Letters to Iris

by Elizabeth Noble

  And they both knew that it was in no small part an excuse just to be together. Away from their everyday lives, and the sad pall of Clearview. To take their tender, new, undefined relationship on the road, to neutral ground. Even if they didn’t say so, to each other or to anyone else.

  It was a beautiful morning, isolated in a week of relentless wet and grey. Warm and sunny. A pale-blue sky. Oliver picked her up at Donna’s, parking and knocking on the door so he could say hello to Tess’s mother. Old-fashioned and charming. The man who always had a handkerchief. Tess smiled back at her mother, who was beaming at her from the window of the sitting room. She felt weirdly, stupidly proud of him. Castigated herself for the absurd thought straight afterwards – she had no right. He held the car door open for her.

  Oliver’s car had a soft top, and they drove with it down. It was hard to talk, with the wind, but it was companionable to sit side by side, and it was early enough in the summer for you to still appreciate the sun on your skin. Oliver took the A roads, not the motorway, not, as he said, in any hurry, and suburban sprawl gradually gave way to verdant, peaceful countryside. Tess felt herself relax and unfurl. She almost dozed off, her head back against the headrest, her eyes closed against the sunshine, coming to with a start as she nodded forward. Oliver smiled at her, then looked back at the road.

  The village itself was small and pretty, with a tended green in the centre, and a well-maintained Norman church up a gentle hill. There was a pub at one end, a post office in the middle of a row of cottages with names like Mulberry and Primrose Cottage, and a village hall at the other. You forgot, in the cities and the towns, that places like this still actually existed – coming to one was very slightly like going back in time. The pub offered coffee and cake, according to the sign outside, so Oliver parked up and they sat in the garden under a bright umbrella, sharing a wedge of chocolate fudge cake. The spell of silence cast in the noisy car was in no real hurry to break itself, and it was incredibly tranquil.

  ‘I can’t remember the last time I felt so relaxed,’ Tess said.

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘I’ve always thought of myself as a city dweller. Maybe I’m wrong …’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s where the work is. That’s why I’m there, and it’s great. It’s been great, at least. Restaurants, theatres … all that.’

  ‘How often do you go, though, to the theatre? Truthfully?’ She was teasing.

  He thought about it for a moment. ‘I took my mum to see The Book of Mormon last Christmas.’

  ‘And the time before that?’

  ‘Point taken. It’s there, is all, if you want it.’

  ‘There are theatres, you know, in the provinces.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah … Truth is, my mates, guys from uni, they’ve moved out gradually. You know, it was all life in the city in your twenties, then get married, get sprogged, get a pair of Hunter wellies and a shed.’

  ‘But you’d hate that?’

  He looked at her sharply, his eyes narrowed but still twinkling. ‘I never said that.’

  ‘Not ready?’

  He tilted his head. ‘You mean Caitlin?’

  Tess was slightly taken aback that he would mention her. She never would have done.

  ‘I know Mum will have spoken to you about her.’

  She didn’t know whether to deny it or not. ‘Don’t worry – I don’t mind.’

  He held his hands wide. ‘I’m an open book …’

  ‘She didn’t go into details.’

  ‘I’m not sure she had many to give.’

  Tess nodded. Gigi had said as much.

  ‘I wasn’t ready to do any of that with her, that’s the truth of it.’ He looked hard at her face, and she smiled at him. ‘Do you know?’

  She looked down pointedly at her belly. ‘Do you see this one’s father?’ She laughed, a small laugh she hoped didn’t sound hard. ‘At least you figured it out before she was pregnant.’

  ‘Gigi hasn’t given me many details either, you know, about you.’

  Tess shrugged, wondering how true that was. ‘Equally simple. Sean wasn’t ready either. Only it was a bit late … He didn’t want – what was it? Sprogs and Hunter wellies. He didn’t want me enough to take them anyway.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’m not. Did I sound pathetic?’

  ‘No. Not at all. But you’re not sorry?’

  ‘No. I was lost, to begin with. I admit that. I thought I was getting it right, you know … University, work, boyfriend, cohabitation. It was an accident, getting pregnant, but they do happen. I figured I was getting the order a bit wrong, but not the bigger plan.’

  ‘I know exactly what you mean. Sleepwalking through your life. Ticking the boxes …’

  ‘He woke me up. Rude awakening.’ She gazed down at the ground. ‘Really rude. But I’m not sorry now. If he’d married me, or whatever, if we’d had this baby together … I’d only have been storing up the trouble coming. It wouldn’t have lasted. It couldn’t have. And it might have made a hell of a lot more mess – for him, for me and for her, if I’d waited, and kept going through the motions. He wasn’t right for me.’

  ‘And nor was she, right for me.’

  Something vast and unspoken and momentous sat only just unsaid between them. Neither of them was ready to say it, because it was just a feeling. It was too small to acknowledge and yet too big to ignore. But they held each other’s gaze and let it sit there, neither wanting to be the first to speak, or look away.

  Oliver did. ‘Come on. Let’s us happy, wise singletons walk off that cake.’

  It didn’t take long – a lap of the village. There were various roads leading off the main drag, some even had signs to farms, but nothing that triggered a distant memory. They strolled for half an hour or so and came to a natural stop at the war memorial. Three wreaths of poppies still lay at its feet. There were probably seventy or eighty names carved into the stone – from both world wars. They walked slowly around it, reading, and wondering. Tom wasn’t there, of course. He didn’t die in the war, although the war had surely killed him, like their mother had said in the letter Tess had practically memorized from having read it so often. But each name held a story like Tom’s. Each name was a son, a brother, a father, a friend. Some families had lost more than one member, or several across both conflicts. Most villages had. How often did people stop and read the names, and realize? Tess hadn’t expected to find it so moving, but she found herself tearful. Oliver had been walking in the opposite direction to her, but he came around now and stood next to her, slipping his hand into hers and gently squeezing, without speaking at all. It was almost overwhelmingly comforting, and Tess wanted to lean into him, for his whole side to touch hers, and to stay that way. It was a powerful, unfamiliar yearning, and it was frightening and wonderful at the same time.

  Tess

  Week 36. Honeydew melon. I should cocoa, as Iris would say. You’re making me pretty uncomfortable. Not to complain or anything, but heartburn is my most constant companion at this point, and so I’m sleeping sitting up, which makes me irrationally grumpy and tired, because I really only sleep well on my tummy, one leg hoiked up under my chin. I’m so much more supple asleep than awake … Or at least I was. If I could sleep, I’d dream of sleeping in this position. I saw this thing on YouTube where a guy bought a huge block of foam and cut out a bump-sized hole so his wife could sleep on her tummy but it made me think of Lego, and, anyway, you’d be bound to want to move the moment you’d been ‘docked’, so I bet it didn’t work. And I’ve never quite shaken the idea that lying on you might hurt you … It seems ungrateful to complain, but Christ I miss eight hours of uninterrupted sleep, baby mine. And I can’t moan to anyone else. I know it’s not your fault. I have to pee every ten minutes. Literally. You should be upside down all the time now, getting ready to lock and load. I think you are: the feet in my ribs say you are. I can eat only little meals now, like Scarlett O’Hara at a Tara barbecue, because I think my stomach is
the size of one of the little angry fists you pummel my bladder with. I suppose you are squashed too. But you like it. I’ve just covered swaddling, in the book. Making you into a human sandwich wrap, all tucked in. Apparently you’re going to like it because it’s going to make you feel all squished and warm and restricted, like you are now in the womb. You’d think you’d want to wave and kick and feel free … I’ve washed and folded all the Babygros and the vest suits and the muslin cloths and the Lilliputian clothes and put them in the little white chest of drawers that used to house Donna’s stuff – she emptied it for you, and painted it so it’s all fresh and clean. They’re waiting for you. I’m waiting for you. I hold up the suits and imagine you filling them. I lay them across my shoulder and pat them, pretending you’re in there, needing to be burped or comforted. I sniff them and wonder how you’re going to smell.

  They took my stitch out today, darling girl. Which wasn’t as scary as the day they put it in. It means a few things: they’re okay with your coming now. You can come now. I feel like I exhaled for the first time in a long time.

  I had a letter from Sean. Your father. It’s only fair to call him that, although I don’t think he’ll ever be your dad, if you see the distinction. I recognized the handwriting on the envelope and I was instantly afraid of what he might have written. The mumma bear again. I shouldn’t have been: he’s not a pantomime villain. He’s getting married. That was quick. A very quick stab, because he was in no hurry to marry me and now he’s racing down the aisle with someone else, but that’s just ego, I suppose. The point is, baby, that he knew you were almost due. He remembered. He wanted to wish me well, and you too. For the day that you come, and for the time beyond that. And to say that he’d be there. Not here. But there. If we needed anything. I wonder if she knows about us. I hope so: I have no reason to want him not to be happy, and happiness cannot be based on lies and secrets like that. I hope she gives him lots of healthy American babies. We won’t need him.

  Tess was at her vigil beside Iris’s bed. This was the third morning that week. It was early, and she hadn’t seen any other visitors – there’d been no other cars in the car park they used. It was more quiet than normal without their presence in the hallways. She could have come at any time – her maternity leave had started now – but she was glad of the quiet.

  She’d spoken briefly to Mary, one of Iris’s carers, on her way in. There’d been no change in the night. Not that she’d expected one. The doctor had said she was unlikely to be responsive again, and she hadn’t been. Not once. No more chinks and no more moments. This was most probably it, and she knew it. Sitting here with Iris, just the two of them, made it easier to accept. Iris’s chest was moving up and down – the movement almost imperceptible, unless you concentrated hard on watching it, and that was what Tess did. It was enough, now, to know that she wasn’t in any pain. That she wasn’t frightened. Her chest would move, and then it would stop and this would be over.

  They had visiting vicars, and priests and rabbis and imams, and probably every other kind of faith too, if you needed it – someone had asked her if she wanted one. She didn’t. Iris had never spoken of that being important to her and Tess didn’t believe it would make a difference. She wasn’t sure, now, that her grandmother had ever forgiven God. She didn’t want a stranger in the room, however good their intentions.

  There was a gentle knock at the door. Sitting with her back to the door, she heard Olly before she saw him. The sound of his voice was wonderful. She hadn’t been expecting to see him, and she was suddenly so very glad that he was here. He was probably the person she’d most want to be with her. How strange. She hardly knew him. He hardly knew her. But he seemed to know what she needed.

  He was reciting a poem. She didn’t know it, but she’d heard it, at weddings. It sounded like a promise, of sorts, a declaration, and it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

  He spoke almost in a whisper, the sound intimate and peaceful. When she turned around, he was leaning against the doorframe, looking at her.

  ‘That was lovely.’

  ‘Wasn’t it?’

  ‘Who wrote it?

  ‘A man called Leo Marks.’

  ‘Who did he write it for?’

  ‘Someone he loved very much.’

  ‘I guessed that much.’

  ‘For his girlfriend. Ruth. She was killed, during the war.’

  ‘Sad.’

  Olly nodded, and looked down at the paper in his hand. ‘He wrote it on Christmas Eve, 1943.’

  ‘Sadder …’

  ‘Long, fascinating, complex story, actually, but that’ll keep. I don’t want to muddy my own waters.’

  ‘Is there more than one verse?’

  ‘It’s here. There are several more. I wrote it out …’

  He handed her the page. ‘He wrote it for her. I’m reading it for you. You get that, right?’

  She smiled at him, but didn’t answer, just looked at him. Death was in this room. Death and sadness. And now, with him, life too. Life and happiness. She hesitated because she felt herself hovering between the two. Past. Future. It was almost too much. Almost frightening. She couldn’t entirely let go of one, and she daren’t entirely trust the other.

  ‘I have been researching –’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘More ways to say it. More ways to convey my message. I’ve made a mess of it so far.’

  She hoped she knew what he was saying. Happiness was insistent. Bubbling within.

  ‘Or I could go old-school … “I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach …” Your actual Elizabeth Barrett Browning.’

  ‘Very grand.’

  ‘Indeed. Or there’s a bit of Corinthians. “Love is patient, love is kind.” Bit of a cliché – think I’ve heard it at every wedding I’ve been to in the last few years, and I have been to a lot. My friends are definitely the marrying kind, by the way. I am too.’ He left a pause more pregnant than she was. Tess felt herself blush. ‘But it still works for me.’

  She raised an eyebrow at him.

  ‘Not moving you yet … perhaps you’re a classics girl. Then how about the Bard? “Love … is an ever-fixed mark.” I really don’t know what all the fuss about Shakespeare is, actually – the man couldn’t rhyme. “If this be error and upon me proved … no man ever lo-oved” – all that business. But there you go.’ Oliver rolled his eyes.

  Tess giggled. She couldn’t help herself. The sound’s inappropriateness made her clamp her hand over her mouth hard. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Oh, I like that laugh. I like it very much. Don’t stop. It’s okay. Iris would like to hear it too. I know she would. You know it too. I haven’t heard nearly enough of that laugh. That’s all the encouragement I need to keep going. You didn’t appear to go for it when I just used my own words. I think that is a grave error on your part. I’m not gifted, but I’m bloody sincere. But you’re a hard nut to crack. So I’m borrowing from other people. Iris wouldn’t mind. You told me she liked poetry. I know she’d have liked me. She’d have been crazy about me. She’d have been telling you you’re an idiot to pass on me. You know I’m right. Iris would so be on Team Oliver. She wouldn’t mind.’

  Tess gestured at her grandmother. ‘She doesn’t seem to …’

  ‘Exactly. There’s the medium of song, if poetry feels a bit O-level English to you. Think of me as a human mix-tape.’

  She put her finger to her lips. ‘Ssh. You can’t sing in here!’

  ‘Oh, watch me. There’s no one else around. It’s stupidly early. Iris won’t mind, I keep telling you … you know I’m right. In fact, I have the distinct feeling that Iris would completely approve of my endeavour. But I shall whisper-sing. Probably best. I realize I have the face of a choirboy, but that’s about it.’

  She realized she wasn’t going to be able to stop him. And she didn’t really want to.

  ‘I’m going to call security and have you thrown out of here,’ she joked.


  ‘It’s not going to stop me. I have a whole section of baby love songs – in honour of bump. Or how about this … You had me at hello.’

  ‘No, no. Not films now.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Films now. Here’s looking at you, kid. I luff you. Two ff’s. Annie Hall. Have you seen Annie Hall, by the way? Where do you stand on Woody Allen?’ He waved his own question away. ‘Never mind. We can get to that. It’s not a deal breaker for me either way, as long as you like Clint Eastwood and Scorsese.’

  ‘Idiot.’

  ‘And the big finish. Richard Curtis. The king of schmaltz. I’m just a boy, standing here in front of a girl. Asking her to love him. That was the other way around of course. But still, you get the point.’

  ‘You have to stop. They are going to come in here. And they are going to judge us.’

  ‘Let them. You’re smiling, Tess. At one point you were even laughing and the sound was wonderful. Besides, I haven’t done fridge magnets yet. Or greeting cards. There are a thousand of those.’

  ‘Olly. Stop …’

  ‘I’ll stop if you tell me that my point is made.’

  ‘Your point is made.’

  ‘One more thing …’

  ‘I don’t know if I can take one more thing.’

  ‘You’re going to have to. The thing is this …’

  He came the two or three strides from his side of the room to hers and crouched down in front of her chair. Put both hands on her face and brought his mouth to hers. The kiss was sweet and tender. He was still a little breathless, from the charades, and she was too, although she had hardly moved. When he pulled back eventually he kept his eyes closed a second longer.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome. I’m going now. I’m going to let you sit with this a while.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘But I’ll be back …’ He walked backwards away from her towards the door. ‘That’s not Arnie, by the way. Terminator. That’s me.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘How is she?’ He looked over at Iris.