I for Isobel: Chapter 4 Summary & Analysis

Aunt Yvonne and Aunt Noelene are in the kitchen, talking about what Margaret and Isobel will wear to their mother’s funeral. The girls need new clothes and shoes, and Noelene is happy to buy them, but she thinks purchasing them something black is a waste of money. Aunt Yvonne is scandalized by the thought of the girls wearing something other than black to the funeral, but she is not the one paying for the new clothes.

Isobel is packing her books up into a box which will be stored at Aunt Noelene’s—she is sad to be parting with them. As Isobel thinks about her mother’s death, she cannot call up “any decent feeling from her evil heart”—she is only full of joy at the thought of freedom and new shoes. Isobel goes into the bedroom and asks Margaret, who is sitting on the bed “dazed and weeping,” if she can take the Shakespeare. Isobel wishes she could tell her sister to cheer up, and notes that somebody should be giving Isobel herself the opposite advice. Isobel is sorrowful at not being able to grieve her mother’s death—she wonders if at the funeral, she will feel something, and become “a member of the human race.”

At the funeral, though, things are no better. As the coffin is lowered into the ground, Isobel urges herself to “feel something,” but only feels joy “flaring like a great red flower” within her. On the way back to the house after the service, Isobel is more depressed by the fact that ritual has failed her than by the fact of her mother’s death.

Back at the house, Aunt Yvonne and Aunt Noelene discuss with Margaret and Isobel what the girls are going to do. Isobel has a job interview lined up for the following day—her prospective employers need someone to translate German, and because Isobel received honors in the subject, she believes they will take her on even without shorthand and typing skills. When the aunts ask Isobel where she plans to live, she tells them she can board somewhere. Aunt Yvonne offers to help Isobel secure a room before she returns to the country with Margaret.

Aunt Yvonne, Margaret, and Isobel take a taxi ride to the boarding house where Isobel will be staying. Aunt Yvonne has paid Isobel’s board for the week, and as the two say an awkward goodbye, Yvonne tells Isobel that Noelene will soon be in touch about the money from the furniture. Margaret bids Isobel goodbye, and Isobel says goodbye back—it is not a last word, she thinks, but a first word. She picks up her suitcase, goes to the door, and rings the bell.

A tall elderly woman with ginger hair opens the door—Mrs. Bowers, the landlady. She tells Isobel she’s been expecting her and invites her in. She offers Isobel a cup of tea and bids her to follow her into the kitchen. In the kitchen, an old woman named Mrs. Prendergast is slicing beans. Mrs. Bowers introduces Isobel to Mrs. Prendergast as a “poor little thing” who has just lost her mother—Isobel is still in her funeral clothes, but then again, as they are the only nice clothes she owns, she hasn’t “much choice.” Isobel drinks tea and eats cake while the two women chat, and when she is finished, Mrs. Bowers tells her that dinner is at six, residents must change their linens on Sundays, and that her daughter, Madge, will show her around.

Mrs. Prendergast asks if Madge is “still in with those people,” and Mrs. Bowers answers only that it “doesn’t do any harm.” As Isobel carries her case upstairs, she wonders who “those people” are. Isobel decides that Madge must be a flighty “mod.” Isobel enters her room, which is commonplace and small; nonetheless, she loves every single thing in it because it is her own. She unpacks her books and sets them on a shelf, grateful for the chance to choose for herself the way her room will be laid out.

Isobel catches sight of her face in the mirror, and notes that she looks so happy that the strong resemblance to her mother doesn’t even matter. She considers changing her name to Maeve, believing it to be a poised and confident name. The dinner bell rings, and Isobel hurries downstairs.

Isobel watches as three men and two women take their seats around the dinner table. A beautiful older woman asks Isobel if she is the new boarder, and what her name is. She considers introducing herself as Maeve, but decides against it. Isobel sits between the older woman and Madge, who does not look at all flighty. An elderly gentleman sits at the end of the table—the older woman introduces herself as Betty and the man as Mr. Watkin, and then points out the two younger men as Tim and Norman. Tim seems cheerful, while Norman seems serious.

As dinner goes on, Isobel attempts to jump into the conversation, but she finds that her remarks are slightly off-putting and seem to silence the other boarders. After dinner, Betty offers to show Isobel around so that Madge can “get away,” and Madge nods gratefully. Betty shows Isobel the ropes, giving her tips on how to avoid a busy bathroom in the mornings and advising her that ironing will cost her and sitting up in her room at night with the lights on will run up the electricity bill and anger Mrs. Bowers. Betty then heads downstairs to play cards with Mr. Watkin.

Isobel stays upstairs and continues unpacking, slightly sad that she can’t stay up reading in her room all night. When she’s finished, she wonders if she should bring her book down to the common room, but decides it would be bad manners on the first night; in the name of “right behavior,” Isobel heads down to watch the card game. After just a little while, though, Isobel is exhausted, and goes back upstairs to bed.

At 8:30 A.M. the next morning, Isobel—pretending in her head, for purposes of self-confidence, that she is Maeve Callaghan—strides into the office of Lingard Brothers Importers, a glassworks company, to start work. A young woman named Olive leads her back to the office of Mr. Walter, the boss, who explains that her duties will be first and foremost to translate the German mail. He instructs her not to worry about her other duties until the backlog is cleared, except for handling petty cash. After giving her instructions on how to manage the cash box, Isobel attempts to make a joke, asking if at the end of the week she can take home whatever’s left over, but the moment falls flat, and Mr. Walter does not understand her lighthearted quip.

Olive returns to take Isobel from Mr. Walter’s office and bring her back to the small room at the front, where two other girls are uncovering their typewriters and sitting down to work. Olive introduces them as Rita and Nell—Rita has a “gypsy smile” while Nell has an “agreeable” face. Olive shows Isobel to her typewriter, but Isobel says she can’t type. Olive tells her to do her best and offers to put some paper in it for her.

As Isobel gets to work, she enjoys losing herself in the “stories” of the letters she is translating, picturing all the details as if she is reading one of her books. Soon, though, it is time to face the typewriter. Isobel asks Rita for help, and Rita briefly shows her how to use the machine. Isobel is not proficient with the typewriter, but finds that working on it is “endurable but disappointing.” Isobel loses herself in focus, and is jarred when a voice behind her suddenly asks if she can type any faster. It is Mr. Richard, another of the bosses at the company. He stands behind her, watching as she works. Isobel, frustrated, tells herself that she is not at the office—she is in Czechoslovakia, within the pages of the letter. 

Mr. Richard eventually walks away, but soon after, Isobel finds herself up against some German words she does not know, and realizes she does not have a German dictionary with her. Isobel is afraid of how badly she has failed at her first day. Olive suggests Isobel go out and buy a dictionary at her lunch break—Isobel has a little money from Aunt Noelene.

At lunch, Isobel visits a bookshop and picks up a German dictionary. She brings it to the register to purchase it, but the shop proprietor tells her she can have it for free. This makes the book precious to Isobel, and she carries it back to work as if it was a talisman. After lunch, work is easier—her typing improves slightly, and the German dictionary helps greatly. At the end of the day, she places it in the drawer and gives it a pat before heading home. That night, Isobel falls asleep right after dinner. The next day at work is “peaceful,” and the work goes fast. That night, at dinner, Betty is not present, and after dinner Madge disappears and only Mr. Watkin remains downstairs. Isobel finally gets the chance to read for pleasure in the common room, and she is delighted.

Isobel visits Aunt Noelene, and the two discuss Isobel’s finances. Aunt Noelene offers to pay for Isobel to take classes in typing and shorthand—she is afraid that without these skills, Isobel will lose her job, and if this job folds, she won’t be able to get another. Isobel tells Noelene that she doesn’t want to be a burden, but Noelene asks Isobel who else is supposed to look after her. Noelene tells Isobel to come visit the first Sunday of every month and she will give her four pounds for the week until Isobel earns a pay raise. Isobel wants to know if she will have to ask Mr. Walter personally for a raise; Noelene tells Isobel that she will get “nothing out of this world unless [she] fight[s] for it.” 

Noelene fears that Isobel has started off on the wrong foot at her company and is not being compensated fairly for her skills in German. Noelene urges Isobel to find out what the other girls at the firm are making. Noelene fixes herself a drink and then says determinedly that she doesn’t think Isobel will make it—she’s not a “fighter.” She urges Isobel to be a teacher—Isobel replies that she hates school. Noelene tells Isobel that she can stay at the company until the end of the year, but should start looking for other work.

Aunt Noelene takes a phone call, and Isobel sits alone in the kitchen, marveling at how her aunt has “tamed money” and made it into a “kind of playmate.” Isobel wishes she could give Noelene something in return, though she knows she can’t. After lunch, Isobel returns to the boarding house with a knew belt, handbag, sweater, and coat from Aunt Noelene’s stash of clothes. In spite of the new clothes, Isobel feels that the visit was “depressing,” as it focused mostly on the “frightening living nature of money.”

Isobel returns to work and is off put by how frequently Mr. Richard comes to stand behind her and watch her work. The store man, Frank, tells Isobel she should say something polite but dismissive to Richard in order to get him to move along. Frank tells Isobel that Richard has hardly any work of his own and is largely incompetent. Despite Frank’s urgings, Isobel decides to handle Mr. Richard with inner calm alone, choosing to ignore him when he stands behind her.

At the boarding house, Isobel is more at home in the kitchen most nights than the drawing room, and enjoys listening to Mrs. Bowers and Mrs. Prendergast discuss death and sex and reminisce about their own lives. Isobel thinks of the two women as the Fates, and listens with interest to their every word as they dissect their dreams and gripe about their friends, knowing that within her mind there is a “collector intent at information at all costs.”

Isobel takes a typing class but finds it miserable. She is better in shorthand and dictation, but typing frustrates her endlessly. One afternoon, coming back from typing class, Mrs. Bowers calls her into the kitchen for some sweets. Isobel joins her, and Mrs. Bowers tells her all about her daughter Madge’s fascination with a “strange religion.” Mrs. Bowers has told Madge that she cannot practice the religion in the boarding house, though she supposes that it doesn’t do any harm for Madge to practice it elsewhere. She also reveals that Betty had been “the guilty party” in a scandalous divorce, while Mr. Watkins spent his life recording the fortunes of dynasties of race horses. As Mrs. Bowers tells Isobel about all the other boarders, Isobel mentally “trie[s] on each life” to see if it suits her.

Going to the college for her typing classes has brought Isobel the “pleasure of eating out,” and she frequents a nearby café where she eats fish and chips and reads quietly—on these outings, she feels at home for the first time. One Saturday, Isobel visits a new café, a coffee shop, and reads for a while before returning to the boarding house to sit with the Fates. Isobel is grateful for her easy, pleasant Saturdays.

Rita shows up to the office on Monday and announces that she is engaged. At lunchtime, Isobel joins Rita and the other girls in the showroom, where the staff eats their sandwiches at a corner table, and Rita waltzes around, dizzy with glee. Rita wonders who amongst the girls will be next to get married—Isobel jokes that it will be she and Mr. Richard. Rita tells the others that she and her husband want to move to Melbourne together. Isobel hears this news “with dismay,” knowing that Aunt Noelene will expect her to seize the moment of Rita’s departure and wrangle more pay from her bosses. Isobel doesn’t feel she has enough courage, though, and laments that life works this way: “no sooner had you built yourself your little raft and felt secure than it came to pieces under you and you were swimming again.”

After the others go back to work, Olive holds Isobel back. She advises her not to be so friendly with Frank, who is a communist, and not to make any jokes about Richard;. she could have Rita’s job when she leaves and get a “big promotion” if only she keeps her head down and stays out of trouble. Later, Isobel tells Frank what Olive told her, and the two commiserate over how difficult the work environment is. Isobel confesses that she always thought she would just do her work and take her money and not have to worry about anything else. Frank asks Isobel what she wants out of life, and asks her if she ever thinks of being a writer—she has a certain “way of putting things,” he notes. Isobel asks Frank to drop the subject. When he asks her again what she wants, she tells him that all she desires is to “be one of the crowd.”

Two days later, Isobel’s “crowd” appears. She is sitting in a coffee shop in town when a group of six young people come in and push a bunch of tables together. Isobel is annoyed that they are making so much noise, but when they start talking about schoolwork and poetry, Isobel can’t help but pay attention to their conversation and wish she could be a part of them. She believes they are “living as she long[s] to,” and is sure none of them has any idea just how lucky they are.

Isobel thinks she recognizes one of the girls from somewhere, and wishes she could remember her name so that she could go up to her and insert herself into the group. She thinks that the girl looks bored, and Isobel wishes she could take her place. Suddenly, Isobel remembers the girl’s name—it is Vinnie Winters, and Isobel knows her from school. Isobel at last approaches the table and introduces herself to Vinnie—she asks if Vinnie remembers either her or Margaret, but Vinnie doesn’t seem to.

The boy opposite Vinnie asks Isobel to come and join them, and offers to bring her things over to their table for her. Once Isobel sits down, one of the boys—Kenneth—asks Isobel if she were a part of speech, which part she would be. He is a very, he says; their friend Janet is a conjunction; Vinnie is an adjective, and Trevor is a noun. Isobel tells them that she is a preposition—she likes “only small common objects.” One of the other girls smiles at her joke, and Isobel—whose jokes always fall flat—is astounded. Isobel banters with her clever new friends and feels at home.

One of the young men asks what part of speech his friends think he is—his name is Nick, and Kenneth tells him that he is an adverb. He tells Nick jokingly that someone named Diana, who is not present, is a “past participle.” As the game goes on, and the students assign parts of speech to teachers and people they know, such as a professor whom they refer to as Joseph, they soon grow bored. As silence falls upon the group, Isobel departs, bidding them all goodbye.

Isobel returns to the boarding house, feeling as if she has finally found people who speak “her own language.” When Mrs. Bowers greets her and asks where she’s been, Isobel tells her she was out with a girlfriend—Isobel the “born liar” is back. Isobel spins lies about the imaginary “friend” she was out with while Mrs. Bowers serves her tea and cake. Isobel feels guilty—there is no place for lying in the beautiful kitchen—but she cannot stop telling lies about her friend “Emma.”

Mrs. Prendergast remarks that she had a cousin named Emma who was “put a way for a while” after going “funny” after the birth of her third child. Mrs. Prendergast then tells the story of a woman who lived across from her in her old town. When the woman’s baby was six weeks old, she and her husband were getting ready to go out one evening; he called for her, and she told him that she would be out in a minute—she was just “popping the baby in the oven.” The husband ran to the kitchen to find their infant “greased all over and trussed up in the baking dish”—he got there just in time. Isobel is seized with “anguish” for the baby in the story.

All week, Isobel thinks of the group she met in the café. She tries to find out the name of the poet they were discussing, and wonders who the teacher they were discussing, someone named Joseph, might be. On Saturday morning, Isobel arrives at the café early, hoping that the group will come by again. Sure enough, Trevor and Nick show up, and invite Isobel to their table. Janet and Kenneth come in next, arguing about an essay topic. Isobel struggles to keep up with their conversation. To ingratiate herself to her new friends, Isobel tells them about Mrs. Bowers and Mrs. Prendergast, but presents the women as ridiculous and strange, feeling a pit in her stomach as she does.

When Janet asks Kenneth whether he’s bringing Vinnie to an upcoming ball, Kenneth recites a dark poem of his own composition in response. Isobel, confused and startled, tries not to laugh. Kenneth then begins telling a story about writers whose names Isobel doesn’t know and can’t keep track of. As he and Janet banter back and forth, Isobel resents the affection they have for one another.

Trevor walks Isobel nearly to the boarding house, and asks her why she doesn’t attend university. She says plainly that she must earn her living, and adds that in the end she only wants to read books—she doesn’t want to have to write essays about them. As they part ways, Trevor tells Isobel he’ll see her next week.

Isobel, for the first time, feels alive. On Sundays she goes to the library and checks out the books her new friends are talking about. Isobel stays away from the kitchen more and more often, avoiding Mrs. Bowers, and finds herself living for Saturdays. Though Isobel feels alive, she thinks that she is “morally as bad as ever.” At nights, Isobel talks to her pillow as if it is Joseph, her new friends’ faceless instructor, and unpacks her thoughts for him. She wonders whether someone born bad could choose to be different, and confesses that she thought she could “make [her] life into a room and chose what came into it.” Isobel admits to her pillow, though, that life is actually more like a sea than a room—undertows carry you where you don’t want to go.

Madge has gotten engaged, and brings her fiancée Arthur to the boarding house to meet Mrs. Bowers. The two shake hands, and Mrs. Bowers retreats to the kitchen. Betty leaps up and congratulates Madge and Arthur, as do Mr. Watkin and Tim and Norman. Isobel tells Madge that she likes her ring—it is not a diamond, but a dark striped stone. Isobel watches with confusion while Betty plays hostess to Arthur; Mrs. Bowers stays in the kitchen. The next day, in the café, when Isobel’s new friends ask about the boarding house, she tells them things are bad—Mrs. Bowers is angry about Madge’s engagement.

Sure enough, when she returns to the boarding house, Isobel is lured into the kitchen, where she must sit and listen to Mrs. Bowers laments Madge’s “folly.” She calls Arthur a “religious crackpot” and believes that Madge, who has always been weak, is “possessed” by the religion and acting a fool for the first man who has said two words to her. Mrs. Bowers cannot believe that Madge has not even gotten a diamond engagement ring. Mrs. Prendergast attempts to soothe Mrs. Bowers while Isobel stays silent, but Mrs. Bowers does not want to be consoled.

Moreover, the other boarders have begun to act with hostility towards Isobel and even making fun of her clothing. Isobel laments the cruel treatment to “Joseph” each night, wondering why the other boarders hate her, but Joseph has no answers—Joseph is “a listener only.”

At the café one afternoon, Janet notices a tall dark girl staring at their group from the window. When Janet mentions her, Nick stiffens and grows still. Janet scoffs that the girl at the window has “no self-respect at all,” and urges Nick to go talk to her and tell her “it’s no use.” Nick sits at the table, playing with a match. Kenneth tells Nick that there’s nothing he can do about it except to “wait until [the girl at the window] gets tired of it.” Isobel realizes that the girl at the window is Diana—the “past participle.” Isobel is curious about Diana. As the others talk derisively about Diana, Isobel thinks that she wishes just one of them had to stand “wrung in a doorway staring at someone [they] love, hopelessly.”

Nick and Trevor head home to their apartment, which the group colloquially calls Fifty-one, for its street address. They ask Isobel if she is coming along, and she goes with them. At Fifty-one, Janet introduces Isobel to Helen, the owner of the house who rents out the rooms. Janet tells Helen that they all had a “visitor” at the café. Helen tells Janet that Diana stopped by the house first, but that Helen didn’t tell her where the group was. Isobel thinks that Diana had been beautiful except for her “obsessed eyes.” Diana’s plight frightens Isobel.

In the yard, a motorbike starts up, and the group remarks that Nick is “escaping.” Apparently, Diana has not been seen for a fortnight until today—the last time anyone saw her was after she broke up Nick and his last girlfriend, Anthea. If he takes up with anyone else, Janet says, Diana will be “bad as ever.” Isobel thinks of Nick as “an exiled prince,” driven out of his own kingdom by a furious woman. The group laments how “dreadful” things must be for Nick, stalked as he is, but notes that he never talks about his feelings to any of them. 

Trevor invites Isobel upstairs to his bedroom to look at some books. Isobel is panicked by the invitation, but tells herself that if Trevor had any ulterior motives, he would not have asked her in front of everyone—Isobel tells herself that Trevor thinks of her only as a reader, not a girl. Upstairs, Trevor hands Isobel a series of Russian novels and they begin discussing literature but soon a clock chimes—Isobel realizes it is already six, and she is late for dinner at the boarding house. Isobel hurries from back to the boarding house and slides into her place, slightly late. The other boarders look up at Isobel and acknowledge her arrival “without affection.” Isobel berates herself for having given in to forgetfulness, a “dangerous” pursuit. Isobel wishes she could know where she went wrong.

The next evening, Mrs. Bowers appears at the door, looking angry, and tells the boarders that one of them hasn’t changed their sheets. Isobel realizes it is her, and offers to run up and do it straight away. Mrs. Bowers softens, though, and tells her the sheets can wait until after dinner. Mrs. Bowers returns to the kitchen, and the rest of the boarders—Madge included—can hear her talking to Mrs. Prendergast derisively about Arthur. Madge approaches the kitchen and tells her mother to say whatever she has to say to her face. Isobel is “awed” by Madge, and wishes she had been able to find the courage to talk to her own mother that way. As Madge and Mrs. Bowers argue, Isobel realizes that she has, in a way, taken Madge’s place in the boarding house—she is at last “the favored child.” Isobel laments that “any rag will make a doll for the idiot in the attic.”

As Isobel returns to the room, she reflects on the ways in which the “idiot” has played games with Isobel’s world, and has influenced her to move in certain directions. She wonders if she will be able to fight against this part of herself for the rest of her life. Isobel feels she now at least knows where she has been going wrong and why the other boarders must dislike her so much.

Isobel hears Madge’s footsteps and voice outside, and decides to go and see what Madge is up to. The door of Madge’s room is open, and she and Arthur are inside packing. Isobel offers to help, and Madge smiles kindly at Isobel. She asks Isobel to help Arthur take boxes down to the cars. Isobel consents, but is afraid of meeting Mrs. Bowers downstairs, and disappointing her and angering the “idiot.” Once Madge’s parcels are all loaded, Madge kisses Isobel goodbye—Isobel knows it is a “proxy kiss,” but feels she is doing something good just by being there to receive it.

In the café, Kenneth and a boy named Mitch are bent over pages of manuscript while Janet watches them. The atmosphere inside is peaceful and buoyant, and as Isobel sits down with her friends, Janet tells her that Trevor and Nick have gone away for the weekend. Isobel and Janet look over the boys’ pages, and then Isobel heads over to Fifty-one to pick up a book from Trevor’s room.

Once Isobel is upstairs, Helen comes to Trevor’s door—she tells Isobel that Diana is at the front door, but she can’t stand another minute of her. She asks Isobel to go downstairs and tell Diana that Helen is out, and that Nick is away. Isobel goes downstairs and opens the front door, finding herself face-to-face with Diana. She tells Diana that Helen is out. Diana surveys the living room, then pushes inside and sits down on the settee. She tells Isobel that she knows Helen is here, and avoiding her—she doesn’t blame Helen, she says, and knows that she herself is “a curse and a bore.” Isobel is shocked that Diana is talking to her this way when she doesn’t even know her name.

Diana becomes irate, believing that Nick is here in the house. Isobel insists that Nick is away for the weekend. Diana collects herself and insists that though Isobel probably thinks she’s shameless, she isn’t. Isobel realizes that though she is a stranger to Diana, Diana must know that people talk about her, and that Isobel knows all about her. Diana confesses to Isobel that she does feel shame—that often it’s all she ever feels. She tells Isobel that she has no pride and no self-respect, and on top of everything, has lost her job. Isobel realizes that Diana is using her as a messenger—Diana wants Nick to know how badly she is suffering. Diana then admits that she once thought Nick would come back to her when he saw what awful shape she was in—now that she knows he won’t, though, it doesn’t make any difference.

Isobel asks Diana what she’s going to do for money—Diana says that she doesn’t care, though, as she is as good as dead. Isobel thinks to herself that perhaps when someone can’t change, and knows that they can’t, it’s possible that they are as good as dead. Isobel realizes that she has been speaking her thoughts out loud when Diana looks at her with furious eyes. Isobel says she doesn’t mean Diana specifically—just anyone who can’t adapt. Isobel asks Diana if she wants to go somewhere together—Diana looks skeptically at the coffee cups on the table. Isobel assures her that Nick is not here, but tells her that Helen did get up and run from her—Isobel asks Diana what she expects when everyone knows they can’t do anything for her.

Together, Diana and Isobel walk down the road. Diana invites Isobel to come over to her house and have a real meal, but Isobel declines. Diana smiles sadly and notes that everyone has dates on Saturday night. Diana and Isobel both get on the bus in silence, and Isobel sits down and opens up the book she’s borrowed from Trevor: The Brothers Karamazov. Isobel reads all the way home and then at the boarding house, she opens the book up in her room, but finds she can’t really focus—she can’t stop thinking about Diana.

Isobel finds herself thinking that Diana lit up at the bus stop because she wanted to claim Isobel as her new “victim.” Isobel realizes, though, that Diana is the victim, and berates herself for being “selfish and heartless.” Isobel plunges herself into the novel and reads until the dinner bell. Downstairs, the boarders all move gingerly, afraid of upsetting Mrs. Bowers, who has been angry since Madge’s departure.

After dinner, Isobel is hit with the fear that Diana herself has a “date” tonight—she fears Diana is going to kill herself, and that Isobel (and her spoken-aloud thoughts about inertia and being “as good as dead) is responsible. Isobel realizes it doesn’t matter what she said or what her intentions were, even if they were good or curious—Diana heard her words and is now going to act on them. Isobel does not seek Diana out, and instead puts herself to sleep. Each day that week, she buys the paper and flips through it, looking for a paragraph headlined “GIRL FOUND DEAD IN FLAT.”

Isobel wants to go to Fifty-One to see if she can find anything out about Diana, but does not dare—she does not want to be seen showing a special interest in the matter and thus seem guilty. Isobel cannot believe that she told Diana she was “as good as dead.” Isobel vows to never speak without thinking again.

Meanwhile, back at the boarding house, Mrs. Bowers is angry with Isobel. Isobel accepts her landlady’s ire passively, thinking that after all, she wanted Madge’s place—and now she has got it.

At the café that Saturday, there is no talk of Diana—Isobel figures that if she had died, the group would be talking about her. Trevor is there, but Nick is not—Nick, though, Isobel notes, is “never really there.” After the café, Isobel and Trevor head back to Fifty-one, discussing writing as they go. Trevor tells Isobel that all he wants is to be a good critic. Back at Fifty-one, up in Trevor’s room, Trevor puts his arms around Isobel. Isobel stiffens and struggles, and Trevor releases her, apologizing and urging her to forget anything happened. He walks over to his desk, sits down, opens a book, and begins to read. Isobel places The Brothers Karamazov on Trevor’s bed and leaves, feeling that all the friendships she has worked for with the café crowd are now “gone in a second.” 

Isobel wishes she could have pretended to want Trevor so that she could have been his girlfriend and at last “belonged”—but she felt she would be found out for being a fraud amongst them. The following Saturday is a lonely one, and Isobel wanders the streets feeling miserable and out of place. When she returns to the boarding house, no one talks to her, and she eats dinner in silence.

On Monday morning, at the office, there is a phone call for Isobel. She picks it up—it is Helen calling to tell her that Nick has died. Helen explains that Nick was in an accident on his bike the day before—a car hit him, and today he has passed away. Helen asks Isobel to go to Diana and break the news to her—Helen knows it’s a terrible task, but can’t think of anything else. Isobel tells Helen she won’t be able to go till later, but Mr. Walter, having overheard, touches Isobel’s shoulder and tells her she can leave work now. Isobel takes Diana’s address down and promises Helen she’ll go straight away.

Isobel’s coworkers bring her tea and help her look at maps to navigate her way to Diana’s flat. Isobel takes comfort in her coworkers’ kindness. Mr. Walter sends her on her way, telling her not to worry about getting back for the end of the day. As Isobel leaves the office, she rehearses what she’ll say to Diana in her head.

Isobel gets off the train in Diana’s neighborhood and finds her way to Diana’s “narrow, dingy white, shabby” apartment building. She knocks at Diana’s apartment door, and when Diana opens the door, Isobel finds her in a dirty nightgown, with tangled hair and bare feet. Diana’s apartment is in disarray, and Isobel fears that Diana will not be able to bear the news. Nevertheless, she breaks it plain and simple, telling Diana straightforwardly that Nick has died. As Isobel goes briefly into the details, Diana picks up a hairbrush and begins brushing her hair. Isobel believes that Diana is in shock, but then watches as relief spreads over her face. Isobel realizes that Diana feels the way Isobel felt when her mother died. Diana thanks Isobel for coming to tell her, and asks Isobel to tell Helen she’s sorry. Diana ushers Isobel toward the door and Isobel leaves.

Isobel heads to Fifty-one, though she does not want to. Grief, she feels, is a terrible bore. She hates the shameful thought, but cannot suppress it. At Fifty-one, Helen greets Isobel and asks how Diana took the news. Isobel tells Helen that Diana didn’t react much at all. Outside, there is the sound of a car door closing—Helen realizes it is Nick’s mother coming to the house to collect his things. Helen offers her something to eat before offering to show her up to Nick’s room, but Nick’s mother insists on going up alone.

Helen and Isobel sit quietly in the living room as they listen to Nick’s mother’s tortured screams coming from upstairs. Helen and Isobel run up the stairs; Isobel sees a bright bottle of pills in Nick’s mother’s handbag and gives her one to calm her. Together, Isobel and Helen take Nick’s mother into Trevor’s room and put her to bed. Isobel stays at Fifty-one until Trevor comes home, and then leaves, knowing that she does not belong with them. She does not go to the boarding house, but instead to a house where earlier in the week she’d seen a sign which read, “ROOM VACANT.”

That night, Isobel tells Mrs. Bowers that she’ll be leaving at the end of the week. Isobel thinks she can hear Mrs. Bowers say, “good riddance.” Isobel comes into the dining room crying, and Betty comforts her.

Isobel begins feeling cheerful as she packs up her belongings in her room. She is glad to be escaping from “a grief not her own,” and is looking forward to outfitting her own apartment with her own little things. Isobel opens one of her books and reads a favorite passage of Auden before packing it. “You’re what you are and nothing you do will get you out of the wood,” the passage says. Isobel places the book in her suitcase and reflects on how “one is never quite alone.”