The Way Back Home (31 page)

‘Surprising as it might seem,’ said Cat, ‘I’ve never actually played rugby.’

‘It’s just I recall at Windward – do you remember Plum and Willow? When their baby brother came, there was a lady with a long silvery plait and skin as smooth and brown as a conker. I don’t know who she was or how long she stayed but I do remember her placing the baby – like
this
.’ Gently but authoritatively, Oriana changed the position of Cat’s baby, facing her little body the other way, supported by a pillow.

‘Yes – this is how it’s meant to feel! I am being milked!’

‘Does it hurt?’

‘Sort of, but I think it’s meant to feel like this – not like that.’ Cat looked at Oriana. ‘We’ll make a midwife out of you yet.’

‘Well, it’s a nice offer,’ said Oriana. ‘But I’ve already accepted another job.’

Cat was thrilled to hear about it; it took her mind off the stinging yomp of the baby suckling. ‘Shouldn’t you look a little more over the moon?’

‘I am,’ said Oriana, her little finger tight within the baby’s grip. ‘It’s just – other stuff.’ She glanced at Cat who was eyeing her suspiciously.

‘You have to tell him how you feel, Oriana,’ Cat said earnestly. ‘You need to go to Malachy and tell him what he means to you.’

‘How did you know it was Malachy?’

‘Are you nuts? It’s always been him. You need to bring it to fruition. It’s been years and years in embryo. It’s ridiculous.’

‘Why would he feel the same way?’

Cat gave her a look. ‘Even if, after everything, nothing comes of it – you still need to release the tumbling truth that’s caught up inside you.’

‘I never loved anyone like I loved him.’

‘Don’t put him in the past tense.’

‘It’s too complicated.’

‘That’s an excuse. A stupid one. You’re not a teenager. You’re a grown woman. You deserve exactly what I have. You’d be bloody good at it.’

‘Something happened with Jed,’ Oriana said, casting her eyes down.

‘Something’s always happening with Jed,’ said Cat. ‘He’s that type of boy. But Malachy’s the one for you.’

‘It’s just – I don’t know. It seems to me that I bring chaos and cause a mess wherever I go.’

‘You’re being way too melodramatic,’ said Cat. ‘Jesus.’

‘Sorry.’ Oriana thought back over the years. ‘They never gave me the chance to say sorry.’

‘Seems to me you have that opportunity now.’ The baby had slipped off Cat’s nipple in drunken oblivion.

They sat in silence gazing at tiny brand new Annabel who spun warm threads of calm and contentment around them.

‘It’s just that yesterday Jed and I – well. Sort of but not really. There was alcohol. And I was emotional. And I closed my eyes because I was being kissed and ravished and I liked the feeling. Then I opened them – and I really didn’t want to be there. It was awful. Just awful.’

Cat stared at her levelly. ‘In a peculiar way, it will be easier to rectify your friendship with Jed than develop your relationship with Malachy. But when did you ever take the simple route anywhere?’

Oriana let Cat’s words hang in the air.

‘Oriana – it seems to me that despite a massive detour via America, your destination was always Windward.’

When Django arrived, Oriana took a back seat – literally moving to an orange plastic chair in the corner of the ward. It was good to be alone with her thoughts. She would clean up the mess she’d left in Sheffield, it wasn’t impossible. The situation was awkward but not caustic. It was like a bowl of cereal spilt before the milk’s poured in. Annoying but a small mercy to be thankful for. Last night with Jed – what might that jeopardize? Must Malachy know? She shuddered, though, when she thought of Malachy. How to get close to him, when being close to him was all she’d ever wanted? And what if he didn’t reciprocate? If he didn’t feel the same? Because, after all, why should he?

She read again the texts he’d sent last night which she’d found this morning. She knew she was feeling over-emotional but still she thought there was a certain predictable tragedy that she hadn’t come across them at the time. That’s why she hadn’t shown them to Cat. Fate, it seemed to her, had a horrible way of intervening in her relationship with that man. It was as if some greater power was saying, time and again, no, not him, when every fibre of her being contradicted that and said only him. No one else.

She watched from afar as Django took the baby into his arms, saw how Cat’s field of vision had polarized around what was important in her life, what now defined her. Mom. Mummy. There were hundreds of words for it in every tongue known to Man and yet not a single word could really encapsulate it.

She would speak to Malachy. She would speak to Jed. She prayed that Jed, whom she did so love, would understand what she said even if he hated the sound of it. And she’d have to prepare herself that Malachy, whom she loved so deeply, might tell her what she dreaded. She would have to acknowledge that the truth is the only thing worth listening to because truth, unlike lies, has a future.

When Ben arrived and his world with Cat and his daughter closed the door on all visitors, Django and Oriana left together brimming with emotion. There was a waft of gauzy rain coming rhythmically from the distant dales like shallow breaths and, against the sunshine and warmth of the early afternoon, even the modern hospital buildings were licked with gold, the cars festooned with pearls, the puddles filled with gemstones.

‘What a day,’ said Django. ‘Will you come back with me? For a cup of tea or a glass of something? Strangely, for one so happy and content, I don’t want to be on my own.’

The McCabes’ house was home. Oriana sank into the cavernous sofa and sat in amicable, thoughtful silence with Django, sipping peculiar herbal tea and gnawing into hunks of a strange cake that was both rock hard and super sweet. They felt replenished and relaxed, so conversation came easily. Sheffield and bus routes and new jobs and babies and the ins and outs of keeping prostate cancer in check. And do you remember this person and that person? And the parties. Oh, the parties. And that terrible teacher at school with the vast grey teeth. And Fen’s news. And Pip’s. And all about California. And yes, Django had heard about the debacle with the cot. And don’t you worry – it was related in only an affectionate way. And the baby! Oh, the beautiful beautiful tiny little soul. How grown up you kids are. How old I am become.

‘I saw my father.’

‘I know.’

‘You do?’

‘He told me.’

‘You’ve seen him too?’

‘Yes. I do. Every now and then. I dig him out, brush him off and take him to the pub. To the Rag and Thistle where there are folk far more cantankerous than him and the beer is much more bitter.’

‘Really?’

‘You’re surprised.’

‘I thought he never left the apartment.’

‘Never? Of course he does! He takes a taxi to Bakewell sometimes during the day. But mostly he paints when it’s light and surfaces after dark. And once in a while he phones and tells me to pick him up and I do.’

‘I never thought –’

‘It’s quite amazing, isn’t it, that your parents’ generation can make decisions and plans and maintain a life of their own where you don’t feature.’

‘I never figured in my parents’ lives.’

They let it hang in the air like smoke after a firework.

‘That’s not strictly true,’ Django said. ‘Shrug all you want, my girl – but that’s not strictly true.’

She was never going to agree on that one.

‘But my father told you that he saw me?’

‘He told me you waved.’

‘He waved first,’ Oriana said defensively, wanting it known that the mythical olive branch was not her idea.

‘I meant “you” plural.’

‘Oh.’

‘He’s an awful man, Oriana. But I say that with cautious affection. Not much – but some. And he’s old. And alone. Apart from Malachy.’

Malachy. For hours she’d had respite from thinking of him. Now he might as well have been standing right there in the room on the flagstones, arms folded, waiting for her soliloquy, his response concealed. Even the image was too much for her to confront.

‘You’re not going to tell me you play Bridge with my mother and Bernard, are you?’

Django laughed and shook his head. ‘I haven’t seen her in years. How is she?’

‘The same. I haven’t seen her myself – since I stayed at Cat and Ben’s. It seems to me there’s a silent pact not to see each other more often than when I lived abroad – regardless of proximity.’

‘Wise,’ said Django but Oriana heard it as ‘why’ and continued.

‘Some might think that sad,’ she said. ‘But I don’t. It’s enough. My relationship with my mother has never altered. Nothing that’s happened has worsened it. No sudden deterioration. Nothing to workshop, nothing to improve. An acceptance that it is what it is because it’s always been as it is.’

Django stroked his goatee rhythmically. He didn’t have to say out loud,
whereas with Robin
… Oriana could see the words were on the tip of his tongue and she loved him for keeping them there just then. Over the years, her sadness and anger and fears and frustrations had been given voice in this house. Tonight, there was wisdom in the silence.

‘Why don’t you stay here tonight?’ said Django.

It was so tempting. Oriana could go upstairs and find rooms that she knew off by heart, that would guarantee her a safe and potentially dreamless sleep. She knew how to run the bath, to handle the taps with the sensitivity of a wartime code transmitter, fine tuning the flow so that the temperature was even. It would be so lovely to stay, so easy. She wouldn’t have to think about a thing. She could have one of Django’s epic Sunday breakfasts tomorrow, perhaps catch a lift and visit Cat again.

And then what?

She looked down and found she had plaited all the strands on the tartan throw. She remembered how all of them – Cat, Fen, Pip – had at one time or other done this. Worries about boys, school, friendships; moodiness was always lessened by plaiting the strands.

‘And what does the magic blanket say?’ Django broke through.

Oriana unravelled them, smoothed them straight again, ready for someone else’s angst. ‘I ought to go.’

‘You are welcome any time, Oriana. Not as a guest – as family.’

She was so tired, so emotional. She brushed a fast tear away quickly. And another.

‘Where can I take you?’ Django asked.

‘Please could you take me to Windward?’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘You don’t want me to take you all the way up? To wait?’

‘No – honestly.’

‘But say he’s not in?’

Oriana looked at Django, grateful for the ambiguity, not wanting to name ‘him’. She wanted to be dropped at the bottom of the drive, she said, because she fancied a stroll in the fresh air. Django knew it was more to do with a desire not to be seen.

‘Well, if you’re absolutely sure,’ Django said, a little reluctantly.

‘I’ll be fine,’ Oriana said. ‘Thank you – and congratulations, Gramps – what a day!’

He could detect the effort behind the exclamation mark but he respected her request and drove away.

As was typical at that time of year, early summer and late spring were still at loggerheads; a fine day earlier gave way to a decidedly brisk evening. As the light changed with night beckoning, so the benign breeze of the afternoon had now churned into something less clement. The driveway at Windward was a quarter of a mile long and Oriana still remembered how to make the walk longer or shorter. There had been times when she’d dragged her heels along it, meandering from side to side, taking the hump of the bends to clock up a few precious extra yards. On other occasions she’d cut every corner, sticking to the underside of the curve and saving herself minutes. Tonight she kept clearly to the middle, her footfalls providing a rhythmic base under the wind’s freeform song which gusted about her. One more bend and then she’d see it. It would come into view at this time of night, its lumbering silhouette pierced with lights shining inside, like a candle within a skull. But she couldn’t see it yet and the indistinct light, typifying dusk slipping into night, was comforting.

She stopped a while by the lime trees and spoke under her breath. She’d memorized her plan of action but she felt fortified by repeating it. I’ll knock. If there’s no reply, I’ll just go in. If he’s there, I’ll simply say hullo. I’ll try to keep it warm and friendly and just see where it leads. If it doesn’t lead where I hope, I’ll just go. I’ll go to Lilac’s. I’ll make out that is where I was headed all along, at 9.30 on Saturday night.

By the time she was crossing the turning circle in front of the house, she’d managed to make the journey there last almost ten minutes longer than normal. She’d just passed the Ice House where she knew Paula and the de la Mare family lived. They had pleasant uplights making their trees glow, breathing warmth into the brickwork that counteracted the chill night air. The Ice House, known only as the shack, a ruin, to Oriana, now looked like the stuff of fairy tales. One day, she’d accept Paula’s invitation and knock on the door. She thought about it, imagined taking little Emma and Kate on a tour of the building she’d known. But all this was just procrastination. She had to walk on, heading for the main house which, just then, looked so different from how it should.

When she was young she knew absolutely who put the lights on when and where. It was as if each resident was standing at the window waving to her. Sometimes, they had. She was a familiar sight in those days, taking solace in the gardens if she didn’t want to be in her apartment. Tonight, Windward looked very different. It was difficult to tell who was at home because luxurious curtains were shutting off the inhabitants from the world, or the world from them. Privacy was being brandished as a purchasable right these days, whereas when she was growing up at Windward, privacy had seemed peculiar. Tonight, no one would know she was there – because they were unaware of anything outside their windows. Oriana would have the night to herself and it made her feel at once safe yet also isolated.

Is he in?

Why wouldn’t he be in?

How will he react?