The Way Back Home (18 page)

The candles had burnt halfway down by the time he came. He looked flustered. He was in rolled-up shirtsleeves. Quite something for him not to be painting in his suit jacket. He scratched at his hair while mouthing the words to Happy Birthday. I blew and I blew and, when finally all the flames were out, everyone chanted at me to make a wish. They told me to cut the cake and scream when the knife touched the bottom – for good luck.

That’s not my scream.

That’s my mother.

And it was bloodcurdling.

Almost immediately everyone in the room saw the cause.

A woman had appeared from my father’s studio and was walking across our main room as if none of us was there. And the room was vast – it had been the original drawing room of the house. She sauntered across it with no urgency, no awareness of her audience. She walked steadily past us all, towards my father, at ease with her butt-nakedness. She had small perky breasts, nipples out like bullets, buttocks creamy and round like scoops of ice cream. She had no hair on her body, which I thought was alarming as even I had just a little.

Oh for God’s sake, Rachel, my father hissed. She’s my life model.

And I thought to myself, how long has she been here, this naked lady? I had no idea there’d been anyone else in my home apart from my father and me. After my mother left my father, we were acutely aware of her absence because it brought with it a soundlessness our apartment had never known. We didn’t converse much, my father and I. The quietness was private to both of us. Yet I could hear clearly the scrape of palette knife against canvas two rooms away, much as my father could hear me buttering toast for our tea. I was shocked, therefore, at the silence of real nakedness going on behind the closed door of my father’s studio. It was more shocking to me than my mother’s hollow scream on my twelfth birthday.

When I was thirteen, I had two birthdays. Mum and Bernard were off on a cruise so they had to rush through my birthday a week early. They picked me up from school and took me into town for supper because my mother still harped on about never stepping over the Windward threshold as long as she lived. Or ‘over my dead body’ she’d say if she was being even more dramatic and morbid.

I was hoping for a radio-cassette recorder – Malachy had one. Every Sunday, he let me and Jed sit in his room and ‘watch’ the Top 40 on the radio. That’s how I learned which bands were cool – if Malachy recorded it, I knew it was worth memorizing the lyrics and the tune by heart. I couldn’t decide whether it was art or science – but it was visually impressive – Malachy’s perfected method of pressing the play and record buttons at precisely the moment the DJ stopped talking and the song began, releasing his fingers an inspired millisecond before the music faded and the presenter barged in again. ‘You can borrow the tapes any time you like,’ he told me. I did borrow one, not that I had anything to play it on – I simply wanted it in my possession, just so that I could imagine what being a bona-fide teenager must be like. That intriguing brown ribbon containing the music that made life OK. If Malachy thought I was mad, he didn’t say. Jed did, though. I was never offended that Jed laughed at me. It always felt rather wonderful to be so audibly the subject of someone’s happiness.

When I was thirteen my mum and Bernard didn’t buy me a radio-cassette recorder for my birthday. I thought they had – because the box looked about the right shape. But it was a set of stuff for the bath. My mother called it a
coffret
and the French accent she used curdled with her slightly anglicized American one. Bernard said to me, I had no idea you wanted a radio-cassette recorder, love. My mother looked aghast. Well, that’s news to me, she said. But we all knew it wasn’t so we pushed the food around the plates for a bit. This is far more useful, she said, running her fingers over the display of bubble bath and lotions as if I was horribly spoiled and ungrateful. Did she truly believe that tablets of bath salts were more useful to a thirteen-year-old than the music of a generation?

Malachy made it better. ‘What’ll she buy you next year?’ he said. ‘Scented drawer liners? A frilly shower cap?’ He put his arm tenderly around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze.

And that was the moment that it felt different. That was when I felt it.

I’d known Malachy and Jed for ever and we’d always roughhoused and linked arms and poked each other and ruffled each other’s hair. But that day, Malachy’s touch felt different from before. And different from Jed’s.

At thirteen, there was no way I was having a party – not after what had happened the year before. But I knew Jette had spoken to my father who then told me I could invite a gaggle of girls for the afternoon. I hadn’t a clue whether there was a model in his studio, naked or clothed. I didn’t intend to find out. I had no need to – Malachy lent me his radio-cassette player and a tape of the current Top 40, abridged for coolness – a seamless medley with no DJ banter. Cat was there; she bought me leg warmers. She told me Django had laughed at them, offering to cut the sleeves off one of his Peruvian pullovers instead. We convened in my room, five or six of us, and it wasn’t about it being someone’s birthday. There was no cake, no balloons. It didn’t matter – it was all about being together. It was about singing. And leg warmers.

‘These are from my mum.’ Malachy came by just to deliver a plate of fritters from Jette.

Who is he! my friends wanted to know.

What’s his name! How old is he! Oh wow – who
is
he!

He’s Malachy, I told them.

And it was then that I thought to myself, he’s Malachy – and he’s mine.

When Oriana considered how hard she’d found it working out where she’d go from her mother and Bernard’s in Hathersage, deciding to leave Cat’s lovely home was bizarrely easy. It surprised her that the decision of where she’d go was so simple. She had no job, she had already dipped into her savings. Her future, in some ways, was currently wholly dependent on her past. Really, she had no alternative other than to return to it.

‘Are you
sure
?’ said Cat, trying her best to wrap her arms around Oriana, despite her bump holding them apart.

‘Sure sure.’

‘You can stay.’

‘I know.’

‘But are you sure you want to go
there
?’

‘Sure sure.’

‘Well, you know where we are.’

‘Cat,’ said Oriana, ‘I know you’ll always, always be here.’

‘But when will you go?’

‘Well, I’m hoping the weekend,’ said Oriana. ‘I’m going to phone him now.’

‘You haven’t asked him yet?’

‘No.’

‘Well, if there’s any problem – or if you change your mind, or if it doesn’t work out, or if you miss us – you know you can stay here.’

‘I know,’ said Oriana, starting to well up. ‘I don’t know how to thank you.’

There were two numbers to choose from but Oriana opted for the one most likely to be answered on a Thursday afternoon. And so she dialled. It was a woman’s voice that answered.

‘Kidson Hazel Meade, good afternoon?’

She put Oriana through.

‘Jed Bedwell.’

‘Jed?’

‘Yes?’

‘It’s me.’

‘Hullo, me.’

‘It’s – Oriana.’

Silence. ‘Oriana?’ Stillness. ‘
Oregano?
’ Laughter. ‘Are you serious? Hullo!’

‘Hullo. I hope it’s OK to call you at work?’

‘Of course! Christ! I’m – I mean. It’s great to hear from you. I assumed – well, I hadn’t heard from you.’

Oriana thought about it. ‘I’ve had so much to sort out.’

‘It’s OK. That’s fine. It’s just good to hear your voice.’ Oriana could hear him smile as he spoke. ‘It’s good that you phoned. How
are
you?’

‘I’m well – thanks, Jed.’

‘I’d love to see you.’ Jed looked around the office, open plan and buzzing. How could no one sense that something glorious was happening to him? ‘I’d really love to see you.’

Oriana thought, make it happen. It was a favourite phrase of Casey’s – finally she’d commandeered it with no thought for him.

‘Jed, you can say no. It’s just – I was wondering, hoping, that it might be OK with you if I came and stayed. Just for a while.’

It was Christmas. It was his birthday. He’d won the lottery. It was the best day ever and the first day of the rest of his life.

‘Of course it’s OK, Oriana. Of course it’s OK.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Sure sure!’ said Jed. And Oriana suddenly remembered it was his phrase, not hers. ‘When?’

‘This weekend? I can borrow Cat’s car – I don’t have much stuff.’

‘Cat McCabe?’

‘Yes – long story.’

‘Cat McCabe! God, we have so much to catch up on.’

‘I know.’

‘Years. And
years
.’ Jed paused and laughed. ‘Fuck!’ It was amazing, bizarre. ‘Fuck! It’s going to be great!’ People were looking at him now – but his colleague was tapping his watch and pointing at the meeting room. ‘I have to go,’ he told Oriana. ‘I have to go – I’ll call you later.’ He paused and softened his voice. ‘And I’ll see you very, very soon.’

* * *

Oriana stared at the phone for some time, as if it had become a small plaque commemorating her considerable achievement of making a decision and getting on with her life. Wasn’t she just taking skeletons out of closets, dusting them off and interring them decently?

‘And Jed said?’

But Oriana was deep in thought and didn’t hear Cat.

‘And Jed said let’s eat bread and let’s get wed and go to bed and call our red-head baby Ted.’

‘What?’ Oriana looked over at her.

‘And wear boots of lead,’ said Cat, ‘and have a horse called Ned.’ Oriana frowned. ‘Jed?’ said Cat. ‘And Jed
said
…’ God, this baby was making her insane.

‘He said yes.’ Oriana didn’t look as sure as his answer.

She and Cat stared at each other; a flitter of silent but obvious questions reverberating between them.

‘Just be –’ Cat thought about the best word to use. ‘
Aware
.’ Oriana tipped her head to one side. Cat continued. ‘I mean, I don’t know what his life is like these days but I’m just saying you’ve been elsewhere for all those years but he’s stayed here.’

Oriana nodded because she knew what Cat meant. ‘I remember when you and Ben lived in Colorado you once said to me how physical distance gave emotional distance from memories and feelings.’

‘But Jed’s never left. And now you’re back here. You mulled over it for months, but to Jed you’ve returned as abruptly as you disappeared.’

‘I will be
aware
,’ said Oriana. ‘And cautious. And careful.’

‘And sensitive.’

‘Yes,’ said Oriana, thinking of Jed. ‘And sensitive.’

‘You know he’s probably still holding a torch for you?’

‘Don’t be daft.’ But she remembered the fullness of his gaze back in the garden weeks ago.

‘And you,’ said Cat. ‘And Malachy.’ She regarded Oriana, concerned. ‘Are you
sure
you want to go?’

Oriana nodded and told herself don’t you dare bloody cry, you’ll set Cat off and she won’t be able to stop.

‘Sure sure,’ she said. ‘It’s all part of it, isn’t it? Coming home.’

Jed arrived back at his flat quite late. The client meeting had been a storming success and the team had gone out for drinks afterwards. He’d drunk a lot but his head remained clear, the adrenalin causing the alcohol to give him a buzz, not a blur. What a day. What a day!

He jiggled the key in the lock and said turn, you bastard thing,
turn
. Then he thought to himself, where the fuck is the spare key – Oriana will need her own key. He thought, I’ll get another cut for her – and I’ll have to show her how to jiggle it. Then, as the lock finally eased with a satisfying click, Jed thought, I can afford to have a new lock altogether, one that doesn’t stick and make me swear. Why don’t I just do that?

He opened the door. And suddenly it struck him. Oriana had phoned him at work; her call had been diverted to the main switchboard and then redirected to his desk phone.

I said I’d call her later – but I still don’t have her number.

And then he realized something else.

She said she’s coming at the weekend – but how does she know where I live?

‘I’ll bring the car back later,’ Oriana told Cat. ‘It seems wise to drop some of my stuff there today – then you can take me tomorrow and it’ll be more relaxed. You could even come in.’ Oriana’s voice had a caught crack of tears in her throat belying her outward smile.

‘At least I have advanced pregnancy to blame for being an emotional fruitcake,’ said Cat, tearful. ‘You’re just –’

They shrugged at each other.

‘Nervous,’ Oriana admitted. ‘Now it’s come to it.’

Cat put her hand on Oriana’s arm. ‘It’s OK. You’re brave and you’re beautiful and you’re making a good decision.’

‘I’m
really
apprehensive, actually,’ Oriana said.

‘I’ll see you after work.’ Cat looked at her watch. ‘I’d better shoot.’ She paused. ‘Can’t believe you’re leaving me.’

‘Stop being so histrionic,’ Oriana laughed.

In Cat’s car, Oriana sat awhile. She thought of nothing, just immersed herself in the calm environment of a stilled car. She was in transit again and it felt like a bubble, a place of suspended time. She was all by herself but she felt safe and not alone; a benign no-man’s-land between the life of Cat and Ben and the brave new world of Jed. She was ready. She started the engine and drove away.

If he’s there, he’s there, she said to herself. I’ll deal with it.

Windward seemed to be completely empty; she could sense this as soon as the house came into view from two-thirds of the way along the drive. It was peculiar because she’d never known Windward to have no outward signs of life. Today, she had to acknowledge that Windward wasn’t the Windward she’d known. When she’d lived there, it was a place of work, a hive of activity, a melting pot of creativity as well as home to like-minded if disparate souls. It had been like a tangle of colourful yarns somehow knitted into something beautiful and useful.