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

an errand.
    A difficult situation.
    She was quite alone. How, in this world full of people, did one get to be quite alone? It wasn’t a natural state of affairs. One had to work at it. She had been working at it for some time, it seemed, shutting doors behind her, one after another.
    Slammed doors, panic flights, rejections…
    One couldn’t blame Aunt Noelene. Since the death of Mrs Callaghan, Aunt Noelene had given support, had paid her fees at Business College, helped her with money, meals and hand-me-down clothes. It could not be welcome news that she had left Lingards and meant to work part-time and try her hand at writing.
    ‘You’re no better than the rest of them,’ she had said with contempt and disgust. ‘Don’t come running to me when you’re in trouble, that’s all.’
    Well, this was trouble and she mustn’t go running to Aunt Noelene. She wasn’t going back until she had something to show for it, like a book with her name on the cover.
    Certainly she had never meant to shut the door on Margaret. They had got on well enough, better than a lot of sisters, being too different ever to clash. It had been the wedding invitation, the impersonal printed invitation card to Margaret’s wedding that had done the damage. Isobel had not even known that it was an insult until Aunt Noelene had told her so, reading it aloud and fuming:
    ‘Mr and Mrs W.J. Campbell of
Whitefields, Melville Plains
have pleasure in announcing
the marriage of their niece
Margaret Anne
    —not even Callaghan! Not even Callaghan! That shows you where we stand! And you ought to be a bridesmaid. Her only sister and you’re not even invited to stay in the house!’
    ‘A sister who isn’t a bridesmaid would be a bit of an embarrassment staying in the house,’ Isobel had said. ‘And you know, it wouldn’t have been practical. I couldn’t afford the time off work, let alone the dress. Margaret would know that.’
    ‘It wouldn’t have hurt Yvonne to give you the dress.’ An odd turn of phrase, for Aunt Noelene knew that such an outlay would cause her sister considerable pain. ‘But that’s Yvonne for you. Spends money wherever it shows, and as mean as cat’s meat everywhere else. And this is the first you’ve heard, even of Margaret being engaged?’
    ‘Of course I’d have told you if I’d known. But I was the one who stopped writing, you know. There never seemed to be anything to say.’
    Nothing to say in answer to Margaret’s reports of her wonderful new life with Aunt Yvonne—tennis parties, picnics, dances, evening dresses, boyfriends…
    ‘Not true,’ she had added. ‘I was plain damned jealous.’
    Not so much jealous as conscious of an unhealthy hunger for a way of life she mustn’t long for. She didn’t think she grudged it to Margaret.
    Aunt Noelene had said, with a heavy sigh, ‘I know the feeling. It’s winner take all, isn’t it? Well, I’ll send a cheque and you can just return the compliment. Send a card. Inability to accept. Tit for tat!’
    So Isobel had sent the card and almost at once had regretted it. She could have written to Margaret and wished her well, she could even have packed up a heavy cut lead crystal flat cake plate, bought at staff discount from Lingard Brothers, and sent that with her best wishes. It would have been the correct response, even if the snub had been deliberate, as Isobel was sure it was not. There was no malice in Margaret. Finding the correct response at the correct moment was the problem. Too late Isobel understood that she and Margaret were being drawn into the long quarrel of their elders.
    She hadn’t expected to miss the people in the office so much, Frank and Olive, Nell and Sandra, the new girl. Isobel had found an unexpected satisfaction in being no longer the latest comer. She and Olive had become almost friends, and Frank had been a protector as well as an amusing companion. Of course they had thought her odd, translating German and reading poetry at lunch time,