I for Isobel (6 page)

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 grace, 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.

‘Is that all right? Can I go now?'

‘Oh, if you call that polished. Do what you like. Selfish. You're all tarred with the same brush.' She was too listless for anger.

The girls happened to arrive home together one afternoon to find Aunt Noelene's car parked outside. They brightened. Though Aunt Noelene was an awkward, shaming character, her visit meant a present of ten shillings and her cast-off clothes, which were better than other people's new ones.

Mr Callaghan's two sisters had done well in the world—an injustice which annoyed Mrs Callaghan so much that Isobel used to tell the children at the convent stories about a will suppressed or even forged to cheat her father of his inheritance, but she had come to understand at last that her mother was angry with fate, as usual. Aunt Yvonne had married a property owner and lived in the country, as far away as Heaven. Aunt Noelene was the manageress of a dress factory and owned shares, had a car, took smart holidays and wore clothes that filled Mrs Callaghan with contemptuous pity.

‘Poor Noelene. If she knew what a fool she looked in that get-up.'

The two women were sitting at the kitchen table, Mrs Callaghan calm and social, looking cheerful for the first time since Margaret's desertion, sipping tea from one of the good cups and making a tasty meal of Aunt Noelene in mauve crepe de Chine with two sleek russet foxes round her shoulders, each biting the other's thigh, their tails swinging free. The shaming thing about Aunt Noelene was that, though she was quite ugly, she dressed as if she was beautiful. Isobel didn't see why she shouldn't—why should the beauties have all the mauve crepe de Chine?—but Aunt Noelene, having let her dreams show, lacked the nerve to defend them. Under Mrs Callaghan's amused eye she cowered, burning with helpless rage, and even the foxes looked troubled.

Her voice too was harsh and sullen. ‘Well, how are you two getting on at school?'

‘They are both doing very well, thank you. Would you like another cup of tea?'

There was a bulky brown-paper parcel propped on a chair.

‘No thanks, May.' Aunt Noelene made an effort. ‘Isn't Margaret shooting up? Getting more like Yvonne, isn't she?'

Mrs Callaghan dimmed a little at the mention of Yvonne. ‘How is Yvonne? I haven't seen her since Rob's funeral.'

‘I was up there for a week at Easter. They're all very well. Keith is helping Tom with the property full-time now, he wasn't interested in going to University. Hugh wants to do Law, he's the one with the brains. It's lucky one of them wants to go on the land.'

‘It must be very nice, having a holiday in the country. I know poor Rob would have enjoyed it if he had had the chance.'

Disaster was coming. Margaret gave an anxious look at the parcel and Isobel shared her feeling. There was the ten shillings too.

Aunt Noelene stared at the table.

‘When the doctor said that a change of air might work wonders, I wrote to her. Her only brother dying and she sent me five pounds. Towards a holiday. Five pounds.'

Aunt Noelene muttered, ‘So I suppose you sent it back.'

Looking quietly contemptuous, Mrs Callaghan poured herself another cup of tea, steadily.

Well, there went ten shillings. She was going to regret it as much as the girls, but they both knew she couldn't give up her present enjoyment for its sake.

‘For God's sake, May, why do you keep going over and over it? We've heard it all before. It's over and done with. Forget it.'

‘There are things you'd like forgotten, too, I suppose. Like not going to visit your only brother when he was dying in hospital.'

‘If I'd been allowed to know how sick he was…' Aunt Noelene was shouting now.

‘Allowed to know. Didn't want to know. You and Yvonne have never wanted to know anything that didn't suit you.'

‘Perhaps you've forgotten a thing or two, too. You haven't always been an angel.'

Mrs Callaghan breathed deeply. ‘I want to know what you mean by that.'

Silence.

‘Well?'

Aunt Noelene could not answer. Shakily, she searched in her handbag, got out two ten-shilling notes and put them on the table.

‘For the girls.'

The girls held their breath. Was she going to say, ‘Take your money!'?

No. Aunt Noelene had gone, the money was on the table, the parcel still on the chair.

Their mother sat staring into space. They did not dare to mention the parcel yet.

At last, since she didn't stir, Margaret said, ‘Can we look at the clothes?'

‘Do what you like.'

They opened it quietly, subduing enthusiasm. A navy skirt, a white silk blouse, a red jumper, a yellow dress…

It was made of buttercup-yellow linen, the yoke and the sleeves embroidered in white cutwork to a heavy lace.

Margaret said ‘Oh!' and held it up. Pinned to the skirt was a sheet of paper with ISOBEL printed in large letters. Margaret said ‘Oh!' in a different tone. Mrs Callaghan uttered a scream of anger, as if Aunt Noelene had left her an insulting message.

Isobel knew at once what she had to do: give up, sacrifice. It was harder than she had foreseen.

‘You can have it if you like.'

She was glad that the words were out and couldn't be taken back.

‘Do you mean it? Really?'

‘Yes. You can have it.' Don't make me say it again.

‘Oh, no,' said their mother softly. ‘No. It's Isobel's dress and she's going to wear it.' She got up, saying to herself, ‘That creature! That creature!' and walked out, holding her hands to her head.

The girls looked at each other, puzzled.

‘You did mean it, didn't you?'

‘Yes. Go on, try it on.'

Isobel was sure now. The state of grace, the peace and security of it, meant more than any dress.

She followed Margaret into the bedroom and helped her into the dress.

‘It looks lovely.' So it did, and she didn't mind at all.

‘Oh, Isobel!' Margaret hugged her briefly.

‘Take that dress off, Margaret,' said their mother from the doorway. ‘It belongs to Isobel.'

‘But Isobel said I could have it.'

Isobel said, ‘Aunt Noelene will never know.'

Her mother gave her a look of hate as she walked towards Margaret, who did not know what was happening and stood like a good little girl having a dress fitted till she heard the dull snap of threads and the tearing noise. She cried out then as if she had been hit.

‘Damn you,' screamed Isobel. ‘Damn you, damn you, it was mine. It wasn't yours to tear. It was mine and I gave it to Margaret. Damn you!'

She saw the look of peace and relief on her mother's face as she walked away and she knew what she had done. The old sick closeness was back and she was the same old Isobel.

Margaret was sitting on her bed dressed in her slip, stroking the torn yoke and sobbing.

‘It's only a dress,' said Isobel. She had lost more.

‘Oh, you shut up. You didn't want it, anyhow.'

It wasn't only a dress. It was much more, and it was gone, and so was the state of grace.

At that moment, Isobel thought such things were not for either of them.

4 • GLASSWARE AND OTHER BREAKABLE ITEMS

In the kitchen, Aunt Yvonne and Aunt Noelene were talking about clothes for the funeral.

‘Of course they have to wear black,' said Aunt Yvonne. ‘At their mother's funeral! I don't know what you can be thinking of.'

‘The money.' Aunt Noelene's voice was rougher, and always had a defiant note in it. ‘I'm thinking about the money. They haven't got much, poor kids. I don't mind buying them clothes but I think black's a waste of money at their age.'

‘At their mother's funeral!'