Schultz

by J. P. Donleavy

  Schultz’s chauffeur smilingly opening the limousine door. Lady Lullabyebaby ensconcing herself far back in the upholstery, taking in a deep breath and exhaling a great sigh.

  “Well honey, you’re on time to the split second.”

  “I abhor lateness, Mr. Schultz.”

  Speeding along Piccadilly. Past the clubs. By the luggage and food emporiums. Around the circus. Across Leicester Square. The lights. The buskers. People everywhere. Buying tickets at box offices. And Lady Lullabyebaby lighting up a cigarette in a long ivory holder.

  “Well Mr. Schultz, I’ll say one thing for you. You do know how to appear out of the blue.”

  Ascending the soft carpeted steps. An usherette unlocking the door to their box. Schultz ordering champagne for the interval. As the curtain rose and the dancers pirouetted and arabesqued. And Schultz fell promptly asleep. His head hung over on his shoulder as he snored. To be shoved awake by her Ladyship.

  “My god Mr. Schultz, sleep, but please don’t snore.”

  “Holy christ honey, sorry. Went out like a light. The beauty of the dancing and music just carried me straight off to dreamland.”

  “Mr. Schultz, I don’t think, do you, that we should remain present at the ballet.”

  “I’ll be alright honey. I’m wide awake now.”

  Schultz through the crescendoes, leaps and slides falling promptly to sleep once more. His elbow sliding off the arm rest as he slumped in his chair. Lady Lullabyebaby, knuckles sharp, punching him awake again in the ribs. At the interval Schultz taking a walk down to the lobby.

  “Honey I’m sorry, I really am. I haven’t slept for days. You stay I’ll go home.”

  “No. We’ll both go.”

  Schultz on the sidewalk looking for his chauffeur and car. Beginning to slam the heel of his hand against his forehead, as Lady Lullabyebaby pointed with her finger.

  “No doubt you’ll find him over there. In that pub with a pint of beer playing darts. If you wait here. I’ll fetch him. You might fall asleep crossing the road.”

  Lady Lullabyebaby sending the chauffeur back in, insisting to bring away the bottle of champagne and commandeering the car back to Knightsbridge. The bottle between her feet and now cradled in her arm as she leaned forward, the chauffeur holding open the door.

  “Well you poor man. You need your nice comfortable bed for the night. But if you’ve the strength to take my lift up four floors. I’ll give you a drink of this very good champagne that it would be a shame to waste.”

  Alfredo in the lobby asleep on a chair by the elevator. Startled awake and looking at his watch.

  “Ah milady. Back already. What, you not see the whole ballet. What a disgrace.”

  Schultz putting his head back on the blue swans-down cushioned sofa. Sinking deep. Christ, the peace. What a place she’s got. Each room dressed to kill. My god, the antiques. Everywhere you look. A museum Everything perfect. Polished into a sheen.

  “Let me Mr. Schultz pour for you.”

  “Jesus not for me. Apple or orange juice if you got it please. And can I use your phone.”

  “Certainly, please do. Right over there.”

  Schultz crossing the room on this silk carpet. Blue taffeta curtains drawn on the windows. Shut out London. But now I got to phone the box office. Dial. Hear what the damage is. Numbers that’s all it is. Fatal numbers. O god, I’ve got to hold my breath. Even if there’s any hope at all. It’s only the beginning of the Chinese torture.

  “Hello.”

  “Sorry booking closed.”

  “I’m not booking. Mr. Schultz here.”

  “O hello sir. Well sir, we’ve just finished tabulating this moment. I’m sorry but the figures are much worse than we feared. Hardly any business at all on the doors. Ninety one pounds, eighteen shillings.”

  “Holy christ ninety one pounds.”

  “I’m sorry sir.”

  “O.K. thanks, goodnight.”

  Schultz turning away from the phone. Blowing breath slowly out of his lungs. Cross back again to where I was sitting. Before I faint. So now this is really it. The end of the line. Not even ten rows sold in the whole place. When I need at least a hundred sold just to hold out hope. To stop the cast from committing suicide in dressing rooms. Or god forbid right on the stage in the cold clammy death that an empty theatre collects. I should have been there. But if I was I’d be sunk in a coma of depression. As it is I’m in a coma of despair. Or maybe just a coma. O god I’m so fucking weary and tired. Blue. Everything is blue in this room. Or am I seeing things. Demon possessed. O god everything now. Rides on his blue blooded Lordship. That fucking Master of Foxhounds, cricketer, crack shot and prince. Who doesn’t give a fuck if I live or die. And if he finds me with his sister. After I turned one of his staff into a lesbian. Holy fuck. That will really spell disaster. With his temper he’s already flung me around a room at the end of a telephone. Asking people for money is the utmost in humiliation. The guy who can invent an unhumiliating way of asking, is going to make a million. But the real humiliation comes when you don’t get it. Here I am all these months dreaming of finally dipping my toes into a nice steady cash flow. Now I look down into a snake pit. After all the deals. All the cut and thrust. The outwitting, the outmanoeuvring. The constant in between face slapping you get. So severe it can be ball shattering. And each slap if you don’t watch out, it can be a knockout. Lords address each other in the House of Lords as noble. What could I say to his Lordship that will melt down his noble resistance. The son of a bitch has an accountant’s mind. Snow him with figures. And he doesn’t miss a fucking trick. His eyes flash down a ledger. And motherfucker if he doesn’t put his finger right on what you don’t want him to know even ever existed. What do I do. Plead to him. On my bended knees, kneeling on top of all the stacks of unpaid bills. In this world Judas is Jesus and Jesus is Judas. Binky says his Lordship can’t find his own foot in his own shoe. That his Lordship has never used the word marvellous in his life. That he abhors skiing on water or snow. Constantly loses cuff links. Because he takes off his shirt and shakes it to get his prize Arab horses to strut. Wears his underwear back to front and frequently inside out. And Jesus once he said to me. Schultz, have you ever chosen to disadvantage yourself by doing the noble thing. That really hurt. Only for a second. Because at the time he was signing me a cheque. That really helped. I could cable Uncle Werb as a last resort. He was like a father to me better than my own father. He has the midas touch in big business. While my father has the minus touch in his two bit operations. His Lordship could be anti American underneath it all. Told me once his nanny taught him to whistle the American national anthem over his bowl of raspberries to get rid of any wasps lurking in the fruit. This is still what the fucker does. And once his nanny got irritated at him whistling over the raspberries as she taught him to. She said stop that you naughty little lord. And his naughty little Lordship said it would make the wasps fly out of his raspberries. And just as his nanny was reaching over to slap him. A wasp flew out of his raspberries. Holy fuck. He’s a stubborn bastard. But I know he’s got one weakness. His noble rich Lordship, the cunt, is really an impressionable romantic. Thank god. Because once I saw real big tears in his eyes. When he told the story of how his grandfather, throughout the remainder of his life, in a locked chamber called the Titanic Room in one of his castles, had that ship’s last meal served on the anniversary day of the sinking. In memory of a young lady lost on the Titanic with whom he had been in love. Jesus it even gives me tears. And how his Lordship’s grandmother in high dudgeon would entrain for London where she would stay at Claridge’s till the mournful ritual was over. The Grandfather had pictures of the ship on the walls. And his letters in a glass case written to her awaiting her arrival in New York. And his Lordship had tears falling down his cheeks when he said, but Schultz saddest of all, when my grandfather was a young man, she was a dairy maid banished from the estate, and she’d gone steerage on the Titanic to the new world. But my grandfather celebrated his r
emembrance of her, not from the steerage menu but from the menu served in the Titanic’s first class dining room.

  “Mr. Schultz, dear me. Are you asleep again.”

  “Sorry christ.”

  “Well you are a surprise. Stretched out a somnambulant on the sofa. The aggressive go getting producer.”

  “I was just thinking about your brother. Trying to figure him out.”

  “O god. Don’t waste your time. Sets of encyclopaedias about him wouldn’t help you figure him out.”

  “Jesus don’t say that. And I shouldn’t even be telling you this. But I got to figure him out by next Friday.”

  “Why. Of course I ask why, full well knowing why. You’re going to ask him for money.”

  “Holy shit, you know.”

  “But of course. That’s all anybody asks him for.”

  “Well you’re right. But I’m asking for money for a good cause. And I got to know exactly where his sentimentality ends and his financial caution begins.”

  “And I may as well tell you. The latter begins long before the former ends. But for heaven’s sake when asking him for money, don’t beat around the bush looking for ways of doing so. It won’t help.”

  “I could get him mellowed over a few glasses of wine maybe.”

  “And you will find my brother then infinitely more mysterious, difficult and astute than he is unmellowed. However, you can be sure of one thing. He is totally, utterly and absolutely unpredictable drunk or sober.”

  “Thanks for the reassurance.”

  “Now, do you or don’t you want to bang me.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “Dear me. Your language is a constant stream of shit, fuck, holy christ and Jesus. But what a quaint expression. You, I take it, mean religiously holy shit.”

  “Hey Lady Lullabyebaby, the term bang. You ain’t exactly not using quaint expressions yourself.”

  “Well isn’t that what you invited me to the ballet for. To bang me afterwards. But I won’t be awfully insulted if you didn’t. I was in fact on my way to the country this evening. To spend the night with my husband, and to exercise my horses in the morning. And indeed right now I’m ready to heat myself some honey and milk and read myself to sleep.”

  “Wow.”

  “Why wow.”

  “I’m floored. I don’t know what to say.”

  “From stories one hears, you usually have quite a lot to say to women.”

  “Let me take a big deep breath will you. Can I admit something to you.”

  “Yes, provided it’s not baring your soul. I detest men who get gushy and mushy.”

  “I don’t think I could bang you. Not tonight. Not the way someone like you deserves to be banged.”

  “Ha ha ha, Mr. Schultz, you’re priceless. You’re marvellous, in fact. Although I don’t do so, I prefer to demand rather than deserve. The woman who deserves anything is the woman who will be last to get it.”

  “Well I went out of my hotel room to see you this evening reciting rule six of new rules I got. Don’t screw, horror and sex don’t mix.”

  “Are you trying to put me in my place or something.”

  “No no. It’s me. I’m in horror. Which is piled up all around me. Christ I’m letting my hair down.”

  “Let it down. Do please. I’m enchanted.”

  “I’ll tell you something, I’ve never been able to speak to a woman like this before.”

  “O. Now I’m the trusted confidante.”

  “Christ don’t say it like that. Christ. I’ll go home. I shouldn’t have ever come out in the first place. I’m sorry. This reminds me of a night standing in the theatre when a fucking god damn Catholic nun saw me lurking in the aisle. She must have been looking at my nose, when she said that the Jews had been condemned by God to forever wander the face of the earth.”

  “O dear. And what did you say. Nothing.”

  “I said fuck you sister, Israel is born.”

  “Ah Mr. Schultz. Good for you. Full of surprises you are.”

  “Yeah. Too many. And I’m still fucking wandering. It won’t surprise me if the first thing I do tomorrow morning when I get up is to sit down and cry.”

  “Well I don’t mind women who do, but I dislike men who weep. And since you’re not going to bang me. I think I shall go to bed. Or else I shall start feeling like my old granny who had it put in her will that she was to be cremated and her ashes sprinkled on her faithful dog’s food.”

  “Christ you’re fucking eccentric like your brother.”

  “Am I. I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Jesus I don’t even know your first name. And we’ve even gone without eating this evening.”

  “Mr. Schultz, it appears that we are going to go without fuck all this evening, if I may use the expression.”

  “Christ here you are. Married. You got a husband.”

  “Yes I have. If that worries you. And he is a twisted, perverted, despicably cruel monster. And my Christian name is Lulu.”

  “Holy christ Lulu honey you couch your words carefully. Like you stand there in the middle of the floor like a battleship blasting out salvoes at me. Hey do you mind telling me what your social rank is.”

  “Not at all. I’m the daughter of an earl and married to an earl. Which to date has not once stopped me from behaving as a commoner when I choose.”

  “Wow. I don’t know what the English upper classes are all about but looking at you I don’t know what I should expect next now.”

  “My tiara is in a safe in that room there. Shall I wear that and nothing else. It may help to explain me better. It’s not an awfully good tiara. I’m my brother’s wayward sister. And have been left the dregs of what family jewels were doled out. Although I must confess Basil did secretly offer me the pick. Even a woven bracelet of my great grandmother’s hair. But I can see, nothing is going to arouse you to bang me.”

  “Honey I’m busting my brains here, thinking. You’re the most fucking.”

  “The most fucking what.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well provided I’m not entirely unfuckable it may help to let me explain myself. I pretend to believe in Christ. And do devoutly believe in reincarnation. I can be a very smartly got up gentlewoman when I please. And despite my many men friends I masturbate frequently. I also go on solitary continental travels for kicks, cocks and gigolos. And in search of groaning moaning orgasms. And is it any wonder. And of course you’re married Mr. Schultz.”

  “Yes I am.”

  “And how would you sum that up.”

  “In a nutshell. You mean.”

  “Sum it up in a codpiece if you prefer.”

  “Well in a codpiece. She gave me maybe three months of wonderful fucking and gave herself enough time to get her clutches deep enough into me to start to begin to give me maybe thirty future years of fucking misery.”

  “Par for the course my dear. And you know, such wives are out by night and day all over London with wire cutters, screwdrivers, matches, petrol and hammers with the intent to damage the property, and the body and soul if possible, of their husband’s mistresses. And perhaps it’s time I peeked out the window.”

  “What about your husband, coming back here.”

  “This is my own private private flat, my dear. To which he is not privy.”

  “Jesus your doorman, who’s he.”

  “He is a very special favourite of mine. He has nine children. Everyone in the building thinks he’s too outspoken for a doorman, and would like him sacked. But although no one knows it, I own the building, and therefore he stays.”

  “Jesus you own the building.”

  “Yes, I saved up my little pennies and bought it.”

  “Hey let me ask you something. Are you really under all this strong exterior just a lost little creature.”

  “Let me ask you something Mr. Schultz. Are you just someone who’s repeatedly gone the way of all flesh and suddenly after a kick in the teeth is now trying to go the way of all sensi
tive souls.”

  “Shit you hit below the belt.”

  “Gentlemen feel it much better there. In their spiritual solar plexus.”

  “You’re fucking tough.”

  “Out of my misplaced regard for females pretending otherwise, I won’t comment on that.”

  “I’ll drink my apple juice. And beat it.”

  “Please don’t hurry. You know, all most women want Mr. Schultz, is just six kids and a farm in the country with horses, hens and a house cow.”

  “Thanks for telling me. I’m learning everything tonight. And boy I’m learning less and less about you.”

  “I must then tell you more. Did you know that I keep extremely fit. I do a naked standing run at the open window every morning.”

  “You mean here.”

  “Yes.”

  “Holy christ, the neighbors.”

  “Well yes, unless it’s dark or extremely before dawn it does attract considerable male binocular neighborly attention. But I also own the building opposite.”

  “Boy you’re a real Lulu.”

  “Shall I tell you more about me.”

  “Shoot honey, shoot. I’m listening. You’re driving all the worries in truck loads right out of my mind.”

  “I have an extremely wide circle of extremely mixed friends. I’m given to moods and angers. I huff and I puff. And I will sometimes literally scream the house down if I don’t get what I want.”

  “Yes. That figures.”

  “But Mr. Schultz. I make up for it all. By occasionally being a riot of laughs. By being a good cook, a good lay and compassionate when sufficient tragedy requires.

  “Ah honey. You’re looking at it. A sufficient tragedy. I’ve had my worst day yet. Everything is a shambles. We’ve just had a nice long strained pained evening together. But one mistake I’m not making. Is asking you for one ounce of compassion. All I’m thinking of just now. Is how do I get up from this sofa and as unmiserably as possible, go out your fucking door and crawl home to Park Lane.”

  “I hope upon leaving you will at least give me a token peck on the cheek.”

  “I’ll give you a token peck on the cheek as I leave.”