In the Beggarly Style of Imitation Read online

  I have to impart the paramount importance of my next question: you are absolutely certain Goldie included an infidelity or non-paternity event clause in his prenuptial agreement? I don’t need to know particulars. I am with Prue as I write this, who assures me there is no love lost between her and her mother. Her recollection is that Goldie pledged to her that in the final event, she would be taken care of, but that should any proofs of Marlana’s inconstancy turn up, Prue could expect courtly munificence on his part. Prue had always construed that to mean she would receive the Stanley Pitt painting. Whether or not this in actuality means, as I suspect, the whole kit and caboodle of the inheritance, you are my proof for this legal eventuality taking place and leaving Marlana to toy with only otiose recriminations in solitude and wonder.

  I will give Marlana the option of giving chase to her roi fainéant and losing all stately entitlements to Prudence, or that of keeping the villa in Lourmarin, along with her share of the bequeathment (minus the unaccounted-for artworks), and the abandonment of her search of one “missing” business partner. Another fly jockey wants looking after. What else is new? Is that a happy enough ending for you or do you want to go again?

  More gambitfields to follow.

  –Tabs

  Baie-du-Tombeau (Dire Moi Ene Coup Ki Qualite Couillon Sa)

  Sega-Boogie

  Aka aka boule caca

  Lever mayonet ista tac

  Aka aka boule caca

  Lever mayonet ista tac

  Aka aka boule caca

  Lever mayonet ista tac

  Aka aka boule caca

  Lever mayonet ista tac

  Quelle domage!

  Inne tombe someil

  Inne gaspiaze nous les temps

  Cot to croire inne

  Fine trouve sa larriage la?

  Refrain

  Attend ene ti malin (quoi?)

  Cot la riviere

  Zoine di vent…

  Di vent…

  Di vent…

  Zoine di vent…

  Di vent…

  Di vent…

  Attend en ti malin (quoi?)

  Dire moi ene coup

  Ki quali…

  Quali…

  Quali…

  Ki quali…

  Quali…

  Quali…

  Ki qualite couillon?

  Li pu gate so les doigts

  Li pu gate so li nez

  Alle rode ki part

  Pu to sulazman

  Grate to fesse

  Couma ene vaurien

  Faire galant colonne lor barrier

  Baise to chemin!

  Allez!

  Refrain

  Aka aka boule caca

  Lever mayonet ista tac

  Aka aka boule caca

  Lever mayonet ista tac

  Aka aka boule caca

  Lever mayonet ista tac

  Aka aka boule caca

  Lever mayonet ista tac

  What a pity!

  He nodded off

  Squandering all our time

  Where do you think he

  Found this jackanapes?

  Refrain

  Wait for a malapert (what?)

  Where the river

  Joins the wind…

  The wind…

  The wind…

  Joins the wind…

  The wind…

  The wind…

  Wait for a malapert (what?)

  Tell me one thing

  What kind…

  Kind…

  Kind…

  What kind…

  Kind…

  Kind…

  What kind of sod is this?

  He’s gonna spoil his fingers

  He’s gonna spoil his nose

  Look around

  For a jolt of skag

  Itch your ass

  Like a sluggard

  Skirt-chasing by the fence

  Out of my sight!

  Go on!

  Refrain

  All Songs by Kaartikeya Derwish (Mauritian Countryside Plenitude Publishing Company)

  As to Birdlime

  Disutility and its Appointments

  Far more injurious to the organization of a society, and posing more threat of abandonment in their actions than able imaginations can supply, are not the downtrodden outcasts but are erupted out of the selfsame fabric, subsequently charged with its undermining and whose numbers are comparatively insignificant: the innumerable personages comprising a generation of groutheads bleeding out the world through their disutility, excuse-making and recreant idleness deserve this honour in the gross. Taken in total, the detriment of such actions produce more turmoil and languor than any single act of mortal violence; for disutility in its own right is a common enough trait in humanity, haphazard though it may be in its appointments; but given time, such inclinations harden into habit and further consolidate into vice, where it is in an estimable position to produce disquietude on a level unparalleled in this bye-corner of the world, even considering the many horrors of the blade, the pistol and of the gnarled neck, evidenced in the case of Claude Ste. Croix, the man of a hundred epithets who forsooth shocked unsparing men unto wild paroxysms averring to his lame and prodigious uselessness.

  Leaving behind a young mother with child, Ste. Croix travelled to the Home District to seek his fortune; to ply his abilities in a situation where his standing might not fail him gainful opportunities. He felt wondrously justified in his action, for that he reasoned he would be better suited in a pecuniary sense to support his stripling; even if such support came at the cost of being unable to witness the progress of his little Aldegonde by his own account, at the very least—he would console himself when thoughts occasioned on the subject of his conscience—his child would not grow hungry or unhoused; draped in rags to be sure, but woe betide he who had neither the fortune nor the good sense to view it as a blessing, draped in something nevertheless.

  The Anterior Finished State

  The amelioration of one’s circumstances does not always invigorate a winnowed spirit, however; nor does it bolster one’s efforts against the toing and froing of destiny; for any wight can fall more steadily into depravity and lose heart against debilities which are ever gnawing at the back of a troubled mind when the simple comforts afforded one’s station are well stocked and matched with the allure of unfamiliarity.

  How absolute the decline from anterior experiences that work one’s demeanour into a finished state is entirely a question of what influences went into concerting it, for aught I know, and it does not take long for observers in Ste. Croix’s company to realize that his character champs at two opposing impulses that work over his mind like the dastardly elements the heavens above and barathrum below: an envy over fallal, gewgaw and other symbols of pride what reigns with unchecked purpose in his worm-ridden breast, simultaneously held fast by a failure to acknowledge the requisite means to attain these profligate objectives, resulting in his choleric attachment to violence. But one cannot begrudge a man a crown befitting his station when the results of this mental impasse are so manifold.

  Alone in an unacquainted land, he desires acceptance and takes to the pretensions of the faddist with great avidity. He covers his shoulders with the finest accoutrements, sometimes rationalizing that ostentation will lead to further independence and recognition. Setting upon and then boring of the use of hackney-coaches and gigs, the consumption of alarming volumes of libations and the effecting of nocturnal conquests at the bawdy-house, his preferences soon begin to veer away from boyhood pleasures (though one could argue withal the opposite) and instead are marshalled to the necessitous tune of anyone who will oblige a word to his bending ear, seeking to push this new, rather exploitable acquaintance along the way to (mutual, it must needs be said) advancement.

  A Trademan’s Art

  Ste. Croix’s possessions ranged from the dull to the profane, and he ensured a good many hours were wasted on allowing his intellectual pr
owess—never one to shine too brightly—fall further into destitution. There were many months where he put aside his obligations just past Bytown in favour of forgetting them outright, and in so doing, began to render absent the memory of owing any such connexion of responsibility (his many crapulous conquests which he would wend his way with interlocked arms down the road from a public house to his rusticated dwelling, attested firmly to this conviction).

  But so formidable and attractive were Ste. Croix’s hidden talents that he enticed a coterie of distinguished men from all quarters of the city with his services at a quick moment’s dispatch, the exact nature of which shall forthwith be related in our history. His abilities soon recommended him to the attention of those who could procure his advancement in genteel circles; his company amongst these scoundrels required him to gain a stronger proficiency in his second language (none to which such an ambition could fault), to recite their gentlemanly norms toward the fairer sex, to pay these drawlatches for their stalwart mentorship and to save enough capital to follow his true calling in life: to serve the community in the capacity of a respected carpenter.

  When he was not employed at a sponging house, he spent many hours blazing a trail of wood particles into the air, sending the fragrant aromas of finely hewn birch through the corridors of his cheapjack domicile, let those who would witness such arrogance find succour where they could (the end of a bottle usually). Ste. Croix would animatedly convey his aspirations to any who would hear him, citing his lack of mastery over the language as his chief hindrance to an apprenticeship; and often within the same breath, he would declare his abundant orders for dropleaf tables, chaises and Chippendale cabinets from stately gentlefolk, though he would suffer no one to see his finished works with the exception of paying customers. Howsoever his allowances for pleasure constrained his pocket, it was certain that an ever-greater part of his wages were devoted to lightening the ailments of his tedium: if he could not exhaust the pent-up anxieties of a day’s toiling labour warding the dagger hands of indigent debtors, surely he would not be fit to carry the same enthusiasm the following day, let alone its continuation in perpetuity, along with his dedication to a tradesman’s art.

  Silver in a Rakehell’s Purse

  Ste. Croix had an aptitude for self-delusion and many ventured it his greatest of personal weaknesses. Perhaps hearkening back to his beggarly childhood, he knew the value of pathos and was delivered of it extremely well: “I have too much on my mind, your pulchritude, to take stock of when the week’s waste must be deposited,” he would mutter like a whipped dog to his neighbours, the oversight of his duties to adequately hinder the overflowing of waste in the back lanes of his lodgings being the subject of disputation; for Ste. Croix was very well delivered of his mother’s admonitions, who advised that he who had not silver in his purse, must have it on his tongue.

  There is a species of wretchedness exemplified by people in whose company enjoyment and commiseration may be had, though they be generally undependable and wayward in their attentions. Such was the place reserved for Ste. Croix’s specific brand of companionship, which in many ways serves as the poorest, most fatuous of human relations. Better a man you can know with certainty to be a rogue that will pocket your money at his first opportunity and wherein you avoid for monumental favours, than a tonsured abomination who wears the flesh of a man but conceals the unrepentant stirrings of a rakehell. The inveteracy of his forgetfulness evoked such indignation from his fellows that they fell to leaving reminders of his duties, though it worked no effect on his movements. It seemed that nothing could rouse the oaf to accept even this modest claim to society.

  Nature’s Supremity

  There was, strangely enough, one responsibility to which Ste. Croix felt committed, and which was truthfully so binding as to controul his every movement in the birdlime of onerous remembrance. One of Ste. Croix’s consorts left in his charge a Manks kitten upon the severance of their romantic dally. The reasons for his acceptance of the importunity, when he had proven so tenderfooted in his efforts for the sake of others, is alas, subject only to our readers’ best conjecture. But for the testament to the relationship’s longevity, mayhap it could be surmised that the upkeep of the imperial animal would have been forsook entirely?

  To witness the calumnies this noble creature was forced to receive at his master’s hands would usher godly ordinances for a slow demise at the gallows; only the lowest of wretches, the forfeiture of justice being a natural conclusion of their villainy, could inflict such horrors on a featureless animal, which in the case of this much-maligned prisoner, lived in a space no bigger than a bolt hole, and whose accommodations were in such a state of ruination as to suggest habitual and perfected neglect. Frequently by way of punishment, the Manks was shorn of its majestic coat; divots mottled its hide when tufts were coldly removed with a bone knife, its many wounds delivered of an unsteady, intoxicated hand. Sirrah! How such a knave could outlive this model of Nature’s supremacy, the work of her delicate and masterful hand, afflicts the beatings of a now-stilled heart!

  A Rascally Preference

  When he could eschew his commitments no more, which is to say, when he could no longer equivocate in his letters the subject of his avoidance, lest he be branded with the baseborn stain of illegitimacy, he made arrangements for a return to Beauharnois to see how his Aldegonde was faring, and to reside in a place where he did not have to expend the energy required to keep his belly lined, for that he expected a feast befitting a royal welcome; and where is there surer guarantee of being waited on with sedulity than in the company of one’s own materfamilias?

  He made no secret of his ungovernable satisfaction to his neighbours, and he thought on the happy excursions he would make with his new flame, Agatha, a stout-armed hoyden whose countenance immoderately suggested the image of certain low-lying, heavy-pelaged mammalia whom only the vulgar would dare mention in pages such as these. Ste. Croix did not notify his estranged wife of these late developments, and instead pulled her aside upon his arrival to discuss a confederation of attentions with Agatha the Large. Upon his wife’s refusal, however, he resolved that he no longer had use for her comely attentions. The news was not received well by the young mother, who flew into such a warranted rage, and held back nothing of the censorious emotion that seized her organ of amativeness, that Claude was repelled into a corner with such force and rapidity as to knock down a beauteous arrangement of dishes and a framed portrait of his own mother, which was, in the roving movements that followed the outburst, torn asunder beyond hope of repair.

  Marcelline, such was the jilted woman’s name, had wrenched the philanderer’s collar into such a fantastic mash of flesh that verily did his eyes begin to slide out of their watering sockets, as did his countenance take on such an unhealthy arrangement that G-d wot the entire family—assembled for the welcoming celebration—was all that stood in the way of an untimely addition to the growing and already-substantial family plot. Once she was no longer all aflutter, Marcelline gave such a moving address as to shock the brute into awareness of the baneful slight he had conducted against her, the charges of which included caitiff prevarications and cruel remissness. She concluded her tirade with such an enumerated list of his various shortcomings as a disabled participant in the arts of sensuality that a roar of mirthful gaiety broke out amongst the homestead that could be heard well into the adjacent apartment.

  When the flaring of tempers had subsided, all were composed enough to be arranged at the table. The parties in attendance solicited the tales of excitation that preceded Claude and Agatha’s arrival; this in turn, out of politeness, was followed by enquiries as to their first meeting. Marcelline could not help glaring at the woman who had lately occupied her abdicated position; who had succeeded in capturing Claude’s rascally preference. The remainder of the night moved for her at an awkward pace, a slightly over-treated roast, the many antiscorbutic entrees and a well-lined belly, all which stood in the
way of her dependable revenge.

  Agatha, who spoke not a word of French and held company with individuals who did not understand G-d’s English, was left muddled on the horns of a dilemma. She grew annoyed with her lover, who made no visible effort of translation. Great was her surprise when she became acquainted with the fact that Claude had concealed the existence of a daughter. She minced not her words that night in the privacy of their bedroom, announcing that she would not halve her resources for a child that meant nothing to her, and that she would not take pains for any soul other than on the behalf of her own flesh and blood.

  Aldegonde

  The impact that the visit made on Aldegonde in the course of the next few days did not go unnoticed by the Ste. Croix family. Claude seemed more taken with the idea of visiting old companions he had not seen and who, more importantly, could stand him a drink to celebrate his return—which was all the more reason for him to make such rencounters to their homes individually. Aldegonde could always sense the bitterness with which her mother was accustomed to speaking about her father, but having no recollection of the man, elected to suspend her judgement until she could decide for herself exactly what kind of character he bore. There were not enough of these so-called qualities for her to register feelings as complicated as hate, but a plenitude of convictions soon passed sentence on the man and disowned him of a paternal relation, out of apathy if for no other reason.

  Ebullitions of Terror

  There is one final event during his travels that it credits us to convey, and it concerns the reasons Claude was forced to beat a hasty retreat back to Upper Canada. A month into his holiday, he was bouncing his stripling on his lap, attempting to inveigle responses to his coddling, when he suddenly became white as a ghost, as if struck with a glancing blow to the head. To the noticeable change in his mien, Aldegonde was affected enough to enquire as to his apparently failing health; but Claude could not avert his eyes from the scene that played out in the dusty street before him. Two animals were competing over a fetching scrap of meat, the hardier of the two being a sour-faced Manks who clawed wildly with ebullitions of terror. In his reverie, Claude stood up with great discomposure, letting his child fall into a bramble, and made his way to the house to arrange for his immediate departure. He informed his mother of the supposed calenture to which Agatha had surrendered, having been unaccustomed to the inclement weather, and wished the ageing, withered woman the best for the future until the time of her passing.