Chapter 35 Iris
Iris
THEN
Iris would look back on events, like the Pink concert or Josh’s eighteenth birthday party or Millie’s end-of-term party or the local round of the Cross-Country Schools’ Cup.
She could remember she and Josh weren’t on speaking terms for these occasions.
But, for the life of her, she couldn’t remember why.
It was like there was like there was a loose connection in her brain.
Was there something wrong with her? Was she too young to get early onset dementia?
She got totally paranoid about her memory.
It had become unreliable. Even when she and Josh were together, her memory seemed untrustworthy, especially when they made up after their rows.
Her interpretation of what had happened was often so different from Josh’s version of events.
Like she’d misremembered it all. Then, once they’d split up, there were things Iris realized she’d completely forgotten.
Things that Josh had tried to sweep under the carpet that she’d simply erased from her mind.
Trauma-induced memory loss, Melanie called it.
But the memories started to resurface. Gradually and in fragments; hazy and unpleasant.
She’d hear a song or smell something – food or a perfume – or someone would say something, and she’d be reminded of something she’d conveniently forgotten while they were in a relationship.
Iris wrote down all the memories so she wouldn’t forget them again.
A lot of what Iris remembered was petty, so childish that to begin with, she thought she must be reading things into the situation that weren’t there.
She recalled one Saturday, for example, when she’d had too much homework to hang out with Josh and he didn’t reply to any of her messages all weekend.
She’d been convinced he was ignoring her, punishing her, until the Monday morning at school, when he told her he’d dropped his phone in the toilet and had to dry it out in a bowl of rice.
Then there was the time Mum had taken her all the way to the cinema in Barnstaple the day after she’d defended one of Josh’s little brothers – jokingly – against Josh’s jibes.
Josh was supposed to meet her there. She waited for over an hour – the film was well underway – but Josh was a no-show.
He was supposed to drive her home. She had to ring Mum to come back and pick her up.
Josh – when she finally managed to get hold of him – told her she’d got the wrong day.
Josh had a great excuse or plausible explanation every time.
He was so convincing that Iris ended up doubting herself.
But she always gave him the benefit of the doubt.
It was only when Iris considered all the recollections together, instead of individually, that she began to see clearly.
She began to see through him. Things that were obscure before suddenly seemed obvious in hindsight.
What made her finally doubt him instead of herself was the image she had of him in her head.
When she’d defended his brothers. When she’d told him on FaceTime she had too much homework.
And on so many other occasions. Always the same expression.
His eyes refusing to meet hers, his lips pursed in a thin line, his jaw set in a determined look.
Like he was struggling to keep calm and hide the anger festering inside him like an infected wound.
Like he was thinking: you’ll pay for that.
After Josh died, the memories resurfaced more quickly and more clearly.
They burst into Iris’s head, assaulting her, when she least expected it – when she was reading a book or taking a shower or watching TV or eating dinner.
Some of these memories were more serious, more traumatic.
Like the time he threw a glass at her in the kitchen at Hilltop House.
He missed – afterwards, he said he’d missed deliberately – but the glass shattered against the wall behind her and a tiny shard embedded itself in her neck, just below her ear.
Or like the time he’d belittled her music tastes in front of his schoolfriends, saying she was an intellectual who only liked classical music and rolling his eyes.
‘It was a joke,’ he insisted later. ‘My mates laughed, didn’t they? Oh, babe. You shouldn’t be so sensitive. You should learn to take a joke. You need to chill.’
It hadn’t been funny; it had been humiliating and hurtful, but Iris resolved to chill.
She remembered good things, too, but viewed them through a different lens now that he was gone, so that the past came to mean something completely different in the present.
Like all the gifts he bought her. T-shirts she didn’t really like, and that were too small, but that she wore to make him happy.
Or that damn necklace he gave her after she had sex with him for the first time.
Or like all the attention he would lavish on her or the text messages, the way he would blow up her phone with texts and voice messages when she was busy or with her family.
She’d thought the gifts and the attention were loving at the time, sweet, even if it was over the top.
She thought it showed he cared about her and was thinking about her.
But after they split up, she wondered how much of it was manipulative.
And after his death, she wondered if Josh had ever acted innocently or lovingly, or if every single thing he’d ever done had been calculated.
Iris thought Josh’s death might bring some relief.
Josh could no longer hurt her – or anyone else.
She expected some form of closure, but it didn’t come.
She’d seen his dead body, but he was very much alive in her head, in every memory that came back to her.
She could still hear his voice. He haunted her, night and day.
‘How do you feel?’ Melanie had asked during their first session after he’d been killed.
Iris suppressed a laugh. It was, like, such a cliché, a therapist asking that question. She didn’t know what to say.
‘It’s normal to feel happy, or even euphoric, after the death of an abuser,’ Melanie continued. ‘On the other hand, maybe you feel sad. Perhaps you’re grieving. After all, Josh showed you his best sides before you saw the worst in him. It’s completely normal if you feel sad, too.’
Iris shrugged. She didn’t feel happy or sad. She didn’t really know what she felt about Josh’s death. A bit shocked. Sort of numb. Guilty. And scared. But she didn’t want to talk about it.
It wasn’t just memories that came flooding back after Josh’s death.
Iris’s self-confidence began to return, too.
She hadn’t realized he’d chipped away at her confidence until she had none left.
She came to think of him as a predator. He’d sucked all the goodness out of her, like a vampire sucking blood to survive.
She’d become weak and he’d become strong.
Now he was gone, she felt gradually stronger, like the worst was finally behind her.
Sometime after he died, Iris played the violin for the first time in ages.
Uplifting songs. Some Lindsey Stirling covers.
She hit a lot of wrong notes, but it felt good.
Why hadn’t she played for so long? She could hardly blame that on Josh.
He wasn’t musical; he liked hip-hop, rap, some rock, but he was tone-deaf.
She’d been playing the violin since she was little.
She’d taken Grade 8 and got a distinction way before she knew him.
But he’d come to school concerts that she played in, listened, rapt, to her practising and eventually it was like she needed his validation to perform.
Iris also went for a run. Across Exmoor.
It was exhilarating. Liberating. Running was another activity she’d stopped doing.
She didn’t really know why. Maybe because she associated running with him; it was something she’d done with him.
And, like the violin, Josh had become so involved with her running that she was lost without his input.
She would never run again in Lower Buryknoll Wood, that was for sure; she’d probably never set foot in those woods again.
But she vowed to start running regularly again.
And she would play the violin again, too.
She might not be able to set up the website now Josh was dead, but she could take up the hobbies she’d dropped.
The things she was passionate about. The things that made her who she was.
The day she passed her driving test, Iris bumped into Sasha Spencer-Lyles.
It was in town, in the high street. They could have just smiled, or even ignored each other, and carried on walking, but Sasha stopped, so Iris felt she had to.
For a couple of seconds, Iris stood there while Sasha stared at the ground. Awkward.
Iris and Sasha had only talked, like, once. It was before Josh had leaked that video of her. Iris thought about that as she stood there, hoping she didn’t look impatient while she waited for Sasha to speak, or hit her, or something.
‘What are you looking at?’ Sasha had said. Not a promising opening gambit, in Iris’s opinion.
They’d been standing side by side at the sinks in the toilets at school, Iris washing her hands, Sasha fixing her already immaculate hair.
‘Sorry,’ Iris had mumbled, but she’d held Sasha’s gaze in the mirror. And when Sasha’s expression had softened, Iris had added, ‘Be careful, Sasha. He’s not what he seems. He’s … he can be—’
‘You’re just jealous,’ Sasha had said and stomped out of the ladies’ loos, ahead of Iris, closing the door on her instead of allowing her through, too.
Was Iris jealous? she’d wondered. Sasha and Josh were sickeningly lovey-dovey and it had reminded Iris of how it was in the beginning, when she and Josh were in love and she couldn’t get enough of him and he’d wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
So, yeah, if she was honest with herself, at the time, she had probably been a bit jealous.
Mostly, though, she’d just been relieved that Josh’s attention was focused on someone else.
But she hadn’t wanted him to hurt Sasha or anything.
Iris didn’t know Sasha well, but she seemed nice enough, even though she’d just closed the door in her face.
It was Iris who spoke first the second time, when Sasha still hadn’t uttered a word several seconds later. ‘Are you all right?’ Iris asked.
Sasha looked up and into Iris’s eyes. ‘Yeah. No. I don’t know,’ she said. ‘You?’
‘Same, I guess. A bit worried they’ll think it was me.’
‘I know, right? I had to give a statement to the police this morning and all the time I was thinking, what if they suspect me?’
‘I’m sure they won’t. Weren’t you at uni at the time?’
‘Yeah. In lectures or tutorials, probably. Or at home with my housemates. Should have a shitload of alibis either way.’ She gave a dry chuckle. ‘I owe you an apology.’
‘What for?’
‘That day in the bogs at school. You tried to warn me. I didn’t listen.’
‘It’s OK.’
‘It’s really not,’ Sasha said. ‘I told Josh and I shouldn’t have.’
‘What did you tell Josh?’
‘That you tried to warn me about him.’
‘Oh. It’s fine, really.’
‘That’s very big of you,’ Sasha said. ‘I felt guilty about that for, like, months.’
They went their separate ways then. They didn’t have anything more to say to each other.
But Iris stopped dead a few metres further along the high street.
Sasha’s words echoed in her head. I told Josh and I shouldn’t have.
I felt guilty about that for, like, months.
Duh! Light bulb moment. Of course! Sasha told Josh that Iris had tried to warn her about him.
Iris’s video went viral … it must have been, what?
A week later? Two weeks later? That was Iris’s punishment for trying to give his new girlfriend the heads-up.
The revenge porn. Sasha must have wondered if Josh was behind it, but Josh would have denied it.
As Iris knows only too well, Josh can be convincing when he lies.
Sasha was probably in way too deep by then, under his spell, too in love.
Iris should have known. Foresight. That would be such a cool superpower to have. Far better than invisibility or time travel. The ability to foresee – to predict – what would happen. If only she had known.