I for Isobel (16 page)

Later, she thought wistfully of the vanished prospect of being Trevor's girlfriend, of belonging…Couldn't she have pretended? Would it have been enough, if she had done everything he wanted? That would have been no trouble; she would have been quite ready always to do what Trevor wanted. But she would have had to know what he did want. It would be like being a spy in a foreign country, having to pass for a native. She would be found out. The penalty for being found out appeared as Diana, walking and watching, obsessed with suffering. That moment when you found out they hated you and you did not know why—any deprivation was better than that.

But she had lost Joseph, too. Trevor was Joseph. She had lost them both.

Next Saturday she walked through the streets and the parks of the surrounding suburbs, feeling lonely, wondering what they were talking about at the café, telling herself it was all for the best, thinking sadly if…if Trevor had gone a bit slower, if she had had some warning, if he had asked her to the pictures on Saturday night (she had to laugh at the idea of Trevor's doing that)—no, it wouldn't have made any difference, she was what she was and nothing could change her, so best to be done with it.

She passed a house with a sign
ROOM VACANT
and thought of safety, a bolthole.

She walked into town, away from the empty streets, but town didn't offer what she needed, which was a big, cheerful carnival crowd. There were people in twos and threes, looking bored and aimless, offering no comfort.

She came in late for dinner. Mrs Bowers made a special trip into the dining room with her plate—not that she had kept it in the oven, for it was cooling and congealing—and put it in front of her with a thud. She stared down at it and began to eat, scraping away the cold, sticky gravy and eating the tepid meat, knowing the others were looking away in embarrassment.

Who cared? If Mrs Bowers knew how miserable she was, she would not be wasting her energy on puny efforts to annoy.

On Monday morning Mr Walter came into the outer office and said distantly, ‘A phone call for you, Miss Callaghan.'

Her amazement, which was genuine, was also the best defence. Private phone calls at the office were unheard of. She had to walk past Mr Walter, trying to keep her composure, and pick up the phone on his desk while he watched.

‘Isobel, this is Helen. You know, from Fifty-one.'

‘Who gave you this number?'

‘Oh, does it matter? We worked it out—your boss's name. Isobel, Nick is dead.'

‘Don't be silly. How can he be dead?' How odd her own voice sounded, thin and exasperated.

‘It's true. It was an accident, on his bike. A car hit him. It happened yesterday, he was badly injured. He died, just now, in the hospital. They rang to tell me, his mother's there. Look, I want you to do something for me, I want you to go and break it to Diana. It's a terrible thing to ask you, but I can't think of anyone else. Trevor's just about at the end of his tether, I can't ask him, and Kenneth and Janet…they aren't sympathetic, Janet's got some crazy idea that Diana is to blame, I don't know what they might say to her. I know it's a lot to ask…'

‘I can't go now, I don't get off work till five o'clock.'

A hand touched her arm. She looked up. Mr Walter, looking gentle, was nodding.

‘It's all right.'

She echoed into the phone, ‘It's all right. I can go now.'

‘Oh, that's good. It's his mother, you see. She's at the hospital, she'll be coming here to get his things—I can't have Diana round here making scenes. It's all bad enough.'

‘What's the address?'

‘Lucky, we found that, in the telephone book. Nick must have written it in. It's Kirribilli.'

‘Wait on.'

A notebook and a gold propelling pencil appeared by her hand.

‘Flat 7, 34 Mount Street, Kirribilli.'

She wrote it down, astonished at the unwillingness of her hand.

‘Right. I'll go there straight away.'

‘Thanks. That's a weight off my mind.'

Mr Walter, on his way out, brought the visitor's chair across to her.

‘Sit down. I'll get Olive to bring you a cup of tea.' He said respectfully, ‘Is it a relative?'

She shook her head, sinking into the chair under the weight of her sadness. She wished she could be the one to comfort Trevor. You built a wall around yourself and too late you found yourself walled in.

Olive came in carrying a cup of tea with two biscuits and a folded paper strip of Aspros in the saucer.

‘I have to go. I have to break the news to someone.'

Olive said, ‘What a terrible job.' (And what a terrible person to give it to.) ‘You're as white as a sheet. You'd better have this first. Take your Aspros. Oh, you'll want a glass of water.'

Mr Walter had thought of that. He came in carrying a glass of water.

He asked, ‘Do you know how to get there?'

She shook her head.

‘I'll find it for you.' He took his street directory from the bookshelf, found the street and began to draw a map. Who could have imagined such kindness in Mr Walter? ‘You can get out at Milson's Point on the right-hand side…'

She tried to listen. It did not matter; she would find the street.

Olive said, ‘It is a relative?'

She shook her head.

Olive put her arms round her. ‘Oh, poor Isobel.'

False pretences, but she put her head against Olive's body and felt the weight of sadness subside a little.

‘I have to go.'

She began to take account now of what she had to do, and to dread it, remembering what she had done last time she talked to Diana.

Mr Walter handed her the map. ‘Don't forget this and don't worry about getting back. We can do without you for the day.'

She mustn't start crying; she wouldn't even be crying about Nick, but because of the sympathy.

She nodded and went. In the outer office the girls watched silently as she covered her typewriter and picked up her bag. She nodded to them too. They didn't want her to speak. How awesome she had become.

Diana, I have bad news, Diana, I've come to tell you…Don't say it suddenly. You have to say it somehow. There isn't any way of making it better, remember that, just see to it you don't make it worse. How? Break it gently—here, have a gentle blow over the head.

Her own shock was wearing off and the memory of Nick returning. She could not grieve for him—that would be an intrusion, since she had not really known him—but she grieved enough for beauty gone.

It would be good to be Kenneth and be able to write a poem.

Oh, bugger Kenneth.

She was aghast at the spiteful rage that Kenneth could rouse in her—and at this moment of all moments. Kenneth would write a poem, a beautiful elegy; that would be something left of Nick, and she should be ashamed of herself.

She got out at Milson's Point. Mr Walter's map took her downwards towards the water but stopped half-way in a small street crowded with apartment houses. Number Thirty-four was narrow, dingy white, shabby beside its new-painted tricked-out neighbours. It was dark in the lobby but lighter at the top of the first flight of stairs, where she found Number Seven. She knocked feebly, her stomach sinking away from her, then knocked more firmly.

Inside, a voice called out words of complaint she could not distinguish. There was a pause, then the door was half-opened and Diana looked through the gap.

‘Diana, may I come in?'

Diana opened the door wide. She was wearing a quite dirty nightgown, her hair was tangled and her feet were bare. She stared with puzzled eyes at Isobel.

‘Helen asked me to come.'

The bed was unmade, the covers thrown back as if Diana had just got out of it. On the floor beside it were an unwashed cup, a plate and a greasy knife, an ashtray full of cigarette butts, a paperback open face down, three pairs of shoes lying in disorder—Isobel looked for somewhere to sit, but both the chairs were heaped with clothes.

She's not going to be able to bear it.

Diana, still staring, sat down on the bed.

Isobel hid her face in her hands. What a stagy thing to do, yet she hadn't meant to do it, was surprised that such gestures existed outside books.

It forced Diana to speak, at last.

‘What's the matter?'

‘Diana, I've got very bad news. Nick is dead.'

She hasn't really heard, sitting there dull-eyed, trying to make out what I said.

‘It was an accident, on his bike. I don't know much about it; he was badly hurt and he died this morning in hospital. Helen asked me to come and tell you.'

Absent-mindedly, Diana pulled open the drawer of the bedside table, got out a hairbrush and began to brush her hair.

Shock. People do very funny things when they're shocked. But the feeling that was coming over Diana did not seem like shock. It was profound; she was thinking hard and breathing deeply. She dropped the hairbrush and steadied herself with one hand on the pillow.

This must be what they called being in travail. It was a private process; Isobel should go away and let her get on with it, but she did not know how to do that.

The feeling was appearing now: relief. Isobel was the prison governor who had brought her news of her reprieve.

She said, ‘Can I get you something? Make you a cup of tea?'

What falsehood. I am thinking of what she ought to be feeling.

Diana too thought Isobel had made a social error.

‘No, thank you. I'm quite all right.'

She looked with surprise at the hairbrush and put it back in the drawer.

All right is no word for it. She's glad he's dead. She feels the way I felt when my mother died. He wasn't a human being to her, he was a thorn in her side, a stone in her shoe.

What price love, then?

She ought to pretend. She ought to have the decency to pretend, after all she's said and done.

‘Nick's mother is at the hospital. She's coming to the house to collect his things. Helen said, if you'd mind not coming here just for the moment, you know…it's going to be very difficult, with Nick's mother there.'

Diana said, in a sharp irritable tone, ‘Why would I want to go there?'

Now she was looking round the room, looking as if she had just woken up and was wondering at the mess.

She got up. ‘Thank you for coming to tell me.' Quite the social tone. ‘Tell Helen I'm very sorry, won't you? It's very tragic. There isn't much one can say, is there?'

Isobel was looking for an exit line, but she did not need one, for Diana was ushering her towards the door.

She was more depressed now than grieved. Walking back to the station, she remembered Auden:

‘I've come a very long way to prove

No land, no water and no love.'

How could she know? Grief might visit Diana later. After all, what did it matter to her whether or not Diana grieved for Nick? It did matter very much, though she did not know why.

Now she had to go to Fifty-one. She did not want to; she was fighting off the shameful thought that grief was a terrible bore. Perhaps it wasn't such a shameful thought—grief might be like that, being slammed into a lockup with one thought you couldn't get away from. She wouldn't be able to get away from it even if she did stay away from Fifty-one.

Helen opened the door to her and said, out of a pinched white face, ‘Am I glad to see you, I was going mad here by myself. Dan's away on a trip and Trevor went to the University. He had a tutorial, he thought he'd better do it, he hadn't had time to call it off. Anyhow, he's probably better doing something. They've been friends since school, you know.' Talking steadily, she had led Isobel into the kitchen. ‘Would you like a cup of coffee? Did you go to see Diana? How did she take it?'

‘Better than you would expect. She didn't react much at all, really.'

‘She probably hasn't taken it in, yet. I don't think I have. Did you explain about not coming here?'

‘Yes. She seemed surprised that I'd think she would.'

‘I hope we haven't put the idea into her head.'

Diana would be down at the laundry with her dirty washing, or cleaning up her room, or looking in Positions Vacant. Don't let's worry about Diana.

They carried their coffee into the living room. Isobel would have liked something to eat but felt she could not mention hunger.

‘The motorist just didn't see the bike, apparently. I don't know whether Nick was speeding—he did sometimes. It seemed like a bit of a joke.'

Outside, a car stopped, a car door thudded shut. Helen looked alarmed.

‘Oh, my God, is it…I thought they were going to keep her at the hospital for the day.'

The knocker sounded. Helen got up and went to the door, coming back full of politeness and dread, ushering a small, neat, fair-haired woman with a thin handsome face, not at all like Nick. The woman was staring in front of her with isolated eyes.

Helen said, ‘We would have come to get you. I'm sorry you had to come alone.'

‘It's quite all right.' The tone of her voice didn't match the look on her face; it would have done for a more social occasion. ‘There's so much to be done, you see. I want to get his things packed and catch the night train.'

‘But Mrs Drummond…' Helen looked at her, baffled. ‘Have you had lunch? Can I get you something to eat?'

‘No, thank you. I had something at the hospital. Where…?'

She stood looking about the living room, looking for a door.

If Helen tries to stop her, she will go quite mad. Isobel looked at Helen, who had perhaps reached the same conclusion.

‘Upstairs,' said Helen. ‘I'll show you.'

‘Thank you very much, but I'd rather go by myself. You do understand?'

She sounded quite social.

‘Yes, of course. At the top of the stairs, first on the left.'