Table of Contents
Bath Night
She didnt like the bathtub from the start.
Isabel was at home the Saturday they delivered it and wondered how the fat, metal beast was ever going to make it up one flight of stairs, around the corner, and into the bathroom. The two scrawny workmen didnt seem to have much idea either. Thirty minutes, four gashed knuckles, and a hundred swearwords later, it seemed to be hopelessly wedged, and it was only when Isabels father lent a hand that they were able to free it. But then one of the stubby legs caught the wallpaper and tore it and that led to another argument right in front of the workmen, her mother and father blaming each other like they always did.
I told you to measure it.
I did measure it.
Yes. But you said the legs came off.
No. Thats what you said.
It was so typical of her parents to buy that tub, Isabel thought. Anyone else would have been off to the West End to one of the upscale department stores. Pick something out of the showroom. Out with the credit card. Delivery and free installation in six weeks and thank you very much.
But Jeremy and Susan Martin werent like that. Ever since they had bought their small, turn-of-the-century house in Muswell Hill, North London, they had devoted their holidays to getting it just right. And since they were both teachershe at a private school, she in a local elementarytheir holidays were frequent and long.
And so, the dining-room table had come from an antiques shop in Hungerford, the chairs that surrounded it from a house sale in Hove. The kitchen cupboards had been rescued from a skip in Macclesfield. And their double bed had been a rusting, tangled heap when they had found it in the barn of a French farm-house outside Boulogne. So many weekends. So many hours spent searching, measuring, imagining, haggling, and arguing.
That was the worst of it. As far as Isabel could see, her parents didnt seem to get any pleasure out of all these antiques. They argued constantlyin the shops, in the marketplaces, even at the auctions. Once her father had gotten so heated, he had actually broken the Victorian chamber pot they had been fighting about and of course hed had to buy it anyway. It was in the hall now, glued back together again, the all-too-visible cracks an unpleasant image of their twelve-year-old marriage.
The bathtub was Victorian, too. Isabel had not been with her parents when they bought itat an antiques shop in West London.
End of the last century, the dealer had told them. A real beauty. Its still got its own taps...
It certainly didnt look beautiful as it squatted there on the stripped-pine floor, surrounded by stops and washers and twisting lengths of pipe. It reminded Isabel of a pregnant cow, its great white belly hanging only inches off the ground. Its metal feet curved outward, splayed, as if unable to bear the weight. And, of course, it had been decapitated. There was a single round hole where the taps would be and beneath it an ugly yellow stain in the white enamel where the water had trickled down for perhaps a hundred years, on its way to the plug hole below. Isabel glanced at the taps, lying next to the sink, a tangle of mottled brass that looked too big for the tub they were meant to sit on. There were two handles, marked hot and cold on faded ivory discs. Isabel imagined the water thundering in. It would need to. The bathtub was very deep.
But nobody used the bath that night. Jeremy had said he would be able to connect it up himself, but in the end he had found it was beyond him. Nothing fit. It would have to be soldered. Unfortunately he wouldnt be able to get a plumber until Monday, and of course it would add another forty dollars to the bill, and when he told Susan, that led to another argument. They ate their dinner in front of the television that night, letting the shallow laughter of a sitcom cover the chill silence in the room.
And then it was nine oclock. Youd better go to bed early, darling. School tomorrow, Susan said.
Yes, Mom. Isabel was twelve, but her mother sometimes treated her as if she were much younger. Maybe it came from teaching in a elementary school. Although her father was a tutor at Highgate School, Isabel went to an ordinary public school and she was glad of it. They didnt allow girls at Highgate and she had always found the boys altogether too prim and proper. They were probably all gay, too.
Isabel undressed and washed quicklyhands, face, neck, teeth, in that order. The face that gazed out at her from the gilded mirror above the sink wasnt an unattractive one, she thought, except for the annoying pimple on her nose... a punishment for the Mars Bar ice cream shed eaten the day before. Long brown hair and blue eyes (her mothers), a thin face with narrow cheek-bones and chin (her father s). She had been fat until she was nine, but now she was getting herself in shape. Shed never be a supermodel. She was too fond of ice cream for that. But no fatty either, not like Belinda Price, her best friend at school, who was doomed to a life of hopeless diets and baggy clothes.
The shape of the tub, over her shoulder, caught her eye and she realized suddenly that from the moment she had come into the bathroom she had been trying to avoid looking at it. Why? She put her toothbrush down, turned around, and examined it. She didnt like it. Her first impression had been right. It was so big and ugly with its dull enamel and dribbling stain over the plug hole. And it seemedit was a stupid thought, but now that it was there she couldnt make it go awayit seemed to be waiting for her. She half smiled at her own foolishness. And then she noticed something else.
There was a small puddle of water in the bottom of the bathtub. As she moved her head, it caught the light and she saw it clearly. Isabels first thought was to look up at the ceiling. There had to be a leak, somewhere upstairs, in the attic. How else could water have gotten into a bath whose taps were lying on their side next to the sink? But there was no leak. Isabel leaned forward and ran her third finger along the bottom of the tub. The water was warm.
I must have splashed it in there myself, she thought. As I was washing my face...
She flicked the light off and left the room, crossing the landing to her bedroom on the other side of her parents. Somewhere in her mind she knew that it wasnt true, that she could never have splashed water from the sink into the bathtub. But it wasnt an important question. In fact, it was ridiculous. She curled up in bed and closed her eyes.
But an hour later her thumb was still rubbing circles against her third finger and it was a long, long time before she slept.
Bath night! her father said when she got home from school the next day. He was in a good mood, smiling broadly as he shuffled together the ingredients for that nights dinner.
So you got it plumbed in, then?
Yes. He looked up. It cost fifty dollarsdont tell your mother. The plumber was here for two hours. He smiled and blinked several times and Isabel was reminded of something she had once been told by the brother of a friend who went to the school where he taught. At school, her fathers nickname was Mouse. Why did boys have to be so cruel?
