Letters to Iris

by Elizabeth Noble

  Donna didn’t respond. She folded the damn foil over and over into a tiny, smooth square. Tess tried to quell the resentment and frustration rising in her. She was opting out.

  Donna hadn’t been there when Iris had woken. She hadn’t seen Iris’s distress when she realized she was hooked up to drips. She hadn’t seen the fear in Iris’s face when she didn’t have a clue where she was. She’d scanned the room with frantic eyes, and visibly relaxed when they’d alighted on Tess. She still knew her. But for how much longer?

  ‘I’ve been speaking to the doctors. Not just the ones treating her. The dementia specialists. They’ve spent some time with her. They’ve recommended a change in care.’

  ‘Well, I can’t have her.’ The sentence hung, selfish and clumsy, in the air between them. She crumpled the tin foil again, threw it into her empty cup.

  Tess took a deep breath. ‘I know.’ As if I’d let you, she thought. As if I’d trust you for one bloody minute to take proper care of her. Not a chance.

  ‘I’m not asking you to, Mum. And I can’t either. I’ve got work … and …’ she let her voice trail off. ‘Neither of us can meet her needs now. She needs proper care. Around the clock. From trained people.’

  Best to ignore the fact that Donna wouldn’t want to try.

  ‘She needs specialist care.’

  ‘A home?’ She said it like it was a dirty word.

  Tess nodded. ‘Somewhere that specializes in dementia.’

  ‘She’s not that bad.’

  And how in the hell would you know, Tess thought.

  ‘Is she?’

  ‘She’s getting worse, Mum. I don’t think she’s properly able to take care of herself at home. Not physically. Although you can see that she’s getting frailer, it’s mentally that’s the problem.’

  ‘It’s that bad?’

  ‘You know it is, Mum. Look, I know it’s hard. It’s hard for me too. But we can’t ignore it. We’re all she has.’

  Donna sniffed. ‘Poor old Mum.’ It was the softest thing she’d said in ages. Tess realized she’d rather her mum maintained the hard carapace. It made all of this easier. It was easier to be angry at her inadequacy. She couldn’t carry her too.

  ‘And anyway, she can’t stay here. Once she’s well, they’ll need her bed. That’s how it goes now. She’s been assessed. The doctors agree …’

  ‘When did all this happen?’

  It’s been happening, damn you. For months and months. Before this happened. And after … I’ve been here every damn day. They think I’m her bloody next of kin. You’ve left it all to me.

  Tess was determined not to fight.

  ‘They’ve been coming to see her. They agree that residential care is what she needs now. I’ve been looking into it. I’ve got some suggestions –’

  ‘Got it all planned out?’

  ‘Someone had to, Mum.’ She couldn’t help herself.

  Donna looked at her hard, for a long moment. Then smiled, gentle for once. ‘I’m sorry, love. I haven’t been much use, have I? I just hate all this.’ She raised both arms at the room. ‘Hospitals. Sickness. Death …’ She drew out the syllables on the last word. ‘I hate it. I hate seeing her lying there.’ Her voice broke.

  ‘I know.’ Tess heard the resignation in her own voice.

  ‘Forgive me?’

  ‘Nothing to forgive.’ Tess wasn’t sure either of them believed it. It was something Donna said. She’d always said. Forgive me? Tess had been answering that way since she was quite young. The list of things for which Donna may or may not need forgiveness was pretty long by now.

  Donna’s tone had become conciliatory. Something had clicked. She reached into her bag, fumbling around until she found what she’d been looking for – her vape. Tess hated the vape. Ridiculous thing. Like a cross between a ballpoint pen and a dummy. ‘Is there somewhere you like, love?’ She’d also extracted a refill. It usefully meant she needn’t meet Tess’s gaze as she fiddled with it, gearing up for a fix.

  Tess nodded. ‘I have a brochure … there’s a place that’s much nearer to me.’

  Donna nodded her head vigorously. ‘That’d make your life easier, wouldn’t it? I know you’re busy … If you think it’s right … you know her better than I do.’

  She was right. She was also ready to go, Tess knew. She was acquiescing to make good her escape.

  Donna shrugged her arms into her coat and folded and refolded her scarf, combing at its fringe with her fingers. Fidgeting.

  ‘Will we need to sell the house? Those places are bloody expensive, aren’t they?’

  Tess took a deep breath. ‘She’s got quite a lot in savings.’ Not that they’d go far. The places she was looking at were eye-wateringly expensive. They all seemed to be. ‘But, yes, probably … if …’

  ‘If she lives with this for long?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And she might?’

  ‘There’s no way of knowing.’

  Tess wished there was.

  ‘Will there be a lot of legal stuff to sort out?’

  ‘I’ve got power of attorney.’ This was the part Tess had most dreaded.

  Iris had asked her, not long after her official diagnosis, if she would agree to her signing a power of attorney authorizing Tess to make decisions about her property and financial affairs, and her health and welfare. They’d been to her solicitor and signed the papers. Iris had asked her not to tell Donna. And Donna hadn’t asked. Tess remembered Iris’s words on the subject of bypassing her own daughter now: ‘She wouldn’t want it. I know she’d rather you had it.’ Tess wondered now what Iris had meant – exactly – and why she hadn’t asked.

  There was a very long pause. Tess could see that Donna was deciding how to react.

  She sniffed hard. ‘Well, that’s that, then. I figured she’d have done that. So it’s all up to you …’ She couldn’t read her mother’s tone, although the slight shrug of Donna’s shoulders made her sad. There was resignation. But there was resentment too.

  ‘I’d like your blessing.’

  ‘But you don’t need it?’

  ‘I don’t, no.’ No sense sugar-coating it.

  Donna smiled. ‘You’ll do what’s best, I know. My mum did the right thing, choosing you. You’re a good girl. Tess, look. I’ve got to go. Didn’t you say you did too?’

  Tess looked at her watch. Sean would be waiting for her in the car park.

  Donna gave her a quick hug. ‘I’m sorry, love. Love you and leave you. I’ll give you a ring … Sorry.’

  She always was …

  Tess wanted to say goodbye to Iris. She might even be awake. In the lift back up to the ward, she pulled her phone out of her bag. Sean had texted. ‘There in 5.’ Eight minutes ago. She quickly texted back that she’d be out in a couple of minutes.

  Iris wasn’t awake. There was a young nurse checking her vital signs. Tess had seen her before, but not much. She couldn’t remember her name. Cherry, or Cheryl. Chantelle maybe. It was too late to ask. ‘I’ll just be a minute.’

  ‘No worries. I’ve only come to say goodbye. My boyfriend’s waiting downstairs.’

  The nurse smiled. ‘Plans?’

  ‘His family.’

  ‘Do you get on with them?’

  Tess shrugged and grinned. ‘They’re okay.’

  ‘I can’t stand my boyfriend’s mum. She’s a right moody cow.’ She rolled her eyes, hand on hip. Tess didn’t know how to respond to that.

  ‘That was your mum, before, right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘She’s really nice.’

  Tess looked at her. She was looking at her watch now, two fingers on the inside of Iris’s translucent wrist. ‘You’re not often here at the same time.’

  ‘No …’

  ‘She takes the morning shift, right, mostly? You do the evenings?’

  ‘I –’

  ‘You’ve got work, and things, she says. She’s dead proud of you.’

  ‘My mum?’

  She
nodded vigorously. ‘I can see the resemblance, now, when I see the two of you together. Different styles, but you can tell you’re family.’

  Donna hadn’t said she’d been visiting. Tess knew that she’d come, that first day, responding to the message she’d left on her phone, and again today. She hadn’t known there had been other times. The doctors hadn’t said. The nurses hadn’t mentioned it, until now.

  ‘She reads to your gran. You know she’s asleep most of the time, but you can still hear, can’t you? Says it’s her favourite. What was it … She told me. Stella someone …’

  ‘Stella Gibbons?’

  ‘That’s it. Said it was your gran’s favourite. Cold something …’

  ‘Cold Comfort Farm.’

  ‘Yep.’

  It was her favourite. She’d read it to Tess the summer she was ten. She said she’d read it to her mother when Donna was about that age. Tess had forgotten.

  ‘That’s the one. A chapter or two every day. She’s got a nice voice, too.’

  All Tess wanted was to go home. She felt exhausted – every part of her was heavy and sluggish. Christmas was of no interest whatsoever. Christmas with Sean’s family simply felt like an ordeal to be got through in the hours between now and when she could crawl back into her bed. It wasn’t just her mother, or the hospital and Iris. It was very physical. The sickness of the first few weeks had mostly passed, but the exhaustion was worse. She’d been nauseous only in the mornings, but the feeling lasted all day. She put her head back against the headrest in the car while Sean drove, and dozed, grateful for the Christmas radio.

  She couldn’t process what she’d learnt about her mother visiting Iris. She wanted to ask her, but she knew Donna was on her way to the airport, and then someplace far away.

  Sean’s parents lived in a mock-Tudor house in a cul-de-sac in a Southampton suburb. His father, Clive, was a retired surveyor and obsessive sailor. His mother, June, had been a primary-school teacher. His two elder brothers, Jack and Luke, were also in property – one a developer and one an estate agent – and when the conversation wasn’t about tides or boats, it was about new estates springing up in the area and what they were worth per square foot. None of the wives appeared to be remotely interested in what interested their husbands, so gatherings at Sean’s house were always very gender divided – boats and square feet in the lounge, school-gate politics and fashion in the kitchen. The secret bump would grant instant admission to the club that had previously kept Tess subtly but definitely on the periphery. They were friendly enough, Susan and Jayne, but it was always apparent that they thought they had nothing in common with her. She joined in, agreeing enthusiastically with their bombastic pronouncements about other women she’d never met. But they often started sentences with ‘You wouldn’t understand but …’ or ‘I know it’s probably not your kind of thing …’ and very early on she’d given up trying to prove it was otherwise. Mostly because they were right: she didn’t understand and it wasn’t her kind of thing, most of it. The only other young mother she knew really well was Holly, and Holly never seemed to be this preoccupied with nonsense or … to be so catty, frankly.

  They had five ever-so-slightly interchangeable children between them – three feral boys and two highly sequinned girls. She hadn’t completely got a handle on names or parentage in the early days and it was far too late to ask again. They took very little notice of her anyway, so it didn’t seem to matter.

  This baby, the secret bump, would be their cousin. It was a very bizarre thought. Sean wasn’t really a family guy (his words), so this was only her third or fourth time being with them all. She felt absolutely no familial connection at all. They were not bad people. But they were not her tribe. Holly was her tribe. Iris was her tribe. They probably thought she was stuck up. Or just boring.

  She watched him now, with his nephews and nieces. The girls seemed shy around him. Shy or disinterested. He threw a boy she thought was called Jake, about five years old, blond and whippet-thin, up and over his shoulder, leaving him hanging down his back, ineffectual fists beating in delighted protest, while he continued talking to his brother as if nothing was happening, and drinking from a bottle of beer. Rough-housing, Iris would have called it. Was that how he’d be, with one of his own? Would he be the sort of dad who took the kids to the park on his own on a Sunday morning so their mum could have a lie-in? Or who’d sit on the floor and build endless brick towers to be pushed over? She wasn’t sure he would be. Sean’s life was so … neat. Sean’s time was so carefully apportioned. People changed, didn’t they? When the tiny humans came and destroyed everything in their path, you didn’t mind, because of all the amazing love … the love you could read about and have described to you but couldn’t possibly understand until you felt it. Wasn’t that right?

  New York didn’t come up until after lunch, when the children’s sugar high had worn off a little, and they were slumped in front of whatever Disney film it was. The men had done the dishes to a chorus of amazement from their wives, and then brought a tray of tea into the dining room.

  Sean cleared his throat. ‘So, I have news.’ He looked at her, almost for a permission she didn’t grant. Continued anyway. ‘We have news …’

  June sat forward excitedly, her red-paper hat rakishly across one eyebrow, her hand brought up to her mouth.

  ‘I have been offered a job in New York. A really good job, one that I really want to do, and I have said yes!’

  June sat back and pulled her hat off. That wasn’t what she’d expected.

  For the next five minutes, everyone spoke at once, with a hundred exclamations and questions. The odd dreadful ham American accent. Sean’s dad came around the table to shake his hand, and his nearest brother slapped his back appreciatively. June, on her left, squeezed Tess’s hand and she wasn’t sure as she looked into her face whether it was excitement or sympathy, but decided it was a mix of both.

  She was grateful when Sean put a hand up to stop them all. ‘Hey, hey – too many questions. We haven’t worked it all out yet. Give us a minute … You’ll be in the loop, when there is a loop. I just wanted to tell you since we were all together. The detail is to follow, okay?’

  ‘As long as you get an apartment we can all fit in, Sean. There’ll be a steady stream of us heading over to visit …’ She realized no one had addressed a specific query to her – they had all just assumed she’d be going too.

  But she hadn’t decided. It was four weeks since he’d told her. Four weeks and five days since she’d found out she was pregnant. He’d moved things right along on his end … She hadn’t done a thing. She’d told herself Iris was the reason. But Iris was the excuse. She was probably about eight weeks pregnant. This was ridiculous.

  The traffic was mercifully light on the drive home. It was Sean’s turn to sleep. He’d drunk his fair share of red wine with his turkey. He’d offered to tune in the radio to whatever she wanted to listen to, but all Tess wanted was the blessed sound of silence. It had been an endless day.

  At home she called the ward at the hospital, to be told that Iris had been asleep most of the day, as she was now, and comfortable. Then Tess stripped off, letting her clothes stay where they landed, slid into her dressing gown and curled up on the bed while Sean changed. Her head was throbbing.

  ‘It was a good day, right?’

  She found she barely had the energy to answer. ‘Hmmm.’

  ‘Did you see my mum’s face, before I said about New York! I swear she thought I was going to announce our engagement.’

  He looked over at her but she didn’t meet his stare.

  ‘Or propose …’

  Tess picked up the remote control from the bedside table. An hour of vacuous television suddenly appealed. And switching it on might shut Sean up.

  ‘Ew. There’s nothing cringier than a public engagement.’

  ‘I knew you’d think that …’

  And then, while she flicked between channels, he was suddenly on his knees by her side of t
he bed, taking the remote control gently out of her hand, and by the time her fuddled, exhausted brain realized why he was down there it was too late to stop him doing it.

  ‘So I’ve waited.’

  ‘Sean.’ Her tone did not deter him.

  ‘Tess. I love you. I want you with me in New York. And always. Marry me.’

  ‘Wait …’

  ‘Why? Why wait?’ He looked crestfallen, and she knew she’d given the wrong response. She could kick herself. She’d been too slow to head him off. Kick him, for having such an extraordinarily lousy sense of timing.

  ‘Because I have to tell you something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m pregnant …’

  Gigi

  It was clearly called Boxing Day because you woke up feeling as if you’d gone ten rounds with Tyson the day before and lost on a technical knockout. It was still dark. The LED display projecting on to the ceiling showed 6 a.m. when Gigi opened her eyes. Ridiculous. Unnecessary. Cruel. Richard was clearly having no such inner monologue with his body clock. The rounded lump of him, back to her as always, was completely still, and he was doing that combination snore and raspberry blowing that had heralded his fifties – so much more annoying than the straightforward snore. Gigi groaned and rolled over for the extra hour she knew she needed and deserved, but, before she could go back to sleep, she heard Emily and Ava out on the landing and simultaneously realized she needed the loo. She gave up and followed her daughter-in-law and her irresistible granddaughter downstairs, in search of a cup of tea and a cuddle.

  Emily was nestled into the corner of the deepest sofa in the sitting room, gazing at Ava, who was peacefully latched on to her left breast. She smiled sleepily up at Gigi when she went in with a mug of tea in each hand.

  ‘I’ve woken you up, haven’t I? I’m so sorry. I crept down so Chris could sleep a bit longer …’

  Gigi waved away the apology and stooped over the pair of them, smoothing Ava’s visible cheek with the back of her finger.

  ‘Ssh. Don’t be daft. I was already awake.’

  ‘Liar. You must be knackered, after yesterday.’

  ‘Rubbish. It’s just a roast with some fancy bits.’