Eagle Court

Eagle Court Synopsis

A newly built close of three bungalows has just been completed and Iris, Celia, Bob and Trish move in. Iris hates Celia because she is middle-class, overbearing and patronizing. Also, she has children and grandchildren and a life that Iris has been denied because she has spent the last 30 years looking after her bullying mother.

Iris also becomes angry with Bob and Trish who arrive in a large RV, Dusty Roads. She comes to feel sorry for Bob, who seems ill matched with ex-hippy, Trish. Iris decides to wreak revenge on all of them.

Celia is mourning the death of her husband and the loss of the large family home. Her children are grown up and she feels that old age is beckoning. Bob has married Trish on a whim as he has always wanted to live a free life, far away from the suburbia he has been accustomed to with his first wife, Ann.

However, he is struggling to adapt to Trish’s way of life. Iris begins to gaslight Celia, in many small ways, but enough for Celia to begin to doubt her own sanity. Iris hints to Celia’s daughter, Daisy, that her mother might not be coping.

Iris teams up with Zed, a geeky young man who has previously taught her the art of graffiti. Zed hacks into Celia’s phone and sends messages from her dead husband. He also tampers with her TV and heating apps.

Celia ends up in hospital after the temperature becomes unbearable one night, when she has taken sleeping tablets. Iris calls the police and saves her life. Iris persuades Daisy that maybe Celia needs to be in a home.

Meanwhile, Trish is dying of lung cancer but has refused to acknowledge the fact. Iris spots that she is very ill, and when Trish refuses any treatment, is there to support Bob and ‘nurse’ her through her final days. Everyone in Eagle Court thinks that Iris is a saint and she thrives on the adulation.

Things start to unravel for Iris when, Ocean, Trish’s daughter, contests her mother’s will and is determined to take half of everything Bob has. Iris is furious on Bob’s behalf and writes a threatening, anonymous letter to Ocean. She decides to implicate Bob because he is showing signs of independence and she is angry that he no longer needs her in the same way.

Ocean confronts Bob and he suspects Iris. He goes through her bag when she is cleaning and finds incriminating evidence. Bob shares this with Celia and together, they collect enough evidence to go to the police.

Even when she is arrested and charged, Iris cannot see that she has done anything wrong, and blames everyone for ganging up on her, including Zed. Iris had a child when she was young and was forced to put him up for adoption. It turns out that Zed is her grandson, but far from a loving reunion their relationship becomes toxic.

Zed hates Iris, and she feels nothing for him. At various points throughout the book, a group of homeless people pop up. Initially, Iris helps at a Saturday lunch for the homeless, where, once more, she is praised and seen as a saint.

But once Bob is stronger, after Trish’s death, he decides to come to the lunches too, much to Iris’s fury. He makes friends with several of the characters and takes them all on a trip to the seaside in Dusty Roads. He learns a lot from them.

George, one of the homeless men, an ex-priest, sees through Iris and on several occasions urges her to change her ways, but she angrily dismisses him. In the Epilogue there is a glimpse of the life Iris will have in prison, and it seems she will have met her match in some of her fellow prisoners. She sees herself as a victim right up to the end.