Joyce
by Simon King

 

 

The Martello Tower in Sandycove overlooked the wharf. Occasionally ships and boats would moor there so as to unload cargo or people. Sandycove was a suburb of Dublin, a quiet backwater. Still, it attracted tourists for its beaches and its male-only bathing place, the Forty Foot.

The tower itself had been built in 1804; it was designed as a defence base against Napoleon. Originally, one could only access the tower through a ladder, but a door had since been built. It was an ample building, as its walls were eight feet thick. There was a gun platform at the top of the tower and a large cannon was once at the top, with the carriage on the rails. Cannonballs were heated in the oven at the top of the stairs.

The tower had been occupied by the army until 1897. In 1904, Oliver St. John Gorgaty, a medical student, currently known as a poet, became the tower’s first civilian tenant. Many of the leading literary figures of the day visited the tower during his tenancy.

Having taken up residency in the tower, Gogarty invited James Joyce to stay with him. Joyce was a promising twenty-two-year-old writer who had was just commenced his literary career. Indeed, Joyce had been working on a poem which attacked his contemporaries, including Gogarty. Gogarty had been accused of snobbery in a newly published poem by Joyce. As a result, Joyce received a cool welcome.

Joyce was part of an intelligentsia which was, in many ways, elitist and self-contained. He did not really work as such and he relied on the generosity of benefactors. He enjoyed his bohemian lifestyle, in which he could wander from place to place, freely, and work on his writing projects.

It was late at night, it was summer and there was a breeze in the air. Joyce walked along the quay and observed the ebbing tide. The water moved away from the shore, and he observed rock pools and the foraging birds which clustered together. Eventually, Joyce reached the tower on the top of the hill.

Gogarty welcomed him into the tower. He was quite handsome, with a receding hairline and a robust jaw. He wore a pinstripe suit and a bowtie. Joyce, on the other hand, was rather gaunt, wore a summer hat, had a startled expression and a moustache.

‘Hello, James,’ Gogarty said.

‘Hello, John,’ Joyce retorted.

‘I read the poem that you published about me,’ Gogarty said.

Joyce did not expect him to bring the subject up so swiftly. ‘Oh?’

‘Yes, you characterised me as pretentious and pompous,’ Gogarty continued.

‘Yes, well, I… I was addressing all of my contemporaries, not just you,’ Joyce replied.

‘Yes, well… I will tell you this, James. It is not just you and I, we are joined by Samuel Chenevix, my Anglo-Irish friend. He persists in talking in Irish, despite his blatant Oxford accent.’

‘Oh, yes..’ Chevenix had been loitering at the back of the tower and suddenly emerged. ‘I cannot deny my Irish roots.’

‘Well, I will tell you what, Samuel. It’s ridiculous. Just speak English, you prick,’ Gogarty barked.

Joyce nervously surveyed the room around him – Gogarty and Chenevix. He sensed tension, with the awkward silences accompanied by the sound of the gusting wind outside. ‘Right, let’s get something to eat.’

The three writers congregated at the table in the middle of the tower and helped themselves to beef, potatoes, cabbages and red wine. ‘I will tell you something,’ Gogarty said. ‘If you’re not careful, Mr. James Joyce will slander you in public.’

Joyce dropped the cutlery and looked at the ceiling. ‘Well, John… It was just a light-hearted poem. You are taking it too personally.’

‘Yes, well, I will tell you this. You should be more careful about what you publish in the future. You should not cast aspersions in a public forum,’ Gogarty said, as he slammed his glass on the table.

‘I was not casting aspersions,’ Joyce timidly interjected.

‘Whatever. Every time you write something, it has consequences. You should not write about people like that in public – calling me pretentious and so on,’ Gogarty continued.

‘I do not think that we should take ourselves too seriously, John,’ Joyce replied. ‘We should be able to laugh about ourselves.

‘Yes, we should not put ourselves on a pedestal,’ Chevenix added, once again speaking in Irish.

Gogarty once more slammed the glass on the table. ‘Oh, for crying out loud, speak English!’ Gogarty roared. The room went silent and the three individuals did not talk for the rest of the evening.

The next six nights were tense. The three writers did not talk to each other and Chevenix still only spoke in Irish, which only incensed Gogarty. Everyone once more went to sleep in the middle room of the tower. Chevenix suddenly woke up and screamed: ‘There is a panther! There is a panther in the room!’ This terrified Joyce. Chevenix walked up to the corner of the room, grasped a rifle and fired a few shots into the fireplace. He seemed to come to his senses and went back to sleep.

Gogarty suddenly leapt up and picked up the gun. He said ‘Leave them to me.’ He shot down some saucepans from a shelf positioned over Joyce’s bed. The saucepans careened and fell on Joyce’s head.

Joyce was petrified. He gripped the sheets of his bed, as no-one else spoke. Gogarty did not say anything, nor did Chevenix. Was this nothing more than nocturnal delirium? Why did Chevenix start shouting about a panther? Why did he shoot into the fireplace. Worse still, why did Gogarty start shooting above Joyce’s bed? The past six nights had been fraught and, following the first night, Joyce had hardly exchanged any words with Gogarty and Chevenix. Joyce lay supine on the bed.

Still, with that gun in the room and, with Gogarty firing close to Joyce, he felt that it was appropriate to leave. Even if it was not deliberate, he could end up getting killed. He gathered all of his belongings and he put his clothes on. As the other two writers presumably slept, he took his bag with him and nervously scampered away from the tower. No, he would not stay in that citadel any longer, which seemed more suitable for soldiers than bohemian artists.

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