The Ginger Man (12 page)

"O God, we can't suggest such a thing."

"We've got to. Now if we do that I'fl build a mobile barricade at the side of the house so Skully can't get to the back and then we can have the light on. Now I'll even deal with Miss Frost. There is a measure of rapport there."

"So I've noticed."

Marion went into the kitchen. Strained and pained. Hear her putting away the groceries, a good sound. I will not be beaten nor put down. Few more weeks of holding out and be out of it all Be in a position to give Skully his blood money. I will campaign in such a manner as to totally bring about an unconditional collapse of Egbert, the blood man. And the rest of them in the Rock could wait for theirs too. Peace is gone. No more of the sunny sessions with me Irish
Times
of a morning, looking over the mad growth in my little garden. But O aye, take the sun while ye may and when we pull the damp curtains over the soul of day, rest secure for we will see the light of day another time.

Over bread, tea, pot of blackcurrant jam rife with vitamin C, sausages and a bit of margarine, Sebastian faced the gray face of Miss Frost A bit of lip paint on and pencil around the eyes. She moved for the bread with reserve. I pushed the margarine over because I cannot tolerate bad table manners although I'm a great one for toleration generally.

"Miss Frost I have a rather weird thing to tell you. Ridiculous really. I hope it won't upset you. But there's been a man about here. Harmless sort but mad as a hatter. Foolish of me, but just by accident one night I loaned this man a cigarette in a public house not realizing the implications. I found him a rather interesting sort. However, I was taken aback by his eyes. It turned out that he had an afternoon off from the Grangegorman. From there the whole situation developed in a most fantastic way. This man has got it into his head that he was a former landlord of mine and that I owe him money."

"Isn't that the limit, though, Mr. Dangerfield?"

"It is rather. And now he's been at the house. Well, I've had no alternative but to ignore him. Lock the doors and things and pull the curtains. But I thought it wise just to tell you. Nothing serious. But I wouldn't want you to have someone tapping on your window. Perfectly harmless type. Wouldn't be let out otherwise. So just ignore him."

"Couldn't you tell the police, Mr. Dangerfield?"

"O I'd rather not, Miss Frost Unfair to subject this poor unfortunate to abuse and he'd be kept in after that I think it best to ignore him and I'm sure he'll stop. If you happen to be outside and he starts on about this rent and money just tell him I'm not home and to go away"

"Yes, I'll do that Thanks for telling me. I imagine I would be a bit frightened by a strange man, Mr, Dangerfield."

"Quite."

"I'll do these dishes, Mr. Dangerfield. Now you stay there and finish your tea."

"O no, Miss Frost"

"Only take me a minute, Mr. Dangerfield."

"Very good of you, Miss Frost."

Sebastian licked his mouth. Miss Frost running the tap. Sebastian pulls up the table doth. A quick wipe of the lips. Marion reading in the bedroom. Nice evening. Think I'll just slip in there and tell Marion the good news.

"I say. Marion."

"O what"

"Everything's all right I told you Miss Frost would understand."

"All right"

"Move over."

"Get in your own bed."

"It's cold. Don't you want a bit of arse?"

"Go talk to Miss Frost, foul mouth."

"Like to get you right here."

"Take your hands away."

"Weeeeeee."

"You're revolting."

"This is the way to live. The light Bing. Let there be electricity. Let there be gas for continuous hot water and cooking. Let there be a hot bedlam for those needing it We've come a long way, Marion. A long way."

"And you had nothing to do with it"

"Bend over."

"Get away."

From Miss Frost's room there came the sound of music. And the laurels rubbing outside. The air smelling of green, fresh in from the branches. When I was little, a colored maid pinched my penis. Her name was Matilda, and I watched her through the key hole, powdering her pudenda. She did a lot of things to me. Worried about my physiology. Little colored boys have bigger ones. O they feed you up for the teeth and the weight and clean out the ears and other things and cut the fingernails and brush the hair but there's no organ orgy. I think Marion thinks mine too small.

But I know

It's bigger

Than most

15

These days I can sneak away to the bathroom and perform my toilet with dignity.

Miss Frost has to go by my door. Marion leaves it open in the fuss to feed the kid. I lie looking out at Miss Frost passing in various stages of titillating undress. In her red kimono, gray shanks, shapely with the type of thin ankle I prefer. Indeed, Miss Frost is well put together. And this morning she saw me. I smiled as one does. Her neck went scarlet. It's all right to blush in the face but watch out for those given to the neck blush.

I went in to get my breakfast. Dear daughter shut your lousy yap. Close it. Or I'll jam it And it won't be the blackcurrant either.

"Daaaa, da."

"What is it?"

"Ahhh, da pooh-pooh."

"Will you let da-da eat his breakfast Da-da's hungry. Now shut your hole."

"Stop it. She has a perfect right to make noise."

"Well lock her in the garage—I can't understand why they don't have chains for children. I'm going to Trinity."

"Go ahead, I'm not stopping you."

"Thought you might like to know."

"Well I don't."

"Now, now. I'm coming right back. I think perhaps we ought to pay off a pound on the electricity bill. Marion, are you listening?"

"I heard you."

"Good idea to clear up part of this little matter."

Marion pouring milk into a pan.

"I say, Marion, are you ill? Now for the teeth of Jesus—"

"Stop using that language in front of the child. And Miss Frost too. And I'm sick of it. Go if you're going."

"Now, Marion, let's be reasonable. This bill must be paid sooner or later or they'll be out here to cut it off. What will the Miss Smiths think? I say—"

"O for God's sake, stop whining. Since when have you been concerned with what people will think?"

"I've always been that way."

"What rot."

Sebastian got up from the table and walked into the kitchen and put his arm across Marion's shoulders.

"Take your hands off me, please."

"Marion."

"I thought you were going to Trinity. Well go.
⁰

"I don't want to waste the trip in."

"O you are a liar."

"Little severe, Marion."

"And you come back drunk."

"I beg your pardon. I'll give you a shot in the mouth."

"Why don't you fight a man. I'm not giving you one penny."

"I have a proposition—"

"I don't intend to change my mind."

"All right, Marion. If you wish it that way. Be Protestant and miserable. If you'll excuse me. I'll go."

Out of the kitchen stony faced. He took a bag from the morning room and went into Miss Frost's room. Two decanters. Into the bag. And bowler placed neatly on his skull. Quickly out the front door, skipping down the steps and whoops. He stumbled headlong into a choice laurel, face in the rotting leaves. Decanters held high for safety. A few foul words of abuse. Tugging at the little green gate. Stuck. A lash with the boot. The gate slumped open. The lower hinge wagging by its spring.

He arrived in Dublin on the top of the tram. And slid through the fashionable throng of the Grafton Street. He walked under the three gold balls and to the counter. Plunked down the two decanters. A funereal man hunched whispering over them.

"Well, Mr. Dangerfield."

"Heirlooms. Fine Waterford."

"I see, Mr. Dangerfield. Not much of a market these days. Seems people don't set much of a value."

"Wine's becoming very popular.'1

"Ah yes, Mr. Dangerfield Ha."

"Americans are mad for them."

"Ten shillings."

"Make it a pound."

"Fifteen and we won't argue."

Sebastian turned with his money. He bumped into a man coming in the door. A man with a rotund skull and shoulders streamlined against the weather.

"Jesus Christ come home to roost. Sebastian"

"How do you do, Percy."

"I hose shit off the toilet seats in Iveagh House. Drink anything that's going and hump when I can."

"Jolly good show."

"And I'm in to pawn five pounds of steak."

"Eeeek, you're not"

"Here it is."

"Percy, incredible."

"Will you have a drink. Wait for a second while I flog the meat, and I'll tell you the whole story."

Sebastian waited under the three balls. Percy, grinning, came out and they set off down the street. Percy Clocklan, a short bull man. So strong he could collapse the walls of a room with a deep breath. But only did this in people's houses he didn't like.

They sat in the corner of a tiny public house. Few hags beating gums in each other's deaf ears. Saying the dirtiest imaginable things. Absolutely shocking. Percy Clocklan's face was all grin and laughter.

"Sebastian, I've had everything. My father was a bank manager. My sister's a member of the Purgatorial Society, my brother's a company director and I reside in the Iveagh House over the Bride Street, a hostel for the poor and dying"

"Better days coming."

"But let me tell you. Here I am, educated with the best of them at Clongowes. Nine years in the textile trade taking guff from these awful eejits and not even a raise. I told the manager to stuff his kip up his hole. Jesus, I shouldn't have done it. Now look at me. Every morning I have to take a hose and go around cleaning after these ould bastards who come in at night full of red biddy and do their business all over the floors. Last night I caught an old bugger pissing into the drinking fountain. But it's only a shilling for a good feed and two and six for a cubicle for a night. I'm a porter there. That's the big cheese. And I get my pay and into the red biddy lounge where I get laggards for eight pence"

"What would you like out of life, Percy?"

"Know what I want? I'll tell you. And you can listen to these bloody eejits who sit around talking bull shit for hours and they don't get anywhere. I'll tell you what I want and it's all I want. I want a woman with awful big tits and arse. Biggest tits and arse in whoredom. Get up on her—o the tits, the tits. Whoever thought of them. God knows a good thing. Just tits, a big arse so's I can come home of an evening and lash a sup of steak on the grill and fill me gut and then get up on her. I want some kids. Something to work for. Incentive is what I want. I sit around an oul' bleedy pub wasting me time. I'm coming to forty and maybe I could have been a big fella with cars and maids but I don't give two tuppenny turds. It's over now and no use shouting about. But if I had a woman with an awful big pair of tits you'd see me for the last time in a pub. Be as happy as sin. I'm married once but I'll never make the same mistake again. Wanting to drink every night and terrified of having some kids"

"Pregnancy first, Percy. Then the drink to recover from the insecurity that's in it."

"I know, I know. I was an awful eejit But she wouldn't hear of it Said she was too young to be slaving after children. I know better now. She wouldn't give up her job. Didn't have any power over her. I don't care now, any old whore will do now and lots of biddy to forget about food and rent"

"And where did you get that meat?"

"Sebastian, don't breathe a word of this. Now I'm telling you, it's confidential I had this bird who worked in the butchers. She'd get me as much as eight pounds of the finest steak of an evening. I'd flog three or four pounds and have enough to see me crawling from biddy and lash the rest raw into me gut. See me right for days. I'd give old Tony Malarkey a few pounds now and again for his kids. I was living with him for a while but he's like an oul' hen, clucking around and jealous when I'd come in of an evening laggards. Can't stand to see anyone else enjoying themselves. I bloody well moved out But my woman got caught"

"Where did you get the meat today?"

"Wait till I tell you. They caught her stealing the bloody stuff and she was fired on the spot And she wanted me to get up on her of an evening for nothing, and I told her did she think I was a stud bull wasting me energy humping her ould carcass. Imagine that, expecting me to act the bloody bull for nothing and her ould flat tits without a sup of meat behind them. There's no decency in some of these people. You're the only decent person I know, Sebastian. You buy a man a drink when you have the money and you don't do all this yelling about it I should have been a priest and have Morgan's van calling every week with lashings of drink and a housekeeper with boobs like pyramids. Then you'd hear some sermons. I'd lash some bloody decency into these people. But when I got no more meat from this ould whore, I looked up another bird in a butchers. Went in every day buying bones for a week and it wasn't long before she was sneaking the meat out to me."

"You're an awful man."

"And I've got an ould maid in the Iveagh House who's taken a shine to me. She says a pair of decent balls in the hand is worth a cock in the bush."

"You'd make a fine husband, Percy."

"Don't come the hound,"

"You would"

"Look at me. Losing me hair. Sleeping next to a bunch of newsboys at night and the bunch of them saying hello to me on Grafton Street. Me from Clongowes Wood College."

"Look at me, Percy."

"Look at you. More money than the president with that G. I. Grant."

"The expense, Percy, is dreadful. And must keep my dignity."

"Ould whore's dignity. Do you want to come to a party?"

"Not tonight."

"Have you gone mad, Sebastian? It's in Tony's house, the Catacombs. Tony wants to see you. I hear O'Keefe's gone to Paris and went queer as well."

"True. He's in a little town after anything that moves."

"Jesus, come to the party."

"Can't."

"Have a drink then."

"Percy, I've been put down a great deal since I saw you last. A Mr. Skully, a former landlord, is after me for money. Then there are a few business houses."

"You ought to go in for betting, Sebastian. That's what your trouble is. A bet changes my whole day. Jesus, let's go for some red biddy."

Red biddy is sweet and thick, dried dead blood. All running through the streets. I can only imagine that I would like to be between thighs. I knew a girl who wore an orange sweater. I put my hands on her naked waist of slim belly. She was a milkmaid. I was a gentleman. We stood in an erotic embrace.

They were gone down the street through the kids and granite gutters talking about the money made in raising sheep.

"Sebastian, did you ever get up on one?"

"I say, realty, Percy."

In

Algeria

There is a town.

Called

Tit.