“I’m not listening to this.” I gathered my things. I was shaking.
“That’s right. Run away. Skulk in your little corner.”
“I’m not running away. I’m going to tell those boys the truth. About who you really are, underneath it all.”
She didn’t have a chance to stop me before I slammed out of the room.
She caught up with me just as I reached the cliff path. I swung round. “Just leave me the fuck alone!” I screamed, but my words were ripped away from me by the wind. Clouds were rolling in, thick and black. I felt a raindrop. “Why can’t you just let me have something for myself?”
I was at the path now. It carved a crevice in the rock to my left. The cliff face yawned to my right. Marcie took a step toward me. She was so close to the edge she disturbed a rock, which bounced all the way down. I thought about warning her, but the words wouldn’t come.
“Because it’s just so easy. You make it so easy to hate you. I know you still like Billy, even after all this time. But do you know what he told me the other day? He said he felt sorry for you. Even though he thinks you’re weird. Even though you’re too intense. He said he could sense yourtortured soul. I told him he was giving you too much credit.”
It happened in the blink of an eye. I didn’t think as I took a step toward her, fury coursing through me. As Marcie took a step back, wanting to put distance between us.
She didn’t have time to cry out.
In a scatter of loose shingle, Marcie was gone.
Twenty-six
Jack’s first messagecomes at the perfect time.How was the rest of your shift? Just went to my first meeting. Feeling better. Thanks again, Iris. Xx
I’ve worked myself into a bit of a state by the point it arrives, Mum’s words reverberating around my brain like a noxious echo, so the message calms me. It proves she was wrong. I want to shove the phone in her face and show her those two kisses. I’d do just that if she was here, but she left the house an hour ago, slamming the door behind her. She doesn’t understand the intricacies of my relationship with Jack. What she sees as a drawback—the dead wife, the lingering sentiment—Iview as an opportunity.
I reread the message.Thanks again, Iris.I love gratitude. That indefinable contract that places him firmly in my debt. It calms me enough to focus on the matter at hand.
I sit in front of the mirror at our small desk and pull out my phone. I’ve saved a few looks that I want to try out with my hair. I googled “librarian,” because that’s what springs to mind whenever I think of Alice. It fits with the cardigan vibe, that slightly sanctimonious air that Iassociate with primary school teachers and other people who might fall under the excruciating category of “do-gooders.” Unfortunately, it turns out that the prevailing hairstyle for librarians is a bob, and I’m just not willing to stoop to that level yet. So I saved some images of librarians with long hair, and now I try a French plait, which only highlights my too-large forehead; a low ponytail that doesn’t look quite as sleek on me as it does on the woman in the photo; and keeping it loose, one side pulled slightly over my face. That one, I can just about cope with, but it doesn’t give off the desired levels of attractiveness. Perhaps I’m barking up the wrong tree with hairstyles.
My phone buzzes with a message. It’s Tilly, Sally’s closest friend—strictly online, of course. Likely whining to Sally about some domestic issue or other, but I’m at a bit of a loose end, so I pick it up anyway. Occasionally—when I’m in a bad mood—I like to fuel discord in her relationship with her husband, just because I can.
Are you there?
Short. To the point. Very unlike her usual rambling messages. I frown and type backYes.
Something awful has happened.
I wait, but there’s no follow-up message. If she’s attempting to build suspense, she’s succeeding at nothing but making me irritated. After five minutes or so, I turn back to the mirror. My smile needs a bit of tweaking: It’s too wide, which adds an unfortunate hint of madness to the whole look. I tone it down, then check my phone again. Nothing.
Downstairs, the door slams. Mum’s home. She must still be in a mood; the house shakes with the impact. She should really learn to get her emotions under control. It’s not an attractive look. Still, I’m keen toprove that her words earlier didn’t affect me, so I skip down the stairs and find her at the kitchen table, cigarette clasped between her fingers.
“Tea? Something stronger?”
She doesn’t reply, but I put the kettle on anyway. I bustle around and make an excellent show of just how fine I am. I take two mugs from the cupboard, sniff the milk. She doesn’t speak, which is not altogether unusual, but there is something about her silence that feels off. Something about the rigidity of her spine, the way the cigarette burns and burns and burns and she doesn’t lift it to her lips.
I strain the tea bags and chuck them in the compost bin. Never let it be said that I don’t care for the environment. It’s only when I turn to face her again, mugs in hand, that I realize something is seriously wrong. She’s got to her feet—silently rising behind me like some hideous monster at the climax of a horror film. My heart stutters. I barely looked at her earlier—better to avoid eye contact if you can help it—but I see now that she’s sodden. It must be raining outside. Her hair hangs in limp strands, dripping onto the linoleum. Mascara bleeds down her face.
“What’s happened?” I ask.
She’s shaking, and at first I think it’s with cold, but then I see her eyes. They stop me in my tracks. Black with fury. Sinister, deranged.
Maybe her new man called things off. History would suggest she doesn’t take well to rejection. Like mother, like daughter. I start toward her, intending to rub the sympathetic circles on her back that worked so well with Hannah, but she rears away from me.
“Don’t you dare touch me,” she says, and it occurs to me that perhaps her anger is not directed at a man at all, but at me. Her face certainly suggests that’s the case. “Were you ever going to tell me?”
“Tell you what?” I’m on the back foot here and I don’t like it.
“Do you know where I’ve been, Iris?”
