The Way Back Home

by Freya North

  And when he darted off to the bedroom and belted back with the chocolate bar, she laughed again and asked if he had a whole stash of confectionery in there. Yes, he said, in case we fancy a midnight feast. And she said, oh! a midnight feast – brilliant! And it was then that Jed relaxed. As he watched her reconnect with the sickly sweetness of syrup-clogged coconut and chocolate, he thought to himself – see how happy she is. He thought to himself – she’s going to love it here. He told himself – I’m going to ensure that she never wants to leave.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  ‘I’m getting shooting pains where the sun don’t shine and it feels like my fanny’s going to fall out. Stop laughing.’ Cat glowered at Oriana though the sparkle in her eyes contradicted her protestation. ‘And when I walk, it looks like I’ve cacked my pants.’

  Oriana was on Cat’s sofa, doubled up in mirth.

  ‘Bitch,’ Cat muttered. ‘Oh – and I’m also really, really temperamental.’

  ‘Bless you,’ Oriana laughed, wiping her eyes. ‘Bless you.’

  ‘I thought maternity leave would be all about wafting around the house, folding babygros and towels – everything soft and fragrant,’ Cat continued. ‘It isn’t. It’s about me going “oof” every time I sit down; it’s about me burping a lot. It’s about me reading magazines and pregnancy books and changing my mind.’ She looked sorrowfully at Oriana. ‘I’ve changed my mind, Oriana. I’ve decided not to do this – not to give birth. I’ll just look obese for the rest of my life. Fine by me. But there’s no way on earth I’m going through labour. No way.’

  Oriana held up the four fingers on one hand to signify the weeks of Cat’s pregnancy remaining. Cat held up four fingers too, but in a double-handed two-fingered fuck off.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ Oriana told her. ‘You’ll be brilliant at it.’

  ‘I don’t want Ben seeing me all inside out.’

  ‘Your husband’s a doctor.’

  ‘That’s irrelevant.’

  ‘Your husband loves you very much and this is a much-wanted baby. Anyway, he doesn’t have to go south.’

  ‘Say I bellow like an ox and poop on my baby?’

  Oriana shrugged. ‘My mother mooed – everyone at Windward heard her. And all the little children mooed at me.’

  Cat raised an eyebrow as if to say, I rest my case. Then her face softened. ‘Have you been back again? To Windward?’

  Oriana looked down at her lap and shook her head.

  ‘Have you seen Malachy again? No? Spoken? Texted, then?’

  ‘I did text,’ Oriana said thoughtfully. ‘A couple of weeks ago. On my first night at Jed’s. I sent Malachy a message saying – well, just saying thank you. And stuff.’

  ‘Define stuff, please.’

  Oriana took her phone from her back pocket, scrolled through and located the brief exchange between her and Malachy. She read it out loud to Cat.

  Hey. Just to say … thank you. For so so much. It all seems like yesterday to me. Oriana xxx

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well – he sent a reply a day later.’

  ‘Saying?’

  ‘Not much – he doesn’t really do texts. He’s so funny when he talks about his absolute hatred of the humble mobi.’

  ‘But what was his response to your text?’

  Cat watched a paleness course through Oriana’s eyes as she read out his reply.

  Thats ok Malachy

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘No punctuation, even. I told you – he doesn’t like texting.’

  ‘Have you phoned, then?’

  Oriana shook her head. Cat thought about it quietly. What on earth was Oriana doing?

  ‘And Jed?’

  ‘Jed’s Jed,’ said Oriana warmly. ‘He’s really easy to live with. His flat is in a great part of town – quite near the Botanical Gardens. He’s introduced me to some lovely people, taken me to some cool bars and restaurants. He orders supermarket deliveries and the flat is always warm.’

  ‘Wow, he’ll make someone a lovely wife,’ said Cat and Oriana wondered whether the mistake was intentional. ‘Does he have a girlfriend?’

  ‘No – he’s hilarious about the ones he has had. He has me in stitches.’

  Cat nodded thoughtfully. ‘Has he made a move on you yet?’

  Oriana baulked. ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  ‘It’s not stupid.’

  ‘That was years ago, Cat.’

  Cat raised her eyebrow.

  ‘Years ago,’ Oriana stressed. ‘Another life entirely.’

  And Cat thought to herself, have it your way for the moment, Oriana. Because she thought back to two weeks ago, when Oriana had dropped her car off and brought Jed in for a cup of tea. And she thought back way beyond that, to the years ago to which Oriana now referred so lightly. It was still plain to see. Jed had never fallen out of love with Oriana and it was both deluded and insensitive of her to ignore the fact. And when he told her so – and it would be when, not if – it would hit Oriana as forcefully as when that lump of stone parapet fell off the roof at Windward in front of all of them, smashing to the ground, pulverized beyond repair.

  ‘I’m going to Blenthrop on Saturday,’ Oriana changed the subject.

  ‘Oh?’ Cat’s first thought was for Malachy. Her second was Windward.

  ‘Got to keep Janis Joplin at bay,’ Oriana said, lifting a tress of her hair for emphasis. ‘And when you took me there last time, Gay Colin mentioned his clients who are architects.’ She paused and smiled. ‘Here’s you, on maternity leave – here’s me, finally truly ready to work again.’

  Gay Colin told her she really needed her colour doing. Oriana told him she could barely afford the cut and blow-dry. Much to her relief, this led him on to asking whether she had a job – and whether she’d like the contact details of his architect clients. She left the salon with great-looking hair and two email addresses.

  The route between Sheffield and Blenthrop took her nowhere near Windward. And the car park was in the opposite direction from the White Peak Art Space. In her hand, a piece of paper that might solve present financial burdens and pave the path to continued success in her career. In her bag, the keys to Jed’s car which he’d generously put at her disposal. Tonight, he was taking her to Greystones – Richard Hawley was playing a one-off there. He said he’d bought the tickets ages ago – when he was still with Fiona. Yesterday, she’d been invited along to his after-work Friday-night drinks. He’d bought her a bag of chips at two in the morning and made her a mug of tea when she woke up.

  ‘I should go back,’ Oriana said quietly, walking off in the direction of the car. ‘I said I’d cook before we head out.’ She stopped and carefully put Colin’s piece of paper in her wallet. ‘I will send emails this afternoon.’ She fidgeted with her hair and looked around her. She knew no one. This wasn’t her town any more. Sheffield was her city now, she lived in a different county altogether. South Yorkshire. Blenthrop, in Derbyshire, was simply where her hairdresser was and, like Cat, she wouldn’t put her head in anyone else’s hands. She looked at her watch and thought of Jed. She retrieved her phone from her bag. He’d sent a text.

  Yo Janis! When are you coming back? Jxx

  He’d even found emoticons of a pair of scissors, another of a girl with her hands in her hair. Oriana thought, life is good. She thought, I’m having fun. She thought, I desperately, desperately want to see Malachy.

  There was no dread lacing the adrenalin which propelled her in the opposite direction from Jed’s car. Just anticipation. She wasn’t going to bother with texts. She was just going to turn up. She was only a few yards from seeing him again. Moments. Just footsteps away. There’s the gallery. She hadn’t thought of any clever phrase to announce herself. She wondered if perhaps she should. Quickly though, she scuttled right past the door, a momentary glance computing that there were people in there and Malachy was bound to be amongst them. She walked back to the newsagent’s on the corner, the one with the coffee machine, and loitered
there for a while. Her mind racketed over pithy things to say but the words tumbled around into Double Dutch. Twice, the shop owner asked if he could help her. Twice she mumbled something about being fine, just looking. Eventually, she thought that a hot cup of coffee would be the perfect ice-breaker, so she bought two. Lingering a little way along the street, Oriana waited until she noted a couple leave the gallery. And then in she went.

  He wasn’t alone in there; he was deep in conversation with an older man. The man was being expansive in his arm gestures while Malachy humoured him, nodding seriously. He’d told Oriana, at some crazy hour a fortnight ago, that he’d perfected his salesmanship. It’s about respecting people’s bullshit, he’d said. When people contemplate art, they say mostly ridiculous things. But if you want them to buy art, you must let them know that actually, their opinion is as valid as the most eminent art critic’s. If art inspires them to talk, then it’s fulfilled its promise.

  What’s the most stupid thing anyone has ever said? Oriana had asked.

  Malachy had put on a posh accent. I’m looking for something – a sculpture – Picasso meets The Simpsons.

  Then he nodded in the direction of Robin’s paintings.

  Your father’s work tends to stun the viewer into silence, he’d told her.

  Here he was now, listening attentively to the man with arms like a windmill. Had he seen her? Was he on the verge of making a sale? Should she back away, perhaps? She sipped nervously at one of the coffees – it was the one with sugar that she’d ordered for Malachy but the sweetness, from which normally she’d recoil, was comforting. And he glanced over to the front of the gallery because he’d noticed someone enter. And suddenly, for all he cared, the man with the rotating arms might have a million pounds in his pocket but Malachy could no more listen to him than he could deliver his spiel about monthly instalments. Oriana was standing just there, with a cup in each hand, like a statue of Justice and her scales. Malachy experienced chaos and balance, exhilaration and caution, delight and apprehension. If anything tipped, she might leave. He held up a finger. One minute, he mouthed. She nodded, her head slightly coy to one side, brandishing the cups as if they were the only reason for her reappearance.

  Her father’s art, not for sale, on the wall opposite her. She realized she was looking at his work now without flinching. Could she remember these being painted? She couldn’t. She went over to them and stood very close, regarded the date. She’d have been in her mid-twenties, just graduating from the School of Engineering at Stanford University with her degree in architectural design. Did her father know she’d been the top-scoring student in her year? That she’d been granted a full needs-based scholarship because the department needed a student as gifted as her? Come to think of it, did her mother know?

  ‘Oriana?’

  Malachy startled her back into the present. She’d been miles away, years away, back in California. She jumped and the spilled coffee ran in a zip-like scorch along her hand.

  ‘Ouch,’ Malachy said for her, taking the cups, walking to the back of the now empty gallery, calling over his shoulder, let me get you a tissue. ‘Here,’ he dabbed the wetness from her skin and frowned at the growing redness there. She saw how his eyebrow puckered above his patch with concern. He looked at her and she looked away quickly, guiltily even, as if she’d been caught staring right at his disability. ‘How does that feel?’ he asked. ‘Sore?’

  She shrugged. ‘Ish.’

  ‘You ought to run it under the cold tap,’ he told her, his hand gently at her shoulder, leading her to the sink in the tiny kitchenette behind the stud wall at the back of the gallery. He turned on the tap and, standing behind her, so close that she could feel his breath through her hair, he took her wrist and let the peaks-cold water rush silkily over her skin. There they stood, not moving, though her hand was now freezing and his back was aching with the effort of keeping his body from pressing against hers.

  He encased her hand in a tea towel, holding it between his. He told her to count to ten, for no other reason than to enable him to stay right there with her, to preserve the loaded silence, the closeness. Back in the gallery, they sat opposite each other at his desk, the surface busy with a scatter of brochures and artists’ details, pens and a laptop, various forms and a box of tissues, a glass of water, an uneaten chocolate bar. But nothing distracted Oriana or Malachy from sipping their coffee while wondering who might speak first and what they might say. Only the arrival of a visitor interrupted their genial silence. Malachy rose.

  ‘Don’t go,’ he whispered. ‘Stay awhile.’

  She watched him. She thought, I could spend all day watching him. Just like I used to. Those times he didn’t know. And those times that he did.

  * * *

  She stayed in the gallery for over two hours. When people came in it was like the DJ interrupting the songs that they’d listened to on Malachy’s radio cassette recorder on Sunday afternoons at Windward during their youth. And, just as he had been back then, so today Malachy was equally expert at cutting out the extraneous so that nothing interrupted the music. He noticed her hair – it’s flicky, he said, it suits you. She liked his shirt. It was denim and well worn and worked well with his faded black jeans. She took a private snapshot of the base of his neck, where his collarbones met, the subtle suggestion of chest hair. So vividly could she recall how their differing heights had enabled her head to tuck under his chin, how she could raise her face so that her lips could kiss precisely this part of him. Did he remember that too? She looked over to him. Busy busy with his working day. He probably didn’t want to remember. She thought, why would he? It was probably the last thing he thought about because it was the furthest thing in his memory. Was there anyone who was less likely to want to revisit the past?

  ‘I’d better go,’ she said. Her phone showed three unread texts, all from Jed – and a missed call from him too.

  Malachy made a gesture that was half shrug, half nod.

  Why don’t you just say don’t go! Oriana desperately tried to telepathize as she rose to her feet. Just ask me to stay. Tell me to wait.

  But he didn’t. He just nodded. No shrug. Just nodded as if he agreed, yes – you’d better go.

  ‘See you next haircut,’ he said lightly. He was standing, his hands in his pockets.

  ‘OK,’ Oriana said. ‘It’s a date.’ And she cringed because it was such a stupid thing to say. And it wasn’t a date. It was just Malachy saying something polite and jaunty.

  They stood and looked at each other and she so wanted to kiss him. She’d be happy enough to place just a small one on his cheek. Had she, he would have taken his hands out of his pockets and put an arm lightly around her waist and kissed her back. But someone came into the gallery and it marked the end of their soundtrack for that afternoon.

  Jed knew that haircuts didn’t take that long – not even a really good cut by Gay Colin. And instinctively he knew why Oriana was late, he knew where she’d been. But he didn’t want to ask. He didn’t want it to sound the way he knew it would sound. He didn’t want to say, it’s too late to cook now. He didn’t want Malachy between them. Instead, he welcomed Oriana back with a barrage of chat and cups of tea and come on! let’s go into town now! Let’s eat Mexican and have a drink before the concert starts.

  Nothing like sharing nachos for spilling the metaphorical refried beans.

  ‘I went into the gallery and had a chat with Malachy.’

  That must be the chilli that’s making Jed choke. Yes, that’s what it’ll be.

  ‘How is my older bro’?’

  ‘He’s fine.’

  ‘Was it busy? Is business good?’

  ‘He sold a print and a few cards while I was there – but there was a steady flow of visitors.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘We should get him over – for a drink. Invite him to ours, cook him a meal. Take him out.’

  And when their eyes locked, just for a moment, they knew t
hat it was the most stupid suggestion because it was the last thing that any of them would want.

  ‘I haven’t seen him in ages,’ Jed mumbled between hasty mouthfuls. ‘I must give him a call.’

  Oriana swigged almost all her margarita in one.

  The Richard Hawley gig was enthralling. Oriana loved his music, finding it wonderfully strange that the artist she’d first discovered in California was actually from the city in which she was now living. Everyone danced and sang and grinned at each other. Greystones was hot and sweaty and the atmosphere was perfect.

  ‘That was the best!’ Oriana enthused as they fairly bounced down the street late, late that night. ‘Amazing!’

  ‘Awesome,’ said Jed.

  And back at the flat they sat on the floor with their backs to the sofa like students, drinking white wine that should have been chilled, listening to Richard Hawley on CD and talking. Talking about nothing in particular, Oriana would have termed it. Shooting the shit, would have been Jed’s take.

  Richard Hawley had not played ‘Don’t You Cry’ live earlier that night. But the song rang through Jed’s flat now. For Jed, it was simply just another superb track and he didn’t connect it to how contemplative Oriana had suddenly become. He didn’t realize it was the reason that her energy was slinking away and she was deflating a little before his eyes, like a soft toy squeezed a bit too hard.

  ‘You OK?’ he asked tenderly, touching her cheek with his fingertip. His hand dropped down, lightly coursing along her arm, to her wrist, to the hand she’d spilled the hot coffee on earlier that day. He wove his fingers through hers. ‘Hey?’ Might she lay her head on his shoulder like she used to? Might that lead on – like it once had?

  ‘Just tired,’ she said. It was a lie, but he didn’t hear it because she kissed him. He didn’t acknowledge that it was just sweetly on the cheek as she said goodnight. It was a kiss. It was a kiss.

  ‘Just really tired,’ she said as she stood up.

  In bed, she nestled deeply into the duvet, pulling it up high like a child hiding from monsters in the cupboard. Richard Hawley’s lyrics continued to reverberate in her head. Not just in her head – she could hear him drifting through from the sitting room, where she’d left Jed with a kiss on his cheek, a glass of warm wine in his hand and the CD on repeat.