Trieste
MARCH 1907
ROME WAS A FAILURE AND NO AMOUNT OF IBSEN IN THE AIR could make Jim like it and he did what he always does when he finds things hard—he took to the drink. Last week he stayed out all of one night, soused out of his brain, dancing with other men on the Pincio hill, shouting, according to himself: “I’m the king of the castle, get down, you dirty rascal!” He was playing out his disappointment after another publisher rejected Dubliners—he had given up on Richards publishing the book. But I wish he had done that at home, quietly with me and Georgie. He managed to get himself robbed. Two hundred crowns, almost his whole month’s wages, gone. I was furious. So much so I could barely speak to him when he came back to our room and confessed it. I only thanked Mary in heaven that I’d made him give me some money for safekeeping.
But today my fury is softened. Rome’s behind us. Jim quit the bank. He tried to get a post in Marseilles—we wanted a port city, not a tourist spot like Rome—but no one needed him. So here we are, the three of us, chugging north back to Trieste, though it’s not clear to me yet what Jim intends to do there. Still, we feel better for leaving Rome and Jim will surely find some teaching.
“It’s like going home,” I say.
A small smile. “It is, Nora. Home to our warm seaport.”
He pops a rhubarb pill into his mouth and must swallow it dry for we have nothing with which to wash it down. Jim wonders why he gets such foul indigestion and makes no connection between it and the drink. I feel annoyance bubble again and I try to freeze my tongue, but I can’t help myself, there are things I need to say, and one thing, in particular, he must hear.
“I know why you drink, Jim.”
He brazens. “Indeed, Nora. Do you?”
“I do. You want to lose the sharp edge of yourself, to drop away from your own mind, your cares. The same way a baby lulls itself into sleep.” He raises his eyebrows and folds his arms. “But you’re no gossoon, Jim. You’re a man. And all them edges you soften grow back twice as hard in the morning. Have you noticed that?” He nods slowly. “And it’s me and Georgie who must knock against them. You’re not right in yourself, then, until you’ve had the next softening grappa and the next bottle of wine and the next absinthe. Do you understand that about yourself?”
“I don’t sound like much of a man, Nora, when you outline it so,” he murmurs.
“Well, you have to be a man, Jim Joyce. You have to think about what it’s like for me and for your son. Do you think we enjoy lying awake, waiting for your step night after night, just to know that you’re safe?” He shakes his head. “Jim, I want no more drinking. And no more talk of ‘decayed ambitions,’ if you please. If you want to write, you must make the time to write. Boozing and carousing will get you nowhere.” I glance at Georgie who has his face and one fat finger up to the window, the better to name off all he sees from the train. I look back at his father. “We’ll soon be four, Jim.”
He blinks, looks at my stomach. “Are you telling me you are enceinte, Gooseen?”
“I am. We should have kept to our separate beds as we planned, Jim,” I say wearily but, in truth, I’m warmed by my growing body, by the idea of another child.
“Giorgio will soon have a brother to torment, as I do Stannie.” Jim’s voice rises with excitement.
“Well, you never know. Georgie may end up with a sister to bow to.” I allow myself a laugh.
Jim drops to his knees and takes my hands. He kisses my belly through my skirt. “Benvenuto,” he says. “Welcome, little one.” I puck him with my toe and he sits back up. “When do we expect the happy event, Nora? How long have you known?”
“I’ve been suspicious since Christmastime because of the great hunger that overtook me like a tide. But I couldn’t tell a sinner when it’ll be born.”
“I shall call to Doctor Sinigaglia the moment we reach Trieste. You must see him at once.”
“No, Jim. The moment we reach Trieste you’ll find us somewhere to live.”
STANNIE HAS A FACE ON HIM LIKE A MIZZLY MONDAY WHEN HE meets us at the station. Jim sent him a telegram to tell him we were returning: “Arrive eight get room.” We could only afford four words. No doubt Stanislaus is as surprised as ourselves that we’re back in Trieste. It’s been hard on him, I suppose, having to send bits of his wages down to Rome, while trying to support the crowd back in Dublin, too, as best he can. Stannie does without for the good of everyone else; he’s a fine type of man in that way. And he looks well now, slimmer, yes, but he’s taken a tan to his face and looks more European than Irish.
Georgie wriggles out of my arms and runs to his uncle. “Stannie, Stannie,” he calls.
Stanislaus swoops up the boy and snugs his face into his neck. “You’re huge, Giorgio. A monster.” He kisses his nephew before setting him down, shakes Jim’s hand, and then extends his hand to me.
“Will you come here, Stannie?” I say and embrace him. “You look like a true Triestino now.”
“See, Stannie, the train!” Georgie shouts and they go to the side of the track to watch one puff away.
Stannie comes back to us. “So what now? Artifoni is adamant that there’s no job for you at the Berlitz, Jim. Things are too tight. What do you mean to do?”
“I will give private lessons.”
“It’s March, Jim. Come summer, nobody will want English lessons.”
Jim laughs and links his brother. “Well then, Stannie, I have you.”
I can almost feel the blood rising in Stannie’s veins. “Jim will get work,” I say quickly, “don’t fret.”
“Of course I will. Won’t I have one more gob to shove pasta into shortly?” Jim looks at Stannie who looks at me.
“Nora? Are you in the family way again?”
“I am.”
“Lord God,” he says, then, remembering his manners, he congratulates me. “You will need a quarter, a proper place to live with decent space.”
“Where are we to go tonight, Stannie?” I ask, knowing it will sit better coming from me.
“You may take my bed and I’ll have the floor.”
Jim tuts. “You didn’t find us a room?”
“With a few hours’ notice? You’re some blackguard, Jim.” Stannie turns to stand chest to chest with his brother and I fear they’re going to start thumping the lard out of each other, so I step closer.
“The Francinis will take us for a few days while Jim looks about for a room.”
“Rooms, Nora,” Stannie says. “And don’t you owe Alessandro and Clotilde a deal of rent money from when you left?”
“We do, but the Francinis are kindness itself. They won’t hold the debt against us.” I bite my lip, realizing what I’ve said. “I don’t mean to imply that you would, Stannie.”
“Can you imagine me with my own quarter?” Jim says, as if he hasn’t been listening to our talk. “A lovely set of rooms, complete with servant, nicely turned out childer, a saintly wife, and a small bank account. No, I don’t think that’s in my future somehow; it would frighten the shite out of me, brother. A decent-size room of any description will do us nicely.”
I try to imagine having a maid, someone to make meals and wash clothes and take a broom to the floor, but I let the gorgeous vision dissolve. It will be a fluthering miracle if Nora Barnacle is ever waited upon by another woman.
We walk down the platform, Jim and Stannie dragging our luggage and Georgie trotting along beside, chattering to his uncle who smiles and answers him. I’ve missed Stannie; it warms me to run my eyes across him. We emerge out of the train station and into the Trieste evening, and when I see the city before me, I can’t stop smiling, I’m so thrilled to be back.
WE’RE TAKING THE AFTERNOON AIR; AWAY FROM OUR ROOM ON Via Santa Catarina. Georgie clings to me so, which makes me feel I can’t breathe, and I must get out and stretch myself.
Jim pouts sometimes. “Giorgio loves his mamma more than his babbo.”
“He’s spent most of his life in my lap, Jim. Now that he’s weaned, you’re free to spend as much time as you want with him.”
But, you see, that’s not what Jim wants at all. No, no, he wants to write and to read his newspapers and books in peace; he wants solitary walks and time to linger in a caffè and bouts of drinking with strangers. He doesn’t want the care of Georgie, he just wants his admiration and love. And he has both, I tell him this frequently. We walk on, Georgie bouncing ahead, all a-chatter with some invisible friend.
Jim is moderately happy because Artifoni can give him a few days teaching at the Berlitz and his book of poems, Chamber Music, will be out soon. Jim says they’re not good, calls them “auld love poems,” but I think they’re beautiful and tell him that often. So, despite all, things are looking brighter and our return to Trieste has been, if not triumphant, at least an improvement on lonely old Rome.