Part 113 (1/2)

A VOICE: O rocks.

PADDY DIGNAM: _(Earnestly)_ Once I was in the employ of Mr J. H. Menton, solicitor, commissioner for oaths and affidavits, of 27 Bachelor's Walk.

Now I am defunct, the wall of the heart hypertrophied. Hard lines. The poor wife was awfully cut up. How is she bearing it? Keep her off that bottle of sherry. _(He looks round him)_ A lamp. I must satisfy an animal need. That b.u.t.termilk didn't agree with me.

_(The portly figure of John O'Connell, caretaker, stands forth, holding a bunch of keys tied with c.r.a.pe. Beside him stands Father Coffey, chaplain, toadbellied, wrynecked, in a surplice and bandanna nightcap, holding sleepily a staff twisted poppies.)_

FATHER COFFEY: _(Yawns, then chants with a hoa.r.s.e croak)_ Namine.

Jacobs. Vobiscuits. Amen.

JOHN O'CONNELL: _(Foghorns stormily through his megaphone)_ Dignam, Patrick T, deceased.

PADDY DIGNAM: _(With p.r.i.c.ked up ears, winces)_ Overtones. _(He wriggles forward and places an ear to the ground)_ My master's voice!

JOHN O'CONNELL: Burial docket letter number U. P. eightyfive thousand.

Field seventeen. House of Keys. Plot, one hundred and one.

_(Paddy Dignam listens with visible effort, thinking, his tail stiffpointcd, his ears c.o.c.ked.)_

PADDY DIGNAM: Pray for the repose of his soul.

_(He worms down through a coalhole, his brown habit trailing its tether over rattling pebbles. After him toddles an obese grandfather rat on fungus turtle paws under a grey carapace. Dignam's voice, m.u.f.fled, is heard baying under ground:_ Dignam's dead and gone below. _Tom Rochford, robinredbreasted, in cap and breeches, jumps from his twocolumned machine.)_

TOM ROCHFORD: _(A hand to his breastbone, bows)_ Reuben J. A florin I find him. _(He fixes the manhole with a resolute stare)_ My turn now on.

Follow me up to Carlow.

_(He executes a daredevil salmon leap in the air and is engulfed in the coalhole. Two discs on the columns wobble, eyes of nought. All recedes.

Bloom plodges forward again through the sump. Kisses chirp amid the rifts of fog a piano sounds. He stands before a lighted house, listening. The kisses, winging from their bowers fly about him, twittering, warbling, cooing.)_

THE KISSES: _(Warbling)_ Leo! _(Twittering)_ Icky licky micky sticky for Leo! _(Cooing)_ Coo coocoo! Yummyyum, Womwom! _(Warbling)_ Big comebig!

Pirouette! Leopopold! _(Twittering)_ Leeolee! _(Warbling)_ O Leo!

_(They rustle, flutter upon his garments, alight, bright giddy flecks, silvery sequins.)_

BLOOM: A man's touch. Sad music. Church music. Perhaps here.

_(Zoe Higgins, a young wh.o.r.e in a sapphire slip, closed with three bronze buckles, a slim black velvet fillet round her throat, nods, trips down the steps and accosts him.)_

ZOE: Are you looking for someone? He's inside with his friend.

BLOOM: Is this Mrs Mack's?

ZOE: No, eightyone. Mrs Cohen's. You might go farther and fare worse.

Mother Slipperslapper. _(Familiarly)_ She's on the job herself tonight with the vet her tipster that gives her all the winners and pays for her son in Oxford. Working overtime but her luck's turned today.

_(Suspiciously)_ You're not his father, are you?

BLOOM: Not I!