14. Iris
Iris
W e’d gone through every name under the sun when thinking of what to call the little girl who would be our daughter while she was growing inside me: Bean, Jellybean, Tinkerbell, Baby (really original and Roe’s idea), Ducky (Elias’ suggestion). There were more, but I forgot to make a list, mainly because I had other things to do like take photos and work on them afterwards. We finally settled on Moon for some reason and it stuck, but at least our daughter started to have an identity in our minds – although what her name would actually be was a source of late night conversations during which one or both or us inevitably fell asleep before we could even put a name on the shortlist.
I joined a collective of artists on the island to put together an exhibition, partly as a project but also because I wanted to establish myself here. I wanted my name to be attached to the place so future clients knew I wasn’t based in London, and to become part of the island community.
We also invested in a studio, a strange building a couple of miles from Puffin Bay, that looked like an alien spacecraft had landed. The natural light that came through the floor to ceiling windows at the back was phenomenal, but the fact it had no walls inside meant I could set it up to be exactly what I needed for each shoot. I could still travel for work and that would happen, but given I was most known for portraiture, clients could come to me and that worked nicely. The island didn’t pay much heed to famous people – why would you when you’d had the future Prince and Princess of Wales living here? – so anonymity was pretty much guaranteed and the serenity of the place would be perfect for my clients. There was also a room with a view where Gully could write, if he wanted a change of scenery from his other writing haunts, or somewhere Moon could play when she was older.
I took another work trip up to Edinburgh for a member of the Royal Family just after the seven month mark of my pregnancy. We’d agreed that this was the last trip I’d take on my own, not because Gully was panicking – he actually wasn’t – but because I was having a lot of moments where I was worrying about stupid things. What if the car broke down when I went into labour? What if there was a blackout because there was a storm? What if I couldn’t get in touch with Gully? I’d never been a worrier, but the last couple of weeks I’d gone through every possibility of what could go wrong, multiplied the impact by ten and worked out a plan for what to do if that ever happened.
The journey back from Edinburgh was treacherous. A summer storm had set in from Chester onwards and seemed to be following me along the North Wales Expressway through the top of North Wales with dark ferocious waves and crackles of lightning that lit up the sky like it was the end of days. I was worried that the bridges onto the island would be closed, which hadn’t happened since I’d lived there, but had been known to occur.
One had. The Menai Bridge was closed to all traffic, meaning that the Britannia was the only option. I could deal with that, at least I was telling myself that.
Lightning cracked open the sky when I was at the middle of the bridge and I wanted to cry. I should’ve stopped in Llandudno or Conwy and grabbed a hotel room for the night, but I’d been away from Gully for almost a week and I wanted to be with him, in my own bed, with his arms around me and listening to him telling Moon all about his current work in progress – the kid was definitely going to be born with a weird idea of bedtime stories.
I carried on, pulling over twice because the rain got so hard I couldn’t see where I was going. There was no radio available – something was down – and my mobile phone had no signal.
This was the sort of storm that had been happening when Ivy died.
I thought of my sister when I set off for the second time, trying to manifest some of her grit and determination, without any of her risky behaviours. If she was here now, and I could speak to her, she’d be talking me through how to drive.S lowly, carefully, take your time, stop when you need to.
You know the roads.
The car is good. It’s one of the best.
Breathe, Iris. You’ll be home soon.
I heard her voice loud and clear in my head. I thought about how excited she would’ve been about the baby and how she definitely would not have offered to babysit.
She’d have loved the fact that Gully and I were together. I knew she’d never thought of him like that, but she’d mentioned him a lot to me and tried to sell him on occasion – I should tell Gully that when I got home.
Our home had never looked so welcoming or so good, even though there were no lights on.
Gully’s car was on the drive, exactly where I would’ve expected it. I reversed mine as close to the door as I could; while I’d leave my suitcase where it was, my photography equipment would have to come inside. There was low crime on the island, but I wasn’t taking the chance, even in the storm of the century.
Inside the house was quiet. Still. Everything was where it should be, including a letter left out on the table with my name on it.
I opened it, thinking there’d be something in it that told me where Gully was.
There wasn’t. This had been left with him expecting to be in the house when I read it as it was basically a detailed account of what he was going to do to make-up for a week of no orgasms.
I checked the time. I was only slightly after when I’d expected to be home and the ETA I’d given him. I checked my phone – still no signal.
Panic bubbled in my stomach like acid, creeping up my throat and making me feel nauseous.
Where was Gully?
Had he gone on a call out? This was the sort of night when the lifeboat would be called out. Was he at the Puffin Inn? During a storm, there’d often be a gathering there, particularly with the elderly members of the town, making sure they were warm and okay and together. Amelie had an emergency generator in case the power went out, so the pub would be a safe haven.
There was nothing to suggest this had happened. No other note, nothing pinned to the fridge – nothing.
Panic was real now. I was thinking about my sister’s last hour, heading out in a storm like this which was sheer stupidity. She’d just finished writing a book which was always a big deal for her, more so than when it was published. It was when she’d do something big, something adrenaline fuelled after being chained to her computer for what to her felt like an age.
That night she’d made a really bad decision.
Gully didn’t make those sorts of decisions. When he finished a book he headed over to the Puffin Inn and bought a round for everyone in there and put money behind the bar for meals for people that week who didn’t have a lot of spare cash – a tradition Ivy had started years before when she’d send Amelie money to pay off the bar tabs for the older people in there who weren’t flush with cash.
Gully might also have ordered something as a treat online, hence the fishing gear in the garage that had been used twice.
He wouldn’t head off on a motorbike on a path that wasn’t safe during a storm.
I breathed a little easier, fear and worry still bubbling. I couldn’t sit there and not do anything.
The deafening roll of thunder suggested otherwise.
I looked at my phone for the fifteenth time in five minutes. Still no signal.
The landline! We had a landline. There was a chance it was still connected. I flew over to where it was stationed and picked it up, hearing a choir of angels with the dial tone. Using my mobile as an address book I put in the number for the Puffin Inn. Gully’s phone wouldn’t be working, but someone at the Inn would know if there’d been a call out for a rescue, or if Gully was there.
It was Amelie who answered, speaking in Welsh first.
“It’s Iris. I’ve just got home and Gully’s not here. Is he there?” The words were forced and fast.
“Breathe, sugar. Are you okay? Is the baby okay?” Her voice was calm and soothing, exactly what I needed to hear.
“Baby’s fine. I’m panicking.” I sat down, needing someone to take control even if it was just for five minutes.
“Stop panicking. Gully’s not here and we haven’t had a call out, but Finn and Roe are here. I’m going to send Finn over to you, okay?”
“Okay. But what about Ruby and the kids?”
“They’re here. I’m going to get Finn to bring you over here so you’re not on your own.”
“But what if Gully comes home and I’m not here - ”
“Leave him a note, sugar.” She said something in the background that was muffled so I couldn’t hear. “Finn’s on his way. Stay on the phone with me. How was the photoshoot? Tell me about it.”
For the next ten minutes, my mind was half taken away from Gully’s disappearance, giving Amelie details about the photographs and who’d been in them, which I was allowed to say. I’d actually stayed over in the palace too, which had been an experience I wasn’t going to forget ever.
By the time I was working up to a full panic again, there was banging at my door, enough to compete with the thunder that was back again.
I hung up on Amelie and ran to the door, finding a drenched Finn, Roe and Freya standing there.
That was when I burst into tears.
Freya’s arms went straight round me, soothing me with soft words and possible explanations.
Finn gave us a minute before chiming in. “Is his phone here?”
I shook my head.
“So he was planning to be out. None of us are on call but has he taken his pager with him?” He looked around the hallway. “Where does Gully keep his pager when he’s not got it on him?”
The crew used a pager rather than their phones when they were on call. They had to be within five minutes of the lifeboat station and sober, a week’s worth of training at the centre in Poole ensuring they were fully trained, as well as weekly training sessions which Gully never missed.
“It’s next to his bed.” I headed up the stairs to our bedroom, Finn following me.
There was no pager there.
Finn nodded. “He knew the phones might go down. Okay. We can page him. He’s gone on foot somewhere too. Roe!” He yelled for his brother who had just entered the room.
“You hollered.”
“I didn’t know you were that close. Where would Gully go that was local in an emergency?”
Roe frowned for a second and then his face lit up. “Mavis’. She wasn’t at the Inn, was she?”
Finn shook his head. “She wasn’t. We mentioned going to check on her just before Iris called. And if Mavis had an emergency she’d - ”
“Call Gully. Let’s get to Mavis’. Ready?”
Finn nodded, taking out his pager and typing something on it. “Iris, stay here with Freya. When we’ve found Gully, one of us will stay with him and the other will come back here to let you know what’s going on. Do not go out to look for him.” He stared at his sister-in-law who was in the bedroom too. “Frey, keep Iris here.”
Freya smiled, looking completely unperplexed. “Not a problem. I think tea and toast is needed and she can sneak me a peak of some photos.”
I sat down on the bed, worry now infiltrated with relief because Finn and Roe were there and they would find Gully.
Visions of him lying at the bottom of the path near Ivy’s Arch haunted my mind and I must’ve said something out loud, because Freya sat down next to me, shaking her head.
“Let’s be logical about this. Mavis isn’t at the Inn, which is unusual. Gully’s not here or at the pub either. Gully would be Mavis’ first person to call if she was unwell. I bet he’s with her. If he’s there, he’ll have run to her house, which is nowhere near Elderwood Sound.” She used the name of the bay where Ivy’s Arch was. When the tide was out, there were miles of beach exposed where curlews and oyster catchers would congregate. “He’d have reason to go in that direction.”
I nodded, believing her because I knew she was right.
“Okay. I need the gossip that you can tell me about your trip to Scotland. Have you got any photos you’re allowed to show me?”
I appreciated the distraction and could pull myself together enough to show her the photos I’d been approved to share privately. There were pictures of the palace and the grounds and some of the people who worked there. The photos of the royals that’d been my client weren’t for viewing by anyone until they were signed off to be released.
Freya was zooming into parts of the garden and cooing over the plants she saw growing there when I heard the front door open and feet pounding into the kitchen where we’d relocated to.
Gully stopped still, staring at me, looking utterly drenched, panic and relief webbed across every muscle and tendon.
I leapt out of my seat and ran into his arms, cross with my bump for the first time because it stopped me from pressing as close as I wanted to him.
His arms wrapped around me and it was then that I sobbed, relief pouring out, my body racked with the tears.
“Shhhh,” he murmured. “I’m fine, I’m safe, you don’t need to worry.” He held me tighter. “It’s okay. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you got home.”
My tears stopped. My sobs ended. Gully’s mouth found mine for a kiss that wasn’t really meant to be seen by anyone.
Freya coughed.
“I can go and sit somewhere else if you want to get fresh in here.”
Gully’s laugh vibrated through me. “Sorry. I need to get changed and have a hot drink. It’s really horrible out there.”
Freya nodded. “The kettle’s not long since boiled. I’ll get a brew on. Iris, why don’t you go and help him take those wet clothes off?” Her tone was full of laughter. “Is Roe with Mavis though?”
“He is. Finn’s ran to the Inn to get Grayson. She’s had a fall and needs to go to hospital, which isn’t going to happen any time soon.” His eyes changed, light leaving them. “She managed to phone me just before the phone masts went down. Her phone line’s gone down too so I was stuck.” He shook his head, droplets of water flying off it like a dog that’d just been swimming. “I couldn’t leave her to get help and I had no way of calling for any help either.”
“Go get changed.” Freya gestured us both away. “Do what you need to do.”
Gully didn’t stop touching me while we walked up the stairs to our bedroom. As soon as the door closed, he stripped off, throwing his clothes onto the floor of the adjoining bathroom, water dripping everywhere.
“You’re soaked to the bone.”
He nodded. “I think I left at the worst possible time, although Finn and Roe aren’t much better. I was so fucking worried about you driving in this and I couldn’t call you - ”
“It wasn’t the best journey, but I got here okay.” I sat on the bed, not able to take my eyes off him. “When you weren’t here, I panicked.”
He nodded, darkness shrouding his face. “I was worried you would. I almost left Mavis to let you know somehow, but I couldn’t. ‘Ris, she was bad. Like not moving and in and out of consciousness. She hit her head when she fell.”
“How did she fall?”
He shrugged, nipping into the bathroom to turn on the shower. “She’s tripped on the handle of her bag in her dining room and clattered down on a chair, her head’s hit the table, which has a marble top. She managed to get her phone out of her bag and called me. The mast must’ve been hit partway through the call.”
“Shit.” I went to him again, wrapping my arms around him. “Are you okay?”
He shrugged, taking hold of me. “I will be. Grayson will be there by now and he’ll know what to do. There are a couple of nurses nearby as well, so she’ll have people there who know more than me.” He glanced at the clock. “It was only an hour ago. That’s all.”
“It’s felt like forever.” I peeled off the sweater I had on, then lost my leggings. “I’m never going skydiving. Or bungee jumping. Or any form of extreme sports. Or driving in a storm.”
He was laughing now. “I’m enjoying the strip tease, by the way, but what are all these promises for?”
“Remember when we last talked about bungee jumping and you were like, no, that’s never going to happen?”
He nodded, still grinning. “Do you see my point now?”
“Totally.” I was crying again. “I just kept thinking about Romy and how she must’ve felt when someone told her that her husband wasn’t coming home after he’d been out on a rescue.” Romy had lived in Puffin Bay all her life, apart from when she went to university. Her husband, Heidi’s father, had been killed at sea when he went out as part of a lifeboat crew to rescue a teenage boy. The boy survived, but her husband was lost at sea, leaving Romy a widow and Heidi without her dad.
Romy was married to Cassian now, the head teacher of the local primary school, and they had two babies of their own, and were guardian’s to Heidi’s friend Mia. She was happy and content, but she’d told me about the days when she’d miss Heidi’s dad and wondered what if, which I guessed was to be expected.
“That’s not happened though. I’m fine, hopefully Mavis will be fine and my brothers will be more drenched than I am. I’m glad about the bungee jumping though. I wasn’t keen on that ever being a possibility – if you stopped being scared of heights.” He walked us over to the shower. “I take it you’re joining me?”
I nodded, moving away to lose the rest of my clothes. “Freya won’t mind if we’re another five minutes.”
“Just five minutes?” He pretended to look offended.
“Maybe six.”
It took ten. That was what happened after a few days away. Not much time needed at all.