‘Rashers. I think I may have the dreaded pox.’
‘You what dear boy.’
‘Syphilis.’
‘Come directly with me this instant into the basement gents of the Dawson Lounge.’
It was an appalling embarrassment to have to present one’s prick to Rashers in this lavatorial manner especially as someone in the next cubicle had already got the wrong idea seeing two pairs of feet and the trousers of one pair around its ankles. But after careful perusement he pronounced.
‘Dear chap you are quite free of the pox. Not a chancre for miles. But if you must plunge into love, you must also say to hell with venereal disease.’
We did pause to take morning refreshment down these dark confines. And in order to change the subject from medical to cultural matters I inquired of Rashers over his armful of roses.
‘Rashers why don’t you sing. You really do, you know, have a voice which I’m sure would bring you riches on the concert stage.’
‘So kind of you to say dear boy. That is nice to hear this tender time of morn. But you see the answer is as surprising as it is simple. My voice is the only thing I have never compromised, sold, bartered or prostituted. Well dear boy. Shall it be down with betrayal. Shall it be down with back stabbers. Put the begrudgers and unfaithful to the sword. And on to Monte Carlo. And Darcy. You are my good friend. And even in the débâcle of your fear of the dreaded pox, always a joy to meet. Let’s make another appointment soon shall we. Ta ta.’
Standing on the pavement of Dawson Street in front of a ladies’ hat shop Rashers threw a kiss in at a most pretty lady arranging a hat in the window and then waved goodbye to me and strutting off, seemed to disappear into the entrance of the Royal Automobile Club. Not to be outdone by Rashers’s seemingly lofty principle. I foolishly opened an account in the flower shop and extravagantly charged my own bouquet of a dozen red roses. And I proceeded to Lois. Still terrified out of my wits. That if I did not have the pox, I may, as Rashers suggested, have the gleet.
‘So it’s you. Well come in.’
‘These are for you.’
‘Well thank you very much. And it’s not that I am not appreciative but I hope you don’t think I am putty in your hands. It just so happened I was having a low moment when I asked you to stay.’
Going up her steep stairs. Ushered into an actually warm studio. Two eggs simmering in a pan on her stove in the middle of the room. Her Afghan rug hanging where she’d been cleaning it. Of course Lois was now out of her mind, preparing for her secret commission. And one must suppose the rug would be a backdrop. As clearly she had borrowed a rather regal chair from the Count’s School of Ballet. Much gilt, gold and satin, which stood up on the dais. Such whoo haaa you never heard or saw. Actually sweating in her four or so thick sweaters. But one did make the whole thing suddenly even more hysterical, accosting her with my worry. Just as she’d put the roses in her one and only vase.
‘I think Lois it is entirely possible for you to have given me a venereal disease. Which I meant to ask if you had one before we went to bed. Heavens. I am putting this rather badly.’
Astonishingly in a corner behind Lois, the rat peeked out, then ventured out. And sat amusedly back on his haunches, his nose, whiskers and even ears twitching in the much ensuing silence. Lois pale with shock. And slowly growing red with anger.
‘You most certainly are putting it badly. You mean to say dear boy, that you would go willingly to bed with someone you thought might have a venereal disease. How dare you, having abandoned me, how utterly dare you, accuse me of giving you a venereal disease. It is more likely that you are the one who might have given a venereal disease to me.’
‘But I’ve been told you’ve been mounted by everyone in Dublin. And perhaps I should go to the doctor’s.’
‘How heinous. How dare you. I should slap your face. You stupid Irish boy. And if you think you have such a thing, you had it before you slept with me and I should be the one to go to the doctor’s.’
‘But Rashers has told me I have no sign of the pox.’
‘That dreadful philistine rascal told you did he. Well I’m telling you. Get out. Out of my studio.’
Dear me. How quick one’s social life becomes a shambles. In the very middle of my discussion of the possible pox. Here I am being shown the door. And of course Lois screamed at the sight of Mr Rat. Whose own social life was clearly recently much improved. I did my usual tripping over her bloody pictures and paints, and I must say, deliberately squashed one tube beautifully under heel. The contents squirting out like a calf plopping from a good old cow. But mindful of chivalry one did seriously try to put paid to the rat. And flung her pan of simmering eggs at the rodent. You never heard such an insane outburst.
‘My eggs. My only eggs for luncheon. O my god. Splattered. Right on my watercolours. You slanderous little monster. For the final time. Get out.’
‘Lois I am most awfully frightfully sorry. I thought the eggs were hard boiled.’
‘Well they weren’t. Please don’t ever ever again come back.’
Well of course Mr Rat could nibble up the yolk for a midnight snack. But I did go to the doctor’s. For a second opinion. Another agonizing wait. Looking out his waiting room window at the bare trees and green lawns one could see stretched across to the amber brick the other side of Merrion Square. Asking the highly sceptical physician if one could have caught something from a door knob or lavatory seat.
‘I’m afraid not. But all I can see is evidence of perhaps a trifling bruising and contusion. The result perhaps of a little too energetic activity. But we certainly can if you prefer get laboratory results. And send specimens straight over to Trinity College for a quick report.’
One was mortified to find the doctor occasionally hunted and even knew my Uncle Willie. The whole of next afternoon I spend at the Grafton Street Cinema. Safe momentarily in the dark, viewing two westerns and the usual tropical travelogues. Afterwards relishing to be as those people were, on their great cruise ship, just delighting in the flora and fauna of exotic foreign lands. Instead of taking a tasty tea reading the matrimonial column of the evening paper. Of serious minded bog trotting farmers wanting ladies under sixty of stout build to be mutually suited with a view to marriage. But at least one did sit utterly alone in some baronial splendour upstairs in the cinema café. Dreaming and thinking every moment of Leila. She worked here. Touched these cups. Fetched back and forth these trays to the kitchen lift there behind the screen across the room. Where the waitresses bringing the endless supplies of bread and tea all peek out to watch me eat.
I returned alone to my room. And I found myself for some reason, writing my last will and terrified testicle so to speak. Then in sleep having a desperately violent erotic dream about Leila. Who was nakedly running from me chased by Baptista Consuelo who with a whip was lashing red weals across her white slender body. Next morning feeling no pain in one’s prick, but needing a breath of fresh air in one’s brain, it was I who went to knock at Rashers’ suite. Trying to invent something to thank him for or even to pay my apologies for dragging him down the bowels of a pub to examine my prick. And not least, to request his medical advice for my amorous future. I banged and even kicked his door. And with no one answering, stopped to inquire of him at the lobby desk.
‘Ah yes Mr Kildare. His Lordship departed last night. His car collected him for the mail boat. Exactly following supper in his apartments with the Countess, Lady Ronald Ronald. No forwarding address. Is there something we can do.’
‘No thank you.’
‘Ah but isn’t the Earl one of the great singers. Did you ever hear him now render O Danny Boy.’