Читать книгу The Dalkey Archive - Flann O’Brien - Страница 8

Hackett was frowning a bit and taciturn as the two strolled down the Vico Road towards Dalkey. Mick felt preoccupied, his ideas in some disarray. Some light seemed to have been drained from the sunny evening.

– We don’t often have this sort of diversion, Hackett, he remarked.

– It certainly isn’t every day we’re offered miraculous whiskey, Hackett answered gloomily, and told at the same time we’re under sentence of death. Shouldn’t other people be warned? Our personal squaws, for instance?

– That would be what used to be called spreading despondency and disaffection, Mick warned pompously. What good would it do?

– They could go to confession, couldn’t they?

– So could you. But the people would only laugh at us. So far as you are concerned, they’d say you were drunk.

– That week-old gargle was marvellous stuff, he muttered reflectively after a pause. I feel all right but I’m still not certain that there wasn’t some sort of drug in it. Slow-acting hypnotic stuff, or something worse that goes straight to the brain. We might yet go berserk by the time we reach the Colza. Maybe we’ll be arrested by Sergeant Fottrell.

– Divil a fear of it.

– I certainly wouldn’t like to swear the truth of today in court.

– We have an appointment early tomorrow morning, Mick reminded him. I suggest we say nothing to anybody about today’s business.

– Do you intend to keep tomorrow’s date?

– I certainly do. But I’ll have to use the bike to get here from Booterstown at that hour.

They walked on, silent in thought.

It is not easy to give an account of the Colza Hotel, its owner Mrs Laverty, or its peculiar air. It had been formerly, though not in any recent time, an ordinary public house labelled ‘Constantine Kerr, Licensed Vintner’ and it was said that Mrs Laverty, a widow, had remodelled the bar, erased the obnoxious public house title and called the premises the Colza Hotel.

Why this strange name?

Mrs Laverty was a most religious woman and once had a talk with a neighbour about the red lamp suspended in the church before the high altar. When told it was sustained with colza oil, she piously assumed that this was a holy oil used for miraculous purposes by Saint Colza, VM^*, and decided to put her house under this banner.

Here is the layout of the bar in the days when Hackett and Shaughnessy were customers:

The area known as ‘The Slum’ was spacious with soft leather seating by the wall and other seats and small tables about the floor. Nobody took the hotel designation seriously, though Mrs Laverty stoutly held that there were ‘many good beds’ upstairs. A courageous stranger who demanded a meal would be given rashers and eggs in a desultory back kitchen. About the time now dealt with Mrs Laverty had been long saving towards a pilgrimage to Lourdes. Was she deaf? Nobody was sure. The doubt had arisen some years ago when Hackett openly addressed her as Mrs Lavatory, of which she never took any notice. Hard of hearing, perhaps, she may also have thought that Hackett had never been taught to speak properly.

When Hackett and Shaughnessy walked in after the De Selby visit, the ‘Slum’ or habitat of cronies was occupied by Dr Crewett, a very old and wizened and wise medical man who had seen much service in the RAMC but disdained to flaunt a military title. A strange young man was sitting near him and Mrs Laverty was seated behind the bar, knitting.

– Hello to all and thank God to be back in civilization, Hackett called. Mrs L, give me two glass skillets of your patent Irish malt, please.

She smiled perfunctorily in her large homely face and moved to obey. She did not like Hackett much.

– Where were ye? Dr Crewett asked.

– Walking, Mick said.

– You gents have been taking the intoxicating air, he observed. Your complexions do ye great credit.

– It has been a good day, doctor, Mick added civilly.

– We have been inhaling oxygen, theology and astral physics, Hackett said, accepting two glasses from Mrs Laverty.

– Ah, physics? I see, the young stranger said politely. He was slim, black-haired, callow, wore thick glasses and looked about nineteen.

– The Greek word kinesis should not be ignored, Hackett said learnedly but with an air of jeer.

– Hackett, Mick interjected in warning, I think it’s better for us to mind our own business.

– It happens that I’m doing medicine at Trinity, the stranger added. I’m out here looking for digs.

– Why come out to this wilderness, Hackett asked, and have yourself trailing in and out of town every day?

– This is a new friend of ours, Dr Crewett explained. May I introduce Mr Nemo Crabbe?

Nods were exchanged and Hackett raised his glass in salute.

– If you mean take rooms in Trinity, Crabbe replied, no, thanks. They are vile, ramshackle quarters, and a resident student there is expected to empty his own charley.

– In my days in Egypt we hadn’t even got such a thing. But there was limitless sand and wastes of scrub.

– Besides, Crabbe added, I like the sea.

– Well, fair enough, Hackett growled, why not stay right here. This is a hotel.

Mrs Laverty raised her head, displeased.

– I have already told the gentleman, Mr Hackett, she said sharply, that we’re full up.

– Yes, but of what?

Dr Crewett, a peace-maker, intervened.

– Mrs Laverty, I think I’ll buy a glawsheen all round if you would be so kind.

She nodded, mollified a bit, and rose.

– Damned physics and chemistry are for me a scourge, Crabbe confided to all. It’s my father who insists on this medicine nonsense. I have no interest at all in it, and Dr Crewett agrees with my attitude.

– Certainly, the medico nodded.

– He believes that doctors of today are merely messenger boys for the drug firms.

– Lord, drugs, Hackett muttered.

– And very dangerous and untested drugs many of them are, Dr Crewett added.

– Nobody can take away Dr Glauber’s great triumph, Hackett remarked, grasping his new drink. I’ve often wondered that since glauben means ‘to think’, whether Glauber means thinker? Remember the pensive attitude of the seated one.

– It doesn’t, Mick said brusquely, for he had briefly studied German.

– Actually, poetry is my real interest, Crabbe said. I suppose I have something in common with Shelley and Byron. The sea, I mean, and poetry. The sea is a poem in itself.

– It has metre, too, Hackett’s voice sneered. Nothing finer than a good breeze and a 12-metre boat out there in the bay.

Mrs Laverty’s gentle voice was heard from her averted face.

– I’m very fond of poetry. That thing the Hound of Heaven is grand. As a girl I knew bits of it by heart.

– Some people think it’s doggerel.

– I suppose, Crabbe ventured, that all you good friends think my Christian name is odd. Nemo.

– It is odd, Mick agreed in what was meant to be a kindly tone. And if I may say so, your father must be an odd man.

– It was my mother, I believe.

– You could always change it, Crabbe, Dr Crewett suggested. In common law a man can call himself and be known by any name he likes.

– That reminds me of the poor man whose surname was Piss, Hackett recounted. He didn’t like it and changed it by deed-poll to Vomit.

– I implore you not to be facetious, the unsmiling Crabbe replied. The funny thing is that I like the name Nemo. Try thinking of it backwards.

– Well, you have something there, Hackett granted.

– Poetic, what?

There was a short silence which Dr Crewett broke.

– That makes you think, he said thoughtfully. Wouldn’t it be awful to have the Arab surname Esra?

– Let us have another round, Sussim L, Mick said facetiously, before I go home to beautiful Booterstown.

She smiled. She was fond of him in her own way. But had she heard his hasty transliteration? Hackett was scribbling a note.

– Mrs L, he said loudly, could you see that Teague McGettigan gets this tonight? It’s about an urgent appointment with another man for tomorrow morning.

– I will, Mr Hackett.

They left soon afterwards, going homewards by tram. Hackett got off at Monkstown, not far away, where he lived.

Mick felt well enough, and wondered about the morrow. After all, De Selby had done nothing more than talk. Much of it was astonishing talk but he had promised actual business at an hour not so long after dawn. Assuming he turned up with his gear, was there risk? Would the unreliable Hackett be there?

He sighed. Time, even if there was no such thing, would tell.

* Virgin Martyr.