The Way Back Home (32 page)

Instead of knocking first, instead of just opening the door, Oriana hovered. Long before she came to the door, she could sense he was there but she was aware of something else too. Voices and laughter. It was both perplexing and chastening. She chided herself – what right had she to assume that he’d be there on his own just waiting for her to waltz in? The world doesn’t stop turning, time doesn’t stand still, life goes on regardless of Oriana Taylor. A little unsteady, she took a wide and stumbling route right around the building, edging her way along the garden to her cedar tree which afforded her an unparalleled view of the back of the house. She could see quite clearly from here that Malachy wasn’t alone.

The windows to the balcony off the ballroom were open and someone was having a cigarette out there, their glass of wine glinting every now and then. From where she stood, Oriana scanned the apartment; there didn’t seem to be anyone else in the ballroom but from the opened windows of the kitchen assorted voices and various conversations drifted pleasantly into the night like the different aromas that make up a great meal. Slumping a little against the trunk of the tree, Oriana was struck how the intervening years had made a massive difference to absolutely everything. Malachy had established his own life and how could she have been so deluded as to think that he might have saved a space for her? Malachy was a man in his late thirties now, not a boy. He had silver flecks in his hair and crinkles around his eyes which spoke of the history he’d amassed long after she’d left his life. He had his own life, his own business and it was none of hers.

And she was honestly thinking of pushing into his life tonight and telling him that she’d never stopped loving him?

Was she really expecting him to say my darling! I’ve always loved you too!

A happy ever after? With Malachy? At
Windward
? Was she out of her tiny mind? It was all preposterous.

She thought, I am in the middle of the fucking gardens on a chilly night. She thought, I have no means of getting home. She thought, I have no home. She couldn’t bear to think of Jed, what kind of a day he’d been having, of having to see him again and confront it all. She thought, I could go to my father’s. And then she thought, what difference does a single wave make? None. And actually, she didn’t want to go to her father’s. And of course she wasn’t going to disturb Lilac. She was in her dotage and should be allowed to while away a Saturday night wearing her massive headphones with Bruce Forsyth or John Wayne for company, nodding off in front of the television without being disturbed by the endless and depressing dramas that Oriana had brought to her door throughout her life.

Her feet were cold. She needed to keep moving. She needed to walk, to keep walking, all the way back to Sheffield. She could make it some stupid epic hike; she’d accept no lift, no help. It might take her the ten days between now and her new job starting. See the lone walker! She’s made it to the A61! No one knows where she’s come from and no one knows where she’s going – least of all her. Perhaps she should just sod the job and keep on walking, all the way to John o’Groats, then trudge into the ocean and swim the Atlantic back to the United States. She was cold; she really ought to go. She glanced at her watch. She’d been out here, ruminating, for forty-five minutes. Malachy’s buddies were probably on the cheese course by now. She started to walk across the lawn, just putting one foot in front of the other, thinking how the lawn had never been so rolled and even in her day. It had been tussocky which had made playing It or rounders or British Bulldog or even Kiss Chase all the more challenging and exciting.

The smoker had gone in some time ago but look! he’s back again, with a replenished glass of wine and having another cig on the balcony. He wouldn’t see Oriana. He wouldn’t know where to look. Just then, she felt like the most invisible thing in the world and far from being empowering, it simply served to highlight how inconsequential she felt. And then her phone rang out. The signal had returned almost as soon as she left the sanctity of the cedar, and emails and voicemail alerts trilled through the air while the screen lit up like a beacon. Her cover was surrendered; the man on the balcony had clocked her, a nameless person just coming into view in the moonlight.

Just look like you live here, she said to herself. Just mooch and mosey as if you’re a resident out for a stroll.

‘Malachy – there’s someone in the garden.’

Don’t worry, Oriana said to herself, Malachy won’t be surprised. It’s just a resident out for a stroll.

But Malachy was surprised because mostly, these days, the Windward occupants holed themselves up at night, shutting the door on the outside to enjoy all the interior trimmings their wealth bestowed. Supersized Internet TVs in prime positions on walls where once paintings created at Windward had hung. Music from MP3 files filling the rooms more perfectly than the bands who’d jammed in them. Mood lighting more atmospheric than the moon, deeply luxurious sofas far more comfortable than garden benches and tree stumps. They did still pick blackberries – because the fruits that freckled the hedgerows were far plumper and sweeter than those in prepacked M&S punnets. But it was too dark for that and anyway, it was a good two months too early. Malachy went to the balcony and looked. He could see no one.

‘I must be seeing things,’ his friend said. ‘This Bordeaux’s good.’

‘You’re on your third glass, Rob,’ Malachy laughed. ‘Come on – Paula’s pudding awaits you.’

‘I do love a double entendre,’ Rob said.

‘Your wife has baked the dessert,’ Malachy said, as if talking to a simpleton. ‘Come on. There’s hot sauce.’

‘Double entendre,’ said Rob hopefully.

Malachy looked out over the garden again. There wasn’t anyone there. But that’s because no one knew how to hide as well as Oriana, to blend into the background as expertly as she could.

Then the rain came. What had been gentle drizzle that afternoon was now prosaic, cold and fast. Once she would have danced and laughed and been ecstatic to be soaked to the skin. Just then, however, it seemed predictable that if her plans were a washout, it might as well just go ahead and piss it down on her parade. She wasn’t entirely sure what to do next. She could see the lights on in her father’s studio, but nowhere else in her old home, and she didn’t want to continue the wave anyway. Lilac’s apartment was dark. She found semi-shelter under the overhang around the side of the building and checked her phone. Two missed calls from Jed. Two texts as well.

Where’s you? I hope you’re ok – walking?! Thinking?! Let’s do some talking. So sorry if in any way I did something wrong. Love you Jxx

And then, a couple of hours later:

Have you gone?? Jx

She thought, if only Jed was the bona-fide baddy in a fictitious adaptation of her life, how much easier it would be to set the record straight. But he wasn’t and he’d done nothing wrong. And tonight, she could only hide away from him much as she was currently hiding from the rain and from her father and from Malachy with his kitchen full of friends and cheer. She couldn’t call Cat. She absolutely wouldn’t be dragging Django out. There wasn’t the signal to FaceTime Ashlyn. She didn’t have the money for a taxi anywhere, she didn’t even have a number for a cab firm anyway. She shuddered to think how her mother would react if she called for Bernard to pick her up. This was the first time in her life that she’d been at Windward with no place to go. She’d always been able to leave her own home for someone else’s. The Bedwells’ had never been closed to her. But tonight, in the modern age and the real world, in the rain, it was.

She stood there for over an hour, huddled into a zone where she focused on nothing. While she listened instead to the sound of the weather, she tuned in to the feel of the night, the sight of how leaves became trampolines for raindrops and the ground lapped up being wet. And then, one by one, Malachy’s guests left. From the shadows, Oriana watched as two cars headed off, and Paula and her husband, the man from the balcony, returned to their dwelling. Was there anyone left? The notion struck her like a punch of lead hitting her stomach. He’d told her he didn’t have a girlfriend – but had that changed? Or maybe there was someone he wouldn’t classify as a girlfriend, just someone who was a casual thing? Stealthily, she took a route well known to her, sticking to the shadows though it provided little shelter from the rain. As she went, she saw the kitchen lights were still on. She wondered if Malachy was clearing up, whether he was washing dishes or sitting down and munching on leftovers. She backed into the garden, trying to see in. The rain was making her blink a lot. It was hammering down now. It didn’t feel as cold as before, the wind had dropped. The audible squelch with every footstep she took made her realize that her feet were soaked.

The ballroom was dark. Did you mean to leave the kitchen light on, Malachy? Did you forget to turn it off before you went to bed?

No, you idiot girl. I’m standing on the balcony getting wet but you haven’t thought to look over this way.

He watched her and wondered why she was here, why she was outside instead of inside. For a moment, he wondered whether the front door might be locked but he knew it wasn’t. He wondered whether Rob had been right – whether there had been someone in the garden earlier on and whether it had been Oriana. And did that mean she’d been here, all that time? Outside in the rain? When did she arrive? How did she get here? What did she want? Was he meant to do something? Did she even want to be found?

‘How’s the weather down there?’

Slowly, Oriana turned to her left and looked up at the balcony.

‘How’s the weather down there?’ he said again. ‘Up here, it’s pretty damn wet.’

She couldn’t think what to say. ‘It’s raining.’

‘You don’t say.’

She watched as Malachy tipped his face up to the sky as if suddenly working out that’s what this wet stuff was.

‘It’s raining up here too.’

‘Oh.’

He watched her. She was standing still. Almost still. She was doing that thing she’d always done when she was deep in thought, or out of sorts, not knowing quite what to do and trying out different ideas. She was staring down at her shoes, raising the toe of one, then the other, as if her feet were giving her this option and that, and she was working out which thought fitted best.

‘Oriana,’ he called in a tone which knew how to bring her back to the present.

She looked up and over at him.

‘Would you like to come in?’

‘You look like the Lady in the Lake who’s been in there a bit too long,’ he remarked, opening the door. She stepped inside and he closed it behind her. ‘Or Ophelia.’ His comment, wryly made, flung both of them back through the years to feisty spats on the merits of
Hamlet
.

‘Still think the play’s full of clichés,’ Oriana muttered. She looked up at him shyly. He wasn’t as utterly drenched as she was but still his cotton shirt clung to his torso here and there, his forearms were damp and his hair was licked wet.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get you dry.’

He watched – he heard – as she battled with the soaking laces of her Converse trainers and squeaked her feet out of them, her socks pulling off a little as she did so. She took them off too. And Malachy thought, I remember your toes. I remember your toes. And he had to turn away from the sight of them and a charge of barefoot memories. Running in the gardens. Padding in and out of each other’s homes. Lolling and listening to the radio, or a band. Or watching the television, or someone rehearsing. Holding her feet between his hands and playing This Little Piggy when they were far too old for that but when they were all alone, with no one around, and they could fold into each other and this little piggy went kiss kiss kiss all the way home.

‘Come through,’ Malachy said, walking ahead, away from such stirring emotions. ‘I’ll get you a towel.’

With the towel he gave her some jogging bottoms and a sweatshirt and a pair of socks. By now she had started to shiver.

‘I don’t have any lady’s knickers,’ he said and he saw how she was too cold, too wet and too exhausted to banter back.

Oriana stood in the shower for a long time, motionless, just letting the comfort of hot water replace the discomfort of too much rain. She didn’t want to get out, to get dry. She didn’t want to wear his clothes because they’d smell of him. She didn’t want to move time forward to when she’d have to say all she’d come here to say. She spent a long time, wrapped in the towel, sitting on the edge of the bath, staring at the pile of clothes. Eventually, feeling chilled again, she dressed. His clothes were much too big of course, but she rolled up trouser legs and sleeves and sat down again, burying her nose in the neck of his top.

‘Have you drowned?’ He knocked.

‘I’m fine,’ she called.

When she appeared, swamped in his clothes, Malachy thought she looked like something that had shrunk in the wash.

‘I made you cocoa,’ he said and she saw he was holding two mugs. ‘Mum’s recipe – remember?’

She hadn’t forgotten. Hot chocolate in the States had never tasted quite right.

‘Come on.’ He led on through to the ballroom. By the time he’d shut the balcony doors, she was curled in the corner of the sofa just as she had been a few weeks ago. He took his place on the Eames, resting his mug on the footstool, on a makeshift coaster of the Louis Sullivan book she’d left for him.

‘You saw the book,’ she smiled.

‘Yes.’

They blew on their drinks and sipped.

‘Congratulations on your job,’ he said. ‘That’s great news.’

‘Thanks.’

‘When do you start?’

‘The week after next,’ she said.

‘Looking forward to it?’

‘Yes.’

And Malachy remembered how, when Oriana had so much to say, she could manage only one word at a time. He also remembered just how he used to be able to extract it from her. He took quick sips of the chocolate, as if to swallow down the memory and keep the technique at bay. If she had something to say, he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to hear it.