The Joyce Girl

by Annabel Abbs

  “We were in love, Gaston.” Bile was rising, sharp and rancid, in my throat. “We were in love! How could he do this to me?”

  “I know, I know. You must forget him, Mam’selle Joyce. You must forget all about Monsieur Calder.” As a taxicab pulled over, I heard Gaston tell the driver to take us to Robiac Square.

  “How d’you know where I live?” My words slurred and frothed as I stumbled onto the back seat.

  “Everyone knows where the great Monsieur Joyce lives. Now give me your hand, Mam’selle Joyce, and hold on to me. You will feel better in the morning.”

  I lay back on the leather seat. Everything was swaying – the trees, the buildings, the street lamps, the driver. A slick of nausea wound its way through my insides.

  “I will leave you on the door step,” said Gaston when we arrived at Robiac Square. “The great Monsieur Joyce must not think I made his daughter drunk.” He had one arm round my shoulder while his other arm held my hand, securely and comfortingly.

  “Don’t leave me, Gaston,” I mumbled. “I’ll fall if you leave me. Please don’t leave me.”

  “I won’t leave you, Mam’selle Joyce. I will take you to your apartment, knock on the door and then I will hide until your Papa or Maman let you in. You will not be alone, not for one second, I promise. If no one opens the door, I will take you back to the Coupole. I promise.”

  He did exactly as he said. He asked the taxi driver to wait and then he gently pulled me from the back seat. At Robiac Square the elevator was still broken so we lumbered up the five flights of stairs, me swaying on buckled knees, he pulling, cajoling and chivvying. At the top he arranged me like a pile of laundry, folding me up and placing me by the door. Then he knocked loudly, turned, and bolted down the first flight of stairs. I sat slumped for what seemed forever, my arms neatly placed on top of each other. And then the door opened and there was lanky Mr Leon peering at me. And Mrs Leon in a bright pink hat with a feather on it. I heard Mama calling to Babbo, “Mercy me! Jim, come and see what the cat brought in. ’Tis not a pretty sight. Thank the Lord you’re half blind.” And through it all I heard Gaston’s footsteps pounding down the stairs. And I thought of the people who had loved me and left me, their departing footsteps all singing and ringing in my ears.

  * * *

  I never told my parents or Giorgio about Sandy. After my evening with Gaston, I went to bed for ten days, feigning illness. Babbo was completely distracted by his legal investigations (Mr Leon was still coming and going with law books) and his forthcoming eye operation. He’d barely written eight pages of Work in Progress in the last six months and the only thing that cheered him was news of Sullivan’s operatic successes. Mama could think of nothing but the forthcoming marriage of Giorgio and Helen Fleischman, and how best to scupper it.

  While I lay in bed with ‘a cold’, I cried and cried, always soundlessly under the quilt. Sometimes I’d get up and look in the mirror, and if I saw my squint slipping back I returned to bed and cried longer and harder. I wept for Sandy’s silent deception, his unthinkingly cruel words and promises. And when I had no tears left for Sandy, I’d think of Beckett and more tears would spring forth. I wept for all my still-born hopes and dreams – of love and affection, of liberation, of wedding bouquets, of little houses with fat cushions, of gardens with drifts of yellow daffodils. All dashed, smashed into thousands of tiny shards. But most of all I wept for the premature deaths of Mrs Samuel Beckett and Mrs Alexander Calder.

  After ten days I made myself get up and go back to my classes at the Margaret Morris school. As I spiralled and spun, looped and leapt, twisted and twirled, I felt the darkness within me slowly falling away, the pain and humiliation gradually receding into the far pockets of my mind.

  And that was when I remembered Kitten’s words about dancing together, doing something of our own, something creative. How had she put it? Something that would give us control of our own lives. Yes, that was it! I would call Kitten. I would take control of my life, not as someone’s wife but as myself – as Miss Lucia Joyce.

  * * *

  One morning, not long after I’d recovered from my ‘cold’, Babbo told me he’d had a letter from Mr Calder.

  I froze, mid-pirouette.

  “Sends his apologies. Says he had to return home on family business. Regrets he can’t teach you any more.” Babbo offered me the letter but I waved it away, saying I’d known all along of Sandy’s plans to go home. My voice cracked as I spoke and my legs shook beneath me, but Babbo was too distracted to notice. When he asked, through the leather spine of his huge book, if I’d like another drawing instructor, I thought for a minute and then said, “No thank you.”

  “Mr Calder held your artistic abilities in high esteem.” Babbo glanced at me over the top of his law tome, his eyes covered in a milky film. “I cannot dispel my dream of you and me working together, mia bella bambina.”

  “Me illustrating your work instead of Stella?” I asked, and a small sob rose in my throat. No doubt Stella had heard about Sandy’s departure. No doubt she thought me a gullible fool.

  “Of course.” He spoke impassively into the musty pages of his book. “Miss Steyn is no longer under any obligation to me.”

  When Mama came into the parlour holding a new hat with a matching hat pin, Babbo told her Mr Calder had gone and I didn’t want another drawing teacher. She looked at me, her face tight and guarded, and said she didn’t want me moping around all winter. And as her thin painted lips closed over her teeth, the image of an animal trap came to me. I felt a swell of fury. I felt the bubbling of coarse and dreadful words, low in my throat. The rage I’d felt, inarticulate and uncontrollable, when I discovered Giorgio and Mrs Fleischman, flashed before me.

  I clamped my mouth shut, forced myself to move, took deep and long breaths. I had to keep dancing! I triple-stepped stiffly round the couch, arms trembling above my head.

  “I’ll carry on drawing. And I’ll carry on training at the Margaret Morris school. I won’t be moping around.” And then I thought of Kitten and our secret scheme and my rage dissipated, leaving just a dull hum of pain at Sandy’s letter, like the low drone of a mosquito in the night.

  I thought of telling my parents that Kitten and I were about to start working together, that we were planning to dance again, like the old days. And perhaps if Mama hadn’t been there I might have said something. But her eyes were cold and weary and I was barely in control of my emotions. I didn’t want that demon voice to rise inside me again. So I said nothing.

  “You need some more friends, to be sure.” Mama looked at her hat, stabbed it with the hat pin. “Why can’t you be more like Kitten? She has lots of gentlemen friends.” She turned to the mirror, angled her hat, adjusted the brim. “All this cavorting around. They say Miss Morris is half naked when she gads about.”

  Babbo left Sandy’s letter on the table and slid quietly into his study where Mr Leon was waiting slavishly. Mama picked up Sandy’s letter, cast her eye quickly over it and said she never liked Mr Calder anyway. Too ‘bohemian’, too ‘wild’, mixed with ‘the wrong crowd’. She dropped the letter back on the table and announced that she was off for a fitting for a new coat.

  Alone, with Sandy’s letter in front of me, tears started welling in my eyes. Why hadn’t he written to me? Why had he written such a stiff formal letter to Babbo? Wasn’t I owed some explanation, an apology? My body wilted, but instead of collapsing onto the sofa or crawling back into bed, I made myself go to the telephone, dial the operator, ask to be put through to Kitten’s number. And when her mother answered and said Kitten was out, I asked her through stifled sobs, if Kitten could telephone me as soon as possible as I had something urgent to discuss. And then I dried my eyes, choked back my sobs and vowed to rise again. Not like a phoenix this time, but like a snow drop that pushes its green spire through earth stiff with frost. Yes, I would rise again.

  November 1934

  Küsnacht, Zurich

  “Two rejections in the space of a year.�
� Doctor Jung strokes his moustache with his index finger. “That must have been very difficult, Miss Joyce.”

  “Beckett is in psychoanalysis too, Doctor. Just like me. Right now. Three times a week, in London. Isn’t that a coincidence? Both of us doing the talking cure at the same time.” All week I have been thinking of Beckett, dreaming of Beckett. Is Beckett discussing me, as I discuss him? Thinking of me, as I think of him? Is his sleep haunted by me, as mine is still haunted by him? Is this yet another omen?

  “Your belief in yourself as clairvoyant – was that affected by Mr Beckett’s departure?” Doctor Jung gets up and starts his habitual circling of the room. A bluebottle buzzes angrily at the window. “Did you question your Cassandra powers at this stage?”

  “Beckett may yet be my destiny.” My voice flounders and then I remember what happened yesterday, how Babbo had reminded me again of my clairvoyance. I’d suggested he take up pipe-smoking. More distinguished than cigarettes, more appropriate for a man of his erudition. After I’d gone back to the sanatorium, Babbo had gone to the park and sat on a bench. When he stood up to leave, he saw a pipe on the bench next to him. But I can’t tell Doctor Jung this, because he’s not to know Babbo’s still in Zurich. No, that is our little secret, mine and Babbo’s.

  “How important was dancing to your state of mind at this point?”

  “Dancing let me speak without words. I didn’t realise it at the time but it was my lifebelt, Doctor.” I look at the window where the bluebottle is hitting the glass with mounting rage. Every now and then a ray of light catches its shiny blue body, and its drone gets louder and more insistent.

  “I believe you to be a very creative woman, Miss Joyce. It seems to me that your dancing was how you expressed your creativity. Perhaps it was also when you danced that your mother most envied you?”

  “Envied me what? She had everything … beauty, Babbo, children, a life that gave her meaning. Why would she envy me?”

  “Your father told me he suspected Mrs Joyce of harbouring envious feelings towards you. You had youth and talent and beauty. Could she dance or sing or paint or play the piano? Was she the muse for his new book? Tell me that, Miss Joyce.”

  The buzzing of the fly has become frenzied and furious. I look away from the doctor to the window where the fly has become entangled in a spider’s web and is beating its thin wings hopelessly against the threads that surround it.

  “Oh, what does it matter! All I do now is talk, talk, talk. Why don’t you look after physical things? Why is there no sport or movement in your so-called cure?” I stand up and move towards Doctor Jung. He steps back, a wary look in his eyes. And all the time the fly is buzzing, buzzing.

  “Miss Joyce, my assistants have been watching you for several weeks now and they see no reason why you should not get back into life.” The doctor moves behind his desk and motions me back to the armchair. “But for psychoanalysis to work, we must explore the depths of your unconscious. Can you face your unconscious? Can you accept what you might find there? However disturbing? However shocking? Are you ready to pass through the shadow of the valley of death?”

  “The valley of death?” I echo, blinking rapidly. Why won’t that fly stop buzzing? I can’t concentrate on the doctor’s words … Buzzing … buzzing … in my skull … voices … buzzing …

  “Indeed. Facing the secrets of your unconscious is not easy. Some cannot do it. But it is essential if we are to get you back into life. I need to know if you have the stamina for it.” He pauses and strokes his moustache again. Why is the buzzing of the fly not distracting him, not making him lose his flow?

  “And there is something else that must happen if psychoanalysis is to work. I believe you are caught in your father’s psychic system. I have asked him to leave Zurich so that the transference process necessary for my cure to work is not inhibited.”

  “He has left.” I put my hands over my ears to block out the sound of the fly. When will it stop buzzing? My head is full of its febrile buzzing …

  “Do not lie to me, Miss Joyce. He has locked himself away in the Hotel Carlton Elite in Zurich and I cannot carry on treating you if you both behave like this. I have asked him, again, to leave. If he does not do so, I will have to terminate your treatment.” The doctor picks up his notebook from his desk, walks to the window and slams the book against the glass. He flicks the crushed fly from his book onto the floor. “It is imperative that your father leaves Zurich.”

  Panic ripples through me. If Babbo leaves Zurich, how can I inspire him? How can I give him the ideas he so badly needs? And who will visit me? I will be incarcerated and friendless – again. His great work will stall – again. I cast my eyes round the room and then catch sight of the fly on the floor, partially flattened. One leg is still twitching … twitching.

  “You are indeed your father’s femme inspiratrice, his anima. I cannot deny that.”

  “Anima?” I can’t stop staring at the fly, on the floor, below the window. Why won’t its leg stop twitching? Why didn’t the doctor kill it properly, cleanly? Twitching … twitching … When will it stop twitching?

  “Every man carries within him the eternal image of woman … a feminine image … unconscious, of course, and always projected upon a woman he loves. That is the anima and it acts as a bridge to creativity, to the unconscious.” Doctor Jung pauses. “Are you listening, Miss Joyce?” He walks over to the window, bends down and picks up the fly by one of its torn wings. He drops it in a wastepaper basket beneath his desk and sits down heavily on his swivel chair, his knees creaking loudly. “So, let us talk about your father.”

  I stare mistily at Doctor Jung sitting behind his desk, drumming his fingers on his notebook, watching me with his slitty eyes.

  “No,” I say. “It’s not Babbo who lives in the valley of death. He is the only one who understands me. And the only person I trust.” I slip off my chair and squat down, peering into the wastepaper basket. Is the fly’s leg still twitching? I must know if the fly is dead or alive … I crawl across the floor until the wastepaper basket is immediately in front of me. Where is the fly? Where is it?

  “Who lives in the valley of death, Lucia? Who is with you in the valley of death?” Doctor Jung bends from his chair so that his face hangs upside down, bat-like, beneath his desk. Why is he calling me Lucia? Where is the fly? Where is it?

  “Who is with you in the valley of death?” He asks again, his voice urgent and insistent.

  And then I see the fly, its flattened body still, its legs unmoving. And the blue of its body muted by the shadows of the wastepaper basket. And I remember who is with me in the valley of death.

  Doctor Jung has slid from his swivel chair and is crouching beside me, under his desk, his great frame stooped and hunched. It’s dim and gloomy under the desk, like the old hallway at Robiac Square, like Babbo’s study. All the shutters closed, the blinds pulled down, the curtains drawn. All those apartments, all so dark and lightless. The doctor smells of pine trees and soap and pipe tobacco. How nice he smells …

  “He’s dead,” I say.

  “Who is dead?”

  “The fly. His leg’s stopped twitching.”

  “What happened in the valley of death, Lucia?”

  But it’s too late. I’ve locked myself away, far away, where the doctor can’t get me. Where no one can get me. Where no one can pick at me, scratch at me, chip away at me as though I’m an old scab. No, I’m not ready to be bloodied and inflamed.

  “Miss Joyce? Miss Joyce, can you hear me?”

  Everything is becoming shadowy and blurred. And now darkness is pouring into my head, filling it like black smoke from a burning house. And words won’t form in my throat. And I can hear nothing, see nothing, feel nothing. Nothing left … just the smell of wet pine needles … such a nice scent … such a lovely scent …

  18

  March 1931

  Paris and London

  “I know you don’t feel ready to go back on stage, darling.” Kitten leaned over an
d touched my arm. “So I’ve had another idea, a better idea.”

  “I’ll go back on stage when my squint’s gone. I need another operation, that’s all. Mama says it’s worse than it was before.” We were sitting on a bench in the Jardin du Luxembourg, looking out at the daffodils and the first green leaves of spring. It had rained earlier and now everything looked clean and shiny.

  “I think we should start our own dance school, darling.” Kitten paused and looked at me, her eyes all bright and gleaming like the wet leaves in the trees. “I think we should set up our own physical training programme. We can choreograph it ourselves and call it the Joyce Neel method. What d’you say, Lucia?”

  Yes! Of course! I leapt up from the bench, shook out my damp coat and started pacing, swinging my umbrella as I went. “We can start by offering private lessons. And when we’ve got enough pupils we can be the Joyce Neel School. Or the Joyce Neel Institute of Dance and Physical Culture!”

  “Exactly, darling!” Kitten jumped up and joined me, walking up and down the path, our boots crunching on the gravel. Shafts of grainy sunlight fell across the grass and the daffodils. And reflected in the puddles was the pale blue of the sky.

  “Once we have enough private students, we can rent a dance studio. I’ve got so many ideas for our Method, Kitten.” I reached out for her hand and held it tightly as we walked. “It should be a combination of gymnastics, eurythmics and jazz dance.” I rose up onto the balls of my feet and pirouetted, pulling Kitten with me.

  “We can use everything we know.” She drew me to her as if about to lead me in a waltz across the Jardin. “Ballet, jazz, free-form, everything we’ve learned. I’ve already started devising a programme and I reckon if we get it finished in the next week or so we could be ready to start taking pupils in May. What d’you think, darling?”

  “We need a trading card! What shall we put on it?”