Iris and the Tiger

by Leanne Hall

  ‘It sounds awful.’ Shirley Dangercroft dabbed her mouth with her napkin, looking upset. ‘You have an outstanding property here. Outstanding. Full of history. If you’re ever thinking of selling—’

  ‘I couldn’t decide if the sight of my ruined home was terrible or beautiful,’ Aunt Ursula interrupted, and Iris made a mental note of Nightmare Shirley’s comment. ‘The dream may have been about hundreds of years from now… perhaps it was showing me the end of human civilisation? It’s only right, of course, that nature will take over the planet again.’

  Zeke Dangercroft snapped to attention. ‘We got a letter this week, Mizz Freer, and Shirley and I have been wondering if you got one too. Perhaps that’s what your dream is about?’

  Aunt Ursula sat down again. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve received no letter.’

  ‘It was those dratted property developers again, saying they could come and inspect our land, put a value on the place. It’s only a matter of time before they start throwing pots of cash at people.’

  Zeke Dangercroft was red in the face. He gulped more wine.

  ‘We planned our European retirement for a very long time. I got no intention of moving on. No intention! If I wanted to be near a fancy country club, I wouldn’t have moved here.’

  Aunt Ursula peered at him. ‘What is your opinion of golf, Mr Dangercroft?’

  Zeke didn’t have a chance to answer. Shirley Dangercroft had recovered from her sadness.

  ‘One person sells to them and the rest fall like dominoes,’ she said. ‘You know how it goes, Mizz Freer. People forgetting what’s important. Preserving the region. Preserving the rustic atmosphere. Aren’t I right?’

  Iris sat very still and tried to look as if she wasn’t listening, when she was really filing all of this away to write in her notebook later.

  This is exactly what my parents need to know, she thought, and then remembered that she was still supposed to be annoyed with them.

  ‘I don’t bother reading my mail.’ Aunt Ursula sat very straight and her voice was stern. ‘But if anyone thinks they are going to sweep in and take Bosque de Nubes from me, I have this to say to them. Over my dead body. Over my rotting, lifeless corpse!’

  The second course was hamburgers, served on painter’s palettes. They looked like normal burgers but were actually made from sponge cake, chocolate mousse and jam.

  Everyone was too engrossed in their meals to notice the extra flick of Elna’s wrist as she walked behind Iris. A small square of paper landed in Iris’s lap.

  Using the tablecloth for cover, Iris unfolded the paper. It was a photocopy of a painting, with the title written across the top: IRIS AND THE TIGER. This must be the other, more famous painting Elna had mentioned: a woman standing at a window, trees surrounding her.

  Iris caught Aunt Ursula looking at her, and tucked the paper into her sock for safekeeping.

  After the burgers, Aunt Ursula announced the ‘invisible course’—a fur-covered tea set and a cake stand loaded with nothing but plastic dolls’ heads. Iris had formed the impression by now that surreal meant super-weird.

  Marcel, Shirley and Aunt Ursula kept up the farce of drinking air from furry teacups, but Zeke Dangercroft could not cope. The more wine he drank, the further he slumped over the table. Señor Garcia had still not returned to the party.

  Finally, Jordi received permission from Marcel to slip up to Iris’s end of the table.

  ‘I can’t hear anything over there.’ Jordi frowned. ‘It’s boring.’

  ‘I’ve been wanting to speak to you,’ whispered Iris. ‘You remember you offered to show me around? What kind of things did you have in mind?’

  Jordi perked up. ‘You are asking because you see something? Yes, you do! Tell me.’

  Iris remained reluctant, until Jordi whispered, ‘Something magics?’ and raised his eyebrows meaningfully.

  ‘There were these sunflowers,’ Iris admitted, ‘out in the forest, playing tennis. Have you seen them?’

  She’d decided to keep things simple and leave out the kidnapping-by-boots.

  ‘The big flowers on the tennis court? I know them!’

  Jordi looked around. Aunt Ursula had coaxed Shirley out of her seat, and the two women were dancing to what Aunt Ursula called ‘free music’. Shirley was having trouble loosening up. At the far end of the table, Marcel was asleep with his chin on his chest.

  Satisfied that no one was listening to their conversation, Jordi continued: ‘I find them last summer! There are many magics, Iris. Maybe twenty or more. Really, you have no idea…’

  Iris let out her breath. Her hunch had been a good one: ants and flowers and boots were just the beginning. She’d decided during the invisible course that she had to be brave and give Bosque de Nubes at least another day or two.

  ‘Will you show me some other magical things? Could we go exploring tomorrow?’ She hoped Jordi didn’t have much to do on his weekend.

  It was clear from the radiant look on Jordi’s face that it wasn’t only Iris who was relieved to have someone her own age to hang out with.

  ‘You must come to our cottage, this is a definite plan. You will find it, the brick house. Ten o’clock?’

  ‘Ten o’clock sharp,’ replied Iris. Jordi looked confused. ‘It means, yes. Ten o’clock and I’m really excited about it.’

  ‘Me too. Sharp!’ Jordi glanced at his snoozing father. ‘I should get that old man home.’

  Iris grabbed Jordi’s arm before he could slide from his chair. ‘You need to tell me: is it dangerous out there?’

  ‘Where dangerous?’

  ‘Well…’ Iris bit her tongue again about the boots. Then she remembered what Aunt Ursula had said earlier. ‘Can you tell me, have there ever been any kids lost in the forest, when the mists come?’

  ‘Oh, this.’ Jordi patted her arm. ‘You already hear about the famous mist? You don’t worry. I tell you everything tomorrow.’

  The house was cold and the giant chandelier dull as Iris made her way up the grand staircase.

  Aunt Ursula had not let her stack any dirty dishes to take to the kitchen. Instead, they were going to close up the dining room and ‘let the dishes fend for themselves’. Elna had rolled her eyes and rushed off to change out of her owl costume.

  Iris would have gone straight to her guestroom if not for the light trickling from under the double doors at the top of the stairs. When she pushed a door open, it was as if something gently escaped—a puff of air, or perfume, perhaps.

  The long narrow room was cloaked in dust and shadows. Opposite were floor-to-ceiling windows offering moonlight and stars. The walls were papered in apricot stripes; the floor gleamed.

  It has to be a ballroom, Iris decided. Aunt Ursula had a maid and multiple chandeliers, so there was no reason why she wouldn’t have a ballroom as well. Even though it was empty, it was easy to imagine the room full of people dressed in their finest clothes, dancing.

  Iris had already slipped inside before she realised that the room wasn’t empty at all.

  At the far end was Señor Garcia, still in his suit, dancing. His arms were held shoulder-high to enclose his partner. His feet skimmed smoothly across the floor. He dipped his partner low to the ground, then spun.

  Iris melted into the shadows near the wall to watch. When Señor Garcia turned again, Iris saw that he was dancing with a lamp, a tall standing lamp with a pink, fringed lampshade.

  As he glided and dipped, Iris saw how Señor Garcia had left his shyness behind. She caught a quick impression of his face before he whipped his head around. His eyes were large and round.

  Iris reversed towards the door—she was trespassing on a private moment. But as she did, her shoulder collided with a Roman figurine and set it rocking noisily.

  Iris reached out and caught it by the neck, while Señor Garcia continued to dance. Iris glanced up. Paintings hung in neat rows on the wall. One painting in particular caught her eye.

  Finally, Señor Garcia returne
d the lamp to a spot next to the fireplace, and his movements were once more deliberate and stilted. Eventually he disappeared through a darkened doorway at the far end of the ballroom.

  Iris waited another minute before breaking her position. There may have been dozens of paintings on the wall, but the one she was interested in was easily the largest; it showed green grass, yellow petals and blue sky.

  The tennis court was much better tended in the painting. The net hung tautly; the umpire’s chair was a bright slatted white.

  Uncle James had painted a large sunflower growing at either end of the court and their golden petals stuck up like crowns against the bright blue sky. The title, Courtly, had been etched along the bottom edge, and next to it a scribbly signature: James Freer.

  Apart from their size, the sunflowers were ordinary. Even so, there was something slightly off about them.

  Or do I only think that because I know they’re not ordinary? Iris wondered. People thought Uncle James painted from his imagination, but there was more to it than that.

  Iris checked the main door, and then the other doorway that Señor Garcia had taken. It led to a small area used to store wineglasses and serving trays. There was a bench, a shelf and a dumbwaiter’s hatch—and no way out, only an open sash window. The drop to the ground was at least five metres.

  Iris was torn between looking at Uncle James’s paintings for longer, and figuring out where Señor Garcia had gone. In the end she returned to the ballroom. But it was too dark to see Uncle James’s paintings properly.

  As soon as that thought crossed Iris’s mind, a row of lights sprang into life along the wall. The shades were upturned hands holding glass orbs—and so realistic it was as if someone had dipped human hands in gold.

  The paintings were an extraordinary blur of landscapes, an old-fashioned car, a man with two faces, a monstrous plant chasing a maid through the hallway. There were three formal portraits of an insect, who posed in human clothes and had googly eyes, long antennae, and six spindly legs. Uncle James had signed these with just his initials: J.F.

  A painting hanging nearby flickered. It showed an underwater scene, a rush of water, bubbles and waving water plants. There were two pink legs in the lower right corner. The legs kicked—once, twice, three times—before swimming out of view, beyond the edges of the painting. One second they were there, the next they were gone.

  Iris’s first day in Spain had already been so long and strange that she barely flinched. Still, she had trouble believing that any of these other paintings could be real.

  The next painting along showed a grand piano, twisted like a black stallion rearing in alarm. Mutant ants crawled across the keys and onto cream sheets of music. The sheet music fell in an arc to the floor and ants were everywhere.

  For a moment her head swam. Iris felt crawling up her spine, as if the ants had migrated there. She had not entirely believed Jordi when he’d said there was nothing dangerous out there.

  There was no way she could ignore it now.

  ‘There you go,’ she said out loud, with just a hint of hysteria, ‘the paintings are real, the paintings are real, the paintings…’

  Because no one was there to comment, her chant turned into a song, and she marched around in circles while she sang. It had been a long day, and now her ankle was itching.

  I better not have been allergic to those boots, Iris worried.

  But when she scratched her ankle, she found a folded-up piece of paper in her sock. It was the photocopy of Iris and the Tiger that Elna had smuggled to her during dinner.

  Iris examined the copy with interest. Her namesake, Iris Freer, was older in this painting, and wore her hair differently in two big bunches on top of her head. She stood at a wall with a circular window, her hand on the sill, her face turned slightly towards the front. All around the wall was a dark forest; through the window was a choppy sea. There were no tigers anywhere.

  Uncle James must have called it Iris and the Tiger for a reason. The more Iris absorbed the painting, the more she felt that there were clues in it: messages meant especially for her.

  If only I could see the real painting, she mused.

  An idea flashed in her mind. The underwater painting now showed only a rush of brown water and weeds. The legs were completely gone.

  What if there had once been a tiger in the painting, but it had already wandered off?

  She pictured a golden head with golden eyes and pricked ears, somewhere in the house. A striped body prowling down the curling staircase, out the front door and into the forest. Tail flicking as it moved beyond the edges of the painting and out into the real world. The tiger, doing exactly as it pleased, not caring in the slightest about the rules that should have kept it on the canvas. A tiger that was somehow linked, not to Iris Freer but to her, Iris Chen-Taylor. Somehow it was her painting and her tiger.

  Iris didn’t move for minutes, for fear of disturbing her new idea. Ever since she’d started high school, it had been plainly obvious to her how very ordinary she was. This was a sign, though, that things didn’t have to be that way.

  She was going to find the tiger.

  Iris didn’t sleep in the following morning. A cock crowed as she lay in bed, her head full of colours and shapes from the previous day—and her dreams overnight, which were made up of a dozen whirling paintings with tigers at the centre.

  Be honest, she lectured herself. Is it crazy to think there’s a tiger at Bosque de Nubes?

  Back at home, in her regular life, it would be clear that her imagination had spun out of control. But here, in the land where paintings became real, it wasn’t the worst idea she’d ever had.

  She couldn’t decide if she should be thrilled or scared. Tigers were not to be trifled with. They were beautiful and dangerous and unpredictable. Iris hoped she was brave enough to solve the mystery.

  When Iris emerged from her room, she was met by a knee-high statue with a basket on its head: a squat stone man with an enormous belly, big ears and poking-out tongue. The basket held breakfast—a pile of long Spanish doughnuts dusted in icing sugar called churros.

  An envelope had been tucked under the basket.

  It was another message from Aunt Ursula, who seemed unable to deliver any messages in person.

  Enjoy your churros, delivered by the god of rain and lightning, it read. Then underneath, A Game of Art, to be played in twos.

  Iris chewed on a doughnut. Her mum would have a fit if she saw how much cake she’d eaten in the last twenty-four hours.

  The back of the envelope had been sealed with a blob of red wax. There her great-aunt had scribbled another message:

  P.S. Your parents called while you were asleep and insisted on talking to you. I informed them that you were far too busy to bother with idle chatter.

  P.P.S. I’ve gone on a few errands. Please help yourself to anything in the kitchen. Or anything in the house.

  Iris allowed herself a small smile. Aunt Ursula wasn’t all bad.

  It would be best not to speak to her parents straight away. They’d never believe the magic stuff, so she would have to leave all that out. And then what would be left? Rumours about developers? Nosy neighbours?

  Iris tucked the envelope into her jeans, along with the photocopy of her painting. It felt good to have her own reason for being in Spain. She would have to work on the tiger mystery and her original mission at the same time. She wouldn’t be able to avoid her parents’ phone calls forever.

  Spaced around the balcony were eight doors, plus the one to the guestroom. Iris knew what lay behind a few of them—the ballroom, the lounge room, the walk-in wardrobe. That was just the start, though. Four corridors led from the balcony, including the forbidden east wing with rotten floorboards. It was impossible to estimate how many rooms there might be in the mansion.

  Iris finished the doughnut. If the Iris and the Tiger painting was in one of those rooms, she wanted to find it. But the size of the house wasn’t even the biggest problem. She knew not
hing about art. If she were going to find the tiger she would have to understand the painting.

  Iris tried one of the unknown doors.

  It opened onto a library with walls lined with bookshelves, leather armchairs and several lamps. At the far end of the room were wooden cubbies full of masks and musical instruments, paper skeletons and other knick-knacks.

  Iris ran her finger across some book spines. They were dusty, but the library looked used. There was a round indent in the armchair as if someone had sat in it recently, and a stack of magazines piled haphazardly next to it.

  The magazines were old. Iris flicked through one called Harper’s Bazaar, from 1956. There weren’t any photos of celebrities without makeup, or actresses falling out of limos and flashing their undies.

  Instead there were articles about lipstick and setting hair (whatever that meant), and a story about a famous Hollywood actress who married a European prince. At the end of the magazine there were ‘Society’ pages that showed people at fancy parties.

  A photo caught Iris’s eye. Two women stood close together, laughing. The caption read: Women in Art Lunch. Iris and Ursula Freer delight in the elegant surrounds of the Hotel Pierre ballroom.

  Iris Freer was tanned and outdoorsy and easily recognisable from the greyhound and the tiger paintings. The young Aunt Ursula had familiar pale skin and dark hair.

  There were all sorts of other books on the shelves: astrology, gardening, romance novels, woodworking manuals. A shelf of art books contained a slim catalogue with Uncle James’s name on it. The words were in Spanish, but the paintings were full-colour.

  Iris gasped when she found Iris and the Tiger. It looked so different in colour. Iris Freer’s curly hair glowed yellow. The trees were a hundred different shades of blue and purple. In this version, Iris could see that the sea contained shadowy shapes, and one of the trees had an eyeball planted in its trunk.