Sky darkening. Men just up the street, lurking in the doorway of the corner pub. Scarves wrapped up round their necks and eyeing me suspiciously from under their caps. One’s heart nearly breaks standing here. On these ancient worn granite steps. This is the number. This is the door. Past Magennis Place. Down Mount Street and its bleak perspectives. The grime and the gloom. Pointing washed away between the bricks and the drainpipe from the roof gutter leaking down by the door. One’s hand dare hardly reach to bang this knocker again. No sound inside. No sign. Not even his name. Yet must bang again. Wait. I may be mistaken. But his letter said he lived on the first floor of a Georgian house, with a broken iron balcony. Across from the back of Westland Row train station. And there it is, just as he said, the gentlemen’s convenience tucked into the wall with a rather dignified arched cut stone elevation. Bang once more. A sound. Feet coming. Slowly. Now in the hall. Latch pulled back. Door opening.
‘Kildare.’
‘Yes.’
‘Heavens I hardly expected to find you. I was expecting it to be the laundry man.’
‘I do apologize calling unbidden upon you like this.’
‘Well dear me, you have. And so you may as well come in. I was only at this very moment in the middle of a message to you.’
‘Mr Arland, you’re limping.’
‘Yes. My hip. Went on me. Just as I was off to see you. Not as fit as you, Kildare, I’m sure. Come. Please don’t expect a palace. Or indeed much more than a hovel.’
Slowly up the stairs. In the musky odours. Laths showing through plaster broken on the walls. Around the landing past a sickly green door, a sign, The Trans World International Engineering Company, half scribbled and printed on a warped piece of cardboard hanging suspended under a rusted thumb tack. High up over the stairwell, a roof skylight throwing down pale gloomy light. On the head and back of this man who so much by his kind words, his example, his advice and warm sympathies, bids me think that there was ahead in one’s life a noble reason to live.
‘Well Kildare, please forgive these conditions to which you are about to be exposed.’
Key stuck in the door. Mr Arland pushing it open. A hand gesturing one in. His room. My god. This is awful. Unmade grey sheets on a narrow bed. A cooking stove. Frying pan full of grease. Clumps of wet turf smouldering in a tiny grate. A lone bare light bulb hanging by its cobwebbed wire from the ceiling. A steamer trunk. Lieut. N. P. Arland, RNVR, in the corner. A warped cupboard, its panels cracked. A shirt by a bottle of milk. Sausages and two eggs next to a hairbrush on his broken dresser. Sheets of paper strewn amid newspapers and books. A gnawed piece of bread.
‘The condition of my room I fear is not exactly what one might expect of an ex naval officer, Kildare. And I do most abjectly apologize. Standing you up. I was coming to meet you. As you see I am still dressed for the occasion. But I fear my hip, when it goes like this, unless rested, only gets worse. As you see here on my College Historical Society notepaper to which I helped myself copiously as an undergraduate, my message to you. A nuisance the time it takes me now to get up and down the stairs. Do. Sit there. Alas the only chair. I’ll park here on the bed. Well dear me. It is good to see you. It is really. I wish it were in more auspicious surroundings.’
‘It is good to see you too. Mr Arland.’
‘Well we’ve got to stop that Mr Arland stuff.’
‘But you have never told me your Christian name.’
‘Alas with good reason, Kildare. And perhaps my middle one will better suit the purpose. My first Christian name being none other than Napoleon. It provokes endless inanities especially in Dublin. So therefore call me Patrick, please. And I shall call you Darcy if I may. Well you’re about two feet taller. And clearly a man of the world. Did you come by taxi.’
‘I walked. By way of Westland Row.’
‘A smattering of one or two decent architectural features, aren’t there, around this area, I think.’
‘Yes. One or two.’
‘Merrion Hall’s not that far away with its Protestant elevations. Does make one realize that there’s hardly a Roman Catholic thing in Dublin to boast about. I mean the church by the station of course. Nice front pillars. Plinths plain at least. Inside, does have one interesting marble plaque to boast about. A viscountess who died in Paris in eighteen fifty. A County Meath family. Helps the soul to dwell on these little obscure antiquities. One attempts to cure one’s injured spirit by any means. Ah, but I think the day comes when one has to rue the senseless pleasure in having been a romantic. Graviora quaedam sunt remedia periculis. Translate Kildare. Ah I see it’s hard to change our use of names, isn’t it.’
‘I do not believe there remains a single phrase of Latin left in my head, Mr Arland.’
‘Dear me. Have I also failed as a tutor then. Well in that case, some tea perhaps.’
‘Yes please.’
‘But how are you Kildare. And do tell me. How is Andromeda Park. I hear you have taken over. How is Sexton’s Latin getting on. Or is it Greek nowadays. I did occasionally hear him rattling off the alphabet to himself. And Crooks, how is he.’
Mr Arland, limping and disappearing out the door with his kettle. Returning with a smile. Striking a match. Turning on the gas ring. The blue flames licking out under the blackened aluminium. One does somehow feel it at least encouraging, Mr Arland keeps open his eyes to what is commendable in these streets of some squalor. Perhaps it reassures him he is not entirely removed from the civilised world. But as one tells him of Andromeda Park, a lost nostalgic sadder look grows on his face as he munches a cream cracker.
‘Darcy, do have some brandy in your tea, I’m having it in mine.’
‘Thank you. But Mr Arland. Please do tell me now. How you really are.’
‘Kildare. Complaint is tiresome, you know. But I suppose it’s been a long time since last we parted. Yes. I do put a brave face upon it. And must not bore you with what I’m sure is my transparent dishonesty.’
‘But please, it would so help to know if you are here like this through design or necessity.’
‘Not design Kildare. More necessity. But I simply found I could not work after Clarissa’s death. I don’t suppose there’s any way of ever getting over it. As crushing as her dying by other circumstances would have been, it was doubly so to have been the cause oneself. Just from a glance through a window. And she was. Just innocently dining with someone else. A dreadful disease is jealousy. And what it has done to another out of one’s own selfish pique. Had I only spoken. And not written. It’s so easy to think all women flirts, and their interest in one just their passing fancy. I suppose my letter revealed to her so much past hurt of mine. And then too late to find she loved me as much as I loved her.’
‘You mustn’t talk further about it.’
‘No I mustn’t. Not while I still can’t hold back my tears. I came back here from London. Finding it there just as bleak and just as dark. If you look out the window. That street across there goes under the railway. Beneath the bridge there’s an aperture through which one can peek and see a long series of arches supporting the tracks above. And like one’s life. I’ve had to build each arch to carry one’s burden. And I’ve managed to do that from day to day. Yet I do feel very under the weather sometimes. My steady if small emolument. At least allows survival. And occasionally I’m invited to dine on Commons. Rushing there like a hungry animal. To take a sherry in the Fellows’ Common Room. Sit at high table. See the girl’s sweating faces at the serving hatch having lugged up from the deep bowels of the kitchen the great roasts. The litany of grace. Scrape of chairs on the floor as we all sit down. The gowns. The swell of voices as the dishes clatter, the carvers carve and porters rush to serve. Those things keep one from entirely sinking. But I suppose living here is indeed like joining the lighthouse service, which I always said I might do. Keeping the flame going and the reflectors shined. Reading books as the seas pound. Yes, even to reading this strange volume I see you’re casting your surprised eye at. Aptly
called Women, Love and Life. Treating as it does of love and beauty. Love and courage. Love and tolerance. There’s so much truth often found in the trite and sentimental. Anyway. Whiles away the solitude.’
‘But surely you don’t propose to become a recluse.’
‘Ah Kildare not quite. I occasionally at least have in my life brighter patches now. Making me able to face the world and give it back an occasional kick in the backside.’
‘Sir I am glad. I think one must always be ready to rise by dawn’s early light, shake the mud from one’s heels and remount.’
‘Yes, Kildare, yes, remount. But I suppose one has meanwhile been taught one god awful agonizingly long lesson in loneliness.’
‘And you have not even a wireless here, sir.’
‘No. I suppose if I did I could have found solace listening to the orchestral. Instead of pacing, where it permits, on this awful green carpet. Turning again and again to look out the window for life somewhere down on the street. Only to see pathetic passing figures making their hunched cold way through the damp evening. Or see queer gentlemen in search of each other in the convenience across the road. Making one shrivel up even more in one’s loneliness. Moments come when you feel that no one in the world wants your company. And what is worse, when you then see someone and think perhaps you could talk or get to know that person, and then, if you sense that he or she is lonely too, it makes you feel that their loneliness will only make your own more unable to bear. Leaving two people already so lonely, simply creeping cringing away from one another in their desperation.’
‘But you must, you must come and stay at Andromeda Park.’
‘Yes I must. One has got to know every inch nook crack and patch of this room, every spot on the wall. Stain or smudge on the carpet. The sound and squeak of every floorboard. Even know if a stranger’s steps go by in the hall. All these things, if you let them, become drum beats of a dirge. Forgive me Kildare, I suppose it’s the brandy talking now. But there were moments so wretched that time itself seemed to come and add to the crushing weight on one’s soul. To be as if one were flung away as a discarded bandage. And not even accorded the minimal dignity of being deserving of some contempt, just merely the most utterly uncaring indifference. And all of one’s own stupid making.’
‘But Mr Arland, we all must fight such things. Do them battle.’
‘Yes Kildare yes. But as much as one knew that one must soldier on, one could not crawl out from under the awful brooding gloom. The love one has for someone, left gnawing in one’s vitals. Becoming such a sickly poisonous wretchedness that you wonder how the species could allow such to exist, except, yes, and I think this is why. It is to crush to dust the hopes such as I might ever have for fatherhood. For sons being born like me, or daughters, who would be unruthless and loving, and sentimentally unwise like their father.’
‘No, no Mr Arland, that’s not so.’
‘Yes it is Kildare, it is. And I have put far too much brandy in my tea. And what dreadful sophistic drivel I spill upon your kindly indulgent ears. The cure in my book of homoeopathy is distillate from the bean of St Ignatius. Three globules, eighteenth dilution. Taken twice at intervals of three days when there is great moral depression consequent upon grief. But since no chemist Kildare seems able to make it up, I suffice to have just the brief joy one has of a visit to Bewley’s Oriental Café for rashers, egg, toast and coffee and spice bun. Reading The Times, if it’s arrived from London. One does take a little reassurance and some occasional amusement from the personal column. And yet having breakfasted well, paid my bill and visited Bewley’s bogs, the best in Dublin by the way, and then going out to face the grim wet wooden cobbles of Grafton Street, one would still stand absolutely wondering what to do next in order to further cope with the day. My only solace being, I suppose, knowing ahead of time that wherever one went one was still only somewhere where one’s imagination allowed one to be.’
‘Sir, do I occasionally detect that your English grammar has gone completely to pot.’
‘Ha ha Kildare, you do rescue me from the glooms. You do. And it is so marvellous to see you. And I have I fear let myself be a bore.’
‘Mr Arland do you still take your snuff.’
‘Yes. I still take my snuff. And this is my same old cane. And I don’t want you to abandon your Latin, you know. One does sometimes feel, what matter Virgil, Horace, Juvenal, odes, satires and epistles. Yet sometimes a Latin proverb comes near to spelling the truth of life. Divitiae virum faciunt.’
‘Riches make the man.’
‘Good for you Kildare. Remember my privilege of dining on Commons free as an undergraduate came from one’s ability to translate from the Greek and Latin authors.’
A knock on the door. Mr Arland giving a start. His grey herringbone suit. His white shirt. The black green, red and cerulean blue stripe of his Trinity tie. Slowly pulling himself up on his stick. Moving from the bed. Bent over as he unlatches and opens the door.
‘Hi there. O gee I’m sorry. Didn’t know you had anyone visiting. I’ll come back, pardon me.’
‘Please, Clara. Do please come in.’
‘O gee no. I was only going to ask if I could get you something while I’m out to the store before they close.’
‘But please do meet Darcy Thormond Kildare. Clara Macventworth. Of the Michigan Macventworths. Or is it Minnesota Macventworths.’
‘Hi.’
‘How do you do.’
‘O I’m just fine. See you all later, nice meeting you Darcy Kildare. Bye bye Bonaparte.’
Sound of her rapid footsteps pounding down the stairs, scrape of front door opening and banging shut. Mr Arland, some cheer on his face manoeuvring back to his seat on the bed. Pouring more brandy in his tea as I shake my head no.
‘Of course Kildare, you see what I mean. But she is always one splendid blaze of colours. And totally mad. But she is one of the bigger bright spots in one’s life. And lives upstairs. Seems such an awfully young lady, to be out globe trotting. She’s doing, as they say over there across the water, a course and getting her credits, at Trinity. Americans seem to treat education like an abacus adding up numbers. She goes floating by my door in her dirndl skirts. Swirling round her knees like rainbows. Pity she nearly blots out her big saucer innocent eyes in mascara. She is dismayed by nothing. Least of all by living here. She’s so kind and generous. Writes poetry. And staggering thing is, it’s awfully good poetry. But coming back to you. Yes, you have, you’ve become a worthwhile member of society. Just as the destiny of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman, was foretold. Have more tea. And brandy.’
‘No. I must go thank you.’
‘Ah yes, you must, I can see.’
‘But you will won’t you, soon, come and stay at Andromeda Park.’
‘It is kind of you to ask me, Kildare. I often thought of you. Knew you’d understand if I weren’t in touch.’
Down these gloomy stairs. In the damp reeking smells. I leave him. That dearest of men. His smile. Stealing out across his mouth, his delicate fingers. And his firm hand grasping mine to say goodbye. The soft warmth in his eyes. Perhaps there’s hope in Mr Arland’s life. A new love to take the place of that which he has so tragically lost. Spurned so abysmally as he was by Baptista Consuelo. One so hopes this is not another of such ladies. His old naval dress coat hung on the back of the battered door. One wonders if the love for a man cannot be far greater than that one can ever have for a woman. And one could not help recalling Mr Arland’s long hard ascetic struggle through Trinity College. Gleaning his pennies by tutoring the thick skulled cramming for their exams. Plumbing the depths of his privileges as a sizar and, later, scholar. His few lonely shillings always clutched always counted. Each quarter awaiting his emolument. His meagre breakfasts measuring out his flakes of porridge oats. But all the while popping into a large brown stone biscuit jar any spare penny, a sixpence and sometimes half a crown. To be sure to finally save enough money to celebrate the conferring of his degree. A cold grey brood
ing Wednesday at two o’clock in the afternoon in Michaelmas Term. And at long last after all those four years, buying a barrel of Guinness it took four porters to lug up to his rooms. Excitedly issuing invitations to all his friends. And on that chill stormy eve he tremulously prepared for his splendid night of raucous rejoicing. Bustling about, keeping the fire in his previously empty grate, steeped high with glowing turf blazing. Listening for steps on the stairs and knocks on his door. His table covered with bottles, glasses. His skippery full of a reserve of sandwiches. Days previously spent scrubbing, polishing and cleaning. And on this day, the final roasting of sausages at his fire. At seven p.m. prompt his tutor called. To sip a sherry. Shook his hand and was gone. And a rotund black African prince came. Puffing up the stairs. Just for a moment to stand in his tweeds smiling in the door, as he had a fleet of cars, engines revving, waiting in front square to take him and his retinue to the airport. And then the door closing on the big cheerful black face. The Campanile tolling the hour of eight. Then of nine. And there Mr Arland sat, after his long, four long years. Alone, solitary at his fire. The roar of an occasional tram passing out on College Green. Unused empty glasses agleam in the firelight. Slices of smoked salmon on a plate which he dared not think he could ever afford. The distant cry of the shoeless newsboys hawking their papers out through the wintry Dublin night. As he waited and waited.
No knock
No sound
No pounding feet
Climbing up his stair
17
On the chill wet grimy granite pavements. From this bleak comfortless street behind the station. Look back. The dim yellow glow of his bulb burning from the ceiling of Mr Arland’s room. Walk ahead under the train trestle. Carry a sorrow so close to despair. That makes the days ahead, deep black holes where one must step. This darkness here under the railway. The barred window. A light somewhere far within. Silhouetting the arches fading away into the gloom. Could be the bowels of death. Which so convolute in one’s thoughts. And Leila. That envelope propped on her chimney piece. Secret words speaking from another heart.
Leila Page 27
