Love, Iris

by Elizabeth Noble

  ‘Good.’ It was the smallest of small talk, but it felt big. She wouldn’t have been able to explain it. Even to Holly. Who’d probably make Brief Encounter references anyway.

  He spoke first this time. ‘I wish I had a bit more time. I’d love to grab a coffee …’

  She looked pointedly at his cup, smiling.

  ‘Another coffee.’ He grinned. ‘Maybe even a croissant.’

  It was flirting. She remembered flirting, though it had certainly been a very long time since she’d done any herself. But maybe Oliver was one of those people who flirted with everybody.

  ‘It’s good to see you anyway, Tess.’

  ‘You too.’

  He looked up at the board. Bit his lip. ‘Gotta go.’

  Tess nodded. ‘Have a good day. I hear Andover’s lovely, at this time of year.’ Was that flirting back? God, who’d know? She was more than rusty …

  Oliver took a step back. Then a step forward. He put one arm very briefly, very lightly, around her shoulder and kissed her cheek. She smelt his aftershave and the faint tang of coffee, felt his cheek, slightly stubbly against hers.

  And then he was gone, walking backwards for two or three steps, smiling at her, then turning, his arm raised in a wave.

  But the sensation of him lingered.

  Gigi

  Gigi had lived at home with her parents, in the same house where she’d quite literally been born – a semi with swirling patterned carpets and prints of The Hay Wain and Sunflowers – until she’d left, at seventeen, to go to nursing school in London. The student accommodation the hospital provided – although initially wildly exciting for its proximity to everything the city had to offer – had been pretty grim then: narrow rooms in draughty Victorian buildings, cheaply partitioned, with vertiginous ceilings, their proportions all wrong and somehow claustrophobic, their bathroom facilities vaguely workhousey. The girls had all kept their doors propped open with textbooks and shouted to each other, so they’d felt less like they were in cells. She’d gone from that to the first home she and Richard had shared, after they married of course – starting in a rented flat and painstakingly climbing their way over the years up the property ladder and further away from the city, to the last, lovely home they’d shared. Graduating from hand-me-down mismatched furniture to wobbly flat-packed stuff and finally to new things, even the odd antique. From framed posters and blank walls to pictures people had actually painted, bought at the Affordable Art Fair, and, once or twice, after a bonus or a windfall, from a gallery.

  But she’d never lived alone. Not in her entire life.

  Gigi wanted to laugh. It seemed so absurd. And so strange, to be standing here now, agent’s details in her hand, staring up at this house, where she might come to live. Alone. The thought made her almost breathless with excitement and fear, and it was the first thing to come close to blotting out the guilt and the misery her departure had caused. Forward motion, Gigi, she told herself.

  A five-bar gate that looked like it was never closed marked the start of a wide gravel drive, patchy and bald in places, which ran up to the front of the house. The flowerbeds on either side were deep and wild-looking, with all sorts of fronds and suckers spilling on to the driveway. They would have Richard tutting and reaching for the secateurs, but Gigi rather liked the unkempt look of it. It was messy, but not unattractive. The house itself was higgledy-piggledy. That was the only word. It was Arts and Crafts, she thought, with black beams randomly dissecting a whitewashed render. The windows were all of different sizes. Richard always called them ‘fenestrations’ when they were house-hunting. It was a word he reserved only for conversations with estate agents – a response to their own ‘mainly laid to lawn’ and ‘commanding position’ way of speaking. Meant to make him sound knowledgeable and experienced. The sort of man you couldn’t fool. It had always made him sound the exact opposite. He wouldn’t like this fenestration much. It was neither symmetrical nor smart. It was all a touch neglected. Gigi wasn’t going to hold that against the house. She was a bit neglected herself. She liked the big bay windows and the leaded panes. To her the house looked a bit smiley, like houses and cars could, and she smiled back in response.

  Just then the agent, Sam, he of the slicked back hair and spivvy suits, drove a bit too fast into the driveway (she had parked respectfully on the street outside), scrunching the gravel and stopping abruptly beside her. Sam was about Olly’s age, but not half so appealing, as far as Gigi was concerned, anyway. Richard would dislike him on the grounds that his hands were always in his pockets, and his shoes – the pointy-toed kind – were never apparently polished. He’d be ‘fenestrating’ all over the place. If he was here.

  ‘Sorry, Mrs Gilbert. Running late.’

  He was always at least five minutes late. She’d tried – the first couple of times they’d met – to persuade him to call her Gigi, but he didn’t seem to want to, so she’d given up, and now she accepted both his apology and his smarmy formality with a nod and a smile. What she really wanted was to get inside and see this flat. She had a good feeling about this one.

  Sam held up a key. ‘Flat’s empty. Owner’s away. So we’ve got this one all to ourselves. The flat’s got its own entrance – round the side – this way …’

  He turned the key in the lock of an unprepossessing black door and stood aside to let her in. There was a small pile of post – flyers and pizza menus – on the floor. She stepped over them.

  ‘Straight up, Mrs Gilbert. The office did say this one was a maisonette, right?’ They hadn’t. No one in there ever seemed to know what they were doing.

  Sam went on, defining ‘maisonette’, in case Gigi didn’t know what it meant. Even she was tempted to ‘fenestrate’ him, see if he knew what that meant.

  ‘That means it’s on two floors. In this case, this side of the house. Large reception room, kitchen and so forth on the first floor, and two beds and a shared bath above …’

  ‘How many other flats in the house?’

  ‘None. Just the owner’s.’ Sam spoke slowly, fact checking on the file he carried with him. ‘The whole of the ground floor, the other half of the first floor and the top floor belong to the owner. Nice chap.’

  The stairway was woodchip and whitewashed, with wooden treads. There was another door at the top of the flight. Gigi turned the handle and went in.

  On this level, there was clearly just one room – a room in which to cook, eat, live. Resolute open-plan living. But what a room. Gigi felt a broad smile break across her face. The bay window she’d seen from the front was just one of them. Opposite it was a huge, square window, right to the ceiling, with a deep window seat in front, and a view across the back garden to the hills beyond. The light flooding in through it showed all the dust motes in the air, the odd spider web and the wear on the original herringbone wood floor. The kitchen part was new, and plain enough, but small. There wouldn’t be room in the oven for much of a Christmas turkey. But it was glorious.

  Sam, in a rare moment of good sense, wasn’t waffling now. He must have seen the grin, watched the room sell itself to Gigi, of whom he was, frankly, a little wary. But when she went to the only other door in the room, he spoke up again.

  ‘That leads to the staircase, which goes up to …’

  Gigi was already there.

  A big master bedroom, with windows on two sides and a small cast-iron fireplace; and one more, with a smaller sash window and a sloping ceiling. Both were magnolia, with horrible office-style venetian blinds and a regulation oatmeal carpet, but they were clean enough. The bathroom between the two had a shower over the tub, which had claw feet, and one of those faux-Victorian loos with the really high cistern. She liked the black-and-white-tiled floor. Here too was evidence that someone had cleaned recently.

  Gigi wandered between the three rooms, trying to think practically about wardrobe space and where Ava’s cot might go if Chris and Em visited, but the truth was she felt almost breathlessly excited about the possibility of this p
lace being her home. It had beautiful bones, and it was a blank canvas. She could see herself here.

  Back downstairs, Sam stood expectantly.

  ‘When can I move in?’

  He almost spluttered. He hadn’t expected this client to be that easy. He’d had several more lined up to view. He hadn’t even mentioned rent.

  Gigi waved the unspoken subject away airily. ‘I know how much it is. The office told me. That’s fine. When is it available?’

  Gigi wasn’t sure whether she was acting this way because she’d fallen for the flat, or because she and Richard had never house-hunted this way, not even in the early days when everything had been new and exciting. He’d have looked at everything Sam had to show him. Considered, pondered. Worked out the cost per square foot and measured to see if the bed fitted. Certainly slept on it before making a decision, even if he risked losing it. But this was only a rental. She wanted to commit with less consideration than she might give to a new pair of shoes, or to ordering from a restaurant menu. She wanted to be impulsive.

  And this wasn’t his decision. She didn’t want to do that. She wanted to live here, by herself. And she wanted to say so now. Right now.

  She and Sam parted in the driveway, with his promise to confirm later in the day when he’d had a chance to speak to the owner. Gigi lingered just a while after he’d backed out and sped off, knowing she was alone: she stared at the house, taking in all the details, imagining herself there. Then she turned and walked back to her car, out on the street.

  An estate car had just pulled into the driveway of the house opposite. A young mother had released two small children on the gravel, and was currently leant over, evidently releasing the seatbelt on a car seat. The two children waited impatiently, one plucking at her mother’s raincoat, the other kicking gravel with his wellington-booted feet. Both were chattering incessantly in their high-pitched little voices. The mother was answering patiently when she found a gap in their questioning. She turned towards Gigi as she pulled the car seat, a fairly new baby nestled within, through the car door. Their eyes met for a moment, and the woman smiled broadly at Gigi, rolled her eyes in a very familiar, happy, exhausted gesture, before she gathered her brood and headed for the front door, chatting all the while. Gigi slid into her own driving seat, but she couldn’t help watching the mother usher the children inside, her free hand stroking each of their heads as they passed her. It made her tearful, watching them. She’d been her, once upon a time. She’d had that.

  ‘What’s all this?’ Kate looked tired. Gigi passed her a glass of wine as she slumped in a kitchen chair and kicked off her shoes.

  ‘I’m cooking you dinner. Tagliatelle with sausage, rosemary and porcini mushrooms.’

  ‘Delish. You’re a doll.’

  ‘Least I can do, in lieu of the rent you refuse to accept. And, besides, we’re celebrating.’

  ‘You’ve found somewhere already?’ Kate looked momentarily crestfallen. Gigi nodded.

  ‘You didn’t have to move so quickly, G. You know you can stay here as long as you like.’

  ‘I know, and I love you for that. And for having me these last couple of weeks. I honestly don’t know what I’d have done without you …’

  ‘Premier Inn and takeout food?’

  ‘Exactly. But I do. I need to.’

  Gigi was draining a large pan of pasta into a colander in Kate’s sink. ‘I need to get on with this fresh start.’ Before I lose my nerve, she added, silently, to herself.

  Kate took a deep drink from her wine glass and refilled it, emptying the bottle.

  ‘Bugger. I’ll have to go back to the wine boxes, once you’ve gone. It’s been so much more civilized having you here.’

  Gigi clinked her own glass against Kate’s. ‘I’m not off quite yet, if that’s okay. I get the keys tomorrow. But the landlord is apparently quite happy for me to paint, tart it up a bit, before I move in, as long as I don’t go mad. Just another week or ten days – I’ve taken the time off.’

  ‘Of course. I can help, if you like.’

  ‘You’re on. I’ve got a paint chart that I grabbed on my way home in my bag. We can have a look after dinner.’

  ‘What’s the vision?’

  ‘The lady in the shop says grey is the new cream. Not crazy about grey. Something different for the bedroom. I’ve always wanted a really girly bedroom. Boudoir. You know …’

  ‘Not Richard’s thing.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Gigi smiled. She’d have to tell him. And the kids.

  ‘I can really see the point of doing it your own way, you know.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, just look around you. This was our house. Mine and Owen’s. Just like it was when he was here. He got the fresh start, when we broke up. I got all the old crap. And all the old memories.’

  ‘I see no crap.’ Gigi gestured around. ‘This is lovely. And memories go with you.’

  ‘That’s true to a point, G. Places hold memories. They don’t let you forget them. You know that. We sat here when … we painted this … we fought over this wallpaper … all that stuff.’

  Was that what Richard thought, wandering around their home? The now familiar little bubble of sadness rose in her throat, and she stared intently at the paring knife on the chopping board until it passed. Kate didn’t see the moment, and Gigi didn’t want her to.

  ‘I’m going to miss you, G.’ Kate’s voice almost broke. ‘I hope you’re doing the right thing. I hope you’re sure. I hope you’re ready to be lonely.’

  Gigi came to the table with the two plates of pasta. ‘But I was lonely, Kate. I’ve been lonely. For a long time.’

  Kate put her hand across Gigi’s. ‘I know.’

  ‘And you don’t think there’s a chance you can actually be more lonely with someone than when you’re actually physically alone? I might be by myself, but I won’t be being ignored. I’ll stop being part of the fixtures and fittings.’

  ‘He won’t be ignoring you. But maybe everyone else will, once that front door is closed behind you.’ Kate grimaced at her own harshness. Made her voice softer. ‘At least, sometimes it can feel that way. Like life is happening everywhere else.’

  ‘Oh, bollocks. It’s a side door anyway. And that’s pity and Pinot talking, Kate.’

  ‘Ah, my constant companions. Pity and Pinot. Boxed.’ Kate took a big swig from her glass, but she was smiling now. ‘Okay, then, my brave-new-world friend. The Norma Rae of middle-age marriage. I’m not going to press the point that I’m about ten years further into this game than you are. I’m not going to be the one to crush all this enthusiasm for the future.’

  ‘Good. Admit you’re still alone because you want to be.’

  Kate harrumphed. ‘Like I’m batting them away with a stick? Who can be bothered with all that? And have you any idea who is out there? Seriously. I’ll check in with you after a few internet dates and singles nights.’

  Gigi laughed. ‘That is so far from what I’m thinking about now.’

  ‘Planning on being single for the rest of your life?’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it planning. There’s no plan. I’m winging it. Just bloody determined to be happy for the rest of my life. That’s as far as I’ve got.’

  ‘Okay, Pollyanna. If you say so.’

  ‘Can we eat now, please?’ Gigi twirled a strand of tagliatelle around her fork and winked at her friend. ‘All this cynicism and bitterness is making me hungry.’

  Tess

  Tess had ignored the advice on the leaflet. ‘Ultrasound scans can sometimes find problems with the baby. You may like someone to come with you to the scan appointment.’ Well, tough. She hadn’t bloody well brought someone. Alone at twenty-four weeks. Alone for the next eighteen years. Might as well get used to it. Holly would be furious if she knew she was here alone. She’d call her a martyr, an idiot. Thinking of Holly threatened a wobble. Holly would chat and jolly her along and whisper pithy observations about the other people in the waiting room, an
d then, once they were in the screening unit, she’d hold her hand, like she had the last time, for the first scan. Which she hadn’t realized until now was just what she’d wanted. Donna might wonder too why she hadn’t asked her. Might be hurt, even, to be excluded. It was just how she felt right now. It might be wallowing, just a bit, disguised as independence. Now that she was sitting here, it didn’t seem like a brilliant idea. Too late now. Holly was in the classroom, reading Emily Dickinson to teenagers. Donna was in West Sussex, taking engagement photographs at a minor stately home. She was here. Alone.

  She hated hospitals. This one was nicer than some she’d been to – it looked clean and it felt more modern – there was a Costa coffee shop in reception, and a Marks & Spencer food store – but still, hospitals were hospitals, however nice the snacks available. She could practically feel her blood pressure rising walking through the doors – chronic white-coat syndrome. She’d broken her collarbone falling in the playground when she was ten, and had a horrible chest infection as a teenager. That was it. Once to the casualty department, and a few out-patient appointments. Before Iris had started to get ill. Far too many times since. But she’d hated the idea of them before that. Behind every curtain and closed door lurked terrors.

  This was supposed to be a happy place, this particular bit of the hospital. Obstetrics. Not like geriatrics. Mostly good stuff happened here. But it was still all … medical. Holly would have been right to say it – she was an idiot. Almost anyone would be a better distraction than herself and a stack of out-of-date parenting magazines.

  And it was worse than sitting alone in a restaurant on Valentine’s Day, with a higher loving-couple ratio. Even the girl with the bump who didn’t look old enough had her mum with her.

  And, although she was technically very late for the scan, which really ought to have happened two or three weeks sooner, she was congenitally early on the day, even though she’d been called in slightly-to-incredibly late to every doctor’s appointment she could ever remember having, so she’d been sitting here contemplating her aloneness for what felt like forever. Couples had actually arrived after her, been called in and left again, with their fuzzy black-and-white photographs. And still she sat here, pretending to be calm.