“Bravo, Thomson,” chuckled Stevenson. “Worthy of Rabelais. ‘Breath like a bilious fart.’ I wish I’d penned that!”
“How’s for a couplet, then? A veritable Capulet?” Baxter leaned over his target, pinching his nostrils. “Out of fart,” he keened nasally, “shall issue art. Thusly. ‘Breath like a bilious fart—Da! Da! Da!—rude exhalation thou art!’”
The drunken man rolled up onto hands and knees, his head lolling like a clubbed dog’s.
“Nobly coupled,” declared Stevenson. “A master coupler thou art. Canst thou now copulate me this? As perchance, ‘Primed for a vomitous sneeze?’”
“Sneeze, you say? Vomitous sneeze!” Baxter pulled languidly at his ear until his eyes bulged in merriment. “Prepare thyself.” He cleared his throat and loosed a thunderous, “Bwaaahhhh!”
The fallen lad gawked in bewilderment, peering lamely down to see if he had actually been spewed upon.
“Primed for a vomitous sneeze,” chanted Baxter, “sadly rained down on your knees.”
“Bravo, Charlie!”
“Or perhaps on your arse. Your sorry bloody arse.” Baxter kicked ineffectually at the fellow’s rear, missed, and nearly toppled over himself.
Stevenson nearly choked with laughter. “Arse don’t rhyme!” he cried, catching his breath.
“Of course it do. Rhymes with ‘sparse.’ Or ‘farce.’ And you bloody well call yourself a bloody poet?”
“Enough!” Stevenson yanked his companion towards the still-open door and the warm glow inside. “Exeunt. Molto presto. Methinks yon tumbled scholar may wax anon vexatious.”
“Ach, aye. Vexatious he’d be,” muttered Baxter as he stumbled through the entrance. “To be sure. My God, I’ve a thirst like to flay me, mon!”
The scent of Dunbar’s hadn’t changed an iota since Stevenson, cousin Bob, Baxter, and Ferrier had founded their legendary “LJR” in these very precincts what seemed a lifetime ago: the bracing smoke of tobacco, softly underscored by sulfur from the coal grate; roasted flesh and boiled cabbage; spilled ale and spirits; toasted cheddar and burnt bread; the dank redolence of seldom-washed clothing and bodies. The LJR Society—Liberty, Justice, Reverence—had sworn their eternal pledge to “disregard everything our parents have taught us.” Stevenson cringed to recall his father’s rage when the old man stumbled on a draft of their constitution among the papers in Louis’s room. Sadly, the organization had not endured once the founding quadrumvirate had moved on from the university and, of necessity, turned from the prodigal consumption of wealth to its disappointingly sparse production—but other subliminally patricidal associations had doubtless risen from its ashes. Other over-educated wastrels had inevitably taken their places and, had those successors staggered just now under the low-beamed ceiling towards the bar, they would have been warmly hailed by the half-dozen bibulous youths who slouched there at the scarred and clothless tables.
At least the grizzled publican still recognized the older pair as they approached the massive oaken bar. He greeted them with gruff but unmistakable fondness.
“It’s Johnson, damme, and Mr. Thomson too,” he bellowed, making use of the venerable pseudonyms they had invented for themselves, most likely in this very spot. “In from the chill o’ the night and the cruel rush o’ years. Or is it Thomson and Johnson?”
“Small matter,” answered Baxter, blowing into cupped hands. “But unco chilly indeed. Scrotum-clenching cold, you might say. Can you warm us with a wee dram then, Mr. Dunbar, sir?”
“Indeed I can,” replied the burly fellow. His hand hovered over a half-empty bottle of spirits just in front of him before it dove beneath the counter and retrieved an earthen jug. “Better this mystic dew,” he whispered behind his knuckles as he raised the crock and winked. “Fro’ yon distant secret glen. Unparalleled tipple.”
“If you please,” said Baxter, licking his lips expectantly.
“To be sure,” replied the publican. “I been expressly charged by the magistrate, I have, to attend to each and every need of Messrs. Baxter and Stevenson, Esquires.”
“However can you remember me, Dunbar?” asked Stevenson, reaching for the tumbler extended in the man’s meaty fist.
“How could I forget you, rather?” laughed the barkeep. “Baxter, here, misses nary a week wi’out dropping by to toast the success of his dear friend and fellow reprobate, R. L. Stevenson…esteemed author of The Suicide Club, is it? And who knows what other low yarns.”
“I’m touched,” said Stevenson. He turned to his friend and clinked his glass a mite over-hard, wincing at the spillage. “But, Baxter me boy, where do you get off peddling defamatory slander about a dear old friend such as meself?”
Baxter shrugged.
“You’ll hear from my solicitor in the morning,” Stevenson said.
“Your solicitor, you say?”
Stevenson nodded.
“I am your solicitor! Your solicitor would be me.” Baxter tossed back a hearty gulp. “Would be I.”
“Ah yes,” replied Stevenson. “I recall. And, if I may say, no man ever had an advocate more likely to land his clients in the clink.”
Baxter gestured obscenely.
“Well,” quipped Dunbar. “It’s good to see you two flighty toffs getting on so famous like. Take a seat by the fire there before you fall over. McNear’s just given up the ghost an’s all tucked in for the night. Sit down quickly, now, and you’ll likely find his chair’s still warm.”
“McNear’s given up the ghost again, has he?” quipped Baxter. “The sot has a thousand lives. Give him my regards when you see him next. In hell, I expect that would be.” He plunked himself down in a sturdy Windsor chair, which creaked dangerously under the sudden load. “And kindly inform him he owes me ten pounds.”
“I will. And as to hell,” grinned the publican, “I expect you’ll be getting there first, yer honor.”
“Here’s hopin’!” Baxter raised his glass. “So, Stevenson,” he said after a half-minute’s silence.
“Aye?”
“The hoary patriarch and you. On civil terms again?” Baxter leaned back from the low table. He felt at the side of his chair, then jerked it awkwardly further from the fire. “Jesus! I’m like to combust here. The wifey would quarter me.”
“So she would. And dinna breathe towards the flames, Charlie, lest both of us ignite.”
“Ignis fatuus,” chanted Baxter.
“Sic transit,” responded Stevenson. “Hocus pocus. You were saying?”
“I was? Oh, yes. You and Old Tom.”
“Old Tom and I.”
“Still chums?”
“Ha!” snorted Stevenson. “If Zeus could be chums with Dionysus. But near enough, I ween. The coin comes in, Charles, in dribs and drabs. But scribbling’s yet to make my fortune. It’s well Mother and Father haven’t turned their backs on me entirely.”
“An’ ye dinna feel ye’ve sold yer soul for their few hunnert poonds nou an’ again?” Baxter held up his glass and eyed it appreciatively, licking an errant drop of spirit off the side.
“Not hardly. And I think they’ve taken to Sam. I expect they’re not wanting the closest thing they’ll get to a grandson sleeping in a moor somewhere.”
“Or an apple barrel!”
Stevenson chuckled. “So you’ve read it, then. My wee flight o’ whimsy.”
“Of course I’ve read it. Everyone has. What else is there to read these days? Burns is long dead, bless his pickled brain and poxy nose—”
“Blasphemy!”
“—and Scott gives me wind.”
“Not the bilious sort, I hope.”
“Not always. Only when the adjectives fly unco thick. Then I blasts like Vesuvius.” Baxter extracted a handkerchief from his sleeve and loudly blew his nose, scrutinizing the issue in the cloth. “And do you think Fanny and you will ever have bairns of your own?”
Stevenson swept the back of his hand across his high brow, then he looked uncertainly at his nails. “I can’t say.
She may think two already are enough.” He gave a little snort. “Three, if you count myself.”
“You are a sickly youth, to be sure. And she’s a good nurse, then? Fanny?”
“Aye, the best,” replied Stevenson with a wistful nod. “Tender. Loving. Patient. Well, tender and loving.”
Baxter guffawed. “Sounds much like my own dear love. How the likes of us, Stevenson, could ever expect anyone short of an angel to put up with our contrarieties is one of life’s great mysteries. Well beyond me.”
“And me,” answered Stevenson. “The mistresses Thomson and Johnson will be well on the path to sainthood.”
Baxter raised his forefinger and tutted with exaggerated fervor. “Wrong church, Louis. Pah! Look at what your bloody Froggy grape juice has done to you. Turned you into a bloody Papist!”
“Or worse,” chuckled Stevenson, draining his tumbler and setting it with studious care on the table. “Talk to my father.”
The door from the close flew open, admitting a gust of cold air and two ample ladies in calculated disarray. Shoulder to formidable shoulder, they surveyed the room like hungry she-cats appraising a colloquy of moles.
“Speaking of saints,” whispered Baxter. “If it ain’t Our Ladies o’ the Cursory Tumble.”
“Goodness,” responded Stevenson behind his hand. “Perhaps they won’t see us.”
“Too late,” sighed Baxter as he straightened himself in his chair. “Here she comes. Circe of the moonlit boulevard.”
“Scarcely dressed for the night,” laughed Stevenson. “Or perhaps I should say for the weather. Should we feel imperiled?”
Baxter clapped his hands over his crotch.
“Well, bless my soul and body!” crooned the taller of the women as she stormed up to the table in a flurry of skirts. “If it ain’t the two most profligate laddies in the history of the ’Varsity.”
“Oh, Mary,” replied Baxter, tossing his hair with boyish affectation. “We’re hardly that.”
“Then I reckon you could tell me, quick like, whoever’s been naughtier than the pair o’ ye?” She looked from one to the other with a provocative flutter of her eyelashes.
“Oh, I expect I could,” said Baxter. “Though every one of them, doubtless, woulda been set on the path to perdition by yourself. You or that lovable old flop-for-tuppence you travel with.”
“Path to perdition, is it?” laughed the woman. “Path to manhood, more like. I’m thinkin’ you’ll have sat down to piss before you made my acquaintance.” She winked knowingly at Stevenson.
“Ha! Now I do recall you did rather affect my urinary functions,” replied Baxter. “But more along the lines of a wicked, nasty burning down there, if memory serves.”
“Well,” she scowled with a throaty titter, “if that remark’s what passes for manners with your likes, Master Charlie, that’ll be enough.” She adjusted her disorganized bodice and turned to Stevenson. “And what a pleasant surprise to see you, Master S. I thought I heard you’d quit this fair burg for wholesomer climes.”
“And what could be more wholesome than dear auld Edinburgh?” asked Stevenson. To have the woman standing over him like this made him strangely uncomfortable, he was surprised to realize. He entertained then resisted the urge to stand up, passing the reflex off as resettling himself in his hard chair.
“Let me see,” she mused. “More wholesome than Edinburgh?” Crossing her arms, she fingered a yellowed tooth. “Maybe the privy in a Calcutta bawdy house.”
“You’ve been?” asked Baxter.
“Not with what I garner from the likes of you, you tight bastard!”
“’Zounds!” exclaimed Baxter. “The lady’s wicked dangerous!”
“Only the strong survive, Charlie. So,” she said, turning back to Stevenson, “what’ve you gents been getting up to this fine evening?”
“Oh, revisiting old haunts is all. Renewing old acquaintances. Baxter here’s just written a poem about breaking wind.”
“Farts to you,” added Baxter.
“Really?” The woman sneered at Stevenson’s companion. “Charming! Don’t hold it against me if I don’t ask for a recitation. So, Louis, my love, do you see many changes, then?” She put her hands on her hips, thrusting them forward provocatively.
“Not in you,” answered Stevenson. “You’d be timeless, Maire. Old Town’s Cleopatra. Age canna wither ye.”
“Nor,” added Baxter, with an excited thump to the table, “custom stale your infinite variety.”
The woman arched her eyebrow and ran her tongue across her lower lip. “And where would you look for ‘infinite variety,’ laddies? Surely not to your wives.”
“Well,” said Baxter, scratching his head, “there’d be the nuns. Am I right, Stevenson? The nuns?”
“Indeed you are, Baxter, lad. The nuns! Endlessly creative, those ladies!”
“But then one of those wretched Tudors threw ’em all off the island,” Baxter lamented. “Although that will have been good for your business, Mary. Cutting down on the competition?”
“You forget the priests left right along with ’em,” laughed the woman. “Our most faithful patrons, the priests. Them, at least, what didn’t favor altar boys.”
“Goodness,” offered Stevenson. “I must confess a better man than I might find all this banter a wee bit unsavory.”
“Have you gone all pious on us, now, Louis?” The woman eyed him thoughtfully. “I’m not sure I could abide a pious Louis.”
“I think he could be joking,” observed Baxter. “He’s been known to joke before. But you know, Mary, Stevenson is clean off-limits now. No hunting on a private reserve!”
“What’s this?”
“Married he is,” affirmed the lawyer, tilting his head in pretended sorrow. “These three years. And to an American lady!”
The woman bent over Stevenson, eyes widened and mouth agape in theatrical surprise. “Can this be true?”
“I fear it is,” admitted Stevenson, squirming in his seat. “So please to secure your charms a little there, m’dear, before I give way to temptation.” He gestured awkwardly towards her abundant chest, which her pose and loose apparel had all but poured out upon him. She stood up straight and made a show of primness, winking at Baxter while she tucked herself back in place.
“And Mrs. Stevenson is ten years her husband’s senior,” added the lawyer, with mock sanctimony.
“Ten years?” asked the woman. “A whole ten years?”
Stevenson sighed and nodded.
“What, did you think you were marrying your mother?” She said it loud enough to turn heads at the neighboring tables, occasioning some snide titters.
“Good heavens!” protested Stevenson. “Are a gentleman’s linens to be aired so publicly these days? Have the storied confidences of the Old Town come to this?” He glanced at Baxter and pointed emphatically at his empty tumbler.
“Here, Mary,” said Baxter. “Let’s not shame Louis any further than he has already shamed himself. Have a seat, while I fetch some whisky for the three of us.”
“Much obliged, Charlie. Only make mine gin, if you would.” Baxter rose to his feet, bumping the table soundly as he did so. Mary stepped aside and, once he’d passed, sat down between Stevenson and the fire.
“So, Louis. We have missed you, the lassies ’n’ me.” She disencumbered a hand from her shawl and extended it halfway across the table. Before he knew it, Stevenson had reached out and grasped it. It was warm, despite the chill of the night. She gazed at him intently then leaned closer, squinting at his right brow. “And what’s that over your eye?”
Stevenson reached up sheepishly, his fingertips dancing over the raised abrasion that still throbbed when his mind wasn’t elsewhere. “Just a wee battle scar,” he chuckled. “Comeuppance for my unbridled tongue.”
“Ye havenae married a Harpy, have ye?”
Stevenson laughed again. “No. My wife can be a terror, but this wasn’t her doing. I fear I became a little over-animated yester
-eve. Owing to an excess of spirits. A little squabble over something I hardly recall.”
“So you’re still like to boil over, are ye? Oft and again?”
Stevenson pursed his lips then grinned. “I confess I am still known by some for my lively spirit. But how are you then, Maire?”
“Oh, you know,” she replied with a cant of her head. Her auburn hair glowed in the lamplight—her best asset, she had often said. He blushed to recall that he had once had a lock of it, and hidden it so well it had never been seen again. Presumably it was still somewhere there under his father’s roof, waiting to be uncovered at some uniquely inopportune moment. “Time rushes on.”
“So it does,” he agreed. “But you’re well?”
“Well as I could hope. And you?”
“Passing well.”
“They’re saying you’re a famous writer now.”
“Who is?”
“Everyone, I’d think. Talk of the town.”
“Well, a writer, anyhow,” Stevenson replied with a weary nod. It was beginning to seem late, it surprised him to realize. Years back, the evening would still have felt young. All the younger for the presence of buxom and obliging female company.
“And it’s good? Writing?”
“Better than being a barrister.”
“Or keeping a lighthouse, was it? Your father wanted?”
“Yes. In essence. Better than that.”
“So what would you be writing now? The story of a skin-and-bones ’Varsity lad who learned a passle more in the wynds of Old Town than in a draughty auld lecture hall?”
“Not exactly,” chuckled Stevenson. “I own I’ve spun a low yarn or two along those lines. For the moment, though, I’m between projects.”
“Lying fallow?”
“You might say.” In truth, he was trying hard enough at something beyond the occasional poem—but fallow was most definitely the way it felt. Vacant, weedy soil he was struggling to till. He reached into his coat for his cigarette case, drew it out, and offered one.
“Thank you, no. Can’t afford the habit.”
“Hard times peddling?” queried Stevenson.
Seeking Hyde Page 3
