The Onion Eaters

by J. P. Donleavy

  Rain dripping on the stone sills. Wind growing stronger. Boom of the sea. Down where the great conger lurks. Over his collection of bones. Got my elbow back where it was before. Up against the side of her bulging breast. Fattened further by the last of my cheese. Just push my foot down a little between the damp sheets. Feel if it’s true. That she’s got webbing between the toes. Mamba venom in the veins. And influence with the insurgents. Who might as well be here already. To take up positions. In the halls. And direct traffic for this carnival.

  ‘Are you constipated, Clementine.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well I was. For years. Frozen like concrete. Didn’t the doctors have to dig it out of me. Till I took the infusion. After winning the contest the three of them in white coats subjected me to a rude intimate examination with stethoscopes and blood pressure contraptions. Said my breath wasn’t what it should be, caused by the inner contamination. Sure I listened to them, I had to, strapped stark naked as I was on my back to an operating table under a big sky light with the clouds going over above right in the best part of town. You never heard such a bunch of high falutin comments. Streaming out of the three of them. Said that the tone of my voice would be sweetened. Well I can tell you I’m thankful to them for that. For the greatest relishment I’ve been having at the bog of a morning. Sitting there with it coming out two feet long at a time like satin. Franz’s donkey distillate may be a hoax. But I’m telling you right now the infusion is a holy miracle.’

  ‘The distillate is ok too.’

  ‘You’re not codding me now. Grrrrr. Give us a feel. Ah if that’s not good quality granite I’ve never felt a bit in me life. Maybe they’re genuine scientists enough then.’

  Rose growling, rearing up on top of Clementine. Elmer’s ears cocking. The rusty springs of the lumpy mattress squealing. She’s trying to open my pyjamas which are on backwards. But through the arse of which I forged a hole for peeing. By constantly making this mistake each time I had to take a midnight leak on my storm tossed trip across the seas. To reach this land. After a eleven and a half days of nautical horror. Witnessed in silence. At the long end of a nervous decline. Right to the edge of the grave. Kept holding myself back. Not wanting to go just yet. But inching there all the same. Waking each day at dawn. The light cold with death. My great aunt sitting through afternoons down below in her gabled house on a shady street. Where I watched the milkman, mailman and garbage collector come and go. And like Erconwald does with Rose I took my rectal temperature. Measuring the slow combustion of the fatal disease. Taking me around the throat and arse. Parts it seemed to fancy. As my aunt’s servants went out my bedroom door shaking their heads. With the trays of untouched food. Seven ounces less I weighed each day. Looking at my white tongue in the mirror. New pains behind eyeballs. Doom fuming up from the outstretched supplicant palms of my hands. Had I known Franz, Erconwald and Putlog then they could have squirted a tonic vapour down my throat and an aeriform serum up my arse. To meet in the belly for a gaseous eruption and blow both hips out of joint forever. Flap round like a puppet buried as I am under Rose’s two massive swinging breasts and cascading hair. Growling and biting. What a change from crawling down the last mile. Auntie rolling in my bedroom door in her wheel chair, telling me I was just like my father. He was big and strong. Buried my mother and three more after her. Screwed to death. It was rumoured by doctors who diagnosed an agitation caused by his testicular trinity. An uncontrollable temper kept him in excellent condition. Leaping as he did out at traffic lights to drag some poor unfortunate from another car who had the folly to sneer at him at a previous traffic light. I sat in the front seat. A little boy with curls and enormous sad eyes. Standing up to see as my father used his usual right hook to lay a chap backwards over the engine hood. Climbing to the rear seat to peek out and see the victim cross eagled unconscious. Goodness Rose you are strong. Got me by the wrists. Winds raging outside. Last candle going out on the bedside table. Life tip toes back in. As you wait and never see it. Till a time comes. Just like this. The Charnel Castle cure. New vigorous lethal terrors drive out the stale mouldering ones under which one was smothering. Still begging for mommie. To come back. She left on a sunny day. In an ambulance from the side of a house. Carried out on a stretcher and loaded in the shade of the old coach porch. Pressed my nose to the copper screen. My father said mommie wanted peace and quiet. He would take me to see her soon. We went on a rainy day. Down town. It had snowed in the morning and now the streets were grey with slush. Pipes tingling and throbbing in the hospital. We went up three floors in an elevator and down a long corridor. A little boy pushed by sobbing on a trolley. His own mommie holding his clothes in her arms. We came to a door and I felt chilled. As I stood, my father behind me pushing me in the back, saying go in. See your mother. There she is. Go over to her. A silhouette as she lay on the bed, her long delicate nose, eyes closed and her wavy brown hair spread on the pillow. Out the window the roof of another building covered with pipes and roofed with little grey pebbly stones. The sky darkened, rain falling straight and hard. Old snow tucked in the corners of roof tops. My father standing at the door. My mother’s hand was pale. Her nails white at the finger tips. I reached over and touched her. I didn’t know what dead was. Until the tears started to come out of my eyes. And when I turned round my father was gone. I looked down the hall and saw him talking with a doctor. A nurse passed me to go into the room. I stood at the door and watched her pull a white cover over my mother’s face. And when the nurse came out she said to me who are you little boy. I said I’m not anyone.

  Nor

  Anyone else

  Either

  Who

  Made

  All that

  Sorrow

  5

  A nightime murmuring and mumbling on towards dawn. Comes sweeping across the earth making winter bird choruses and chasing out to sea. Puts light on the waves. Pushes fish down in the deep. Where their teeth might miss each other in the dark. And after all these obtuse thursday goings on, would that I sleep. Buried under Rose’s snores.

  Clementine rolling his head back and forth under Rose’s hair. Till a great moist nose peeked through followed by the tongue and paws of Elmer. Who wanted to join the fun. Pushing his monstrous head between the two of us. Just as one is tasting the tip top joys again way up inside Rose. As she sleeps and now wakes roaring. And growling just like Elmer.

  ‘Ah God it’s the dog on us. Is he vicious. Get him away from me altogether.’

  ‘Out Elmer. Naughty dog. He’s only playing.’

  ‘He took a nip out of me.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Down Elmer. He’s just lonely.’

  ‘Woof woof.’

  ‘He doesn’t understand what I’m telling him.’

  ‘Well fuck off you monster understand that from me.’

  ‘Please don’t speak like that to my dog.’

  ‘Would you have him savage me defenceless in the condition we’re in.’

  ‘You could easily hurt his feelings.’

  ‘While he takes it into his head to make a horse dover of one of me appendages.’

  Rose is somewhat savoury under the oxsters. Inciting Elmer who according to a mouldering dog reference book in the library can distinguish more smells than you could shake a mamba at. He only wants to know what sniffs. Between the strong muscles in Rose’s thighs. Which grip me with pincers of knob ended knees. What on earth am I going to do with one unearthly wind ready to break. Right from the bowels of my conscience. So awkward after one remonstrates over incivility to a canine. To then unleash a stench closeted with layers of dank linen and wool, not to mention an inch thick emblazoned motheaten counterpane. Under which the two of us are unavoidably heavily breathing. Do please, everybody, get ready. As I ease it out. With no tune. Don masks. Sneak gas attack. Blame it on Elmer. I know for a fact he’s laid one or two. Fuming up pungent. Merrily riding down here. In the compartment of the train.

  ‘What’s that for the sacrifice of t
he saints.’

  ‘What.’

  ‘Is there a dead rat.’

  ‘I beg your pardon.’

  ‘It’s in the bed it is.’

  ‘Where.’

  ‘Gassing me.’

  ‘It’s Elmer.’

  ‘Get him away the dirty thing.’

  ‘Elmer. Out. Down. Naughty.’

  ‘That dog hasn’t a trace of a bit of manners on him.’

  Through the narrow window slit slants a sliver of moonlight Tree branches scratching the walls. Clouds tumble by. A big boom of sea. A tremble of walls. The fraught fart fading. Brewed up as it must have been from the gravy. And further fermented by old cheese and ancient port. The three master minds when they get a moment free from making their snake pit in my house could concoct a pill to purify blasts. That freshly out of the pink expand. And turn a faceless blue in their beauty. The very latest. Just pop it down the throat. For your fragances. Of fern, lilac or heather. Matched pills for perfume. For evening wear. At one of their operas. Whole audience could come primed with lily of the valley. Making the authenticity of such a smell unforgettable. Rising triumphantly in crescendo from the best bottoms. A unified blast as the curtain comes down. And the clapping hands fan it up to the rafters. One curtain call after another. Could be taken by Rose. Who is growling again. Gyrating and plunging down on me. Way up her as I am. Between the curious intermissions we’ve been having. Like at the Saturday morning movies I used to see. Discontinued till next week with the hero’s head on the railway track. And I rushed back with my nickels to see if he would get squashed. As did the noses my father punched. Long after he married a wife who kept coming out of their bedroom wrapped in her kimono telling me to get back down stairs. My father so frequent in rage. Saw him sock a man up against a big grain silo and then put his hand around his throat until the man’s face turned blue just like Mrs L K L. Once a month at least he blew up charging through the house breaking everything in sight. Hissing and steaming. Then banging his fist which went through whatever it landed on. I began to like it better than the movies. Watching through some discreet aperture. Dust rising from chairs. Windows shattering. Lamp shades crushed. That latter was my favourite. And if he could find me I was always good for absorbing a few punches. Sending me aloft across the room. Screaming child murder. But I grew to be able to scoot down the cellar stairs and squeeze out a window which was too small for him to fit through. And once when he stood in the basement glaring I emptied a pail of water all over him. Into which I had peed before. The chase went up and down cherry trees, over garage roofs and in and out of his three cars. Till he cornered me in a bathroom in the house. And just as he was breaking down the door, the police came charging in. He knew them by name, Hal, Bob, Dick and gave them beer in the kitchen until they couldn’t stand up. All telling me one by one to behave myself and obey my father. Whose next wife thank God liked me and baked apple pies whenever I wanted them. Which was every day. With a bottle of cream. Followed by spoonfuls of cod liver oil. My palate enjoyed variation. I was a thin but healthy little devil. This new mother was nice. And I was hoping my father wouldn’t get another. Servants, all of whom had been frightened away came back to work for us. To get a stifled laugh one Sunday dinner when my father’s rage weakened chair collapsed beneath him and he got showered with a bowl of boiled potatoes. Which Rose might have preferred to the long gone to seed spud she snapped at in her eager hunger. Needed to feed her frenzied energy she uses to grind it right off me. Hold her steady by the great white rear globes. Smooth as mushrooms. Heaving with the remarkable neoarciform described by Erconwald. On her webbed feet she cruised right in to borrow a toiletry. Now she’s calling me Joseph. Might be walking in her sleep. Teeth in my neck. Sinking in. One has that terrible feeling there are eyes in the ceiling. Clarence peeking between the stone vaulting. And yesterday one moment as I turned to go back in a hallway which headed far beyond my curiosity, I thought I saw someone skip into a room. Any door you might open now could be a snakepit. Auntie would have a fit. Even if she is arthritic in the legs. When I graduated from high school she was the only one who came. And when I stood under banners on the gymnasium steps with the wind blowing through my hair, great aunt clapped for me long after everyone else stopped. Till a man said shush and she took her parasol and clonked him one. On childhood Sundays she took me in her big car, telling Peter the chauffeur through a microphone which way to turn. To reach my mother’s tomb round a lot of curving cemetery roads. Under a great stone canopy she stood. As a big white piece of chiselled marble in long flowing robes. My aunt said my mother was the most beautiful woman in the midwest. That fine fine profile. And you my boy are going to make something of yourself. Take no nonsense from inferiors and less from superiors and count on being surrounded by crass stupidity for most of your life. And I knew she wanted to add, instead of beating the shit out of innocent pedestrians, motorists and bystanders like your father. Rose groans. Long and nearly agonized. Flapping around like a fish. On the end of this pole.

  ‘Ah Joseph, Joseph what is it you’ve got up in me.’

  Do I speak. When I’m not Joseph. Best to wait for recognition. And meanwhile plan tomorrow’s events. Lick the place into shape. Before some more of it falls on me. Rose digging in her fingernails. She’ll be drawing blood. A little pain drives out the doom. Which after high school, college expulsion, naval training and sales careers, finally closed in on me. My slow suitable decline sent me on a stretcher from auntie’s gabled house in the shady street. And for the first time I saw her quiver. Just as the moon faced grandfather clock clanged three over her white head. And I passed by supine attempting the merest contorted grin. I was all she had left. And she was all I had. In the form of a very small weekly allowance. She sent me fresh fruit each day to the hospital. Tightwad as she was she kept me in a ward. In a wing the other side of the grey pebbled roof top where my mother died. Windows looked out over a canal. Two a.m. was the greatest stillness. When we all lay. wondering who was next to go. Wheeled out under a sheet. Before dawn came and gave us another day. Stare up now at the ceiling beaded with moisture. This castle like a vine entwining. Rose is off me and taking a rest. I’m in an awful state of worry. What if she’s afflicted with something not nice and catching. Which could send me down again only weeks after I’ve got up.

  Elmer asleep. Big shadowy head curled around on his paws. New fiercer winds are lashing cannon ball raindrops. Rose on her back, hands behind her head and elbows sticking in the air, whistling. Elmer wakes, his ears cocking in all directions.

  ‘I needed that. I fancy you.’

  ‘My name’s not Joseph.’

  ‘Ah God that’s a scream. When I’m like that I can’t get the name Joseph out of me head.’

  ‘You know someone called Joseph.’

  ‘No. I just say the name. It does for everybody. You know I like it here. It’s a bit damp. But roomy. I got an itch first time I set eyes on you. You’ve funny brown peepers with spots in them. What’s for breakfast.’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think it’s morning yet.’

  ‘I could eat a horse. Would you mind if I went down below and fixed up some bacon and eggs.’

  ‘I don’t know if there are any.’

  ‘Sure there’s pucks of food. I saw that Percival and a giant, blind as a bat unloading enough food out of a cart to feed an army. You’re wealthy.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Don’t thank me. I’m just glad of a bite to eat now and again. Only that the Baron never finishes his food I’d be starving.’

  ‘Who’s the Baron.’

  ‘Sure he was sitting across from you tonight down there in the dining room. Like the rest of us he’s inhabitating a dungeon back in town. For the moment he’s on combat pay with Erconwald. Hardly ever speaks but is a maniac for music. He came down my basement one night when I was rehearsing an aria and stood there at the wall beating his head on it, tears and then blood streaming down his face. Poor man was banished
by his family in one of them foreign countries. They send him money once a month to stay away. When it arrives doesn’t he have a horse cab call and creep out to it in his pyjamas to be taken to the pawn where he redeems his wardrobe, with the likes of a morning suit, silk shirts and whatever else grand continental gentlemen put on their backs. And he’s to be seen for the next week immaculate with hotel porters running after him with tips for the races, lounging as he is in a suite with his long cigarette holder in his mouth sipping champagne as if he had not a bother in the world. When the money’s gone, he gets the horse cab back to the pawn, climbs into his pyjamas again and waits till the next cheque from his family. He’s delirious with joy here in the castle, just like home it is to him.’

  ‘You think he might stay.’

  ‘Stay, you just try to get him out. Sure I met him in the hall trembling and tearful, a sure sign he couldn’t be happier. Erconwald says he is an overflowing spring of compassion. Will you have a rasher and an egg if I fetch them up.’

  ‘Yes please.’

  ‘Right you are.’

  Rose throws me a smile in the moonlit shadows. Her breasts aflood on her chest. Great black bush of hair sprouting from her belly. Sit here with my shot gun and pop the pheasants as they break from cover. She pirouettes. And goes into high c. Elmer leaping to his feet and tottering with the sudden effort. As Rose’s voice dins the ears.