Kindest of all regards,
Iris
Dear Gulliver,
Thank you for the postcard and letting me know you’d like Ivy’s box of tricks. That’s how I’ve been thinking of it. While I waited to hear back from you I added more to it, some things from when she was growing up and some trinkets from when she lived in New Orleans during her wildest years. This letter should be in the box.
I’ve been thinking of what I’d write in this letter while going through more of her belongings from her apartment. The lease is up next month and I can’t extend it for another six months. That was fine to do last time as I couldn’t even bear the thought of going through her things, but now it’s time.
I don’t want to do this, because every item of clothing I put into a bag for the charity shop, every old stuffed toy that she kept because she could never bear to throw them away that I work out how to store at my house further underlines that she isn’t coming home.
There are days when it feels like my world has ended, only if she had a way of communicating with me now she’d tell me not to be so stupid.
I found postcards from her from Puffin Bay. She sent a couple each week, so it was fun to see that the postcard you’d sent me was the same as one she’d chosen – one of the lifeboat station on a night when the skies were lit with purples and blues from the bioluminescent plankton. I’d had to look it up when she told me, thinking it was another one of her tall tales. Instead, I’d found it was true.
I’ve put the postcards in here. I would like them back at some point, when you’re done with them, as they’re a snippet from part of her life I wasn’t fully aware of. When Ivy was in Puffin Bay with you, I was in Australia working on a six-month contract. She’d been thinking about coming out to stay with me if the contract was extended. Obviously, that never happened.
She told me about you being a twin, and how you and Rowan were completely identical. She found it fascinating that you were so different in so many ways, but you didn’t realise how similar you are too. She wrote to me about Finn, and I think she had a bit of a crush on him, but he only had eyes for Ruby, which I think she sussed out from the first time she saw them together.
She told me about the money behind the bar, that she’d send money to Amelie each month to pay the bar tabs for those who might struggle to make ends meet. It wasn’t the first time she’d done things like this – it was her way of doing something good. Ivy had the same thing set up at a pet shop to help people pay for food and litter for pet owners who were struggling. She did the same thing with a local food store and I knew she regularly sent food shops to a food bank in a part of Manchester she’d once lived for a few months when she was a student.
My sister was a good person. She was the best of our parents, with a sprinkling of wildness, like the plant she was named after.
She just couldn’t be tamed.
I remember when she’d first met you, years ago. She phoned me that night to tell me about this man she’d met. He was too good looking for his own good, that was what she’d said. She told me about how you’d stood up to do a reading from your book that was about to be released, and there was a buzz in the room that she said reminded her of Christmas Eve. Apparently there were people in there who were far more dressed up than they needed to be for such an event, women and some men who were obviously trying to get your attention.
Ivy was kind of jealous about all the attention you received, people gushing over even just the extracts that you read out.
She’d been sent an early copy and asked for a quote for the blurb. She’d liked the story, that wasn’t a problem, but she wasn’t sure she liked you.
Until you spoke to her. I don’t think you knew who she was, or she thought you were just being really rude at first, but then I think you’d met on a quiet corridor that led away from the buffet that’d been laid on and towards one of the bars that wasn’t being used. I think you’d told her how much you always hated the start of those events, and she’d realised that you were nervous, only you didn’t want to admit it, even to yourself.
Maybe she read you wrong and you weren’t nervous at all. But she liked you. There was something she saw in you that made her smile more and laugh. All the times she talked about you were filled with smiles, even if she only heard them in your voice.
There’s another manuscript I’ve discovered on an old laptop. For some reason she didn’t save it online – I don’t know why. It’s a standalone psychological thriller and it’s really good. I know you’ve accepted the request to be one of the trustees of her literary estate, which I’m grateful for. There are more works of hers that haven’t been published, and I’m not sure if she’d want them all to see the light of day. I know you have no interest – financially – in her works, but you have in her memory and you’ll make sure that only what she would have wanted will be shared publicly. Thank you for that. It’s hugely appreciated.
I read the interview in one of the papers last week that you did. In fact, I’ve read it more times than I’ve counted. What you said about the influence she’d had on you and how she’d made you a better writer was great to read. What you said about her as a person was even better.
We have the coroner’s inquest approaching and I feel sick about it. There are so many questions about the night she died, and I’m not sure we’ll ever have any of the answers. One day I think that she probably left before the storm started, too high on having finished her book to realise what the weather was about to do, and taking her motorbike out was a bad idea. The nextday I wonder whether she was being Ivy and a daredevil and she wanted to be Icarus and see how high she could fly without getting burned.
We were told it was.I was told it was quick. I forgot now that there’s no we. Our dad doesn’t recognise anyone anymore, his dementia has been quick and aggressive. Our mother is still in America and her health is not good. She’s drinking and self-medicating and doesn’t want to speak to me because I remind her of Ivy and of other things – being young maybe.
She hit her head hard and wouldn’t have known anything after that. She wouldn’t have known what would come next. She wouldn’t have wanted what came next – to leave me and you like this. And my certainty around this isn’t borne of wishful thinking.
It’s from knowing her.
I know I’ll see you at the Coroner’s Court. I hope you enjoy the memories these items I’ve sent bring and maybe the questions they make you think.
Bestest of days,
Iris
Seven months after Ivy’s Funeral.
Dear Iris,
I’m sorry I didn’t reply to your letters sooner. In truth, I found them hard to read. My family worries: my brothers keep at least three eyes between them on me at all times and some days I’ve had to hide behind a smile. I read your letters in sentences. One or two sentences at a time because thinking about Ivy is hard.
