Goosefoot, page 12
“Who are those two? I never noticed them here before,” she said to change the subject.
“They’re two poets from the country. I met them here yesterday lunchtime. They’re the two most Irish poets I’ve ever met.”
“What’s the difference between an Irish and an English poet?” she teased him.
“Irish poets are stronger.” He looked at her as if she should have known.
“You mean that English poets use weaker rhymes?”
“No, I mean physically stronger. English poets are thinner and more languid, and when they shake your hand they leave you with the impression that they are wiping their fingers. But these Irish poets—look at those two—are strong as cart horses. One of them clasped my hand at lunchtime and nearly pulped it.”
She went downstairs to the ladies to break wind after the peas and cabbage, and when she came back she said:
“I’d like to meet a country poet. Let’s go over and talk to them.”
“Like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, they are best observed from a distance.”
“Come on, Bernard. You know how much I like big men.”
Bernard introduced her, saying that she was Patricia Teeling, a scientist who collected strong poets, but that unfortunately he had forgotten the names of the poets.
“Never mind,” said one of them. “I’m Tom-Tom O’Malley and my friend here is Sean De Barra.”
They looked like twins, tall and broad with red, freckled cheeks, thick necks, and shiny ear lobes that stuck out like little balloons asking to be pricked for devilment. They looked different when they smiled, however. Tom-Tom had beautifully even teeth while his friend had sharp, pointed teeth with uneven spaces between, which, Bernard told her later, had earned him the nickname Bow-Saw De Barra.
“One thing I’m sure of, I haven’t met you before,” said Tom-Tom O’Malley. “If I had, I’d remember you. So many girls these days are like books you’ve read as a boy. You know that when you open the first page, you’ll remember the ending.”
The poets stood one on each side of her and laughed as much as they talked. They were rough and ready, not too literary, more like farmers who had once met scholars, and they drank their pints as if each one was the first and put their arms round her and whispered warmly in her ear. The bar was a sea of faces, the cigarette smoke swirled above their heads, and the swell of conversation rocked her like a small boat on a choppy lough. She had never enjoyed herself so much in the company of men, the only irritant being the shadow of Bernard’s brooding disapproval. She knew he disliked the poets, that he wanted to have her to himself, but she wasn’t going to let him ruin her evening with boyish jealousies.
Bernard drove home because he had drunk less than she, and he invited her in for a cup of coffee. He seemed in a hurry, certainly not his usual slow-moving self. He gulped down his coffee, kissed her quickly on the sofa, and thrust a determined hand up her skirt.
“No, Bernard. Why must you be so tiresome?”
“Now what’s wrong?”
“There’s nothing wrong with me.”
“Is it because of your religion?”
“I have no religion.”
“If it were religion that was holding you back, I’d understand. But this is ridiculous.”
“It isn’t time.”
“Be sure to tell me when it is,” he laughed sarcastically.
“There are men who need to be told, I’m sure.”
“Do you think me insensitive?”
“No.”
“Do you think me a fool.”
“No.”
“Then why do you withhold yourself? You gave more to those two rustic rhymesters this evening than you gave to me. If you don’t want to bare your body, the least you can do is to bare your soul.”
“You’re always after something you can’t have.”
“All I’m asking for is personal truth. I came to Ireland to escape from the defilement of English social fantasy, from the spurning of personal truth for the tawdry myths of class and tribe, but you Irish are just as hypocritical—and with less reason.”
“You’re the writer. It’s you who should be laying bare your soul. Look round you tomorrow evening in the pub. The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed.”
“Never mind the sheep. Who will feed the shepherd? Anyhow, the sheep are not hungry but smug to repletion. If I bared my soul before them, they’d scoff at me for my lack of good taste. It is I, the writer, not they, who thirsts for truth. But I’ll have the truth from you. There is so much personal falsehood in the world that one bare soul could save us all from the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah.”
While he was still talking, he pushed her down on the sofa and lay like a missionary on top of her, going through the motions of violent sexual intercourse. She thought that it would be a good moment to break wind, but she lay becalmed beneath him while he pressed his membrum further into her groin with each exaggerated thrust.
“I’m not going to let you use me as a wanking machine, Bernard. If you don’t stop this tomfoolery this minute, I’ll get a half-nelson on you that not even Lady Hamilton would break.”
There was a loud knocking at the door and he jumped up as if the sergeant of death were on the threshold.
“You needn’t tell me. Inspector Farrelly has lost his notebook and must take every statement again. You get it, Patricia. As well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.”
She got to her feet, adjusted her skirt, and touched her untidy hair. It was dark in the hallway and she had to look twice before she recognized the poets.
“The cream of the top of the evening to you,” said Tom-Tom O’Malley.
“We are looking for lute music,” said Sean De Barra.
“Lute music?”
“We were invited out to Ballsbridge to sink a jar and listen to lute music by a vicious composer called Weiss, but now we can’t find the house and Tom-Tom says he’s lost the address.”
“So you came here instead?”
“What a coincidence,” said Tom-Tom. “We meet you in the pub, we say goodbye, we see a street door open, and we come up and find you here.”
“But have you got any lute music?” asked De Barra.
“As it happens, I have a suite by Weiss.”
“Another coincidence,” said Tom-Tom O’Malley.
“Come in,” she said, opening the door wide.
“What’s this?” Bernard asked suspiciously from behind.
“They’ve come—”
“For the lascivious pleasing of a lute,” said Tom-Tom.
“But we have no lute,” said Bernard, horrified.
“We have a record of a lute,” said Patricia. “If you don’t mind, I’ll nip upstairs and fetch it.”
The poets sat on the less frayed of the sofas and she went upstairs for Robert Foxley’s record while De Barra told Bernard of the unbelievable coincidence by which they had arrived. They were talking about ostriches when she came back, and Bernard was sitting skeptically on the edge of his chair, already wondering when they would leave.
“We’re trying to raise the money to start an ostrich farm in the Wicklow hills,” said De Barra.
“Will the ostriches like the hills?” Bernard asked.
“I believe they prefer the flat,” said Tom-Tom. “But we can prepare the way for them by exalting every valley.”
“And by making the crooked straight and the rough places plain,” said De Barra.
“This is an agricultural country,” said Tom-Tom, “but it’s an inefficient agricultural country—all because the bullock is an inefficient converter of fodder. What we need is an animal that will convert a hundred grams of fodder into a hundred grams of meat. The nearest to that ideal is the capybara, but I can’t see your conservative midland farmer eating boiled capybara instead of boiled bacon with his cabbage. The next best is the chicken, but its eggs are too small for making omelettes for large families or in large hotels. That’s where the ostrich scores. By cracking only one of its eggs, you can make a dozen omelettes. Think of the revolution in the kitchens of the Shelbourne.”
“Think of the boon to the conservationist,” said De Barra. “The ostrich doesn’t poach the soil as seriously as a cow or bullock.”
“And think of the drumsticks,” said Tom-Tom. “For once copywriters will be able to call something king-size without stretching the truth.”
“But best of all is that no part of the ostrich is wasted,” said De Barra. “You can sell the feathers for a fortune. You can even sell the skin.”
“Do you want to listen to the lute?” Patricia asked.
The poets lit their pipes and they all listened without a word.
“It isn’t as pleasing as I expected,” said Tom-Tom when the record ended.
“Nor as lascivious,” said De Barra. “The Bard raised false hopes.”
“Now that the rather elaborate prologue is over, perhaps we could come to the purpose of your visit,” said Bernard.
“But our visit has no purpose,” said Tom-Tom.
“I know you’re English and that therefore you expect social intercourse to have an object, but what we told you is true. You are no more surprised by this meeting than we are,” said De Barra.
“Tell the truth. You followed us here in the car,” Barnard said.
“But why should we follow you? We are poets, we set the pace.”
“You’re both new to The Inkwell. I suppose you hit upon it by coincidence as well.”
“No, not by coincidence. All roads lead to the Mount Helicon of Dublin.”
“I have been patient. I have listened to your vaporous chit-chat about ostriches. Don’t think I can’t spot an allegory when I see one.”
“There are men who couldn’t spot one on the banks of the Nile,” said De Barra.
“I can see we’re intruding,” said Tom-Tom. “To make up for it, we’ll come out with a bottle one evening when the weather is more sociable.”
“There is no need to make amends,” said Bernard.
“We know there’s no need,” said De Barra. “It is merely an ancient bardic custom.”
“Would you care for a cup of coffee?” Patricia tried to be agreeable.
“Not now,” said Tom-Tom as they both got up to go.
“You could have been more civil,” she said when they had left.
“Why did they come to talk about ostriches? Tell me that.”
“How should I know?”
“What does the ostrich suggest to you?”
“A strong digestion coupled with a capacity for self-delusion.”
“To me an ostrich suggests naked thighs running. But you may be right… ‘I’ll make thee eat iron like an ostrich, and swallow my sword like a great pin, ere thou and I part.’ We’ll simply have to wait and see.”
“What are you talking about, Bernard?”
“Ostriches.”
“I don’t share your view of the poets.”
“Before calling them poets, we should first hear their poetry.”
“Perhaps we shall.”
“I’ll bet it doesn’t rhyme.”
“But surely it doesn’t have to.”
“I know it doesn’t have to,” he said witheringly. “But I also know that it is easier to fake free verse than rhyming couplets. Real poets are equally adept in both. I think we must demand to hear some travelers’ samples.”
“I hope we meet them again.”
“They’re ginger.”
“As opposed to sage?”
“They’re queer.”
“But they had their arms round me all evening.”
“They were using you to make each other jealous.”
“You have a very small mind, Bernard. I can see why you write prose.”
When she went upstairs, Monica was reading in bed, a grey cardigan draped over her thin shoulders.
“Those peas were sulfurous.” She looked up from her book. “After you left, Robert called unexpectedly and I had to suggest that we go for a walk. On the way he complained bitterly of the cold, but what could I do?”
“I went to a pub and kept going to the ladies for light relief.”
“I wish men weren’t such romantics,” said Monica. “All this ridiculous posturing would then be quite unnecessary.
“I’m worried about Robert,” Monica continued when they were both stretched side by side in the dark. “I’m afraid I’ll lose him.”
“Why?”
“He’s very highly sexed. He keeps wanting to rub my tummy and put his hand up my drawers, which would all be very enjoyable if we were married.”
“Perhaps he’s merely testing you, amusing himself in sallies of reconnaissance without promise of serious engagement.”
“That’s what worries me. Virginity is a coin you can only spend once.”
“I often think that as a coin it’s overvalued. It certainly depreciates exponentially with age.”
“How can you say such a thing, Patricia. Surely you’re not weakening already.”
“What keeps my maidenhead still intacta is the fear that with it will go an incomparable world of dreams, that the silver of experience will drive out the gold of imagination. What we need is a system of bimetallism in which both would be legal tender.”
“Bimetallism won’t help me. Tonight Robert asked me to take what he calls his macropenis in my hand.”
“And did you oblige him?”
“I said I might if he swaddled it in cling-wrap first. I was afraid it would be like handling a stick of dynamite, not knowing when it would detonate.”
“Isn’t that life,” said Patricia. “We make each move in semidarkness with an imperfect knowledge of the position of our opponent’s pieces.”
“And who is our opponent?”
“At the moment yours is Robert Foxley.”
“He has put me in a spot. When I don’t let him have what he wants, he says I’m a prude; and when I let him have everything except the final favors, he says that my morality is purely prudential. Is there an answer to that?”
“No, your morality is prudential.”
“I wonder what he’d say if I surrendered the final favors.”
“It would depend on whether he liked them or not. If he found them moreish, he might say that you were a born philosopher; but if he found them disappointing, he might call you a trollop.”
“His conversation is another worry. When he says I’m being ‘over-siliceous’ or that something I say is ‘absolutely calcareous,’ I can only laugh and pretend to understand. I often wish he spoke French or Italian instead. Then at least I could take evening classes—”
“Don’t worry,” Patricia said. “He’ll grow out of it. In the meantime tell him that you find his jokes ‘filarious.’ Like all men, he doesn’t crave to be understood so much as to be thought well of.”
“What would I do without you, Patricia? You’re such an experienced manager of men.”
Before they fell asleep, Monica said that she was determined to retain her grip on Robert’s imagination, that she was convinced that men were lost by the woman’s failure to enliven their dreams.
“You can starve a man of sexual intercourse,” she said, “but you’ll starve him of auto-eroticism at your peril.”
“Nonsense,” said Patricia. “The proverb knows best. The way to a man’s heart is still through his stomach. If you’re wise, you’ll invite him to dinner.”
9
Monica spent the next two evenings wondering about the various dinners she could give Robert, but as she was no more confident of her cooking than of her conversation she decided in the end to confine herself to the entrée and let Patricia make the hors d’oeuvre and dessert. That way they would share the honors if the evening were a success, and the blame if it were a disaster.
“There’s no need to worry,” said Patricia. “He enjoyed himself the last time he came here, and we didn’t give him anything special.”
“Is it true that wherever he goes he brings his own claret?”
“No, but he brings his balloons.”
Deciding what to give him wasn’t easy. As Monica remarked, it could be anything except bacon and cabbage and marrowfat peas, but finally they decided on médaillons de veau au vin blanc (Monica insisted on the French). The wine was the next problem. Since Robert behaved more like a bon vivant than a half-impoverished teacher, Monica feared a catastrophe. The last time he took her to a restaurant, he complained loudly that the wine had no shoulder. This phrase so flummoxed the head waiter that he went off to consult the manager; and when they both came to the table, Robert told them with a great display of patience that he did not mean that it was claret in a milk bottle but that it was utterly inarticulate, that it had not uttered a word since it was poured. The manager tilted the bottle to read the label, sighed knowledgeably, and suggested that they have “one of his more judicious wines” on the house. This pleased Robert so much that when they were leaving he told the manager that he had never drunk a wine with such an extravagant vocabulary.
“What I liked most about it,” he said, “was that it did not merely speak, it sang. As my lady friend here remarked, it was positively cantabile.”
“I still think there’s no need to worry,” Patricia said. “Robert isn’t a stuffed shirt. Though he laughs little, he’s got a sense of humor.”
“I think we must have a dry run,” said Monica.
“Dry as opposed to sweet?”
“No, a rehearsal. We’ll cook the meal for ourselves first and try out the wine. Then we’ll be confident that all will go well on the evening.”
“I think we should consult Bernard Baggotty,” Patricia said.
“I don’t know how you can go out with him when it’s plain as a pikestaff that he’s a—”
“He knows his wines. When he was in Fleet Street, he ate at the best restaurants in London without ever spending a penny of his own.”
“That means that he was always the guest. Guests don’t choose. They eat and be thankful.”
“No, Bernard had an expense account. He was host as often as he was guest. I think we should get him to choose the wine. In fact, it might be a good idea to invite him to dinner. He’s an amusing conversationalist when he’s had a few. Besides, it would make the evening more interesting for Robert. A man who is left alone for three hours with two women, even a brave man, will soon find himself on the defensive. Robert will appreciate a comrade in arms, and Bernard will enjoy his company. It might even encourage him to smile—he’s been so morose since his wife died.”
