‘But who tied you up?’ said Celia.
She knew nothing of this recreation, in which Murphy had not felt the need to indulge while she was with him. He now gave her a full and frank account of its unique features.
‘I was just getting it going when you rang up,’ he said.
Nor did she know anything of his heart attacks, which had not troubled him while she was with him. He now told her all about them, keeping back nothing that might alarm her.
‘So you see,’ he said, ‘what a difference your staying with me makes.’
Celia turned her face to the window. Clouds were moving rapidly across the sky. Mr. Kelly would be crowing.
‘My bag is on the floor your side,’ she said.
The fall on the landing had cracked the mirror set in the flap. She stifled a cry, averted her head and handed him a large black envelope with the title in letters of various colours.
‘What you told me to get,’ she said.
She felt him take it from her. When after some little time he still had not spoken nor made any movement she turned her head to see was anything amiss. All the colour (yellow) had ebbed from his face, leaving it ashen. A pale strand of blood scoring the jaw illustrated this neap. He kept her waiting a little longer and then said, in a voice unfamiliar to her:
‘My life-warrant. Thank you.’
It struck her that a merely indolent man would not be so affected by the prospect of employment.
‘My little bull of incommunication,’ he said, ‘signed not with lead but with a jossy’s spittle. Thank you.’
Celia, hardening her heart, passed him a hairpin. Murphy’s instinct was to treat this dun as he had those showered upon him in the days when he used to enjoy an income, namely, steam it open, marvel at its extravagance and return it undelivered. But then he had not been in bed with the collector.
‘Why the black envelope,’ she said, ‘and the different-coloured letters?’
‘Because Mercury,’ said Murphy, ‘god of thieves, planet par excellence and mine, has no fixed colour.’ He spread out the sheet folded in sixteen. ‘And because this is blackmail.’
THEMA COELI
With Delineations
Compiled
By
RAMASWAMI KRISHNASWAMI NARAYANASWAMI SUK
Genethliac
Famous throughout Civilised World and Irish Free State
‘Then I defy you, Stars.’
THE GOAT
At time of Birth of this Native four degrees of the GOAT was rising, his highest attributes being Soul, Emotion, Clairaudience and Silence. Few Minds are better concocted than this Native’s.
The Moon twenty-three degrees of the Serpent promotes great Magical Ability of the Eye, to which the lunatic would easy succumb. Avoid exhaustion by speech. Intense Love nature prominent, rarely suspicioning the Nasty, with inclinations to Purity. When Sensuality rules there is danger of Fits.
Mars having just set in the East denotes a great desire to engage in some pursuit, yet not. There has been persons of this description known to have expressed a wish to be in two places at a time.
When Health is below par, Regret may be entertained. May be termed a law-abiding character having a superior appearance. Should avoid drugs and resort to Harmony. Great care should be used in dealing with publishers, quadrupeds and tropical swamps, as these may terminate unprofitably for the Native.
Mercury sesquiquadrate with the Anarete is most malefic and will greatly conduce to Success terminating in the height of Glory, which may injure Native’s prospects.
The Square of Moon and Solar Orb afflicts the Hyleg. Herschel in Aquarius stops the Water and he should guard against this. Neptune and Venus in the Bull denotes dealings with the Females only medium developed or of low organic quality. Companions or matrimonial Mate are recommended to be born under a fiery triplicity, when the Bowman should permit of a small family.
With regards to a Career, the Native should inspire and lead, as go between, promoter, detective, custodian, pioneer or, if possible, explorer, his motto in business being large profits and a quick turnover.
The Native should guard against Bright’s disease and Grave’s disease, also pains in the neck and feet.
Lucky Gems. Amethyst and Diamond. To ensure Success the Native should sport.
Lucky Colours. Lemon. To avert Calamity the Native should have a dash in apparel, also a squeeze in home decorations.
Lucky Days. Sunday. To attract the maximum Success the Native should begin new ventures.
Lucky Numbers. 4. The Native should commence new enterprises, for in so doing lies just that difference between Success and Calamity.
Lucky Years. 1936 and 1990. Successful and prosperous, though not without calamities and set-backs.
*
‘Is it even so,’ said Murphy, his yellow all revived by these prognostications. ‘Pandit Suk has never done anything better.’
‘Can you work now after that?’ said Celia.
‘Certainly I can,’ said Murphy. ‘The very first fourth to fall on a Sunday in 1936 I begin. I put on my gems and off I go, to custode, detect, explore, pioneer, promote or pimp, as occasion may arise.’
‘And in the meantime?’ said Celia.
‘In the meantime,’ said Murphy, ‘I must just watch out for fits, publishers, quadrupeds, the stone, Bright’s—’
She gave a cry of despair intense while it lasted, then finished and done with, like an infant’s.
‘How you can be such a fool and a brute,’ she said, and did not bother to finish.
‘But you wouldn’t have me go against the diagram,’ said Murphy, ‘surely to God.’
‘A fool and a brute,’ she said.
‘Surely that is rather severe,’ said Murphy.
‘You tell me to get you this … this …’
‘Corpus of deterrents,’ said Murphy.
‘So that we can be together, and then you go and twist it into a … into a …’
‘Separation order,’ said Murphy. Few minds were better concocted than this native’s.
Celia opened her mouth to proceed, closed it without having done so. She despatched her hands on the gesture that Neary had made such a botch of at the thought of Miss Dwyer, and resolved it quite legitimately, as it seemed to Murphy, by dropping them back into their original position. Now she had nobody, except possibly Mr. Kelly. She again opened and closed her mouth, then began the slow business of going.
‘You are not going,’ said Murphy.
‘Before I’m kicked out,’ said Celia.
‘But what is the good of going merely in body?’ said Murphy, thereby giving the conversation a twist that brought it within her powers of comment.
‘You are too modest,’ she said.
‘Oh, do not let us fence,’ said Murphy, ‘at least let it never be said that we fenced.’
‘I go as best I can,’ she said, ‘the same as I went last time.’
It really did look as though she were going, at her present rate of adjustment she would be gone in twenty minutes or half an hour. Already she was at work on her face.
‘I won’t come back,’ she said. ‘I won’t open your letters. I’ll move my pitch.’
Convinced he had hardened his heart and would let her go, she was taking her time.
‘I’ll be sorry I met you,’ she said.
‘Met me!’ said Murphy. ‘Met is magnificent.’
He thought it wiser not to capitulate until it was certain that she would not. In the meantime, what about a small outburst. It could do no harm, it might do good. He did not feel really up to it, he knew that long before the end he would wish he had not begun. But it was perhaps better than lying there silent, watching her lick her lips, and waiting. He launched out.
‘This love with a function gives me a pain in the neck—’
‘Not in the feet?’ said Celia.
‘What do you love?’ said Murphy. ‘Me as I am. You can want what does not exist, you can’t love it.’
This came well from Murphy. ‘Then why are you all out to change me? So that you won’t have to love me,’ the voice rising here to a note that did him credit, ‘so that you won’t be condemned to love me, so that you’ll be reprieved from loving me.’ He was anxious to make his meaning clear. ‘Women are all the same bloody same, you can’t love, you can’t stay the course, the only feeling you can stand is being felt, you can’t love for five minutes without wanting it abolished in brats and house bloody wifery. My God, how I hate the char Venus and her sausage and mash sex.’
Celia put a foot to the ground.
‘Avoid exhaustion by speech,’ she said.
‘Have I wanted to change you? Have I pestered you to begin things that don’t belong to you and stop things that do? How can I care what you DO?’
‘I am what I do,’ said Celia.
‘No,’ said Murphy. ‘You do what you are, you do a fraction of what you are, you suffer a dreary ooze of your being into doing.’ He threw his voice into an infant’s whinge. ‘“I cudden do annyting, Maaaammy.” That kind of doing. Unavoidable and tedious.’
Celia was now fully seated on the edge of the bed, her back turned to him, making fast her Ballitoes.
‘I have heard bilge,’ she said, and did not bother to finish.
‘Hear a little more,’ said Murphy, ‘and then I expire. If I had to work out what you are from what you do, you could skip out of here now and joy be with you. First of all you starve me into terms that are all yours but the jossy, then you won’t abide by them. The arrangement is that I enter the jaws of a job according to the celestial prescriptions of Professor Suk, then when I won’t go against them you start to walk out on me. Is that the way you respect an agreement? What more can I do?’
He closed his eyes and fell back. It was not his habit to make out cases for himself. An atheist chipping the deity was not more senseless than Murphy defending his courses of inaction, as he did not require to be told. He had been carried away by his passion for Celia and by a most curious feeling that he should not collapse without at least the form of a struggle. This grisly relic from the days of nuts, balls and sparrows astonished himself. To die fighting was the perfect antithesis of his whole practice, faith and intention.
He heard her rise and go to the window, then come and stand at the foot of the bed. So far from opening his eyes he sucked in his cheeks. Was she perhaps subject to feelings of compassion?
‘I’ll tell you what more you can do,’ she said. ‘You can get up out of that bed, make yourself decent and walk the streets for work.’
The gentle passion. Murphy lost all his yellow again.
‘The streets!’ he murmured. ‘Father forgive her.’
He heard her go to the door.
‘Not the slightest idea,’ he murmured, ‘of what her words mean. No more insight into their implications than a parrot into its profanities.’
As he seemed likely to go on mumbling and marvelling to himself for some time, Celia said good-bye and opened the door.
‘You don’t know what you are saying,’ said Murphy. ‘Let me tell you what you are saying. Close the door.’
Celia closed the door but kept her hand on the handle.
‘Sit on the bed,’ said Murphy.
‘No,’ said Celia.
‘I can’t talk against space,’ said Murphy, ‘my fourth highest attribute is silence. Sit on the bed.’
The tone was that adopted by exhibitionists for their last words on earth. Celia sat on the bed. He opened his eyes, cold and unwavering as a gull’s, and with great magical ability sunk their shafts into hers, greener than he had ever seen them and more hopeless than he had ever seen anybody’s.
‘What have I now?’ he said. ‘I distinguish. You, my body and my mind.’ He paused for this monstrous proposition to be granted. Celia did not hesitate, she might never have occasion to grant him anything again. ‘In the mercantile gehenna,’ he said, ‘to which your words invite me, one of these will go, or two, or all. If you, then you only; if my body, then you also; if my mind, then all. Now?’
She looked at him helplessly. He seemed serious. But he had seemed serious when he spoke of putting on his gems and lemon, etc. She felt, as she felt so often with Murphy, spattered with words that went dead as soon as they sounded; each word obliterated, before it had time to make sense, by the word that came next; so that in the end she did not know what had been said. It was like difficult music heard for the first time.
‘You twist everything,’ she said. ‘Work needn’t mean any of that.’
‘Then is the position unchanged?’ said Murphy. ‘Either I do what you want or you walk out. Is that it?’
She made to rise, he pinioned her wrists.
‘Let me go,’ said Celia.
‘Is it?’ said Murphy.
‘Let me go,’ said Celia.
He let her go. She rose and went to the window. The sky, cool, bright, full of movement, anointed her eyes, reminded her of Ireland.
‘Yes or no?’ said Murphy. The eternal tautology.
‘Yes,’ said Celia. ‘Now you hate me.’
‘No,’ said Murphy. ‘Look is there a clean shirt.’
4
IN Dublin a week later, that would be September 19th, Neary minus his whiskers was recognised by a former pupil called Wylie, in the General Post Office contemplating from behind the statue of Cuchulain. Neary had bared his head, as though the holy ground meant something to him. Suddenly he flung aside his hat, sprang forward, seized the dying hero by the thighs and began to dash his head against his buttocks, such as they are. The Civic Guard on duty in the building, roused from a tender reverie by the sound of blows, took in the situation at his leisure, disentangled his baton and advanced with measured tread, thinking he had caught a vandal in the act. Happily Wylie, whose reactions as a street bookmaker’s stand were as rapid as a zebra’s, had already seized Neary round the waist, torn him back from the sacrifice and smuggled him half-way to the exit.
‘Howlt on there, youze,’ said the C.G.
Wylie turned back, tapped his forehead and said, as one sane man to another:
‘John o’ God’s. Hundred per cent harmless.’
‘Come back in here owwathat,’ said the C.G.
Wylie, a tiny man, stood at a loss. Neary, almost as large as the C.G. though not of course so nobly proportioned, rocked blissfully on the right arm of his rescuer. It was not in the C.G.’s nature to bandy words, nor had it come into any branch of his training. He resumed his steady advance.
‘Stillorgan,’ said Wylie. ‘Not Dundrum.’
The C.G. laid his monstrous hand on Wylie’s left arm and exerted a strong pull along the line he had mapped out in his mind. They all moved off in the desired direction, Neary shod with orange-peel.
‘John o’ God’s,’ said Wylie. ‘As quiet as a child.’
They drew up behind the statue. A crowd gathered behind them. The C.G. leaned forward and scrutinised the pillar and draperies.
‘Not a feather out of her,’ said Wylie. ‘No blood, no brains, nothing.’
The C.G. straightened up and let go Wylie’s arm.
‘Move on,’ he said to the crowd, ‘before yer moved on.’
The crowd obeyed, with the single diastole-systole which is all the law requires. Feeling amply repaid by this superb symbol for the trouble and risk he had taken in issuing an order, the C.G. inflected his attention to Wylie and said more kindly:
‘Take my advice, mister—’ He stopped. To devise words of advice was going to tax his ability to the utmost. When would he learn not to plunge into the labyrinths of an opinion when he had not the slightest idea of how he was to emerge? And before a hostile audience! His embarrassment was if possible increased by the expression of strained attention on Wylie’s face, clamped there by the promise of advice.
‘Yes, sergeant,’ said Wylie, and held his breath.
‘Run him back to Stillorgan,’ said the C.G. Done it!
Wylie’s face came asu
nder in gratification.
‘Never fear, sergeant,’ he said, urging Neary towards the exit, ‘back to the cell, blood heat, next best thing to never being born, no heroes, no fisc, no—’
Neary had been steadily recovering all this time and now gave such a jerk to Wylie’s arm that that poor little man was nearly pulled off his feet.
‘Where am I?’ said Neary. ‘If and when.’
Wylie rushed him into the street and into a Dalkey tram that had just come in. The crowd dispersed, the better to gather elsewhere. The C.G. dismissed the whole sordid episode from his mind, the better to brood on a theme very near to his heart.
‘Is it the saloon,’ said Neary, ‘or the jugs and bottles?’
Wylie wet his handkerchief and applied it tenderly to the breaches of surface, a ministration immediately poleaxed by Neary, who now saw his saviour for the first time. Punctured by those sharp little features of the fury that had sustained him, he collapsed in a tempest of sobbing on that sharp little shoulder.
‘Come, come,’ said Wylie, patting the large heaving back. ‘Needle is at hand.’
Neary checked his sobs, raised a face purged of all passion, seized Wylie by the shoulders, held him out at arm’s length and exclaimed:
‘Is it little Needle Wylie, my scholar that was. What will you have?’
‘How do you feel?’ said Wylie.
It dawned on Neary that he was not where he thought. He rose.
‘What is the finest tram in Europe,’ he said, ‘to a man consumed with sobriety?’ He made the street under his own power with Wylie close behind him.
‘But by Mooney’s clock,’ said Wylie, ‘the sad news is two-thirty-three.’
Neary leaned against the Pillar railings and cursed, first the day in which he was born, then – in a bold flash-back – the night in which he was conceived.
‘There, there,’ said Wylie. ‘Needle knows no holy hour.’
He led the way to an underground café close by, steered Neary into an alcove and called for Cathleen. Cathleen came.
‘My friend Professor Neary,’ said Wylie, ‘my friend Miss Cathleen na Hennessey.’
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