Affairs of Death

by Nigel Fitzgerald

  The centre of convivial activity was in a barn-like sort of studio built on to the back of one of the cottages and presumably Myles’s work-room; here some twenty or so young people had gathered and were enjoying themselves, if one were to judge by the fact that they all seemed to be talking at the same time. Nobody stopped when I came in or looked at me as if I were mad, or had two heads, or seemed over-burdened with lechery; indeed a not unattractive red-haired girl turned away from the group she was with and smiled at me.

  “Isn’t this a lovely party?” she said.

  I wanted more evidence on this point, but I had no wish to spoil her fun. “Lovely,” I agreed.

  “What are you drinking?”

  “Whisky.” I looked at my glass and to my surprise found it to be empty. “At least it was whisky.”

  She seized the glass and trotted off with an alacrity which confirmed my present fortunate anonymity. I do not normally let girls fetch and carry for me at parties but, as it was likely that one or both of the Myleses, or Juliet, would be hanging round the source of drinks, I thought it better to stay where I was — where in any case it seemed that the fun was going to be. The atmosphere was becoming increasingly bonhomous; some of the noisier young people had found a cauldron amongst the theatrical props and were apparently proposing to dance round it in witches’ hats. It seemed a little early in the evening for such an imbecilic activity but youngsters on the fringes of the theatre, as the Mylses’ guests might well be, are always looking for opportunities to act, and at any rate — since I have never had the gift of looking into the future — I thought that playing at witchcraft was a rather more innocent pastime than discussing the sex-life of one’s acquaintances, so I waited without foreboding for my new girl-friend.

  “Here I am,” she said. “I hope your drink’s all right. I put some water in it.”

  She may have done — a drop or two, but they say that one can’t have too much of a good thing. “Perfect,” I said.

  “My name’s April. What shall I call you?”

  “You can call me — Stan.” I could scarcely repress a shudder at the loathsome contraction, but Standish is inconveniently distinctive, and the monosyllable might stand for Stanley, or Stanislaus — or Stanislavsky, if it came to that.

  “Ah! You’re English then. I thought you must be.”

  “Well, I live in England.”

  “There’s a famine here of lean young men who are mentally adult.” She waved a disparaging hand towards the witch-dancers who were now cavorting round the cauldron and uttering eldritch shrieks. “We have plenty of them.”

  “Who hasn’t? Do the others all emigrate.”

  “Not now. They’re at their desks pushing on the export drive. And anyhow they’re all too fat.”

  “I see. The birth-pangs of an affluent, replacing an effluent society.”

  She beamed at me. “I think that’s devastatingly clever.”

  “As a matter of fact, so do I. You can give the credit to this drink, though.” Perhaps, too, being referred to as a lean young man — if only by implication — by a girl no older than Juliet had gone to my head. She seemed to be an intelligent child. “Can you,” I asked, “see anything wrong in the habit of swimming before breakfast?”

  “It’s a bit square perhaps but rather sweet. Why?”

  “A friend of mine has been criticised for it.”

  “If it’s a men-only bathing place, my pa says that before breakfast is the only safe time to swim; the rest of the day the rocks are crawling with queers spotting form.”

  “I don’t think that problem arises. It’s a private beach.”

  “Is your friend married?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s it then: he shouldn’t want to get out of bed before he has to.”

  It was simple and obvious and I had not seen it. Certainly before Grace and I had begun to quarrel we had spent every available moment about the business of bed, though not necessarily in it. For the first time I began seriously to consider that Barney and Stella’s marriage might be going the way of mine. Though April was not exactly a babe or a suckling, it seemed a bit silly that the answer should have had to come out of her girlish mouth, and I found myself rather stuck for words with which to carry on the conversation on the same apparently trivial level; fortunately I was spared the trouble.

  A shriek from one of the dancers round the cauldron interrupted an incantation from Macbeth. “It’s no good,” protested a girlish, golden-haired youth. “No one ever saw a witch with a retroussé nose — I shall just have to have nose-paste.”

  “Don’t worry, Rupert,” someone said. “You can be Gretel, and we’ll fatten you up for the pot.”

  “Kinky’s got plenty of modelling clay,” someone else suggested. “She’ll knock you up a simply supernal nose.”

  “I won’t have a blob of clay on my face.” The youth called Rupert was quite definite. “I have a better idea. Kinky can make us a nice little doll and we’ll stick pins in it.”

  The idea was adopted. After all, what is witchcraft if you can’t stick something into somebody? At once everyone was looking for the Myleses with cries of — “Where’s Kinky?” and “Kinky darling, make us a nice little female figure that we can stick pins into.”

  “Why does it have to be a female figure?” Rupert wanted to know.

  He seemed quite hurt; so, too, did April at the fact that my attention was wandering. I returned it to her the more readily because an influx of older people to the studio was led by Myles and Kinky and Juliet; it seemed better for me to remain unobtrusively in a corner, or better still to find some part of the house farther removed from this scene of general activity. I felt that I should avoid the Myleses till I had made up my mind about where I was going: it might be that I should find urgent business to take me straight back to Dublin, or alternatively that I should ignore what I had heard and go on to Barney’s as if there were no doubts in my mind. Would a return to Dublin be turning my back on my friends? Or on Barney alone? Or on Stella? Did I even want to turn my back on Stella? That, of course, was the really pertinent question, though, perhaps, what she wanted was more pertinent still.

  “You haven’t got a drink,” I said to April. “Let me get you one.”

  She came with me to show me the way, and while we were there I got another drink for myself. April brought the conversation back to the point at which it had been interrupted.

  “I’ve been criticised for swimming before breakfast, too,” she said.

  “But you’re not married?”

  “Oh, long, long before breakfast — before going to bed in fact. There are lots of lovely little beaches that are simply celestial by moonlight. And the water’s quite warm — the Gulf Stream, or something — and the wind nearly always drops at sunset.” She stretched herself becomingly and golloped about half of her drink. “You should try it some time — to-night, perhaps.”

  “My plans are pretty fluid,” I admitted, “but scarcely as fluid as that.”

  “Will you be going back towards Inish?”

  “Inish?”

  “Inishmore — our county town — where I live during the vac.”

  “I’m afraid I shall have to go where I’m taken; my car was run into just after landing this morning, and this evening my bicycle was sabotaged.”

  “Bicycle!” Her interest in me was oozing visibly from her finger-tips. “You must be energetic.”

  “Unlucky, too, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I’m afraid you are.” She said it, I thought, a little regretfully then splashed her glass full from the bottle that came nearest to hand and told me — “I’m going back to the witches.” She did just that.

  I did not feel up to hovering alone in propinquity to so much alcohol so, after a fruitless look round for Frankie Marr, I too went back to the witches.

  The pace of things had hotted up quite a bit; smoke poured from the cauldron and sweat dripped from the asses who were contorting themselves about it
, while most of the onlookers’ smiles seemed to be of genuine amusement. There was still no sign of Marr, though his henchman, Joe, had joined the dance; it appeared, however, that Joe still insisted on being all-American, for there were feathers in his hair and he was making like a Sioux medicine-man. As I came into the room Kinky Myles produced from somewhere a pretty little doll with big sleepy eyes and shining brown hair that reminded me of Stella’s; for the rest it was naked and inhuman, though I suppose it would put on sex with its clothes. The witches descended upon it with shouts of glee and demands for pins.

  “They must christen it first,” said a voice in my ear.

  Beside me was my cousin Juliet, smiling like an angel and sipping a disgusting-looking mineral.

  “They’ve gone far enough already without adding blasphemy to the performance,” I told her.

  She gave me a sweet tolerant glance and trotted over to the leading witch whose mouth at once widened almost to his ears in a great guffaw.

  “A christening — but of course,” he roared. “Is there any water in the place?”

  “Stout will do as well,” someone suggested.

  “Red wine,” corrected the golden-haired Rupert, “a symbolic baptism of blood.”

  “Do I have to say the words backwards?” the leading witch wanted to know.

  Kinky Myles took a jug of water from a table and handed it to him. “No, Donal,” she said. “The proper words in their correct order — and plain water. If you want the name to stick, it must be given according to the rites of the Church.”

  This Donal had been up to that point the unquestioned leader of the revels; now he seemed suddenly sobered. He looked from the water-jug in his right hand to the doll in his left as if he would be glad to be rid of them, though perhaps he was only trying to figure out how to make the sign of the Cross with his hands full. It may be that the necessity for this particular part of the pantomime to come had escaped most of the onlookers, for they showed him nothing but grins of amiable anticipation when he glanced up at them. It was with a rather tentative smile that he muttered, “Oh well, I suppose — in a case of necessity any lay man or woman can do it.” Then, as one who catches at straws, he added more strongly — “Sure we haven’t decided at all yet what we’re going to name the creature.” In the buzz of suggestion and argument that followed Donal managed to disembarrass himself of both jug and doll and to steal out of the room — doubtless to get a wholesome bottle of stout.

  The little scene had interested me so much that I failed to observe my hostess threading her way towards me through the crowd until it was too late to give her the slip. Why I should have felt guilty at being found having a drink at a party to which I had been properly invited and almost forcibly brought I am not quite sure, but I was in fact conscious of a certain unease. To forestall any questions about my health, or what I was drinking, or my future plans, I made sure to get my word in first; as Kinky reached my side, I nodded in the direction taken by the retired leader of the witches. “Sensible fellow,” I said.

  She was not quite with me. “It will make a nice change — but who’s sensible?” she inquired.

  “Donal — or whatever his name is. He scarpered while the scarpering was good.”

  “Donal’s a pet. I thought I’d better remind him what he was doing.”

  “Ah. I wondered why you were so forthcoming with water-jugs and things.”

  “They’d have found the props for themselves. Witchcraft isn’t a game for beginners, though. So I reminded them.”

  “You believe in it then?”

  Kinky’s air of belonging to another continent, to another age almost, was much more assertive in the artificial lighting and against the artificial background of the studio; her odd, lumpy figure had a sexual attraction that I could not explain. Looking into her fathomless brown eyes I could almost give credence to the thought that she might do much more than believe in witches.

  “Don’t you believe in it?” she asked.

  “Of course not ——” I began, then I stopped to think. “I take witchcraft to be dirty and dangerous; to that extent I believe in it.”

  “But not in its power?”

  “If it is dangerous it must have power, however haphazard. If Good is a positive force, Evil must be, too, I suppose.”

  “ ‘Behind the Cross there’s the devil’.”

  “Exactly.” Was she a Christian, I wondered. If I had met her in almost any other country, I should have guessed her to be a Zoroastrian perhaps, or the adherent of some exotic off-shoot of one of the really ancient religions. “The point is, can the force that we know as the devil be directed by a few asses playing blasphemous games at a party?”

  “Not directed — under certain circumstances it can be liberated.”

  “Nasty thought.”

  “Nasty subject, darling.” She smiled; it was rather like the sun coming out on the blasted heath. “Let us talk of nice things. What are you drinking?”

  “Whisky.”

  “It seems to have done your head good. We had better have some more.”

  Before we could act on this excellent suggestion, however, our attention was drawn once again to the witches; what were left of these démodé creatures had been squabbling and giggling and pushing one another and it came as an unpleasant surprise to me to realise that undeterred by their leader’s defection, they had for all this time been arguing about a name for the wretched doll; and that even more virulent, apparently, was the dispute as to who should perform the ceremony. Rupert and his friends were made of sterner stuff than the departed Donal, and even though they had lost most of their audience, were determined that the show must go on. What called attention back to them was Rupert’s cry of rage when one of his companions seemed to have won final possession of the doll, leaving Rupert holding the water jug and thus playing the static role of the font. The winner couched the doll in one arm, dipped the other hand in the jug, and began to declaim — “I baptise thee in the name of ——” He got no further; with snake-like speed Rupert snatched back the doll and splashed the contents of the jug over it. I failed to catch the name that he bestowed on the poor puppet, but only because someone else was shouting. The words of baptism were said quickly but boldly in Rupert’s little sharp neuter voice; and the thing was done in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.

  The words fell on, and were followed by, dead silence.

  I suppose it might have been funny really — if one could take the blasphemy other than seriously. After all lots of religious people use God’s name lightly without intended irreverence, and many without belief interlard their conversation with evocations of His name which mean no more to them than other picturesque expletives and are allowed to go unchallenged for that very reason. If the witch-game had progressed uninterruptedly to the christening no one, I think, would have gone out of his way to show that he was not amused; but the pause for thought and Rupert’s bitchy voice had turned the whole thing sour. It missed being fun and — even if for a moment it had seemed to be genuinely evil — what followed showed it up as nothing more than rather nasty farce.

  As he had been the one to perform the baptismal ceremony, Rupert was the one to stick in the first pin; he did his best to stick it into the doll but found the celluloid — or whatever the thing was made of — impenetrable, then by the exertion of greater strength he succeeded in driving the pin deeply into his own finger. With a screech of rage he flung the doll into the cauldron where it lay among the smouldering smoke-pellets and gave off a nauseating smell.

  “Let the cow burn,” he said.

  The Myleses’ guests who up to a few minutes earlier had been smiling, tolerant onlookers of the witch-nonsense were now at some pains to establish that they had not been watching, or listening to what had gone on; half a dozen different conversations were plunged into with an earnestness which was meant to suggest that they had been under way for some time. I got the impression that many of the older people would soon
be finding an excuse to leave, though not so soon as to let it be thought that they had been influenced by the disgusting behaviour which of course they had not noticed. There was a general movement towards the room where the drinks were but this was probably due less to thirst than to the increasingly revolting smell in the studio; however it gave Myles and Kinky a chance to buzz round being jolly little hosts in the hope of restoring good humour. In the hall I met April; she was alone and grinned at me as if I were an old friend — but no more than a friend.

  “Fixed up a lift yet?” she inquired.

  “Not yet. What about you?”

  “Well, there’s a fairly dishy number — oh not as nice as you, Stan, but tolerable, and he has an absolutely celestial Caddy. But they tell me he’s frightfully dangerous.”

  “As a driver, d’you mean — or as someone to be lumbered with?”

  “As a driver, I thought — but perhaps ——” The old light came into her eyes. “I must look into this.” Again she left me.

  Where, I wondered, was Marr? It was to him that I looked for a lift, either out to Hazard Point or back to some hotel in Rossderg, as a preliminary to returning to Dublin. What I now wanted to do was to go on; I was ready to dismiss what I had heard about Barney and Stella as mere bitchiness of no more consequence than the abysmal doings of Rupert and his fellow-witches. Probably the couple of stiff drinks that I had had helped to restore my sense of balance, and I saw no reason why I should not have another one now, for Myles was approaching with the bottle; he recharged my glass with liberality and with as much aplomb as if he had never advanced any absurd theories about keeping me on my back on the wagon.

  “That’ll save you from catching cold,” he observed.

  “I really ought to be getting on my way,” I told him. “I gather the Hazards haven’t turned up.”

  “They sent a message that they couldn’t come. Frankie had to go away for a bit, but he’ll run you out when he comes back — or, if he can’t, I’ll fix up something. You’re not in a hurry?”