right now instead of left. Vaguely recognize this shoemaker’s. A grocery. A timber merchant’s. And here. At last is the alley. God it’s as late as one is desperate. No street lamp to see by. Hers is the only door. A green one numbered four. Knock. Or better bang on it. Peer in the letterbox. Not a sign of life inside. She may tell me to go away. I must be waking her. Wait for her to dress and come to the door. Just sit a moment on this box. So tired. Intended tomorrow to have my hair cut. Go to the chiropodist’s to have my toe nails trimmed. Then to the races. And I may instead in my present state, leave Dublin altogether. Go home. Back across the lonely flat bogs. Let my life live and the out there on that rolling hunting land. Away from the sordid world. Out where the banks of earth, streams and the boughs of beech are friends one knows. And not these bereft pavements. Down those dungeons, tonight someone shouted that when Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden it became the Garden of Evil called the catacombs.
Darcy Dancer slumped asleep back against the stone wall. Suddenly awakening, shivering and cold. Sound of footsteps approaching up the alley. A voice whispering and calling to a cat.
‘Here pussy puss. Here here pussy puss.’
A shadow. A figure. Stopping. Looking down. Two feet in black Wellington boots. Her face in the hood of her duffle coat, one, she said, her husband wore on the bridge of his ship during the war.
‘Good god, it’s you. What are you doing here like this.’
‘I’m afraid I called upon you to collect my etching and fell asleep.’
‘This time of night. How dare you assume you can arrive like this Just whom do you think you are to take such prerogative.’
‘I do apologize.’
‘Well I should think so. Just because I am an artist does not mean you can take for granted that I am a bohemian whose privacy can be invaded willy nilly. I happen to be of a distinguished family. With Admiralty and Foreign Office connections.’
‘But you did invite me earlier at the Count’s party. However I am sorry to have given you vexation. Goodbye Madam.’
‘You did earlier of course ignore me. For the company of that fortune hunting very aptly named philistine called Rashers. Well of course if you wish to say goodbye, do. I won’t stop you. But you are you know, practically shivering with cold. Why aren’t you more warmly dressed foolish boy. And I of course am not so inhospitable as to not at least offer you a cup of tea or cocoa. As little of that as I may still possess.’
‘Thank you, that would be very kind.’
‘Well come in. Don’t stand there making a draught. And just remember I am now celibate.’
Church bells. Tolling three over the city. Climbing up these stairs. Where once I had convulsions of laughter. With Lois tripping and falling on her arse over bottles. And now one is utterly embarrassed at her mercy. Her so British nasal voice. Her age. From which one suddenly wants to run. Despite her lack of wrinkles, she must be nearly thirty eight. Or in her god forsaken forties. She does have a certain smoothness to her skin. But o god, she does so damn moan on. Ought to be bloody glad someone’s calling upon her. She is of course considerably more ancient than even Miss von B. O god. This big grim room. How cold. The black of night above on the skylight. And dear me. A wash line hung with her personal underthings. Smell of turpentine. The sweeter smell of linseed oil. Her bookcase crammed with books.
‘If it weren’t for the fact that I had to remain late at the Count’s conferring over some ballet sets I’ve been asked to design, I should have been soundly asleep. Or at the very least, having one of my nightmares. And I should not like dear boy since I’m inviting you in, for you to ever get the idea that if you call upon me at this hour of the night again that you will be welcome. It does make one think that beneath your English exterior, you may be just like the Irish.’
‘I do wish, since you are now in fact having me in, that you did not continue to complain about my not making an appointment to call upon you.’
‘Well I shall stop. But I also think with that cruel edge to your voice, that you can be hurtful when you choose to be, can’t you.’
‘Perhaps yes. I can be.’
‘Spoilt I think as well. However at least you are not obnoxious.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And you are young and beautiful. I do like young and beautiful men, and if they are extremely young and extremely beautiful, I like sucking their cocks.’
‘I hope then, madam, that being just merely young and beautiful does not exclude me from your latter category.’
‘It most certainly does. No matter how enticingly beautiful. I must make it quite clear in case you’re getting ideas that my celibacy most certainly excludes sucking your cock.’
‘O dear. Well I hope the youth and beauty you refer to does not also imply you’re preferring too, lack of brains.’
‘I regard beauty as being part of intelligence. However without wanting to sound trite, intelligence makes an ugly face beautiful. Put those drawings on the chair on the floor and do sit down.’
Lois vigorously riddling her stove. Sparks flying up from the dying embers as she throws in pieces of turf. Taking off her duffle coat. Scratching herself under both bosoms through several layers of sweaters. Pours milk and puts it on a gas ring. Her little world here. Fewer balls and pricks on display than I previously remember. Must be her celibacy. Even has a sketch or two of country scenes.
‘I like that watercolour very much Lois.’
‘O that. That’s nothing. 0one on an excursion. Enniskerry village.’
‘But it’s very attractive.
‘Thank you. Well at least I can tell you something nice did come of our previous brief little association. An awfully cultivated American at Trinity College came and bought an entire portfolio of washes of the male nude. Choosing as it happens all those I did of you. If you can recall your being somewhat difficult when you posed, ruining the tension of line with your constant erection. Actually, although I thought at the time your erections an artistic imbalance he was enthralled by what he called the refreshing tumesced quality the drawings had. I do wish there were more cultivated Americans like him. Of course Count MacBuzuranti could so easily be my patron now, since he has come into his inheritance. Having bought his previous portrait at such a reduced price, you’d think he’d now have the courtesy to commission me to do another. I am so continually being exploited by people. Now what about you. Surely you can commission. I’ve heard all about your stately home, you know. And your extravagant dinner parties. And balls. And I just wonder. I really do, why I am not invited. I feel quite put out. After all, we have previously at least been in the same bed together. And there. Just look. It’s leaking from the skylight right on top of my stove. And o god, did you see that. Right in the corner. A rat. O no. He’s gone under the bed. O god, not that, I don’t think I shall be able to stand being in here with a rat. O dear with my cats dead.’