The Way Back Home (12 page)

I remember Malachy and Jed laughing at me when they saw me next, ruffling my hair. Even Jette smiled. But they didn’t laugh in pity, nor with derision, just with love. And then I thought that actually it wasn’t too bad. I remember feeling very proud, in fact, because finally I could see where I was going.

Oriana was walking the streets of Hathersage like a bobby on the beat – her pace casual but purposeful. She didn’t know where to go and she didn’t know what to think but as walking always helped her think, she walked for hours, with no corner and no dead end forsaken. Nothing her mother said had particularly hurt her. Over the years and through a lot of therapy in the States, Oriana had done a good job accepting that it was nothing personal, that actually it had nothing to do with her at all, per se – that it was just her mother, it was just the way she was. What affronted her more now was what the hell she was going to do and where on earth, realistically, she could go.

As she passed by, she looked in the windows of letting agencies. It was rather futile – she had no intention of living in Hathersage, nor could she justify a car, so studying the particulars of property to rent in more rural areas was pointless. She did it anyway. All the agencies were closed and none was promoting little affordable cottages conveniently placed on bus routes. It was a demoralizing and stupid thing to do – like window shopping for clothes she could neither afford nor fit into. She scoured the notices in the windows of a couple of newsagents’. Room available. Flat-share wanted. Studio to let. She jotted down the numbers. Clean, bright flat, all mod cons. Female n/s wanted. She’d phone that one first.

A man answered. He said yes at the end of every sentence, preceded by a phlegmy clearing of his throat. You’re a non-smoker, yes? Do you know the area, yes? Rent doesn’t include bills, yes?

‘Can I ask about the other people in the flat?’ asked Oriana.

‘There’s just me, yes?’

No.

Oriana thought, I really, really don’t want to flat-share with strangers. She thought how it had been different when she’d been a student – then they were all strangers in common and afterwards they chose to live together because they were friends. It wasn’t the same now. It was something you just did not do in your mid-thirties.

She ordered tea and a toastie at Cintra’s and, despite the owner’s imploring her to sit inside, telling her spring was still some way off, Oriana chose a picnic table in the garden at the back. It was mid-afternoon and the sun was being valiant. She’d have to go back to her mother’s at some point – but not until she had something constructive sorted. She dabbed at crumbs as she stared at the list she’d scribbled in the bedroom before leaving that morning:

Cat

Django

Jed

White Peak

Whom should she phone? Which one would be able to provide what she needed? She looked at the names. It was Sunday – the gallery, she remembered from the details on the website, would not be open.

Jed

Cat

Django

Jed – could she really face being back at Windward? Could she really face seeing Jed again so soon?

Cat – but her old friend was cosily married and busy feathering her nest.

Django – he was old, though, and not in good health. Actually, perhaps that was a good option – she could keep an eye on him, help. But she cursed herself for her fake altruism. She thought, perhaps I could just ask them, any one of them, if they know someone or somewhere I could go.

Who on her list was most likely to be in at this time on a Sunday – and who was most likely to have a solution for her? The two didn’t necessarily tally. The names floated around the page as her eyes gauzed with tears. It’s only frustration, she told herself. It’s just loneliness. Really, where she most wanted to be was with Ashlyn. She’d had some of her very best Sundays with Ashlyn. Lazy lunches in Tiburon. Flea markets and hiking and an afternoon movie – Sundays were varied, a movable feast, the one constant being talking and talking; putting the world to rights with laughter, thus ending the weekend and starting the week on a good note. She looked at her watch – Ashlyn would only just be waking up. And then Oriana thought, I have enough money to fly back to California.

But she couldn’t. It was impossible. The self-inflicted taunt of something unobtainable – a perfect dream that made no sense whatsoever. She focused on the names on the scrap of paper and scrolled through the contacts on her phone and took a deep breath and thought oh, just get on with it, and dialled.

‘Hullo. It’s Oriana.’

‘Hey! How are you?’

‘I’m fine – I’m good. I’m sorry to trouble you, Ben – but is Cat about? For a chat?’

‘Of course!’ said Ben. ‘She’ll be delighted.’ He took the landline through to the front room and found Cat asleep.

He backed out of the room. ‘You still there? She’s dozing – can she ring you later?’

‘OK,’ said Oriana but she obviously didn’t sound it.

‘Are you all right?’ Ben asked. ‘I mean – I can wake her?’

‘No no,’ said Oriana, ‘don’t do that. I don’t want to trouble her. I just fancied a chat, you know, with my old pal.’

‘Thank you for visiting Django yesterday,’ Ben said. ‘And I know Cat would love to see you soon, too.
Herself
.’ There. He felt quite proud of the way he’d handled that one.

‘Definitely,’ said Oriana.

‘She’ll phone you,’ said Ben. ‘It’s what I call a gestational snooze. It’s the legitimate equivalent of Sunday Afternoonitis.’

Oriana laughed. How she’d love to be in their home right now, all nesty and nuptial and safe and together and grown up. ‘Bye, Ben.’

‘Look after yourself.’

I’m trying, Oriana thought, I’m trying. And then she thought, how long does Cat sleep for? It was darkening. Nobody was out. Impending drizzle hung in the air like a low-level hum. It was dawning on her that it was unlikely she’d be sleeping anywhere other than back at her mother’s that night. She looked at the list; realistically she didn’t have a Plan B. She folded the paper as many times as she could and wedged it between the slats of the bench.

* * *

‘I’ll just be off round the block then, love,’ said Bernard. ‘Two shakes.’

Rachel glanced up. She’d spent the afternoon leafing distractedly through magazines and doing the crosswords in biro, rather than pencil, which meant ugly black scratchings and illegible answers, mostly wrong. ‘Hmmm.’

‘Two shakes,’ he repeated, already buttoning up his coat. The truth was, he’d twice seen Oriana slink by the house, in one direction and then the other. He didn’t worry about Rachel. Rachel he knew. But Oriana had been in his thoughts all day.

‘Now,’ he said to himself, quietly shutting the front door and walking thoughtfully down the path. ‘If I were Oriana and I’d been this-a-way and then that-a-way – I’d likely as not come from
this
direction next.’ And off he went, feeling a swell of satisfaction when he came across her leaning like a teenager against a wall, smoking.

‘I don’t smoke!’ she said, hastily scrubbing out the cigarette and almost standing to attention, compounding the adolescent impression.

‘Well,’ said Bernard thoughtfully, ‘don’t mind if I do.’ And out from the inside pocket of his coat came a packet of Woodbines. He offered one to Oriana.

‘I really don’t smoke,’ she told him, declining.

‘Tense, are you?’

‘Yes. I suppose. Sorry.’

‘I understand.’ His tobacco smelt of olden days and solid men.

‘Doesn’t she drive you mad?’ The words tumbled unchecked. ‘Sorry.’

He puffed thoughtfully. ‘Yes,’ he said evenly.

‘How have you put up with it for so long?’

He considered his answer. ‘A walk around the block. My smokes. The Vauxhall,’ he listed. ‘I like order – and she only knew chaos. So she likes my order. I’m needed and I like that.’

‘And then I come back and mess it all up?’

Bernard took another suck. Oriana liked the way, after every puff, he contemplated his cigarette as if it were a thing of beauty. He was enjoying it, it had purpose, it brought pleasure. She’d wasted her money on a packet of ten that tasted vile and that she’d end up binning.

‘I don’t think so, duck,’ Bernard said. ‘But yes – she’ll have seen it that way.’

‘I’m going to go to Cat and Ben’s. Cat – McCabe, as was – Django’s girl. Do you remember her?’

‘Not her – but Django, yes, of course.’

‘I’m going to go there – and sort myself out from there.’

‘Well – you’ll not be too far,’ said Bernard thoughtfully and then he looked troubled. ‘I’d’ve liked to look after both of you – back then. I do want you to know that. But in a rum way, I know that out of the two of you, it’s you who’s stronger, it’s you that can cope. You’re the one who’ll always be all right. It’s only ever been that way, Oriana. It’s something to marvel at.’

Oriana shuddered. Bernard’s words, meant to comfort, made her feel so alone.

‘Better to be able to stand on your own two feet,’ he said, looking at her levelly, ‘than have to be propped up by someone else.’

Oriana thought how Life appeared to be a long, steep flight of steps and while she tackled the relentless climb, everyone around her appeared to hop on and off an escalator.

‘I’m Rachel’s walking stick,’ he said, as if diplomatically rubbishing Oriana’s melancholia. ‘But don’t forget – Rachel’s needed a walking stick since she was a young woman. Permanent, like. And that’s something to be pitied.’

Oriana thought, Bernard. She thought, I had no idea. And she felt very remorseful that all these years she’d disparaged him as a dull old fart. She thought, I don’t think I ever wrote ‘love to Bernard’ in any of my emails to my mother. She thought, I don’t know when his birthday is. She looked at him; his Woodbine was almost finished and he was regarding it gratefully. He noticed all the small things as much as he was able to put the big things in their place. He was a good man. She’d missed out years of knowing him and she felt ashamed. He walked away from the pavement and dropped the butt into the gutter, treading it down and nudging it right into the corner. Not many would notice it. Few would have done that.

‘Come on, pet – let’s walk back together.’ He crooked his elbow and Oriana slipped her arm through it. ‘For the last supper,’ he chuckled. ‘Ham and eggs for our teas,’ he said. ‘That’ll do you?’

‘That’ll do me,’ said Oriana.

They walked on in affable silence, then Oriana stopped.

‘Bernard?’

His open face waited.

‘I just wanted to – thank you,’ she said. ‘For this.’ She waved her hand around the time they’d just spent. ‘And for being her walking stick.’ He brushed it away and walked on. But Oriana didn’t. ‘And Bernard?’ He turned. ‘It’s just –’ She paused, then shrugged. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘For what?’

‘For – it all.’ He made it so easy for her to feel she could look at him straight. ‘Me. Her. Decades.’

‘Now now – let’s not get all poetic and dramatic,’ he said. ‘It’s not many who truly live the life they’ve chosen.’

She wasn’t entirely sure if he was alluding to her or himself. His ambiguity was premeditated, of that she was sure.

As they turned into the street and the house came in sight, it took her a couple of steps to realize he was tapping lightly at her sleeve. He was handing her something. A couple of banknotes.

‘No!’ she said.

‘Yes,’ he said, measured, almost stern.

‘I have money,’ she said.

‘And now you have a little more.’

He opened the gate, walked ahead of her, opened the door and called through, I’m back, Rachel. Back home again.

They ate ham and eggs awkwardly. The clink of cutlery against crockery loud and jarring in the loaded silence. Oriana could barely taste the food and a glass of water did nothing to ease the constriction in her throat. She stole a glance at Bernard, tucking in to his tea and she realized, he wasn’t unmindful at all. He was in the moment, enjoying every mouthful, admiring what was on his fork as it neared his mouth much in the way he had his cigarette as he’d taken it away from his lips. Oriana thought, he’s parked all his worries about my mum and me and the ridiculousness of it all because there’s food on the table and it’s hot, eat up.

Suddenly she could taste. Salty meat, tart pineapple, crisp underside of fried egg, perfect yolk – runny on top of a firm platform. She knew she’d learned something that day – about him, about herself – to look below lightweight surface details to appreciate depth. She did it with art all the time; now she’d do so with people, with the smaller things in life.

‘Cheers,’ said Oriana, holding up her glass of water and wanting very much for Bernard to sense that she was toasting him. He raised his glass, slightly baffled. Rachel’s was empty and went untouched. Oriana’s phone rang – it was Cat. As desperate as she was to answer it, she didn’t. House rules. She was a guest at their table. And this was indeed the last supper. ‘Good health,’ she said.

‘You do know I haven’t seen your mother since –
everything
?’ Cat whispered as Oriana brought her into the house.

‘Look what the Oriana has brought in!’ said Oriana. ‘A Cat?’

Bernard laughed. Rachel looked up, sank a little and rose out of the chair as if having to shrug off a great weight to do so. She walked over to Cat and kissed her solemnly on either cheek. ‘Catriona McCabe,’ she said.

‘It’s York now,’ said Oriana but Rachel ignored her.

‘Hullo, Mrs, um, Rachel.’

‘When are you due?’ Rachel asked.

‘Ten weeks – earlier if I ask Django to cook me one of his curries. How are you? You look well.’

‘I
am
well,’ Rachel said as if it was impudent to assume otherwise.

‘Hullo!’ Cat called over Rachel’s shoulder to Bernard. ‘I’m Cat. I don’t think we ever –’

‘Indeed,’ said Bernard, shaking her hand, with his other hand supportively at her elbow. ‘Lovely to see you – so – bonny.’

And there they stood, looking from person to person, expressions changing in authenticity according to who was smiling at whom.

‘Shall I get my stuff?’ And Oriana wondered why she’d asked her mother.