Iris and the Tiger

by Leanne Hall

  Iris squinted. How strange. The green eye bulged out of the tree. It even had eyelashes.

  She examined the painting avidly. There was still no tiger visible. It seemed like a bigger riddle than ever.

  So this photo was taken after the tiger already disappeared from the painting…and the same with the copy Elna gave me. Iris rubbed her temples. Her brain hurt from thinking it through. Could there be a copy somewhere with the tiger in it? And could the tiger come and go from the painting?

  When Iris left the library, the god of rain and lightning statue lay tipped over on the balcony, the frayed end of the telephone cord nearby.

  ‘Are you the Thing that eats the telephone cord?’ asked Iris, but received no answer, of course. The doughnut basket had rolled into a corner.

  All the lights were on, but the house was deserted.

  Iris was most of the way down the stairs when she felt the prickle of someone, or something, near her. There was nothing behind her on the staircase. Iris kept walking, aware of a gentle clacking near her on the lobby tiles.

  She passed through the kitchen to the back door. The air stirred around her ankles. Iris stilled her breath, daring to hope that the tiger had come to her already. The thought made her feel faint. But all she saw on the patio was a wan shadow of a dog.

  The greyhound-shaped shadow wagged its tail, and then ran on five legs down the patio stairs—fast!—and across the dusty yard, all the way to an overgrown corner of the building that appeared older than the rest.

  Iris followed, excited to encounter the dog from the painting, and willing to forgive it for not being her tiger.

  A glass greenhouse clung to the main house, seemingly held together by only moss and ivy. The greyhound shadow slid around on the greenhouse door.

  Iris put her face to the glass, but it was so grimy she couldn’t see inside. She tried the handle, but the door was locked. The dog shadow wagged its tail.

  ‘I can’t, dog, it’s locked,’ said Iris. She started to walk off, but the shadow wouldn’t follow.

  ‘Come on, let’s go meet Jordi. You can tell me which is his home.’

  The shadowhound wouldn’t budge. Iris wished she knew its name. She soon gave up on him and crossed the yard.

  Jordi and Marcel’s cottage was in a secluded corner of the garden, a red brick building with white shutters and a miniature picket fence.

  Jordi opened the door only seconds after her knock.

  ‘Hola,’ said Iris, as she’d practised.

  The cottage was simple inside, with wooden floors and white walls. The lounge room contained a couch and a TV and a dining table and not much else. The walls and mantel and floor were bare, except for a wooden cross above the TV. Iris wasn’t sure where to stand.

  Marcel poked his head out of the kitchen and waved an oven mitt. The doorways were too low for him.

  ‘There’s been a change of plans,’ Iris said in a low voice, once Marcel had gone. ‘I’ve realised something. Something big. I found out something new about the magic.’

  She held out the catalogue that she’d taken from the library.

  ‘You probably know some of these paintings.’

  ‘Actually,’ Jordi said, ‘I have never really look at Señor Freer’s paintings. I don’t know anything about art.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Iris said. ‘I don’t know anything either, but last night I figured it out, after the party. I found some paintings in the ballroom—do you know there’s a ballroom upstairs?—and found out that all of Uncle James’s paintings are real. Like, he’s famous for painting things that aren’t meant to be real, but the thing is, they’re all real. There’s a painting of the tennis court flowers in the ballroom, and there’s others as well. A piano, and…’

  Jordi’s forehead was scrunched. ‘Everything in this book is out there? So, it’s like a map for the magics?’

  Marcel came into the room, put two mugs down on the table, then left.

  ‘Sort of. I don’t know. It doesn’t tell us where all these things are, but it does tell us what might be out there. What do you think?’

  Jordi showed her a page of the catalogue. To her surprise Iris saw that he’d picked out the underwater painting with the tiny disappearing legs.

  ‘I know where this is. It’s easy, I take you there now.’

  Marcel returned with a plate of small round rolls. He looked with interest at the catalogue. Iris hadn’t decided if she was still scared of him.

  Marcel put his finger down on a page and said something in Spanish.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He know this one.’

  It was a painting of an old-fashioned car that had four furry, clawed feet instead of wheels.

  Marcel said something urgent.

  ‘We must not find this car,’ translated Jordi. ‘He is being…’ Jordi flapped his hand, which Iris had noticed was what he did when the right English word wouldn’t come to him. ‘When people have some rule that is stupid, like do not put your umbrella open inside?’

  ‘Superstitious.’

  It made no sense to Iris that people in Spain were superstitious about cars with animal feet. Marcel sat on the couch to lace his boots.

  ‘Actually, I am interested to find this car,’ said Jordi. ‘It is very cool.’

  Marcel obviously understood the tone of his voice, because he let go a stream of sharp-sounding words.

  Jordi held up his hands. ‘Okay, Papa, okay. I won’t do it.’ Feeling awkward, Iris picked up a mug and drank. She’d thought it was tea, but it turned out to be coffee. She let her mouthful dribble back into the mug, and no one saw her. She bit into a roll.

  ‘Delicious,’ she said loudly.

  Marcel said something else and Jordi replied.

  ‘He says you look as if you can have Spanish blood,’ Jordi explained to Iris. Iris shrugged. She couldn’t be bothered going into the usual boring family explanation (father from Hong Kong, mother from Australia, blah blah), but it was a nice mistake. It hadn’t occurred to her that her dark hair and eyes might allow her to pass for Spanish.

  Marcel left the cottage with his cap in his hand. Jordi turned to Iris.

  ‘You are not liking coffee!’ he laughed. ‘So now we go match painting with place, si?’

  Iris nodded. It was on the edge of her lips to tell Jordi about the tiger, but something, she wasn’t sure what, held her lips closed.

  Jordi flicked through the catalogue again—pausing at the car page.

  ‘We bring this book with us. I think this could be a very dangerous mission.’

  He looked extremely happy as he said it.

  Iris and Jordi walked down the driveway. After the roundabout and the roses and the straggly hedges came the forest. It didn’t look as threatening in the sunlight.

  ‘The magic, that’s just at Bosque de Nubes, right? Not everywhere in Spain?’ Iris asked breathlessly. She had to work to keep up with Jordi.

  ‘I know only magics in here.’ Jordi indicated the boundaries of the estate. ‘Road over there, big road there, golf course, fence. There is old stories about the magics in this place. My abuela, my grandmother, she knowed them. This way.’

  Iris followed Jordi down a furrowed track. There was a high brick wall beside them. The trees were thin here.

  ‘I can’t figure out why Aunt Ursula wouldn’t warn me.’

  ‘Papa says never discuss the magics with Señorita Freer. When he come first to Bosque de Nubes, she tell him: No talking. In front of others pretend you do not see. I think she would tell you the same.’

  Iris shook her head. ‘Do you have any idea where the magic comes from?’

  Jordi raised his eyebrows, shrugged, waved his hands.

  ‘I don’t know. Some talk of a…sorry, I can’t think of English word.’

  He paused.

  ‘I remember now—witch! There are some old stories about the magic and the mists and a witch. It’s make-believe, though, you know, stories for babies.’


  Iris remembered her first glimpse of the woods. They’d looked exactly like the kind of place you’d find a witch’s house. But maybe that’s an immature thing to think. Iris pushed the idea away.

  ‘How long have you lived here?’ she asked. If Jordi could live around the magic every day, then it mustn’t be so bad.

  ‘I was born here. Papa and Mama moved here when they got married.’

  It was the first time Jordi had mentioned his mother. He read Iris’s face instantly.

  ‘My mother does not enjoy being a mother. So she go to the city, where there are no horses and not so many trees.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Iris. She hadn’t been fishing for extra information.

  ‘Now I only get a card on my birthday and a few times a year Papa likes to yell at her over the telephone.’

  ‘I see,’ said Iris. She remembered Marcel’s angry voice and red face from the tomato patch. ‘My mum must have visited before your parents moved here—did you know my mum came here when she was a girl? Uncle James was still alive then. Did you ever meet him?’

  ‘He died before I was born. I think my father, he know him a little.’

  Jordi unlatched a gate in the wall. The paint on the gate was so dry and crackly it powdered Iris’s fingers white.

  ‘Now you have come to my house, we are friends,’ he said in a matter-of-fact way.

  ‘Oh. Okay.’

  Iris was taken aback, but pleased. That was quick. She couldn’t help thinking of Violet—when was the last time she’d been to her place? It had been Easter holidays, and only for one day.

  On the other side of the wall was a pond circled by a path. Insects buzzed around lavender bushes. A weeping willow leant towards the water.

  They sat down on a pair of rocks and regarded the pond.

  ‘What do we do now?’ Iris whispered.

  ‘We wait.’

  The pond was murky with weeds. Iris flicked a bee away from her head. The water didn’t look very deep. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to be looking at.

  After a while, Jordi stood and threw bits of gravel into the pond. ‘Sometimes this can work.’

  ‘Hey, Jordi, are there any wild animals in these parts?’ Iris tried to sound casual. ‘Deer and goats and other things?’

  Jordi held up a finger, suddenly alert. ‘Espera.’

  A ripple disturbed the centre of the pond. Small circles moved outwards into bigger circles. Something leapt from the water into the air. Iris blinked at the wrong moment and missed it. Whatever it was, it had been small.

  The something flung itself into the air again. It had the silver scaled head and body of a fish and a pair of pink naked human legs. It was tiny.

  Iris grabbed Jordi’s arm. ‘Is that what I think it is?’

  Another fish-with-legs leapt gracefully from the water and splashed down again. Then another, and another.

  ‘Mermaids!’ Iris finally got the word out. Jordi laughed.

  Three, maybe four, mermaids flashed across the pond’s surface. Iris tried to get a proper look at them, particularly the bit where their fish body merged into human legs, but it was impossible. Iris found herself laughing too. It was all so strange: paintings that came to life.

  She wanted to do a happy dance. Fish with legs! This is evidence that my theory about the tiger isn’t completely loopy.

  After a few minutes the water grew still again. The sky’s reflection settled on the surface.

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘They don’t play for long.’ Jordi sounded pleased, even though he’d probably seen the mermaids plenty of times.

  ‘They were the opposite of what they should be.’ Iris was reluctant to look away from the pond. ‘Usually when people have imagined mermaids, they make it the other way. Human body, then a fish’s tail.’

  ‘I know.’ Jordi brushed his hands and took a serious tone. ‘It was…how is it…disappointment? It was disappointment when I first saw this, not to see the chest of a woman.’

  ‘If you want to see that, there’s a billion naked statues in the house. I can show you.’

  Jordi snorted so hard he started coughing.

  Iris was pleased with her comeback. That had literally never happened before. She’d known Jordi for a little over a day, they were officially friends and she already felt more comfortable with him than with people she’d been at school with all year.

  Jordi and Iris walked back up the dirt road, followed by a faint rustle. Iris turned her head. The five-legged shadowhound rippled on the brick wall, trailing them at a safe distance.

  When they reached the front gates, Jordi slapped them and made a low metallic clang. Up close Iris noticed the words Bosque de Nubes twisted into the iron among a cloud pattern. A colony of nearby birds tweeted furiously. The tree cover was still thick, all the way up to the gates and perimeter fence.

  ‘Iris, you know this painting is called after you?’

  Jordi held the catalogue open at Iris and the Tiger, trying to match it up with the landscape in front of him. Iris had told him she wanted to find the eyeball tree, but still hadn’t mentioned the tiger.

  ‘It’s named after Uncle James’s wife, actually. She was also called Iris.’

  ‘This is not near here. We go further, into the trees, far from the road.’

  Iris sighed. ‘You know your way around, right?’

  ‘I go all the time. Mostly on horse. You want to go on horse?’

  ‘Umm, let’s sit a while and then we can decide.’

  Iris slipped off her backpack and lay down in a grassy dip. The grass was cool and slightly damp. Her jeans crinkled.

  She pulled out the envelope from Aunt Ursula and broke the seal. Jordi sat next to her.

  ‘Instructions For Exquisite Corpse, A Most Famous Game,’ Iris read out loud. ‘You want to play this? It’s a game from Aunt Ursula.’ She read further. ‘Her artists buddies used to play it in the olden days. Before TV and computers.’

  A car zoomed along the highway outside.

  ‘Corpse means dead person, si?’ Jordi was certainly interested. ‘It is a murder-mystery game?

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Iris scanned the instructions. ‘It’s more of a drawing game. I don’t have a pen, though.’

  Jordi pulled a texta out of his hoodie pocket. ‘I like to write my name on fences,’ he explained.

  ‘That’s called “tagging” back home.’

  Iris took the texta. She was terrible at drawing, and Art was her worst subject, by far. There was an extra bit of paper in the envelope that had been folded into four lengthways.

  ‘Right—I draw a head on this top part of the paper, without letting you see what I’m doing. Then I’ll fold the paper over to hide it, but make sure I leave a tiny bit of the neck showing. Then you’ll draw the arms and body, and fold the paper again. Then I draw the legs, same way, then you draw the feet.’

  Iris referred to the instructions again.

  ‘Aunt Ursula says that the most important thing is that we draw without thinking about it. She calls it Automatic Drawing. Got it?’

  ‘Let me go first. I want to draw the head.’

  Jordi used the catalogue to lean on and Iris rested. After a while she became aware of the sound of the texta scraping against the paper, and the wind rustling through the treetops. She wondered if the shadowhound was still near.

  ‘I am wondering two things.’

  It was strange hearing Jordi’s voice without seeing him wave his hands about.

  ‘One—why does Señorita Freer bring you here? And two—why does your parents not worry when you are far away? That is not usual.’

  ‘Unusual. That is unusual,’ Iris corrected him. ‘Well, maybe Aunt Ursula is lonely, and that’s why she wants me to visit.’

  ‘But your parents? Why do they remove you?’

  Iris was tempted for a moment to tell Jordi the truth.

  ‘Maybe they’re worried about Aunt Ursula too,’ she said eventually. ‘Anyway, I was glad to get away
.’

  ‘Por qué?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Iris heard the paper crinkle. ‘School’s not much fun at the moment, I guess.’

  ‘It is your turn.’

  Iris opened her eyes. The top quarter of the paper had been folded over, leaving two short lines.

  Jordi turned away and Iris pressed the texta to the paper. She left it in place so long an inky blotch formed. She started with a circle, and no plan for what she would draw.

  ‘It’s really hard to turn off my brain,’ she said.

  It was true she had come to Spain to please her parents, and to try out being a spy, but it was equally true that she needed to escape school for a few weeks.

  ‘I don’t have this problem,’ said Jordi. ‘For me it is hard to turn my brains on. I do not look forward to high school. I am not good student, but I do not have to be there forever. After three years I move to Costa del Sol and I become a jockey. I must be fifteen years old for this.’

  Iris drew a set of eight skinny arms, waving about like a Hindu god. She filled the body in with meaningless squiggles.

  ‘You’ve already figured out what you want to do for a job?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Iris tapped Jordi on the shoulder.

  ‘Anyways, I do not know how you can be sad when you ride the kangaroo to school every morning.’

  ‘Oh. You realise that was a joke, right?’

  ‘You no telling me the truth?’ Jordi looked teary. His voice went high. ‘There is no riding the kangaroo?’

  Iris felt awful, until Jordi could no longer hold a straight face. Iris punched him in the arm.

  Jordi drew the legs fast, without talking. When it came to her turn, Iris drew the feet as quickly as she could, not sure if what she was doing could really be called automatic. Wasn’t there always thinking? Even thinking about not-thinking was thinking.

  ‘I’m done,’ she said.

  Jordi unfolded the drawing and laid it flat.

  Their Exquisite Corpse had the head of a bear, the body of a spider and two scaly legs that ended in a pair of sneakers. Jordi’s legs almost looked like they belonged to a Chinese New Year dragon, and Iris wished she’d known so she could have given their creature kung fu slippers rather than running shoes.