'It feels weirdly like jet-lag,' Alex continues. 'But obviously it can't be. I don't know what it is. Lag of some sort. Life-lag, maybe. Sofa-lag.'
Iris frowns. It's too early for conversations like this.
There is still an hour or so to kill before visiting time starts at Kitty's home, so Iris takes Alex and Esme up Blackford Hill. Iris turns her head as she walks, taking in the glassy grey of the sea in the distance, the city spread between the hill and the coast, the straggling bushes of gorse, Esme, walking with her fingers splayed out, dress fluttering in the breeze like a curtain at a window, Alex, some distance off, throwing sticks for the dog, a red kite jerking in the breeze, the car park, a few cars, a woman pushing a pram, a man getting out of his car and Iris is thinking that he is attractive, good-looking, before she is thinking that there is something familiar about him, his hair, the way he is rubbing the back of his neck, the way he is taking that woman's hand.
Iris stops in her tracks. Then she turns. She could run. He won't see her, they won't see her, maybe she can just sneak past to her car and they need never meet. But he is turning to put his arm round his wife and, as he does so, his gaze passes over Iris. Iris waits, immobile, turned to a pillar of salt. The instant he sees her, he removes his arm from his wife's shoulders. Then he is hesitating, wondering what to do, whether just to get into his car, with his wife, shut the doors and drive away.
But the wife has seen her. It is too late. Iris watches as the wife says something to him, something questioning. They leave the car, with its doors open, ready for them, and come towards her. He has no choice, she can see that, but she is seized with an impulse to dart away, to escape. If she ran now, this wouldn't have to happen. But Esme is next to her, Alex is over there. How could she leave them?
'Iris,' Luke says.
Iris does a bad imitation of someone recognising someone else. 'Oh, hello.'
Luke and his wife come to a stop before them. He may have taken his arm from round her but the wife has kept hold of his hand. Sensible woman, Iris thinks. There is a pause. She looks at Luke for guidance. How is he going to play this? Which way will he jump? But he is focusing on someone else, and she realises that Alex has materialised at her elbow, the dog's stick still in his hands.
'Hi, Luke,' he says, flinging the stick high into the air, making the dog race off at an angle. 'Haven't seen you for a while. How are you doing?'
Iris sees Luke give a kind of flinch. 'Alexander,' Luke says, with a cough.
'Alex,' Alex corrects.
Luke manages a nod. 'It's good to see you.'
Alex does a curious sideways movement of his head, which somehow manages to convey the message, I remember you, and also, I don't like you. 'Likewise,' he says.
Luke raises himself up on his toes, then starts nodding. Iris finds that she is nodding too. They nod at each other for a moment. He cannot meet her eye and his face is heated, and Iris has never seen him flush before. She finds she cannot look at the wife. She tries, she tries to pull her gaze in that direction, but every time she gets near an odd thing happens and her eyes veer away, as if the wife exudes some negative forcefield too strong for her. The silence is growing, clouding the air between them all, and Iris is raking about for things to say, for excuses, for reasons they have to go when, to her horror, she realises that Alex is speaking: 'So,' he is saying, in a dangerously chatty tone, 'this must be your wife, Luke. Aren't you going to introduce us?'
Luke turns to his wife, as if he'd forgotten all about her.
'Gina,' he says, to the ground between them, 'this is… Iris. She… We, ah, we…' he falters. There is a gaping pause and Iris is curious about what he will say next. What could it possibly be? We fuck whenever we get the chance? We met at a wedding while you were in bed with flu? She wouldn't give me her number so I found out where she worked and went there every day until she agreed to go out with me? She's the one I'm planning to leave you for? 'She… she has a shop,' he finishes, and there is a smothered, choked sound from Alex and Iris knows that he is trying not to laugh and she makes a mental note to make him sorry later, sorrier than he's ever been.
But Gina is smiling and reaching out, and her face is empty of guile, empty of jealousy. As she takes her hand, Iris thinks: I could ruin your life. 'Nice to meet you,' she mutters, and she cannot look at this person, she cannot take in an image of the woman she is betraying, the woman who shares his house, his bed, his life. She would like to but she cannot.
But Iris does look at her, she makes herself look, and she sees that Gina is a small woman with pale hair held back in a band, and that she is holding a pair of binoculars, and as Iris focuses on the binoculars she sees something else. Gina is pregnant. Unmistakably pregnant – her body pushed out beneath a black woollen sweater.
Iris stares for long enough to take this in. She sees the interlocking weave of the sweater's fabric, she sees the silver catch on the binoculars' case, she sees that Luke's wife has had a manicure recently and that her nails are painted in the French style.
Iris has the sensation of sinking, of her pulse knocking at her temples, and she would really like to leave, like to be anywhere else but here, and Gina is saying something to Luke and there is a little interchange between them about how cold it is and whether they will walk to the summit of the hill and, in the middle of all this, Esme suddenly turns to look at Iris. She frowns. Then she takes Iris's wrist.
'We have to leave,' she announces. 'Goodbye.' She pulls Iris away and steers her down the path, glaring at Luke as they go.
When the car pulls up outside the home, Iris observes that her hands haven't stopped shaking, that her heartbeat is still uneven, still fast. She opens and shuts the glovebox as Alex gets out, as he helps Esme do the same. She pulls down the mirror and has a quick glance at herself, decides she looks deranged, pushes her hair off her face, then opens her door and steps out.
As they walk across the car park and in through the glass doors, she avoids meeting Alex's eye. He lopes along beside them, hands in his pockets. Iris passes her arm through Esme's and walks with her to the front desk, where she signs them in.
'Do you want to come as well,' she addresses the region of Alex's shoulder, 'or wait here? I don't mind, it's up to-'
'I'll come,' he says.
At the door to Kitty's room, Iris says, 'Here we are,' and Esme stops. She looks up to her left, at the point in the corridor where the wall meets the ceiling. It is the movement of someone who has just seen a bird passing overhead or felt a sudden gust of wind. She looks down again. She folds her hands over each other, then lets them dangle back to her sides.
'In here?' she says.
The room is bright, sun glaring through the French windows. Kitty is seated in a chair, her back to the view. She is dressed in a taupe twinset, a tweed skirt, a pair of polished brogues, looking for all the world as if she is about to get to her feet and tackle a good country walk. Iris can tell that the hairdresser has visited recently – her hair is brushed back in silver-blue waves.
'Grandma,' Iris advances into the room, 'it's me, Iris.'
Kitty swivels her head to look at her. 'Only in the evenings,' she replies, 'very rarely during the day'
Iris is momentarily stalled by this but then rallies herself. 'I'm your granddaughter, Iris, and-'
'Yes, yes,' Kitty snaps, 'but what do you want?'
Iris sits on a footstool near her. She feels suddenly nervous. 'I've brought some people to see you. Well, one person, really. The other one, the man over there, is Alex. I don't know if you remember him but…' She takes a deep breath. 'This is Esme.'