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Iris blinked back sudden tears, touched by Beth’s compliment but feeling unworthy of it. “On the surface perhaps. But she was beginning to exasperate me. I feel terrible about that now. And we didn’t go to her funeral,” she added, her voice breaking. “We couldn’t. It would have been as if we were condoning what she’d done.”
Beth linked her arm through Iris’s. “Stop beating yourself up about it, Mum. You were right not to go. And if you do feel bad, just remember that she killed Pierre.” Her voice hardened. “That should get rid of any pity you feel toward Laure.”
49
Gabriel stared out of the train window. Now that Pierre’s funeral was over, the little energy that had carried him through it had drained out of him. They’d soon be at St. Pancras and he felt so bone-weary he wasn’t sure he’d be able to make it off the train.
What alarmed him the most was that he didn’t seem to be able to give himself the mental shake that he needed. Yes, the last year had been hard; his beloved father and equally beloved dog had died; he had found Charlie near to death in the quarry; his best friend had been murdered by his wife, who had then jumped to her death. He could be forgiven for feeling depressed. But it was his inability to find anything positive to hang on to that worried him. His marriage wasn’t in a great place, and he had no inclination to go back to work as a GP. Beth—the only thing that got him up in the morning—would soon be going to university, and the walled garden would soon be finished, so he wouldn’t even have that to do.
Beth hadn’t wanted to come to the funeral, and he and Iris had been happy to let her stay behind. He hadn’t wanted her to see thetears he knew he wouldn’t be able to hold back; he couldn’t have coped with her distress at his distress. It was also something he felt he and Iris needed to do together, by themselves, because once it was over, their shared relief that they could now get on with their lives would hopefully bring them closer. Except that it hadn’t. Last night, in their hotel, they might have been in different rooms for the little they’d said to each other. It seemed there were no words big enough to bridge the gap between them.
It was the same at home. If he walked into the kitchen, and found Iris already there, he would mumbleSorry, help himself quickly to whatever he wanted and leave. When had it come to the point, he wondered, where he was apologizing for going into his own kitchen?
He pressed his head into the head rest so that he could see Iris’s reflection in the window. She was sitting upright, staring straight ahead of her and the bleakness on her face made him instinctively reach for her hand. She didn’t grip his, or even hold it. Her hand lay limply in his, as if she was only tolerating his touch, and because to snatch it away would have been rude.
“Are you okay?” he asked quietly, turning to her.
He saw a flare of anger in her eyes and steeled himself for aWhat do you think? But, perhaps in deference to the other passengers, she gave a tight nod. He saw the woman sitting opposite glance at Iris, and when she turned her eyes on him and gave him a sympathetic smile, he wanted to lean across and shout at her not to judge his wife, because she didn’t know everything she’d been through. But he was scared that once he began, the anger and the bitterness and the unfairness of it all would explode out of him, and he wouldn’t be able to stop.
Claire had been at the funeral. After, as they’d left the crematorium, he’d wanted to speak to her, but she’d been with friends, and Iris hadn’t wanted to interrupt them. But when Iris had got caught up in a conversation with Pierre’s work colleagues, Claire had seen him standing alone and had come to speak to him.
“I’m so sorry,” she’d said. “I can’t imagine how difficult this must be for you and Iris, coming so soon after Laure. I know how close the four of you were. It’s hard enough for us.” She indicated the group of friends.
“It doesn’t seem possible that they’ve both gone,” Gabriel had said. “And in such terrible circumstances.” He’d hesitated and then plunged on, because he would probably never see her again, and he needed to know. “Do you know what happened, why Laure left Pierre?”
Claire had shaken her head. “All Pierre told me was that they’d decided to take a break from each other and that Laure had gone to stay with you and Iris in England. He never said why and I never asked because if he’d wanted to tell me, he would have. From the little he said, it seemed to have been a mutual decision.” She’d exchanged a rueful smile with him. “You know how private he was, how he never really shared his problems with anyone, preferring to go off by himself when he was feeling low. It’s why, when he messaged me and said he was going away for the whole of July, I didn’t think anything of it. It was what he did.” She’d hesitated then, as if she wasn’t sure if she should continue. “I can’t believe it of Laure, I really can’t. I know I have to, but it seems—I don’t know, unfathomable. Even if he was having an affair, which I doubt, why kill him?”
He’d been tempted to ask Claire if she’d heard anything about Pierre having a child. But he hadn’t, because the more he thought about it—and he had, a lot—the more he was convinced that Laure had lied. The fact that they would never know the truth, and so never really have closure, made moving on doubly hard.
He was roused from his thoughts by Iris removing her hand from his. He waited to see if she needed it to rummage in her bag, or rub her eye, but she simply folded it into her other hand, lying in her lap. His heart went out to her; he could almost see her inner turmoil and wished he could help. But she seemed so out of reach.
And then there was Maggie Ingram. Acknowledging that he’d kept her waiting long enough, he’d rescheduled their meeting for a weekon Tuesday. He could have made it sooner, but he thought he might need some downtime after the grueling, desperate experience of Pierre’s funeral. Once he’d seen her, he hoped that everyone would leave him alone, and he’d finally be able grieve in peace for his friend.
50
Iris felt terrible for removing her hand from Gabriel’s. She hated that she couldn’t bear for him to touch her, hated that she was unable to comfort him, especially at a time like this, when he had buried his best friend. But she couldn’t allow him to penetrate the steel barrier she had mentally constructed around herself to contain the terrifying emotions that had piled up inside her, afraid that they would come spewing out in one massive, violent jet. Because if they did, that would be the end of her. Iris Pelley would cease to exist.
She also hated that uppermost in her mind wasn’t Gabriel, or Pierre, or even Laure. It was Joseph who invaded her thoughts as she sat on the train on their way back to London. It had been a mistake to go and see him, she realized bitterly, a mistake to think that he would forgive her.
She had gone to see him at Esme’s on Monday. The front door had been unusually closed, and Iris remembered Esme saying the previous day that she had an appointment at the doctor’s for Hamish the next morning. She had taken the path around the side of the house, expecting to find Joseph working in the garden. There’d been no sign of him,and when she knocked on the door of his cottage, there had been no answer.
She shouldn’t have gone in, she knew that now. But when she’d tried the door, it had swung open, almost as if it was inviting her in. She’d been curious; there had been so many jokes about Joseph living in a shed that she’d wanted to see what it was like.
It looked surprisingly comfortable. The door opened onto a main room, with a sofa along the right-hand wall, and on the opposite wall, a kitchen area with a double gas ring and a fridge. In the center of the room, there was a small wooden table and two chairs.
Opening the door to the left of the main door, she’d found a small a bedroom with a double bed and a chest of drawers. Pushing away images of Laure and Joseph there together, she had moved to the door to the right of the bed. As she had expected, it led to a compact shower room.
Back in the main room, she’d pulled open the cupboard doors and found blue and white striped crockery, saucepans and cans of beans, chickpeas and soup. She should have left then, and waited for Joseph outside. Instead, she had sat on the sofa, imagining what it would be like to live there, away from everyone and everything.Here, she remembered thinking,I would find peace.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Joseph’s voice, angry and disbelieving, had broken abruptly into her thoughts. He was standing in the doorway, his face dark with something Iris feared might be loathing.
“I-I’ve come to apologize,” she’d stammered, scrambling to her feet.
Before she could say anything further, he had stepped away from the door so that he was no longer blocking it.
“Please leave.”
“I just want to explain,” she’d said, flustered. “It was an honest mistake, I really did think you and Laure had been arguing. I—” She stopped. Joseph had stepped toward her. “Now!” he had almost shouted.
