The Onion Eaters

by J. P. Donleavy

  ‘What.’

  ‘Merely to request your gracious presence to dine tonight with me. And be forgiven that I must for this purpose avail myself of the appurtenances of your household. In this connection perhaps you might tell me of the whereabouts of the wine cellar.’

  I took a solitary walk in the rear cloister darknesses of the Charnel. Where a growling Toro suddenly thundered past the other side of a wall in the bramble undergrowth. Seagulls sliding up and down purple hillsides of sky. One so quickly gets hungry alone and cold. Out here there may be creeping horrors unseen in the night. Collect up little outposts of hope. High in towers instead of low down in dungeons. Where I showed Erconwald in the doorway of the wine cellar. And stretched out on a bed of straw laid across a shelf of champagne bottles, the prostrate bodies of Percival and Miss Ovary side by side, garments disarrayed indelicately. Elmer on the floor licking up a puddle of port and thumping his tail as he nuzzles his big black guilty drunken nose at my shoe.

  The dining room lit with candles. A bleary eyed Percival bowing each time dropping his monocle and slightly lurching beside the door. Guests standing at their places. Two new ones. A sallow fat sweaty faced man whose name was whispered Bligh. And is it. Yes. My goodness, the sandy haired smoked salmon eating gentleman off the ship. All clapping as I entered. Followed by Percival to the head of the table where he seated me. My throat swallowing. Hold back the tears. What a terribly kind thing of Erconwald to do. With my dishes, food, servants and wine.

  A fire throwing a gigantic turf glow into the room. Erconwald mid way down the table between the largest of the exprisoners and the Baron. Rose to my right. Mrs L K L at the opposite end flanked by newcomers. Franz on my left nods his head. And gives me a little shy smile. Erconwald standing.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen I propose and I am sure you will second a toast to our most noble host.’

  Charlene peeking from the serving door. A worried look across her face. As one stared down into the iced bowl of large and most perfect grains of beluga gutted from some sturgeon royal and far away. Sip this champagne bubbling palest gold. A tang of grape across the tongue. Rose smiling a big mouthful of teeth and growls as she packs the caviar on her shovel of toast and throws it back into the maw. My sandy haired friend nods and grins rejoicing in the unteetotal happiness.

  A triumphant procession. Of Fred the pig. Roasted. His ears looking especially sad on his head decorated with holly leaves and berries. His poor trotter sticking up in the air from a platter lugged by Ena and Imelda. Trays of steaming pheasant and wild rice. Percival pouring magnums of champagne. Auntie see me now. The toast of this group. No one ever singled me out for a little flattery before. It’s nice.

  Clementine excusing himself from table. Standing in the adjoining state room near a large doll’s house in the darkness. Tears tumble. Good to cry. All pours out. Trickles from the floods of terror. A signal switches the track when you head out to die. Slowly roll there. On the heavy hopeless wheels. Till a kiss tugs you back to the teeming rails of life. A sound behind me. A figure. The lumpy shadow of Percival.

  ‘Ah God sir, it’s a grand evening. I’ve never come across the likes of such as that Mr Erconwald. A more kindly gentleman never trod earth. It was a surprise for you sir we had planned these few days. Wasn’t I down there below looking for the grandest of the vintages. Trying me best to tell the great from the grand and the grand from the great. Didn’t the struggle befuddle me. Took a good jolt of brandy to sharpen me senses. And didn’t both meself and Miss Ovary find ourselves prostrate in the line of duty. If it wasn’t for Elmer we’d been kilt by the rats.’

  Turf smoke gently lowering from the ceiling. Clementine returning to table as the Baron raises his glass. His monocle flashing in the candle light. He smiles the saddest smile to me and bows his head. Must start some conversation. Just to slow the jaws grinding up the food and knives sawing on the plates. Commandeer Mrs L K L’s pistol for defence against the insurgents. Who when they advance stealthily towards the castle walls will have the shit bit out of them by mambas.

  On come glacé apricots, shortbreads and gooseberry fool. Putlog Roulette grinning over every mouthful and nodding at Rose. Bottles pouring a golden Sauterne. Which widened a continuous smile on my sandy haired friend. And downed by other faces grim and silent. Putlog waving arms madly to encourage merriment. Where one could not even with hammer and chisel cut gladness on these faces. They glower and murmur as Erconwald rises. Knocks his knuckles against the mahogany.

  ‘Good people gathered here tonight pray may I beg a moment. It is with the greatest pleasure that I bring at this time a tiding to our most gracious, noble and esteemed host who has borne grave inconvenience with indulgent patience. Franz has found material within the confines of Charnel Castle containing valuable metallic constituents.’

  Backs stiffening up and down the table. Franz bowing his head. Putlog shaking his face with yeses. The exprisoners looking at one another and clutching at their cutlery. My sandy haired friend clapping discreetly. Mrs L K L sneezing and taking a hanky from her evening purse from which clatters her pistol into her finger bowl. Rose jumping to her feet. Raising an accusing finger down the table.

  ‘That cunt’s got her gun.’

  ‘Pray people, peace.’

  ‘Peace of my arse.’

  ‘Who said that.’

  ‘I said that.’

  ‘Is it a beating you want to make enough sauce out of you to add an inch to the seas.’

  ‘Beseech you good people. Bring clarity to this situation before we are haggard with broken clavicles.’

  ‘What is clarity.’

  ‘By God clarity is that force given to a fist sent in the direction of a face that when hit has no trouble seeing stars.’

  ‘Is that so. Well right now I’ll give you a sight of the universe.’

  Erconwald went down under the avalanche. His pale hands raised to ward off the advancing bodies. Oscar the boy standing grinning ear to ear wiping the blade of a knife over and over again. A voice threatening the breakage of an ulna. Rose heading for Mrs L K L. The Baron holding the gun high over his head from grasping hands. One’s athlete’s foot is playing havoc between my toes otherwise I’d sort them out in a hurry. Bunch of them breaking my plates, skidding ruts across my mahogany, delighted with the demolition.

  ‘It’s ugsome in the Urals is it. You whore.’

  ‘For the love of God please restrain the aspersions.’

  Lead Kindly Light himself standing up on his place mat. Shod in sandals, wielding a skewer thrusting it ceilingwards as his wife lowered her head and charged bovine like at the advancing Rose. Many enemies must have been made in my absence. Putlog undoing Lead Kindly Light’s sandal straps. Unsporting manoeuvres afoot aplenty. Only the Baron smiles with his pistol pointing at the ceiling and his cheese fork implanted in a chunk of cheddar.

  ‘It’s a woolling you want and it’s a woolling you’ll get.’

  ‘Stop the clarity.

  ‘By God the stars have only begun to be seen.’

  Rose and Mrs L K L locked head on, each with hands buried deep in the other’s hair. Shaking and pulling. Erconwald on his back underneath the table his feet kicking out at the hands of the exprisoners. Franz with stethoscope pressed over his heart, thumping his free fist methodically into the ear hole of Bligh as the fat new arrival bends to separate the wrestling women. Percival with a lance in front of Clementine.

  ‘Nobody’s to lay a finger on the master of this house or he gets this where he’d rather have a lubricant.’

  Lead Kindly Light aloft on the table raising a vial of liquid. Waving it slowly back and forth. The protagonists stilled. Desisting from their scratching, biting and kicking. All heed paid to L K L stocking footed on the mahogany among the finger bowls. Amid gruntings from the ladies. Thumping haymakers deep into each other’s haggis with one hand and removing handfuls of hair with the other.

  ‘Boors unbeseeming. All of you. Stop. Instantly. As it
would be most disagreeable for me to have to detonate this glycerine treated recently with a cold mixture of concentrated nitric and sulphuric acids. Such pointless concussion will only result in a festoonery of entrails about the etruscan trancepts and much needless splattering of fresh blobs on the rare pink glass of the windows. All line up.’

  Erconwald brushing himself off. The fighting females holding tight to each other’s hair. The three exprisoners sheepish and shy in front of the explosive. Lead Kindly Light one handedly undoing and dropping his trousers. From under which flared out a grass skirt. Percival whispering.

  ‘Your man’s out of his mind sir, somewhere in the south seas.’

  ‘Gavotte. Gavotte or I blow you up.’

  The gathering danced. Crooked footed and very slow at first. A loose flopping up and down of ankles. Later a thundering of heels, the floor heaving. And a rending crash as Oscar the boy plummeted through the floor boards on his first caper. Standing waist high in a corner. Eyes big globes of fear. As L K L sniffs his vial held up to a nostril and scratches himself under his skirt.

  ‘Idolators. Pagans. Repent. I am the yodeller of the deeps. I have walked in the Prado. And peed in both the gents and ladies conveniences of the British Museum. One more aura of discourtesy and I will impart this titanic turbulence. That’ll make Krakatoa seem like a tar blister on the road.’

  ‘Sir that’s the ravings of a lunatic, would I be having your permission to slide the shaft of this yoke into him.’

  ‘Dance. Drop that spear you. Radicals. Dandruff makers. I am your comeuppance, Lead Kindly Light of the atomic sloth. You who fester your lives on wine women and perverted tetrahedrons. Who dare question the periodic table. And use ugly demeaning words of me. Lead Kindly Light the less of the backside contorted is it. Take a look now. At me buttocks smiling. Do any of you see baggyness about the arse parts. Fatless I am. Devoid of sinister flesh overlappings. Able to strum upon my spare ribs. The castle evil here is an affront to the cultural interests accumulated by my wife and I abroad. An explosion of this will soon perk up posterity’s ears. Shut up you dirty little eegit there in the corner.’

  ‘Help.’

  Oscar hip deep in the floor. Lifting one knee up to gain a foothold. Crashing down again through the powdery wood. Landing perched as he must be on a supporting wall. The gathering hushed under the vial aloft. A pale glow of fear over the faces. Mrs L K L and Rose shifting foot positions. L K L’s whitened small fist gyrating round his head. And now vibrating in front of his face.

  ‘Fornicators.’

  Erconwald raising his slender hand. Tranquil abider. Inclining his head. A prisoner loudly clearing his throat. All eyes on the vial. L K L’s skirt sprouting outwards as he twirls. Oscar on his knees hands joined in prayer, his round white face raised towards the ceiling.

  ‘Ah Lead Kindly I entreat to be heard. I offer a solution to our distraught posture. May I suggest the laying aside of the vial.’

  L K L holding the explosive ampoule high in the air. Erconwald hunching his shoulders in prelude to the detonation. Other beholders raising hands to block the blast. L K L screaming.

  ‘I will not have the profundities of posterity tampered with by whoremongers who have not gasped in awe at mystical revelations achieved by long navel gazing.’

  ‘My good Lead Kindly Light. Your sentiments are honoured most humbly by your obedient servant.’

  ‘Haven’t I told you my nannies walked me around the green so that I could drink the nobilities of the passing architecture.’

  ‘Pray my good, my very good Lead Kindly Light. All of us will go around the green quite soon to taste of its sombre elegances. Meanwhile may I not say just a few private words to our host who stands most disturbed and anguished there. To perhaps explain the reasonable nature of your remarks and your justifiable consternation. I would hope that you would agree to save him sufferment of further trepidation.’

  ‘You will be allowed fifty seconds.’

  ‘Ah I am most thankful and grateful to you my good, my very good Lead Kindly Light.’

  Erconwald stepping around the table with the utmost of ceremonial delicacies. His tongue lightly licking through his lips. This thin throated man of soft voice and rippling kindliness. Eyes closed he nears Clementine.

  ‘Ah good person I am indeed most contrite that this unhappy situation has arisen. L K L is a yodeller of uncommon ability. We are ancient friends. Occasioned first in the capital city during childhood upon our both swimming summers in the canal. Later we launched him upon his singing career. Many months spent abroad perfecting his yodelling made him impatient with his slow recognition upon his return. The blaze of maximum publicity we attempted to achieve by his riding our ostrich down the street failed upon the bird’s unrehearsed entry through the plate glass of a display window full of undraped plastic mannequins. The mayhem therein permanently grieved us all. His wife is a woman of wealth and culture. Her photograph has been in news periodicals. Although minor misunderstandings have saddened each of us in turn, where singing or scientific progress was at stake we worked as one. Pray be disturbed no longer.’

  ‘Thank you Erconwald.’

  Lead Kindly Light throwing the vial with a sweep of his arm. Hands flashing over faces in the sign of a cross. Bodies hurtling away from the fireplace where the slender tube plunged into the flames. A shattering blast. A bright orange ball of fire. Plaster falling from the ceilings. The twin chandeliers swinging. Night air streaming through the broken windows. Outside sparks falling from the sky. Distant booming echoes. And inside, scattered turf embers smouldering over the room. Lead Kindly Light his grass skirt up around his throat prostrate on the table, both knees twitching. Blood pouring out the nose of one of the exprisoners. Rose and Mrs L K L flat on their backs, faces covered in plaster specks, still engripped in each other’s hair. Above me the face of Charlene. In whose hands lies my head.

  ‘O dear God have mercy on you Mr Clementine. Yours is the first good honest face to enter this district for donkey’s years. Taken now from us without warning.’

  ‘I’m alive.’

  ‘God so you are. Thanks be to St Anastasia for that.’

  ‘Light the candles.’

  ‘I will sir but are you all right.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘O lord listen to the moans. The injuries will need the doctor in a hurry. Tim’s the fastest to the town. I’ll send him sir.’

  The candles extinguished relit by Charlene. A ghostly smoke rising from the debris. The Baron seated propped against the wall, an ancestor’s fallen portrait beside him to which he nods greeting and to whom he offers a glass. Percival holding his knee.

  ‘Ah God sir this is out of joint again. It’ll take a worse blast than that one now to put it back right again.’

  An exprisoner limping slowly round the room his tie hanging down his back, levelling the portraits hanging askew. The holocaust awakening sensitivities. Amid the scattered and tattered clothing. And grunts as the fighting ladies reentrench their grips loosened by the blast. A voice humming a tune. As Elmer now with his huge shaggy grey head sniffs and licks the downed faces. Percival sweeping up the smoking embers of turf. A donkey honks out across the fields. A sweet moist air of night breezing through broken windows.

  Sound of an engine and headlights of a car shooting up in the sky. Erconwald, shirt in tatters sitting elbows on the table and head in hands. The large door of the dining hall opening. Tim towering behind a small rotund man in waistcoat carrying a black bag. Pausing in the doorway. The doctor. Donning spectacles. Surveying the scene. His hand slowly reaching up and covering his heart. He sways. He totters. And crashes forward on the floor.

  Another

  Sad stillness

  This night

  Lies prone

  One more clarity

  In the middle

  Of a

  Moan

  9

  Morning beams blue and sunny after the blast and blame of the boisterous night. Cha
rnel Castle inhabitants crawling away to bedrooms. Those who could. The doctor treated on the dining room table for heart attack. Erconwald and Franz wearing arm bands with a red cross as they danced attendance upon the injured.

  I take an early morning pee and stare down from the high walls and see a gossamer webbing on the grass. Spun in the dark to make a waving sea of white. Charlene and Percival lugging me to bed. Mildly concussed I dreamt I dwelt in an igloo. Lots of folk kept arriving across the tundra. An enormous craps game developed on the packed snow over the north pole. I lost my shirt and woke up sweating. To see Elmer playfully on the floor eating the last of my precious money from Erconwald. Who lastly whispered as I was led away.

  ‘Good person although the optical refinements of the dining hall are quite good the moment is now opportune to remove the more sombre expressions and over lavish use of the baroque.’

  Lead Kindly Light of the backside contorted was last seen, a suit of armour over his grass skirt, making headway on hands and knees across the great hall and up on the mound of rubble where he attempted to stand and shake a mailed fist before falling backwards into the excavation. His voice heard down amid the material containing minerals.

  ‘I am a legionnaire. I march tonight. Upon the idolatrous and heathen to give them a fright. Those who have dared suggest a breech of impurity by calling me Lead Kindly Light of the held open kimono shall suffer.’

  The battling women left abandoned gripped in each other’s hair. The Baron seen solitary in a glow of candle light in the library reading the biography of an international swindler, a box of chocolates open on his lap and a bottle and a glass at his side. Offer this place for sale. Containing unusual assortment of permanent inhabitants. Unrepeatable bargain. To include faithful servants, silver hash dishes, bread baskets, toast racks and crumb scoops. Suitable for continuance as an institution. Ideal for those afflicted with constant digging or snake charming. Or just needing to clank casually about in armour.