More Pricks Than Kicks

by Beckett, Samuel

  “Where are you going?” she said. She had the natural curiosity of a mother in what concerns her child.

  “Don't ask me” answered Ruby, who was inclined to resent all these questions.

  He to whom they referred, who had hopes of calling at three with a car, was the doomed Belacqua and no other.

  The water boiling, Mrs Tough rose and added the coffee, reduced the flame, stirred thoroughly and left to simmer. Though it seems a strange way to prepare coffee, yet it was justified by the event.

  “Let me put you up some tea” implored Mrs Tough. She could not bear to be idle.

  “Ah no” said Ruby “no thanks really.”

  It struck the half-hour in the hall. It was half-past two, that zero hour, in Irishtown.

  “Half-two!” ejaculated Mrs Tough, who had no idea it was so late.

  Ruby was glad that it was not earlier. The aroma of coffee pervaded the kitchen. She would have just nice time to dream over her coffee. But she knew that this was quite out of the question with her mother wanting to talk, bursting with questions and suggestions. So when the coffee was dispensed and her mother had settled down for the comfortable chat that went with it she unexpectedly said:

  “I think, mother, if you don't mind, I'll take mine with me to the lav, I don't feel very well.”

  Mrs Tough was used to the whims of Ruby and took them philosophically usually. But this latest fancy was really a little bit too unheard of. Coffee in the lav! What would father say when he heard? However.

  “And the rosiner” said Mrs Tough, “will you have that in the lav too?”

  Reader, a rosiner is a drop of the hard.

  Ruby rose and took a gulp of coffee to make room.

  “I'll have a gloria” she said.

  Reader, a gloria is coffee laced with brandy.

  Mrs Tough poured into the proffered cup a smaller portion of brandy than in the ordinary way she would have allowed, and Ruby left the room.

  We know something of Belacqua, but Ruby Tough is a stranger to these pages. Anxious that those who read this incredible adventure shall not pooh-pooh it as unintelligible we avail ourselves now of this lull, what time Belacqua is on his way, Mrs Tough broods in the kitchen and Ruby dreams over her gloria, to enlarge a little on the latter lady.

  For a long period, on account of the beauty of her person and perhaps also, though in lesser degree, the distinction of her mind, Ruby had been the occasion of much wine-shed; but now, in the thirty-third or -fourth year of her age, she was so no longer. Those who are in the least curious to know what she looked like at the time in which we have chosen to cull her we venture to refer to the Magdalene1 in the Perugino Pietà in the National Gallery of Dublin, always bearing in mind that the hair of our heroine is black and not ginger. Further than this hint we need not allow her outside to detain us, seeing that Belacqua was scarcely ever aware of it.

  The facts of life had reduced her temper, naturally romantic and idealistic in the highest degree, to an almost atomic despair. Her sentimental experience had indeed been unfortunate. Requiring of love, as a younger and more appetising woman, that it should unite or fix her as firmly and as finally as the sun of a binary in respect of its partner, she had come to avoid it more and more as she found, with increasing disappointment and disgust, its effect at each successive manifestation, for she had been in great demand, to be of quite a different order. The result of this erotic frustration was, firstly, to make her eschew the experience entirely; secondly, to recommend her itch for syzygy to more ideal measures, among which she found music and malt the most efficacious; and finally, to send her caterwauling to the alcove for whatever shabby joys it could afford. These however, embarras de richesse as long as she remained the scornful maiden, were naturally less at pains to solicit one whose sense of proportion had been acquired to the great detriment of her allurements. The grapes of love, set aside as abject in the days of hot blood, turned sour as soon as she discovered a zest for them. As formerly she had recoiled into herself because she would not, so now she did because she could not, except that in her retreat the hope that used to solace her was dead. She saw her life as a series of staircase jests.

  Belacqua, paying pious suit to the hem of her garment and gutting his raptures with great complacency at a safe remove, represented precisely the ineffable long-distance paramour to whom as a homesick meteorite abounding in IT she had sacrificed her innumerable gallants. And now, the metal of stars smothered in earth, the IT run dry and the gallants departed, he appeared, like the agent of an ironical Fortune, to put her in mind of what she had missed and rowel her sorrow for what she was missing. Yet she tolerated him in the hope that sooner or later, in a fit of ebriety or of common or garden incontinence, he would so far forget himself as to take her in his arms.

  Join to all this the fact that she had long been suffering from an incurable disorder and been assured positively by no fewer than fifteen doctors, ten of whom were atheists, acting independently, that she need not look forward to her life being much further prolonged, and we feel confident that even the most captious reader must acknowledge, not merely the extreme wretchedness of Ruby's situation, but also the verisimilitude of what we hope to relate in the not too distant future. For we assume the irresponsibility of Belacqua, his faculty for acting with insufficient motivation, to have been so far evinced in previous misadventures as to be no longer a matter for surprise. In respect of this apparent gratuity of conduct he may perhaps with some colour of justice be likened to the laws of nature. A mental home was the place for him.

  He cultivated Ruby, for whom at no time did he much care, and made careful love in the terms he thought best calculated to prime her for the part she was to play on his behalf, the gist of which, as he revealed when he deemed her ripe, provided that she should connive at his felo de se, which he much regretted he could not commit on his own bottom. How he had formed this resolution to destroy himself we are quite unable to discover. The simplest course, when the motives of any deed are found subliminal to the point of defying expression, is to call that deed ex nihilo and have done. Which we beg leave to follow in the present instance.

  The normal woman of sense asks “what?” in preference to “why?” (this is very deep), but poor Ruby had always been deficient in that exquisite quality, so that no sooner had Belacqua opened his project than she applied for his reasons. Now though he had none, as we have seen, that he could offer, yet he had armed himself so well at this point, forewarned by the study he had made of his catspaw's mind, that he was able to pelt her there and then with the best that diligent enquiry could provide: Greek and Roman reasons, Sturm und Drang reasons, reasons metaphysical, aesthetic, erotic, anterotic and chemical, Empedocles of Agrigentum and John of the Cross reasons, in short all but the true reasons, which did not exist, at least not for the purposes of conversation. Ruby, flattened by this torrent of incentive, was obliged to admit that this was not, as she had inclined to suspect, a greenhorn yielding to the spur of a momentary pique, but an adult desperado of fixed and even noble purpose, and from this concession passed to a state almost of joy. She was done in any case, and here was a chance to end with a fairly beautiful bang. So the thing was arranged, the needful measures taken, the date fixed in the spring of the year and a site near by selected, Venice in October having been rejected as alas impracticable. Now the fateful day had come and Ruby, in the posture of Philosopher Square behind Molly Seagrim's arras, sat winding herself up, while Belacqua, in a swagger sports roadster chartered at untold gold by the hour, trod on the gas for Irishtown.

  So fiercely indeed did he do this, though so far from being insured against third-party risks he was not even the holder of a driving-licence, that he scored a wake of objurgation as he sped through the traffic. The better-class pedestrians and cyclists turned and stared after him. “These stream-lined Juggernauts” they said, shaking their heads, “are a positive menace.” Civic Guards at various points of the city and suburbs took his number. In Pe
arse Street he smote off the wheel of a growler as cleanly as Peter Malchus's ear after the agony, but did not stop. Further on, in some lowly street or other, the little children playing beds and ball and other games were scattered like chaff. But before the terrible humped Victoria Bridge, its implacable bisection, in a sudden panic at his own temerity he stopped the car, got out and pushed her across with the help of a bystander. Then he drove quietly on through the afternoon and came in due course without further mishap to the house of his accomplice.

  Mrs Tough flung open wide the door. She was all over Belacqua, with his big pallid gob much abused with imagined debauches.

  “Ruby” she sang, in a third, like a cuckoo, “Rubee! Rubee!”

  But would she ever change her tune, that was the question.

  Ruby dangled down the stairs, with the marks of her teeth in her nether lip where she could persuade no bee to sting her any more.

  “Get on your bonnet and shawl” said Belacqua roughly “and we'll be going.”

  Mrs Tough recoiled aghast. This was the first time she had ever heard such a tone turned on her Ruby. But Ruby got into a coat like a lamb and seemed not to mind. It became only too clear to Mrs Tough that she was not going to be invited.

  “May I offer you a little refreshment” she said in an icy voice to Belacqua “before you go?” She could not bear to be idle.

  Ruby thought she had never heard anything quite so absurd. Refreshment before they went! It was if and when they returned that they would be in need of refreshment.

  “Really mother” she said, “can't you see we must be off.”

  Belacqua chimed in with a heavy lunch at the Bailey. The truth was not in him.

  “Off where?” said Mrs Tough.

  “Off” cried Ruby, “just off.”

  What a strange mood she is in to be sure, thought Mrs Tough. However. At least they could not prevent her from going as far as the gate.

  “Where did you raise the car?” she said.

  If you had seen the car you would agree that this was the most natural question.

  Belacqua mentioned a firm of motor engineers.

  “Oh indeed” said Mrs Tough.

  Mr Tough crept to the window and peeped out from behind the curtain. He had worked himself to the bone for his family and he could only afford a safety-bicycle. A bitter look stole over his cyanosis.

  Belacqua got in a gear at last, he had no very clear idea himself which, after much clutch-burning, and they shot forward in Hollywood style. Mrs Tough might have been waving to Lot for all the response she received. Was the cut-out by way of being their spokesman? Ruby's parting gird, “Expect us when you see us,” echoed in her ears. On the stairs she met Mr Tough descending. They passed.

  “There is something about that young man” called down Mrs Tough “that I can't relish.”

  “Pup” called up Mr Tough.

  They increased the gap between them.

  “Ruby is very strange” cried down Mrs Tough.

  “Slut” cried up Mr. Tough.

  Though he might be only able to afford a safety-bicycle he was nevertheless a man of few words. There are better things, he thought, going to the bottle, there are better things in this stenching world than Blue Birds.

  The pup and slut drove on and on and there was dead silence between them. Not a syllable did they exchange until the car was safely stowed at the foot of a high mountain. But when Ruby saw Belacqua open the dicky and produce a bag she thought well to break a silence that was becoming a little awkward.

  “What have you got” she said “in the maternity-bag?”

  “Socrates” replied Belacqua “the son of his mother, and the hemlocks.”

  “No” she said, “codding aside, what?”

  Belacqua let fly a finger for each item.

  “The revolver and balls, the veronal, the bottle and glasses, and the notice.”

  Ruby could not repress a shiver.

  “In the name of God” she said “what notice?”

  “The one that we are fled” replied Belacqua, and not another word would he say though she begged him to tell her. The notice was his own idea and he was proud of it. When the time came she would have to subscribe to it whether she liked it or not. He would keep it as a little surprise for her.

  They ascended the mountain in silence. Wisps of snipe and whatever it is of grouse squirted out of the heather on all sides, while the number of hares, brooding in their forms, that they started and sent bounding away, was a credit to the gamekeeper. They plunged on and up through the deep ling and whortleberry. Ruby was sweating. A high mesh wire fence, flung like a shingles round the mountain, obstructed their passage.

  “What are all the trusses for?” panted Ruby.

  Right along on either hand as far as they could see there were fasces of bracken attached to the wire. Belacqua racked his brains for an explanation. In the end he had to give it up.

  “God I don't know at all” he exclaimed.

  It certainly was the most astounding thing.

  Ladies first. Ruby scaled the fence. Belacqua, holding gallantly back with the bag in his hand, enjoyed a glimpse of her legs' sincerity. It was the first time he had had occasion to take stock of those parts of her and certainly he had seen worse. They pushed on and soon the summit, complete with fairy rath, came into view, howbeit still at a considerable distance.

  Ruby tripped and fell, but on her face. Belacqua's strong arms were at hand to raise her up.

  “Not hurt” he kindly inquired.

  “This foul old skirt gets in my way” she said angrily.

  “It is an encumbrance” agreed Belacqua, “off with it.”

  This struck Ruby as being such a good suggestion that she acted upon it without further ado and stood revealed as one of those ladies who have no use for a petticoat. Belacqua folded the skirt over his arm, there being no room for it in the bag, and Ruby, greatly eased, stormed the summit in her knickers.

  Belacqua, who was in the lead, halted all of a sudden, clapped his hands, spun round and told Ruby he had got it. He was keenly conscious of her standing knee-deep in the ling before him, grateful for a breather and not bothering to ask what.

  “They tie those bundles to the wire” he said “so that the grouse will see them.”

  Still she did not understand.

  “And not fly against the fence and hurt themselves.”

  Now she understood. The calm way she took it distressed Belacqua. It was to be hoped that the notice would have better success than this splendid divulgation. Now the ling was up to her garters, she seemed to be sinking in the heath as in a quickstand. Could it be that she was giving at the knees? “Spirits of this mountain” murmured the heart of Belacqua “keep me steadfast.”

  Now since parking the car they had not seen a living soul.

  The first thing they had to do of course when they got to the top was admire the view, with special reference to Dun Laoghaire framed to perfection in the shoulders of Three Rock and Kilmashogue, the long arms of the harbour like an entreaty in the blue sea. Young priests were singing in a wood on the hillside. They heard them and they saw the smoke of their fire. To the west in the valley a plantation of larches nearly brought tears to the eyes of Belacqua, till raising those unruly members to the slopes of Glendoo, mottled like a leopard, that lay beyond, he thought of Synge and recovered his spirits. Wicklow, full of breasts with pimples, he refused to consider. Ruby agreed. The city and the plains to the north meant nothing to either of them in the mood they were in. A human turd lay within the rath.

  Like fantoccini controlled by a single wire they flung themselves down on the western slope of heath. From now on till the end there is something very secco and Punch Judy about their proceedings, Ruby looking more bawdy Magdalene than ever, Belacqua like a super out of the Harlot's Progress. He kept putting off opening the bag.

  “I thought of bringing the gramophone” he said “and Ravel's Pavane. Then——”

  “Then yo
u thought again” said Ruby. She had a most irritating habit of interrupting.

  “Oh yes” said Belacqua, “the usual pale cast.”

  Notice the literary man.

  “S'pity” said Ruby, “it might have made things easier.”

  Happy Infanta! Painted by Velasquez and then no more pensums!

  “If you would put back your skirt” said Belacqua violently, “now that you have done walking, you would make things easier for me.”

  How difficult things were becoming, to be sure. The least thing might upset the apple-cart at this juncture.

  Ruby pricked up her ears. Was this a declaration at last? In case it might be she would not oblige him.

  “I prefer it off” she said.

  Belacqua, staring fiercely at the larches, sulked for a space.

  “Well” he grumbled at last, “shall we have a little drink to start off?”

  Ruby was agreeable. He opened the bag as little as possible, put in his hand, snatched out the bottle, then the glasses and shut it quick.

  “Fifteen year old” he said complacently, “on tick.”

  All the money he owed for one thing or another. If he did not pull it off now once and for all he would be broke.

  “God” he exclaimed, executing a kind of passionate tick-tack through his pockets, “I forgot the screw.”

  “Pah” said Ruby, “what odds. Knock its head off, shoot its neck off.”

  But the screw turned up as it always does and they had a long drink.

  “Length without breath” gasped Belacqua “that's the idea, Hiawatha at Dublin bar.”

  They had another.

  “That makes four doubles” said Ruby “and they say there's eight in a bottle.”

  Belacqua held up the bottle. In that case there was something wrong with her statement.

  “Never two without three” he said.

  They had another.

  “O Death in Life” vociferated Belacqua, “the days that are no more.”