The Ginger Man - J. P. Donleavy [2]
"What made you get all this damn booze?"
"Warm us up. I think a cold front is on the way from the Arctic."
"What will Marion say when she gets back?"
"Not a word. These English wives are great. Know their proper place. Ought to marry one yourself."
"All I want is my first piece of arse. Plenty of time to get snowed under with a wife and kids. Give me some of that Scotch and out of my way now while I rustle up this food. Cooking is the only work I sometimes think I'm fitted for. One summer when I was working in Newport I thought of giving up Harvard. There was this Greek chef who thought I was wonderful because I could speak aristocratic Greek but they fired me because I invited some of the boys from Harvard into the club's bar for a drink and the manager came over and fired me on the spot Said the staff weren't to mix with guests."
"Quite rightly so."
"And now I've got a degree in classics and still have to cook."
"A noble calling."
O'Keefe flipping pots and bouncing from sink to table.
"Kenneth, do you think you're sexually frustrated and maladjusted?"
"I do"
"You'll find opportunities in this fine land"
"Yeah, lots, for unnatural connections with farm animals. Jesus, the only time I can forget about it is when I'm hungry. When I eat I go mad. I sat down and read every book on sex in the Widener Library to see how I could get it Did me no damn good. I must repel women and there's no cure for that"
"Hasn't anyone ever been attracted?"
"Once. At Black Mountain College in North Carolina. Asked me to come up to her room to listen to some music. She started to press up against me and I ran out of the room"
"What for?"
"She must have been too ugly. That's another thing against me. I'm attracted to beautiful women. Only thing for me is to grow old and not want it anymore."
"You'll want it more than ever"
"Jesus, that isn't true, is it? If that's what I've got to look forward to I may as well flip myself off the end of the back garden out there. Tell me, what's it like to have it steady?"
"Get used to it like most things."
"I could never get used to it"
"You will."
"But what's this little visit of Marion's to mama and papa? Friction? Drinking?"
"She and the baby need a little rest"
"I think her old man must be wise to you. How did he ever screw you out of two hundred and fifty notes? It's no wonder you never got it"
"He just took me into his study and said sorry son, things are just a little tight at the moment"
"Should have said dowry or no marriage. He must have dough, an admiral. Give him the stuff, like to provide for Marion the way she's accustomed to. Could have touched him with a few of those rosy ideas of yours"
"Too late. This was the night before the wedding. I even refused a drink for strategy. However, he waited a good five minutes after the butler left before pleading poverty"
O'Keefe spins holding the chicken by the leg.
"See, he's shrewd. Saved himself two hundred and fifty nicker notes. If you had been on your toes you could have told him you had Marion up the pole and with a birth imminent you needed a little nest egg. Now look at you. All you need to do now is flunk your law exams and bingo."
"I'm all right, Kenneth. Little money and everything's all right. Got a house, wife, daughter."
"You mean you pay rent for a house. Stop paying rent, no house."
"Let me pour you another drink, Kenneth. I think you need it."
O'Keefe filling a bowl with bread crumbs. Night outside and the boom of the sea. Angelus bells. Pause that refreshes.
"This, Dangerfield, is your blood for which your family will starve and which will finally send you all to the poor house. Should have played it cozy and married strictly for cash. Come in drunk, have a quick one and whoops, another mouth to feed. You'll be eating spaghetti as I had to as a kid till it comes out of your eyes or else you'll have to take your English wife and English kids and screw back to America."
The chicken, trussed, was laid reverently in the pan. O'Keefe with a smack of the lips pushed it in the oven.
"When that's ready,