Take It Easy

by Pat Rosier

  Her mother would be shocked, she thought, at how much she had spent. She was shocked herself, and liked the wicked feeling of it. The thoughts tumbled on. Like a child, I’m reduced to a naughty child enjoying more lollies than enough. Expensive lollies, she added to herself, and smiled. There was no need to rush for the next bus she decided and headed for the tea-rooms. Everything in one store. Department store, very handy. She was amused again, remembering her father saying, jokey, to his children ‘don’t spend it all in one shop,’ when he gave them a shilling. Nearly a hundred pounds, and all in one shop.

  The tea-room waitress wore the same black and white as the shop assistants, plus a half apron, white with a frill around the edge. She was young, younger than Isobel, and she looked tired. ‘May I help madam?’ Isobel hesitated. ‘Afternoon tea?’ asked the waitress.

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’ Isobel was led to a round table, trying not to notice that everyone else had company. She sat, piled her parcels on another chair and listened to the hum of conversations around her.

  ‘With the new airport, we’ll be able to pop over to Sydney more often,’ a man was saying. She couldn’t hear the reply, wanted to look around at him. Her tea came, and a three-level cake stand with triangle sandwiches, small, no crusts, on the bottom layer, buttered scones in the middle and iced cakes on the top.

  ‘I can’t …’ Isobel was going to say this was more than she could eat, but changed it to, ‘Thank you, thank you very much.’ No-one was reading, not even a newspaper, talk was the thing in here. Isobel poured a cup of tea, ate one of the sandwiches in one bite, shrugged and rummaged in her bag for I Cover Her Face. She’d noticed with chagrin her own pleasure at being the first person it was issued to at the library. Within the first pages it became evident that an unmarried mother with a small baby was going to be significant in the story and she almost gave up, disappointed, on the book. But once the mother, a defiant servant in an English country house, had been murdered she was hooked. She liked English country-house settings particularly, they were both remote and strangely familiar, so she settled in to another world.

  ‘Excuse me, madam,’ Isobel started. ‘Have you finished with these?’ The waitress was indicating the cake-stand, half empty, the teapot, her cup and saucer.

  ‘Oh. Yes. Sorry. Heavens, look at the time!’ Now she would have to rush for the five past four bus or wait another hour. After stuffing the book into her bag, she took several steps before she remembered her parcels.

  ‘Silly me,’ she said to the waitress, who was piling her crockery and the uneaten cakes and scones onto a tray. She wanted to say eat the food, or take it home. She felt silly, the tea-room was closing, there was no-one else left, half the chairs were already up on the tables.

  The bus driver saw her coming and waited. Breathing fast, she stared blankly out the window, clutching her parcels, scared to put them down in case she left something on the bus. Tomorrow night. The party. Surely when she got home she’d still like her outfit. She wasn’t going to let Bob see it ahead of tomorrow, when it would be too late for anything else. She hated what she wore to matter. I could go and live in China, she thought, where everyone wears the same clothes every day and you never have to think about it.

  Only when she was walking towards the flat from the bus stop did she wonder how Bob and the boys, and no doubt her mother, had got on. When she opened the door all she could hear was the television. Bob was asleep in his arm chair. The boys must be asleep too. Two washed up cups on the drainer; her mother had been and gone. The house was quiet. Isobel might never have been out.

  She went quietly to the bedroom and carefully hung the new dress and its bolero in the wardrobe, with the handbag over the same coat-hanger, the shoes underneath. The makeup went neatly in a drawer, then she lay on the bed, tears running down the sides of her face until she turned it into her pillow. I can’t do this. I can’t do this – do what? – to the boys.

  ‘It’s no good mithering on about what you can’t do, get on with what you can.’ The voice in her head was her mother’s.

  ‘Shut up, it’s not that simple,’ she muttered into the pillow.

  ‘You must have snuck in quietly.' Bob’s voice startled her up. She saw his expression change. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes, sure.' She rubbed dampness off her eyes. ‘I must have fallen asleep for a moment.’

  She said she was pleased, the shopping went well, and he’d have to wait until tomorrow night, to see them on. ‘I’ll look forward to a nice surprise,’ he said, moving to the bed, sitting at her feet, a fond look on his face. She swung her legs over until her feet were on the floor.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘you know, for the money,’ and hated saying it. She wouldn’t ask how his afternoon had been.

  ‘You mother came around,’ he offered, ‘not that I rang, but I was glad when she did. The two of them are a handful for one person.’ Was that a compliment, Isobel wondered?

  ‘Oh,’ he went on, ‘Mum and Dad are popping by after tea, Mum was being mysterious when she rang, said she wanted to see you before tomorrow night. Don’t look like that, it’s fine, she probably wants to lend you her pearls or something. Pearls? With a sun dress? She felt a rush of relief that she’d spoken to Marion — which she had no intention of telling Bob about — before she bought a little black dress.

  ‘Have the boys been asleep long?’ Isobel asked.

  Bob looked at his watch. ‘About half an hour.’

  ‘I’ll get tea organized while they’re down,’ she said, ‘so it’s all cleared up when your parents come.’ She made herself touch his shoulder as she walked out of the bedroom.

  Nana wanted to see the dress so Isobel led her into the bedroom, took everything out and spread it on the bed. She was pleased, looking at them again, at her choices.

  ‘Very nice, dear. I don’t suppose …? No, I won’t ask you to put it on.’ The older woman produced a brown paper bag from her purse and tipped its contents onto the bed. At first Isobel thought it was a bundle of white tissue paper, then she saw the fine, fine white shawl, and gently pulled it out. It weighed nothing. She thought gossamer’.

  ‘You’re supposed to be able to pull it through your wedding ring,’ Nana was saying. ‘but I was never brave enough to try.’

  Isobel put it around her shoulders, moving into the soft, light feel. When she looked up she was sure her mother-in-law's eyes were wet. Both looked away.

  ‘It hasn’t been worn for over thirty years,’ the older woman said, ‘if you hang it outside for two or three hours the musty smell will go. It suits you. And it goes beautifully with the dress.’

  They had not looked at each other. ‘Yes, it does go beautifully. Thank you. Thank you so much. I’ll take great care of it.’ She didn’t know there was warmth in her voice her mother in law had not heard before, except to the boys.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, it’s just a shawl.’ Her voice contradicted the dismissive words. ‘I’d like you to keep it.' She put out a hand and fingered the fringe. Suddenly, Isobel was telling her about wanting to go back to work. Soon, not when the boys went to school. There was a silence when she finished. Both women were looking down at the dress.

  ‘You should look in the paper, the local one, women who look after other women’s children advertise there.’

  Isobel’s eyes shot up and met Nana’s.

  ‘You don’t …?’

  ‘Disapprove? Of course I disapprove, if I didn’t my whole life would mean nothing. But you’re not a girl to be staying home. You’ll be happier and so will the boys. And my Bob. Have you told him?’

  Isobel nodded. ‘Kind of. I mentioned it and he brushed it aside.’

  ‘You’ll have to be determined, you know or it won’t happen. And don’t expect me to tell him you’re doing the right thing because I won’t. Here, wrap the shawl in this afterwards,’ she was folding the tissue paper, ‘with one mothball, that’s enough. Don’t use naphthalene flakes, they’re too harsh.’

 
; Bob had never seen the shawl before. The dress was still on the bed and he nodded approvingly at it without saying anything. He’s wary around me, Isobel thought, he knows he often gets it wrong, whatever wrong is. She busied herself putting away several days’ clean washing until the bleakness that had been partly assuaged by Nana’s kindness had truly faded away.

  ~~~

  Chapter14

  This is the first time I’ve been in the front seat of this car, Isobel was thinking as she gathered up her skirt to make sure Bob didn’t get it caught in her door as he closed it. That was a first too, him closing her door. Her mother had insisted on looking after the boys at the flat, they’d be better put down in their own beds she said, and she and Joe would be fine with the paper and the television. Bob had made a lot of how great Isobel looked in her new outfit and her discomfort with this had rendered them both unhappy. Once they were on the way she tried to make conversation with him, commenting on what she saw outside the car as they drove, but her efforts fell flat and they were both relieved to arrive. Bob put his hand at her back as they went up the wide, pillared steps to the open front door of the big white house and she was glad of it.

  ‘Bob!’ Charles Cherwin was genuinely pleased to see him, Isobel thought, then she was being introduced and he was charming, though two minutes later she couldn’t remember what he had said.

  ‘Hello Bob. And you must be Isobel.’ The woman holding out her hand was tall, fair-haired, with bright blue eyes and a slightly twisted and badly scarred fore-arm, about which she appeared unselfconscious. Isobel met her eyes so she didn’t stare at the arm. ‘I see you took my advice, and with splendid results if I may say so.’ Isobel was relieved that Bob was engaged with his employer. Marion herself was wearing a dress that was almost a sun dress in a silky, shimmering deep dark green, with a low V neck, loose three-quarter length sleeves and a single strand of amber beads. ‘

  ‘Thank you.’ For once Isobel didn’t mind saying it. She warmed to this woman, who must be ten years older than her, and a hundred years more self-assured, and was shaking her hand with a firm, dry grip. Another woman, with similar colouring but shorter, in dark slacks and a pale yellow shirt with the collar turned up at the back, her hair pulled into a French twist, came up beside Marion.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, ‘I’m Lois Schulman, sales manager at Cherwin Cash Registers and Office Supplies, you are …?

  ‘Isobel Johnson,’ she said, returning another assertive handshake.

  ‘You came with Bob?’ Neither woman had referred to her as ‘Bob’s wife’.

  ‘Yes.’ She looked around for him. He had moved off with Charles Cherwin and Isobel realised she had no idea what to call the man who owned all this. Neither had she had any idea that Bob’s immediate boss was a woman; she would surely have remembered if he had ever mentioned it.

  ‘Come on, I’ll introduce you around, Marion’ll be meeting and greeting for a while yet.’ Lois led her through a wide, wood-panelled hallway to a large patio at the back of the house where ten or more people were milling about.

  ‘Make yourself at home. Lois, get her a drink would you?’

  ‘Thank you Mr Cherwin …’

  ‘Call me Charles, do, we don’t stand on ceremony here, though we might at the office, eh Miss Schulman.’ Isobel thought he was joking and noticed that Lois didn’t think he was funny. Bubbles came up from the hollow stem of the glass Lois handed her and she took a sip so as not to spill it as she followed her to the room for bags, coats, and in her case, the shawl. It was too warm for it at this late end of a sunny afternoon. The bedroom was so uncluttered and intimidatingly elegant in blue and while, that Isobel didn’t think it could possibly be where someone kept their clothes and slept.

  ‘Come on and meet people.’ After a blur of names and faces and greetings she found herself at one end of the patio. At the other end a group of men was gathered around two smoking barbecues, a number of them offering advice. There was a whoosh! of flame and the man who had added accelerant was standing back, bashfully rubbing his eyebrows. The woman telling him off was no doubt his wife.

  ‘Are you a wife?’ For once she didn’t take offence. She didn’t think she had been introduced to the woman who sat beside her on the bench, so she held out her hand and smiled.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘Isobel Johnson.’

  ‘Oh. The twins. Joyce McShale, separated, book-keeper. Hello. I don’t mean to be rude, two drinks and I lose control of my tongue.’ Isobel hadn’t thought her rude, even though the hand she offered had been ignored. ‘I’d love to come and see them some time.’ Joyce’s eyes had filled with tears. Isobel wondered just how much she had had to drink. ‘I can’t, you see. Have children. Hence the separated bit.’

  ’Oh, I’m sorry.’ Before Isobel could say any more Bob came over. ‘Okay?’ he said, and, ‘Hi Joyce, are you two getting acquainted then?’

  ‘We sure are.’ Joyce was looking up at him. ‘I’m inviting myself to visit your twins.’

  ‘Oh, okay, I’ll leave you to it, then, and see if I can help with the barbecue.’

  ‘Don’t get your eyebrows singed,’ said Joyce and she and Bob both laughed.

  ‘He’s a good sort, Bob, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’ Isobel believed he was.

  ‘What’s it like? she asked Joyce, who clearly didn’t mind talking personally to a stranger, getting separated? If that’s not a rude question,’ she added hastily.

  ‘Humiliating, especially when it’s your fault because you can’t give him children. And what’s worse than getting separated is being separated. Other women think they have to guard their husbands.’

  ‘That’s awful.’ Joyce was sitting very straight now, her expression defiant with no sign of the earlier tears. She’s pretty, Isobel thought, reminded a little of Jean.

  ‘Please come and see them — the twins, that is,’ she said. ‘I’d like that.’

  ‘Oh I will, I will. Right now, though, I need another drink. Can I get you one?’

  ‘No thanks’. Isobel shook her head. ‘I’ll just sit here a minute.' She watched Bob. There were twenty or more people now and he moved among them, chatting and laughing. There was no sign of the dour man she knew at home. That is what I do, Isobel thought, I damp him down. Everyone here liked him and he liked being liked.

  ‘Cheer up, this is a party.’ Lois sat where Joyce had been.

  Isobel smiled weakly. ‘I think I’m not suited to being a wife,’ she said. Then, ‘Oops, sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.’

  ‘It’s fine with me, I’ve never been a wife and never will be.’ Isobel looked at the other woman more closely. While she was talking, Lois’s eyes were constantly moving; it didn’t take long to figure out they were following Marion. Isobel felt herself blushing at what she was thinking. She blushed more when she noticed Lois noticing. ‘It’s all right,’ said the other woman, ‘as long as you don’t say it out loud. One of these days she’ll be able to stop holding up her father, then she can have a life of her own.’

  ‘Is her arm — the accident where her mother died?’ asked Isobel, wanting to know, hoping she wasn’t too bold. Lois was looking at her now.

  ‘Uh huh. And that’s not the worst of it. Of course the worst of it is her mother dying. Do you know about survivor guilt?’ Isobel shook her head. ‘It’s self-explanatory I guess, anyhow there’s that and…,’ Lois put her hand on her stomach, ‘she’s got a lot less intestine than most of us.’ Her eyes were tracking the room again.

  ‘What’s Bob like, at work?’

  ‘You’re right, enough of Marion.’ The gaze came back to Isobel. ‘I don’t get many wives asking me outright about their men, but then you’re not like most of the wives.’ Isobel’s pleasure at hearing this was followed quickly by a sense of disloyalty. But she wanted to know, this woman told her things, so she smiled and repeated, ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘Cheerful. Good at selling. Works hard. He’ll go far in this company.' Isobel nodded and smile
d her thanks. Lois’s eyes were flicking around again. Several men were putting things on and taking them off at the barbecue, Bob wasn’t among them. Marion was carrying out bowls of salad. Lois went to help her. Standing to follow, wondering if she should be offering to help, Isobel spotted Bob and Joyce, Bob sitting on the top of the steps down to the lawn — which was as neat and tidy as everything else — Joyce two steps down, looking up at him, laughing at something he had just said. Gloom settled on Isobel.

  ‘There’s no harm in her.’ The woman approaching was holding out a hand. ‘Mavis Broadwood,’ she said, ‘wife of John, repairs and maintenance.’

  ‘Oh, hello. I wasn’t … you know … keeping a watch …’ Isobel felt herself blushing as she returned the handshake.

  ‘Be natural, popular fellow like Bob.’

  ‘Is he? That’s nice.’ She looked around for an escape route.

  ‘Come on, sit down, everything’s under control, and you mustn’t take me too seriously, you know, one glass of ladies’ punch and my mouth’s engaged before my brain’s in gear.’ Apparently when you’d had a drink in this company you could say anything. Mavis sat, and patted the seat beside her. ‘I nearly had twins myself,’ she said, as Isobel subsided, ‘there was only eleven months between my first two. When I fell with the second my John went and had words with the doctor, said his advice had been no good.' She laughed knowingly, so Isobel joined in, and they chatted about their children until Charles Cherwin called them all to the tables around the barbecues.