“Where have you been all these evenings, Iris?” There’s a new intensity to her voice that I do not quite trust.
“Out. I told you.”
“Out where?”
“Do I have to run it past you every time I go out?”
“No, it’s just—” She breaks off. I wonder if she was going to say she worries about me. First time for everything. “Are you seeing someone? I thought I saw a man hovering around outside the house the other night. I wondered if he had anything to do with you.”
I stare at her, wondering if she has gone mad. Not impossible. It’s not healthy, all that curtain twitching. “What are you talking about? What man?”
“I don’t know. He was…hovering. He seemed suspicious.”
She needs to get out more. Everyone seems suspicious to someone whose only interaction with the outside world is a trip to the local Tesco.
“I’m sure everything’s fine, Mum.”
Her voice hardens. “So are you seeing someone or not?”
I weigh my options. On one hand, I don’t want Mum snooping in my affairs. That never ends well for anyone. But it would be nice to show off my new relationship, now things have taken such a significant upswing. Introduce the idea of him slowly, allow her to get used to it. I picture them meeting: Mum couldn’t claim I wasoddif she took in his charm, his class, his obvious adoration of me.
“I am,” I say finally.
“Where did you meet him?” Her voice is tight with some emotion I can’t quite decipher. I don’t like the way she’s looking at me. Like she can see right through me. Right to my core.
“At the group I attend. The bereavement group.”
The other fist clenches now. “That’s tenacious, even for you. Who did he lose?”
I narrow my eyes, smile vanishing. “His wife.”
She huffs a laugh that drips with derision. “That’s going to end well.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about this. Men will do anything to avoid dealing with their emotions in a healthy way. Just look at your father—ran away, met someone new like Marcie didn’t happen. He couldn’t cope. Couldn’t cope with any of it. He forgot what he had at home because that’s where all the issues came from. You’re nothing but a distraction for him, Iris. Regardless of whatever act you’re putting on. If he’s going to a grief group, it’s because he’s still pining for his wife.”
I only realize that I am clenching my fist when my nail slices into my palm. The words niggle like tiny parasites that burrow under my skin. I try to tell myself she’s wrong. That she knows nothing about my relationship with Jack. But I think of the way his voice dipped reverentially when he talked about Alice, his reaction to my comment at the restaurant, and a thread of doubt plaits itself through my euphoria.
Mum must catch my expression, because she gives a nasty laugh. “See? You know it, too. Trust me, Iris. You don’t want to go there. You’ll constantly be trying to live up to the memory of someone who you can’t compete with.” She’s quiet, contemplative. Then, she fixes me with a beady eye. “This is classic you, you know? Always flaunting it for the boys. Obsessed with attention. It was just the same in Cornwall.”
Twenty-five
We left forCornwall in the first week of the summer holidays. Marcie and I packed in silence, fueled by loathing. She kept up the pretense in front of our parents. I did not. Something inside me was broken beyond repair.
Mum and Dad tried to draw us into conversation on the way down. I stared pointedly out the window as Marcie chattered away. I tried to tune her out, particularly when she spoke about Billy.
My parents liked him. She’d invited him over for dinner a couple of weeks before, and I’d absented myself from the table. I had to put up with them groping each other in the school hallways. I shouldn’t have to endure it in my own home as well.
“It’s a shame Iris didn’t join us,” I heard Dad say when I slipped down the stairs for a glass of water after Billy had left.
There was a long pause. “She’s probably jealous,” Mum replied eventually. “She’s always struggled to make friends, let alone get a boyfriend.”
Dad gave a noncommittal grunt. “Must be hard for her,” he said. “To see Marcie so happy.”
“Well, she’s not exactly hiding her mood, is she?”
Mum was right. I couldn’t hide it. The darkness that enveloped me as I watched Marcie hand over my drawing had prevailed. I was no longer amenable. I found issue with everything.
