Isa and May

by Margaret Forster

  The bus turned out to be a 390. When I’d finally stopped snivelling, I began to recognise the route. It could take me near to my grandmother’s house. May would say it was meant. I’d been guided on to that particular bus for a purpose and that purpose was her. I got off at the stop nearest to the street where she lives and felt immediately happier. I had the prospect of comfort ahead, as well as the inevitable tea and biscuits. I walked along, remembering being dropped off at May’s by my mother, who’d picked me up from school because they’d called her telling her I wasn’t well, and she had only enough time to collect me and take me to my granny’s. May had a set routine for such occasions. She’d take me into her kitchen and put two chairs together, and cushions on them, and then lie me down and cover me up and give me a hot-water bottle to hold against my tummy, regardless of what was wrong with me (or of the weather). I loved it. If I was really not well, it always made me feel better, and if I wasn’t – if I’d been pretending for some reason – it helped my state of mind.

  She wouldn’t be able to put me on two chairs now (the big, squat leather one and the battered straw one, both squashed into corners in that small, overheated room). It would have to be the settee, in the front room, and that room wouldn’t be heated, so May wouldn’t want to put me there. Maybe she’d make me go and lie down in her bedroom, underneath her slippery pink eiderdown, and I didn’t want to do that. No, I’d have to settle for the leatherette armchair, and let her put my feet on her stool. That would do. She could still cover me with a rug, though. I’d allow that, but not the scratchy tartan one, I’d never liked that one even as a child. She had another one, a chenille one, I’d prefer that . . .

  I can’t have been in my right mind. Half an hour later, there I stood, on May’s doorstep, tear stains still damp on my cheeks, mouth trembling a bit, I expect, ready to unload my misery, and suddenly I caught hold of myself – what was I thinking of, about to treat my sick, old grandmother like this? I stepped back, found a tissue in my pocket and tried to wipe away the evidence of all that silly weeping. I’d have to pretend I had a bad cold. I found another scrunched-up tissue and dabbed at my nose. I rapped the knocker. Shuffle, shuffle, then there she was, peeping at me through the lace curtain in her front room. I lifted the flap of the letter box and called out, ‘Granny, it’s me, Isamay. I’ve forgotten my key.’

  There was no flinging open of the door and cries of delight, but then I hadn’t expected them. But I’d hoped for some sign of pleasure, visible in a little grunt and a half-smile and an instruction to get myself in and she’d put the kettle on. Nothing, at first. A stare, a frown. ‘It’s me, Granny,’ I said, ‘Isamay.’ And then she did half smile, and she did tell me to come in and she’d put the kettle on, and I followed her down the passage. ‘I thought you were someone else,’ she said, ‘a girl I used to know. You looked just like her.’ ‘What was her name?’ I asked, not because I really wanted to know, just to keep her chatting. ‘Cora,’ she said. ‘What happened to her?’ ‘She died.’

  That finished that topic off. The kettle boiled, the tea business was managed, and we each sat down. ‘Let’s have a look at you,’ May said, then, ‘You look under the weather.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You don’t look it. You look like you used to look when you dodged off school.’

  ‘I didn’t dodge off school.’

  ‘And the Pope’s not a Catholic. Proper little actress you were, the time of them bullies. Couldn’t stand up for yourself. Tell your gran, I used to say, and out it would come. Shall I go and bash them? I’d say, and I’d get a saucepan and say I was going to go and bash them, and you’d cheer up.’

  ‘I don’t remember being bullied.’

  ‘Well, I do, miss. So who’s been at you?’

  ‘At me?’

  ‘You know what I mean. Is it that whatever-she’s-called teacher? With a man’s name?’

  ‘Claudia, you mean? It isn’t a man’s name. And Claudia never bullies me. We’re two grown women, for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘Your fella, then, that Ian, is he being rough?’

  ‘Rough? Ian? Granny, please!’

  ‘It was a manner of speaking. Is he being good to you? You know what I mean.’

  ‘He’s always good to me.’

  ‘Then what’s the matter? It’s not good for the baby, you being peaky. Are you eating proper, eh? You need your strength, you need to eat for two . . .’

  That’s when I started crying again, crying and laughing at the same time (or hysterics, as it is commonly known). ‘Oh, my good Gawd,’ May said. ‘This isn’t good for the baby. Settle down now, settle down.’

  It’s hard to cuddle or hug someone if they are sitting slumped in an armchair, but May did her best. She perched her bottom on the luckily broad arm of the chair and leant down towards me, bracing herself with her hands clutching at the back of the chair. It was a very awkward position, which she couldn’t hold for long, fortunately – the tea fumes were wafting strongly over me and making me feel sick – and soon gave up. ‘Oh my Gawd,’ she gasped, ‘my back. Get yourself out of that damned chair or I’ll fall on top of you. All this carrying on ain’t good for the baby, so stop it, stop it.’ She sounded angry but I knew she wasn’t – she was beginning to panic, afraid she wouldn’t be able to console me. ‘I shall have to ring your mum,’ she said, ‘that’s what I’ll have to do if you don’t stop. Here, here’s a hanky, dry them eyes, come on, it can’t be that bad, whatever it is, I’ve known worse, I’ll bet.’

  The tears only stopped because I was exhausted by then. My head ached and I felt my eyeballs themselves were raw. But I didn’t move from the saggy old chair. May patted my hand and peered at me, and I croaked that I’d like a glass of water if she wouldn’t mind. The tap ran for ages until she was satisfied that the water was cold and fresh enough and then she produced the glass, a slice of lemon floating on the top, as she knew I liked it. That was a concession – May thinks it a waste of a lemon, and a lemon itself a luxury. She watched approvingly as I sipped the water. ‘That’s better, down the hatch with it,’ she said. ‘It’s good to drink water, you carry on drinking it.’ I drained the glass. ‘More?’ I shook my head. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘We’ll forget it,’ she said.

  ‘It was just . . .’ My voice trailed off.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ said May, hurriedly. ‘Best forgotten if it upsets you.’

  ‘But I can’t forget it.’

  ‘What is it, then?’

  ‘I’m having a baby. It moved today.’

  ‘Well, so it should. How far on are you? Halfway, isn’t it? It should be kicking, that’s nothing to cry about.’

  ‘But I’ve made a mistake.’

  ‘What about? What the devil are you on about, Isamay?’

  ‘I don’t want this baby. I’ve made a mistake.’

  ‘This is daft talk.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. I’ve made a terrible mistake.’

  ‘Then you have to live with it, that’s all.’

  May’s tone was harsh and definite. She stopped patting my hand and hovering over me and went across to her dresser, where she started banging plates about, her back to me. I snivelled, and closed my eyes. God knows what I’d thought I was doing, coming to my grandmother. What had I expected? Tea and sympathy? But I knew perfectly well that to May, babies were sacrosanct. Not to want one, especially when it already was halfway to being born, was heresy of the vilest kind. I’d heard May’s views on abortion many a time: murder, no other word for it. Suddenly she turned back to face me, her hands clutching a plate before her like a shield. ‘You, madam,’ she said, sternly, ‘don’t know how lucky you are. That’s your trouble, you and your mistake, calling the baby that, well, I know a lot of mistakes and they are glad to be alive and their mothers are glad to have them and wouldn’t ever let them know they was mistakes, so just get on with it and stop bleating on or don’t never come here again. Now, you should eat, after all that bawling. What will it be? Toast and
cheese? A ham sandwich? You ain’t leaving this house without a bite to eat.’

  I chose the toasted cheese. She cut the two slices into triangles for me and I ate them daintily. She said my nose was red and my eyes had disappeared and I couldn’t leave her house looking like that or the neighbours would think it was her fault. Then she put her wireless on, very low, some sort of music station, and said she wouldn’t be a minute, she had to go upstairs and get something she wanted to show me, to cheer me up, she said; it was what she’d told me, on the phone, to remind her about. I heard her plod up the stairs, talking to herself, and then the dragging of something across her bedroom floor and a bang as something fell. Then there was a silence, and I began to worry that the bang had been May falling, but I knew it hadn’t been loud enough. I called out, ‘Granny?’ rather feebly, but didn’t move. Eventually I heard the bedroom door being closed and the sound of May descending.

  I expected photographs, or a photograph. She’d probably unearthed some blurred snap, like the one Ian had hidden, and I’d be obliged to peer at it while she identified the could-be-anyone people in it. But she wasn’t holding anything that looked like a photograph or an album. She was carrying a cylindrical cardboard container, holding it like a cosh, as though she were about to bash me over the head with it. Her expression, too, was quite threatening, but that wasn’t unusual. ‘Now,’ she said, coming to stand in front of me (I was still flopping in the armchair), ‘now, madam, what do you think this is, eh?’ I said I’d no idea. ‘What does it look like?’ I said it looked like a container for a poster, something like that. ‘You’re getting near,’ she said. ‘Go on, then.’ She held it up for me to see better, then tapped it on the arm of the chair. It wasn’t as long as it had seemed when she’d come into the room brandishing it. It was only about thirty centimetres long, so if it held a poster it was a small one. I really couldn’t be bothered to guess any more, but May was insistent. ‘A certificate?’ I said, ‘Something like that?’ ‘Now we’re getting somewhere,’ she said, and handed me the cardboard tube. ‘Go on,’ she urged, ‘look inside it,’ and she stood over me, waiting, with this strange, triumphant look appearing on her face.

  The tube was closed with one of those hard plastic discs. It was stuck in firmly and obviously hadn’t been opened for a very long time. I picked at it, lazily, until May was becoming impatient and annoyed with me, and I tried harder and got a fingernail underneath the rim and prised the disc off. ‘There you are,’ May said. ‘Now fish it out and see what it is.’ I fished. The paper was tightly scrolled, and though I slid my finger in easily enough, it didn’t move under the pressure I was able to exert. ‘I don’t want to tear it,’ I said. ‘I should think not,’ May said. ‘Give it a tap.’ Obediently, I tipped the tube up, and knocked on the bottom, but the scroll of paper didn’t budge. ‘Oh, for Gawd’s sake,’ May said, exasperated. I tried harder, this time wedging two fingers inside the rolled-up paper, quite far down, and slowly I could feel the scroll beginning to slide out. Another tap on the bottom end and an inch or two was free. I extracted the complete thing and saw it was tied in the middle with what looked like thread, black thread, wound round and round. There was no apparent knot. ‘Do I break the thread?’ I asked May. ‘Well, you’ll have to, won’t you?’ said May, and ‘I’ve plenty of black thread.’

  I put a finger under the thread but it didn’t snap, and in trying to make it break I’d dented the paper. ‘I need scissors,’ I said. ‘Of course you do,’ May said, crossly. ‘I’ve plenty of scissors, haven’t I?’ and she went over to her dresser and pulled the middle drawer out and came back with two pairs. ‘Scissors!’ she said. ‘Take your pick!’ I snipped the thread. It came apart, but the strands stayed together as though glued, sealed, I imagined, with age. ‘This had better be good,’ I said before I unrolled the scroll. I was feeling more cheerful, taking part in this little charade, though I’d been so reluctant to take an interest, and realised that May was concocting a sort of game, just to distract me, and that what was finally being revealed would turn out to be nothing much, something of no significance at all, and I’d have to act as though it was extraordinary, to please May. I peeled open the scroll, but it had been rolled up so tightly for so long that it immediately sprang back. ‘Careful,’ May said. ‘I am being careful.’ I unrolled it again and placed the flat of my hand over it. My eyes were blurry, as they often are when I’ve been crying (or ‘carrying on’, as May would say). And I was still slumped in the squashy depths of the armchair, the leather sides of it casting gloom on the scroll’s writing, which in any case was hard to decipher. It was the old style ornate sort, full of loops and twirls, and written with a thick nib. ‘What is it?’ I asked May. ‘You can read, can’t you?’ she said. ‘It’s plain enough.’ I blinked, but the writing still swam before me, and I blinked again, and tried to open my eyes wider. ‘Goodness gracious,’ May said, irritably, ‘are you having a fit, or what? Stop it. Sit up. If you can’t see there, move to the table. You should get your eyes tested. All that reading’s done for them. Here, I’ll put the light on. What a waste, needing the electric when it’s broad daylight.’ I got up, clutching the scroll, and went to the table. It was only a step away from the armchair, but my legs felt wobbly and it was a relief to sit on one of the hard, upright, solid chairs round it. ‘There you are,’ May said, once I’d sat down. I concentrated.

  I read what was written on the scroll twice. It was a Pitman’s shorthand certificate, with an oval photograph of a bust of Sir Isaac Pitman himself at the top. It said that Muriel Wright had been examined on 19 October 1916 by the undersigned examiners and had proved her ability to write Pitman’s shorthand at the rate of 100 words a minute. I stared at this document and asked the only safe question: who was Muriel? My grandfather Albert’s sister, apparently. ‘Well,’ I said, weakly, ‘very nice.’ ‘Nice?’ said May, scandalised. ‘Nice? She was clever, that’s the point. Learning shorthand like that, in them days. It’s where you and your mum get it from.’ I said, stupidly, that neither Mum nor I could do shorthand, and May got cross. ‘It’s the brains I’m talking about,’ she said. ‘There was brains there already. See?’ I said I saw. ‘No you don’t,’ May said. ‘Muriel, she was a mistake. Turned out the cleverest of Albert’s lot, but she’d been a mistake. Like me. Her ma caught out by the change. We was never intended. And you talking about getting rid of your mistake, the idea!’

  May was shouting, and the shouting was making her breathless, and it scared me. I went close to her, to put my arms round her, half fearing she would hit me. But she let me encircle her, and gradually the heaving stopped, and she started pushing me away, but gently, muttering to herself that she didn’t know what was going on any more. Then she freed herself and tottered back to the armchair and picked up the cylindrical container the scroll had come in and handed it to me. ‘Put it in again, nice and tight,’ she ordered me, and I rolled the certificate up again and did so. ‘I’ve got another certificate of Muriel’s,’ May said. ‘Don’t know where it is. She passed something with her violin, too. She sang lovely, played the piano and the violin. A neighbour took an interest and taught her the beginnings and then she passed her on to this music teacher she knew and Muriel paid for the lessons by doing shopping for people and working Saturdays at the paper shop . . .’ May was happy again, rambling on about my great-aunt Muriel, relishing all the detail. I did listen, and I was interested, but I felt that none of Muriel’s story had much to do with me, and yet I was the one so obsessed with genetic inheritances. Anyway, I thanked May for putting up with me, and went home soon afterwards.

  Still no Ian, and no news of him. His mobile is turned off and I’m tired of leaving messages for him. It’s embarrassing constantly to text him, so I’ve stopped.

  I tell myself this is good practice for learning how to live on my own again. I’m fine until about six in the evening, and then the silence around me seems to change its nature. It becomes denser, my ears sing with it. I find myself clearing my thr
oat noisily when I’ve no need to. It isn’t that I am nervous, afraid of someone breaking in or anything like that, but the silence becomes so acute it needs to be dealt with. Each time I turn over a page it is like a statement – here I am, yes, me, on my own, sitting reading. My ears go on singing and I feel I can hear myself breathing. The silence is suddenly a weight, and though I am not crushed by it, I am aware of being cowed. I try to imagine what it would be like if the extreme quiet was to be broken by a baby crying. Would it shatter the silence in such a way that it would never be complete again? Would that be a good thing? Have I outgrown the solitary life?

  I fell asleep, and when I woke, after half an hour I suppose, my neck was stiff and I felt cold and the flat hummed with small noises I hadn’t heard before. I registered them with relief: the odd creaking of floorboards as Maisie, the upstairs tenant, walked about, the ticking of the central heating as the water went through the radiators, the faint constant whirr of the freezer, the drip from the tap in the bathroom, which needs a new washer. All the tiny sounds never noticed either when Ian is here with me, or when I’ve withdrawn into a kind of suspended life and shut everything out. Now I was OK. So, the flat was quiet but not alarmingly so. It was how I like it. The peace to think in, not disturbing at all. I could cope. I could more than cope. I could relish it.

  I was very glad, when Ian returned, that I had had that experience. It did me good to know that I can, and will, manage on my own and that his presence is not as important to me – though it is important – as I’d started to believe it might be. There was no need to panic about the baby. I could be a family of one. Well, not just of one. The child will have grandparents and great-grandmothers.