Atdtda33: More practical arrangements, 931-934 #1

[Paul Nightingale]

In Ch63 Frank and Wren are outsiders/aliens/tourists in Mexico. Here,
Reef/Yashmeen/Cyprian are wandering round Western Europe, still a threesome,
still frequenting casinos, their version of the work that has kept Frank and
Wren occupied on previous pages. Ch60 ended with “an end-of-the-season pass
around the French casinos” (890), one that has now, it transpires, produced
“a few profitable weeks” (931). On 888 there is a “plan [to] ... live among
their kind”; and then, a couple of pages later, Wolfe Tone O’Rooney is
passing through on his way to the “sideshow” in Barcelona (890). However, as
the new chapter opens, they are in step, rather, with “the seasonal lull as
English tourists g[i]ve way to those from the Continent” (931). The
discovery of Yz-les-Bains seems serendipitous, bringing the prospect of, for
Reef, “faces from the tunnels”; or, for Yashmeen, those of “the Chunxton
Crescent days” (932). However, to Cyprian’s surprise, the reappearance is
that of Ratty McHugh. The reactions of Reef and Yashmeen are not recorded
here as the narrative recalls, courtesy of Ratty’s account, “[t]he way
[Cyprian] dealt with Theign” in Ch60: Theign’s death at the end of 60.6 is
followed, across the section break into 60.7, by Yashmeen’s message to
Cyprian, again after Ratty’s intervention (874), and then the sequence of
events that brings him together with both Yashmeen and Reef. Here, Ratty is
part of a ménage-a-trois that mirrors--perhaps revises or
rewrites--Cyprian’s relationship with Yashmeen and Reef. 

Ratty announces that he is “free unarguably now from the rigid mask of his
old office self” (932). As does Ewball on 921, Ratty sports a beard and
claims “this is who I really am” (932): Cyprian’s “amaze[ment]” is fed by
both Ratty’s appearance and his life change. Given their surroundings, Reef
and Yashmeen expect to see faces from ‘the past’, images that would take
them back or ‘recycle’ past events; for Cyprian, however, Ratty and his
“awakened spirit” are very much evidence of ‘the present’, or even future,
perhaps something to do with the “coming dark and cold” (931).