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.
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.
"Where are we taking her?" She asked.
He patted her saddle. "For a ride."
"Oh no, Thomas, that's not a good idea," Iris protested. "I can't ride."
"I'll steer the way," he said. "You can sit in front of me."
"This is a bad idea," Iris said.
"What's the point in having a horse if you won't ride it?" He asked.
Tommy led the horse through Small Heath and out into the fields where the gypsies lived. He sat behind Iris on the saddle holding the reins with his head over her shoulder. They didn't speak much on the way either, but Iris didn't mind. She liked just being close to him as the horse trotted through the fields, leaning back against his body.
Despite her newfound fear of horses, Iris found riding quite calming. She shut her eyes for a moment, letting the breeze ripple over her face. She trusted him, which was a foreign and rather fearful feeling for Iris. Trusting men was what had gone wrong in her life.
They reached a field that went by the canal. It was grassy and overgrown, with an enormous weeping willow in the middle. Tommy swung his leg over and stepped down onto the ground.
"Where are we?" She asked as he gave her a hand down.
"There used to be a gypsy camp here," he told her. "A long time ago."
"When you were little?" Iris asked.
He nodded. "My mum lived here once," he told her, staring up at the tree. Iris didn't know anything about Tommy's mum, or his dad for that matter. She'd never asked, knowing there would be questions she might have to answer if she did. "Come on," he patted the horse. "Your turn to ride by yourself."
Iris looked up at the horse and back at Tommy. "What?"
"Come on, Iris," he said. "It's your horse. I'll give you a leg up."
Iris decided not to argue, and allowed Tommy to lift her up onto the creature.
"Not so hard, eh?" He asked once she was on. "Now pick up the reins."
She nodded, picking them up. She had some memory of riding when she was very young, so she gave them a pull, and the horse began to walk. Iris let out a giggle.
She pulled on the reins again and leaned forward, allowing the horse to go a little faster.
"This is easy!" She called back at Tommy, who was lighting a cigarette.
"Hold on!" He called.
Iris tried to reach into her pocket for one of her own, placing it between her lips, but she lost her balance. Her foot slipped and she tumbled off onto the soft grass.
"Ouch," she groaned in pain, looking up at the branches of the weeping willow with dizzied eyes.
Tommy came running over after tying the horse to the tree.
"I thought I told you to hold on," he said, examining the bruise on her cheek with his thumb. "What were you doing?"
"I wanted to smoke," she said innocently.
Tommy laughed at this as he helped her up, putting his own cigarette between her lips.
"I think that's enough horse riding for one day, eh Iris?" He said as they leaned back against the tree trunk.
"I wholeheartedly agree," Iris smiled, passing him back his cigarette.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, and Iris watched the light from the January sun twinkle through the gaps in the tree. The willow's long sweeping branches felt protective around them, their leaves hung almost to the ground, creating a private little world. It was beautiful.
Maybe in that private world, Iris could get to know Tommy like she would if she was a normal girl with nothing to hide.
"Did you ever come here when you were little?" She asked.
He nodded. "We used to climb this tree, me and Arthur."
It's special, she thought, running a hand over the thick roots.
"My dad was a gypsy, you know," she felt herself say. It was the truth, which was a new concept for Iris.
He looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "Really?"
"Well, he wasn't when I was growing up," she admitted. "He was a miner in Hamstead. And then he was an alcoholic."
Tommy looked at her intently. He had obviously been wondering why she hadn't told him anything about her childhood. Maybe it was the beautiful day or the comfort of the willow tree, but Iris felt like telling him more.
"But his mother was a gypsy," Iris told him, her heart throbbing with the memory of her beautiful grandmother. "I used to visit her whenever she was near, and she'd tell me gypsy stories and sit me on her knee. She hated my mother for not letting us come and live with her side of the family. She said my mother had ruined my father's life by making him live in the city and turned him to drink."
"You loved her, didn't you?" Tommy noted.
Iris nodded. "She was my favourite," she remembered, looking over at Tommy. "And I was hers."
An odd sensation washed over Iris for a moment as she looked at him, and she felt tears prick her eyes.
"I've been alone for a long time, Tommy," she mumbled.
He stared at her with such an intense look in his eyes, before pulling her into a strong embrace. She nestled her face into his chest and listened to his heartbeat, allowing a single tear to roll down her cheek.
"You have me," he said quietly.
Iris stayed still, letting his words sink in. She wished they were true, but she knew that as long as she lived with all of those secrets, she had nobody. Not even herself.
Her real self existed only in a half-burnt photograph that she barely recognised. Tommy cared for a woman who didn't even exist.