Having my way with Ulysses

Mouldy air closed round them.

Salud!From the Desk of Reverend Hugh C. Love

Field research notes

4/28 Thoughts immediately following meeting with Ned Lambert, great-nephew of the late esteemed and most dearly lamented Hedges Chatterton. A kinder and gentler soul has never breathed, and it was indeed, how shall I say, instructive to be in the presence of a near relation of that great kind man.

  • The building interior will require great care whilst photographing; I must bring the proper lenses when I return to this interesting place. Also, I must expect and plan for difficulty in photographing around such large sacks of seeds and grains.
  • I fear clearing the bags away from the window will not suffice and perhaps I might prevail upon Mr. Lambert to ask his friend, Mr. Jack Crotty was it? to return to help us remove everything from the place altogether. Although I suspect this Mr. Crotty or Crosshaven might not do for the job. He appeared a bit down in the tooth. I fear my presence may have delayed or arrested altogether what I suspect to have been delicate and perhaps pressing business. I shall ask Mr. Lambert for a more formal introduction to this gentleman as I cannot expect my name is known to all men.
  • Kitty bending slowly and carefully removed from her skirt a clinging twig.
  • I understand Mr. O’Madden Burke to be a great voice of experience and a man of gay disposition and character and I must remember to prevail upon him for a copy of his forthcoming article. Perhaps I shall call upon him in the course of my business whilst I am in town.
  • Mr. Lambert appears well up in history but I do feel his information may require some fact checking. Was that a purple suit he was wearing? Surely it was the light playing tricks. Indeed it must have been.
  • A long face, bearded, using pawns as men, hung his gaze on a chessboard.
  • In short, Mr. Lambert met me with great cordiality and indeed our brief conversation proved much more agreeable than the other sordid business which brought me this long way from my dear home, the sight of which cannot come sooner. I must take care with my clothing upon my return to this place. The dust from those sacks! Dear mother of Moses I fear I never shall stop sneezing! I do hope I have not caught cold.

Shite and Onions, Life is Short

12:10 pm

I, Hedges Eyre Chatterton, being of sound mind and body despite the indifferent care given me by the inflated windbags and weathercocks amongst my nearest and most dear relations hereby declare this document to be my last will and testament thus nullifying all previous versions. The Angel of Death nears and on this the occasion of my ninetieth birthday I note the meanderings of some purling rill as it babbles on its way, tho’ quarreling with the stony obstacles, to the tumbling waters of Neptune’s blue domain, and my thoughts, fanned by the gentlest zephyrs, drift towards a meditation upon this our mortal coil and as I meekly resign my soul to its Creator in the humble hope (thro’ the merits of Jesus Christ) of its future happiness as in the disposal of a Being infinitely good. My body I direct to be decently buried with no damn cross or any other bloody instrument of torture at my tomb but instead at the discretion of my Executor hereinafter named as to such temporal estate wherewith it hath pleased God to bless me, to provide from said estate a suitably sized angelic statue in pensive posture which shall be placed at my final bed of rest to remind those sad mourners particularly amongst my dearest family that although they might subscribe to the charming principle that all blows over and this too shall pass they ought rather dwell on the far more apt verse from our most holy book being as follows: they who sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind. As I have left no issue from my certainly most capable loins, and am unlikely to do so as the vernal green of my youth turns toward the the transcendent translucent glow of mysterious twilight, I hereby bequeath the following mortal possessions from this my earthly life to my most dearest ones, and once they get wind of my passing may they trample each other to death with pulling hair and biting to get their filthy hands on it thus consigning their wretched souls to burn forever in the fiery gales of miserable hell in their lust for a windfall the bastards. To the relations of my departed first wife Mary Halloran, because I promised the dear pitiful creature on her dying bed as she lay ‘neath the shadows cast o’er her pensive bosom by the overarching leafage of the giants of the forest to remember her family upon my own sad demise, I hereby remember you. Agonizing Christ! how could I forget such a miserable batch of high falutin bladderbags, and in addition to a reminiscence of your kindness (as most certainly I love you as you love me) to each and every one of you I bequeath a pustulating heartburn on your arse. To my niece Jane Chatterton Steer I leave one dollar for the kindness and love she never showed me. To my nephew the Reverend Eyre Chatterdon I leave ten dollars to buy a book on manners. Make that twenty. To the Mr. Bell who married my niece Rebecca Chatterton Bell I leave my collection of antiques for the service he has done the family in taking a woman no man of taste would have taken. To Mr. Garcia the husband of my niece Susan Chatterton Garcia I leave my collection of aged scotch and other spirits and my crystal collection so he may drink therefrom to comfort him under the affliction of a slatternly wife. I leave my silver tankard to my grand-nephew Abraham Eyre Chatterton, son of my nephew Abraham Chatterton. As the representative of the family I ought to have left it to Abraham himself, but he would melt it down to make temperance medals, and that would be sacrilege — however, I leave my big horn snuff-box to him: he can only make temperance horn spoons of that. I leave all my landed property and furnishings therein to my nieces Mary Chatterton Berry and Martha Chatterton, the former because she is married to a man whom (God help him) she henpecks. The latter because she is married to nobody, nor is she like to be, for she is an old maid, and not market-rife. I wish peace and affluence to all my friends and a piece of effluence to all my enemies. And last and most certainly least I leave the entirety of my monetary fortune to my great-nephew Edward (Ned) Lambert under the condition that he touch none of it, not so much as a penny, but instead hold it safefully for the personal use of Jesus Christ, when He returns.

I do hereby constitute and appoint J.J. O’Molloy to be the executor of this my last Will and Testament. In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal the twenty-ninth day of February in the year of our Lord two thousand and twelve.