Leila

by J. P. Donleavy

  ‘Ah good morning Master Darcy. I see you’ve come safely across the tundra. This weather’s great for tracking the poachers. But now as soon as the frost’s gone from the ground, I’m going to plant out in honour of your return, the greatest avenue over there of Acer Pseudoplatanus Brilliantissimum.’

  ‘Dear me Sexton, that is awfully thoughtful of you. But you must let me in on the secret, my Latin is awfully rusty this morning.’

  ‘Ah the noble sycamore, Master Darcy.’

  ‘I do wish that appellation Master might be dropped, Sexton. It leaves me looking rather too young in a task I feel requires one to seem a little older.’

  ‘Ah it’s the habit of it. But certainly it’s only right and proper, as gaffer you’d be now the viceroy, hospodar, pasha, tsar, and undisputed Squire Lord of Andromeda Park.’

  ‘Well we needn’t be quite so extravagant about it, the mere word sir will do.’

  ‘At your command sir.’

  ‘And saluting Sexton is certainly not necessary.’

  ‘Ah now this morning you’d not be I see in the happiest of moods.’

  ‘Well I have just cause. The sewers.’

  ‘I know sir. Conduits burst, pipes blocked up all over kingdom come. Not a drain working. A blessing it’s all frozen by the cold. Everything on the blink. But for us born here in Ireland, where god has long looked down on us smiling, and kept us safe from the world’s scourges and disasters, its floods, earthquakes, poisonous spiders and snakes, and from the foul diseases of impurity, we should remain truly thankful.’

  ‘One is quite aware of our gifts from god but somehow it’s still all quite bad enough. And I should be glad if it does not ever get worse. God did however send us famine.’

  ‘Only to remind us of our favoured position.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Well it’s not the half of it now, I was only getting you ready to hear the finale. Two old cows who should have known better frozen stiff as statues as they lay down by the lake to sleep. We’ll have to wait till they thaw to move them.’

  ‘I’ll have the agent buy in new stock.’

  ‘Let me buy the stock Master Darcy, ah sorry that slip. Sir it is. And never mind that agent. Up there in the estate office like it was his own private preserve, Napoleon calling for that Leila to fetch cups of tea all morning when he wasn’t at the whisky in the wine cellar.’

  ‘Where exactly did the agent find her Sexton.’

  ‘Now you’ve got me there. I’d only know he’s very sweet on her. Comes stealing my indoor flowers no less to present her with. He found that other one of the frizzy hair in the scullery of a pub, breaking so many glasses and dishes the poor old publican was ready to pay to have her taken away at any price. The agent he’ll lie low now you’re back. But sine dubio the esprit de corps of the household is very low. You might say, it’s made no one any saner and that’s a fact. I wouldn’t let them cut or remove a thorn tree, there beyond, in case it would bring any more ill luck.’

  ‘Perhaps one should raise wages Sexton.’

  ‘Ah god abandon that good intention straight off.’

  ‘Well at the moment there are no wages, so why not raise them.’

  ‘Ah I like your existentialism.’

  ‘I’m afraid, Sexton, I don’t know what on earth that is.’

  ‘It’s what at this very moment they’re thinking and practising in Paris, the very latest that’s what it is.’

  ‘Good god, Paris. I’d be better advised at this moment to know what they’re thinking and practising here in Andromeda Park.’

  ‘Now meaning no disrespect to Ireland, I’d say what you need now to add to your intellectual might is a trip to the cafés of that city.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Ah the social, cerebral, not to mention noological activity of that capital would give you a style that would make them Dublin intellectuals cringe in shame of their backward concepts.’

  ‘Sexton I did not know you have been to Paris.’

  ‘Ah don’t mention the Champs Elysées to me. The soaring spires of Notre Dame. Mere commonplace. The Prado.’

  Proceeding at last to the stables it having taken till nearly lunch time to extricate oneself out of the intellectual ferment of Sexton’s potting shed. One does feel however that just as sure as the Prado is not in Paris, one was as certain that Sexton had a loyal heart. And he noticed with pleasure my selection of his nosegay of snowdrops.

  Darcy Dancer walking down this familiar road. Just steep enough for a sledge to glide. But no time for pleasure. Not here even a day. Two cattle already dead. How dare the agent assume a romantic prerogative with one of my staff. An old trick to take advantage of an innocent menial. Awfully damn insolent. Play pop with him. Filthy minded type for whom the blessing of marriage is not enough. But he who is without sin fling the first stone. And I have on too numerous an occasion been so sordidly and disgracefully indulgent that my arm I fear, must remain stilled at my side. Carnal mindedness must be in everyone’s blood. Two defrockings in the family history, both of archbishops who had a difficulty to curb a taste in young boys. Plus my mother’s father and grandfather, old reprobates who had similar tastes for young girls. Especially those serving in the household.

  Darcy Dancer at the bottom of the little incline. Crossing the bump of cobble stones beneath the snow. Hungry pigeons sheltering up under the eaves. Make a nice pie had one a shotgun to hand. Hay rake and ploughs rusting in a corner of the yard. Whoever it is alerts to my coming. Hear the noise of activity. Step through the mended, tottering and remended stable door. Puddles on the stable floor. Horse piss fumes. Cobwebs like lace ball gowns hanging from the ceiling. Faint smell of oats and strong stench of stable dung. A stall full of musty hay. Rusty leaking buckets. Standard here. Appalling.

  ‘Good morning, Master Reginald, and welcome home.’

  ‘Good morning, Slattery.’

  ‘I am getting it tidied up a bit here. It be a hardy old winter. Will you be hunting when the weather improves.’

  ‘Yes I shall.’

  Slattery’s ear looking blue, chewed and flapped over and whitened at the edges. Where his son Foxy had nearly bitten and torn it off. The two reddened indented marks still on his skull where Foxy had struck him with a hammer. Intrepid Foxy Slattery. His righting spirit never vanquished. Fought so at every authority. Indulged in every desecration. Introduced me to my early weaknesses of the flesh. Would ride any mount or steal the pennies off an old dead woman’s eyes. Under what part of the bleak blue sky does he rascally now go.

  ‘You’d be back staying a bit with us Master Reginald.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Be a blessing when this hardship of a winter is over. Not been one like it in living memory.’

  Head groom Slattery’s careful preamble to letting one know of the dead cows. Leading me to the news gently. Count the horses in their boxes. Petunia. Nutmeg. Molly. And my god, what’s that. Eighteen hands of giant black beast. Weaving back and forth. Hot red fierce burning eyes. Massive head and neck like a colossal snake looming in some dark jungle ready to strike.

  ‘Be careful there, Master Reginald that’s Midnight Shadow, I meant to warn you.’

  The huge black stallion shooting out its head to snap its teeth at the bars. Nostrils flaring. Darcy Dancer jumping back. As its forelegs rear and smash against the teak door. Trembling the entire stable. The latch nearly breaking open.

  ‘You’d be best away out of here now, master Reginald. Before he has a go at the door. That savage has killed one old farmer already. And maimed a dozen. Kick you to death as soon as look at you. Daft. His mother was daft. His father half daft. And he is completely.’

  The stallion turning in his stall. In the billows of rising straw, dung and dust. His immense quarters letting fly his hind legs north, south, east and west. Hoofs sending sparks off the walls. And finally crashing open the door of the stall.

  ‘Begorra he’s loose, get away out. Out now.’

  Th
e animal backing out of its stall kicking and bucking. The groom Luke grabbing a hay fork and shoving Darcy Dancer out of the door in front of him, slamming the outside stable door shut. The roars and hoofs slashing inside. Luke turning the knob to close the latch as hoofs crash at the other side. Stone chips hitting windows and then the panes of glass flying out into the snow.

  ‘This better hold the blackguard. Or we’ll be taking our next piss in purgatory.’

  The stable door splintering in two as Luke jumps back. Another and another hoof comes crashing through. Screws flying out of the hinges in the rotted wood. The stallion, filling the doorway. Its chest heaving, blasts of breath out into the chill air. The black giant neck craning forward, its head lowered, teeth bared, as it charged.

  ‘Run for your life Master Reginald.’

  The snow flying, the stallion pounding across the yard after Luke. The beast’s ears flat back. Hulking great head, jaws agape, bearing down as Luke turns jabbing with the hay fork. The animal’s head dodging the prongs and forelegs rearing to knock the fork flying out of Luke’s hands. Slattery shouting.

  ‘Call the dogs, call the dogs.’

  Darcy Dancer letting a piercing whistle out into the air. Luke by the stable wall arms raised, jumping backwards seeking safety by the side of the rain barrel. The gutter pipe coming asunder, banging Luke’s head, as he slides stunned arse first into a deep snow drift covering the drain. Kern and Olav bounding round the house at the top of the road. Tails like rudders in the wind, steering them down into the yard. Henry and Thomas, who should have been out foddering the cattle, emerging from somewhere comfortable into the fray. And just as quickly seeing what it was about turning their backs inside again. A voice heard as the door slammed.

  ‘Begob I’m not sending my soul to heaven yet.’

  Luke, one arm clutched over the edge of the frozen rain barrel, pulling himself up again against the wall. Kern leaping to bite the beast’s giant hind quarter. Olav sent flying with a hoof catching him on the shoulder. The stallion’s yellowed curving teeth tearing the shoulder out of Luke’s jacket. The graveyard is going to be put into use again sooner than one imagined.

  ‘He’ll have us all kilt Master Reginald.’

  The black monster slipping on the stable cobbles. Kern’s fangs bared at its neck. Goes down on its haunches. Darcy Dancer tearing off his jacket. Rushing flinging it over the massive horse’s head. Luke squeezing and crouching further behind the rain barrel. The vast animal getting to its feet again. Turning blindly rearing round in a circle bucking in the air. The earth trembling, dogs barking.

  ‘Quick Master Reginald back inside now out of sight.’

  The two figures running for the door of the turf shed. Luke tugging, kicking and pounding on the door frozen shut. Oaths turning the sky pink. A final thump of Darcy Dancer’s shoulder smashing it open. Banging it closed behind them. Peering out a cobwebbed window.

  ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I’m telling you Master Reginald, only a shotgun blasting a couple of times in each ear would put some manners on that black terror and then he’d eat you napkin and all.’

  Darcy Dancer’s jacket hanging over the mighty beast’s one eye. That bucks its head left and right. And one’s best tweed coat goes fluttering down into the snow. Kern dodging and snapping around the stallion’s hoofs as it stands vertical on hind legs, bellowing, pawing at the sky. And lands again, feet asprawl on the snowy cobbles to turn looking around the yard. Just to see if there’s anything left to kill. A snort out its nostrils. A shake of its head at Kern, as it charges again. Another lash of its hoof at a limping Olav. Till its hind legs sending a lump of snow flying, the monster beast turns to gallop pounding away up the stable yard road. In a soaring leap clearing a five foot wall by two feet. Glistening black against the pearly parkland. Its legs reaching racing out into its snowy white miles of freedom.

  Midnight Shadow

  Would be

  Better named

  Morning Earthquake

  4

  A mild moist westerly wind fading the snow and ice away. Dripping from the trees. And the dining room ceiling. The moisture blackened roof slates drying a lighter blue. The drains and gutters gurgling. The front parkland glowing emerald green again in an afternoon sun. The unfrozen cows hauled with chains to the side of the field and buried.

  Before the beams crack and walls finally crumble I thought that I would move into my mother’s apartments. Calculating to recline there of a morning on the soft satins of her chaise longue. My languorous limbs enveloped in my silk dressing gown. Where one could await the news of any new disaster in some comfort. Dear me, and how pathetically did one dream of such serenity. In the cock crowing silence, my head against a pillow, not a bother on my mind. And there deep in eiderdown ensconced, having breakfasted peacefully abed and one’s ablution hour over, to then, in the delicious pain pleasure throes of ennui, peruse the pages of some light and preferably silly novel. Populated with insufferably haughty top layer la de da people living in similar country houses but with unsimilar tiresome pursuits and débâcles to mine own. Such as, while savouring biting into an unburned piece of toast slathered with a particularly tasty and unmouldy gooseberry jam, Dingbats went running through the halls screaming she’d been scalded with soup thrown at her by cook in the kitchen.

  ‘I am this minute scalded. I am this minute scalded to death.’

  Then there appeared in what seemed nearly the next minute, an envelope clearly penned by Leila and delivered to me by an arm bandaged Dingbats with breakfast. She of course also wearing her expression of the most depressed of the apostles at the last supper. As well she might having forgotten napkin, the salt, the butter, cream and a cup to drink from. But did remember to make sure that nearly everything one touched was either tacky with honey or slippery with grease. I must confess I was so damn tempted to upend my tray and shout something quite rigorously untoward and blasphemous. But one could so plainly see the poor creature despite her big tits and fear of rats and dogs, had not more than five brain cells in her head.

  ‘Ah Mollie, I do think we are minus salt, butter, cream, a cup and saucer and napkin.’

  ‘Are they not there on the tray sir.’

  ‘No in fact apparently they are not there.’

  ‘O. I put them on I did.’

  Clearly a ghost with wings had stolen them on the way from the kitchen and now one was going to spend enough time while my cold breakfast was getting ice cold, discussing it. And in one’s impatience one does do dastardly things. I pointed silently downwards to the kitchen. Suggesting Dingbats to go there. Before I much noisily rose from my bloody bed and booted her well larded arse stairwards. Damn insolent creature by the tone of her voice I knew was suggesting I could do without the salt, the butter, the cream and a cup to drink from. And one overheard her mumbling just as she was closing the door.

  ‘I haven’t had me own breakfast yet.’

  Good lord, not back here long enough to catch my breath, with hardly a single moment of peace and with such brazen ungratefulness, one wonders why on earth I bother to stay. Debts mounting hourly. A most recent insalubrious communication from the local bank manager with clearly an increasingly careless regard for his social betters, demanding to see me. At least one will dig out a spoonful of this still lukewarm congealed porridge while I open this envelope addressed unmistakably under Crooks’ instruction.

  Master Reginald,

  c/o The Apartments of

  Delia, Her Late Ladyship.

  And well you might know he would choose to have such message written on one of the last few sheets of engraved notepaper left in the house. And that put into one of the last few engraved envelopes. And that sealed with my mother’s grandfather’s wax seal. With a coat of arms that one hates to admit this tender hour of the morning, may be quite bogus.

  I beg to inform you kind sir that your obedient and humble servant is due to the recent apparition presently indefinitely indisposed.

  CROOKS


  Just as one needed, in the soothing interests of one’s spirit, some very top butlering these mornings, you might be damn sure that nothing of the sort could be expected. Having as I had just elaborately enumerated and posted new unbreakable rules for the household and estate. Instructing that only one pound of butter and one quart of cream be allotted per meal at servants’ meals. Of course including tea this still means four bloody pounds of butter, and one ruddy gallon of cream down the hatch, plus endless grumbling from the men in from the yard. That nothing of the kind could happen in my mother’s day. Further to which Sexton, of course enlightened me.

  ‘Ah there would be complaint no matter what but sure harmless enough are the passing remarks that you’re a Protestant alright, and next you’ll be counting out the raisins baked in the bread.’

  One does shrink in horror at the bias of such bigoted words, but not much milk comes out of the udders of two dead cows, even Catholic ones. And unless I galvanize this mob into some semblance of corporate efficiency they’ll all be lucky to be eating potato and cabbage soup. Of course one is one’s own worst enemy. To feel abed of a morning that one’s blankets and counterpane somehow shielded one from the rigours of facing another day. Of turd congealed sewers. Of hungry coughing sick and dying animals. Of fences broken. The muddy deep ruts of carts where timber had been stolen. Every tool if not broken, twisted out of shape. Or worse, lost. Game poached. Beasts strayed. Or a neighbouring farmer’s cunningly trespassing cattle. And before one even arises to get out into the fields, so much internally is already amiss. A knock right now on the door. Dingbats with the missing items of my breakfast.

  ‘You’ve still forgotten the cream and butter Mollie.’