Leila

by J. P. Donleavy

  ‘I shall start calling you sir again if you are not careful.’

  ‘That would be too sad. It has taken so long for me to say what I have said to you. You indeed had to break a pillow over my arse. And you do know that it was my feverish thinking of you that set me on fire. Ah when you laugh you have the most beautifully perfect teeth I have ever seen.’

  ‘Yes I think of all the things that could happen to me, that I would be saddest if something happened to my teeth. Before I came here things were very bad for me for the last many months. And my teeth were what I most worried about. But I will not bore you with my trivial life.’

  ‘Honestly I would not be bored.’

  ‘Ah you would. Similar tales have so often been told. And I will not add to them telling mine.’

  ‘Are you a country girl.’

  ‘Yes but I have lived in the city too.’

  ‘You’re fond of fine things. And I frightened you away when I came upon you viewing my great aunt’s picture.’

  ‘It’s a beautiful picture.’

  ‘You go dancing.’

  ‘Yes I love dancing.’

  ‘To the local dance.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And gentlemen have been trespassing to pursue you. Ah you do not know what to say.’

  ‘What should I say.’

  ‘Is that what gave you such fine legs. Dancing.’

  ‘I did not know my legs were fine.’

  ‘Thoroughbred. As one would use the term if one were not applying it to horses.’

  ‘Well I have gone many miles on my legs.’

  ‘What miles.’

  ‘I have often walked seven miles to a dance and danced half the night and walked seven miles back.’

  ‘Please. Let me see your legs. If you would. By standing, just a little over there.’

  ‘You’ve made me shy. By your many questions.’

  ‘Ah but you must know so much about me. And I know so little about you.’

  ‘I will tell you about me. But only a little at a time.’

  ‘Tell me a little right now.’

  ‘No. I prefer to ask you something. You forget that when this night is done. That you might not in the morning feel as you do now.’

  ‘I shall.’

  ‘You might indeed confine me below stairs. As Mr Crooks has already done.’

  ‘You shall be so confined, no longer, Mademoiselle. I give you my word.’

  ‘Can I ask you if I might play chess with you.’

  ‘Ah so you play chess as well.’

  ‘I have watched your game, you play with yourself. And I would with your permission take white’s next move. I shall play my move dusting in the morning and you might make yours in the evening.’

  ‘By jove you are a kettle of strange fish. You ride of course.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ah a yawning gap in your accomplishments.’

  ‘I have been on a horse.’

  ‘Ah. That answer is redolent of possibilities. Your topper. Your veil. You would of course stun the field. Your legs too aptly placed upon the side of the saddle. I can see it all.’

  ‘Are you making fun of me.’

  ‘No no. Upon my word not.’

  ‘If you are I must warn you I can become very angry.’

  ‘I should hate more than anything to make you angry with me. But you must not go on standing. You must go and sit in that chair there. Of course there are about five eyes and seven ears at the keyhole. You mustn’t alarm. That is of course a joke. But as you must well know, to eavesdrop is a great staff hobby in country houses. Where there is so little else to entertain. But never mind. Ah, you see, how properly ladylike you sit. Knees so perfectly together. Legs slanted, ankles crossed. I adore your deportment.’

  ‘Mr Crooks would have a fit.’

  ‘Never mind Crooks. He’s an old grouchy souse. Who’ll just sprout weeds out of his ears and fade, as all faithful butlers do, into the wainscoting. Or indeed he may choose to hang himself at an appropriate time in the appropriate place chosen by previous butlers.’

  ‘You appear to have a low opinion of servants.’

  ‘Nonsense. I shall of course give him a marvellous funeral. The wake shall be held in the middle of the hall. A few fiddlers and a piper. And a chap playing the spoons. Ah god we’ll have a grand old time I’m telling you with a barrel of good Guinness stout. We’ll have him up out of his coffin and dancing with us.’

  ‘He’s not dead yet.’

  ‘O no. Quite. But when he is he’ll be a lively corpse. And meanwhile we must plan the obsequies. The farm cart suitably draped. Hauled by two black plumed horses. A throbbing drum. Best elm coffin. By God. I think a choir. On the front steps. Why do you smile.’

  ‘I would never have thought such thoughts would go on in your mind.’

  ‘I am much interested in the style in which life is conducted. What other defence have we to the long winter gloom but to raise our raiment against the sodden skies.’

  ‘That is beautiful what you have said.’

  ‘O my god, who are you. That your mind listens so. I would not have known that what I have said was worthy of being admired. I daresay most have regarded my thoughts as being quite otherwise. It is wonderful to sit and speak as we are doing. I have not spoken so since the sad departure from my life of the worthy sensitive soul of Mr Arland my tutor.’

  ‘I like your intelligence. And you too, I think, have a nice soul.’

  ‘Hardly anyone has ever thought that about me. I am quite cheered, I must say, by you. You are a jolly encouraging lass. Deserving of more port.’

  ‘O no. No more thank you. It was lovely.’

  ‘Ah now I catch you. That word lovely. It is lovely. Indeed it is lovely to hear you say lovely. But a lady would never say lovely like that. O god. Now I have offended you. O you must bloody well forgive me. You do, don’t you, think of yourself as a lady. Has the cat got your tongue.’

  ‘No but the wisdom of my better manners is holding on to my hand. Which would slap your face were I closer. And I think you are both rude and cruel. If you will excuse me now.’

  ‘Please. Don’t please go.’

  Leila getting up from her chair and turning towards the door. Tripping over a book in the dim light. Darcy Dancer rising to his feet. Without a backward glance she goes. The door firmly closing and she’s gone. The brass knob on the shiny mahogany. That I had reached up to turn as a child. And see my so called father sitting in the chair I sit in. Similar glasses held in his hand. Of whisky then. Its wheaty fragrance floating over the room. His rude and cruel voice. Shouted and growled. Go to blazes. All of you. Go to hell and be damned.

  Darcy Dancer falling back down in his chair. Reaching for his glass of port draining it and pouring another. Abandoned to all the nightmare of what wrong will happen next. A whole world of beauty crushed. Luscious lovely lips closed. Over her lovely teeth. Her lovely eyes. Her lovely legs. Hair and skin. She came she sat and she conquered. As have now all my edifices of rhapsody spiralling up into the joys of my future, crumbled. Left lonely. And unlovely. Gale still blowing outside the shutters. Raindrops down the chimney sizzling on the hot grate. Left cast here. Aseat like a Byzantine emperor behind one’s thick curtains. Impotent in all one’s power. Inured against the slights of the world. Yet have one’s heart pierced by an arrow. The night yet to live. Drowned in all one’s despair. Her sound gone. Ascend to her lovely bed. Who doth it be. Who is her god. To whom she offers prayer. To whom I can pray. Not to take away. Her lovely silken step that goes upon that dark stair.

  Your lovely

  Purple ribbon

  Worn

  On your lovely

  Black hair

  7

  In the blackness of the library one woke near dawn. Knocking over the tray of cheese. Kicking the lumps in all directions. Leave a feast behind for our resident rodents. Already scrabbling somewhere. Slits of faint grey moonlight through the shutters. The fire dead. The chambe
r stony cold. Feeling to find candles and matches, and creaky limbed stumbling over the disarray. To make one’s blind dreary dazed way to bed.

  The flame of the candle wick extinguished halfway up the stairs with the damp. Out the landing window the skies broken and the clouds racing under the moonlight. The shining silver bark on the grove of beeches. Carry apologies to her. On a salver as silver as those haunting trees. Find her in her bed up somewhere high in this house. Genuflect in all the courtesies known to mankind to gain her forgiveness. Put my arms around her. And surely be told to go away. Instead push open my mother’s bedroom door. Back into one’s own lonely life. To awake another morning to fight anew. Lie mine own head on the pillow. On the cold linen.

  In the tossing turning ferment of my sleep, one dreamt of Mr Arland my tutor. I went searching in Dublin to find him. Where he lived in desperate digs down a dreary commercial street, having taken some humble schoolmasterish employment. He said as I came up his rather dingy stairs, ah Kildare you find me rather without kit, yet I do still have the utensils for tea. Come join me in keeping body and soul together and both our hopes warm on my gas ring.

  ‘Good morning sir.’

  Dingbats with breakfast, banging the tray noisily and kicking open the door. Her arm bandaged. Her eyes glancing around the room at my clothes flung everywhere.

  ‘There’s a great mess this morning in the library sir. A cat and chickens got in. Tore out the books. They had a right old fair for themselves.’

  ‘Dear me. Is that a fact.’

  ‘With Kitty and Norah sick, and Leila not allowed by Crooks in there I will have to clean it up myself.’

  ‘And on your way there Mollie to do that please tell Luke to groom Petunia for hunting.’

  ‘It’s fierce windy still this morning sir to walk out in the mud after all the rain to the stables and catch me death of the new monia. When I’m doing all the work and the rest on their backs.’

  One wanted so much to shout to big tits frizzy head that she’d better tell him or be sacked, never mind the new old or any of her monia. Obviously the household overnight had turned into the usual hospital as it instantly does when anyone chooses to sniffle and cough, and they all follow suit to take a leisurely holiday one after the other. Indolence and bickering. The only bloody thing they have in common. And while they would not do a stroke of extra work, they’d crawl a mile backwards to rub one another the wrong way.

  ‘Ah you’re quite right Mollie, make sure then to pop on a pair of boots and sou’wester.’

  Following extending her chest out at me as she did these days, and exhaling deep sighs as she opened the shutters, one did rather long for the fumes of summer, its mossy bliss and sweet perfumes. A whiff of which strongly comes off Dingbats. Who seems to linger longer each time bringing breakfast. Giving me sidelong glances. And one did at the moment under the covers have a rock hard obelisk poking up centre bed into the counterpane. And still inebriated just enough to want to plunge it somewhere soft and cosy for safe keeping. Ye gads. Dingbats. Amazing how one’s standards can plummet. And dear me if I did. Try to put it in her I’d have, instead of a mental institution, a holiday camp on my hands. As surely she’d never do another stroke of work.

  ‘Would there be anything else now to your liking and satisfaction sir.’

  ‘No thank you very much, Mollie.’

  ‘Ah then you’d want me to be going. If there’s nothing else you might want.’

  Now there, if ever there was, is a stream of suggestive remarks. Tell her to strip down. To her freckled skin. View her marvellously strapping legs gaiting about. Then she could say her act of contrition first in the middle of the floor. Before jumping with big tits bouncing on top of me in bed. Even though cohabitation with one’s household does lead to insubordination, it at least provides a chance of some good blood getting about the peasantry. Help instil in them some spark of nobility and serenity of spirit. Instead of the malcontent surly impertinent insolence one hears from Dingbats departing in the hall.

  ‘Sent out into the wet. Before I even have me breakfast sticking to me ribs.’

  My fingertips pressing into a thick smear of butter on the bottom of my tray as I reached to lift it. The cream sour that I poured on my porridge. Yolks fried solid on my eggs. And although congealed in their fat, at least my sausages weren’t wrapped in hairs. But on lifting the cover to the pot, a dead summer mummified fly was on top of my raspberry jam. In one’s awful blackdog doldrums. I thought damn it eat the damn thing. Serve a penance. For my snobberies. Perhaps one has as pasha indeed put on the dog in a somewhat exaggerated fashion. But damn it all why must anyone take something so triflingly innocuous so seriously. Just like the overly sensitive papist she must be. How otherwise could one take offence at my most well meant remark. Even to think that she had the makings of a lady but was not yet quite a lady in absolutely all respects should be taken as a compliment. And with standards so low as they are it is so easy to improve oneself above one’s station in Ireland. Certainly her wrists, hands and fingernails could be better groomed. A jewel or two on her fingers. Her lapses into brogue eliminated. And in proper dress she could pass off as a lady in any but the most discerning of drawing rooms.

  Darcy Dancer attired in ratcatcher, heading down the grand stairs. Squinting his eyes at the light. A crow tapping at the window and flying away into the beeches. Hand on the banister. A boot squeaking. Taking a whip from the console table beneath the painting of one’s grand aunt. I had not intended till one’s own lawn meet to go hunting. But by god to wake in such sour gloom one has to clear the mind of cobwebs and despair. Plus it always encourages an air of excitement in the household. That perhaps I shall come back with a broken neck and Crooks can unlock the wine cellar and the household have a one great last grand hooley over my corpse in the hall. And be stretched dead as a ruddy door nail under the watchful eye of this painting, its austere dignity and bright colours so admired by Leila. And O my god, there. At the front hall grate, a bucket of ash by her side, only these few paces away. Crouched, sweeping up. She ignores the footfall of my boots going by. Cuffs of her uniform rolled back. The muscle flexed in her arm. Her cold looking hand shovels out a heap of powdery ash. The draught of air from the door blows it about. And up in her face. Serves her bloody well right. Getting on her high horse with me. Yet O god. So near her. To pass. Within a touch. And be our worlds apart. Crooks at the open front door with my cap. Out there awaits the cold grey day. How do I tell her. There on her knees. Forgive me.

  Mounting in front of the house, one was at least slightly improved in spirit. Petunia’s hoofs had a high shine and one’s leathers were supple and gleaming. Stirrups the proper length. The air blowing cold on the face down the drive did buck me up. And at the end of the grove of rhododendrons I jumped Petunia over the fence. Trotting out cross country under the low cloud. A drying wind blowing. Thump of Petunia’s hoofs on the ground did stir one for my first appearance in so many years. Let’s go old girl. Hear the hounds. Find him. Chase him. Heat up the blood. And charge across the green.

  Darcy Dancer emerging from a rocky boreen. Turning left. See down this hill. The hunt collecting at the crossroads. A few familiar faces raising whip hands in greeting. Clattering now down the asphalt to the pub. Where half the hunt are in there stoking up their courage. Muddy booted locals, their backs leaning propping up the walls. Sniggering remarks to one another under their shadowy caps. Johnny Gearoid struggling to hold the reins of several horses, while attempting to pull his forelock at me, and getting knocked for his trouble this way and that, his friendly fat red greasy face under his greasy hat.

  ‘How are you boss. How is it going.’

  ‘How is it going with you Gearoid.’

  ‘Fine. Fine. No complaint. None. But could you spare a tanner or two now for a pint of stout.’

  Rather a lot of lipstick on the mouths of the ladies. Two of whom had American accents. And a distinctly spiv looking type from England in a large motor
car, snapping pictures of a few rather overly smart, and distinctly of an upstart aspect, interlopers, clearly down for the day from Dublin. And my gracious they were preening and posing on their mounts. Thinking much of themselves. One supposes from now on infiltrators will be much in abundance. As they clearly regard me and my ancient mended tweeds, down their noses between their horses’ ears. One was reassured by the other motley array composing the field.

  ‘Ah hello Darcy Dancer, you’re indeed a much taller sight for sore eyes.’

  One of the flaming red haired Slasher sisters. Who at least seems to approve of my appearance. And is eager to be off. Backing her horse right into the Mental Marquis of Farranistic, who with the Mad Major emerging from the pub, were busily clapping each other heartily on the back. Amnesia Murphy the farmer of course since his head was bounced off a rock years ago, did not know me from Adam and gave me a muddy look. But Father Damian, my mother’s most admiring cleric looking rather splendid himself in top hat and ecclesiastic garb under his hunting coat, remarked on my transformation as he called it, from prince to king of my principality. Clearly one invites that sort to tea very soon. But of course the most ebullient of welcoming words came from the hunt secretary knowing my sensibilities should be kept soothed to contribute a large subscription and to clearly encourage one to provide port sumptuously at the Andromeda Park’s lawn meet. As he normally always consumed at least a bottle.

  ‘I say there Kildare, damn jolly good to see you out. Long time no see.’

  One did object to this silly American Indian affectation of the hunt secretary. Long time no see. Like in the constipation affecting many of Andromeda Park household staff. One tends to assume the rather wretched thought. Long time no shit. But one does know that to pass these long winter evenings, tomes were laid open all over these remote parts of Ireland, with landowners nightly reading into the dawn about America’s civil war and the cowboys and Indians. Ah but all was British to the nth degree it would appear, upon my introduction to the recently imported Master from England, barrelled up as he was with surnames.