Beckett and I stood in the parlour surveying the room. Everyone was out and the house, liberated from Mama’s heavy-boned movements and Babbo’s aggrieved sighing, had acquired a lightness, an airiness, that made it perfect for our first dancing lesson.
“I prefer it like this.” Beckett nodded stiffly at my morning’s work: the over-stuffed furniture pushed to the sides of the room, the gaudy Chinese rug twisted up and shoved under the sofa, the potted ferns hidden behind the door, the piano rolled back against the wall, the chintz curtains fully opened. I’d pushed the shutters flat against the outside wall and a fragile blue sky was just visible, its light falling in a rectangular block across the wooden floor.
“You don’t like my mother’s parlour?” I spoke with mock indignation, wondering if he’d seen inside some of Paris’s more fashionable apartments. Stella had a zebra skin rug and whimsical painted lampshades in her rooms and Mrs Fleischman was re-decorating her apartment in the latest art deco style with black walls and mirrors everywhere.
“I like light.” Beckett stared at the window and then added, “And emptiness.”
I thought of his austere rooms and his alphabetically ordered book shelves. “So you prefer a room naked?” I looked directly, brazenly, at him and saw a blush rise up his throat. He’d pushed his hands into his trouser pockets but I could see his knuckles twitching through the fabric.
“I like things tidy and ordered.” He looked down at the floor and his feet gave an odd little shuffle. Then his gaze slid back to me. “Is this what you wear in your dance classes?”
I nodded and wondered if I should make a joke about the big dance knickers he’d glimpsed me wearing in Monsieur Borlin’s studio. Instead I lifted the short diaphanous skirt to show how freely my legs could move in my dance tunic. “Monsieur Borlin likes to be able to see our bodies clearly. So he can prod our muscles if they’re not straining enough. But I wouldn’t normally wear stockings – they’re for the sake of my modesty.” But Beckett wasn’t listening. He was staring at my legs, his face pink.
“Are you ready to Charleston then? I can’t believe it’s taken us so long. I don’t know how you’ve survived in Paris without being able to dance.” I hoped my chatter would put him at ease. “I told Babbo I was teaching you to dance and he’s so looking forward to seeing you Charleston. He’s a good dancer but he never managed to get the hang of it. Not that it’s difficult. Anyone can do it. I’ve taught all his Flatterers, although most of them had no rhythm at all. And you need energy – lots of energy.” I paused and looked thoughtfully at Beckett. He had moved to the wall and was leaning against it. I couldn’t tell if this was his recovery position after viewing my legs or his usual state of torpor. His insomnia often made him lethargic – he’d told me that himself. And although I loved the languor of his movements, it occurred to me I’d chosen entirely the wrong dance for him. “We could do something slower if you’d prefer? A waltz?”
“Oh no,” he said quickly. “I’m a bit nervous, I’ll admit. But I want to Charleston.”
I offered him Babbo’s silver cigarette case, thinking a smoke would help him relax. I had to get him dancing, but how was I to do it if he was too awkward and shy to learn a few basic steps? I snatched a look at him – he was grappling with the cigarette case, his cheeks still flared with colour. I decided to put a record on the gramophone. Everyone relaxed to music.
I wound up the gramophone and put the needle carefully on the rim of the record. The air filled with crackling and a second later the beating and rippling of drums and pianos erupted into the room. Immediately my body began swaying, my feet tapping, my arms swinging. Who wouldn’t want to dance to music like this? But when I turned round Beckett looked more stricken than ever, puffing agitatedly on his cigarette. I glanced at his feet. They were sure to be tapping out the rhythm on the floor. But no, they weren’t. Not a patter.
And then I had an idea, a brainwave. Why hadn’t I thought of it before?
“I’ll be back in a minute, Sam. Try and let the music move through you. Get a feel for the rhythm.” I scurried towards the door, turning back to add “The Charleston’s very fast.” Which was a stupid thing to say because everyone knows the Charleston’s a fast dance. But his nervousness had affected me. It had crept under my skin and made me edgy.
I went into Babbo’s study and scanned his bookshelves. Which book would he have chosen this week? I thought back to what I’d heard and seen him reading. Yes – he’d been browsing through a Norwegian dictionary. I remembered it clearly because he’d muttered about the sparseness of the Nordic vocabularies and asked if I knew any Norwegians in Paris.
I found the shelf where he kept his collection of reference books. The Norwegian dictionary was tellingly protruding from its slot. I pulled the book out. And there it was – Babbo’s beloved bottle of Irish whiskey.
“I think this might help.” I sauntered back into the parlour flourishing the bottle. Beckett was standing exactly where I’d left him, tatters of cigarette smoke coming from his mouth. I don’t think his feet had moved an inch, in spite of the music bouncing round the room. But when he saw the bottle he smiled. Not his usual half-smile but a smile that swept up everything inside him and made his eyes spin with relief.
“I’ll replace it later.” I took an emboldening swig straight from the bottle, coughed as it caught in my throat, and then offered it to him.
His face sank. “I can’t drink your father’s best whiskey.” He made a crab-like retreat towards the door.
“Oh no, it’s not Babbo’s. It’s Giorgio’s. He won’t be back for days. It’ll relax you, Sam.”
“Well, if it’s Giorgio’s … and if you let me buy him another one …” He took the bottle and tipped it down his throat. He wiped the neck clean with his ink-smudged fingers and passed it back to me. I put it on the piano, hoping he wouldn’t be too tight to dance now. I remembered how we’d had to drag him from the café at Babbo’s book launch, the heavy feeling of his head between my breasts. I didn’t want him inebriated, just sufficiently relaxed to dance.
“Shall we start then? Use the music to get a feel for the rhythm.” I put a hand on each of his arms, manoeuvring him into position. He felt like wood beneath my touch. So I retrieved the bottle of whiskey and thrust it at him. “Finish it, Sam. You need to be really loose for this dance.”
His eyes widened. “All of it?”
“I’ll have some and then you finish it.” I gulped encouragingly from the bottle until the room, in all its unfamiliar bareness, staggered around me. I could feel the alcohol catch in my throat like burning coals. I tried to muffle my choking cough with my hand. I didn’t want him to think I’d never had whiskey before.
Beckett saved the last few mouthfuls for me. This time he didn’t wipe the mouth of the bottle. I felt the damp warmth where his lips had been and then put the tip of my tongue to the rim. But all I could taste was the sharp heat of the whiskey.
Everything changed after that. The liquor flooded my brain as I tried to dredge up all the instructional words I’d rehearsed for so long. But the words didn’t come. They crawled around my larynx, lurking at the base of my throat, silently forming and re-forming. I could feel them scraping at my vocal chords … ‘Anyone can Charleston, Sam’… ‘Start with your feet shoulder-width apart, Sam’… I could see the words in my mind’s eye. But my tongue was paralysed.
“Language has failed us,” Beckett said suddenly, as if he knew exactly what I was experiencing. “A piece of music can move you in an instant. To tears even. A painting too. Look at what can be conveyed with a single brush stroke. But not words. Words have failed us.”
I nodded in agreement and tried to check the alignment of his feet and hands. Everything seemed to be blurring and meandering around me.
“Dancing, movement – they speak to us directly. Like a painting. Like music.”
While the whiskey rendered me mute, it had the opposite effect on Beckett. He had shed his cloak of brooding shyness. His hands fluttered in the air. His cigarette burned unnoticed between his fingers. His left foot began beating out the rhythm of the music. “Most words are lies, Lucia. How can we understand human existence with words? How can we understand human existence at all?”
And with that peculiar question, my voice returned to me and the room stopped tilting.
“We dance of course.”
“Perhaps we do. Dancing is more honest than words.” He moved towards the piano and I thought he was after the empty whiskey bottle. Instead he picked up Giorgio’s metronome and put it squarely in the centre of the empty floor. I felt anticipation fluttering in the pit of my stomach. While I had become light-headed and vague with alcohol, he had become bold and purposeful.
“What’s that for?” I enunciated my words very carefully to disguise any slurring and to mask the excitement that was growing inside me.
“To help with the rhythm. I thought we could start without music.” He was rolling up his sleeves now.
“You want to dance to a metronome?” I blinked, baffled.
“Yes.” He went to the gramophone and lifted the arm. The room fell silent. “If we dance without music we’ll hear other sounds too.”
“Other sounds?”
“The sliding of our feet on the floor, the creaking of my bones. I’ve a bone in my ankle that cracks in certain positions.” His voice petered out as he crouched and fiddled with the metronome.
He’ll hear my breath, I thought. He’ll hear my heart. And I will hear his. Was that his intention? How beguiling he was! I stared down at the curve and knots of his spine beneath his shirt, at the soft hairs on the back of his neck, at the freckles on his forearms. I was about to reach out and touch him, when he looked up at me and asked “Can you teach me without music?”
“Yes, yes, of course.” I dragged my eyes from his crouching body. Damn the whiskey! Where were all those lines I’d practised for so long?
Beckett stood up. The metronome was ticking loudly. “I think that’s the right time. How should I start?”
“With the hands.” I held mine up in front of my shoulders, palms facing out. Concentrate! I must teach Beckett to dance! Babbo was waiting to see him Charleston. “Good. Now swing them like this, up and down, making sure your shoulders swing too.” I could feel the whiskey and the music running through me, making every bone in my body seem as supple and curling as ribbon.
He swung his arms and grinned.
“Still too stiff in the shoulders.” I brushed at his shoulders, felt the arc of them melting into the moist heat of my hands. “Looser. Breath out.” He exhaled and I felt his shoulders drop. “That’s good. Now try swinging them again.”
“You see what I mean, Lucia. About words. How inadequate they are. I know your father believes in the absolute power of words. But this … dancing … this is true … trustworthy.” His soft Irish brogue was more marked now. I felt it fold around me. Folding itself over and around me until I heard nothing else. Not the metronome, not the heels of our shoes against the floor, not the beating of my heart.
Beckett stopped swinging his hands and began fumbling with the top button of his shirt. “It’s a bit warm. Would you mind if I undid a few buttons?”
I tried to speak, to tell him of course I didn’t mind, but for some reason words fled me again. So I shook my head instead.
The metronome ticked away while his fingers fumbled at his buttons. And then the most peculiar thing happened. My fingers, the very fingers that had just brushed his shoulders with professional nonchalance, crept towards his throat. Beckett had managed to work the first button free of its button hole and was now wrestling with the second button. His clavicles protruded sharply from the frayed collar of his shirt. Between them was a small hollow like a freckled sea shell. My fingers drifted to that dip, that hollow at the base of his throat. First the tip of my index finger stole into the hollow and stroked its sunburnt centre. Then my middle finger followed. Then my wedding finger. Then my little finger. Until each fingertip had drawn a small curve through the curl between his collar bones.
I watched my disembodied fingers as though they belonged to someone else. In the silence all I could hear was Beckett’s breath and the relentless ticking of the metronome. And then, quite suddenly, the button with which he’d been struggling flew across the room and rolled across the bare floorboards and under the sofa.
It was as if a hypnotist had clicked his fingers. I stepped away awkwardly and tried to resume a more instructional pose. My cheeks burned. Beckett shifted and I wondered if he was going to try and reclaim his shirt button from beneath the sofa. But he didn’t. He just stood there, blushing.
“I’ll get it later.” His voice had an odd scratched quality. And something about it made my brain disconnect from my body again. I felt the thread that seemed to run between us. I felt it tug at me, drawing me towards him. He stood in exactly the same place, blinking and appearing to search for words.
“You think this is more honest?” I put my hands on his forearms. Turned him to me. Tilted my face towards his. Waited to be kissed.
“The metronome …” We heard the metronome skim over the floor as our feet knocked it.
“Forget it.” I lifted my face higher. Pushed myself onto my toes.
“Your parents …”
“Out for hours.” I put my hands on either side of his face. Felt the rasp of his stubble. Pulled his face towards me. Touched my lips to his. Smelled the whiskey and tobacco on his breath. Felt the thrill of liberation.
Beckett pulled back. “What time is your father home?” His arms shook uncertainly at his side as if he wanted to clasp me to him, but could not.
“Out for hours and hours.” I wrapped my arms around his waist. Brazenly pulled him back to me. Felt the bony slightness of him. Pressed my ear to his chest. Heard his heart thudding. Raised my face. Let my lips skim over his. Warm. Soft. Not quite yielding.
I pressed my mouth more firmly against his. Felt the flutter of his lips. The gradual opening of his mouth. And suddenly he was kissing me. Pushing his mouth hard against mine. As if his concern about the metronome and his anxiety about Babbo returning had slipped away. His lips moved from my mouth to my neck, to behind my ear. Back to my mouth.
But then he pulled away. “Your mother?” His breath kept catching in his throat. He gestured jerkily at the door.
“Everyone’s out,” I whispered.
“I think … perhaps … the dance … they will want to see me Charleston …” His eyes flickered to the wall of Babbo’s ancestral portraits.
“If the portraits are bothering you we can go to my bedroom.” I took his hand and tried to draw him towards the door.
“If they find me in your bedroom …” Beckett held back and in the silence of the parlour I heard the beating of his heart and it seemed to me our hearts beat in unison.
I turned towards him. “No one’s here. No one at all.” A second later our mouths were clinging together, his tongue searching my mouth, my throat. I felt the sharpness of his hips, ran my fingers down the plunge of his back, felt the lines and points of his bones, the long stretch of his limbs.
Beckett’s mouth moved back to my neck. Crooned into my ear. I strained to hear his words over the heaviness of our breath. “… beautiful … your body more perfect than … but I … the whiskey …” I couldn’t catch all his words. Our breathing and sighing were too fulsome. And the empty room seemed to echo with it.
I began undoing the buttons of his shirt. Tugging at his belt. Urging him towards the floor. Towards that block of sunlight that beckoned so enticingly. We would make love right there. Our own golden bed of light.
I peeled off a stocking. Tossed it away. Hurled Beckett’s belt with such wild abandon its buckle clattered against the metronome. Pressed myself to him. Felt the press of him against my hips, my ribs, my stomach. Felt his hands seeking out my breasts. Felt my nipples spring up at the brush of his fingertips. All the while encouraging him to the floor, to that slice of light that called so urgently to me.
* * *
We were on the floor when it happened. I had eased Beckett deftly into that oblong of syrupy afternoon light that lay across the parlour floor. I thought of it later as our wedding bed. But that was much later. Our arms were twined around each other, our fingers exploring and searching and fumbling. His shirt and my dance tunic lay puddled on the floor beside us. His belt and one of my stockings twisted like slumbering snakes across the sofa. He was still whispering in my ear, concerned about my honour and my parents. Even in the throes of passion he was gallant and gentlemanly.
Beckett heard it first. I felt him stiffen. Then he leapt to his feet, pulling up his trousers, groping for his shirt, searching his pockets for his spectacles.
“Quick! Your dress!” He grabbed at my dance tunic and threw it at me.
My ears pricked. And then I heard it too. The heavy tread on the stairs. Her voice, vinegary and plaintive. The tap, tap, tap of a cane on the hall floor. And then Babbo’s voice, as clear as a bell.
“Are you here, Beckett? Have you mastered the art of Charlestoning yet? I told you any old Charlie can Charleston. Where are they, Nora?”
Beckett was shaking so badly he couldn’t do up his buttons or thread his belt. His face was hot and glistening. A tic had taken hold in the lid of his left eye.
“If she’s fiddled with me best parlour, I’ll be having words with her. Now give me your cane, Jim. Before I trip over it meself.”
Part of me wanted to stay there, on that rug of sunlight, my thighs and stomach exposed, my hair tangled, my clothes littering Mama’s precious parlour. Part of me wanted to be seen, almost naked, in Beckett’s arms. And in that moment, for no reason I can explain, I thought of all those nights sharing a bedroom with Mama and Babbo. My hands over my ears, night after night, hating the sound of their bones grinding beneath the sheet, their muzzled panting, the grunting of the bed springs.
But Beckett’s terror was so palpable I had no choice. I leapt up, yanked my tunic over my head and reached for my stocking. And then I heard the door squeaking on its hinges.
Mama stood there, a look of weary distaste on her face. She threw up her hands and turned her head towards the hall. “Jim, go and put the kettle on! I’ll be right down. Mr Beckett’s not here!”
We heard Babbo’s voice, thin with disappointment. “Is there to be no entertainment then? Have I returned replete with words of approbation and adulation to no effect?” And then the fading rap of his cane as he moved towards the kitchen.
Mama shut the parlour door. Her eyes sharpened to points. She crossed her arms and stood very straight. “I never much liked you, Mr Beckett. I always thought you were secretive. And a Holy Joe at that, looking down your protestant nose at me.” Her voice hissed like water on hot coals.
I closed my jaws tight and carried on rolling up my stocking and adjusting my garter. Beckett said nothing. He had managed to do up his belt but his unbuttoned shirt hung from his shoulders.
“With your fancy Foxrock airs, all high and mighty, thinking me nothing more than a Dublin chambermaid. Only for Jim, I’d throw you out. But Jim needs you and he likes you well enough, so we’ll say no more.”
I looked at Beckett, waiting for him to reassure Mama of his honourable intentions, to placate her with his declarations of love for me. But he said nothing. Just stood there with an expression as blank and inaccessible as stone.
So I spoke up, unabashedly shaking out my tunic as I did so. “We were just dancing, Mama. There’s no need to be so rude to Mr Beckett. I should remind you that Babbo relies entirely on Mr Beckett now.”
Mama’s eyes blazed. She snorted with outrage. “Dancing – my foot! Don’t think I don’t know mischief when I see it. And in me best parlour!”
I turned to Beckett again, searching his face for some sign of emotion. Why didn’t he say something? Why didn’t he tell her we were lovers now? Or if he wasn’t ready to admit it, why didn’t he deny her allegations of mischief? She might believe him. Possibly.
But Beckett didn’t look at me. He gaped at Mama, his left eyelid twitching feverishly, his fingers still scrabbling at his shirt buttons.
I decided to be bold, to confess all. “Mama, Mr Beckett and I are –”
“Sweet Jesus! I don’t want to hear another word. Mr Beckett, get down the stairs while Jim’s making tea. Don’t let him hear you. Lucia, I want me best parlour put back like it was. Now. And for God’s sake put some proper clothes on!”
She opened the door and flapped her hands at Beckett. “Well get on with it, Mr Beckett. He won’t be all day making tea. Or would you rather be doing the Charleston for him?” She narrowed her eyes. “I thought not.”
And with that Beckett slunk out. I waited for him to turn back, to shoot me a final look of tenderness, but he didn’t. He sloped out, wordless and hunched.
I didn’t care. I could still feel the burn of him on me, the press of him, the taste of him. My fingers still tingled with the touch of his skin, the peaks and hollows of him, the sharp precipices of his hips against mine, the freckled dip at the base of his throat. I put my fingertips to my mouth. Sucked hard. Smiled to myself.
“Mother o’ Mary – what sort o’ trollop are you? I told you to stop moonin’ at him! I told you to stop leadin’ him on! Now, put me parlour back. This instant. ’Tis lucky Jim is as blind as a bat.” She turned to go. I started heaving the sofa back into place, hoping I’d find Beckett’s missing button. It would be my keepsake, my trophy. But then Mama turned her head sharply. “You didn’t let him go all the way, for sure?”
“What’s it to you?” I feigned an indifferent shrug.
“He wouldn’t have done that. Not an Irish boy from Foxrock. Not with you. Tell me he didn’t.” And her eyes pooled with tears. “Oh Lucia, tell me he didn’t.”
I shook my head. “He didn’t do anything. There’ll be no bastard in the family, so don’t worry, Mama.” I knew she couldn’t bear the taint of scandal. Not in the family. She’d never seen anything disgraceful in Babbo’s writing, even when Ulysses was banned for obscenity. Of course, there’d been no scandal in Paris. Ulysses sat proudly in the windows of all the best bookshops, making Mama glow with pleasure. And that was all she saw. But a scandal in the family – that was different.
She exhaled loudly. “’Tis a good thing. Now don’t let him touch you again. Marriage first and mischief later. And no more dancing with him. I don’t trust that Mr Beckett. Always lounging, he is. Never looks me in the eye. Shifty and sly, for sure.”
I felt a quiver of rage and indignation. “He’s not sly. He does look people in the eye! That’s not fair –”
“Oh I know he’s looking in your eyes whenever he gets the chance. If only Mr McGreevy were still here. He never looked down his nose at me. He knows I’m Mrs Joyce who dines out every night. A proper Catholic gentleman is Mr McGreevy. He would never have laid a finger on you. Never!”
“I think you should know.” I paused, took a long breath. I would tell her the truth about Beckett and me. I would take her into my confidence. “We feel things for each other.”
“And so do mating pigs. I can’t be listening to another word of this.” She walked towards the door, her chin jutting furiously in the air. But then her head snapped sharply towards the piano. I felt my insides cringing. I knew she’d seen it. I busied myself with the curtains. Pulling them half-shut. Fussing with the folds.
“Mother o’ Mary! Is that your father’s secret whiskey? The bottle he thinks I’m knowing nothing about. Is it now?”
Babbo’s peevish voice floated through the open door. “Nora? Nora? The kettle has boiled. Where are you?”
“If you didn’t steal this from behind the Norway dictionary, I’m a dead dog.” Two red spots flared in Mama’s cheeks as she moved towards the piano and picked up the empty bottle. “Was it your idea – to steal your father’s whiskey? Did you lead Mr Beckett on with a wee drop?”
I shook my head. My mouth suddenly tasted dry and rusty. My temples were starting to throb. All my energy had drained away.
“Now get this room in order and change out o’ that strumpet’s outfit. We’ll keep this quiet, the two of us. But promise me you’ll leave Mr Beckett to your father? Promise me that?”
“Yes, Mama.” I could feel my humiliation congealing around me. I wanted my mother to go. Something about her anger, my shame, the heat of the room, the way it all bled together, sickened me. My stomach rolled and churned as her accusations thrummed in the air. Leading him on. Mating pigs. Strumpet. Trollop. I felt the floor sucking at my feet, as though I was mired in something foul and noxious. And when I looked for the golden block of sunlight where Beckett and I had experienced such passion, it was gone.
I picked up a fern in its brass pot and hoisted it onto the coffee table. And when I heard the door close I put my hand on its stem and snapped the furled leaves clean from the root.
* * *
“I said this would be hard, Lucia. I said you must be committed.” Madame Egorova drummed her nails on the lid of the piano.
I lowered my eyes as I mumbled an apology.
“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.
“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.”
* * *