I for Isobel (10 page)

At last Mrs Bowers would call out from the kitchen, ‘What are you two doing in there? Knocking the house down?' or ‘Not so much noise, please!'

Norman then would grow silent and sullen, shrug his shoulders and say to Tim, ‘Coming down the street for a milkshake?' and Tim, with an exaggerated hangdog look, would follow him out.

One bridge night—she had come nearly to the end of
Framley Parsonage
and was bent intently over her book—she felt a light blow to her cheek, like an insect alighting, and put up her hand to trap a ball of paper.

Norman was looking at her with a fierce grin. ‘It's alive! It breathes!'

She lifted her book as a shield and to hide the excitement which was making a fool of her face. Her heart was thudding, too. She held the book in front of her face until her heart settled and she could involve herself again in the troubles of Mark Robarts. As soon as the excitement had passed, she was ashamed that such a little notice should cause such a flurry.

Two nights later it happened again. This time she was ready; she caught the ball of paper, cried with delight ‘A love letter,' stroked it smooth and added with disappointment, ‘It's in code.'

Norman said impudently, ‘Why would I be sending you a love letter?'

‘Why would you be sending me anything else?'

She was delighted to be invited to join the games young people played, and flattered herself she did it well. (Elegant and spirited: ‘La, Sir!')

Betty said, ‘I don't think it's a love letter.'

‘Oh, well. I shan't decode it then.' She crumpled the paper again and returned to her book.

After that, she read in peace and some disappointment, for a week or two.

She was wriggling, trying to find a better position, holding her book to the light, when Norman called to her, ‘Careful, Isobel! You'll ruin your eyes! Men never make passes at girls who wear glasses.'

‘Seldom,' she amended. ‘That's the line. Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses. And where did you learn that? Did someone recite it to you?'

She looked up and found his gaze fixed on her, tense and dull with hatred. The invisible knife again. This time, after the the first jolt, she was not sorry. If it was not a game but a battle, she was glad to fight it even though she wouldn't have had the nerve if she had known.

It was sad that the admired Betty was looking at her coldly and said, in a voice as cold as her look, ‘It's your bid, Norman.'

She saw no sympathy anywhere, but surely she was entitled to read, had seen to it that she inconvenienced no-one. People who wanted her to give up reading were asking too much without offering anything in return. Right behaviour didn't work unless everyone practised it. Well, now she knew where she stood; there was comfort in that.

She was more at home in the kitchen. where she had the status of a domestic pet. On Saturday afternoons she was fed tea and cake and listened to the conversation of Mrs Bowers and Mrs Prendergast. Mrs Prendergast was an admirer of death, entranced by its ceremonies, awed by its sudden captures, marvelling at its rare defeats. Small coffins and large funerals, broken hearts and lovely wreaths travelled on the placid unchecked stream of her conversation. Mrs Bowers was the enemy of sex and marriage. Her attitude towards sex was simple: it was a disagreeable penalty imposed on the goodlooking; having served her own time, she grew peevish with plain girls who did not know their luck. While Mrs Prendergast reminisced, she turned the pages of papers and magazines looking out for a mention of the enemy, to read it aloud, saying to Isobel with discreet disgust, ‘You're better out of that sort of thing.'

‘Doesn't know what she's in for,' she would say, of poor brides, rich brides, scandalous brides who must surely know what they were in for, while Mrs Prendergast would be reminded of a funeral that forestalled a wedding, or one that followed close after.

Isobel thought of them as the Fates; she listened passively while she drank her tea.

Mrs Prendergast, though her subject was grisly, had a weird talent for anecdote.

‘I had such a nasty dream about Fred Williams. It's left me all upset. Poor Fred!'

‘Why, what's happened to Fred?'

‘Well, nothing so far, I suppose. It was this dream I had the other night. I dreamt I was talking over the fence to Gladys, asking her for a bit of brown veiling to trim a hat. She said yes, she'd be glad to oblige. She went inside and came back crying, saying Fred was stretched out dead on the kitchen floor and would I come in and lay him out as she didn't fancy the job. I didn't fancy it either, but I said, Seeing you've been so obliging in the matter of the brown veiling, I suppose I can't refuse.'

‘Fred looked healthy enough when I saw him last. That was Thursday.'

‘Not for long, you can be sure. It's a predomination. Fred's not long for this world. A fool of a dream, too. I wouldn't have seen brown veiling on a hat in twenty years.'

‘I wouldn't mention it to Gladys, if I were you.'

‘I wouldn't think of it. I'm a sensitive. I see many a thing that I wouldn't mention to the person concerned.'

‘I hope you haven't been dreaming about me. Have another slice of cake, Isobel?'

Isobel inquired of her stomach, whether it had recovered from Mrs Prendergast's dream. It could manage another slice of cake.

Mrs Prendergast horrified, yet Isobel persisted in listening. In her mind there was a cold collector intent on information at all costs. She was a collector of useless objects and Mrs Prendergast was one of them.

Typing classes were misery. Shorthand was not so bad; she could see the sense of shorthand. Also, the students of shorthand worked in groups, taking dictation from a teacher—one didn't have time to get to know anyone, but one didn't work in a dehumanising solitude. She excelled, so moved quickly from group to group—a sustaining experience.

In the typing class she sat at the hated machine with a wooden hood covering hands and keys (why grope when one had eyes?), forcing her fingers into an unnatural poise to lend strength to the little fingers she would well manage without (why not make typewriters to suit hands, instead of forcing hands to suit typewriters?), timing her efforts by the second hand of the large clock on the wall, pestered by the incoherent rattling of keys, while other damned souls round her competed in solitude against themselves, and thinking that this was a reasonable presentation of Hell. Devout gratitude to Aunt Noelene was all that kept her from getting up and running wildly away.

When she got back to the boarding house, walking down the side path and through the back door to avoid the dining room, Mrs Bowers would call from the kitchen, ‘Is that you, Isobel? I've kept your sweets.'

This roused conflicting feelings: warmth and gratitude—it was astonishing to be remembered—but uneasiness, because she felt more return was needed than she could give. It was different from the Saturday afternoons when she was a passive listener; response was needed. But mostly, listening was sufficient, since her mouth was full of custard tart, jellied fruit or apple pie, so that she could only nod.

The information she got was interesting. Madge's vice was a strange religion: sitting around in their nightshirts saying Oompapa and staring at candles. ‘Not in this house, I said to her. Do what you like outside but I'm not having altars and such stuck up in your bedroom. Doesn't do any harm though, I suppose.' (Better, no doubt, than the Other Thing.)

Betty had been the guilty party in a scandalous divorce.

‘Love letters printed in the newspapers, everyone reading her business, lost the lot, house and children, left without a penny, and after all that, His Lordship stays with his wife and leaves her high and dry. Making the same mistake again by the look of it. Some women are like that; where they tripped once, they'll trip again.'

Mrs Bowers sighed painlessly over human folly as she poured Isobel a cup of tea.

Mr Watkin's great undertaking was a stud book. He followed and recorded the fortunes of dynasties of race horses. ‘He has his little bet, never too much. He's a quiet, steady fellow, a real gentleman.'

Isobel, as she listened, tried on each life to see how it would suit her. Not to be the fool of love, never! Madge's life had its charm—she could see the attraction of a small, exclusive religion; the trouble was, bringing oneself to believe in it. Madge worked in the morning in the boarding house, cleaning and laundering, she went out to do the marketing, she worked in the afternoons and some evenings as a doctor's receptionist. She might need a religion. But needing it didn't provide it.

It was Mr Watkin's life that approached her ideal, the private room, the cabin furnished with pieces of one's own choosing. Work and good weather, that was all it needed. Mr Watkin strolled down the street after breakfast to buy his morning paper, came back and sat on the back verandah to read it very thoroughly, did the crossword, came to lunch, retired to his room to listen to his wireless, looked forward to his game of bridge but could endure to be disappointed of it, was calm, self-contained and self-sufficient. But one needed work, some substitute for Mr Watkin's stud book.

Going to Business College had brought her the pleasure of eating out. Sitting in the café eating fish and chips with her book open beside the plate, reading, at ease, nobody caring, she felt, for the first time she could remember, really at home.

She enjoyed the experience so much that she extended it to Saturday. At the office, one worked either Thursday evening or Saturday morning. It was always Saturday for Isobel because of the Business College, but she did not mind that. She finished work at twelve, changed her books at the library and swung happily down George Street towards the Glebe. Stopping for sandwiches and coffee was an extravagance, since she could have gone back to the boarding house for lunch, but Aunt Noelene had allowed for a little fun, and this was her idea of fun, although probably not Aunt Noelene's. She found a coffee shop at the top of Glebe Road, stayed for an hour reading in University Park, then walked back to the boarding house, paid a courtesy call on the two Fates in the kitchen, then went upstairs to read in her room, alone and at ease again. On Saturdays it seemed easy to live happily.

Rita was engaged to be married. She came into the typists' room on Monday morning in the wake of her outstretched left hand, drawn along in a dream by the diamond ring on her finger. Her friend Nell ran to hug her, Olive came to admire the ring; Isobel followed, wondering what to say. She knew one didn't congratulate the girl, one was supposed to congratulate the man; she didn't like to say, ‘Good Luck!', though she meant it—in the face of Rita's drunken happiness, the thought that luck was necessary gave pain. Finally, she too admired the ring, though it seemed an odd thing to do.

They heard Mr Walter's step.

Olive said, ‘You can tell us all about it at lunch time.'

They took to their desks and uncovered their typewriters. Rita was too happy to eat lunch. In the showroom, where the staff ate their sandwiches at a corner table, she waltzed, hands clasped before her, gazing into the eyes of her engagement ring, singing, ‘Oh, how we danced…', tipsy with love.

‘Hey, mind the glasses!' said Frank. ‘There's not a man on earth worth a dozen stemmed cut crystal.'

Isobel said, ‘My landlady doesn't think there's a man worth one small moulded liqueur glass.'

‘Ah! She'd be the one with the chip!'

Everyone laughed. Even Olive. They were all enlivened by Rita's beautiful absurdity.

‘If you knew my Stephen! My Stephen is worth more than all the glasses in the world!' She was off again, spinning slowly away from them and returning.

‘Practising the bridal waltz,' said Frank.

‘That's right. You're all coming to my wedding, girls, and who's going to catch the bouquet? Who's going to be next? Olive?'

Olive shook her head sadly. She and her boyfriend had been going out for six years; they could not marry because of family problems.

‘Nell?' Nell blushed and hung her head. It seemed likely that she would be next.

‘Isobel! I bet Isobel has something tucked away. You never can tell with the quiet ones.'

Isobel sighed. ‘If Mr Richard doesn't speak soon, I'll have to ask him his intentions.'

Frank's mood changed suddenly. ‘Laugh, clown, laugh!' he said angrily. ‘Why don't you boot him?'

‘Who? Me with my little number fours?'

Olive said gently, ‘Mr Richard is a member of the family, Frank.'

‘Big deal.' Frank was still angry.

Olive chose to ignore him.

‘When do you plan to be married, Rita?'

‘In September. We don't want a long engagement. Stephen's firm are sending him to Melbourne and we want to be married and go together.'

Isobel heard this with dismay. This was the opportunity Aunt Noelene would expect her to grasp, seizing that wild horse money by the bridle as it passed. She lacked courage for the deed. If she did manage it, she would have to take dictation from Mr Walter instead of checking invoices with Frank. This was life: no sooner had you built yourself your little raft and felt secure than it came to pieces under you and you were swimming again.

‘Well, come on, Bel.' Frank was still sulky. ‘We'd better get back to work.'

‘I should like a word with Isobel, Frank,' Olive said with dignity. ‘I won't keep her long.'

Frank shrugged, unsurprised. It seemed that he had been sulking in advance.

Rita and Nell went back to their typewriters.

Olive said earnestly, ‘Isobel. It really isn't right for you to be so familiar with Frank. It's a pity you've been thrown together so much. Apart from anything else,' she paused to summon her courage, ‘Frank is a Communist. He has been warned not to mention this in the office…'