“But you promised no one would know, Jim. You promised!” Mama peered through the grimy lace curtains at the line of reporters waiting outside. Some had brought blankets and small cushions, as if they were planning to camp out on our doorstep. She began pacing round our tiny, fetid sitting room in Campden Grove, Kensington, wringing her hands. Every now and then her eyes developed a watery glaze and I thought she might cry – but she didn’t.
The doorbell had been ringing all day. The first journalist arrived two hours after Babbo had applied for his special marriage licence (which he did a mere 24 hours before the wedding in a pathetic attempt at secrecy). Then they came, one after another, ringing and ringing, shouting through the letterbox, throwing pebbles at the window. Finally, when we thought they’d left for the night, Babbo insisted we go out for dinner, just the three of us. But when we returned at midnight we found another reporter sitting on the doorstep, a blanket over his peaked knees. We had to step across him while he fired a volley of questions at us.
“What are we going to do, Jim?” Mama implored. “It’ll be all over the papers tomorrow, that Nora Barnacle, aged forty-seven and mother of two bastards, is finally getting married!”
“Well, I’m the bastard,” I snarled. “I’ll be all over the papers as a Joyce bastard. And then I have to go to some art school and sit in a room full of people I don’t know pointing and whispering and jeering. That’s much worse. And it’s not even my fault!”
“We should get some sleep.” Babbo fidgeted nervously with his ear lobe, his expression aloof and indecipherable.
“How on earth d’ye expect us to sleep with reporters all around us? And there’s fungus growing in the bedroom. That’s no way to spend the night before your wedding! I should never have run off with you like that. Foolish, downright stupid I was. Let this be a lesson to you, Lucia. Don’t even touch a man ’til he’s put a ring on your finger. They’re slippery buggers, all of them!”
“You know I’m not coming to the wedding, don’t you?” I watched my parents’ faces closely, hoping they wouldn’t try and make me go, like they tried to make me do so many other things I didn’t want to do.
“Of course not, Lucia,” said Babbo gently. “Go shopping. Buy yourself something nice. It’s not a big story, a couple of lines in a couple of the less salubrious papers, but nothing more.”
“Oh you think so, do you? A couple o’ lines in a couple of the less salubrious papers! Well, I’ll be hoping you’re right. It’s not like we’re film stars or nothing. Although you, Jim, you might think you’re some sort o’ star for sure. But you’re not – you’re really not worth a couple o’ lines in a couple o’ rags.”
“Babbo’s always right,” I said staunchly.
“Oh look at you. Always so loyal. Always hanging on your father’s every word. Even after you know you’re a bastard.” Mama gave a shrill laugh and tossed her head.
“Well, if I am one, it’s because you made me one!” I shouted. “Perhaps if you’d been a bit nicer, he might have married you!”
“Come, come, Lucia. I’ve already told you we had a wedding of sorts in Trieste. When we arrived off the boat.” Babbo fiddled with the top button of his shirt, avoiding our eyes.
“For pity’s sake can you be stopping that story, Jim! Putting a blarney gold ring on someone’s finger in a louse-ridden hotel room with not enough room to swing a rat is not what most people’s calling a wedding!” She glared at Babbo, the whites of her eyes shining in the gloom.
“Now, now.” Babbo sighed deeply. “We’ll all be legitimate and married and legal tomorrow. Good night, Lucia.” He took Mama’s hand and they left me, curled up in the stained blue chair, listening to the scratching mice and the clock as it struck one – a single, solitary chime that echoed round the damp, empty flat where we were to start our lives as a respectable, legitimate family.
* * *
The next morning I woke early to the rumbling of the London underground train which ran immediately behind our apartment. Mama was already up, dressing for her ‘wedding day’. She’d bought an expensive new outfit of the latest fashion – a swirling skirt that barely covered her knees and a figure-hugging coat with the latest cuffs. Even though it was a warm summer’s day, she insisted on wearing her favourite fox fur round her neck and a cloche hat which she pulled very low. “So as no one can see me,” she said with a tight smile.
When the lawyer arrived, he said the story was all over the Daily Mirror and that there were crowds of Fleet Street photographers, not only outside the Kensington Register Office, but up and down Campden Grove.
“I can get us past the newspaper men but, unless you have a back door, I don’t advise Miss Joyce leaving the house,” he said. So I agreed to stay home, besieged and imprisoned.
“Do some of your drawing. That calms your nerves,” said Mama as she powdered her nose for the third time.
“Prepare for the worst though,” the lawyer added. “All the Sunday newspapers will be there and they’ve a lot of pages to fill.” And then he handed his rolled up copy of the Daily Mirror to Babbo and told him to look at page three.
“Oh, Jim, read it out,” squeaked Mama.
“Notice has been given at a London register office of the forthcoming marriage of Mr James Augustine Aloysius Joyce, aged forty-nine, of Campden Grove, Kensington.” Babbo paused and cast his eyes over us all, as though he was on stage and we were his eager audience. “The bride’s name has been given as Nora Joseph Barnacle, aged forty-seven, of the same address. Mr Joyce is the author of Ulysses. According to Who’s Who, he was married in 1904 to Miss Nora Barnacle of Galway.” He hesitated, his lips twitching slightly as though he was trying to suppress a smile. “Mr Joyce’s solicitor stated yesterday, ‘For testamentary reasons it was thought well that the partners should be married according to English law’.”
“What on earth does ‘testamentary’ mean?” Mama asked.
“Ah.” Babbo paused and straightened his bow tie. “That was my idea. It doesn’t mean anything but it reads well, don’t you think?” He sounded smug and arrogant and for a minute it occurred to me he was enjoying all this – the legal wrangling and wordplay, the attention and publicity.
“Mr Joyce thought it was vague but important and legal-sounding enough to throw them off the scent. We’ll see if it works.” The lawyer sounded uncertain but Mama nodded vigorously in agreement and Babbo smiled to himself.
“I like that line about ‘the bride’s name’.” Mama tittered. “Miss Nora Barnacle of Galway – in the Daily Mail along with the film stars!”
“Time to sally forth, my bonny bride.” Babbo smirked at Mama and tucked his cane carefully under his arm. I stood scowling at them as they prepared to do battle with the newspaper men and the photographers. But neither of them noticed me as they left the flat, Mama adjusting the rake of her hat and tucking away stray hairs, Babbo very upright and experimenting with the angle of his head.
* * *
I awoke the following morning to hear my parents laughing and chuckling. I found them sitting in the parlour, surrounded by newspapers.
“How grumpy you look in this picture, Jim.” My mother chuckled as she raised a copy of the Evening Standard in the air. “And do you see how shapely me legs look! I am glad I bought that skirt. I was thinking it might be too short at the time. You know, too short to get married in!” She giggled girlishly.
“Have a look at this, Nora. They call you Nora Barnacle, Spinster.” Babbo pushed a copy of the Sunday Express towards my mother, his eyes lit with pleasure.
“You naughty boy!” My mother wagged her index finger suggestively at Babbo. “You’re thinking you might sell more books now, I’ll bet.”
Babbo said nothing but carried on beaming.
“Or are you thinking o’ the days when I was Nora Barnacle, spinster, of Galway – oh you naughty, naughty boy! Well, I’m just plain old Mrs Joyce now and there’s nothing you can do about it.” She simpered and reached eagerly for the newspaper.
“Rejoice, Mrs Joyce, no longer joyless or juiceless but joyful juicy Mrs Joyce.” Babbo was chortling, his shoulders shaking with laughter.
“Oh, I did feel a fool,” my mother squealed.
“And have you seen this telegram from Giorgio?” Babbo passed her a thin envelope. “In Paris they’re saying the wedding is nothing more than a stunt to publicise my books!” He slapped his thigh in mirth. “We are wedicising my work, Nora, my flora.”
As I stood in the doorway, soundless, unnoticed, I felt only revulsion and bitterness at their ridiculous enjoyment of themselves. Anger began to surge through me. How swiftly their sense of shame was ebbing away.
I went back to my room, slamming the door with all the force I could muster.
* * *
It was warm under the covers, dark and comforting. I felt like a seed dibbed deep into the dark earth. Or a truffle, warty and scabrous, lying curled and silent amongst rotting beech leaves.
As I lay there I could feel something inside me spluttering into life. I tried to imagine it as a shoot preparing to burst forth from a seed or a bulb. But at night it felt like something else. Something I didn’t understand and couldn’t name. It scratched and gnawed at me. It frightened me. And beneath my eiderdown with the sprays of pink roses, I breathed and breathed and breathed.
* * *
I stood in the dank and gloomy hall of Campden Grove, waiting for the bell to ring. Beckett was in London and was coming to dine out with us. Babbo kindly asked if I’d mind him joining us. I demurred but then thought it might help me to see him, to show him what he’d lost through his own foolishness. And I had no friends in London, no one of my own age with whom to converse or reminisce.
When the bell pealed, I opened the door and there he was. Beckett – his blue-green eyes behind his wire-rimmed glasses, his beaky nose, his gaunt face that still looked as though it had been chiselled from stone. When he saw me he stepped back in surprise, as though he wasn’t expecting me, as though he’d been tricked in some way. And then he recovered himself and said how grand it was to see me.
“Weren’t you expecting me to be here?” I asked in a faltering voice. I suddenly felt the air around me compressing and buffeting me, pushing at my lungs.
“Oh yes, Mr Joyce said you would be joining us and I was very pleased.” Beckett’s fingers strayed to a boil on his neck, then to his hair, then back to the boil. “But you look – you look different. You look tired, Lucia. That’s all.”
I exhaled in relief then gave a short laugh that was meant to sound joyful, even a little coquettish. But it came out more like the bark of a nervous dog.
“It’s been a difficult time for us all,” I said. Then I remembered how much my parents enjoyed the newspaper coverage of their wedding, how outraged Babbo was that The Times hadn’t covered it and that the New York Times had hidden it away in its ‘Marriages, Deaths and Births’ column. So I added, “Difficult for some of us, at any rate.”
“I imagine you’re looking forward to being an aunt?” Beckett’s voice was stiff and formal, as though I was someone he barely knew.
“Oh that,” I said carelessly. “I suppose so. Babbo is pleased his lineage is to be continued. Let’s hope it’s a boy, hey?” I gave a little trill of laughter but stopped abruptly when I saw Beckett eyeing me oddly. “Anyway, welcome to Campden Grave. More like a grave than a grove, don’t you think? Come and have a drink and then we’ll go out. I want to hear all your news.” I kept my voice bright and took a long deep breath at every opportunity. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear his news or not. Seeing him again agitated me and my stomach seemed to be full of skittish sliding eels. I suddenly longed to be in my bed, deep under the covers. Why had he come? Why had I agreed to dine with him?
Instead, I said, “We’re going to eat at Slater’s. It’s just round the corner.”
“Grand,” said Beckett.
I realised I hadn’t taken his coat or hat or led him into the apartment. We were still standing in the dimly lit hallway with its stained wallpaper that rippled and bubbled with damp, and its odour of cooked cabbage and fungus.
And then Babbo’s voice rang out. “Beckett, is that you? Come through, come through and have a drink.”
* * *
Over drinks, and then dinner, Babbo and Beckett discussed their work. My mother crowed about the excellent roast chicken she bought round the corner every day, and her wedding, and Giorgio and Helen’s expected baby. I pushed a veal cutlet round my plate and tried to hide how dejected and desolate I felt. I tried to laugh in the right places and look serious and sad at the appropriate moments. But I seemed to get my timings all wrong. When Babbo talked of his struggles with Work in Progress I laughed manically, and when my mother tried to lighten the mood by making jokes about the English, strange whimpering sounds came up from my throat.
“Won’t you eat something, Lucia?” My mother jabbed her fork at my plate with its pile of mangled food.
“I don’t feel hungry,” I said. “I had a big lunch today.” She knew, of course, that I’d had no lunch, but how could I explain the nausea that lay like a coiled snake in the pit of my stomach?
Beckett asked me, carefully and politely, how Stella and Kitten were and whether I was enjoying London. I told him I had no idea how Kitten and Stella were because Stella had gone to study at the Bauhaus in Germany and had no address for me, and Kitten was very upset when I destroyed our dream of a dance school, and she had no address for me either. I could hear my voice becoming clamorous and sharp and I could see my mother glowering at me, but I continued. Since he asked.
“No, I don’t like London. The apartment’s horrid. I have no friends at art school. They won’t talk to me because I’m a bastard. I have no life of my own here. I hate it! I want to go back to Paris – as soon as possible. I hate the English. They’re all donkeys! I just can’t escape them in London. They’re everywhere, always staring at me. They know I’m a fucking bastard.” The words tripped and fell from my lips, each one louder than the one before. I frowned, puzzled at how my larynx was talking – no, shouting – of its own accord.
People at the next table stared at me. Babbo stared at me. Beckett looked at his plate and concentrated very hard on cutting up his steak. My mother glared at me. And then Babbo started talking in Italian, telling me everything was going to be all right, that I could go home whenever I wanted, that I could stay with Giorgio in Paris. I didn’t say much after that. And Beckett, sensibly, didn’t ask me any more questions.
When we left the restaurant I was talking quite normally again. Babbo asked Beckett if he’d like to join us the following week for dinner, before his return to Dublin. Only I saw the look in Beckett’s eyes, for it was the look of a man corralled. Only I saw the pleading, soft-soaping look in Babbo’s eyes. Only I knew that Beckett couldn’t refuse my father.
“Just tell my father you don’t want to come, Beckett. Go on – just say it! Tell him the truth! You don’t want to be with me. You don’t want to dine out with a cross-eyed bastard. I don’t care. Just say it!” And Beckett looked at me in surprise and then his cheeks flooded with colour and he quickly looked away.
“Come on, Lucia.” Babbo put his spidery hands on my shoulders and wheeled me round, towards Campden Grove. And when I looked down I saw the pavement of Kensington High Street, littered with small mounds of dog shit. And when I looked up at the darkening sky, it seemed unsteady and trembling, as though it could fall in at any moment. And when I turned my head, there was Beckett, walking up Kensington Church Street, his shoulders all bent and hunched. Oh Beckett. My Beckett …
* * *
That night I knew there was something dark and monstrous inside me, lurking, waiting, biding its time. I couldn’t explain or describe it, but it scared me. Sometimes it jumped into my throat and took control of me. I said nothing to my mother. And I couldn’t bother Babbo. He had his great Work in Progress to complete. Nothing must come between him and Work in Progress. And so tired. I was so tired. I couldn’t dance any more. I had no energy. And my mother said the flat was too small. Just climbing the stairs made my breath come harder. The simple act of dragging air into my lungs exhausted me. I concentrated on my drawing – my drawing and my breathing.