Patient Iris’s friend of many years dreams that this winter will be cold. Colder even than that winter before the town was bombed and Tyne Dock was sheeted over in ice.
Colder still and the men decided to down tools and abandon the Roman remains till spring. It is so cold that it frightens them. This kind of weather will crystallise fragments of lost souls in the air. They rekindle themselves and brighten jewellike when it comes in dark. Centurions gather on the ramparts in their leather skirts with the wind whistling through them, their dead eyes quartz.
In the cold imagined by Iris’s friend, the Roman remains can complete themselves.
Old outlines glisten silver on the air, tugging at each other like a big top going up. They stir the air to recall what once stood there. Moisture freezes, clicks into place and recreates a fabulous ice palace on the reconstructed site at the top of the town above the docks.
Patient Iris’s window is open and the time is right for irises to open. Unseasonably, perhaps, even dangerously, in midwinter. But what does Patient Iris care for danger now?
She is open to the elements. Her sores expose her to the harshest that the north can offer.
The cold of the north heals up Patient Iris for ever. Her gasping, fishlike internal organs stop collapsing and freeze. Her bedsores harden. Iris reaches with one arthritic hand to splash a little scent behind each ear before she allows the cold to come over her entirely.
Scent catches at each earlobe and dangles there, perfect crystal earrings. And now Patient Iris is sealed for ever. The fate of those at extremes, like here, at the top of the hill.
She decides to pop out for a walk. It is first time she has fancied walking in ages. Perhaps Dolly is still out there somewhere, saving sailors, or Roman centurions, under her voluminous skirts.
Patient Iris stops by the docks to see the seal mothers return and, sure enough, she is rewarded by the sight of their stolid, hard-working bodies.
She is much braver now that her phone is left off the hook and she can wear her bedsores as jewellery. She will skate over the ice to see how the burgeoning families are doing. She will talk the snorting, whiskered mothers through a difficult night, as their children are slapped out like old shoes onto the bloodied grass.
ONE
YOU NEVER TELL ME HOW THE KID IS. YOU NEVER MENTION THE KID AT all. Why is that? She must be a big part of your lives. Both your lives. You should tell me more about her. I feel like I’m the mother. Funny that, isn’t it, Mark? If things had been different, I could have been.
I know. Very different. But still.
Don’t give my love to Samantha. It’s best not to. I don’t know whether she has any idea that I still write to you. Does she, Mark? Do you tell her? When you put the kid to bed at night, when you turn off all the lights in that nice flat of yours, do you scoop your wife into bed, hold her close and tell her that I’ve been writing again?
I doubt it somehow. And I wouldn’t like to interfere.
It’s best if she forgets all about me. Whatever she knew. I was just the one behind the wheel. I’m the one she never has to think about. And that’s all right. I’m content to be out of her sight. Out of sight, out of mind. I don’t want to be in her mind. I don’t like her that much.
Hear that, love? I don’t like your wife. I know you’ll forgive me for that. I’m sorry. I’d like to say I thought she was worthy of you. But there you are. She isn’t. You’re pathetic.
They’re trusting me to use the library now. Three books a week. I go for the classy stuff. I’m reading up, improving myself. Where was Madame Bovary when she first got the shakes? What colour was Anna Karenina’s dress when the train hit her? I’m filling up every corner of my mind with trivia from the literary greats. There’s some talk of an Open University course. They’re keen on those here. I’ve got all the answers.
The best bits I read, I copy out onto separate bricks. By my bed, where they can’t really be seen. Though I don’t mind if people look across my bed and read them. Me and you, eh, Mark? Both of us exhibitionists, deep down. It sticks, that kind of thing. You’ll be finding that out, I imagine. We’re both thirty-six now. The shit has well and truly hit the fan. Stuck there, dried out nicely. The fan goes on spinning.
So, tell me all about the new life. About the kid. One thing I’ve been wondering about. Was she born looking like you or Samantha?
Was the kid born tattooed?
Much love,
Tony.
TWO
“IT’S SUCH A SHAME.” MISS KINSEY RATTLED THE STAFF ROOM’S BLINDS, peering at the driveway. “He’s such a nice man, really.”
“Who’s that?” Doris Ewart had Living magazine out on the table. She was memorising instructions for making cardboard snowmen that really glittered. She thought her class might appreciate them.
“Sally Kelly’s father.”
“Oh, him.” Doris joined the headmistress to see. “Poor child. Unfortunate name.” Doris sifted through the mass of parents and children waiting for her to dash out with the school bell and call them in. What a lot of parents wear shell suits, she thought and sighed. You’d think they’d make more of an effort.
“Poor child,” the headmistress murmured.
“Whose class is she in?”
“Miss Francis. Class Two. She’s only four. We let her in early.
