"Don't pick it darling" she said
unexpectedly
at last,
"you'll make it worse.
"you'll make it worse.
Samuel Beckett
He must ask his Signorina where he could have received that impression, that the 19th century in Italy was full of old hens trying to cluck like Pindar.
Car- ducci was another.
Also about the spots on the moon.
If she could not tell him there and then she would make it up, only too gladly, against the next time.
Everything was all set now and in order.
Bating, of course, the lobster, which had to remain an incalculable factor.
He must just hope for the best.
And expect the worst, he thought gaily, diving into the public, as usual.
Belacqua drew near to the school, quite happy, for all had gone swimmingly. The lunch had been a notable suc- cess, it would abide as a standard in his mind. Indeed he could not imagine its ever being superseded. And such a pale soapy piece of cheese to prove so strong! He must only conclude that he had been abusing himself all these years in relating the strength of cheese directly to its greenness. We live and learn, that was a true saying. Also his teeth and jaws had been in heaven, splinters of van- quished toast spraying forth at each gnash. It was like eating glass. His mouth burned and ached with the ex- ploit. Then the food had been further spiced by the intelli- gence, transmitted in a low tragic voice across the counter by Oliver the improver, that the Malahide murderer's peti- tion for mercy, signed by half the land, having been re-
jected, the man must swing at dawn in Mountjoy and noth- ing could save him. Ellis the hangman was even now on his way. Belacqua, tearing at the sandwich and swill- ing the precious stout, pondered on McCabe in his cell.
The lobster was ready after all, the man handed it over instanter, and with such a pleasant smile. Really a little bit
18 MORE PRICKS THAN KICKS
of courtesy and goodwill went a long way in this world. A smile and a cheerful word from a common working-man and the face of the world was brightened. And it was so easy, a mere question of muscular control.
"Lepping" he said cheerfully, handing it over. "Lepping? " said Belacqua. What on earth was that? "Lepping fresh, sir" said the man, "fresh in this morn-
ing. "
Now Belacqua, on the analogy of mackerel and other fish
that he had heard described as lepping fresh when they had been taken but an hour or two previously, supposed the man to mean that the lobster had very recently been killed.
Signorina Adriana Ottolenghi was waiting in the little front room off the hall, which Belacqua was naturally in- clined to think of rather as the vestibule. That was her room, the Italian room. On the same side, but at the back, was the French room. God knows where the German room was. Who cared about the German room anyway?
He hung up his coat and hat, laid the long knobby brown-paper parcel on the hall-table, and went prestly in to the Ottolenghi.
After about half-an-hour of this and that obiter, she complimented him on his grasp of the language.
"You make rapid progress" she said in her ruined voice.
There subsisted as much of the Ottolenghi as might be expected to of the person of a lady of a certain age who had found being young and beautiful and pure more of a bore than anything else.
Belacqua, dissembling his great pleasure, laid open the moon enigma.
"Yes" she said "I know the passage. It is a famous teaser. Off-hand I cannot tell you, but I will look it up when I get home. "
DANTE AND THE LOBSTER 19
The sweet creature! She would look it up in her big Dante when she got home. What a woman!
"It occurred to me" she said "apropos of I don't know what, that you might do worse than make up Dante's rare movements of compassion in Hell. That used to be" her past tenses were always sorrowful "a favourite question. "
He assumed an expression of profundity.
"In that connexion" he said "I recall one superb pun anyway:
'qui vive la pietd quando e ben morta
She said nothing.
"Is it not a great phrase? " he gushed.
She said nothing.
"Now" he said like a fool "I wonder how you could
translate that? "
Still she said nothing. Then:
"Do you think" she murmured "it is absolutely neces-
sary to translate it? "
Sounds as of conflict were borne in from the hall. Then
silence. A knuckle tambourined on the door, it flew open and lo it was Mile Glain, the French instructress, clutch- ing her cat, her eyes out on stalks, in a state of the great- est agitation.
"Oh" she gasped "forgive me. I intrude, but what was in the bag? "
"The bag? " said the Ottolenghi.
Mile Glain took a French step forward.
"The parcel" she buried her face in the cat "the parcel
in the hall. "
Belacqua spoke up composedly. "Mine" he said, "a fish. "
. He did not know the French for lobster. Fish would do very well. Fish had been good enough for Jesus Christ,
20 MORE PRICKS THAN KICKS
Son of God, Saviour. It was good enough for Mile Glain. "Oh" said Mile Glain, inexpressibly relieved, "I caught him in the nick of time. " She administered a tap to the
cat. "He would have tore it to flitters. "
Belacqua began to feel a little anxious.
"Did he actually get at it? " he said.
"No no" said Mile Glain "I caught him just in time.
But I did not know" with a blue-stocking snigger "what it might be, so I thought I had better come and ask. "
Base prying bitch.
The Ottolenghi was faintly amused.
"Puisqu'il n'y a pas de mal fatigue and elegance.
. .
. " she said with great
"Heureusement" it was clear at once that Mile Glain was devout "heureusement. "
Chastening the cat with little skelps she took herself off. The grey hairs of her maidenhead screamed at Belac- qua. A devout, virginal blue-stocking, honing after a penny's worth of scandal.
"Where were we? " said Belacqua.
But Neapolitan patience has its limits.
"Where are we ever? " cried the Ottolenghi "where we
were, as we were. "
Belacqua drew near to the house of his aunt. Let us call it Winter, that dusk may fall now and a moon rise. At the corner of the street a horse was down and a man sat on its head. I know, thought Belacqua, that that is considered the right thing to do. But why? A lamplighter flew by on his bike, tilting with his pole at the standards, jousting a little yellow light into the evening. A poorly dressed couple stood in the bay of a pretentious gateway, she sagging against the railings, her head lowered, he
-
DANTE AND THE LOBSTER 21
standing facing her. He stood up close to her, his hands dangled by his sides. Where we were, thought Belacqua, as we were. He walked on gripping his parcel. Why not piety and pity both, even down below? Why not mercy and Godliness together? A little mercy in the stress of sacrifice, a little mercy to rejoice against judgment. He thought of Jonah and the gourd and the pity of a jealous God on Nineveh. And poor McCabe, he would get it in the neck at dawn. What was he doing now, how was he feeling? He would relish one more meal, one more night.
His aunt was in the garden, tending whatever flowers die at that time of year. She embraced him and together they went down into the bowels of the earth, into the kitchen in the basement. She took the parcel and undid it and abruptly the lobster was on the table, on the oil- cloth, discovered.
"They assured me it was fresh" said Belacqua.
Suddenly he saw the creature move, this neuter crea- ture. Definitely it changed its position. His hand flew to his mouth.
"Christ! " he said "it's alive. "
His aunt looked at the lobster. It moved again. It made a faint nervous act of life on the oilcloth. They stood above it, looking down on it, exposed cruciform on the oilcloth. It shuddered again. Belacqua felt he would be sick.
"My God" he whined "it's alive, what'll we do? "
The aunt simply had to laugh. She bustled off to the pantry to fetch her smart apron, leaving him goggling down at the lobster, and came back with it on and her sleeves rolled up, all business.
"Well" she said "it is to be hoped so, indeed. "
22 MORE PRICKS THAN KICKS
"All this time" muttered Belacqua. Then, suddenly aware of her hideous equipment: "What are you going to do? " he cried.
"Boil the beast" she said, "what else? "
"But it's not dead" protested Belacqua "you cant boil it like that. "
She looked at him in astonishment. Had he taken leave of his senses?
"Have sense" she said sharply, "lobsters are always boiled alive. They must be. " She caught up the lobster and laid it on its back. It trembled. "They feel nothing" she said.
In the depths of the sea it had crept into the cruel pot. For hours, in the midst of its enemies, it had breathed secretly. It had survived the Frenchwoman's cat and his witless clutch. Now it was going alive into scalding water. It had to. Take into the air my quiet breath.
Belacqua looked at the old parchment of her face, grey in the dim kitchen.
"You make a fuss" she said angrily "and upset me and then lash into it for your dinner. "
She lifted the lobster clear of the table. It had about thirty seconds to live.
Well, thought Belacqua, it's a quick death, God help us all. ^
It is not.
Fingal
1he last girl he went with, before a memorable fit of laughing incapacitated him from gallantry for some time, was pretty, hot and witty, in that order. So one fine Spring morning he brought her out into the country, to the Hill of Feltrim in the country. They turned east off the road from Dublin to Malahide short of the Castle woods and soon it came into view, not much more than a burrow, the ruin of a mill on the top, choked lairs of furze and brambles passim on its gentle slopes. It was a landmark for miles around on account of the high ruin. The Hill of the Wolves.
They had not been very long on the top before he began to feel a very sad animal indeed. But she was to all appearance in high spirits, enjoying the warm sun and the prospect.
"The Dublin mountains" she said "don't they look lovely, so dreamy. "
Now Belacqua was looking intently in the opposite direction, across the estuary.
"It's the east wind" he said.
She began to admire this and that, the ridge of Lam- bay Island rising out of the brown woods of the Castle, Ireland's Eye like a shark, and the ridiculous little hills far away to the north, what were they?
"The Naul" said Belacqua. "Is it possible you didn't 23
24 MORE PRICKS THAN KICKS
know the Naul? " This in the shocked tone of the travelled spinster: "You don't say you were in Milan (to rime with villain) and never saw the Cena? " "Can it be possible that you passed through Chambery and never called on Mme de Warens? "
"North Dublin" she said "I don't know at all. So flat and dull, all roads leading to Drogheda. "
"Fingal dull! " he said. "Winnie you astonish me. "
They considered Fingal for a time together in silence. Its coast eaten away with creeks and marshes, tesserae of small fields, patches of wood springing up like a weed, the line of hills too low to close the view.
"When it's a magic land" he sighed "like Saone-et- Loire. "
"That means nothing to me" said Winnie.
"Oh yes" he said, "bons vins et Lamartine, a champaign land for the sad and serious, not a bloody little toy Kin- dergarten like Wicklow. "
You make great play with your short stay abroad, thought Winnie.
"You and your sad and serious" she said. "Will you never come off it? "
"Well" he said "I'll give you Alphonse. ,
She replied that he could keep him. Things were be- ginning to blow up nasty.
"What's that on your face? " she said sharply.
"Impetigo" said Belacqua. He had felt it coming with a terrible itch in the night and in the morning it was there. Soon it would be a scab.
"And you kiss me" she exclaimed "with that on your face. "
"I forgot" he said. "I get so excited you know. "
She spittled on her handkerchief and wiped her mouth.
Belacqua lay humbly beside her, expecting her to get up and leave him. But instead she said:
"What is it anyway? What does it come from? " "Dirt" said Belacqua, "you see it on slum children. " A long awkward silence followed these words.
"Don't pick it darling" she said unexpectedly at last,
"you'll make it worse. "
This came to Belacqua like a drink of water to drink
in a dungeon. Her goodwill must have meant something to him. He returned to Fingal to cover his confusion.
"I often come to this hill" he said "to have a view of Fingal, and each time I see it more as a back-land, a land of sanctuary, a land that you don't have to dress up to, that you can walk on in a lounge suit, smoking a cigar. " What a geyser, she thought. "And where much has been suffered in secret, especially by women. "
"This is all a dream" she said. "I see nothing but three acres and cows. You can't have Cincinnatus without a furrow. "
Now it was she who was sulky and he who was happy.
"Oh Winnie" he made a vague clutch at her sincerities, for she was all anyway on the grass, "you look very Ro-
man this minute. "
"He loves me" she said, in earnest jest.
"Only pout" he begged, "be Roman, and we'll go on
across the estuary. "
? " . .
a contract? "
"No need" she said.
He was as wax in her hands, she twisted him this way
and that. But now their moods were in accordance, things
"And then.
And then! Winnie take thought!
"I see" he said "you take thought. Shall we execute
FINGAL 25
26 MORE PRICKS THAN KICKS
were somehow very pleasant all of a sudden. She gazed long at the area of contention and he willed her not to speak, to remain there with her grave face, a quiet puella in a blurred world. But she spoke (who shall silence them, at last? ), saying that she saw nothing but the grey fields of serfs and the ramparts of ex-favourites. Saw! They were all the same when it came to the pinch clods. If she closed her eyes she might see something. He would drop the subject, he would not try to communi- cate Fingal, he would lock it up in his mind. So much the better.
"Look" he pointed.
She looked, blinking for the focus.
"The big red building" he said "across the water, with
the towers. "
At last she thought she saw what he meant.
"Far away" she said "with the round tower? "
"Do you know what that is" he said "because my
heart's right there. "
Well, she thought, you lay your cards on the table. "No" she said, "it looks like a bread factory to me. " "The Portrane Lunatic Asylum" he said.
"Oh" she said "I know a doctor there. "
Thus, she having a friend, he his heart, in Portrane,
they agreed to make for there.
They followed the estuary all the way round, admiring
the theories of swans and the coots, over the dunes and past the Martello tower, so that they came on Portrane from the south and the sea instead of like a vehicle by the railway bridge and the horrible red chapel of Dona- bate. The place was as full of towers as Dun Laoghaire of steeples: two Martello, the red ones of the asylum, a water-tower and the round. Trespassing unawares, for the
notice-board was further on towards the coastguard sta- tion, they climbed the rising ground to this latter. They followed the grass margin of a ploughed field till they came to where a bicycle was lying, half hidden in the rank grass. Belacqua, who could on no account resist a bicycle, thought what an extraordinary place to come across one. The owner was out in the field, scarifying the dry furrows with a fork.
"Is this right for the tower? '' cried Belacqua. The man turned his head.
"Can we get up to the tower? " cried Belacqua. The man straightened up and pointed.
"Fire ahead" he said.
"Over the wall? " cried Belacqua. There was no need for him to shout. A conversational tone would have been heard across the quiet field. But he was so anxious to make himself clear, he so dreaded the thought of having to repeat himself, that he not merely raised his voice, but put on a flat accent that astonished Winnie.
"Don't be an eejit" she said, "if it's straight on it's over the wall. "
But the man seemed pleased that the wall had been mentioned, or perhaps he was just glad of an opportunity to leave his work, for he dropped his fork and came lum- bering over to where they were standing. There was noth- ing at all noteworthy about his appearance. He said that their way lay straight ahead, yes, over the wall, and then the tower was on top of the field, or else they could go back till they came to the road and go along it till they came to the Banks and follow up the Banks. The Banks? Was this fellow one of the more harmless luna- tics? Belacqua asked was the tower an old one, as though it required a Dr Petrie to see that it was not. The man
FINGAL 27
28 MORE PRICKS THAN KICKS
said it had been built for relief in the year of the Fam- ine, so he had heard, by a Mrs Somebody whose name he misremembered in honour of her husband.
"Well Winnie" said Belacqua, "over the wall or follow up the Banks? "
"There's a rare view of Lambay from the top" said the man.
Winnie was in favour of the wall, she thought that it would be more direct now that they had come so far. The man began to work this out. Belacqua had no one but himself to blame if they never got away from this machine.
"But I would like to see the Banks" he said.
"If we went on now" said Winnie "now that we have come so far, and followed the Banks down, how would that be? "
They agreed, Belacqua and the man, that it needed a woman to think these things out. Suddenly there was a tie between them.
The towerHbegan well; that was the funeral meats. But from the door up it was all relief and no honour; that was the marriage tables.
They had not been long on the top before Belacqua was a sad animal again. They sat on the grass with their faces to the sea and the asylum was all below and be- hind them.
"Right enough" said Winnie "I never saw Lambay look so close. "
Belacqua could see the man scraping away at his furrow and felt a sudden longing to be down there in the clay, lending a hand. He checked the explanation of this that was beginning and looked at the soft chord of yellow on the slope, gorse and ragwort juxtaposed.
"The lovely ruins" said Winnie "there on the left, cov-
ered with ivy/' Of a church and, two small fields further on, a square bawnless tower.
"That" said Belacqua "is where I have sursum corda. "
"Then hadn't we better be getting on" said Winnie, quick as lightning.
"This absurd tower" he said, now that he had been
told, "is before the asylum, and they are before the
tower. " He didn't say! "The crenels on the wall I find
. "
behaved left to their own devices, the others in herds in charge of warders. The whistle blew and the herd stopped; again, and it proceeded.
"As moving" he said "and moving in the same way, as the colour of the brick in the old mill at Feltrim. "
Who shall silence them, at last?
"It's pinked" continued Belacqua, "and as a little fat overfed boy I sat on the floor with a hammer and a pinking-iron, scalloping the edge of a red cloth. "
"What ails you? " asked Winnie.
He had allowed himself to get run down, but he scoffed at the idea of a sequitur from his body to his mind.
"I must be getting old and tired" he said "when I find the nature outside me compensating for the nature in- side me, like Jean-Jacques sprawling in a bed of saxi- frages. "
"Appearing to compensate" she said. She was not sure what she meant by this, but it sounded well.
"And then" he said "I want very much to be back in the caul, on my back in the dark for ever. "
"A short ever" she said "and working day and night. " The beastly punctilio of women.
"Damn it" he said "you know what I mean. No shav-
as moving
Now the loonies poured out into the sun, the better
. .
FINGAL 29
30 MORE PRICKS THAN KICKS
ing or haggling or cold or hugger-mugger, no"—he cast —
aboutforatermofampleconnotation "nonight-sweats. " Below in the playground on their right some of the milder patients were kicking a football. Others were lounging about, alone and in knots, taking their ease in the sun. The head of one appeared over the wall, the hands on the wall, the cheek on the hands. Another, he must have been a very tame one, came half-way up the slope, disappeared into a hollow, emerged after a moment and went back the way he had come. Another, his back turned to them, stood fumbling at the wall that divided the grounds of the asylum from the field where they were. One of the gangs was walking round and round the playground. Below on the other hand a long
line of workmen's dwellings, in the gardens children play- ing and crying. Abstract the asylum and there was little left of Portrane but ruins.
-Winnie remarked that the lunatics seemed very sane and well-behaved to her. Belacqua agreed, but he thought that the head over the wall told a tale. Landscapes were of interest to Belacqua only in so far as they furnished him with a pretext for a long face.
Suddenly the owner of the bicycle was running towards them up the hill, grasping the fork. He came barging over the wall, through the chord of yellow and pound- ing along the crest of the slope. Belacqua rose feebly to his feet. This maniac, with the strength of ten men at least, who should withstand him? He would beat him into a puddle with his fork and violate Winnie. But he bore away as he drew near, for a moment they could hear his panting, and plunged on over the shoulder of the rise. Gathering speed on the down grade, he darted through the gate in the wall and disappeared round a corner of the building. Belacqua looked at Winnie, whom
he found staring down at where the man had as it were gone to ground, and then away at the distant point where he had watched him scraping his furrows and been en- vious. The nickel of the bike sparkled in the sun.
The next thing was Winnie waving and halloing. Belac- qua turned and saw a man walking smartly towards them up the slope from the asylum.
"Dr Sholto" said Winnie.
Dr Sholto was some years younger than Belacqua, a pale dark man with a brow. He was delighted—how would he say? —at so unexpected a pleasure, honoured he was sure to make the acquaintance of any friend of Miss Coates. Now they would do him the favour to ad- journ. . . ? This meant drink. But Belacqua, having other fish to fry, sighed and improvised a long courteous state- ment to the effect that there was a point in connexion with the church which he was most anxious to check at first hand, so that if he might accept on behalf of Miss Coates, who was surely tired after her long walk from Malahide . . .
"Malahide! " ejaculated Dr Sholto.
. . . and be himself excused, they could all three meet at the main entrance of the asylum in, say, an hour. How would that be? Dr Sholto demurred politely. Winnie thought hard and said nothing.
"I'll go down by the Banks" said Belacqua agreeably "and follow the road round. Au revoir. "
They stood for a moment watching him depart. When he ventured to look back they were gone. He changed his course and came to where the bicycle lay in the grass. It was a fine light machine, with red tires and wooden rims. He ran down the margin to the road and it bounded alongside under his hand. He mounted and they flew down the hill and round the corner till they came at
FINGAL 31
32 MORE PRICKS THAN KICKS
length to the stile that led into the field where the church was. The machine was a treat to ride, on his right hand the sea was foaming among the rocks, the sands ahead were another yellow again, beyond them in the distance the cottages of Rush were bright white, Belacqua's sadness fell from him like a shift. He carried the bicycle into the field and laid it down on the grass. He hastened on foot, without so much as a glance at the church, across the fields, over a wall and a ditch, and stood before the poor wooden door of the tower. The locked appearance of this did not deter him. He gave it a kick, it swung open and he went in.
Meantime Dr Sholto, in his pleasantly appointed sanc- tum, improved the occasion with Miss Winifred Coates. Thus they were all met together in Portrane, Winnie, Belacqua, his heart and Dr Sholto, and paired off to the satisfaction of all parties. Surely it is in such little ad- justments that the benevolence of the First Cause appears beyond dispute. Winnie kept her eye on the time and arrived punctually with her friend at the main entrance. There was no sign of her other friend.
"Late" said Winnie "as usual. "
In respect of Belacqua Sholto felt nothing but rancour. "Pah" he said, "he'll be sandpapering a tomb. "
A stout block of an old man in shirt sleeves and slip-
pers was leaning against the wall of the field. Winnie still sees, as vividly as when then they met her anxious gaze for the first time, his great purple face and white mous- taches. Had he seen a stranger about, a pale fat man in a black leather coat.
"No miss" he said.
"Well" said Winnie, settling herself on the wall, to Sholto, "I suppose he's about somewhere. "
A land of sanctuary, he had said, where much had been suffered secretly. Yes, the last ditch.
"You stay here" said Sholto, madness and evil in his heart, "and I'll take a look in the church. "
The old man had been showing signs of excitement. "Is it an escape? " he enquired hopefully.
"No no" said Winnie, "just a friend. "
But he was off, he was unsluiced.
"I was born on Lambay" he said, by way of opening to an endless story of a recapture in which he had dis- tinguished himself, "and I've worked here man and boy. "
"In that case" said Winnie "maybe you can tell me what the ruins are. "
"That's the church" he said, pointing to the near one, it had just absorbed Sholto, "and that" pointing to the far one " 's the tower. "
"Yes" said Winnie "but what tower, what was it? "
"The best I know" he said "is some Lady Something had it. "
This was news indeed.
"Then before that again" it all came back to him with
a rush "you might have heard tell of Dane Swift, he kep
a"—he checked the word and then let it come regard- —
less "he kep a motte in it. "
"A moth? " exclaimed Winnie.
"A motte" he said "of the name of Stella. "
Winnie stared out across the grey field. No sign of
Sholto, nor of Belacqua, only this puce mass up against her and a tale of a motte and a star. What was a motte? "You mean" she said "that he lived there with a
woman?
Belacqua drew near to the school, quite happy, for all had gone swimmingly. The lunch had been a notable suc- cess, it would abide as a standard in his mind. Indeed he could not imagine its ever being superseded. And such a pale soapy piece of cheese to prove so strong! He must only conclude that he had been abusing himself all these years in relating the strength of cheese directly to its greenness. We live and learn, that was a true saying. Also his teeth and jaws had been in heaven, splinters of van- quished toast spraying forth at each gnash. It was like eating glass. His mouth burned and ached with the ex- ploit. Then the food had been further spiced by the intelli- gence, transmitted in a low tragic voice across the counter by Oliver the improver, that the Malahide murderer's peti- tion for mercy, signed by half the land, having been re-
jected, the man must swing at dawn in Mountjoy and noth- ing could save him. Ellis the hangman was even now on his way. Belacqua, tearing at the sandwich and swill- ing the precious stout, pondered on McCabe in his cell.
The lobster was ready after all, the man handed it over instanter, and with such a pleasant smile. Really a little bit
18 MORE PRICKS THAN KICKS
of courtesy and goodwill went a long way in this world. A smile and a cheerful word from a common working-man and the face of the world was brightened. And it was so easy, a mere question of muscular control.
"Lepping" he said cheerfully, handing it over. "Lepping? " said Belacqua. What on earth was that? "Lepping fresh, sir" said the man, "fresh in this morn-
ing. "
Now Belacqua, on the analogy of mackerel and other fish
that he had heard described as lepping fresh when they had been taken but an hour or two previously, supposed the man to mean that the lobster had very recently been killed.
Signorina Adriana Ottolenghi was waiting in the little front room off the hall, which Belacqua was naturally in- clined to think of rather as the vestibule. That was her room, the Italian room. On the same side, but at the back, was the French room. God knows where the German room was. Who cared about the German room anyway?
He hung up his coat and hat, laid the long knobby brown-paper parcel on the hall-table, and went prestly in to the Ottolenghi.
After about half-an-hour of this and that obiter, she complimented him on his grasp of the language.
"You make rapid progress" she said in her ruined voice.
There subsisted as much of the Ottolenghi as might be expected to of the person of a lady of a certain age who had found being young and beautiful and pure more of a bore than anything else.
Belacqua, dissembling his great pleasure, laid open the moon enigma.
"Yes" she said "I know the passage. It is a famous teaser. Off-hand I cannot tell you, but I will look it up when I get home. "
DANTE AND THE LOBSTER 19
The sweet creature! She would look it up in her big Dante when she got home. What a woman!
"It occurred to me" she said "apropos of I don't know what, that you might do worse than make up Dante's rare movements of compassion in Hell. That used to be" her past tenses were always sorrowful "a favourite question. "
He assumed an expression of profundity.
"In that connexion" he said "I recall one superb pun anyway:
'qui vive la pietd quando e ben morta
She said nothing.
"Is it not a great phrase? " he gushed.
She said nothing.
"Now" he said like a fool "I wonder how you could
translate that? "
Still she said nothing. Then:
"Do you think" she murmured "it is absolutely neces-
sary to translate it? "
Sounds as of conflict were borne in from the hall. Then
silence. A knuckle tambourined on the door, it flew open and lo it was Mile Glain, the French instructress, clutch- ing her cat, her eyes out on stalks, in a state of the great- est agitation.
"Oh" she gasped "forgive me. I intrude, but what was in the bag? "
"The bag? " said the Ottolenghi.
Mile Glain took a French step forward.
"The parcel" she buried her face in the cat "the parcel
in the hall. "
Belacqua spoke up composedly. "Mine" he said, "a fish. "
. He did not know the French for lobster. Fish would do very well. Fish had been good enough for Jesus Christ,
20 MORE PRICKS THAN KICKS
Son of God, Saviour. It was good enough for Mile Glain. "Oh" said Mile Glain, inexpressibly relieved, "I caught him in the nick of time. " She administered a tap to the
cat. "He would have tore it to flitters. "
Belacqua began to feel a little anxious.
"Did he actually get at it? " he said.
"No no" said Mile Glain "I caught him just in time.
But I did not know" with a blue-stocking snigger "what it might be, so I thought I had better come and ask. "
Base prying bitch.
The Ottolenghi was faintly amused.
"Puisqu'il n'y a pas de mal fatigue and elegance.
. .
. " she said with great
"Heureusement" it was clear at once that Mile Glain was devout "heureusement. "
Chastening the cat with little skelps she took herself off. The grey hairs of her maidenhead screamed at Belac- qua. A devout, virginal blue-stocking, honing after a penny's worth of scandal.
"Where were we? " said Belacqua.
But Neapolitan patience has its limits.
"Where are we ever? " cried the Ottolenghi "where we
were, as we were. "
Belacqua drew near to the house of his aunt. Let us call it Winter, that dusk may fall now and a moon rise. At the corner of the street a horse was down and a man sat on its head. I know, thought Belacqua, that that is considered the right thing to do. But why? A lamplighter flew by on his bike, tilting with his pole at the standards, jousting a little yellow light into the evening. A poorly dressed couple stood in the bay of a pretentious gateway, she sagging against the railings, her head lowered, he
-
DANTE AND THE LOBSTER 21
standing facing her. He stood up close to her, his hands dangled by his sides. Where we were, thought Belacqua, as we were. He walked on gripping his parcel. Why not piety and pity both, even down below? Why not mercy and Godliness together? A little mercy in the stress of sacrifice, a little mercy to rejoice against judgment. He thought of Jonah and the gourd and the pity of a jealous God on Nineveh. And poor McCabe, he would get it in the neck at dawn. What was he doing now, how was he feeling? He would relish one more meal, one more night.
His aunt was in the garden, tending whatever flowers die at that time of year. She embraced him and together they went down into the bowels of the earth, into the kitchen in the basement. She took the parcel and undid it and abruptly the lobster was on the table, on the oil- cloth, discovered.
"They assured me it was fresh" said Belacqua.
Suddenly he saw the creature move, this neuter crea- ture. Definitely it changed its position. His hand flew to his mouth.
"Christ! " he said "it's alive. "
His aunt looked at the lobster. It moved again. It made a faint nervous act of life on the oilcloth. They stood above it, looking down on it, exposed cruciform on the oilcloth. It shuddered again. Belacqua felt he would be sick.
"My God" he whined "it's alive, what'll we do? "
The aunt simply had to laugh. She bustled off to the pantry to fetch her smart apron, leaving him goggling down at the lobster, and came back with it on and her sleeves rolled up, all business.
"Well" she said "it is to be hoped so, indeed. "
22 MORE PRICKS THAN KICKS
"All this time" muttered Belacqua. Then, suddenly aware of her hideous equipment: "What are you going to do? " he cried.
"Boil the beast" she said, "what else? "
"But it's not dead" protested Belacqua "you cant boil it like that. "
She looked at him in astonishment. Had he taken leave of his senses?
"Have sense" she said sharply, "lobsters are always boiled alive. They must be. " She caught up the lobster and laid it on its back. It trembled. "They feel nothing" she said.
In the depths of the sea it had crept into the cruel pot. For hours, in the midst of its enemies, it had breathed secretly. It had survived the Frenchwoman's cat and his witless clutch. Now it was going alive into scalding water. It had to. Take into the air my quiet breath.
Belacqua looked at the old parchment of her face, grey in the dim kitchen.
"You make a fuss" she said angrily "and upset me and then lash into it for your dinner. "
She lifted the lobster clear of the table. It had about thirty seconds to live.
Well, thought Belacqua, it's a quick death, God help us all. ^
It is not.
Fingal
1he last girl he went with, before a memorable fit of laughing incapacitated him from gallantry for some time, was pretty, hot and witty, in that order. So one fine Spring morning he brought her out into the country, to the Hill of Feltrim in the country. They turned east off the road from Dublin to Malahide short of the Castle woods and soon it came into view, not much more than a burrow, the ruin of a mill on the top, choked lairs of furze and brambles passim on its gentle slopes. It was a landmark for miles around on account of the high ruin. The Hill of the Wolves.
They had not been very long on the top before he began to feel a very sad animal indeed. But she was to all appearance in high spirits, enjoying the warm sun and the prospect.
"The Dublin mountains" she said "don't they look lovely, so dreamy. "
Now Belacqua was looking intently in the opposite direction, across the estuary.
"It's the east wind" he said.
She began to admire this and that, the ridge of Lam- bay Island rising out of the brown woods of the Castle, Ireland's Eye like a shark, and the ridiculous little hills far away to the north, what were they?
"The Naul" said Belacqua. "Is it possible you didn't 23
24 MORE PRICKS THAN KICKS
know the Naul? " This in the shocked tone of the travelled spinster: "You don't say you were in Milan (to rime with villain) and never saw the Cena? " "Can it be possible that you passed through Chambery and never called on Mme de Warens? "
"North Dublin" she said "I don't know at all. So flat and dull, all roads leading to Drogheda. "
"Fingal dull! " he said. "Winnie you astonish me. "
They considered Fingal for a time together in silence. Its coast eaten away with creeks and marshes, tesserae of small fields, patches of wood springing up like a weed, the line of hills too low to close the view.
"When it's a magic land" he sighed "like Saone-et- Loire. "
"That means nothing to me" said Winnie.
"Oh yes" he said, "bons vins et Lamartine, a champaign land for the sad and serious, not a bloody little toy Kin- dergarten like Wicklow. "
You make great play with your short stay abroad, thought Winnie.
"You and your sad and serious" she said. "Will you never come off it? "
"Well" he said "I'll give you Alphonse. ,
She replied that he could keep him. Things were be- ginning to blow up nasty.
"What's that on your face? " she said sharply.
"Impetigo" said Belacqua. He had felt it coming with a terrible itch in the night and in the morning it was there. Soon it would be a scab.
"And you kiss me" she exclaimed "with that on your face. "
"I forgot" he said. "I get so excited you know. "
She spittled on her handkerchief and wiped her mouth.
Belacqua lay humbly beside her, expecting her to get up and leave him. But instead she said:
"What is it anyway? What does it come from? " "Dirt" said Belacqua, "you see it on slum children. " A long awkward silence followed these words.
"Don't pick it darling" she said unexpectedly at last,
"you'll make it worse. "
This came to Belacqua like a drink of water to drink
in a dungeon. Her goodwill must have meant something to him. He returned to Fingal to cover his confusion.
"I often come to this hill" he said "to have a view of Fingal, and each time I see it more as a back-land, a land of sanctuary, a land that you don't have to dress up to, that you can walk on in a lounge suit, smoking a cigar. " What a geyser, she thought. "And where much has been suffered in secret, especially by women. "
"This is all a dream" she said. "I see nothing but three acres and cows. You can't have Cincinnatus without a furrow. "
Now it was she who was sulky and he who was happy.
"Oh Winnie" he made a vague clutch at her sincerities, for she was all anyway on the grass, "you look very Ro-
man this minute. "
"He loves me" she said, in earnest jest.
"Only pout" he begged, "be Roman, and we'll go on
across the estuary. "
? " . .
a contract? "
"No need" she said.
He was as wax in her hands, she twisted him this way
and that. But now their moods were in accordance, things
"And then.
And then! Winnie take thought!
"I see" he said "you take thought. Shall we execute
FINGAL 25
26 MORE PRICKS THAN KICKS
were somehow very pleasant all of a sudden. She gazed long at the area of contention and he willed her not to speak, to remain there with her grave face, a quiet puella in a blurred world. But she spoke (who shall silence them, at last? ), saying that she saw nothing but the grey fields of serfs and the ramparts of ex-favourites. Saw! They were all the same when it came to the pinch clods. If she closed her eyes she might see something. He would drop the subject, he would not try to communi- cate Fingal, he would lock it up in his mind. So much the better.
"Look" he pointed.
She looked, blinking for the focus.
"The big red building" he said "across the water, with
the towers. "
At last she thought she saw what he meant.
"Far away" she said "with the round tower? "
"Do you know what that is" he said "because my
heart's right there. "
Well, she thought, you lay your cards on the table. "No" she said, "it looks like a bread factory to me. " "The Portrane Lunatic Asylum" he said.
"Oh" she said "I know a doctor there. "
Thus, she having a friend, he his heart, in Portrane,
they agreed to make for there.
They followed the estuary all the way round, admiring
the theories of swans and the coots, over the dunes and past the Martello tower, so that they came on Portrane from the south and the sea instead of like a vehicle by the railway bridge and the horrible red chapel of Dona- bate. The place was as full of towers as Dun Laoghaire of steeples: two Martello, the red ones of the asylum, a water-tower and the round. Trespassing unawares, for the
notice-board was further on towards the coastguard sta- tion, they climbed the rising ground to this latter. They followed the grass margin of a ploughed field till they came to where a bicycle was lying, half hidden in the rank grass. Belacqua, who could on no account resist a bicycle, thought what an extraordinary place to come across one. The owner was out in the field, scarifying the dry furrows with a fork.
"Is this right for the tower? '' cried Belacqua. The man turned his head.
"Can we get up to the tower? " cried Belacqua. The man straightened up and pointed.
"Fire ahead" he said.
"Over the wall? " cried Belacqua. There was no need for him to shout. A conversational tone would have been heard across the quiet field. But he was so anxious to make himself clear, he so dreaded the thought of having to repeat himself, that he not merely raised his voice, but put on a flat accent that astonished Winnie.
"Don't be an eejit" she said, "if it's straight on it's over the wall. "
But the man seemed pleased that the wall had been mentioned, or perhaps he was just glad of an opportunity to leave his work, for he dropped his fork and came lum- bering over to where they were standing. There was noth- ing at all noteworthy about his appearance. He said that their way lay straight ahead, yes, over the wall, and then the tower was on top of the field, or else they could go back till they came to the road and go along it till they came to the Banks and follow up the Banks. The Banks? Was this fellow one of the more harmless luna- tics? Belacqua asked was the tower an old one, as though it required a Dr Petrie to see that it was not. The man
FINGAL 27
28 MORE PRICKS THAN KICKS
said it had been built for relief in the year of the Fam- ine, so he had heard, by a Mrs Somebody whose name he misremembered in honour of her husband.
"Well Winnie" said Belacqua, "over the wall or follow up the Banks? "
"There's a rare view of Lambay from the top" said the man.
Winnie was in favour of the wall, she thought that it would be more direct now that they had come so far. The man began to work this out. Belacqua had no one but himself to blame if they never got away from this machine.
"But I would like to see the Banks" he said.
"If we went on now" said Winnie "now that we have come so far, and followed the Banks down, how would that be? "
They agreed, Belacqua and the man, that it needed a woman to think these things out. Suddenly there was a tie between them.
The towerHbegan well; that was the funeral meats. But from the door up it was all relief and no honour; that was the marriage tables.
They had not been long on the top before Belacqua was a sad animal again. They sat on the grass with their faces to the sea and the asylum was all below and be- hind them.
"Right enough" said Winnie "I never saw Lambay look so close. "
Belacqua could see the man scraping away at his furrow and felt a sudden longing to be down there in the clay, lending a hand. He checked the explanation of this that was beginning and looked at the soft chord of yellow on the slope, gorse and ragwort juxtaposed.
"The lovely ruins" said Winnie "there on the left, cov-
ered with ivy/' Of a church and, two small fields further on, a square bawnless tower.
"That" said Belacqua "is where I have sursum corda. "
"Then hadn't we better be getting on" said Winnie, quick as lightning.
"This absurd tower" he said, now that he had been
told, "is before the asylum, and they are before the
tower. " He didn't say! "The crenels on the wall I find
. "
behaved left to their own devices, the others in herds in charge of warders. The whistle blew and the herd stopped; again, and it proceeded.
"As moving" he said "and moving in the same way, as the colour of the brick in the old mill at Feltrim. "
Who shall silence them, at last?
"It's pinked" continued Belacqua, "and as a little fat overfed boy I sat on the floor with a hammer and a pinking-iron, scalloping the edge of a red cloth. "
"What ails you? " asked Winnie.
He had allowed himself to get run down, but he scoffed at the idea of a sequitur from his body to his mind.
"I must be getting old and tired" he said "when I find the nature outside me compensating for the nature in- side me, like Jean-Jacques sprawling in a bed of saxi- frages. "
"Appearing to compensate" she said. She was not sure what she meant by this, but it sounded well.
"And then" he said "I want very much to be back in the caul, on my back in the dark for ever. "
"A short ever" she said "and working day and night. " The beastly punctilio of women.
"Damn it" he said "you know what I mean. No shav-
as moving
Now the loonies poured out into the sun, the better
. .
FINGAL 29
30 MORE PRICKS THAN KICKS
ing or haggling or cold or hugger-mugger, no"—he cast —
aboutforatermofampleconnotation "nonight-sweats. " Below in the playground on their right some of the milder patients were kicking a football. Others were lounging about, alone and in knots, taking their ease in the sun. The head of one appeared over the wall, the hands on the wall, the cheek on the hands. Another, he must have been a very tame one, came half-way up the slope, disappeared into a hollow, emerged after a moment and went back the way he had come. Another, his back turned to them, stood fumbling at the wall that divided the grounds of the asylum from the field where they were. One of the gangs was walking round and round the playground. Below on the other hand a long
line of workmen's dwellings, in the gardens children play- ing and crying. Abstract the asylum and there was little left of Portrane but ruins.
-Winnie remarked that the lunatics seemed very sane and well-behaved to her. Belacqua agreed, but he thought that the head over the wall told a tale. Landscapes were of interest to Belacqua only in so far as they furnished him with a pretext for a long face.
Suddenly the owner of the bicycle was running towards them up the hill, grasping the fork. He came barging over the wall, through the chord of yellow and pound- ing along the crest of the slope. Belacqua rose feebly to his feet. This maniac, with the strength of ten men at least, who should withstand him? He would beat him into a puddle with his fork and violate Winnie. But he bore away as he drew near, for a moment they could hear his panting, and plunged on over the shoulder of the rise. Gathering speed on the down grade, he darted through the gate in the wall and disappeared round a corner of the building. Belacqua looked at Winnie, whom
he found staring down at where the man had as it were gone to ground, and then away at the distant point where he had watched him scraping his furrows and been en- vious. The nickel of the bike sparkled in the sun.
The next thing was Winnie waving and halloing. Belac- qua turned and saw a man walking smartly towards them up the slope from the asylum.
"Dr Sholto" said Winnie.
Dr Sholto was some years younger than Belacqua, a pale dark man with a brow. He was delighted—how would he say? —at so unexpected a pleasure, honoured he was sure to make the acquaintance of any friend of Miss Coates. Now they would do him the favour to ad- journ. . . ? This meant drink. But Belacqua, having other fish to fry, sighed and improvised a long courteous state- ment to the effect that there was a point in connexion with the church which he was most anxious to check at first hand, so that if he might accept on behalf of Miss Coates, who was surely tired after her long walk from Malahide . . .
"Malahide! " ejaculated Dr Sholto.
. . . and be himself excused, they could all three meet at the main entrance of the asylum in, say, an hour. How would that be? Dr Sholto demurred politely. Winnie thought hard and said nothing.
"I'll go down by the Banks" said Belacqua agreeably "and follow the road round. Au revoir. "
They stood for a moment watching him depart. When he ventured to look back they were gone. He changed his course and came to where the bicycle lay in the grass. It was a fine light machine, with red tires and wooden rims. He ran down the margin to the road and it bounded alongside under his hand. He mounted and they flew down the hill and round the corner till they came at
FINGAL 31
32 MORE PRICKS THAN KICKS
length to the stile that led into the field where the church was. The machine was a treat to ride, on his right hand the sea was foaming among the rocks, the sands ahead were another yellow again, beyond them in the distance the cottages of Rush were bright white, Belacqua's sadness fell from him like a shift. He carried the bicycle into the field and laid it down on the grass. He hastened on foot, without so much as a glance at the church, across the fields, over a wall and a ditch, and stood before the poor wooden door of the tower. The locked appearance of this did not deter him. He gave it a kick, it swung open and he went in.
Meantime Dr Sholto, in his pleasantly appointed sanc- tum, improved the occasion with Miss Winifred Coates. Thus they were all met together in Portrane, Winnie, Belacqua, his heart and Dr Sholto, and paired off to the satisfaction of all parties. Surely it is in such little ad- justments that the benevolence of the First Cause appears beyond dispute. Winnie kept her eye on the time and arrived punctually with her friend at the main entrance. There was no sign of her other friend.
"Late" said Winnie "as usual. "
In respect of Belacqua Sholto felt nothing but rancour. "Pah" he said, "he'll be sandpapering a tomb. "
A stout block of an old man in shirt sleeves and slip-
pers was leaning against the wall of the field. Winnie still sees, as vividly as when then they met her anxious gaze for the first time, his great purple face and white mous- taches. Had he seen a stranger about, a pale fat man in a black leather coat.
"No miss" he said.
"Well" said Winnie, settling herself on the wall, to Sholto, "I suppose he's about somewhere. "
A land of sanctuary, he had said, where much had been suffered secretly. Yes, the last ditch.
"You stay here" said Sholto, madness and evil in his heart, "and I'll take a look in the church. "
The old man had been showing signs of excitement. "Is it an escape? " he enquired hopefully.
"No no" said Winnie, "just a friend. "
But he was off, he was unsluiced.
"I was born on Lambay" he said, by way of opening to an endless story of a recapture in which he had dis- tinguished himself, "and I've worked here man and boy. "
"In that case" said Winnie "maybe you can tell me what the ruins are. "
"That's the church" he said, pointing to the near one, it had just absorbed Sholto, "and that" pointing to the far one " 's the tower. "
"Yes" said Winnie "but what tower, what was it? "
"The best I know" he said "is some Lady Something had it. "
This was news indeed.
"Then before that again" it all came back to him with
a rush "you might have heard tell of Dane Swift, he kep
a"—he checked the word and then let it come regard- —
less "he kep a motte in it. "
"A moth? " exclaimed Winnie.
"A motte" he said "of the name of Stella. "
Winnie stared out across the grey field. No sign of
Sholto, nor of Belacqua, only this puce mass up against her and a tale of a motte and a star. What was a motte? "You mean" she said "that he lived there with a
woman?
