I sat up, heart hammering. I replied,That’s OK. Do just send them through if you figure it out. And yes—any thoughts/memories would be much appreciated.
There was a long pause. Then three dots appeared at the bottom of the screen. I held my breath. After an agonizing few minutes, when I pictured her with her glasses perched on the tip of her nose, stabbing at the screen with one finger, it appeared.
Well, I suppose my prevailing memories of Alice are all in the run-up to the wedding. We got to know her so well over that period: As you’re aware, it was at our house in Dorset, and she spent a lot of time with us. Most people would be frantic leading up to the wedding. I know I was for mine. But she just had this manner about her. Like nothing fazed her. As you know, she was the sweetest, kindest girl. She’d have done anything for anyone. She had this quiet way about her. The night before the wedding, I was unbelievably stressed. And she just came up—the night before her wedding!—and asked if she could do anything for me. If there was anything she could help with to take the pressure off. I told her no, of course. But I can’t tell you how much I appreciated it. I appreciated so much she did. She really helped Jack to get it together. She was always such a GIVER. She loved to cook. Said it was her love language. I was heartbroken when she died, after the battle with cancer, too. There aren’t many truly good people in the world, but she was one of them. Does that help?
Well, as you can imagine, I was not thrilled by this. All this time, I’d been posturing as someone flirtatious. Someone confident and loud.Someone like Marcie. But Marcie was nothing like the person Catherine was describing at all.
It gave me something to work with. For that, I was grateful. And work I did. I didn’t bother replying to Catherine’s message. I’d got what I needed from her, and, unless she deigned to send some photos through—something I could model myself on—she was no longer useful. I closed my laptop and began to plan.
At the café the next day, I watched. I watched people come and go. I watched a woman tenderly stroking her boyfriend’s cheek, her expression filled with such love, such warmth, that I filed it away. I watched a mother gently explain to her toddler why he could not go to the park. I liked her soft, low voice. How calming it was. I watched a girl reach into her bag and fish out a tampon to give to her friend. I absorbed all these niceties, these acts of kindness, and I knew what I had to do. I might not have Alice’s photograph, but I could channel her personality.
I tried it with Mick first. I took him aside at the end of my shift and apologized profusely for my behavior the other day. “It wasn’t like me,” I’d said, smiling widely—openly—at him. “It won’t happen again. I appreciate you, Mick, and everything you’ve done for me.”
His eyes had widened. I watched him soften in real time. It was electric.
“I appreciateyou, Iris. We all have bad days, don’t worry.”
It was tiring. I couldn’t keep it up all the time. Not with Mum, who was flittering about the house like some irritating songbird after I broke the news of Dad’s impending divorce—but I have honed it over the last week wherever possible. This—the group—was the final test.
I sit up on my chair and remove my hand from Hannah’s back.
My next stop is Jack’s house.
Twenty-three
There is nosign of life on my approach. No twitch of the curtain—still drawn firmly across the window. No flicker of movement within. A distant scream of a siren, before it fades. The night is still. Perfect.
I reach for the large brass knocker on the door, and, for a second, I falter. It doesn’t happen very often, but I am horribly aware of what rides on this. This is my moment. My make or break. I will have to put on the performance of a lifetime. I check my posture one more time, rounding my shoulders so I look weaker, more innocent, unthreatening.
The knocker booms inside the house. I can hear it echo and, out here, it cuts through the air like a gunshot. Silence. No rustle, no hurried footsteps. I try again, harder this time. If he’s there—which I suspect, due to the slice of light I saw through the curtains, he is—I will make him come to the door. I won’t wait any longer.
The sound echoes again. Three hard, efficient raps, which don’t really fit with this new skin I’ve slipped on, but desperate times and all that.
This time, I think I hear a noise. A quiet click—a door perhaps. I recheck my posture, pull my brows together in an expression of deepest concern, clasp my hands anxiously in front of me. Footsteps. I’m sure of it. The sound of a chain being pulled back.
And then, there he is. Right in front of me, as though no time has passed at all. Except it has. And it shows on Jack’s face.
If he looked haggard the first time I saw him at the group, it’s nothing on this. He looks as though he hasn’t slept in a week. There are bulging purple bags under his eyes, deep lines etched across his forehead. For a moment, I forget the act altogether. I simply stare at him, open-mouthed.
A split second where he only blinks, as though he does not—cannot—register that I am here. On his doorstep. And then we both come back to ourselves and start to speak at once.
“I’ve been so worried—”
“Iris? What’re you doing here?”
We break off. I allow the silence to stretch. Allow him to register my presence properly. His eyes are glassy. Unfocused. I ignore this. I look up at him through my lashes: not as I used to, which was brazen and unapologetic, but with a pretty innocence that I borrowed from the woman at the café. It worked so well, the way she did it. Her boyfriend’s pupils dilated as she looked up at him. He’d pulled her into him, pressed a kiss to her forehead.
It doesn’t have the same effect on Jack, who looks at me blankly, like he can’t understand what I’m doing here.
“I’ve been so worried,” I say again, in that breathy, high voice. “You didn’t come to the group tonight. Or last week. And I just—I wanted to apologize in person.”
“How did you get my address?” I foresaw this question. An understandable one, given we never quite got past the dinner date stage.
“Well,” I say slowly,slightlyapologetically. Sweetly embarrassed. It’sa welcome change from Marcie’s audaciousness.Thisnew personality opens a whole new world of possibility. “I actually looked in the signing-out book. I—when you didn’t come. People at the group are vulnerable. And I just…worried about you.”
“I’m fine,” he says gruffly. Doesn’t question the fact that he didn’t put his address in the signing-out book at all, though I doubt he’s in a state to question anything at the moment. He smells, strongly, of alcohol, and his lips are stained red with wine. Tonight, that works in my favor.
I sense an opportunity. It was, after all, following a long night of drinking that Freddie kissed me for the first time.
