The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B (7 page)

"Miss Hortense where do you come from.' "Huddersfield."

"Where is that."

"It's in Yorkshire where they make cloth."

"Is it nice."

"No. It's all foggy, smoky, but I liked it well enough."

"Is your father in good health."

"Yes."

"What does your father do."

"He is an impoverished clergyman."

"What is impoverished."

"It's when you make fires in the sitting room only in the evenings and on Sundays."

The waiter bowed over Miss Hortense and she quickly put her hand up to the frilly neck of her blouse. What Beefy said about them was true, they were white swellings and made you stare. And made the waiter bend his neck and the gent across the room missed his cup with the pot of tea and now the waiter was running with a cloth to mop it up.

Balthazar dug and cut into his toast, bacon and egg. And filled his cup from a big brown pot under a thick cloth cover which nannie lifted up and said was very much like a bishop's hat. Her eyes are smiling and the world is so bright and cheerful. Bend the wafer of bread and sweep it into the red broken yolk and through the white sweet bacon fat. Tip upon it tiny specks of salt and lift it up between the lips, the yummiest thing for weeks. And chew with bulging cheeks the rich warm goodness washed down with splendid tea.

The gent bowing up to nannie as we left the dining room. He took a little book from his pocket and wrote in it. And crossed it out when nannie laughed and shrugged her shoulders as he grinned unhappily. Again he waved his hands, crinkled up his eyes and held his pencil to his book. And when nannie wasn't looking while she held her hand for change he lifted one of his shoe tips to shine it on the back of his trouser leg.

"Miss Hortense, what is wrong with that man.'

"He fancies himself."

"Why do you say that."

"He invited us to Le Touquet."

Balthazar and nannie came out of the large green breezy shed, stepping across tracks. A white hull stood high along the quay and on the bow it said Invicta. Cranes hoisting great nets of luggage and mail bags. Stewards crowding at the top of the gangway. Tickets ready, please. This way to first class.

All first class this way. Second class that way please. A porter packed their luggage on a shelf in the front lounge. White table cloths, green wicker chairs and potted palms.

A sailor said the sea was fresh to moderate. The ship's whistle blew. Coffee and refreshments would be served in ten minutes. Nannie's eyebrows curved like big rainbows above her eyes. And they were grey like the sea. She spoke with lips apple bright and gently soft. Her skin was smooth and nose upturned. And I wanted to lean over and touch her on her soft silky elbow.

"I hope you will be quite content to take care of me for the 67 holidays. I am really able to take care of myself so you won't have much to do. Are you looking for a husband.'

"O dear what kind of question is that."

"My last nannie was looking for one. And a gentleman admired her. On this very boat. But she vomited. She was very good at mending. But now she will never get married.

Because she must care for her father."

"That's very sad.' "Yes. But all the gentlemen look at you."

"Do they now."

"My Uncle Edouard will too."

"My goodness."

"He is very hairy and big and strong. I think that he can bend an iron bar. He kills animals with his bare hands. But now I must be very quiet all the way to Calais. To memorise my Latin verbs."

The ship's engines rumbled. The hatch doors banged closed. Sailors hammering wooden wedges under iron clips.

The wind gathering up and blowing down the decks. And inside the lounge a peace descended. Nannie smiled and cast her eyes gently down under the gaze of a French gentleman with a monocle who swung up the edge of his grey cape with a swagger stick. He too came and bowed. Presenting a white little card upon which he wrote and nannie tucked it in her bag. His suit was checked and two of his teeth were gold when he smiled.

A tall tower above the town of Calais. The seaweedy smell from the shore. The dressing huts along the beach showed summer colours faded and cold on the lonely sand. Fishermen at the end of the pier. They all looked like peeing. Their serious faces. The ship crushed up against the wired bundles of sticks and the stout ribs of oak along the quay. Miss Hortense holding him by the shoulder at the railing. With a shiver to suddenly feel a touch of her lips warmly on top of my ear.

A stream of porters rushing up the gangway. A smell of garlic, cigarette, wine and onions. Officials' lower lips protruding looking up as they held hands folded behind the back of their neatly pressed uniforms. A red pompon on top of a sailor's blue beret as he casts a line up from the pier. This squat brown eyed porter rushing up to Miss Hortense, as a breeze billowed open her grey coat. The swell of one of her bosoms tightly against her poplin shirting. The porter making a quick sign of the cross. As he whispered to another porter behind him, I say hello to the women and to hell with the men. And to Miss Hortense he said, madam may I carry even your handkerchief. Down to the gay shore of France.

Where each

Little fellow

Is a

Citizen.

10

Balthazar's mother moved from the big house off Avenue Foch to a sprawling apartment overlooking the gardens of the Palais Royal. Miss Hortense with her tall flowing gay willing way came each Christmas, Easter and summer holiday. Taking Balthazar back and forth to Paris by taxi ship and train. While his mother went hither and thither to Baden Baden, Liechtenstein and Biarritz, to one for a cure, to the next for taxes and to the last to swim.

And this summer now hot and dry. A white dust rising to whiten leaves in the Tuilleries. Balthazar's mother asleep till late afternoons. At nights to dinners and balls and weekends away from Gare St. Lazare to the country. A Czechoslovakian woman came to cook and a Russian to clean. They had their lunch in the big kitchen with the high walls hung with pots and pans.

Mornings Miss Hortense would sit doing the English paper crossword puzzle and play dominoes between the plates with Balthazar. And in the warm cool at night, hand in hand they sat on the balcony above the garden. The shadowy stone urns with upturned seventeen spears, and four fish hook prongs to keep out intruders. And one year ago Miss Hortense said I think it's time you called me Bella.

Each day to laugh down the steps and out across the gardens. To sit a while where the solemn little children played under the thick chestnut trees. Or watch the marionettes in the Tuilleries. And the favourite hours to quietly read away an afternoon on the sentinel pale green chairs. Miss Hortense to be seated with her pillow, her elegant long legs crossed in the hot sunshine. By a bed of pink roses while the sparrows pecked and scratched and bathed.

The mornings at dawn Balthazar heard the keeper open the gates. And sometimes alone and dressed, Bella asleep, to go down and skip along the brown and black tiles of the arcade and pirouette on each four leaved shamrock. Bella said it was good for Irish luck. Then pause to read the garden rules which said no writing on the walls, no sound instruments and no games which can bring trouble to the tranquillity of the pedestrian.

And on this soft summer Saturday night. As Balthazar and Bella walked hand in hand past the black fence bars topped with golden spears. By the stamp shop and where the old strange watches stood in the window with coloured pictures on their faces. And near to me was Bella. The close up of her grey eyes was green. And her breath as sweet as roses. When she told her secrets in wide eyed words. And whispered dreams. And laughed when she lost at chess.

"Balthazar.'

"Yes my Bella."

"You know something."

"What."

"I am going away."

"Where. What do you mean."

"I am going away from you."

"Why."

"It is too complicated to explain."

"Has my mother told you to."

"No not yet."

"Then why. Don't you enjoy coming to Paris anymore."

"Yes."

"Then why."

"Because this is all very foolish."

"What is foolish."

"You are growing up. You're getting tall. A full inch above my shoulder last year. And now, see. You come right to the top of my ear. When first we met you were only up to here.

Soon you will be thirteen. You don't need me anymore."

"That's rather an unfortunate thing for you to say Bella. I don't understand why you've chosen to discuss this at all."

"Because it is ruining my life coming here three times a year."

Passing the windows of the red carpeted theatre. And into the peristyle courtyard. Crossing between the stone pillars, they stood near the restaurant with the golden walls and carved and painted ceilings and the mirror you could look up at from the courtyard and see down from the restaurant .ceiling on to tables where customers were leisurely lavishly eating. To see now this moment a gentleman's hand with gold rings, his fingers opening and closing upon a glass stem which he raised to swirl a wine beneath his nose. On the restaurant window it said Sherry, Goblers and Lemon Squash. Miss Hortense took a deep breath and raised her eyebrows and bent forward as she walked.

"Bella, I did not know I was ruining your life.'

"You told me it was nice these holidays like this. And you could give all the gentlemen about Kensington a merry dance.

And you had your nice little change of situations."

"O God what a mess. Don't you see I love you. And you are far too old to be loved like that."

A strange shiver comes upon the back of the head and goes down the spine and lingers between the legs. The sound of our slow feet passing over the waves worn in the tiles. The lace shop. Rooms alight behind curved shiny windows above under the roof of the arcade. And through all the black muddy months there loomed her middle parted brown long hair. And how she bent each thumb backwards on her wrist and could spin her skirt high up over her knees and always forgot to castle her king.

To come now through to the empty street and back to the little bell and great dark green enamel door. Yesterday so bright and sunny. Shopping at Corcellet, where Miss Hortense smiled to rub her shoe on the brass letters of the entrance floor under the iron bunch of grapes. And she laughed and laughed as she sewed on her bedroom chaise longue. Of the story about Uncle Edouard. When a month ago he dined at a terrace on the Champs Elysees. When a gust of wind exploded upon the cafe, tore off the awning, and carried away the umbrellas over the tables. Le Baron the balloonist extraordinaire remained calm, giving instructions to the waiters to stand back from the cyclone. And as he held to his own table umbrella, it rose with a bang. Uncle Edouard clinging tightly as it pulled him off his feet and down the boulevard. Shouting. I am in control, I am in control.

Now climbing up these dark stairs. And the big brown doors. The incense smelling vestibule.

"Bella I am fond of you too.'

"Don't you see that is the trouble."

Feeling a tender trembling and shaking. Her summer tanned back and the cool brown across her shoulders. The white skin under the straps of her light blue summer frock.

My breath seems pushing up against the back of my eyes. And the first time off the train at Paris when I gave the address and opened the door for her into the taxi she smiled and took my hand and said your manners make you such a little gentleman and if only you were bigger I would have you for my man.

Miss Hortense swept into the salon and went quickly from table to table to turn on all the blazing lights.

"Why have you done that, Bella.'

"I don't know. I think it's as well. Your mother is away.

There's no one here the whole weekend. I've turned on the lights that's all."

"You're awfully upset.'

"The fact of the matter is I'm twenty four and should be married."

"But every man will have you."

"That does not mean I want one of them. There's little to choose between a cunning solicitor and a rich dunce, except my choice would be neither of them."

"If you marry the cunning solicitor he's sure to be very rich one day."

"And his heart and soul completely poor."

"But Bella you said yourself that only money matters, and for a woman it's better even to have her own."

"Yes. I said that and it's true. I'll be cured next week when I buy a new hat.'

"Shall we play chess."

"I don't feel like it tonight."

"It is not too late to go to the theatre."

"No."

"Do you want me to go away and leave you alone."

"For heaven's sake no."

"I am awfully sorry that I have made you so unhappy."

Miss Hortense against the edge of the high grey marble table where she put back her arms and pressed the heels of her hands. And her fingers whitening as they tightened around the cold hard stone.

"O God it's crazy. It's crazy. In fact it's far too funny. Here I am, good Lord, in love with a twelve year old boy."

Miss Hortense turned from where she leaned and slowly rolled herself over the arm rest and fell deep into the green brocaded sofa of eiderdown. This still night the end of June.

Faint horns honking along Rue St. Honore and the memory of an afternoon three years ago when I went down into the Metro of the Palais Royal, past the blue smocked woman at a desk with her plateful of centimes and stood to wee wee elbow high to a nearby man. Upon whose gleaming patent leather shoe I peed. And he reared backwards stamping his foot, his own pee crazily sprinkling his trousers and tiled floor.

I quickly buttoned up and ran. Out past the phalanx of dark brown cubicles and up into the street into Miss Hortense's arms. And when she asked what did you do I said I peed on a man and there he is now with his black briefcase shaking his umbrella. And Miss Hortense turned and smiled and made him a fluttering curtsy.

"Bella why do you say this when I have told you that I love you too."

"Balthazar it's not your fault. I can't expect you to understand. What could you ever know about women."

"I want to learn. I have read some most unseemly books."

''God you're so sweet. And I mustn't say I could kiss you."

The tinkling eight thirty chime of the gold mantel clock.

Miss Hortense's brown long legs shooting akimbo on the gleaming parquet. Her big toes upturned from her sandals. A great heaving sigh whispering out her lips. And back now these years. For all the hushed little nights when Beefy said across bedsides. Of what girls were for, and what you could do to them. More than botty bashing. More than pulling or playing put it in the ring. That his granny's maid said she had a hole like a penny slot and one day he would have hair there too. And out of his horn a white hot syrup could come. And Beefy would whisper as each urgent piece of news arrived about girls. That they had their own little knob upon which you could play. That nipples could get big and hard but he was not positively sure of this yet. And girls were of two types.

One to whom you did the vile and odious thing and whom you would not love. She would be a servant, a waitress or a maid or be in a back alley of the town. But girls you loved were cousins at the race meetings or partners at dancing school or at aunts' and uncles' houses in their pretty dresses.

You married them and always and always they had their own bed and dressing room and you would not go in there unless it was desperately necessary. Beefy never said what he knew about nannies for each one he had departed after a few days.

"I don't like you staring at me like that Balthazar. Do you think you should go and find something to do."

"Why."

"Because I think it would be proper."

"Why."

"Don't ask me why."

"Then I will not go and find something to do."

"Don't."

"I won't."

"I don't care if you don't."

"And I don't care that you don't care that I don't."

"Then don't."

"I'm not."

"Then I am going to go and sew."

Miss Hortense standing. Her sandals making

Miss Hortense standing. Her sandals making a flapping noise on the floor. Passing by Balthazar as he stood near the door. His blue jacket closed and his flannel trousers long and white. Miss Hortense went by the fruit basket on the dining table and snatched out a pear. The strong muscles in the backs of her legs. And the thin tapering ankle and tendon down into her heels. Her bedroom door closing. I tremble and my heart thumps. Tight and hot in my head above the eyes.

When I made a squeaking noise on a leaf between my palms, Bella laughed and said I can do that. I said beware my spit, Fll find a new leaf. O no I like your spit. On a bench near the Trocadero after I showed Bella my father's tomb. And I said I would not want a germ to harm you. She laughed and suddenly threw her arms about my shoulders and squeezed me tight and said I could eat you all up.

Balthazar turned off the lights of the salon, save one by the window and bookcase where he knelt and pulled volumes from the shelves. A faded green spine which faintly read The Neighbourhood of Dublin. His father's large scrawled signature inside the cover. Tales Uncle Edouard told. Of the noble and splendid blood of the Celt flowing through our veins.

After the battle of the Boyne our ancestor fled in the Flight of the Wild Geese from Ireland to France. They were brave men of unquenchable principle. And he was one brilliant fellow, a Royal Astronomer of Ireland. He knew much of ether and even electricity. And from this great house he watched by telescope out into the solar system. It was only because of the clouds that he did not get much chance to see the stars.

Remember always you are of Irish kings as well as of France, and all Irishmen are kings but not all kings are Irishmen.

With four tomes under arm and Paris bells tolling eleven o'clock Balthazar passed along the dark hallway to his room.

The dry creaking of the boards beneath the feet. Miss Hor-tense's door with a bright dot of keyhole. To pause to knock.

And no. She may never like me anymore. And tomorrow we were going to go to Sevres. To see the porcelain in the museum. All our splendid days we wandered here and there.

Along the banks and book stalls of the Seine. In and out the alley darkened streets, Huchette, Suger, St. Andre des Arts, passing under grey peeling walls, buildings like full old bellies, buttons bursting and washerwomen's eyes staring sullenly down. Often they stopped at St. Germain des Pres for citron presse and all the young gentlemen giggled at Miss Hortense's horsey elegant beauty, twitching their shoulders as they went by and laughing in their little groups to catch Bella's cool grey green eye. She would rise up tall between the cafe tables. Her white beaded summer bag tucked neatly beneath a breast.

And with the other cool hand to throw her hair back upon her shoulder and putting aloft her head, the tiniest smile across her lips, she stepped out on the boulevard, her hips gently shifting to and fro. A grin on her face as a cry went up from the cafe table, long live mademoiselle so magnificently callipyge.

Balthazar bent an eye to the keyhole. A yellow light and golden drapes at the end of the room. To be shut out from all her warmth and love. Across the polished floor and persian carpet hangs her light blue dressing gown from a chair. And a night three summers ago I awoke to rumbling thunder to stumble afeared out into the corridor. To say outside this door. Nannie, o dear I am most frightened. But not loud enough for her to hear. Too shy to knock and too shy to show my fear. And suddenly her door opened and lightning whitened her window and flashed behind her. Her body so long and slender and outlined against the light through her sleeping gown. She held me there and then said come, get into bed with me, put your head on my pillow and I will tell you why there is no need to be afraid. Because they are playing skittles in the sky and when they want to throw a ball, it's only that God puts on the lightning so that they can see. And then there's the big boom and the rain comes down to wash away all the mess. And in sleep I snuggled and clutched to her and dreamt I flew on a white horse up steps right into the sky and jumped over clouds and put my fingers into soft crushed berries and cream. And at morn to wake and see her brown long hair streaming across the pillow. As the triangle of sunlight rose up the green wall. And the clutch of deep dark small freckles on her back and I put a finger there to rub one away and she rolled over and smiled, her eyes so gaily alight and sparkling and she slowly withdrew one of her long long arms from under the covers and reached out and pushed me on the nose and said hey you, you must get out of here now.