The Joyce Girl

by Annabel Abbs

  A cry of wordless sympathy rose in my throat. But then Giorgio moved shakily towards me again. “We aren’t geniuses. We won’t have patrons like Father does. Couldn’t you pretend to love Emile? Aristocrats manage it. They marry for money; they breed. They don’t give a damn about love!”

  My mouth fell open. “You think I should marry Emile without loving him? Just for his money?”

  “And for his – his connections!” He hissed. “To help us all. Do you really want to be the family errand girl forever?” He turned and lurched towards the door.

  “I’m a dancer,” I exclaimed, shocked at his disregard and his cruel words. “I’m going to be successful. I help Babbo because he’s unwell and he needs me. That doesn’t mean I’m the family errand girl!” The photographs of my dancing idols looked back at me, urging me on. “My dancing helps him, you know that. And it’s the most important thing in my life.”

  Giorgio snorted angrily, making flecks of spit form at the corner of his mouth. “I was thinking of all those letters you write for him, the endless bloody errands. Emile offered you a way out and you stupidly turned it down. How could you be so selfish!” He turned towards me and stood swaying in the doorway. “Think about it, Lucia!”

  And it was only then I remembered his earlier words, his jibes about my secret admirer. And I felt my body deflate. Had my secret admirer been Emile all along? Or dare I still hope it was Mr Beckett?

  “My secret admirer,” I croaked, but the words mangled in my throat and all I heard was the slamming of my bedroom door and Giorgio’s furious footsteps in the hall.

  * * *

  That night I dreamed of Ireland. Green and slick with rain. And Mr Beckett, his mouth like a ripe plum and his hair standing up from his head like a crown. He was calling to me from a sea mist so thick and wild I saw nothing but the blue flames of his eyes. And then his disembodied face came to me, floating through the salty air. Pausing. Hovering in the damp folds of mist. Calling me to him. I heard his breath coming in great gulps as though he were battling with the mist, as though it was forcing its way into his eyes and nose and mouth, sucking and oozing into his throat and lungs and heart, suffocating him. I called his name, over and over. I reached out for him, stretching my arms into the swirling mist. But I was too late and the mist had pulled him back and was clinging to him like a ghostly mantle, taking him further and further away, taking him out to sea. And I was left standing on the damp grass, calling his name, again and again. And hearing my echo blown back to me.

  I looked round and everything was rinsed clean and green and the mist was gone. Mr Beckett was standing beside me, his hand on the small of my back. And out to sea was a small figure clinging to a piano.

  “Wave to Emile,” instructed Mr Beckett and I felt his fingers crawling over my back. “Wave, Lucia! You must always wave to drowning men.” And Mr Beckett’s voice was so imperious, so commanding, that I waved. But the man and his piano had gone and the sea was as flat and shining as glass.

  6

  December 1928

  Paris

  Mr Beckett had bought tiny macaroons, lemon, pistachio and rose, which he served straight from the box. He made Lapsang Souchong tea and poured it into chipped cups over thin discs of lemon that he cut with a pocket knife. We sat in his little sitting room on a sofa with springs that groaned and complained whenever we moved. In the corner, a stove belched out sporadic puffs of smoke, giving the whole place a gentle odour of burning.

  “It’s rather bare. Why don’t you buy some cushions or a rug? Or some paintings?” I surveyed the room again, noting the plain grey walls with their peeling paint, the meagre shelves where Mr Beckett had stacked his books in alphabetical order, the condensation that bloomed on the window.

  “There’s a thought.” Mr Beckett fingered the collar of his shirt, pulling it from his neck in small jerks.

  “Doesn’t your mother have anything she could lend you? Even an old blanket over this sofa, although cushions would be nicer. Look, it’s almost worn out.” I pointed to the threadbare fabric that covered the sofa and through which tufts of horsehair and coils of metallic spring threatened to burst forth at any moment. “And pictures. You need some pictures to brighten up your walls. It’s like a monk’s cell in here.”

  Mr Beckett was silent for a few seconds as he looked round his room in an observational manner, almost as though he hadn’t seen it before.

  “You said your parents have a big house. Don’t they have some pictures of Ireland they could give you? Wouldn’t it be lovely to wake up and look at Ireland?” I sighed dreamily. “Tell me about your house again, and your big garden and your dogs and chickens.” I loved hearing about Mr Beckett’s childhood home. The very normalness of it thrilled me. Already I could picture myself there, scattering corn to the chickens and picking apples from the orchard. “Tell me about your dogs again. What type were they?”

  “Kerry Blues were the breed we usually had.” Mr Beckett looked wistful for a moment and then offered me the box of macaroons.

  “What were their names?”

  “We had … um … Bumble … and Badger … and Wolf … and er … Mac. My mother prefers dogs to people.” He took off his glasses and wiped them with the hem of his jumper in a distracted sort of way.

  “And your father built the house you were born in? And they still live there? You only ever lived in one house?”

  Mr Beckett nodded.

  “I want to know all about it! Tell me everything.” I put my tea cup down carefully on the upturned wooden crate that Mr Beckett was using as a coffee table and then tucked myself into the sofa while the springs creaked beneath me.

  “I’ve already told you.”

  “Tell me again. Tell me about your walks in the mountains with your father. And tell me about your mother. I want to know all about her.” I almost added ‘Because one day she’ll be my mother-in-law’, but I realised that would sound presumptuous and stopped just in time to see Mr Beckett flinch slightly.

  “She likes donkeys.” He hesitated, almost as though he couldn’t think of anything else to say. “Dogs and donkeys.” He looked down at the spectacles lying in his lap and it struck me then that perhaps he’d come to Paris to get away from his mother, away from Ireland. Not unlike Babbo. I decided not to press him on the subject of his family.

  “Tell me about your garden again. The lemon verbena growing round the porch and the daffodils and the roses. We’ve never had a garden.” I gave another pensive sigh. “What’s your earliest memory, Sam? Is it lying in your basket under the shade of an apple tree?”

  “No,” he said shortly. “In the womb. I remember being in the womb.” The sofa squeaked and groaned as Mr Beckett shifted around uneasily. He put his glasses back on and then picked up the macaroon box and offered it to me.

  “What was it like? The womb.” I took a pale green macaroon and began nibbling at the edges, conscious of Mr Beckett trying to get comfortable and wishing he’d relax a bit more.

  “Terrible. Dark and suffocating.”

  “Really? Did anything else happen in there? Could you hear sounds from outside? Or smell anything?” I leaned forward eagerly, wondering if Mr Beckett was also gifted with second sight.

  “I don’t remember any smells. But I heard voices. I heard my parents talking and the sounds of china and knives and forks.” His hands were curled up in a tight ball in his lap.

  “How extraordinary. What were they saying? Could you make out the words?”

  “Not clearly.” He uncurled his fists and reached for his cigarettes. He took one out of the packet and tapped it several times before putting it between his lips, where it dangled for a few bemused seconds.

  “You must tell Babbo,” I said eventually. “He’d be fascinated.”

  “I was born on Good Friday,” Mr Beckett added. “Friday the thirteenth as it happens.” He lit a match and held the quivering flame to his cigarette, inhaling hard as he did so.

  “Really? You’d better not
tell Babbo that. He’s very superstitious and his mother died on the thirteenth.” I sat and looked at Mr Beckett as the full weight of his words washed over me. Born on Good Friday, on Friday the thirteenth, with memories of being in his mother’s womb. He too carried the burden of expectation and history on his shoulders. He too was special in some way, unlike others, marked from birth.

  “Tell me about yourself, Lucia.” Mr Beckett blew out a jet of smoke and then coughed for several seconds. “All your travels, growing up with your father …”

  “Yes, so many travels and so many houses, but none with a porch.” I smiled my poster smile. I had no intention of souring the mood by discussing my childhood memories. I tossed my head as if to cast off my past. But Mr Beckett persisted, wanting to know which cities had most inspired my father and where I’d gone to school.

  “Oh, here and there. Eight different schools, or was it nine? Or ten? I don’t remember. Three in Trieste, two in Zurich, one in Locarno, two more in Paris. Almost one a year.” I bit hard into a macaroon. I could still remember those first days in new schools in new cities, my small hand gripping Giorgio’s, the sprawl of new faces speaking in unfamiliar tongues, the hollow feeling in my stomach.

  “It can’t have been easy,” Mr Beckett said gently. He was looking at me with such tenderness that for a minute I considered telling him everything, unburdening myself of all those memories that lurked, tightly spooled inside me. But instead I swallowed down my macaroon and brushed a stray crumb from my dress and said nothing.

  “Which language do you like best?” He got up and put some more coal in the stove, filling the room with a thick cloud of smoke.

  “When it’s just the four of us, we speak Italian. When Babbo’s Irish friends come over, we speak English. And Giorgio and I speak German if we don’t want Babbo’s friends to understand us. And naturally we speak French when we’re out and about in Paris. But I like Italian best. Babbo calls it the language of love.” I said the word ‘love’ very loudly so he’d hear it over the rattling of the coal scuttle.

  Mr Beckett loped back to the sofa, his face rosy – although whether that was from the heat of the stove or from the thought of love, I couldn’t tell. “Truly polyglot. I envy you that. I’ve been teaching myself German, the language of philosophy. Is your father fluent in German?” He sat down again, adjusting himself between the protrusions of horsehair and erupting springs, and wiping at the glow on his face.

  “Yes,” I said. But I was tired of talking about Babbo so I added, “It’s Saint Lucia’s day today, did you know that?” I reached out and took a pale pink macaroon from the box, biting into it as daintily as I could.

  “Saint Lucia’s day?” Mr Beckett crossed and uncrossed his long thin legs, reminding me suddenly of a cricket or a grasshopper, all angles and lines.

  “Ironic really. She’s the patron saint for the blind and Babbo’s almost blind and Giorgio’s got to wear glasses now and I – I have an – an eye impediment.” I stopped and looked away. Why had I said that? Why had I drawn attention to my squint like that? I had no choice now but to tell him about it. And whenever he looked at me, from then on, he’d see nothing but my swerving eyeball.

  “Do you?” I felt Mr Beckett’s eyes burning into me.

  “You haven’t noticed? Strabismus is the medical term. Babbo says I can have an operation on it.” I tilted my face towards the light slanting through the window and pointed to my left eye. “I got it from my mother but hers is very mild and no one notices it.”

  Mr Beckett put his cup of tea down, placed his cigarette carefully on the edge of the ashtray and looked at me from under his thick brows, his head cocked like a bird. “I hadn’t noticed, but now that you mention it …”

  “What d’you think, Sam? Should I have the operation? So many of Babbo’s operations haven’t worked. And it’s so expensive.”

  “I think you look …” He paused and picked up his tea. I heard the stutter of the cup on the saucer. “Beautiful,” he said at length.

  I was so surprised, so startled, that I dropped the macaroon I was holding and then began scrabbling on the floor for it, trying to hide my confusion and excitement. I don’t think Mr Beckett had intended to be so direct, because he also became quite flustered and slopped half his tea into his saucer.

  I could feel my face growing scarlet and the heat rising through me. I was glad my macaroon had rolled away, glad of the excuse to kneel down and reach under the sofa and hide my blushes. Beautiful! Mr Beckett thought I was beautiful! Everything was suddenly going round and round in my head, as though someone had put a spoon inside my skull and was stirring and stirring. As I reached out my hand, dislodging a veil of dust, I realised he kept his work under the sofa. Instead of finding my macaroon, I could feel stacks of fat envelopes wedged beneath the spilling springs. The word ‘beautiful’ was still ringing in my ears but the dust under the sofa was distracting me, getting into my lungs and making my throat dry and tickly. I could hear Mr Beckett coughing and asking if I was all right, telling me not to worry about the macaroon. I got up from my knees and smoothed down my dress and brushed the dust from my arms.

  “I think the macaroon is still under there somewhere,” I said, before giving an awkward little laugh. “I didn’t want to mess up your – your work.”

  “Leave it for the mice.” He thrust the macaroon box at me but kept his eyes lowered. I could see the colour fading from his cheek bones, his thick eyebrows flaring like the wings of a bird, his hooked nose like the beak of an owl. And his narrow body, so ill at ease and awkward as he shifted around on the sofa. I wished he would just take me in his arms and pull me into him. I swallowed hard and brushed down my dress again, as if to brush away my yearning and his discomfort and our mutual timidity. Oh why couldn’t I be more like a Parisian flapper! Why couldn’t I be alluring and bold, like my fellow dancers, like Stella? I cursed my parents for wrapping me up in their Irish morals. And then it dawned on me that Mr Beckett must be suffering from the same constraints and I felt a stab of sympathy.

  I shook my head at the box of macaroons he was still holding towards me. “Are you going back to Ireland for Christmas, Sam?”

  “Briefly.” He put the macaroon box on a pile of books, before adding, “And then I might go to my aunt and uncle in Germany.”

  “Don’t stay away too long, will you? Mama’s going into hospital in January. The doctor thinks she might have cancer. We’re all rather worried and Babbo will need you to help him.” I retrieved my coat and gloves from Mr Beckett’s desk and tried to put aside my concerns about Mama. “Babbo’s taking us out to dinner tonight to celebrate Saint Lucia’s day.”

  “Oh!” Mr Beckett had regained his composure and was watching me calmly, unblinkingly, as I pulled on my gloves.

  “She had her eyes gouged out by soldiers, but after they killed her, her eyes were miraculously replaced with perfect new ones.” I wondered if I should tell him that Saint Lucia was clairvoyant, that she had seen the future in her dreams – and that I too sometimes saw the future in my dreams. No, now was not the time, I decided.

  “Ah yes, I remember now. She refused to obey her husband.” Mr Beckett moved towards the door and held it open for me. Smells of frying onions floated down the corridor and I could hear the sound of running water and a lavatory flushing in the shared bathroom next door.

  I lowered my voice. “And they had her defiled in a brothel. All rather gruesome.”

  Mr Beckett looked sideways for a second. How sensitive he was! But of course – he’d come from Ireland where such things were never spoken of. “Babbo also named me after Lucia di Lammermore from the Donizetti opera,” I added, quickly changing the subject.

  “What happened to her?” Mr Beckett led the way into the corridor and towards the big wooden doors that led out on to the rue d’Ulm. The air was colder in the corridor and, behind the mask of frying onions, I could smell damp and mildew.

  “She went mad and killed herself.” I pulled my coat rou
nd me in readiness for the evening air. “Betrayed by her brother. Then her lover kills himself too, so they can be reunited in Heaven. It’s very sad but the music’s wonderful. It’s one of my favourite operas.”

  “I’ll look out for it then.” Mr Beckett nodded to the concierge who was sitting wrapped in a blanket reading a newspaper. He pushed open the heavy wooden door that led out towards the street and I felt the sharp evening air on my face.

  “You must come with us. I’ll find out when it’s next coming to the Palais Garnier.”

  I leant up and kissed him on both cheeks. And as I did so, I breathed in his smell and let the warmth of his cheeks linger on my lips. And all the while I heard his voice saying ‘I think you’re beautiful’, over and over – and over again.

  And all the way home I heard nothing – not the clattering of trams nor the blasts of motor car horns, not the orchestras tuning up in the music halls nor the cries of the newspaper vendors – nothing but the sound of his words, his glorious words, again and again. My secret admirer, after all …

  * * *

  A week later something wonderful happened. I was in Monsieur Borlin’s studio, with its peculiar porthole windows that looked up to the Sacré-Coeur, and its uneven floorboards that whined as you walked on them. Our class had ended but Monsieur Borlin knew Mama didn’t like me dancing at home, so if he had no further classes he always let me stay behind and practise.

  Today I was working on my Rainbow Dance, trying to figure out how to synchronise a few of the more complicated sequences. I’d described it to Babbo the previous evening and he’d become very enthused, making me demonstrate some of the bolder moves and exclaiming at their novelty and verve – until Mama appeared and insisted I put some clothes on and behave like a lady. But as I leant against the barre, some old words of Babbo’s about looping and linking to light played over and over in my head. From the porthole above, a frugal shaft of February light fell across the floor in a tremulous stripe. I shimmied towards it, swept my arms up and bent my torso into a perfect arc.