Then my father died, and Angus and I embraced, in tears, over his grave.
The rift was mended; my heart was not.
18
Wrench
What is good for me
Hurts more than what is bad
Isabel
I saw them coming from my bedroom window, walking up the path and then disappearing along the back wall, towards the kitchen entrance. My heart skipped and jumped. For a moment I thought, absurdly, that I would not answer.
I ran downstairs and, on impulse, bolted the door.
Then I unbolted it. I couldn’t lock my husband out. But surely I could lock a stranger out? I bolted it again and ran upstairs, panicked.
“We’re here! Can Clara come in?” Angus called. He must have tried to open the door and found it locked.
I went to sit on top of the stairs and looked out of the bars, like a shy child when visitors arrive at the house.
“No,” I said, though I cringed at how childish it made me seem. How childish I actually was. This whole illness had made me revert to being a frightened child, in a way.
“Isabel? It’s Clara. Please, can I come in and see you?”
I froze. It was a familiar voice, but I couldn’t quite place it. I stood immobile, shaking. “Isabel?” she repeated, and suddenly I remembered.
A hazy recollection floated by – lying in my bed, still under the effect of the pills, and the woman stroking my hair. How could it be?
Suddenly, though most of me was terrified – a stranger at the door waiting to come in – part of me was curious. A little part of me.
But it couldn’t be possible.
Angus and I had established it had been a dream, and someone from a dream couldn’t possibly be standing at my door.
“Look, we’re on the doorstep,” Angus called. “Please, come and open the door.”
I couldn’t resist the plea in my husband’s voice, and the sheer shame of the whole situation overwhelmed me. What would the woman think? That I was deranged.
A side effect of my illness: humiliation.
“Are you okay?” the woman called again, and again I trembled inside.
I walked downstairs, slowly, and unlocked the door.
“Yes. I’m fine,” I said, peeking from the stairs. She was wearing jeans and a cobalt-blue top, and her brown hair was folded on top of her head.
“Is it a bad time?” she asked, a warm smile on her face. Really, genuinely warm, like she was happy to see me. I couldn’t help responding to it, so I smiled back and, to my surprise, my lips actually stretched. A successful smile. Something that hadn’t happened in a long while.
“I think you were in my dream,” I said.
Angus looked from me to the woman as I slowly opened the door further.
“What dream?” Angus asked.
“Remember? I told you. The woman I saw. I think . . . No, it can’t be. Sorry,” I said to Clara, and I blushed. That was absurd. And she’d think I was delusional, on top of everything else.
Once again, Angus looked from me to Clara. I think he was at a loss for words. I had just said that someone from a dream had walked out of my mind and was now standing in my hall. Maybe he thought I really was losing it.
“Sorry,” I repeated.
I had been delirious when I dreamt of that woman, my blood full of chemical poison. I couldn’t even remember her features.
But I could remember her words.
“Bell? Can we go to the kitchen and make some coffee for Clara?”
Angus stood beside me, while Clara hovered outside the door; Clara would not stop smiling like she was bursting with joy – was she really so happy to see me? I stood awkwardly, uncertain as to what to do next, unable to make small talk. Being terrified of going out and terrified of letting people in, I hadn’t talked much to anyone in a couple of years; I had forgotten how to. I wanted to let her in and close the door, but I was frightened to actually have her inside the house. A cold breeze was blowing in.
Clara read my mind.
“If you’d rather not let me in, it’s fine, really, we can have a chat here.”
“Oh. Yes. Sorry. It’s just . . .”
“She—” Angus began to explain, but Clara interrupted him, looking me straight in the eye. Like this was something between me and her.
It felt good. It felt empowering. That for once I was being treated like an adult with a will of her own, not like an invalid that needed to be taken charge of.
“I understand. Really. Are you cold?” she asked thoughtfully.
“A bit. You?”
Angus’s gaze was still moving between us during this conversation he had no part of. Things were clearly going differently from how he had thought. Well, how could I have predicted that the person chosen by him to keep an eye on me had come out of a dream?
“No. But if you are, maybe I could step in and close the door?”
“Of course, sorry,” I said, and let her in, and closed the door, and for a moment it simply felt like the sensible thing to do, before my fears got in the way and started screaming at me.
There she was, inside my house. And I wasn’t shaking, I wasn’t panicking.
“Please don’t worry, I’m happy to stay here,” Clara said. “We can go at your pace.”
But standing on the doormat, even with the door closed, felt silly.
“No, it’s okay. Come in. Would you like a cup of tea? Margherita sent some biscuits. Biscotti, she calls them. You’re staying with them, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I’m renting their cottage. It’s lovely,” she said, following me into the kitchen.
Angus’s eyeballs were about to fall out. I was pretty surprised too. But hey, I would just go with it, until panic took over. Like it always did.
“Please sit down,” I said, and Angus rushed to move the chair for her, as if I would change my mind any moment, while I assembled a teabag and a mug the right way, without upsetting the order in my kitchen and sending me into a spiral of anxiety.
We sat and drank our tea, and it was surreal.
“So, I understand you’ll come and keep an eye on me.”
“Clara will—” Angus started, but she interrupted him. Again.
“Yes. I’ll come and keep you company. So you won’t be alone while Angus is away.”
She made it sound nearly sensible. Or acceptable, anyway.
“I haven’t been well.”
“Yes.”
“So I’m alone a lot.”
“I know.”
“People have been saying to me to just pull myself together. But I can’t.”
“I know,” she repeated, with emphasis. I got the feeling she really understood. “If you’re okay with me coming to keep you company, we can think of things to do. Or I can just leave you alone to do your thing. Think about it, and you can let me know.”
I nodded.
“Did you draw those?” She gestured to the framed illustrations on the kitchen wall.
“Yes.”
“They are so beautiful.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“No. They really are wonderful. Angus, you must feel so proud of Isabel.”
“I am,” he said, with such love in his eyes it was a stab in the heart. Because I was letting him down in that too.
“I haven’t worked in so long. I feel so . . . dry.”
“But it won’t be forever. You’ll get better . . .” she said, but I wasn’t listening any more.
Obviously, I can’t have Clara here . . . She is not Angus or Morag and therefore she is not allowed, something terrible will happen if I let her in. I’ll have to sit with her by my side, trying to block out the terror of having someone in my house, of breathing the same air as her. Maybe I’ll succeed, and I maybe I could grow to like her, but then she’ll hurt me, or get depressed like me and kill herself and I’ll be left alone . . .
“Will you show me more of your work one day?” Somewhere in my mind, her words registere
d and my answer surprised me.
“Okay,” I heard myself saying.
My voice was like a bell above the din of a busy hall, the voices of my fears, crazy, cruel, irrational, struggling to drown it.
“Really?”
“Yes. I will show you,” I said, trying to smile, but this time it didn’t work. I was too scared to smile. What had I just done? I felt sick.
“That’s great, thank you!” She clasped her hands together in a gesture that was nearly childish. I noticed she had a spattering of freckles on her nose and that her eyes were so green in the bright light of the kitchen.
“Right. I’ll let you be. I’ll come back then . . .” She seemed suddenly unsure, as if she feared me taking it back, and she got up to leave.
“Yes. Please do,” I added, and once again, I was infinitely surprised at the fact that I meant it. “But wait, don’t go. You haven’t finished your tea . . .”
She smiled. “I’ll stay another few minutes, then.”
Angus had been looking at us, following the conversation like an outsider. Now I think he wanted to make sure things were settled, so he spoke.
“Bell, Clara will stay with you when I can’t. She will sleep here as well, in the guest room.”
“To keep you company,” Clara added.
“To watch me,” I said.
“Bell . . .”
“It’s fine. Really.”
“Really?” Angus couldn’t believe how the whole thing had gone. And I couldn’t either.
I nodded. Clara finished her tea and her biscotto, then she stood up to go. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then. At . . .” She looked at Angus.
“I’ll be leaving for Glasgow around half six in the morning.”
“No problem, I’ll be here in good time. Bye, Isabel,” she said simply.
“Bye,” I could only say, as if my whole life hadn’t shifted.
As if everything was still the same, when it wasn’t.
I watched her from the window, and I waved. I watched her walk away, stepping in between two wings of rose plants, slow and deliberate like a queen. I noticed a blue butterfly fluttering behind her, following her like a bride’s train.
“So that went well,” Angus said cheerily as he stepped back into the kitchen, but he sounded a bit brittle.
“Yes.”
“So . . . you’ll be showing her your work?”
“I don’t know if I can,” I shrugged. “I haven’t been up there in ages.” I looked up to the ceiling.
“You do your thing, okay? Take your time,” he said softly, and I looked into his handsome face, those eyes so clear and steadfast, the five o’clock shadow of a tired man.
“Okay.”
“And Bell?”
“Mmm?”
“I love you.”
“I love you too. More than anything,” I said, but I couldn’t look at him in the eye, because I felt so ashamed of myself at saying such a thing. I loved him, and yet I had put him through something so terrible.
Still. On Monday all would change, because I’d start to take my medication and all would get better.
“Everyone wants you to feel better, Isabel. Everyone roots for you.”
And I’m so scared I’ll let you all down, I thought.
I kept my face hidden in his chest, where it was safe, and he braided his hands together on my back, to keep me inside the cocoon of his love.
I sat on the stairs to think. It was a favourite place of mine, since I was a little girl. Like a neutral zone where I could escape my father’s silence and my sister’s anger. I played with my hair as I reflected on all that had happened. I hadn’t been to the hairdresser in over a year, so my hair hung long and lank down past my shoulders. I thought it looked sad, but Angus loved it; he said it was like a cascade of silk. Everything that was wrong about me, he made it sound like it was right.
And yes, I would try to get better for him. I would take my medication. On Monday morning, at eight o’clock, I would sit there and take all my drops and pills, like the doctor had said.
For Angus.
And maybe a little bit for myself too.
19
The winding road
The irresistible march
Of things that change
Torcuil
I left little Leo with Lara while I went for some groceries, and then I decided to stop at La Piazza to say hello to Margherita and maybe give her a hand. That was, if she’d let me. She was pretty territorial around her kitchen, maybe because I tended to be useless at cooking, like everyone in my family. Or maybe because it was something just for herself, away from me and away from her children, her own space to be something other than a partner and a mother. I understood very well how she felt. I was longing to go back to the university and back to an everyday routine, with no more emergencies, no more jumping if the mobile rang, in fear of bad news. Just . . . normality. To be with my students and my papers seemed an oasis of peace in comparison with how life in Glen Avich had been. I had taken a few days off last week to be near if Angus needed me, but I would be back at work tomorrow. Much as it pained me to admit it, I was looking forward to it.
He’d phoned me earlier to say that he and Bell were going to spend the day alone at home – he wanted to gauge how her time with Clara had been and help her to accept Clara’s new role in her life, as well as just having some peaceful time together. I remembered a time when this would have broken my heart: years ago, when I was still in love with Izzy and desperately trying to deny it – long, unhappy years, until Margherita swept away the last remains of heartache.
On my way to the coffee shop I looked back at that time with dismay, and relief that it was over. I’d probably erased most of that era from my mind, but there were things from the time just after Izzy had left me for Angus that I could never forget. I couldn’t forget that my eyes were dry, my heart was shut, and I was drifting away on a lonely sea. I had watched my father die slowly while I was cut off from my brother and a stranger to my sister and my mother.
Without Izzy.
I used to close my eyes at night and imagine Izzy coming back to me, and in the little films I played to myself I took her back without question, forgave her without resentment, loved her without reserve, like it could never happen again. During the day, I said to myself I was over her; at night, I was raw with longing. Even after Angus and I made up, after my father’s death; even as “Bell and Angus” became a way to address one single creature, like one could not go without the other; even then, I still loved her.
It was easy to convince everyone I was over her. It was easy for someone like me, who carries his feelings buried deep inside anyway, to pretend. My love for her was buried so deep that nobody could see it any more – at times, not even me. Buried like a lost jewel at the bottom of a black, black loch.
Sometimes I believed my own lie and acted like nothing had happened; sometimes I was sure I would never recover. I went through my life on autopilot, breathing in, breathing out, putting one foot in front of the other, eating and sleeping automatically, because it was necessary for survival. All this made worse by Angus’s and Izzy’s choice to move back to Glen Avich and buy the cottage on the other side of the loch, which had stood empty for a long time. We had made peace, we were close again, so why not? I had been so good at hiding my true feelings, so thorough in deleting all traces of love and loss from the surface of my mind, that Angus could not suspect how seeing them doing up their house under my nose broke my heart. I couldn’t take it any more and took on a lecturing post in London. After my father’s death, nothing tied me to Glen Avich – or so I wanted to believe.
After a few years I came back, of course. Contrary to what I thought, I pined for Ramsay Hall and Glen Avich. I was surprised how seeing Angus and Izzy together – Isabel, she was now Isabel – hurt a little bit less. How I could live with it. Just.
But all this was long ago. Everything changed once again, with Margherita and her children coming into my lif
e.
And here I was, a partner and a stepfather – who would have imagined I would be doing nursery runs, standing among the playground mums and dads, holding Leo’s hand while we waited to step in? And helping Lara to do her homework in the evening?
I was sitting at the window table at La Piazza with a steaming coffee in front of me, watching rain splash on the cars and gather in puddles on the pavement. Debora was sparkling with energy and cheerfulness, as ever. If only I could take a little bit of her and Margherita’s eternal positive mood and pour it inside Izzy like a healing balm . . .
“Any news of Isabel?” Debora asked softly, as if reading my thoughts, and her forehead creased in concern. The shop was empty but for a few pensioners near the fireplace, so there were no curious ears to listen, and Debora had showed her kindness towards Izzy many times, so I was happy to reply. I usually felt protective of Izzy, quite unwilling to share news of her.
“She’s a lot better, thank you . . .” I began. And then I saw Clara from the window, strolling towards the cafe as if she were on a sunny promenade, as if the icy rain didn’t bother her at all. She came in with a warm smile and a gust of cold air, trailing a soaking umbrella with her. After greeting Debora and the girls she sat with me with a murmured ‘May I?’ I waited until her order was on the table so we could speak freely, without being overheard. When Angus and I had spoken on the phone earlier, he’d been unable to tell me about Izzy and Clara’s first encounter – apart from a laconic it was fine – because Izzy was there. I needed to know more.
“How did it go?” I asked at once. There was no need to specify what I was talking about.
“It went well. She is such a lovely person . . .” There was a light in Clara’s eyes, like she was genuinely happy to spend her time with Izzy, and for a moment I was jealous. It was so hard for me to keep in touch with Izzy, to know what she was doing, what she was thinking – but she let a stranger into her life so easily? But then I cringed at my unfairness.
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