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9
Four Months To Go…
Iris couldn’t remember ever experiencing back pain as she did tonight. It had lingered at the base of her spine for the last week and she had ignored it. Instead of being sensible and resting, she’d kept on pushing herself. Washing, scrubbing, scraping, digging, planting and finally painting – it was, she knew, the painting that finished her in the end. She dropped in to the local surgery as much to say hello to dear old Elizabeth O’Shea – the former doctor’s widow – as to see the new doctor. After all, she knew what she needed, really: rest. But the clock was against her and at this point, her only option was strong painkillers.
Iris felt silly for having wiped herself out so easily. How on earth would she ever have coped with childbirth? Funny how she still found reasons to try and convince herself that her childlessness was for the best. Old habits die hard. A tear raced down her cheek. It was so long since she’d cried about that child she’d longed to have. Apparently, the loss of what had never been could even at this stage feel like a cuff to her gut. She wiped her cheek with the heel of her hand. She simply must not think of Myles and what he had to look forward to now.
It was only when she spotted the colour cards peeping out of Georgie’s folder that she felt her mood lightening. Liberty Blue. She reached out and pulled the card towards her. It was a gorgeous colour, velvety and rich, but soft enough to bounce light around the darkened kitchen of the cottage. It would be perfect on the kitchen cabinets. She pulled out her phone, tracked down a number for the small hardware shop in the village and placed an order for two medium-sized cans of paint to be collected by the weekend.
There was sewing, too, and even if she had to rest her back, she could still hem a curtain and fashion a cushion out of the leftover material.
‘You’re in your element,’ Mary said as she searched for the perfect-coloured thread at the bottom of their mother’s old sewing box.
‘I suppose I am.’ Iris smiled at her.
‘Well, it’s good to see something happening with the place. You know, if you don’t manage to rent it out to tourists, there’s plenty of locals looking for somewhere to rent in the village. That could be a lovely home for someone.’ Mary smiled back and Iris had a feeling she was talking to herself, rather than making conversation. And something about the exchange settled something for her. In the end, her father hadn’t really been alone. He’d always had Mary, who cooked and cleaned and chatted away and would turn up with provisions even if every shop in the country was closed. And she was wise too.
Mary was right about Iris. The fact was, she couldn’t remember a time when she’d felt so fulfilled. It was a strange thing, but the better the cottage looked, the better she began to feel about herself. It was almost as if with every layer of cleaning, she scrubbed away a little of the hurt she’d carried about for so long and with each layer of paint she was rebuilding a stronger, newer version of herself.
The following Thursday, just six weeks after she had embarked on her overhaul of the cottage, it was complete.
When she told her sisters it was ready, she felt ridiculously nervous. ‘You should come to see it. After all, it belongs as much to you as it does to me,’ she’d told them last night, and they were on their way to see it now. This last week, she had to constantly remind herself of this fact; otherwise, she could completely lose the run of herself. Sometimes, she daydreamed about Myles coming here with her. She imagined him falling in love with the cottage, as much for the fact that it meant so much to her as anything else, and then he would carry her over the threshold and ask her if they could renew their vows and start over. Here. Just the two of them living out the rest of their days in the little cottage. A fresh start. Honestly, as she tightened bulbs and gave the lampshades a final dusting, she could almost feel herself swooning at the perfection of that happy-ever-after ending in her imagination.
‘We’re here.’ Nola’s voice broke into her daydream and she almost lost her balance on the stepladder. For a moment it swayed precariously, until Georgie dived for it and grabbed the base, holding it steady for her to climb down to the ground next to them.
Iris had been feeling that strange mix of elation and weariness that comes from completing something that you’ve worked so hard at and feeling inordinately proud of your efforts. She realised, now, that pride was a real thing. She’d begun to stand taller and walk with a little shimmy to her step. The place looked great – she knew that – even if she knew her critical eye was more than a little biased, but still, she was nervous. God, she never thought she’d say it but, ‘I’m glad you’re both going to have a look around before our first guests arrive.’ They’d be here in little over an hour; two couples who had been referred from the hotel were due to stay for the next few days.
‘It’s cute and homely and all but it’s hardly the Ritz, is it?’ Nola offered. And even if she wasn’t trying to be mean, it felt as if in that one sentence, Nola had cut every drop of sweat Iris had lost over this place to worthless.
‘Yes, well, if anyone has seen the inside of a lot of hotel bedrooms, it’s probably you,’ Iris bit back at her.
‘What?’ Nola’s jaw dropped and she stood there open-mouthed, long enough to let Georgie stand between them.
‘Easy there, Iris, she wasn’t trying to get at you, she’s just saying that it’s no harm to keep in mind that it’s a small cottage in the west of Ireland; it’s not going to turn us into the next Hilton family,’ Georgie said, standing between them.
‘Oh, that’s right – it’s all very well for you to say, with your fancy qualifications and years spent working with the crème de la crème of London’s big corporate sector,’ she hissed at Georgie.
Georgie rolled her eyes. ‘Iris, stop being such a child. You could have bloody well gone to university too, if you hadn’t decided to throw your lot in with that waster of a husband. Honestly, we all know that once Myles came along, you couldn’t see any further than the end of your own nose.’
‘How dare you?’ Iris shouted. ‘I might have known neither of you could wish me well. That’s always been the way with both of you, as far back as I can remember. Even with Myles, you couldn’t just put aside your petty jealousies and be happy for me.’
‘Oh, dear God – are you really so stupid?’ Nola said scornfully. ‘If I ever had any feelings for Myles bloody Cutler, it was that he made my skin crawl. I actually find it offensive that you thought I was after him. The only thing either of us ever thought of Myles was that he wasn’t nearly good enough for you.’
And suddenly, it felt as if all the anger Iris had bottled up over all the years was exploding within her; a huge volcano and there was no stopping the eruption. Iris staggered backwards. ‘I don’t have to listen to this, this – this – thispoison. Neither of you is exactly an advertisement for domestic contentment, are you?’
Even as she shouted, a small voice whispered in her ear:What do you know?For all she knew, maybe they were both in happy relationships. She knew nothing about their lives. But all that mattered in this moment was keeping up the pretence that all was well and that the life she’d pinned everything on wasn’t shown to be what it really was: a complete and utter failure and sham.
‘And whatever you want to say about him or my decision to marry him, the fact is that we’ve been together for a hell of a long time. We’ve stuck it out. I have something that neither of you have ever come close to. No matter whether you’re a great success’ – she looked at Georgie – ‘or a great beauty’ – she looked at Nola – ‘none of those things mean anything at the end. It’s about who’ll want to grow old with you and… and…’ And that was when she noticed Georgie was wearing their father’s old jacket, which Iris had left hanging on a chair. As she reached into the pocket, in a blinding flash Iris remembered dropping the solicitor’s letter from Myles in it that day on the beach. She stood there, feeling the blood rush from her head to her feet, watching in horror as Georgie took the folded up letter and began to examine it, unfolding it slowly.
Iris couldn’t breathe. She whipped the letter from Georgie’s hand. She was pulling the dregs of her dignity from both of them, just before all was lost.
‘Hey!’ Georgie said, but her surprise hardly registered with Iris, because before she even had time to decide, Iris was storming off back up the avenue, leaving her sisters standing aghast at what had just happened. Oh, God, she thought she’d die of shame now, if they knew the actual truth about what that letter contained.
*
It was three days since they’d had the spat at the cottage and Iris sat stony-faced at the kitchen table. Tonight, they all ate silently like a group of nuns in a contemplative order, except their thoughts were on nothing so high-minded as forgiveness and love. Rather, Georgie had a feeling that each of them was chewing on what they didn’t say, what they might have said and maybe, what they shouldn’t have said.
Either way, it was time to bury the hatchet. Iris was never going to leave Myles. Not when she had stuck it out this long. Not now. Not with a baby on the way. Georgie had been thinking a lot about the baby. She couldn’t help but feel excited at the prospect, even if she knew she had no right to, and it wasn’t as if Iris would let either her or Nola anywhere near the little one when it was born. All this fighting, it couldn’t be good for a baby – it wasn’t good for any of them.
