When I have finished cleaning, I turn my attention to the recipe cards. There must be at least fifty here, and some—crucially—bear helpful tips about Jack’s predilections.
J likes this med. rare
J prefers this with brown rice
J LOVES this. Cook more often?
It’s disgustingly thoughtful. But, if cooking was Alice’s love language, then it’s going to have to be mine as well. Dinner last night was a good starting point, but I cannot simply stick with stews for the rest of our courting period. This time, I’m going to attempt meat, and pudding as well.
Jack keeps up a steady stream of messages all day, evidently feeling guilty for his behavior this morning. I stop what I’m doing each time to reply to him, but it does rather interrupt my flow. I remind myself that it’s sweet he’s so interested in me. That not three days ago, I would have been thrilled at the constant contact.
Have you spoken to your mother?
I sigh when I read it. I wish he’d stop asking about her. His concern is touching, but every time he mentions her I remember her anger. The way her face twisted with something that looked almost like hatred.
But family is important, so I reply that I haven’t. That I’m planning to reach out in the next few days. Then, to divert his attention from things I’d rather not dwell on:Did you mention there was a key somewhere in the kitchen?
The reply comes instantly.Why? Do you need something? I can get it delivered? Don’t want you to have to trek outside when you should be looking after yourself!
A tiny prickle of irritation. This is not the response I was looking for. I type backIt’s OK! I could do with the walk…
I wait, leg jigging, for half an hour, but my phone screen remains black and it is with resignation that I navigate to a delivery app and order duck breasts (the centerpiece for a recipeJsupposedly loves) and cake mix. I don’t feel that confident in my meat cookery, but I like the precision of baking. If you follow the recipe to the letter, nine times out of ten it’s going to turn out all right.
When they arrive, I unpack the groceries on the counter and get to work. I marinate the duck breast, trying to touch the meat as little as possible. That slimy cool of flesh against my fingers turns my stomach. I mix the ingredients for the cake, pour the batter into a tin, and put it in the oven to cook.
I’m prepared by the time I hear the door slam. The cake has turned out well. Beautifully risen with a nice golden crust. All that’s left is to pan-fry the duck when Jack is ready to eat. I’ve put on Alice’s apron and, as a final little touch, smeared my cheek with flour. It’s the sort of sickeningly twee imperfection that I imagine made Alice so desirable.
But it’s not Jack who enters the kitchen. I turn at the sound of the door, then freeze. The woman who enters is tall, middle-aged, and austere. She has a haughty stare, the straight back of the English upperclasses that probably goes some way to explaining the stick-up-the-arse idiom. I recognize her instantly. It’s Jack’s mother, Catherine. When she sees me, she stops dead.
“Who are you?” The clipped, irritated tone is not lost on me.
I am ill-prepared for this stumbling block. This outfit—the apron, the flour—was not intended for a female gaze. Women are always so much better at seeing through a facade than men, who often only see what they want to. It’s why Mum is always so difficult to dupe. I swipe at the flour on my cheek, but I can see from the way her perfectly plucked eyebrow lifts an inch that she has clocked the action. The apron will have to stay.
Never mind. I’ll just have to make the best of it. I stride forward, wiping my hands, and take her thin, icy cold fingers in mine.
“I’m Iris. So lovely to meet you.” I find myself mirroring her accent. Posh, lengthening my vowels, snipping the consonants. I’ve not had a lot of experience with people of this social stature, but I do know that—for them—like calls to like.
“Has Jack hired a cook?”
I feel my jaw set. Clearly, the accent needs work. “No. I’m a…” I sense that I perhaps shouldnotreveal the true nature of my relationship with Jack—not that I don’t want to, but because Catherine could cause problems for us later down the line. She clearly remains a significant force in his life, and I’ll need to get her onside. “Friend of Jack’s. We met at the grief group. And you must be his mum. You look so similar!”
The charm offensive seems to work. Or, at the very least, to assuage her suspicions, because her shoulders drop. “How is he? I haven’t heard from him in two days.”
There’s a chip of anxiety in her voice that I intend to exploit. I touch her lightly on the arm—to show that I’m not a threat, that I’m just as concerned for his well-being as she is. I lower my voice. “Between you and me, I don’t think he’s doing that well,” I say. “I suspect that he’s drinking again, to be perfectly frank.”
She closes her eyes briefly, looking pained. “I knew it,” she says. “He always goes off-grid when he drinks. It was just like this with Alice. We had to send him to rehab, you know. After Alice went into remission and she didn’t need him so much anymore.”
I drop the act instantly, hands falling to my sides. “Remission?”
The word sticks in my throat. Remission is something Matt used to mention frequently, first with a hopeful inflection to his voice, and then, as the weeks passed, with increasing despondency. Finally, he stopped alluding to it at all. And yet I’m sure Jack said Alicediedof cancer. She could have developed it again, but he’s never mentioned anything about remission.
There is no time to probe further, however, because a distant echo in the hallway indicates that the man himself has come home. I check the clock on the wall. He’s late. Nearly forty-five minutes late.
He comes straight through to the kitchen, and I stare at him, open-mouthed. I can’t help it. He looks awful. Worse, somehow, than he did this morning. Rumpled and creased, gray-faced, years older. And there is something about his eyes: something wild and panicked. Like a deer that has spotted the rifle aimed at its heart.
He stops dead when he sees us and doesn’t speak for a moment, like he is trying to recalibrate. Seconds pass, and all he does is stare, that wild look still in his eye. I wonder if something happened to him on his commute home, and I’m about to ask, when, with visible effort, he seems to gather himself. He clears his throat.
“What are you doing here?” he barks at his mother, who shrinks next to me.
