The Ginger Man - J. P. Donleavy [62]
Sebastian leaned on Mary's blunt shoulder, kissing the corner of her mouth as she twisted away.
"Don't do it where everybody can see us. Let's go look in the window of the woolen shop."
They crossed the bridge, holding hands. They looked at the pieces of cloth. Mary said she was saving to have a suit for Spring. She said her father would never let her buy any new clothes and accused her of wanting to wear them to dances.
She told Sebastian she had friends who colored photographs and some of the pictures weren't very nice. Perhaps she would do that soon because her uncle might be able to take her brothers and then she would be free. The only thing she didn't like about living in Phibsboro was that Mountjoy prison. Coming by one day she saw a man hanging between the bars and he had a funny beard and he asked me to bring him some champagne and smoked salmon. I just ran away and it's just the same with that Grangegorman, the lot of them running around in there without a brain in their heads.
They walked along the old torn houses of Dominick Street Mary showed him a house where she lived before they moved up the Cabra Road. Saying it was an awful street with drink and them beating each other to death with bicycle chains. She was frightened out of her wits to go out at night. But in Cabra she walked in the Botanic Gardens and liked to read all the funny names in Latin on the plants, and along the Tolka, a nice river.
"I live here."
They stood in front of a red brick house.
"When can I see you again, Mary?"
"I don't know. Talk quiet and we can go in the hall. We live upstairs."
"You're a nice girl, Mary."
"You tell them all that."
"Let me kiss your hand."
"All right, if you want."
"Lovely green eyes, and black hair."
"You think I'm too fat?"
"Not at all. Are you mad, Mary?"
"Well, I'm going on a diet."
"Let me feel you. O not at all, just makes you ripe. This, just the way you want them."
"O you really are bold."
Her back against the wall, standing in front of her, arms cocked, holding her by the elbows in her plum colored coat. He kissed her and she bent her head back.
"Do you like it, Mary ?"
"I shouldn't tell you that."
"You can tell me."
"But you don't kiss like the rest of them"
"Them?"
"Yes."
"But, Mary, I'm a man of refinement"
"But they don't do that."
"And they're not refined."
"It isn't that."
"I'll give you another one."
She put her arms around his back, tight and tied.
"It isn't the way they do it"
"Do you like it?"
"Why do you want to know?"
"I want to take you away."
A noise came through the ceiling. Mary stiffened, holding her head back, listening. She whispered.
"Give me your hand."
She led him to the back of the hall and down two steps behind the stairs. They waited and then she put her hand up into his hair and scratched. Good for dandruff. O the tenor of it in this hall. The safety of it Mary, your mouth and tomato sauce.
"Sebastian is a funny name."
"Venerable."
"What?"
"That's what it means. Deserving of honor and respect"
"You're funny."
"Eeeee and eeeee and eak."
"You're a gas man."
"And you're a great build of girl."
"You're just saying that."
"O you are. Right here. Lovely. And there, too. You're just great all round."
"It isn't safe here."
"Where?"
"We could go in the back. We must be quiet."
Some light at the end of the passage. Passing a line of broken prams, great for transport to the pawn. Could pass by any landlord Must have the wits these days. I'm starved for love. Not ordinary love but real love. The love that's like music or something. Mary's a good strong girl for heavy work. Scrub floors and things. Get her and a house that's a box for the soul. And I'm fed up with the cardboard type. If I got Mary as the maid. Chris as the boarder. Miss Frost as secretary and Marion to run the whole lot, we'd be a great bunch. Then take my proper place in society, suits overhauled and the rest. O there'll be changes made. I won't take any nonsense either, or concede carelessness. At least I have rules. And I know society respects a man for his discipline.