Love, Iris

by Elizabeth Noble

  She sat and stared down at her hands in her lap.

  ‘I married Martin on a massive rebound. It wasn’t fair. He deserved better. I drove him away too.’

  She was crying now, gently and quietly. ‘Sometimes I feel like I’ve just been looking for something ever since, and I’m not even sure what I’m looking for. What my mum and dad had, I suppose. What I thought I’d had with Marco. What we read about. That simple easy thing. I resented not having it. Sometimes I believe myself unworthy of it; sometimes I’m just mad at the world for not giving it to me. Sometimes I’m just in blind, chaotic pursuit of it, whatever the cost to the people around me.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s made my life selfish. And all that time, it’s made me a pretty lousy daughter, and an even worse mother.’

  Tess took her hand. ‘I’m glad you’ve told me, Mum.’

  ‘Are you?’ Donna looked up and into her eyes. ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re my mum. You weren’t a lousy mother. That’s not true. You took care of me. It’s just … you were remote. You were restless and still, somehow, exhausted all the time. This … what you’ve told me … it sort of makes sense of it, somehow.’

  Tess wondered if Donna was going to say it. ‘Forgive me.’ But this time she didn’t. Understanding had to come before absolution. If absolution were hers to give. For the moment, though, Tess felt grateful for this moment. She felt closer to her mother now than she could ever remember feeling. That closeness went some way, unexpectedly, towards filling just a part of the yawning hole Iris was leaving. It was a relief.

  ‘I never tell you what I think … I suppose I don’t ever really feel I have the right to. But, for what it’s worth, Tess, I think you’ve done the right thing with Sean. I think, maybe, he was your Harry. You know?’

  Tess nodded slowly.

  ‘This baby’ – and Donna put her hand flat, fingers splayed, across Tess’s stomach – ‘you love this baby.’ Tess put her own hand on top of her mother’s, and the two of them sat that way for quite a while. ‘Let that be your simple, easy love.’

  ‘This would have made Gran so happy.’ Tess looked at her mother, who smiled, and nodded.

  Later, in Donna’s guest bed, Tess lay with her hands behind her head and thought about everything she’d learnt this evening from her mother. So many secrets. Iris had never really known Sean – they’d met, but Tess hadn’t got together with him until the dementia had started to take hold of her grandmother, and so she’d never really known what Iris thought of him. She’d treated him politely and kindly but much like he was the postman or the man who’d come to read the meter. Tess had so wanted to ask. Maybe that was part of what had stopped her from completely committing to Sean. It was an unsettling thought. Was she really saying she needed Iris’s blessing or approval for any relationship she ever had? What did that say about her dependence? Would it always be that way? Iris’s words kept reverberating around her brain. She’d told Donna to go back to Marco. She’d told her love should be the simplest thing in the world. Tess had heard her say it too. For whatever reason, one she’d never know, Iris had kept Donna’s secret. For all Tess knew, she’d kept ones of her own too. But the message had always been the same. Tess knew now what Iris would have said to her, about Sean, and about the baby: it was suddenly clear.

  Gigi

  Gigi had always seen Emily – with or without Christopher – regularly. Since her daughter-in-law had gone on maternity leave last year, a few weeks before Ava’s birth, it had pretty much been weekly. With Emily’s own mother several hours’ drive away, Gigi had fallen easily into the role of adviser (never unsolicited) and comforter. They’d shopped together for Ava, and Gigi had answered a million questions about pregnancy and birth. It had made them even closer. After Ava was born, the bond strengthened. Sometimes, Gigi had simply gone round on her day off, and sent an exhausted Emily upstairs to bed while she cared for Ava downstairs, like her own mother had done for her when Christopher and Oliver had been young.

  Since Gigi had left Richard, they’d met up a couple of times most weeks, usually for walks with the baby, sometimes for lunch or a potter about the shops. No heavy interrogations or questions. Just their normal relationship, ramped up a bit. And Emily texted her most days, checking in. Gigi was incredibly touched by the concern, and profoundly appreciated the kindness, as well as the fact that Emily didn’t cross-examine her.

  She knew Emily and Christopher hadn’t taken sides – they both saw Richard, she knew, and she was glad of it. If Oliver was probably on hers, and Megan – at this point – very firmly on her father’s, Emily and Christopher were definitely Switzerland. She knew too that Emily would have advocated on her behalf with Christopher, if needed. Her tacit support was hugely important to Gigi. Emily had asked her once, very early on, whether she wanted to know about Richard – how he was doing … She’d said no. How could it help? Then added, because she couldn’t help herself, and because old habits died hard, that if Emily thought there was something she should know about his state of mind, or just his state in general, that she’d like to be told. So far, there hadn’t been anything. Sometimes she was curious – but she didn’t let herself ask. She told herself it wasn’t her business or her concern.

  Emily just seemed to know what she needed.

  She remembered when Ava had been a new-born. Christopher had called at breakfast time one Saturday morning, when the baby was barely an hour old, and Gigi and Richard had gone straight to the hospital. They were closer geographically than Emily’s parents, and so they were the first visitors. The delivery had been straightforward, but Ava had had a touch of jaundice, so they were keeping them both in for the first night. Emily had been in bed, holding Ava, when they got there. She’d immediately held her out for Gigi. Not a second of hesitation or new-mother possessiveness. She was a generous and empathetic girl then and still. The restorative powers of a good cuddle with delicious Ava were undiminished, and Emily always offered her daughter easily, like the human medicine she was.

  Oliver was being brilliant, as she could have guessed he would be. He had made it easy, from the start. She supposed he was probably the least shocked of all of them. Maybe even less than she’d been herself. He’d called her at Kate’s, the wretched morning after the big revelation, let her know that he’d put Megan – roughly still in one piece, he said, and at least okay enough to eat a bacon sandwich – on the train back to university, and he’d asked to see her on his own.

  ‘Come to mine. Next night off. I’ll cook us something.’

  Gigi was grateful to her boy – she knew she was almost certainly going to cry and she didn’t want to do it in public.

  ‘Will Caitlin be there?’

  ‘No. Of course not. Just you and me.’

  Over a whisky, then a bottle of red, sometimes in floods of tears, she’d talked and talked, and it had been such a relief to be able to. Oliver had listened, and held her hand, and pulled her into his arms to stroke her hair and tell her it was all right.

  At some point in the evening she’d tried hard to pull herself together.

  ‘This isn’t right. I shouldn’t be talking to you this way.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because he’s your dad. I’m your mum, for Christ’s sake.’

  Oliver had smiled. ‘And you’re both just people. And I’m not a kid.’

  ‘I know.’ She’d cupped his beloved face in her hands. ‘I know, my love. But still –’

  ‘So don’t worry about it. You’ve listened to me enough over the years. It’s fine. I’m not writing it down, and I won’t quote it back to you anytime. I’m not holding you to anything you’ve said. As far as I’m concerned, for the record, you’re being brave. You’re saying something isn’t right, and that you’re not happy, and you’re trying to do something about it.’

  ‘And making everyone else miserable in the process …’

  ‘I’m not miserable, Mum. Chris is fine – he’s got a family of his own. Dad – he’s miserable. Can�
��t sugar-coat that one. None of this is what he wanted. But that’s part of the problem, isn’t it – at least how I’ve understood it. Adherence to the bleeding status quo … He’s part of the problem. He might see it differently once you’ve been gone a while. That might be exactly what’s needed. And Meg … Meg’ll be all right …’

  And it was Megan who kept her awake at night. Hurting Richard wasn’t nice, but it didn’t torture her. She and Richard had been willing participants in their own marriage. Meg was an innocent bystander: the only victim, so far as she could see. How much longer could Gigi have waited? Graduation didn’t mean adulthood – God knows she’d seen that with the boys. Until Megan had her own home? Her own family? How much more of her half-life would she have had to live, waiting until Megan was ready? She couldn’t have. She’d been diligently working at letting her go since she’d first left for university – before, even – but this was too much, too sudden. Knowing that Meg was angry, too angry to want to have anything to do with her – it stung. If she was perfectly honest, it felt slightly like a betrayal too. Did she really deserve it, from her own daughter? Is that still all she was to Meg – a wife and mother? When might a daughter be expected to see her mother as a woman?

  ‘Go and see her.’ Oliver was loading the dishwasher. The flat was pretty tidy, for Olly. There was no evidence of Caitlin here – it looked as it had for the last couple of years. Slightly in need of a woman’s touch. Comfortable, with proper furniture now, not the flat pack of earlier years, but stopping just short of stylish. If Caitlin was spending much time here, she was doing it on Oliver’s terms …

  He’d made a cup of coffee for them both, and now he sat down across from her again, his hands cupping the mug. ‘I’m serious. Just show up. Don’t give her the option. What’s she going to do then?’

  Gigi shrugged. ‘Walk right past me?’

  ‘She won’t do that.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Oliver rubbed his forehead. ‘No. I suppose I’m not sure. She’s a kid. She’s mad and stupid. She knows nothing. But what have you got to lose? I bet she won’t be able to keep up the cold shoulder if she’s looking right at you.’

  ‘Maybe …’

  ‘I could come with you. If you wanted.’

  Gigi shook her head. ‘I think it’s up to me, love.’

  ‘She’s taken the position that you’re the baddie, Dad’s the innocent party. You’re a home-wrecker. Her home, by the way, not Dad’s. She’s selfish … What a baby. I blame you, by the way. You have spoilt that girl sinful.’ He was smiling, but Gigi knew he wasn’t wrong about that. ‘It won’t even necessarily be what she still thinks. But she’s proud and she’s stubborn, and she hates to be wrong, and she’ll find it really difficult to back down, even if she wants to. Trust me. She’ll come round. And if she doesn’t, you’ll have to go up there and call her bloody bluff.’

  Tess

  Iris’s suitcase sat in the corner of the Donna’s spare room for a few weeks before Tess could face opening it. She didn’t know what she’d find inside, but she was afraid of any more sadness. She’d had enough. Eventually, though, curiosity overcame fear, and she pulled it up on to the bed one evening when Donna was away: she’d taken a job doing reportage wedding photography at one of those OTT three-day affairs. Donna hadn’t been looking forward to it, but she’d used what she called ‘yoga maths’ and reasoned it was worth the hefty fee. She’d left the day before, and now Tess almost missed her. But she wanted to be alone when she opened the case. Alone with Iris.

  It was one of those old-fashioned ones – not leather, but very thick card, black, with metal rivets on the corners, a bit beaten up, but still intact. She didn’t remember seeing it when she was little. Iris had used a white case that lived on top of her 1930s wardrobe; it had a little mirror in the lid, and a satin pocket. That was long gone. Tess tried to pick the lock, which would once have had a tiny metal key – lost, she assumed, in the mists of time, rather than hidden – with a paperclip, and, when that failed, she used a pair of pliers Donna kept in a kitchen drawer to pull it open. It came away easily enough.

  On top of some papers was her wedding album. This, at least, Tess did remember from her youth, though she had forgotten it until she saw it now. It was covered with silk, watermarked ivory, discoloured yellow in parts. The photographs – all black and white – were slipped into photo corners, layered with tissuey, waxy paper pages. There weren’t many – they filled only the first ten pages or so. They were variations of the framed shot she’d taken from Iris’s dressing table, which sat now on her bedside chest. There was a brochure from a bakery, slipped between the pages, with several wedding cakes pictured, one circled, its price handwritten in Iris’s curly, old-fashioned script beside it. And a picture of Iris and Wilfred cutting into the same cake. One of Tess’s own drawings fell out of the pages into her lap – she recognized a design for an elaborate many-tiered wedding cake of her own imagination, done when she was nine years old. Iris had kept it and written her name in the corner. Tess’s cake. 1990.

  There was an envelope in the back, with some older photographs she’d never seen, so far as she could recall. She knew, from Iris’s handwriting on the back of each one, that they were pictures of her parents and their farm. Her great-grandfather, standing proud, chest out, by a five-bar gate. One with her great-grandmother, in a wedding dress of her own, sepia-tinted. She looked like a picture Tess had seen once of the Queen Mother at her wedding. It was dated May 1919. Another one of a baby, with a little boy. The baby was on a stool, the little boy, not much more than a toddler himself, stood with his chubby arm protectively around her, his hair wet and brushed to the side. She turned it over curiously. Me and Tom. 1921. And one more. A very small, very old picture of a young man in uniform. Tess stared at it. It wasn’t her grandfather. She knew Wilfred had served in the army: he’d been conscripted quite late in the war because he’d been older, and been injured in France in the months after the D-Day landings. But this wasn’t him. This man was in an Air Force uniform. This man, she realized, was too young to have been Wilfred, who was closer to forty when he was called up. This man looked just like the little boy holding Iris, only grown up. Barely. This man was Tom.

  Iris had been talking about a Tom. About how they’d loved each other. Tess had thought she was just confused. But he was her brother.

  How extraordinary. Tess tried hard to remember Iris talking about her childhood. She knew Iris had grown up on a smallholding in Wiltshire that she’d left to nurse with the VAD in London at some point in the war. VADs weren’t trained nurses – they supported them. They’d washed sheets and sluiced bedpans and boiled bandages and taken temperatures. She had talked about the farm, about lambing in the springtime, and about missing school to help with the harvest. She’d talked about crying when her father butchered a pig she’d reared from a piglet.

  But she’d never wanted to talk about the war, never been drawn, even when Tess had been studying it in history and had really tried to make her speak of it, though she had spoken about feeling hemmed in by the city, how it had seemed so dirty and noisy after the country and how she’d missed the smell of fresh air, and the sounds of the farm, and her mother’s drop scones. She knew Iris had been homesick, when she went to London. She’d been a fool, she said. A young fool. She should have stayed. She’d have been useful, on the farm. She frightened everyone, going headlong towards the bombs and the city. But she wanted an adventure. It seemed that everyone else was having one, and she wanted one too. Doing her bit on the farm may have been a valid, necessary contribution, but it was hardly the stuff of the films and the BBC broadcasts. VADs were being posted all over the world, to help the trained nurses, on the front lines in France, and Africa, and all over. Iris had never got out of London in the end. London had been enough, she said, to show her she didn’t want to go one mile further. The war wasn’t an adventure, she said. And that was all she’d say.

  Tess had a small, peculiar memory
– stark and precise, where others were vague and fuzzy – of asking her if she’d seen a dead body. Of feeling she’d made her cross with the question, which went unanswered. It was a child’s memory – of an afternoon that hadn’t been quite right, of trying to fix it with bright talk.

  Iris had never once mentioned a brother. In fact, she’d definitely talked about how small their family was. How it was just her and Wilfred, Donna and Tess. She’d never asked, because why on earth would she?

  Tess wasn’t finished with the case yet. She wanted to find more about Tom. There were old passports next, stiff black ones with their bottom corners cut off to show they’d expired, and the details written in a cursive style with fountain-pen ink. Three were Wilfred’s, three Iris’s. They had all begun and expired on the same day, posted together. The photographs were a history in themselves, in black and white: Iris with a beehive in the sixties, and Wilfred with thick-rimmed glasses and greased-back hair, longer sideburns in the seventies, thinning on top by the eighties. Both of them older. Greyer. She flicked through the pages and read the stamps, mostly European, imagining the two of them travelling.

  And, in the bottom, as she had begun to hope there might be, there were letters. Because people wrote letters once. Tess’s heart leapt with excitement. Only a thin sheaf of them, wrapped carefully in brown paper, thin and soft and torn in places with age. She tipped them out on to the bed. There were perhaps fifteen or twenty, and they were in several different hands. Some were in envelopes, and some just loose. They were old but well preserved, as though hands had smoothed them carefully back into their original folds.

  She split them, gently, into different handwritings, and then into date order. A few were signed by her mother. And some by Tom.