101
Paris, 1923. Wild American partiers conga across the auditorium carrying a blown up colour photo of ZELDA like a hedonistic icon. A self-absorbed girl (LUCIA) watches hesitantly from halfway down the stairs. As the OTHERS exit SAM BECKETT pauses.
BECKETT Hallo Lucia. Dreadfully boring people.
LUCIA starting to descend Would you take me Sam?
BECKETT No.
LUCIA Is that a proposition?
BECKETT No, it's a declension! but there's noth(ing stopping you) ...
LUCIA You're ashamed to be seen with me, Sam Beckett?
BECKETT Tosh, don't start that again.
LUCIA O I know your friends are all sorry for me.
BECKETT Nothing of the kind. Nothing of the kind whatever.
LUCIA It's like a club where everyonelse knows the rules but nobody'll let me in. I hear laughter thru the walls ...
BECKETT Who's inside? Exiting: We're all outsiders. There is no inside - except accidentally - on occasions.
LUCIA But there must be. Or why would I feel so left out?
102
LUCIA descends sadly towards the bedroom area, where at the foot of double bed there is a single, cot-like bed Her parents enter, NORA supporting an inebriated JOYCE, who has one hand cupped over an eye as if it hurts.
JOYCE Still up?
LUCIA helping him off with his tie: Wheredja go this evening, Babbo?
NORA Aux Grandes Bouffes. So he had to tip the waiters 50 francs again, didn't you Jim?
JOYCE gestures vaguely.
And what are we to live on for the rest of the week, eh?
JOYCE O I'll send Mr Beckett with a note to Miss Beach tomorrow, Nora. Och, my eye, my eye.
NORA Well, y'know what does it.
He falls asleep on the double bed.
He knows it's the booze that inflames his eye and yet he wont ever stop.
LUCIA It's his way I suppose.
NORA & LUCIA rather self-consciously undress side by side.
NORA It may be his way, but what use is a blind writer I'd like to know.
LUCIA It'll not come to that surely?
NORA It will do if he doesn't stop. After all the pain he had from the first 2 operations, I don't understand it.
Needs a wash.
LUCIA rather angrily curls up her knickers and slings them at a pile of dirty clothes before getting into her own bed at the foot of the double bed.
LUCIA Night Nanno.
NORA Night Lucia.
103
Her mother extinguishes the light. A shaft of moonlight falls across LUCIA's face. She is watching, thinking, wondering. The party sounds return, but with phasing on the voices and eerie music.
LUCIA emerges somnambulistically from her bed and begins to struggle up the outside of a spiral staircase, leaving a trail of blood, as if from grazed knees. She looks down pleadingly; her father is below watching intently, peering up (her nightdress?), forcing her onward up into the darkness.
104
JOYCE moves to the NE area, to the shabby armchair in which he habitually writes, and sits like a wizard in a cave. On his knees a battered green suitcase on which he composes. (All soliloquies should be taken reasonably fast.)
JOYCE whispered incantation: Sul poyaum-o, absolut intric?ndio in evicibilia momencatariglie animandugular ... (murmured voice, as if composing) Hushft, the mouse a-peering, nous stealing the air, whish way willshe torn? Failing her whey by skirting and carepet the mouse twitshels soilent and grady. More she'll have, mire und mere ant moor and mare - moisst in undergarths and scuttering in short silken winds till the whole circlet is a blistering light of pairing eyes, babbling up to the gods in a stone-sharp pain- dropping echo.
Going, seeing, sowing, swayling; a-dance in the dark air, fluting like amphitheatre pistrels across infinite propinquity: the terraced gods incline and circle softly. The mouse watshes. Cold to the bare buttock, a city forgotten, rises a hidden moanyoumeant. Rustling with undreamt prayer the grasses sigh in her silent sleep till they meet and in glistening crevices secrete insectuous promises, each sealed with lips of wax the mouse alone can lick unloct.
Her tortuous world grafted onder the turtle's back, takes the slowest time, grifting thru a tentacular universe of stellar debris to be borne, if she can, ahead of tart arrival. And he watshes her, and she watshes, knowing him, for the howl of Anubis, the dog-headed severer, to see who will be furst.
105
Looking aged, LUCIA (in the asylum after her breakdown) sits on the top step, quivering very slightly, as if preparing herself for something she fears but desires.
Her mania gives a metallic quality to LUCIA's personality which contrasts with the unfocused character she otherwise manifests in the early part of the play. LUCIA descends during the speech.
LUCIA How I long for those afternoons, the hot wet slippery sex. He'd find some secret hiding place of my mind, and out would come tumbling a cascade of pearls, small, perfectly formed, streaming endlessly in a glittering waterfall of sensuality. I couldn't get enough of it, hardly cared who it was with. But best was Calder. Oh, there was a lean, cutting, edge to him that made my stomach tighten every time I saw him. I loved what he did, every orifice was a gateway of fresh delight. I was complete - felt as I'd always wanted to feel.
Calder was always late, always apologetic. And I'd make him slow down and kiss me, deeply, there in public, with all eyes on us, until I couldn't keep still any longer. And I'd put my hand into his pocket for the money and feel around until I found what I was looking for. And I'd draw out the money very very slowly. Then I'd make him take me by the hand up to the desk, and I'd drop the money down and say Ônum?ro quatre, comme toujours, s'il vous plait'. And the dirty old concierge say Ôune heure, seulement Monsieur/dame' and give me a small, rough towel.
Dissolving into light against the staircase window I could hardly breathe, and the ticking in my loins would grow deafening, the fuse was burning shorter and shorter. I'd keep stroking the front of Calder's trousers to check that my sentry was still to attention ... The ceiling was a faded green and the bed had a rubber covered mattress with a daring smell. And a jug of cold water delicious to wash your aching muscles.
Room 4, I remember. Room 4, first floor.
Middle-aged NURSE enters breezily
NURSE Hallo there Lucia. How are we? Time for our medication.
LUCIA Don't you fucking come near me, I'm in a state of grace, Holy Mary knows where. And if you try anything St Ignatius'll give you the bloodiest period of your life. I'm warning you.
NURSE O, angels and devils! We've had all this before, don't be such a ...
LUCIA I'm warning you. I can see them. You can't. They'll do what I ask them to. If you hadn't barged in I could've (come to a climax) ...
NURSE Now then, Lucia, I'll put them on the table. You've been getting so much better, don't spoil it.
LUCIA I'll spoil it if I fucking want to. You think you can trick me into taking those fog pills, don't you? Think you're that clever?
LUCIA sits on a chair and begins to hex the NURSE with the intensity of a panther. It is a real battle of wills. After a bit the NURSE seeks to break the atmosphere.
NURSE This is just silly Lucia, I've got other ...
LUCIA quietly, without breaking her gaze. Well you go to them then, because I'm not taking them.
NURSE It's Doctor Jung's order. They're to make you better.
LUCIA No, they're to make me controlable.
Slowly getting up moving towards the NURSE with ferocious quietness. We know, and the NURSE knows, that LUCIA would be capable of ripping her face off.
And I wont be controlled - by you, by Dr Jung, by my mother, by anyone.
The NURSE begins to eye the door
You know what I want?
NURSE No. (hopefully) I know what you need?.
LUCIA You do? Well I know what I need too, I need a fuck - a big, good, long, dirty fuck.
NURSE Ohh! O good lord, I'll get the doctor.
The NURSE turns and runs out of the room. LUCIA hurls the water glass at the door, which smashes. She smirks sardonically.
106
LUCIA slowly dresses (once again the young girl of #102). She fusses about things in an aimless way but the result is still plain and mousey. By the piano GIORGIO is doing singing exercises. He is a callow youth, attempting a not-exactly-convincing American slangy style of speech.
JOYCE is seated in his armchair writing laboriously because of his eyesight on large coloured cards. NORA is in the kitchen (in the pool).
GIORGIO Hey Lucia! You wanta come'n play f'me?
LUCIA O I don't know.
GIORGIO O c'mon.
JOYCE looking up momentarily Don't forget those higher exercises - you're a tenor, remember.
GIORGIO Hell Babbo, I'm not!
JOYCE O'Sullivan agrees with me, now.
GIORGIO Under his breath O ph-ph-ooey.
JOYCE returns to his concentration. LUCIA wanders rather listlessly over to GIORGIO. On the way she encounters NORA who steps up from the kitchen, drying a mouligrater.
NORA Listen teso', olive oil, y'couldnt just go for some?
LUCIA yawning I'm accompanying Giorgio.
NORA Well, when you've finished?
LUCIA I'll see what I feel like.
NORA And I'll see whether I feel like making lunch!
As NORA returns LUCIA makes a yappy gesture. At the piano LUCIA sits uninquisitively while GIORGIO finds the correct page. She registers only minimal interest in his conversational sorties.
GIORGIO I'm supposed to've learnt this for my lesson today. But actually, I'm not going. I've got a date with Helen. You wont tell?
LUCIA breaking into a stifled sob You're always going out with someone. Nobody ever asks me.
GIORGIO O they will, they will; (conspiratorially) but y'know these days you gotta give the boys a bit extra.
LUCIA I don't know how to, nobody ever asks me. I would.
GIORGIO Maybe you don't put out more? Here, Helen says she may take me to New York as her singing tutor.
LUCIA Do you really know enough Gio?
GIORGIO No, but I know enough about a lot of other things! (confidentially) She's gonna divorce Ralph.
LUCIA Gosh.
GIORGIO O Helen's gorgeous! You'd really like her.
LUCIA Couldn't you ... couldn't you speak to Sam, again?
GIORGIO Listen, I did. He just doesn't seem to be, well, that interested in girls.
LUCIA So much happening out there - but inside I can't escape.
GIORGIO O you'll find someone.
LUCIA It's my wretched squint ...
GIORGIO Nonsense.
LUCIA What is it then? Everybody's got somebody - except me.
NORA calling Here now, Lucia! If you aren't going to rehearse I need that oil.
LUCIA O I'd better go. Have a good afternoon.
GIORGIO You bet.
LUCIA wanders into her father's room.
107
LUCIA Babbo ...
JOYCE (not keen on being interupted) ...Òcould see thru the blindest word to the heinous truth - anus of truth - to the Janus truth ...Ó Yes teso'?
LUCIA Babbo, could I have my squint straightened?
JOYCE Well with this damned iridectomy mebbe we could get 2 for the price of one! But seriously, whyd'sit matter?
LUCIA Nobody wants to take me out.
JOYCE O come now, it's much too soon for that sort of thing. At home , why you wouldn't be allowed out of the house b'yourself at your age.
LUCIA Well we're not Ôat home', and in any case Ireland isn't my home. We're in Paris. And it's humiliating.
JOYCE Alright alright, we'll see if it can't be done; but for now leave me be, Mr Beckett's due and I want to finish this chapter - for if he can take it to Miss Beach b'teatime maybe we shall get some diner this evening.
LUCIA desperately wants to stay with her father, be noticed by him, but he doesn't take the hint. She can't think of anything else to say and meanders away. As she reaches it a doorbell rings.
That'll probably be him now.
LUCIA hastens to the front door, pausing anxiously to experiment with various seductory innovations in front of a mirror before opening the door. She stands in the way, attempting -but failing- to look provocative.
BECKETT O hallo Lucia.
LUCIA Sam.
BECKETT Your father at home?
LUCIA Yes.
BECKETT C'n I?
She tries hard to smoulder, but BECKETT is unsynged. Eventually LUCIA is obliged to give way. He goes straight into JOYCE with whom he falls immediately into animated conversation, JOYCE indicating by his gestures the difficulty he has in seeing what he writes. LUCIA is humiliated and heartbroken. NORA emerges.
NORA Lucia, Lucia, get me the oil now wouldyou?
LUCIA savagely Yes yes! Just give me the money.
She takes the money and her coat and slams out.
108
A pattern of dancing light runs diagonally across the stage from the projector onto an unseen screen, while a piano hurls honky-tonk sounds into the darkened auditorium. LUCIA enters and sits alone. The action of the film is ambiguous. We concentrate on LUCIA's immediate total immersion in the narrative, as it veers from the comic to the cliff hanging.
She wants to touch the screen, to reach thru it to a non- temporal reality where she can become someone special and find what belongs uniquely to her - where she wont have to share anything with anyone she doesn't want to. The cinema is the only place where she seems fully relaxed. (Ideally, LUCIA won't utter these thoughts but will project them towards the audience as intense prayers.)
LUCIA thinks In here I can escape from Time: it passes so quickly it might not exist. Perhaps this is reality? If only I could enter behind the flickering screen. O Charlie, come and rescue me. We wouldn't care about money, we'd have so many laughs.
The film finishes. The light go up. LUCIA remains in her transported state for a little while, then slowly relapses to her aimless depression. She wanders out, having completely forgotten the oil.
109
A chic restaurant. There are 2 tables either side of the acting area. JOYCE enters in an expansive mood with his family, plus O'SULLIVAN & BECKETT. JOYCE, O'SULLIVAN &
NORA all beseat themselves with their backs to the acting area, LUCIA & BECKETT sit next to each other with GIORGIO opposite his mother. They pick up the menus as if to order. The other table is empty.
JOYCE Would you look at that now O'Sullivan? ƒcrivisse and Homard thermidor!
O'SULL The way you say it Joyce it sounds like a curse!
JOYCE deadly serious No no! Never say that.
NORA Now you should know better than that! Jim's more superstitious than m' old aunt Eileen.
JOYCE always covers his face with his hand when NORA teases him.
O'SULL I'm sorry, no offence.
LUCIA Yes and the other things Babbo doesn't like are rats or dogs.
NORA Now now, that's enough of that.
JOYCE O a rat can make me faint clean away, I'm telling you. They're most unlucky.
BECKETT You saw one that night in L'Archet, you remember?
NORA Can I forget?
GIORGIO Don't think I was there.
O'SULL And what happened?
BECKETT O it just ran across the floor. A big one.
JOYCE Jesus, was it not?
O'SULL And you fainted?
JOYCE As if I'd been cudgeled.
NORA Fortunately he was sitting down.
O'SULL Well that's-a-mercy.
JOYCE Now then, lets start all that again, shall we?
LUCIA So that's why we never go there now, I liked it.
JOYCE I'll say Homard thermidor! and O'Sullivan, you say ...
NORA Yes I liked it too, but after that we couldn't ...
O'SULL Oh, er. You sound like ... Sarah Bernhardt!
JOYCE Ah, now that's got the evening off to a better start! And calmar dans son encre. Can you see it dansant there?
O'SULL O you've a way with words, Joyce.
JOYCE I know all the right words to be sure, it's the right order that's the tricky part!
BECKETT over, dryly: Dans son oncle?
GIORGIO That's a good one.
BECKETT Actually calmar dans son encre would be a good title for a novel if everybody didn't know what it meant.
JOYCE O no, that's makes it ideal, because everybody thinks they know what it means.
BECKETT True.
JOYCE But nothing beats the sound of calamari nel suo tinto or nal so tanto as that old waiter used to say in Split.
BECKETT Oh - we boiled the uncle, now we have the aunt!
JOYCE Ha, very good! Well now, I've been boiling in me own ink these 5 hours, so that's for me.
NORA At 235 francs?
JOYCE O come now Nora, it's Bloomsday. This is no time to be pinching pennies. I remember, Giorgio, that was the first time you ever saw an Žcrevisse.
GIORGIO And I was so frightened I jumped into your arms, I know.
NORA Well you were only 4.
LUCIA And what was I?
JOYCE You teso', were a with waggly antenn3⁄4 and a curly-up tail. (squinting at the menu) Och look Lucia, I've had enough of words for one day, here, you order for me. Ex-cuse us if you would, O'Sullivan and I are going to make some music for you.
They go to the piano. GIORGIO chats to his mother. JOYCE speaks conspiratorially:
LUCIA Here, Sam, will you help me? I don't know what any of these things mean?
BECKETT How can one person choose for another? Philosophically it's impossible, practically it's undesirable.
LUCIA O phwaph, you always make an issue out of everything. Oh Sam ... (lets her head fall onto his shoulder)
BECKETT For the love of Maxwell, Lucia, what're you doing? What'd your father say?
NORA's attention is fixed on JOYCE, even as she talks.
LUCIA He can't see. And Nanno, look at her, she doesn't care what happens to us as long as she doesn't lose him.
BECKETT O no, Lucia, stop it. Your desire is like a bottomless pit. I'm afraid if I lost my balance I'd fall in, and never come up again.
LUCIA O hell, why is it always me?
JOYCE & O'SULLIVAN sing The Brown & Yellow Ale. At one point JOYCE ceases to sing and interpolates:
JOYCE Y'see? She likes you. I've no objection. ÔTwould interest me and all ...
O'SULL No no, m'friend, not with you bein' ...
While the focus is on the SINGERS LUCIA, GIORGIO, & BECKETT exit, possibly leaving life-size photographs in their places.
As the song finishes the SCOTT & ZELDA FITZGERALD sweep in to sit at the other table in a blast of hot Jazz with HEMINGWAY. They're loud, drunk, and convinced of their happiness. JOYCE & O'SULLIVAN return to their table.
ZELDA Oo-oo I can still feel that buzzing right down in my stomach. Say Scott, Goofo ...
HEMING Ah c'mon now Zelda, that's the fifth highball. You always get a buzzing after the fifth highball. Why, Ida said you were the most thoroly buzzed person I knew.
ZELDA O? So what - don't you know me anymore, Ernest Hemingway, hnh? Well 2 can play at that game!
She turns her back on him and suddenly becomes aware that SCOTT is crawling under the table.
Scott? Scott, just what are you doing down there?!- (to HEM) And anyway highballs buzz in your head not in your ... down there.
HEMING O I get it, those are lowballs.
ZELDA Ernest you're just being coarse. O what a simply g-o- rgeous afternoon? We must do it again. Mmmm, looking down on all the little houses and their little back yards? (holding up an empty glassI wish I'd taken a handful pebbles to drop down each smoking chimney and - Scott!? Je-sus, Scott!!
SCOTT I'm looking for my soul.
HEMING O nuts Scott don't be corny. You know you never look for your soul before 3AM. Hell! Nobody looks for their soul at 9.30 for christsakes - well, nobody who is anybody!
Rebuked, he rises rather petulant at being ignored.
ZELDA And those pencil-thin roads between the poplars with the dinky little cars going so slowly. I suddenly felt I understood everything, y'know if only Jesus Christ could've taken everybody up in an airplane ...
SCOTT O yeah. That's real profound. For you. Bit I loved was that bridge with the train going across - all that smoke drifting away into the sunlight.
ZELDA And the Seine so small you wanted to straighten out the kinks.
SCOTT It musta been going south? Ida liked to've followed it all the way to the dazzling sea.
ZELDA Yeah!!
HEMING Cept it'd been dark by the time you got there.
SCOTT Guess so.
HEMING I'd kinda like to get to fly that kite myself.
SCOTT Do a better job of it than that French fairy.
ZELDA Whaddaya mean fairy?
SCOTT Faggot ...
ZELDA The hell he was, he was a damn good aviator. Better than you'd ever be. You can't even drive a goddam car straight.
SCOTT Yeah, an I could see the way youw're looking at him too.
ZELDA O you could, could you? Well I'll look at who I damnwell like how I damnwell like, you goddam Victorian!
SCOTT Don't you call me a goddam Victorian!
ZELDA Well you are! All that Jazz stuff is just show. You wanna see Jazz, I got Jazz ...
HEMING Hey shut-the-hell-up children would you for christsake? D'you know who that is, over there?
SCOTT Over where?
HEMING O don't be an idiot, how many people are there in here?
ZELDA O yea, there. I think she's rather sweet -that little girl- don't you? She looks kinda lost & lonesome, Hi-i
HEMING Would you just can it Zelda, that only happens to be James Joyce.
SCOTT O no! God, I mean he's God!
HEMING Now listen, you hicks, if you think you manage not to make complete assholes of yourselves I'll introduce you.
SCOTT O shoot, yes.
They get up
ZELDA Well, I don't see how we could look more like assholes than you, Ernest darling, cause y'all got the right kind of hair for one.
HEMING I'll ignore that.
ZELDA I guess ever' time you look in a mirror you do anyhow.
HEMING sotto Okay, greatest living author - no shit!
Arriving at the Joyces' table
Mr Joyce?
JOYCE Yes?
HEMING Ernest Hemingway.
JOYCE peering O yes, of course.
HEMING F Scott Fitzgerald.
JOYCE Mr Fitzgerald!?
HEMING And ...
Before ZELDA can be introduced SCOTT blurts out a gauche greeting. ZELDA is offended.
SCOTT O Mr Joyce, you don't know what a thrill this is, your writing's such an inspiration. God, if I could only manage just a single page like you.
JOYCE O well, it's not that difficult y'know? Y'just have to stop and think a bit. Now music, there's an art. Any fool with a pen is a writer, but a singer ... M' friend O'Sullivan here outsoars us all, and on what?
HEMING Yeah?
JOYCE Air - breath - mere ether.
Ignored, ZELDA slowly detaches herself and begins to dance, slowly, mesmerically, at first.
O'SULL Ha! Joyce! That's ridiculous talk from a man that's known the world over for originality of thought.
JOYCE Ah! - for the thought, yes. That's another thing; but writing, why, chimpanzees can do it!
SCOTT impulsively descends to one knee
SCOTT O God, this is the biggest thrill of my life. Say but a word of blessing - plant your sainted hand on my un- conscious brow.
HEMING Okay, Scott, take it ...
JOYCE jovially Mr Fitzgerald, that's absurd. Why, your books sell in millions, mine only in thousands. I'm the one in need of blessing this Bloomsday!
HEMING catching the signal Oh? Is it ...?
SCOTT barging on You know if you asked me to go and jump out of that window I'd do it. Just say the word.
JOYCE But Mr Fitzgerald I don't know what word makes people jump out of windows, d'you O'Sullivan? - Psephologically? Reticulate? Zeugmaticism? You see?
Focus on ZELDA, she is dancing now with bacchantic abandon, oblivious of the surroundings. She is. From time to time, in the context of dancing, she raises her skirt so that her garters &c are exposed, which renders the dance sexy, tho none of her movements are suggestive. ZELDA finishes quite suddenly. There is a burst of applause - ideally from the audience!
ZELDA Come on guys. This place is slowin' down. Let's hit the Deux Magots.
HEMING Or the BÏuf ...?
ZELDA Yeah, whatever. C'mon, Scott. Jesus!
SCOTT, completely forgetting JOYCE, flings a fistful of notes and change on the table and they sweep out as abruptly as they swept in. (As soon as possible they resume their other characters and slip unobtrusively back into the places of their cardboard cutouts.) JOYCE & O'SULLIVAN look at ea