Isabella: A sort of romance

by R. A. Bentley

  "I don't think so. Why?"

  Bella doesn't answer. "Is Simon here?"

  Jacqui's pretty, doll-like face remains inscrutable. "Is that why you came? He doesn't live here now. He left ages ago."

  Bella struggles to make sense of this information and fails. "No, I thought . . . actually I thought . . ." She is not, in fact, at all sure what she thought. She is beginning to feel strangely floaty and dissociated and wonders if she might be about to faint. Perhaps she is not quite better yet. "What about Jo," she says, "and the others?"

  As if this were some sort of cue, Jacqui abruptly turns and closes the door. For some reason she locks it. "I don't see them any more," she says and there is an odd catch to her voice. She comes and stands over Bella with her hands on her hips, looking threateningly cross, but also a bit upset.

  "You've been very naughty," she admonishes. "You were very naughty to mix up the indoor cats and the outdoor cats – it took us ages to sort them out – and you went off and left me at the party, which was horrible, and you made me jump off that wall when I wasn't ready and I sprained my ankle really badly and it's not right even now and you've been really unkind to me and I've never done anything to hurt you, ever."

  It is all undeniably true. Bella wonders if she should make some sort of apology but before she can begin to frame a reply, Jacqui suddenly bends down, takes her upturned face in both hands, and, in the manner of one who will brook no argument, kisses her passionately on the lips.

  It is a very long, very sweet kiss, interrupted only by the more demanding aspects of getting them both undressed. Bella finds herself watching their lovemaking with a sort of detached fascination. It is someone else, not her, who is fumbling shakily with Jacqui's buttons and bra, and someone else, not her, who is eagerly lying back and lifting her bottom so that Jacqui can pull off her jeans and drawers. It is, of course, perfectly clear what has happened; her mother, cunningly exploiting her tiredness and confusion, has staged a coup and seized control of her body. No other explanation will suffice. Probably it was Mummy's idea to come here. She must have known exactly what to expect. Bella knows she should fight – as, indeed, she has fought these many months – but the room is warm and cosy and the taste of Jacqui's lips is so very like she imagined the beautiful nun's would be. "But I don't know what to do," she protests. "I've never . . . "

  Jacqui seems amused. "I hardly think you can use that one twice! It wasn't very convincing the first time. Anyway, keep the noise down or you'll get me chucked out."

  *

  Bella sits on a hard, plastic chair. Her hands grip the turned-down edges of the seat and her knees are tight together. She looks dully out of the window. People are wandering the gravel paths, bundled up against the cold. Some of them are accompanied by nurses or have visitors and relatives with them. She wished she were outside too, rather than in this hot little room.

  "So," says Doctor Chuckar, setting aside his pen. "How are you today, Bella?"

  "All right, thank you," says Bella.

  "No cats?"

  Bella is confused. "Did I tell you about that?"

  "Why yes, last week. Don't you remember?"

  Bella doesn't. With all the stuff they're giving her it's hard enough to remember who she is, let alone what day it is. She decides she will make eye contact. Normally she hates doctors. Doctors don't listen. Doctors take advantage. She is, however, suspending judgement on this one; he seems quite nice. He is smilingly fat, like an amiable Buddha. He has dark brown skin and remarkably long earlobes. His aura is a rich, glowing, plum colour.

  "I don't want the drugs. Do I have to have them?"

  "Why is that? Aren't they working?"

  "I don't know. I don't know what they're supposed to do."

  For some reason the doctor seems pleased with this answer, at any rate he smiles. He scribbles something on his pad and asks again, casually, "And are you still seeing the cats?"

  "No, not here. There aren't any here."

  "Oh? Where are they then?"

  "On the heath. Only on the heath."

  "I see. That is Tenstone Heath?"

  "Yes."

  "That is where you are living?" He looks at her notes. "Windy Point."

  "Not now. I live with my friend, in Bradport."

  "Ah yes, Railway Gardens. Windy Point is your next-of-kin: Mr and Mrs Aubrey-Hole. These are your parents?"

  "Uncle and aunt. It's Commander actually. Commander and Mrs."

  "Commander, sorry." He makes the correction.

  "Except he's my father really, but we don't talk about it."

  "I see." He shoots her a glance and makes another note. "Are you still married, Bella?"

  "Yes, but he's away just now."

  The doctor nods. He leans back and gazes at her for a while. "Tell me why you came to us."

  "Don't you know?"

  "Yes, but I want you to tell me, in your own words."

  "Well, all right. Basically because Jacqui, my friend, said I should."

  "Because of the cats?"

  "That, and the trouble with my mother. She thinks I'm mad."

  "Your mother thinks you are mad?"

  "No, Jacqui does."

  "Is that what she is saying?"

  "Not in so many words, but that's what she thinks."

  "Do you think you are?"

  "No. But then I wouldn't know, would I? How would one know?"

  The doctor nods his apparent sympathy with this conundrum, many small nods. He is a great nodder, a nodding Buddha. He would make a good car ornament. When he nods, he purses his brown lips making little dark creases in them and looks thoughtful. When he asks a question, he looks over his glasses and raises his eyebrows. His voice is a singsong.

  "What is the problem with your mother?"

  "She's in my head. She died – that is, the body died – and I inherited her soul. I didn't mind that too much, but now she seems to have taken over."

  "I see." Nodding.

  "The problem is, I don't know any more which is me and which is her. I don't know whose feelings are whose. It's very confusing."

  "I see."

  "I mean, I knew it would happen, but I thought I wouldn't know about it because we'd become sort of merged, like one person, so it wouldn't matter, but I do, so we can't be, can we? Merged, I mean. I can't seem to handle it any longer. I think it's making me ill."

  The doctor nods again. "Is she talking to you, your mother?"

  "Yes, when she's not sulking."

  "You hear her voice?"

  Bella was expecting this. She knows what he's thinking. Who can blame him? She's not about to tell him she can hear her, although it sort of feels like that. "No, no," she says, "not hear. It's more of a think, if you know what I mean."

  "She is telling you what to do?"

  Bella rolls her eyes heavenwards. "Yes, often."

  Another note on the pad. "And what is she telling you to do?"

  "I . . . don't think I want to go into that. Not just now."

  "It is bad things?"

  "Maybe. I don't know. I'm not sure." She looks at his face. "I mean," she adds hurriedly, "not wicked things, like stabbing a stranger at a bus stop or something. It's just stuff in our own life, private stuff."

  "And are you hearing other voices?"

  "No, of course not," says Bella indignantly. "Anyway, as I said, it's not a hear, it's a think. She thinks something to me and I think something back. That means we must still be separate, doesn't it?"

  The doctor continues to gaze at her, his head on one side. It's not what one would call an intrusive gaze, just kindly and sympathetic. Bella definitely warms to him.

  "Generally," he says, "if someone is coming to me and saying they are troubled by cats that no-one else can see, and that their deceased mother is talking to them, I am inclined to call them delusional. Can you accept that?"

  "But it's not just me that sees them," protests Bella. "You should ask McNab. He even plays the fiddle for them."

/>   *

  Bella turns her face to the pale winter sun and stretching out her arms, twirls round and round. "Isn't it a lovely day? It's lovely to be outside in the fresh air. They keep it like an oven in there and you can't open the windows."

  Jacqui shivers. "It's cold. The wind's cold."

  "You're too soft. We'll have to toughen you up." Bella grabs her hand. "Come on, lets go to the beach. I want to show you something."

  "The beach! It'll be perishing!"

  "No, it won't. The wind's in the northeast. Look at the weathervane, see? It'll be nice and sheltered under the cliffs."

  Jacqui hangs back doubtfully. "Are you sure you're allowed?"

  "Of course I'm allowed: I can go where I like. It's not Broadmoor, you know. Come on, we haven't got long."

  "Oh dear," sighs Jacqui, suddenly looking miserable as well as cold.

  Bella tugs sharply at her hand. "Hey, no long faces, now! You're supposed to be cheering me up. Did you get my fags?"

  "Yes, but —"

  "Come on then, hand them over."

  "I really don't think you ought to be smoking," says Jacqui, digging them out of her anorak pocket. "You'll get hooked. You never used to. Why start now?"

  "I already am hooked, that's why I need them. Lighter?"

  Bella lights up, inhales deeply and blows out the smoke in a long, happy sigh. She doesn't cough or feel dizzy or anything; it's like coming home. She leads the way briskly through the deserted, wintry grounds, down a low cliff via a sloping zigzag path and through a white picket gate, marked, on the outside, 'Private. The Arnold Dunnock Hospital.'

  As she predicted, it is quite sheltered in the lee of the cliff. They cannot, in fact, get onto the beach, the tide is right in, so they turn and walk along the broad promenade instead. On their right is a long row of brightly painted beach-huts, stretching almost to the harbour entrance. On their left is grey sea. Big, cold-looking waves rear up, curl impossibly over and collapse with a hollow thud before sliding back in a rattle of shingle.

  "The sea, the sea!" cries Bella, making a great show of breathing in the ozone. "There can't be many loony-bins right by the sea. Aren't I lucky?"

  "Don't call it that. It's horrible."

  "Call what what?"

  "Call it a loony-bin. It's horrible."

  "Well that's what it is, isn't it? It's a madhouse and I'm mad. That's why I'm here."

  "You're not mad, you're just ill. You mustn't say you're mad, I hate it."

  "Well, I am. I must be, or I wouldn't be here." She takes another drag at her cigarette, rather negating the effect of the ozone.

  Jacqui turns in front of her. "You are not mad. If you say you're mad, you'll make me unhappy. Do you want to make me unhappy? . . . Well, do you?"

  "No," says Bella sulkily.

  She tries to walk on, but Jacqui grabs her by the elbow. "I love you, Isabella Jane! Do you love me?"

  "Yes," says Bella, though as usual her tummy goes all tight when she does so.

  "I think you're a bit funny today, aren't you?" says Jacqui. "You're all up and down."

  "Probably," admits Bella.

  They stop and kiss, leaning against the iron railing. Jacqui slips her arms inside Bella's long, unbuttoned coat, clinging tightly to her and resting her curly blonde head on her breast. "I'm missing you terribly," she says. "I'm so lonely without you."

  "You've got Mrs Wren," says Bella.

  Jacqui pulls away from her. "That's a horrid thing to say! What's the matter with you? You're not supposed to say that, you're supposed to say you miss me. Why do you keep saying horrid things?"

  Bella doesn't reply.

  "Do you miss me?"

  "Yes," says Bella, somewhat grudgingly.

  "Oh Bella!" Jacqui sounds close to tears. It's never very hard to move her to tears. Animal cruelty, soppy puppies and kittens, the ghastly romances she favours, they'll all do it.

  "I'm sorry," says Bella. "Of course I miss you. It's just that I'm pretty fed up, obviously."

  "I wish I hadn't made you come here," sighs Jacqui. "I feel awful now."

  Bella shakes her head. "You didn't make me come. I wouldn't have come if I hadn't wanted to. I really thought it might help, but it hasn't. Not yet anyway."

  "Not at all? Don't you feel any better?"

  Bella considers this. "Well, it's true I don't get a lot of hassle from Mummy just at the moment, and there are no Jellicle cats here, which is nice."

  Jacqui sighs again and looks discouraged. "Are they giving you anything?"

  "Just the blue pills now. It used to be a tray-full." Bella suddenly assumes the stance of a bent old woman and croaks: "You'll be fine once you've taken the pills, dear. They'll see you all right."

  Jacqui smiles. "Who says that?"

  "Elsie. She's about a hundred and ninety, I think. She's the first person who said anything to me. The trouble is, it's all she ever does say, over and over again. Most of the people here are much madder than me. Some are in a terrible state."

  "Oh dear, this is awful," cries Jacqui. "I don't want you to be here; I want you to come home. Why don't you come home? I'm sure I could make you better. I'd love you better." Reaching up, she puts her arms round Bella's neck and begins to kiss her again, rather desperately. "You do love me, don't you? God, I want you so much. It's been ages." She glances both ways along the empty promenade. "I wish there was somewhere we could go. It's so cold!"

  Bella suddenly realises that she has, despite herself, become extremely fond of Jacqui. She is not at all sure she loves her (certainly not carnally; she'll leave that to her mother), but she is undoubtedly fond of her, even though she can be dreadfully silly sometimes. She turns and begins carefully to count the beach huts.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Counting beach-huts."

  "Yes, but why?"

  "Twenty, twenty-one," says Bella. "That one."

  "What about it?" asks Jacqui eagerly. "Can we get into it?"

  Bella smiles. "I told you I had something to show you."

  Like all the others, the hut is locked, but nail sickness and the winter gales have caused a plywood panel, part of the rear wall, to become loose. Bella pulls it open and forces her way inside. It is rather a tight squeeze for Jacqui who gets stuck, giggling.

  "I've got a fat bottom."

  "No, you haven't, I like your bottom. Anyway, at least you've got one, not like me. Mind that spike."

  The plywood springs back behind them, leaving them in semi-darkness. It is, however, surprisingly warm, smelling slightly of pine resin, mould, and something vaguely fishy, probably last summer's seashells. Dusty sunbeams stream in from between the heavy shutters that cover the door and windows.

  "Ooh look, it's got chairs and a table, and even a bed!" exclaims Jacqui. "Well, a sort of bed." It is a blue-and-white airbed, only partially inflated. Jacqui prods it with her foot. "I don't think it would be very comfortable like that, do you?"

  "We'll just have to blow it up, then, won't we?" says Bella briskly. "Come on, let the dog see the rabbit." She falls to her knees, extracts the little plastic tube and begins to puff. At first she doesn't seem to be making much headway, her head swimming with the effort of it; then, gradually, the flaccid vinyl begins to firm up.

  Why is it always she that has to do these things? She has gradually become aware that Jacqui, having made all the running early on, now expects her to be the dominant partner in the relationship. She is not sure she cares for it very much, not wishing to be compared with the odious Jo. Was her mother like that? Surely not? Assertive, certainly, with the usual rather daunting upper-middle-class bark, but not, well, butch. Then again, she did have a penchant, in later years, for severely tailored trouser suits and she once tried a cigarette holder.

  "There!" she says at last, breathing heavily. "Hard enough for Madam?"

  "That's fantastic," says Jacqui admiringly. "You can do anything." She takes off her anorak and stretches out on the airbed, testing it by bouncing vigoro
usly up and down. Her equally pneumatic breasts bounce too, the nipples prominent beneath her sweater. She puts her arms out to Bella and smiles.

  Bella, kneeling over her, can feel her mother's rising desire. In a couple of minutes they'll be naked in each other's arms, in a couple more, inside each other. She knows she could just get up and walk out, and that would be that. She would have regained control. She could go away, a long way away, far from the cats and the Stones. She could go to London again and get a job, maybe even get her old flat back. But instead she shrugs off her coat and begins to pull her top over her head. Perhaps it doesn't really matter. Perhaps it doesn't matter any more who loves whom, or whose desire it is. Perhaps it would be best if she just went with it. Perhaps if she does, the merging process will be complete and she won't know any different.

  "It'll be our secret place," says Jacqui happily. "You are clever!"

  *

  Bella sits in bed with her knees up, gazing out of the window. She can see lime-green buds bursting in the treetops and beyond them a strip of blue, hazy sea. She has her own room now, in a different part of the building. She is not sure why. The nurses here are more deferential. They no longer stand in noisy groups when she's trying to sleep, cackling over some tidbit of gossip; or talk about her as if she's not there, or do things to her without asking. Do they, perhaps, consider her dangerous? There was that little spat with some stupid, raving woman, before she was moved, but it was nothing really.

  "It's almost like a hotel here, isn't it?" says Miranda brightly. "Peaceful, nice view, telly, room-service; I could do with some of this myself."

  "We can swop if you like," says Bella. I'm fed up with having no-one to talk to. At least in the other bit there were people to talk to."

  "Does Jacqui still visit?"

  "Yes, Wednesdays and Sundays."