Take It Easy

by Pat Rosier

  ‘Let’s not say anything about Iris that we wouldn’t say if she was here,’ suggested Isobel as Chris opened his mouth to speak.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Thanks for coming, Isobel, it’s good to see you.’

  ‘And you,’ she replied and they went on to talk about how long he would remain in hospital — another four or five days was likely, until they were sure they had the medications right — it was a bad combination that had sent his blood pressure soaring — thank heaven, not something genetic, Iris thought. He also talked about and his and Eleni’s longer term plans. ‘It’s been tough on her, but I think her parents are beginning to thaw. And I think I have her convinced to go back to work properly from next week. And then there’s Mum, she …’

  ‘Needs to stay around for as long as she needs to,’ Isobel said firmly. ‘Don’t push her away, Chris, she’s had a huge scare — twice – and there’ve been other things going on ….’ She was still telling him about reconnecting with Neil and Andrew when Iris returned and sat on a chair on the opposite side of Chris’s bed, picking up his hand and holding it. Chris smiled at her and turned back to Isobel, encouraging her to continue about her overnight stay with Andrew. It was hard for Isobel to avoid glancing at Iris to see how she was taking it.

  ‘That all sounds terrific,’ Chris said when she had finished. ‘I like the sound of him. Do you think Neil’s a bit of a wide boy? Or shouldn’t I ask?’

  Isobel laughed. ‘I think he’s got an eye for the main chance,’ she said, ‘not being sure what a wide boy is, but open enough about his intentions to be likable. I hope. Maybe he cares a bit much about what other people think or the trappings of success, or something like that. I’ve only had the one meeting with him. Recently. Enough already, I’ll go and get a coffee and leave you two alone.’

  There was no point in trying to figure out Iris, she thought, as she stirred the coffee. Her partner had gone from hysterical panic to sweet reasonableness alarmingly quickly. And apparently wasn’t going to talk about it. That was the worrying part, they’d always talked, Iris had at times wanted to talk too much for Isobel, to pick things over until they vanished into their combined breath, but right now she was sticking strictly with pleasant and surface and this made Isobel anxious. This and hardly touching. I won’t push, I’ll wait and see, Isobel thought, and then wondered if that wasn’t just being her old, passive self. Don’t try and decide, she decided, do what feels like the thing to do at the time. You haven’t done too badly since you got here, she told herself, and took her lukewarm coffee back to the counter to ask for a hot replacement.

  Shirley was late. When she arrived they were agreeing that she was right about the sour cherry pastries and the coffee was excellent too.

  ‘I wish someone had reminded me how much I hate meetings before I got involved with new immigrant support,’ said Shirley, dropping into a chair. ‘Sorry I’m late, it’s been one of those mornings.’

  ‘I didn’t know Australia took new immigrants.' Isobel got a withering look from Iris.

  ‘I’m not talking politics here,’ Shirley said surprisingly mildly, ‘but organising household goods and language lessons and the like. With a pack of well-meaning people who think organize means … well, who don’t have a clue what organizing means, let alone how to keep an inventory. And this is not what you need to hear right now, is it? How is Chris?’ to Iris, and, ‘never mind keeping your big sister in the loop,’ to Isobel. ‘Tell all,’ she commanded.

  Iris did the talking, first about Chris and how his injuries and then the aneurysm had been treated — some of it detail Isobel had not previously heard — and finishing with Isobel’s meetings with Andrew and Neil and her own reactions to that.

  ‘You’ve certainly been through the mill.’ Shirley was talking to Iris. ‘I’ve been lucky, touch wood, on the accident and sickness front. Some days I find that hard to remember, with three children in their thirties and no grandchildren, nor any sign of them. I sure as hell didn’t breed breeders.' She turned to Isobel, ‘I never really knew your sons,’ she said, ‘except through letters from Mum, I only ever met them once or twice when they were very young. Do you think …’

  Isobel couldn’t even begin to think grandchildren in relation to herself. Apparently neither of the other women had notice her wince at your sons. They hadn’t been hers since they were two, and even then she wasn’t sure. And they were Bob and Joyce’s sons. To her they were two people she wanted to know more than she did, wanted to create more connection with, but not to make them hers or herself theirs. Her car, her house, her job, even her partner she could deal with. His wife had been anathema from the beginning, their mother — and hence, my sons — they sounded harmless, natural even, but to her had meant, still did mean, a trap, a trap which if she fell into it, she would never escape from. Independent working woman, that was a place she could be, from which she could interact with the world.

  ‘Isobel!’ Iris was touching her arm. ‘Shirley asked you how long you were staying. Twice.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry. Until the weekend, Miriama can’t stay with the animals beyond Saturday.’ She looked at her partner, barely hopeful that they might return together, have some time at home, get past this — she didn’t know what to call it. Estrangement wasn’t the word, nor was distance. It was more that their bedrock, the bedrock she had gotten so used to be being firm, stable, strong, had developed a wobble.

  ‘Iris,’ said Iris suddenly in the tone of an announcement, ‘has been thinking.’

  ‘That you’ll come home with me?’ She couldn’t keep the hope out of her voice.

  ‘No. Sorry, love. Not yet. I’d just fret. So.’ She looked at each of the other two in turn, ‘It wouldn’t do to go back to Eleni’s, and, well, Shirley used the magic word “inventory”….’

  ‘Magic?! Nightmare's more like it. Chaos. Stuff all over town, no records, no system, a family desperate for blankets and no-one remembers there’s a pile in St Kilda, someone needs cooking pots and someone else buys them when there’s a stack under a church somewhere. Don’t get me started.’

  ‘No.’ Iris actually laughed. ‘Get me started. I know inventories. And I know just the software. You have got a computer? Two weeks, staying with you, Shirley, you driving us around, visiting Chris — without — you know — overdoing it.’ The last with a glance at Isobel. ‘And home in two weeks if all goes well with my boy. There! It’s a plan! What do you think?’

  ‘Cracker! The best idea I’ve heard in a month! When can we start?’ Shirley was looking at Isobel, who was trying to decide on her response, to her partner and to her sister. She swallowed disappointment. ‘Sounds like a good scheme to me,’ she managed, ‘though I was looking forward to us both being home now that Chris is okay.’ She saw irritation flash across Iris’s face.

  ‘We will be.' They were being so bloody careful with each other. Then Iris and Shirley were talking details and Isobel tuned out again. Shirley hadn’t even mentioned husband Brian, she supposed he would be amenable. But me and Iris, she was thinking, we’ve always made decisions together, and now we’re making announcements. Isobel and Iris, the great consulters, where have they gone?

  ~~~

  Chapter 22

  Isobel arrived home by taxi late on Saturday night to an ecstatic welcome from Barney and a high-tailed walk-past from Ginger. Miriama had left a note that whatever they indicated to the contrary the animals had been fed. Eight saved messages on the answerphone, the note told her, and would she ring and leave a message on Miriama’s when she got in to say she’d arrived, as she would be at Donna and Marie’s and why didn’t Isobel come along, it was Marie’s 60th in case she had forgotten and most of their friends would be there. I’m not going to a party, thought Isobel, definitely no party.

  Even after listening to all the messages, every one from a friend inquiring after her and Iris and Chris, Isobel felt lonely, as she had the last two days in Melbourne. Most of the last two days she corrected herself, not this morni
ng when she and Iris had made love and seemed almost back in their familiar connectedness. Then Iris had begun to talk about Shirley and how she was looking forward to having something productive to do. Isobel’s response that, ‘what new immigrants need is efficient verification of their qualifications and a proper job, not charitable handouts of second-hand furniture,’ didn’t go down well.

  ‘They’d still need furniture!’

  ‘Yes of course, but maybe they’d rather buy it themselves.’

  ‘This isn’t about what you think about immigrants, this is about your attitude to your sister!’ Iris was accusatory again.

  Yes it was, Isobel knew that, and it was also about what she felt about people who patronised, acted out lady bountiful, keeping new-comers in their place. ‘Only partly,’ she replied, and added, ‘it does seem strange you getting so pally with Shirley. I guess you don’t have a little sister history with her.’

  ‘I like Shirley, and I think you’re jealous!’ Iris was sitting up in bed now, looking down at Isobel, who was distracted by naked breasts swinging gently. ‘You and your family, I’ve never made sense of it, the way you keep them out there no matter what.’

  Isobel closed her eyes against rising tears. She’d never get Iris to understand that out there was where her family was, not where she kept them, and was working up to saying so anyway when she felt Iris’s hand ruffle her hair and her body move away as she got out of bed. The best part of the rest of the day was ten minutes with Chris when nothing in particular was said, but Isobel knew that he was grateful for her interventions. She wished him extremely well with Eleni and her family, enjoying the warmth and mutual understanding. Some time she would point out to Iris that Chris was as much family to her as anyone and they had a fine relationship.

  Trailing her thoughts around the house, tired but not sleepy, Isobel unpacked, put washing in the machine, hung her coat on its hook behind the front door, tidied things that barely needed tidying, restless, trying to recall the happiness of a few weeks ago, the time before that phone call from Bevan Jones. Not sure though whether that happiness could be trusted because Iris had, after all, been upset by her writing in the diary. Or did that come later? Did Iris really not mind at the time and later just look for things to be mad at? And if that was the case, what did it mean for the happiness Isobel had thought they were sharing? A thought — or was it really a feeling? — that Isobel didn’t want was creeping inexorably into her consciousness. Would she ever experience that wonderfully taken-for-granted happiness with Iris again, and if she did, would she, could she, trust it?

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake, get over yourself!’ she said out loud and brought both animals running, so she gave them each a few biscuits with the admonition, ‘Your other mother wouldn’t be giving you biscuits at this time of night,’ and went to bed, still lonely.

  On Sunday morning Isobel bought both Sunday papers and a Saturday Dominion and settled into a Hataitai café with them to catch up on the details of the annual government budget. Its reading in parliament last Thursday had been practically ignored in the Australian papers. Even though most of the budget contents were known around parliament — and these days fed to the media — in advance, she prided herself on being well-informed, didn’t want to have missed any last-minute spin. Rei found her there and so she moved back into her life, work and friends, dinners out, the house, the animals, phone calls with an Iris who sounded as though she was organizing the entire Melbourne immigrant-support movement and wasn’t angry and irritated.

  At the end of two weeks in which a politician was in strife over impregnating a teenager some time in his past, a child was killed in his family, prompting another round of outrage at the ineffectiveness of social services and political hostages were freed in Fiji, Iris came home. She seemed to Isobel like her old self. They began planning a big party for her fiftieth birthday, barely a month away. Iris had asked Chris and Eleni if they would come over for it and didn’t seem to mind too much that they weren’t. ‘It would be silly for Chris to travel too soon,’ was all she said.

  Over the next busy weeks, there were few chances for introspection, either separately or with Iris. Not a bad thing Isobel decided, they were all right. The diary lay quietly on its shelf. There had been no more alarms from Melbourne and Chris was working at the firm’s office, though he wouldn’t be back on the road for a while. Eleni and Iris talked on the phone sometimes. Eleni’s parents were slowly warming to Chris. Angelo, who employed Iris, was claiming his pound of flesh, she complained, but cheerfully, and had her working parallel computer systems to trial some new software. Parliament was in session, so Isobel’s own work was busy.

  The weekend of Iris’s party came at the end of Wellington’s warmest July. Rei and Miriama spent the day with them blowing up purple and white balloons, preparing food, rushing out for more candles so there could be fifty on the cake. Stories and laughter punctuated the work. More like a family than any family I’ve known, Isobel thought at one point, and within minutes Sally and Daniel appeared at the door, with Nathan, up from Invercargill, ‘nursing my divorce wounds,’ he said. Isobel doubted she would have recognized him, except that he had grown into a distinct look of her father. She turned to comment on this to Daniel, but he was picking fluff off his sleeve and then all the attention was on the huge, wrapped present they had brought that Iris insisted on opening immediately. ‘Strictly present delivery and happy birthday wishes,’ said Sally

  ‘I’ve always wanted one of those.’ Everyone was admiring the immaculate art deco lamp, the naked woman stretching elegantly, holding high the round white glass shade. Iris hugged Sally, then Daniel and showed off the ring Isobel had had made, a large pale opal in plain silver.

  ‘How are you doing?’ Isobel and Daniel were in the kitchen, making tea.

  ‘Okay. The week before last was the worst, I never made it to work once. Stronger medication now, seems to be working.' Isobel hated the flat voice.

  ‘Oh Daniel, I’m so sorry, we’ve been preoccupied … I wish I’d known.’

  ‘Not a lot you could have done Sis, but thanks, anyway.’ He stood back for her to carry the tray. ‘In case I get the shakes.' She wanted him to fight those awful shakes, not just give in.

  ‘I do wish I could help!’ He backed off from her move to hug him so she touched his arm and picked up the tray, determining that next week she’d make time for him. And talk to Sally. And Nathan if he was still around; she still remembered him as a boy who rushed about, was never still, made her nervous. She could just see him as a teenager, skinny, inclined to show off until his mother intervened. It was always Sally who intervened, never Daniel. She had an image in her mind of Daniel saying, ‘don’t talk like that to your mother,’ to a teenage Sarah, but never to Nathan. She would ask him ….

  As Sally and Daniel and Nathan were leaving, Sia arrived, followed soon after by Peter and Phil. Apparently everyone who wasn’t coming to the party was popping in.

  ‘I feel like the queen holding court,’ Iris whispered at one point. ‘Why didn’t I say‘no presents? At which Isobel nodded towards the lamp, so she added, ‘except for family,’ with a grin.

  By the time people were arriving for the party proper Isobel thought they were as ready as they could be. Iris had a system going — of course — so that she would be able to tell the next day what present had come from whom. ‘You look stunning,’ Isobel told her. She’d dressed to show off Isobel’s ring, in a pale blue silk shirt with the collar turned up at the back and navy trousers.

  ‘Come on,’ and they went to the door, holding hands.

  Much later, lying in bed together, Isobel spooned into Iris’s back, they congratulated themselves on a highly successful party.

  ‘Did you notice Irene getting drunk, trailing after Eva reminding her how badly she — in Irene’s view — had behaved? Mind you, she was the only person who drank herself silly that I noticed. I hope someone gave her a ride home.’

  ‘Uh huh, and the sm
okers actually used the ashtray I put on the back porch. We’re all so grown up and civilized, aren’t we?.’

  ‘Not like the old days!’ Iris laughed. ‘Not that I’d want them back.'

  ‘What was your best year out of the 50?’ Isobel regretted the question as soon as she asked it because she knew the answer she wanted was 1991, the year they bought and moved into this house.

  ‘1974,’ came back without a pause. The year Chris was born. Oh well, thought Isobel, I can live with that. Iris snuggled her bottom into Isobel and was breathing in the regular rhythms of sleep within moments, leaving Isobel with 1974.

  The year after the convention in Auckland, she was thinking, when lesbians were organizing politically as lesbians and I half wanted to join in and was half terrified of them. The year I thought I should prove I was actually a lesbian by having a proper relationship with a woman, so I propositioned Rhonda to the extreme embarrassment of us both after she told me she was about to marry Ben. So I told her about the boys and we somehow stayed friends and she’s still married to him and their two girls are grown up and I love her to bits and even like Ben. And it took me another year, nearly, before Angela and I and the flat with the other two – Katie and – golly I can’t even remember her name – and nearly leaving my job because it was too compromising to work for the government – who was it who said that to me? And not in the end because I read something – was it Charlotte Bunch? – that made it all right to stay. I really didn’t know who I was then. And I do now, I think. And it’s all right, who I am. Iris stirred, and she thought about waking her and telling her she, Isobel, was having a Martha Quest moment, but then thought she would probably have to remind Iris what she had said when they had that row ages ago and it was all too much to explain.