Isa and May

by Margaret Forster

  ‘Millions of people share it, I expect.’

  ‘Millions?’ She seemed startled.

  ‘Well, all over the world. I mean, if all the blue-eyed people were examined there would be bound to be millions with our shade of blue.’

  Isa frowned. I had the impression that this inane conversation wasn’t going the way she had intended, even though I had no idea what her intention was. As usual, she was trying to steer me somewhere I was unconsciously refusing to go. But then she seemed to come to a decision. She stopped talking about eyes. She gave her head a little shake, just a quick movement, barely perceptible, but I saw it because I was watching her so intently, and then she took a deep breath and gripped the arms of her chair as though steadying herself. I had no idea what was coming, only a sense that whatever she was about to say was costing her some peculiar effort of will.

  ‘I want to talk to you about that letter,’ she said. I didn’t ask what letter, no need to. I felt guilty that I still hadn’t got round to finding out more. She turned from looking at me to staring out of the window at the other side of the room, so that her fine profile was all I could see – she wasn’t going to look directly at me, which I registered as significant. ‘I have contacted those people myself. It seems,’ she said, tone of voice a touch scornful perhaps, ‘that these, these people, have uncovered a relative. A man in an institution, who has died.’ She raised her chin higher until it looked as if she was straining her neck horribly. ‘He was apparently well cared for, there is no need to imagine maltreatment.’

  ‘What kind of institution? Was he insane?’

  ‘No. I gather he was in some way disfigured. Badly.’

  ‘In some way?’

  ‘I have not enquired. There is no need to imagine an unpleasant story, Isamay. He was said to have been quite content.’

  She turned from looking out of the window to looking directly at me, but only for a moment. I couldn’t quite decipher her expression – was it defiant, or hesitant? – but I knew she could read mine. I could hardly contain my horror. I swallowed hard, sipped some water, and as the very images she had told me not to imagine filled my mind, I said, ‘A man, in an institution, who was . . .’

  ‘A relative,’ she said, quickly.

  ‘Was he your br—’

  ‘A relative,’ she cut in abruptly, ‘that is all I know.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘I really do not wish to discuss this, Isamay. He was a relative. He was left some money the year before he died, and I have apparently inherited it. I shall not accept it, of course. I will see that the institution he resided in receives it.’

  I was silent. I could see that Isa was relieved by my sudden silence but that she distrusted it. She was waiting for the questions I could not bring myself to ask. And why couldn’t I bring myself to ask them? Because they were too enormous to frame, because I was afraid that any answers I forced out of her might appal me. The tinkling noise of Isa’s china cup going back on to its saucer relieved the tension a little. ‘Can I pour you more tea?’ I asked, my voice sounding hoarse, as though I’d been shouting. ‘No thank you, darling, I can pour my own.’ She sounded so gentle, she was being kind to me because she knew I’d let her off an inquisition, though she didn’t know why. It was because I’d realised I could find out about this ‘relative’ myself. We went on to have some idle chat, and then I left. As I said goodbye, and was leaning over her, she murmured, ‘Lovely eyes, just like mine.’

  I thought she looked defiant.

  XII

  IT WAS INCREDIBLE the way everything seemed to slip back to normal between Ian and me. There seemed to be some kind of unspoken agreement that we wouldn’t let any of our worries interfere with our day-to-day living. We were, perhaps, excessively careful with each other, a touch over-considerate (not our usual style), but that was the only indication that there might be more going on under the surface than it appeared.

  Then, one afternoon when I was back from the library early, this apparent calm was interrupted. I was tired, sleepy, quite a pleasant feeling, not at all that awful, draining exhaustion I’d experienced early in pregnancy. I decided to go and lie down on our bed instead of slouching on the sofa. It isn’t a big enough sofa to slouch on anyway – my legs hang over the end. I pulled the blind, one of those wooden slatted ones, because the sun was making the room harshly bright. I took off my shoes but I didn’t take anything else off. I just lay on top of the duvet and almost immediately started to drift. My thoughts trawled idly over what I was writing, over my almost completed dissertation, and then they wandered round my family, little images of them all popping into my head. I was just beginning to try to conjure up a vision of my baby, trying out different faces, different colours of hair and eyes, when something brought me out of my reverie. It was nothing like any kind of noise – it wasn’t a doorbell ringing or a telephone – but something else. I lay there feeling suddenly alert. I can’t say I was frightened. Our flat is in the middle of the house, with a heavy front door to the house itself, and then another, less substantial, but still solid wooden door into our flat. If someone had broken in downstairs they had a long way to go before reaching me.

  I settled down again, convinced I’d simply been on the edge of sleep and had jerked myself awake. There’d been no sound of a door being forced or a window broken, just that feeling of some kind of change in the atmosphere. I couldn’t drift off again, however hard I tried, so I gave up and decided to make myself something to eat. As I got up and went into the kitchen and stood with the fridge door open, wondering what was in there that might appeal to me, there was a knock on our front door, the door leading on to our landing, that is. I thought it would be Maisie, who lives above us. Maisie is a nurse. She works shifts, coming and going at all kinds of odd hours. We don’t really know her, though we’re on friendly enough terms. Twice I’ve rung her doorbell when I’ve lost or forgotten my house key, and she’s obligingly let me in, and several times I’ve taken mail in for her (she seems to buy things mail order rather a lot). That’s not much interaction in four years but it’s enough to make us feel we can depend on each other for help. So I thought it would be Maisie, all apologetic, wanting to ask a favour. I went to the door thinking this would be a good opportunity to invite her in for a cup of coffee – after all, now I was going to have a baby I needed all the friends I could get, especially if they were nurses.

  I flung open the door with an extra bright smile on my face and already saying, ‘Maisie, why don’t you . . .’ but it was not Maisie. It was a woman I’d never seen in my life before, a complete stranger. She was tall, taller than I am, well built and with very obviously dyed blonde hair, parted in the middle and tied back, dark roots showing. She stared at me without saying a word. I was still somehow connecting her with Maisie. ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘sorry – did you want Maisie? She lives in the flat above, but she might be at work. Do you want to go and see?’ The woman shook her head. I waited, confused. ‘Well then, can I take a message?’ Now why I said that, I don’t know. The woman hadn’t even said she wanted Maisie. She hadn’t said anything. ‘Who is it you want?’ I asked, stupidly, wondering if this visitor could possibly have got not just the wrong flat but the wrong house. But someone had let her in. That could only be the Baxters on the ground floor, an elderly couple who kept themselves very much to themselves. If one of them had let this woman in, she couldn’t be visiting them.

  I began to close the door, starting to feel vaguely uneasy. The woman hadn’t answered my query, but to my alarm she put her foot out to stop the door closing. ‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘I don’t know who you are, but—’ ‘I’m Ian’s mother,’ she said, ‘I want Ian. I want to see my son.’ There was a moment of shock, a leaping of my heart, and I put my hand on my chest to quieten it. ‘Ian’s mother?’ I repeated. She nodded. I had registered the Scottish accent. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘you’d better come in – yes, come in, please, but Ian is at work.’ ‘I’ll wait,’ she said. There was no hint
of a smile or any attempt at conversation. She followed me into the kitchen and I put the kettle on. She didn’t sit down, just stood there, stiffly, her handbag clutched with both hands in front of her. ‘Please,’ I said, ‘sit down. Would you like some tea, coffee?’ She shook her head, but did sit down, lowering herself with great caution on to the chair as though it might explode on impact. I cleared my throat, and said I was going to make myself a sandwich, would she like to join me. Again, that mutinous shake of the violently blonde head.

  It doesn’t take long to make a sandwich, but I managed to stretch the simple process out for several minutes, trying to put off sitting down with this woman, who seemed determined to be unfriendly. ‘I’ll text Ian,’ I said, ‘and tell him you’re here.’

  ‘No!’ she said. ‘I’ll wait. I’ll wait till he comes.’

  ‘That might not be for ages.’ I looked at the kitchen clock. ‘He sometimes isn’t home until eight.’

  ‘I’ll wait,’ she repeated, and clutched her handbag tighter.

  ‘Well, maybe you’d like to wait somewhere more comfortable,’ I said, and got up to lead the way to the sitting room.

  ‘I’m fine here.’

  ‘On that hard chair?’

  ‘I’m used to hard chairs.’

  ‘Won’t you at least take your coat off?’

  ‘I’m all right.’

  I hesitated. I’d offered her food, a drink, a comfortable chair, and they’d all been rejected, and rejected quite brusquely. She wasn’t a pleasant woman, for sure. But I wasn’t going to be trapped in my own tiny kitchen, obliged to sit upright across the table from her. I gestured to my bump, though there should have been no need to. ‘I’m going to lie down,’ I said. ‘I need a rest. Make yourself at home.’ She nodded, looking for the first time slightly uneasy. ‘You go along,’ she said. ‘I’m fine.’ So I went. I went back into the bedroom but I didn’t close the door. The kitchen is across a small hallway opposite the bedroom, with the door to the sitting room completing a square. Lying on my bed, propped up by pillows, I had a clear view of Ian’s mother, still sitting at the table, with her back to me. It struck me that I hadn’t shown her the bathroom, but it wouldn’t need much investigation to find it – my door was open, the sitting room door was open; the only closed door was the bathroom’s.

  The scene was as still as a painting. The straight, black back of her, surmounted by the gleaming slick of yellow hair, and beyond, the plain white wall, unadorned save for the round wall clock, itself with a black rim, black figures and white face. The light comes from the north in the kitchen, from the window on the left of the seated woman. It cast no shadows. Her outline was sharp and somehow sinister. I shivered, though the bedroom was not cold, and pulled the coverlet, lying over the bottom of the bed, across myself. I was aware of doing this as quietly as possible, straining not to draw attention to myself. I wished I had closed the door – it was unnerving constantly having that unbending figure in my vision. I thought again about texting Ian, but I was afraid he might not come home at all if he knew his mother was waiting for him. I closed and then opened my eyes constantly, willing her to move, do something, anything. After about twenty minutes she did move. She laid her handbag – an old-fashioned black leather article with one of those vicious metal clasps – on the kitchen table and pressed upon it. The click echoed through the flat, making me jump. Then out of the bag she drew something I couldn’t see. There was another sound, a sound I knew perfectly well, but didn’t immediately identify until I saw the smoke rising. She’d lit a cigarette.

  I was on my feet in an instant. ‘I’m sorry,’ I called out, ‘you can’t smoke here.’ The smoke went on rising, and I saw her hand, holding the cigarette, resting on the table before being lifted again. I went to confront her, repeating that I was sorry but she couldn’t smoke in our flat. ‘We don’t allow it,’ I said, knowing I sounded impossibly prim. ‘We never have done, even before I was pregnant. I hate smoking and so does Ian.’

  ‘Does he now?’ she said, and deliberately took another puff. ‘I’ll just finish the one,’ she said. ‘I don’t like waste.’

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t. I’d rather you stubbed it out and saved it for later.’

  ‘It’s nearly done,’ she said.

  But it wasn’t. She’d only taken three pulls at it and there was still half of a long cigarette left. I couldn’t credit that she could be so brazen, behave so outrageously in the home of someone she had never met. But I couldn’t think what to do. Suppose she turned violent, suppose she knocked me down if I moved to snatch the cigarette from her – I didn’t want to provoke an incident like that. So I did the only thing I could do. I went to the window and opened it wide. It’s only a small window but it can be opened wide on a latch, and I opened it to its full extent. A gust of air blew in at once, sending the things pinned on the noticeboard fluttering and turning the pages of the book left on the table. Ian’s mother was entirely unmoved. She went on smoking until her cigarette was finished and I went on standing stupidly by the window. ‘Have you a saucer?’ she asked, calmly, when she’d finished. I passed a saucer to her. She stubbed out the cigarette end very thoroughly. ‘There,’ she said, ‘you can close the window now and get back to your bed, sweetheart.’

  The ‘sweetheart’ was said with such a sarcastic emphasis that I blushed. God knows what I would have done or said if the phone hadn’t rung at that moment. It was my mother. The second I said, ‘Oh, Mum,’ she knew something was wrong. ‘What is it?’ she said. ‘What’s happened? Is it the baby? Are you—’

  ‘No, no,’ I said, ‘I’m fine. Ian’s mother is here.’

  ‘Ian’s mother?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Heavens. Can you talk?’

  ‘Not really. Later, I’ll ring you later. I’ll ring back.’ And then, ridiculously, I said, ‘That was my mother.’

  ‘I heard.’

  ‘I’ll have to go and call her back.’

  ‘You do that, dearie.’

  There was that same unpleasant stress on the ‘dearie’ as there had been on ‘sweetheart’. I looked at her for a minute, trying, but failing, to outstare her. ‘I don’t know your name,’ I said.

  ‘I’m Ian’s mother.’

  ‘That’s not a name.’

  ‘It’s all you need to know about me.’

  ‘How unfriendly.’

  She gave a little grunting laugh. ‘I’m not here to be friendly, darling.’

  ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘I want Ian. I want to see my son.’

  ‘You’ve just seen him.’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  ‘But you rang, and he—’

  ‘I rang but he didn’t come.’

  ‘He hasn’t been in Glasgow with you?’

  ‘He might have been in Glasgow for all I know but he wasn’t with me.’

  I believed her. Everything she said, she said with such absolute conviction, firmly, no room for doubt in the way she said it. So where had Ian been? I tried to remember exactly what he’d told me when he came back: very little. It was true he hadn’t actually said he was with his mother. I felt so stupid – Ian lived with me, he was my lover and friend, the father of my child, but what did I really know about him? I tried to tell myself that I knew all the things that mattered. I knew he was kind, thoughtful, intelligent, considerate, honest – honest? Honest about everything except his past, about where he came from, how he had been brought up, who he had loved, how he had fitted into his family. I’d accepted his argument that these ‘details’ were irrelevant to who he is even though I didn’t agree with him. I’d accepted him as he’d wanted me to accept him: as himself, now. But faced with this alarming woman who is his mother I suddenly realised, with a sense of fear, that I’d been wrong to do that. This woman, and her place in Ian’s life, could never be described as irrelevant to him.

  She was sitting there, confident and complacent. I couldn’t bear it. ‘Excuse me,’ I said, and this time as I le
ft the kitchen I closed the door, and then once in my bedroom closed that door too. I had to speak to Ian, actually speak to him. I rang his mobile. It was turned off. I thought about ringing his work number but I didn’t have it – I’d never needed it, I’d never thought of asking for it, I always used his mobile. So I rang my mother instead. ‘I’m coming round,’ she said, after I’d blurted out an account of the interchange with my visitor, and rang off before I could object.

  Mum has her own keys, both to the main house door and to our front door. Ian’s mother would think it was Ian coming home when she heard Mum coming up the stairs – briskly; she’s very fit and does everything briskly – and putting her key in the lock. I wasn’t going to warn her. Why should I? She hadn’t had the courtesy to tell me her name. I’d let Mum have the advantage. She’d take this rude woman on and deal with her. So I lay there, now very wide awake, and waited. It normally took Mum about twenty minutes to drive over, but if the traffic had begun to build up already then maybe half an hour was more realistic. I listened intently for the sound of her car coming down our quiet street. She has a Peugeot, which has a distinctive engine noise I know well. As soon as I heard it, I would get up and be ready (though ready for what? I wondered).

  Mum didn’t arrive within half an hour. But Ian did.

  It is hard to put all the things that happened that evening into chronological order, even though they didn’t happen simultaneously and it should be simple. Order vanished, the way it does during any kind of drama, and these events were dramatic. But though I didn’t learn of Isa’s death until the end of that day, I have to record it first because it wiped out for a while everything else that had taken place.

  What happened was this: Mum was just getting ready to close her front door, to drive over to me, when the phone rang. It was a very frightened Cosima asking her to come quickly. She thought that Mrs Symondson had had a heart attack. Mum went straight to Isa’s, but by the time she got there, Isa was dead. Cosima had phoned 999 and an ambulance came remarkably quickly, but Isa could not be revived. There is to be a post-mortem because Isa had not seen a doctor for a long time and had seemed in excellent health. To say, as I repeatedly did, that I didn’t believe it could be true was feeble – where was the grief I should have been overwhelmed by? – but it was my genuine reaction. I didn’t believe it, partly because it seemed impossible for my grandmother, whom I’d spoken with so recently, now to be silent for ever, and partly because there was so much I needed to know from her. The impossibility of now ever being able to know it couldn’t be accepted. After the initial distress, I felt dismay, even anger, not grief, which was all wrong, and I was ashamed.