The Joyce Girl

by Annabel Abbs

  “You miss another day of class two weeks ago. And now you want miss all your lessons for ten weeks. That is correct? Ten weeks!” She shook her head, incredulous.

  “No,” I pleaded. “I don’t want to miss my lessons. But it was my father’s book launch – I had to go. And now they’re insisting I go with them to England.” I could hear how ridiculous, how weak and ill-disciplined I must sound to Madame. Recalling Beckett’s words about Work in Progress, I tried to explain. “My father is James Joyce, the author. He’s writing a great novel and dance is an important part of it. He likes me to dance for him, for inspiration. And he and my mother have been very ill. I have to help them.”

  “I do not care who is your father or where you are taking holidays. This is nothing to me. If you want train in classical ballet, you give your life. Everything!”

  I could feel my cheeks reddening and my eyes stinging.

  “You make commitment to ballet, Lucia. I give you place in my studio, in my classes, with me.” Madame stabbed a bony finger into her chest. “This is not little hobby you stop and start when you want. This is ballet.”

  “Madame, dance is my whole life! It’s all I’ve done for the last six years.” I wiped angrily at a tear rolling down my nose.

  “Bah! Rhythmic dancing is not ballet. If you want do modern dance, go back to Madika. Be like her – traitor to ballet! But here …” She paused, sweeping out her arm to indicate the empty studio. “… here you must be like Mrs Fitzgerald; arrive when I open and leave only when I close.”

  “Yes,” I whispered. “That’s what I want.”

  “Tell your parents you must stay here, until I close the studio in August.”

  I shook my head despondently. How could I explain the impossibility of such a conversation? How could I tell Madame that my father thought it enough for a woman to be able to write a letter with elegance and put up an umbrella with ease? That although he had once celebrated my successes, something had changed now. That although he liked me to dance privately for him, he didn’t like me flaunting myself on stage. That my mother thought women who danced were little more than prostitutes. How could I tell her all this? How was I to explain such things to Madame Lubov Egorova, who had danced with the Russian Imperial Ballet and then with the Ballets Russes, with Diaghilev and Nijinksy? How could she possibly understand?

  “Everything is booked.” I didn’t tell her that the ferry, the train, the multiple hotels were all booked ages ago, without my knowledge, without my consent. Of course, my parents never entertained a shred of doubt that I wouldn’t accompany them, and their servile friends, on a trip to research Babbo’s book, to record his voice reading his work, to meet the people he needs – to further his position. I felt resentment mounting inside me. Why did they always assume I would accompany them? Why did they never ask?

  “Can I telephone to Madame Joyce?” Madame Egorova’s voice softened.

  “No!” I blurted out, unable to conceal the panic in my voice. I knew exactly what would happen. Mama would cruelly mimic Madame’s Russian accent. I could hear her now, sniggering, laughing, not just at Madame’s accent but at her misguided belief in me. I could see her pirouetting in the kitchen, saying “Only strumpets dance like this in Ireland.”

  And Babbo would be hurt and upset. The Flatterers would point at me and whisper. They would accuse me of denying him the muse he needs to write. Even Beckett said I had to go, that I was vital to Work in Progress. And at the thought of Beckett a subdued smile crept over my lips. I could still feel him in my arms, the taste of his breath on my tongue.

  “Why do you smile?” Madame looked at me, displeased. “It is not funny. I have done it for other girls. Sometimes the parents do not understand and it is necessary to explain about talent. It would never be necessary in Russia, of course. Do I need to explain to Monsieur and Madame Joyce?”

  I shook my head, no longer thinking of Beckett, no longer smiling.

  “You need commitment, Lucia. If you cannot be strong with your family, it is possible you do not have the strength to be ballerina.” Madame reached out and put her hand gently on my forearm. “Ballet is not easy choice. Great physical and mental fortitude are required.”

  “I’ll ask Babbo if I can stay. And if not, I’ll find a dance teacher in Torquay and practise every day. Thank you, Madame.” I curtseyed but I couldn’t look at her. I didn’t want her to see the thickening veil of tears in my eyes. Even thoughts of Beckett couldn’t console me. All the way home Madame’s words played through my head. I had to tell Babbo that I couldn’t accompany him to England. I had to stay in Paris.

  * * *

  “Why did no one tell me we’re sailing tomorrow?” My voice was shrill with panic. “I thought we were going next week?”

  “No, mia bambina. Your mother has been packing for months, such is her eagerness. We’ve always known our departure was tomorrow.” As he spoke, Babbo waved his hand, as if dismissing me, the huge stone on his ring glinting as it caught the light. He was sitting calmly in front of his wall of portraits – oil paintings of himself, his father and his grandfather in their carved frames.

  “But why didn’t I know? Why didn’t anyone tell me? I can’t go tomorrow!”

  “We have all known, mia bambina. Your mother, who is a veritable rock in this household, has packed your trunk for you.” Babbo caressed his newly shaved chin in a distracted way. “You have been preoccupied, I fear. Your attentions elsewhere.”

  It was Giorgio who’d told me we were leaving the following day. And that Babbo’s Flattering friends, Mr and Mrs Gilbert, were coming. Oh, and Helen Fleischman too. He mentioned it in passing, saying Mrs Fleischman had always planned to join us, and ‘hadn’t I known?’ And then he put his finger to his lips, expecting me to keep his sordid little secret.

  When I nodded, quiescently, he had the cheek to say, “Everyone knows we’re leaving tomorrow.” I looked at him in disbelief, before shaking my head so frantically I felt myself go dizzy. He made me sit down while he got me a glass of water and called Babbo. And now here I was, in the parlour with my father, trying desperately to compose myself, to stay calm.

  “I can’t go! Madame says I must stay and dance. I have to stay in Paris.” I felt a howl of rage and despair rising inside me. I had to keep it at bay. I had to stay calm. “And why is Mrs Fleischman going?”

  “Calm yourself, Lucia.” Babbo’s lenses on his new concave glasses were so thick his eyes resembled a bull frog’s, huge and bulging. “Mrs Fleischman is coming to help me and your mother.”

  “With her Louis Vuitton trunks and her swagger and her supercilious airs,” I burst out. Babbo gave me an odd look but said nothing so I carried on, marching round the parlour, my fingers clutching and plucking at chairs and shelves and curtains. “I can’t go, Babbo. I have to dance. Madame wants me in Paris.”

  “As long as you know how to walk into a room, that is all that matters, Lucia.” His eyes skimmed the portraits behind him, as if he were speaking to his illustrious ancestors. “Your mother knows how to walk into a room. Just observe her.”

  “But I can’t go to London, or Torquay! Can’t you hear what I’m saying?” I took deep breaths and counted between them, remembering my dance teacher’s words for conquering stage fright. For that was how I felt – full of dread and terror. No Madame. No Beckett. No time to say goodbye to Beckett. I hadn’t set eyes on him since our moments of intimacy, our almost-love-making. I needed to reassure him that Babbo didn’t know, that Mama had promised to keep it secret, that I still yearned for him.

  “I hear you, mia bambina, but we need you. My eyes … you know I need help with everything now … you’ve seen how your mother has to cut up my food. And she’s still recovering from her illness. She needs you too. Everything’s reserved. We’re booked into the grandest hotel in Torquay where your idol, Napoleon, laid his battle-broken head.”

  “Napoleon hasn’t been my idol for ten years! And Mrs Fleischman can cut up your food,” I growled.
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  “She’s not coming out until later. You and I will have ample time to discuss your dreams, your Cassandra moments. I know you’ve had some, Lucia. I can tell by the brilliance of your eyes. They have been shining like pearls recently.”

  I ignored him. “What about the Gilberts? And everyone else you’re meeting in England? It’s lucky I’ve learned from my mother how to walk into a room, isn’t it.” I spoke with such unconcealed bitterness that Babbo looked away, his eyes creeping back to the portraits behind him.

  “Oh, Lucia. There’s no pleasing you.” He sighed heavily. “This is an important trip for all of us. I’m seeing publishers, I’m being recorded, Miss Weaver – my most important patron on whom we’re reliant for money I should remind you – is coming to stay. Without Miss Weaver there would be no dance classes.” He moved to the wall and straightened the portrait of his father. “Ah, cleft by a crooked crack. I can’t have a crooked father in my house … There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile … Can you recall the next line, Lucia?”

  “What about my dancing, Babbo?”

  “You can dance every day in the hotel. Did he find a crooked sixpence? Against a crooked stile? I believe so.” He stepped back, tilted his head, and peered myopically at the portrait of his father.

  “I do have to dance every day, Babbo. No one understands – I have to dance!” I felt another rush of anger. Why does he, who has to write every day, not understand that I have to dance every day?

  “Well, that’s settled then – you can dance in the hotel. And when we return, you can recommence at the ballet school.” He patted my hand, his eyes travelling slowly over his wall of portraits. “No one in my family needs to work. You can all be ladies and gentlemen of leisure now.”

  “I – don’t – want – to – be – a – lady – of – leisure.” I said through gritted teeth. “I – have – to – dance!”

  “I know, I know,” Babbo said soothingly. “I’m only saying that you have the choice. Your mother and I didn’t have that, but you do. Guess what?”

  I knew he was about to change the subject, that he’d had enough of listening to me. I opened my mouth to remonstrate, but as I did so I had another overwhelming urge to shake my head, to shake it until I was too giddy to stand, to shake myself into oblivion. I remembered Giorgio’s earlier expression of distaste and alarm, and somehow this stopped me, like the brake on a speeding motor car. “Yes, Babbo?”

  “Picasso has refused to paint me. Apparently the great master is ‘too busy’. Can you believe it?” I could see Babbo was piqued. I wanted to tell him I didn’t care, I didn’t give a damn. But my anger frightened me and I wanted to restrain the furious voice inside me.

  So I took a deep breath and said, with feigned composure, “So who will paint you for the frontispiece of your next book, Babbo?”

  “I’m thinking of asking Brancusi,” he said, taking his eyes from me and gazing at his beloved wall of portraits again. “Yes, I think Brancusi could do it.”

  * * *

  October 1934

  Küsnacht, Zurich

  “And that was that? You just went with them to England?” Doctor Jung sits very close to me, my manuscript on his lap.

  “Part of me wanted to go.” I stare at my hands as if they hold the answers. The pink puckered scar on my thumb looks back blankly at me. “There were things I hadn’t told Madame Egorova.”

  “Like what?”

  “I couldn’t tell her that I no longer had the energy to fight. Her teaching was wearing me down … her classes were unrelentingly physical … they were so demanding … and all that practice! It was beginning to exhaust me.”

  The doctor nods encouragingly.

  “It was as if she was asking me to take on yet another battle. My life felt like a constant struggle – with my parents – their beliefs, their expectations.” I run my hand across my face. Just talking of these things is making me tired.

  “Had you always felt like that?”

  “No. But I was starting to see things differently, more clearly. There was something pernicious going on and I was beginning to catch glimpses of it.”

  “I think we may be getting somewhere, Miss Joyce. You are most articulate today. What was it you were beginning to see?” Doctor Jung rises from his chair and starts his customary pacing.

  “I’d like to walk too, Doctor,” I say, rising from my chair and moving towards the window. Today the hills are blue and veiled in mist. I hear the sound of a door slamming and a dog yapping, and above the lake gulls are wheeling and fighting. “I was beginning to see another side to our life at Robiac Square.”

  “Go on, Miss Joyce.” The doctor comes and stands beside me, his eyes following mine to the hills beyond the lake.

  “I was beginning to see that we were all spokes in Babbo’s wheel. That we were all part of his story. And that if nothing happened I would be trapped there. Trapped in his imaginary world.”

  “And this frightened you?”

  “Yes. Mama was happy buying clothes and dining out every night. Giorgio had Mrs Fleischman’s money to appease him. But I – I wanted more.” I stop suddenly, as I recall my past ambition. And it occurs to me that perhaps my craving for recognition disgusted my parents somehow. I swat at the air, pushing this unpleasant thought away.

  “Shall we take a turn around the room, Miss Joyce?” Doctor Jung offers me his arm and I take it. Such a large arm, like the trunk of a tree.

  “I felt my stamina leeching from me. I was very tired and kept pulling and straining muscles. And I had this feeling ballet didn’t interest or inspire Babbo, and that he was casting me off like an outgrown piece of clothing.” I fall into step beside the doctor, my bitten nails gripping his sleeve. And for a few seconds my mind floats to a faraway place. How formless and shapeless life is when you’re in its midst, how murky and chaotic. It is only now, and with the help of my memoir and the doctor’s interrogations, that I can understand and shape all that has happened to me. The thought pulls me back to Beckett.

  “My love for Beckett kept me going. It made me see things I hadn’t seen before. The way Babbo pulled us into his world, the way we all revolved round him. It was Beckett who made me see all this.”

  “How?” The doctor paces slowly towards a picture of a mandala hanging on the wall, me in tow, the hem of my satin dress trailing on the floor behind us.

  “I saw it happening to him. Falling in love had opened my eyes. I can’t explain it.” My voice tails off as I remember Babbo’s words of the previous evening. Over dinner I had shared a recent dream with him in which Beckett and I were together, in London. In the dream we walked through Hyde Park while magpies swooped around us. I hadn’t remembered much – the smell of green sap in the air, the diving of the birds. And Beckett’s blue eyes, but with a weight behind them as though I had stumbled beyond the blue sea and reached a vast landscape of mudflats. When I finished recounting my dream, I looked at Babbo. He was blinking hard and I saw his lashes were wet with tears. He told me Beckett had left Ireland to take a talking cure in London. Now. Doing the same thing as I am. At the same time. And for a minute I wondered if our destinies were still entwined. But Babbo said not. He said I had to let Beckett go.

  “What did you see happening to Mr Beckett?” Doctor Jung points to the framed mandala. “Look in there, it might help you.”

  I peer into the jewel-coloured image but all I can see are repeating whirls like writhing serpents. Where is Beckett? Where are my memories? The shifting darkness is coming for me, closing over me. I clutch at the doctor’s arm, panicked.

  He eases me into the arm chair. “Deep breaths, Miss Joyce. Take your time.”

  I sit with my head in my hands, breathing deeply and slowly, feeling the oxygen dragging reluctantly into my lungs.

  “What did you see happening to Mr Beckett?” He repeats his question deliberately and loudly, gesturing into the mandala again.

  “He was becoming obsessed with Babbo.” I frown, trying t
o make sense of my flailing thoughts, my disintegrating memories. “I could see Giorgio making his escape with Mrs Fleischman. And Beckett falling into his place. Babbo thought very highly of him. He was starting to see him as a – a son.”

  “And that would have made Mr Beckett like a brother to you?” The doctor’s voice is suddenly so soft I have to strain to hear him.

  I ignore his question. There’s a chill creeping through me and I wish I had my fur coat on.

  “Where is my fur coat, Doctor?”

  “You didn’t bring it today, Miss Joyce. Have you lost it again?”

  I bridle at his words. “No!”

  “So. You tried to tell your father you couldn’t go to England. But you still went?”

  “I know what you’re thinking.” I recall with sudden clarity the word in his notebook. “You’re thinking I had no backbone, no spine. That I just keeled over and did as they bid. You’re thinking I’m no better than an – an insect!”

  “Indeed I am not, Miss Joyce. I am merely trying to understand your motives. Did you say goodbye to Mr Beckett?”

  “Not in person. Not sapling-to-sapling.” I smile to myself at our old joke. “There was no time. But I telephoned him at the University. He said I should go. He said Babbo needed me. He said I was Babbo’s muse and no genius should be denied his muse.” I stand up, suddenly needing to feel taller, needing to unfold my guts and push back my shoulder blades. “And he said Babbo was in constant pain. In his eyes. His stomach. And too blind to be unaccompanied – and that it was too much for my mother. You see, he cared very much for my father.”

  Doctor Jung clasps his hands behind his back and looks at me, as though he’s examining a favourite painting in a gallery. “So your beloved Beckett was prepared to sacrifice you too? Even after what had passed between you?”

  “He said he’d write to me. That he’d be in Paris when I got back.” I recall his voice, how it had reached to me down the telephone wires, comforting and consoling. I sink back into the armchair, suddenly drained and wearied and cold. Why didn’t I bring my fur coat? Why did I come in evening dress?