The Onion Eaters (15 page)

‘Boors unbeseeming. All of you. Stop. Instantly. As it would be most disagreeable for me to have to detonate this glycerine treated recently with a cold mixture of
concentrated
nitric and sulphuric acids. Such pointless concussion will only result in a festoonery of entrails about the
etruscan
trancepts and much needless splattering of fresh blobs on the rare pink glass of the windows. All line up.’

Erconwald brushing himself off. The fighting females holding tight to each other’s hair. The three exprisoners sheepish and shy in front of the explosive. Lead Kindly Light one handedly undoing and dropping his trousers. From under which flared out a grass skirt. Percival
whispering.

‘Your man’s out of his mind sir, somewhere in the south seas.’

‘Gavotte. Gavotte or I blow you up.’

The gathering danced. Crooked footed and very slow at first. A loose flopping up and down of ankles. Later a thundering of heels, the floor heaving. And a rending crash as Oscar the boy plummeted through the floor boards on
his first caper. Standing waist high in a corner. Eyes big globes of fear. As L K L sniffs his vial held up to a nostril and scratches himself under his skirt.

‘Idolators. Pagans. Repent. I am the yodeller of the deeps. I have walked in the Prado. And peed in both the gents and ladies conveniences of the British Museum. One more aura of discourtesy and I will impart this titanic turbulence. That’ll make Krakatoa seem like a tar blister on the road.’

‘Sir that’s the ravings of a lunatic, would I be having your permission to slide the shaft of this yoke into him.’

‘Dance. Drop that spear you. Radicals. Dandruff makers. I am your comeuppance, Lead Kindly Light of the atomic sloth. You who fester your lives on wine women and
perverted
tetrahedrons. Who dare question the periodic table. And use ugly demeaning words of me. Lead Kindly Light the less of the backside contorted is it. Take a look now. At me buttocks smiling. Do any of you see baggyness about the arse parts. Fatless I am. Devoid of sinister flesh
overlappings
. Able to strum upon my spare ribs. The castle evil here is an affront to the cultural interests accumulated by my wife and I abroad. An explosion of this will soon perk up posterity’s ears. Shut up you dirty little eegit there in the corner.’

‘Help.’

Oscar hip deep in the floor. Lifting one knee up to gain a foothold. Crashing down again through the powdery wood. Landing perched as he must be on a supporting wall. The gathering hushed under the vial aloft. A pale glow of fear over the faces. Mrs L K L and Rose shifting foot positions. L K L’s whitened small fist gyrating round his head. And now vibrating in front of his face.

‘Fornicators.’

Erconwald raising his slender hand. Tranquil abider.
Inclining
his head. A prisoner loudly clearing his throat. All eyes on the vial. L K L’s skirt sprouting outwards as he twirls. Oscar on his knees hands joined in prayer, his round white face raised towards the ceiling.

‘Ah Lead Kindly I entreat to be heard. I offer a solution
to our distraught posture. May I suggest the laying aside of the vial.’

L K L holding the explosive ampoule high in the air. Erconwald hunching his shoulders in prelude to the
detonation.
Other beholders raising hands to block the blast. L K L screaming.

‘I will not have the profundities of posterity tampered with by whoremongers who have not gasped in awe at mystical revelations achieved by long navel gazing.’

‘My good Lead Kindly Light. Your sentiments are honoured most humbly by your obedient servant.’

‘Haven’t I told you my nannies walked me around the green so that I could drink the nobilities of the passing architecture.’

‘Pray my good, my very good Lead Kindly Light. All of us will go around the green quite soon to taste of its sombre elegances. Meanwhile may I not say just a few private words to our host who stands most disturbed and anguished there. To perhaps explain the reasonable nature of your remarks and your justifiable consternation. I would hope that you would agree to save him sufferment of further trepidation.’

‘You will be allowed fifty seconds.’

‘Ah I am most thankful and grateful to you my good, my very good Lead Kindly Light.’

Erconwald stepping around the table with the utmost of ceremonial delicacies. His tongue lightly licking through his lips. This thin throated man of soft voice and rippling kindliness. Eyes closed he nears Clementine.

‘Ah good person I am indeed most contrite that this
unhappy
situation has arisen. L K L is a yodeller of
uncommon
ability. We are ancient friends. Occasioned first in the capital city during childhood upon our both swimming summers in the canal. Later we launched him upon his singing career. Many months spent abroad perfecting his yodelling made him impatient with his slow recognition upon his return. The blaze of maximum publicity we
attempted
to achieve by his riding our ostrich down the street failed upon the bird’s unrehearsed entry through the plate
glass of a display window full of undraped plastic
mannequins.
The mayhem therein permanently grieved us all. His wife is a woman of wealth and culture. Her photograph has been in news periodicals. Although minor
misunderstandings
have saddened each of us in turn, where singing or scientific progress was at stake we worked as one. Pray be disturbed no longer.’

‘Thank you Erconwald.’

Lead Kindly Light throwing the vial with a sweep of his arm. Hands flashing over faces in the sign of a cross. Bodies hurtling away from the fireplace where the slender tube plunged into the flames. A shattering blast. A bright orange ball of fire. Plaster falling from the ceilings. The twin chandeliers swinging. Night air streaming through the broken windows. Outside sparks falling from the sky.
Distant
booming echoes. And inside, scattered turf embers smouldering over the room. Lead Kindly Light his grass skirt up around his throat prostrate on the table, both knees twitching. Blood pouring out the nose of one of the
exprisoners.
Rose and Mrs L K L flat on their backs, faces covered in plaster specks, still engripped in each other’s hair. Above me the face of Charlene. In whose hands lies my head.

‘O dear God have mercy on you Mr Clementine. Yours is the first good honest face to enter this district for
donkey’s
years. Taken now from us without warning.’

‘I’m alive.’

‘God so you are. Thanks be to St Anastasia for that.’

‘Light the candles.’

‘I will sir but are you all right.’

‘Yes.’

‘O lord listen to the moans. The injuries will need the doctor in a hurry. Tim’s the fastest to the town. I’ll send him sir.’

The candles extinguished relit by Charlene. A ghostly smoke rising from the debris. The Baron seated propped against the wall, an ancestor’s fallen portrait beside him to which he nods greeting and to whom he offers a glass. Percival holding his knee.

‘Ah God sir this is out of joint again. It’ll take a worse blast than that one now to put it back right again.’

An exprisoner limping slowly round the room his tie hanging down his back, levelling the portraits hanging askew. The holocaust awakening sensitivities. Amid the scattered and tattered clothing. And grunts as the fighting ladies reentrench their grips loosened by the blast. A voice humming a tune. As Elmer now with his huge shaggy grey head sniffs and licks the downed faces. Percival sweeping up the smoking embers of turf. A donkey honks out across the fields. A sweet moist air of night breezing through broken windows.

Sound of an engine and headlights of a car shooting up in the sky. Erconwald, shirt in tatters sitting elbows on the table and head in hands. The large door of the dining hall opening. Tim towering behind a small rotund man in
waistcoat
carrying a black bag. Pausing in the doorway. The doctor. Donning spectacles. Surveying the scene. His hand slowly reaching up and covering his heart. He sways. He totters. And crashes forward on the floor.

Morning beams blue and sunny after the blast and blame of the boisterous night. Charnel Castle inhabitants crawling away to bedrooms. Those who could. The doctor treated on the dining room table for heart attack. Erconwald and Franz wearing arm bands with a red cross as they danced attendance upon the injured.

I take an early morning pee and stare down from the high walls and see a gossamer webbing on the grass. Spun in the dark to make a waving sea of white. Charlene and Percival lugging me to bed. Mildly concussed I dreamt I dwelt in an igloo. Lots of folk kept arriving across the tundra. An enormous craps game developed on the packed snow over the north pole. I lost my shirt and woke up
sweating.
To see Elmer playfully on the floor eating the last of my precious money from Erconwald. Who lastly whispered as I was led away.

‘Good person although the optical refinements of the dining hall are quite good the moment is now opportune to remove the more sombre expressions and over lavish use of the baroque.’

Lead Kindly Light of the backside contorted was last seen, a suit of armour over his grass skirt, making headway on hands and knees across the great hall and up on the mound of rubble where he attempted to stand and shake a mailed fist before falling backwards into the excavation. His voice heard down amid the material containing minerals.

‘I am a legionnaire. I march tonight. Upon the
idolatrous
and heathen to give them a fright. Those who have dared suggest a breech of impurity by calling me Lead Kindly Light of the held open kimono shall suffer.’

The battling women left abandoned gripped in each other’s hair. The Baron seen solitary in a glow of candle light in the library reading the biography of an
international
swindler, a box of chocolates open on his lap and a bottle and a glass at his side. Offer this place for sale. Containing unusual assortment of permanent inhabitants. Unrepeatable bargain. To include faithful servants, silver hash dishes, bread baskets, toast racks and crumb scoops. Suitable for continuance as an institution. Ideal for those afflicted with constant digging or snake charming. Or just needing to clank casually about in armour.

The doctor infused with an emulsion of Erconwald’s donkey distillate, brandy and honey, rose revived after a peaceful night’s sleep and was aided with black bag and a broken gold watch to his car. He looked quickly back up at the ramparts and accelerated his two toned blue vehicle down the road.

Clementine reclining on his bedroom chaise longue, a green and blue striped cravat at his throat. Charlene
entering
followed by the sandy haired gentleman. To place a tray of breakfast, rashers, fried tomato, eggs, pucks of bread and butter and steaming tea. This man his face shiny and pink, smiles so delightedly to see me. Lying here in the slim rays of sunshine. Potentate, landowner and blast
victim.

‘I am glad to see you alive after last night. An ember burned through my suit but I am all right. You have such interesting friends and way of life. You have recovered your voice.’

‘Yes.’

‘Well I nearly lost mine. I have been outwitted by the whole human race. I hitch hiked when I got off the boat. My luggage was lost or stolen or sent somewhere without me. I ended up with bowler hat faded light blue and a warped cane. Wet and frozen I started to walk and met a little group on the road. I asked their spokesman what was going on. They said they were in search of the truth in this latter day. I asked where they got the money to support this search as I was interested to
search with them. They said
it would take some time to get me accredited but
meanwhile
they would make me a temporary prophet and
handed
me a map of this area. I met your remarkable friend Erconwald up at the crossroads.’

Pouring a cup of tea for this man called Bloodmourn. Whose face and smile cheers one over breakfast. One
regrets
not ever having let him win at chess. He asks for my bacon rinds. Laid out on a long piece of toasted soda bread. He sits chewing with seafaring blue eyes. A naval man just like myself.

Percival arriving. To take orders for the day. Can’t think of a thing except to have meals in future served right here behind my iron door. Mount Oscar to stand guard. On a spot where he won’t plummet through the floor. And search all visitors for combustibles.

‘Sorry sir, I shall come back. I didn’t know you were engaged.’

Bloodmourn standing. Nervously brushing off his crumbs. His shoe leather grey blotched and wrinkled. A thin orange tweed tie holding the neck of his shirt together. A thick brown sweater under his jacket.

‘Please. I’m just leaving. I would like to walk outside in the garden.’

Bloodmourn bowing and backing out the door. Percival picking up a remnant of a bank note. Looks at Elmer
peering
up out of his dark eyes. Shakes his finger. Elmer
burying
his head under his paws and claws.

‘Ah that was a night last night, wasn’t it sir. Now mind you if most of the blast hadn’t gone up the chimney we’d have been kilt dead. Are you enjoying your breakfast of them tomatoes.’

‘Yes.’

‘Never eat them meself. Didn’t someone give me a tomato as a little feller telling me it was an apple and I bit into it and it dripped what I thought was blood and I’ve never been able to bite into an apple or tomato since.’

‘Percival what’s been going on here.’

‘Sir it would take an army of mathematicians playing finger and toe symphonies on abacuses to figure that out.
Mr Erconwald himself and the Baron are at the minute in the dining hall repairing windows. This L K L is some kind of dangerous eejit. He should be locked up. Going round he was making a holy commotion in armour boasting of his sexual knowledge after calling us fornicators. Your man Clarence there now beyond who they say keeps his trap shut as well as his trousers, has the very latest in sexual knowledge. Never is he without his handbook of marital technique adjacent in his coat pocket for immediate reference. Now I wouldn’t want to presume upon you sir, but he says sure success comes from varying the stance. Clarence will give you a stream of frank commentary
concerning
the movements and the caresses, have no doubt about that. Tell you in a matter of seconds what would take a lifetime of hopeless cohabitation to achieve. But sure, sexual ecstasy has no chance in this country with the rain.’

Throughout the late morning and noontime, guests sneaking to the kitchens for snacks. A scent of frying bacon and eggs up staircases and through halls. Bloodmourn with me on a tour of castle grounds. Down moist mouldy tunnels of rhododendrons. Along overgrown paths of boxwood hedges. Traces of springtime. Primroses peeking yellow from sheltery hedgerows. Bracken and heathers faintly growing green. Peering down the sheer cliff sides to the grey boulders and thrashing sea below. Warm sun, air salty and fresh.

Walking along a narrow path over a bramble choked road. Leading back from the meadows to a tall brown entrance. Clementine smashing briars down with a walking stick. Bloodmourn helping to shift the rusted levers and push open the heavy oak gates into the castle courtyard. Behind, the sound of throbbing thunder coming up
underfoot.
A massive white curly head and pair of yellowing horns smashing aside the undergrowth. And pounding straight for us.

‘Let me handle this Clementine.’

Two footed I ran for my life into the castle courtyard. Bloodmourn taking off his jacket, slipping out of his sweater.
Just in time to throw the latter over Toro’s massive head now lowered like a plough skimming over the courtyard stones heading for the slender figure of this rapidly
retreating
man. Muscles rippling over the expanse of haunch, blood and bulk of this animal.

‘Keep out of the way Clementine I’m in control.’

Clementine jumping, both hands caught on a roof gutter, feet dangling over the ground. Toro blazing forward blindly under the sweater. And sailing through a closed stable door with a splintering and shattering of wood. Bloodmourn practising a cape movement in the hiatus. Slowly a state coach emerging driven forward by Toro no longer with the sweater over his eyes. With a neat hook of the head half the spokes of a rear wheel ripped out.
Bloodmourn
grabbing Toro by the tail as he reduces the coach to matchwood for ladies matches. This splendid vehicle demolished before I even knew I owned it.

‘Everyone stay where you are. I’m closing the gates. I know how to handle him.’

Toro warming up. Tearing round the confines. Removing two gutter pipes one after the other with a nuzzle of the horn. Arcing a full rain barrel up in the air to crash in watery pieces. Toro now centre courtyard roaring, snorting, pawing the stones. Bloodmourn advancing slowly as he stamps his feet.

‘Bloodmourn please, don’t.’

‘You must show them you’re not afraid. This roaring and pawing is mostly bluff. Get me an umbrella.’

A familiar voice from a rampart. Macfugger his dark red hair combed back, smilingly waving his cap down into the arena.

‘I say there Clementine, just popped in. See you’ve got a spot of bother.’

More faces at the turrets. Heads jutting over the ramparts. Some chewing on sandwiches. High up a hawk quivering. A tightly rolled umbrella landing, Bloodmourn side
stepping
in a crouch to pick it up. Legs astride unfurling the black folds, he presses the gleaming silk canopy open. Stamping a left foot he advances. With the same implacable
daring with which he loses at chess. Toro backing up. His big ivory hooves splayed open over the stones. Bloodmourn’s coat suspended from the end of the umbrella as he
advances.

‘A little softening in the throwing muscle, then we’ll cut this animal down a little somewhat. Tut Tut Toro.’

A gasp from the crowd. Erconwald, Putlog and Franz seated together feet dangling over the parapet. The Baron behind them with binoculars. Bloodmourn pausing.
Bending
to tighten his shoe laces. Just belay my own now and I can just make it up out of harm’s way on these slates. Bloodmourn upright again, lips thin and grim, eyes steely and hard. Toro still backing away, his tail switching over his big curly back. Macfugger cupping his hands to his mouth.

‘He’ll put a horn up your hole.’

‘Toro tut tut.’

This beast crushing the drainpipe on the cobbles, casually turning, hooks it up and flicks it sailing across the yard smashing against a wall. Bloodmourn advancing. Calf
muscles
twitching through a torn trouser. Footwork must be his secret. Because if it isn’t he’ll never play chess again.

‘Gad man, keep your feet together, that stance is
madness.’

Bloodmourn closing up his feet. Macfugger must know a thing or two about bull fighting. Just as he knows the luxury of crapping beneath matured rhododendrons with a cool fresh wind fanning the bottom after a wipe of a carefully selected leaf. Veins at Bloodmourn’s temples expanded and throbbing. Toro charges. Bloodmourn umbrella at the ready, nipping smartly out of the way as this four footed lethality goes thundering past getting a dig of the umbrella spike in the neck. The grass between the cobbles flattening under the blasts of Toro’s snorts. As he stops, turns and attacks again. One hears that man looks a hundred times bigger than he really is in a bull’s eyes. Which could really scare the bull. But gives him a big target hard to miss.

Faces turning towards the open kitchen doorway. Hands clapping. L K L in armour. Stepping from the castle. Out on
the field of valour. A lance held forth. Someone said amid a flurry of mumbled remarks before the blast that ignominy was L K L’s friend faithful and true. Ready to stick with him now that Toro’s great head and bloodshot eyes face his small gleaming metallic figure slowly stumbling forward. Bloodmourn raising an admonishing hand.

‘Get him the hell out of the ring.’

Rain falling. Sudden crystal dollops. From swift clouds passing overhead. Hay and pine scented air. Sun in and out. Cobbles glistening. Shimmering rays of a rainbow arcing upwards out of the sea and down into the bleak
mountainside.
L K L wobbling. The lance dipping downwards. Toro lowering his head. Front hoof striking up sparks as he crushes stone against stone. And charges.

Bloodmourn making violent movements. With much hand wagging at the end of the wrist. Toro gathering speed. L K L’s helmet slipped down on his head. Mercifully make him blind to his catastrophe. He totters leftwards. Small stones now landing previously hoof tossed by Toro into the sky. Large one clanking on L K L. Macfugger frantic
waving
a large cigar.

‘Joust him one you stupid cunt. Joust him.’

Toro’s head gliding low. Hanging from the small
mountain
of a neck behind his horns. Someone fainting up on the ramparts. Flesh meeting stone. Familiar sound
hereabouts.
Bloodmourn standing impatiently dry under his
umbrella.
Toro skidding on a mossy patch. Going down on his white thick knees and bumping over the cobbles. Macfugger commanding from the rampart.

‘Get him. Dig him with the lance. Now’s your chance. He’s confused. He’s down. For God’s sake then tweak his fucking nose.’

Clementine perched watching from the peak of a barn roof. Carefully shifting and tugging to better and safely view this bull fight. Things slippery up here. Whoops. I’m sliding down the slates. A mad grab for the rain gutter. Got it. Yanked out of its moorings. And crashing on me with clarity. With a crowning of rotting leaves and rain water. Good for the scalp.

‘By God I say there you bloody galoots, save the prince.’

L K L missing with a lunge of the lance, stumbling over Toro. Who rises grunting, tail slashing and shaking
himself.
One ton of beast peering round slowly for a victim. Be hours of back breaking labour clearing up remains. In moments of terror stay still as a statue. With the maddest of visions. From a more civilized clime. Of an elegant couple one July evening in a park standing at a tiny distance silent in their beige summer clothes eyes reverently directed at their beige elderly dog as he doubled his woolly body near a tree and earnestly and lengthily crapped beige.