by Pat Rosier
As for me, Isobel continued the silent conversation with herself, I’ve been just fine too. Admittedly the months in Sydney had been bleak. One memory of that time was finally reading — she saw it in a bookshop and bought it on impulse — A Proper Marriage and how she had once more been fascinated by the serious attention Martha Quest gave to her own internal states. And, when she read the part where Martha left her daughter Caroline with her own mother and went off to England, she had laughed and cried into her pillow because writer Lessing had used her real life solution, or a version of it, for her character Martha. She had wondered whether if she had read A Proper Marriage before she left after all, would it have made any difference? Would knowing about what Martha did have made her own actions easier or more difficult? She remembered the time she and Iris had argued because Iris wanted Isobel to say she regretted leaving the boys, or at least that she felt guilty about it. Isobel, stubborn, wouldn’t, and Iris had said, shouted even, ‘You talk about Martha Quest – a character in a book for heaven’s sake – as though she was a real person, and about yourself and your children — yes, your children! — as though you were characters in a book!’ How often had they talked – argued – about that time in Isobel’s life? Three times? More?
Isobel, still sitting on the kitchen stool, still holding the pen she had used to write down the information Joyce had given her, became aware of wind and rain against the window. Iris had gone outside after breakfast to tie down the long waving arms of a bougainvillea that had been tapping at their bedroom window in the night. As Isobel stood up to go out and check whether she needed any help, the phone rang and as she picked it up she heard Iris say, ‘Hello’ on the phone in their bedroom. When had she come in from the garden?
‘Uh, hello,’ said a man’s voice. ‘Is that Isobel?’
‘I’ve got it thanks, Iris,’ said Isobel, ‘Hello, who is this?’
The answer, ‘Neil,’ came a second before the click of the other phone being returned to its cradle.
‘Neil! I’ve just been …’
‘I know, I was trying to get through while you were talking, to let Mum and Dad know I was back.' The voice could almost be Bob’s, though with more nervous energy, edgier.
‘It’s been a long time.' Vapid, thought Isobel, you can do better than that.
‘Yes, sure.’ And before she could say anything more, ‘Look, ah, Isobel, Dad said you were wanting to get in touch, and well, as it happens I’ll be in Wellington at the end of next week. We could meet for lunch. Do you work in town?’
‘Well, yes. All right. Thursday maybe.' She was being catapulted from the quiet, steady nag she’d set out on to the back of a galloping horse.
When they’d made arrangements, agreeing they’d leave talking until they met, Isobel went in search of Iris. She found her partner in their bedroom, in the middle of their bed, her knees up under her chin, her arms wrapped around them and a look on her face Isobel could not read at all.
‘Was that the Neil I think it was?’ There was something odd about Iris’s voice.
‘Yes, I was just coming outside to tell you…,’
‘I know, you rang Bob and what’s-her-name. I heard you when I came in from cutting back that prickly bloody plant.' She held up a scratched arm.
‘Oh. Neil rang them right after, and they said, and …,’ Isobel sat on the side of the bed and put her hand out towards her partner.
‘Don’t touch me!’ Isobel’s hand shot back to her own lap. ‘I’m far too angry to be touched!’ Iris was on her knees on the bed now, her eyes bright with tears. ‘And you don’t have the faintest idea, do you?’ Isobel shook her head, instantly miserable, fighting back tears of her own.
Iris’s shoulders slumped for a moment then she straightened them. She moved to the opposite side of the bed to Isobel, standing in front of the window with the light behind her, her face in silhouette so Isobel could barely see her expression. ‘Can we go in the other room?’ Isobel asked. She wanted to see Iris’s face, and if this was an argument, she didn’t want to be having it in their bedroom.
Without saying anything, Iris strode out, and Isobel followed. Iris sat on one of the armchairs, Isobel perched on the sofa, trying to think of something to say.
‘Look, it’s like this.' Iris’s voice was heavily patient. ‘You abandon your children — no, don’t say anything, just listen! — you abandon your children and isolate yourself — and me — from your family — who reminded you about your brother’s birthday for heaven’s sake?’ Isobel opened her mouth to speak, but Iris didn’t give her a chance. ‘And then when my Chris has a near-death experience you suddenly start rushing about ringing up those sons I was never allowed to meet! I’m so ANGRY with you I can’t bear to be in the same room!’ Iris stopped in the doorway. ‘And what’s all this writing in that bloody diary about anyway!’ she yelled, and she was gone. The bedroom door closed with a barely controlled snap.
Isobel sat, looking around for Barney, wanting to scrunch his soft ears but he was nowhere in sight. Ginger’s warm affectionate body wasn’t around, either. She got up and moved towards the bedroom door that had never been so closed against her, then veered into the kitchen, then back to the living room and the sofa she had just left. They were expected at Marie and Donna’s for dinner later, along with several other friends. Don’t worry about that, she told herself, that’s hours away yet. So she leaned back, recalling Iris’s words, annoyed, then sorry for herself, then wondering, all the time aware of the pit-of-her-stomach ache of real fear. Twice more she started towards the bedroom and twice more she sat down again.
'I’m hungry. How about lunch?’
Isobel jumped. Iris was back. Her voice was back too. She was almost smiling. ‘I won’t be offended that you fell asleep if you’ll come and have some lunch. And I won’t apologise if you don’t.'
Isobel didn’t think she had anything to apologise for herself, and she was groggy, she couldn’t think properly, and she could feel a huge, relieved sigh inside her. Jumping up, she released the breath and said, ‘Yes, food.’
As they assembled their usual weekend lunch — antipasto, Iris had been heard to call it, bread and bits was how Isobel put it — Iris said, ‘Look love, I’ve always been pissed off about how you are — or are not — with your family, so Chris’s accident and the diary and the phone calls, they all got to me.’
‘ I don’t really see …’
‘Can we not talk about it for now?’ Iris interrupted.
‘All right.' Isobel pushed Ginger off the bench. ‘But I need you to know I’m meeting Neil for lunch on Thursday. And I’m not going to promise not to tell you about it.’
‘Sure.' And that was that. Kind of. They were careful around each other for the rest of the long Queen’s Birthday weekend, shut in by the weather, apart from the dinner party where none of their friends appeared to notice anything amiss. Isobel didn’t like feeling relieved when Tuesday came and they both went off to work in the morning. The political situation in the Solomon Islands, the arrest of Prime Minister Ulufa'alu, dominated the news and the talk around Parliament; meeting rooms were wanted urgently; Isobel was busy directing arrangements and re-arrangements and soothing those who were dislodged and disrupted.
By evening she and Iris were more relaxed with each other, but Isobel still felt a little as though she had done something wrong and was not being given the chance to explain. ‘Maybe that’s not the point,’ said Iris’s voice in her head as she lay alongside her that night, ‘maybe I want something different from you.' Maybe I don’t want to — maybe I can’t — be different, she answered the voice silently. And maybe going to sleep about now would be good, she thought, turning on her side, feeling the warmth of Iris at her back, and concentrating on slow deep breathing.
Waiting for Neil, who was late, in City Café on Thursday Isobel remembered her lunch with Daniel and, guiltily, her resolve to invite him around.
‘That’s what we in the trade call a brown study.' She w
asn’t sure she would have recognized Neil. His hair was thinning. No tie, a black roll neck shirt and a blazer. He sat down, studied the menu briefly, and looked around for a waiter.
‘You order and pay at the counter.’
‘Oh dear, I am indeed back in the home country,’ he said, not moving, irony, perhaps, in his tone.
‘I’ll get it, what will you have?’ He chose the same pasta she’d got for Daniel. When Isobel returned he was waving and smiling at a couple walking past the big window that looked onto the footpath, who appeared to not notice him. As she sat down he turned the smile to her.
‘This is nice,’ he said. ‘That was the probable female lead for the production I’m down for. And her husband.’
Isobel nodded acknowledgement and said, ‘I’d like to get to know you and Andrew better. You may think I’ve left it a bit late… ,’ Neil was shaking his head. ‘
Long past teenage angst,’ he said, ‘it’s a hell of a long time since I had romantic fantasies about the childhood I never had. Assisted no doubt, by the real one being better than most.' Isobel was startled, then thought, of course they would have wondered, and then wondered herself, briefly, if she should offer to explain, and then couldn’t see any real curiosity so went on to tell him about Iris and Chris and how Chris’s accident had made her realize that there could be a 'too late', something could happen to him, Neil, or to Andrew and she would never have known them and that would be hard. ‘It’s selfish, I know,’ she went on, ‘given that it was me who walked away,’ — she would never say abandoned, even if Iris did — ‘and turned myself into an absent aunt.'
He said he was pleased to meet up with her again, though he couldn’t claim to have been pining and she wasn’t to make anything of the teenage fantasies — he’d had dozens He asked about her work before she could respond to this. She told him about coming back from Sydney more than thirty years ago, going back into the public service, first in the local government section of Internal Affairs, then Immigration, moving in the nineties to Parliament and select committees. ‘Daniel was more or less responsible for me coming to Wellington,’ she said, ‘his firm had moved him here and he had a contact and I was glad to come back to New Zealand. And that’s enough about me for now, tell me about yourself.’
‘You must have a pretty good salary after thirty years,’ Neil said. Brittle, thought Isobel, and he’s going to ask me for money. Sure enough, he was telling her how difficult it was in the performance business and Sophie was worrying about biological imperatives, though she wasn’t the least bit maternal …. Isobel interrupted again. ‘How much?’ she said. He stared at her. ‘How much money are you going to ask me for?’ At least he blushed.
‘Whew! Blunt! Cut to the chase!’ he managed. She waited. ‘Well,’ he paused, ‘it rather depends what ….’
‘What I’m prepared to give you?’
‘I was thinking more of a loan.’ This isn’t fair, Isobel thought, especially if I mean it that I want to get to know him.
‘No,’ she said, ‘No money. Just you and me seeing each other now and then, the odd phone call, an email occasionally. If you want to.' And she smiled, pleased with herself for saying what she wanted. Neil sat back in his chair and laughed.
‘Okay,’ he said, ‘sounds good to me. Sorry about the money thing, you get to be an opportunist … . Let’s eat, I’m starving, I can’t afford hotel breakfasts these days.' They both silently engaged with the bowls of pasta sitting in front of them. If you can’t afford the hotel breakfast find something cheaper or buy yourself a muesli bar, Isobel thought. She managed to find out a little more about his work, which involved producing and promoting stage shows, currently not too successfully, and that he and Sophie had been married for nearly ten years and were at least as happy together as any other couple he knew. They came down to her family’s bach – ‘well, hardly a bach, — at Lake Ferry every so often and maybe the four of us ….' Then he had to rush off to meet someone.
~~~
Chapter 18
When Isobel got home from work that night Iris was already there. Packing. She held up her hand to stop Isobel speaking.
‘Please,’ she said, ‘don’t tell me about your lunch with Neil.' Isobel went cold to her core.
‘I had a call from Eleni,’ Iris was saying, ‘Chris has an abdominal aortic aneurism, he’s back in hospital and if it ruptures he’ll die.' Her voice was high, her words coming out fast. Isobel went to her but she would not be held, so Isobel sat her on the bed beside the suitcase and sat herself close by.
‘I have to go back. There’s a flight tonight. I’ve booked one seat.' Iris finally looked directly at Isobel. ‘Don’t say anything, please, I have to do this.’
‘I could foll …’
‘No. Please. If there’s just me I can stay at their flat. There’s a tiny spare room with a foldout chair thingy.’
‘With Elen …?’
‘Yes.' Defiant. ‘We’ll manage fine.’
You will, Isobel thought, what about Eleni? But she nodded.
‘How can I help?’ Isobel asked. Iris’s sigh of relief felt like a slap.
‘Be here. Call me, talk to me when I call you.’ It seemed very little. ‘Will you take me to the airport? Soon? In twenty minutes.’
‘Of course.' Isobel wanted to ask why Iris hadn’t rung her at work as soon as she heard, and said instead, ‘I’ll go and make us a cup of tea while you finish packing.’
‘That would be wonderful, thank you love.’ Iris’s squeeze of her hand and word of endearment did not make Isobel feel any better. She made the tea and brought it back with a plate of sandwiches, cut small, which Iris ate in single gulps while she finished filling the case and closed it. Isobel sat on the bed watching her.
‘Oh Iris,’ she said, ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘His blood pressure has gone way up, and they don’t know why. Or they didn’t this afternoon. The good news is that people don’t usually die of these aneurisms once they’ve been discovered.’ Iris swallowed, took a deep breath and looked at her watch. ‘I’ve just got time to ring the hospital again before we go,’ she said, ‘would you …?’ gesturing at the suitcase. Isobel put the case in the back of her car, came back in and fed the animals while Iris spoke on the phone.
‘Nothing new,’ Iris said as she hung up. She looked around for her handbag and when it was under her arm said, ‘I’m sorry.' Isobel shrugged. ‘This is all there is for me right now,’ Iris went on, ‘I thought the crisis was over, and it isn’t and I have to … be there, be strong. It will break my heart if… .’
‘I know.’ Isobel picked up her car keys and headed for the door. On the drive they talked about practical things, phone numbers, Iris’s work and how if there was any argument about her taking more leave she’d resign, social arrangements Isobel would have to change. The traffic was heavy and Iris kept looking at her watch. ‘Just drop me off,’ she said as they neared the airport, ‘don’t go into the car park.’ Isobel did as she was told, getting out of the car to take the case from the boot while Iris gathered her coat and checked her flight details yet again. Isobel insisted on a hug. Iris pecked her cheek. ‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘thanks, Isobel.’ and rushed through the automatic doors. ‘You’re in plenty of time,’ Isobel said to her back, and returned to the driver’s seat. Already someone was waiting to take the drop-off space.
It was only after she’d arrived home and turned on the heater, pulled all the curtains against the cold night, made toast and peanut butter and jam and was looking in the paper to see if there was any television to distract her, only after all that did she think to check the answer-phone. There were two messages. One was from Iris at the airport.
‘You mustn’t worry,’ Iris’s disembodied voice said, ‘it will be all right.' Which it, Isobel wondered, was she not to worry about? ‘And thanks for not hassling me about going — or you coming. I love you.’ Click. Isobel felt slightly better and activated the second message.
‘Hello, Isob
el, this is Andrew. Mu – Mum said you were wanting to get in touch. I’d like that.’ And he left the numbers she already had.
Not tonight boyo, Isobel thought, not tonight. Then she was dialing the number.
‘Hello, you are speaking to Andrew.’
‘Hello, you are speaking to Isobel.’
‘Oh, hi, how are you?’
‘Well enough. And you?’
Great. Hang on a sec would you?’ Isobel thought she heard voices, muffled through a hand over the mouthpiece.
‘Here I am, I just had a friend leaving.’
‘Not on my account I hope.’ Come on Isobel, she chastised herself, get a grip.
‘No, no, he was going anyway. Hey, it’s great to be talking to my gay aunty.' Was he laughing at her? He could have rung her any time in the last, well, ten years. Couldn’t he?
‘Let’s drop the aunty, eh?’ She felt awkward, and exhausted. ‘I saw Neil today. And it’s good to be talking to you, too.' Now what?
‘Really? Here or there? Are you in Auckland?’
‘No, I’m at home, in Wellington.’ There was nothing to do but tell him about Iris and Chris and her realization that if she didn’t make contact with him and Neil some kind of too late would creep up on them and she’d be — she couldn’t think of the right word and had to settle for ‘sorry’.
‘Yeah. Me too.’ He started to say something, then stopped, then said, ‘You do know – don’t you – that I’m, well, gay?’
‘Yes, of course. My – your grandparents told me, ages ago.’