Read Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop for Free Online

perfect hostess.’
    Isobel drank her beer. It was not too bad. At least it wasn’t going to make her sick. Indeed, she was beginning to think that it was very good. It tasted of things as they were, strong, bitter, melancholy.
    ‘But why hadn’t Liza told Duncan, for heaven’s sake, that the work was too much for her?’
    ‘Perhaps she had, and he hadn’t listened, so she was driven to this form of communication.’
    Liza, Liza! Isobel was sick of the sound of her name.
    ‘Well, perhaps it was a way of communicating, but not a very sane way, surely.’
    If they knew what it was like to be mad…
    ‘If you knew what it was like to be mad,’ said a loud, angry voice that brought sudden silence. ‘If you knew what it was like, not being able to say, “I am I.” Being taken over, that’s it. The other, the secret thing using your mouth to speak through.’
    ‘I say, calm down,’ said a voice beside her.
    She knew then that it was herself speaking but she didn’t care. Let them find out. What joy, what marvellous relief it was to say the words.
    ‘It’s no help to set your teeth and fight it. It’s smarter than you. Bigger and stronger. And it’s everything you hate. But you’re there. That’s what they don’t see, that you’re there. You’re watching and you can’t do anything. A fly on the wall, that’s what you are.’
    ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’
    ‘And the rest of it, the muddle. Walls around you that aren’t walls, and what you think is a door is all the wall there is.’
    She was proud of that, and was hurt when the man beside her said, ‘I don’t follow you. How about letting it go for the moment?’
    She tried again, speaking to him particularly.
    ‘It’s being a situation, do you see? Not a live person, but a live situation that uses you—whatever you are—no, a morality play. A morality play, you see, that uses everything that comes to act itself out. That you can’t get away from by saying I, no use saying that.’
    He opened his mouth and closed it again. The others had vanished into a sunken background from which voices came across an invisible barrier. A haha. That was just the name for it.
    Oh, my God…what on earth…can’t somebody?
    She raised her voice at them, coldly.
    ‘It’s no use trying to beat madness with reason, either. Madness is reason, reason gone wild.’
    The man beside her was nodding as if he was hypnotised.
    ‘Now listen,’ she said to him, and had to giggle, because it was like saying to a large, pale praying mantis, ‘Now be eaten.’
    ‘Now listen. I know you are alive like me. But it’s a bab…It’s abstract. I know by eye. I see you. I know by ear.’
    ‘So do we know by ear. Do we ever!’
    Trouble in the haha. She quelled it with a glance.
    Now they were all visible, all staring. The two old women at the next table were staring too.
    She must have fresh air at once.
    Graciously, she said, ‘Will you excuse me? I’m afraid…’
    She did not stop to tell them what it was she feared. Outside in the cool air, the world swung heavily through a small arc and settled back into place.
    An arm went round her and held her unpleasantly tight. She struggled against it.
    A harsh voice said, ‘Now then, lovey. You stick with me. Don’t want to get yourself run over, do you?’
    Whatever gave her that idea?
    Protesting was too much trouble. She allowed herself to be led across the street to the park.
    As soon as they had halted, the world swung again.
    She leaned out of the woman’s arms and vomited.
    The woman thought that a clever, praiseworthy thing to do.
    ‘That’s right, lovey. You bring it up, my darling. Come on, that’s it.’
    She tried to get away, to plunge into the security of the grass.
    The arms tightened.
    ‘Not there, love. Come on, my little darling. My own little girl, you come and sit with me and hold your dear little head up. Now wait. I’ll be back in a minute.’
    She did not have enough energy to escape.
    The woman came