“What can I do to help?”
He still won’t look at me. Ineedhim to look at me. I’m putting on the performance of my life, and he’s just staring at that god-awful program. But then his lips become very thin, and I wonder—for a horrible moment—if he is about to shout at me. It is so much worse than that, though. Because his chin starts to wobble.
“She’s gone.” A sloppy slur.
“Who is?” I ask, though I have a good idea, and I don’t particularly like the direction this conversation is headed in.
“Alice. She’s gone. She’s never coming back.”
“Shh,” I say, and I make to pull him toward me. After a brief moment of resistance, he slackens, presses his head into my chest. I really hope he doesn’t get snot on me. This is one of my best jumpers. I croon at him in the way the mother in the café crooned to her child. “I’m here to help, Jack. It’s all going to be all right. I’m here now.”
I stroke his hair—oily after so long without a shower—and keep up a stream of encouraging words and noises. I’m not maternal by nature, but this comes easily to me. I’d do anything for Jack, if he’d only let me.
“Thank you.” His voice is muffled by my jumper, broken with sobs. “Thank you, Iris. I’m sorry for being such a dick. I’m sorry for ignoring you. This…it’s not often you find someone who shows up for you like this. Alice used to be that person for me. I didn’t realize how much I missed it.”
He’s still crying, and I rub slow circles on his shoulder, even as the euphoria spikes. I’m doing it right. I took the initiative, deduced what he needed from me, and I got it right. If that’s not a sign that what we have is special, I’m not sure what is.
“I’ve been so confused. I like you, Iris, and that’s…hard for me. I thought I’d never find anyone else.”
This is going better than I could possibly have hoped. Sometimes, it’s important to change tack. Something Marcie knew all too well. He’s falling for me. He thinks I’m special.Me.
“We’ll find a way to get through this, Jack. Together.”
Although he doesn’t speak, I feel him nod against my chest. We stay like that for a while, until the pattern of his breathing changes. He’s asleep. How lovely, that he feels comfortable enough to fall asleep with me. It’s a singularly vulnerable thing. I loved watching Freddie sleep, sharing the night with him. I inch out from under Jack, then shake him gently.
“Jack,” I say softly. “Come on. I’ll take you to bed.”
It takes some persuasion, but eventually he rises, and I steer him up the stairs. He grunts periodically to direct me through the house, and finally—and not without significant effort on my part—we arrive in the most beautiful bedroom I have ever seen. It’s hard not to compare it with Freddie’s grimy room. The stains on Freddie’s carpet, compared with the plush spotlessness of this. The IKEA bed, compared with this huge antique four-poster. The gaming chair juxtaposed with this ornate dressing table, which feels like a distinctly feminine piece of furniture. My heart rate picks up as I see it. What secrets does it hold?
I lead Jack toward the bed. He’s still stumbling, but he allows me to undress him. It is electrifying, being this close to him. Feeling his breath on my face. I resist the urge to run my hand across his chest.Baby steps.When he is down to his boxers, I pull back the covers and he slips in. He passes out instantly, and I stand and watch him for a while, before leaning down and kissing him tenderly on the forehead. I smooth his hair as a mother would for a sick child, then turn to fold his clothes, which I leave neatly on the chair in the corner. And though he’s fast asleep, I find I don’t feel quite so alone anymore.
I don’t want to risk rummaging through that dressing table while he’s in the room, so I take one last look at him—sleeping peacefully—switch out the lights, then make my way back downstairs.
I couldn’t have planned this better if I tried. His current state meansI have total, unfettered access to his house. A chance to find a picture of Alice at last, since his mother was so unhelpful.
But Alice is remarkably absent from the frames downstairs. I noticed it as soon as I walked into the living room; no sign of her at all. Theremustbe one. A wedding photo at least. But I scour the living room from top to bottom—opening cupboards, eyes resting on an old, antique-looking chest—and find nothing.
I slip through the rest of the house like a shadow. The kitchen, the utility room, the dining room. Nothing. Not one trace of another woman. Which feels…odd. Particularly since Jack is still so caught up by her memory. I even slip back upstairs, open the guest rooms, and poke my head in, but she’s not there. She might as well not have existed at all.
Twenty-four
The café isunusually busy when Jack turns up. I am serving one of our regulars—a brittle, demanding woman with an impressive aptitude for finding fault with everything—when he walks through the door, head bowed, cloaked in shame. The woman seems to sense the instant shift in my priorities: from delivering the limp, greasy bacon sandwich in my hand, to the handsome stranger who has just walked through the door.
“I might not be as attractive as him, love, but there’s no need to make me starve for it.”
Usually, this sort of snippy comment would wrench more of a reaction from me. An accidental spillage as I passed her table, perhaps, or a marginal overcharge that I’d blame on our ancient tills if confronted.
Today, I allow it to wash over me. I’ve soaked up any negative energy this morning with the memory of last night’s success. The intimacy of my encounter with Jack. His intoxicating gratitude. The sense that, finally, we are back on an even footing. That he still thinks—no, wholeheartedly believes—that I’m special.
Mick has noticed my sunnier disposition, too. I beamed at him as I donned my apron this morning, and he’d nodded his appreciation.
“That’s the sort of attitude we’re looking for, Iris,” he’d said.
Now I’m frozen as Jack’s eyes skim the busy tables before landing—finally—on me, plate still clutched in my suddenly sweaty palm.
“Iris,” he croaks. “Can I speak to you?”
He looks terrible: in the place of yesterday’s alcohol flush a nasty, green-tinged pallor, face puffy with overindulgence. Yet, somehow, he’s still the best-looking man I’ve ever laid eyes on, and I feel my own face flush with the memory of how close we were last night. So close our breath mingled as I unbuttoned his shirt. A seminal moment of intimacy that I have returned to again and again in painstaking detail, recalling how his hand landed on my shoulder as I helped him out of his trousers, the warmth and pressure as he squeezed his thanks.
