by Annabel Abbs
“I sure do! How can the poor man propose with your Pa watching his every move? He can’t even kiss you!”
“But you have been alone together, haven’t you? You’re not always with your parents?” Stella kept her eyes fixed on the end of the road.
Kitten nudged me in the ribs and mouthed something to me that I couldn’t decipher but the light in her eyes suggested it was something amusing, a joke at Stella’s expense perhaps.
“It’s not easy. We are mostly with my parents these days. And he’s a gentleman. An Irish gentleman.”
“Oh, there’s no question of his desires!” Kitten rolled her eyes. “I’ve seen how he looks at you, Lucia. He’s just terribly shy. Any girl can see that. He doesn’t want to be turned down. You need to give him some more encouragement. It must be so intimidating for him, you being the daughter of a genius. I’m terrified of your Pa!”
“Mr Joyce is very intimidating – that’s true.” Stella nodded. “But would Sam Beckett feel as intimidated as we do? After all, he’s very clever and he’s a man.”
“Beckett worships Babbo, but everyone does. Everyone except my mother who just scolds him.” I hesitated. “Yes, perhaps that makes it hard for Beckett. It’s as though I’m the daughter of the Lord God himself.”
“Yes!” Kitten was wide-eyed and enthusiastic. “Of course! Imagine how daunting that must be. Poor Sam Beckett. I feel sorry for him. When I bring a new beau home it’s so easy. Pa’s just a boring banker. But your father must have such high expectations of a fiancé. They’d need to be so clever, so well-read.”
“But Sam Beckett is clever and well-read, so he wouldn’t need to worry about that, would he?” Stella sounded vaguely mocking and the twists and turns of her words confused me.
“It would still be intimidating. That’s the point. Don’t take any notice of Stella … she’s just jealous!” Kitten squeezed my arm and beamed at me. Shocked, I looked at Stella and saw her face flushing pink, her chin tilted defiantly towards the sky.
“Are you, Stella?” I asked.
“He’s too Irish for me,” she said brusquely, a flush spreading down her long neck and into her turquoise and crimson scarf. Kitten elbowed me in the ribs again. I stared at Stella. Ahead of us was the boulevard Montparnasse: news vendors hawking their evening papers, the sharp clanging of the trams, beggars with their crutches and balding dogs, drunks swerving from bar to bar. Stella walked purposefully towards the tram stop, her bright clothes moving with the breeze, as though she was some garish hothouse flower.
I gripped Kitten’s arm, as a stream of scrambled questions ran through my head. Was Stella also in love with Beckett? Did she want him for herself? Had she …? Had they …? Did Beckett feel anything for Stella? Was this why Stella had been so contrary, so unsupportive of Kitten’s suggestions?
“Stella has a crush on Beckett?” I whispered to Kitten.
And then Stella whipped round. “I heard that, Lucia. There’s nothing between me and Sam Beckett. Nothing at all. I just want you to exercise some … Oh never mind!” She gave an angry shake of her head.
“It’s just a misunderstanding.” Kitten looped her arm through Stella’s so the three of us were walking in a line. “All my fault. I’ve got the perfect man for you, Stella. A friend of my new beau. Why don’t we make up a foursome? Go to the movies? Or a six-some with you and Sam, Lucia?”
There was no time to respond. We’d reached the tram stop and Stella’s tram was reeling towards us. I watched her board, her glossy black curls bobbing beneath her crimson hat. And then I crossed her off my list of wedding guests. Yes, I thought, it’s time to take Kitten’s advice.
* * *
I hurried back to Robiac Square, my head full of wedding plans. When I got home, I knew instantly something was amiss. I heard Mama’s raised voice from the hall and when I got to the parlour she was pacing round and round, her face black and pinched. Babbo was slumped on the couch, eyes closed, white-lipped.
“She’s too old! She’s got a child and a husband! Why can’t she be leavin’ Giorgio alone?” Mama’s voice was hard and angry.
“Her divorce has come through. That’s the point.” Babbo sounded weary and there were red patches beneath his eyes.
“What’s happened?” I sat beside him on the couch and took his ringed hand in mine. He gave me a wan smile before explaining that Giorgio and Mrs Fleischman had been round for tea and announced their engagement. “And that was the meaning of the two nuns and the rat that crossed my path last night,” he croaked. “Your mother is distraught.”
“Giorgio engaged to a divorced woman! Sure she should be ashamed of herself! It’s not that I’m not wanting him to marry.” A slight note of contrition crept into Mama’s voice. “But why can’t he be marrying someone of his own age? Someone without a babby and a fella?”
“At least she has wealth, Nora. And she is divorced now.” Babbo sighed heavily.
“Oh Jim, you always have an eye for the money. And no doubt you’re thinking how her rich folk in America can help with your books.”
Babbo coughed awkwardly but said nothing.
“You encouraged it, Jim, letting her come to the house to do your typing and your reading. She was such a brazen hussy to be sure. Making eyes at you and when that didn’t work, making eyes at our Giorgio – and him just a wee lad. Only seventeen! And her married with a babby of her own. And to think she’s nearly my age! ’Tis a disgrace!”
Babbo shot Mama a reproachful look – a warning sign, as if she’d gone too far and overstepped the mark in some way.
“She comes strutting around with her money and her jewels like she’s some sort of duchess lording it over me. And then she steals him away, me only son, our only son, our Giorgio.” Mama’s voice cracked and her eyes brimmed. “What about the family, Jim?” She flopped into a chair, limp and defeated.
“We’ll be a family of five now. They won’t live far away,” Babbo said soothingly. “And aren’t you pleased they’re intending to have a family? Wouldn’t you like a grandchild?”
It was only at the mention of a grandchild, that it hit me. Giorgio was actually leaving, to forge his own life, to write his own story. For the last ten months he’d spent a growing amount of time with Mrs Fleischman. Although we’d grown used to his absence, the prospect of their marriage simply hadn’t occurred to us. But the thought of Giorgio and Helen having a child made me realise, with a sudden shock, that Giorgio was finally escaping, breaking free from the clutches of Mama and Babbo.
“She’s too old to have a babby. ’Tisn’t healthy at her age.” Mama’s lips tightened.
“She’s still in her thirties. That’s not too late.”
“She’s wormed her way into our home and stolen our Giorgio from us. And I’m betting they’ll be off to America as fast as you can say Dublin Bay. And her family are Jews! Why couldn’t he be marrying an Irish girl who could be a nice daughter-in-law to me?”
Babbo flinched, fiddled with his lapel, said nothing.
“How can I be keeping up with her Jewish money? And the way she’s bossing him around. ’Tis a crying shame when a woman has the gall to boss a fella like that. They say she’s had plenty o’ lovers, so likely she’ll tire o’ Giorgio and send him home with his tail between his legs. I’ll not be speaking to her. What about Stella Steyn? She’s a nice young Irish girl, to be sure. Or Kitten.” Mama turned to me abruptly as if she’d just noticed my presence. “What about Kitten? She was soft on him once.”
Before I could open my mouth, Babbo told Mama that if she carried on like this she’d drive Giorgio away, further and faster into Mrs Fleischman’s arms. He then reminded her, in a clipped voice, that Kitten was American and Stella was Jewish.
“Oh what do I care! I’m losing my boy. To a vampire!” Mama’s breath caught in her throat with a small sob.
“Just think of her …” Babbo stopped mid-sentence. A glazed look came into his eyes and I knew he was on the verge of extolling her wealth, thinking of
all the things that could be put right with Mrs Fleischman’s money, with Mrs Fleischman’s connections, with Mrs Fleischman’s family in America.
“Could they help make Ulysses legal, Babbo?”
He gave a thin-lipped smile. “Who knows, mia bella bambina? Who knows?”
I didn’t sleep that night. I knew Giorgio’s departure from Robiac Square would tighten the bars of my own cage. I asked myself, over and over, how my parents would spare me now I was the only one left. As the grey light of morning pushed at the shutters, I knew it was time to move forward with my plan. I had nothing to lose.
November 1934
Küsnacht, Zurich
“Why do you think Giorgio was your mother’s favourite?” Doctor Jung pushes clumps of tobacco into his pipe. “Do you mind if I smoke, Miss Joyce?”
“He was an easy baby and I was always crying. Aunt Eileen told me that. She said Mama didn’t know what to do with me. Everyone knew Mama preferred Giorgio. She even told me herself.” I give an empty laugh and rub my hands up and down the sleeves of my fur coat. Coming across Lake Zurich on the ferry has made me cold, all those squalls of wind whisking over the lake, buffeting the ferry so that it rocked and see-sawed
“His departure from Robiac Square meant you had the full attention of your parents then?” The doctor sucks at his pipe and a small cloud of tobacco smoke rises and hovers above his head like a halo.
“I couldn’t sleep for nights after that.” I motion at my manuscript, spread out like a fan on the doctor’s desk. “Giorgio and I had been through so much together. When we arrived in Paris – I was thirteen and he was fifteen – we stayed in a filthy flea-ridden hotel in the Latin Quarter. We thought we were passing through on our way to a new life in London, but that never happened.” I pause and look at my hands. How old and gnarled they look, the nails ragged and bitten, the skin beginning to wrinkle. I catch sight of the red shiny scar on my thumb with its treacherous little puckers but then my eye’s drawn to the age spots on my wrists. “How old am I now, Doctor?”
“You are twenty-seven, Miss Joyce. What happened when you arrived in Paris?”
“We couldn’t speak any French and, for three months, Giorgio and I spoke to no one except each other. We had no friends, no acquaintances of any sort. I had no room of my own. If I wanted privacy I went to Giorgio’s room. I had no school to attend, no-one to visit. Babbo demanded silence and darkness while he finished Ulysses and so Giorgio and I spent hours in his bedroom doing Charlie Chaplin impressions.” I lapse into silence. I can feel tears pooling in my eyes, even now, even after everything that has come between us. How did it come to pass that such friendship, such intimacy, could turn so quickly?
I swallow loudly and continue. “He got a job as a clerk through one of Babbo’s flattering friends, but he loathed it, said it was menial and dull, and beneath him. His next job was at the American Trust Agency where he was promised two hundred francs a month, after a trial without pay. Babbo said it might lead to bigger things but Giorgio didn’t pass his trial. He found it boring and humiliating, pushing papers round a desk for no money.” I pause and look up at the doctor. He’s still puffing on his pipe and watching me, always watching me with his coin-bright eyes.
He pushes back his chair and stands up. The bones in his feet crack as he walks towards the window. “Carry on, Miss Joyce. I need to understand what caused the breach between you and your brother.”
“I often knew what Giorgio was thinking. Sometimes I’d foresee his exact words.” I gnaw distractedly at a torn cuticle and wonder if those were Cassandra moments or merely the result of a deep familiarity. As I ponder this, something floats up from a dark cobwebby corner of my mind. I reach for it but it slips away and I have a sudden sensation of insects crawling up my spine, tiny black ants moving in formation. I want to scratch my back but the doctor is pressing me to continue and I don’t want to think about insects scuttling over my skin any more. “When Babbo’s Flatterers came to visit, they always hurried past us as if … as if we were invisible. We’d be called in to pour the tea. Giorgio would wink at me. That was our signal. We’d made up our own language – Italian and German and English and the odd bit of French. And after he winked, we’d talk very loudly in our hotch-potch language. It always disarmed Babbo’s Flatterers – not being able to understand us.” The memory makes me smile and I forget the ants marching up my spine.
“So your bond was very deep, very close?” Doctor Jung stands at the window, looking out on to the hills and woods beyond the lake. Spatters of rain hit the glass. Over his shoulder I see black clouds swollen with rain.
“It was Mrs Fleischman’s money that gave him the strength and the …” I pause, searching for the right word. “The determination to escape Robiac Square. He never married for love.”
“You think he married to escape your parents?”
“I know so.” I drop my head into my hands. How can I explain what I now know to be true – that my parent’s grip on me began to tighten, slowly and subtly, when Giorgio first met Mrs Fleischman. They fought, of course, to keep Giorgio. But Mrs Fleischman had been persistent. And rich. She fought back, using her charm and money to inveigle her return into Babbo’s circle of Flatterers.
“I am very pleased with your progress, Miss Joyce. Miss Baynes tells me you have been calm and there are clearly no significant problems with your memory.”
“So when can I go, Doctor?” I lift my head from my hands. “I’m feeling much better.”
“When we have uncovered the memories you have blocked, repressed. I am putting together my theory, which begins with your emotional abandonment as a baby. The way your family life revolved around a dominant father figure –”
“Babbo wasn’t dominant! It was Mama who bossed me around and told me what to wear. You’ve got it all wrong!” I glare at Doctor Jung. The stupid man understands nothing.
“You are right, Miss Joyce. Your father is not authoritarian. But he controlled everything, did he not? You said that you worried about Mr Beckett falling under his spell.”
“So is that all you’ve come up with? I’ve been coming here for two months and that is all you’ve come up with!” I stand up and snatch my gloves and bag from the side table. I have to get back to the hotel. Babbo will be worried. All this rain, this wind. Doctor Jung is gesturing to the chair, asking me to sit down again. Now he’s shouting at me, pushing me back into the chair. I swing my handbag, aim it at him, at his ruddy selfsatisfied cheeks. He ducks and I feel his thick arms on mine, pinioning me. My breath is coming in sharp little bursts, like the wind slapping at the window panes. My handbag falls to the floor and its contents spew out: a tin of shoe wax, a silver cake fork, a tea strainer, old tram tickets, a pink flamingo feather from Zurich Zoo, a lipstick, a bird’s claw, a box of matches. And the great doctor is on his knees, scrabbling for my things, putting them carefully back into my bag.
“Miss Joyce.” He looks up at me from the floor and for the first time I catch a glimpse of … of what? Is it tenderness?
“This is just the beginning.” His eyes glide over the tea strainer as he returns it to my bag. “I believe you have a repressed complex, the result of something that happened to you as a child. A memory so hideous, so unacceptable, that you’ve buried it very, very deeply.”
And when he says that I feel everything inside me closing up, like a sea anemone jabbed with a stick. My insides rolling in, shutting down. And the air around me turns green and cold.
“The repression of such a memory results in the splitting of the personality and, sometimes, the development of a robust fantasy life. It is my hypothesis that you sublimated this memory into your dancing. When you stopped dancing the memory started to resurface in your unconscious.” He lets out a long sigh and stands up. “I am only telling you this because I believe you are intelligent enough to understand it.”
Doctor Jung passes me my handbag and I stand up. “I need to go now,” I say stiffly. “It’s too chilly here. But t
here’s something you should know, Doctor.” I pause and chew my lips for a few long seconds. There is something I want to tell him, but I can’t think what it is. I search for words – any words – but my mind feels blank and woolly and the ants have started moving up and down my spine again.
He looks expectantly at me.
“Next time,” he says gently. “I think you’ve had enough for today.” And as he ushers me to the door, he passes me a handkerchief. “Your lips, Miss Joyce. They are bleeding.”
16
April 1930
Paris
Mama refused to speak to Mrs Fleischman. I think we all knew it was too late, that Mrs Fleischman had won, and Giorgio had been liberated. But Mama preserved a dogged silence in her presence for several weeks.
In the meantime I planned my own wedding, my own escape. I would wear white, of course, but I wanted a modern dress of the latest fashion with a dropped waist and short sleeves. I would wear a veil and carry pale pink rosebuds and white lilac. The wedding would be very small – Mama and Babbo, Sandy, Kitten, perhaps some old friends from my disbanded dance troupe. We would invite Beckett’s family and McGreevy would have to come, but no other Flatterers. Giorgio would sing and Man Ray would take the photographs and I would perform a dance I’d been working on in my Margaret Morris lessons. And the reception would be at Fouquet’s: champagne and cold chicken and alpine strawberries.
I would defer to Beckett on the thorny subject of where to get married. Although my grandparents were Catholic, Beckett’s family were Protestant. I wanted to honeymoon in Ireland and see Beckett’s childhood home. Then we’d go to Dublin and Galway and see my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. I saw it all in my mind’s eye – he and I, arm in arm, our jaws sore from smiling. And their words as we left: “Hasn’t Lucia done well! Aren’t they both so beautiful together!”