I for Isobel

by Amy Witting

  Now she was sure there would be no present. Tomorrow morning she would not look, and that was a step towards the kind of person she longed to be but did not have words to describe—someone safe behind a wall of her own building.

  But not to tell, not to say just once, ‘It’s my birthday today!’ She thought, I shall tell the tree. She saw herself hiding her face between two sharp folds of the tree trunk and whispering, ‘It’s my birthday today,’ and felt a thrilling pain in her tight throat, as if she was reading The Little Match Girl in the old book of fairytales at Auntie Ann’s.

  That put her in a reading mood. She went into the lounge, where there were bookshelves full of books for guests, with a special shelf for children’s books. She had read that out long ago; she looked through it but there was nothing new and nothing she wanted to read again, so she began to look through the other shelves. She took out a book called The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, thinking that adventures could never be dull, read the first sentence, To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman, and was disappointed—that didn’t sould like the beginning of an adventure. She turned to the next story, A Case of Identity:

  ‘My dear fellow,’ said Sherlock Holmes, as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, ‘life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on…’

  Birthdays, injustices, parents all vanished. She sat on the floor reading till the noise of cups and saucers in the kitchen warned her that the grown-ups would be coming in for afternoon tea, then she went to the little room where she and Margaret slept, next to their parents’ bedroom. It was too hot there, but if she went outside to the cool shade of the fig tree, Caroline and Joanne Mansell would come asking her to play with them, or Margaret would want her to go for a swim. Besides, it wasn’t hot in Baker Street.

  What a lucky thing that she had found this new place in time to spend the birthday there. Presents didn’t matter so much, if life had these enchanting surprises that were free to everyone.

  She read without stirring until Margaret came in and said, ‘Mum says you’re to wash your hands before dinner.’

  Dinner was the meal which at home they called tea. Mrs Callaghan pronounced the word with a conscious elegance which Margaret imitated, maddening Isobel, who was about to hiss, ‘Tea!’ but recollected herself and said, ‘Can I have the light on for a while tonight?’

  ‘We’re not allowed to read in bed.’

  ‘Oh go on, don’t be mean. It’s different on holidays. It’s only at home that we aren’t allowed to read in bed.’

  ‘You ask them then.’

  Isobel hid the book under her pillow.

  ‘Ho, ho.’ Margaret spoke with adult poise, then relented with adult satisfaction. ‘Oh, all right. So long as you put it out before they come to bed. They can see the light under the door, you know. And go and wash your hands because I was told to tell you.’

  Isobel went quietly, because of Margaret’s kindness about the light.

  The birthday still cast its shadow, in spite of Holmes and Watson. While she ate her tea, she was thinking how wonderful it would be if beside her bed in the morning she found a huge box wrapped in paper, with a big bow and a card that said HAPPY BIRTHDAY ISOBEL. She would try to lift it but it would be too heavy, so she would rip away the paper and lift the lid, and there would be The Complete Works of Arthur Conan Doyle, books and books and books. It was a lovely dream, but then she woke up to reality and felt the worse for it.

  After tea she had to play Snap with Margaret and the Mansell girls while she thought about Holmes and Watson and longed to go to bed and read. Bed time came at last and was wonderful; Margaret went to sleep straight away, so she put her clothes on the floor in front of the crack at the bottom of the door and read until she was nearly asleep and could just stay awake long enough to put out the light.

  She woke early and thought at once, with tightened heart, ‘Don’t look. It isn’t any use.’ Then she remembered the tree ceremony, which she had better perform before anyone else was up. Quickly she put on yesterday’s clothes and ran outside to the fig tree, but when she reached it she saw a pair of legs dangling and there was Caroline, sitting on a low branch looking down at her.

  ‘You’re up early.’

  Isobel wanted to say, ‘So are you,’ but other words were too pressing on her tongue. She said instead, ‘Can I tell you a secret? You’re not to tell anyone else.’

  Caroline’s eyes lit with interest. ‘Sure. Go on.’

  ‘It’s my birthday today.’

  ‘That’s not a secret.’ Caroline was disappointed and resentful. ‘Birthdays aren’t secrets. Not ever.’

  ‘Well, mine is. How do you know, anyhow? Plenty of people might have secret birthdays and you don’t know because they are secret.’

  ‘I don’t see why.’ Caroline buttoned her lips and shook her head firmly, so that her fat fair plaits swung wide.

  ‘Well, people have secret weddings, I know that much. In books they have them often. And if you were a baby and you weren’t supposed to be born, so you were smuggled away to somebody else, then nobody would know your birthday, so it would be a secret, wouldn’t it? What about Moses? I bet nobody knew his birthday.’

  Caroline didn’t intend to tangle with Moses. She knew less about the content of books than Isobel, but she knew the world better. She said with authority, ‘Somebody always knows.’ Then she dropped down from the branch, saying, ‘I think I’ll go and see if Joanne’s awake. See you later, alligator.’ Sauntering across the grass, she turned her head and called, recklessly loud, ‘Many happy returns!’

  Isobel would have done better to tell the tree.

  She went back to fetch her book, having another celebration in mind—a mean, private one. She was going to hide from her parents until breakfast time, so that if they wanted to wish her a happy birthday they could do it in front of everyone. Or if they liked, they could forget it. All the better if they did—she hated the way they searched her face for signs of sulking, so that they could laugh and say, ‘What a long face on your birthday!’ ‘Frown on your birthday, frown all year!’, knowing perfectly well that she was miserable because she hadn’t got a present.

  She felt sure they would be ashamed not to mention her birthday at all. There was going to be a little fun in this, if it worked.

  Margaret had not stirred. Isobel took her book and crept out. With unusual forethought she washed her face and hands and even combed her hair, so there wouldn’t be any trouble about that. Then she went to her hideyhole, the big old chair on the back verandah. The chair wasn’t meant for sitting on; it faced the wall, there was stuffing coming out of it that prickled against her legs and it was lopsided because one leg was broken, but she could manage to curl up in it and be out of sight.

  She read until the breakfast bell sounded, then waited a little longer before she sneaked through the kitchen. That was forbidden ground, but Mrs Terry and Irene, the waitress, were too busy to notice her.

  The Mansells, father and mother and Caroline and Joanne, were there already, and Miss Halwood and old Mrs Halwood were coming in, so she was sitting calmly eating her Weetbix under powerful protection when her parents arrived.

  ‘Well, there you are!’ said her mother in a gentle, reasonable tone. ‘Wherever have you been?’

  ‘Just outside.’

  Old Mr Welch coming in said, ‘With her head in a book, I suppose. It’s quite a bookworm you have there, Mrs Callaghan.’

  Dangerous ground.

  ‘What are you reading now, Isobel?’ asked Miss Halwood, who was a teacher in real life.

  Oh dear, the quicksand itself.

  ‘The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.’

  ‘Goodness me,’ said Mrs Halwood, ‘that’s a
difficult book for a little girl.’

  With thin saintliness, Mrs Callaghan said, ‘You know you are not to take grown-up books without permission.’

  ‘Oh, Mrs Callaghan,’ said Miss Halwood, ‘there is really nothing wrong with Sherlock Holmes.’

  ‘A lot more moral than Biggles,’ said Mr Welch.

  ‘Besides,’ went on Miss Halwood, ‘it would be a shame to check her when she is so advanced. I only wish some of my pupils read so well.’

  ‘Your poor sister is outside looking for you, Isobel,’ her mother said. ‘You had better go and find her.’

  Isobel got up to go, but Margaret, coming through the door, said easily, ‘I thought you must be in here,’ and took her place.

  ‘Do you understand all the words, Isobel?’ Miss Halwood asked.

  ‘I guess some of them.’ Drunk on approval, she spoke with too much pride.

  ‘That isn’t a bad way of learning, but it’s a good idea to look up one or two in the dictionary. Don’t look up so many that you get bored with reading. That would be a pity.’

  ‘I couldn’t ever get bored with reading.’

  ‘You’re a lucky girl, then. I’m lucky too in the same way. The only reason I’d like to be your age again is to have all the wonderful books to read for the first time.’

  ‘How old is she?’ Mrs Halwood asked Mrs Callaghan.

  Oh, oh. How do you like that, Mrs Callaghan? Isobel saw the red rising in her mother’s face and dropped her eyes demurely. Margaret was staring with a puzzled look at her mother; her father was eating, paying no attention. Mrs Callaghan said quietly, ‘She is nine.’

  ‘Remarkably advanced for her age,’ said Miss Halwood.

  Isobel was living in two worlds. Miss Halwood’s, where she belonged and things were solid and predictable, and the other one, where she was exulting at making her mother uncomfortable. That was a great pleasure but it was like gobbling sweets—she expected some sickness from it. Meanwhile there was the world of Sherlock Holmes, which was better than both of them. She said, ‘May I be excused, please?’ and hurried back to her chair. She fished out the book from under the seat and went back to Baker Street.

  She read until she had finished the book, then she went to the lounge to change it for Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which she had seen on the shelf beside it. On the way back, she met her mother.

  ‘I was looking for you, Isobel. I want you to go down to the shop and buy me a small writing pad.’ She handed her a two-shilling piece, then added, smiling kindly, ‘You may keep the change because it’s your birthday.’

  Well, her mother had wriggled her way out of that one, but not for nothing. Isobel took the coin and set off for the shop. She knew it was no fortune, yet there might be enough of it left to buy something that could be called a birthday present.

  In the shop she asked for the smallest writing pad and put the coin on the counter.

  ‘That will be one and elevenpence ha’penny,’ said the shopkeeper. To her fallen face, he said, ‘It’s all right, girlie. You’ve got enough. You even get change, see.’

  He handed her the kack-coloured insult. She took it and the writing pad and plunged out.

  You couldn’t make yourself safe, no matter how you tried. They could always surprise you. She wanted to hurl the coin into the water but she knew she mustn’t express any feeling at all. ‘Blessed Mary, Virgin Mother, make me not cry. I don’t want to cry, Blessed Mary, Mother of God, baby Jesus, I don’t want to cry. Help me, Blessed Mary, Virgin Mother, and baby Jesus…’ If once she started to cry, she wouldn’t be able to stop. ‘I won’t cry, I won’t. Help me, Blessed Mary.’

  At last, the prayer made a patch of candle-lit calm in her mind. She slowed and steadied, the need to cry having passed.

  When she got back, the bedroom was empty. Perhaps Blessed Mary had seen to it that she didn’t have to meet her mother straight away; Isobel found the special attention comforting. She murmured, ‘Thank you, Blessed Mary,’ left the writing pad and took her book. As for the repulsive halfpenny, she wanted to do something wicked and outrageous with it, but she lacked knowledge of the suitable curse.

  She dropped it into one of the drawers. If they asked her what she had done with it, she would say she had put it in the poor-box on the shop counter.

  She went to the small room to leave her book on her bed. Margaret wasn’t there—the lunch bell must have gone while she was out. She hurried to the dining room and sure enough, everyone else was at the table. Only her place was empty.

  Except for a little parcel wrapped in pink tissue paper and tied with gold string. Keeping her eyes on it, she sat down warily.

  Mr Mansell said at length, ‘Aren’t you going to open your parcel, Isobel?’

  A harsh loud voice came out of her mouth, saying, ‘Is that thing mine?’

  She heard her mother draw in a long breath of rage and wondered why, but she did not look away from the little parcel.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Mansell, in a funny, slow, clear voice, like a teacher giving dictation, ‘it is a present for you, for your birthday.’

  With jumping fingers she untied, unwrapped, opened a little box. Pinned to a card which read on top Elegance and underneath Fashion Jewellery there was a gold brooch shaped like a basket, an old-fashioned one with a wide brim and a curly handle; there were coloured flowers in it, three little white bells with green tips, two daffodils, a pink rose and a blue flower with petals edged like a saw. It was beautiful. It was a present for a real girl.

  How strange it was. Birthday after birthday she had hoped, and at last, after she had given up hope, the present had come, better than anything she could have imagined. She lifted it out of the box, set it on the lid and read it like a book while she ate her lunch.

  Mrs Callaghan had recovered her company voice. ‘How kind of you!’

  ‘It’s only a small thing,’ said Mr Mansell.

  ‘Oh, but you shouldn’t have!’ Chancing on a useful phrase in a foreign language, she said graciously, ‘She’s spoilt enough already!’

  There was a disturbance—a kind of gust of breathing—at grown-up-face level round the table. Isobel looked up and saw that all the grown-ups were turning on her mother the same glare of indignation, except Mr Mansell, who was looking at Isobel herself with a bright, soft look that puzzled her, and her pale father, who was going steadily on with his task of cutting, chewing and swallowing. Her mother, for once, was even paler than he, so white-faced that traces of an earlier colouring showed russet in her hair and green in her eyes. She was staring at her plate, plying her knife and her fork slowly and carefully like crutches. Isobel felt an ache of sympathy, knowing how it felt to be the last to be chosen, or even left out of the game. Besides, what was wrong with what her mother had said? It sounded just like the stuff grown-ups usually talked.

  She forgot sympathy in looking at her brooch. When she had finished eating, she put it back in its box, wrapped it, clutched it, gabbled, ‘May I be excused, please?’ and ran away to her room, where she sat on her bed, reading and looking from time to time at the brooch, unwrapping and wrapping it carefully each time.

  The sound of her mother’s quick, foreboding tread made her push the box in a panic under her pillow. Now, she remembered: she had been told not to tell, and she had told. She had told Caroline, who had told Mr Mansell, and retribution was coming, as her mother advanced with set face and luminous glare and began to slap her, muttering, ‘Don’t you dare to cry. Ungrateful little bitch. Don’t you-dare-to-cry. You little swine, thankless little swine, you couldn’t say thank you, couldn’t even say thank you.’ Slap, slap. ‘Don’t open your mouth, don’t you dare to cry.’

  There was not much to cry about, for her mother’s intentions were far more violent than her blows. Her hands flapped weakly as if she was fighting against a cage of air. She straightened up and drew breath. ‘Mr Mansell rowed right across the lake to get you that brooch and you couldn’t take the trouble to say thank you. It’s no
use going anywhere with you; you bring disgrace on us wherever we go. Ah, it’s no use. Words are wasted on you, gawping there like an idiot.’ She put her hands to her head and walked out in despair.

  Isobel took the box from under the pillow, took out the brooch and looked at it while she rubbed her stinging legs. Why hadn’t her mother taken the brooch? It would have been so easy. Isobel could even supply the words she had dreaded to hear: ‘Give me that, you don’t deserve to have it. Come on, give it to me.’ Why hadn’t she said them? Could it be that there were things her mother couldn’t do?

  That idea was too large to be coped with. She put it away from her, but she took the brooch and pinned it carefully to the neck of her dress. It was hers now, all right. She went and looked at it in the glass and stood admiring it. In one way or another, she would be wearing it all her life.

  2 • FALSE IDOLS AND A FIREBALL

  Isobel could honestly swear that she did see a fireball once. It was long ago, when she was quite small. Coming from school she was caught in a thrashing rainstorm and when she reached the house she found it locked and empty, so she was standing in the yard ankle-deep in water when the sky cracked and this pink ball came streaking past and then the water she was standing in turned rosy red. She could swear to that, although fireball became another word for lie and the rosy water was dammed up forever behind a wall of derisive laughter. In the days before she conquered enthusiasm she would sometimes come running in crying, ‘Guess what I saw!’ and her mother would say, ‘A fireball?’, sliding a glance of sophisticated amusement towards any other occupant of the room, for it was a well-known joke.

  In another mood, Mrs Callaghan would say shortly, ‘Thought you saw,’ and sometimes she would hear Isobel out, then begin to question her: ‘Where did this happen? When? What happened then? Now I thought you said…’, ending always, ‘You don’t know, do you? You don’t know whether you’re telling the truth or not,’ with a sigh of resignation.