The Queen of Whale Cay: The Eccentric Story of 'Joe' Carstairs, Fastest Woman on Water by Kate Summerscale
As Joe’s body slowly gave out she took comfort from the fact that she was shrinking: ‘I’ll be Wadley-size when I die.’ Maybe, at last, she was becoming a boy-doll. To sustain the illusion, Joe guarded her privacy: even at her weakest, she would not let her nurse wash the front of her body. When she became incontinent, the nurse provided her with waterproof underwear. ‘They make these for men, don’t they?’ said Joe. ‘Get those.’
She discouraged friends from visiting because she could not stand for them to see her ill. But she did not neglect her appearance. Joe loved to have her hair brushed, would not leave her bedroom without being properly dressed, and even before going to the bathroom put on foundation and lipstick – a bright red streak. ‘I look good,’ she would say. ‘I know. I can’t hear, I can’t see, but I look good.’
Joe fell into a coma on 18 December 1993, a few weeks short of her ninety-fourth birthday. As she lay unconscious, her nurse placed Wadley in her arms and gently brushed her hair. The nurse whispered to Joe that it was 9.40, hoping that if she heard the words nine and four she might believe she had reached the age of ninety-four, the hour she had appointed for her death.
Joe died that night. The cat Bean knew when she was gone: he strolled into her room for the first time and sat near the head of the bed to watch her. In the morning a man from the undertakers’ came for Joe’s body. His name was Todd.
Wadley and Joe were cremated together. Their ashes, with those of Ruth Baldwin, were taken from Florida to Long Island, where a memorial service was held in a Presbyterian whalers’ church. As a souvenir for the mourners, Jackki had photographs of Joe and Wadley spliced together. The two are reproduced at the same height, but Wadley’s bulk is such that he is a giant to Joe’s elf. The remains of Joe, Wadley and Ruth were placed in a tomb near the sea.
* * *
When I was completing this book, more than two years after Joe Carstairs’ death, I again visited her goddaughter Jane Harrison-Hall. She asked after Lord Tod Wadley and I told her he had been cremated.
‘Oh! that saddens me,’ said Mrs Harrison-Hall. ‘Poor Wadley. How could she?’
Untitled
The human touch
Is often disappointing
Although I cannot say
I’ve suffered much
I still maintain
That friendship
Should be true and loyal
And rare
And so
I’ve chosen one
Whose brown-eyed stare
Is straight
And undeceptive
He is always
On my side
Although he doesn’t
‘Yes’ me
His quiet
And unobtrusive ways
Are such
That boredom
Never enters in
My praise of him
Is such
That if I ever
Dared begin
To phrase
My praise
Its echo
Would not cease
To ring
And so
To cut this story short
I’ll tell you all
He’s only 13 inches tall
Half doll
Half boy
Half real
Half toy
My mascot
Lord Tod Wadley
M. B. Carstairs, circa 1955
Notes
Among the books I have used in research are The Story of the Bahamas by Paul Albury, Nightwood by Djuna Barnes, In Memory of Dorothy Ierne Wilde edited by Natalie Clifford Barney, Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie, Smouldering Wood and The Winding Stair by Hans Jacob Bernstein, Tallulah Bankhead by Jeffrey L. Carrier, Lot’s Wife: Lesbian Paris 1890–1914 by Catherine van Casselaer, The Rockefellers by Peter Collier and David Horowitz, Powerboat Speed by Kevin Desmond, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers by Lillian Faderman, Djuna: the formidable Miss Barnes by Andrew Field, No Man’s Land by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Monkey Gland Affair by David Hamilton, Sacred Cowes by Anthony Heckstall-Smith, Serious Pleasures by Philip Hoare, John D. Rockefeller by Silas Hubbard, Who Killed Harry Oakes? by Michael Leasor, Every Other Inch a Lady by Beatrice Lillie, The White Witch of Rosehall by Herbert George de Lisser, Ten, Ten, the Bible Ten: Obeah in the Bahamas by Timothy McCartney, The King over the Water by Michael Pye, Fast Boats and Flying Boats by Adrian Rance, Arch of Triumph by Erich Maria Remarque, Marlene Dietrich by Maria Riva, Bahamian Society after Emancipation by Gail Saunders, Motor Boats by F. Strickland, Loving Garbo by Hugo Vickers, Rejuvenation by Grafting by Serge Voronoff, Speed: the authentic life of Sir Malcolm Campbell by J. Wentworth Day, Amazons and Military Maids by Julie Wheelwright, Orlando by Virginia Woolf, and the memoirs of Molly Coleclough, John Edward Johnston-Noad and Joan Mackern. Thanks to the estate of Bettina Bergery, c/o P. S. Thacher, Stonington, CT, USA, for permission to quote from Bettina Bergery’s contribution to In Memory of Dorothy Ierne Wilde. Thanks to the estate of George Platt Lynes for permission to use the photograph of Joe Carstairs on the frontispiece and that of Helen Volck; the picture of Joe Carstairs in her museum is by D. Scherman/Life/Katz; and the unknown woman on a beach by Philippe Halsman/Magnum. Other photographs were provided by friends of Joe Carstairs (see below) or courtesy of her estate.
Most of the stories in this book were provided by those who knew Joe Carstairs, as were the photographs and tape-recordings I have used. For their help and generosity, many thanks to Esther Albury, Myrlyn Allen, Victor Azzara, Katja Beck, Nicolette Bethel, Ernest Callendar, Claudine Callendar, Bradley Callendar, Julie Canavan, Peter Chester, Doris Cook, Margaret Craft, Kevin Desmond, Mary Donahue, Eileen Dupuch, Rivers Fletcher, Patricia Francis, Vanessa Francis, Jane Harrison-Hall, Madeleine Harrison-Hall, Hilton Harvey, Irene Harvey, the Reverend Prince Hepburn, Mary Hinck, Bart Howard, John Jessup, Major Gerald Leonard, Bill Lightbourne, Muriel Lightbourne, Anna Nemec, the late William O’Brien, Crofton Peddie, Doris Pratt, Maria Riva, Peter Riva, Eric See, Oliver Sinnicks, Caroline Skeates, Binney Slater, Betty Thompson, Joe Visone, Emmanuela Visone, William Wong and Bachoo Woronzow. Special thanks to Hugh Harrison, and to Kim Aranha, Marjorie Austin, Ann Azzara, Dorothy Edwards, Charlotte Landau and Jacqueline Rae.
My thanks to Kate Goodhart, Charlotte Greig and Joanna Prior at Fourth Estate, London, and to Kathryn Court and Laurie Walsh at Penguin Putnam Inc., New York. For their ideas and encouragement, many thanks also to Will Cohu, Hugh Massingberd, Susan Feldman, Claudia FitzHerbert, Eric Bailey, Matt Seaton, Ruth Picardie, Wycliffe Stutchbury, Tamsin Currey, David Jones, Stephen O’Connell, Daniel Nogues, Eileen Vizard, Ann Dowker, Ian Parker, John Pitcher, Kathy O’Shaughnessy and – especially – to Miranda Fricker, Keith Wilson and Valerie, Juliet and Ben Summerscale. Thanks most of all to Christopher Potter, my editor, to David Miller, my agent, and to Robert Randall.
'Tuffy, 1905'; Marion Carstairs aged five
Evelvn Bostwick, mother of Marion Carstairs
Thought to be Albert Carstairs, father
Nellie Bostwick, maternal grandmother
Charlotte, who lived on Whale Cay with Joe in the 1940s
Jorie, who lived on Whale Cay with Joe in the late 1950s
Ruth Baldwin
A few of the 120 pictures of girlfriends in Joe's collection, including Mabs Jenkins (a), Helen Volek (b), Blanche Dunn (c)
A few of the 120 pictures of girlfriends in Joe's collection, including Gwen Farrar (d) and Teddie Gerard (e)
Joe Carstairs wearing a moustache
Joe Car stairs (standing, left) with other members of the Women's Legion, Dublin, 1918
Joe with Ruth Baldwin (left) and another friend on board Sonia, early 1920s
Molly Coleclough, Bardie Coleclough and Joan Mackern with an X Garage car, circa 1922
Joe Carstairs in Newg, circa 1926
Gar Wood, Joe Carstairs, Joe Harris and another member of her crew, late 1920s
Joe Carstairs racing Estelle II at Detroit, 192
Mabs Jenkins and Joe after a successful day's hunting in India, 1931
Joe Carstairs in the Museum at Whale Cay
The Great House at Whale Cay, completed in 1936
Joe Carstairs with Jackki at a fishing tournament in the 1950s
The Reverend Julian Henshaw, priest on Whale Cay
Joe Carstairs with Lord Tod Wadley, late 1920s
'Narcissus', a portrait of Wadley in the 1920s
Joe with Jackki in the 1980s
Wadley in the 1970s
Studio portrait of Joe Carstairs’ girlfriend Ruth Baldwin, circa 1930.
Joe Carstairs sketched by a friend in the 1920s.
Ruth Baldwin sketched by a friend in the 1920s.
Carstairs (far left, seated) and other members of her school hockey team, 1915.
Carstairs (far left) with Joe Harris (next to her) and other guests at a boat club lunch in the 1920s. Her girlfriend Mabs Jenkins is fourth from the right.
Pages from an X Garage brochure produced by Carstairs and her friends in about 1921.
Pages from an X Garage brochure produced by Carstairs and her friends in about 1921.
Articles about Carstairs in the Daily Telegraph in 1930, the New York Journal in the early 1930s and the Daily Sketch in 1936.
Articles about Carstairs in the Daily Telegraph in 1930, the New York Journal in the early 1930s and the Daily Sketch in 1936.
From an article about Carstairs published in the Saturday Evening Post in February 1941.
From an article about Carstairs published in the Saturday Evening Post in February 1941.
Some of the inhabitants of Whale Cay in about 1940. The schoolroom is pictured on the left.
Some of the inhabitants of Whale Cay in about 1940. The schoolroom is pictured on the left.
Carstairs’ US naturalisation certificate, issued in 1951; a notice she pinned up in the Great House at Whale Cay.
Carstairs on Whale Cay, circa 1940.
KATE SUMMERSCALE is the author of the number one bestselling The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2008, a Richard & Judy Book Club pick and adapted into a major ITV drama. Her first book, the bestselling The Queen of Whale Cay, won a Somerset Maugham award and was shortlisted for the Whitbread biography award. Her most recent book is Mrs Robinson’s Disgrace. Kate Summerscale has also judged various literary competitions including the Booker Prize. She lives in London.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
The Suspicions of Mr Whicher
Mrs Robinson’s Disgrace
First published in 1997 by Fourth Estate Ltd
This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © Kate Summerscale 1997, 2008
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Kate Summerscale, The Queen of Whale Cay: The Eccentric Story of 'Joe' Carstairs, Fastest Woman on Water