Letters to Iris

by Elizabeth Noble

  ‘Sorry. I told you not to ask about Dulcie.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. I want to know. What are you doing about it?’

  ‘What can I do? Dulcie would die if I went into school. Besides, what would I say to them, if I did? They’re not babies. They’re fifteen, most of them.’

  ‘Will it pass, do you think?’

  Holly shook her head. ‘I suppose so. They’ve got exams … Someone else will transgress, eventually – draw the fire.’

  ‘Is Dulcie upset?’

  ‘Of course she’s bloody upset. She’s being ostracized. Not invited to stuff. Left out. They’ve got these stupid groups – you know – Snapchat. Stuff like that. She’s been told there’s been a vote, and she’s not allowed to join the chat, so she misses all the gossip.’

  ‘How horrid.’

  ‘Oh, Tess, you’ve no idea. They can be so cruel. So casually, horribly cruel. And I have to go to coffee mornings and parents’ evenings with their mothers, who think butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths …’

  ‘You should tell ’em what their little darlings are up to.’

  ‘Which would make me feel better for exactly two minutes. And would only make it worse for Dulcie.’

  ‘I know. I’m not serious.’

  Holly laughed. ‘Nope. We have to swallow it. I fantasize about telling these girls which way is up. Seriously. But I keep telling her revenge is a dish best served cold.’

  ‘Please, please tell me she’s going out with the boy … Jake, did you say it was?’

  Holly rolled her eyes. ‘Hell to the yes she’s going out with Jake. She’s my daughter!’

  ‘Good for her.’

  ‘Oh, it’ll pass. I can’t even believe I’m talking about it … Though it helps.’

  ‘And I was asking for it.’

  ‘Yes. You were. And this little darling’ – Holly reached out and stroked Tess’s tummy – ‘she’ll have to deal with it too.’

  ‘Forewarned is forearmed, I suppose.’

  Holly smiled. ‘You’ve got a few years to go yet.’

  ‘Something to look forward to.’

  ‘You know, you think the first bit is the hardest. Getting them to sleep through the night, teaching them to latch on. The first time they run a fever of a hundred and one in the middle of the night and you have to decide what to do about it. The endless puking and poo …’

  ‘Wow. Really talking it up now, Hols.’

  ‘I’m serious.’ But she was laughing. ‘You think all that crap is the hard stuff … But it’s the easiest. Teenagers … that’s when it gets almost impossible.’

  ‘Nurse …’ Tess raised a hand.

  ‘Mostly, when they’re little, you can fix things for them. When they got older, you can’t fix it any more …’ Holly’s voice trailed off. Tess patted her friend’s hand where it lay on the edge of the bed.

  ‘I’ll tell you one thing – you are so the godmother of this baby. I clearly need all the expertise I can call on.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Who else would I ask?’

  ‘Oh, Tess. I’d love it.’

  ‘Good. Will you shut up now? Because you are frankly scaring the bejesus out of me.’

  Holly nodded and made the zip gesture across her lips.

  She reached into her tote bag and pulled out OK magazine.

  ‘Let’s do celebs instead … That Kate Middleton … she really is too thin …’

  Gigi

  It was after nine o’clock when Gigi heard the knock at the door. Her heart sank a little. She’d worked a long shift, most of it in the post-natal ward, checking endless stitches, and she was exhausted. A shift with an active labour always went faster, and, though she still loved the work she did with the newly delivered mothers, tonight her feet throbbed. She’d come home, wondered about cooking, been momentarily very glad that there was no one else who needed feeding, and decided that hot buttered toast and a big glass of wine were far easier. She’d peeled off her uniform and pulled on her fluffy dressing gown while she waited for the bathtub to fill with gloriously hot water and bubbles, having poured at least a quarter of the posh bubble bath from Emily under the tap.

  There couldn’t possibly be good news at the door. A misdelivered food order, a misguided salesman … or worse. She thought about ignoring it and hoping whoever it was would go away. But maybe something was wrong. Gigi sighed, turned off the tap and went to answer it, putting the chain across first.

  She could see – in the three inches of space the chain allowed – Adam. He leapt back when she opened the door, as though he’d knocked by accident.

  ‘I’m sorry. Is it a bad time?’

  ‘No. It’s fine. Hold on a minute, let me take the chain off …’

  She closed the door, and found herself checking her reflection in the hall mirror. She pulled the robe tighter around her and pushed her messy hair behind her ears. The steam from the bathroom had made her pink and shiny. She rubbed her face against her sleeve quickly and opened the door.

  ‘Adam. Hi.’

  ‘Hi. I’m sorry. I saw the car pull in … I didn’t realize …’

  ‘I’m always in a bit of a hurry to wash the hospital off me after a long shift.’

  ‘Of course. Sorry. Again.’

  She smiled, wondering what he wanted. Perhaps she was parking in the wrong place. Making too much noise. Using too much hot water …

  She’d seen him three or four times since the day he’d helped with the floor. Just for chats – one of them always coming or going. He seemed more antsy now than he had done on any of those occasions. Less cool.

  ‘I’ll get to the point, then. Then you can get back to your –’

  ‘Bath.’

  ‘Yes. Your bath.’ He seemed positively embarrassed.

  ‘I wanted to ask if you’d have dinner with me.’

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘No, no. Not tonight. When you’re free. Say, Friday. Saturday?’

  ‘You want to have dinner with me?’

  He smiled now, and the smile restored his demeanour. That slight laugh behind his voice. ‘That’s the general idea, yes. I’d like to take you to dinner. If you’d like to go …’

  Gigi pulled the robe tighter still around herself. She had a horrible feeling she was breaking out in hives. If this was a date, and it rather sounded like it was, then her brain was whirling – counting – and telling her that it was, well, more than thirty-seven years since anyone had asked her out.

  She hadn’t the vaguest notion how to be cool about it. She was flattered, petrified and, mostly, bemused.

  Adam shifted slightly from foot to foot, looking at her, his eyes shining, his hands buried now in his jeans pockets.

  A tiny voice inside her head spoke for her.

  ‘I’d love to.’ What was she playing at?

  The tiny voice was still talking.

  ‘Friday is good for me.’

  Adam looked delighted, confidence restored almost to swagger level.

  ‘That’s great. Do you like Thai?’

  Apparently, the tiny voice was very enthusiastic about Asian cuisine. And 7.30 worked for her. She made the arrangement, thanked Adam for asking and wished him goodnight, all while Gigi stood and wondered why in the hell Adam would want to have dinner with her. And why she’d agreed to go.

  After he left, she closed the door and leant back against it, catching the breath she was suddenly short of.

  She changed, unchanged and rechanged her mind about a dozen times between Tuesday and Friday afternoon. She wanted to tell Kate, but something stopped her. Probably the thought of Richard. She couldn’t shake the feeling of disloyalty – the feeling that she was betraying him.

  But at 7.25 on Friday night, she was sitting in an armchair, drinking a very large gin and tonic faster than was prudent. She’d done her hair and her face, and the ten discarded outfits strewn across her bed were testament to the care she’d taken over what to wear. She’d settled on a black wrap dress
and heels. She almost never wore heels, but she’d felt dumpy in the dress until she’d put them on. They’d stretched her silhouette out into something vaguely acceptable, and Spanx had squeezed it in. The wrap’s neckline was low, so she’d taken the dress off and added a silky vest to cover the three or four inches of cleavage she thought would be overdoing it.

  She’d even thought about painting her nails, after inspecting her workaday hands with some dismay, but her wedding ring had stopped her in her tracks. She’d never taken it off her hand, not since the day Richard had put it on. She couldn’t get it off if she wanted to. She knew because she’d tried. With cold water, and hand lotion, and even a lump of butter … it hadn’t budged. Her finger had grown around it. A jeweller would have to cut it off, and that seemed so … final, and so violent, somehow.

  Now, although she didn’t want to, she was thinking about her first dates with Richard, in the late 1970s. A lifetime ago. She’d thought he was the best-looking bloke she’d ever seen. She’d never believed in butterflies in the stomach and delicious palpitations. The stuff of Georgette Heyer, not of real life. But he had given them to her. They were all courting – her fellow nursing students. The atmosphere was redolent with lust and love and daydreams. She remembered the excitement of Saturday nights then, getting ready in her flat – Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours on the record player – all of them fighting for hot water and mirror space. Farrah Fawcett flicks and blue eyeshadow, an intoxicating cloud of perfume. Smoky pubs and loud discos. Steaming up the windows in his car, thinking about going all the way, and wondering if she might, right there in the car … But Richard had been old-fashioned, even then, and he hadn’t wanted that. He told her he had too much respect for her, and she felt like a lady. They’d gone to a hotel by the sea for the weekend, when neither of them could wait any longer. She’d already known by then that she’d marry him if he asked her, and he wouldn’t have taken her, he told her, if he hadn’t been planning to. So serious, down on one knee, a ring in his pocket. She remembered being so very, very sure that it was right. Like she’d discovered the secret, at twenty-one. And she was invincible. The two of them would be indestructible. Had she ever been so sure of anything since? Nothing was indestructible. Life showed you that.

  She drained her glass and stood up, to shatter the veil of melancholy that had settled. Gin really was mother’s ruin. She wandered over to the window, to see if his car was there. It was odd to think he was just below her, getting dressed for the same date. She wondered what he was thinking. Across the road, the young family she’d seen the first day she’d come to the house was just arriving home. Dad was with them. He was pushing the stroller, with the younger toddler standing on one of those clever skateboard things they had on the back these days, which she’d have loved when Christopher and Oliver were little. Mum was holding hands with the eldest, while fishing the key out of her pocket with the other hand. Tea now, and bath-time. Maybe a glass of wine and a television show for the parents once all was quiet upstairs. How many Saturday nights had she and Richard spent that way, not minding at all that they weren’t getting dressed up to go out to dinner? Happy to be at home, a family.

  Get it together, Gigi, for God’s sake. On impulse, she scrolled through the songs on her iPhone and clicked it into the dock. ‘The Chain’. Still good. She pushed the volume up and up, so that the room reverberated with the sound of Stevie Nick’s incredible voice, and started to move. Catching sight of herself in the mirror, she smiled. She might be three stone heavier, forty years older and a bloody load wiser, but she could still dance. As if no one was watching. If no one was watching. And at least the blue eyeshadow was gone.

  Adam called for her exactly on time. He was a gentleman too. All the holding-the-door-open stuff. Walking on the outside of the pavement. Asking her what she would like to drink and ordering it with the waitress for her. Once that was done, he smiled broadly at her.

  ‘I’m glad you said yes. I’ve been looking forward to it.’

  ‘Me too.’ Not strictly true. ‘Thanks for asking me.’

  He nodded acknowledgement. ‘You look really nice.’

  It had been a while since Richard had said that. He wasn’t critical, like some people’s husbands were. Never put her down. He just didn’t really notice any more.

  ‘Thank you. So do you.’ God, Gigi. You’re a sodding parrot. He did, though. He was wearing one of those white shirts with a vivid pattern inside the collar and the cuffs, and a fashionably cut jacket. Richard might have said he looked spivvy. But she thought it looked good. Like he hadn’t given up entirely.

  She blinked hard, trying to banish Richard from the date, and react on her own. Be whole, not just half of a whole that no longer was whole.

  ‘Are you all settled in?’ This was his stock first question. Every time. But he always looked genuinely interested in the answer.

  ‘I think so …’

  ‘Where were you before?’ Okay. Straight in there. She didn’t know why she’d have expected anything else. People their age simply didn’t come without baggage. Best to see what other people were carrying around with them early on, she supposed.

  ‘I’ve actually just separated from my husband. Richard.’ She didn’t know why she’d said his name.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s okay. It’s not a secret.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’ Which of course he had.

  ‘You weren’t prying. It was a simple enough question. It’s fine.’ She straightened her chopsticks on the placemat and tried to smile brightly. ‘What about you? How long have you had the house?’

  ‘I bought it in 2000. We did. I was married too –’

  ‘So are you divorced as well?’

  A slight shake of the head. ‘Widowed.’

  ‘Now I’m sorry.’ God.

  ‘Don’t be.’ Adam shrugged and smiled. ‘It was a long time ago. My wife – Stella – she died in 2005.’

  ‘Was she … ill?’

  He nodded. ‘For a while.’ Gigi gave him room to say more but he didn’t.

  ‘That’s really hard.’

  ‘It was. It gets easier …’

  ‘Did you have children?’

  ‘No. No children. Stella never wanted them. I didn’t think I wanted them enough to push her … What about you?’

  ‘Three. Two boys and a girl. Quite grown up now … Christopher, Oliver and Megan. She’s my youngest. She’s at university. The boys have flown the nest completely.’

  ‘Ah … They say that’s a dangerous time.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Was she that much of a cliché? ‘I’m a grandmother too.’

  ‘No! You can’t be.’

  ‘Flatterer. I absolutely can be, and I absolutely am. Ava. Christopher’s daughter. She’s almost one now.’

  ‘Well, you look very well on it.’

  She nodded acknowledgement. ‘Thank you.’ He was still looking at her in that way she couldn’t quite interpret, like he had in the flat, that first time they’d met.

  Five more minutes, waiting for their food to arrive and distract them, for careers. Hers as a midwife in a beleaguered NHS, his in pharmaceutical sales. Gigi trying not to gush about a job she loved, and Adam clearly trying not to bore about a job he merely tolerated because it paid for his life.

  The starters arrived, and provided some respite. Gigi knew hobbies were probably next. Or politics …

  She felt strangely exhausted. She didn’t know anything about him and he didn’t know anything about her. There was a conversational mountain – an information Everest – for them to climb before they could be anything like comfortable together. All this stuff – this superficial stuff – it was supposed to be exhilarating, but it made her feel so tired. This trying to piece together a picture of who the other was without straying into territory that was too sad, or too complicated, or that revealed too much. If she was watching, from another table, she’d say she could see two middle-aged people – a bit trampled by life, try
ing too hard to find common ground. Walking gingerly across new ground booby-trapped with mines.

  She had always dreaded being – with Richard – just another one of those eating-not-talking couples you saw in restaurants, with nothing to say to each other. Megan could be particularly damning about that type of diner. Gigi had tested Richard, in those last weeks and months before she’d left, by saying nothing when they’d taken their seats. Almost counting how long it took him to start a conversation. Scoring him – no points if it was about the weather, two points for something to do with the kids – they were too easy. Conversational cannon fodder. Ten points if he made her think, or laugh, or said anything that made her want to take him home before dessert and jump his bones. And he hadn’t scored many tens. For a moment, looking back, it seemed comfortable and familiar. There was just such a couple in the corner behind Adam now. Gigi was fascinated by them. They’d come in immediately after them, and ordered their food with their drinks, as if they came here often and knew without looking what they wanted. The wife wasn’t dressed up at all. She certainly gave no indication of being afraid that if she exhaled too fast, or coughed, her Spanx might roll down. Her glasses were pushed back on her head; her makeup hadn’t been touched up since this morning. He was wearing a pullover. They spoke very little and ate quite fast. At one point she showed him something on her mobile phone. He leant over with a prawn on a fork and popped it in her mouth in a totally unsexy way. The strange thing was that they didn’t look dreadful to her now. They looked incredibly safe, and relaxed. Easy like Sunday morning.

  Adam had turned around to look at the couple, so Gigi must have been staring.

  ‘Do you know them?’

  ‘No. Sorry. I’m a bit …’ She had no end for her sentence.

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘It’s weird. When you’re first back out there. I’ve got a ten-year head start on you, but I do remember.’

  ‘Have you had girlfriends, then, since your wife?’

  ‘A few. For a while, once I first got up off the carpet, and that took about a year, I was obsessed with finding someone else. Obsessed. I thought I would only work if I was part of a couple. That’s all I’d been, for so long.’