The Ginger Man - J. P. Donleavy [66]
"Now, isn't this nice, Mary?"
"It's all right."
"It's a good bit of malt, sir."
"Rather."
"It's been showery weather"
"For sure."
I don't think I'm getting far with this conversation or with Mary. Play on her sympathy for being outside the church and grace. Might be the thread needle hole to her own. I've got a cloacal grip on life. Lot of people have said that. Nor am I going to let go. If there is illusion, live it with a flourish. I'll get you, Mary. Just like Marion. In the good old days I had Marion wrapped around. My finger. Up to get the tea. And toast. That was love. But I killed it. Things just don't last. They change. And sometimes they multiply, like babas.
The woman of the establishment came in.
"Now that was the last round. I have to get my sleep."
"One for the road and for yourself. Weary travelers we are."
"Do you want to have me arrested ?"
"For fear we get killed on the highways."
"Go on out of that. You're a fine one. Once you get in here I can't get you out. Just one more. Catherine, two whiskies and a gin, and get a move on. Can't get an ounce of work out of them these days with all their fancy clothes and going out to dances. A while back I'd take the arse out of the likes of her and her men friends. They don't want to work these days."
"They don't know their place."
"Don't I know it Up from the country and you'd think they was from society. Take that out of them"
"Catch them in the first-class"
"The likes of them should walk—never mind riding in the first-class"
"Discipline. More discipline"
"Out with black men every night of the week. I'll pound that out of them"
"There'll be a day of reckoning for all their laziness. That's for sure"
"And it won't be too soon."
"I'm a great believer in the fairness"
"It's all right"
"Now if you'll excuse me a moment, I must make wee wee"
"That's thirteen and six."
"My driver will see to that."
Sebastian felt his way through the hall and out a door under the sky. He pissed indiscriminately. He met Catherine coming back in the darkness. They locked. And she put her hand between his legs. And dropped the tray with a dang. The hall suddenly alight.
"What's going on? Now I won't have any of this going on with my girls. Stop it Catherine, take your arms from around that gentleman, you dirty little slut."
"Now, now, everything's all right. Catherine and I were lost in the hall."
"I've had enough of your carrying on, Romeo. And get back into that kitchen you, the very nerve of you. Slut."
Sebastian gave madam a pinch in the bottom as he waltzed by and she slapped his hand. O good O. We'll all go and sit under the shittah tree. Something that no one knows is that I pawned a mirror of a public toilet. One of those modern jobs, just screwed in. I had the end of a fork to take them out and went to my broker. Then I went to the Grafton Cinema to have a supper in the pseudy tudy interior. Sitting by the window from where I could see Dawson Lounge written up on a high wall. Happiness can be uncomfortable. And waiting for food it was great but I called on a few fears to temper the glow of conservative mellowness. The waitress, a lovely black build of a girl. full mouth and white teeth and healthy breasts full of opulent undulation as she came with plates of stuff. O the hunger of it
Madam stood at the door. huge bosom coming out the hall.
"Now that's all. the lot of you out of here now, before the Guards come breaking down the door."
"And let me thank you for a fine evening."
"Just get out."
"Am I becoming the hound?"
The lady of the house laughed. Ushered them through the long dark hall and out up the alley of barrels. And drunks lurking in doorways, reeling and pissing. Sebastian told the driver to let them off at the Metal Bridge and that there