The Onion Eaters (6 page)

‘That’s no bother to me. Can I come in and take one.’

‘Please do.’

Rose in her silk kimono. Which is blue embellished with green dragons, mouths spitting orange flame. Hear her high heels. And my heart thumping. Opening up as she does the toothbrush case. And picks and chooses.

‘Take any one.’

‘All the bristles have dropped out of mine.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘Did you think I was unladylike tonight. I’m not a lady but that one is one of them cultured rich ones with her little puppet husband on a string.’

‘I quite understand.’

‘Well I didn’t want to appear as if I was unladylike.’

‘No I can quite see that.’

‘How do you come to be living in this castle all to
yourself,
servants waiting on you hand and foot with not a
bother in the world. If you don’t mind my asking a personal question.’

‘My great grand aunt gave it to me.’

‘You’re not codding me. Gave it to you.’

‘And Elmer there as well.’

‘Wish I had an aunt like that. Could give me a decent flat. I’m living in a basement. Flooded it is too. Didn’t the three of them come in over a weekend and that Franz start digging in the corner saying that according to his map evidence there was a mineral deposit. There was a spring. That’s what there was. Gushing right up into me face.
Leaving
me living in a foot of water and terrified the landlord would see it.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘In my boots day and night.’

‘That’s awful.’

‘He put stones for me to leap from one to the other. The only good thing about them was he tried it himself and fell flat on his face. Would you ever let me have a glass of that wine there and a bit of cheese.’

‘By all means help yourself.’

‘What a life with wine and cheese by the bedside reading a book. Grrrrrrrr. Grrrrr. It makes me growl.’

‘Here take this knife.’

‘I like to bite out chunks. It’s a relief to be shut of them eegits for a bit. They almost killed me coming cross
country.
Took out my tonsils. Operating in the back of the car with that maniac Franz driving. Couldn’t eat a thing for three days. With them killing chickens and cows around every bend in the road. And one odd gentleman they took his cart donkey and hay rick right from underneath him and the poor old man had ten years put onto his life as he came through the sun roof of the car onto my lap making a mess in his trousers. And that Franz beating on the poor creature with a riding crop for being in his way. And like they do to everybody they hand out that donkey distillate. We got the old man back to his cottage. Seventy four he was and chased his eighty four year old wife all over the place with Erconwald trying to train a film camera on them.

Sure the distillate’s a fake, the old man was just knocked out of his senses.’

‘Why do you stay with them.’

‘They pay me. Outside the city limits I’m on combat remuneration so to speak. With the car stinking of onions and their instruments sticking in my backside. They take my rectal temperature every morning. That’s an extra pound a week I get for that lark. With them carrying on all the time about precision.’

‘What about your singing.’

‘That. Sure the opera they put on was the greatest fiasco in the history of performing arts. Franz back stage was putting out a smoke to make a low fog for an ostrich to walk through with its head sticking out the top of it. He said the authenticity of such a scene would be
unforgettable.
Well I can tell you this bird nearly eight feet high and three hundred weight gave authenticity aplenty when the thing got off the stage and ran amok in the audience. The three of them have been sued ever since for two broken legs and concussions too numerous to mention with the theatre left like a battlefield. That was the end of me own operatic career. And theirs too I can tell you.’

‘It seems to me they are very inconsiderate.’

‘Inconsiderate, don’t make me laugh. They are
dangerous.’

‘O God.’

‘This is grand wine. Would you mind if I had another little bit of the cheese.’

‘No not at all.’

‘Are you uneasy.’

‘Well I’m sort of settling in. I wasn’t expecting guests.’

‘Guests you call them. Get that notion out of your mind in a hurry. Inhabitants is the word. Haven’t they got a laboratory rigged up in one of your rooms and in another weren’t they putting a hole in the floor to make a snakepit of the room below.’

‘Holy cow.’

‘But I’ll tell you one thing. They are the only three honest people I have ever met in this country. Not once was I
ever diddled out of a penny. And they keep their word to the letter. Sure at Christmas time they distribute dozens of ducks to the poor and educate little orphan waifs sending them to the best of colleges. They refuse no one a kindness. I’ve seen Erconwald with me own eyes walk along the Green with a bunch of little scallywags begging pennies and he’d empty his pockets to them. Old women dying up there behind the brewery have them to thank for
peaceful
last moments on this earth. With their own families trying to cuff them into their graves, you would see
Erconwald,
Putlog and Franz putting balm on the poor creature’s forehead and giving her jelly beans and cream lemon
delights
to eat. While the savages were drinking outside the door merrymaking in a hurry to get the poor old thing under the sods. Would you mind if I sat down.’

‘No please do.’

‘You could start a good little business in this place.’

Rose renewing her glass of port. Holding the cheese by the rind as she shaves off the last slivers with her incisors, eyes flashing in the candle light. Dark haunting globes. She fixes them on me. Starts a staring match. Wins after nine seconds. And throws her head back, shakes her hair. Her dimensions all bigger than mine go written around in the inside of my head.

‘You don’t mind me asking are you queer.’

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘You heard me. Are you queer.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Well I’m waiting.’

‘O.’

‘You know what I’m talking about. Have you not ever heard the expression give the man in the bed a woman.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Well do you want me to get into the bed or don’t you.’

‘Sure. Do please, get in.’

‘I’ll take off this old yoke on me.’

‘Wow.’

‘Ha ha. Grrrrrr. How’s that.’

‘O boy.’

‘I’m freezing too. Move over. Linen sheets and pillow cases with embroidery. You’re a plutocrat. Them dungeons down there. Chains and shackles on the walls. Rats
running
all over the place. You and your predecessors must have had a grand time incarcerating the poor natives,
whipping
and starving them down there, stealing all the land you could get your greedy bloody hands on. What am I doing in this bed with the likes of you.’

‘I didn’t do anything to the natives. I just got here.’

‘Well it’s on your head. You’ve got the features of a cruel landlord. Written all over you. When the insurgents get here. The likes of you will be made quick work of I can tell you.’

‘Insurgents.’

‘You bet insurgents. The army of insurrection. Get your elbow out of me tit like that. What do you think this is.’

‘I don’t know, I’m sure. Obviously there’s been a
misunderstanding.
’

‘Have you got more port.’

‘The decanter’s right there.’

‘Well I’ll help myself then.’

Clementine adjusting his sky blue skull cap. Keeps away the night air’s unfavourable effect upon the roots of the hair. A tuft of which in vigorous black grows under Rose’s oxster. Wouldn’t stand a chance in combat with her. The biggest exprisoner was lifted right up off his toes trying to choke her with a headlock from behind. Wish fervently this most painful erection one sports would go down in case she decides to wrench it off. Before the insurgents get here. And do it.

‘Rose would you mind pouring me a glass as well, please.’

‘Take mine why don’t you and I’ll fill another. Would you mind telling me what them things are up there on the wall.’

‘Pulley’s for raising and lowering the iron door.’

‘The insurgents will make quick work of that.’

‘Do you happen to know when they’re coming.’

‘If I did what would I tell you for. I know the
commandant
personally.’

‘Do you think he will take exception to me.’

‘How should I know. But one person in this enormous place. With whole families having to live in one room.’

‘At the moment there are about sixteen people here. Not including the dog, the pig and a collection of snakes.’

‘Ah I love those mambas.’

‘They’re deadly snakes.’

‘I’m injected against harm from them. Look at me arm. The scars. And soon they’ll be more they’re breeding to let them loose in the fields. You’ll be free of the rats.’

‘And out of my mind with mambas.’

‘You’re a funny sort. Rigged up like that to go to sleep. For myself now I’m fond of nakedness. Been photographed back sides and front by Erconwald. He fancies himself as a photographer. Before I entered the singing contest he followed me all over town. If I was having coffee he would sit at a nearby table taking notes. Finally in the lobby of a hotel he steps out from behind a pillar and introduces
himself.
I laughed in his face. He says to me, ah madam permit me to make myself known from behind this
architectural
embellishment. Didn’t he leap out at me. With a goat-like delicacy using these light footed floating side steps. Down on one knee he goes. Holding out to me a ring he has in the centre of a little tray. Wasn’t everyone in the lobby watching. I nearly fainted backwards with
embarrassment.
Next I’m staring barefaced at an engraved proposal of marriage. And with not another word out of him he gets up, bows and goes off scribbling in his little book in the corner.’

Rain dripping on the stone sills. Wind growing stronger. Boom of the sea. Down where the great conger lurks. Over his collection of bones. Got my elbow back where it was before. Up against the side of her bulging breast. Fattened further by the last of my cheese. Just push my foot down a little between the damp sheets. Feel if it’s true. That she’s got webbing between the toes. Mamba venom in the veins. And influence with the insurgents. Who might as well be here already. To take up positions. In the halls. And direct traffic for this carnival.

‘Are you constipated, Clementine.’

‘No.’

‘Well I was. For years. Frozen like concrete. Didn’t the doctors have to dig it out of me. Till I took the infusion. After winning the contest the three of them in white coats subjected me to a rude intimate examination with
stethoscopes
and blood pressure contraptions. Said my breath wasn’t what it should be, caused by the inner
contamination.
Sure I listened to them, I had to, strapped stark naked as I was on my back to an operating table under a big sky light with the clouds going over above right in the best part of town. You never heard such a bunch of high falutin comments. Streaming out of the three of them. Said that the tone of my voice would be sweetened. Well I can tell you I’m thankful to them for that. For the greatest
relishment
I’ve been having at the bog of a morning. Sitting there with it coming out two feet long at a time like satin. Franz’s donkey distillate may be a hoax. But I’m telling you right now the infusion is a holy miracle.’

‘The distillate is ok too.’

‘You’re not codding me now. Grrrrr. Give us a feel. Ah if that’s not good quality granite I’ve never felt a bit in me life. Maybe they’re genuine scientists enough then.’

Rose growling, rearing up on top of Clementine. Elmer’s ears cocking. The rusty springs of the lumpy mattress squealing. She’s trying to open my pyjamas which are on backwards. But through the arse of which I forged a hole for peeing. By constantly making this mistake each time I had to take a midnight leak on my storm tossed trip across the seas. To reach this land. After a eleven and a half days of nautical horror. Witnessed in silence. At the long end of a nervous decline. Right to the edge of the grave. Kept holding myself back. Not wanting to go just yet. But
inching
there all the same. Waking each day at dawn. The light cold with death. My great aunt sitting through afternoons down below in her gabled house on a shady street. Where I watched the milkman, mailman and garbage collector come and go. And like Erconwald does with Rose I took my rectal temperature. Measuring the slow combustion of
the fatal disease. Taking me around the throat and arse. Parts it seemed to fancy. As my aunt’s servants went out my bedroom door shaking their heads. With the trays of untouched food. Seven ounces less I weighed each day. Looking at my white tongue in the mirror. New pains behind eyeballs. Doom fuming up from the outstretched
supplicant
palms of my hands. Had I known Franz,
Erconwald
and Putlog then they could have squirted a tonic vapour down my throat and an aeriform serum up my arse. To meet in the belly for a gaseous eruption and blow both hips out of joint forever. Flap round like a puppet buried as I am under Rose’s two massive swinging breasts and
cascading
hair. Growling and biting. What a change from crawling down the last mile. Auntie rolling in my bedroom door in her wheel chair, telling me I was just like my father. He was big and strong. Buried my mother and three more after her. Screwed to death. It was rumoured by doctors who diagnosed an agitation caused by his testicular trinity. An uncontrollable temper kept him in excellent condition. Leaping as he did out at traffic lights to drag some poor
unfortunate
from another car who had the folly to sneer at him at a previous traffic light. I sat in the front seat. A little boy with curls and enormous sad eyes. Standing up to see as my father used his usual right hook to lay a chap backwards over the engine hood. Climbing to the rear seat to peek out and see the victim cross eagled unconscious. Goodness Rose you are strong. Got me by the wrists. Winds raging outside. Last candle going out on the bedside table. Life tip toes back in. As you wait and never see it. Till a time comes. Just like this. The Charnel Castle cure. New vigorous lethal terrors drive out the stale mouldering ones under which one was smothering. Still begging for mommie. To come back. She left on a sunny day. In an ambulance from the side of a house. Carried out on a stretcher and loaded in the shade of the old coach porch. Pressed my nose to the copper screen. My father said mommie wanted peace and quiet. He would take me to see her soon. We went on a rainy day. Down town. It had snowed in the morning and now the streets were grey with slush. Pipes tingling and throbbing
in the hospital. We went up three floors in an elevator and down a long corridor. A little boy pushed by sobbing on a trolley. His own mommie holding his clothes in her arms. We came to a door and I felt chilled. As I stood, my father behind me pushing me in the back, saying go in. See your mother. There she is. Go over to her. A silhouette as she lay on the bed, her long delicate nose, eyes closed and her wavy brown hair spread on the pillow. Out the window the roof of another building covered with pipes and roofed with little grey pebbly stones. The sky
darkened,
rain falling straight and hard. Old snow tucked in the corners of roof tops. My father standing at the door. My mother’s hand was pale. Her nails white at the finger tips. I reached over and touched her. I didn’t know what dead was. Until the tears started to come out of my eyes. And when I turned round my father was gone. I looked down the hall and saw him talking with a doctor. A nurse passed me to go into the room. I stood at the door and watched her pull a white cover over my mother’s face. And when the nurse came out she said to me who are you little boy. I said I’m not anyone.