The President's Lunch

by Jenny Bond

Genres: General Fiction; Historical Fiction; Literary Fiction; Romance; Historical Romance; 20th Century Romance

Synopsis

She tasted power and passion in the world's highest office against the backdrop of the Great Depression and World War Two. Robbed of her home and job by the Great Depression, the future looks bleak for Iris McIntosh - until a chance encounter with America's indefatigable First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt. Propelled into the White House's brilliant inner circle, Iris finds herself at the centre of momentous change ... and her heart torn between two men. But her loyalty lies with a third: the complicated and charismatic President Roosevelt, who will ultimately force her to question everything she believes in. A compelling story of politics and power, love and loss, set in one of the most exciting and cataclysmic periods of history. Reviews for Jenny Bond's first novel, PERFECT NORTH 'hugely enjoyable' - Australian Women?s Weekly 'fascinating in its detail and intriguing in its storyline' - The Canberra Times 'This debut novel is based on a true story so tragically romantic you couldn't make it up.' - Who Weekly 'A gripping tale' - Good Reading 'intriguing' - The Saturday Age

Release date: July 29, 2014

Publisher: Hachette Australia

Print pages: 384

Sample

Iris listened patiently as the seventeen-year-old inched his way through the book, his progress punctuated by frequent stops as he looked up from the page, seeking assistance. The young woman, with her cheek cupped in her palm, gently offered hints for each troubling word or sound. Then she’d smile broadly, her blue eyes and freckled nose crinkling. It was a child’s book, Hansel and Gretel, that Roy had found or traded and had brought to her with a request from his parents that she teach him to read. Roy was obviously slow-witted but Iris supposed that being a little backward in times like these might be a blessing. As he read the final page she brushed her dark hair from her forehead and tightened the band that held her errant locks in check. The boy looked up from the page, distracted by the movement.

‘Keep going, Roy,’ Iris encouraged him. ‘You’re doing so well. Let’s try to get to the end today.’

Roy was tall and good-looking, with a mess of blond curls poking from a tattered Cubs cap. Like nearly everyone at the camp, he seemed to have only one outfit – a pair of corduroy trousers, a dark green argyle sweater and a plaid shirt. When Roy had come to her door with his book a month ago it was the colour of his plaid shirt that Iris noticed first. She had sold or bartered away most of her clothes and it had felt as though she was giving away a part of herself. When she sold her favourite dress for a quarter, one made of dark plaid – the same pattern as Roy’s shirt – she had cried at the realisation that she had nothing else to give.

Iris had walked with the broad, ambling boy back to his home on the corner of Easy Street and Prosperity Row. She’d had to slow her usual brisk pace so she didn’t get ahead; Roy was often sidetracked, bending to pat a dog or stooping to pocket a dirt-caked bottle top he’d spied on the ground. The blanket that served as the shack’s front door was pulled back, allowing light to enter the makeshift dwelling. The home was larger than hers and looked to be made up of two rooms. The brick, wood and steel structure seemed sturdier than the crudely cobbled together one-room shanty on Hard Times Avenue that Iris had taken over when the previous occupants had moved on. The boy’s mother was seated on a stool, patching a pair of trousers.

‘Hello, Mrs Cullen. I’m Iris McIntosh. Roy says you would like me to teach him to read.’

The woman looked up from her work. ‘Yep. He’s simple, ya see. He’s not got much goin’ for him. He should knows how to read and write.’

Iris decided helping a young man become literate might not be such a bad way to spend her many idle hours. Since her ‘fall’, a term she used to describe becoming unemployed and homeless almost a year before, she had not worked for more than a week at a time. She needed a diversion, a purpose; she was only twenty-three, too young to feel useless. Mrs Cullen’s suggestion reminded Iris of what she loved most about teaching – the opportunity to help another person. The hours spent queuing at soup kitchens and knocking on doors looking for work had erased this from her memory. She could barely recall standing in front of a class of faces, a few eager and others indifferent, book in one hand and chalk in the other. When the headmaster of Lincoln Park High School had called her and five other teachers into his office one Friday afternoon in April last year, Iris knew what was coming. Sure enough, Mr Walters explained that he would have to let go the last six teachers he’d hired. As the dismissed and dejected filed out of the room and down the corridor, the headmaster called Iris back.

‘I’m really sorry, Iris,’ he began. ‘You’re an excellent teacher and the kids really take to you.’

‘What’ll happen to my classes?’ Iris asked.

‘Classes will be combined. Some subjects amalgamated. We’ll get by. This depression can’t last forever.’ He shook her hand and wished her good luck.

Iris hadn’t set foot in a classroom since.

‘We’s heard you were a teacher, that you went to college,’ Mrs Cullen was saying now. ‘Tom and me don’t expect you to do it for nuttin’, though.’ Roy’s father, Tom Cullen, was regarded as the de facto mayor of the shantytown where she had resided for the past three months. ‘Tom said you can eat for nuttin’. No need to contribute anythin’ to the pot. Three squares a day.’

Iris agreed and asked Roy to visit her, with his book, at nine o’clock the next morning.

Iris had been tutoring Roy each morning ever since. He was sweet, attentive and hard-working. He was also making headway, albeit slowly. What more could a teacher ask? Sometimes he’d bring her gifts, tokens found around the camp: an old Coke bottle that became a vase; a rusty tin can she used to hold three stubby pencils (also offerings from Roy); and a stained, emerald-coloured ribbon that Iris washed and wore in her hair at her student’s insistence. She dreamed that one day Roy might bring her a book to read or a current edition of the Chicago Tribune; even a not-so-recent copy of Modern Screen or the Saturday Evening Post would be appreciated – anything to end her debilitating isolation. But when she thought about it, what she longed for most was a brand-new cake of white, scented Lux soap still wrapped in its paper.

‘That’s excellent work, Roy,’ Iris said. ‘So good.’ She rose from the crate on which she had been sitting and stretched out her long legs. Roy eyed her devotedly as she straightened the waistband of her tweed trousers and tucked in her shirt where it had bloused.

‘I wish I still had some of my books, Roy,’ she told him regretfully, hands on hips. ‘I had a few westerns and adventure stories that I think you’d really like – Treasure Island and The Lone Star Ranger. But I sold them all.’ She grimaced comically and he laughed. ‘We’ll keep going tomorrow,’ she said, patting him on the shoulder.

Roy placed his hand on her hip and looked up into her dark blue eyes. ‘You’re so pretty, Iris,’ he said.

Iris started; Roy had never touched her like that before. She picked up his baseball cap from where he’d left it on the floor and put it back on his head. ‘Thank you, Roy. But you should be going now. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ She attempted to pull away but the young man strengthened his grasp and stood. He was holding her tight around the waist.

‘But you’re so pretty, Iris.’ He stood and moved in closer, knocking the crate he was sitting on backwards as he did so. He pressed hard against her and Iris could feel his erection against her stomach. She managed to move her hands up to his chest to push him away but was only able to budge him an inch.

Iris looked up into his smiling, eager face. Although her heart pounded in her chest and her throat was tight, she tried to keep her tone relaxed and even. ‘Really, Roy, you must go. This isn’t proper. I’m your teacher.’

‘Just a little kiss, Iris. You’re so pretty.’

He leaned in to kiss her, mouth open wide, his arms tightening around her until she could barely breathe. She opened her mouth to scream but the noise was stifled by his large hand. Her panic was overlaid by a sense of unreality. Surely this couldn’t be happening.

‘Don’t make a fuss, Iris. I just want a little kiss.’ Roy placed his hands around her throat and lifted her head to his. An image from her childhood, of her mother and father, flashed into her mind. She hurriedly smothered it. With her body free, Iris swung her arms and kicked out with her legs. It was hopeless. He was too big and too dim-witted to understand the consequences. She was a rag doll. She closed her eyes as he lowered his wide, wet mouth to hers. Her stomach pitched and swayed violently and in a last desperate attempt to free herself Iris wedged her hands between her chest and Roy’s torso and was able to unbalance him.

He stumbled and released her, and she fell back against the floor. Roy was approaching her, his hand to his fly. He was still smiling.

Then she did scream. The sound was loud and shrill and surprising and stopped Roy in his tracks. An expression of bemusement came over his face. Within seconds a crowd had assembled in her tiny home.

When the cab turned right into Desales Street she could see her friend waiting in the doorway. She would recognise that frame anywhere: tall, slim and slightly stooped. Her hands were pressed into the pockets of a tired green overcoat. Hick thought the faded garment ill-fitting and unattractive, but it was one of Eleanor’s favourites. Her bucket church hat was also well-loved by Eleanor. It was green like the overcoat, with a satin bow to one side that had, over the years, lost its pertness. Next to Eleanor stood a broad man Hick identified, despite the early morning light, as Harry Dewey of the Secret Service – another of Eleanor’s favourites.

Her friend had given her brief but detailed instructions on the telephone the day before. Hick was to meet Eleanor in a cab at the side entrance of The Mayflower at seven forty-five am precisely. She would not divulge to Hick where they were going or, in fact, whether Hick would even be accompanying her. It was unlike Eleanor to take such risks, especially on the morning before Franklin’s inauguration. Reporters and photographers would soon be swarming the hotel.

Hick instructed the driver to make a U-turn and pull up in front of the waiting couple. As he did so, Hick leaned across the back seat and grabbed the door handle. When the vehicle came to a stop she pushed the door open and Eleanor slid into the car. Dewey closed the door and Eleanor placed the palm of her gloved hand to the window in a gesture of thanks.

The driver’s eyes filled his rear-view mirror. ‘Rock Creek Cemetery, please,’ Eleanor said. Surprised, Hick looked at her friend, but she couldn’t see Eleanor’s eyes. The interior of the cab was gloomy and Eleanor had her hat pulled low over her brow in a gesture Hick now realised was both a defence against the cold and a rudimentary disguise. Ignoring her friend’s questioning glance, Eleanor placed her hand over Hick’s, which was spread flat on the seat between them. Hick turned her hand and squeezed Eleanor’s fingers, savouring the feel of the soft calfskin of Eleanor’s glove.

As they drove north along New Hampshire Avenue Eleanor remained silent with her head turned towards the window. When she was able to glimpse Eleanor’s face Hick noticed a change from her usual disposition. She was unable to define the expression exactly, but she’d seen it once before. It was during the 1932 Democratic National Convention. While the Roosevelts and their entourage were gathered in the governor’s mansion during the days of tense ballots and deal-making, Hick was holed up in the garage of the same residence with a handful of reporters assigned to cover the convention. She remembered emerging from the garage early one morning to find the governor’s wife sitting by herself on the porch. On seeing that Hick was bleary-eyed and starving, she’d asked the exhausted reporter to breakfast.

They had shared a substantial meal together on the porch, alone except for Eleanor’s dog Major, who lay under the table across his owner’s feet. Very little in the way of conversation passed between the two women during their forty-five minutes together. But despite her graciousness, her warmth, her hospitality and the certainty that her husband would win the presidential nomination, Mrs Roosevelt was conspicuously sad.

When the cab stopped at the entrance to the cemetery Eleanor stepped quickly out onto the sidewalk. As she did so she asked the driver to wait.

Hick hastily searched her purse and found a five-dollar bill which she gave to the driver. ‘We shouldn’t be long.’ She also handed the man the copy of the Washington Post she had folded in her handbag. ‘It’s the early edition.’ The driver nodded and smiled, and Hick left the vehicle, closing the door behind her.

‘So, what’s this all about?’ Hick asked.

‘Follow me.’

Iris sat contemplating the events of the previous day. Had she encouraged Roy? Had she been too familiar? He possessed the natural cravings of a man with only the self-control of a child to keep them in check. As he was led out of her house by three of her neighbours he began to cry. Iris heard confusion in his tears as he attempted to explain.

‘But I just wanted a little kiss. I didn’t mean no harm.’ The sound of his breathless sobs accompanied by a sense of her own wretched state induced her own tears and she cried steadily the entire morning.

At nine o’clock there was a knock on Iris’s door. Hers was one of the only dwellings to possess a front door. When she had arrived in December the shack had a large piece of corrugated tin propped up against the entrance. She had found the door on North LaSalle Street and had balanced it carefully on her wooden barrow. A neighbour cut the door to fit and attached it. She gave his wife her last pair of woollen socks in return.

Surely it couldn’t be Roy knocking, she thought. Perhaps, like a child who’d been naughty, he had long forgotten the previous day’s mischief. But to her surprise when she opened the door she found Tom Cullen. Iris gestured for him to enter but he moved no further than a foot from the entrance. Iris noticed he had buttoned the shirt that he wore under his denim overalls to the neck, and when he removed his hat she saw his hair had been combed carefully. Iris couldn’t remember seeing a straighter part.

‘Mr Cullen,’ Iris said.

Cullen cleared his throat and stared at the ground, his hat gripped tightly to his chest.

‘I’m sorry about yesterday, miss. Me, my missus, we had no idea … We never thought Roy would … anything like that.’

‘Of course. Please sit down, Mr Cullen.’ Iris pointed to a fruit crate by her cobbled-together stove.

He shook his head. ‘I just come to tell you that we appreciate all that you’ve done for our boy, but I reckon there’s just no fixin’ some.’

Iris considered this for a moment. ‘I don’t think that’s true,’ she said. ‘It’s not a matter of fixing. He’s a good person at heart. I think we just need to remember that he’s a man now. We have to treat him a little differently.’

‘You’re mighty understanding, miss. But I’ve discussed it with the other Founders and we’ve decided the boy can’t stay.’ The Founding Fathers were the five men who first squatted on the piece of land on Randolph Street in 1929. From those five and their families a community of nearly three thousand people had been born. No one could remember when the tongue-in-cheek moniker ‘Founding Fathers’ had been formally adopted by the tribe.

‘I really don’t think that’s warranted …’ Iris began.

‘He can’t stay, miss,’ Cullen repeated firmly. ‘As much as it pains me, Roy’s gotta go.’

Iris couldn’t believe what she was hearing. The man was going to evict his own son. ‘You can’t mean that, Mr Cullen. He just needs to be taught right from wrong, about men and women.’

‘There’s nothing more to be said about it.’ Cullen still hadn’t moved from his spot just inside the doorway. He still hadn’t looked at Iris. ‘The boy can’t see the error of his ways.’ The man paused for a moment and cleared his throat before saying more quietly, ‘I fear for your safety, miss.’

She took the seat that Cullen had refused and placed her head in her hands. ‘Has Roy done anything like this before?’

‘Nope.’

Iris couldn’t let it happen. Despite his size and strength, Roy would never survive on his own.

‘Then perhaps it’s me who’s the problem,’ Iris said finally, looking at the mayor.

He returned her gaze.

‘Thank you for coming to see me, Mr Cullen,’ Iris said, standing and holding out her hand. ‘I’ll be gone by the morning.’

Hick followed her friend as she walked briskly along the cemetery’s paths. It was difficult for the portly journalist to keep pace with her long-limbed friend and occasionally the forty-year-old was compelled to break into a clumsy trot. After a few minutes, Eleanor came to a halt and took a seat on the granite bench facing the Adams Memorial.

The reporter positioned herself next to her friend on the stone seat and looked at her watch. It was eighty-thirty, but she could still feel against her face a thin cloak of mist in the air. Hick raised her eyes to the sky. It was cloud-covered, but she recognised it as the kind of cloud that broke up without too much of a fight when the sun really got going, even in March. She looked at Eleanor. The other woman sat motionless, her hat still pulled low on her face, staring at the hooded, bronze statue in front of them. The urge to break the silence was overwhelming.

Hick examined her friend’s profile. The corners of her eyelids drooped down, transforming her grey-blue eyes into teardrops. Strangers often equated this feature with tiredness or sternness, seeing only the shape of the eyes, and not their playful, inquisitive glint. Her nose was perfectly straight and so feminine, Hick thought. Her mouth was slightly open, her teeth protruding impatiently through full lips. She always looked as if she were about to speak, as if a flood of words were being dammed, desperately waiting for the perfect time of utterance.

Although she was too cynical to believe in love at first sight, Hick did believe her feelings for Eleanor were born on their first meeting in 1928. She was assigned to interview the governor’s wife and Eleanor had invited Hick to tea in her East 65th Street home in New York. Hick had found the invitation strange. After all, no other interviewee had ever served her tea and biscuits. But she was immediately captivated by Eleanor Roosevelt. The way her long, slender hands so nimbly manoeuvred the teapot and cups was mesmerising. Hick was fascinated by her host’s control of a pair of ridiculously small tongs as she deftly placed cubes of sugar into the brew without a trace of a splash.

Eleanor was gracious and warm during the interview, but also guarded. While this usually annoyed the reporter, in this instance she didn’t care. Hick had ended her article with the sentence, ‘The new mistress of the Executive Mansion in Albany is a very great lady.’ Her editor hadn’t liked her choice of words. He had called the sentence ‘clunky’ but the phrase summed up precisely how Hick felt. For seventy minutes she had been in the presence of greatness.

While Hick recalled the day, she sat gazing at the soft spot at the corner of the mouth that she so loved to kiss. Then Eleanor finally spoke.

‘Do you know the story behind this memorial?’

‘Bits and pieces, I suppose. Henry Adams commissioned it for his wife Clover. She killed herself, didn’t she?’

‘That’s right. She was forty-two and drank potassium cyanide.’ Eleanor paused. ‘In the old days, when we lived in Washington, I was much younger and not so very wise. Sometimes I’d be very unhappy and sorry for myself. When I was feeling that way, I’d come here and sit and look at that woman. And I’d always leave feeling better. And stronger. I’ve been here many, many times.’

‘Are you unhappy now?’ Hick asked, placing her hand on Eleanor’s knee.

‘No, just a little hurt.’ Eleanor paused again. ‘I asked Franklin if I might help him after tomorrow, answering his mail or something. He looked at me so strangely and told me it would be an insult to Missy.’

Hick stared at her, astonished. ‘You have better, more important things to do than acting as secretary to the president. You are so far above that. You shouldn’t see his response as an affront; if anything it’s a compliment. Even Franklin knows that answering his mail and getting his coffee is beneath you.’

‘Missy does slightly more than that. She’s his right hand, his companion,’ Eleanor said.

‘I know. Missy is invaluable and a great friend to you both. But really, Eleanor …’ Hick groaned in frustration.

Eleanor nodded, but Hick could see she was still troubled. There was more to it, she thought.

After a few moments Eleanor continued, ‘He’s also invited Lucy Mercer Rutherford tomorrow. Arranged special seats for the ceremony and a car to pick her up. We’ll be separated for most of the day. I’m sure he has arranged time to be alone with her.’

‘It’s probably just a rumour started by someone like Alice Longworth, who enjoys seeing you rattled.’ Hick moved closer to her friend along the bench. Their thighs touched.

‘It’s no rumour and my cousin knows better than to provoke me. Louis told me – to warn me, he said. He wanted me to be prepared.’

‘Didn’t Franklin’s mother forbid him from ever seeing her again and threaten to cut the purse strings?’

‘Yes, at the time Sara did. But it has been fifteen years. Franklin’s going to be president tomorrow. Those sorts of threats don’t really count for much any more.’

Hick was unsure how to respond. On the one hand she was annoyed, and jealous, she admitted to herself, that Franklin’s thoughtless gesture cut so deeply and had reduced her friend to such insecurity. On the other, she knew she should comfort Eleanor and offer support.

‘If you can have me there then surely Franklin can have Lucy; it’s only fair, Eleanor,’ she said, attempting frivolity.

‘Most people think Clover Adams committed suicide when she fell into a depression following her father’s death, but that’s only partly true.’ Eleanor stood and walked to the statue. She placed her hand lightly on the figure’s bronze head before continuing. ‘Her husband was obsessed with another woman, Elizabeth Cameron. She was known as the most beautiful woman in Washington. She was also Clover’s best friend.’

‘How do you know all this?’ Hick asked. ‘You would have been a child, a baby, at the time.’

‘Uncle Teddy and Aunt Bye were good friends of the Adamses. Aunt Bye told me the story when I was a teenager. Henry and Elizabeth’s love affair was infamous in Washington. They didn’t even try to hide it.’

Hick could see how the story would resonate with Eleanor. She walked over to her friend and placed her hands on her shoulders. ‘Your husband has been selfish and insensitive, that’s a fact. But you have nothing to worry about. Tomorrow you’ll not only be First Lady of this nation but also, in my eyes, the most beautiful woman in Washington. This town is fuelled by gossip and power and there’s nothing you can do to change that. All you can do is ignore it or play along. I dare anyone to laugh at you or pity you. No one will be able to touch you.’

Her words had no effect. Eleanor sighed deeply then looked at her friend directly. ‘Back in the old days, here, I was a different person. You wouldn’t have loved the person I was then. I was silly and anxious. I worry because I have come so far, learned so much …’ She trailed off, unable to finish her thought.

‘Keep going, Eleanor,’ Hick urged.

‘I worry that I’ll be required to be a congenial First Lady and nothing more. Shake hands and pour tea and receive bouquets. I worry my work will be sidelined.’ She paused. ‘That must sound so selfish.’

‘Don’t allow Franklin’s thoughtlessness to mar what tomorrow means for you and all the good you’ll now be able to achieve. You might be married to the president-elect, but you have been your own person for a very long time, Eleanor.’

‘Thank you, my dearest.’ Eleanor bent uncomfortably and placed her head on Hick’s shoulder. ‘Mitsouko,’ Eleanor remarked of her friend’s fragrance. ‘I’ve always adored the smell of peaches and cloves. It was what you were wearing when you first visited us at Hyde Park. Remember?’ Hick smiled then eased Eleanor’s head against her shoulder again as she recalled the day.

It was sometime before the National Convention and the reporter had come to tour Hyde Park, Franklin’s home town in upstate New York. Hick spent the entire day with Eleanor and Franklin at their home, Springwood. As they sat by the fire after dinner, Franklin assumed responsibility for conversation. Ceaselessly smoking and smiling, he worked hard to charm the journalist. Eleanor sat knitting. Occasionally, the women caught each other in a curious glance.

It was during the campaign, when Hick was assigned to cover Eleanor’s movements full-time, that their relationship had grown into something more than cautious glances. On a train from Topeka to Salt Lake City, as a storm pounded against the windows of the drawing room they shared, Eleanor had recounted to Hick her life story. From her ‘odd sort of childhood’, as she called it, to the freedom of her school days in Europe, her marriage to her fifth cousin to her present dread of being First Lady, Eleanor had opened her soul to her new friend.

When the train finally outran the rain in the early hours of the morning the pair were snuggled on the berth in their nightgowns. Hick stroked her friend’s arm in silence, astonished by both the privilege and the pain in her tale.

Now, as a cold wind swept across the cemetery, Hick wrapped her arms around her friend’s waist and nuzzled her face against Eleanor’s coat. The faded garment smelled fresh and recently laundered. They stayed this way for a number of minutes. When Eleanor lifted her head Hick could see she had been crying. She wiped her friend’s cheeks with the back of her hand.

‘Your hand is cold,’ Eleanor said quietly. ‘You should wear gloves.’

‘I’m always losing them.’

‘I’ll find a special pair for you, leather with fur lining. You wouldn’t dare lose those.’

‘True.’ Hick smiled. ‘Shall we get back? Are you feeling better?’

‘Much. I’m sorry to be so silly. Thank you for being here.’

‘You’re not silly, my darling. What are friends for?’ And they walked arm in arm back to the waiting cab.

Iris prepared to leave the camp nauseous with unknowing. She had few possessions to pack – a change of clothes and underwear, a bedroll, a hairbrush and her toothbrush, and a saucepan which she tied to the outside of her haversack. The Cullens thanked Iris and gave her some bread. This she added to her meagre baggage, along with the one book she’d kept: The Portrait of a Lady. Despite her poverty, Iris had been unable to part with Isabel Archer.

It was not even seven in the morning. The sun had barely risen and was failing to penetrate a dense blanket of cloud. The cold stung her face. Iris stood at the door of her dwelling for a minute and looked out to the street. Fires burned in metal drums, lighting up the shantytown. Men and women were already positioned around the fires. It was a community, she thought; not one she would have chosen, but a community nonetheless. She walked the mile through the camp to Randolph Street. As she exited the camp and her foot hit the sidewalk she realised she was alone again.

She had no idea that in only a few hours, more than seven hundred miles away, the new president would stand on the East Portico of the Capitol. He would speak to a crowd numbering one hundred and fifty thousand about fear – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror. Iris also had no idea in which direction she should head. She stopped for a moment. Hurried workers rushed by her on their way to work. Occasionally someone would inadvertently jostle her. Neither a ‘sorry, miss’ nor an ‘excuse me’ were uttered. In less than a year she had gone from respected and valued to invisible and hopeless. She had no money and no prospects.

When her mother died she had felt a similar sense of destitution. Discovering her mother lying in bed when she came home from school was unusual. Mrs McIntosh would typically wait for her first student to arrive, setting the sheet music on the stand, adjusting the strings of her violin. Iris would sit and begin on her homework or read while her mother tutored. It was Tuesday. Her mother had two students on Tuesday, Iris knew: Albert Murphy and Maree Pugh. Albert would be there any minute. Iris grabbed her mother’s shoulders and shook her. She yelled, slapped her face even, but she couldn’t rouse her. The thirteen-year-old put her cheek to her mother’s mouth, willing herself to feel a hint of breath. She pulled down the covers and pressed her ear hard to her mother’s chest, holding her own breath in desperate anticipation.

Nothing.

There was a knock at the door. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and went to the door.

‘Mama’s not feeling well,’ Iris said to her mother’s student.

The boy looked at her blankly. ‘What am I supposed to do?’ he asked.

‘Go home, I guess,’ Iris said as she closed the door on the boy’s consternation. She hastily opened it and shouted, ‘Tell Maree, okay?’

‘Okay,’ he replied on his way down the steps.

Iris went back and sat with her mother, wondering where she might find her father. She knew most of what her mother told her about his activities was a lie. She knew what he told both of them was fantasy. Sometimes he didn’t come home for days. There was a time when Iris’s mother used to explain that he was working out of town. These days she didn’t correct the neighbours who asked if Torrie was on another bender. She merely nodded politely and made her way up the steps and into the building, her shoulders erect.

Although it had grown dark before Torrie McIntosh came home, Iris had not left her mother’s side. When he found his wife and daughter he sobbed wil