Letters to Iris

by Elizabeth Noble

  ‘I have to, Richard.’

  ‘I love you.’

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘Why not? Isn’t that what you want?’

  ‘It’s too late.’

  ‘It can’t be.’

  ‘It is. I have to go.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘To Kate’s. For the time being.’

  For a horrible moment she thought he was going to bar her way. He was still stood in the hallway, between her and the door. She could see him think of it too. But after a moment he stood aside. Again, she had to push against the muscle memory of their life together – it wasn’t her job, now, to fix him. This, she could not make better.

  She didn’t look back, and the door closed gently behind her. As she got into the car, suitcase stowed in the boot, she could see the great shadow of him pressed against the glass panes. She drove off before he moved away from the door.

  That had been ten days ago. She’d tried not to communicate with him, believing it was best. She desperately wanted to know that he was okay. That he was eating. That he’d figured out the washing machine. That he was sleeping. But she knew that it wouldn’t help to ask. There’d been an awkward email exchange about money. They’d always had a joint account: both their salaries were paid into it, both drawing on it as they needed to. Megan told her she was hopelessly old-fashioned. Richard was a good earner, so they hadn’t had to worry for a few years now. They were lucky – both boys had been financially independent for years, and Meg was the only one still ‘on the books’, as Richard put it. The mortgage on the house, which had seemed insurmountably huge at the beginning, had been paid down considerably over the years. If they had to sell it – and Gigi couldn’t think about that now, not yet – they would both have to compromise quite a lot. It might buy two much smaller homes, but they’d be able to live. They’d be okay.

  Money had never been the flashpoint for them that Gigi knew it was for some couples. As his salary had grown, hers had too, in proportion, although she had always earned less. Richard was as generous now as he had always been, and she was never extravagant. Well, not often. Now, he said he didn’t want her to worry. She could have what she needed. There was no need, he said, to make hasty decisions. Gigi knew that would mean he could see what she was spending, and where, and that this could no more be a permanent arrangement than her bunking up with Kate was. But that didn’t seem to matter as much right now as keeping things on an even and civilized keel. Those things were aftershocks, and they were still reeling from the first explosion. They could all wait. For now she was grateful. She was luckier than a lot of women, she knew, forced to stay where they were unhappy.

  The one thing she had had to insist on was that they needed to talk to the children. They needed to know, and soon. She felt strongly that the least damaging way in which they could hear was if they were all together. But she knew she didn’t have the right to insist. This was her mess. He’d be entitled to make her do it alone. But Richard didn’t refuse. He was strangely passive and it was infuriating. Gigi knew she’d feel better if he raged and shouted, but she also knew that it wasn’t his job to make her feel better. It was how he was.

  It was Gigi who called the three children and asked them to come to the house on a weekday evening. Olly had agreed easily, not asking any questions, and requested lasagne. Christopher, of course, had been instantly suspicious.

  ‘What’s it about?’

  She’d lied, more easily than she’d thought she could, determined not to give anything away over the telephone. Some papers, she’d said, that needed explaining. Nothing to do with the C word, she promised.

  ‘God. Morbid.’ But Christopher had agreed to come. She hadn’t invited Emily, although she sensed she’d find an ally in her daughter-in-law. Inviting Emily would mean including Caitlin, and she didn’t think she could do it – not properly, not the way she wanted to do it – if Caitlin was in the room.

  It was Meg who made her feel most wretched. For the first year or so after her all-clear, Meg had asked if the cancer was back almost every time Gigi had looked serious. She’d texted, always the most reliable way to communicate with her youngest child, keeping it light and easy-breezy, and Megan had replied that she could – she had a big paper due the week after, and wouldn’t be able to stay long, probably just the night, but she’d come and bring washing, and could she put the train fare on her dad’s credit card?

  Meg was the only one of their children who technically still lived with them, in the holidays at least – the only one not fully ‘launched’. The one for whom she might have waited, if she possibly could have done. The mantle of guilt settled familiarly on her shoulders in the days leading up to the meeting, making her doubt herself horribly.

  She let herself in with her key, carrying two big bags of Sainsbury’s shopping, feeling like she hadn’t the right to turn it in the lock. Not any more. She half expected Richard to be there, called his name when she was in the hall, but he didn’t answer. His car hadn’t been in the driveway. The kitchen was clean and tidy, more like normal than she had expected, but the fridge wasn’t full. The leftovers in it weren’t wrapped properly – the edge of a block of cheddar was dry and pale. She didn’t go upstairs. Gigi busied herself, the radio on too loud for company. She made a lasagne and salad, laid the table, tidied the sitting room, just like any other day when she was expecting company. What was missing was the delicious frisson of excitement she always felt when her nest was to fill up with her chicks, replaced instead by a heavy dread in the pit of her stomach. She worked quietly, rehearsing lines as she went through the domestic routines so familiar and well practised and now so strange. She was determined not to cry in front of them, even as she knew she’d cry her heart empty once she was back at Kate’s. She wondered if they’d even eat the damn lasagne.

  Richard didn’t appear until five minutes before the children were due. He went straight upstairs, calling through to her in the kitchen that he was going to change, and she felt sure he hovered up there until the doorbell rang, heralding their arrival. They all came together – Chris had picked up his brother and sister at the train station on his way past. They burst in through the door as they had a thousand times before – loudly joking with each other about Meg’s duffel of laundry and Chris’s old-man driving and Olly’s customary dishevelled appearance. Meg was the spoilt baby, Chris was more uptight than the rest of them put together, Olly was hopeless … those were their default family roles – safe territory for humour – how they had always spoken about each other.

  Gigi didn’t want to break the spell of having them all home. But she didn’t want to wait either. The lasagne would feel like sawdust in her mouth. The meal would be a lie. Richard wasn’t playing, anyway. He wore the hollow, morose expression he’d had since she told him. He was grey around the gills, and dark-eyed with sleeplessness. He looked ill, Gigi realized, seeing him through her children’s eyes, and she knew they would think that they’d gathered to hear the grave news of his health. That they’d castigate themselves at having worried about their mother, while he got ill instead. She didn’t want to put them through that fear, so she started her speech as soon as they all sat down with a glass of wine. The three kids were on the sofa – she and Richard in armchairs, separated by a side table, facing their children. It was like an interview.

  ‘Kids. You’ll be wondering why we’ve got you here.’

  ‘Yes. The mysterious invitation …’ Meg made a face of mock mystification.

  ‘Ssh, Meg. This is difficult. If you let me talk without interrupting, we’ll answer as many questions as you have afterwards. Just, please, let me explain.’ She wasn’t sure ‘we’ would be answering anything. Richard wasn’t going to make this any easier.

  She hated seeing their faces change, become serious. Meg looked instantly tearful.

  ‘Your dad and I …’ That wasn’t right. How had she said it, in her own head? Gigi clamoured for words. She’d found a better way. She just couldn�
��t remember it now.

  ‘That is to say. Me. Me. I’m not happy, kids. I haven’t been for a while now. I’ve decided … I think the best thing … I’ve decided to leave your dad, and be on my own.’

  There was a tiny flood of relief at having said it, but for a moment she couldn’t look at them, or at Richard.

  The five of them sat in stunned silence. When she did look at them, Chris and Meg were focused on Richard. Olly was looking at her, the light of understanding in his eyes. His smile was small, but it was kind.

  ‘Fuck.’ Megan. Then ‘Sorry.’ She stood up, and went to sit on the arm of her father’s chair, her arm around his shoulders protectively. Richard let her.

  Now, with her maternal urge to emolliate, Gigi found some more words. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I want to say that it isn’t anyone’s fault. It certainly isn’t your dad’s. There is no one else involved. Not for me or for your dad either. That’s true, okay?’ She leant forward to emphasize her point. ‘It’s just that I don’t feel that the marriage is working any more. I’m sorry. But I don’t. I need to find something for me. I need to try to feel happy again. I don’t expect you to understand it, necessarily. You don’t see us that way, I suppose. As people, adults. I don’t expect you not to be horribly upset. Of course I know you will be.’

  It was Oliver’s face she focused on. He was looking right at her, the least crushed, the kindest. He nodded almost imperceptibly, encouraging.

  ‘But I want you to remember that your father and I love you all as dearly as we ever have, that you will all always be the most important and most wonderful facts of our life. That doesn’t change.’

  She looked at Richard now, but he wouldn’t meet her gaze.

  ‘Since when, Mum?’ Meg’s voice was accusatory. ‘Since when have you been so unhappy?’

  She shrugged. ‘Since … for a long time now, Megan.’

  ‘But everything’s been fine.’

  ‘Everything has seemed fine, darling. That doesn’t necessarily mean it has been.’

  ‘This is stupid, Mum. It’s just some mid-life crisis bullshit.’ Gigi felt herself wince. Looked at Olly. He was frowning at his sister. He looked like he was about to speak. She raised her hand to stop him. Let Megan’s words rain like blows. It might even feel better. ‘It’s so … it’s so selfish.’ Megan’s pitch was getting higher. ‘How could you? Seriously? I can’t believe you can do this to us. To me.’ Megan was reassuringly self-absorbed.

  Gigi waited for Richard to say something to his daughter, but it was Olly who did, in the end. He stood up and put a hand on Megan’s shoulder. ‘Meg. Ssh.’

  Megan shrugged it off angrily. ‘Typical Olly. On Mum’s side, are you? What a shocker …’

  ‘I’m not on anyone’s side.’

  Megan snorted derisively. ‘Right!’

  Christopher rubbed his face, an anxious boy again. ‘Can we all just calm down? Meg – Oliver’s right. That’s not going to help.’

  ‘It’s all right for you two.’

  ‘It isn’t all right for any of us. It’s horrid, okay. But this is between Mum and Dad. Not us. And you going off on one isn’t going to help.’

  ‘Well, excuse me for caring.’

  ‘That’s just daft, Meg. And you know it. We all care.’

  Megan burst into angry, wounded tears. Gigi reached out, but Megan brushed her away. ‘I can’t, Mum. I can’t fucking believe this …’ Richard flinched and Gigi knew it was the swearing. Poor Richard.

  She left the room. Gigi started to stand up. ‘Let her go, Mum. She’ll be okay. She needs a minute.’ This was Olly, his expression concerned, and his tone almost tender.

  ‘I think we all need a minute,’ Chris laughed, a small hollow sound. ‘Are you going to say anything at all, Dad?’

  Richard looked directly at Gigi. ‘This is your mum’s decision, boys. Not mine. It’s not what I want.’

  She’d asked for that, even if the disloyalty, in the moment, was almost breathtaking.

  Christopher looked at her for a response, but Gigi didn’t know what to say.

  ‘So what’s happening? In a practical sense, I mean,’ Olly asked, his voice calm and gentle.

  ‘I’m staying with my friend Kate for now.’ He nodded.

  ‘Are you going to get divorced?’ Christopher was processing too fast. He always had. Oliver threw him a warning glance.

  ‘I don’t know, Chris.’

  ‘So you might get back together?’

  Gigi rubbed her forehead wearily. She felt exhausted. ‘I don’t know that either. I’m sorry I haven’t got definitive answers for you.’

  Chris’s expression said that she should be.

  ‘You don’t owe us definitive answers, Mum.’ Oliver put his arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head, and she let herself lean back into her boy.

  ‘She owes them to Dad, though, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Back off, Chris. This really isn’t our business.’

  ‘They’re our parents, for God’s sake. This is our home.’

  ‘This was our home, Chris. Emily and Ava. They’re your home now. They’re your family.’

  ‘This is still our family, Olly.’

  Oliver couldn’t argue with that. ‘I know, mate. I know. Look – they’ve got us together, they’ve told us together. They didn’t need to do that. That was brave.’ He squeezed Gigi’s shoulder. ‘We all need to just back off now, and let Mum and Dad sort it out.’ Gigi smiled a tight, sad smile at her younger son, more grateful than she could ever remember being.

  No one ate the lasagne, in the end. It overcooked, black edged, in the oven, and Richard burned his hand taking it out. It sat, dried out and singed, on the worktop. Gigi filled a deep bowl with cold water and made him sit at the table with his hand in it.

  Christopher left first, hugging both his parents awkwardly. Gigi wondered what he’d say to Emily, and what Emily would think of her. The thought of Ava was another wave of sadness.

  Olly took Megan with him, along with her duffel of laundry. Megan wouldn’t look at her mother when she left, kissing her perfunctorily, and refusing her customary bear-hug, but she’d clung, snivelling, to Richard. Olly held Gigi for a long moment. ‘I’ll keep her with me tonight. She can stay a couple of days if she needs it. She’ll calm down. Don’t worry. I’ll call you tomorrow. It’ll be all right. I love you.’

  And it was just her and Richard again. They stayed in the hallway – both knowing she was leaving too.

  ‘I almost hated you, just then, for what you did to us all.’

  ‘I hated myself.’

  ‘I wanted to. But I couldn’t.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Richard nodded. ‘You said.’

  Tess

  Tess and Donna were sat on the sofa in Donna’s sitting room. They’d finished dinner – Donna had made a Thai stir fry with noodles. She turned out to be quite a good cook. Tess wondered when that had happened: she remembered a lot of jacket potatoes with baked beans and fish fingers.

  She turned out to be quite good company too. They’d just finished watching Masterchef. Donna had made her laugh with her running commentary. Tess reached for the remote control and pressed the ‘off’ button.

  It was comfortable, between the two of them. Which surprised her. Iris – and their different approaches to her, and her home, and her care – was where the irritation came, still. Here, things were okay. They were better than okay. Tess had imagined she’d be desperate to get out, but she found herself pushing that raft of decisions to the back of her mind now. She looked at her mother, and Donna smiled back at her.

  ‘You asked me, a while back, if there were things I wish I’d talked to my mum about.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘You’re right. There are things I wish I knew. About her life, before me. About her marriage. How she felt being alone after my dad died. We never talked about
it.’

  ‘I would like to have asked her more about my granddad.’

  ‘He was a good man, my dad. A man of infinite patience, and real kindness. Calm, you know? He always had time to fix things, broken things. We once found a bird, a tiny thing. It had fallen out of its nest. Dad said it didn’t have a chance, but I couldn’t bear to leave it. I still remember him talking to me about it. About why it couldn’t survive. Making me understand, you know, be okay with it. He always had that kind of time. To think about things. You always knew he was … right … about stuff. Wise. That’s what I remember most about him. He used to listen to Gregorian chants. All the time.’

  ‘Monk music?’

  Donna laughed. ‘Monk music. I suppose it is. I’m convinced that’s where he got his calm from. We should try it …’

  ‘Maybe we should.’

  ‘He’d have loved you. And, God, he loved my mum. To absolute pieces. He was devoted. Her to him too. I don’t think I’ve ever known a happier married couple, to be honest.’

  ‘He was quite a bit older than her, wasn’t he?’

  ‘About fifteen years, yeah.’

  ‘So, he was quite old when they got married. I mean, Iris was too, for that era.’

  Donna nodded. ‘She was thirty-five, I think. I suppose it was old for then. She used to say he brought her to life. It was something they used to say to each other. I never really considered it. To me it was just, you know, sweet nothings. But that was what she said. He brought her to life. It’s odd, now that you think about it.’

  Tess contemplated the idea. ‘I wonder what she meant? What was she before him?’

  ‘I don’t know …’ The two women were thoughtful for a moment.

  ‘She was an elderly primigravida too.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s what they call me, in my hospital notes. Pregnant for the first time at thirty-five.’

  ‘Charming.’