The Onion Eaters

by J. P. Donleavy

  ‘Whatever do you mean.’

  ‘I mean I’ve just been reading about it.’

  ‘About what.’

  ‘The pox.’

  ‘How dare you. Are you lying there accusing me of having a venereal disease. Are you.’

  ‘I’m only recently out of the hospital.’

  ‘You’ve already said that but are you now telling me you have a disease.’

  ‘No. I wondered if you had it.’

  ‘How absolutely dare you. I could slap your face. In fact I will slap your face.’

  It stung and I saw stars. Hard as one could I slapped back. Her next blow nearly sent me out of the bed. I raised the bed covers up in front of my face.

  ‘Hit a woman would you.’

  ‘You hit me. Twice.’

  ‘I should think so suggesting I might have VD. What kind of person do you think I am.’

  ‘It said in the book anyone could have it.’

  ‘And you blithely would go to bed with anyone.’

  ‘I was just going to sleep when you sailed in on your roller skates.’

  ‘Well forgive me. I’ll sail out just as quickly if you don’t mind. I happen to be long and close friends of the Macfuggers. Lady Gail Macfugger also happens to be the daughter of a marquess. And I have two close relatives Commanders of the Bath.’

  The storm lashing outside. Veronica sitting back on her hands. The way one does at the beach. I commented upon the colourful parasol. And she blew a noisy breath down her nose, swept back the covers, reached to pick up her roller skates, trod on one and spun in the air landing with a shuddering crash on the floor at the foot of the bed. Silence and now low agonizing groans.

  ‘Are you all right.’

  ‘O God.’

  Out of bed. Picking one’s way in the half light. She lay on her side holding a hand to her back. Standing over this stricken human being. A large corn on her little toe which seemed crushed together with the others on her foot.

  ‘My ankle is twisted. O God how I hate pain.’

  ‘Should I help you back on the bed.’

  ‘Of course can’t you see I’m in agony.’

  Bending and reaching behind her arm pits. Lifting her to a sitting position. With a wince and wail. Her breasts wagging forward. Crash aging her ten years. Inappropriate my penis is up but no spiritual admonishment presently shouted all over my brain keeps it down, save for foreskin at half mast.

  ‘If you don’t mind, just let me rest sitting a moment to catch my breath.’

  ‘O no I don’t mind, please do.’

  ‘I think I have crushed my vertebrae. What am I going to do. I’ve just been accepted representative for a sanitary napkin company. I can’t possibly start work, injured as I am.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll be all right.’

  ‘You’re erected, shows how much you care. O God I will be weeks in a cast, I know it.’

  ‘You mustn’t worry.’

  ‘What do you know about worry. Where your next meal is coming from. How it is to be a middle aged woman on her own in a cruel and horrid world of gossip and ingratitude. You don’t know what it is.’

  ‘Sure I do.’

  ‘Indeed. Accused as I was of having a disease. Hand me my parasol please. I actually think that may be slander.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it.’

  ‘Please pick me up. Very carefully. And don’t touch me with that thing.’

  ‘I can’t lift you then.’

  ‘Make it go down.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘As I lie here in agony you stand there frivolously waving that in my face. It’s quite an adequate specimen but how contemptible. I have half a mind to ring for Bonaparte. This is the most insulting moment of my entire life. It means nothing to you that I may have lost a good job. Will you make that go down. Grossly impertinent at a moment like this.’

  ‘I’m trying. Why don’t you just let me lift you up.’

  ‘I’m shivering now. Take the parasol and cover yourself. I don’t want to witness another moment of your public exhibition showing off in that fashion.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘O lift me up then, my God.’

  Clementine lifting. The lady with the parasol. Tugging under the arms. She hobbles on a left foot. Support her under the right shoulder. Move forward. Feel the side of her silky breast. Just another few feet. Make out hexagonals pink and yellow and green on the rug. Each one encircled by a chain of arrows and eggs.

  ‘O no no.’

  Veronica crying out. Clementine digging in fingers under her shoulder as he stepped, slipped and fell. With another brief ride on a roller skate. Her body landing a heapful in his lap.

  ‘You incredible clot you’re trying to kill me.’

  ‘I am not I’m hurt now too.’

  ‘Why can’t you watch where you’re going when assisting someone injured.’

  ‘Please the skate wheels are sticking in my back. If you just shift a little.’

  ‘I think that this is the last straw.’

  ‘I’m trying to do my best. Please just roll a tiny bit to the side.’

  Clementine untangling a leg. Feel this pair of spine splintering wheels. One still spinning attached by a sole to soft kid skin uppers. Showing her shins to advantage. When she locomoted in. A little puffiness and dimples on the knees. Glorious contours about the thorax. A word I heard when doctors tapped me there. Got a quick feel of hers. Along with a stinging slap across the face. She takes to being an invalid. Would lift the lot of her up on the bed. But damaged something quite bizarre at the end of my spine.

  ‘Just slide off me Veronica.’

  ‘I am incapacitated can’t you see.’

  ‘I’ve broken my arse.’

  ‘Serves you right.’

  ‘Just roll.’

  ‘Roll. With my vertebrae crushed. You’re less hurt than I am with that thing most rudely sticking in my back.’

  ‘We’ll be here on the floor all night.’

  ‘You can easily pull yourself out from under. I absolutely and firmly refuse to jeopardise my vertebrae by movement.’

  The curtain billowing into the room. The white lining catching spare moonlight cutting through low rushing clouds. Moist wild smells. The sea will be pounding and foaming up the tunnels of Charnel Castle. Tumbling along the body of Percival. A first night away from my new home. Locked in rigid eternity with a ladies’ sanitary representative. Yet to get her first order.

  Stiff and sore from that night’s gavotte I wore a pillow behind my arse in the saddle. Riding a massive grey hunter up a stony trail to the top of a steep hill. Following Macfugger’s big black arsed stallion as he outlined his campaign. Surveying the sprawling house and demesne from a high outcropping with the ever ready binocs round his neck, two automatics bulging under a riding coat. With a map in his lap, pointing with his riding whip.

  ‘Now Clementine defensive positions can be established right along here behind this ridge of granite. Excellent observation, good cover and we’ll rain down mortar fire on the wretched buggers. Of course they’ll move at night. But our trip wires laid will send up flares. We have an impregnable natural defence barrier. Position the sten guns there and there. When they withdraw for a wound licking reorganization and rest we’ll make their little acreage rather unpleasant. Strum their vocal cords with sniper fire.’

  In Macfugger House courtyard, grooms lined up shouldering shot guns carbines and rifles. One gardener with a pitch fork another with a scythe and two more standing over a pair of rusty mortars. I lurked near the open door of the hay barn as Macfugger strutted back and forth on the wet grey cobbles shouting out commands, a sten gun resting across his arm.

  ‘We’re outnumbered just about five to one. But manoeuvreability and observation is the key to the modern land battle. I know you will all be a lot of good chaps and that treachery will never cross your minds. Not because you would get your fucking heads blown off personally by me but because the name Macfugger has ec
hoed in these hills and valleys since the beginning of time and no bunch of vagrants is going to creep in around here where fuckers for centuries have feared to snoop. Attention. To the right shoulder. Arms. About face. To the left flank. March. Come on you cunts. Left flank.’

  Macfugger counting cadence slapping his riding crop against his boot. The dark clothed group of troops, coats held closed with bits of string, battered fedoras on heads, knocked off and picked up as they collided and recollided in the blaze of commands from Captain Macfugger. Who took wild swipes at the chickens scattering between the confused legs of his platoon.

  ‘Halt. For God’s sake halt. Wipe that grin off your face Kelly. Now listen to me. To move a force efficiently takes coordination. That means keeping in step. And marching in the same direction. An about face is executed on the ball of the right foot. Not the left with half of you slapping each other’s face with rifle barrels. Murphy take three paces forward and get rid of that scythe. Now then. Fall in. Attention. Left face. Forward. March.’

  Back and forth across the stable courtyard. Macfugger flanking his troops, stamping his feet. The sun breaking through. Rain puddles glinting. My own parade grounds were dry and dusty. Pounding in tight sweaty leggings. Staring at the back of the neck ahead. Wondering when the Christ this mad drudgery would ever end. I was best as an overall strategist. The bold winning stroke delivered without warning with overwhelming superiority. Making an enemy run for his life. Clutching his backside. But they forced me to train to one day be an admiral chained to charts down in the bowels of a ship, sipping and chewing freshly made coffee and biscuits.

  Macfugger dismissing his troops. Striding with shoulders back across the courtyard. Stopping and confronting a rooster fluttering its wings and taking little threatening leaps at him in the air. A black boot swiftly coming upwards into the white fluffed feathers of its breast. The bird arcing up into the air landing ten yards away where it lay gasping through its open beak for air.

  ‘Did you see that Clementine that god damn bird attacking me. Damn nuisance when things don’t know who’s boss. Well I’m getting that lot into shape. Drill some soldiering into them yet. Produce a battle classic of the few against the many. They need a little gung ho. Their strongest feature as troops is of course, their natural greed for destruction. Especially polished antiques. My ruddy arm’s broken holding this sten gun. Puts the fear of God into them. When I gave them a demonstration. Six bottles blasted out of the sky with my forty fives, three shots each from the left and right hand, they stood around thunderstruck for ten minutes. Think it’s time now for tea.’

  Veronica arriving on the arm of Bonaparte. Carried as she was to safety that first evening by wheelchair pushed by Macfugger. Who upon confronting our two piled up prostrate contorted bodies doubled into paroxysms of laughter and promptly fell sideways against the bedside table knocking whiskey and mineral water upon us. Later, recounting the story to me which he did every couple of hours, he accompanied the telling by crippling slaps on the back, loudly saying by God there was your opportunity with the female form sublime.

  Seated to China tea and watercress sandwiches. Silver bowls of bon bons. Veronica festooned in chiffon scarves throwing back her head and sniffing in the air. Trying to shake something out of her mind. Macfugger smiling into his cup. One wants to streak away over the rocky mountain road towards home. Before it is reduced to ashes or turned into a mine or oil well. With mambas entwining loose about the drilling rig.

  ‘By God a house full of cripples. Like my grandfather in his wheelchair. Never put foot outside Macfugger House during the last twenty five years of his life. Except once when there was a fire in a chimney. Even then he refused to budge off the front porch. Only exercise he got was picking his false teeth out of the soup each day. Always took a spoonful that was too hot and spit the whole thing out teeth and all. Kept a pincers to lift out his dripping bicuspids.’

  Late grey afternoon I took my leave from the pillared front and granite steps of Macfugger House. Her ladyship and Nails waving from the doorway. The four in hand rumbling up the drive, turning left, through a village of pub and shop. Past a blacksmith shoeing a horse’s hoof over his thick leather apron in the doorway. Up a winding gorse lined road and across the lonely windswept hills. In my hand a letter slipped me by a maid. Opening it as the sprawling fields and parklands of Macfugger House lay distantly behind.

  Dear Mr Clementine,

  Although I hope we can still be friends in the future this is just to say that your callous indifference has left me feeling quite ill. I hope you don’t think it was intentional to enter a gentleman’s bedchambers. I had an irresistible schoolgirl urge to try the skates. I used to ice skate in my youth on the canals of Holland. However it is irrelevant to the purpose of this letter which is to ask if you would pose for some photographs. I expect to be picking up my car in two days.

  Veronica

  The dark grey tall walls of Charnel Castle. First evening star above a black cloud moving in from the sea. Soft salty wind. Waves splash up on the steep coastal cliffs and spread out on the sandy beach of the bay. Strange terrors out there bobbing on the waters. Goodbye to the Macfugger grooms. Hello to the Charnel dwellers.

  Clementine crossing the tiles of the great hall. Through the stray boulders surrounding a large pile of rubble. A yellow lamp glow illuminating where a bent head examines a hole perforating a stone arch. Franz. Kneeling and picking away rocks and soil, poking his finger through the little circle of blackness as he suddenly looks up.

  ‘I have unfortunately miscalculated. The excavation should have started perhaps another two yards to the east. There will not be much difficulty beginning a new digging.’

  ‘You’re breaking into the cellars.’

  ‘It was a mistake. But all my important discoveries have originated from blunders.’

  ‘I want the whole bunch of you out of here and the holes filled in and the tiles replaced.’

  Franz slowly shrugging his shoulders. Holds the pick handle aside and dislodges clay from the rusty cutting edges. Looking back up and scratching his head.

  ‘Mr Clementine you do try my patience. It will be most difficult to reach conclusions on our explorations here if you take that attitude.’

  ‘I don’t want your conclusions. And where are those mambas.’

  ‘My colleague Erconwald was of the opinion that they should be released in the surrounding countryside.’

  Clementine swiftly ascending the great staircase. Along the corridors. Up past the coffin chamber to the lofty fortified confines of the octagonal room. Change out of Nails Macfugger’s borrowed rather loose fitting shooting garments. Nice bone buttons on the flies. A letter on my bedside table. All in the chamber neat and tidy. No Elmer to greet me. Check under the bed for snakes. Open this letter. Addressed to owner or occupier.

  GHQ

  The Crossroads.

  Dear Sir,

  The Army of Insurrection hereby informs you of a requisition order made for the partial use of Charnel Castle during the present emergency. The north wing of the said premises including the northeast and west towers will be required for the housing of troops under this command. Should you desire further information concerning this requisition please contact above.

  Sean Macdurex

  Officer Commanding

  Fourth Tank Division Western Army

  Clementine seating himself. Taking up pen and crested paper. Reply to this first sign of hostilities. With a short résumé of casual internal impediments.

  Sean Macdurex

  Officer Commanding

  GHQ

  The Crossroads

  Dear Sir,

  This castle is already chock full of inhabitants, not to mention poisonous reptiles. Some of these inmates have been violent and others teeter on the verge and therefore I cannot vouch for the safety of your troops. Interior excavations are also being conducted making it dangerous to wander inside here. I note that you do not mention any decoration
s awarded.

  Yours faithfully,

  Clayton Claw Cleaver Clementine

  Of The Three Glands

  A knock. Someone standing in the shadows. A scouting party for the insurrectionists. Creeping to subdue me in my partial state of undress. To punch me under the oxsters. Thunder boots against my free swinging glands. Sell them later to the highest bidding pawnbroker, nothing like three gilded real ones to bring in the customers. While I hang ball less from the ramparts.

  ‘Ah am I disturbing you my dear Clementine. I have just come to say how glad I am to see you. To welcome you back. To indeed say all I can in humble greeting. It was with great excitement this morning that I witnessed ranunculous peeking with its yellow dewy flower just above the blades of graminea to afford itself the rays of a friendly sun. May I inquire had you a pleasant stay with your friends. I trust you slept well with no ill images troubling you. And that the gods of pleasant inconsequentials made your eyelids quiver with all that is joyful in slumber. May nymphs diaphanously clothed anoint you. And might I trouble you to ask for a further moment of your time.’

  ‘It’s you.’

  ‘Ah. To be sure. Yes, it is I. I have been busy with equations and can state quite firmly now that the eta meson when discovered will reveal three new particles called pions. As we speak, low dark clouds tumble upon us from the sea. As we breathe new winds are born.’

  ‘Erconwald would you mind just cutting out the shit.’

  ‘Ah good person perchance you are aggrieved.’

  ‘Yes I am.’

  ‘But may I then kind sir hope that from a panorama of absurdities I might seek from you one harmless indulgence.’