‘Darcy, I think I am about to incur your final lifelong wrath.’
‘Nonsense. Sad chap. Come with me. To collect one’s winnings. I’ll need all your extra pockets. And thence to the champagne bar where you may incur my hospitality.’
‘O my dear boy, I cannot bear to continue to somehow bedevil your life.’
‘Rashers at this very particular moment, believe me you are, for a change, certainly not.’
‘Darcy, I don’t quite know how to put it.’
‘Put what.’
‘Put what seems just to be one more of my very good intentions, which I fear has gone absolutely awry.’
‘What on earth are you talking about Rashers.’
‘Darcy I placed your bet.’
‘And thank you very much. And what pray is troubling you, your Lordship, aside from your very unfortunate loss, of course.’
‘Darcy, to make up for my little committed indiscretions in our friendship, I was so eager for you to win. Deeply and sincerely.’
‘Ah were you. How nice.’
‘Darcy, so deeply and sincerely. And you must forgive me. I placed your bet on Ulidia Princess.’
‘You what.’
‘Yes. On Ulidia Princess to win. I am. I am most heartily sorry. I’m a dead loss. No help to myself. Nor to my dearest of friends.’
The enclosure emptied. Race cards, betting tickets strewn on the stand steps and the enclosure grass. Bookmakers their signs down, their little black boards packed away. Departing with their bags stuffed with bank notes. My feet rooted still to the porch upon which one stood. And Rashers one step beneath me, taking from his side coat a massive roll of notes. Peeling them off.
‘Darcy, here. I’m making your bet good.’
‘No you’re not. Absolutely not. To dare insult me in this way. On top of what you’ve already done. Please.’
Then you please for god’s sake strike me. Please. Take a swing at least. Don’t leave me standing here like this. I will of course try to duck.’
Westwards, clouds edged with pink out over the thickets of tree branches. Back towards Dublin. The skies brooding their strange cold blue grey and black. The breeze chill on the back of my neck. My clenched hands plunged cold in my pockets. Rashers’s eyes glancing up.
‘But dear boy, you’re not, as I can see, going to strike me, are you.’
‘No. I am not.’
‘Well can I then offer you solace. You see. I am leaving Ireland. At any moment.’
His checked cap removed, Rashers who invites one’s fist. A gust of wind blowing an auburn tinted lock of hair across his brow. A big freckle at the corner of his right eye one never noticed before. Groundsmen now arriving. To clean up the debris. And apropos of nothing at all, one’s own eyes looked down. For some reason at Rashers’s shoes. At their wrinkled cracks, polished a thousand times. An ancient leather of a military boot. And one was somehow certain they had once belonged to his father. A hero of wars. An army general, celebrated, decorated, feted and respected. In command of thousands and thousands of men. And this one man here. His errant son. Fortune hunter, con man, chancer, thief. Author of my demise. Who devil may care, forever seems to frequent my life. And now suddenly in one’s anger. Hopelessness comes. As I remember once. Dressing in my room at Andromeda Park. Ready to order the men to harness up the horses to the rakes. As the rain hit the windows. In a pouring drenching squall. My heart sinking with the hay cut. Cured under the day’s previous lucky skies, and ready for cocking out across the acres and acres of meadows. I drew the curtains across the tinted pink glass panes. And beat and beat the walls with my fists. But as a certain horse may have character for hunting.
So must it be
That one has
A soul
For despair
21
On that miserable eve in the smoky noisy fug of the packed bar, one did take a subdued funereal champagne. Amid the bubbling voices. The greetings. The plans for parties, hunt balls and other race meetings. Rashers buying a magnum. Pouring the grapy ash white delicious fluid, refilling and refilling my glass. And again attempting to shove fifty pound notes in my pocket. And as I would push his hand away, I would catch a glimpse of the treasury script’s etched purple woman and her harp. Like Leila. And me. Like the back of the note. A sad green bearded face. And a three pronged spear sticking up from oak leaves. A bowl of wheat sheaves and fruit. All of Ireland’s plenty. For the rich few who lord luckily over all the impoverished many. Of whom Foxy Slattery, grinningly coming in, is no longer one of them. One did try desperately to hide the disaster on one’s face. And pretend that he was yet again saver of one’s life.
‘Boss what did I tell you.’
‘Thank you Foxy. Thank you. You’re the maker of my fortune. Please join us in a glass of champagne.’
‘And boss maybe I can sell you a car now on the riches.’
‘Perhaps Foxy. Perhaps.’
One simply did not have the heart to disappoint him. To tell him one’s best asinine friend bare faced took one’s last bloody money and lost it on a losing nag. But I could see the cheer on Foxy’s face vanish in a second. Beyond his shoulder, Baptista Consuelo, her mink coat sweeping open revealing a tight plunging neckline. And just at the moment I was about to effect his introduction to her, she promptly turned her wide backside on him.
‘Ah boss, I may not be good enough for some people, but we did it again now didn’t we. Never get a repeat of odds like that till Rumoured Ghost’s ready for the knacker’s yard.’
Motoring back the country lanes to town and finally across the Liffey, one was, astonishingly at the moment sporting an erection. And had the uncontrollably strange urge. To fuck Baptista Consuelo straight up her big stuck up arse. With one’s present prick that could just bloody well do the job. For her sake, sand in the lubricant. Plunging it in her dog style till she went barking across the floor on her naked hands and knees with a suitably dumb and entertained look on her overly pretty face. Rashers humming. The Lark In The Clear Air. And one had to admit, in one’s champagne swirling mind, to being soothed by the sound. But to know that one was feeling again somehow, the same shattering shock that one always feels poor and skint. Making one avoid taking any notice, as one steps out of the warm confines of the Shelbourne, of the resentful passing faces of discontent. As one’s own face goes displeased in this dear desecrated dirty Dublin. But at least presently insulated by the soft upholstery and shiny elegant fittings of this Daimler. John, Rashers’s endlessly patient chauffeur, changing gear to pull us up the cobblestone narrow hill. Past these gates of Steevens’ Hospital. Rashers again nervously pushing towards my hand another sheaf, this time of big white English fivers instead of Irish fifties, as if the brand of denomination or currency made a difference.
‘But then I proffer you this by way of interest dear boy. On the loan of your family heirlooms.’
‘Rashers I’m sorry. But I’ve already made it eminently clear I cannot accept money from you in this fashion. It’s just a bit of bloody bad luck that’s all. The same I’ve already had on innumerable previous races. And you could, just as easily, have been quite right. Ulidia Princess might have won by a whisker instead.’
‘Dear boy but I was wrong. Not to abide by your instruction. Life itself is lost by such whiskers. Are you trying to break my heart. You are. Of course you can take a few measly old crumpled fivers. And of course you must. Never could I have been bankrolled into my modest present prosperity without the assistance of your august family’s silverware. You will never have faith in me again will you. Well at least tell me you had some previous faith in me.’
‘Yes. I had. For a few minutes after we first met. And you thought I was a promising con man. And I nearly believed it.’