The Ginger Man - J. P. Donleavy [82]
If there were music all the time. I can hear the tap in the bathroom. Miss Frost washing her hair. I'm finishing the brandy, I guess teetering on the edge of this chair. London a big city. I'll manage. Just let me get there, that's all. Just bring toothpaste. Pack it safely in a little bag. On the corner of Newton Avenue and Temple Road there is erected a cross to mark the end of the Pale. And I'm outside it now in more ways than one. I just hang my head forward, lick my lips because they are so dry and I see that the edge of this carpet has been destroyed by feet. My hand to my brow, and over my eyes. I've forgotten so much. Too much going on, too much confusion.1 just feel numb having fertilized. A moment of fatherhood comes at the birth. Malarkey told me all about it I think he'd like to see me fertilize more often, told me what a joy it was to have kids. Now I know. What a joy.
The bathroom basin gurgling out its water. Must be going down the Geary Road under the street and it will pour into Scotsman's Bay, Miss Frost will be twisting water from her hair. I know she uses vinegar in the rinse. From the bathroom, the shuffle of her slippered feet across the hall. Her door banging against the green chair. Dark furniture in her dark, damp room. Used to go in there and just look. So hidden away. Unrelated room. Touch the fabrics. This house at the end of the street. Little do you know out there, you strollers and spies perhaps, how much despair and yelling for love goes on in this shrouded house.
Miss Frost standing at the door in her thick, woolly robe, her green pajamas, her red slippers. Sebastian looked up slowly.
"You're so tired, Mr. Dangerfield. You look so tired."
Sebastian smiled.
"Yes. I am."
"Let me get you some chocolate before you come to bed."
"Miss Frost."
"Yes?"
"Miss Frost, you're kind."
"No."
"Miss Frost, I'm weary. What will you do when I'm gone? I'm worried about you."
"I don't know."
"Move somewhere else?"
"I guess so."
"Leave Ireland?"
"I don't know."
"Leave."
"It's a bit of an undertaking."
"Come with me, Miss Frost"
"You don't want me."
"Now don't say that."
Sebastian fell forward on his face. Miss Frost caught him beneath the arms and half lifted this light body to his feet She led him slowly and carefully to her bedroom. Lowering him to the edge of the bed. He sat there elbows on his thighs, hands hanging from his wrists.
Dreaming out this sunset Tacked up on a cross and looking down. A cradle of passive, mystifying sorrow. Flooded in tears. Never be too wise to cry. Or not take these things. Take them. Keep them safely. Out of them comes love.
Miss Frost stepped from the door shyly. Her head a little bent and red spreading under the flesh of her temples. There was a small spot middle way up her nose. Her lashes dark and flickering, the wandering skin around her eyes. Some lines of her hair and her age of thirty four. The vulnerable steep bottom of her skull. Never to turn around and look at our backs, or as we are walking away. But her feet stepping with red toes. The part of her that was her falling arches, the sway bent ankles which put a tender part in her eyes. For women are lonely people, lonelier with women and with men, enclosed by sunless children and the little vanishing things that go away during the years of waiting. And hearts. And how was love so round.
If
There's a bell
In Dingle
And you want to say
How sorry you are
Fm gone
Ring it
And make it go
Ding dong.
21
Wednesday. That morning Dangerfield picked up from his front hall strewn with bills, a picture postcard of the Lakes of Killarney with an inset, a poem.
My heart is yearning
For that familiar scene
Of those dear blue lakes
In that land far and green.
Turning it over.
I am kaput Meet me in Jury's lounge, Wednesday, seven.
Duke of SERUTAN (ret)
Dangerfield rode the roaring tram to Dublin. At the bottom of Dawson Street he swung gingerly from the screeching instrument Moving swiftly, face deflected to the left to look in shop windows and avoid eyes. In Brown and Nolans here, I see they have some beautiful books, so nice never have to look in them. That's the way it ought to be, saves time. Received correspondence from this fine firm. Polite. Not like the others. They say perhaps dear sir you have overlooked such a small amount or would like us to bill you yearly. Yes, yearly I told them. My, time flies.