by Annabel Abbs
* * *
And so it was Sandy who first told me the rumours. We were sitting side by side in the kitchen at Robiac Square. In front of us was a little metal sculpture of an acrobat whose limbs swayed in the breeze. Sandy wanted me to draw it as it moved.
“Just blow on it and watch how its arms swing.” Sandy grinned as he dangled the metal figure in front of me.
I took in a deep gulp of air and blew. Its arms and legs swung wildly for a second and then its head fell off, dropping onto the table with a tinny clunk before rolling away. Sandy leaned back in his chair and laughed and laughed, his huge frame quivering, the ends of his long moustache shaking.
“Did you do that on purpose?” I asked indignantly.
“No – I swear to God I didn’t!” Sandy was still laughing, his eyes bright and brimming with amusement. “But I’m mighty glad it got decapitated here and not in my circus show.” He picked up the miniature head and tried to re-attach it to the metal frame but his fingers were so large he couldn’t twist the wire thread that joined the two parts.
“Let me do it. I have smaller fingers.” As I took the tiny sculpture from him, I brushed the tips of his fingers with mine and felt an unexpected prickle of excitement. Snatching my hand back, I concentrated on mending the metal acrobat. Sandy was still chuckling, still watching me. And then he said something that startled and surprised me.
“So how long have you and Sam Beckett been engaged?”
“Engaged?” I asked, my eyes focussed on the metal acrobat. I felt confused and intoxicated at the same time. Why did he think Beckett and I were engaged? Had Beckett been making his intentions known to others before me? Was he on the verge of proposing? And then it occurred to me that perhaps, obscurely and mysteriously, we were engaged and everyone knew but me. The tacit understanding between Beckett and me, the growing intimacy between him and my family, the almost daily interchanges at the door, the brushing of hands and the pressing of thighs in restaurants, theatres, cinemas, his stroking of my breasts and thighs, my hand at the fork of his trousers and around his buttocks – our almost-lovemaking on the parlour floor – could this be an unspoken engagement? Was this how it was done in Ireland?
“People were talking about it at the Coupole last night. Everyone in Paris is talking about it. I was surprised you hadn’t told me.” Sandy looked quizzically at me. “Everyone’s seen him out with you and your parents. People say he’s always at your house.”
As I twisted the head of the figurine onto its body, my fingers trembled and a tightness in my chest caused my breath to quicken. Everything Sandy said was true. Beckett did come every day. The four of us were often out together. And I’d seen the fire in Beckett’s eye when he looked at me, when he touched me in passing. I remembered his fingers on my face, his hand on my knee, the way he’d fallen with me to that golden slice of afternoon light. Sandy scrutinised my flushing face, waiting for a response.
“Yes, that’s all true … Could it be … could it be …” I hesitated. My voice sounded stilted and unsure. And then I blurted out the question, wild and crazy as it sounded. “Could it be that we’re engaged but I … but I’m not aware of it?”
I expected Sandy to laugh, but he didn’t. Instead he said “Yeah, it’s possible I guess. Not back home where I come from. It’s still done the old-fashioned way there – marriage proposal, engagement ring, setting the wedding date. But in Paris it’s different. Anything goes here. I guess there would have been some discussion of marriage between the two of you or between Beckett and your Pa.”
Would Beckett speak to Babbo without speaking to me? Surely Babbo would have told me? I felt the hope of an assumed engagement ebbing. For seventeen months Beckett had been coming to our home, accompanying me out, exchanging glances and words. How easy it would have been to slip into an engagement as one slips between the sheets at night, wordlessly, with easy familiarity. For a minute I imagined an engagement, tacit and assumed, where no bended knee was required, no stiff and awkward proposal, no discussion of dowries or ‘paternal permission’ or wedding dates, no formal engagement party. I imagined Beckett saying to his friends, ‘Of course we’re engaged – isn’t it obvious?’
Sandy grinned again. “I don’t really know Sam Beckett but he seems kinda reserved. Sounds to me like he’s working up to a proposal. If he marries you, he’s a mighty lucky man.” His eyes lingered on me for longer than was polite. “You better start drawing, Lucia.” He took the mended figurine from me and passed me a piece of paper and a pencil. “I want you to have a go at drawing her as she moves. I’ll blow on her and you watch how she moves. Think of her as kinetic sculpture.”
But I couldn’t concentrate on the floating limbs of the figurine. All I could think of was Mrs Samuel Beckett. Soon I was to be Mrs Samuel Beckett, holding Beckett’s beautiful long thin hands in mine for the rest of my life.
“Have a go, Lucia. Start with her hair. Lucia? Lucia?” Sandy boomed across the table but I ignored him. My heart was too full to speak.
* * *
Sandy found my family life perplexing. I knew this because the only time he didn’t smile was when he asked me questions about my family. He asked why my parents wouldn’t let me go to parties with him. He wanted to know why I had to be home by nine o’clock. He asked why Babbo wrote only about Ireland but never went there. He was particularly confused by the conventionality of our home – the bourgeois furniture, Babbo’s ancestral portraits and his strict adherence to routine. He was bemused by Babbo’s dislike of the nightspots where the artists of Paris congregated. He found the intimacy of my family life unorthodox and odd. I tried, falteringly, to answer his questions, but usually I couldn’t, so I just reiterated that Babbo was hard at work on the dark night of the soul (which is how he described his Work in Progress to the Flatterers), and that I was an important muse for him. Sometimes Sandy asked me why I didn’t leave home, why I didn’t embrace the revolutionary and artistic fervour of Paris, why I didn’t enjoy the freedom that Paris offered.
“It’s not like this in America, Lucia. Or in England. They ban books there, like your Pa’s. Back home they’re still painting horses standing in fields and you have to get married before you can kiss someone. Damn it – you can’t even have a drink! All the great writers and artists have left. Paris is where everything’s happening. If you’re a woman back home you’re expected to marry and get breeding. That’s why Gertrude Stein, Djuna Barnes, Sylvia Beach – that’s why they’re all here. They’ve escaped!” Sandy’s eyes sparkled and his moustache twitched. “It doesn’t seem right that you’re here where everyone’s creating, exploring, breaking down the boundaries, experimenting, and yet you’re sitting in Fouquet’s with your parents looking out for movie stars.”
“It’s not like that, Sandy,” I said haltingly. “My mother looks out for movie stars because she loves the movies. Babbo likes the waiters there, and the food. He’s a serious writer. He doesn’t want to sit up all night with you lot. And he hates Gertrude Stein.”
Sandy guffawed with laughter and then turned to me, suddenly serious again. “But you, Lucia. Everyone tells me what a great dancer you were. You speak four languages. You sing like an angel. You draw like an angel too – Goddamnit!” He picked up one of my pen and ink drawings of a jumping dog and let it flutter before my eyes.
“I’m still dancing.” I stepped back from the table, performed a perfect toe touch jump, shimmied for a few seconds. “And I have plans. Big plans.”
Sandy looked at me curiously. “You should get out more. Everyone’s in Paris to be free and have fun and you’re living like a nun in a convent. You’re too talented to spend your life as someone else’s muse, wife, call it what you will. Anyway, Paris is changing and you need to grab what’s left while you can.”
I was grateful to Sandy, grateful for his belief in me. But how could I explain the invisible thread that bound me to Babbo? How could I explain the responsibilities I carried as muse? Or how these both repelled and attract
ed me?
Instead I agreed to take Kitten and Stella to see Sandy’s circus at the weekend.
* * *
As we walked along the gravel paths in the Jardin du Luxembourg all three of us had a spring in our step. And not just in anticipation of Sandy’s circus. Stella was excited because Paris Montparnasse had published a second article about her, with copies of her paintings of local street scenes. Kitten was chirpy because she had a new beau. I was particularly happy because Beckett had given me a lover’s gift the previous evening, while we were dining out en famille. I knew something was up because he stared at me all night, even while he was talking to Babbo. He was normally very deferential when Babbo spoke, like all the Flatterers. But last night his eyes had kept flicking back to me. Just as we were leaving Fouquet’s, he gave me a copy of Dante’s Divina Commedia, beautifully bound in blue leather with the title embossed in gold.
“This is for you, Lucia,” he said. I knew how much it meant to him – he and Babbo were both obsessed with Dante. And I knew exactly what he was saying in his silent cryptic way. Dante is the poet of love, Italian is the language of love. He was trying to tell me he loved me. I was so overcome I couldn’t speak. Afterwards, as we all walked down the Champs-Élysées, I hooked my arm into his and walked very slowly so we lagged a good way behind Mama and Babbo. I told him about the pheasant’s eyes in the Louvre, how they had followed me, trying to tell me something. And I told him how I kept dreaming of his hands. I had almost summoned up the courage to tell him I loved him, when Mama started shouting for help.
“For the love of Mary, give me a hand! Jim’s fainted clean away!” She was standing amidst a small knot of people, Babbo’s limp body in her arms. His hat had rolled onto the pavement and his cane had fallen loosely against his body where it rested like a third leg. I unlinked my arm from Beckett’s and we both ran towards her. Beckett helped us drag him to a bench where he started to blink and convulse.
“He saw two nuns, just over there.” Mama pointed across the Champs-Élysées. “He started shaking like a leaf, and I prepared meself for one of his turns but then he looked down and there was a big rat scuttling down the gutter. That was it! He fainted dead away. Thank the lord you were coming behind!”
“That’s a double dose of bad luck, two nuns and a rat crossing his path,” I explained, catching sight of Beckett’s perplexed expression.
“Get away – all of you!” Mama flapped her hands at the motley crowd of onlookers. “This’ll bring on an eye attack tomorrow, that it will.” She gave Babbo a small slap on his cheek. “Pull yourself together, Jim. Find us a taxicab, will you, Mr Beckett? Pick up his hat and cane, Lucia.”
And that was how the evening ended. But I had Beckett’s book in my handbag, and if that wasn’t a sign of his love, I didn’t know what was.
As Kitten, Stella and I walked through the park, past ranks of early pink tulips and tightly clipped box hedges, I told them about Beckett’s gift. Kitten squeezed my arm and trilled, “Oh darling, Le Tout Paris is talking of your engagement with Sam Beckett.”
“Be careful what you wish for,” Stella added, her face unsmiling. I ignored her. Irish women are always wary of Irish men according to Mama.
When we arrived at Sandy’s studio, there was already a queue of people waiting to buy tickets. We pushed past, climbed the stairs and nudged open the studio door. Sandy was crouched on the floor laying out his circus. There was a ring constructed from blocks of wood and inside the ring were tiny rugs and strips of red carpet, a full length trapeze and a miniature see-saw. The ring was festooned with brightly coloured flags and bunting. Lying on the floor of the circus was the circus master in a black jacket, his black felt hat askew. To one side of the ring were Sandy’s five suitcases, out of which spilled tiny wool lions, clowns with gaping mouths, trapeze artists with metal hooks for fingers – none of them any bigger than my hand.
Around the ring, which was slightly larger than a full-brimmed lady’s hat, were upturned boxes and wine crates for the audience to sit on. Hand-written posters announcing Cirque Calder – 25 Francs were pasted to the walls and the door. Squatting beside Sandy was a red-haired man fiddling with the gramophone. I looked sideways at Kitten and Stella. They were staring, bright-eyed and entranced, at Sandy’s miniature circus. I felt a surge of pride as I waved at Sandy, indicating my two friends with a jerk of my thumb.
“I’ve brought Kitten and Stella,” I said. “Can we do anything to help?”
Sandy jumped up and kissed Kitten and Stella on both cheeks. “Pleased to meet you. Real glad you could make it. I’ve mislaid the sword-swallower’s sword but once I’ve found it we’re ready to go. I’ve gotten a whole new act today. The trapeze artists’s gonna fall off and reveal all. I hope you ladies won’t be offended?”
“Of course not, Sandy,” I said, trying to sound as nonchalant and blasé as I could. “We’re all modern girls now.”
As we took our seats, Kitten and Stella bombarded me with questions. Kitten wanted to know if Sandy was any relation of Stirling Calder, who made some huge sculpture in Philadelphia, and where in America he was from, and how old he was, and was he married. Stella wanted to know if he did his own sewing and stitching, and where he found his materials. Their questions made me see how little I knew Sandy. We talked mainly about his social life or my home life, or he talked of motion, space, velocity and volume.
“I’ll ask him all your questions at my next lesson, I promise. But he’s definitely not married. He’s very single.” I gave Kitten a knowing look before reminding her that she had her own beau and explaining that Sandy was rather keen on me and kept asking me out.
“But we know your heart belongs to Mr Beckett,” Kitten whispered in my ear. “Sandy’s very handsome though.”
As Sandy announced Le Grand Cirque Calder, everyone stopped talking and the upturned crates stopped scraping. The gramophone started playing a march and Sandy manoeuvred his circus master into the front of the ring. After that came a succession of acts, some done by hand (Sandy pushing, pulling, blowing, lifting and dropping his little people) and some done using motors and elaborate pulley systems he’d rigged together. For an hour we watched miniature contortionists, fire eaters, lions and lion tamers, while Sandy provided a commentary in halting French. When the lion appeared, Sandy stopped his commentary and roared with gusto. Kitten couldn’t stop smiling, clapping loudly and enthusiastically after every act. Stella kept tilting her head from one side to the other, trying to fathom how Sandy made his figures move. I sat, straight-backed and proud, like a mother watching her precocious but talented child.
During the interval Stella jumped up to examine the tightrope and trapezes from which hung the little trapeze artists with their claw-like hooks. When she came back she said, “It’s fascinating and so clever. You can tell he’s an engineer.”
“He re-trained as a painter,” I said defensively. “He’s just as talented at painting and drawing. You should see his pen and ink sketches of animals. I’m learning so much from him.”
Stella looked at me doubtfully. “But this is what he’s brilliant at, understanding how to use movement and space. And colour – look at the bunting! What else does he do?”
“He’s made wire sculptures of Joan Miró and Josephine Baker,” I said uncertainly. “He calls them his wire portraits. And I think he had an exhibition in New York last year. Or was it the year before?”
In the second half of Sandy’s Grand Cirque Calder, we watched, spellbound, as a clown blew up a balloon. Sandy had attached a rubber tube to the back of the clown and blew through this himself. As the balloon expanded, an acrobat was sent flying and everyone clapped and laughed with delight. After this came wild horses that looked like soft toys on wheels, accompanied by a cowboy and a dancing girl. As Sandy pulled a hidden lever, the horses bucked and pranced, tipping the girl into the ring and flipping the cowboy high into the air. The audience became noisier and more raucous and by the time Sandy’s new act started some of
the men were stamping their feet and cheering in anticipation. When the delicate dancer finally tumbled from the trapeze, she fell head first and her skirt rose up, revealing two tiny buttocks, after which there was such a cacophony of applause that Sandy had to end the circus before a riot broke out.
We walked back to the tram stop, laughing and giggling. But just as we turned on to the boulevard Montparnasse Stella soured my mood by asking about Beckett. She wanted to know why I hadn’t invited him to Sandy’s circus and why Paris was discussing our engagement before we had. Kitten leapt to my defence. “Mr Beckett’s obviously been discussing his plans but not found the right moment to propose yet.”
“He seems so reserved. Not the sort of man to tell everyone else first.” Stella looked straight ahead, her eyes fixed on the horizon.
“That’s exactly it,” Kitten said. “He’s so darned shy he hasn’t plucked up the courage yet. I think you need to help him along, Lucia.”
“What d’you mean?” Stella turned and frowned at Kitten.
“I think Lucia should help him overcome his shyness. It’s never going to happen if he’s always with Mr and Mrs Joyce.”
“You think I need to be alone with him?” I asked slowly. I’d never told Kitten about my whiskey-fuelled dance lesson with Beckett. I didn’t think she would approve. And after Mama I couldn’t face any more disapproval.
