Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop by Amy Witting Page B

room again.
    ‘Thank you, my dear. I’ll be back with your things tomorrow and we can talk some more about the situation when I’ve seen what we have to do. Goodbye now.’
    No doubt about it, the room seemed dimmer without her. Mrs Delaney radiated.
    *
    She looked even more radiant when she returned, late in the next afternoon, carrying Isobel’s duffle bag.
    ‘I’ve scrounged a suitcase! I knew I probably could. People don’t throw out luggage. It’s an old expandable leather bag, heavy as lead and it looks like a dead dinosaur, but it will do. And I’ve got a little grant for you. Five pounds. The Auxiliary has a fund. I think I can stretch it. I’ll get pyjamas straight off. SSW, are you? I thought so.’
    Isobel smiled at her enthusiasm and whispered, ‘Do you enjoy vicarious poverty?’
    ‘Oh, dear, does it show so much? Yes, I do rather. I grew up during the Depression. Of course it was a terrible time. I always think of it when I smell soup. Mum used to start the soup pot in the morning, meat stock she saved from everything, chopped vegetables and barley. That was for the people who came to the door selling bootlaces and such. We were better off than most. Dad stayed in work and though we were poor it was, as Mum used to say, enough for ourselves and a bit over. And she was a marvel at managing, making something out of nothing. I went to my first dance with an evening coat, a pretty olive green bolero, they were all the rage, and nobody knew that mine was made out of the best bits of an old velvet curtain. I can see her now, holding the cut-out pieces to steam over a kettle. She was a wonderful person. Scrounging and managing for somebody else just takes me back, I suppose. Well, so long as you don’t mind it…’
    ‘It’s a whole lot better than someone doing her duty without a smile, I assure you.’
    ‘I’ll tell that to Sara, the next time she tells me I’m just enjoying myself instead of tackling the serious issues of society. Now I’m making you talk too much and I’ve been told not to. Not another word from you. I’ll unpack for you and be off. Don’t expect me till you see me. I don’t know how long things will take.’
    She put Isobel’s nightdress and her two singlets and three pairs of knickers—all, Isobel noticed, newly washed and ironed—into her cabinet, the books of poems on its top, soap, toothbrush and toothpaste into the small bathroom, put her finger to her lips and departed.
    Nostalgic about poverty, thought Isobel. How nice to be so rich. But the thought was affectionate, not critical.
    ‘Well, today’s the day,’ said Bernie on Thursday morning.
    Today Isobel’s fate was to be decided—or rather, the decision was to be made official, for it seemed to have been decided already.
    After she had put Isobel back to bed, remarking cheerfully that she was getting stronger, she said, ‘I don’t think the great man can be here before eleven. I’ll be in to tidy up later.’
    However, it was a strange nurse who arrived before lunch. She nodded briskly, looked about her, set the chairs straight against the wall, put the books of poems and the pocket comb out of sight into drawers, checked the bathroom, sat Isobel upright while she straightened her pillows, stretched the quilt to absolute smoothness and told Isobel firmly to keep it that way and not go wriggling about and disturbing it. There was no doubt that a person of very great importance was expected.
    ‘You’ll have to wait for your lunch till Doctor’s been.’
    Isobel sat up, awed into immobility. Would the great man say with a scowl, ‘There’s a wrinkle in that quilt, nurse’?
    No, of course. Only Matron inspired such dread.
    A long hour later an orderly arrived carrying a large buff envelope which he laid at the foot of Isobel’s unwrinkled bed. He nodded and left.
    She waited again.
    At last the party arrived: Doctor Hansen, accompanied as she had expected by Matron, and by a tall, broad-shouldered