[ COMPLETED 2018, REWRITING 2021 ]
1918, A STRANGER arrives in Small Heath for the first time on the 6 o'clock morning train. Magnetic and mysterious, Iris Hancock captures the attention of a man not easily stirred or moved by others. A man named Th...
One January morning, after Iris had woken up in her flat alone, she stumbled across an old photograph of herself in one of her coat pockets. It was a newspaper cutout from the year 1910, in the Balsall Heath Gazette. She sat at her kitchen table, running her thumb over the fragile paper. Her mother had cut it out of the newspaper and sent it to her in the post, she remembered receiving it.
'LOCAL GIRL MARRIED' it read in thick printed letters. Iris gulped and looked away, biting the inside of her lip. She felt her eyes sting with tears. She breathed slowly for a moment, before getting up and lighting the stove. She held the paper to the flame for a second, but while she did, she caught eyes with herself in the photo and pulled it away.
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Nineteen years old, she had been. It was probably the only photo of her from before that she owned, and she couldn't bear to let it disappear into ash. She stared at it for a long moment, at her pale blue eyes, her innocent face. Her name in print, she hadn't seen it like that for a very long time. Nor had she seen his name beside it.
Iris folded the singed piece of paper and held it close to her mouth for a second, shutting her eyes as she breathed heavily.
"Beauty queen," she almost laughed, putting the piece of paper in the back of her wallet.
She was meant to be meeting Tommy that day, so Iris pulled herself together and got dressed, wrapping herself up in a warm coat. As she was leaving her flat, a horrible thought crossed her mind.
She remembered her mother sending her that picture in the post, but she was almost certain she hadn't brought it with her when she left Russia. Iris scolded herself inwardly. It was fine. She surely couldn't remember every little thing she grabbed in a frenzy when she'd run away almost eight years ago.
♞
Iris was quiet on the ride over to the stables. Tommy was taking her to see Whiskey again, despite her insistence that she could barely ride a horse.
He drove her there this time, and she sat, quietly watching the trees through the window. She was rattled by her discovery that morning, and couldn't shake the inkling that she would've found that photo already if it had been on her person for the past eight years.
All she could think about was how precarious her happiness was. Every time Iris saw Tommy, she fell deeper, and every time she fell she had more to lose. Her guilt was surrounding her like a vulture circling a corpse, and Iris felt like dead meat.
Tommy stopped the car at the stables and said nothing as he got out. Iris wondered if her mood was affecting him. They were similar in the way that if one of them didn't make an effort to talk, neither would. Two calculating introverts, who's thoughts kept them busy when there was nothing to say.
The sight of Iris' beautiful horse cheered her up momentarily. She held out a gloved hand and stroked her slender nose. She turned to Tommy, who was watching her.
