LITMIR.BIZ

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letter for me from Milly, he said carefully, and a card to you. And a letter for you.

      He laid her card and letter on the twill bedspread near the curve of her knees.

      – Do you want the blind up?

      Letting the blind up by gentle tugs halfway his backward eye saw her glance at the letter and tuck it under her pillow.

      – That do? he asked, turning.

      She was reading the card, propped on her elbow.

      – She got the things, she said.

      He waited till she had laid the card aside and curled herself back slowly with a snug sigh.

      – Hurry up with that tea, she said. I’m parched.

      – The kettle is boiling, he said.

      But he delayed to clear the chair : her striped petticoat, tossed soiled linen : and lifted all in an armful on to the foot of the bed.

      As he went down the kitchen stairs she called :

      – Poldy!

      – What?

      – Scald the teapot.

      On the boil sure enough : a plume of steam from the spout. He scalded and rinsed out the teapot and put in four full spoons of tea, tilting the kettle then to let water flow in. Having set it to draw, he took off the kettle and crushed the pan flat on the live coals and watched the lump of butter slide and melt. While he unwrapped the kidney the cat mewed hungrily against him. Give her too much meat she won’t mouse. Say they won’t eat pork. Kosher. Here. He let the bloodsmeared paper fall to her and dropped the kidney amid the sizzling butter sauce. Pepper. He sprinkled it through his fingers, ringwise, from the chipped eggcup.

      Then he slit open his letter, glancing down the page and over. Thanks : new tam : Mr Coghlan : lough Owel picnic : young student : Blazes Boylan’s seaside girls.

      The tea was drawn. He filled his own moustachecup, sham crown Derby, smiling. Silly Milly’s birthday gift. Only five she was then. No wait : four. I gave her the amberoid necklace she broke. Putting pieces of folded brown paper in the letterbox for her. He smiled, pouring.

      O, Milly Bloom, you are my darling.

      You are my looking glass from night to morning.

      I’d rather have you without a farthing

      Than Katey Keogh with her ass and garden.

      Poor old professor Goodwin. Dreadful old case. Still he was a courteous old chap. Oldfashioned way he used to bow Molly off the platform. And the little mirror in his silk hat. The night Milly brought it into the parlour. O, look what I found in professor Goodwin’s hat! All we laughed. Sex breaking out even then. Pert little piece she was.

      He prodded a fork into the kidney and slapped it over : then fitted the teapot on the tray. Its hump bumped as he took it up. Everything on it? Bread and butter, four, sugar, spoon, her cream. Yes. He carried it upstairs, his thumb hooked in the teapot handle.

      Nudging the door open with his knee he carried the tray in and set it on the chair by the bedhead.

      – What a time you were? she said.

      She set the brasses jingling as she raised herself briskly, an elbow on the pillow. He looked calmly down on her bulk and between her large soft bubs, sloping within her nightdress like a shegoat’s udder. The warmth of her couched body rose on the air, mingling with the fragrance of the tea she poured.

      A strip of torn envelope peeped from under the dimpled pillow. In the act of going he stayed to straighten the bedspread.

      – Who was the letter from? he asked.

      Bold hand. Marion.

      – O, Boylan, she said. He’s bringing the programme.

      – What are you singing?

      – Là ci darem with J. C. Doyle, she said, and Love’s Old Sweet Song.

      Her full lips, drinking, smiled. Rather stale smell that incense leaves next day. Like foul flowerwater.

      – Would you like the window open a little?

      She doubled a slice of bread into her mouth, asking :

      – What time is the funeral?

      – Eleven, I think, he answered. I didn’t see the paper.

      Following the pointing of her finger he took up a leg of her soiled drawers from the bed. No? Then, a twisted grey garter looped round a stocking : rumpled, shiny sole.

      – No : that book.

      Other stocking. Her petticoat.

      – It must have fell down, she said.

      He felt here and there. Voglio e non vorrei. Wonder if she pronounces that right : voglio. Not in the bed. Must have slid down. He stooped and lifted the valance. The book, fallen, sprawled against the bulge of the orangekeyed chamberpot.

      – Show here, she said. I put a mark in it. There’s a word I wanted to ask you.

      She swallowed a draught of tea from her cup held by nothandle and, having wiped her fingertips smartly on the blanket, began to search the text with the hairpin till she reached the word.

      – Met him what? he asked.

      – Here, she said. What does that mean?

      He leaned downwards and read near her polished thumbnail.

      – Metempsychosis?

      – Yes. Who’s he when he’s at home?

      – Metempsychosis, he said, frowning. It’s Greek : from the Greek. That means the transmigration of souls.

      – O, rocks! she said. Tell us in plain words.

      He smiled, glancing askance at her mocking eye. The same young eyes. The first night after the charades. Dolphin’s Barn. He turned over the smudged pages. Ruby : the Pride of the Ring. Hello. Illustration. Fierce Italian with carriagewhip. Must be Ruby pride of the on the floor naked. Sheet kindly lent. The monster Maffei desisted and flung his victim from him with an oath. Cruelty behind it all. Doped animals. Trapeze at Hengler’s. Had to look the other way. Mob gaping. Break your neck and we’ll break our sides. Families of them. Bone them young so they metempsychosis. That we live after death. Our souls. That a man’s soul after he dies. Dignam’s soul…

      – Did you finish it? he asked.

      – Yes, she said. There’s nothing smutty in it. Is she in love with the first fellow all the time?

      – Never read it. Do you want another?

      – Yes. Get another of Paul de Kock’s. Nice name he has.

      She poured more tea into her cup, watching its flow sideways.

      Must get that Capel street library book renewed or they’ll write to Kearney, my garantor. Reincarnation : that’s the word.

      – Some people believe, he said, that we go on living in another body after death, that we lived before. They call it reincarnation. That we all lived before on the earth thousands of years ago or some other planet. They say we have forgotten it. Some say they remember their past lives.

      The sluggish cream wound curdling spirals through her tea. Better remind her of the word : metempsychosis. An example would be better. An example?

      The Bath of the Nymph over the bed. Given away with the Easter number of Photo Bits : Splendid masterpiece in art colours. Tea before you put milk in. Not unlike her with her hair down : slimmer. Three and six I gave for the frame. She said it would look nice over the bed. Naked nymphs : Greece : and for instance all the people that lived then.

      He turned the pages back.

      – Metempsychosis, he said, is what the ancient Greeks called it. They used to believe you could be changed into an animal or a tree, for instance. What they called nymphs, for example.

      Her

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