I for Isobel

by Amy Witting

  ‘Why, what’s happened to Fred?’

  ‘Well, nothing so far, I suppose. It was this dream I had the other night. I dreamt I was talking over the fence to Gladys, asking her for a bit of brown veiling to trim a hat. She said yes, she’d be glad to oblige. She went inside and came back crying, saying Fred was stretched out dead on the kitchen floor and would I come in and lay him out as she didn’t fancy the job. I didn’t fancy it either, but I said, Seeing you’ve been so obliging in the matter of the brown veiling, I suppose I can’t refuse.’

  ‘Fred looked healthy enough when I saw him last. That was Thursday.’

  ‘Not for long, you can be sure. It’s a predomination. Fred’s not long for this world. A fool of a dream, too. I wouldn’t have seen brown veiling on a hat in twenty years.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mention it to Gladys, if I were you.’

  ‘I wouldn’t think of it. I’m a sensitive. I see many a thing that I wouldn’t mention to the person concerned.’

  ‘I hope you haven’t been dreaming about me. Have another slice of cake, Isobel?’

  Isobel inquired of her stomach, whether it had recovered from Mrs Prendergast’s dream. It could manage another slice of cake.

  Mrs Prendergast horrified, yet Isobel persisted in listening. In her mind there was a cold collector intent on information at all costs. She was a collector of useless objects and Mrs Prendergast was one of them.

  Typing classes were misery. Shorthand was not so bad; she could see the sense of shorthand. Also, the students of shorthand worked in groups, taking dictation from a teacher—one didn’t have time to get to know anyone, but one didn’t work in a dehumanising solitude. She excelled, so moved quickly from group to group—a sustaining experience.

  In the typing class she sat at the hated machine with a wooden hood covering hands and keys (why grope when one had eyes?), forcing her fingers into an unnatural poise to lend strength to the little fingers she would well manage without (why not make typewriters to suit hands, instead of forcing hands to suit typewriters?), timing her efforts by the second hand of the large clock on the wall, pestered by the incoherent rattling of keys, while other damned souls round her competed in solitude against themselves, and thinking that this was a reasonable presentation of Hell. Devout gratitude to Aunt Noelene was all that kept her from getting up and running wildly away.

  When she got back to the boarding house, walking down the side path and through the back door to avoid the dining room, Mrs Bowers would call from the kitchen, ‘Is that you, Isobel? I’ve kept your sweets.’

  This roused conflicting feelings: warmth and gratitude—it was astonishing to be remembered—but uneasiness, because she felt more return was needed than she could give. It was different from the Saturday afternoons when she was a passive listener; response was needed. But mostly, listening was sufficient, since her mouth was full of custard tart, jellied fruit or apple pie, so that she could only nod.

  The information she got was interesting. Madge’s vice was a strange religion: sitting around in their nightshirts saying Oompapa and staring at candles. ‘Not in this house, I said to her. Do what you like outside but I’m not having altars and such stuck up in your bedroom. Doesn’t do any harm though, I suppose.’ (Better, no doubt, than the Other Thing.)

  Betty had been the guilty party in a scandalous divorce.

  ‘Love letters printed in the newspapers, everyone reading her business, lost the lot, house and children, left without a penny, and after all that, His Lordship stays with his wife and leaves her high and dry. Making the same mistake again by the look of it. Some women are like that; where they tripped once, they’ll trip again.’

  Mrs Bowers sighed painlessly over human folly as she poured Isobel a cup of tea.

  Mr Watkin’s great undertaking was a stud book. He followed and recorded the fortunes of dynasties of race horses. ‘He has his little bet, never too much. He’s a quiet, steady fellow, a real gentleman.’

  Isobel, as she listened, tried on each life to see how it would suit her. Not to be the fool of love, never! Madge’s life had its charm—she could see the attraction of a small, exclusive religion; the trouble was, bringing oneself to believe in it. Madge worked in the morning in the boarding house, cleaning and laundering, she went out to do the marketing, she worked in the afternoons and some evenings as a doctor’s receptionist. She might need a religion. But needing it didn’t provide it.

  It was Mr Watkin’s life that approached her ideal, the private room, the cabin furnished with pieces of one’s own choosing. Work and good weather, that was all it needed. Mr Watkin strolled down the street after breakfast to buy his morning paper, came back and sat on the back verandah to read it very thoroughly, did the crossword, came to lunch, retired to his room to listen to his wireless, looked forward to his game of bridge but could endure to be disappointed of it, was calm, self-contained and self-sufficient. But one needed work, some substitute for Mr Watkin’s stud book.

  Going to Business College had brought her the pleasure of eating out. Sitting in the café eating fish and chips with her book open beside the plate, reading, at ease, nobody caring, she felt, for the first time she could remember, really at home.

  She enjoyed the experience so much that she extended it to Saturday. At the office, one worked either Thursday evening or Saturday morning. It was always Saturday for Isobel because of the Business College, but she did not mind that. She finished work at twelve, changed her books at the library and swung happily down George Street towards the Glebe. Stopping for sandwiches and coffee was an extravagance, since she could have gone back to the boarding house for lunch, but Aunt Noelene had allowed for a little fun, and this was her idea of fun, although probably not Aunt Noelene’s. She found a coffee shop at the top of Glebe Road, stayed for an hour reading in University Park, then walked back to the boarding house, paid a courtesy call on the two Fates in the kitchen, then went upstairs to read in her room, alone and at ease again. On Saturdays it seemed easy to live happily.

  Rita was engaged to be married. She came into the typists’ room on Monday morning in the wake of her outstretched left hand, drawn along in a dream by the diamond ring on her finger. Her friend Nell ran to hug her, Olive came to admire the ring; Isobel followed, wondering what to say. She knew one didn’t congratulate the girl, one was supposed to congratulate the man; she didn’t like to say, ‘Good Luck!’, though she meant it—in the face of Rita’s drunken happiness, the thought that luck was necessary gave pain. Finally, she too admired the ring, though it seemed an odd thing to do.

  They heard Mr Walter’s step.

  Olive said, ‘You can tell us all about it at lunch time.’

  They took to their desks and uncovered their typewriters. Rita was too happy to eat lunch. In the showroom, where the staff ate their sandwiches at a corner table, she waltzed, hands clasped before her, gazing into the eyes of her engagement ring, singing, ‘Oh, how we danced…’, tipsy with love.

  ‘Hey, mind the glasses!’ said Frank. ‘There’s not a man on earth worth a dozen stemmed cut crystal.’

  Isobel said, ‘My landlady doesn’t think there’s a man worth one small moulded liqueur glass.’

  ‘Ah! She’d be the one with the chip!’

  Everyone laughed. Even Olive. They were all enlivened by Rita’s beautiful absurdity.

  ‘If you knew my Stephen! My Stephen is worth more than all the glasses in the world!’ She was off again, spinning slowly away from them and returning.

  ‘Practising the bridal waltz,’ said Frank.

  ‘That’s right. You’re all coming to my wedding, girls, and who’s going to catch the bouquet? Who’s going to be next? Olive?’

  Olive shook her head sadly. She and her boyfriend had been going out for six years; they could not marry because of family problems.

  ‘Nell?’ Nell blushed and hung her head. It seemed likely that she would be next.

  ‘Isobel! I bet Isobel has something tucked away. You never can tel
l with the quiet ones.’

  Isobel sighed. ‘If Mr Richard doesn’t speak soon, I’ll have to ask him his intentions.’

  Frank’s mood changed suddenly. ‘Laugh, clown, laugh!’ he said angrily. ‘Why don’t you boot him?’

  ‘Who? Me with my little number fours?’

  Olive said gently, ‘Mr Richard is a member of the family, Frank.’

  ‘Big deal.’ Frank was still angry.

  Olive chose to ignore him.

  ‘When do you plan to be married, Rita?’

  ‘In September. We don’t want a long engagement. Stephen’s firm are sending him to Melbourne and we want to be married and go together.’

  Isobel heard this with dismay. This was the opportunity Aunt Noelene would expect her to grasp, seizing that wild horse money by the bridle as it passed. She lacked courage for the deed. If she did manage it, she would have to take dictation from Mr Walter instead of checking invoices with Frank. This was life: no sooner had you built yourself your little raft and felt secure than it came to pieces under you and you were swimming again.

  ‘Well, come on, Bel.’ Frank was still sulky. ‘We’d better get back to work.’

  ‘I should like a word with Isobel, Frank,’ Olive said with dignity. ‘I won’t keep her long.’

  Frank shrugged, unsurprised. It seemed that he had been sulking in advance.

  Rita and Nell went back to their typewriters.

  Olive said earnestly, ‘Isobel. It really isn’t right for you to be so familiar with Frank. It’s a pity you’ve been thrown together so much. Apart from anything else,’ she paused to summon her courage, ‘Frank is a Communist. He has been warned not to mention this in the office…’

  ‘He hasn’t mentioned it to me.’

  ‘And another thing. If you wouldn’t laugh so much at Mr Richard. I know he can be difficult, but…these things are more important than you think.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do? Cry?’

  Olive sighed over the difficulties of life.

  ‘You could have Rita’s job when she goes, you know. Now that you have shorthand and typing you’ll be in line for a big promotion. If only you will just…Mr Walter is happy with your work, but he does have some doubts about your attitude. It is best to be straightforward, isn’t it, in a case like this?’

  Olive pleaded for approval.

  Isobel said briefly, ‘Thanks. I’d better get back to work.’

  ‘Oh, ho!’ said Frank. ‘Who’s in a nasty little temper, eh? Been warned off me, have you?’ He put on a confidential air. ‘Frank is a Communist.’

  ‘They want more than they pay for.’

  ‘Come on! Who doesn’t? You just worked that one out?’

  ‘And you have to put up with it!’

  Frank gave a little rein to his own temper. ‘The trouble with people like that Olive is that they don’t only put up with it, they like it. They’re the ones who make me sick.’

  ‘I didn’t think it would be like this. I thought you would do your work and take your money and that would be that.’

  ‘Speaking of taking our money, I suppose we’d better get on with the work.’ He had levered open a large packing case and begun to feel through the packing straw. He paused and said, ‘Bel?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What do you want out of life? I mean, it stands to reason, doing your work and taking your money isn’t enough. It isn’t enough for anyone, let alone you. Now, it isn’t home and kids; you’re not out to please the boys, or you wouldn’t be pulling that nice little face around making funny remarks.’

  Isobel felt deep astonishment at the words ‘nice little face’.

  ‘Just as well too, I would say. You got a long way to go before you think about that. Do you ever think about being a writer?’

  ‘What made you think of that?’

  ‘Well. No need to bite my head off! You nearly made me drop a week’s wages.’ He brushed the packing away from a moulded iridescent fruit bowl and set it on the table.

  ‘1—324 Fruit Bowl iridescent one only.’

  ‘Check.’

  ‘I’m sorry I snapped.’ She could offer no explanation either for the panic reaction.

  ‘Well. You have this way of putting things. I thought of it when you said that about your little number fours. Summed it up in six words and made me mad, what’s more. Made Olive madder, I’m thinking. Everyone can’t do that.’

  ‘I wish you’d drop it, Frank.’

  ‘OK. But, to come back to it, what do you want out of life? What do you want to be? If you say Mr Walter’s secretary, I’ll award myself a big horse laugh.’

  ‘I want to be one of the crowd.’

  Frank got his horse laugh after all.

  ‘That’ll be the day. It’ll be some crowd. You’d better start looking.’

  ‘1—325. Footed compote.’

  ‘Check. Awful stuff this is. No pleasure in it. About the Communism, I used to shoot my mouth off at work, preaching a better world to all. They told me to stop. OK. I like my job and it’s their premises. But if you want to know anything about the Party, off the premises, I’ll be glad to oblige, because I think it just might be the right thing for you.’

  ‘Thanks, Frank. 1—329, crystal-backed mirror, comb and brush.’

  ‘Lord preserve us. And here they are, all right. Large as life and twice as horrible.’

  Two Saturdays later, the special crowd appeared. She was reading and drinking coffee in one of the booths that lined the wall of the coffee shop in Glebe Road when a group of six young people came in, greeted the proprietor and began moving chairs and pushing tables together. She was irritated at first by the noise they made as they settled themselves, and concentrated more firmly on The Prime Minister.

  One of the young men spoke to the whole group.

  ‘I’ve finished my assignment for Joseph. A neat little thing, I think.’

  He made an exaggerated throat-clearing noise that commanded the attention of the others, and Isobel’s, too, though she kept her eyes on her book.

  ‘Said Auden to Spender,

  “I’m just a weekender,

  My boy, on Parnassus,

  While you’re a commuter.

  Will you be my tutor?” ’

  ‘Said Spender to Auden,

  “Apply to George Gordon,

  Most fluent of asses,

  The facile Lord Byron.

  Then he’ll be the siren

  And you’ll be the warden

  To cozen the masses.” ’

  Among the laughing voices, a light, precise one cried angrily, ‘Unfair! Unfair to Auden!’

  Unfair to Byron, thought Isobel angrily. Orden? Spender? Who were they? Daring to sneer at Byron! So many sensations swept over her at once—since the first moment of hearing verse spoken aloud as if it was part of the conversation, she felt her head swimming in amazement and had to hold to her anger for support.

  She looked at them then. The young man who had cried, ‘Unfair to Auden!’ was short and thickset; his large head was crowned with deep glossy weaves of black hair, his small neat features made him look like a small landscape in a heavy frame. He was writing now, while the other one watched, wearing a droll, wary look.

  ‘Said Spender to Auden,

  “I couldn’t afford an

  Apprentice so gifted.

  I’d find myself lifted

  To the empyrean,

  So I’d rather be an

  Admirer than…”

  ‘Damn, I’ve lost your rhyme scheme.’

  ‘Lost your rhyme too, I think.’

  ‘There’s something wrong with your rhyme scheme. Give me your copy a minute.’

  That was living as she longed to know it. Did they know how lucky they were? Probably not. The lucky ones never did.

  ‘Look after it, then, I want it for Joseph.’

  They stirred, making room for the waitress with the coffee.

  Isobel had seen one of the girls before somewhere. She wa
s tall and beautiful, with a calm, diamond-hard, golden-skinned face and fair hair falling in an elegant sweep. School. The hair had hung in plaits then.

  The other girl, the dark-haired one, spoke in a soft pleasant voice. ‘Are you really going to give it to Joseph?’

  ‘Of course I am. A commentary on Auden’s Letter to Lord Byron. One thousand words, but I’m offering quality instead of quantity.’ He looked virtuous. To say that his face was expressive still made too little of the expression and too much of the face, which, however, came almost to rest, delicate-ugly and childlike, when he added complacently, ‘Joseph will say, “That’s very nice, Kenneth. Now bring me the other nine hundred and fifty words. By Friday.”’

  His air of repose tormented Isobel, so that she realised her anger came not from loyalty to Byron, but from jealousy.

  ‘You should have another line at the end of the first verse, it ought to go a a b c c b, and you’ve got an extra line in the second verse.’

  What was the girl’s name?

  ‘Ah well, it was just a trifle, tossed off…’

  The dark girl said, ‘In the hope of dodging a bit of work. You’d have done better to write your thousand words.’

  ‘I’ll just think of a good story. The inequality of the stanzas is deliberate, as I am imitating the style of each writer…’

  ‘Are you making out that Spender is wordier than Auden? What a lie!’

  ‘Well, the extra length of the second verse gives more force to Spender’s indignation. How about that?’

  If Isobel could remember the girl’s name she would go up to her and claim acquaintance. Though the prospect frightened her, she would do it.

  ‘It won’t do you any good with Joseph.’

  ‘I know that, but it’s fun trying.’

  The other poet said, in a voice that scratched with annoyance, ‘What you don’t understand, Kenneth, is that Auden’s so much at home on Parnassus, he can go about in shirt-sleeves and slippers. Don’t underrate him because he doesn’t dress for dinner.’

  It was the name of Joseph—the loved, respected authority—and the affection with which Kenneth pronounced it, that cracked Isobel’s matchbox cabin and sent it sliding towards the black pit.