I for Isobel

by Amy Witting

  Margaret looked delicate, gratified, but faintly astonished.

  There was a silence. They waited for Isobel to scream, I won’t! I won’t! It’s not fair! I won’t go!

  Isobel said nothing. Dreamily, she chewed cold mutton and looked with wonder at past rages. How could it matter whether or not she went to Auntie Ann’s? She liked going there. There was a shelf of children’s books in the old dresser on the back verandah which was her delight and Auntie Ann would give her a glass of homemade lemonade.

  Her mother said, ‘What’s come over you? You look like a cow chewing its cud.’

  Margaret giggled. ‘Perhaps she’s been converted. Saint Isobel of Plummer Street.’

  Knowing what to say was the hard thing. Isobel paused over it, then said simply, ‘I don’t mind.’

  She knew as she said the words that they were inadequate but she realised too—it was a new idea—that there was nothing her mother could do about that. She would have to make do with them.

  After a moment, her mother came to the same conclusion. With a harsh expulsion of breath in the tempo of laughter, she set about a boiled potato and said no more.

  Isobel found her great-aunt dozing on a chair where the latticed roof of the fernery made a patch of shade and dank staghorns and hanging baskets of maidenhair suggested the idea of coolness.

  ‘Trying to catch a breath of air, love. Fancy you walking round here in all this heat.’

  ‘Mum sent me round with the meat press. She thought you’d be wanting it.’

  ‘Well, that was nice of her. Put it on the kitchen table, my petty, and save my old legs.’

  ‘Can I stay and look at the books?’

  ‘Of course you can. There’s a jug of lemonade in the ice-chest. Get yourself a glass of that but don’t go drinking it while you’re hot.’

  Such warnings were the common coin of love to Auntie Ann. Isobel found them silly but soothing and liked being told not to sit on stone or drink water after eating grapes or sleep with the moon shining on her face.

  She sat on the back verandah with a glass of lemonade beside her and a copy of The Wide, Wide World open in front of her. The book had large illuminated capitals at the beginning of each chapter and a coloured frontispiece of two girls wearing white pinafores and long black socks, with a frill of petticoat showing under their skirts.

  Now for a lovely afternoon.

  But it wasn’t as lovely as usual. She was never again going to be happier in one place than another. Grace was like what the priest had said about Heaven, the eternal sunshine which had neither climate nor seasons nor night nor day. At the time she had thought, ‘nice but dull’ and the thought came again. But there was no going back; that was unthinkable.

  She went home in time to set the table for tea, which they ate in most unusual quiet. When she got up to clear away, her mother said, ‘That’s enough, Miss Clever. Leave those dishes alone. Margaret doesn’t mind doing her share.’

  Margaret looked so taken aback that Isobel began to grin in triumph. In time she saw the danger: quietly and without warning, the world had nearly had her. Her temptation was to be not the rage of defeat but the smirk of victory, for practising humility she had acquired power. That was a new experience and dealing with it would be hard.

  The next days passed quietly. The inward light stayed with Isobel, though all she had got from her attempt to gain merit was a material advantage. It was odd that, in spite of her reputation for laziness, she seemed to have less to do now that her mother watched to see that the chores went in strict rotation.

  Over the tea table on Wednesday night, her mother said resolutely, ‘I’m not going to put up with any more of this, Isobel. I want to know what you are sulking about.’

  ‘I’m not sulking.’ Astonishment brought the words out clear and strong, but she felt anxious. There was trouble coming.

  ‘Don’t give me any of your lies. What are you sulking about?’

  ‘But I’m not. I’m not sulking about anything.’

  Think of the inward light and hold on.

  ‘Not sulking not sulking not sulking. You answer me. What are you sulking about?’

  Oh, where was it, the tone of voice that made people believed (even sometimes when they were telling lies)? Isobel could never command it. She shook her head.

  ‘Walking about looking down your nose too good to speak to anyone you nasty little beast. Miss Superior I can read you like a book. Telling me you’re not sulking you brazen little liar. What are you sulking about?’

  But it doesn’t matter, as long as I’m telling the truth. If she doesn’t believe me, that’s her affair. This was so simple she wondered she hadn’t thought of it before. There was another good thing about the state of grace: while that light continued to shine she knew she was telling the truth. Normally by this time she would have begun to think that she must be sulking and lying, since her mother was so sure about it.

  There was a pause, so long that she thought it might be safe to pick up her knife and fork again, but as she stirred her mother said, ‘I want you to tell me what you are sulking about, Isobel.’

  She was really frightened now, wondering how long she would hold out, foreseeing the moment when she would begin to scream and scream.

  She wasn’t going to, not ever. She would think of grace and be still.

  ‘Tell me.’ Her mother’s voice, which had been rising to a scream, turned calm and gracious again. Like somebody getting dressed. Isobel looked up and saw that her eyes were frantic bright. She doesn’t want me to tell her, she wants me to scream. I do something for her when I scream.

  Then she saw that her mother’s anger was a live animal tormenting her, that she Isobel was an outlet that gave some relief and she was torturing her by withholding it.

  Her father used to do that, sitting silently while her mother raged at him, chewing his food slowly, turning the pages of his newspaper deliberately—doing what Isobel was doing now. But one night he had put the paper down with a fierce thump and shown a white face, wild eyes and a mouth gaping as if his tongue was swollen. His chair had crashed over, he had picked up the knife from the bread board and run at her mother, who was cringing away with her head at a strange angle and a meek frown on her face, her hands out in front of her and the line of blood suddenly across her fingers.

  But before that, when he had got up, before she saw how real the knife was and how near, there had been two little glittering points of satisfaction in her mother’s eyes, two little sea-monsters swimming up from…Standing there, the two of them looking at that awful astonishing blood, frightened like two children who had climbed too high in a tree and didn’t know how to get down.

  Peace in the house for a long time after that, a shamed, daunted peace.

  But I’m not doing it on purpose to torment her, thought Isobel, so that’s all right. She didn’t care about her mother’s suffering. Grace was selfish.

  She said, ‘I’m not sulking,’ and this time the tone was right.

  ‘Oh, you…you…you…’ her mother said and stood glaring, words deadlocked in her throat. She pushed back her chair, left her dinner and went into her bedroom.

  Silently, the girls finished their meal and cleared away, trying not to hear the strange yawning noises from the bedroom. At one moment Margaret drew breath and looked at Isobel reproachfully but whatever she had had to say died in her mouth.

  Margaret came home late from school one day, looking tired and dizzy with delight.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘We’re doing a play at school. Twelfth Night. I’ve got a part. Olivia. Miss Ferguson says, is it all right to stay back and practise after school Tuesdays and Thursdays?’

  She looked with sudden fear at her mother’s frown.

  ‘Miss Ferguson says it will give us a much better appreciation of Shakespeare.’

  Margaret often began sentences with ‘Miss Ferguson says…’ Miss Ferguson was young and slender. She wore her fair hair cut very
short and spoke calmly and boldly even to the headmistress, Miss Blundell.

  ‘Well…’ Mrs Callaghan shrugged. ‘I suppose so. Just see that you’re home at a decent hour, that’s all.’

  Margaret’s face relaxed.

  Why, Margaret’s beautiful, thought Isobel.

  It was an opportunity for grace, not minding that. She had to tell herself so, quickly.

  There were real boys in the play, from the Boys’ High School. Miss Ferguson the miracle-worker had talked Miss Blundell into it. Miss Blundell had called the cast together, told them what standard of behaviour was expected of young ladies and what confidence was being placed in them. Jessica Long, who was going to play Viola, performed Miss Blundell’s speech for her friends in the playground, pulling her face into a delicious dewlapped solemnity, and Isobel was one of the crowd who gathered to watch, so she heard about the boys, though Margaret didn’t mention them.

  Isobel saw the seven exotic creatures (troubling in face, strangely satisfying in shape) crossing the playground, looking resolutely casual, on Tuesday afternoon.

  Margaret came home at half-past five, tired, full of private joy, and sank into a chair.

  Grace was wearing thin for Isobel. She had to do something quickly to affirm it. She shut her book, got up and began to set the table.

  Since the scene at the tea table, her mother had spoken to her as little as possible, instead darting looks of luminous hatred at her—real hatred, no mistake about it. She needed armour against them, but then, she had it, not shining on the outside, but so long as she had the light inside, she was safe.

  Now her mother said, ‘You leave that alone. It’s Margaret’s turn.’

  Margaret got up unwillingly and Isobel sat down, with grace still endangered. She could make a gesture, like saying, ‘How did the rehearsal go?’ but Margaret might think she was playing on their mother’s annoyance. So she would be playing on it. She was jealous, and jealousy was no insect. She had better be quiet and concentrate on grace.

  Margaret went to bed early. When Isobel came in, she found her propped against pillows, studying her part, her face peaceful and intent as she murmured, ‘By mine honour, half drunk.—What is he at the gate, cousin?’

  Shakespeare belonged to Isobel. It was hard to bear the sight of Margaret, so beautiful, and taking his words to herself. Grace, grace.

  She got into bed in silence, thinking, ‘I should offer to hear her,’ but knowing that would be asking too much of herself.

  Margaret said, ‘Isobel?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Don’t tell Mum about the boys, will you? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s all right, but, you know…’

  Isobel was too astonished now to be jealous. Margaret was speaking to her in an ordinary voice as if she was a friend. Trusting her not to tell, too.

  ‘No, I won’t tell.’

  ‘Oh, thanks.’ She murmured, ‘A gentleman! What gentleman?’

  Things could change. That was the breathtaking thought.

  Thinking Shakespeare belonged to her—that was an insect, all right. Shakespeare belonged to everybody, like God.

  The play was a good thing, like a window opening, or at least air coming in from somewhere. Mrs Callaghan resented it, muttering as Margaret learned her part, ‘You ought to be doing your homework instead of wasting your time on that…’ She wanted to say ‘rubbish’ but was daunted.

  ‘But Miss Ferguson says this is real study, just as important as homework.’

  Isobel was beginning to feel sympathetic, anxious because Margaret did not scent danger.

  Margaret came home one evening later than usual, as the immoral dark was beginning to fall.

  ‘Where have you been till this hour?’

  ‘Play practice.’ Her eyes and her tone were remote. ‘There’s just this one scene we simply can’t get right. Miss Ferguson had us going over and over it.’

  ‘She’s got no right, keeping you out till this hour. I’ve got a good mind to ring her up and complain.’

  Margaret looked alarmed. ‘She said we could go if we had to get home. I didn’t think that it mattered.’

  ‘You didn’t think. You never do think. You see that you’re home here at a decent hour or there’ll be no more play.’

  Margaret said sharply, ‘I couldn’t be expected to let them down now. You said it would be all right. If it wasn’t you should have said so in the first place.’

  Mrs Callaghan looked as if she had walked into a wall. She didn’t recover in time to answer.

  Next rehearsal day Margaret was late, but not as late as last time. Mrs Callaghan was waiting, so tense that Isobel got nervous and began to set the table because she couldn’t sit still and was more nervous still when that brought no comment. When Margaret came in, her mother took a small brown-paper bag from the shelf beside the clock. Margaret turned pale at the sight of it and stood silent as her mother emptied the contents onto the table: a small sample box of face powder, a little tube of vanishing cream, a tiny sample lipstick and two pots of colour.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘It’s just some makeup, for the play.’

  ‘For the play. For the play. You are chasing boys. Coming home at all hours hanging about God knows where. Chasing boys. That’s why you’re painting yourself up, I know. If it’s for the play, why have you got it hidden, I’d like to know? Wrapped in your underclothes. For the play!’

  Margaret shouted, ‘I will not have you going through my belongings. I have one drawer to keep my things in and that is little enough. That drawer is mine and you will leave it alone. Please.’

  Her voice was thin, her anger was forced and fragile—Isobel thought of the butterflies whose outstretched wings make an angry mask to frighten off the predator—yet it worked.

  Mrs Callaghan cowered, white-faced and speechless, then burst into moaning lamentation: ‘Who’d have children? Heartless and ungrateful. Give up everything you’ve got for your children and what do you get? Abuse. Speaking like that to your widowed mother. What will it be next? Cigarettes, I suppose, and God knows what else.’

  Her voice throbbed with tragedy. She sounded very funny, and Isobel laughed.

  She came to herself in dismay, startled by her mother’s true suffering look. No more grace then. She sat appalled, still as a mouse, making a frantic act of contrition and waiting for pain to start. It did not start. Darkness did not set in. She had got half-way through the silent meal before she could accept that the light would go on shining.

  A narrow escape, though, and she wished she knew why she had been spared. If only there were rules to keep, to be safe. It was the moment to pray for guidance, but she didn’t want to bring her case to the attention of Head Office, which might decide to correct the original mistake. If God made mistakes, he certainly wouldn’t want to hear about them. But the saints were different. She wished there was a saint in charge of grace, the way Saint Anthony was in charge of lost property. Somebody to pray to, to give her some help.

  So began her study of the saints, on Saturday afternoons in the Public Library. Lives of the Saints, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints… she found out at once that grace was every saint’s business, and they had some very funny ways of keeping it, wearing hairshirts, sitting on pillars—anyone who needed to wear a hairshirt, she thought, had a pretty easy life to begin with. She didn’t want to be like them—she got a fright at Saint Augustine’s cry in the garden, ‘Not yet!’ To think that one could have everything—love, talent, friendship, what he called ‘the warmth of kindred studies’, a taste for the theatre—and have to give it all up. Moral, stay out of the gardens. Still, she went on reading, fascinated by these holy men and women because, ratbag or martyr or angel of mercy, they had the world beaten, they were sure of themselves and made short work of parents and even of children. (How could Perpetua leave her baby? But she could, and that gave Isobel a glimpse of a splendid freedom in having no choice.)

  As for keeping the state of gra
ce, there was one message that came through, always: give up, sacrifice. ‘Having sold all her goods to feed the poor…’ ‘He distributed his great fortune among the poor of the city…’ Isobel had a few possessions to which she was attached, books, an enamel brooch and a china dog, but who would want them? They wouldn’t go far in feeding the poor, either.

  Then the funny side of it struck her and she began to grin. Thinking about feeding the poor, indeed—she was ‘the poor’.

  Meanwhile, the play was losing its glamour and becoming a trial and a burden like ordinary life. Margaret whispered her lines with a worried look, trying different intonations. It had become ‘Scenes from Twelfth Night’ and they had given up the idea of public performance. It was put on one afternoon at the Girls’ High School and one afternoon at the Boys’. Margaret, in a borrowed long green dress looked pretty but was a stick, and so was Jessica Long, so brilliant an actress in the playground. Malvolio and Sir Andrew Aguecheek carried the day, but altogether, they were lucky to escape without disgrace.

  It was impossible to tell whether Margaret was glad or sorry that it was over. Her feelings were no longer to be read. She had a new friend, Louise, and spent Saturdays at her house; the alliance with her mother had gone for ever.

  Isobel was left to witness her mother’s sufferings, which were real and ludicrous. She walked about white-faced, repeating, ‘Who’d be a mother? Who’d be a mother? You do everything for them, you give up everything for them and what do you get for it? Forgotten as soon as it suits them, they’re gone without a thought. Heartless ungrateful children.’

  She spoke not to Isobel, but in her hearing, wanting her perhaps to repeat the lament to Margaret, or inviting her to a new alliance. Isobel kept her mind averted, but thought it was strange, as she speeded up her polishing of the kitchen floor, that she should be hurrying through the chores in order to desert this misery and go and read about saintliness and brotherly love. She could not help it; grace told her to withdraw and she did what grace demanded, though it was more of a holding position now than an inner joy.