A Country Road, A Tree by Jo Baker Read Free Book Online

cross the cobbles together. He curtails his stride.
    “Here’s the kerb,” he says.
    “And here’s the steeple.”
    The two of them push into the lobby of the Joyces’ apartment building. It is brighter there, a small gas mantle glows. They make their farewells, Good night, God bless, all the old reflexes. Joyce taps across to the lift, his good coat draping warm around him, his hat tamped neatly into place, doing a fair approximation of sobriety. Half-cut, the rush of love for him is overpowering. That James Joyce would consider his company acceptable, when he himself can hardly bear it.

    Joyce gets into the lift and pulls the cage across. But before he is whisked aloft: “Ah, and I have a little something for you. I forgot.”
    “Oh.”
    “I’ll have it sent it round.”
    “Thank you—”
    But then Shem is gone, hauled up through the dark storeys of the building towards the apartment stacked with boxes, with dust rings on the sideboard from where the ornaments are gone. He is left alone, on the bright-tiled lobby floor, in the cold. Nora will be cross. And she’ll consider him responsible for her husband’s absconding and his state on his return. As though he had bought the wine and held the gentleman’s nose and poured it in.
    He pulls his jacket collar up and shoves his way out again. The night streams past him, is wet in his face. He leans into it, as if there’s a wind blowing, though the air is perfectly still. He is drunk, of course; he has no papers, his friends are leaving left and right; Paris is deserted; he is no use to anyone at all. He feels, for once, and only briefly, quite content.
    —
    The Joyces depart Paris finally at Christmas time. In the breathy quiet of the platform, beside a stationary steam train, he shakes hands with the son Giorgio and the father James, accepts also Nora’s forgiving kiss: sometimes he is held to blame for her husband’s delinquency and sometimes he is not, but while Mr. Joyce is on his best behaviour, then he, too, can hope to be approved. He hands her in; she moves stiffly, troubled by her joints. He can still be useful to them, that much is clear: he can lift cases into the carriage; he can offer a hand to the man himself.
    “Come and see us,” James Joyce says. “At Saint-Gérand-le-Puy. Come and see us in the spring.”
    “Thank you.” It’s at once a pleasure and an anticipated awkwardness.
    The older man nods, settles himself, legs crossed, toe tucked under instep, hands folded on the head of his cane. “Well then,” he says. “Until the spring.”
    All the warmth and gratitude, all the unease and discomfort. And of course he just says, “Until the spring,” and shakes Shem’s hand, and then Nora’s, then clambers down from the carriage.

    Alone on the platform, he kicks his heels and looks off down the train in the direction of their going.
    And then there is the engine’s sigh, the greased shift of pistons and the slow haul into movement, and the train is leaving. It is peeling past, and it takes with it all of those entanglements, and that real and honest awkward love.
    He walks through the Gare d’Austerlitz and out into the low sun. As he makes his way home through the streets, the sunlight is sharp between buildings, the blue shadow sliced into wedges. The city seems more stark, more sharply angled, the sky more distant. It seems more beautiful, if that were possible. It seems more dangerous, and more prone to harm.
    —
    A bitter bright cold day. The lift is out of order and the seven flights leave her out of puff. Suzanne lets herself in, closes the door behind her and eases off her shoes. Her nose is cold, her hands are frozen. She’s already fumbling in her shopping bag, drawing out a little crocheted rug.
    “Darling…”
    He needs his peace, his privacy. But he also needs to be taken care of, since he can’t be trusted to do it himself. He can put this over his knees as he works; it’ll keep him warm while he is