Trieste
JULY 1905
TWO TELEGRAMS GO WEST TO IRELAND, ONE TO DUBLIN, ONE to Galway.
“Son born Jim.”
“Son born Nora.”
There is little else to say. Our Giorgio is here and his mamma and babbo are very happy about it. I have plenty of milk and the baby stays clamped to me most of the day—greedy, like all men. He has a pretty little snout and slender, soft fingers, so tiny I’m afraid to bend one but, then, his own grip is mighty when he grabs a finger and holds on. Giorgio’s face is pink like a boiled ham, but the doctor said he will gain his natural color soon. His eyes are dark blue like mine and it’s odd and lovely to see my own eyes in his darling little face.
Jim holds the baby and sings to him, the aria Sinico wrote about San Giusto, “Viva San Giusto! Viva San Giusto!”
I join in on the “Viva, viva” and watch them, father and son, face-to-face, the one serenading, the other focused and calm and wise as an ancient one, and my chest expands with love. If only it was always like this, if only Jim always stopped in with us in the evenings, instead of traipsing from taverna to caffè.
Georgie doesn’t cry much, for which I’m grateful; Jim says his poor dead baby brother, George—after whom we’ve named our son—cried a tornado, but he was sickly always and that might account for it.
“Giorgio listens so attentively,” Jim says, “he’s taking it all in.”
“No doubt he’ll be a singer like you, Jim.”
“And like Pappie in Dublin too.”
The doctor says I must rest a few days more before taking Georgie out in the pram that Clotilde has so kindly lent us. I will have to finish stitching his bonnet so that the sun will not broil his precious head.
I SIT PUSHING A NEEDLE THROUGH LINEN AND TAKING BITES OF A jammy hunk of bread, taking care not to make the material sticky, which involves frequent stops to lick my fingers. My appetite has returned and it’s glorious to once again enjoy food. Jim’s here, not out at some taverna, for which I’m grateful; he’s at the table, answering a letter from his brother.
“What does Stannie say?” I’m keen for some good wishes about the baby from Ireland, for no doubt none will be forthcoming from my own family.
“Read it for yourself.”
I take the pages and go through them fast. I’m disgusted. “But it’s all about your novel, Jim. He barely mentions Georgie or me.”
“Look there, Aunt Josephine sends her congratulations. She writes ‘Brave Nora.’ And doesn’t half of Dublin know we’re parents now? Cosgrave sends blessings and Skeffington, too. All my old pals know.”
“Bloody Cosgrave and Skeffington. Who cares about them?” I lift the bonnet I’m making for Georgie again and poke my needle into it in anger. I’d been hoping for questions from Jim’s sisters at least, as to the size of Georgie and his eye color and whether he takes his milk well, but it seems they have no interest in their nephew.
“Nora, you mustn’t sulk over other people’s lack of care. Didn’t Curran send us a pound? Isn’t that a more practical way of showing support?”
“And why does Curran need to send us a pound, Jim? Is it to cover the price of absinthe and wine and grappa in every caffè you pass in the Città Vecchia? Is it for you to lash around in the taverna with your sailor pals and pour drink down their necks, too?” I throw down my sewing. “That pound may have been sent for all of us, but it certainly won’t benefit Georgie or me.”
“Calm yourself, Gooseen. That money will cover some of our many expenses.”
“Don’t ‘Gooseen’ me, Jim Joyce. We wouldn’t need Curran’s pound if you stayed in of a night instead of gallivanting all over Trieste like some kind of prince.”
“Prince, is it? I’m far from that, I tell you.” He laughs.
My fury rages and pushes me out of my chair. “Don’t dare laugh at me, you scut. How do you think it feels for me having to send word to Alessandro Francini to go out at night and find you to fetch you home? How do you think I get on, here by myself with a span-new baby, fretting and worrying over your safety while you get drunk with seamen and peddlers and probably whores for all I know? Do you think I enjoy it?”
He stands to face me. “Nora, keep your voice down, you’ll disturb the Canaruttos.”
“I don’t care, Jim Joyce, if I rouse San Giusto from his tomb. You need to stop squandering our money in every caffè in this city and mind that you have a wife and a child, a family to look after now.”
“I’m working ten hours a day, Nora, at that pit of a school, though teaching repulses me. When I’m not up to my neck in moronic students, I try to write.” His voice rises. “There are only so many hours a man can apply himself. Perhaps you think I should stop writing and give all to commerce?”
“Well.” I clamp shut my mouth because, even though he has little luck with the writing, I also know that it keeps him sane, somehow. Steady. I know that things would be worse if he gave it up.
“Jaysusin’ God, Nora, I only have a little drink to ease me; my life is not uncomplicated, you know. I came here to be free, so that we’d both be free of Ireland’s curses. My mother died because of Irish social virtues, strangled by church and state alike—I don’t want that for you. But here I find I must work like a madman, teaching English at such a gallop that there can be no delays for elegance. It bores me and I despise it, but it must be done for us merely to survive. It’s not exactly what I had in my mind when I made the plan to come away. I feel as if life has been interrupted and there is no chance of undoing that interruption.”
He sits on the edge of the bed and I go to him; I thaw. “None of it’s simple, Jim. Not the leaving nor the arriving nor the living. But we have each other and we have Georgie and that’s a life too. We must get along. We have to get on with it.”
“We do, I suppose.”
I take his hand and kiss the knuckles, each one in turn. “I don’t mind you having the odd jar, Jim. That’s normal for a fellow. But you must remember always that we’re straitened and, until you sell one of your fine books, we’ll be low on funds. We’re both of us given to spending, it’s true, but the money has to be made, saved, and used for things we truly need.”
He kisses my nose. “It does. I will stop home more, Nora. I promise you, my Gooseen, my love.”
IN THE END, BECAUSE JIM DOES NOT STOP HOME MORE, AS PROMISED, I have to take in washing to earn a few lire. Soiled rags, chemises, blouses, towels, trousers, pinafores, socks, vests, sheets, and petticoats. I keep Georgie by me in the pram in the courtyard and, in a dolly tub, I scrub away other people’s sweat, blood, piss, cack, and grime with scalding, soapy water. Signora Canarutto shakes her head when she sees me, soaked to the armpits and sweaty, my hair unraveling from its pins. And I know it’s not me she’s impatient with, but Jim.