Isabella: A sort of romance

by R. A. Bentley

  "For what?"

  McNab takes another long pull at his bottle. "For ma windae o opportunity."

  Bella ponders this. "McNab, are you telling me you can't perform unless you're drunk?"

  McNab shakes his head. "No drunken. Mair nappie, ye ken. It's a verra creetical state."

  "And how long will it take?"

  "Whit's the hurry?"

  "It's just that I feel a bit awkward, standing here."

  "Humph, I thocht ye liked makin an exheebeetion o yersel." "Not when I'm dressed like some sort of rural retard, no. All I need is a pitchfork and a straw in my mouth."

  McNab takes another swig before rooting about once more in his anorak. After a good deal of searching among the numerous pockets, he fetches out a handful of small change, mostly silver.

  Bella frowns. "I thought you were broke."

  "Ah ne'er said that. This is ma wirkin caipital ye ken. Ne'er lat gang o yer caipital — first rule o business." Taking out his fiddle he places the empty case in Carol's lap and seeds it artistically with a few ten and twenty-pence pieces plus a carefully placed one pound coin. "Fowk winna gie if they dinna see ithers hae," he says, tapping the side of his head. "Psychology." Carefully counting out the rest of the money he puts it into Bella's hand. "See that wee cake shappie? Git yersel a coffee an somethin tae eat, an a Belgian bun for Carol."

  "But I want to watch," protests Bella.

  "Ye can watch from there weel eneuch."

  It is cosily crowded in the shop, and the rich smell of cakes and coffee makes Bella's mouth water. It is almost her favourite smell, next to chocolate. Picking her way to the window, she takes a seat at an empty table.

  The waitress is young and pretty, with a nice, unspoiled aura. She writes down the order then reads it back. "One coffee, black; one apple Danish; one Belgian bun. Anything else? Oh, the sugar's all gone. I'll get you some more."

  Bella smiles. "I know that accent. Where are you from?"

  "Bradport. It's on the coast. Do you know it?"

  "I ought to, I was born there. Well, Tenstones, actually."

  "How many are there then?" says the girl archly.

  "Nine!"

  They laugh. It's so lovely to hear that cosy, reflexive R again that Bella feels suddenly homesick. Not just homesick but Stone-sick. They are calling again, far more strongly this time, reaching out to her, drawing her towards them; no longer the timeless sentinels of her childhood, but helpless and demanding, like newborn infants. She aches to go to them, must go to them, without delay. At the same time, she realises she is getting an altogether different, initially unidentifiable, urge. A cigarette! She wants a cigarette, and she has never smoked!

  Bella is acutely disappointed. She had almost come to believe it was a false alarm, a psychic aberration, that she would be able to go home to Simon and Terry, have many more carefree years. Now she knows it's really happening. Her mother is dead and she has inherited her soul, vices and all. But why does it come and go like this? For days she has felt nothing. This morning, even, there was nothing. Only since she walked in here have the alien feelings reappeared.

  The girl brings the coffee and cakes, edging sideways between the close-packed tables and bending over her to set out the plates. Genuine blonde, Bella notices. "You smell nice," she says. "What is it? Is it new?"

  "Joely," says the girl. "It's quite an old one, actually. Don't you know it?"

  Bella shakes her head, feeling foolish. She smiles her thanks, but inside she is in turmoil. She is gasping for a ciggy (it has already become a ciggy), she has found herself enquiring about a teenager's ghastly scent, and she has ordered black coffee! She hates black coffee. Was there also something else? An oddly misplaced emotion she has felt just once before. But no, she's not even going to consider it. She must be mistaken.

  Bella sips her coffee – which, surprisingly, is not that bad – and tries to appear normal, tries to relax. Life is going on just as it did before. People are still chatting, eating gateaux with little forks, laughing over some piece of gossip, wiping crumbs from the corners of their mouths. Nothing has changed, she tells herself, nothing real, just a few rogue neurons firing inside her head. It must be possible to handle this. Plenty of others have done so before her.

  One thing is clear: even after several days, her mother's psyche is still as separate-seeming as before the crash, if not more so. Just for those few moments she had the strangest sense of standing outside herself and watching; almost as if it was someone else ordering black coffee and asking silly questions of young women. Perhaps this is how it's supposed to be? Perhaps she won't have to sacrifice her own personality after all. Perhaps this mother-within-her will remain permanently separate and distinct, and, she dares hope, mostly quiescent. Perhaps if she can just learn to control her, prevent her from coming to the surface and embarrassing her like that, then all will be well. Anyway, whatever happens, she isn't going to take up smoking. You'll just have to go cold-turkey, Mummy. Sorry.

  All this time she has been gazing at McNab, who is still in his place across the street, squatting against Woolworths' shopfront, with Carol sitting straight-legged beside him. Now, however, he drains his bottle and tucks it in his anorak. An instant later he is up and playing — that amazing transformation.

  In the narrow street the fiddle is remarkably loud, loud enough to hear above the noise and chatter of the crowded shop, and people are turning in their chairs to look. But there is another sound too, and Bella suddenly realises that his hobnail boots, inaudible in the mud of the camp, are beating out a complex percussive accompaniment. It's as if his great, oversized feet are another instrument, giving the music an added richness and urgency as he struts and stamps and dances, now in a skipping circle, now on the spot, now up and down the street, now serenading, now importuning, now surrounding some unfortunate shopper in an electron whirl of movement and sound until, in desperation, she reaches for her purse. Sometimes he is briefly lost among the crowd, but even then his strange and threatening aura is clearly to be seen, brilliant red and flashing, almost a tangible thing, beside which the soft pastels of more ordinary folk seem tenuous and insignificant.

  And the money pours in, as Carol passively accepts their offerings, along with the curious peering and prodding that is her lot. Then abruptly he stops, scoops her up – money, fiddle-case and all – and is gone, only to reappear a moment later at Bella's table, wild eyed, swaying and horrible of breath.

  "Damn n blast 'em! It's aye the same. Jist as ah wis gettin intae ma stride."

  "What on earth's the matter? You were doing so well."

  McNab screws up his face in anger. "Twa foukin pigs, that's whit's the foukin maiter!"

  "But you haven't done anything wrong, have you?"

  "Whit's that got tae dae wi it?" rages McNab. "They'll think o somethin; or mak it up." He puts on a sing-song voice and wags his head from side to side. "Ye're causin an obstruction. We've haed a complaint. Ye hinna gat a licence. They'd tak ma money an' aa, maist likely."

  "McNab, I'm sure they wouldn't take your money," says Bella, reasonably. "Look, they're moving away now. All you have to do is wait a few minutes and then go back."

  "A few meenits!" cries McNab, tottering unsteadily. "Ah hinnae gat a few meenits! Ah hae tae play the nou!" Raising his fiddle and bow, he manages, with difficulty, to bring the two together. "Ach, the damned thing's oot o tune. D'ye hear that? The foukin thing's oot o foukin tune dammit!"

  Bella shrinks away from him and glances around her. The little waitress is hovering awkwardly nearby and people are staring, or trying desperately not too, depending on the proximity of their table. "Well at least keep quiet," she hisses. "You'll get us chucked out."

  "But they want tae hear me," whimpers McNab with tears in his eyes. "They want tae hear me play." And with that he collapses to the floor, bringing a chair and the tablecloth down with him.

  *

  Bella leaning on the parapet of a little bridge, peers down into the cle
ar, shallow water. It is shady here, beneath the overhanging trees, but where the low evening sun breaks through she can just descry shoals of tiny fish darting among the waving green weed. "Hello fish," she says. Picking up a fallen twig, she drops it on the upstream side of the bridge then steps smartly to the other to watch it come drifting by. "My twig," she says firmly. "My twig, my body, my mind. Okay?" How wonderful that possessive pronoun now sounds. People who have never had to share their head with someone just don't know they're born.

  It's quiet and peaceful here by the river but her feet hurt in her hateful wellies and she is beginning to be tired and edgy. The Tenstones pull at her relentlessly and she finds her thoughts constantly drifting back to them. Also, she greatly regrets the loss of her apple Danish. Glancing towards McNab, she fancies he is at last beginning to stir. He is some distance off, lying on the grass of the riverbank. Carol is sitting quietly on a bench beside him, watching the ducks.

  Bella wanders slowly back to them. McNab has indeed moved; he has turned on his back and is snoring swinishly, his aura spread over the grass like a pool of blood. In repose he is even more ugly, if that is possible, then when awake. His mouth is a dark cavern in the stained and matted red of his beard, and with every seismic snore his purplish, toper's nose noticeably vibrates. He has at last unzipped his anorak – it's a wonder he doesn't cook in his own juices – and she cannot help noticing that his rather lightweight shorts now contain a well-defined tumescence of alarming proportions. Clearly all his extremities are disproportionately large; how utterly disgusting! Planting a boot on his chest, she begins to shake him.

  "Ergh, gerroff," mutters McNab. "Ah'm no in the muid for it."

  Bella shakes him again, harder. "Bloody wake up will you!"

  McNab opens his eyes and stares blearily up at her. "Och, it's you."

  "Yes it's me. Are you going to lie there all day?" demands Bella.

  "Hou lang hae ah bin oot?"

  "Five flippin' hours!"

  McNab nods philosophically. "Par for the coorse. Whaur are we? A cell, nae dout."

  "No, some sort of park."

  McNab raises his bushy eyebrows, sits up and gazes delightedly about him. "Sweengs! C'mon, Carol."

  Bella follows him. "McNab, we still haven't got any petrol."

  "Och, there's plenty o time for that. Will we gie ye a wee shue, Carol ma dear? Sweeng me ower the gairden wall, Obediah do? Jist lat's git ye sattelt in."

  "Perhaps you'd like to tell me what we're going to buy it with. Buttons?"

  McNab turns and scowls. "They've taen ma gittins agin? Ah mightae guessed."

  "Nobody took your money; you dropped it. Most of it rolled under people's tables and I couldn't find it and then they made us leave. We've one pound thirty left, less ten pence for the lavvy because I was desperate."

  McNab's eyes grow wide. "Ten pence for the shunky! Ye wiz robbed."

  "The point is, it's not enough."

  "I shoudae thocht it was mair'n eneuch!"

  "The petrol, McNab. I'm talking about the petrol."

  "Ten bluidy pence, an' they dinnae e'en recycle it! They coud tak the urea oot for a stairt. Ye can dae a lot wi' that: fertilizer, animal feed. Then there's the amino acids, hormones – dopamine comes tae mind – an' the vitamins: B6, B12, Riboflavin, folic acid, ascorbic acid. Then there's aa the drugs an' any amoont o salts: potassium, iodine, iron, zinc, manganese, magnesium. It's sic a waste! One poond twenty ye say? That's a gallon, near eneuch. Better'n naethin."

  "And what are we going to put it in, pray?"

  "Ah hadna thocht o that," admits McNab. He bends and peers closely at Carol. "Och, leuk at the state of ye, yer hizzy. He searches in his anorak and fetches out a bright vermillion lipstick. "Nou let's gie ye a nice . . . wee . . . smile. Hmm, that's better."

  "Couldn't you do another busk?" suggests Bella.

  Putting away the lipstick, McNab gives the swing a stout push. Carol wobbles skywards, barely hanging on. "Ah canna."

  "Why not?"

  "Ah've no eneuch hooch left."

  "We could buy you some cheap sherry or something."

  "Pah! Gnat's pee."

  Bella sighs and throws herself down on another swing. "Don't know then."

  The light is beginning to fade now and a thin mist hangs over the little river. For a good while they sit side by side on the swings, kicking idly backwards and forwards and staring at the scuffed earth beneath their feet. McNab finds a stone and moves it aimlessly about.

  "I'm hungry," says Bella. "My tummy's all rumbly."

  "Ay, Carol's as weel."

  "She must be starving, poor thing; you never had her Belgian bun." Getting up, Bella wanders over to a roundabout and begins idly to push it round. There is already a slick of dew on its chipped, red paint. "I can't see much point in hanging around here. We might as well go home."

  "Hou aboot some chips?" suggests McNab.

  "Good idea." Bella reaches into her pocket for the remains of McNab's takings. "Hello, what's this? Oh, wonderful — We're saved!"

  "Bluebell's choker? She'd no hae lat her keep it onyweys; she's awfie ticht. Whit are ye gonna dae wi' it?"

  They are in the High Street again, standing in front of a large, illustrated map.

  "Guildhall, Civic Centre, Law Courts," reads McNab. "Humph, seen eneuch o them. Museum, usurious toilets —"

  "Shut up, McNab, I have to concentrate." Bella moves the swinging choker across the map, sometimes going back to confirm a reading. "It would help if it was horizontal."

  "If ah micht mak sae bauld . . ." enquires McNab.

  "Come on; it's in Tesco's car park!"

  "Whit is?"

  "The petrol money of course."

  The car park is a large one and well filled. Bella immediately sets to work, carefully watching the swing of the choker. It is almost dark and the lights have started to come on. People with laden shopping trolleys stare at them curiously.

  "Will it no tak raither a lang time?" asks McNab, dragging Carol behind him.

  Bella nods grimly. "A hazel wand would be better for this. You can hang on here if you like. No, wait a minute. Look!"

  "I dinnae see onythin."

  "There! A note, under that car." Thrusting the choker in her pocket Bella ducks down beside a new-looking Daimler Sovereign. "It's here somewhere, I saw it move."

  "A paper note?"

  "Of course a paper note."

  McNab flings Carol unceremoniously aside and shimmies right under the car. "Ach, ah canna see onything, it's tay dark."

  "It's there, I tell you. Feel about."

  Bella becomes aware of a pair of well-polished brogues. An elderly man is staring down at them.

  "Can I help at all?"

  "I dropped some money," says Bella, scrambling to her feet. "A twenty-pound note, I think."

  "The man bends slightly at the knees and leaning backwards peers nominally under the car. "I don't see anything."

  "I think it's right underneath," says Bella.

  "Perhaps if I drive off you might see it?"

  "That's nae guid," says McNab, bobbing up from the other side. "If ye dae that it'll blow awa for shuir an' we'll ne'er find it." He picks up Carol and leaning her against the car tenderly brushes her down. "Did ye take a wee tumble then ma cherub? Let McNab kiss it better for ye. Och, now ye've gone an' smudged yer lipstick again."

  "It wouldn't matter so much, but it was my last twenty pounds," explains Bella.

  The man looks at them doubtfully. He begins to move slowly round to the car, peering at the ground. Suddenly he drops out of sight.

  "I say, are you all right?" says Bella, slightly alarmed, but he soon reappears, smiling wanly.

  "Is this is what you're looking for?"

  "Oh, phew! Thanks awfully," says Bella, going to help him up. "You've just about saved our bacon."

  But the old man waves her away. He climbs sedately into his car and drives off, leaving them peering at the note.

  "That's no
a twinty!" cries McNab, snatching at it. "It's a fifty!"

  Bella hugs herself with joy. "Now we can get some chips – double helpings – and a nice bit of haddock and some mushy peas."

  "An' a bottle o real whisky!"

  "And a big packet of McVitie's chocolate digestives! And some makeup and a toothbrush and maybe some cheap shoes with a bit of a heel. My feet are killing me."

  Pausing under a light, McNab examines the note again before carefully folding it diagonally. "Hae ye seen this?"

  "What?"

  "Ye fold it here, an' agin here, an' agin thuslywyse, an' there ye hae it — the Queen's bum!"

  *

  Rinsing her new toothbrush in the horse trough, Bella tucks it in a pocket of her overall and scrambles back through the hole in the hedge. She is making her way across the campsite, avoiding the worst of the puddles, when she sees a vehicle she doesn't remember, a relatively new motor caravan. Standing at the open door is a handsome young woman with fluorescent green dreadlocks, breastfeeding a baby. Despite the chill of the morning she is wearing only a man's striped shirt, unbuttoned for the present purpose, and a pair of very brief lace drawers. Also dyes her pubic hair, thinks Bella, and smiles.

  The woman smiles back. "Hello, you must be Bella."

  "Yes, that's right. How did you know?"

  "Oh, just a guess. There can't be many six foot female psychics wandering about the place. My name's Lizzy by the way. Come and have a coffee."

  "Er, okay. Thanks," says Bella, mounting the step. "I'm five feet eleven and three quarters, actually. Not that it matters."

  Looking around the cramped interior of the caravan Bella is intrigued to find she has entered a veritable shrine to the tarot, the fortune teller's playing card. Framed prints of the Fool, the Pope, the Juggler, the Devil and the Hanged Man cover the walls, and little ceramic tarot figurines line specially made shelves over the windows. There are tarot postcards, tarot greeting cards, piled books on the tarot, a tarot calendar and even a tarot tea-towel, pinned to a cupboard door.

  "You must be Lizzy Tarot," she says, rather superfluously. "McNab mentioned you."