Leila

by J. P. Donleavy

  ‘Oooo la la, we have afoot how does one say zee wolf in sheep’s pink pantaloon.’

  ‘One does not say anything Madam. And not that I want to flatter you unduly. But you were you know, rather wonderfully marvellous as a housekeeper. Everything shining, polished, folded. I did so enjoy my breakfast then. The neat way the cupboards were kept. Provisions stored. My socks darned, the laundry done. Floors so clean. Furniture so gleaming. Ouch Madam. What did you slap me for.’

  ‘You did want me to slap your face don’t you for such impertinent ungallantry. I should like to hear such things said when I am not naked in the bed. Out of which you I should push. I will.’

  ‘Please Madam bloody well don’t. Stop. Please.’

  ‘Because you like how I housekeep huh. And become your servant again huh. On your arse you go you little silly boy.’

  ‘Please. Stop bloody pushing. Bloody ruddy hell. Good heavens. Damn women anyway.’

  Darcy Dancer crashing out of the bed arse first on the floor. A beast mooing beyond somewhere under the winter sky. The cold damp wool pile of the carpet barely a cushion against the hard boards. One’s erection so conspicuous. And now the door knob of one’s mother’s ablution room, turning, and the door opening. An aroma of reasty unwashed long worn socks filling the air. Good god. The face of the Dublin Poet peering around the door. A bottle of whisky in one hand. A sheepish utterly stupid look upon his countenance.

  ‘Ah I thought I heard a noise.’

  ‘Would you mind, please. You’re trespassing. Please get out of here and out of the room you’ve just come from.’

  ‘O I’m sorry for my inconvenience. Rashers Ronald said you were in need of some spoken verse.’

  ‘And you’ll be in need of a new set of teeth, eyes and ears if you don’t get out of here and this house this instant.’

  ‘Right you are your eminence. But I can see there you’re busy enough already. Very sorry to have troubled you in the least.’

  Door quietly closing. Feet tiptoeing away. And now heavier ones approaching pounding down the hall. And the tinkle of dishes. And knock on the door.

  ‘Sir it would be your breakfast sir. The door is locked.’

  ‘Leave it outside the door, please, Mollie.’

  ‘I am wanting a word with you sir of a serious nature.’

  ‘Well please come back later, Mollie.’

  ‘It is this very moment urgent sir.’

  ‘What. Please. Is so urgent.’

  ‘Sir, the silverware, half of it is gone.’

  ‘Thank you for the information, Mollie. Just leave the tray.’

  Along with the silverware, listen to the footfalls disappear. Uninvited guests breakfasting on one’s whisky, walking into one’s bedroom. One would find more peace in the lobby of the Hibernian.

  ‘Damn hell, Madam. That’s what I mean about this household. And you Madam. Listen. Please. I was also going to say before you and that apparition rudely interrupted. That I adore your legs. And the firm yet lean muscles of your thighs. And now please, let me back into bed.’

  ‘And all I am now is legs. Thighs. Muscles.’

  ‘No you are much more than that, honestly. You sometimes have an attractive mind as well.’

  ‘Sometimes huh.’

  ‘No oft times in fact. Now just let me peacefully slide in. I’m desperately in need of warmth and rest. Really I am. Kept up as I’ve been nearly the whole night. Ah the feel of them. Your marvellous marvellous quarters. Like a large variety of grape indeed.’

  ‘Ja wohl, indeed.’

  ‘Ja wohl. That one might want to sink one’s teeth into Madam. Or merely squeeze by hand. And your lean slender waist. And your so wonderful richly creamy pink budded breasts like spring primroses.’

  ‘Of course we are without zee primroses in the middle of winter, but that what you say is perhaps an improvement for my ear. I am not like a good quality brood mare, perhaps. To breed up your winners.’

  ‘Madam. Ah Madam, why not. Of course you are. Together we can as well as good colts and fillies breed up a great dynasty. Not only of horses but of little Darcy Dancers.’

  ‘What. When I am far older than you.’

  ‘But O Madam. I have missed you, you know. I have. Other ladies simply do not possess your elegance. Even though it’s true I suppose, you really are nearly old enough to be my mother.’

  ‘You want I slap you again.’

  ‘But Madam our ages need not matter. It is how we can be helpful to one another. Isn’t it that’s how there is love, that it comes into being because of these mutually useful performances of chores. And it makes not a scrap of difference your getting the least little bit long in the tooth. Be a good little lady now and fetch in my breakfast tray. Why don’t you say something madam, why are you being so quiet.’

  ‘Tooth, breakfast, Mein Gott. And whose tooth is long.’

  ‘Well perhaps I must wait till there is a little more light to have a look. Perhaps I am mistaken. But no need to get flustered and angry Madam.’

  ‘No fluster. I am not.’

  ‘Well your English is getting suddenly ungrammatical. And please, you must let me finish.’

  ‘You finish while you are telling me to serve you breakfast and perhaps with my long teeth I am finished. Yes.’

  ‘No no no, Madam. For god’s sake. You do bloody well misconstrue. I just hate leaving a tray out there for someone to trip over. O god. Hear that. Exactly as has happened. And I mean you have, even though you are approaching middle age, such fine bags on you. That one would expect of a pedigree cow. A pair of the prettiest udders in the parish. Of a sort which promises a long, copious and dependable milk yield. These are the things which matter Madam. O god, what now have I said to make you go all rigid and silent again. What I am trying to tell you is, the important thing is that with the lineage you claim. Plus.’

  ‘I am some cow you would like in your herd to milk. And claim. What do you mean claim. It is bog trotters like you who claim. I do not claim.’

  ‘I see you have definitely taken to the continued unfortunate use of that term bog trotter in your vocabulary. And it does not Madam, help in the improvement of your English. Please. Get the tray. There’s a good sweet wonderful girl now.’

  Miss von B rising out of bed. An impatient sweep back of the eiderdowns. Going to one’s mother’s wardrobe for covering. God what a wonderful arse she has got. And such calf muscles. Merely the shadows across such contours send the heart thumping and prick twitching. Such a damn nuisance she’s slow to take orders.

  ‘Thank you so much Madam. I do appreciate it. Ah not too much damage. Little coffee spilled. But in any event I have plans for the future. Now that the sea lanes are open again to America. I shall be importing the modern exotics from that land.’

  ‘Vas exotics I may ask.’

  ‘Lavatory paper as a matter of fact. I understand they have a variety which is both soft and absorbent.’

  ‘Ah what problems you have.’

  ‘Do have some coffee Madam. I indeed am going to build, as well, a high tower to this house.’

  ‘What, to shit down from.’

  ‘Please Madam, do you think we could take up discussions of that architectural utility later. You see I am inclined to imitate that fascinating gentleman William Beckford as a matter of fact. Some accounts of his travels are in the library. Indeed as is the very desk which once belonged to him. I should like, as he did, to travel widely and to return here winters to hunt. His tower was two hundred and sixty feet high. Mine will be a few feet shorter of course. There’s much loose stone about. And it would be I think nice, cementing them together to have such an edifice.’

  ‘Such folly would fall down on your head.’

  ‘Bloody hell, you are, aren’t you a barrel of enthusiasm this morning.’

  ‘Perhaps you would wish too by your edifice to pretend you are much high and mighty.’

  ‘Madam just shut up and put some honey on this barmbrack please. As a m
atter of fact from such a structure one could watch for poachers, trespassers and idlers.’

  ‘And also if commoners and peasants come too close who would not perhaps be schooled in the ways of court.’

  ‘You do Madam, don’t you, seem to possess a rather jaundiced view of me. I think it is the duty of a landowner such as myself to set for the peasantry an example but not especially to encourage their closeness.’

  ‘No it is for you and your ancestors who bring yourselves here to this country to keep the land they steal from these people so that you can prance about with noses stuck up in the air. So precious. So refined. So superior. Thinking they are something grand. When all you are is parvenu and maybe not even deserving of zee word. Now you are silent and rigid.’

  ‘Yes I am Madam. I am really hurt. To the quick. By your words. Which you say with a bitterness and almost hatred which would make me wonder who you consort with these days in Dublin. Here. Let me put your finger. To feel. That is my tear. That has come most genuinely out of my eye.’

  ‘Grosser Gott. You have, haven’t you, with so much cunning, and still so stupidly charmingly stuck up, come back into my life.’

  ‘Madam, may I remind you, while you are still trouncing me spiritually in the balls, that it is you who have arrived here. And come back into mine. With not so much as a warning by your leave. But of course I do not complain of that. As you do bring with you so much elegant beauty and grace. And I do so need a housekeeper again. And you ought really to be glad of my putting such a proposition to you.’

  ‘Who do you think you are you insolent pup. And now I shall, I really shall. Hard. Slap your face.’

  Miss von B’s slap landing on Darcy Dancer’s jaw. Spinning his head around, sending coffee soaked chunks of chewed barmbrack across the room. Dishes clattering on the tray. The sting sinking deep in one’s face. My how marvellously strong she is. Astonishing how in spite of seeing stars, it trembles one’s prick into instant rigidity. With a desire flushed from scalp to toe to plunge it into her. And recall out upon yesterday’s afternoon, looking up beyond her shoulder into the western sky. The grey clouds unloading their showers of rain. And then just above the horizon, the newest of new moons luminous white against a sliver of egg shell blue. Crescent of hope so needle sharp and bright. Perhaps amid catcalls and jeers not everything was to be continuous unglamorous gloom in one’s life. That a world could begin all new again. After a war. Streets of cities to be walked. Arms held wide in joy. Singing. Windows opening to listen. Gwendolene. My Miss von B. Are you now my first armful of supreme good luck. Grabbed and held. In the embrace of your glorious golden squirming body. Your so soft tongue darting, digging down against one’s neck. Pressing between one’s lips and down one’s throat. And yet. Dear me, in the ways of women, one does sometimes feel like some filthy rich foxhunting novice arrived out in the field in the latest gear, and standing out like a sore thumb. A memorable monument to ostentation. And then on the most magnificently groomed horse, taking the first fence, and flying head over heels to splash spreadeagled in a drain full of the most moistly fresh cow flop. Face first. The Marquis did say his pop might sensibly now hang up his old testicles to dry. While one’s own still moist balls have suffered such glooms. Hanging lonely. Waiting and waiting. In great yearning groans. To anoint in her silky loins some suitably desirous lady. Even the unsuitable. So desperate was one. Nearly chewing one’s nails, which I don’t, but pacing the carpet in front of the fire. Long months of one’s flesh uncaressed by another hand. Mouldering untouched. And now feel her body. Rise up like a tide in an ocean. To deliriously drown. Enfolded in the musk of her. And in my brain holding Leila. Stretched upon thy body I lie crucified. And whom shall I ask. To walk with me. Upon the world’s boulevards. If I asked you, Leila. To waltz with thee. Make thee laugh. Would you. The foreign streets. Hands tight entwined. Hearts alive with gaiety. Would you. Waltz with me. Leila. And yet. One does swear never again to make an assignation. To be there waiting. And that they might not come. Never to see one. Even by binoculars. So lonely crushed. Just before one stamps one’s foot and says to hell with everybody. Yet you do. You do go seek them again. Her voice. And this voice. Gwendolene. O Darcy Dancer come into me. Push the prow of your ship deeper and deeper into these waters. Sail upon me. Tell me my name. Say your joy screaming aloud. Slap my palms upon your thighs. Say that you do.

  Into all

  My throats

  You bring

  A load

  Of love

  To pour

  15

  It was entirely sad with Miss von B gone. Seeming like a whole lifetime ago, instead of this very morning. The feel of her breasts still on my chest. The sweet smells in under her hair. The warm cosy couch of her body. Making it so miserable to dislodge oneself from covers out into the cold. Legs still stiff from hunting. And Dingbats arriving to take away one’s tray.

  ‘Plus sir the gentleman Ronald had seven rashers, five cups of tea, six pieces of toast, sir, and quarter pound of the butter and nearly half the pot of marmalade and kept saying, will ye bring pucks now of everything so’s I won’t have to keep asking for more. And he was asking for more before he was finished any of it.’

  While dressing, one could hear the wires pulled and clanking from my sisters’ rooms, ringing down to the kitchens for their breakfasts. And where one wonders are the eggs coming from. Since Catherine smashed so many sitting on them. And since Rashers may still be bellowing for more. Which Dingbats echoed as she left, making an unprecedented curtsey at the door.

  ‘Sir, an old nanny goat wouldn’t be safe from the teeth of him.’

  Popping on my brown and most inconspicuous plus fours, one was not daring to even look down a hall or listen to a creak lest confronting Leila, who might then choose to tell me she had decided not to be at the boathouse. And I joined Rashers in the library for elevenses. Which he imbibed with as much relish as an Arab gobbling a goat. Nanny or otherwise. He had taken a turn about the gardens. And now, his tweeds as colourful as a vase full of wild flowers, he sits extremely comfortably, contentedly chuckling, and leafing through the more elderly volumes of Punch. But as one rattled off all the possibilities of the perpetrators of the silver theft, he seemed unconscionably sheepish and nervous.

  ‘Damned bloody strange nasty fearsome and unpleasant thing Kildare, that’s all I can say. But of course my dear chap, you did have a rather rum collection out here hunting you know. Of the lesser kind of the better people you might say.’

  With one’s woe weighing hourly more heavily, one turned from Rashers sipping his coffee and chomping on oatmeal biscuits. Clearly and undubitably he was distinctly another mouth to feed. But before I reached the door he was bowing me out of the room and thanking me profusely for my continued hospitality.

  ‘You have no idea my dear boy how wretched life can be in Dublin when one is a little short of the readies. This sojourn really has, you know, set me back on my feet again. Such kindness shall not be forgotten. Neither by me nor my heirs. Do believe me when I say that. I know you are going to adore meeting my betrothed. Dinner soon dear boy. Jammet’s. My treat. Are you on.’

  ‘I should like very much Rashers to dine with you and your betrothed. But I couldn’t help concluding from his Lordship’s conversation last night that you, having borrowed from me, had not repatriated his fifty pounds.’

  ‘Ah. Ah. No indeed. You are quite absolutely and correctly right on that score as a matter of fact. Very astute of you to so observe. Very. But you see. Imagine. The expenses. My topper, tails extracted from pawn. And indeed I should like to have a night out with my dearest friends the day before the wedding.’

  Suitably armed with walking stick one did set off for the stables forgiving Rashers further for his trespasses. And checking the horses, and then climbing the hill to the fields beyond the wood, I felt Rashers really did mean sincerely what he said in spite of his always contradicting it the next minute. Perhaps one should have taken him along to spy tha
t damn stallion, or at least help me generally count cattle and attempt to cheer oneself with one’s only remaining disposable assets. How could so much silver be gone. And months before I can fatten some cattle. O I do so hope that the cold dreary days will quick dawn a blazing glory of blue skied spring. When the swallows and swifts can come soaring and perch chirping and the larks rise singing in the scent of a blossoming land. Never mind the thefts. One so needs encouragement against wind, sleet and rain. Which so secretly seep in and lurk in the labyrinths of one’s house. And cause some new rotting tribulation to quietly brew. And under Miss von B’s assault, one’s personal imperiousness does take a thwacking great thumping deflation. Watching her leave my bed, get dressed. That marvellous profile of her tit against the window light. And then brushing and combing her hair and setting so deliberately about her own life again. As if the pursuit of her daily business mattered so much more than me. As if, bloody hell, being manageress of the whole ground and basement floors of a Grafton Street shop was so important. When I could fit the place in one of my barns and have room left over to play soccer in. Dear me I should so love to pretend to be high powered. And damn it I am bloody sure I shall be. Soon enough.

  Darcy Dancer walking back up the front lawn parkland. Shoes soaking up moisture through the grass. Despite all. There it still stands. Through the accumulated generations. And two black bikes parked so neatly against the front steps. By the staid sombre look of them, dear me, they belong to the Guards who have wasted no time in coming to question the staff.

  Darcy Dancer crossing the hall to the east front parlour. The door just ajar. The sound of Rashers. And clearly entertaining guests it would appear. From this arrival on Crooks’ tray of a freshly opened whisky bottle.

  ‘Ah Master Reginald sir, all these years, polished all them spoons, forks and knives. Like they were pieces of myself. Gone. And we need not look for the scoundrel. A leopard never changes its spots. Sure I knew by the sight of Foxy Slattery in the hall. That we were in for trouble.’