Chapter Twenty-Two
Twenty-two
I wait until the very last minute to make my entrance.
Once everyone’s seated. Settled. Through the small window in the door, I watch Fiona checking the clock.
No doubt wondering where I am. Matt shifts uncomfortably.
He’s looking worse this week: pale and drawn.
Hannah—as always—has her hands folded in her lap and is staring straight ahead.
Charlie looks as though he might be contemplating running into the road.
Rita’s wearing too much makeup, but it is, once again, in vain.
Jack’s not here. That’s OK: I didn’t expect him to be, and, honestly, if this is going to work, it’s better he’s not.
These people, whether they know it or not, are my guinea pigs.
I fix a wide, open smile to my face and push through the door.
“I’m so sorry I’m a bit late,” I say, and I make my voice softer.
I hoick my tote bag—another improvisation—up onto my shoulder and cross the room.
It’s filled with things I may need tonight: tissues, tampons, paracetamol.
I hold an apologetic hand up in the air to Fiona.
“Sorry, Fiona. It won’t happen again.”
She looks taken aback. Good. I’m going for different, and so far—judging by the shocked expressions around the room—it’s working.
“It’s all right, Iris,” she says, frowning, trying to collect herself. “Just try and be here five minutes before the start next time.”
“Of course,” I say, nodding hard. “Absolutely. I just lost track of time. I can be such a scatterbrain sometimes.” I release a girlish giggle that seems to derail Fiona once more.
“Right. Well then. Let’s get started, shall we?
” She casts one final look toward Jack’s empty chair and begins.
We run through the usuals: how this week has been (I tell them I’ve taken up baking sourdough—“it’s so therapeutic”), whether anyone has anything to build on from last week (for this, I take a deep breath: “I think I’ve come to realize that I need to have a different outlook: I should be grateful for the relationship Freddie and I had; any other bumps weren’t reflective of the love we shared”), before Fiona opens the floor.
Hannah sticks her hand in the air. It trembles slightly: She doesn’t like being in the limelight, but she comes every week without fail. I could do with taking a few leaves out of her book, to be honest. She strikes me as the sort of character I could put to use: inoffensive, kind, meek.
She starts tremulously. “I found a box of photos from when I was younger this week. And it just hit me. That I’m never going to see her again. It’s all my fault.”
This statement isn’t entirely untrue. She bears the responsibility, even if she wasn’t driving the car that killed her mother.
They were very close, had the sort of mother-daughter relationship that I’ve always half coveted, half feared.
The sort of relationship where you tell each other everything.
Hannah’s father was not on the scene, which only drew them further together.
Alas, it wasn’t a relationship destined to last. Because with that level of closeness there comes a certain degree of expectation.
And when—on the morning of the interview for the job Hannah was desperate for—her mother didn’t ring to wish her good luck, Hannah threw her toys out of the pram.
“I can’t stop going over it. If I hadn’t called her that day—if I hadn’t got so angry—she wouldn’t have been in the car to come and apologize. If she hadn’t been thinking about me, maybe she would have been more focused on the road.”
She gives a loud sniffle, and I reach into my bag for the tissues. I lean over and hand her one.
“You’re doing really well, Hannah,” I say, keeping my voice low and earnest. “When I lost my father, I felt exactly the same. Well, not exactly the same, but I know what you’re going through.”
These sorts of questions are something we must all grapple with.
The dreaded “what-ifs.” What if Freddie had simply stayed in the office a bit later the night he died, rather than running out?
Could I have saved him, if I’d held him back to ask just one question?
Was he still thinking about our argument when the lorry slammed into him?
Perhaps. Perhaps not. It doesn’t do to dwell on these things.
I rest a sympathetic hand on Hannah’s back and rub slow circles.
I don’t like touching someone I don’t know—particularly when I have no idea where she’s been—but I grit my teeth and hope my face doesn’t betray my discomfort.
She’s one of the least offensive people here, luckily.
If it was Fiona or Matt, it would be a different story.
Fiona is watching my hand with a furrowed brow. Like she can’t make sense of it. I ignore her. Hannah gives a delicate little hiccup that I quite like. I log it for later.
I’ve been logging a lot of things for later, since Catherine replied to my message. It came through in a chaotic flurry two agonizing days after I sent mine.
You are so sweet to get in touch, darling. What a lovely idea. I’m afraid I’m terrible with my phone. I can’t figure out how to send you any photos.
I’ve never been able to do it. Such a pain!
I can send you some thoughts, if you’d like?
Such a darling girl.
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 appreciate you, 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.