Isobel
Beryl Fletcher

Wendy is in such a state that I make her sit down and drink a cup of coffee before I ask her what the hell is the matter. I am tired of her coming home at night like this; uptight, tense, her words jumbling over each other. Especially tonight, when I have good news to tell her. Two months ago, I sent a short story away to the editor of a new book of lesbian short stories. And today, idly checking over the pile of letters that arrived in the mail, (mostly questionnaires for Wendy who is conducting a postal survey for a lecturer at Auckland University on attitudes towards Asian migration), there it was! I read the letter over and over:
. . . We are delighted to inform you that your story The Queering of Logophobia has been selected out of two hundred submissions to appear in our forthcoming international anthology of lesbian fiction. Congratulations! We will be contacting you soon for permission to make some small editorial changes . . .
I have been racing around all day, alternating between excite-ment and fear. Wendy had seen the call for submissions for the anthology and insisted that I send a contribution. I would never have been able to do it without her encouragement. I can’t believe that it’s been accepted. I fight the urge to write to the publishers and demand that they withdraw my story. I am still vulnerable to the belief that written words are dangerous and that language can kill. What if another person like my sister Julia reads my story and finds her mortality staring at her from the page? I could not bear to have another death on my conscience.
Wendy thinks I exaggerate this relationship between words and fate but I am still not convinced. I anxiously re-read the story and try to comfort myself by saying over and over that this is a fictional description of the bodily states of an invented woman speaking an invented language. It is not meant to be a logical treatise on the nature of human consciousness. If only I could be sure that future readers will share the intention of the writer.
I didn’t want to ring Wendy on her cellphone. I wanted to tell her face to face. I left the letter lying on the table so that she would see it the moment she walked in. But she didn’t notice. She did not ask me why I was looking so excited or why I had set the table with one of Sally’s crocheted tablecloths and the special candlesticks. She was full of work woes. I tried to cheer her up by showing her the excellent response to her questionnaire in today’s mail. But all she wanted to talk about was her unease over the ethical problems with Alice and the oral history tapes.
“Tomorrow is my last day, I swear to you Bel.”
I am distracted by the timer on the oven. I am cooking a dish with kumaras and tomatoes with a glaze of orange juice and shoyu sauce. There is a critical moment in the cooking of this dish between browning and burning and I have to attend to it now. “The last day for what?”
“I have decided to tell Alice everything that I know.”
“Jesus. Is that wise?”
Wendy sips the last of her coffee. “Marlene Hunter is a power-ful woman and I know that I’ll pay for what I’m going to do. But I have grown to love Alice. She is such a gutsy old woman. And I have misled her. I feel a complete bitch.”
I serve the meal and we begin to eat. Wendy plays with her food. I am at screaming point. “You knew weeks ago that there was something wrong with the research. You could have spoken up before this.”
“You encouraged me to keep making the tapes,” she snaps. “Even though you knew that she was related to you by marriage.”
“Be fair! I clearly remember advising you to tell Alice that you and I lived together.”
“That would have meant coming out to her and she might have sent me packing. I want to be able to keep seeing her after the tapes are finished.”
I am surprised by her saying this. I have lived with Wendy for five years. She has always been completely open about being a lesbian. She claims that closeted lesbians oppress the ones like us who are living an honest life. She must have more invested in her relationship with Alice than I realised. “Surely you know what her attitudes are by now?”
“I hardly ever ask her questions. I try to be as non-directive as possible. That’s how oral history works.”
We drink red wine. I eat the rest of the kumara and tomato dish. I clear the table. I wait until Wendy has washed up the dishes and I have taken the coffee pot and the plate of cheese and biscuits into the living room. Then I lift the letter from the table and place it in her lap, casually, as if it was nothing of importance. She shrieks with joy. “I knew you could do it Bel!”
We spend some time hugging and kissing and making up. Wendy says she is sorry for not noticing the special dinner. She attempts to reassure me about publishing the story. “I think it’s great and so does the editor. Otherwise she wouldn’t have chosen it over so many others. It doesn’t matter what other people make of it.”
This sets me off again. “But what if . . .”
To my surprise, Wendy starts to laugh. She laughs until the tears roll down her face. In spite of myself, I begin to giggle too. “What’s so funny?” I manage to say at last.
“We are bloody hopeless, me with my bloody ethics and you with your bloody logophobia.”
We hold each other and laugh and kiss and drink more wine. Then we talk, really talk, in a way that we haven’t done for weeks. Wendy tells me again how much she loves me and I say, me too, me too.
“Whatever happens with your writing,” says Wendy. “We will cope. Even if the guilt about Julia returns.”
“Whatever you decide to do about Marlene Hunter, I will sup-port you.”
Wendy says soberly, “I told Alice today that I had something to confess. I’m going to tell her everything tomorrow and Bel, I want you to come with me. I want to be completely honest with her. This includes the fact that I share a house with her niece.”
I am not convinced that this is a good idea. I point out to Wendy that she has contradicted herself. First she wants to conceal her sexual identity from Alice and then she wants me to come with her to Alice’s house tomorrow.
Wendy squirms. “I knew you’d say that. But she is seventy-five years old. Couldn’t we say we are flatmates?”
I am shocked. “Definitely not. I come as your partner or not at all.”
Wendy is silent for a few minutes. Then she says, “You win. Time to tell the truth. And not just about us.” She takes some cassette tapes from her brief case and holds them towards me. “There is stuff in here about your cousin Joy that could destroy her. I freaked out when I heard Alice tell me her story. And now she wants a big confrontation with her daughter. I think she is foolish. What is the point of dragging up ancient family history that will only hurt people and make things bloody worse than they already are? I have been placed in an awkward position. I encouraged Alice to make the tapes and because of this, another person is going to get the shock of her life. I won’t divulge to Joy what her mother has said but I can’t stop Alice doing it.”
“Wait,” I said. “I don’t follow you.”
“Alice wants to tell Joy the truth about her father and she has asked me to be there when she does so. I have agreed to do it but when it happens, I want you to come with me.”
I am amazed that Wendy has suggested this. “What about confi-dentiality? I admit that I would love to listen to the tapes, especially the anecdotes about my parents. But what about this other infor-mation?”
“The truth is I am out of my depth,” says Wendy. “The relation-ship between Alice and Joy is already difficult. God knows what will happen after Joy hears the tapes. I don’t know what to do. I need your help.”
I can see that she is deeply disturbed so I agree to go with her to Alice’s house tomorrow morning. But I insist that she tell Alice about the nature of our relationship and then, and only then, ask her permission for me to be there while she makes the last tape.
“I want you to listen to all the tapes,” says Wendy. “Right through. Tonight.”
“No way.”
“Is it such a crime? Alice believes that her story is going to be published in a book. She has already agreed to make her story public. What’s the difference?”
“You’re splitting hairs. She was going to choose which bits went into the book. This way, you are not giving her any choices.”
Wendy cries, “Oh god I’m sick and tired of this whole business. I’m going over to Marlene Hunter’s office in the morning to throw the fucking tapes in her face! I’ve had enough!”
I calm her down. She drinks her coffee and nibbles on a piece of cheese. I tell her she is over-reacting. “And what about Alice? She has given you hours of her time and the story of her life as a gift. If you throw it away she will be humiliated. You may as well tell her that her whole life has been worthless.”
Wendy says she hasn’t thought of it like that. “I hate to bow to your superior wisdom twice in the same evening but I have to admit that you’re right. Again.”
I grin at her. “You should listen to your elders and betters more often.”
She comes over to the sofa and sits next to me and kisses me and strokes my hair. “So you won’t listen to the tapes with me?”
I make a compromise. I will listen to the parts about Alice but not the stuff about my cousin Joy. Wendy sets up the tape recorder and once again, I hear the voice of my aunt, older, slightly shaky, but unmistakably her voice. I was born Alice Nellie Smallacomb . . . are you going to ask me questions?
I was about ten years old when I last heard her speak. They used to visit us in Te Kauwhata until that day when I overheard a quarrel between Uncle Jack and my father Denby. I had never seen my father hit a man before. Alice tried to prise the two men apart but Sally restrained her. My mother brushed me off by telling me that it was nothing to worry about. Just bad blood between two stubborn brothers. But in spite of her down playing the event, Jack and Alice never came to our house again. I was very upset at the time. I loved my Aunty Alice and my big cousins Joy and Morry. Maybe I’ll find out the real reason for the quarrel from the tapes.
I was born Alice Nellie Smallacomb. My mother was only fifteen when she gave birth to me, but I know who my father was . . .
Wendy breaks in excitedly, “Now I understand why she said that!”
I ask her what she means. She hits the pause button. “This is not going to work Bel. Either you listen to the whole thing or nothing.”
“Turn it on again. Her voice is bringing back distant memories. Me and Julia riding on the train to visit her house in Sandringham, visits to the beach . . .”
“You don’t understand. I can’t pick out the bits about Joy.”
“But she hasn’t even mentioned Joy.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
I’m already hooked. I had not counted on the effect of hearing Alice speaking across a gap of thirty years. There is something in the timbre of her voice that is evocative of hot summer nights and picnics and staying up late and happy childhood events. Something that I didn’t know I had lost is being restored to me.
I sigh and give in. I promise Wendy that I will not divulge any-thing that I’m about to hear. Not to anyone. Under pain of death.
We sit for hours listening to Alice’s voice. I try to interject once or twice but each time Wendy places a finger on my lips. At the end of the final tape, I hear Alice say, I believed that adoption was the best chance both for Joy and the baby . . . I gave Joy no option . . . We will sign the papers and that will be the end of the matter. Then Wendy’s voice, I’m going to confess something to you . . . Sorry to be so mysterious. But there’s something I have to do before I speak to you again.
I sit stunned for minutes, trying to take in everything that I have heard. I am overwhelmed by feelings of compassion for both Alice and Joy and I’m enraged over what has happened to them.
“For fuck’s sake say something,” says Wendy. “You’re freaking me out.”
I rant and rave for minutes. I get stuck into the fucked world, the fucked people, the fucked treatment of women, fuck, fuck, fuck, I say, how dare they? How bloody dare they treat us like this!
Wendy holds my hand. “Please don’t be angry with me Bel.”
I try to calm myself. “No wonder you felt as if you were drowning.”
“I wish I’d never taken on the job.”
“You’ve done nothing wrong. Quite the opposite. Alice was more than ready to tell her story. And I’m glad that she told it to someone as understanding as you.”
“Surely some things are better left unspoken,” says Wendy nervously. “Jack is dead, Emily is dead. They all are, except for Alice. Why does she want to reveal the stuff about the rape after all these years?”
“Joy has a right to know.”
“In principle yes. But what good will it do her in reality?”
“Alice has already made the decision to tell Joy. End of story.”
“Maybe she’ll change her mind after we speak to her tomorrow,” says Wendy.
“We?”
“You promised Bel.”
“I’ve got no intention of talking her out of anything. I think the truth should come out. And Joy should have a chance to tell her side of things.”
“Alice might feel differently after I tell her about Marlene Hunter.”
“Have you found out any more about her?”
“All I know is what she has told me. The book Working-Class Foremothers is on hold. She told me some crap about the market research people advising her to postpone publication until further notice.”
“Maybe she is telling you the truth.”
“No way. She’s a sleaze. Why did she ask me to get one further tape from Alice if she isn’t going to use the material in the book? Don’t forget the money involved. Five hundred dollars. What for? I don’t understand.”
“I’m glad Alice is getting paid. She deserves to have some good fortune in her life.”
Wendy smiles. “It makes me feel better to hear you say that.”
By now, it’s one o’clock in the morning and it’s very warm. There is a hint of thunder in the air. Another humid Auckland night. This summer is exceptionally hot and wet. If only the rain would disappear for a few weeks. I feel emotionally exhausted. I tell Wendy I have had enough for one night. I need to put my head down and get some sleep. She throws a cushion at me and says that things could have been worse. What if Elizabeth had come to visit? Thank god for that man she is running around with. It takes the pressure off us.
I throw the cushion back at her. “So you admit that your mother can be hard going? Ha! About time!”
We go arm and arm into our bedroom. Christobel the cat is already stretched out on my pillow. I lift her gently onto the floor. She doesn’t stir. Wendy goes to take a cool shower and I lie naked on the bed.
I go over and over Alice’s story. My rage has left me. I marvel at her tenacity, her fierce will to power, her submerged mysticism. I’m sure there is more to this side of her than she has allowed us to hear. Sometimes she moves a veil aside and speaks of apple trees and Celtic islands and the gathering of herbs but quickly closes it again and returns to the chronology of her life story.
Her memory beads fascinate me. Gold for warmth and blue for cold. The smell of the orphanage is in the blue bead, unsmiling faces, broken skin, the tears of sad children. Her method of remem-brance came from looking within a kaleidoscope, the fragile threads like multi-coloured tears, empty glass beads waiting to be filled with the illustrated texts of future experience.
She has invented a private language, one that can never be mis-construed or distorted because she is simultaneously both author and keeper of the beads. This makes her decision to tell her story to Wendy even more mysterious. Why make public a system that has sustained her sanity over the years?
Wendy comes into the bed, cool and clean and smelling of soap. I kiss her goodnight. “Love you, Bel,” she murmurs, and falls asleep instantly.
The rain clouds have cleared, and the full moon is high and bright in the window frame. I close my eyes. As always, when I am sleepless, I hear the voice of my dead sister, we are swimming in the dream . . . the sea is milk . . . the words are turning into stone . . .
Once again I perform the mourning cry on that darkening beach; the pulse of the sea falters, the breakers stand still, the same grey gull falls from the sky.
The moon leaves my window and drifts away over the western hills. Finally, just as the sky begins to lighten and the first tentative birdsong trembles through the dawn, I manage to push the sound of her drowning voice away and I sleep at last.

Beryl Fletcher is the author of the Commonwealth Prize-winning Best First Novel, The Word Burners which, with The Iron Mouth and The Silicon Tongue form a loose trilogy, each novel taking up a different aspect of storytelling. Her most recent book is a memoir, The House at Karamu (2003).  The Silicon Tongue has been translated into Korean and German.

From: The Silicon Tongue
pp 161-169

Website: http://www.spinifexpress.com.au