The Ginger Man - J. P. Donleavy [89]
Miss Frost standing at the door in her thick, woolly robe, her green pajamas, her red slippers. Sebastian looked up slowly.
"You're so tired, Mr. Dangerfield. You look so tired."
Sebastian smiled.
"Yes. I am."
"Let me get you some chocolate before you come to bed."
"Miss Frost."
"Yes?"
"Miss Frost, you're kind."
"No."
"Miss Frost, I'm weary. What will you do when I'm gone? I'm worried about you."
"I don't know."
"Move somewhere else?"
"I guess so."
"Leave Ireland?"
"I don't know."
"Leave."
"It's a bit of an undertaking."
"Come with me, Miss Frost"
"You don't want me."
"Now don't say that."
Sebastian fell forward on his face. Miss Frost caught him beneath the arms and half lifted this light body to his feet She led him slowly and carefully to her bedroom. Lowering him to the edge of the bed. He sat there elbows on his thighs, hands hanging from his wrists.
Dreaming out this sunset Tacked up on a cross and looking down. A cradle of passive, mystifying sorrow. Flooded in tears. Never be too wise to cry. Or not take these things. Take them. Keep them safely. Out of them comes love.
Miss Frost stepped from the door shyly. Her head a little bent and red spreading under the flesh of her temples. There was a small spot middle way up her nose. Her lashes dark and flickering, the wandering skin around her eyes. Some lines of her hair and her age of thirty four. The vulnerable steep bottom of her skull. Never to turn around and look at our backs, or as we are walking away. But her feet stepping with red toes. The part of her that was her falling arches, the sway bent ankles which put a tender part in her eyes. For women are lonely people, lonelier with women and with men, enclosed by sunless children and the little vanishing things that go away during the years of waiting. And hearts. And how was love so round.
If
There's a bell
In Dingle
And you want to say
How sorry you are
Fm gone
Ring it
And make it go
Ding dong.
21
Wednesday. That morning Dangerfield picked up from his front hall strewn with bills, a picture postcard of the Lakes of Killarney with an inset, a poem.
My heart is yearning
For that familiar scene
Of those dear blue lakes
In that land far and green.
Turning it over.
I am kaput Meet me in Jury's lounge, Wednesday, seven.
Duke of SERUTAN (ret)
Dangerfield rode the roaring tram to Dublin. At the bottom of Dawson Street he swung gingerly from the screeching instrument Moving swiftly, face deflected to the left to look in shop windows and avoid eyes. In Brown and Nolans here, I see they have some beautiful books, so nice never have to look in them. That's the way it ought to be, saves time. Received correspondence from this fine firm. Polite. Not like the others. They say perhaps dear sir you have overlooked such a small amount or would like us to bill you yearly. Yes, yearly I told them. My, time flies.
There's a lovely smell in the door of this restaurant Look at them in there, wealthy happy people. Some coming out Getting into that luscious car. This elegance does my heart good. I know something else I need. With a very tricky maneuver of the feet I take this turn into this place by the back alley. Lovely girl give me a glass of malt because I cannot face those beaten in battle without some little thing to still my own restless despair.
He crossed over College Green. Glanced at the Trinity clock. Seven five. A newsboy standing in my way. Mister give us a penny. Here's my heart, sonny. And did your mother come from Ireland too? And sonny, give me