The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B

by J. P. Donleavy

  And the door opened with a knock. A tray and ice bucket of champagne. A dish of tongue and smoked salmon. Put on a low round mahogany table. A silver haired waiter in his long tails. Tearing off the grey gold foil, gently lifting the wire cap away. And with a neat quiet twist, a discreet pop and a little white froth he poured two glasses, bowed and smiled and was gone. Beefy sitting back in checked cap, plus twos, orange tie and yellow shirt.

  "One is now launched in life. Pick up a little London town house cheap. Throw in a few silk rugs. Little leather work around the place. With a marble hallway and staircase nothing can ever fault one's dignity. Asprey's nearby where one is able to rush to cure one's pale spirit. Me old granny has taken the news of my being sent down rather amiss. Usual old threats. Cut off the allowance, disinheritance, and the shoving of one's person into residential furnished chambers a shadowy end of Mayfair. Not nice. So much unhappiness and misunderstanding these days. I gave that rough who was pursuing Miss Fitzdare some what for. There was a whistle for a set scrum and the chap elbowed me in the ribs. Finally had to say, please don't do that. Had to settle his hash with a bolo to the haggis. And bundle him into the mud. One knows his type well. Fortune hunter. You mustn't worry. But of course you know you must propose to the precious Fitzdare immediately. Matchmaker Beefy knows the time to strike."

  At eleven the phone rang. The taxi was arrived. To go out northwards from Dublin. On the Swords Road through Santry. All my shoes shined by Horace to last for years. A final cold crap done in college bog. A moment remembered by an elm tree, one day passing the playing park. Miss Fitzdare giving of her all on the ladies hockey team. Showing her splendid knees. I was just in time to see her slam the white ball when grossly fouled by a fat creature. And Fitzdare ran on to score a goal, to walk back midfield most unperturbed her hair hanging in a pony tail.

  Beefy motored with me to the airdrome, his legs crossed and cap lowered over his eyes. Out past the green fields. Grey gateways to haunted houses back in the trees. He stood out on the balcony of the airport building. I walked with my glad- stone bag over the lonely concrete to the waiting grey plane. Beefy said good luck dear boy and take your tea like a man, and see you back for my monster party. I climbed up the little ladder. Beefy blew a kiss goodbye, his hair waving in the breeze. Two engines humming under the wing, its nose pointed up at the sky as we rolled along. I sat mid ships near a tiny window looking out past the strut. And we bumped down the runway and slowly up into the air.

  Rising in the western sky. Dublin to the south a grey pincers biting a blue sea. As cows jumped scattering across the grass below. Hedges grow small. And beyond, the fields stretch to the heavens. Turning north now over Drogheda, the coast and Irish Sea. During the awful weeks of waiting. Fitzdare came and said but you jolly well must cheer up. I've come to take you out to Greystones. The train is in twenty minutes from Westland Row. Out by the sea you'll feel so much better. Do come please come with me. It was a Saturday. Together we went down and out my steps. Across by the lawns, out the back gate and along Westland Row. Yes that's where I learned to play harp, piano and harpsicord. She wore a light grey sweater, moss green suit, a purple line making big squares. Her string of pearls and a black silk scarf tied under her chin. A smile and laughing teeth. I think you'll like this uncle too. He's nice. The great train came pounding and throbbing into the lonely red brick station. Two round trip tickets travelling first class. Past the rusty stone of Blackrock between walls bursting with shrubs and flowers. The sorrow of these grey gravel platform stops. Carrying all my sadness further out to Sandycove. Glenageary with pink flowers in the grass. Out of a dark tunnel we came. Our hands touching on the seat. She turned and said please, before you go away to London do come to Fermanagh. And down below the tracks, grey waves of the sea on a wintry looking beach. Past green hills to Greystones. In a summer house under yew trees we sat with her uncle sipping gins and tonics. A whispering wind in that pine scented garden. A gentle rain sometimes falling. There she was. She sits. Her laughter flowing sweet. Eyes always adance. And later walking back to the station we saw nuns standing silent and dark at open windows reading in their black prayer books. She said as we passed the big house and high hedge they're all alone with their hearts and it must be calm and not unhappy. Fitzdare said when she was a little girl on holidays here she borrowed books from that public library. Tied her horse to the railing and he drank water from the trough. There across the road against the wall. My desecrated life. Up here in an airplane through these purest clouds. I fly to see her. From my beery shenanigans. Rocking in the air. Alone on this plane. Bumping over the purple grasses far below. Ponds and rivers. Blue mountains, silver streams. Gone now my rooms in Trinity. The grey expanse of college. And those terribly sad moments walking up my granite steps, haunted on the stone slabs. The afternoon the college authorities handed down their verdict. I stood at the bars of the half landing looking out back at the rugby pitch of College Park. Heard a train puffing over the tracks towards Westland Row. I held myself together. Wrapped in my arms. Climbed quickly up and entered my rooms in case anyone would come and see me there. I never wanted to be sent away. From the bootscrapers at the doorway entrance. From all the knobbly trees in the square. Where the sharp iron spears hold up the chains and one could hang from the cross bars up on the lamp posts. Horace stood by and asked if there was anything he could do. I thanked him and he left, away on his bicycle under his battered hat. I stood at my scullery window. The shattering loneliness makes the spirit well up and grieve. All this now is gone. To leave the green peace and beauty. The lovely walled silence safely away from the hurrying world. Look and see it all for the last time. The morning rescued out of Donnybrook. I lay in the warm waters. In the bath house which squats before the Dining Hall windows in Botany Bay. Under the skylight, within cubicles on the smooth tiled floor. Big hooks for clothes and I dreamt of Fitzdare lying there. All of her long white alabaster body. The tip of my pole poking above the waters. To be in you Fitzdare. Give you joy without pain or heartbreak. One knows of other college sorrows. Of only two weeks ago. A man jumped from his window and splashed his brains on the cobbles of Front Square. A scholar passing in the midnight found him there. When other night times Beefy stole pears out of the Provost's garden. And daytimes the sun did shine in on my life. To let grow up such strange dreams before the verdict was handed down. Of glowing golden cities to the east, waiting for the step of my foot when my moment would come to travel at the close of the academic year. After the last postings of white sheets of paper on the boards. Final meetings of unions and societies. I was glad through the days of Advent and Epiphany. And watched as a scroll was handed to Fitzdare. On a grey cold Wednesday. The awarding of the Diploma for Women in Religious Knowledge. And I could not sleep that night and awoke early in the chill for my one and only religious moment. I washed staring out across the empty square. With combed wet hair and sniffling nose I hurried along the gleaming street. Cold out and cold within. Briskly on frigid feet in damp socks to chapel. Eight thirty o'clock. Hoping for some little warmth from one's gown. Black light fabric sweeping aside with the breeze of walking. All the tiny warmths escape. The chapel smelling of its timber. The engines tremble this airplane. Make these moments always keep. Take them with me wherever I go. As I did that morning to hear the voices singing. The cheeks of Beefy's face puffed in song. After a night of sin. He goes all better all beautiful. About his ways. Under the stained glass eyes of God up there at the end of the chapel. And behind him College Street, a yeast company, and wandering citizens. God has such big shoulders and long flowing white hair. Please look down on me now. Dry away the helpless sips I took of friendly impurity. Make me good and worthy of Fitzdare. I seem so unclean. Only one charge put down for baths on my college account. The curtain fallen. On university years. Ireland down below. Where waits Fitzdare. Able to recite all Chordate characteristics. A ventral heart. Blood contained in vessels. And saucy minded, all I can recall is the tail extended beyond the anus
. For which I would listen for her lips to say. Anus. She said it bravely and abrupt. Her cheeks slightly coloured. In all my zoological knowledge anus always stood four letters alight on the wasteland blank of my mind. O Balthazar if s so easy to remember. A dorsal hollow nerve cord. In Amphipoda, the carapace is absent, the eyes are sessile and the uropods styliform. And upon that academic instant I struck out. We sat across our afternoon coffee in the stained glass no smoking room up Grafton Street. I said come to Paris. Her face went beet red. I panicked holding my hand over my heart, fingers perusing the embroidery of my linen hanky. I stumbled on in a broken hoarse voice unable to stop. We could go spooking around my father's country house all shuttered up for years. Inside the big brooding walls and iron gate. Or go to the races at Chantilly. Separate suites at the Raphael. She looked down at her folded fingers. And said yes, she'd come anywhere with me. I sat stunned in this long silence. Our bodies together between the sheets. Tears came hopelessly carefree out my eyes. I had to turn my face away. And found all the afternoon dowagers staring. I got up and hurried out. My God what's wrong with me. So afeared and frightened by her courage. To ask her come away with me. And she says yes. I told Beefy. He said my God marry her before you get corrupted in evil ways. Take her not to Paris but in marriage, dear boy. She will look splendid in mountain climbing gear. Two of you. Out there on the crags, fussing over outcroppings. Sighing in ravines. Dear boy the two of you have so much to learn. The foldings of the mountains. Follow her up the icy peaks and not me into hell. Each banging with your little hammer. And down there I see some rolling mountains. The pilot shouts out his little open door. Descending now. Fasten your seat belt please. Belfast is on the right. Loughs lie in a green flat gleam. Ragged coast. He says there is the River Lagan. Can't believe Fitzdare will be there. Just waiting. As Belfast sits in a valley, faint smoke hovering above. Light green the world once was. We go lower and lower now. To turn fluttering in over the rolling fields. Wind whistling by windows. Closer and closer. Farms and barns. Tilled brown acres and yellow ones. The hedgerows pass. The wet runway. Hares scattering across the grass. The bumping wheels. And one sits back again. Low cream coloured buildings. Like dead sun and sand. A summer sea so many years ago sucked in from beneath the soles of my feet. Waves washed around my ankles, my young skin white and blue. And once when nannie lay in foam, the sea washed up between her legs. I said is that hair there, like sea weed and she rolled over on her face. And the water came up around my knees. Now past all those years, from the summers sprang blond autumn trees. As this aircraft stops. And the pilot smiles. A little bumpy coming in but we're safely here.

  Balthazar in rust brown tweed suit. His walking stick and yellow gloves. Crossing towards the barracks buildings. Flat roofed on this flat land. Bereft and lonely. A soft mist. And no one here. Only the hares out on the flying field swivelling their ears as the plane taxied past. And clouds of starlings and flocks of plover. The endless green flat countryside beyond.

  A little slope of lawn. In the center a ring of boulders. The flag of Britain flying there. O God she didn't come. Found out all about my saucy escapade. Call the pilot back. I want to leave at once. Take my bag to customs first. Through this door. Along this corridor. Customs man in blue, gold rings round his sleeves. This your only luggage sir. Are you out of that plane. Yes. On holiday. Yes. His smile and mark of chalk. And I go out these doors. And may have to come back through again.

  Balthazar B passing out to this waiting room. His cane and his bag. Through these sprawling huts. Look here look there. And no Fitzdare. Maybe wait atop these steps. The rough may have lured her away. Let her wipe her feet in his hair. Now Til go back in again. Eat this great bowl of emptiness. And suddenly turn. So much despair on my face. And see standing there. Watching me. Fitzdare. Like a whole blazing sun in this land so solemn, silent and bare.

  A chauffeur in leather leggins, grey uniform and grey peaked cap. Took Balthazar's bag. And held open a door into this black leather topped limousine. An ancient long black car. Fitzdare in a pair of rubber boots. And a zipped up green jacket with folds of maps sticking from the pockets. Her teeth so white and lips so lively red.

  "Gosh you've come. I just had to watch you. Looking so lost and strange. I saw you walking from the plane. I apologise for this great old crock of car. But it does get one there. I don't know what to say. Just to see you sitting here. O push those over. My weekly errands in Belfast. Will you have a grape."

  "Thank you."

  "So funny, you stepping out of that one little plane. Hello."

  "Hello."

  "I just want to say hello again. I hope you're not too hungry. We've fifty miles to drive. Terence will take us the quickest way. I've been trying to figure one on all my maps but give up. I've got a pocket full of walnuts. Have one."

  Narrow empty winding roads. Horses and tractors cutting and raking meadows. White walled farms. Fields cocked with hay. Neat thatched roofs. The muck and mud at fence gates. Churns of milk waiting at the end of lanes. Wheels whirring on the black wet gleaming surface. Fitzdare said through there you can see Lough Neagh. Down across the sodden fields and scrubby trees a grey water haunted and lonely out to the horizon.

  "I call it the eely eerie pond. Full of eels. There is an island where there are dangerous rabbits. They fought off the rats. And now the rabbits are so fierce they'll attack and bite a man. The flies are awful in summer. Keeps the shores very lonely. Lot of funny names to our towns. Tanderagee and Ballygawley. O dear I'm sure I sound enthralling as a guide."

  Through little towns and villages. Castle ruins silhouetted on the hills. She gives each its name. I ride with an erection. One's hopefully imposing perpendicular. All my own. To cross into County Fermanagh just beyond Fivemiletown. Fitzdare with a signal ability to crack her walnuts. She feeds the meat to me. From the cool palm of her hand. Will confront her father. I've designs on your daughter dad. In the musty upholstery smell of this car. As now Miss Fitzdare sits up. And suddenly shy.

  "It's only along here now beyond this bend.. Up there on that hill there's a sort of table land where one can get a marvellous gallop in the wind."

  A wall, stones sleeping all stacked up. Beech trees, their smooth grey silver rising high in the sky. A white gate hanging broken from an upper hinge. Bumping over a pot holed drive. An umbrella of rhododendrons. Over a little bridge and stream. The road turning through meadows and another wood, haunted and strangled in vines. Chauffeur slowing to an open gate. The wheels making a ringing noise bumping over the rungs of a cattle trap. Parkland and grasses. Now between two tall stone pillars mossy and green with ivy leaves into a cobble stone courtyard. Fitzdare so still and silent.

  The grey heavens opening to a stretch of blue. The sun shot out. Rolling and spilling over lawns aflood with green. And a rambling great slate roofed house. Could see a porch across the front held up under high granite pillars. Gleaming tall windows. Ivy covered grey blocks of stone. Chimneys and chimney pots. And blue lake water sprawling in the distance, against hills turning gold and purple.

  "We're here. Everyone's going to mind I brought you in the back door. We've got to get you boots. There's Dingle. See his head sticking out of that stall. Show you him later. I've put you in a room where you can see the lough."

  Miss Fitzdare pushing open a brown door. Slamming closed behind us. Cold paving stones. A chill air. Doors, halls and kitchens. Past a shadowy scullery. A grey haired woman turning to look up from her table stacked with greens as we passed by. Who smiled to Fitzdare's smile. A boy with his hair plastered down and parted in the middle. In a tight grey coat, his blue wrists and wrinkled nearly white collar. Carrying Balthazar's bag. He said yes miss and no miss and I don't 256 know about that, miss. A flush of colour on Fitzdare's cheeks. Walking fast and certain on her way.

  Through this rambling house. A high long corridor. A print of Trinity Dublin. And out now into a great front hall. Gilded mirrors. A wide staircase. And high up a round skylight. Yellow flowers on the mante
ls. Portraits watching down. Light blue carpet and marble balustrade up by these wide gentle white stone stairs. Just as Beefy said. Nothing can ever fault one's dignity. Can't believe I'm here. Just behind her. Seems so strange and far away. As she plods in her boots. Following this little boy. Who now lags behind. Haven't seen to that yet, miss. I'll be walking him about four miss. And he gives a little bow of the head and leaves us in this spacious room. A fire blazing. Great sills of the windows. And seats piled high with golden pillows.

  "I hope you're going to be comfortable. I've been airing it out for three days. You're west and south. In the morning it's quite magic when the sun is shining on the hills and lake. This was my mother's room. Hope you won't mind the canopied bed. If there's anything you need. Just push the button there. Someone but not a footman will come. You laugh but it really works and someone comes. I know what you're thinking, well you look just as strange standing there to me as I must look to you. Neither one of us has hardly said a word.'"

  "It's terribly beautiful. I'm rather speechless."

  "Tea will be in twenty minutes. And your bath and dressing room's through there. Just come down. Whenever you're ready. Dear me. Can I just say. Fm so awfully glad you're here. I thought of it so much. And now you are. I'm at such a loss. Look at me. In my gum boots."

  Miss Fitzdare a curl of her black hair fallen over her brow. Cool white face I could gather up in my hands and press my lips on her eyes. Grab her shoulders. Pull her down with me on the crimson counterpane. Amid these faint white white walls with drawings of little inky flowers. As she smiles and steps away out the door. To leave me now. And stare out the window. A table under a folded fading awning. The grass so smooth and rolling down to the water's edge. Across a metallic glimmering grey to low pastures and higher hills beyond. Dreamt of her sitting somewhere out there so many times. That a breeze would come and flutter the page of her book as she read. Through the summer afternoons. And she would close it then, to look up at the sky. When life stops in the silence. With only racing buzzing bees and dancing white butterflies. A bird sings. Reach up to put a hand to some dream you kept awake. Now you take it like a red ripe apple and polish quietly up and down one's sleeve. Sent away from college. The sadness is I've left her there. With all the arthropoda. And phylums of polyzoa. And o God the subclass of crossopterygii. As this sky goes so quickly grey. Getting on for rain. A portrait there. Her mother. An elegant face of black hair and blue eyes. Will watch me pull on my knickerbockers. I so specially brought with my heather coloured stockings. To cut at least a sporting figure. Look everywhere here for signs of her. There she sits in this tiny photograph on a donkey and over here on a horse. Row of little leather books. The History of Armagh. My bath and dressing room. Oatmeal soap in this flower covered dish. Soft clear water runs and fills the bowl. Brush my hair. Take lint off the coat. Stocking seams straight. Put on my walking shoes. Cold crystal delicious water to drink. Goes down my throat and washes the soul. Seagulls over the lough. Great slow flapping wings of a heron. The rarest Fitzdare grew up out of this land. On the blackberries and cabbage. And behind those trees, her horses graze. Must rub a little across the toes. Uncle Edouard said a gentleman's shoes should never carry too much shine.