The Onion Eaters (3 page)

‘Mr Erconwald.’

‘Erconwald. Just Erconwald.’

‘I’ve only just moved in. A matter of hours ago. In fact I’ve only seen two rooms.’

‘Ah. Forgive me. I have troubled and perhaps perplexed you. My most humble apologies. Truly. But of course, I will withdraw. I do most sincerely apologise for my most thoughtless inconveniencing. I am appreciative that you have not chosen to upbraid me.’

‘But surely I can help you. Even perhaps accommodate you. Please. Do ask your friends to come in. If not out of the cold at least out of the darkness.’

‘Kind person. I am most grateful. And I hearken to your courteous invitation.’

This Erconwald taking three backward steps. Bowing horizontally from the waist and momentarily wrestling with the great door lock to step out into the night. Percival
emerging from the shadows flexing his big fingers as he holds up his impassioned hands.

‘Your worship I couldn’t help overhearing engaged as I was putting a few pieces of peat over there in the grate. When first I came across your man at the door he said a stream of things to me that if I could remember half them I’d have one of the greatest educations in these parts.’

‘Have we room Percival.’

‘Have we room sir. We’d accommodate them and their ancestors back through time.’

‘I mean beds.’

‘Beds. Are you asking for beds.’

‘Yes I am.’

‘Beds is it you want. We could put the contents of every cemetery for fifty miles sleeping up yonder there. And that’s a fact.’

‘Three beds will do.’

‘Very good sir. And will you select the wine.’

‘What wine.’

‘That do be in the bins sir.’

‘No kidding.’

‘I would not be given to humbug sir on a serious matter such as that. Being as I have risked life and limb for the safe repose of them cherished liquids. With marauders about here. Her ladyship loved her claret and port.’

The door bell tolling in the courtyard. Percival
heading
for the door giving one knee a smack of his fist and suddenly going down on the tiles on both.

‘Never mind sir, I’m all right. It’s a glancing blow that’s required. Sometimes I don’t aim properly for putting it into joint.’

Percival crawling the remaining distance to the door. Slowly standing and wiping off his britches. Erconwald entering ushering a long haired big breasted girl wearing a thick white sweater and orange dress. Followed by two men, carrying lanterns, one with moustache, the other thin faced under a wild head of bushy hair. Both apparelled in leather patched sports coats, grey flannel trousers and black
banker’s shoes. Erconwald gently raising a left supplicant hand in the faint light.

‘Ah kind person. You are truly charitable. Rose I should like to present, ah, unhappily I have not your name.’

‘Clayton Clementine.’

‘And this is Rose. Of Rathgar. To my left my associates Franz Decibel Pickle and George Putlog Roulette.’

‘How do you do.’

‘Esteemed.’

‘Charmed.’

‘Kind person I fear we put upon you. That you are too easy tempered to say any distressful word to strangers. We should not presume upon your good nature. Arrived as we are without gifts and jellies. You have but to nod your head and we will depart taking with us a comfortable memory of the moments communing here.’

‘Depart. Like hell.’

‘Ah. Rose. Be of contented heart.’

‘Contented. Stuffed in the back seat of that car out there all day. I want a bite to eat.’

Clementine nervously tugging at his cravat, moistening his lips. Rose simultaneously smiling in one direction and sneering in another. Not easy to do. She wears high sharp heels. A certain heft in her legs. Thick lipped and throaty of voice. And quite determined of spirit. Capable of man-handling her companions. Who appear most mild of gentlemen.

‘I’d like to suggest that you be my guests. Dinner will be quite shortly. Percival will show you to your rooms.’

‘Ah we are most indebted.’

A procession up the stairs. Stepping over Elmer
outstretched
at the bottom. Percival with candle lugging a cello case followed by Erconwald carrying a french horn. The rear taken up by the lantern carrying associates the last of whom, Franz, stops to scratch at the stone work with his thumbnail. Turns to see me watching from below, nods his head, smiles briefly and continues upward.

A peat fire glowing in the library. The dust settled and the volume of ancient air scented with a smell of the sea.
Percival, beads of sweat on his brow came jangling his keys carrying his cellar book. I closed a large ledger found in a bottom drawer. With its lists of servants. Four stonemasons. Sixteen gardeners. Three boatmen. Yacht captain, eight deck hands, three engineers. And on one ancient page two dungeon keepers.

‘Nicely settled in they are sir. Facing the bay. Madam preferred being a bit off on her own. Didn’t she pick the northeast turret. You’d think she was ready for war. Skipped right out on the battlement in her bare feet.’

‘Percival I see yacht captain listed here. What is that all about.’

‘It’s the ship moored down in the boat house sir.’

‘Ship.’

‘Ah well now you wouldn’t call it a boat. Seeing as it has its own lift that will take you up and down the decks. A grand vessel. I seen them sail out on many a summer day of me youth with the guests waving back to the castle and the cannons roaring out the salutes up there off the battlements. Them were great days sir. Locked up it’s been these years. Now I don’t like to comment sir. But the lady and gentlemen. Now as I say I don’t like to comment as it’s not my place. But the one of them with the bushy hair. And the musical case I was carrying in particular. Now as I say I don’t like to comment. But wasn’t there a sign on it with do not open venomous reptiles. I thought it my duty to mention it sir.’

‘Christ almighty.’

‘Could be nothing but you wouldn’t want now to be out leaping a dance of death over the ramparts with them things after you.’

Percival leading the way through the disguised door in the library panelling. At the end of a narrow hall to go descending a circling stone stairway, Percival holding aloft a gilt candelabrum. Which could fetch a price. One will estimate later. If I get a private moment to peruse the
hallmark
and contour. The weight too.

Five candles flickering in the damp chill air. Under arched stone ceilings. Past a doorway heaped with ashes.
Another stacked with trunks. Rooms of lead lined sinks. And coming to a crossroads. Of tunnels. From one hear washing gurgling waters and the sound of the sea. Straight on, over the stone slabs. From which a cold rises. Right through the billiard slipper and a pair of sheep socks I bought said to be waterproof and homemade straight off hedgerow briars. Percival stopping. Set in the wall a tombstone chiselled with skull and crossbones beneath a coat of arms of a human hand held up between a stag and lion rampant.

‘The tide’s out sir. There be times now when the pressure rushing this way could break an ear drum. Now you wouldn’t know this was a door would you. It’s the entrance to the wine cellars. In former times the catacombs. You’d not get through this in a hurry. Nine inches thick of local granite. But like rocking a baby we move it back and forth and now just push right here.’

The large slab rolling away revealing an oak door. I hold the cellar book and candelabrum. The weight of the latter delights. Percival opening up with three keys. Inside bins stacked upon bins. The air musty and stilled. An oasis of dark purplish glass neatly nestling in straw. Yard after yard. Tier upon tier of clarets, champagne, burgundy, among the magnums, jeroboams, rehoboams and methuselahs. And further on ports, brandies, rum, not to mention madeira and the light green glass of moselle.

‘It goes there beyond sir. They say the touch of death did no wine harm. I don’t meself know a great deal beyond the pouring and keeping but I know your belly wouldn’t ever be screaming with the thirst that your throat was cut. Now sir so long as we’re down here in the privacy I’d mention that this Mister Erconwald took me aside and let me on to the fact that the lot of them are vegetarians except the woman and strict adherents to the metric system again excepting the woman. And sir didn’t he then lift from his pocket an onion the size of a turnip and take out of it a bite big as your fist and chew as if it were the sweetest apple God ever grew.’

The jeroboam of champagne Percival hefted from the
catacombs was put standing with the gilt serving bowls and sauce boats on the massive mahogany sideboard of the dining room. Which without warning collapses. The champagne cork bursting from its wire cap. To draw my attention to the fine quality of the chandelier into which it shot dislodging a crystal slamming down into my soup. Freely splashing my cravat and smoking jacket lapels. Rose seated not far away on my right managed to quell a satanic grin flickering on her face.

‘Ah sir that reminds me I forgot to mention you don’t want to step over them chalk lines I’ve got marked on the floor in various places as you’d go down through faster than the fastest elevator invented.’

‘Thank you. Is the wine ruined.’

‘Not a bit of it sir, frothing it is with life.’

‘I do apologise to you all.’

‘Ah good person there is no need.’

Sitting here assembled in much silence. Through the soup course of cabbage leaves and potatoes. A tureen of which was carried by Oscar and ladled out by Percival. Rose
making
considerable noise shovelling it between her lips. Having declared frequently on the long way to dine.

‘I can’t wait to get a bite to eat.’

When Percival announced dinner he withdrew. Leaving me leading folks from the library in and out of chambers and corridors trying to reach the dining room. Which I found finally by following Elmer. Whose big black nose fastened to some dog delighting aroma. During the search Erconwald remarked upon the pointed trifoliated arches. Derivative he said of the Khufu pyramid. The influence of which could be seen again in the pointed segmental arch over the mullioned bay windows of the dining room.

A stuffed enormous python hanging extended from a minstrels’ gallery, open mouthed down into the room. Made Elmer growl. And raised a subject which had me
swallowing
amounts of saliva and beeping out farts uncontrollably. Muted by a conveniently located rent in the upholstery into which they sneaked.

Conversation not improving with the appearance of fish.
Large and reptilian buried beneath a white sauce. Coiled on a platter I detect as Meissen. How does one raise the question. What the hell are you doing bringing a bunch of god damn poisonous snakes into my house.

The guests draining their glasses. As quickly as they were refilled by Oscar. Who neatly and swiftly pours from the big bottle. Mr Roulette frequently looks my way, raises his glass, nods and smiles. They all appear far too complicated to be criminals. And I seem to be the only one sizing up the cutlery. Solid silver. With the crest of the hand, lion and stag.

‘Erconwald.’

‘Good person.’

‘I don’t seem to have caught what it was you and your associates do.’

‘Ah. I am delighted you have enquired. We are humble scientists.’

‘O. That’s interesting.’

‘Franz, if he will permit me to say, is an organic chemist, isolator of some of the world’s rarest smells. You are best known for your work Franz on putrefaction.’

‘I agree.’

‘And George, may I speak for you.’

‘Certainly.’

‘Ah George, mild and sweet George. Whose ancestor Putlog invented the scaffold. George, good person, is a physicist. As am I. But we are now perusing matters
somewhat
outside our profession. Which I am not at liberty to comment upon. But good person we tire you with such talk.’

‘O no you don’t.’

‘Ah then there is Rose. Ah Rose. A while ago producing an opera we held a singing contest won by Rose. She is able to reach through six octaves and now has been trained as a baritone. By George. May I be permitted to describe you further Rose.’

‘You do what you like.’

‘Ah. Rose is ninety two point five centimetres around the chest across the nipples unengorged. At the waist across the navel she is seventy five centimetres. The hips across
the apex of the buttocks measure one hundred two and a half centimetres. She displays an unusual and remarkable neoarciform from the waist as it sweeps out to encompass the hip. The upper thighs are smooth, the appearance of hair beginning four inches above the knee and increasing in presence towards the ankles. The feet normal in every other way have webbing between the toes. And you good person, perhaps you would tell us something of yourself.’

‘Well, I don’t have my measurements handy. But I hail from Chicago.’

‘Ah, the Indian name. Means wild onion. A city built on a shallow alluvial basin. Important in trade and industry. But do continue.’

‘There’s not much else to say.’

Percival taking away the remains of the fish. Which one keeps tasting again and again in the mouth. I called for port. Heaps of it. A Jeroboam. As just down the table my eyes lit upon a woven silver gilt dessert basket. Full of potatoes. Sprouting pale green tubers sticking out from wrinkled skins. And through one of which the mouth of Franz presently makes its biting way. Deep into the raw. One is I think quite rightly scared. Be glad to get through dessert and onto the cigars and aged potables. And fathom before it is too late. The insides of the cello case.

‘Are any of you interested in zoology.’

‘If I may speak Mr Clementine, Franz who is
uncircumcised
is an amateur herpetologist and all of us have taken an interest in the field.’

‘O.’

‘No true reptile or animal of a poisonous nature exists here. This has made the natives spiritually overconfident. The resulting blind faith has produced on the roads a phenomena of unlit vehicles colliding in the night.
Restoration
of the country’s caution would be interesting. And could be brought about by exposing the population to a lurking but constant threat of danger both fatal and
unfamiliar.
Electricity is already treated with carefree disregard. To our attention have come several cases of
electricians
licking live wires in the same manner as the farmer
spits on his palms prior to taking up his shovel. In one case a co-axial cable introduced into an orifice, do forgive me Rose, carried current much in excess of a lethal amount. The subject professed obtaining a frisson from the procedure. Which we did not dispute or discourage. Is that correct Franz.’