The Ginger Man by J. P. Donleavy Read Free Book Online Page B

dinner time. Do you want to give me ulcers?"
    "Why won't you take some responsibility?"
    "After dinner. Don't drive me up the wall over Irish plumbing, it's new to the country and the pipes got mixed."
    "But who'll pay?"
    "Skully out of his little gold egg."
    "And the smell, Sebastian. What can we do about the smell."
    "It's just healthy shit."
    "How dare you use that ugly word."
    "Shit's shit, Marion, even on judgement day."
    "It's foul and I won't have it said in the same house as Felicity"
    "She'll hear it and also in the matter of foulness I'll see to it she's laid before she's fifteen"
    Marion silently seized. Putting egg shell in the coffee to make it settle. Notice her fingers bitten. She moves through the mess.
    "All right, Marion, take it easy. It's just adjustment Got to get used to it here"
    "Why must you be so raw?"
    "The mean meat in me"
    "Be sincere. You weren't like this before we came to Ireland. This vulgar filthy country."
    "Easy now."
    "Children running barefoot in the streets in the middle of winter and men wagging their things at you from doorways. Disgusting."
    "Untruths. Lies."
    They're a foul lot. I understand now why they're only fit to be servants."
    "I say, Marion, a little bitterness?"
    "You know it's true. Look at that frightful O'Keefe and his dirty ideas. America doesn't seem to help. Brings the worst out in them. He's not even fit to be a servant."
    "I think Kenneth's a gentleman in every respect Have you ever heard him fart ? Now, have you ? "
    "Absolute frightful rot. One has only to watch him leering over the cat when it's in heat to see he's dreadfully base. When he comes into the room I feel he's criminally assaulting me in his mind."
    "It's legal."
    "It's the revolting lechery of an Irish peasant. And he tries to give the impression of good breeding. Watch him eating. It's infuriating. Grabs everything. That first time we had him to dinner he just came in as if we were servants and proceeded to eat before I even had time to sit down. And pulling hunks out of the bread, how can you be blind to these things."
    "Now, now, a little patience with the people who have given your country a Garden of Eden to play in, make your fires and serve your tea"
    "I wished we had stayed in England. You could have waited for Oxford or Cambridge. And we could have at least maintained a measure of dignity"
    "I'll admit there's not much of that"
    Long limbed Marion settled in the chair. What makes you so tall and slender. You raise your eyelids and cross your legs with something I like and wear sexless shoes with sexiness. And Marion I'll say this for you, you're not blatant. And when we get our house in the West with Kerry cattle out on the hills sucking up the grass and I'm Dangerfield K.C., things will be fine again.
    A tram pounding by the window, grinding, swaying and rattling on its tracks to Dalkey. A comforting sound. Maps shaking on the wall. Ireland a country of toys. And maybe I ought to go over to Marion on the couch. We're experimenting with marriage. Got to find the contraceptives or else another screaming mouth for milk. The brown-eyed girl in the laundry is about twenty-five. Marion sucking on her false teeth again, I think it must be a sign of wanting it
    In the bedroom, Dangerfield rubbing stockinged feet on the cold linoleum. And the sound of Marion using the piss pot behind Skully's genuine Ming dynasty screen. And a little tug at these tattered shades for the privacy. Even in this great Catholic country you've got to keep covered, you know, or they watch you undress, but mind you, the Protestants use a field glass.
    And Marion clutching the hem of her dress and drawing it over her shifting shoulders. She said there was only thirty shillings left.
    "Our good accents and manners will see us right. Didn't you know, Marion, they can't put Protestants in jail?"
    "You've no responsibility and to have my child raised among a lot of savage Irish and be branded with a brogue for the rest of her life.