The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B

by J. P. Donleavy

  Mists against the face. A faint fog horn. Her hand small and strong, to feel strangely delicate and warm. Brown slapping fern wetting the knees. A pouring sound of water against the ground.

  "What's that noise."

  "Ah it's nothing, the sheep, they hear something passing in the night. I don't want to be bold or fresh, but they are peeing in the grass in fear. Now that's where I am. The little bit of extension out on the back. Sure you've got an awful long trip ahead of you."

  "Fve done this before. Try my luck again. I'll be guided back by the lighthouses."

  "You look chilled. Ah God it's not right. You coming all this way."

  "It's fine."

  "You look to me of delicate constitution. I'm small looking but as strong as an ox. Sure you're just but very wispy. It becomes you, like a saint starved you might say. You know a thing I want to ask you. About your friend. Is it true or all made up what he goes on saying. We're taught a poor opinion of the protestants. But myself I've always found them honest and decent. And my own kind I found would cheat you out of your sight. I've never known the likes of Church of Ireland people to get up to the devil and mischief of your friend. I'm broadminded but Rebecca allows him shocking awful liberties. Then if a fellow can give you a laugh he doesn't cheapen you. We're nearly here. Mind now this fence. There's broken bottle and barbed wire. Listen to that. The wind is getting fierce. North westerly. Always makes me homesick. I know it's blowing across Cavan. Many a night it makes me cry to sleep. I can't think of you out in the likes of this."

  "I'll be alright."

  "Ah God look at you. You won't be. You're shivering."

  "I always do that."

  "Ah don't cod me."

  "No really."

  "I don't know what to say. But. But I don't want you to get the wrong idea. That I'm being bold. It's two by now in the morning. I could be murthered for it."

  "What's that."

  "You would say in English now, murder. In Ireland we say murthered because it takes us so much longer to do it. And I could be murthered but I mustn't let you go."

  "I'm fine."

  "Ah I'm no good. No good at all."

  "Why."

  "I'm just not that's all. What I'm really trying to say to you is I don't want you to go back. But stay. Go ahead you can say no, it won't be then for lack of me trying. Goodnight. If you go out the alley now and be careful of the barrels it will take you into the road and you go left then and keep to the sea.' "I want to say yes."

  "O."

  "If you're asking me to stay, and it won't be any inconvenience to you."

  "It's yes then."

  "Yes."

  "O."

  "What's the matter."

  "I don't know. I didn't think you would say yes and now I don't know what to do."

  "Do you want me to say no."

  "No."

  "But if it's upset you."

  "No. I'm glad you said yes."

  "Yes I said yes."

  "I'm scared out of my wits. I could use a bit of your friend Beefy's nerve. O but it's not to worry. That's my room up there."

  "I don't want to cause you distress. It's no trouble for me to go. If it's difficult for you."

  "You're the most beautiful man I've ever seen in my life. O God. Just give me a moment. I'll collect myself now. I'll be giving you an awful swell head. And mine I may get knocked off me. Now I have got to go in and when I get up to my room. I only have to open the window and you get on that barrel and step to the roof of the gents and it's easy to pull you in off there. You won't mind, my quarters are not grand."

  Balthazar B stood in the yard, a cold shadow under the eaves. Fat raindrops landing to flow down between the roots of hair and drip from eyebrows, ear lobes and nose. Water gushing from a broken gutter pipe. Shadows of crates stacked. My wet silk shirt sticking to my ribs. A smell of hay. Somewhere warm and dry. In the sheltered opening of this old cow shed. An unending night. If Miss Fitzdare ever hears. I'll never see her again. Mid fingerbowls, linen and lace. Here now in mud, manure and rain.

  "Hey there."

  "Hello."

  "Mind now very quiet as you go. On to the barrel first. That's it. Put a foot there and I will catch holt of your hand. Grand, there now. Don't be worried, get one hand on the sill. O God hold it there. Hold it."

  "I'm sorry I'm not awfully good at this."

  "You're doing fine, it's only some old pebbles and bits of cement. Ah now, a little more. This way. There. In you come now."

  Balthazar B scrambling across the sill. The sound of pebbles and lumps of cement falling to the yard below. Clattering above the whistling wind. Years since one was in out of inclemency. Or not pulling plaster out of walls. Safe a moment. Up here in this tiny room. Her narrow little bed along the wall under a crazy quilt. In the red electric fire light. Shadows of a tall cupboard, varnished brown. A light green plastic handle to pull it open. Two suitcases bound with belts stacked on top. A dressing table with a dish and broken brush and comb. Two jars of sea shells and a bottle of perfume throw shadows across a cloth in the candle light.

  "It won't be long to heat the room. With a bit of the electric fire. Landlords raise a holy terror. Watching the electricity get to me with a microscope over the wire. God love you you're wet through you poor man, a raindrop on your nose. You're the most beautiful man I've ever seen. What kind of mother and father did you have at all. Take this jacket off you now. Put it here over the back of the chair and let the fire shine on it."

  Balthazar B sneezing. Bending double as he held hands up to his face. Hair wet. Head dizzy and tight. The room goes round in circles under a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling. Now black and red and light. All those voices are calling me. Locked away in this room. I'm going down now and down.

  Balthazar B swayed in his wet shirt sleeves and slumped with a sigh unconscious into Breda's arms. Catching him under the shoulders and lugging him onto the bed. She kissed him on the eyes and lips and put her ear over his heart. To hear. Who goes there with footsteps. Where are you in the world. Walked here through bracken along a little path of slippery clay. Her hair is black. Combed with a broken comb. I saw a movie magazine. An issue I'd read cover to cover. It lay on her bedside box. We've the same taste for stars. Who come and go. As surely as trustees are not supposed to die. London streets turning upside down through all these recent hours. Where I walked swinging with a lightfooted stride. Out my little house. Along Brompton Road. Past the Hyde Park Hotel. Turreted, red bricked and tall. To make down the incline of Piccadilly and up again. A light breeze in the air passing the Ritz. To tea with lemon, squeezed under my tip of spoon. Feel so faint and feverish. Cold moments in school chapel so many years ago. To keel over and wake in bed. And just hear the distant singing. White owls fluttering overhead. A little girl friend looked at me on a Paris street and smiled in her white high shoes and gloves. She told me later in dancing class as I stepped on her toes. You should be ugly and I should be beautiful. My eyes are open. Fm not in Knights-bridge. It hardly matters now. A black head of hair on the pillow. Right by my side.

  "You're alright now. You're here."

  "What happened."

  "You just went down in a heap. I caught you falling. You feel any better."

  "O God."

  "You're alright now. You've got a bad chill. You won't think it's a liberty I took of removing off your suit. I hope you don't mind my boldness. I left the socks on you."

  "I'm sorry to be of so much trouble."

  "Sure it's nothing. No trouble. As easy as handling a child. I don't mean like now you were a child. Undressing a gentleman in decency is a funny enough thing. Your ribs show. You don't mind being in bed with me. My ribs show too. But tell me. Is your will power sapped."

  "What."

  "O God I don't know what I'm asking you at all now you're awake. But would you kiss me."

  Take this black haired head. Rolling over on top of me. My own head throbbing. Wind whining around the window. Her mou
th strangely sweet. On the eve, the end of my university career. Rain like pebbles against the window. Her breasts round and hard. Sinewy muscles in her arms lock tight in tiny bulges. All these weeks and months dreaming of a naked female body. Staring out silent from my evening rooms. Down on a college street glistening always glistening in the rain.

  "Ah God you kiss like a demon. I have to pinch myself I've got you here in bed. It wasn't to save you dying out on the road. That I brought you in. It was to save me dying of loneliness. Your shirt is real silk. And here you are with the likes of me."

  "You mustn't say things like that."

  "Sure the contrast is fun. I know where I'm at. I'm from Cavan originally. Where I should have stayed. Well out of the allurements of the world. They tell you to keep your tabernacle of purity. The fearful toll you can pay for a moment's thrill. And I can tell you one I paid. In holidays I went back to Cavan. I used to sit thinking at the cottage door looking out to the road. It was my uncle's was the farm. Ah God I'd do chores, sitting on the milking stool pulling away on the teats. When the neighbour's son comes in and says give this here thing a yank. I thought what harm can it be. An innocent lass in my poor flowered shift. Only frock I had from age twelve to sixteen. I yanked it for him like I'd milk any of the cows. And wasn't I later reported to this priest. Up there in the pulpit every Sunday. Shovelling his loads of misery out on the heads of the poor parishioners. Ah God I thought, listen to him and dropping his bits of flattery to the shop keepers before the collection is taken. They washed my mouth out for weeks with soap. Beat me black and blue. Sure this is all Greek to you. It must be a wonderful thing to be an atheist. Or like your friend combining lechery and religion. Do I seem a stranger. I wanted to get you into bed. From the moment I clapped eyes on you back there in Dublin. Standing you were, so nervous. With your long blond silky hair just visible in the light. Then I thought you'd never speak to me walking along the street. I was itching just to put my arms around you. Like this. Listen to the wind. It's getting up a gale."

  "What do I do in the morning."

  "Don't worry. Well get you out the same

  "Don't worry. Well get you out the same way you came. Take a bite of this now. It's the last bit of a bar of chocolate. It was me midnight dinner. When I can't sleep I read and have a piece of chocolate. Do you think purity is a joke. You're a quiet one. What does it all matter. I never thought I'd ever set foot in Trinity. Moving in real society. I did a funny thing. I stood up there at the mirror after I got you to bed. I hope you don't mind, I put your silk striped tie across me bosoms to make me look I was in Tahiti. I guess I'm out of my mind a lot. Keep dreaming I'll meet a sober serious gentleman with a drapery shop and set in his ways. I don't know what to say to you. You might think I'm daft. Would you love me. Before the beautiful likes of you are gone forever. Would you. I want you to love me. Say nothing now. While I put my hand over your mouth. I don't want you to speak. In case you want to tell me to get away. Ah God your thing is as good as that Beefy has any day. The feel of it. It stands up honest and protestant. Life is always travelling to a sorrow. On the way a taste of this will not lead immediately to tears. Warm like cattle we are in here. Ah God entwine me you prince."

  Her strong thin arms. Red weals of shoulder straps marked across her skin. Two globes of arse like acorns. She climbs over and closes down on me in bed. Was there ever anywhere milky sunlight. Where great almighty poets sing. To warm her soul and parts of her too cold to touch. Other little weals. Stained on her stone white skin. She breathes and licks with kisses. Wet little lips on my chilled nippled breasts. Tomorrow at three. Can't count the hours away. My brain so tired. Be in the afternoon. Just as it was when we were little boys. Dragged both before Crunch and Slouch. And all grown up now as a woman rides on my pole. Gripping like a hand. That pushed Beefy's away. Who said to Rebecca as he pointed it again I give thee darling this big prick in all its jolly frivolity, amplified by hand, pulled by night through my tender years. When now I think of London so far away. Of women, wan and white faced, sewing over benches in lofts from Whitechapel to Hornchurch. In broken buildings. By weed green bomb sites. Where Pll soon stand and look, chucked out of college. And all will be finished with Fitzdare.

  Wind outside dying down. A cow coughs across the fields. Her belly is on my belly. And never left my calling card. Dress her up in finery, bring her back to Paris. Dine on the favoured boulevards. Soften her working hands. Let her smiles blow up in delight. Away from all her tortured harm. But I am not a pushy man. Too shy to say more than hello. We lie together and Breda says we are over the bottling room. Where the stout comes out of barrels. And corked and kept cool till it grows sweet. And foams a brownish cream. You screamed she said. I could feel it shooting into me. Never mind there's no one to hear. Not this time of night when they're snoring.

  Now a fog horn mournful. Rain turned to mist and mist to dawn. World grown white and silent out the window. I hold her body as she sleeps. A spider's web in the corner of the ceiling. Her head covered in all its black hair. Without a face. Buried breathing in there. My white skin as white as hers. My temples burning and my eyes hot.

  A clip clop of a horse somewhere on a road. In her sleep she moans. Grinds her teeth. Said you don't know anything about me. Then she tosses and turns. Out of sleep and back to sleep. Must get to Trinity at three o'clock. My joints ache and feet shiver down near the window. Reach for my watch. Across her head. To anywhere else in the world. Squeezed for space. With lips to kiss and breasts to feel. And the honey running between her legs.

  "What's that, who's that."

  "Just me, I'm trying to see the time on my watch."

  "Lord save us. A sergeant major in the Legion of Mary was beating me with a thong. The cruelty. Making me give a public confession. Thank God it's only you and morning I have to contend with."

  "You were talking in your sleep."

  "Ah God what did I say. Don't tell me. Just what's the time by your watch."

  "Five minutes to six."

  "It's fog out the window. Poor man how are you feeling this morning."

  "Not so very well."

  "Let's feel your forehead. God you're burned to death with the fever."

  "I don't feel terribly good."

  "O you poor lad you might be dying. What are we going to do for you at all. God I'm in for it now. We can't have the doctor come to you here."

  "I'll go."

  "You couldn't go out into the fog, you wouldn't get a hundred steps before you'd be lost."

  "O no I'm alright, I'll go."

  "Your eyes are awful red. Poor lad you could be breathing your last."

  "Do you really think so."

  "God you could. By the look of you."

  "I've not made my will."

  "Sure that won't get you well. But I have an old notebook there. Would it do for writing your last wishes."

  "Yes. But do you think I should. Do I look that bad."

  "Maybe a bit like a man at his wedding. Ah my heart goes out to you. Wait now while I brush back your hair."

  "May I call you Breda."

  "Sure you better after what's gone between us. We're not exactly strangers now."

  "Breda, do you really think I'm dying.' "I can't be sure. But you don't look good."

  "I don't have heirs."

  "No sure you don't have airs. Who ever said a thing like that. You're a charming humble gentleman."

  "I don't mean that kind of airs. I mean heirs who inherit money."

  "Ah I know what you mean now, ha ha, that's good gas. I'm sorry to laugh. But you mean you don't have anyone to leave your money to."

  "No."

  "Don't you have anyone belonging to you."

  "No. Except a mother."

  "Sure you could leave her a bit of your ready."

  "What's ready."

  "Ah the ready is money. Wherever you go or whatever you do you've got to have something ready. And it's always money."

  "I could leave you some."<
br />
  "Ah God you don't have to. I wouldn't want a thing. Only maybe to see you again. But sure you'll go on living."

  "If you could get me a taxi or something. Have it stop down the road. I'll get back to my rooms."

  "God love you now, I couldn't let you go as you are. Your pair of blue eyes in their balls of red. Would you be able to make love to me again. God I fancy you. The fever has brought such colour to your cheeks. If you aren't the most beautiful creature God ever made."

  "You mustn't say things like that."

  "Why not. God gave me the luck of this night with you. And I want to say it out loud so he can hear it. And this other thing he gave you. I can feel it. Hard as a stone. Would you be able for a frolic. Before the fever kills you."

  "I think so."

  "Like one of Finn MacCool's Fingers it is."

  "What."

  "Ah in Cavan there's a row of stone pillars sticking up out of the ground. Near where Myles the Slasher is buried. My landlord here is called Myles but he's no slasher poor man. His wife's the slasher. Ah you boyo. I'll sit up on it. First take me breast in your mouth. Poor lad your lips are hot with the fever. Sure I'm killing you. I'm wild. You've no idea how exciting this is. Been months and months since I had a man."

  Winey smell. The mists creep by. Ships sail and hoot. The mail boat arriving from Liverpool. As she tightens tighter round me. Dark headed white bodied. Filling her womb. As she keeps wanting more. Where will I go when I'm well again. Far away from college squares. To walk in tweed with yellow gloves swinging a stick. Part forever from books and rooms, stone halls, and ivied buildings. The black gowns gone. And the carving of fish and frogs. To feel like the midnight homeless. Newsboys wandering empty streets, shouting out Herald and Mail. On their blue ankled bare feet clutching their last papers for sale. By the blind drunk lurching figures reaching out for something to read. I lie here so weary. Yet calmed with sweet ripples of wandering pleasure up my legs. Breda. Nails dig in my neck and scratch down my back and teeth biting blood from my lips. You lie in your linen sheets Fitzdare. I know you do and this could be your head and these your breasts and this I hold your hard pumping twisting little arse. But yours is bigger and you are taller and we may never see each other again. The daylight has come. I'm going to be dead soon. Pulled in a coffin through the streets. By black high prancing horses. Laid in a grave. And while I'm dying. All I have are fears. Golden eyes of Bella. Please look down on me. For years and years and years. Took away your slender fingered hand. You touched me with. Purring laughters broke your lips. You crossed my life on long tanned legs in a Paris sun. Running and running. Hair resting on the wind. Across beaches down dunes. You fly. Our little fellow. Came out of you. Taken from between your legs. He had little hands and cheeks. Ears small like yours. To hear the puffing and whistling trains. Where everywhere across a station I see you. Passing hurried in your dark clothes. Why never did you say. Or tell me I am a father. Of our little son. For both of you to have everything I own. And take you safely to the end of life. Started down in you that night. Where does he walk. That little fellow. Full of fear like me. Stare up at big high faces. All goggle eyed little boy. Shut behind these gates. Which open with a whole flood of tears. I can't stop pouring out of me. Wiped away by this girl of poverty I hardly know.