The Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman

by J. P. Donleavy

  The baggy grey suited chap. A sickly smile on his face, blending back into the voices. The teeth. The eyes. The laughs. And sighs. Rashers transporting a cigarette from some one’s gold preferred case into the end of his ivory holder. Dragging the air down the length of former elephant tusk. His haughty musical voice sounding from his rather rabbit looking mouth.

  ‘The arts like Catholicism is a disease of the mind, my dear chap. Although I was born a papist I was saved from its worst corroding consequences by a childhood in India among the untouchables. A decent public school situated on a well known English river saved me as well. But of course one stands by the Romanists when Orange men up north there are thundering their drums and threatening to interfere indiscriminately with Catholic testicles. One then shall fight. One doesn’t give a damn how one’s human rights are infringed. It’s one’s animal rights one doesn’t want mucked about. But damn. One does above all prefer the rich ladies. Even to willingly placing one’s lips upon their au blet thighs. Leaving thereon the white indentation of one’s fevered mouth. And even some small pleasure is to be found in one’s pressured caress of the unresilient flesh of riper ladies’ haunches. Better than contretemps any time. Dear me. But the bad name of the Irish spreads all over the world and is only improved when they become a laughing stock.’

  ‘I hope you realize Mister Ronald that I am Irish and some of your remarks are not awfully flattering.’

  ‘You my dear chap. You. Macgillicudy. Marquis of Delgany. Prince of Kilquade. You are a genius. It matters not at all that you are Irish. And if I were not tainted that way myself, I would be bereft of my unerring sense of theatricality which enabled me during my too few undergraduate years to win wagers by running up and down Grafton Street in the thick of the morning shopping throngs. With one’s corpus spongiosum hanging loose wagging up and down. Which thankfully it did thereby riveting the attention of all. Which prevented one’s face being recognized. Let me fill up your glass, Macgillicudy. And by god I am Irish, you know. It was those damn penal laws gave us our wretched inferiority. Then my good chap, with the flight of the Wild Geese departing for saucier shores. It left what you now see surrounding you here in this Buttery. And the greatest of ironies. Protestants liberated us. Freed us from the British yoke. And then by god left installed straight down Molesworth Street our marvellous gobshite bureaucracy. But it’s a blessing. While they have their thrilling time putting their sticky fingers into tight government circles, us sybarites can play splendid with our perversions and appetites. Of course my father accused me of ratting on the war. Disinherited me of his pitiful chattels. Said if I would not fight for king and country I could not have his spoons and saucepans. I of course promptly purloined his Purdey shotguns and delivered them to the appropriate broker. Bash on regardless. That is the cry dear chap. Through the funerals of friends. Trampling the rose gardens of enemies. Bash on regardless. The cry of any self respecting member of the élite.’

  The Buttery suddenly emptying. Darcy Dancer following Rashers Ronald up the steps to the street. The Black Widow just behind me. The portrait painter Leo waving a bottle of champagne and roaring out something about diphthongs from the hotel entrance. Baptista tugging the Marquis behind her by the kilt. The stockbroker removing a club from under his coat and flattening unconscious in the gutter the plasterer from Dolphin’s Barn. A punch out of nowhere landing on the face of the grey baggy suited artistic chap as he made an attempt to enter a motor car. His cigarette smashed flat between his teeth. The élite piling in over the prostrate bodies. The waiting vehicles packed like sardines. And now roaring off with springs squealing laden with entwined bodies. A pair of lady’s feet sticking out in front of the driver’s face. Speeding over the roadway in the black night. Swerving around corners. Shadowy gable rooftops flash by out the window. Someone distinctly tampering with my fly buttons. Here I am. Flying. Through this low life. In some strange secret womb of the damned. In this city. Not a time to be particular. Impossible to tell if a male or female hand is tinkering with my balls. Whose brain knows or cares. The Black Widow pointed a finger at me. Her voice. Loud and clear.

  Bring him

  He’s

  Divine

  The crystal clear night. Stars out. Speaking. Deep in their black blue beyond. Smell of burning rubber. Wind pouring in the window. Limbs poking in all directions. A voice groaning in rapture. Another screaming in fucking discomfort. Someone said there’s Bull Island. Lips kissing my throat. Unable to move to see who it is. And whoever it was, has now let go of my balls. And is pulling my prick. Just as we all crush backwards motoring up a steep hill. Thought I saw the masts of boats. And I do. Down there in the harbour.

  Darcy Dancer retwisting his arms and legs back into shape as the bodies separate. Up here in the salty air the line of motor cars unload. A rocky hill covered in heather and gorse. Stand in front of this rhododendron shrouded big house perched up over the sea. Try to adjust one’s dress. Finally saw the hand coming out of my flies. Belonging to a chap called Cecil. Who winked at me. Step down through the oily leaved shrubbery. With this arriving crowd. Towards this massive door opening. And this stark naked man whom last I saw on a pavement flattened in a puddle of stout. And now erect once more bowing in the guests.

  ‘Come in my dear darlings. Binky greets you. Come in. Quickly before I’m frozen.’

  A long wide hall of black and white tiles. A grand staircase circling upwards at the far end. Through an ante room. One of Lois’s pudenda paintings on the wall. And further. This large drawing room. The guests gathered. Corks popping. A gramophone playing. And beyond the shuttered windows hear the ocean waves below go crash, go booming. The Black Widow woman. Comes with her thin wristed arm aloft to take me waltzing out across the floor. Kissing my neck. And three gentlemen on the side lines growl.

  ‘Don’t mind them dear boy. They’re jealous fliers from the Royal Air Force. You are what I have been waiting for this whole entire evening, you absolurely gorgeous darling. So young, so young, so young. But that is not an invitation for you to say that I am so old so old.’

  ‘I was not about to say that.’

  Darcy Dancer swirling on the parquet. Right past Lois in a mattress thick green sweater and skirt. Dancing with Binky. Whose skinny shanks and long spare body made one think of an undressed butler. Lois’s head resting with her eyes closed on his shoulder. As one ventures to ask this Black Widow.

  ‘Who is that person Binky. He looks like an undressed butler.’

  ‘But my dear, that’s what he is, my butler.’

  ‘Does he always go without his clothes.’

  ‘Only after ten p.m.’

  Sound of more arriving guests. Arms stacked with parcels of bottles. And a roar of Leo the painter at the drawing room door.

  ‘Begorra Sodom and Gomorrah.’

  And the Black Widow swirling Darcy Dancer in a wild spinning circle. The lights go whizzing past one’s eyes. The faces loom. And this largest of the three Royal Air Force gentlemen tapping me on the shoulder.

  ‘My turn to dance my dear fellow.’

  Lady Black Widow facing him. Blocking him away. Raising her splendid profile.

  ‘Ah all you lovely men. And you, my dearest Wing Commander or is it Group Captain. Who fought and won the war. I do like you. I do so really absolurely like you. But you see. This gorgeous creature here. I love him.’

  Snorts and harumphs erupting from this large broad shouldered chap. The Black Widow swirling me away. Round one last time and then out over the threshold. Away from the smouldering anger. And the getting of each other’s goat. Into the hall. Where a bottle was smashing down on the back of the head of the Royal Rat. Who pitched forward on his face. Roars and shouts raging. And a figure. My god. The gunman. Unleashing a fist. Socking the man with the bottle in his hand. Sending him flying footless back the length of the hall. Over a table. A white pottery lamp crashing to the floor. And the man crumpling into a stand of canes and umbrellas. Rashers in the centre of the
mêlée announcing.

  ‘Bottles as weapons you cad are simply not cricket.’

  Just as the front door opens. And the Count my former dancing master, surrounded by companions as he stands in a camel hair polo coat arms outstretched surveying the carnage. As one is led half way up this curving marble staircase of this big old house. To hear his voice ringing out.

  ‘O my dears. You have so naughtily disgraced yourselves again.’

  The Black Widow tugging my arm. And one so wants to watch. As more fists are now suddenly flying. A gentleman in a rather loudly checked jacket and bright red, white and blue bow tie. My god is flattening people in their tracks. Hardly even see his fists move and hear a thwack and down they go absolutely flaked out.

  ‘O my dear Macgillicudy, let us get away. From the noise and the people. Come.’

  ‘Where are we going.’

  ‘Away from the battlefield. To where we may make love my dear boy. To where we may make love.’

  Sound of wind groaning and whistling. Shiver along this dark hall. Led by the hand. Her skin feels cold. Her eyes look dark and then close up they were a yellowish green. Thundering crashes and more screaming below. And in the brief lull comes the music and dancing and jiggling. The Black Widow pushing closed an iron barred gate. It shuts with a heavy clank across the hall. She turns a key in the big lock.

  ‘You see my darling this is the party door. On that side are the noise and the people. On this side. It’s you and me. My husband who adores rough social gatherings also likes his privacy. We are as it were in our own little fortress. Protected if not from the sounds at least from the splattering gore. Should one lose this key there is no escape but a drop straight into the sea out the windows.’

  Her bedroom hung with tapestry. A parrot in a cage. Large Blackamoor Figures either side of her chimney piece. We stood to kiss under a chandelier she said came from the Court of the Russian Tsars. And a shot gun leaning against the wall. Shoes all over the floor. She takes off her black dress. And silky black underthings. Flings them back over her shoulders. The shadows haunt and rise up through my bones. The sea thundering. The windows trembling. Stands with her naked bony body. Tiny slender waist. And the largest nipples I have ever seen. On her so white bosoms. That I am terrified to touch.

  ‘Why is that shot gun there.’

  ‘It is kept handy so my husband can shoot my lovers.’

  ‘Thanks a lot.’

  ‘Take off your clothes my gorgeous darling. Don’t leave me naked like this just standing here.’

  Felt for my fiver still intact in my waistcoat pocket. A light out there on the sea. Comes flashing up through the windows and across the walls. She waits there. Swaying. Or my head reels. Keel over into disaster. Get killed here tonight before I ever atone for all my past misdeeds. The first awful things one has done in life. Severed strands in the rope which held up Edna Annie’s laundry drying frame so that it would when she raised it, fall and crash the wet wash down on the old crone’s head. Felt dreadful for days. Even wept. Between laughing my head off. She used to frighten me as a little tiny boy. Grabbing my wrists and squeezing them cruelly hard when she’d find me on the servants’ stairs. Step now naked towards this Black Widow’s arms.

  ‘Macgillicudy you’re so virginly beautiful. You have the body of a gazelle. Just the right thing for me. To wake me up out of doldrums. One can’t hide away from the world. Or close one’s eyes to life and live nevermore. Touch me.’

  Stacks of magazines on the floor. Four large photographs on her dressing table. An escritoire with its pigeon holes stuffed with papers and its fall front piled high with more magazines. Her mouth opens wide. Pulls my head down upon hers. Miss von B said that even for such a short time that we were together. At least we lived. What more can there be. But to just make it as long as we can. And this Black Widow makes high pitched little grunts and groans. As we stand embraced. My prick pressed hard up into her belly. Her nipples sticking hard into my chest. And Black Widow. Wish you were. My Miss von B. As we were. Back in my life. Home. Together surrounded by my green parklands. Astride our mounts galloping in the fierce madness of the winds. Instead of this body. My desperate lust makes me clutch. With miles of utter meaninglessness between. Only the Marquis’s fiver left to stave off the impecunious days. Foolishly taking drinks up to my mouth through an entire afternoon. Amid the endless flattery. Lifting one’s spirit. From one round of drinks to the next. And now jump out of my skin. A voice screaming out in the room.

  ‘Fuck you ducks.’

  ‘Don’t mind. That’s just my parrot Stinky speaking. He simply insists on saying those words at the most inappropriate times.’

  Stumbling over her shoes to the bed. Climb in and slide between the chilly sheets. Her love calls. Her purrings. To be on top of her. Pushing between her legs. Pressing. The feel of her fingers. And the circle of her muscles tightening. And thinking. Thinking of a day. Out hunting. Raring to go. With the field waiting. When the pompous Master of Foxhounds turned to tell me that in future I should not jump ahead of him. And I waited. To see him fly at a hedge. His horse tripping and somersaulting over wire. Sending the Master catapulting headlong in his scarlet coat between his mount’s ears. White breeches. White gloved. To splatter headlong into the brownest, creamiest lake of cow flop one had ever seen. Mixed to such magic consistency. To leave just a back bit of the mahogany of the Master’s boots unsullied. And one feels one has just plunged. Splat. Into life in Dublin. Just as Miss von B said it was. Drinking. Fighting. Washing off blood. Shaking hands. To rear up fighting again. And O god. In her groans. My lust. Dies. Taking something from my body. That fills me with fear in giving. As she screams to give her every drop. Shoot it into me. Gorgeous darling Macgillicudy. And I’m buried. In the sweet smell in under her hair. Her fingers pushing through mine. The chords of the sea. Lying here in the darkness. Listening to her voice.

  ‘My husband may come home. At any moment. Find us like this.’

  ‘Then I must go.’

  ‘O no I’m just joking. I just wanted to feel your body quiver. I’m sure he’s still in London. Where he’s supposed to be buying guns for a safari but is no doubt gambling and partying. Isn’t it all so foolishly sad. He worries I’ll squander his fortune before he does. He kept a taxi waiting for him once night and day for six weeks. God you are adorable. And I’ll never see you again. More probably you won’t want to see me. It’s always parting. And it’s not sweet sorrow, it’s damn misery. One man should be everything a woman needs. Only I need different men. And I need so many. The dearest, the loveliest and the wildest of my sisters. Found just one. And then threw herself out a window. Fell stabbed to death by the railing spikes on the pavement. In love poor girl with an impecunious scholarly gentleman. He lived holed up in squalid digs somewhere down Mount Street. What on earth could she see in him. And why. When every rich man in these isles was throwing his fortune at her feet. And she went walking, o god, can you imagine walking, holding hands with him.’

  ‘Why did she kill herself.’

  ‘I don’t know, over the stupidest triviality. And some stupid letter he wrote. He saw her through a window. While he was passing on Stephen’s Green. She was having dinner with just an old beau. And indeed flirtatious she was. He must have thought the worst. He wrote her a letter. And left next day on the mail boat. The letter came on Christmas eve. She was found. That marvellous girl was in her prettiest frock. A fence stuck through her lovely body. Because she must have loved him.’

  ‘What was your sister’s name.’

  Clarissa

  29

  Darcy Dancer. Bed covers pulled up to the eye. More days gone. And the worst coming. Hotel management demanding settlement of my bill. By latest tomorrow morning. Lay listening to the wireless. Till breakfast is brought. And one thinks back, O god the real goodies of life. Of cook Catherine’s late summer picked bramble jam slathered on her fresh made and hot toasted soda bread with the yellow butter melted deep down into the f
lecks of wheat.

  And read of the day’s impending races. The fat little maid now remembering to put my newspaper on my tray. After two weeks of telling her. Kept thinking I hear the sea pounding up cliffs outside the window. Those sunless people. Back on that hilltop. As cold in their souls as the ocean waves. Yesterday walked and walked. With every step. Hearing the words spoken by Clarissa’s sister. Spikes of a fence. Up through her white alabaster body. Mr Arland. Would be broken in tears. As mine went down my cheeks in the wind fresh on my face. The scent of turf smoke from the grates of the houses I passed walking to the cemetery. And the green of the spring. With a cold rainy winter in one’s life. As I looked down on the ungrassed sods over Clarissa’s grave.

  Darcy Dancer with a last sip of tea. Tear back the covers. Go in my unpaid for dressing gown and slippers to the water closet. Sit. Unable to move my bowels. As I have been every morning after the night of the Black Widow. When I unloosed her arms. Put them back sadly crossed on her breast. Could see the contours of Clarissa in her face. And as she slept I lay awake my head turned to the dawn coming up over the sea. The endless booming waves. And the Black Widow’s snoring. And me hoping her husband wasn’t coming through the party gate. To fly in blasting with his new safari guns. A ship anchored out beyond an island. On the slate green grey sea. My lips dried. My head frozen and stunned. The key on the dresser. And silver framed photographs of all four sisters. And Clarissa. I dressed staring at her. She looked so unposed unlike the others. Even though her cheek was leaning on her bent hand. String of pearls round her neck. Her face seemed so fresh and open as if she’d been blown in by a sea breeze. And as I tiptoed out. The parrot screamed again. Fuck you ducks. I unlocked the barred door. Went down the stairs. Just as pale sunlight fell on all the bodies, slumped and piled over furniture in the hall. One of which was the irate Master of Foxhounds. Who chased me out of Jammet’s. His hand gripping a club with the business end studded with nails. So unconscious was he I even nudged him with my toe. And figures were still wandering. Putting bottles back up to their lips. And one turning to me whose face one remembered from the Buttery. And whose artistic overtures were rejected by Rashers Ronald. And who was out in the street so unceremoniously punched straight on the kisser. And seemed now the only person left able to speak. Through his bruised bloodcaked swollen lips. And delighted to smilingly impart his observations.