Second Time Around

by Marcia Willett

  Isobel took her glass and sipped at her spritzer. Simon sat opposite, took a pull at his beer and raised his eyebrows.

  ‘So …’ He let it hang in the air; not quite a question.

  ‘I just wanted to ask about Helen,’ Isobel said quickly. ‘How the holidays went, whether there’s any sign of relenting. That sort of thing. Has she gone back to Durham?’

  ‘Yes, I drove her up at the weekend.’ Simon moved a little in his chair, rather as if he found the subject an awkward one. ‘Term doesn’t start for a week or two but she’s moving out of hall and going into a house with a group of friends. Very nice it is too. A little Victorian crescent near the cathedral.’

  Isobel was silent. The pain made it impossible for her to speak. That she was not allowed to take part in her daughter’s life was unbearable and she quite suddenly remembered Mathilda’s words. ‘That rather depends on what you lost in the attempt …’ Oh, far too much, she cried silently.

  ‘She’s fine,’ said Simon gently. ‘Honestly. She’s got some really nice friends and she’s doing well.’

  Isobel nodded, swallowing hard and trying to smile. ‘I’m so pleased,’ she said. ‘I just wish that I could see her. You know …’

  ‘I know,’ he agreed. ‘I’m really sorry, love. But now that she’s over eighteen it’s up to her. I do my best to make her see it all rationally.’

  ‘I know you do.’ She smiled more easily; the endearment had been absurdly comforting. ‘I know. It’s just the years are going by.’ She looked at him. ‘And how are you?’

  ‘Oh.’ He seemed taken aback by the direct question. ‘Oh, OK. Much the same.’ He looked away from her intense stare, made uncomfortable by it.

  ‘Oh, Simon,’ she sighed. ‘It all seems so silly. Such a waste.’

  ‘Yes. Well …’ He hesitated, unwilling to point out that it was her doing.

  ‘I know,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s my fault. Do you think I don’t tell myself that?’

  ‘Please, Isobel.’ He looked extremely distressed. ‘Please don’t go on. I’m sure that Helen will come round. She’s growing up. You must be patient.’

  ‘It’s not just Helen,’ she said—and stopped.

  ‘I know it isn’t,’ Simon said, so bleakly that she looked at him quickly, hopefully. ‘Oh, Izzy …’

  There was something almost despairing in his tone and, at the sound of the nickname he had used so often in the past, she found the courage to reach out and touch his hand.

  ‘Honestly, Simon,’ she said, ‘I never really loved Mike. I know that now. It was like I was ill or something. Mad. You know? Couldn’t we … ?’

  ‘Look.’ He took her hand and held it tightly, biting his lip, searching for words. ‘The thing is …’ He sighed and released her. ‘It’s no good,’ he said flatly. ‘There’s someone else, Isobel. Sorry, but it’s best to say it straight out.’

  She sat back quickly, clasping her hands together. ‘I … see.’

  ‘I should have said something before,’ he continued wretchedly. ‘I knew how your mind was working but I couldn’t bring myself to hurt you.’

  ‘That’s generous of you, in the circumstances,’ she said. She picked up her glass and took a long swallow. Simon stared at the table. ‘Do … do I know her?’

  He hesitated so long that she knew that she must and her shocked mind ranged briefly over their friends.

  ‘It’s Sally Curtis,’ he said at last.

  Sally Curtis. Sally of the long brown hair and green eyes who taught History; Sally who had lost husband and child in a car crash and had bravely started a new life; Sally whom she had invited to a barbecue at the town house and with whom she had sympathised; Sally who had encouraged Helen with her history; Sally … He was watching her compassionately.

  ‘She’s been a good friend,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Isobel. ‘I’m sure she has. And Helen adores her.’

  ‘That is a bonus,’ he agreed. ‘I’m sorry, Isobel—’

  ‘No, no,’ she interrupted him quickly, ‘I should have guessed there was someone. After all, why shouldn’t you and … and Sally …’

  ‘Shall I get you another drink?’ he asked anxiously.

  ‘No,’ she said abruptly. ‘No. Just go, would you, Simon? Sorry. It’s just … Please go.’

  He finished his beer and stood up, his eyes genuinely worried. ‘Will you be OK?’

  ‘Of course I will. I just want to sit quiet.’ Go, she begged silently. Just go before I burst into tears or do something bloody humiliating. For God’s sake go!

  ‘I’ll be in touch.’ She felt his hand briefly on her shoulder. ‘Take care.’

  She didn’t look up until she heard the door close behind him. She stared straight ahead, seeing nothing. So that was that. What a fool she’d been! Humiliation swept over her, staining her cheeks. Simon and Sally Curtis … Sally who was only thirty-something; Sally whom Helen adored and now Simon adored also. The pain was so acute that she could barely breathe and she sat for some moments making an attempt to calm herself. The young barman—probably a student—came to collect Simon’s empty glass. He glanced at her curiously and Isobel attempted to smile at him. It was a failure. Her lips shook and she picked up her bag and went out into the windy car park. A gust of wind drove the rain horizontally and she held her coat over her head as she hurried to the car. Once inside she fumbled with her keys and realised that her hands were trembling. Suddenly she wanted to be back at the cove, tucked away inside her little cottage or—better still—with Mathilda in her tall grey house. Just being with Mathilda would calm and strengthen her.

  Isobel started the engine and switched on the windscreen wipers. They wiped away the rain but not her tears and she dragged her hand angrily across her eyes before she pulled out on to the road and headed for the cove.

  THE KITCHEN WAS EMPTY. Out of habit Isobel went round tidying up, locking the French windows and drawing the curtains before going upstairs. Having reached the landing she paused to listen at Mathilda’s bedroom door before climbing on again, up to the top floor. The study was empty so she opened the drawing room door and looked inside. Mathilda sat reading beside a fire which had burned down to little more than ashes, undisturbed by the rain which streamed down the darkened window panes or the wind which rattled at the catches.

  ‘Honestly, Mathilda.’ Isobel shut the door behind her and crossed the room to the French windows. ‘You could at least keep the fire going. Aren’t you cold?’

  Mathilda raised her eyes from her book and watched Isobel drag the curtains together. Even she detected a brittle note in the younger woman’s voice.

  ‘I didn’t notice,’ she said. ‘Is it dark already?’

  Isobel sighed and began to rake the ashes together, putting on small pieces of wood until the fire blazed up. ‘You’re hopeless,’ she said.

  ‘So you keep telling me,’ said Mathilda without rancour.

  Isobel laughed. ‘Hopeless and impossible. Have you had any supper?’

  Mathilda’s brow wrinkled thoughtfully. ‘Soup?’ she suggested cautiously.

  ‘That was lunch,’ sighed Isobel. ‘I left you a casserole in the bottom oven. I did tell you.’

  ‘Well, now we can share it.’ Mathilda put a marker between the pages of her book and prepared to rise. ‘Are you hungry?’

  No, thought Isobel. It would choke me to swallow even a spoonful. She remembered that she had planned that she and Simon would be eating together this evening, so sure had she been that he was weakening.

  ‘I’ve had some supper,’ she said aloud. ‘But I’ll come and watch you eat yours.’

  ‘Good idea. And then we’ll have a game of Scrabble.’

  Isobel piled some more logs on the fire and put the discarded book on the table beside Mathilda’s chair. She was not surprised to see that it was Alain-Fournier’s Le Grand Meaulnes in the French. It might easily have been The Hunting of the Snark. Months ago she’d asked Mathilda how she was able to read Lewis Carroll
one day and Descartes the next. Mathilda pondered. ‘They were both mathematicians, you know,’ she’d said at last.

  LATER THEY SAT TOGETHER, a low table drawn up between them before the fire. After the crowded, active atmosphere of the study the drawing room was almost stark in its austerity; one or two large paintings on the otherwise empty walls; a long sofa against the wall opposite the fireplace; two armchairs pulled up to the fire; a bureau in an alcove. There were the usual bookshelves in the second alcove but it seemed to Isobel that all of Mathilda’s taste and personality had been crammed into the study.

  Isobel rearranged the Scrabble tiles on her rack and wrenched her mind away from Simon and Sally. Instead she thought of an article she’d read only that morning.

  ‘Do you believe in euthanasia?’ she asked abruptly.

  Mathilda began to place her tiles on the board. ‘Of course I do,’ she said.

  Isobel stared at her, surprised at such a swift and unqualified reply. Mathilda met her gaze and raised her eyebrows.

  ‘I must believe in it,’ she said reasonably. ‘After all, it exists. It happens. How could I not believe in it?’

  ‘Oh, honestly!’ said Isobel impatiently. ‘You’re so pedantic, Mathilda. You know what I mean.’

  ‘If you are asking if I approve of it then you should say so,’ replied the old woman. ‘If I am pedantic, you are sloppy. You were a teacher. You should know better.’

  ‘I taught very young children,’ said Isobel, as though that excused it.

  ‘All the more reason for accuracy,’ observed Mathilda.

  ‘But do you?’ persisted Isobel. ‘Do you approve?’

  ‘It all depends,’ began Mathilda—and smiled at Isobel’s groan. ‘It depends on the state of the person at the time. If he is terminally ill and in his right mind I think that he should have as much right to choose the manner of his death just as he has chosen the manner in which he has lived.’

  ‘I notice you say “he”?’

  ‘A manner of speech,’ murmured Mathilda, who had been thinking about Nigel.

  She had visited him in hospital after his chemotherapy treatment. Even now the remembrance had the power to shock her. ‘That’s right, love. Come to see your dad?’ the man in the next bed had asked. Mathilda, who was several years older than Nigel, had looked down on the yellow, bald, mummified head, too horrified to explain that they were not related. Nigel had been unable to communicate and she had sat clutching the claw that had been his hand, staring into the open lashless eyes, her heart pierced with pain.

  ‘But is it right for someone to kill another person? Even if it is a mercy killing?’

  I would have killed Nigel, thought Mathilda. I would have released him from the terrible indignity of those final weeks.

  ‘And don’t say “it all depends”,’ warned Isobel.

  ‘But it does, you see. It depends whether the killer is able to bear the responsibility. Whether the sufferer actually desires release or whether the killer merely thinks he—or she—does … It is all extremely complicated.’

  ‘People cling to life,’ mused Isobel. ‘They say, “Oh, knock me on the head if I get like that,” but when the time comes they decide they’ve changed their minds.’

  ‘This life is all we know,’ said Mathilda putting her last tile in place. ‘It is the human condition to cling to what we know.’

  ‘Even if it’s pretty awful. Mathilda! You can’t have that! Pribble? I’ve never heard of it.’

  ‘Look it up.’ Mathilda pushed the dictionary towards her. ‘It’s a perfectly good word meaning “pointless chattering”. Go on. Look it up.’

  ‘If you will use a pre-war dictionary,’ grumbled Isobel. ‘Pre-Boer War …’

  ‘Are you going to stay the night?’ asked Mathilda, taking more tiles from the bag.

  ‘I think I will,’ said Isobel, listening to the sea pounding against the rocks, the windows rattling beneath the assault of the wind. ‘If that’s OK?’

  ‘Of course.’ Mathilda felt relieved, although she was not quite certain why. It would never have occurred to her to question Isobel but she was aware of a tension in the younger woman.

  ‘Thanks.’ Suddenly Isobel dreaded the moment when she would be alone in bed, unable then to postpone any longer the pictures of Simon and Sally together. She gave thanks that, because she slept so badly, Mathilda generally went to bed late. ‘I’ll make us a hot drink when we’ve finished this game,’ she promised. ‘OK. My turn. Wait till you see this one!’

  Mathilda jotted down her score carefully. Her thoughts of Nigel had disturbed her and she was in some measure glad of Isobel’s company. The fire burned cheerfully, the casserole had been delicious, and she was grateful for the younger woman’s care which went far beyond her duties. She wished that she could help Isobel but did not know how. At least they could bear each other company through this wild night and maybe in the morning the storm would have passed.

  Four

  IT WAS A FEW days after her meeting with Simon before Isobel took in the whole meaning of what he had told her. Just as she had—albeit subconsciously—used the knowledge of his love as a safety net during her affair with Mike, so had she regarded their eventually coming back together as a certainty. Simon had loved her so much, with such care and consideration and loyalty, that she could not seriously contemplate his love ever dying. She had even rather enjoyed their meetings, seeing them almost as a prelude to a new, more exciting relationship. Although she had been taken aback when he did not immediately ‘kiss her feet’, as Helen had put it, deep down she had been sure that she would win him back.

  The shock of realising that there had been someone else numbed her and occupied her every waking thought. She recalled each single meeting and conversation she had ever had with Sally, even morbidly wondering if Simon had been attracted to her before Mike had appeared on the scene. She pictured them together and made herself miserable by contemplating Sally’s happy, easy relationship with Helen. It was at this point that Isobel began to think about her own future. With Sally around it seemed unlikely that Helen would ever need her own mother again.

  Isobel knew now how much she had counted on resuming her marriage with Simon as a route back to her daughter. When she and Simon were living together once more Helen would be confronted with the necessity of seeing and communicating with her. It would be unavoidable, unless Helen gave up coming home altogether. Isobel had been confident that this would be the last hurdle. Now she saw her hopes and plans crumbling to nothing. She was the outsider with no rights to either Simon or Helen. She tried to deal with this as she went about her work, looking after Mathilda, shopping, cleaning and working at the bookshop.

  She was grateful for those two days a week in Mill Street. She and Pat often laughed—sometimes rather bitterly—when customers or friends observed what fun it must be to work in a bookshop. They seemed to imagine that the days passed in a leisurely manner, poring over this book or that and drinking coffee. These people had no notion of the business of unpacking boxes of books, ordering new ones, talking to suppliers, tracking down books for customers who had very few details apart from the titles, answering the telephone, wrestling with the computer; nor how much one’s feet ached at the end of the day. Most lunchtimes Isobel sat out in the back office with a sandwich but generally the telephone would ring or a customer would appear and her sandwich would have to be abandoned, bites snatched at odd moments during the afternoon. Occasionally she would escape next door to The Hermitage and in the warmer months would sit out in the garden with her drink, gratefully breathing in the fresh air.

  It was Pat who made her think about her future. When Isobel told her what had happened, Pat’s concern was for how Isobel would survive. She pointed out that she could offer her no more than her two days at the bookshop; perhaps she should think of going back to teaching? Isobel, who had not yet considered this aspect of her troubles, had remarked that she had Mathilda.

  ‘But for how long?’ asked
Pat.

  During the next few days Isobel brooded on this. Until Simon had shattered her hopes she had seen the future somewhat hazily. She could manage on what she was earning but she had never looked upon her work, either at the bookshop or with Mathilda, as a long-term arrangement. At some point she and Simon would be back together in the house at Modbury and all would be well. She had applied for teaching posts, which were very few and far between, but the competition was fierce and she had not been lucky. Then her job with Pat had turned up, along with Mathilda’s advertisement, and she had put the idea of teaching on the back burner, so to speak. Now Pat’s question haunted her. Mathilda was old and frail. What would happen if she should die? Isobel began to scour the papers in the hope of seeing teaching posts advertised and wondered who would inherit the house in the cove.

  This question was answered almost immediately. The storms subsided and gentler, warmer weather set in. Isobel wandered on the cliffs above the beach but even the breathtaking beauty of the scene failed to raise her spirits. The sea appeared to be resting peacefully against the land, a world away from the recent storms. Beneath the cliffs the water was a pure translucent turquoise fading away, as far as the eye could see, to a softer blue which reflected the cloudless sky until both sea and sky seemed to merge into infinity. Isobel followed the tracks through heather and gorse, which had flowered together in a blaze of colour, and turned inland across the stunted grass towards the fields. A chiffchaff sung his two notes from a hazel bush and the hedges were full of blackberries. She untied the cotton scarf she wore at her throat and began to pick the berries. Mathilda might enjoy a blackberry and apple pie.