The Ginger Man

by J. P. Donleavy

  In this little room. I can only smile. A tram rumbling by. And twiddle my thumbs. And take some of these newspapers and just squash them up and wee, into the grate. Little match. My room is orange. Must see me Chris tomorrow, maybe at the night time. I can only think of standing in the Glen of the Downs smelling the garlic or on the banks of the Barrow, a summer evening out on the lark sprinkled air, and last songs and salmon leaping. Fingers of the night touching me. Honeysuckle sorrow. Humming. I must weep.

  9

  Eight o'clock. The streets were wet, puddles of water on the granite blocks. Western clouds swarming soundlessly catching up the turf smell from the steaming chimney pots on this chill Saturday night Bird feet moving his soul through this Danish city. The hoarse voices of newsboys punctuating the corners of streets behind. Up here in White Friar Street I can hear them saying rosaries. And in the hospital window, the light goes on and a nurse pulls down the shade. Hospital morgue where they were looking upon dead strangers with love and the white beauty of those dead young. Candles flickering in the carriage lamps in the alleyways of the funeral furnishers. He felt a hand on his arm, staying him, an ould one asking for a copper to spare, put wild joy in the heart and gently saying to her, that it wasn't since the mother. And she laughed at the English gentleman, fangs in the mist. Bought her a drink in the pub. Had small ones and she was proud of the company of this Protestant gentleman, telling him that her old man had spilled boiling water on his foot and that he had been laid up this year since. He filled her with lies and left the whole pub in tears when he sang "O Danny Boy."

  This city of all these changeling streets, old windows and bleeding hearts, and boiling black pots of tea. Her warm little room, and neat possessions, patchwork quilt and people moving in the hall. And the soft bits of rain. Going in the houses with loaves of bread and butter with maybe a touch of cheese and the chattering chilled children awake everywhere.

  The yellow light was in slits around the window. Tripping down the concrete steps. He knocked D in morse code on the green door. A smile of welcome.

  "Come in. I had a strange intuition you would come tonight"

  "Bright A new light?"

  "Yes."

  "Fine. And frying."

  "Would you like to have some bacon with me? It's the best I can do. And I'll also give you a nice piece of fried bread. Would you like that?"

  "I think fried bread is the most delicious thing in the world. My dear Chris, may I sit here?"

  "Yes. I stayed in Thursday night thinking you might call and take me to see Christ Church."

  "Marion a bit upset. A little confusion."

  "What was the trouble?"

  "General misunderstanding. Absence of dignity in our lives. I think that damn house is going to fall down. Do you know, that one day I think the whole thing will just go prostrate into the street with me under it Damn place trembles when I'm brushing my teeth. I think the trains have undermined the foundations, if there are any."

  "And what upsets your wife?"

  "Money. And I certainly don't blame her for that O me. I like you Chris. I think you're very nice. What sort of men have you known."

  "Harmless mostly. And mother-bound ones. Even little dark men who follow one around London. When you want to walk in the park it seems that none of them will believe you that you want to be alone and that you don't want to talk or be taken somewhere but just left alone. And a medical student and various students. Lots of students."

  "In Ireland?"

  "None that I've wanted to know."

  "Me?"

  "Silly. I wanted to know you. I knew I was going to meet you somehow. Well. I'm almost responsible for it Aren't I? I must admit I was dreadfully curious. So when I saw you on the bench with your baby. Brazen of me."

  "It's a bold one you are."

  "I'm glad."

  "Good"

  "And your bacon."

  Chris in her long fingers. A white plate of browned bacon. I like your arm and sweater. My God, how are you underneath? Nipples soft pattern and green swell of breast. Quiet room in the city. Lovely dark girl. Out there is the largest brewery in the world beating up the foaming pints over on the Watling Street and Stephen's Lane and the lovely blue trucks bringing it around the city so that at any time, any place, I'm never more than twenty paces from a pint. I am certain that stout is good joy, reblooder of the veins, brain feeder, and a great faggot for when one is walking in the wet. These people wear chains around their heads. These Celts. But I have sneaked into the churches, saw them at the altar, music in their voices, gold in their hearts and there was the sound of frequent pennies down the brass chute to build them bigger, better and more. My dear Chris, my very precious Chris, how can I take out my heart and put it in your hand.

  Poking the fried bread with her fork, breaking it. Putting it in her mouth and looking at him. His child had his hair and eyes. His child a lovely child. Nice not to be alone. And Saturday and Sunday to stay in bed.

  Mr. Dangerfield took the crust of his bread and wiped up the grease. Into his mouth with it.

  "Very good. I'll say this, Chris, it's a fine country for the bacon."

  "Yes."

  "And now, may I suggest something?"

  "Yes."

  "Shall we have some refreshment?"

  "Yes."

  "I know of a very fine house."

  "I'm going to get out my nylons. Precious. Get out of these drab things."

  "Sensible."

  "Drab. But as drabness goes, the least drab."

  She unfolds the diaphanous things. Facing me. O but fully fashioned.

  "My dear Chris, you do have a lovely pair of legs. Strong. You hide them"

  "My dear Sebastian, I do thank you. I'm not hiding them. Does that make men follow one ? "

  "It's the hair that does that"

  "Not the legs?"

  The hair and the eyes."

  "So you're the man out of that tattered little house."

  "It's me."

  "Do you mind if I say something?"

  "Not at all."

  "You look like a bank clerk or perhaps someone who works in a coal office. Except for that funny tie."

  "I stole that from an American friend."

  "I must say you're the most curious American I've ever met. I don't like them as a rule."

  "They're a fine, fleshy race."

  "And you live in that house with brown torn shades. You know, the walls and roof are in a terrible state."

  "My landlord doesn't see it that way."

  "None do. I'm ready. I'm glad you asked me to go and have a drink."

  Chris suggested a bottle of gin. Mr. Dangerfield up importantly to deal with the transaction.

  "Let's not stay here. It depresses me. Look how drunk they get and I always feel that one of them is going to lurch over here and start to talk to us. Let's go for a walk. I like that so much better."

  "I like you, Chris."

  "Do you mean that?"

  "Yes."

  "You know, I don't know quite where I stand with you."

  And on the Saturday night street with the old women going in to look for them ones wasting the money and have a quick malt hidden in their hands and the frolic of high-skirted girls pecking the pavements on their way in this fantastic poverty. They walked along the canal. The moon came out and shadows leaping on the water. Tightly she held his hand. Thinking happiness. The windows low down beneath the grates. People collected in the cellars around red specks of fire, gray heads on gray chests. Most of Dublin dead. A fresh wet air from the West. Turning down Clanbrassil Street. That canal goes across Ireland to the Atlantic The Jewish shops. She pulled his arm against her breast A few freckles on her upper lip.

  "I wonder if it's possible, Sebastian"

  "What?"

  "If we are possible."

  "Yes."

  "Do you know what Fm talking about?"

  "I think so."

  The West's taken the rain out of the sky. They wal
ked slowly. His feet in nervous restraint. Her soft voice speaking, pushing at the night.

  "What about your wife?"

  "Marion?"

  "Yes."

  "What about her?"

  "Well, she's your wife. And you have a child."

  "That's so."

  "You're not helping me, you know."

  "I can't, I don't know myself."

  "Do you care for them, for Marion?"

  "I'm fond of Marion, at times extremely fond of both her and the child, but I've made them both unhappy."

  "What about us?"

  "Us?"

  "Yes."

  "I think we're good for one another."

  "Do you?"

  "Yes."

  "For how long are we good for one another?"

  "That's impossible to tell I feel very strongly about you."

  She stopped and turned to him.

  "I like you. It's so much harder for a woman if love means anything and it does to all women and I want it to mean something to me."

  "I like you too, very much."

  "Let's go back to the room."

  Gentle tugging of her hand.

  They returned through three narrow streets. Feet hesitant on the steps. Lock turning. Into the little room and its new bright light. Chris pulled the curtains closed. Sebastian pouring gin, his back to the fire place. She stood on the green carpet, unbuttoning her jacket. Watching her, the long dark-haired girl. Drinking my gin with a shaking hand. She stood silently in the center of the room, facing him. He sat down. Crossing her narrow wrists upon the hem of her sweater she drew the wool garment over her head and pulled it from her arms. Folding it gently on the bed. Hands reversed behind her back, her hair, her hint. I know how you are underneath. Walking over to his chair, stooped over his head. You've pushed your breast against my face. And the solid tip on my mouth and between my teeth. Up in your eyes you're crying and tears collecting on your chin. She pushes his head back over the chair and touches his eyes with her fingers. Softly telling him.

  "I'll light two candles. And they're Italian and scented. I knew this was going to happen. Till tonight I was going to the zoo. Thinking about it all week and you. Can I watch you?"

  "Yes."

  Warmed in candle light. Her dark eyes big.

  "Now turn around. I thought you were thinner. A businessman's paunch. You don't exercise."

  "My hands refuse to labor"

  "Help me put the mattress on the floor. On the papers. You look so funny. Both of us. How strange a man is. I feel absent and naked there"

  "Sweet suffering Christ"

  "What's happened?''

  "I've stubbed my toe. Cut it"

  "I'll fix it. We'll bathe it."

  Water running in the pan, swilling on the sides and she puts his feet in.

  "Better?"

  "Much."

  "Now we'll dry them and put some talc on. Nice? It's so funny and curious, men and women and everything, it must have something to do with the meaning of positive and negative. Aren't the veins blue. I read somewhere that it's the smoothest part of the body, there's no part of a woman so smooth"

  Her fingers rubbing up through the hair of his leg. Dumping the pan. Waiting secret and shy, loosening her skirt.

  "My nylons now. I'm embarrassed now. Horrid garter belts."

  She held each breast in each hand, squeezing the blood, veins full, and the dark lip flesh a long cylinder and eyes syrup of cool white and warm gray. Moving against him. Telling him it was her expression and tears of soundless happiness and I want to dance for you. She stood and pressed her breasts together and then her hands above her head and swung her chest and flesh. And touch his skin again with her. Slide her body into his and said she was ready and she somehow knew, I'll tell you, that each day she stood waiting for the tram so cold, intolerable, alone, hungry for love for weeks, damp body and Sebastian and tonight all the laundry steam has come out of my heart, I'm ready and juices in my groin. Dear Chris you're full of soft love spilling on your dark lips. Outside and down that road by St. Patrick's Cathedral I hear the Gregorian chant. It's not far away. She fur- rowed her tongue and blew a warm moist air into his ear. I feel that the warm air you blow into my ear is like the still sultry summer air that was in the afternoon of a Westchester day in America, in Pondfield Road and I lay on my back listening to music coming in the window from a back garden. I was young and lonely. Are you cold Sebastian, I like it slower, we fit so well, keep you from coming out so much like a disappearing sun, so much my female pumping body milking gold. See the olive trees and rivers, a thousand O Sebastian a thousand, I feel and feed and push and heart and pump. Because, dear Chris your neck lies in my arm. Hear the bells of Christ. O Sebastian now, good gracious God, now O now, tighten me taste me O good gracious God I love it Her head hanging back, words moving her chin in his nook of shoulder, have you come, I can't care but you're so funny, could I have a cigarette. Sweat drying on their skins, and blowing smoke to watch it winding on the ceiling.

  "Funny man."

  "Me?"

  "Yes. And what do you feel now?"

  "The good things."

  "As?"

  "Joy. Relief."

  "Some men feel disgusted."

  "Pity."

  "Yes. And I feel better. I need it. What's she like?"

  "Marion?"

  "Yes."

  "An enigma, not getting what she expects."

  "And what does she expect?"

  "She wants it both ways. Dignity and me. She's got me. One way, you know. But she's not to blame."

  "What's she like when you're—"

  "Making love?"

  "Yes."

  "Likes it. Not as creative as you. She has great latent sexuality."

  "And don't you make use of it?"

  "It comes out Worry doesn't help"

  "I wonder if there is any such thing as a perfect sex life among married people"

  "Waxes and wanes"

  "Yes. It's such a complicated thing. Always frightened me. You feel funny there. Does it tickle. Gets me thinking and it's so smooth. Must be an instinct to kiss smooth things. When I was fifteen I thought my nipples were like the skin on lips and I kissed them and when my mother knocked on the bathroom door I was terrified that she would ask me what happened to them. I got a thing about it. Parents' sex is" so different. At seventeen I got an awful shock seeing my mother and father making love."

  "For God's sake, tell me what happened."

  "I had the flu and I was going to the bathroom and I saw them from the stairs. I was just beginning to learn then and I never knew a woman could sit on a man. I told this to my girl friend and she wouldn't speak to me for a month after-wards."

  "I tell you Chris, there's no end to it. You are an intelligent girl."

  "And you must be intelligent to tell me."

  "Exactly. I like it here. Little comforts, little joys."

  "You don't want much."

  "I don't. And you?"

  "Married, I guess. Most women want to."

  "Then what?"

  "Children. I'm not looking for a picket fence around the house and a loving husband struggling away in the local bank. I want a certain contentment. What are you laughing at?"

  "Just thinking of myself."

  Turning on her shoulder, facing him.

  "Tell me, did you know I was going to sleep with you?"

  "Never thought of it"

  "Did you want to?"

  "Instantly, the first time I saw you"

  "I knew we were. How do you feel now that we have?"

  "I don't know. I feel I know you."

  "Hold my hand."

  "You'll be able to breast-feed your children. Let me see under your arm."

  "I refuse to shave them for anyone."

  "Smell of Russia."

  "How dare you."

  "Rich. And your navel."

  "England?"

  "No but interesting. If I have to work for a living Fm going to
tell people's fortunes by their navels."

  "A woman doesn't want you to see more than her own. Funny that before tonight I was prepared to accept coming back to this dreary room. Turn on the radio and listen to some silly people. Cooking myself dreary meals. It makes all the difference to have someone to cook for. How curious and sudden it all is. One expects it to happen. It happens. Now I know what you look like without clothes. I won't be able to look at you from the laundry. I'll be mentally undressing you. It's ridiculous when you consider a man's genitals and the way he dresses. They ought to wear kilts or cod pieces."

  "I'd have mine tailored in Savile Row."

  "Priests would have to wear black ones. Let me bite you. I want to bite you. O you've got something in your navel Fluff."