*
Ash parks in the street where the Rowlands live shortly before midnight. He’s careful to park a few metres away from the streetlamp, but in a space where he has a clear view of the house. He slumps down in his seat, feeling like a burglar casing out a house. He can hear the music from here, feel the vibrations of the bass. He doesn’t envy the neighbours.
This is a stupid idea. You’re being a bloody idiot. You need to get a life, Ash!No one – not even Carla – has ever dared to talk to Ash the way he talks to himself. Whatishe doing here? He had a bad feeling and couldn’t spend another second sprawled on the sofa, binge-watching some mind-numbing series on Netflix and twiddling his thumbs. He contemplates driving home, but he’d check the time on his phone every other minute until it was late enough to come back and pick up Iris, so there’s no point. He’ll just sit here for the next hour or so.
Last year, when Olly and Liv were about to turn seventeen, Olly had asked Ash if he could hold a joint birthday party at Ash’s place. Ash hadn’t been keen. He’d heard all sorts of stories from his mates about disastrous parties – teenagers being sick all over the place, passing out from drinking too much alcohol, having sex in just about every free room in the house. A couple he and Carla knew had been called home from the restaurant because some drunk kid at a party at their house had fallen down the stairs and their son had had to call the ambulance. Against his better judgement, Ash had said yes. It was his son’s birthday, after all.
To say Carla wasn’t pleased would be putting it mildly. She was as worried as Ash about all the things that could go wrong. In the end, Olly’s girlfriend saved the day by suggesting a weekend trip to Disneyland Paris instead. Her parents had come up with the idea and they’d offered to take them. Olly was about to turn seventeen, but he wasn’t too old for Mickey Mouse, it seemed. Ash and Carla had gladly shelled out the money for Olly’s train and Eurostar tickets, a two-day ticket to the theme park and a hotel room for two nights at the Disneyland hotel.
Movement on the other side of the road snaps Ash back to the present.
‘Shit!’ he whispers to himself, slouching further into his seat as two teenage boys pass by on the pavement opposite.
They pause, looking directly at his car, and he thinks he has been rumbled. For a few seconds, he keeps still and low, but then he sneaks a peek. No, they haven’t clocked him. They’re no longer looking this way, but he can see their faces, illuminated by the dim street light. With a jolt, he realizes he knows them. His heart flounces about in his ribcage as he waits for them to cross the road and knock on his window or give him the finger or something.Get a grip, he tells himself. He’ll say he has come to pick up Iris if they ask. Not that it’s any of their business what he’s doing here. What aretheydoing here? There’s no way Millie would have invited them to her eighteenth. Or to her house at all, for that matter.
The two boys walk around the corner and sit on the low wall in front of the Rowlands’ house. Both of them take something out of their pockets. Small objects. He squints, but he can’t make out what they’re doing from here. He wishes he’d brought a pair of binoculars and immediately feels ridiculous for having that thought. It’s not like he’s a private investigator. He has come here to make sure Iris is OK, not that it’s really possible to check up on her through a closed front door. A flame from a lighter tells him what he wants to know. They’re skinning up. He observes the kids as they roll their joint and smoke it.
The front door opens and a group of girls – four of them – come out. Millie is among them. The boys whirl round. Then they get up and walk toward the girls. Ash cracks open the window, but can’t make out their conversation. He’s ready to leap out of the car if there’s any trouble, although Iris will no doubt be mortified if he does that. It looks as if the boys are offering the girls something. Cigarettes? Weed? Millie shakes her head. The girl to her right gives them the finger.
Both boys turn tail and walk away, down the driveway and through the gate. The older of the two boys drops the roach on the pavement and stamps on it. Then, finally, they piss off. Ash lets out a sigh of relief. He waits while the girls smoke their cigarettes. Do Jo and Roly know Millie smokes? He’d be surprised. Jo has been on at Roly for years to stop. She definitely wouldn’t be happy about her daughter starting. Not that Ash would ever say anything to them. He’s glad Iris and Olly don’t smoke. As far as he knows. He suspects Olly smokes the odd joint, though. He’s sneaked into the house – Ash’s place, not Carla’s – with bloodshot eyes, the giggles and the munchies after an evening out once or twice. Ash can hardly tell him off. He did the same thing when he was his son’s age.
The girls finish their fags and stub them out. Unlike the boys, who left the roach of their joint in the street, they take their cigarette butts back into the house. The music blares out through the front door when Millie opens it, then suddenly becomes quieter and more muffled as the girls close it behind them.
Ash looks all around him. He’s not aware that he’s formed a plan until he catches himself executing it. He takes a sterile, plastic glove out of the small first-aid kit under the passenger’s seat. He looks all around him and checks his mirrors before getting out of the car and darting across the road. He picks up the roach with his gloved hand, then races back to his car. The whole thing takes him less than a minute. Then he starts up the engine to drive home.
Chapter 9
Iris
THEN
After a while, the highs became fewer and further between. Perhaps this was normal in a long-term relationship, just like Josh said. Iris wouldn’t know. She’d never been in one. Had Josh changed or had she just got to know him better? She got the impression there was a fake Josh and a real Josh, but she couldn’t work out which was which. Was the real Josh the person who had shown her so much love in the beginning? The one who had showered her with praise and presents? Or was he showing his true nature when he sulked and put her down and fobbed her off and blamed her for stuff and called her names? Either way, would she ever get the perfect guy she’d known in the beginning back? The guy she’d fallen in love with? Would she ever experience something as great as that first high again?
They were together ‘for better and for worse’, Josh would say, like they’d taken actual wedding vows. Well, things had definitely got worse. At the start of their relationship, he’d been so caring. Maybe he didn’t love her as much anymore. Perhaps these ‘teething problems’, Josh kept talking about, were as much her fault as his. Hell, maybe they were all her fault. She was probably the one who was fucking this up. She was the one who wasn’t good enough for him. She would have to do better. He was going off her. She felt like the spotlight he used to shine on her had dimmed and everything she did suffered as a result, like she couldn’t achieve anything without his attention. She didn’t feel like running, or even playing the violin, without his encouragement, which he seemed to be withholding.
He wasn’t big on support anymore either. Now, when Iris had a bad day, she couldn’t turn to him for comfort because his day had always been worse. When things were going smoothly, something always went wrong – Josh had a problem at home / at school that he was struggling to deal with; someone (else) in his family died; he’d been wrongly accused by one of his teachers / parents / friends of doing something unthinkable; he had an injury and was depressed because he couldn’t go running; one of his brothers / his mother was ill and it might be really serious; his dad was being a total dick and didn’t understand him like Iris did. Josh seemed to thrive on drama.
Why did she put up with it for so long? Why the fuck didn’t she dump him sooner? Iris still asks herself these questions now. At the time, she couldn’t have answered that, but now, thanks to hindsight and therapy, she thinks she has worked out some of the answers.
One of the reasons she didn’t break up with him was guilt. Josh would tell her how insecure he was and how she made him feel whole. Plus, he’d had a whole load of ‘issues’ before her – anxiety and insomnia and stuff. And he was terrified that his anxiety would return and he’d be really ill if they ever split up.
‘You’re the only good thing in my life,’ he used to say. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’ He’d said it over and over again.
Iris also stayed because she didn’t have many – any? – friends anymore. Other than Millie, she only ever hung out with Josh. What would she do without him? In a way, she needed Josh as much as he needed her.
She was also scared of what he might do to her if she did split up with him. Would he tell everyone in school her secrets? Or would he tell them lies about her? Would he get everyone to ignore her or be mean to her? He was that sort of person. Unforgiving.
And she loved him. Or thought she did. Despite everything. He’d hurt her so many times, but he was trying his hardest to do better.
There was never really any last straw. So it took a while, but Iris eventually came to the conclusion that their relationship had become toxic and no matter whose fault it was, this had to stop. She didn’t feel like herself anymore, she didn’t even like herself. It was like her identity was tied to his. She could barely remember who she was before she started going out with Josh, but she’d been happier back then than she was now; that much was certain.
The first timeshedumpedhim, he sent her links to a bunch of songs and even a playlist he’d made on Spotify. He was, Iris guessed, using someone else’s lyrics to express what he wanted to say. She didn’t reply, but felt bad about it, like she’d sunk to his level now she was the one ignoring him. Then he sent her a really long email, listing all the reasons he loved her. It was really moving. It made her cry. Iris caved in and wrote back. And before she knew it, they were back together again. There followed another honeymoon period, but much shorter than the first. And then they were back on the rollercoaster.
The second time she tried to split up with Josh, he wrote her another email, begging her for one last chance and saying he couldn’t live without her and he was having dark thoughts. Suicidal thoughts.
Iris had given him lots of last chances during their relationship. Also, she wasn’t sure she totally believed him – she no longer believed a lot of what he said – but there was no way she could take that risk. What if Josh harmed himself? How could she think of ending the relationship if he was thinking of ending his life? If he decided he couldn’t live without her, would she be able to live with herself?
She was trapped.
