Le Tiers-Temps, Residence for Senior Citizens, Paris

29 July 1989

I am in my room. Décor: bed, bedside locker, commode, book-shelves, mini-fridge supplied by my faithful Edith, my faithful friend. Translator beyond compare.

In front of the window, a table to write at and a cream-coloured telephone. That's about all. The décor would have pleased my mother. It's as gay as her own bedroom - fancy as a Protestant fantasy. This room is not really my room. This is where I am being minded. It's where I reside and where, henceforth, I receive my post. My bed is overhung by a three-bulb light fixture suspended from the ceiling by a chain. Every time there is any movement in the upstairs rooms, it shakes and threatens to give way. Were it to do so, that would be the end. I should be so lucky! It would come crashing down and finish me off. A quick end. A happy accident. Unlikely. Not every day is filled with adventure. A couple of lines in the paper: Lighting strikes! Never before was an Irishman (he was only a shadow of himself) hammered like that. For the moment, the light is still there, hanging over my soft brain.

When I turn on the light, at around 6 pm, my room turns wild. I mean the colour. It suits the wallpaper. It sets it free. The dirty yellow becomes almost mauve or muddy brown. When I am seated at my table at around 6 pm, I gaze at the moon if the sky is cloudless. Night falls on me, as if I were by the lake in Glendalough. My father ruffles my hedgehog hair, in silence. Night falls, in silence. We look at it fall and we wait. We wait a little longer, as the light fades. That's it, says my father. That's it; it's almost at an end. The pink clouds are going to disappear behind the Wicklow mountains. It's time to go home. To come down. The darkness has altered the paths. My father wraps his belt around my hand and guides me. We are two blind men in a forest. I allow myself to be pulled along by the belt. I lift my legs so I don't stumble over the roots. The dark night links me to my father, in silence. My father is an owl in the night and the moon is all he needs.

When we return, May is raging. Frothing at the mouth. Fuming. She is always furious when she is worried. A few minutes before that, before nightfall at the edge of the lake in Glendalough, before the moon sets, May falls silent. A happy silence. The calm before the storm.

This evening the moon is reddish. My leg hurts; l lean over my table to look at the russet moon. The honey moon. I am in Joyce's room.

'Wait till the honeying of the lune, love!'

I am sitting across from him. A bandage covers his left eye, under his glasses. His thick round glasses. I look at him without knowing if he can see me. The elastic part of the bandage parts his hair above his temples. He stares into the distance. Perhaps at the moon. The honey moon. He is wearing an old-fashioned suit and a striped shirt with mother-of-pearl buttons. The moustache suits him. It was a good idea. It hides his lips, like the peak on a gendarme's cap. A single line of hair connects his mouth to the base of his chin. He dictates all in one go. He crosses his legs, one under the other. I look at him and I do the same. He dictates. I don't know if he can see me. His sight is failing and he lowers his eyes. Perhaps he can just about make out my shadow as he dictates.

We are sitting like two companions in front of the scant pages. I type. The words appear. I type quickly. There is a knock at the door. Entrez. Lucia, his much-loved daughter says hello to me. She gives a message to her father and smiles skittishly at me. She is beautiful despite her eyes. She has a squint; the alignment of her eyes is not parallel. I'm not sure if you can use the word parallel or not parallel when talking about the alignment of eyes. In any case, Lucia's eyes are not parallel. She's still beautiful though.

Lucia leaves Joyce's room. I type Joyce's book, his Work in Progress - it progresses slowly. Music of the language, of languages. I type his English that is full of Ireland. He spits out page after page, the Ireland of our mothers. The Ireland of May. It comes to life under my fingers. It's very contagious. Transmitted by the tongue. I took a long time to be cured of it. Of Ireland, of Joyce, of May. Of Joyce, of my mother, of my tongue. Am I cured? I don't know. There's no denying that we are sentenced at birth - to be the sons of our fathers and mothers. To be born of them. Born of May. Far beneath Joyce. You could say that it started badly. I'm not saying that I did what it takes. No. I could certainly have done better. Taken some precautions. Or even draconian measures. Fighting evil with evil. I could have killed May, for example. Killing my mother would not have been that hard. I had a thousand opportunities to do so. All I needed was a small cushion. Hold it firmly. In silence. Just for a few minutes. May wouldn't have suffered. Or not for long. I could have spared her such a long existence. If you think about it, it wouldn't have been as bad as it sounds. Even for her. A happy escape.

May was a nurse. I could have taken advantage of a moment's fatigue on the way back from a night shift in the wee small hours. I could have put an end to her suffering and to mine. No, to have done things properly I would have had to have killed her before my birth. Or in childbirth, giving birth to me, why not? That would have been ideal. A lucky birth - night and day. Of course, the best solution of all would have been if my grandmother hadn't been born either. We would all have been nipped in the bud. That would have been the simplest solution. But chronologically, I admit, it's a fucking mess.

I don't hold it against her. I don't hold it against her for dragging it out. For hanging on to life, like a limpet clinging to the rocks. She couldn't have known. As a matter of fact, I have held on too. I have wandered Dublin Bay amidst the seaweed and the seals. Yes, the cold sea of Ireland is full of seals. The sea is icy. The seals are the only ones who enjoy themselves. They grow and multiply like loaves, by the grace of God. Fucking like sea rabbits. Lying on the rocks ready to receive the recognition of their peers. The seals, in French phoques. A delightful word, if ever there was one. I have never got used to it. A delight. It's all in the ear - when people say phoque, I hear fuck. There's no difference, almost none. The way fuck is said in the region that I'm from, with a narrow u sound, closed in on itself, almost shamefully, that pronunciation of fuck resembles the fattest ever sea mammal. When it's said like that, you don't sound very keen. Nonetheless, in my memory, my distant memory, it wasn't bad. Not always great, of course. But oftentimes I gave myself wholeheartedly to the exercise of 'fucking'. An exercise that I classified amongst my favourite pastimes - along with cricket and cycling, of course. It went some way to alleviate the punishment of existence. In actual fact, I received very few complaints about the quality of my services. I almost always gave satisfaction - at least on the job. Poor randy old bugger. I'd be better off going to bed and putting an end to writing and thinking. In actual fact, I don't write any more. I rephrase things. I rearrange them. I reorganize them. I have fun with Hiberno-English or with French, depending on my mood. Somersaults is what I do, in what remains. For example, my newest work, or rather my last one, Stirrings Still. I say to myself, 'hmm, that wouldn't be bad in French' - like a schoolboy with his Latin homework. I do somersaults with my tongue; that's all I have left. I don't write, I scratch away. I beat my retreat. When did I last write? I don't know. I reply to letters, as I was brought up to do. I reply revealing what's left of my poor life. I send news to my old friends, to my English publishers; they're happy that old Sam sends news, that he continues to scribble away. There is something left, they say to themselves. So little is left. Spaces, blanks - the space between. I have so few words left. They have all been worn away, down to the quick. You wouldn't think it but words too can get worn out. Like the seat of your pants. Like the heart. How many words do I really have left? I don't know. A couple of needles left in a haystack. Haystacks again. The same words again, which pirouette and disappear. Today, I have the impression that the page is huge. And that my pen too is limping along. The work of old age. It contaminates everything. Even my letters. My writing is cursive, brief, telegraph-like.

Dear friend, thank you for your letter - stop - Affectionately yours.

Oh, isn't the Nobel laureate long-winded! What rubbish! I'd be better off going to bed and switching off the light. If I fall asleep perhaps I'll find myself in Ireland's freezing seas - an energizing swim, a rejuvenating treatment. I'll open my eyes in the water. I'll allow the salt to turn them red. There might even be mermaids, who knows? I'll dream of seals, phoques.

ASSESSMENT OF MR BECKETT'S INDEPENDENCE

30 July 1989

Mr Beckett can make the transfers 'stands up, sits, lies down' (without any material assistance, leaning on the furniture in his vicinity: armrest, bed, table):

- unprompted, without reminders, explanations or needing to be shown what to do;

- he can get up and down to and from bed;

- without putting himself in danger;

- every time this is necessary and required.

He...