The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B Read online

  A ripple of hear hear down the row of masters. Who briefly looked down at their knees and back up again with chins raised. A dapple of bright sun spreading across the wall. An impatient shuffle of feet and coughs and nose blowing in the audience of little boys.

  "And now to those of you who leave us this term, to take the next step on the pathway to honours, we wish you God's speed. And lastly, a sad note. I should like to make quite clear, and say once again, that our efforts shall be unrelenting to stamp out practices in this school which are steeped in smut and defilement. There has been he among you found, corrupt and dissolute and who would spread a plague of vileness. We all know who he was who swam in the odious depth of putrescence. But I would not end on that unfortunate note. Our school has been cleansed of that lamentable catalogue of infamy. And so I now say with loud voice. When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive. Amen. Do not eat too much Christmas pudding boys. Now rise. Dismissed.'

  The long stream of cars next day made their slow descent to turn and park and wait on the wide gravel apron. As the heads peered out the windows, said goodbye to other heads and stepped forth with their little bags sometimes to kisses, others to bows and some to nothing at all.

  Balthazar waiting searching among the opening and closing doors of automobiles. From a small blue motor, the village taxi, stepped a tall woman in a grey long flowing coat. And long soft light brown hair. She looked across the windows. She waited and Balthazar watched. And next him he felt the large arm of Masterdon.

  "Fifty seven, do you see that long car which has just stopped. Watch. The gentlemen getting out are Beefy's trustees. Come to sue the school for a packet."

  "How do you know."

  "I heard Slouch say they were on their way. He was in a most awful tizzy outside the assembly room, rubbing his hands, he was saying what shall I do, the headmaster is away. I say, who's fetching you.'

  A shout up the stairs. For number fifty seven. Crunch smiling at the door towards this tall woman.

  "Ah here you are fifty seven. Here he is. Not the worse for wear, it would seem. You managed through. Got your case, everything with you. Have a good holiday. Be off with you now.'

  The tall woman smiled and asked may I carry something.

  And Balthazar said no politely and lugged his two cases to the little blue car. Turning to watch the two stout, puffing and wheezing gentlemen. One in a black bowler and ecclesiastic gaiters, the other in grey homburg, black overcoat and striped trousers. Both white haired, wing collared and each with a cane. The blue little car was pumped with a handle, started, and moved slowly by the three figures meeting on the school steps. Slouch spinning his fingers round each other over his waistcoat buttons. The ecclesiastic gaitered gentleman raising his red tasselled cane in the air and barking out a deep throbbing voice.

  "Sir you are an uncommonly mournful man and I would take my stick to you were it not an offence.'

  The taxi man wore a black cap which he touched to all questions asked by Miss Hortense. As they drove through the afternoon towards Dover Marine. Between the still milky green wintering fields. Through shadowy woods. And past a great marvellous windmill turning its slow slatted sails over the rooftops of a little town. The taxi man said aye Miss there is much hop picking during the summer, and there be gypsies everywhere.

  Past the village greens, churches and clock towers. And cottages, some white, some thatched and all as cozy as Mrs. Twinkle's. To take afternoon tea in a hamlet on the flat lands of Romney Marsh. And that night to supper at an inn. Pigeon pie and sprouts and wondrous trifle. Nannie smiled and said do have some more. And we shook hands goodnight at my bedroom door. To climb snug between cool gleaming clean sheets and to warm toes against a clay hot water bottle and make as Beefy said, little botty booms and pull gently on my penis till sleep.

  Morning came bright, early and fresh. Horses and carts clip clopping below in the street. A taste of salt on the chill air.

  Waves on a grey pebbly shore. The harbour alive with masts.

  Fishing boats, a sail up, moving out between the breakwaters towards France and a rising sun.

  New nannie at breakfast wore a short sleeved frilly lacy shirt tucked in tightly at the top of her grey long skirt. A gent across the room over his kippers waved and grinned. Beefy said the big white things on the chest were called breasts and they had ends on them called nipples, because his granny had a maid who sometimes in the hot summer attic let him play with hers. This new nannie had very large ones that pressed out tight against her shirt. And gentlemen seemed everywhere rushing round her in a crazy manner.

  "Miss Hortense where do you come from.' "Huddersfield."

  "Where is that."

  "It's in Yorkshire where they make cloth."

  "Is it nice."

  "No. It's all foggy, smoky, but I liked it well enough."

  "Is your father in good health."

  "Yes."

  "What does your father do."

  "He is an impoverished clergyman."

  "What is impoverished."

  "It's when you make fires in the sitting room only in the evenings and on Sundays."

  The waiter bowed over Miss Hortense and she quickly put her hand up to the frilly neck of her blouse. What Beefy said about them was true, they were white swellings and made you stare. And made the waiter bend his neck and the gent across the room missed his cup with the pot of tea and now the waiter was running with a cloth to mop it up.

  Balthazar dug and cut into his toast, bacon and egg. And filled his cup from a big brown pot under a thick cloth cover which nannie lifted up and said was very much like a bishop's hat. Her eyes are smiling and the world is so bright and cheerful. Bend the wafer of bread and sweep it into the red broken yolk and through the white sweet bacon fat. Tip upon it tiny specks of salt and lift it up between the lips, the yummiest thing for weeks. And chew with bulging cheeks the rich warm goodness washed down with splendid tea.

  The gent bowing up to nannie as we left the dining room. He took a little book from his pocket and wrote in it. And crossed it out when nannie laughed and shrugged her shoulders as he grinned unhappily. Again he waved his hands, crinkled up his eyes and held his pencil to his book. And when nannie wasn't looking while she held her hand for change he lifted one of his shoe tips to shine it on the back of his trouser leg.

  "Miss Hortense, what is wrong with that man.'

  "He fancies himself."

  "Why do you say that."

  "He invited us to Le Touquet."

  Balthazar and nannie came out of the large green breezy shed, stepping across tracks. A white hull stood high along the quay and on the bow it said Invicta. Cranes hoisting great nets of luggage and mail bags. Stewards crowding at the top of the gangway. Tickets ready, please. This way to first class.

  All first class this way. Second class that way please. A porter packed their luggage on a shelf in the front lounge. White table cloths, green wicker chairs and potted palms.

  A sailor said the sea was fresh to moderate. The ship's whistle blew. Coffee and refreshments would be served in ten minutes. Nannie's eyebrows curved like big rainbows above her eyes. And they were grey like the sea. She spoke with lips apple bright and gently soft. Her skin was smooth and nose upturned. And I wanted to lean over and touch her on her soft silky elbow.

  "I hope you will be quite content to take care of me for the 67 holidays. I am really able to take care of myself so you won't have much to do. Are you looking for a husband.'

  "O dear what kind of question is that."

  "My last nannie was looking for one. And a gentleman admired her. On this very boat. But she vomited. She was very good at mending. But now she will never get married.

  Because she must care for her father."

  "That's very sad.' "Yes. But all the gentlemen look at you."

  "Do they now."

  "My Uncle Edouard will too."

/>   "My goodness."

  "He is very hairy and big and strong. I think that he can bend an iron bar. He kills animals with his bare hands. But now I must be very quiet all the way to Calais. To memorise my Latin verbs."

  The ship's engines rumbled. The hatch doors banged closed. Sailors hammering wooden wedges under iron clips.

  The wind gathering up and blowing down the decks. And inside the lounge a peace descended. Nannie smiled and cast her eyes gently down under the gaze of a French gentleman with a monocle who swung up the edge of his grey cape with a swagger stick. He too came and bowed. Presenting a white little card upon which he wrote and nannie tucked it in her bag. His suit was checked and two of his teeth were gold when he smiled.

  A tall tower above the town of Calais. The seaweedy smell from the shore. The dressing huts along the beach showed summer colours faded and cold on the lonely sand. Fishermen at the end of the pier. They all looked like peeing. Their serious faces. The ship crushed up against the wired bundles of sticks and the stout ribs of oak along the quay. Miss Hortense holding him by the shoulder at the railing. With a shiver to suddenly feel a touch of her lips warmly on top of my ear.

  A stream of porters rushing up the gangway. A smell of garlic, cigarette, wine and onions. Officials' lower lips protruding looking up as they held hands folded behind the back of their neatly pressed uniforms. A red pompon on top of a sailor's blue beret as he casts a line up from the pier. This squat brown eyed porter rushing up to Miss Hortense, as a breeze billowed open her grey coat. The swell of one of her bosoms tightly against her poplin shirting. The porter making a quick sign of the cross. As he whispered to another porter behind him, I say hello to the women and to hell with the men. And to Miss Hortense he said, madam may I carry even your handkerchief. Down to the gay shore of France.

  Where each

  Little fellow

  Is a

  Citizen.

  10

  Balthazar's mother moved from the big house off Avenue Foch to a sprawling apartment overlooking the gardens of the Palais Royal. Miss Hortense with her tall flowing gay willing way came each Christmas, Easter and summer holiday. Taking Balthazar back and forth to Paris by taxi ship and train. While his mother went hither and thither to Baden Baden, Liechtenstein and Biarritz, to one for a cure, to the next for taxes and to the last to swim.

  And this summer now hot and dry. A white dust rising to whiten leaves in the Tuilleries. Balthazar's mother asleep till late afternoons. At nights to dinners and balls and weekends away from Gare St. Lazare to the country. A Czechoslovakian woman came to cook and a Russian to clean. They had their lunch in the big kitchen with the high walls hung with pots and pans.

  Mornings Miss Hortense would sit doing the English paper crossword puzzle and play dominoes between the plates with Balthazar. And in the warm cool at night, hand in hand they sat on the balcony above the garden. The shadowy stone urns with upturned seventeen spears, and four fish hook prongs to keep out intruders. And one year ago Miss Hortense said I think it's time you called me Bella.

  Each day to laugh down the steps and out across the gardens. To sit a while where the solemn little children played under the thick chestnut trees. Or watch the marionettes in the Tuilleries. And the favourite hours to quietly read away an afternoon on the sentinel pale green chairs. Miss Hortense to be seated with her pillow, her elegant long legs crossed in the hot sunshine. By a bed of pink roses while the sparrows pecked and scratched and bathed.

  The mornings at dawn Balthazar heard the keeper open the gates. And sometimes alone and dressed, Bella asleep, to go down and skip along the brown and black tiles of the arcade and pirouette on each four leaved shamrock. Bella said it was good for Irish luck. Then pause to read the garden rules which said no writing on the walls, no sound instruments and no games which can bring trouble to the tranquillity of the pedestrian.

  And on this soft summer Saturday night. As Balthazar and Bella walked hand in hand past the black fence bars topped with golden spears. By the stamp shop and where the old strange watches stood in the window with coloured pictures on their faces. And near to me was Bella. The close up of her grey eyes was green. And her breath as sweet as roses. When she told her secrets in wide eyed words. And whispered dreams. And laughed when she lost at chess.

  "Balthazar.'

  "Yes my Bella."

  "You know something."

  "What."

  "I am going away."

  "Where. What do you mean."

  "I am going away from you."

  "Why."

  "It is too complicated to explain."

  "Has my mother told you to."

  "No not yet."

  "Then why. Don't you enjoy coming to Paris anymore."

  "Yes."

  "Then why."

  "Because this is all very foolish."

  "What is foolish."

  "You are growing up. You're getting tall. A full inch above my shoulder last year. And now, see. You come right to the top of my ear. When first we met you were only up to here.

  Soon you will be thirteen. You don't need me anymore."

  "That's rather an unfortunate thing for you to say Bella. I don't understand why you've chosen to discuss this at all."

  "Because it is ruining my life coming here three times a year."

  Passing the windows of the red carpeted theatre. And into the peristyle courtyard. Crossing between the stone pillars, they stood near the restaurant with the golden walls and carved and painted ceilings and the mirror you could look up at from the courtyard and see down from the restaurant .ceiling on to tables where customers were leisurely lavishly eating. To see now this moment a gentleman's hand with gold rings, his fingers opening and closing upon a glass stem which he raised to swirl a wine beneath his nose. On the restaurant window it said Sherry, Goblers and Lemon Squash. Miss Hortense took a deep breath and raised her eyebrows and bent forward as she walked.

  "Bella, I did not know I was ruining your life.'

  "It was unfair of me to say.'

  "You told me it was nice these holidays like this. And you could give all the gentlemen about Kensington a merry dance.

  And you had your nice little change of situations."

  "O God what a mess. Don't you see I love you. And you are far too old to be loved like that."

  A strange shiver comes upon the back of the head and goes down the spine and lingers between the legs. The sound of our slow feet passing over the waves worn in the tiles. The lace shop. Rooms alight behind curved shiny windows above under the roof of the arcade. And through all the black muddy months there loomed her middle parted brown long hair. And how she bent each thumb backwards on her wrist and could spin her skirt high up over her knees and always forgot to castle her king.

  To come now through to the empty street and back to the little bell and great dark green enamel door. Yesterday so bright and sunny. Shopping at Corcellet, where Miss Hortense smiled to rub her shoe on the brass letters of the entrance floor under the iron bunch of grapes. And she laughed and laughed as she sewed on her bedroom chaise longue. Of the story about Uncle Edouard. When a month ago he dined at a terrace on the Champs Elysees. When a gust of wind exploded upon the cafe, tore off the awning, and carried away the umbrellas over the tables. Le Baron the balloonist extraordinaire remained calm, giving instructions to the waiters to stand back from the cyclone. And as he held to his own table umbrella, it rose with a bang. Uncle Edouard clinging tightly as it pulled him off his feet and down the boulevard. Shouting. I am in control, I am in control.

  Now climbing up these dark stairs. And the big brown doors. The incense smelling vestibule.

  "Bella I am fond of you too.'

  "Don't you see that is the trouble."

  Feeling a tender trembling and shaking. Her summer tanned back and the cool brown across her shoulders. The white skin under the straps of her light blue summer frock.

  My breath seems pushing up against the back of my eyes. And the first time of
f the train at Paris when I gave the address and opened the door for her into the taxi she smiled and took my hand and said your manners make you such a little gentleman and if only you were bigger I would have you for my man.

  Miss Hortense swept into the salon and went quickly from table to table to turn on all the blazing lights.

  "Why have you done that, Bella.'

  "I don't know. I think it's as well. Your mother is away.

  There's no one here the whole weekend. I've turned on the lights that's all."

  "You're awfully upset.'

  "The fact of the matter is I'm twenty four and should be married."

  "But every man will have you."

  "That does not mean I want one of them. There's little to choose between a cunning solicitor and a rich dunce, except my choice would be neither of them."

  "If you marry the cunning solicitor he's sure to be very rich one day."

  "And his heart and soul completely poor."

  "But Bella you said yourself that only money matters, and for a woman it's better even to have her own."

  "Yes. I said that and it's true. I'll be cured next week when I buy a new hat.'

  "Shall we play chess."

  "I don't feel like it tonight."

  "It is not too late to go to the theatre."