I was working steadily when Ian returned, at about four o’clock. I carried on writing notes when I heard the door of the flat being opened. No rushing to greet him, no shout asking him where on earth had he been and why hadn’t he rung each day? None of that. ‘Hi,’ he called. ‘Hi,’ I replied, as casually as I could. I heard him go into the bedroom and heard the thump of his bag as it was dropped on the floor, and then the squeaky cupboard door being opened. Seconds later, the sound of the shower in the bathroom. It ran for a long time, longer than it needed to if he was just getting clean. He’d be standing underneath it, with the water very hot, to ease his fatigue, I imagined. I thought about getting up at that point and going to make him some tea, but I didn’t. He made it himself. I heard him go into the kitchen and boil the kettle, and then the clatter of mugs and teaspoons and other tea-making sounds. ‘Tea?’ he called. ‘Yes please,’ I called back.
So far so good. I was being polite, receptive, but above all else detached. I smiled as I walked into the kitchen, to show I wasn’t sulking. The smile was wasted. He was sitting with his back to me, looking out of the window, the mugs of tea steaming in front of him. It was a shock as I moved forward and saw his face: he looked haggard, wrecked. He hadn’t shaved and the stubble was black and heavy, and with his wet hair brushed flat his head looked odd, as though it was moulded in clay. ‘Oh, Ian,’ I said, and put my hands on his shoulders. No response. ‘Do you want something to eat?’ I said, picking up my own tea. He shook his head. Carefully I sat down at the table and sipped the tea. It seemed crass to ask what was wrong when so much obviously was, so we sat in silence until the tea was drunk. We both were looking anywhere but at each other. The pattern on the mugs, the grain in the wood of the table, the tiles on the wall behind the sink – they’d all become apparently fascinating to us. We sat there, rigid with tension. I felt I had to wait for him to say something, and eventually he did.
‘There wasn’t a chance to phone you.’
‘Don’t worry, didn’t matter.’
‘It did. I’m sorry. I just . . . I get . . . I just can’t handle it. I never could.’
He knew he was talking in riddles, but I sensed that talking at all was hard for him, so I didn’t ask questions.
‘I won’t be going back to Glasgow, ever,’ he said. ‘If she ever rings and asks for me, just say I’ve moved and you don’t know where I’ve gone.’
‘And if she turns up?’
‘Turns up?’ He laughed. ‘Oh, she won’t turn up, no worries there.’
Cautiously, I risked a harmless direct question. ‘You mean your mother, I take it? You’re talking about her? What did she want?’
‘I don’t want to talk about her.’
‘But I do, Ian,’ I said, very gently. ‘I’m completely in the dark.’
‘Good place to be.’
‘No, it isn’t. It’s a horrible place to be. I don’t understand anything, and I want to. I hate to see you so upset and not to know why, not to be able to help.’
He grimaced, and got up and refilled his mug with tea, then he went and stared out of the window. I didn’t know whether to get up too and go and put my arms round him, to comfort him – he was so clearly miserable. But I dreaded him shaking me off, and so I stayed where I was and felt ridiculously rewarded when he came and sat down again and said, ‘Sorry, it’s my fault.’
‘What’s your fault?’
‘Not being able . . . not talking to you about it. I just don’t want to, that’s all. It’s embarrassing, stupid. I want to ignore it.’
‘What? What’s this “it”.’
‘My mother and everything to do with her, and me. She’s no business intruding into my life. I’m thirty-two, I’m not a child.’
‘But you went to her.’
He hesitated, seemed about to say something, but changed his mind, I thought. ‘A mistake. I’m always making the same mistake, but it’s years since I made the last one and I won’t make another.’
If he’d been angry – and I can recognise when Ian is full of fury as opposed to distress – then I would probably have given up at that point, or at least bided my time, waited for a better opportunity to press on. But he was not angry. He was disturbed and uneasy and resentful, not the same at all. So what I said next was that I’d done something I was ashamed of while he was away. I said I’d been so mad when he went off in the way he did that I’d been determined to find out where he’d gone, his mother’s address or something, and so I’d searched all over, his clothes, his desk, his belongings. I’d found an old photograph. I said I wanted to know who the woman was, and why he’d kept the snap and why he’d hidden it. Couldn’t he at least talk about that even if he couldn’t talk about his mother? I said I couldn’t stand even more mystery.
‘You snooper,’ he said, but quite amiably, ‘going to those lengths. Where else did you look? In my socks? Find anything tucked inside? You’re blushing, and so you should.’
‘I’m ashamed. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s of my grandma. My mother’s mother. She took me in.’
‘But why hide it?’
‘I don’t like anyone looking at it.’
‘Not even me?’
‘Especially not you.’
‘Oh, Ian!’
‘It might give you ideas. I’d never hear the end of it. I’d be cross-questioned about her – I know you.’
‘I’m hurt.’
‘I knew you would be. Well, it’s your own fault. You shouldn’t have been so sneaky.’
He’d moved away, of course, from what I’d meant should be the main topic of conversation. I’d expected anger, and I’d hoped, once fuelled by it, he’d let me lead him on to telling me why his mother had called and what had taken place in the last few days. Instead, my confession had given him the opportunity to concentrate on something else. He wasn’t angry, because he was relieved and pleased. He didn’t mind in the least telling me about his grandma. So all I could do was pick up on ‘she took me in’.
‘When did your grandma take you in?’
‘When I was about fourteen.’
‘That old.’
‘Yup, that old.’
‘And why?’
‘I needed somewhere to live.’
‘So you wanted to leave home?’
‘I had to leave what was called home.’
‘That bad?’
‘That bad.’
We were still sitting at the kitchen table. It was as if we were playing a game of chess, each of us making deliberate, controlled moves. The word not to mention was ‘mother’. I mustn’t ask him about his mother. What I must do, I told myself, was get behind that forbidden word and then move closer to it, catching him unawares, like in another game. The Yes or No game. I needed to ask innocuous questions that he wouldn’t mind answering and that might add up to some revelation he hadn’t intended to make.
‘Where did your grandma live?’
‘Near Glasgow.’
‘But Glasgow is where you were born, where you lived, right?’
‘Right.’
‘So you hadn’t run away very far.’
‘I didn’t say I ran away.’
‘You said—’
‘I said I needed somewhere to live.’
Steady, I told myself, remember not to use the ‘m’ word. ‘What did your grandma say when you asked if you could live with her?’
‘I didn’t. She offered.’
‘How old was she?’
‘Sixty-something.’
‘In that snap she looks older.’
‘They all did, those women of her sort, with her life. Old before their time.’
‘Quite hard for her, taking in a bolshie teenager.’
‘I wasn’t bolshie. I was quiet, studious. No bother to anyone.’
‘But you had to leave home.’
‘I had to leave home.’
‘Curiouser and curiouser.’
He smiled. Not exactly a happy smile, more of a ruefu
l one. ‘How have you been?’ he asked.
‘Fine.’ He nodded at this, as though it were the answer he expected. ‘Actually,’ I said, ‘I haven’t been fine. I got in a state, about you. I worried about you, and I saw what it was going to be like living on my own again, without you. But I got over it, my panic, I mean. And I’ll be fine.’
‘Course you will. And you’ve got your family, you’re not on your own.’ There was a pause. ‘What about food?’ he said. ‘Shall we go and shop? Or I could go, let you rest.’
We went to Sainsbury’s. I got the fruit and vegetables, he queued for the fish; we chose a chicken together. Then we came home and cooked. It was pleasant, companionable. Everything was back to normal. And I still didn’t know a damned thing about why his mother had called, why he had gone to her, what had happened. I lay awake for ages, Ian breathing steadily, rhythmically beside me, his hand lightly covering my own until I turned over on my side. The baby inside me jumped. I put my hand on the place where I’d felt the movement and then I turned back again, to lie flat, and put Ian’s warm, inert hand there too.
But the baby refused to move again.
I have written the first five thousand words of my dissertation, the final version. I’ve printed it out, and there it is, a neat twenty pages. But I’m not going to read it again, not just at the moment. I read it so many times on the screen, making loads of small improvements, and I can’t bear to have to recognise that I should have made even more. I feel good about what I’ve written, it is going to work, and I don’t want that feeling to be spoiled because I am off for what will be my last supervision with dear Claudia.
This was the kind of ‘last time’ I like – last time I’d have to wait outside Claudia’s room fretting over how to cover up how little I’d achieved since the last session; last time I’d be seething over her lack of warmth; last time I’d be humiliated by her exposure of my inadequacies. A good ‘last time’. But when it came to it, there was some regret too. I did, after all, respect her utter concentration. No one else has ever listened to me quite so attentively, even if critically. And I admired her detachment as much as I resented it – whatever else, Claudia could never be accused of letting personality influence judgement. She didn’t, I’d decided, like or dislike me. It was my ideas and thoughts she liked or objected to.
It was a satisfactory session. She said she thought I had at last straightened out my confused thinking. An argument was now emerging and I was well on the way to proving its underlying point. I’d collected a lot of worthwhile evidence, presented it well, and the only danger now was that I might force a conclusion that was still open to doubt. It was good, she said, to take a strong line but not good to push aside anything that contradicted it. However, she was confident that my completed dissertation would earn me my MA. She reminded me of the date by which it should be handed in, and how many copies of it would be needed.
‘Well, Miss Symondson,’ she ended, ‘I’ll say goodbye,’ and she stood up and formally extended her beautifully manicured hand. I shook it, aware, as ever, of my own bitten nails. Was she really not going to refer to my pregnancy? But at the last minute, after I’d mumbled my thanks to her, she said that she hoped I was feeling quite well and that I would finish my dissertation before giving birth. I said there was no doubt about that, the baby wasn’t due for another three months, a little more than that in fact. ‘Just as well,’ she said. ‘I found childbirth very distracting.’ I’d hardly had time to take in those astounding words before she was smiling her polite smile, walking me to her door, opening it, and saying goodbye.
I had to sit down for a minute. Claudia had had a baby? Had I got that right? So all this stuff I’d been pulling out on grandmothers and their importance, their role, might have had some personal resonance for her. Maybe, if she had a child – boy, girl? – she was a grandmother herself. She was old enough, just. I’d estimated she was in her late forties, maybe even early fifties, so if she’d given birth in her early twenties, as my mother did, she could easily have a daughter who had made her a grandmother. Realising this had a strange effect upon me. I felt exhilarated, as though I’d been given hope. I could be a Claudia. It wasn’t as though I hadn’t known of plenty of women academics who had families but none of them were like Claudia.
I thought back over how hard she’d been on my ideas, especially at the beginning. She’d seemed to rubbish everything I’d suggested and never once had she indicated that she had personal experience. Well of course she hadn’t, it would have been unprofessional, but nevertheless no little hints or involvement had escaped her. Claudia as a mother was startling enough, but as a (possible) grandmother? I desperately wanted to go back in and ask her so many questions, but the next student had arrived and, anyway, I wouldn’t have dared.
Then, as I went home, I became annoyed with myself for being so affected by Claudia’s admission. I was falling into the stereotype trap, imagining I knew how a mother, and a grandmother, should look and behave. Claudia was nothing like May, only remotely like Isa. It proved nothing.
The next time I visited Isa, still thinking about Claudia as a grandmother, a stranger opened her door. She looked Spanish, or Italian, around forty maybe, wearing a black dress and over it a white waist apron, for all the world like a maid in a Noël Coward comedy. I expect my astonishment showed on my face. ‘You are granddaughter?’ the vision asked. I nodded. ‘I am Cosima,’ she said. ‘This way, please.’ I was led into the drawing room, where Isa sat in state, in a very good mood, smiling and extending her arms, but, as usual, dropping them as I approached. Cosima didn’t just go, she definitely ‘withdrew’.
‘Where on earth did she come from?’ I whispered.
‘An agency, darling.’
‘Not Central Casting?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Joke, Grandmama. She looks unreal – that frock, that apron!’
‘Her choice, and I rather like it. Her English is far from perfect, but we manage. Her references are excellent.’
‘Is she living in?’
‘Good gracious, no. She comes in the afternoons and helps.’
‘With?’
‘With what I need, of course.’
‘Does Dad know?’
Isa looked puzzled. ‘Your father? Why ever should he know?’
‘Well, he was worried when Elspeth—’
‘Oh, all that fuss! I am tired of hearing about Elspeth. Cosima has been engaged on quite a different footing.’
At that moment, Cosima appeared, bringing tea. I was about to ask for some water, but saw there was already a carafe of iced water on the tray. ‘Thank you, Cosima,’ Isa said, with one of her most gracious smiles. The smile deepened as Cosima gave a little bob before leaving.
‘Does she come every afternoon?’ I asked.
‘Heavens, no, only three afternoons.’
‘The same as Elspeth, then.’
‘Isamay, please, I have heard quite enough about Elspeth, who was not in any case a maid. Cosima is trained. She will be a great comfort to me.’
‘Do you need comfort, Grandmama?’
She stared at me, teacup halfway to her lips, and then put it down. ‘Is there a hidden meaning in that question, Isamay?’
‘No.’
‘Good, because a girl of your intelligence knows perfectly well that everyone needs comfort at some time. Cosima provides the sort of comfort I need at the moment.’
‘Well, that’s nice. What nationality is she?’
‘Italian. I have always liked Italians, and their country, especially the city of Florence. Have you been to Florence?’
‘No. Rome, I’ve been to Rome, and—’
‘Quite different, Florence is much more beautiful. Your grandfather and I had our honeymoon in Florence.’ She drank some tea, and then added, ‘If your father had been a girl, I should have named her Florence.’ It seemed such an open invitation. What more natural than, having been given this lead, to ask her if she had wanted a gi
rl? So I did, making my enquiry elaborately casual.
‘I wanted a child,’ Isa said.
‘You were how old when Dad was born?’
‘Twenty-five.’
‘Very young still.’
‘It was not thought especially young. My mother had her first child at nineteen.’
‘And you’d been married how long?’ I asked, very, very cautiously, ready for Isa to be outraged at what she might interpret as a suggestive question.
‘Five years,’ she said, and paused. ‘A long time,’ she added, ‘to wait for a child. Or so it seemed.’
‘I can imagine,’ I murmured.
‘Can you? I don’t think so, Isamay. You know nothing about waiting and hoping.’
Now what was that supposed to mean? But I didn’t dare press for an explanation – I was so afraid of upsetting her again. And so I changed the subject, making a feeble link between her comment that I knew nothing of waiting and hoping and one of my own about waiting until I’d finished my dissertation, hoping it would be satisfactory. She asked me to remind her how far I’d got in my research, and I tried to sum up. I said I had almost decided I’d been mistaken in thinking hereditary factors were more important than those of environment and example; that it was what granddaughters remembered grandmothers as doing and saying that was an influence, not the inheriting of character or personality traits. The hereditary thing only influenced appearance, but—
She interrupted me. ‘You have my eyes,’ she said.
‘I have eyes like yours, yes,’ I said, choosing my words so as not to challenge her but at the same time to make a clear distinction between what she’d said and what I was saying.
‘Exactly the same unusually violet blue,’ Isa said, dreamily, ‘and with that slightly darker shading round the iris.’
It was almost as though she were tempting me, as she had done before, but I still hesitated, unsure how far I could go.
‘My mother had the same kind of eyes. A family trait.’
‘Yes, in your family.’ I put only the slightest emphasis on ‘your’, but it was picked up immediately.
‘My family, yes,’ Isa said, staring straight at me, ‘but not my husband’s family. The blue eyes in his family are quite different. Ordinary, really, the Symondson blue. You are lucky to have my family’s colour of eye.’
Isa and May Page 27