The Ginger Man - J. P. Donleavy [19]
7
"Marion, I think I'll go and study in the park this morning."
'Take the baby with you"
"The pram is broken"
"Carry her"
"Shell piss on my shirt"
"Take the rubber sheet"
"How am I going to study, watching her? She'll crawl into the pond"
"I say, can't you see? I've got my hands full with all this, the mess. Look at the ceiling. And there you are, and you're wearing my sweater. I don't want you wearing my sweater. What do I have"
"Jesus."
"And why don't you go to see Mr. Skully and have this loathsome toilet fixed? I know why. You're afraid of him, that's why."
"Not a bit of it."
"You are. All I have to do is say Skully and you're off up the stairs like a frightened rabbit, and don't think I can't hear you crawling under the bed either."
"Just tell me where my sun glasses are, that's all"
"I didn't have them last."
"I must have them. I absolutely refuse to go out of this house without them."
"Well look."
"Do you want me to be recognized? Do you?"
"Yes, I do."
"God damn this house. It's the size of a closet and I can't even find my own foot in it I'll break something in a minute."
"Don't you dare. And here, a revolting post-card from your friend O'Keefe"
Marion flicked it across the room.
"Watch my correspondence. I don't want to have it thrown about"
"Your correspondence, indeed. Read it"
Scrawled in large capitals:
WE HAVE THE FANGS OF ANIMALS
"E.O aye."
"That's what he is, a detestable animal"
"What else?"
"Bills of course."
"Well don't blame me."
"I will blame you. Who started the account in Howth? Who was the one who bought whisky and gin? Who was?"
"Where are my sun glasses ? "
"And who pawned the fire irons? And who pawned the electric kettle—"
"Now look Marion, can't we be friends for this morning? The sun's out Christians at least"
"See? You immediately get sarcastic Why do we have to live like this?"
"My glasses, damn it. British hide everything. Can't hide the toilet now, anyway."
"I won't have this talk."
"Have this then."
"Someday you will regret all this. Vulgar."
"Do you want bird calls all your life, the B.B.C.? I'll do a series of programs for you called 'My Bottom was Green'"
"Your nasty mind."
"I'm cultured."
"Yes, from your chromium plated life in America."
"I'm distinguished-looking. Speak the King's English. Impeccably tailored."
"What rot. I don't know how I ever let you meet Mommy and Daddy."
"Your Mommy and Daddy thought I had lots of money. And I, for that matter, thought that they had lots of money. Neither had nicker, no notes, no love"
"That's a lie. You know it's a lie. There never was a question of money until you started it"
"All right Get the baby. I can't stand it any more. I need a long trolley ride in the womb, to take me out of this."
"Take you out? I'm the one who ought to be taken out and it may be any day now"
"All right Let's be friends"
"Yes, it's easy isn't it Just like that, after being so horrid"
I'll take the baby"
"And you can do some shopping too. Get me some bones from the butcher and don't bring back one of those revolting sheep's heads, and don't let Felicity fall in the pond."
"I insist on a sheep's head."
"Be careful shutting the door. It fell on the mailman this morning."
"Suffering saints and sick sinners. I'll be god damn well sued on top of everything."
Out on Mohammed road wild with traffic and thundering trams. The laundry a hive of activity. See them in there beating sheets and that's the way it ought to be. Warm yellow sun. Most beautiful country in the world, full of weeds and weeds are people. Stay here to die and never die. Look at the butcher shop. Look at the hooks, groaning with the meat He has his sleeves rolled way up with the chopper. A bunch of them behind the counter.
Entering the park. Green, green grass, soft and sweet from the night rain. The flower beds. Circles and crosses and nice little fences. Pick that bench. Newly painted. If my father dies by Autumn I'll be very rich, golden udder. And sit on a park bench for the rest of my life. What a warm, lovely day. I'd like to take off my shirt and let a sup of sun to me chest but they'd be hounding me out of the place for indecency. Help my hairs to grow, give them a fashionable tinge of blond. Dear child, stop kicking me in the back. Here, now get on this blanket and play and I don't want any nonsense from you. Jesus, let go of the blanket, think I was going to kill you. Papa's got to study his law and become a big big K.C. and make lots of money. A great big golden udder. A tan on my chest means wealth and superiority. But I'm proud of my humility. And here, reading the dead language, my little book of Roman Law. For parricide, flung off die cliff in a bag with a viper. Fat ugliness writhing in the crotch. And little daughter, gurgling on the grass, have fun now. Because papa is finished. Getting it from all sides. Even in dreams. And last night I dreamt I was carrying a bundle of newspapers under my arm and climbed on a bus and went racing across the Curragh with massive horses galloping beside. In the bus, a man studying butterflies with a magnifying glass. And we were going to the West. Then a bullock leaped from behind a hedge and the bus cut him up and left him hanging on a huge hook in front of a village butcher shop. Then suddenly I was in Cashel. Streets filled with goats and gutters brown with dried blood. And in the hot sun's stillness, a crowd of men and women in thick black overcoats walking down the middle of a winter road, summer's hesitating heat on every side. The funeral of the gombeen man. He caught her, lips bubbling, eyes spinning, sitting on the shop assistant on a crate from Chicago and he heard it collapse and was after them with a hatchet. And they conspired between hot wet lips, clutching at each other's clothes to put poison in the tea, trembling hands to the till and each other's flesh, to wind a cocoon of sin between the pineapple and peaches. The box was closed. Summer. The long line shuffling. Through Cashel. A song: