The Ginger Man - J. P. Donleavy [58]
"Stop it. She has a perfect right to make noise."
"Well lock her in the garage—I can't understand why they don't have chains for children. I'm going to Trinity."
"Go ahead, I'm not stopping you."
"Thought you might like to know."
"Well I don't."
"Now, now. I'm coming right back. I think perhaps we ought to pay off a pound on the electricity bill. Marion, are you listening?"
"I heard you."
"Good idea to clear up part of this little matter."
Marion pouring milk into a pan.
"I say, Marion, are you ill? Now for the teeth of Jesus—"
"Stop using that language in front of the child. And Miss Frost too. And I'm sick of it. Go if you're going."
"Now, Marion, let's be reasonable. This bill must be paid sooner or later or they'll be out here to cut it off. What will the Miss Smiths think? I say—"
"O for God's sake, stop whining. Since when have you been concerned with what people will think?"
"I've always been that way."
"What rot."
Sebastian got up from the table and walked into the kitchen and put his arm across Marion's shoulders.
"Take your hands off me, please."
"Marion."
"I thought you were going to Trinity. Well go.
"I don't want to waste the trip in."
"O you are a liar."
"Little severe, Marion."
"And you come back drunk."
"I beg your pardon. I'll give you a shot in the mouth."
"Why don't you fight a man. I'm not giving you one penny."
"I have a proposition—"
"I don't intend to change my mind."
"All right, Marion. If you wish it that way. Be Protestant and miserable. If you'll excuse me. I'll go."
Out of the kitchen stony faced. He took a bag from the morning room and went into Miss Frost's room. Two decanters. Into the bag. And bowler placed neatly on his skull. Quickly out the front door, skipping down the steps and whoops. He stumbled headlong into a choice laurel, face in the rotting leaves. Decanters held high for safety. A few foul words of abuse. Tugging at the little green gate. Stuck. A lash with the boot. The gate slumped open. The lower hinge wagging by its spring.
He arrived in Dublin on the top of the tram. And slid through the fashionable throng of the Grafton Street. He walked under the three gold balls and to the counter. Plunked down the two decanters. A funereal man hunched whispering over them.
"Well, Mr. Dangerfield."
"Heirlooms. Fine Waterford."
"I see, Mr. Dangerfield. Not much of a market these days. Seems people don't set much of a value."
"Wine's becoming very popular.'1
"Ah yes, Mr. Dangerfield Ha."
"Americans are mad for them."
"Ten shillings."
"Make it a pound."
"Fifteen and we won't argue."
Sebastian turned with his money. He bumped into a man coming in the door. A man with a rotund skull and shoulders streamlined against the weather.
"Jesus Christ come home to roost. Sebastian"
"How do you do, Percy."
"I hose shit off the toilet seats in Iveagh House. Drink anything that's going and hump when I can."
"Jolly good show."
"And I'm in to pawn five pounds of steak."
"Eeeek, you're not"
"Here it is."
"Percy, incredible."
"Will you have a drink. Wait for a second while I flog the meat, and I'll tell you the whole story."
Sebastian waited under the three balls. Percy, grinning, came out and they set off down the street. Percy Clocklan, a short bull man. So strong he could collapse the walls of a room with a deep breath. But only did this in people's houses he didn't like.
They sat in the corner of a tiny public house. Few hags beating gums in each other's deaf ears. Saying the dirtiest imaginable things. Absolutely shocking. Percy Clocklan's face was all grin and laughter.
"Sebastian, I've had everything. My father was a bank manager. My sister's a member of the Purgatorial Society, my brother's a company director and I reside in the Iveagh House over the Bride Street, a hostel for the poor and dying"
"Better days coming."
"But let me tell you. Here I am, educated with the best of them at Clongowes. Nine years in the textile trade taking guff from these awful eejits and not even a raise. I told the manager to stuff