‘I’ll get him Madam for you.’
Darcy Dancer taking a broom. Shoving it under the bed. The rat scurrying out. Lois screaming. The rat running along the baseboard. Darcy Dancer grabbing an empty wine bottle and flinging it. The bottle missing and smashing on the wall.
‘Good lord, don’t. Don’t. You’re breaking up my studio.’
‘Well Madam, you want me to kill it, don’t you.’
‘Yes I do.’
‘Well then you must be prepared for a little mayhem. Rats are deucedly clever and almost impossible to corner and kill.’
‘But does that require for you to wreak absolute havoc.’
‘Well a little havoc at least. You would not enjoy for it to bite you in bed.’
Darcy Dancer grabbing another bottle. Rat scurrying out from behind paintings and heading across the open floor. Lois screaming and jumping on the table. Darcy Dancer unleashing his missile. End over end. Bouncing as it glances off the stove. And flies across the room smashing into the bookcase. Knocking over a little group of ceramic figures standing between books on the shelves.
‘O god, o god, you Irish. No matter what you do, you somehow always manage to be destructive don’t you.’
‘Damn it Madam, do please try to control your ethnic slurs when I am in fact doing my damnedest best to kill a bloody rat here for you.’
‘Well I would appreciate at least if you would leave me a place to live in afterwards.’
‘Well, you go kill him then. He’s right behind your painting pallet leaning there.’
‘I shall attempt to do no such thing. I am mortally terrified of rats. Here’s your cocoa.’
‘Thank you.’
‘O dear. My trials. My tribulations. Now I shan’t sleep a wink the entire night. When indeed tomorrow I shall need to be at my most productive.’
‘Well the rat should cause no difficulty, if you treat him as you did one of your cats and feed him properly.’
‘I’ll do no such thing. He must be got rid of.’
‘Why Madam.’
‘Why. I’ll tell you why. To conserve my creative energy. I’ll have you know I am in the middle of my blue spheroid period if you must know. And also have an important commission to undertake. You see, occasionally some fortune does at least show promise of soon coming into my life.’
‘Well I’m delighted. What is it.’
‘I shan’t say who, as the matter is only exploratory at this stage. But I have been offered, by someone who can afford, one rather large portrait commission. And if it in fact happens I shall be at least temporarily quite well off. And I always find those things one talks about too much have the habit of not happening. O god, there’s the rat again.’
‘Madam for god’s sake don’t bloody panic like that.’
Darcy Dancer spilling the hot cocoa on his fist jumping to his feet. The rat running in behind canvases propped against the wall. Darcy Dancer grabbing the broom. Hot on its heels. Lois shrieking as her canvases overturn. And O god I feel something soft underfoot. A long tube. With its distinctly wrong end splitting open. Flake white it says on the label. Jetting out a long wiggling fat worm of paint. And whoops. The cap’s off this, alizarine crimson. And O shit, burnt sienna too. And cobalt bloody blue, squeezed out everywhere under my feet.
‘Stop. Stop. For god’s sake stop. You’re ruining me. You’re stepping on top of my paint, squeezing out all my tubes.’
‘Damn it Madam, why do you leave them here on the floor where they can’t be seen.’
‘Stop. Stand still. Now you’re trampling it all over. O my god, you’ve got it on to my Afghan rug. The only precious thing I possess in the world. On my very good only single heirloom. Which lay in front of my father’s desk at the Admiralty and upon which some of England’s most distinguished feet have stood. I’m ruined.’
‘Do shut up Madam. Don’t be so obtuse. Please.’
‘Obtuse. Whomever do you think you’re speaking to, you little upstart. I could outwit you in any endeavour you care to mention.’
‘Except killing rats of course.’
‘How utterly pretentious. You haven’t, have you, changed. Assuming superiority. O god, the rat. There he is. Peering at me. He’s stalking me.’
‘Just stay where you are and don’t move.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Rats can jump at your throat.’
‘O god do something. But don’t have the paint go everywhere.’
‘I’ve got paint all over my shoes.’
‘Well dear stupid boy take them off.’
‘O christ. Now I’ve got bloody paint all over my socks.’
‘You fool you fool, take them off.’
‘O shit now I have paint all over my feet.’
‘O god. O dear god. Hit the rat, hit him, he’s crouched going to jump at me.’
‘This should put paid to him. Soon as I take aim.’
‘O my god don’t throw my very last full tube of flake white at him when you’ve already squeezed out the others. Do you know how much a tube costs. Do you.’
‘But I hit him. Did you see that. I bloody well sent that footling rat for six.’
‘Yes. And now he’s right back under this bed. O god, this is worse than being bombed in Bloomsbury by the bloody Germans.’
‘Watch it, Lois he’s after you. There he is again. The rat.’
‘O god, god for heaven’s sake do something. I think he’s growling and snarling at me. This is absolutely the most wretched night of my absolutely entire life. And you’re back on my Afghan rug again. Get off.’
‘Blithering hell, I could have clonked him one just then if you’d only calm down and let me.’
‘I was to hang that as a backdrop for my large commission which I haven’t even got yet. O how wretched. O how I cruel. I shall just lie here now in a heap and the. Please go home. Go away. At least a rat will not destroy my entire professional life.’
‘Certainly, Madam if you feel that way.’
‘No rat however awful can be as hideously horrifying as what you have wrought upon my future as an artist.’
‘Well damn you Madam as an artist. I was trying to save you as a human being. From possible bubonic plague. I will of course leave you with the rat, since you prefer.’
Lois, legs in Wellington boots hanging over the edge of her bed. Hands up clutched covering her face, as she lies crumpled in a heap. Church bell ringing the half hour. A shudder of wind across the skylight. And a moan down the stove chimney.
‘O god. Blackmail. Sheer absolute cruel blackmail. Ruin me. Run off. Leave me. Go ahead. After making you cocoa with the milk I intended for breakfast. After I’ve put turf in my stove to be hospitable. And opened up my chimney flue. You cruel wretched creature. I might have known.’
‘Madam I think you’re absolutely nuts.’
‘Nuts am I. Nuts. You call me nuts. I am not nuts. I have never been nuts. That’s one of those stupid American expressions.’
‘Clearly you know what it means.’
‘Of course I know what it stupidly well means.’
‘Well do you or don’t you want me to go. I am perfectly content not to go on attempting to kill your rat. And of course I shall see to your carpet being cleaned.’
‘Cleaned. Are you mad. Absolutely raving mad. How. Do you expect me to entrust a precious heirloom to an Irish cleaner’s. Where I’ve already had my one and only tweed suit washed and boiled by imbeciles and given back to me to wear. Shrunken so dreadfully that it is fit only for a midget or to use as rags to wipe my brushes. Cleaned. My god.’