Free The Hard Life by Flann O’Brien Page B

having a good rest for myself.
    The brother yawned artificially.
    –Gentlemen, he said, I’m tired and I want to get a night’s sleep. We can talk more about my plans tomorrow.
    He rose and stumbled out towards the stairs. We who remained looked at each other, mutely.

11
    W HEN I got to bed later the brother was asleep, no doubt in the anaesthesia of whiskey. In the morning I asked him whether he was serious about the project in Tooley Street.
    –Course I’m serious, he answered.
    –And what are you going to do there?
    –I am going to open the London University Academy. I’ll teach everything by correspondence, solve all problems, answer all questions. I might start a magazine first, and then a newspaper, but first I’ll have to build up slowly. I’ll teach the British how to learn French or cure chilblains. I’ll be a limited company, of course. Already I have a solicitor working on the papers. My branch office will be the British Museum. If you like, I’ll give you a job later on.
    I suppose that was generous but for some reason the offer did not immediately attract me. Dryly I said:
    –I’d want to get to know those railway stations you mentioned last night in case I had to skip. In a hurry.
    –Don’t talk rubbish. My operations are always within the law. But the British won’t be nervous because if the bobbies were after me and managed to close the roads and railways and the river, haven’t they the Tower of London to stuff me into? It’s just across the river from Tooley Street.
    –Well, many a good Irishman spent a time there.
    –True.
    –And lost his life.
    –Well, I’ll prepare and circulate a series entitled How To Escape From The Tower Of London. Three guineas for the complete course, with daggers, revolvers and rope-ladders supplied to students at very little over cost.
    –Aw, shut up, I said.
    When I got back from Synge Street that evening, everybody was out but a note from Annie said that my dinner was in the oven. Immediately afterwards I attacked my damned homework, for I had planned to spend the evening at a small poker school in the home of my school friend, Jack Mulloy. Did card games attract me much? I don’t know but Jack’s sister, Penelope, who served mugs of tea and bits of cake at ‘half-time’, certainly did. She was what was known as a good hoult, with auburn hair, blue eyes and a very nice smile. And to be honest, I think she was fond of myself. I remember being puzzled to think that she and Annie belonged to the same sex. Annie was a horrible, limp, lank streel of a creature. But she had a good heart and worked hard. Mr Collopy was fussy about his meals and though he dressed rather like an upper-class tramp, he had a horror of laundries and mass-washing. To participate in that, he held, was a certain way to get syphilis and painful skin diseases. Annie had to wash his shirts and other things, though he personally looked after his celluloid collar, which he washed with hot water every second day. She also had to compound various medicines for him, all of which contained sulphur, though I never heard what afflictions those potions were intended to remedy or prevent. In the last eighteen months or so, she was asked to undertake another duty to which she agreed willingly enough. The brother had given up the early-rising of his schooldays but would often hand Annie some money for what-you-know’ from his bedside. He was in need of a cure, and the poor girl would slip out and bring him back a glass of whiskey.
    Mr Collopy came in about five o’clock, followed shortly afterwards by Annie. He seemed in a bad temper. Without a word he collapsed into his armchair and began reading the paper. The brother came in about six, loaded with books and small parcels. He naturally perceived the chill and said nothing. The tea turned out to be a very silent, almost menacing, meal. I kept thinking of Penelope. Tea with her would be a very different affair, an ambrosial banquet of