by Annabel Abbs
“And after that you went from doctor to doctor?” Doctor Jung drums his fingertips on the last page of my manuscript
“Yes, you’re the twentieth. And I’ve had twelve nurses and eight ‘companions’, as Babbo calls them. I call them guards, spies.” Why are his fingernails so dirty? What has he been doing? There are crescents of black grime in all his nails … smiling at me, laughing at me …
“And no consistent diagnosis, according to your father.” The doctor pushes his spectacles up his nose and frowns.
“No.” So many diagnoses … premature dementia, hebephrenia, schizophrenia, syphilis, hormone imbalance, manic depressive disorder, cyclothymia, catatonia, neurosis. And all those injections … daily injections of seawater … injections of serum made from the tissues of embryonic calves. All for what?
“The only thing they all agree on, according to your father’s report, is your dislike of confinement and restraint.” Doctor Jung peers at me over the top of his glasses that have fallen down his nose again.
“I’m a dancer!” Am I still a dancer? Am I still an artist? Am I anything now? An insect? A prisoner … is that all I am now? I pause and wipe my hands over my face. And as I do so I catch sight of the red welt on my thumb, its thin shiny puckers standing in angry ridges. The doctor says nothing so I continue.
“To restrain a dancer is a crime. Is it any wonder I was driven to the very edge?” All those straitjackets and leather mittens and the solitary confinement and the barred windows and the endless keys turning in locks and all those eyes, watching, observing, checking, snooping, spying …
“Indeed.” Doctor Jung looks at his notes. “And several doctors thought there was nothing wrong with you. Mild neurosis, according to one. No signs of any psychosis whatsoever, according to another.”
“Doctors!” I stand up and move slowly to the window. How stiff I am … how unyielding my body has become … I, who danced on some of the great stages of Paris … I, who danced with the most celebrated dancers in the world … what am I now?
“Do you mind if I smoke my pipe?” He doesn’t wait for my response but puts his pipe into the corner of his mouth and puffs at it. “I can cure you, Miss Joyce. But only if your father leaves Zurich. One cannot force a transference, but without it, I cannot cure you.” The smoke from his pipe curls into the air above him, like the tendrils of a vine.
“Why is everything about my father?” My father – who slurped the energy, the life blood, from us all, from everything around him. Even now, he’s saying it’s his gift, his spark that’s been transmitted to me and kindled a fire in my brain. What nonsense! I turn my head away from Doctor Jung and stare out of the window at the little jetty where the doctor’s boat is moored. The snow is falling more heavily now, drifting down over the lake before melting into the black water.
“It is possible that Giorgio had you locked in an asylum as a way of overthrowing his father. By removing you, he removed your father’s muse, the very source of your father’s creativity. No doubt that is what Doctor Freud would say. He would call it an Oedipus complex. That would also explain why your father’s having trouble writing at the moment.” I hear the doctor sucking noisily on his pipe and when I turn to look at him, he’s staring distractedly at the ceiling.
“All his Flatterers are saying it’s my fault his book isn’t progressing. They’re saying I’ve distracted him from it.” How I loathe those Flatterers … the way they dip their heads so reverently, fawning and obsequious …
“Your father is indeed determined to cure you. He cannot accept that you have any illness of the mind. To accept that, he would have to accept that he too has an illness of the mind. But let us come back to Giorgio.” He bats at the fog of tobacco smoke that now hangs between us.
Yes, Giorgio – turncoat, betrayer, Judas. It was he that turned me over to the doctors, it was he who pronounced me incurably mad, who changed my fate. But not to deny Babbo his muse. Oh no! That was never the reason … How mistaken you are, Doctor Jung! And inside I feel the she-beast shifting, stirring, awakening.
“So. Why did your mother stop you sharing a room with Giorgio, Miss Joyce?”
The she-beast is moving, shuddering and writhing inside me, preparing to pounce. I feel her claws unfolding, her lips curling, her thin body twisting, the flick of her tail. And the darkness is there too … inching forwards, coming for me … I must speak … before it’s too late. Speak! I feel the she-beast open her jaws. I feel her roar swell and roll …
“We found some letters,” I say haltingly, tentatively. I can see them now. Thin sheets of paper folded into small squares, spattered with ink spots. Why has this memory returned? Why am I saying this? “They were in a white leather box … lined with white satin … Giorgio found them. He was looking for something and Mama and Babbo were out.” I stop and look at the window. Squalls of snow blow against the panes.
“How old were you, Miss Joyce?”
“Nine or ten I think.” I stare at the snow collecting on the window. How cold it looks, so cold.
“Did you read the letters, Miss Joyce?”
I close my eyes and push my knees hard together, wrapping my arms around myself until I feel the jutting of my shoulder blades. How thin I am now. Why am I so thin now? I am insect-thin. Yes, mosquito-thin. Insect-thin. That word I saw in the doctor’s book. It wasn’t insect, was it? I feel the heart of the she-beast, pounding inside its rib cage. Another flicker of her tail. Impatient. Angry. I am so thin. I must eat more …
“The letters, Miss Joyce – who were they from?”
“My mother. They were from my mother to Babbo.” There’s no turning back now. They are creeping and seeping back into my memory, jumping in front of my eyes, taunting me, their foul and filthy words filling my head. So obscene, so disgusting they lodge in my throat like chicken bones. So vile and lascivious and lewd I can’t repeat them. I will not repeat those ugly sordid words, those squalid bestial desires. Not to Doctor Jung in his tweed suit and his starched white shirt. Not to anyone. Ever!
“Did you read them?”
“Giorgio read them. He read them aloud.” And suddenly Giorgio’s shrill boy-voice is pealing in my head. I press my hands over my ears but his voice is still there. Like a ghost voice returned to haunt me.
“Lucia, look what I’ve found! Letters from Mama to Babbo. I found them in Babbo’s drawer. Right at the very back! We can see if we’re going to live in Ireland.” Giorgio had already unfolded a letter and was looking at it, with his eyes all screwed up tight as if the sun was very bright.
“Does it say if we’ll get birthday presents this year?”
“I can’t … I don’t … oh!” Giorgio pulled back and wrinkled up his nose.
“I want a kitten. Does it say anything about a kitten?”
“It’s … it’s about …” He looked at me and stopped. Then he looked back at the letter and said, “It’s about what grown-ups do.”
“You mean cleaning the house and emptying the chamber pots and laying the fire? I help with those!”
“I think they do other things too.” He frowned and pulled another letter out of the satin bag. “Do you know how babies come, Lucia?”
“From God. Can I read one? Is it about God?”
Giorgio shook his head. His eyes were very wide now, and startled. “It doesn’t mention God. It’s about peeing – and sh-shitting and – and sucking.”
I put my hand over my mouth and giggled. “Yuck!”
He drew out another letter and read it with the same look of confusion. Every now and then he grimaced, as though he’d bitten into an unripe fruit. “Grown-ups do v-very s-strange things.”
“What d’you mean? Read it out, Giorgio!” I was getting bored now. I could see my doll, lying undressed on Giorgio’s bed. She needed to have her clothes and hat put on. She needed to take Baby Bear for a walk. “Show me!” And I reached for the letter.
Giorgio pulled back. He took a deep breath. “I am your b-brown-arsed f-fuckb
ird and I will sh-shit my drawers and then lie on my front and you can kiss my – my a-arse all over and then you can f-f-fuck me up behind like a h-hog riding a sow then I will squat on you and p-piss on your –” He stopped and blinked.
“That’s disgusting!” I wanted to giggle again, but it no longer seemed funny. And Giorgio wasn’t laughing. “On your what? Chamber pot?”
“Cock.” His voice was flat and expressionless. “And balls.”
“Balls?” I knew a cock was a cockerel and why Mama wanted to piddle on a cockerel made no sense. Why she would dirty her drawers rather than use a chamber pot made no sense either. And why was she writing to Babbo about pigs? And what balls did she mean? The balls we threw in the park?
But Giorgio ignored my question and carried on reading, his lips moving silently and his forehead puckering.
“Nothing about my kitten then?”
“D-do all grown-ups d-do this? Is that how Mama and Babbo made us?” he stuttered.
“We can try it with my doll.” I gestured to Giorgio’s bed. “She needs another baby. I can get your ball from the cupboard and piddle on it, like Mama does.”
“Shall we try it?” His voice fell to a whisper. “Quick, Lucia. Lift up your nightdress.”
“But I’ll get in trouble if I dirty my drawers,” I protested. “And the ball’s not here.”
“I have a piddle ready.” He grabbed at my nightdress. “We can be like grown-ups.”
“Can you make me get a baby with your piddle?” I lifted my nightdress eagerly. My own baby! Dolly and I would both have babies! I lay down with my nightdress up round my waist.
“Roll over, Lucia. I’ll do you and then you can do me. Just like Mama and Babbo do.”
I felt his lips against my naked bottom as he planted little chaste kisses across my buttocks. “Have you made the baby yet?”
“Not yet.” I felt the heat of his body as he squatted over me and then the warm liquid of his pee-pee on my back. And under my tummy I felt Mama’s letters, creasing and crumpling. “Turn over, Lucia.”
“Not in my face … yuck!”
“To make the baby, stupid.”
I rolled over quiescently. My nightdress was sopping wet and the room smelled of urine, sharp and metallic. Giorgio had removed his nightshirt and was preparing to squat over my face.
“You need to suck this.” He pointed at his small pale penis.
“Do I? I thought I had to suck a ball.” I looked over at Dolly. I’d had enough of this stupid game.
“This is my cock, stupid!”
“Cock-a-doodle-doo!” I crowed and snatched at his penis. It seemed larger than normal, slightly swollen and scalded, as though it was covered with insect bites. He lowered it towards my face and I noticed his body was shaking. And suddenly I didn’t want to play anymore. Giorgio was frightening me with his peculiar insistence and his eyes had become dark and glazed. And I didn’t want to think about Mama’s letters any more. Or the things grown-ups do, or making babies. I wanted to dress Dolly in her best hat and take her far, far away. I closed my mouth and pegged up my nose with my thumb and forefinger. I would kiss his penis once and then I would play with Dolly. I felt something prodding, nuzzling, pushing at my mouth. I pursed my lips to kiss Giorgio’s thingy and felt it slip against my gums.
I am too hot … too hot in the doctor’s room! Must take my fur coat off … too hot … And the smell! The smell has followed me here … I need air! Clean air … mountain air. Why won’t he open the window? The stench in here is unbearable … it’s making me choke and gag … Why isn’t he choking?
“Miss Joyce, why are you holding your nose? What can you smell? Miss Joyce? Miss Joyce? Can you hear me?”
The doctor’s voice sounds as though it’s travelling towards me through a very long tube, from a long, long way away. From so far away, I can barely hear it … So far away …
“Is that why your mother stopped letting you share a bed with Giorgio? Lucia? Lucia – can you hear me?”
And now I see her, Mama, on her knees, shouting and swearing and wiping up the mess. And she is so angry with me. So very, very angry. And I smell burning … and the bright flames of the fire are leaping in the grate. And she’s burning everything – her letters, Giorgio’s wet stinking nightshirt, my soiled nightdress – and the room is full of smoke. And my hand is so hot, so very hot. Not my hand, Mama! Please not my hand! I wanted to get a baby, Mama … We were only playing, Mama … She’s screaming at me … You did this, Lucia! You found private letters, you made Giorgio read them, you led Giorgio on like a strumpet, a hussy. No, Mama, we were only playing … And Giorgio says nothing. Nothing at all.
“Lucia? Can you hear me?”
Babbo’s in the doorway … screaming for Mama. Blood is coming from his head and he’s screaming and holding his head in his hands and blood is dripping through his fingers to the floor. And through the smoke I see his eyes, huge and purple like plums. And he’s crying now, saying he can’t see, he’s blind, and his life is over. And the blood is coming thick and fast from his skull. He says, in his blindness, he has walked into a lamp-post, that he will never be able to walk alone – that his life is over.
“Lucia? Lucia? Can you hear me?”
And Mama is screaming too, calling him a perverted lunatic, saying he made her a pervert, his whoring and drinking have made perverts of us all. And his devilish desires have been passed to his own daughter, made her a slut and a trollop, made her defile her own brother. And she wants no more of his whore’s diseases … and no more of his filthy ways … And my hand is stinging … so hot … my thumb shrivelled and scorched. And it’s all my fault … my wickedness has caused this … Because I wanted a baby … and I made Giorgio give me a baby … And still the room smells of burning and piss … and pools of blood lie on the floor … my fault … all my fault … All the time Mama stroking Giorgio’s hair, screaming at Babbo. Him crying and bleeding. Me sucking my hand in the corner …
“Lucia? Look at me! Can you breathe?” The doctor is on his knees at my side, his fingers on my wrists.
My hands are clamped over my ears again. And now the voices are receding and the smell has gone and the darkness is coming for me, swiping at my skin, closing in on me. Great waves of darkness washing over me. I reach out for my she-beast. But she is nowhere. Gone. Routed. Her cage empty.
I tilt my head towards the window and open my mouth. Nauseous. Need air. The doctor hurries over and throws open the casement so that a flurry of snow gusts into the room.
I look out, through the snow. Where is the lake? Where are the woods? Ah … the hills! I can just glimpse the blue-black hills in the distance, blurred and blue and thick with mountain flowers. And the snow is falling, falling. So soft, so silent.
The doctor is standing over me, his mouth opening and closing like a dying fish. I hear his voice drifting towards me, its reverberative note of hope rising and falling. “I can cure you, Lucia. I can cure you. Your father must leave Switzerland and then I swear to God I will cure you.”
His voice fades and for a few seconds I hear nothing. But then, from somewhere, I hear music. It comes from the open window, blown in with the snow … a single thread of music … I look past the doctor, past the lake and woods, past the blue-black hills with their mountain flowers, through the snow that falls like sifted sugar.
And far away at the edge of the horizon I see a thin belt of pale pink. Something is coming from it … carried in shafts of tremulous light. I move, I dance, towards the window. And in the pink of that distant sky, I catch a glimpse of them – my rainbow girls. See how they lift their feet … Look at the sweep of blue veins and soft bones that lie between their toes and their heels … like coiled springs … See how they move and sway … slipping like water towards me. Oh! Oh! Look at the twist of their waists. And the ripple of their shoulders. See how they bend their willowy backs. See how lithe their limbs are. See how they sheer towards me. My rainbow girls are coming … for me!
; Epilogue
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce sat in the muffled silence of his thickly carpeted, heavily draped hotel room. He had his head in his hands. His loneliness seemed to stalk him these days, like a shadow he couldn’t shake off. Or was it more like a growth, a tumour or goitre that swelled from the back of his neck. Perhaps the hotel staff laughed behind his back. Perhaps it was as obvious to everyone else as it was to him. Perhaps that charlatan, Doctor Jung, had seen it too.
He missed Nora. He missed the way she brushed the dust from his shoulders. He knew it was dandruff but she always said, “’Tis dust and nothing more, Jim.” He missed the way she straightened his cuffs and fussed over his bow tie and made sure his shoe laces were securely tied. He missed the way she moved around him, her chin thrust out like the prow of a ship, steering and manoeuvring him so he wouldn’t bump into anything. And her voice. He would do anything to hear her voice. But he’d already telephoned her three times this morning and on the last occasion she had sounded distinctly irritated. He’d have to telephone her later. Perhaps he’d ask her again, one last time, to join him in Zurich.
He picked up the blue crayon he’d been trying to write with. He must write at least one more word this morning. Five words would be preferable. If he could do five words before Lucia visited, he would be happy. One short sentence. One short sentence a day. It would have to suffice. He took off his spectacles and wiped briskly at his eyes. He felt the tears standing in them. They were always there now. Everyone thought it was his eyes playing up again. But it wasn’t.
Tears, ears, Mr Earwicker, earwigger. It was all there in his book. The book he couldn’t finish. Finnegans Wake. The title was still secret of course. But yesterday he’d revealed it to Lucia, as they jigged round his hotel room. He’d explained all the puns, the layers of meaning, the double entendres. Of course she’d understood it all. Her response had been the very antithesis of his wife’s. When he’d told Nora, all those years ago, she had looked at him quite blankly and then said, “You and yer words, Jim.” And that had been that. But Lucia had understood it all. And when he said, “This book will keep the professors busy for three hundred years,” she threw back her head and laughed with unbridled glee.
