Letters to Iris

by Elizabeth Noble

  ‘No change.’

  ‘Okay. You need anything?’

  I did, she thought. I did. But you just gave it to me. Out loud, she said, ‘Nope. I’m fine.’

  ‘You call me if you do. Promise.’

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘I’ll see you soon.’

  ‘I’ll see you.’

  She thought he’d gone, but, as she turned back to Iris, the door opened again, and he was miming in the doorframe, where anyone could have seen him. A Beyoncé standard. He was shimmying now, doing the right moves, his arms pumping. He looked ridiculous. He didn’t even mouth the words but she knew them. And then he was gone.

  His going left a vacuum in the room. He was right about one thing: she couldn’t remember the last time she’d simply laughed. Except that the last time was probably also with him.

  The catering team were rolling trolleys with breakfast trays down the corridor, chatting to each other about last night’s EastEnders, and this weekend’s plans. Someone put their head around the door and offered her some tea. Everyone was waking up. Except Iris.

  Tess

  Week 38. You’re as long as rhubarb. But you’re something much more important than that this week. You are FULL TERM. You’re cooked. You’re ready. Anything that happens now is right and okay and not scary. Well, okay, that is NOT true. It’s flipping terrifying. But it isn’t wrong. If I go into labour now, you are not a preemie. We made it, baby mine. Me, Donna and Holly painted Donna’s box room at the weekend. Well – they painted, I supervised from a bean bag in the corner: they moved me every time they finished a wall. Dulcie was supposed to come too, but she got invited to some family party her boyfriend’s lot were having, and she blew us out. And we were happy to be blown out – she was so thrilled. Holly made some crack about chicks before dicks, but she was teasing. I know how relieved she is: exams are done, torturers have fallen away now that school is out, and the boyfriend looks like a keeper – for now, at least. Donna made us buy non-toxic paint – the softest apricot colour – like the edges of a beautiful sunset. She knows we won’t stay, but she wanted to do it anyway. She says maybe you’ll come back and stay on your own. She talks about you a lot that way – what she wants to do with you – the things she wants to show you and teach you. Sometimes it sounds like the way I was with Iris. A few months ago it might have hurt me – hearing her talk that way. It doesn’t now. I think it would be nice, for you and for her. And for me.

  Tess wasn’t with Iris when she died, in the end. She’d stayed all evening the night before, but Donna, who’d come after work, had sent her home at ten-ish. ‘You need sleep, Tess. The baby needs you to sleep. Iris would send you, and I’m sending you for her. Go home, my love. I’ll stay.’ She’d kissed Iris, and driven home. She’d been too tired to drink the cup of tea she’d made for herself, slipping gratefully between the sheets and into a deep sleep. Maybe she’d thought there’d be a moment – that she’d wake if something changed with Iris. But she didn’t.

  At 8 a.m., Donna put a fresh mug of hot tea down beside the bed, moving the full mug of cold. The clink of china woke Tess, and she heaved around to sit up. Donna was still wearing yesterday’s clothes. She’d been crying.

  ‘She’s gone, Tess.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Around three.’

  ‘Was it …’ Tess’s voice broke.

  ‘Ssh. Love. Don’t. It was very peaceful.’

  ‘Promise me?’

  ‘I promise you. She was asleep. Just asleep. Her breathing changed. Got very slow, very shallow. Then it just stopped. It was easy. I promise. I was with her the whole time. Every minute.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Tess couldn’t stop the tears.

  ‘You should have called me.’

  ‘There was no point, love, and no need. I don’t know that there’d have been time anyway. How many goodbyes have you already said?’

  ‘I don’t know why I’m crying. I’ve been ready …’

  Donna held her. ‘We are never really ready, though, are we?’

  ‘No.’ She sounded like a child – she could hear it.

  ‘You loved her. She knew. She always knew. Even at the end, I’m sure she knew. You did everything you could for her. No one could have done more. She loved you.’

  ‘I loved her so much.’

  ‘I know. I know. Ssh.’ Donna was stroking her hair.

  ‘Can I go and see her?’

  ‘Of course. If you want to.’

  Tess sniffed and rubbed her eyes. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t have to decide now …’

  At nine, Gigi stopped in to see James en route to a shift. One of the carers, Chloe, stopped her in the corridor.

  ‘I thought you’d like to know, Gigi. Iris passed away last night.’

  Gigi’s heart contracted for Tess. ‘Oh, bless her. When?’

  ‘Around three. I wasn’t on. I found out when I got in this morning.’

  ‘Was Tess here, do you know?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I think it was Iris’s daughter. Donna.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘But Tess was here when I left yesterday. She’s been here every day. Since Iris got really poorly.’

  ‘I know she has.’

  ‘I just thought you’d like to know. I know you two are friends.’

  ‘Thanks, Chloe. Thanks.’ Gigi smiled gratefully and squeezed Chloe’s hands.

  Gigi walked back out into the car park and took a few deep breaths of the summer air. It was a lovely day. The birds sang. She took out her phone.

  Olly. Tess’s grandmother died last night. I’m at Clearview on my way to work. She’s not here, but I’m sure she’ll be here later. I knew you’d want to know. Mum

  She leant against her car and stared down at her phone. The screensaver was the five of them. She didn’t know how to change it, should she want to – Megan did all that technical stuff. So it had been the same picture for years, as long as she’d had the phone. It was taken at Christopher’s graduation, so he was front and centre, proud and draped in ermine. She and Richard were flanking him in their Sunday best. Olly was on her other side, beaming his disarming beam, and Richard’s arm was around Meg, doing her photo half-smile. She’d thrust the phone at a friend of Christopher’s and he’d hurriedly taken the picture before the crowds had blocked the shot. Richard had been cross because the friend had cut off their feet, but Gigi loved the picture anyway. It captured all her children exactly as she remembered them being at that moment.

  She smiled to herself and pushed the contacts button once more.

  Richard. I’m on an early today. Would you like to get something to eat tonight, if you’re free?

  ‘For a moment, her forefinger hovered above the ‘send’ key. And then she pressed it.

  Tess

  Iris – her body, at least – was gone by the time Tess had showered and dressed, and driven back to Clearview. Donna stayed away. She’d been up all night, and she needed to sleep. There was a special room where you could visit a loved one after they had died – she’d been shown it by the manager, Claire, when she first came here – but, while she’d stood under the hot water in her shower, Tess had decided not to. She didn’t want that to be the last time she saw Iris. There was no need.

  Iris hadn’t wanted any fuss. That’s what she’d always said. Tess remembered her talking about Wilfred’s committal, the memory still vivid so many years after he’d died. Iris had hated his funeral. How it had been raining and cold and how the pallbearers had almost slipped on the edge of the grave, lowering the coffin in, or at least that she had worried that they might. How desperate she’d felt, watching him go into the ground: how there had been no comfort in it for her – not in any of it. How each little thud of earth hitting the coffin, thrown by the mourners, felt like a blow to her. She’d wished there was comfort. She’d wished she’d believed, but she didn’t, she said, and that was that. And going through the ritual because it was expected made n
o sense to her. Do what’s simplest, she’d said. Get rid of my body the easiest way you can, she’d said. Incinerator if you could. No church. No service at the crematorium. No urn of ashes to be disposed of on a windless day. Definitely no graveyard. Wait a few months, she’d said, and then go and stand somewhere with a lovely view on a warm, sunny day and say a poem I’d like into the wind. Plant a tree. That’s what Iris wished she’d been able to do with Wilf, and that was what she wanted for herself, and for the people who loved her and were left behind.

  The bed had been stripped, and then covered with just a counterpane, on top of which Iris’s few belongings had been neatly folded by someone kind and careful. There weren’t so many. Skirts, sweaters, dresses, a couple of nightdresses. A pair of sturdy shoes she’d hardly needed, and some slippers Tess had bought for her when she’d first come here, barely worn. She remembered the kind nurse saying that they could deal with the items if Tess wanted. Her grandmother’s handbag was next to the pile on the bed, and, beside that, her watch and her wedding ring. Tess picked up the ring and looked at it, thin and worn. She’d never seen Iris without it on. She could see now, for the first time, her grandmother’s name and her grandfather’s, along with the date of their marriage, engraved on the inside of the band, the words still distinct after all this time. Tess slipped it on to her own finger – the pinkie, it was too small for her ring finger – and rubbed it gently. She wondered whether Iris would want to be cremated with it on – she had never said one way or the other. She hoped not: she wanted to keep it. She felt almost unbearably sad.

  And then Gigi was there, her arms open wide.

  ‘They told me.’

  ‘I wasn’t here, Gigi.’

  ‘Oh, my love. You were here. She knew.’

  ‘Do you think so? Do you honestly think so?’

  ‘I know that you sat there, and told her you loved her, and I believe – I choose to believe – that at some level, somewhere very deep, she will have heard you.

  ‘But I also believe what matters more, much more, is the life you and she had before she was ill, sweetheart. Those are the memories you should focus on. This was such a short time compared to all the time you two had together. You had her your whole life.’

  Tess nodded, rubbing tears away.

  Gigi brushed her cheek tenderly. ‘Come and have a cup of tea with me.’

  Tess laughed. ‘The magical powers of tea.’

  ‘It’s true, you know … I have Assam in my veins at this point, not blood.’

  ‘I’m not going to see her body.’

  Gigi nodded. ‘That’s fine.’

  ‘You’re not going to try to persuade me it’s important?’

  ‘Nope. Saw both my parents. I’m not sure it was. If you don’t want to, don’t.’

  Tess sighed. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Then that’s fine. Did you know, I mean, did you talk … about what kind of funeral?’

  ‘She didn’t want one if it was at all possible!’

  ‘Good for Iris. I’d have liked her.’

  Tess nodded. ‘You would.’ More tears.

  ‘Did your mum know? What she wanted?’

  ‘I’m not sure. She’ll be okay with no church, though. She’d be more likely to want to scatter her ashes in Goa or have some shaman ritual or something …’

  Gigi laughed. ‘She should never call you as a witness for her defence.’

  Tess laughed too. ‘She’s all right. You know, if you’d told me even a year ago I’d be living with her, and we’d actually be getting along, I’d have laughed in your face.’

  ‘It’s a funny old world.’

  ‘You sound like Iris. She used to say that.’

  ‘And we’re both right.’

  ‘She’s still a nutter, though. Donna. Complete fruit loop. No way is she in charge of what we do with Gran … no way!’

  After a few moments, Tess said, ‘What will you do … for James? Does he not want a funeral either?’

  ‘Richard will want the full monty. To be fair, James would too. He’s proper, you know. It’ll be all Eternal Father, Strong to Save, black clobber and cucumber sandwiches at the wake.’ She grimaced. ‘I think Iris’s way is better, to be honest.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Might you want a memorial service?’

  ‘Thing is, she wasn’t a believer. Not in any of it. She was raised that way – christened, confirmed, all that. She knew the words to everything – not just the Lord’s Prayer and ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. She’d just rejected it. Now I think I know why. So I don’t think she’d want us to do anything in a church.’ She looked down at Iris’s ring on her finger. Thought of Tom’s funeral. How wretched it must have been. She realized that was probably the last time Iris had ever been in a church, and maybe why she’d married Wilfred in a register office.

  ‘I know she wouldn’t. She’d come back and haunt us, I’m pretty sure. No. I know what she wanted. She wanted me to plant a tree!’ She smiled ruefully. ‘And say a poem into the wind on a summer day … I think that was it.’

  ‘I can’t think of anything nicer, Tess.’

  ‘Neither can I.’

  She wanted to ask if Gigi knew where Oliver was, but she felt strangely shy suddenly. It wasn’t Oliver’s job to comfort her now. It wasn’t for him to be there for her to lean on. She never wanted Gigi to think she thought he was.

  After Gigi left, Tess spoke to Claire in the office about direct cremation. There were some papers to sign. But surprisingly little to do right now. There’d be meetings, she knew, with lawyers. But not now. Now there was just quiet, and peace. She went back to Iris’s room. She didn’t want to see her grandmother’s body, but she wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye to her things. She looked at Iris’s handbag and wondered if she might keep it. She’d never use it, but it might be nice to have it. She picked it up. It was unfashionable and old, not vintage, shaped like the Queen’s handbags. But she might like to keep it anyway. She’d been so good at being ruthless in Iris’s house, but now that her grandmother was actually gone, ‘things’ had instantaneously taken on more significance. The handbag was almost empty, as it had been the whole time Iris had been here. There’d been no need for things, not even reading glasses, latterly. Lots of the ladies in the home still had them, though, like leather comfort blankets. They connected them, somehow, to the lives they’d had. It was old-fashioned – the kind with brass feet and the clasp on the top that snapped closed – brown leather, worn a little now on the corners.

  Tess remembered a bigger handbag. One endlessly capacious, like Mary Poppins’s carpet bag, and useful, perpetually stocked with sun cream, barley sugars, plasters, a handkerchief (never tissues), and a colouring book and pens. With Iris’s fabulously cool winged sunglasses. The Rimmel lipstick that smelt of powdery roses.

  She ran her hands across the warm leather, snapped and unsnapped the fastening. She raised the bag to her face, to see if she could smell her grandmother within it.

  She picked up the watch and looked for a pocket inside the handbag where she could safely store it until she decided what to do with both things. There was a small one, but when she slid the watch in she met resistance. There was a folded sheet of paper inside it she had never seen before. Tess pulled it out and stared at it, her heart racing. It was old and yellowed. She unfolded it and didn’t recognize the handwriting. It wasn’t from Tom. Scanning to the bottom, she saw that it was signed by her grandfather. For a moment she thought she shouldn’t read it – it must be a love letter, and love letters were private, sacred.

  But it was all she had to keep Iris alive for just a while longer. And so she read it.

  10 February 1956

  My Iris,

  I know you’ve asked me to leave you alone, and I promise you this is my one last attempt to change your mind. You won’t hear from me again after this. It’s not in my nature to give up, but I think I must. I wanted to write these words, not speak them, so that you can read them slowly a
nd consider them carefully – if you are going to disregard them in the end, then at least I want you to have time to think first.

  I am so very glad you told me about your brother when we last met. I feel like my understanding of you has been like a complicated jigsaw puzzle, with big pieces missing, and you have filled them in with your story, and I see you more clearly now than I have ever done. I see you more, and I love you more, although you have always implied that I would only love you less if I knew you better.

  But what it shows me is that for the last ten years you’ve been hiding, living a half-life, where you risk nothing of your heart, but one where you stand to gain nothing either.

  What happened to your brother was a tragedy. For him, for your whole family.

  I have come to see that I was lucky. It was my body that the war so damaged, and my body healed. I didn’t lose my mind. There are things I saw and heard that I have never spoken of, but I have been able to put them away, lock them up in a part of myself where they can’t hurt me, or the people around me. I won’t forget – I can’t and anyway I don’t want to. But I didn’t lose my mind. Tom did. Whereas the war made me want to live, and made me determined to live well, it ultimately ruined life for him. But it certainly wasn’t love that killed him.

  I know one thing for sure. Love could not have saved him either. If it could, you had enough for him to do it. When Tom wrote those words to you, he was trying to help you understand why he was going to do what he did, but he was wrong to make you promise what he did. He wasn’t issuing an edict for your life, my darling. He did not mean that you should carry his hurt close to your heart and let it stop you having love of your own. He did not want a lonely, loveless life for you. The waste of it, the sheer awful waste of it, must haunt him.

  You did not die when he died, Iris, just as he did not die when Manon died. If he had given himself time, who knows. I believe he might have been happy again, have loved again. The world is full of people who have loved, and lost, and still loved, and loved well, again. Perhaps the war hurt him too badly. We’ll never know. But Tom’s story could have ended so differently.