‘Well dear boy. You were. The way you took a fiver from the Mental Marquis. But see in there. Those gates we presently pass by. As a medical student, I took post mortem notes down in the basement over dead cold Dubliners’ cadavers. Sorrowful work. When it’s children. But I would have, I think, in the end, lacked dedication. To spend the rest of one’s life listening to rumbling rotted lungs or up to one’s elbows in guts. But did you ever wonder why I ceased my stuthes and took my detour in life out of the professional classes.’
‘No. Actually I haven’t.’
‘Well I suppose, why should you. But I’ll tell you why. I did have many girlfriends I’ll admit. But there was a fellow student, a very tweedy slender pretty lady with most wonderful legs, of whom I became much enamoured. For her shy and strange ways. Never would she join me for tea or coffee at Johnston, Mooney’s and O’Brien’s out the back gate. And try as I did she would take but little notice of my attentions. I knew there was something much wrong with her hair. She constantly wore cloche hats. And one afternoon. Which one cannot ever forget. At a pathology lecture. She sat without her hat on the tier directly in front and below me. And I took my fountain pen just to tease. And reached down and devilishly poked in her hair. The clip got caught in the strands. And as she turned, pulling away to look back up, a wig came off her bald head. Darcy.’
‘For heaven’s sake Rashers.’
‘Darcy. Yes. There are tears in my eyes. Because she ran from lecture hall. Tripping and squeezing past her fellow students’ knees. There were no jeers but there was cruel involuntary laughter chasing her. And from the hall window. She jumped. And was found lying dead on the steps. The brains shattered out of her skull.’
Our car heading in the direction of the Coombe back streets. Passing the shadowy great elevations of Guinness’s brewery walls. The smell of hops. Up Robert Street. Into Marrowbone Lane. The prolonging silence. I turned to look at Rashers. Sitting but a hand’s touch away. Tears dropping down his cheeks. His chest heaved once.
‘Not my happiest day Darcy I can tell you. I never returned to college. And I am grateful to you. For at least not severely dressing me down all this ride back to town as you have, even sportingly, every reason to do. Would you in the very near future contemplate catching the mailboat with me. Sometimes the sound of steerage passengers drunkenly vomiting does require the company of pleasant distraction. One doesn’t want to pitch and roll across the Irish Sea completely alone even in the safe confines of one’s state room.’
‘But surely my god Rashers, you’re not really leaving Dublin are you.’
‘Yes. I shall be. Not hard to do. Uncomfortable yes, but following a good breakfast in the one and only palatial hotel in Liverpool, one slips on a train from Lime Street. To whisk hopefully at speed through those midland industrial slag heaps. Deposit oneself at journey’s end in one of the better London hotels. And I shall thence to Paris. And thence, dear boy, entrain from the Gare d’Austerlitz to Monte Carlo.’
‘But Rashers this is madness. It’s not because of that silly old bet.’
‘No. It’s not. It is my dear boy, because one must occasionally shake from one’s heels this unfortunate broken city’s tatters and grime. And its even more broken and tattered citizens. Minions who grimly drag feet back and forth, to and from their malingering toil. Whose hearts daily beg Saint Jude or somebody for the impossible. To hide somewhere to escape their thankless lives. But don’t think me on the side of socialism, dear boy. I’m all for exploiting people. But I have, you know, been turning over in my mind your remarks. I am a fortune hunter. No. Say nothing dear boy. It’s true. But believe me too when I say I do not seek from my beloved her goods. Even as I admit I am a con man. You know, before the advent of your silverware I actually had presented myself to the Association for the Relief of Distressed Protestants in Molesworth Street, and did as a left footer, without shame or nervous quiver, prise three quid out of them.’
‘You’re not a con man Rashers.’
‘I am. And so kind of you to say that I am not. Nor do I presume, despite my reasonable good birth and acceptable demeanour, to regard myself as a gentleman.’
‘You are Rashers. A gentleman. You are at least that. Most of the time.’
‘No I am a cad. Albeit of a sporting nature. But you see Darcy, the real fact of the matter is, and I know you will laugh as I tell you. That I did so much want to be an Admiral. That broad band of gold braid upon my cuff. Gold upon the peak of my cap. My flotilla of ships. And my father’s army pushed by the enemy to the edge of the sea. But ah perhaps I wouldn’t, as I dream that I would, weigh anchor to sail my fleet away and to leave the pompous bugger and his army trapped there on the shore. Just a thought, dear boy. But a more important thought. The greatest of casinos calls. My portmanteau is fairly filled with fivers. To manoeuvre there. There is a hotel on a hill where one takes one’s calm, comfortable and pleasant refuge. One’s window shall look out and down over the yacht filled harbour. And conveniently one merely strolls across a verdured street or two to mount the wide imposing steps of the casino. You see Darcy the moment for my coup has arrived. Which shall be wrought into reality under those enormously high glorious ceilings. And I shall not return unless it is to pull my own true weight with my beloved.’
‘Yes I can understand Rashers. Hers would be considerable. To pull.’
Rashers sulked until we arrived in front of the Shelbourne and he whispered a message to John. Handing him a fiver. But he hardly spoke another word to me. Just polite nods and grunts. I was merely, after one’s own dismal disappointment, trying to be somehow amusing. As one does at such times. My heart now utterly sinking at the thought of Rashers’ departure. And not entirely because it meant not ever seeing one’s silverware again. Which one was certain, somehow, he had in fact sold. But he did, for all his endless faults and presumptions upon my good will, at least encourage one to bolster against the dismal chilling winds whirling round one’s soul. And as we alighted to the pavement John the chauffeur had to push a way clear for us to pass. Rashers assuming his best aristocratic poise as a gang of newsboys clustered around him, their hoarse voices calling out.
‘Give us a penny mister Rashers. Give us a penny.’
‘I beg your pardon boys, but please, it’s Lord Ronald Ronald to you.’
Clanging bell. And a crowded tram roaring by. Through its steamed up windows, shadows of heads and newspapers within. The barefoot newsboys, clutching their papers under arm. Rheumy eyed, scabbed and scratched. Their faces streaked with phlegm. Torn garments hardly covering their chests. Hands and feet blue with cold. As grimy fingers touched upon one’s sleeve.
‘Come on mister, give us a penny.’
The smoky mists swirling over the wet glistening granite. Rashers scattering a handful of coins into the gutter. Newsboys rushing after them. Kicking, punching and pushing each other. Amid the furtive faced pedestrians hurrying home. And a voice shouting to Rashers as he entered in under the glass canopy.
‘Rashers, give us a song, will you, Rashers.’
In the lobby’s warm smells, of coffee, whisky and perfume. Folk in from the country still in hunting clothes, throwing their weight about, proudly mud spattered, recently scratched. Rashers collecting his key, attended by two page boy acolytes, one carrying his binoculars the other his newspapers. And I watched him move on quickly between the pillars, entering the lift. And as I looked up, his feet and trouser legs disappearing from sight, a strange sad shudder went through me. That I had grievously offended him. But just around the corner, who should one nearly bump into, her large arse conspicuously present, and her loud voice haughtily demanding.