‘Yes I can feel. In your soleus. And especially along here in your gastrocnemius. Only one tendon actually reaches the sole of the foot.’
‘O does it really, that’s considerably interesting.’
‘People don’t really pay enough attention to their leg muscles these days.’
‘No I’m sure they don’t.’
A lot more awfully Latin sounding words erupted from her as her hands fondled between two prominent ligaments at the back of my knee. Of course the creature was beginning to tremble like a leaf. I certainly was not exactly as calm as any old cucumber either. With her actually tickling down the sides of my legs in among my hairs with her fingertips. My trousers now conspicuously bulging.
‘At the tarsal and tarso metatarsal articulations there’s so much that can go wrong.’
‘I entirely agree.’
I took Rashers’ silk hanky upon which his tears had fallen and wiped my brow. Around her neck a silver chain with a gold cross hanging forward out her open white coat. Surely she’s not intending to do anything irreligious. Or break her vows as a chiropodist. But her lungs are distinctly heaving under her brown sweater. While her fingers, my goodness gracious me, are, good lord, unbuttoning my fly. I must say one is on the verge of saying something utterly daft. As to whether, in dealing with one’s ligaments higher up, to which naturally one’s leg is attached, did this still comprise part of the foot treatment. Involving one hopes, no additional charge. But as, at the presently awfully awkward moment, she cannot find the entrance to my complicated drawers, one does not ask niggling questions. Particularly now her fingers have finally got into the confines of my underwear. Where I am bulging so madly that bloody hell even with both of our pairs of cold hands, it is going to be a major engineering feat to get my member free of its clothed encumbrances. Especially as these drawers, also embarrassingly a dim shade of white, happen to have also been once my grandfather’s. And nearly of woven metal made traditionally by a Manx mill specially for farmers shepherding their sheep on their wintry windy moors. And I did only last night have such a severely erotic dream. Involving of all people, Dingbats and her big hefty red tinged tits. Nakedly serving me supper in my apartments. A late summer dish of mushrooms. She danced around showing off her fine points. And Sexton came bursting into the room. Pointing an accusing finger at my plate. Ah I wouldn’t Master Darcy touch that fungi or be caught dead eating a mushroom that one would pick. Sure she’s here in the house, with murder on her mind for the inhabitants. With a bag full of toadstools collected as deadly as a dozen cobras keeping warm in your bed. Them’s death caps and destroying angels in that sauce. O god will she never get it out.
‘I hope I’m not hurting you.’
‘No no. My undergarments are a little old fashioned that’s all.’
Ah at last. In now this cool afternoon air, one’s regenerative organ is out. And instead of Dingbats one is looking down on this chiropodist’s dark reddish brown roots of her dyed blond hair. With nothing but an unprotesting groan blurting out my lips. Her warm mouth. Is indeed nothing but a welcome bit of bliss on my mind. As she does rather hungrily suck. Her hair parted down the middle. Her head bumping up and down like the old ram pump used to do, before it conked out, down in the cleft of the meadow in the rushy field by the oak wood. My goodness what treatment would she give one for a sprained foot. Daren’t read her surname. But her Christian name is Qoadagh, it says on her diploma on the wall. More to this chiropody business than meets the eye. Certainly much more to it than can be said in a mouthful. Has an orange bow tied at the back of her hair. And Leila’s purple one. Of which Crooks once said. Youse will take that bow out of your hair, or youse will be terminated in this employment. O god. I nearly had apoplexy when first I saw Leila’s pretty legs. Not believing the beauty which started at the top of her head could go all the way down to the tip of her toes. Which talking about toes, this foot specialist’s hand is presently wrapped squeezing upon my goolies. As her mouth is gobbling and sucking like a starved pig in a swill of molasses. Teetering me exactly on that knife edge of pleasure verging on pain. O my god, I’m exploding.
Darcy Dancer’s head flying back, his feet upwards. One foot kicking over her whole tray of instruments. Bottles and scalpels and talcum powder scattering across the floor. Footsteps out in the next room. The door opening. And a high pitched bark. Behind my busy chiropodist’s back. As I groaningly stiffen in terrified delirium. And sit bolt upright. Staring straight at this grey headed lady. In a blue tweed coat and crimson cloche hat speckled with rain drops and sporting several flowers. Each petal of which along with the expression of her pug dog’s sniffling yapping face will be, I am absolutely sure, forever emblazoned on my mind. The lady’s eyes saucer round looking up at me. Her half open umbrella dripping rain.
‘Is this, is this, is this, the chiropodist’s.’
Of course the visiting lady, poor dear, having seen over my foot specialist’s shoulder the full treatment in progress, was with a leash, hysterically choking back her equally hysterical tiny squashed faced pug dog from biting the chiropodist’s heels. And lifting the canine into her arms she backed rapidly out the door. Which some wind from somewhere unmercifully blew further open. And another breeze mercifully then slammed shut. But good lord, the door opening again. The pug face mutt, his daws scrabbling on the shiny linoleum, snarling. The lady craning her head in, this time with a lorgnette held poised tiptoe on her nose.
‘I didn’t think I could believe my eyes. I have a good mind to summon the police.’
My poor chiropodist creature, her one hand still absolutely stuck caught entangled in my grandfather’s inpenetrable Manx drawers as I sprang up. Both of us yanking and pulling and skating on the talcum powder, and falling. The two of us crashing on the cold slippery floor. The chiropodist ashen faced ready to faint, but with her other hand still unfortunately firmly holding my obvious penis. And the awful ruddy bloody pug mutt snapping and growling at the lumps of cotton wool and finally sneezing uncontrollably in the raised dust of white powder. Having listened so often to Rashers dispense quips to quell all kinds of ignoble faux pas, I simply could not, racking one’s brain, venture what I thought night be practical as well as reassuring information. Which might allay the lady’s concern in requiring the attention of law enforcement. And exaggerating one’s refined English I opened my mouth.
‘Yes, madam, it is the chiropodist’s, but my condition requires me to have massaging of the musculature.’
‘You disgusting disgusting people.’
Should the Garda Siochana come charging in the downstairs hall, there is no exit out these windowless walls. Nor any room to retreat. For the lady lowering her lorgnette, merely had to raise her umbrella to easily clonk my poor chiropodist on her head. But the angry way my foot specialist eyed her scalpel on the floor, she obviously had a sense of life preservation. And indeed murder. As she grabbed the sharp blade. Various evening newspaper headlines already flashing across one’s brain. Member of landed gentry indecently found concerned in stabbing of elderly blue stocking by prostitute chiropodist. Rashers anyway could take comfort that this is yet another disaster he is not responsible for.
‘Don’t you dare raise that knife to me young lady. As a devout Protestant I object to this absolutely shockingly beastly sight. I happen to have come all the way in on the train from Greystones. And if you don’t mind I shall take my custom elsewhere. Since the war’s been over, Dublin simply isn’t safe any more. And you in your notoriously Catholic profession in this place, should be reported to the appropriate parish priest.’