Free The Onion Eaters by J. P. Donleavy Page B

head.’
    ‘You know someone called Joseph.’
    ‘No. I just say the name. It does for everybody. You know I like it here. It’s a bit damp. But roomy. I got an itch first time I set eyes on you. You’ve funny brown peepers with spots in them. What’s for breakfast.’
    ‘I don’t know. I don’t think it’s morning yet.’
    ‘I could eat a horse. Would you mind if I went down below and fixed up some bacon and eggs.’
    ‘I don’t know if there are any.’
    ‘Sure there’s pucks of food. I saw that Percival and a giant, blind as a bat unloading enough food out of a cart to feed an army. You’re wealthy.’
    ‘Thank you.’
    ‘Don’t thank me. I’m just glad of a bite to eat now and again. Only that the Baron never finishes his food I’d be starving.’
    ‘Who’s the Baron.’
    ‘Sure he was sitting across from you tonight down there in the dining room. Like the rest of us he’s inhabitating a dungeon back in town. For the moment he’s on combat pay with Erconwald. Hardly ever speaks but is a maniac for music. He came down my basement one night when I was rehearsing an aria and stood there at the wall beating his head on it, tears and then blood streaming down his face. Poor man was banished by his family in one of them foreign countries. They send him money once a month to stay away. When it arrives doesn’t he have a horse cab call and creep out to it in his pyjamas to be taken to the pawn where he redeems his wardrobe, with the likes of a morning suit, silk shirts and whatever else grand continental gentlemen put on their backs. And he’s to be seen for the next week immaculate with hotel porters running after him with tips for the races, lounging as he is in a suite with his long cigarette holder in his mouth sipping champagne as if he had not a bother in the world. When the money’s gone, he gets the horse cab back to the pawn, climbs into his pyjamas again and waits till the next cheque from his family. He’s delirious with joy here in the castle, just like home it is to him.’
    ‘You think he might stay.’
    ‘Stay, you just try to get him out. Sure I met him in the hall trembling and tearful, a sure sign he couldn’t be happier. Erconwald says he is an overflowing spring of compassion. Will you have a rasher and an egg if I fetch them up.’
    ‘Yes please.’
    ‘Right you are.’
    Rose throws me a smile in the moonlit shadows. Her breasts aflood on her chest. Great black bush of hair sprouting from her belly. Sit here with my shot gun and pop the pheasants as they break from cover. She pirouettes. And goes into high c. Elmer leaping to his feet and tottering with the sudden effort. As Rose’s voice dins the ears.
    ‘EEEEEEEEEEEEEE. I’m feeling great. Stand up now on the bed and let me see a sight of you.’
    ‘I’d rather not.’
    ‘Come on haven’t you a sight of me.’
    ‘I’m shy.’
    ‘Come on give us a flash of it.’
    ‘Really I don’t think so.’
    ‘I love the sight of them standing out like a stallion, pointing straight at you as if you were accused of wanting to be killed by it. You’re a retiring sort of gent then.’
    ‘A little.’
    ‘So I’ll be off.’
    ‘You’re coming back.’
    ‘Well now that’s a thought. I’ll not come back unless you stand up there and give me an exhibition.’
    ‘I’m sorry but I won’t be threatened.’
    ‘Who’s threatening. Have you ever seen a black man’s. I hear tell they’d choke you with them. And a yellow man’s is no bigger than a snail out of its shell.’
    ‘I’m not really acquainted with either.’
    ‘Well I’m off.’
    ‘Goodbye.’
    ‘So long.’
    Rose wrapping up in her kimono. Tying a knot around the waist. Twisting her neck in a circle. And throwing back her hair. She goes. Now stops. In the antechamber. Could just reach there over the bed and clang down would come the iron door. Just as she was walking out. I’d be had up for murder. Which might be quite legal around here. Or God forbid