Chapter Twenty-Three
‘It’s about time, don’t you think? My mum’ll take Jack for a couple of days. Is this line funny? You sound as if you’re in the middle of the street.’
‘I’m having problems with this phone.’
‘Speak up! Why are you whispering? Nice if I could rely on Himself to look after his own son but he’s needed at the office yada yada yada.’
‘He’s a big high-up important bloke, Ju. Look, can we do this tomorrow? I’m a bit frazzled and—’
‘I can hardly hear you. So, which weekend is good for you? I want to come on a weekend so I get full value out of you. Don’t worry, I won’t kip at yours. I’ll treat myself to a hotel. You can come and jump on the bed, pillage the mini-bar. I’ll take you somewhere fabulous for din-dins. For me, next weekend is perfect for all sorts of reasons.’
‘Not for me, I’m afraid. I’m away.’
‘Away? Where? You never said. Oh, is it Marek? Is he whisking you away?’
‘No, it’s a college trip, to … Whitstable.’
‘Weekend after?’
‘Um, no, I’m looking after Maude.’
‘In what way?’
‘She’s not well, and she’s having a little operation.’
‘What sort of operation?’
‘A little one, on her, um …’
‘You can just say you don’t want me, you know.’
‘Calm down, missus. I’m just busy, that’s all.’
‘Too busy for me? You’re never too busy for me. Or you never were. I need to talk to you, Orla.’
‘Juno, let’s please sort this out tomorrow. I have to go. We’ll sort a date. I miss you too, you know.’
‘Do you?’
‘I do. Good—’
Orla cut herself short as the porch light came on in the house next door. Ending the call, she ducked, hoping that her black outfit would be swallowed up by the dark hump of the hedge. A trat-trat-trat of claws conjured up a small dog preceding its owner out into the tiny, bin-filled rectangle that London estate agents describe, straight-faced, as a front garden.
Leaning further into her hide, Orla’s soft cheek encountered a hard sprig and she stifled her Ow.
‘Poo-poo for Mummy!’ A stage whisper floated from an invisible figure in the porch. ‘Poo-poo! Come on! It’s freezing. Poo-poo for Mummy!’
Shrinking, eyes squeezed shut, Orla froze in case the brittle hedge’s indignant crackling gave her away. Too late, she cursed herself for not conjuring up a cover story. If Mummy’s poo-poo was not forthcoming and the woman looked her way, Orla had no valid reason to be standing in the hedge of a vacant house. Police might be called. At the very least the woman would jump out of her skin.
Thankfully the dog’s ablutions were swift and Orla was soon alone again, focused once more on number forty-nine, the house exactly opposite. Beatrice Gardens was leeched of colour in the weak light of the street lamps and Orla was cold, her gloves not up to a December night.
She could be in Marek’s bed right now.
They always (already they had an ‘always’) began the night entwined, before each would sleepily loosen their limbs until they were companionably side by side. As morning crept across the room, so they’d curl back in to each other. She would wake up smelling him, feeling the softness of his hair and the slumbering vitality of his body.
This is what you’ve brought me to. You and your bloody journal. Talking to Sim was no longer a symptom of missing him. To miss Sim would be so wildly inappropriate that some remorselessly logical department of her heart had simply closed the relevant section down.
This was about claiming what was rightfully hers. This was about justice, and answers, and peace of mind. Tonight was the culmination of her virtual vigil, the reason she’d stashed away each clue, each crumb.
Twitter had alerted her to Anthea’s unusual plans.
Crikey! Quiet night in on my own! I must be losing my touch! LOL;) x
Orla had already divined Anthea’s address, helped by the carelessly un-blurred house number and the clue embedded in the quote about living in a street named after an award-winning role. Orla’s archive of Anthea facts – useless in any other situation – had thrown up the Olivier for Much Ado about Nothing, a play that Orla had studied at school. She’d had a soft spot for the firebrand heroine and now, all these years later, had punched the air when a street map of Primrose Hill had thrown up Beatrice Gardens.
And now Orla was there, and could stride across the road, ring the doorbell and light the blue touch paper with a calm, I know about you and Sim.
She’d do it by midnight. Orla had promised herself this when she’d alighted from the taxi and stood, irresolute, in the middle of the road. She had imagined storming up the steps, but the house was so tall – and so broad, and so complacently expensive – that it had cowed her and she had retreated to the handily sited empty property to regroup.
Excavating a spyhole in the dusty hedge was easy. The house behind her was for sale following what looked like a speedy renovation of white paint and stripped boards that had run out of steam or cash before it reached the jungly front garden. Through the untidy gap, Orla could see number forty-nine perfectly.
Two storeys over a basement, broad steps up to a handsome front door, Anthea’s house was as well presented as its owner. Repointed bricks sat as straight and correct as a computer-generated image, yet the property had all the character of its vintage. Early Edwardian, confident and wide, semi-detached from a less groomed twin, it had cost, according to Zoopla, a figure well north of what Orla expected to earn in her lifetime.
The hall light shone through the fanlight above the door. The sitting room curtains were closed, but not pulled quite together, allowing an uneven slither of warm lamplight to escape.
Anthea was in there. Possibly on the moss green sofa Orla had admired online, possibly on the rug brought back from filming in Peru. Maybe Anthea was reading the journal, a book she only figured in towards the end. At will, she could flick through the intimate ins and outs of the early days of Sim and Orla, or she could skip to the finale and its car crash of lies.
It was almost midnight. Orla restrained her thoughts, keeping them from scurrying sideways. She must be strong and certain: right, after all, was on her side.
The soft swish of traffic circling Regents Park was like distant surf. Orla yawned. She’d assumed folk stayed up all night in these boho media byways. Only a handful of upper windows were still lit on the street, and apart from number forty-nine, one sole ground floor window attested to hardy types still up and watching a flickering television.
In Tobercree, the Cassidys regarded early nights as lily-livered giving in. There was always another round of tea to be drunk, another topic for in-depth discussion, another family member to lightly roast. Lightweights, thought Orla, as a light died in a loft to her left.
Eyes trained on Ant’s front door, Orla pictured Sim skipping up those steps, a beribboned champagne bottle in his paw. He’d fit right in. She could practically hear the confident tune he’d bash out on the brass lion’s paw knocker. The heavy lantern hanging in the porch, the bay trees flanking the door, the antique boot scraper on the caustic tiles, all these House Beautiful accoutrements would combine with Sim to create a visual medley of poshness.
When he’d visited Ma, bounding up to her hacienda-style bungalow, sidestepping the miniature concrete donkey with its panniers of geraniums, he’d taken great sarcastic delight in the doorbell that played ‘Waltzing Matilda’. All the curtains in the cul-de-sac would twitch, and Her Next Door would brazenly emerge to get a look at ‘the senator’s boy’.
Home yet?
If she ignored his text, Marek would call. Orla’s finger dithered over the letters on her phone before she barked at herself to get on with it. After tonight there’d be no need to lie.
Just got in. Goodnight. xxx
Orla downgraded lie to fib. Standing this side of an untruth, she saw how it shape-
shifted. Presumably Sim had played similar games with the dimensions of his own lies.
She shied away from an estimate of how many times he’d misled her and she’d cheerfully accepted it, jolly and innocent, a mug.
Goodnight, Orla. And I meant it. I love you. X
Had Sim blanched when the lie worked and the other party carried on loving? Marek’s simple message should have turned her heart over with happiness but instead it made her feel like a cur.
Across the road, the slit of light from Anthea’s sitting room died. Seconds later, the hall went black. Anthea was climbing the stairs, the stairs carpeted with seagrass. Orla stiffened. This was it. She had to strike before Anthea retired. She felt as if a great pressure was pushing down on her head, pounding her into the hard earth like a tent peg.
The light in what must be Anthea’s en suite snapped on: Orla could see marble walls above the louvre half shutters. The glass misted up. The lady of the house was running a bath, or a shower. No point, thought Orla, giddy with the reprieve, in knocking on the front door while Anthea was naked and wet. Let her finish. And then, then Orla would have no option but to end this peculiar duet.
There she was! The bedroom, at the front of the house, was sketchily visible in the leaking light from the en suite. Anthea stood in front of the windows, arms up like an angel to pull the heavy curtains which Orla knew were a deep Cadbury’s purple. Anthea looked out into the dead street, looked straight at the house opposite, looked, or so it seemed, at Orla.
With one jerk, the curtains closed and the silhouette disappeared.
Five minutes to Orla’s self-imposed deadline. After, she could delete the careful biography she’d amassed with all the loving care of a number one fan and stay up all night reading Sim’s candid words after years of being spoonfed the careful compliments in his cards.
Prepared for the grenades hidden in the last few pages, Orla also hoped that earlier entries would prove that she had known the real Sim back then. That he did like chocolate chip ice-cream; that he had loved her once.
The en suite was pitch black. Fear made Orla’s body weightless. A quote popped, unbidden, into her head, from Much Ado about Nothing. Benedick, Beatrice’s lover and adversary, had boasted, ‘it is certain I am loved of all ladies’.
If Sim had lived, he’d have been perfect casting for Benedick. He was loved of all ladies, and the last two of them were arranged neatly opposite each other now, just about to merge, before flying apart for good.
Without warning, the clouds grumbled and Beatrice Gardens was drenched. Orla staggered under the rain, her hair plastered to her forehead in an instant, her nose dripping, the back of her neck wet.
She left the garden and stood in the street, watching the one window still lit in Anthea’s house. Inside her gloves her fingers were numb. This wasn’t the clean rain of Tobercree, that floated leaf boats down the lane: this was hard-assed London rain, swilling fag ends along the gutters.
A church bell, muffled by the downpour, tolled glumly.
Move!
Orla couldn’t cross the road: it was as wide as the Serengeti.
Move!
Sim’s last two loves were metres apart. One was indoors, pampered, warm, bath-fresh and sweet smelling, about to lie down beneath a jade bedcover; the other was out in the dark, blinded by rain, cheated out of her paltry legacy.
Move!
Orla’s obstinate feet wouldn’t obey.
The light in the upstairs window died.
Chapter Twenty-Four
‘Every cloud has a silver lining, even a cloud that involves a ceiling falling on the heads of charming young people,’ said Maude. ‘I’m rather sorry you’re back in your classroom tomorrow. I shall miss you at elevenses.’ She placed a plate of toast slathered in honey on the shop coffee table. ‘There. Eat it while it’s hot. I heard you sneak in at all hours. Out carousing with your Polish hussar again?’ Living vicariously through Orla had lit Maude from within: she was like a geriatric super-model – because I’m seventy-four and worth it.
‘Yeah,’ said Orla. It wasn’t entirely a lie. But, like so many of her recent exchanges with the people closest to her, neither was it true. She watched Maude tootle around her little empire, nibbling toast and tucking a book in here, turning one the right way up there. When Maude touched her books she was communing with a vast breadth of human experience, yet she couldn’t sense the turmoil going on just feet from her where Orla sat, eating toast, gazing out of the window.
It had foundered, the simple plan: cyberstalk Anthea – discover a time when she’s alone – approach her to inform her that I know about affair with my man – take the journal – read it – collapse in heap – recover – live happily ever after – (with Marek?)
A barrier of her own making had kept her in the rain at Beatrice Gardens until after 2 a.m. The gulf between herself and Sim’s lover had opened up like a ravine that yawned, unbreachable, in the short space between the parked cars and Anthea’s gate.
As each minute ticked by, it had seemed increasingly unlikely to Orla that she could ever confront Anthea. She had no voice, just a squeak of fear and unhappiness. She would cry, she knew, and say the wrong thing – a string of wrong things. She couldn’t compete with Anthea’s power.
Anthea held all the cards. Anthea had been the one Sim loved when he died.
At some point, watching a darkened house had become too absurd even for Orla’s new state of mind and she’d trudged home, ignoring taxis’ flirty orange lights, to climb into bed just as the night gave way to dawn.
‘He seems awfully keen.’ Maude sat on the arm of the sofa, all the better to fish. ‘As does a certain young lady not a million miles from me.’
‘Mmm.’
‘Bogna’s never seen him like this. Said he’s had plenty of girlfriends but nobody special. Not until you.’ Maude stood and walked behind the sofa to slot a slender volume between two leviathans. ‘Accord ing to her, you’ve brought him back to life.’ She frowned at a Marian Keyes in among the foreign titles. ‘He’s certainly repaid the compliment.’ She leaned over the back of the sofa to say into Orla’s ear, ‘It’s rude to ignore little old ladies who are trying to make conversation.’
Orla laid her head back on the sofa, and regarded an upside-down Maude, glad of her, sorry to be shutting her out. ‘He told me he loves me.’
Maude clapped her hands together. ‘Of course he loves you! He has taste.’ Bending into Orla’s hair, she murmured, ‘I know you’re not as whole as you appear, dear. I know better than to trust this miraculous recovery. Remember I’m here.’
Startled by Maude’s clairvoyance, Orla tensed. She stood and watched Maude drift away, humming, swaying her barely there hips under her voluminous skirt.
Maude would save her. Maude would say the one pithy thing that would keep Orla from her shameful internet scavenger hunts and her battles with self-worth in Primrose Hill; kind, clever Maude’s clarity would nail Orla’s folly so that it could never be taken seriously again. Maude would save Orla from herself.
‘Maude, listen,’ she began.
‘Customer!’ trilled Maude, looking over Orla’s shoulder. ‘Good morning George,’ she said, her voice sprightly as a lark’s.
‘May I have a word?’ George turned a tweed cap over and over in hands that were as gnarled, Orla noticed, as tree roots.
‘Of course. Is there a problem?’ Maude’s brow lowered as she approached him.
It was hard to harbour bad thoughts about George; he was old and gentle and mad about Maude. His timing, however, was regrettable. Orla’s secret buttoned itself back up.
‘Not at all.’ George dropped his voice – a pleasing voice, genteel with a slight crack that earthed it and reminded the listener that beneath the carefully pressed clothes George was a man. ‘Maude, I promised myself that today would be the day I finally told you something.’
‘Yes?’ Maude was encouraging, but Orla caught the shift in tone, as if the old lady’s toes were pointi
ng away, ready to carry her off.
‘I enjoy visiting this shop. You should be very proud of it.’
Go George! Orla bit her lip, willing him on.
‘I am proud of it. Thank you.’
‘But really I come here to see you.’
George’s gulp was audible, and hopefully camouflaged Orla’s gasp.
‘Do you?’ Maude was carefully non-committal, in waiting mode.
‘Yes. As I’m sure you must know. I would like to get to know you better, but I don’t flatter myself the sentiment is returned.’
Don’t be cool, Maudie! begged Orla, head down, crunching her toast very quietly.
‘Do flatter yourself, George,’ said Maude firmly, and Orla could picture the glint in her blue eye.
‘That is good news!’ George forgot to keep his voice intimate, so Orla didn’t have to strain as he said, in the manner of one proclaiming good news, ‘In that case, Maude, please do me the honour of coming out to dinner with me. Tonight!’ he added, speeding on the confidence she’d given him.
‘Why not let me cook for you?’
Celebrations on hold, Orla knew that George wasn’t versed in Maude-speak and might not recognise the question mark as rhetorical.
‘I wouldn’t dream of it. Just get your glad rags on and allow me to show you off.’
‘I’m a very good cook.’
George, read the signs.
‘I have no doubt of that, Maude. But I want to—’
‘You want to boss me about.’
Clang. There it was, the change of mood that Orla and Bogna and even Sheraz dreaded. George had provoked the one bum note in Maude’s shimmering range.
‘No, no, no.’ George sounded as baffled as Orla had been when she’d first ridden Maude’s switcheroo. ‘Not at all. But a nice restaurant, of your choice, wouldn’t that be a delightful way to spend an evening?’
‘No. It would not.’
Garlanded with icicles, Maude’s announcement had no response and Orla risked a peep at the couple. George had stopped kneading his cap. In fact, he’d given up all movement, standing like a statue.
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