Текст книги "Her Name Is Rose: A Novel"

Автор книги: Christine Breen

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

Fourteen

“Well, that was a right bummer,” Conor says when Rose finally tells him why she left her violin on the tube. She talks about Roger and her confusion. About how he’d walked out of her rehearsal. About her humiliation and how she’d bolted from the master class midpiece. About her tutor’s bleached hair and the poster on his wall.

“What an arsehole. I promise you not all surfers are like that,” Conor says. “You should request a rematch with the Kiwi dude.”

“I don’t know…”

“Finish what you started. We can take Gerty for a spin.”

“A spin to London?” Rose laughs.

“Why not? We’ll get to know each other. Anyway, I’ve been meaning to take a few days off. Come on, it’ll be a blast, and your mum won’t be back from Boston for a couple more days. You don’t want to be all on your own, do you?”

After Conor’s cajoling and teasing that she owed it to him—after all, wasn’t he the kingpin in the drama of her violin? And didn’t he have a vested interest here?—she decides maybe it’s a good idea. She’s at loose ends and in a kind of limbo. Okay, she texts Roger, and writes she’s coming to finish the Bach sonata. And she’ll be there on Tuesday. And she’s bringing her own audience.

That Sunday morning, the day after Rose spoke with her mother in Boston, she and Conor set off across the Irish Sea. They drive from Clare to Rosslare, take the ferry to Pembroke, and arrive in South Wales. They talk about all sorts of things. How he likes to get up early and check the surf forecast. How she likes to eat only toast with almond butter in the morning. That he supports Arsenal and she doesn’t know anything about football except her dad rooted for Chelsea. That they’re both believers in Vitamin D, and sushi, and lovers of beaches, and Munster Rugby, and cats. In the late afternoon, they head for a funky B and B in Llangennith down the Gower Peninsula, a surfing spot Conor knows about from the surfboards.ie forum.

But on that midsummer evening, in high season, there is only one single room left. Conor insists Rose take it. He rightly senses she is feeling anxious about a hundred things: her mother, Roger, him, so he offers to sleep in the van with his surfboard. He’s done it before, sleeping up and down the west coast of Ireland, searching for surf. “Not to worry,” he says, “I’m kitted out for it.” Standing in the room, the window wide open and the curtains letting in a breeze full of sea scent, Conor corners Rose against the wardrobe. He raises his hands to brush away her hair and holds her face. He kisses her. Rose doesn’t resist. Her head is against the hard wood of the wardrobe. Her arms go loose and hang at her sides. She holds her face up as Conor kisses her, teasingly at first then temptingly and then no-holds-barred, full-throttle.

Abruptly, he stops and steps back.

“See you in the morning, Rosie.” He gives a swift flick of his head and goes out. She hears his footsteps until they disappear. A moment longer, she thinks, and she would have ripped her clothes off.

*   *   *

When she lays her head down later with the surf beating below, Rose thinks about her father. Luke hadn’t had the chance to talk to her about these sorts of things. Relationships with men. She is sure he meant to, but … she wonders when her parents first had sex. Sex? It’s the only thing on her mind. Should she, shouldn’t she? He’s out there in the van. She could go to him. She’s all at sea. Frustrated, she gets up from the bed and takes out her violin. She doesn’t play the Bach sonata, or a jazz piece, or a jig or a reel. Nothing fits her humor, so she practices her scales, pianissimo, in three octaves in the minor keys until her fingertips hurt and her bow arm tires. The scales give her form and content and she can practice style. She starts with single notes, then moves on to double notes. Separate bow. Slurred bow. Spiccato. Vibrato. Fast bows. Slow bows. Marcato in the upper half of the bow until somebody taps on the wall next door. “Quiet.” She puts the violin down and falls asleep.

The next morning Rose goes down to the beach. Conor has left a note on his van, he is already surfing. He is so easy in himself, she thinks, watching him ride the small waves into the shore. Calm and patient. Someone whom her father would have definitely called a free spirit. Wouldn’t Dadda have liked him?

“I’ve got an extra wet suit in the van,” Conor calls to her.

“I’m afraid of sharks!” she shouts back.

He laughs. “Okay, so, just one more and then we’ll get going.”

*   *   *

The Welsh countryside looks like a green velvet sheet has been thrown over it. Like it’s a setting for one of those BBC period dramas.

“Sorry about last night,” Rose says, not looking at him.

“No worries. Gerty and I had a lovely sleep.” She punches him.

After a four-hour drive, passing Bristol and Swindon and Slough, they arrive in the early evening at Rose’s flat in Camden. There is still light enough in the sky to walk along the canal and up into Primrose Hill. They eat pizza outside on a picnic table at the Lansdowne as the sun sets. When they get back to her flat she asks him to sit out on the balcony. She wants to practice, alone.

“Please don’t say anything. Good or bad.”

“Gotcha. Quiet as a church mouse.”

She can’t put her finger on it but somehow something about him makes her feel totally free to be herself. She feels like singing and does a little bow to herself in her room in front of the mirror. She plays brilliantly, she thinks. She plays the third movement like a Gypsy. Gets all the dancelike rhythms just right. Take that, Roger Ballantyne, and put that in your pipe and smoke it. She laughs out loud. “Where did that come from?”

When she finishes the sonata, through the open doors of the flat’s sitting room, Rose hears clapping.

“What?” Conor says when Rose comes out to him on the balcony, half smiling, half frowning. He leans against the railings. “I didn’t say anything.” She goes straight up to him and pushes up from her toes and grabs him around the neck and kisses him.

“Now, that’s more like it,” he says.

That night when they look at Rose’s narrow bed, she says, “I’m not ready.” She scratches around her eye as if shielding herself from him in some way.

“Me, either. I’m not as easy as I look.” He cups Rose’s chin in his hand. He touches her birthmark. “Look, I understand. First things first. Let’s get that other surfer dude in your life sorted.”

Rose sleeps well on her own.

She wakes when she hears talking in the next room. It’s Conor talking to her roommate, Isobel.

“Rosie,” she says when Rose comes into their sitting room, “you made this poor lad sleep on the couch?” Isobel is wearing her pajama bottoms and a sweater over a string top. She has bleached hair cut to an inch of her scalp. “What’s up with that?” She nudges Rose with her elbow. Her socks are mismatched. She is still wearing makeup from the previous night. “I don’t blame you, though. He does look a bit rough around the edges.”

“Ha ha. Right!” says Conor, rising and giving Rose a big, fat kiss full-on. He dips her ceremoniously and she gives in, her hair falling back and touching the floor. She groans. Conor scoops her back up.

“Oh,” says Isobel. “I see.” A grin spreads across her face. “So that’s the way it is.”

Rose looks at Conor blushing and says, “Yup. That’s how it is. So rough that if we’d slept together I wouldn’t have any energy left for the rematch today.”

“Rematch? Huh?” Isobel turns to put the kettle on.

“My master class. It’s a long story, Izzy.”

*   *   *

The Avenue Gardens in Regent’s Park are in full summer bloom and when Rose and Conor pass Readymoney’s old drinking fountain in the center of the Broad Walk the clock reads ten past nine. (Roger had texted he’d be in his office at ten.)

“Has your mum been here?”

“Yes. A few times.”

“Super gardens.”

“She can’t pass a flower without taking a picture or taking down notes and making little sketches in her notebook.”

Conor bends to a patch of unusual-looking ferns. He reads from the printed sign: “Maidenhair. Species: A. veitchii Hance. Family: Adiantaceae.”

“Oh God, my mother will love you!”

Conor smiles. “You nervous?”

“A little.”

“Don’t be. You played—”

“Conor! I told you not to say anything.”

“Sorry, forgot. Jeeze, don’t bite my head off. Here, let me take that.” He reaches for her violin case.

“No, it’d be bad luck. I’m used to having it against me. It keeps me grounded.”

He puts his arm around her and her violin.

Twenty minutes later they are across the park, walking right on Marylebone Road and approaching the wooden doors of the academy. They enter and George the porter smiles his crooked smile when Rose stands before his desk. She signs in.

“I’m bringing a friend in with me today, George, okay?”

“Yes, miss. Nice to see you again.”

Rose remembers George had been standing at the front door that afternoon she ran out of the recital hall. “And you, George.” She turns and heads up the steps, Conor following, giving her plenty of space. By the time she knocks on Roger Ballantyne’s door it’s like she is a gathering storm and ready to burst.

“Come in.”

She nods to Conor and he holds up the crossed fingers of both hands. Rose hears the words in her head even though he hasn’t said them: Get your Irish up, girleen. Then she steps into the office.

“Rose! I’m so glad you came back,” Roger says. He has on his brown Waiheke Island T-shirt with the wineglass logo and white linen pants and flip-flops. He steps closer, lowers his voice, and says, “I was worried I’d never see you again.”

Rose turns to her violin case.

“Listen, before you say anything, let me apologize. My behavior was deplorable. Despicable.”

Rose suddenly realizes she isn’t nervous, but she pulls a sulky face anyway.

“Can you forgive me?” He shuts the door.

“Maybe.” Her pout slowly turns to a smile. “I’m sorry I left, Roger.”

“I understand. Don’t apologize. No worries. It’ll be all right. What do you say we both get a second chance?”

Something has come into her. She doesn’t know what. She unpacks her case. She turns her head quickly, swiftly, when she hears a wood pigeon murmuring on the ledge and she hopes Roger won’t shoo him away, and when he doesn’t, when he just looks too, she feels he is with her and he is ready to listen. She lifts her violin with her left hand and brings it to her shoulder. Her chin senses the known place and nestles into position. She thinks of Conor’s workshop and the ginger cats and the winter sunshine on the day they first met. She thinks of the man outside in the corridor who transformed pieces of wood and string into her violin that’s about to sing. She hopes he will hear her. She bends her fingers and squares them, places them for the first four-note chord of the adagio. With her bow raised, she takes a moment, counts to three, scans the room: the poster, the morning light angling in from the window, Roger standing by the door. Then, with the top of her bow hovering just a whisper above the strings, she nods imperceptibly to the unseen surfer standing outside in the hall and begins the adagio with a sweeping run into an arpeggio.

It goes like a good dream. She is relaxed, inspired. Somewhere near the end of the second movement, the fugue, Roger nods his head. Then he waves enthusiastically for her to keep going. She does. She plays straight through to the end of the piece and when she finishes with a flourish on the up bow, her chest fills with air and her outbreath releases all her worry in her ability. She is good. And now Roger knows it, too. And Conor.

At once the door opens and Conor steps boldly into the room, clapping. “That was mighty! Absolutely one hundred percent—”

Rose shoots him a look and masks her delight.

So does Roger. It takes him a half second before he says, looking at Conor, “Well, your … your friend here is right.” He eyes Conor as if peering down his nose over his glasses, although he doesn’t wear any. To his student he says, “It’s great work, Rose. Really great.”

Rose is grinning. She thinks Roger is waiting for her to say something. When she doesn’t, he asks: “Should you and … I … go for a drink?”

“No, but thanks,” she says, and she puts her violin back into its case. “I’m going back home. I’m going home for the summer.”

“Well,” Conor says, “that’s that, then.” And he reaches into his jacket pocket and hands Roger Ballantyne a business card. Conor Flynn, Master Violin Maker, Kinvara, Co. Galway. “See you,” he says, and follows Rose, who waves to Roger and walks out.

Fifteen

Children are born. They have a life but they belong to no one. This was running through Iris’s mind on the long, silent return to West Newton Street. When she and Hector arrived back in the South End early that evening, Grace came out to greet them. She’d heard the car pull in, but as the two soberly approached with a space between them defined as vacant, she stood aside and said nothing. Iris had been crying and when she looked at Grace she shook her head, couldn’t speak.

There was nothing and everything to say. Grace stood openmouthed. Hector didn’t come inside. He stayed on the sidewalk, not attempting to follow, and watched Iris go in.

In her room Iris began to pack. She was leaving—no matter what—the next day. She’d get on any plane crossing the Atlantic just to get away. It had been a horrible mistake. She was back where she started. She sat on the bed and held her breasts. It was the left breast. It hurt.

“Iris? Are you all right?” There was a soft knock at the door.

Iris didn’t answer at first. It was sweet of Grace, but Iris didn’t want to have a chat about it. Didn’t want to have a sit-down with Grace sitting in Bob’s old chair commiserating.

“I just need to sleep,” Iris said.

“Of course. I understand. I just thought you might like some tea.” There was a soundless pause. “I’ll leave it on a tray outside the door in case you change your mind. And I’ve brought up the phone if … in case … in case you need to phone Ireland.”

Iris heard Grace lay down the tray outside and waited a few moments until she was sure Grace had gone. She listened at the door, wanting also to avoid meeting Hector. She didn’t want to see him. Not that any of it was his fault, but her feelings for him were confusing.

Grace had set a tray with a pink rose alongside the tea and a sandwich and the phone. Iris was close to tears upon seeing the flower. Get it together. This is not the time to feel sorry for yourself. She put down the tray and turned to the mirror, remembering Tess’s words. “Breathing in, I know I am breathing in. Goddamn it. Breathing out, I know I am breathing out.”

It was nine o’clock in the evening, too late to ring Ireland, but she phoned the airline and after a long wait—listening every thirty seconds to the recorded voice: “We are experiencing a high volume of calls and all our operators are busy. Your call is important to us. Please hold the line and a representative will be with you shortly”—a live voice came on. There were seats available for a return flight the next day. She’d only have to pay an extra change-of-date fee. Iris was relieved. She would be in Ashwood in thirty-six hours. She sat against the bed. She didn’t want to think about anything else. Not Hilary, not the Breast Clinic, not Hector. She took off her now wrinkled blue dress and folded it, laid it in her case, and put on the bathrobe she’d been wearing the last few nights. She pulled aside the bed covers and slipped inside. She returned to the dream of Luke walking out of the sea toward her. He’d been smiling. Why was he smiling? There was nothing to smile about. There was no one there. Hilary was dead. And as for Hector, Iris wished he’d stayed as he was that first morning. Unapproachable. It would have saved her from behaving like a schoolgirl on a first date and, worse, from feeling guilty that she dared to let herself imagine a relationship. Turning from one side of the old bed to the other, she struggled to get comfortable. She turned around to the foot of the bed, buried her head under a pillow, tried to block out the sound of the irritating air-conditioning vent. She was in that zone she knew well: alert, electric, fully charged, a live wire connected to nothing. She rose from the bed, went to her case and took one of the sleeping tablets Dr. O’Reilly had given her. Soon she was falling asleep, trying to picture Luke coming from the sea.

*   *   *

She woke at six the following morning and went down to Grace’s kitchen. She made tea and stood at the window that faced onto a small garden, which she hadn’t noticed in the dark the night they’d had dinner.

When she’d finished her tea, she went out the back door in her bare feet and stood on the grass wet with dew. Her feet welcomed it. The as-yet-unlit garden was enclosed with an herb border made with railway ties fringing a brick wall. Peppermint spurted shoots through its gaps. An ill-shaped bed with a pink rosebush, some blue geranium and nepata, and tall white cosmos, which yearned for a good pruning, was dead center in the garden. She moved to it and began with urgent energy to deadhead the spent cosmos flowers. She did it out of instinct because some part of her needed to weed. She moved closer to the rosebush, and with her fingernail, nipped away thin growth along the stem. Iris bent to pull a dandelion sprouting at its base. She made a small pile of weedings and had the oddest feeling that it didn’t matter where she was, only that she was doing something, and for a moment she forgot where she was.

“Will you stay forever?” Grace came toward her, hands deep into the pockets of her bathrobe, which hung open and showed a knee-length pink nylon slip.

“I didn’t realize you had this space out here. It’s a little oasis.”

“But I could use a good gardener, as you can see. Right?”

Iris smiled.

“Sit down, Iris, please,” Grace said, moving to the garden table and its twin metal chairs. “I want to show you something.”

Iris thought, Dear God, what now? She sat opposite Grace, who handed over a thing she’d been holding in her pocket. It was a copy from a newspaper dated February 15, 1992.

CAR CRASH CLAIMS LIFE OF YOUNG WOMAN

A woman crossing Huntington Avenue died yesterday morning as the result of a car accident. According to eyewitnesses, the driver of the vehicle, a man in his fifties who is recovering in the hospital, swerved to avoid the young woman when she slipped on the ice. The car spun out of control and hit her head-on. Paramedics rushed to the scene to assist the injured woman but were unable to revive her. She was declared dead at the scene by authorities.

After contacting her parents the police revealed the name of the dead woman as Ms. Hilary Barrett, a local resident of St. Botolph Street and librarian at the Mary Baker Eddy Library across the road from where the accident occurred. Ms. Barrett graduated from Boston University and Trinity College, Dublin. She was twenty-four and is survived by her parents, Marjorie and Jack Barrett, of Chappaqua, New York. Ms. Barrett was a valued employee at the library and colleagues expressed great regret at the loss.

Authorities have warned pedestrians in the South End to be mindful of icy road conditions at this time of year and have urged residents to use the crosswalk.

Iris couldn’t articulate what she was experiencing right then, except she felt a jumble of feelings encircling her, like a tornado, of sorrow, anger, despair, fear, but also an odd, and therefore surprising, sense of relief. There it was in black-and-white. Her mission to find Hilary was at an abrupt and sad end.

So was her promise.

There’d been a very good reason why the beautiful young woman she and Luke had met nearly twenty years ago had stopped responding to queries from the Adoption Board in Dublin. Iris looked down at her hands. Grace sat beside her, and when Hector started to come out she shook her head at him and he turned and went back inside. Iris could have called out to him, but she didn’t.

The sun was easing into a space between two buildings and a long, narrow rectangle of light lit up the grass like a neon banner and now it slanted against the wall at the southwest corner. Iris turned to Grace and told her story. The whole story.

Grace reached across the table and laid her hand on Iris’s wrist and held it. They sat this way for a while. What was there to say? What was there that could be said? Inch by inch, the narrow rectangle of sunlight widened. Insects moved from shadowed corners.

“I’m sorry, Iris,” said Grace finally, “I’m so sorry. What you must be going through.” She let go of Iris’s wrist.

“When did you know?”

“About Hilary?”

“Yes.”

“Billy. Billy found out. Yesterday. You’d already left. He’s a wiz with computers. You see … I remembered the name but I couldn’t place it. It was so long ago.”

“Did you know her?”

“No. No, I didn’t. I mean, I knew of her. Afterward. It was in the papers and…” Iris watched Grace lower her head and close her eyes. After a few moments she replaced her hand on Iris’s. “What did he tell you about himself?”

“Hector?” Iris said and gave Grace a look that showed it couldn’t possibly make a difference.

But Grace ignored it and went on. “Probably not much, I’m guessing. The thing about Hector, well, I think I can tell you. It’s not a secret, right? He lost his wife to cancer … years ago. Her name was Julia.” Grace stumbled on the words she spoke. Her eyes darted toward the door of the kitchen and back to Iris, and she dropped her voice. “He thought there was a spark between you. I must admit I saw it, too. So did Billy. I mean, am I right?”

There had been a spark, Iris admitted, but today it was too weak to ignite. Today she felt only shame and sadness.

What was she anyway? The collector of lost and dead souls? No. She wasn’t going to feel sorry for Hector. Julia was years ago, she thought. He should be over it by now. Isn’t that what people said? The first two years are the hardest? For her it’d been, what? Two years and two weeks and a day since Luke died. No. Absolutely not. She wasn’t going to feel sorry for him.

But she did. She did feel sorry for him. Maybe he, too, had lost his soul mate. And for a fleeting moment she opened her heart to allow in his sadness.

She looked into the corner of the garden where the sunlight had widened its netlike cast against the redbrick wall, catching every other leaf and flower bud in a dazzling glare, and now the tiny back garden glowed.

*   *   *

In midafternoon at Logan Airport, standing at the check-in counter, Grace hugged Iris and whispered, “Hector will be sorry you left without saying good-bye. What should I tell him?”

“Good-bye.”

“Good-bye?”

Iris nodded.

“That’s it? Nothing more?” Grace said.

“I can’t, Grace. I’m not ready.” Iris gathered her bag and shoulder bag. “Maybe…?”

“Maybe? Maybe what?”

Iris’s eyes welled up.

“Okay. Okay. It’s all right. I know what to tell him.” Grace reached her arms around Iris and held her for a moment. Iris let herself be held but had no strength to hold back. “Let me know how the appointment turns out. I’ll be anxious to know. Right?” Grace dropped her arms and took a step back. “In such a short time I feel like I know you. Will you come back? Will you bring Rose?”

Iris couldn’t speak. To speak would bring tears.

*   *   *

After she was through security, and her face washed of tears, she looked around for an Internet station and checked her e-mails. One from Tess and garden.ie and Higgledygarden.co.uk and three with unfamiliar addresses. She read Tess’s first, which told her Rose was doing well since her “big upset.”

Hurry up already and get home Iris! We miss you. And PS … What the hell? What are you doing? Missing your appointment? And PPS … no need to worry about Rosie. Take my word for it.

Iris wrote back that she was coming home on Flight EI345, arriving at 6:00 a.m., and would explain everything then. But not to tell Rose. And P.S., what did you mean, Take my word for it?

The e-mail from an R.E.B. surprised her. She hadn’t expected e-mails from blog readers so soon.

Dear Ms. Bowen,

I’m glad to have discovered your blog. As a landscape architect myself in the heart of NYC, your post on poppies brought a little green into my life.

Kindest regards,

R.E.B.

Delighted, she read the other two. One asked if Iris had ever tried to grow meconopsis. It’s like having a bit of the blue sky in your border. And the other was a city gardener asking: Can Icelandic poppies be grown in a window box? Such simple signposts, tokens, and yet it thrilled her. She was connected. Blog readers were a link to the world. She’d reply to them all next week and would copy her replies to Arthur Simmons.

A few hours later, she was sitting in an aisle seat in row 37 at the back of the plane near the toilets. When the beverage cart came, she ordered a gin and tonic and two of those plastic quarter bottles of wine to go with her chicken dinner. Her mind pitched back to the South End. Grace would be telling Hector that Iris had been recalled to the Breast Clinic for further tests. She pictured how his face would look. She was suddenly sorry for him. She felt like crying.

*   *   *

The next thing she knew a voice was saying, “The captain has switched on the seat belt sign. We’ll be landing in fifteen minutes. The weather in Shannon on this lovely June morning is blustery but the forecast is for sunny spells.” Iris looked out onto the clouds scattered across the blue and, below, a little green.

She switched on her phone at the luggage carousel; half a dozen messages beeped their arrival.

From Tess:

Welcome Back!!! Can’t b there 2 collect u. Sorry pet. Sendin taxi tho. C u later. x T ps Rose away at music event in London. WITH friend! As promised, didn’t tell her u were comin. She’ll b back in a few days.

A man holding a placard with her name on it smiled as she approached and he took her bag and said, “Welcome home.”

The captain’s weather report had been right, there were sunny spells. The sun beamed down on everything, on cattle in the fields, on hawthorn hedgerows, on fuchsia in full bloom. She fell quiet, grateful the driver sensed she didn’t want to talk. A little more than half an hour later she arrived home. When she stepped from the taxi, Cicero jumped from the rooftop of the low cabin. He didn’t seem to particularly notice she’d been gone five whole days. He gave her no welcome except to jump onto the table where the food was kept. Iris put down her bag and waited until the driver pulled away.

Neither did the garden look like it had missed her. It was in perfect order. Did anyone or anything need her?

Getting used to this being alone required a skill she still struggled to perfect. It was on the far side of the road, as if always just over there—the place she couldn’t get to, couldn’t reach. She had traveled some distance from the initial grief-pain of Luke’s death to where she was now—standing still in her garden, listening to the barn swallows’ chideep chideep—able to somewhat appreciate how far she’d come. This is my life. But she wanted more and it was up to her to get it.

She’d read a novel lately about a man whose wife comes back from the dead. She pops into his life in odd moments, then disappears. Something about unfinished business. One day she came and said, “It wasn’t up to you to make my life happy. It was up to me, but your loving helped.” Then poof! She was gone and returned no more.

Iris wished Luke would appear and tell her something. Tell her how to do it. Without his loving, living was the greatest challenge of her life.

She turned the key and went in.

In the kitchen, the poppies had been cleared away. In their place were two empty mugs.

*   *   *

Tess arrived in the late afternoon and, after hugging Iris a few times, walking around her in a circle and hugging her again, she said, “Poor pet.” She stood back and grabbed Iris by her shoulders.

“You ran off to Boston and missed the appointment.”

“I know.”

Tess shook her head, but smiled. “Here. Where’s the phone? I’ll ring and reschedule.”

“I’ve made it for Thursday morning.” Iris paused a moment. “Will you come with me?”

“Of course … but what about Rose?”

“I don’t know, Tess. She already has enough on her plate.”

“I’ll say,” Tess said.

It was an odd thing, but Iris didn’t read into it. “Plus,” Iris said, “I don’t know what her plans are. She’s probably still upset about that wretched master class.”

“Oh … I think she’s over that.”

Iris narrowed her eyes.

“You underestimate her—” Tess said.

“Tess?”

“I just mean, she’s more flexible than you realize. Do you think maybe, just maybe, you’re overprotective? Just a little? Just a teensy little bit? It’s only natural, but—”

“Would you like some tea, Dr. Tess, Medicine Woman?” Iris turned and went to the kitchen. Tess smiled and followed.

“So?”

“So?”

“Yes … So? Why did you disappear without a word? To America?”

Iris didn’t look up but poured the tea.

“Exciting undercover garden assignment?”

Iris looked at Tess, her eyes betraying her and welling up.

“Oh God. What? Iris? What’s wrong?”

When Iris finally told her story, the words burst like a sudden rain shower. “I made a promise to Luke. If anything happened to me I’d find Rose’s birth mother. I promised Luke. What if something bad happens? That’s why I went to Dublin. Then Boston. She was there, but—”

“She was there?”

“Yes. No … I mean she was there, but she’s not. She’s dead.”

“Easy, pet. Hold on.”

Iris explained about Hilary and how she’d taken the envelope at the Adoption Board and two days later flown to Boston. She told about 99 St. Botolph Street and the waiter. And the Mapparium. And Becket. “It was all for nothing. A big, fat, horrible, stupid mistake.”

“Ohhhhh, Iris.” Tess put her arms around her.

“I never told you, but Luke and I met her. It was a long time ago … I’m sorry she’s dead.” Iris paused. “Tess, she was the real mother of my child.” Iris pulled away and shook herself, circling the island as if to shed the whole blooming thing, like it was something she could shake off and down, like autumn leaves stubbornly holding on to a tree.