The impertinent slut! Belacqua very nearly told her to work it up.
“Did the salts talk to you?” she said.
The sick man appraised her as she took his temperature and pulse. She was a tight trim little bit.
“They whispered to me” he said.
When she was gone he thought what an all but flawless brunette, so spick and span too after having been on the go all night, at the beck and call of the first lousy old squaw who let fall her book or could not sleep for the roar of the traffic in Merrion Row. What the hell did anything matter anyway!
Pale wales in the east beyond the Land Commission. The day was going along nicely.
The night-nurse came back for the tray. That made her third appearance, if he was not mistaken. She would very shortly be relieved, she would eat her supper and go to bed. But not to sleep. The place was too full of noise and light at that hour, her bed a refrigerator. She could not get used to this night-duty, she really could not. She lost weight and her face became cavernous. Also it was very difficult to arrange anything with her fiancé. What a life!
“See you later” she said.
There was no controverting this. Belacqua cast about wildly for a reply that would please her and do him justice at the same time. Au plaisir was of course the very thing, but the wrong language. Finally he settled on I suppose so and discharged it at her in a very half-hearted manner, when she was more than half out of the door. He would have been very much better advised to let it alone and say nothing.
While he was still wasting his valuable time cursing himself for a fool the door burst open and the day-nurse came in with a mighty rushing sound of starched apron. She was to have charge of him by day. She just missed being beautiful, this Presbyterian from Aberdeen. Aberdeen!
After a little conversation obiter Belacqua let fall casually, as though the idea had only just occurred to him, whereas in fact it had been tormenting him insidiously for some little time:
“Oh nurse the W.C. perhaps it might be as well to know.”
Like that, all in a rush, without any punctuation.
When she had finished telling him he knew roughly where the place was. But he stupidly elected to linger on in the bed with his uneasy load, codding himself that it would be more decent not to act incontinent on intelligence of so intimate a kind. In his anxiety to give colour to this pause he asked Miranda when he was being done.
“Didn't the night-nurse tell you” she said sharply, “at twelve.”
So the night-nurse had split. The treacherous darling!
He got up and set out, leaving Miranda at work on the bed. When he got back she was gone. He got back into the made bed.
Now the sun, that creature of habit, shone in through the window.
A little Aschenputtel, gummy and pert, skipped in with sticks and coal for the fire.
“Morning” she said.
“Yes” said Belacqua. But he retrieved himself at once. “What a lovely room” he exclaimed “all the morning sun.”
No more was needed to give Aschenputtel his measure.
“Very lovely” she said bitterly “right on me fire.” She tore down the blind. “Putting out me good fire” she said.
That was certainly one way of looking at it.
“I had one old one in here” she said “and he might be snoring but he wouldn't let the blind down.”
Some old put had crossed her, that was patent.
“Not for God” she said “so what did I do?” She screwed round on her knees from building the fire. Belacqua obliged her.
“What was that?” he said.
She turned back with a chuckle to her task.
“I block it with a chair” she said “and his shirt over the back.”
“Ha” exclaimed Belacqua.
“Again he'd be up” she exulted “don't you know.” She laughed happily at the memory of this little deception. “I kep it off all right” she said.
She talked and talked and poor Belacqua, with his mind unfinished, had to keep his end up. Somehow he managed to create a very favourable impression.
“Well” she said at last, in an indescribable sing-song “g'bye now. See you later.”
“That's right” said Belacqua.
Aschenputtel was engaged to be married to handy Andy, she had been for years. Meantime she gave him a dog's life.
Soon the fire was roaring up the chimney and Belacqua could not resist the temptation to get up and sit before it, clad only in his thin blue 100,000 Chemises pyjamas. The coughing aloft had greatly abated since he first heard it. The man was gradually settling down, it did not require a Sherlock Holmes to realise that. But on the grand old yaller wall, crowding in upon his left hand, a pillar of higher tone, representing the sun, was spinning out its placid deiseal. This dribble of time, thought Belacqua, like sanies into a bucket, the world wants a new washer. He would draw the blind, both blinds.
But he was foiled by the entry of the matron with the morning paper, this, save the mark, by way of taking his mind off it. It is impossible to describe the matron. She was all right. She made him nervous the way she flung herself about.
Belacqua turned on the flow:
“What a lovely morning” he gushed “a lovely room, all the morning sun.”
The matron simply disappeared, there is no other word for it. The woman was there one moment and gone the next. It was extraordinary.
The theatre sister came in. What a number of women there seemed to be in this place! She was a great raw châteaubriant of a woman, like the one on the Wincarnis bottle. She took a quick look at his neck.
“Pah” she scoffed “that's nothing.”
“Not at all” said Belacqua.
“Is that the lot?”
Belacqua did not altogether care for her tone.
“And a toe” he said “to come off, or rather portion of a toe.”
“Top” she guffawed “and bottom.”
There was no controverting this. But he had learnt his lesson. He let it pass.
This woman was found to improve on acquaintance. She had a coarse manner, but she was exceedingly gentle. She taught all her more likely patients to wind bandages. To do this well with the crazy little hand-windlass that she provided was no easy matter. The roll would become fusiform. But when one got to know the humours of the apparatus, then it could be coaxed into yielding the hard slender spools, perfect cylinders, that delighted her. All these willing slaves that passed through her hands, she blandished each one in turn. “I never had such tight straight bandages” she would say. Then, just as the friendship established on this basis seemed about to develop into something more—how shall I say?—substantial, the patient would all of a sudden be well enough to go home. Some malignant destiny pursued this splendid woman. Years later, when the rest of the staff was forgotten, she would drift into the mind. She marked down Belacqua for the bandages.
Miranda came back, this time with the dressing-tray. That voluptuous undershot cast of mouth, the clenched lips, almost bocca romana, how had he failed to notice it before? Was it the same woman?
“Now” she said.
She lashed into the part with picric and ether. It beat him to understand why she should be so severe on his little bump of amativeness. It was not septic to the best of his knowledge. Then why this severity? Merely on the off chance of its coming in for the fag-end of a dig? It was very strange. It had not even been shaved. It jutted out under the short hairs like a cuckoo's bill. He trusted it would come to no harm. Really he could not afford to have it curtailed. His little bump of amativeness.
When his entire nape was as a bride's adorned (bating the obscene stain of the picric) and so tightly bandaged that he felt his eyes bulging, she transferred her compassion to the toes. She scoured the whole phalanx, top and bottom. Suddenly she began to titter. Belacqua nearly kicked her in the eye, he got such a shock. How dared she trespass on his programme! He refusing to be tickled in this petty local way, trying with his teeth
to reach his under-lip and gouging his palms, and she forgetting herself, there was no other word for it. There were limits, he felt, to Democritus.
“Such a lang tootsy” she giggled.
Heavenly father, the creature was bilingual. A lang tootsy! Belacqua swallowed his choler.
“Soon to be syne” he said in a loud voice. What his repartee lacked in wit it made up for in style. But it was lost on this granite Medusa.
“A long foot” he said agreeably “I know, or a long nose. But a long toe, what does that denote?”
No answer. Was the woman then altogether cretinous? Or did she not hear him? Belting away there with her urinous picric and cooling her porridge in advance. He would try her again.
“I say” he roared “that that toe you like so much will soon be only a memory.” He could not put it plainer than that.
Her voice after his was scarcely audible. It went as follows:
“Yes”—the word died away and was repeated—“yes, his troubles are nearly over.”
Belacqua broke down completely, he could not help it. This distant voice, like a cor anglais coming through the evening, and then the his, the his was the last straw. He buried his face in his hands, he did not care who saw him.
“I would like” he sobbed “the cat to have it, if I might.”
She would never have done with her bandage, it cannot have measured less than a furlong. But of course it would never do to leave anything to chance, Belacqua could appreciate that. Still it seemed somehow disproportioned to the length of even his toe. At last she made all fast round his shin. Then she packed her tray and left. Some people go, others leave. Belacqua felt like the rejected of those two that night in a bed. He felt he had set Miranda somehow against him. Was this then the haporth of paint? Miranda on whom so much depended. Merde!
It was all Lister's fault. Those damned happy Victorians.
His heart gave a great leap in its box with a fulminating sense that he was all wrong, that anger would stand by him better than the other thing, the laugh seemed so feeble, so like a whinge in the end. But on second thoughts no, anger would turn aside when it came to the point, leaving him like a sheep. Anyhow it was too late to turn back. He tried cautiously what it felt like to have the idea in his mind. … Nothing happened, he felt no shock. So at least he had spiked the brute, that was something.
At this point he went downstairs and had a truly military evacuation, Army Service Corps. Coming back he did not doubt that all would yet be well. He whistled a snatch outside the duty-room. There was nothing left of his room when he got back but Miranda, Miranda more prognathous than ever, loading a syringe. Belacqua tried to make light of this.
“What now?” he said.
But she had the weapon into his bottom and discharged before he realised what was happening. Not a cry escaped him.
“Did you hear what I said?” he said. “I insist, it is my right, on knowing the meaning of this, the purpose of this injection, do you hear me?”
“It is what every patient gets” she said “before going down to the theatre.”
Down to the theatre! Was there a conspiracy in this place to destroy him, body and soul? His tongue clave to his palate. They had desiccated his secretions. First blood to the profession!
The theatre-socks were the next little bit of excitement. Really the theatre seemed to take itself very seriously. To hell with your socks, he thought, it's your mind I want.
Now events began to move more rapidly. First of all an angel of the Lord came to his assistance with a funny story, really very funny indeed, it always made Belacqua laugh till he cried, about the parson who was invited to take a small part in an amateur production. All he had to do was to snatch at his heart when the revolver went off, cry “By God! I'm shot!” and drop dead. The parson said certainly, he would be most happy, if they would have no objection to his drawing the line at “By God!” on such a secular occasion. He would replace it, if they had no objection, by “Mercy!” or “Upon my word!” or something of that kind. “Oh my! I'm shot!” how would that be?
But the production was so amateur that the revolver went off indeed and the man of God was transfixed.
“Oh!” he cried “oh …! … BY CHRIST! I am SHOT!”
It was a mercy that Belacqua was a dirty lowdown Low Church Protestant high-brow and able to laugh at this sottish jest. Laugh! How he did laugh, to be sure. Till he cried.
He got up and began to titivate himself. Now he could hear the asthmatic breathing if he listened hard. The day was out of danger, any fool could see that. A little sealed cardboard box lying on the mantelpiece caught his eye. He read the inscription: Fraisse's Ferruginous Ampoules for the Intensive Treatment of Anaemia by Intramuscular Squirtation. Registered Trademark—Mozart. The little Hexenmeister of Don Giovanni, now in his narrow cell for ever mislaid, dragged into bloodlessness! How very amusing. Really the world was in great form this morning.
Now two further women, there was no end to them, the one of a certain age, the other not, entered, ripping off their regulation cuffs as they advanced. They pounced on the bed. The precautionary oil-sheet, the cradle … Belacqua padded up and down before the fire, the ends of his pyjamas tucked like a cyclist's into the sinister socks. He would smoke one more cigarette, nor count the cost. It was astonishing, when he came to think of it, how the entire routine of this place, down to the meanest detail, was calculated to a cow's toe to promote a single end, the relief of suffering in the long run. Observe how he dots his i's now and crucifies his t's to the top of his bent. He was being put to his trumps.
Surreptitiously they searched his yellow face for signs of discomposure. In vain. It was a mask. But perhaps his voice would tremble. One, she whose life had changed, took it upon herself to say in a peevish tone:
“Sister Beamish won't bless you for soiling her good socks.”
Sister Beamish would not bless him.
The voice of this person was in ruins, but she abused it further.
“Would you not stand on the mat?”
His mind was made up in a flash: he would stand on the mat. He would meet them in this matter. If he refused to stand on the mat he was lost in the eyes of these two women.
“Anything” he said “to oblige Sister Beamish.”
Miranda was having a busy morning. Now she appeared for the fourth or fifth time, he had lost count, complete with shadowy assistants. The room seemed full of grey women. It was like a dream.
“If you have any false teeth” she said “you may remove them.”
His hour was at hand, there was no blinking at the fact.
Going down in the lift with Miranda he felt his glasses under his hand. This was a blessed accident if you like, just when the silence was becoming awkward.
“Can I trust you with these?” he said.
She put them into her bosom. The divine creature! He would assault her in another minute.
“No smoking” she said “in the operating-theatre.”
The surgeon was washing his invaluable hands as Belacqua swaggered through the antechamber. He that hath clean hands shall be stronger. Belacqua cut the surgeon. But he flashed a dazzling smile at the Wincarnis. She would not forget that in a hurry.
He bounced up on to the table like a bridegroom. The local doc was in great form, he had just come from standing best man, he was all togged up under his vestments. He recited his exhortation and clapped on the nozzle.
“Are you right?” said Belacqua.
The mixture was too rich, there could be no question about that. His heart was running away, terrible yellow yerks in his skull. “One of the best,” he heard those words that did not refer to him. The expression reassured him. The best man clawed at his tap.
By Christ! he did die!
They had clean forgotten to auscultate him!
Draff
Shuah, Belacqua, in a Nursing Home.
THOUGH this was stale news to Mrs Shuah, for she had inserted it (by telephone) herself,
yet she felt, on reading it in the morning after paper, a little shock of surprise, as on opening telegram confirming advance booking in crowded hotel. Then the thought of friends, their unassumed grief giving zest to their bacon and eggs, the first phrases of sympathy with her in this great loss modulating from porridge to marmalade, from whispers and gasps to the calm ejaculations of chat, in a dozen households that she could have mentioned, set in motion throughout her bodily economy, with results that plainly appeared at once on her face, the wheels of mourning. Whereupon she was without thought or feeling, just a slush, a teary coenaesthesis.
This particular Mrs Shuah, as stated thus far at all events, does not sound very like Thelma née bboggs, nor is she. Thelma née bboggs perished of sunset and honeymoon that time in Connemara. Then shortly after that they suddenly seemed to be all dead, Lucy of course long since, Ruby duly, Winnie to decency, Alba Perdue in the natural course of being seen home. Belacqua looked round and the Smeraldina was the only sail in sight. In next to no time she had made up his mind by not merely loving but wanting him with such quasi-Gorgonesque impatience as her letter precited evinces. She and no other therefore is the Mrs Shuah who now, after less than a year in the ultraviolet intimacy of the compound of ephebe and old woman that he was, reads in the paper that she had begun to survive him.
Bodies don't matter but hers went something like this: big enormous breasts, big breech, Botticelli thighs, knock-knees, square ankles, wobbly, poppata, mammose, slobbery-blubbery, bubbubbubbub, the real button-busting Weib, ripe. Then, perched away high out of sight on top of this porpoise prism, the sweetest little pale Pisanello of a birdface ever. She was like Lucrezia del Fede, pale and belle, a pale belle Braut, with a winter skin like an old sail in the wind. The root and the source of the athletic or aesthetic blob of a birdnose never palled, unless when he had a costive coryza himself, on Belacqua's forefinger pad and nail, with which he went probing and plumbing and boring the place just as for many years he polished his glasses (ecstasy of attrition!), or suffered the shakes and grace-note strangulations and enthrottlements of the Winkelmusik of Szopen or Pichon or Chopinek or Chopinetto or whoever it was embraced her heartily as sure as his name was Fred, dying all his life (thank you Mr Auber) on a sickroom talent (thank you Mr Field) and a Kleinmeister's Leidenschaftsucherei (thank you Mr Beckett), or ascended across the Fulda or the Tolka or the Poddle or the Volga as the case might be, and he never dreaming that on each and all these occasions he was pandering to the most iniquitous excesses of a certain kind of sublimation. The wretched little wet rag of an upper lip, pugnozzling up and back in what you might nearly call a kind of a duck or a cobra sneer to the nostrils, was happily to some extent amended by the wanton pout of its fellow and the forward jaws to match—a brilliant recovery. The skull of this strapping girl was shaped like a wedge. The ears of course were shells, the eyes shafts of reseda (his favourite colour) into an oreless mind. The hair was as black as the pots and grew so thick and low athwart the temples that the brow was reduced to a fanlight (just the kind of shaped brow that he most admired). But what matter about bodies?