More Pricks Than Kicks (11 page)

Mrs Tough flung open wide the door. She was all over Belacqua, with his big pallid gob much abused with imagined debauches.

“Ruby” she sang, in a third, like a cuckoo, “Rubee! Rubee!”

But would she ever change her tune, that was the question.

Ruby dangled down the stairs, with the marks of her teeth in her nether lip where she could persuade no bee to sting her any more.

“Get on your bonnet and shawl” said Belacqua roughly “and we'll be going.”

Mrs Tough recoiled aghast. This was the first time she had ever heard such a tone turned on her Ruby. But Ruby got into a coat like a lamb and seemed not to mind. It became only too clear to Mrs Tough that she was not going to be invited.

“May I offer you a little refreshment” she said in an icy voice to Belacqua “before you go?” She could not bear to be idle.

Ruby thought she had never heard anything quite so absurd. Refreshment
before
they went! It was if and when they returned that they would be in need of refreshment.

“Really mother” she said, “can't you see we must be off.”

Belacqua chimed in with a heavy lunch at the Bailey. The truth was not in him.

“Off where?” said Mrs Tough.

“Off” cried Ruby, “just off.”

What a strange mood she is in to be sure, thought Mrs Tough. However. At least they could not prevent her from going as far as the gate.

“Where did you raise the car?” she said.

If you had seen the car you would agree that this was the most natural question.

Belacqua mentioned a firm of motor engineers.

“Oh indeed” said Mrs Tough.

Mr Tough crept to the window and peeped out from behind the curtain. He had worked himself to the bone for his family and he could only afford a safety-bicycle. A bitter look stole over his cyanosis.

Belacqua got in a gear at last, he had no very clear idea himself which, after much clutch-burning, and they shot forward in Hollywood style. Mrs Tough might have been waving to Lot for all the response she received. Was the cut-out by way of being their spokesman? Ruby's parting gird, “Expect us when you see us,” echoed in her ears. On the stairs she met Mr Tough descending. They passed.

“There is something about that young man” called down Mrs Tough “that I can't relish.”

“Pup” called up Mr Tough.

They increased the gap between them.

“Ruby is very strange” cried down Mrs Tough.

“Slut” cried up Mr. Tough.

Though he might be only able to afford a safety-bicycle he was nevertheless a man of few words. There are better things, he thought, going to the bottle, there are better things in this stenching world than Blue Birds.

The pup and slut drove on and on and there was dead silence between them. Not a syllable did they exchange until the car was safely stowed at the foot of a high mountain. But when Ruby saw Belacqua open the dicky and produce a bag she thought well to break a silence that was becoming a little awkward.

“What have you got” she said “in the maternity-bag?”

“Socrates” replied Belacqua “the son of his mother, and the hemlocks.”

“No” she said, “codding aside, what?”

Belacqua let fly a finger for each item.

“The revolver and balls, the veronal, the bottle and glasses,
and
the notice.”

Ruby could not repress a shiver.

“In the name of God” she said “what notice?”

“The one that we are fled” replied Belacqua, and not another word would he say though she begged him to tell her. The notice was his own idea and he was proud of it. When the time came she would have to subscribe to it whether she liked it or not. He would keep it as a little surprise for her.

They ascended the mountain in silence. Wisps of snipe and whatever it is of grouse squirted out of the heather on all sides, while the number of hares, brooding in their forms, that they started and sent bounding away, was a credit to the gamekeeper. They plunged on and up through the deep ling and whortleberry. Ruby was sweating. A high mesh wire fence, flung like a shingles round the mountain, obstructed their passage.

“What are all the trusses for?” panted Ruby.

Right along on either hand as far as they could see there were fasces of bracken attached to the wire. Belacqua racked his brains for an explanation. In the end he had to give it up.

“God I don't know at all” he exclaimed.

It certainly was the most astounding thing.

Ladies first. Ruby scaled the fence. Belacqua, holding gallantly back with the bag in his hand, enjoyed a glimpse of her legs' sincerity. It was the first time he had had occasion to take stock of those parts of her and certainly he had seen worse. They pushed on and soon the summit, complete with fairy rath, came into view, howbeit still at a considerable distance.

Ruby tripped and fell, but on her face. Belacqua's strong arms were at hand to raise her up.

“Not hurt” he kindly inquired.

“This foul old skirt gets in my way” she said angrily.

“It
is
an encumbrance” agreed Belacqua, “off with it.”

This struck Ruby as being such a good suggestion that she acted upon it without further ado and stood revealed as one of those ladies who have no use for a petticoat. Belacqua folded the skirt over his arm, there being no room for it in the bag, and Ruby, greatly eased, stormed the summit in her knickers.

Belacqua, who was in the lead, halted all of a sudden, clapped his hands, spun round and told Ruby he had got it. He was keenly conscious of her standing knee-deep in the ling before him, grateful for a breather and not bothering to ask what.

“They tie those bundles to the wire” he said “so that the grouse will see them.”

Still she did not understand.

“And not fly against the fence and hurt themselves.”

Now she understood. The calm way she took it distressed Belacqua. It was to be hoped that the notice would have better success than this splendid divulgation. Now the ling was up to her garters, she seemed to be sinking in the heath as in a quickstand. Could it be that she was giving at the knees? “Spirits of this mountain” murmured the heart of Belacqua “keep me steadfast.”

Now since parking the car they had not seen a living soul.

The first thing they had to do of course when they got to the top was admire the view, with special reference to Dun Laoghaire framed to perfection in the shoulders of Three Rock and Kilmashogue, the long arms of the harbour like an entreaty in the blue sea. Young priests were singing in a wood on the hillside. They heard them and they saw the smoke of their fire. To the west in the valley a plantation of larches nearly brought tears to the eyes of Belacqua, till raising those unruly members to the slopes of Glendoo, mottled like a leopard, that lay beyond, he thought of Synge and recovered his spirits. Wicklow, full of breasts with pimples, he refused to consider. Ruby agreed. The city and the plains to the north meant nothing to either of them in the mood they were in. A human turd lay within the rath.

Like fantoccini controlled by a single wire they flung themselves down on the western slope of heath. From now on till the end there is something very
secco
and Punch Judy about their proceedings, Ruby looking more bawdy Magdalene than ever, Belacqua like a super out of the Harlot's Progress. He kept putting off opening the bag.

“I thought of bringing the gramophone” he said “and Ravel's
Pavane
. Then——”

“Then you thought again” said Ruby. She had a most irritating habit of interrupting.

“Oh yes” said Belacqua, “the usual pale cast.”

Notice the literary man.

“S'pity” said Ruby, “it might have made things easier.”

Happy Infanta! Painted by Velasquez and then no more pensums!

“If you would put back your skirt” said Belacqua violently, “now that you have done walking, you would make things easier for me.”

How difficult things were becoming, to be sure. The least thing might upset the apple-cart at this juncture.

Ruby pricked up her ears. Was this a declaration at last? In case it might be she would not oblige him.

“I prefer it off” she said.

Belacqua, staring fiercely at the larches, sulked for a space.

“Well” he grumbled at last, “shall we have a little drink to start off?”

Ruby was agreeable. He opened the bag as little as possible, put in his hand, snatched out the bottle, then the glasses and shut it quick.

“Fifteen year old” he said complacently, “on tick.”

All the money he owed for one thing or another. If he did not pull it off now once and for all he would be broke.

“God” he exclaimed, executing a kind of passionate tick-tack through his pockets, “I forgot the screw.”

“Pah” said Ruby, “what odds. Knock its head off, shoot its neck off.”

But the screw turned up as it always does and they had a long drink.

“Length without breath” gasped Belacqua “that's the idea, Hiawatha at Dublin bar.”

They had another.

“That makes four doubles” said Ruby “and they say there's eight in a bottle.”

Belacqua held up the bottle. In that case there was something wrong with her statement.

“Never two without three” he said.

They had another.

“O Death in Life” vociferated Belacqua, “the days that are no more.”

He fell on the bag and ripped out the notice for her inspection. Painted roughly in white on an old number-plate she beheld:

T
EMPORARILY
S
ANE

IK-6996 had been erased to make room for this inscription. It was a palimpsest.

Ruby, pot-valiant, let a loud scoff.

“It won't do” she said, “it won't do at all.”

It was a disappointment to hear her say this. Poor Belacqua. Sadly he held the plate out at arm's length.

“You don't like it” he said.

“Bad” said Ruby “very bad.”

“I don't mean the way it's presented” said Belacqua, “I mean the idea.”

It was all the same what he meant.

“If I had a paddle” she said “I'd bury it, idea and all.”

Belacqua laid the offensive object face downward in the heather. Now there was nothing left in the bag but the firearm, the ammunition and the veronal.

The light began to die, there was no time to be lost.

“Will you be shot” said Belacqua “or poisoned? If the former, have you any preference? The heart? The temple? If the latter” passing over the bag, “help yourself.”

Ruby passed it back.

“Load” she ordained.

“Chevaliers d'industrie” said Belacqua, inserting the ball, “nearly all blow their brains out. Kreuger proved the rule.”

“We don't exactly die together darling” drawled Ruby “or do we?”

“Alas” sighed Belacqua “what can you expect? But a couple of minutes” with a bounteous brandish of the revolver, “the time it takes to boil an egg, what is that to eternity?”

“Still” said Ruby “it would have been rather nice to pass out together.”

“The problem of precedence” said Belacqua, as from a rostrum, “always arises, even as between the Pope and Napoleon.”

“‘The Pope the puke’” quoted Ruby “‘he bleached her soul…’”

“But perhaps you don't know that story” said Belacqua, ignoring the irrelevance.

“I do not” said Ruby “and I have no wish to.”

“Well” said Belacqua “in that case I will merely say that they solved it in a strictly spatial manner.”

“Then why not we?” said Ruby.

The gas seems to be escaping somewhere.

“We” said Belacqua “like twins——”

“Are gone astray” sneered Ruby.

“Are slaves of the sand-glass. There is not room for us to run out arm in arm.”

“As though there were only the one in the world” said Ruby. “Pah!”

“We happen to pine in the same one” said Belacqua, “that is the difficulty.”

“Well, it's a minor point” said Ruby “and by all means ladies first.”

“Please yourself” said Belacqua, “I'm the better shot.”

But Ruby, instead of expanding her bosom or holding up her head to be blown off, helped herself to a drink. Belacqua fell into a passion.

“Damn it” he cried “didn't we settle all these things weeks ago? Did we or did we not?”

“A settlement was reached” said Ruby, “certainly.”

“Then why all this bloody talk?”

Ruby drank her drink.

“And leave us a drop in the bottle” he snarled, “I'll need it when you're gone.”

That indescribable sensation, compound of exasperation and relief, relaxing, the better to grieve, the coenaesthesis of the consultant when he finds the surgeon out, now burst inside Belacqua. He felt suddenly hot within. The bitch was backing out.

Though whiskey as a rule helped Ruby to feel starry, yet somehow on this occasion it failed to effect her in that way, which is scarcely surprising if we reflect what a very special occasion it was. Now to her amazement the revolver went off, harmlessly luckily, and the bullet fell
in terram
nobody knows where. But for fully a minute she thought she was shot. An appalling silence, in the core of which their eyes met, succeeded the detonation.

“The finger of God” whispered Belacqua.

Who shall judge of his conduct at this crux? Is it to be condemned as wholly despicable? Is it not possible that he was gallantly trying to spare the young woman embarassment? Was it tact or concupiscence or the white feather or an accident or what? We state the facts. We do not presume to determine their significance.

“Digitus Dei” he said “for once.”

That remark rather gives him away, does it not?

When the first shock of surprise had passed and the silence spent its fury a great turmoil of life-blood sprang up in the breasts of our two young felons, so that they came together in inevitable nuptial. With the utmost reverence at our command, moving away on tiptoe from where they lie in the ling, we mention this in a low voice.

It will quite possibly be his boast in years to come, when Ruby is dead and he an old optimist, that at least on this occasion, if never before nor since, he achieved what he set out to do;
car
, in the words of one competent to sing of the matter,
l'Amour et la Mort
—caesura—
n'est qu'une mesme chose
.