The Joyce Girl

by Annabel Abbs

  I sensed the mood thicken but I was used to Mama’s martyred protestations and Babbo kept shooting me conspiratorial looks and winking at me when her head was turned. So I passed her the Paris Times and ignored her grumblings. “I’m going to be a famous dancer, Mama. Read it.”

  “That I will, Lucia, but I need to unpack me bags and have me some tea first. Look at these fine gloves, Jim.” She dropped the parcels on the sofa, pulled a glossy white box from one and started unrolling lengths of black tissue paper. The room suddenly felt cold, as though a sleeve of wind had blown through it. I put the Paris Times on the sofa and pulled my arms into my chest. Couldn’t she be happy for me – just this once?

  Babbo winked quickly at me then blew out a long plume of smoke. “They are indeed beautiful gloves. And nowhere will they look more elegant than round the stem of a glass of Michaud’s most intoxicating champagne.” He gestured to the newspaper on the sofa. “Read it, Nora. It describes the prodigious talents of our bella bambina. I am reminded of the proverb about the apple never falling far from the tree.”

  “Holy Mary, Mother o’ God! You’re like a pair o’ chisellers who’ve been at the sweet jar.” She sighed and looked at her new gloves. “Well, I’m not much in the mood for cooking and I suppose me gloves will be admired in Michaud’s.” She sniffed and reached for the Paris Times. “’Tis Giorgio who should be in here. Why is no-one writing about our Giorgio?” She jabbed at the newspaper with her fingernail.

  “They will, Nora. They will. Perhaps Lucia has had a Cassandra moment, a dream, about Giorgio?” Babbo looked expectantly at me, but before I could respond Mama cut in with a flurry of caustic comments about ‘daft omens’ and ‘crazy Cassandras’.

  “Giorgio’s time will come, but tonight we celebrate my rainbow girl.” Babbo blew out a smoke ring and I watched it shift and rise uncertainly, before it broke away and disappeared into the air.

  “What’s all this about rainbow girls? Don’t be telling me they – whoever they are – are seeing the future too?” Mama pushed her fingers fiercely into her new gloves.

  “From my book … they rompride round in rout … for they are the florals … Nothing to worry your indomitable and imperious head about.” Babbo stared up at the ceiling and sighed.

  “Why can’t you be writing a normal book, Jim? ’Tis sure to be the death o’ me.” She reached reluctantly for the Paris Times with her gloved hands. “Wear something colourful, Lucia. We don’t want to be outshone by Miss Stella Steyn tonight. What page did you say?”

  * * *

  As soon as the head waiter spotted us, he scurried forward, carving a path through the throng of people. Men kept stopping Babbo to greet him or ask about Work in Progress. Only Mama was allowed to know the real title of the book Babbo called his Work in Progress, and she had been sworn to secrecy.

  As my parents exchanged greetings with other diners, Giorgio appeared behind me. “Sorry I’m late,” he panted. “I had to wait hours for a tram. But I’ve seen the newspaper – what a stupendous review.” He pulled me to him and kissed the side of my head. “What a clever little sister I have! Let’s hope you make your fortune very soon, if only to pay for my singing lessons.” He grimaced briefly and turned his face away.

  “Let’s hope so,” I said, not wanting to brag. “Singing lessons not going well?”

  “Not well enough to live up to Father’s expectations.” Giorgio fingered the starched collar of his shirt and I noticed there were lavender circles round his eyes and the odour of liquor on his breath. “I have to ask him for money every day and he always looks at me like a dog that hasn’t been fed. Then he sighs in that disappointed way of his.”

  I touched his arm in sympathy. I hated seeing him so demoralised and I’d never smelled drink on him before. “When I start earning I can help.”

  But Giorgio didn’t respond. Instead he said, “D’you remember Mr and Mrs Cuddle-Cake?”

  I laughed. “Those parents we invented?”

  His face broke into an expression of wistfulness. “I dreamed about them the other night. They finally came to adopt us and Mr Cuddle-Cake taught me to ride a horse.”

  “It’s a bit late for imaginary parents.” I looked back at Mama and Babbo manoeuvring their way through the crowded restaurant in the midst of a phalanx of black-and-white waiters.

  “When we were children Mother and Father were never there. And now we’re grown-up they won’t leave us alone. Mr and Mrs Cuddle-Cake wouldn’t have been like that, would they?”

  “No, but they weren’t real.” I didn’t want to think about the past so I gave an exaggerated shrug and was about to remind him that Mama thought he was perfect and could do no wrong, when he said, “Oh look, everyone’s here.”

  He pointed to a table in the window where Stella, Emile and Kitten were sitting serenely amongst the gleaming cutlery and polished glasses. The chandelier lit up Emile’s beaming face and I felt a little flutter in my chest. He’d pomaded his dark hair and put an orange lily in his button hole. He waved a hand at me and I saw the light catch on his diamond cufflink, sending a spray of rainbow-coloured flashes across the table. Stella sat beside him, dressed in peacock-blue silk with three twisted ropes of amber beads that tumbled to her waist and a lemon-yellow turban with tassels that danced along her eyebrows. Babbo appeared silently behind us and examined her with the forensic eyes of a botanist inspecting an unfamiliar orchid.

  “I wish I could dress like that,” I whispered to Kitten as she pressed her lips to my cold cheeks. Stella had a bravado, a bohemian carelessness that I yearned for. Mama insisted on choosing and buying my clothes and while they were always elegant and well-tailored, they never had the flamboyance of Stella’s outfits.

  “You don’t need to worry about clothes, darling. Not after your debut and that review. I’m quite envious. Anyway, wait ’til you see what she’s wearing below the waist! Tasselled harem pants – totally impractical if it rains.” Kitten squeezed my hand affectionately. “But Giorgio doesn’t look his usual carefree self?”

  I dropped my voice and put my mouth to her ear. “He’s worried about money and I think he’s tired of being at the mercy of Babbo’s patrons.”

  “It’ll be fine when your Pa can sell his book in America. But why’s he staring at Stella like that?”

  “She’s illustrating a book for him, and you can be sure it’s his book he’s thinking about.” I lowered my eyes and added, under my breath, “He’s probably wondering how to describe her in Flemish or Latin or rhyming puns.”

  I slid onto the banquette next to Emile, felt the heat and sturdiness of his body next to mine. Around us swirled the sounds of talk and laughter, the jangling of bangles and beads, the scraping of chairs, the clattering of plates and glasses, the rattle of knives and forks. And in my head they became the applause from my debut, exhilarating and electrifying.

  Babbo ordered champagne and oysters on ice, and as soon as our glasses were full, he pushed back his chair and stood up, gripping the table with a bony hand. “A toast to Lucia! Dancer, linguist, artist!”

  “With her clear skin and blue eyes.” Mama raised her glass, extending her neck and turning her head to the chandelier as she did so. I had the sudden thought that she was jealous of me. It was the briefest and most ludicrous of thoughts. But it was something in the angling of her neck beneath the light. As though she were making it clear my appearance had come from her. It struck me how rarely I saw Babbo’s covetous eyes on her now, how rarely I saw him listening, in that fixed way of his, to the cadence of her speech. All that was reserved for me. I glanced across the table and there he was – glass aloft, blinking hard, his gaze swinging between me and Stella.

  Meanwhile, the champagne fizzed in our glasses, the salt green smell of oysters hovered above the table, small clouds of cigar smoke strayed from our neighbouring diners who clapped and smiled at me. Emile’s thigh pressed against mine, firm and full of certainty. And in that instant it seemed as though I could be happy forever
and that no one could be happier than I was. I leaned into Emile and let my hand creep onto his leg.

  “Where are you dancing next, Lucia? Will Josephine Baker have to vacate the stage for you?” Stella adjusted her turban then impaled an oyster on her fork and slipped it neatly into her mouth.

  “She’s a wild piece o’ goods, that Mrs Baker. Dancing naked with bananas. Shame on her!” Mama lifted her napkin and shook it out, as if she was hoping to shake away all discussion of Josephine Baker, the dancer who had taken Paris by storm with her risqué shows.

  “They say she’s making an absolute fortune,” said Giorgio. The tip of his tongue curled from his mouth and rested briefly on his upper lip. “Apparently she’s swapped the banana skirt for a small pink feather.”

  “She’s naked but for a feather?” Kitten’s eyes were wide with shock.

  “She’s a floozy, is what,” said Mama, her nostrils flaring with contempt.

  “She’s a modern young woman and she’s earning her own money. I say good for her.” Stella raised her glass of champagne but quickly lowered it when she saw Mama glaring.

  “She’s had herself two husbands already and they say she has a lover now. What sort of a lady is that, I ask you?”

  “That’s why she can dance on stage wearing only a feather. If she wasn’t married, it wouldn’t be allowed,” said Kitten quietly. “Pa says marriage is the only way a woman can be free, even today, even in Paris. All these liberated women, all these flappers – Pa says they’re not truly free at all.”

  “Must feel pretty bloody liberating to dance in the nude.” Giorgio snorted and ground out his cigarette. “Especially when you’re earning a fortune from it. You can’t be more free than that.”

  “What nonsense!” Stella, her eyes alight, stabbed at the air with the prongs of her fork. “Women now have a real chance for freedom. Look at all the women in Paris, painting and dancing and writing. They’re not all married.”

  “Bravo, Stella,” I cried, clapping my hands together. Stella had what Mama called ‘a tongue on her.’ It was yet another aspect of Stella I admired and envied. I was about to interject with my own views on how free one could feel when lost in movement, how liberating it was to dance whether you were rich or poor, clothed or unclothed, when Giorgio cut me short.

  “They say she gets hundreds of marriage offers every week. Perhaps I should make an offer. What d’you say, Emile?” He turned to Emile and clapped him on the shoulder.

  “I agree with Kitten. Marriage is the rock on which our society is built and the only way any of us can be free. That’s how we Jews think. Marriage underpins everything. But I’m not sure that includes marriage to Mrs Baker.” Emile’s hand had found mine beneath the table cloth and he stroked my fingers with his thumb as he spoke. “What do you think, Mr Joyce?”

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mama squirming on her chair, staring at her glass of champagne. Babbo ran his fingers absent-mindedly across his chin, smoothing and stroking his beard. “Marriage, religion … conventions and institutions. Shackles to be thrown off.” He gazed fixedly at the plate of spent oyster shells in front of him.

  “Take no notice o’ Jim. Sure what would he be knowing about shackles” Mama gave a truncated sigh, as though exasperation had deprived her of breath half way through. I shot Giorgio a questioning look but he was busy searching for his lighter, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lower lip.

  “Freedom for women and the institution of marriage aren’t incompatible. But no one can dispute the primacy of family. Look at you Joyces.” Stella gestured across the table with its litter of bread crumbs and trails of ash and half-empty glasses. “Married for all these years, devoted to Lucia and Giorgio. Would they be so talented, so clever, if you hadn’t married?”

  “We’d be bastards in the gutter.” Giorgio’s mouth widened into a yawn, and as he stifled it with his fist he caught my eye and winked. “Instead we’re rising stars on the stage, aren’t we, Lucia?”

  “Well, I’m o’ the mind that Mrs Josephine Baker should be locked up. Sure she’d be under lock and key in Ireland.” Mama pushed away her glass and gave a tight shake of her head.

  “And so would I, Nora. So would I.” Babbo spoke into the knot of his tie so quietly that only I heard him, for then Emile leapt to his feet, crying “Enough talk of gutters and prisons. Another toast to the talented and beautiful Lucia!” He lifted his glass and everyone shouted my name again.

  That was when I saw him. He was standing in the street looking furtively through the window, so close his nose almost touched the glass. His eyes were bright and curious, and he seemed to be looking at Babbo but then his gaze shifted to me. And in that split second something extraordinary happened. As he caught my eye a current of emotion passed between us. My heart jumped violently. Then he lowered his head, his shoulders curved forward, and disappeared up the boulevard. I felt Emile slide back onto the banquette, thrusting his leg against mine again.

  “What is she looking at now? Lucia? Lucia? We’re all toasting you and you’re gawking out o’ the window like someone possessed.” Mama rolled her eyes despairingly.

  Babbo frowned, put his champagne flute back on the table, and held up his palm. “Hush, Nora. She is having a clairvoyant moment. Quiet for my Cassandra!”

  “Someone was staring at me through the window,” I said, dazed and bewildered by the oddness of the experience, the intensity of those eyes, the sudden jolting of my heart. I gave a dismissive wave of my hand and turned gratefully to Emile, hoping to deter Babbo from any further talk of Cassandra.

  “One of your new devotees, I’ll be bound.” Kitten laughed and squeezed my forearm. “He probably recognised you from the newspaper.”

  “Indeed, the price of fame. I know it only too well.” Babbo peered round the table, his spectacles flicking reflections of light from face to face. “You will have to bear it as best you can, Lucia. No doubt they will be queuing outside for your autograph.”

  Would he be outside? The man with the bird-bright eyes and the beaky nose and the cheekbones like fish knives? No. He had melted into the darkness. And everyone at the table was laughing at Babbo’s wit. Everyone except Emile whose lips were so close to my ear I could hear the smack of saliva in his mouth as he whispered, “You will have queues of followers. You will!”

  And then Babbo started pronouncing on the indisputable link between dancing and visions, telling us about an obscure African tribe who danced until they saw the future. I knew his eyes were on me but I couldn’t focus on his words.

  “And they were half-naked too, I’ll bet,” said Mama in a thin tepid voice. Everyone laughed again.

  But all I could think of was the man staring at me through the window. I felt a strange sensation of restlessness spilling through me, as though something deep inside me was hatching.

  And now, looking back from the Alps where the air is starting to bite and claw at me, I see how right I was. Unlikely though it seemed at the time, something was hatching, unspooling low in my solar plexus. And this was where it started.

  2

  November 1928

  Paris

  “Emile couldn’t take his eyes off you last night.” Kitten pushed herself up onto her toes until the muscles of her calves stood out like thick twisted rope. “He’d be a terrific catch, Lucia.”

  “You mean because of his money?” I extended my leg, stretching until I felt my muscles pulling at my bones. Pale wintry sunlight sliced through the windows, throwing serrated shadows across the floor of the dance studio. Other dancers stretched and spun and examined their reflections in the mirrored wall as we waited for the dance master.

  “Pa says the Fernandez family’s worth a fortune. But I wasn’t thinking of that. Ma says Emile could be the next Beethoven. Just imagine! He could compose entire symphonies for you.” Kitten pushed back her neck, rolled her shoulders and sighed longingly.

  “He’s very talented, but I’m not sure he’s Beethoven,” I said. Emile’s cous
in was Darius Milhaud, one of Paris’s most celebrated composers, renowned for his stylish blending of classical and jazz. Emile longed to be like him and often talked animatedly about reconciling the rigour of Bach with the energy of jazz. What if Kitten’s Ma was right? I felt a small lump of pride lodge in my throat. “I do love working with him – he’s one of the few composers happy to have his music governed by my choreography. Every other composer thinks choreography should play second fiddle.” I shook out my hands in an exasperated way.

  “Oh I think it’s more than work. And you know it.” Kitten looked down the line of her nose at me, a knowing smile on her fashionably-painted rose bud lips.

  “I admit it – I’m very fond of him. He took me to the Bois de Boulogne last week in his new motor and kissed me for hours and hours.” I recalled the rasp of his stubbly chin and the way his moustache had tickled my nose and how his hands had fumbled eagerly beneath my dress.

  “Was it delicious, darling?” Kitten’s head snapped back into position, her shoulders braced in readiness for my next confession. But then we heard the clatter of piano keys and the collective shuffle of feet as all the dancers turned. Monsieur Borlin, in a white three-piece suit, his hands in white kid gloves, swept into the room and rapped the silver tip of his cane against the side of the piano. I breathed out, relieved I didn’t have to disappoint Kitten, for Emile’s dogged embraces had left me oddly cold and disconcerted. I’d wanted so much to feel like a brazen flapper. Instead I’d felt my blood cool and my insides curl up like a fist.

  “Straight into third position,” Monsieur Borlin commanded. “Reach open your arms … lift your palms … and extend.”

  “I have a hunch Emile might propose,” Kitten whispered.

  “Don’t be silly! I’m poor, I’ve got a squint and I’m not Jewish.” I splayed out my fingers towards the ceiling, stretching until every muscle and sinew ached. But Kitten’s words made my scalp tingle. Could Emile really feel that passionately about me? I thought of his huge house with its cream stone façade and its elaborate balconies at every blue-shuttered window. Of the artfully-placed flowers and thickly-daubed paintings his mother loved. Of his admiring aunts and sisters who fussed over me as if I was a new puppy. And I thought of Emile, his hands skimming the piano keys, his contented cheerfulness, his soft loving eyes.