Iris and Ruby

by Rosie Thomas

  Lesley walked out into the street. She was disorientated; for a moment she couldn’t even remember where she was. She turned away, wanting to get as far from the restaurant and Sebastian as possible, and stumbled for several blocks before she realised that she was heading in the opposite direction from the car park. She stopped and made herself think, and slowly the familiar geography closed around her again. She retraced her steps, taking a parallel back street to avoid having to pass the plate-glass window of the restaurant. She was sure that Sebastian would still be sitting there, sluicing down the rest of the wine and enjoying his beef and the certainty of its provenance.

  She reached the underground car park where she had left the car, and plunged into the reeking depths. Her heels clicked, pit-pat, on the gum-blotched floor.

  When she was inside her car, and had made sure that the windows were closed and the central locking was activated, she lowered her head to rest on the steering wheel. She thought she would cry, here where there was no one to see her, but as she waited for the relief of tears she suddenly realised that she felt better.

  The picture of Sebastian with the red arc of wine falling towards his lap came back to her. She could see his face quite clearly, transfigured with shock and disbelief. She hadn’t stayed around for long enough to catch the fury that would have followed, but that was quite easy to imagine.

  Instead of crying she laughed. She lifted her head and stretched her arms as if she were just waking up from a long sleep.

  She sat in the car park for a little while longer, reliving the scene in the restaurant. After that she repaired her makeup and drove home.

  Ed was already back from school. He was sprawled in front of the television with a bowl of cereal balanced on his chest, milk dribbling from the spoon as he lifted it to his mouth. ‘Ed?’

  ‘Yeah, hi, Mum.’

  ‘Ed?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  Lesley waited but his eyes didn’t move from the television screen.

  ‘How was your day?’ she asked.

  ‘OK,’ he answered at length. Another milky spoonful followed a sloppy trajectory towards his open mouth.

  She crossed the room in two steps and snatched the bowl from his hand. An arc of white droplets sprayed through the air and spattered the cushions.

  Ed sat upright and stared at her. ‘Mu-um,’ he complained.

  ‘Look at me when you talk to me.’

  ‘I am looking. What’s up?’

  ‘Don’t ignore me. I’m your mother. Don’t sit there gaping at the TV and dribbling food, just answer me. Maybe even ask me a question in return.’

  ‘What’s happened? Just calm down, Mum.’

  Lesley had never struck either of her children. Now she was too angry to stop herself. She aimed a wild slap at the side of Edward’s head, the dish wobbling in her other hand and spilling more milk down her skirt and on the floor. The blow hardly connected but it made her fingertips tingle and burn. Ed gaped, his eyes and mouth forming three shocked circles. She turned off the television and silence seeped between them. Lesley’s throat felt as if it was full of sand.

  ‘Now. Pick up your things. Put them away where they belong. Then go upstairs and start your homework.’

  He stood up and swept his coat and school bag off the table. Then he marched out of the room without looking at her.

  She mopped up the puddles of milk, rinsed the bowl and put it in the dishwasher. In the household diary she read that Andrew would be out that evening at a dinner with clients, so that would mean a simple supper just for Ed and herself. She opened the freezer, took out a labelled plastic box of her own pasta sauce and left it on the draining board. Checking that there were bags of salad leaves in the chiller drawer of the refrigerator, she saw a bottle of Andrew’s good Sancerre. She lifted out the bottle, poured herself a full glass and took a long swig. Then, holding the chilled curve of the glass against her cheek, she walked out into the garden.

  Late roses lingered on the bushes, the outer petals faintly bruised with the chill of autumn. It seemed to Lesley that everything she looked at, every leaf and twig, the stone bird bath and the diamonds of latticed trellis, had grown a bright, hard margin. There was an extra cold clarity to the world, each painfully intricate detail thrown into relief by her despair. A white butterfly settled on a furled spike of lavender, its powdery wings closing as the stalk shivered in the breeze.

  A stronger gust of wind shook the bush and the butterfly was blown away.

  Ruby and Iris sat in the garden, the trickle of the little fountain loud in the stillness. The late afternoons were now beginning to be touched with a chill as the sun faded. Iris’s feet were propped on a padded stool and Auntie had draped a thin blanket over her legs.

  ‘That was my dad on the phone,’ Ruby remarked.

  They had fallen into one of the silences that Ruby now understood to be companionable, able to be broken if one or other of them had anything they wanted to say, or equally to be left to stretch into a long chain of minutes. At first she had felt uncomfortable and had tried to talk – about anything, any nonsense that came into her head – just to fill the vacuum. Then she had noticed that Iris didn’t hear anyway. Her eyes went absent.

  Sometimes her head fell back and her mouth dropped open, and Ruby knew that she was asleep, but at other times she was awake and lost in herself.

  Iris stirred. ‘Who?’

  ‘My dad. On the phone.’

  ‘When?’

  Ruby was growing accustomed to this too. Now and again, Iris would forget something that had just happened. Mamdooh would carry in the tray of mint tea and Iris would drink hers and when he had taken the tray away she would say sharply, ‘Where’s Mamdooh with that tea?’

  ‘We’ve already had tea,’ Ruby would tell her. ‘Do you want some more?’

  This time she said, ‘Just now. You spoke to him and then you called me to the phone.’

  Iris’s mouth moved as if she was trying out the proper response, and the furrows radiating from her lips deepened as she found her place back in the present. ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Mum must have been on to him. He never usually phones just for a chat. He’s more of a “not now, sweetheart” kind of a person, really.’

  ‘He’s not the one she’s married to now?’

  ‘No. That’s Andrew.’

  Iris sighed. ‘I really cannot keep up with Lesley’s husbands. What’s the difference between them?’

  Ruby started to laugh. The laughter took hold until she was coughing and shaking with it, and it infected Iris too. They wheezed and wiped their eyes and finally Iris sank back against her cushions. ‘Oh dear. Well, is there a difference?’

  ‘Yes. Totally. Sebastian, that’s my real dad, thinks he’s quite cool. He knows lots of well-known writers and people, and although he’s quite fat these days he wears sort of youthful clothing. Not quite bad enough to be embarrassing or anything, but always with a nod to what’s in, if you know what I mean?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘Uh, wacky scarves. Logo T-shirts. Beanie in the winter. And in the week, designery suits and no tie.’

  It was plain that Iris understood almost none of this, but she was enjoying the faces that Ruby made and the way her hands fluttered and nipped to describe the outlines of her father’s clothes. Ruby liked it when Iris was amused because it made her feel that she was welcome, and maybe even useful.

  Their idea of Ruby capturing Iris’s memories had made little progress so far. Whenever Iris did start to talk, the stories seemed to be just that – stories, about ancient nightclubs and games of polo and the army. It was quite hard trying to memorise the details of such unfamiliar things. And then Iris’s voice would slow down and grow vague, and Ruby would look into her eyes and see that she had gone missing again. Now she talked to her as if she were the one who was telling a story.

  ‘Dad and Mum separated when I was three. He’d come to take me out at the weekends and we’d go to the park and thi
ngs. I was little, so I can’t remember what it was like when he did live with us. Anyway, he had a girlfriend, quite young, and she didn’t like kids so I didn’t see that much of the two of them together. It was just Sebastian and me, and even I could tell that was pretty boring for him.

  ‘Then, after quite a long time – it seemed a long time – suddenly Mum started going out with Andrew. They got married, I was a bridesmaid. I had to wear pink stuff, a whole matching outfit, a dress with puffed sleeves and fake rosebuds in my hair. I hated it and at the reception I picked all the flowers off the headband and threw them at people. When I was eight and a half, my brother was born.’

  Iris nodded. ‘Did you mind?’

  Ruby shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I suppose so, but it was happening to plenty of other people as well. Most of my friends, you know.’

  ‘Was it? And this one, Andrew, what does he wear?’

  Now Ruby’s hands chopped a series of straight lines and boxes.

  ‘Ah, I see.’

  They were laughing again.

  ‘He’s a businessman. Management, accountancy. That sort of thing. And he likes sailing, he’s got a boat.’

  ‘Go on.’

  Ruby looked at Iris. Her head was resting against the cushions but her eyes were bright. When she laughed she did look younger, as though she could have been any age at all.

  ‘It’s not boring? Really? Let me think. OK, when I was about … eleven, when Ed was getting to the age when he wasn’t a baby anymore and was always climbing into everything and being a pain, and I was supposed to be working for exams to get into a good school but I was doing really badly, Andrew started thinking that he and I should be doing some bonding. So he decided that he’d teach me to sail, right? There was one weekend, we went off down to the boat together, just the two of us.’

  Now Ruby stretched her face, rolled her eyes and pressed her fingertips into the hollows of her cheeks.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Iris murmured again.

  ‘God, it was worse than oh dear. It was quite rough and windy, and the Solent seemed to me it was like the Pacific Ocean or something. Andrew could sail the fucking boat quite well on his own, OK, but he was doing this big pantomime number about how he needed a crew and we had to work as a team and rely on each other. So it was all this yelling and splashing, and me tripping over the ropes and him shouting Ready and Going about, and the boom banging above my head and the sails flapping and cracking. Wherever I put myself I was always in the wrong place. There’s this big sail like a parachute that goes at the front, and I really liked it because it was bright colours, but when we tried to put it up it got wrapped round the forestay and we had to sail round in circles in the opposite direction to try to unwrap it. Andrew was yelling No, no, no and I was completely certain we were going to capsize and drown.’

  Ruby was taken up with the momentum of telling this story. She jumped to her feet and mimed the frantic winding of winches and stumbling from side to side of the cockpit under her stepfather’s command.

  ‘What happened?’

  She undulated her hand sharply to indicate the height of the waves.

  ‘I got seasick and puked everywhere. Andrew turned the boat round and we sailed back to the marina, and as far as bonding goes the glue didn’t work. He never suggested doing it again, anyway. Not that I’d have gone, I hate sailing. Wouldn’t you? He and Lesley go quite a lot, but actually I don’t think Mum likes it much either.’

  Iris nodded. There was still a smile in her eyes. ‘No, it doesn’t sound particularly enjoyable. I enjoyed hearing about it, though.’

  Ruby sat down again and took her grandmother’s hand. ‘Now it’s your turn.’

  Slowly Iris tapped her fingers against her mouth, as if memories were about to spill into words. Ruby waited patiently, saying nothing. She had already learned that trying to prompt her only interrupted the ghost train of her grandmother’s thoughts. A minute passed, then another, liquid with the small splash of the fountain. They both lost track of time.

  ‘Amethyst,’ Iris said softly at last.

  Nothing followed and when Ruby looked up from watching the patterns of silvery drops she saw that she had fallen asleep. She unlaced their fingers and settled Iris’s hand back in her lap, then adjusted the rug over her knees and stood up. It was as if Iris were a child, she thought suddenly, and she were the mother.

  This idea took root and grew, casting a shadow like a dark finger pointing right across the garden and up the turquoise tiles lining the opposite wall. Ruby felt afraid of what she couldn’t quite understand. She wished she knew where she was going or what would happen next month, or even next week.

  She would have liked to talk to Jas about being disorientated and not knowing where you stood, but Jas was dead.

  Ruby left Iris to sleep and wandered through the dim spaces of the house.

  In the hall she trailed her fingertips over the table and raked faintly shining lines in the dust veil. Away from the sound of the water, the thick walls trapped silence and the smoky scent of incense that must live in the cracks of the stonework because she never saw Auntie or Mamdooh burning it.

  Her aimless wandering brought her to the door of the kitchen. She put her hand to the heavy panelling and pushed.

  Auntie looked up at once. ‘Mum-reese?’ she asked, pillowing her cheek against her folded hands.

  ‘Yes, she’s sleeping.’

  ‘Ah.’ The old woman put down the knife she had been using to slice vegetables and came round the table to Ruby. She reached up and pinched her cheek, gently, shaking her head and smiling at the same time so that her pale gums and isolated teeth were all on show. She murmured something in Arabic, the tone of her voice so soft with sympathy that Ruby’s eyes stung with sudden tears of self-pity. She sniffed furiously and pulled out of Auntie’s grasp.

  Auntie pointed to the comfortable chair near the stove. It was padded with cushions made out of worn carpet strips in shades of faded garnet and copper, and it seemed to hold the substantial print of Mamdooh’s body.

  ‘Me?’ Ruby asked, and Auntie nodded so she sat down.

  It was peaceful in the kitchen, with the click of the knife blade on scrubbed wood and the sharp scent of cut leaves. After a while, starting with a drawn-out note that still made Ruby jump, the chanting of the muezzin poured in through the screened windows. That was where Mamdooh had gone, to prayer.

  Auntie took a pomegranate out of a woven rush basket and sliced it in half. With the sharp point of her knife she cut the jewelled beads of fruit away from the creamy pith and let them fall into a bowl. Next she took an earthenware pitcher, ladled a couple of spoonfuls of yoghurt onto the fruit and handed the bowl and a spoon to Ruby with a series of small encouraging nods.

  Ruby dipped the spoon, and tasted. Tiny sharp globes burst against the roof of her mouth and her tongue was thick with velvety yoghurt. To be fed made her feel that she was back in a warm, familiar place again. For now; for the time being.

  ‘It’s nice.’ She smiled. ‘Thank you.’

  When the call to prayer died away, Auntie began singing to herself as she worked. The sad chain of notes seemed to come from somewhere between her throat and the back of her nose, ululating in half and quarter-tones, with no beginning or end. Ruby listened and ate her pomegranate. Tomorrow was Ash’s day off. He had promised to come on the moby and take her out somewhere.

  ‘Where?’ Iris asked sharply. This morning she was wearing her silky striped gown and her hair was caught up at the sides of her head with turquoise and coral-headed combs. Ruby and Ash shuffled a little awkwardly under her gaze. ‘Where are you taking her?’

  ‘To al-Qalaa. To Citadel, Ma’am,’ Ash answered politely.

  To where? Ruby was going to protest, but decided that she would save it until they were alone together.

  ‘I see. You will tell her some of the history?’

  ‘Of course. I am proud of this.’

  ‘Good.’ Iris approved of Ash, and even Mamdooh ha
d opened the front door and shown him through into Iris’s garden without any noticeable signs of objection. ‘Go on. Off you go. Make sure you bring her back here by six o’clock on the dot.’

  ‘Of course.’ This time, Ash even bowed.

  ‘Creep,’ Ruby whispered under her breath.

  The moby was outside. Ash pulled his sunglasses down over his eyes, flicked back his hair and gestured to the pillion. He was wearing his white shirt and dark-blue nylon Adidas tracksuit bottoms.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Didn’t you hear? To Citadel.’

  ‘Don’t I even get consulted? Maybe I don’t want to go there.’

  He frowned at her. ‘Why not?’

  Ash never backed down and Ruby liked that. He was also looking particularly fit today. She flicked a grin at him and bounced onto the pillion seat.

  ‘Oh, come on then. Let’s get going.’

  He kicked the starter and they plunged out into the traffic. By now, Ruby was quite confident on the back of the bike. She pulled a scarf across her mouth and nose to filter out the dust and fumes, as she had seen other women passengers do, and wound her arm round Ash’s waist. Above them, monopolising the skyline, were the sand-coloured walls and turrets of the old Citadel. The way to it curved upwards along a series of wide, sun-baked avenues, past gaudy tents and littered fairgrounds on Midan Salah al-Din. When they reached the entrance at Bab al-Gabal they left the bike padlocked to the trunk of a struggling sapling and continued on foot, into a walled and crenellated maze of turrets and domes separated by glaring empty spaces that trapped the afternoon’s heat. Treading over hot stone and dust-lapped patches of lawn, Ruby began to lag behind Ash.

  ‘Why are we here?’ she demanded irritably.

  ‘History. First fort built here, nine hundred years old. By Salah al-Din.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘You know who this is?’

  ‘Should I?’

  He frowned at her again. ‘You are educated English woman and you know nothing, it seems. He is a great leader and warrior against your Christian Crusaders. You have heard of Saladin?’