Iris shrugs. “I have things to do in London,” she says.

I think about the other letter. Still sitting on the keyboard of Iris’s laptop. “Are you going to see your mother?”

Iris snorts. “Christ no.”

“It’s just...the letter?”

“It’s not a letter. It’s a copy of my will. So she knows she gets nothing.” The bitterness in her tone is shocking. Also the mention of Iris’s will. That seems...definite.

“I know, it’s childish,” Iris says before I think of an appropriate response.

“It’s not like you,” I say. Then again, none of this is like Iris. It’s all foreign. Double Dutch, as Dad used to say.

Break it down into manageable pieces. That’s what I used to tell the girls when they got stressed about something. A school project, for instance.

I’ll start with London. “So,” I say, “what’s taking you to London?”

Iris shakes her head. “I’d rather not say.”

“Why not?”

“For fuck’s sake, Terry, I just...okay then. If you must know. I’m going to see Jason Donovan. Happy? He’s playing at the Hippodrome in London tonight and I’m going. To see him. Okay? That’s my plan. That’s what I’m doing.”

Dad, who has abandoned the sports pages and has been following the conversation with his head like a tennis umpire, looks at me, waiting for my response, although I can think of none.

Iris smiles. “Would you like a cup of tea, Mr. Keogh?”

“And a bun?” he asks. I don’t know if he remembers that I promised him a bun. Or if it’s just an association he has with tea. Probably the latter. New information seems to glance off him, like hard rain against a window. Iris places the palms of her hands on the table, uses them to lift herself out of the chair. She refuses to wince, but her discomfort is visible all the same. When pressed, she has described the sensation in her limbs as stabbing, hot, and thorough. She says she prefers the pain to the numbness. The numbness is what makes her walk as though she’s had a few too many glasses of ginger and brandy. The pain is what makes her refuse to wince.

“I’ll go,” I say, standing in one fluid movement. It feels unfair; my fluidity of movement, her concentrated effort. Although there is no point talking about fairness when it comes to MS.

Fairness has nothing to do with it.

It feels good to queue, even on a boat where the ground beneath your feet might not be as stable as you’d like. To do something as normal as queue. All around me, snatches of conversations.

“...and then I said, well if you’re that nervous of strangers, you shouldn’t have gotten into the Airbnb business in the first place...”

“...a reddish-brown. That would suit your coloring, and my stylist reckons...”

“...and I was like, I’m so over that, and she was like...”

“...the hire-car company said they’d only upgrade if...”

Ordinary, pedestrian conversations. As if everything is normal and life is trundling along on its usual rails.