I Sing the Body Electric

“Burning,” said Timulty, “is one thing, but tickets is another. I mean, the theater is there, and a dire waste not to see the play, and all that food set up, it might as well be eaten. And all the guests coming. It would be hard to notify them ahead.”

“Exactly what I was thinking,” said his Lordship.

“Yes, I know!” shouted Casey, shutting his eyes, running his hands over his cheeks and jaw and mouth and clenching his fists and turning around in frustration. “But you don’t put off burnings, you don’t reschedule them like tea parties, dammit, you do them!”

“You do if you remember to bring the matches,” said Riordan under his breath.

Casey whirled and looked as if he might hit Riordan, but the impact of the truth slowed him down.

“On top of which,” said Nolan, “the Missus above is a fine lady and needs a last night of entertainment and rest.”

“Very kind of you.” His Lordship refilled the man’s glass.

“Let’s take a vote,” said Nolan.

“Hell.” Casey scowled around. “I see the vote counted already. Tomorrow night will do, dammit.”

“Bless you,” said old Lord Kilgotten. “There will be cold cuts laid out in the kitchen, you might check in there first, you shall probably be hungry, for it will be heavy work. Shall we say eight o’clock tomorrow night? By then I shall have Lady Kilgotten safely to a hotel in Dublin. I should not want her knowing until later that her home no longer exists.”

“God, you’re a Christian,” muttered Riordan.

“Well, let us not brood on it,” said the old man. “I consider it past already, and I never think of the past. Gentlemen.”

He arose. And, like a blind old sheepherder-saint, he wandered out into the hall with the flock straying and ambling and softly colliding after.

Half down the hall, almost to the door, Lord Kilgotten saw something from the corner of his blear eye and stopped. He turned back and stood brooding before a large portrait of an Italian nobleman.

The more he looked the more his eyes began to tic and his mouth to work over a nameless thing.

Finally Nolan said, “Your Lordship, what is it?”

“I was just thinking,” said the Lord, at last, “you love Ireland, do you not?”

My God, yes! said everyone. Need he ask?

“Even as do I,” said the old man gently. “And do you love all that is in it, in the land, in her heritage?”

That too, said all, went without saying!

“I worry then,” said the Lord, “about things like this. This portrait is by Van Dyck. It is very old and very fine and very important and very expensive. It is, gentlemen, a National Art Treasure.”

“Is that what it is!” said everyone, more or less, and crowded around for a sight.

“Ah, God, it’s fine work,” said Timulty.

“The flesh itself,” said Nolan.

“Notice,” said Riordan, “the way his little eyes seem to follow you?”

Uncanny, everyone said.

And were about to move on, when his Lordship said, “Do you realize this Treasure, which does not truly belong to me, nor you, but to all the people as precious heritage, this picture will be lost forever tomorrow night?”

Everyone gasped. They had not realized.

“God save us,” said Timulty, “we can’t have that!”

“We’ll move it out of the house, first,” said Riordan.

“Hold on!” cried Casey.

“Thank you,” said his Lordship, “but where would you put it? Out in the weather it would soon be torn to shreds by wind, dampened by rain, flaked by hail; no, no, perhaps it is best it burns quickly—”

“None of that!” said Timulty. “I’ll take it home, myself.”

“And when the great strife is over,” said his Lordship, “you will then deliver into the hands of the new government this precious gift of Art and Beauty from the past?”

“Er … every single one of those things, I’ll do,” said Timulty.

But Casey was eyeing the immense canvas, and said, “How much does the monster weigh?”

“I would imagine,” said the old man, faintly, “seventy to one hundred pounds, within that range.”

“Then how in hell do we get it to Timulty’s house?” asked Casey.

“Me and Brannahan will carry the damn treasure,” said Timulty, “and if need be, Nolan, you lend a hand.”

“Posterity will thank you,” said his Lordship.

They moved on along the hall, and again his Lordship stopped, before yet two more paintings.

“These are two nudes—”

They are that! said everyone.

“By Renoir,” finished the old man.

“That’s the French gent who made them?” asked Rooney. “If you’ll excuse the expression?”

It looks French all right, said everyone.

And a lot of ribs received a lot of knocking elbows.

“These are worth several thousand pounds,” said the old man.

“You’ll get no argument from me,” said Nolan, putting out his finger, which was slapped down by Casey.

“I—” said Blinky Watts, whose fish eyes swam about continuously in tears behind his thick glasses, “I would like to volunteer a home for the two French ladies. I thought I might tuck those two Art Treasures one under each arm and hoist them to the wee cot.”