Isa and May

by Margaret Forster

  ‘You can’t know that,’ Dad said. ‘She’s strong, she’s survived this, she’ll survive other things.’

  ‘She won’t “survive” old age,’ Mum said. ‘Nobody does. She’s seventy-eight, she’ll soon start to deteriorate, inevitably.’

  ‘So?’ I said.

  ‘So it would be sensible to be prepared.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Make enquiries, find the best place, get her name down.’

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That sounds so, so . . .’

  ‘Mm. It does. But it’s sensible, to be prepared. She need never know till it’s necessary.’

  ‘And it might never be,’ Dad said, cheerfully.

  ‘Good,’ Mum said, nodding.

  She’s right, of course. Mum is back to rejecting any notion of having May to live with her. Best to make enquiries, be prepared, best to go the alternative route. I wasn’t going to accuse my mother of being heartless, because I know she isn’t. She’s sensible. She knows her own limitations. She knows May. We were all rather quiet, each, I bet, thinking pretty much the same thoughts. Suddenly, Mum said: ‘May took Violet, her mother, into our home but she had to be pushed into it.’

  ‘Who pushed?’

  ‘Violet. Just arrived one day, with all her belongings. Her brother brought her. She told May she’d had enough, she couldn’t manage any more, she needed help to get up, help to dress, and here she was. I was only four, but I can remember the panic.’

  ‘What did May say?’

  ‘I don’t remember hearing her say anything. She was stunned. Violet had always bullied her. When my dad came home he couldn’t believe it. Violet was just installed and he hadn’t been consulted. Everything changed, to fit in with his mother-in-law, and there seemed nothing he could do about it.’

  ‘Where did she sleep?’

  ‘In the parlour, the downstairs front room. That became her empire. We all hated her. May became her mother’s slave, shouted for all day long and half the night to do this, that and the other. Violet wasn’t in the least appreciative. All she did was criticise, nothing was ever done how she wanted it done. It was a relief when she died.’

  ‘How, when, did she die?’

  ‘Two years after she moved in. She had emphysema.’ Mum gave an odd smile, and a twitch of her mouth, as though she was suppressing with difficulty something she wanted to add.

  ‘What?’ I urged her. ‘What were you going to say?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You were, you were going to say something else, Mum. Don’t torment me.’

  ‘I’ve no right to say it. Violet had emphysema, that’s a fact. The doctor had been several times, it was officially diagnosed. And she was vastly overweight, with a kidney problem, plus she had diabetes, I think. May was exhausted. She’d been up all the night before, with Violet bawling for her, she’d been up and down the stairs all night long. I remember in the morning how white she was, and the way she said to Albert, “I’ve had enough.”’

  ‘Jean,’ Dad said, warningly.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Mum said, ‘but I sensed it. It was the way she went into Violet’s room that night. I’d got up to go to the bathroom and I saw her standing outside Violet’s room. Violet had shouted for ages for her to come, which was why I’d woken up. May stood there, her hand on the doorknob, and she didn’t move for a while, then she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. I could see her clearly in the hall light. Then she went into Violet’s room. I went back to bed. The next morning, Violet was dead.’

  ‘Mum, are you insinuating that—’

  ‘No, she isn’t,’ Dad said, crossly.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ Mum said, calmly. ‘I do think May hastened her mother’s death, marginally. She burned the pillows afterwards, two big, soft, expensive pillows . . .’

  ‘Understandably,’ Dad said. ‘They’d be full of germs.’

  ‘She took them into that little garden even before the undertaker had been, and burned them. I followed her out. The boys had already gone out, but I was off school with what turned out to be mumps. I watched her. All I remember, and it’s one of my earliest absolutely clear, reliable memories, is sensing that my mother was frightened and it had something to do with the pillows.’

  ‘Jean,’ Dad said, exasperated, ‘death is frightening. May was just naturally shocked by her mother’s death, and burning those pillows upset her.’

  ‘No,’ said Mum.

  I waited a minute, then I asked Mum if she’d ever talked to May about this. Mum laughed, and wondered how I could ask that knowing May as I do. ‘Of course I haven’t asked her,’ she said. ‘What could I ask? “Mum, did you hold a pillow over my grandma’s face and press it down hard?”’

  ‘I just thought . . .’

  ‘It’s all speculation anyway, all nonsense,’ Dad said. ‘Imagination run wild.’

  But my mother doesn’t do imagination. It never runs wild. She is a scientist, she is not fanciful. It was quite out of character for her to say what she had said, and she’d only done so because of worrying about May and what might happen. Did she also worry that she might be tempted to do to May what she believed May to have done to her own mother? Surely not. Mum would organise things so that the circumstances that had driven May to this action would not arise. I wanted to say this, but instead I said: ‘Imagine, if May did do something like that, imagine her keeping it secret all these years.’

  ‘If I’m right,’ Mum said, ‘she won’t have seen herself as keeping a secret. She’ll have rewritten what happened in such a way that whatever she did was harmless.’

  ‘I’m sure it was,’ Dad said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I mean, I don’t know if she would do that, rewrite history. But where would be the harm, if she did?’

  ‘Depends,’ Mum said.

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On what effect it had on her.’

  ‘You mean, how she dealt with the guilt?’

  ‘No. If she successfully persuaded herself she hadn’t smothered her mother and . . .’

  ‘Jean!’

  ‘. . . and that she’d died quite coincidentally while she was, say, adjusting the pillows, then she wouldn’t have felt guilt. No, what I meant was that it may have made her suspicious of what other people could do to her. Especially me.’

  It was an explanation, of sorts, of why Mum and May are never easy together. It’s possible that May did hasten, maybe just by minutes, her mother’s death, so she may well be suspicious of her own daughter.

  Supervision tomorrow. Claudia will want to see some progress and there is none. So, all day on Sarah Bernhardt, desperately seeking grist to my mill. I knew I had to get the chronology right first – Claudia’s very hot on this. Dates tidy the mind, she alleges. I needed mine tidy, so I applied myself. In 1910, Lysiane Bernhardt’s mother, wife of Sarah’s son, died. In 1912, Lysiane, after a year spent in England with her older sister, went to live permanently with her grandmother. She was thirteen, her grandmother sixty-eight, and not in good physical condition (though still acting). Sarah’s leg, which she’d injured in an accident a few years before (when? Claudia will ask), was very painful and she had been advised that amputation might soon be necessary. In 1915, she gathered her family round her, Lysiane included, and told them she had a choice: suicide or amputation. She’d made her choice: amputation. Her leg was cut off above the knee.

  From this point on, her granddaughter Lysiane’s help became crucial to how she lived her life. She still went on acting, choosing parts where no movement on stage was necessary, and it was Lysiane who organised all the assistance needed. Still only nineteen, Lysiane accompanied Sarah on yet another American tour (she’d been on three already). To her, it seemed a wonderful adventure but it involved a great deal of planning and patience. There were always complications along the way, such as the time Sarah took a fancy to a lion cub, which Lysiane had to care for. She never saw her grandmother as a burden, though (lesson
there for some of us), but as an inspiration, which is what Sarah wanted and intended to be. The message was at all times clearly spelt out by the grandmother to the granddaughter: age could be defied, courage could triumph over adversity. The motto was ‘never stop, otherwise you die’. And Sarah had no intention of dying. At seventy-six, she was still said to be attractive (by whom? Claudia will ask), still dyeing her hair, still wearing beautiful clothes, still appearing glamorous. There was to be no such thing as growing old gracefully or any other way.

  Now, what does a granddaughter make of this? What do I make of it? Is it how grandmothers should be? That’s ridiculous, they can’t all be Sarah Bernhardts, with her looks and talent and vitality. But the point is, should Sarah Bernhardt herself be admired or pitied? Is that kind of defiance towards ageing a bad example to set a granddaughter or a worthy one? If young women need role models, is Sarah Bernhardt a suitable one? Or dangerous?

  I’m hoping that if I throw all that at her, Claudia will be happy.

  She wasn’t, of course. God knows what is going on in Claudia’s life at the moment – as I’ve said, we have absolutely no personal chat – but I could tell from the moment I walked into her room that we were going to have a difficult session. She wasn’t sitting still, always a bad sign. She was as outwardly composed as ever, but her left foot was swinging slightly. I saw her trying to stop it, and then within a couple of minutes this minor agitation began again. I lurched into Bernhardt, significance of, etc., and she sighed, and then came out with a complicated metaphor along the lines of my dissertation having a scaffolding but that no building ever appears. ‘Where are the bricks? Where is the mortar?’ she asked. Next, she switched to parallels with detective stories: where was my clear line of enquiry? Where was my connection between subjects? What exactly did I hope to prove? Wearily – she was weary; I was made weary by her weariness – she took me through George Sand, Queen Victoria, Sarah Bernhardt (she ignored Edith Holman Hunt, and I didn’t remind her), trying to make me ‘elucidate’ my argument, as she called it. I couldn’t. I just repeated, lamely, that I knew something was there and that I was working my way towards it. ‘In the dark?’ she asked. I said I supposed so.

  Another big sigh, more jiggling of the foot, and then she said she felt the time had come to shed a little light on the murky business my subject matter was proving to be. She said that my approach from the beginning had been far too random, and much too vague. I appeared not really to know what I was looking for and had become too caught up in personal details that had nothing whatsoever to do with what my research was supposed to be about. This had to stop. I must consider whether I wished to continue, or whether if, in good faith, I had led myself up a blind alley and could not get out. Well, I managed to appear contrite and humble, though it was a huge effort. I knew, after all, that she was right and that her reprimand was earned. I promised to shape up by our next session. Then I left, depressed.

  A visit to Isa was overdue, but what put me off going to see her was that I knew it would have to be a long one if I wanted to make any headway with the birth certificate Mary-Lou had sent. It was delicate ground, to be stepped on carefully, or else I’d be warned off for good. So after my supervision with Claudia I rang up and asked if I could come for tea, and as ever Isa said she’d just consult her diary, and then that the following Thursday seemed to be free. I said I’d bring a cake, but was told on no account to do so because her girl always baked a cake on Thursday mornings and would be offended if one was shop-bought.

  She’d never for one moment thought I’d actually bake a cake, of course. Quite right. Ian bakes, though. He likes baking cakes, and bread. I thought he was joking when he first revealed this unlikely accomplishment, but soon found out he wasn’t. His date and walnut is my favourite. Apparently, his grandmother taught him. It’s only the second thing he has ever told me about her, that she made sublime cakes. He claims he can’t remember how old he was when this baking lark went on – when he was around eight or nine, he thinks. He had a hand-written recipe book she made for him but he lost it years ago. Didn’t lose the skill, though. Isa could have enjoyed one of his efforts if she’d agreed to my suggestion that I should bring a cake. Ian would have been only too willing to oblige. He’s always offering to teach me, but I’m happy to let baking remain his department.

  Elspeth, Isa’s ‘girl’, is a woman of about fifty. She was leaving as I arrived. ‘Mrs Symondson is looking a bit peaky,’ she said, as she put her coat on. ‘Tired after her party, I expect.’ The party had been ages ago, but I agreed that must be the reason.

  Isa was sitting in state in her drawing room, the tea tray laid out on the small table at her side. ‘Darling!’ she said, and held out her arms, and I stooped awkwardly and kissed her forehead. ‘My girl has left a cake in the kitchen,’ she said, ‘and the kettle will have boiled. Can you manage to fill the teapot – she will have left it ready – and bring it through with the cake?’ I managed, and was congratulated effusively, as though I’d performed a task of Herculean proportions. Isa did, as Elspeth had said, look peaky, if peaky meant fragile and pale. Her back wasn’t quite so ramrod straight, and her hair, though beautifully brushed, had lost its fullness. But I didn’t ask her if she felt all right – she doesn’t like it. May likes to be asked how she is feeling, and has a long answer ready, but Isa does not. I think it frightens her to wonder if she is not feeling well.

  We had the usual bright, vacuous chat, and then I brought up a mention of the Canadian cousins. I said I’d had a nice letter from Mary-Lou, and Isa said she had had one too. I asked her to remind me how Mary-Lou was related to her, and this kept her happy for a full five minutes, going through the familial connection. I wasn’t really listening properly, and didn’t take it all in, but at what I thought an appropriate moment I said I’d like to have a copy made of Mary-Lou’s genealogical chart and could I borrow the one she’d been given. Isa looked confused. Yes, Mary-Lou had indeed kindly given her a copy but she couldn’t think where she had put it. She would have to ask her ‘woman’ (this was how Mrs Roberts, her cleaning lady, was referred to, to distinguish her from Elspeth, ‘the girl’) to look for it. I asked couldn’t I look, but no, I could not (said very firmly).

  Half an hour passed, tea had been drunk, cake (Madeira sponge) eaten. Any minute she was going to say she was feeling tired and I would be dismissed. I set my teacup down carefully on the tray and said, ‘Grandmama, Mary-Lou sent me something very interesting in her letter. She sent a copy of that birth certificate she told us about.’

  ‘Birth certificate?’

  ‘Of your brother.’

  ‘I had no brother. I had a sister who died. It was all a muddle. I told Mary-Lou. She had muddled up my sister.’

  ‘No, she hadn’t. She knew about the sister, she found birth and death certificates for her. But this is another one, for a boy, born two years after you. Look . . .’ and I gently placed the certificate on Isa’s knee, and handed her her reading spectacles. She studied it intently for a moment or two, frowning, and then rather impatiently thrust it back at me.

  ‘Nonsense,’ she said.

  ‘Birth certificates can’t be nonsense,’ I said, taking great care to keep my tone of voice light. ‘I mean, people are legally required to register births and it’s done in front of a registrar.’

  ‘Mistakes can be made,’ Isa said.

  ‘Very unlikely, Grandmama,’ I said, gently, and then, ‘It’s perfectly possible his birth was something you were not told about. You were not even two. And then later it would have been too upsetting, perhaps, to tell you about it, too painful?’

  Isa sat very still, visibly containing herself. She didn’t look at me, and her head was bent so that I could see the neat centre parting in her hair. It was as though she were listening, as though she were waiting for some signal. Then she looked up and said brightly, ‘I expect you are right.’ Relieved, I said, ‘But isn’t it interesting, to think what might have happened to the baby, why th
ere is no death certificate, or none Mary-Lou has been able to trace? Maybe I should have a go, I could—’

  ‘Leave it alone,’ Isa said, suddenly her true self again, staring straight at me, strong and determined, a figure of authority.

  ‘But I’m—’

  ‘Isamay, it is none of your business. Whatever happened, happened. That is that.’

  ‘All the same, it’s intriguing, it’s a puzzle, and I can’t bear not to know what exactly happened.’

  ‘You will have to “bear it”, as you put it. Forget about this certificate, child. I wish Mary-Lou had never found it. It is of no consequence now. Enough.’

  It was extraordinary the way a little frisson of fear ran through me, a little electric-feeling charge played up and down my spine. It was gone very quickly, but what shocked me was that it had been there at all – how could an eighty-year-old woman who was my own grandmother alarm me to such an extent? She had no power over me, there was nothing she could do, or would want to do, to harm me, and yet there it had been, the twinge of what I’d recognised as fear. I think Isa saw it in my face. She wanted to make amends, and so she smiled, a genuine smile, and gave a little apologetic cough, and said she was rather tired, she had fatigued herself in the garden the day before, and I must excuse her if she seemed fretful. Then she asked me how I was progressing with Sarah Bernhardt and we had a perfectly amiable chat for another ten minutes or so. Then I left.

  I felt uncomfortable the rest of the day, unable to settle to any kind of real work. My brain worried away not so much at the problem of the mysterious brother but at how Isa had reacted. What I couldn’t decide was what her anger revealed. She prides herself on being in control at all times, and any exhibition of anger, however mild, shows a lack of control, in her opinion. She had lectured me many times on this – her attitude to my childhood rages was quite different to May’s. The more I’d screamed with rage in her presence (and I very rarely did so), the more remote she became, the more she rose above my tantrum, determined absolutely to ignore it. I’d end up in a heap at her feet, utterly exhausted with the effort to claim her attention. And then she would very calmly and sorrowfully point out how my display of anger had weakened me: I was the loser.