I for Isobel Page 6

  Putting her clothes away in a drawer she saw her face in the glass, so happy and hopeful that the likeness to her mother, which seemed to her usually to be a curse from birth, seemed unimportant. After all, a face was only…a glove? It didn’t have to be clenched in rage. She couldn’t like it: ‘Sonnets from the Pekingese’, she said to it, but good-naturedly. She observed it steadily, with detachment, and thought of changing her name to Maeve: Maeve Callaghan, poised, serene, quietly self-confident.

  The dinner bell sounded and she went downstairs to meet the human race.

  She had arrived first and stood back while they came in and took their places at the table: male, three—one old, two young; female, two—the younger must be Mrs Bowers’ daughter, Madge, and to have thought her flighty! The word made Isobel fancy a monumental statue rising and flitting about on small delicate wings. The other must be called old, because her hair was grey, yet her face belonged to a heroine of romance, with delicate features, narrow blue eyes and full lips.

  It was she who said, ‘Hello. The new boarder. What’s your name?’

  She didn’t, after all, say ‘Maeve’. They would know. They would look at her with scorn and say, ‘No, you’re not. You’re Isobel.’

  ‘Isobel Callaghan.’

  ‘She’ll have Rosemary’s place, I suppose, Madge.’

  The statue nodded.

  ‘Come and sit down, then.’

  The vacant place was between her and Madge at the end of the table. The elderly gentleman (such a one as the words had been coined for) sat at the other end; he made a half-bow and gave a half-smile when the woman named him as Mr Watkin.

  ‘I’m Betty, and that pair of larrikins are Tim and Norman.’

  Tim was cheerful, pink-cheeked and blubber-lipped; Norman terracotta and hard-boned (she wondered what it would be like to touch him, then dismissed the thought with shame).

  They had been talking about football as they came in, were carrying on the conversation at the dinner table and paused in it long enough to nod. If they were the young people who had made the house suitable for Isobel, they were quite unaware of their responsibilities.

  ‘They improve on acquaintance,’ said Betty, just as Maeve would have said it.

  ‘I give you five to two they’ll beat Souths,’ Norman answered.

  Meanwhile plates of soup began to appear in the hatch that opened from the kitchen, and Madge got up to bring them to the table. She was not, after all, monumental in size, but in stillness and dignity; she moved as if she were wearing an invisible robe and handed soup as if she were taking part in a religious ceremony.

  During the main course, the young men’s conversation turned from football to the charms of the new trainee at the Bank: figure (Norman sketched on the air, what words could not convey), face (not bad either, not bad at all), altogether a peach, a trimmer, a table bird, everything indeed that Isobel was not and, though she was determined on calm acceptance, the thought was saddening.

  Betty looked up at last from her roast lamb and said with amusement, ‘Don’t tell us, tell her.’

  Norman said, ‘We’re tossing up on that.’

  ‘Be sure to let us know how it comes out. We’ll be suffering the suspense with her.’

  The remark was crushing and silenced Norman, yet he accepted it with a grin.

  Was it dialogue? Were they acting in a play?

  After roast lamb came tinned peaches and custard, all conveyed by Madge from the hatch, where she stacked the used plates.

  After dinner, Betty said to Madge, who was clearing the table, ‘I’ll show Isobel around, if you want to get away.’

  Madge’s response was slight, a vestige of nod and smile, yet gave a glimpse of a private joy.

  Norman was aggrieved. ‘No cards tonight?’

  ‘This won’t take long. The boys are learning to play bridge,’ she added to Isobel. ‘Do you play cards?’

  ‘No. I’ve never tried.’

  She hoped nobody would ask her to try.

  ‘Mr Watkin is the expert. He is very patient with us.’

  ‘You are too modest, Betty.’ Mr Watkin performed his courtly minimal bow. ‘And the boys are coming along well.’ Betty answered with a smile (how beautiful!) as she led Isobel out of the room and upstairs.

  ‘Let me see. Change sheets and towel on Sunday morning, take dirty linen to the laundry—black mark if you don’t. I do my own room, to save Madge—Mrs B. doesn’t do upstairs because of her legs.’ Her tone reserved a judgment on Mrs Bowers’ legs. ‘Mop and dusters in this cupboard if you want them. Bathroom this way—if you want to use it in the morning be early and look sharp.’

  ‘How early?’

  ‘Before six-thirty. Breakfast at seven-fifteen, we’re all off to work by eight. You too, I suppose.’

  ‘Starting tomorrow.’

  ‘Good. Now, the sins—don’t sit in your room at night, Mrs B. watches the electricity bill like a hawk. Has she given you a door key? You’d better ask for one, doors locked at half past nine or when the other one goes home—that’s any time after dinner. Ironing—that costs you, she keeps the iron under lock and key and it’s two bob an hour or two bob a time—fair enough, of course, but save up an hour’s worth. Likewise for washing—it’s free but don’t be forever in the laundry. Mind you, the food could be a lot worse. I think that’s all. If I’ve forgotten anything, just ask. I’d better be getting downstairs. The old gentleman does look forward to his game.’

  Left to her unpacking, dismissing with regret the dream of a reading light and a nightly haven, Isobel reflected that Betty hadn’t told her the most important thing—how to be like her: cool, kind and self-possessed, able to accept the peculiar Madge, to deal easily with the boisterous young men (but that from a height of beauty and elegance Isobel could never attain). Still, such a manner must be for all seasons. The seasons of Maeve, who would study to attain it.

  With the last piece of underwear folded in its drawer, she paused to consider right behaviour.

  No, it wouldn’t do to take Trollope down to the dining room, not the first night. Was she ever going to find out where Mr Crawley got the cheque?

  Right behaviour first. She went downstairs to the dining room, to watch the bridge game.

  The game absorbed the attention of the players. They looked up and nodded briefly when she came in, then went back to studying their cards, the boys with some pain. What a deadly serious game it was. When they had played the hand, Mr Watkin reconstructed it, analysed it and lectured the boys on their errors, but kindly and gravely.

  Isobel almost yawned, which would not have been right behaviour. She could have brought Trollope, after all. Suddenly, the yawn came over her, a real one, of fatigue. She tried to bite it back, but ineffectually.

  Betty looked up and smiled (beautiful!). ‘Ready for bed? It’s been a long day.’

  Isobel nodded, still struggling like Laocoon in the grip of the yawn.

  ‘We usually have a cup of tea about ten, if you feel like waiting for it.’

  Laocoon managed a headshake.

  ‘See you at breakfast then. A quarter past seven.’

  The office of Lingard Brothers Importers was on the first floor of a narrow building in Pitt Street. At half past eight next morning, Maeve Callaghan stepped up the stairs, washed, combed and neatly dressed, opened the door marked Lingard Brothers Importers, and entered a small room where four desks bore four typewriters still under oilcloth covers. There was one young woman already there, standing beside the rear desk sorting papers.

  ‘You’re Miss Callaghan, are you? Mr Walter is in his office. This way.’ Her tone was not quite hushed, yet was subdued by the importance of Mr Walter, who had seemed at the interview to be a worried, flurried little man. She tapped gently at his door, opened it and said, ‘Do you have a moment, Mr Walter? It’s Miss Callaghan, starting work today.’

  Mr Walter was busy. ‘Just a moment. Take a seat, Miss Callaghan. Thank you, Olive.’

  He rea
d to the end of the letter he was holding, set it down and looked up.

  ‘Well, Miss Callaghan. Your duties. The German mail, of course. That’s the most urgent matter. General duties, you’ll be under Olive’s authority for those, but the mail must come first, you understand.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Good. Good. Everything else can wait till the backlog is cleared away. Except perhaps the petty cash. You could handle the petty cash at the same time, I think.’

  ‘I’m sure I could.’

  ‘Good. It’s quite a responsibility.’ He reached for a black japanned box, set it on the folder of mail and slid them across to her.

  ‘The receipt book is in the box. You must not issue cash without getting a receipt and the key must not leave your possession. You make your balance every Friday morning and Mr Richard will check it. Any deficiency will be made up out of your week’s salary.’

  ‘Do I take anything that’s over?’

  Everything came to pieces.

  She had meant it as a kind of grace, so that he could say, laughing, ‘There’s never anything left over,’ and she could answer ‘I hope there’s never any deficiency either.’

  Instead, there he was, staring and stumbling in real misery while she was left holding her unwanted joke.

  ‘But if there was anything over…Mr Richard, you see…it would be an advance, probably, from Mr Richard…he might have forgotten…’

  ‘It’s not very likely to happen.’ She knew that the rescuing tone would give offence too, but there was no help for it.

  He pressed a bell. The gesture seemed to restore him a little. The sight of Olive, who came in answer to the bell, restored him further.

  ‘You’ll keep an eye on Miss Callaghan, will you, Olive? Look after her, show her the ropes. And remember, the German mail has priority.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Walter.’

  Something in Olive’s tone suggested a discreet and sober uniform. She changed out of it when they went back to the small room, where now two girls were each uncovering a typewriter.

  ‘Well, this is Isobel. Rita and Nell.’

  Rita was a gypsy girl and flashed a gypsy smile, Nell, small, sandy and freckled, had a face like an agreeable little fist. Olive had a beautiful calm madonna face and a slender torso, but set on a solid rump and legs, as if someone had made a mistake in assembling two statues.

  ‘This is your typewriter, dear. Paper and carbons in this drawer. Mr Walter likes one carbon.’

  ‘But I can’t type.’

  Olive looked startled.

  ‘I was told that would be all right, because I knew German.’

  ‘Well, just do your best. Would you like me to put the paper in for you?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Right. Carbon this way up, don’t forget that. Shiny side towards you as you feed it in. The margin’s all right. Make sure the paper is straight. There you are!’

  Left alone, she looked askance at the strange machine and opened the folder. She spent a happy forty minutes then, meeting Mr Vorocic the manufacturer of glass in Czechoslovakia, feeling for the many mischances which had held up his shipments as well as raising his expenses—a heavy burden for a man with responsibilities towards a numerous family… (How many children? She fancied a family photograph with Mr Vorocic seated, dignified but anxious, collared, tied and suited, next to his small worried wife and, flanking them, the two youngest, a boy and a girl…sailor suits went out last century. Come on, get on with it.) A shipwreck on the Danube had (put paid to?) the consignment on which he had been depending to supply the order in question…imagine, the Danube existed, and so, for that matter, did shipwreck, all of them tied together by the shining glassware set out on long tables in the big showroom which was the centre of the establishment.

  The moment came. The typewriter must be faced. She stared at it hopelessly.

  Well, that was a familiar feeling and she was used to dealing with it, in the school gym: the comic strut towards the dreadful parallel bars, the ironic bow with which to acknowledge ironic applause.

  She turned and said loftily, ‘Can anyone tell me how to extract a capital letter from this apparatus?’

  It was the gypsy girl who came, laughing. ‘Oh, you are a card! Here, press this down. Oh, wait a minute!’ She wheeled paper and carbon out of the machine, went to fetch a sheet of waste paper and wheeled it in. ‘Now watch. Space bar. Capital letter. And if you want one of these, press down the same as for capitals. Now: The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. Have a go. Right. Now put your paper back in. See this thing, Forward to open, back to close…Now are you right?’

  Dejected and awed by this display of competence, Isobel nodded and began with painful effort to transfer Mr Vorocic’s anxieties to the page. She felt closer to Mr Vorocic than to anyone nearby.

  In spite of her kindness, Rita giggled over the tentative pecking noise of the keys.

  ‘I can’t help it. You sound like a drip in a tap!’

  Isobel retorted, ‘Mind who you’re calling a drip!’

  ‘No offence meant, I’m sure.’

  This was just like school, therefore endurable, but disappointing. She had hoped for an improvement. She had produced two-thirds of a page of typing, with great labour, when she sensed body warmth behind her and, in self-defence, assumed a sprightly touch on the keys.

  ‘Can’t you type any faster?’

  The voice squeaked, so that she looked up expecting a mouse of a man but saw a bulky form, grey as cobwebs, a big sallow face with cheeks that sagged like buttocks under suffering dark eyes.

  ‘Mr Richard,’ Olive said quickly, ‘Isobel has never used a typewriter before.’

  ‘I’m just finding out where the letters are. They seem to be very oddly arranged.’

  Behind her, a scandalised titter informed her that a typewriter was a religious object.

  Mr Richard too seemed to find the remark offensive. He glared, sighed deeply and went sullenly away.

  But why?

  Sometimes she thought she carried an invisible knife, wounding people without being aware of it. The typewriter keys were really very oddly arranged.

  Olive said, ‘Don’t worry, dear. Just do your best. And Mr Richard…’ but she decided not to finish the sentence.

  Mr Richard came back. She was finishing the first letter. He stood behind her, watching.

  I’m not here. I’m in Czechoslovakia with Mr Vorocic. She wheeled the page out of the machine, put it with the first one. He took it without speaking and walked away. She turned to look at the other girls, but every head was bent, every face hidden.

  ‘What did I do?’ She wanted to shout that aloud but turned instead to the second letter of the pile. Halfway through it she paused. Seile. What were Seile? Whatever they were, they had gelockert themselves, with bad results.

  ‘Is there a German dictionary in the house?’

  ‘Why, no. Don’t you have one?’

  Dread drags me, dread drags me to drowning.

  ‘No. I didn’t think about it.’

  Would they sack you the very first day? Not lunch time yet. She had offended two bosses, humiliated herself at the typewriter and failed in German. Olive’s look gave her no comfort. She stared at the sentence as if it might unfold. ‘Again a misfortune!’ Mr Vorocic had cried. A misfortune which had led to some breaking of glass. Whatever it was, it had happened wegen des Windes. A treacherous stream, the Danube. Treacherous to Isobel, too. Where Mr Vorocic lamented, she felt inclined to whimper.

  ‘It’s only ten minutes to lunch,’ said Olive. ‘Couldn’t you go out and get one?’

  ‘I suppose I’d better.’

  Aunt Noelene, who talked as calmly about money as if it was geography, had said, ‘You’d better keep a pound or so, to tide you over the first fortnight. You’ll need money for fares and lunches, you know. If anything else comes up, let me know.’

  She considered her indebtedness to Aunt Noelene: the mourning clothes, a pair of shoes,
two weeks’ board and five pounds for extras. Out of that she had kept one pound five, of which she had still a pound and two shillings. One did right and it still wasn’t enough. Lunches would have to go. She would go for a walk at lunch time so that nobody knew.

  When the other girls stood up and stretched, away from the typewriters, ready for lunch, she got up too, and went out into the street, heading for Dymocks. She had walked one block and a half when she stopped, not hopefully, but out of habit, in front of the bargain basket at the door of a secondhand bookshop. Impossible to pass the two-shilling basket at the bookshop, whatever the circumstances. The red, black and gold took her eye, but did not convince her. Yes, it was. It was a Langenscheidt, a paperback Langenscheidt, battered and loose in its cover. She opened it, calm in a shock of relief. There was Seile: ropes. And now she remembered locker. Locker meant loose, didn’t it? She took the book into the store. The proprietor looked at it with contempt and said, ‘I won’t charge you for that. You can have it.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Oh, thank you, blessed Mary.

  Fine talk from an atheist, that was. Maeve hadn’t lasted long, either.

  The bookman’s contempt (which was, after all, a cover for kindness) made the book more precious to her. She carried it as if it had virtue, like a talisman stone. Speaking of virtue, there was no doubt bad luck was a vice and poverty a fault of nature which must be concealed. One could bear that while good luck was possible.

  The afternoon went better. The drip of the tap grew faster, German no longer alarmed. Mr Richard came back twice, once to collect a finished letter, once to sigh harshly over an unfinished one and wait while she typed the last lines.

  I am not here, I am in Czechoslovakia.

  At five o’clock, when they covered their typewriters and got ready to go home, Olive said to her, ‘Isobel, try not to mind Mr Richard. He means no harm, you know.’

  She must mean, that he meant harm but could do none.