The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B (22 page)

"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 mouth 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."

"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.

"O God my lad. What makes you cry."

"I'm dying."

"Ah surely you are."

"And that's so terribly sad."

"Ah not so in the land where everybody does it. The only thing they're good at at all. Come lie now with your head here. A woman's breast is the best place for you feeling like that. What's troubling you."

"I don't know."

"There's something deep is troubling you. The way the tears come welling up. Otherwise dying would be your only worry. I've spent years terrified of my last moments. With the hand of God waiting up there to slap me across the face. And me ready to give back to him a kick in the shins he wouldn't soon forget. One day soon enough my time will come. I won't have energy left to care. Cuddle in close to me. You're like the little boy I had once. In my arms but three short days. My father was a cobbler. Drank us out of hearth and home. When he wasn't doing that he was beating my mother with his fists and us little kids with a razor strop. Or screaming round with the pain of hammering his thumb. There was howling all day long. My uncle kept the farm in Cavan. I was sent out there to fatten up they thought I was going to die. I'd be back and forth to Irishtown. I liked Cavan and the country ways. The little beauties. Tadpoles and toads. Catching eels in the grass. Gave me a fright when I first saw one of them. I was frightened it was a snake. My uncle got me a situation in a hotel away in Kerry. A beautiful young priest on his holidays stopped me in the hall. I was carrying an armful of sheets. He said was I behaving myself. Had I been yet to Lourdes. I said I had not. He says did I hear tell of the talk of the scandal up the coast. A bunch of Americans in a castle raising cain. He says to me was I sure I wasn't up there. Where poor innocents had already been impurely enslaved. I looked at him. He was as serious as they come. Wanted to know of my company keeping, whether I was thinking of getting married or did I think I had a vocation. I said yes, carrying sheets like I am doing this minute. O he was a smarmer. He said how is your immortal soul. I said fine thanks. He asked if my room where I slept was of a hygienic standard. I laughed in his face. But God it wasn't long before he was up there hearing my confession as we sat on the side of the bed. I am telling you my life's story. And maybe you're dying in my arms."

"I'm feeling a little better thank you."