The Way Back Home

by Freya North

  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.

  ‘What’s the time?’ she suddenly said. He recalled how she’d use this as an avoidance tactic. It had happened often. He’d tell her the time and she’d say oh! I must be going. And off she’d disappear. He glanced at his watch and he knew she’d be going nowhere tonight.

  ‘It’s tomorrow,’ he said.

  She looked worried.

  ‘Do you want me to drive you to Sheffield? I’m probably just under the limit.’

  ‘OK.’ Her response was rushed and unsteady.

  They stood up, holding their mugs which were still over half full. ‘I’ll get my keys then,’ he said and he left the ballroom.

  She stood where she was, cursing herself for her timidity.

  ‘Ready?’ he was calling.

  She shuffled off, skating her feet slowly over the floorboards because she’d trip over Malachy’s socks otherwise. He was standing near the front door. He had shoes on already and he’d put on a long-sleeved top over the T-shirt he’d changed into. He stared from her soaked trainers to his socks on her feet.

  ‘Do you want a piggyback to the car?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Do you want to take the hot chocolate with you?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Shall we go then?’

  ‘OK.’

  Malachy opened the front door.

  ‘I’ll bring the car round then,’ he said and he started to walk down the stone steps. For Oriana, time suddenly did the opposite of standing still – it rocketed forwards at breakneck speed giving her an inkling as to what would happen, and what wouldn’t, if she didn’t do something about it instantly.

  ‘Malachy,’ she said, and the tone she used was the same as the one he could employ. They could say each other’s name and break through a thousand thoughts, scratch out any to-do list, stop time from ticking; a tone of voice that said wait, listen, please, it’s me.

  He turned. And then he came casually back up the steps, as if returning for something forgotten. He could feel her eyes steady on his face but he didn’t look at her; he busied himself instead, patting the pockets of his jeans, doing anything to ignore the pace at which his heart pounded. And then there was nothing to do but turn slowly and face her.

  Oriana placed the mug on the floor and stepped towards him, stepped in closer still, raised her arms and put them across his shoulders, around his neck, like the softest scarf. Then she turned her head and rested her face against his chest and held on for dear life.

  For a while, Malachy just stayed as he was, being held again by Oriana. She didn’t seem to want anything from him
, she seemed only to want to give. He could feel her melding into him, bodies softening so that dips were filled and curves fitted. He felt a breath leave him slowly, like sinking into bed at the end of a day. And it was then that his arms were ready to hold her. One around her shoulders, the other around her waist. There they stood; gently.

  ‘I am so so tired,’ she said because she thought she might very well fall asleep standing up soothed by the soundtrack of his heartbeat. His reply was a hum of sorts. God knows where holding her had taken him but he wasn’t quite ready to leave there yet.

  Oriana felt as though she was teetering on the edge, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, between all that had happened and all that could be, between yesterday and today, between being fifteen and being now. So much had happened in the last day. So much had happened over the years – the times when they were together, the years they’d been apart. She was full of emotion and devoid of strength. She was in Malachy’s arms again, the safest place she knew, the place from which she’d been ripped. She was aware that when she let go she’d either fly or fall and until she let go, she had no way of knowing which it would be. But she would have to let go at some point very soon, because everything else was crumbling under her feet. She was standing in Malachy’s socks but it wasn’t his floor beneath her; it was memories and ideas and her history and words spoken and things never said, and feelings – decades of feelings. She was sinking into American soil and she was balancing on a corner that was for ever England. She was in the midst of the lonely terrain of no-man’s-land knowing what she had to do, wherever that might lead. In a moment, in a few words, she’d be walking either on razor blades or on a cloud for the rest of her life.

  She let go.

  She let go.

  ‘I love you, Malachy,’ she said, loud and clear. Words she’d never regret, never take back.

  And then she started to float and she started to fall; there was nothing beneath her feet at all and she had no way of knowing which way was up.

  When I was …

  When I was a kid my parents pretty much let me do what I wanted. I never had to ask permission. I just did as I pleased because they were rarely interested in what I did, let alone in stopping me. I could easily have bunked off school – for weeks on end. I could have started drinking or smoking young. I could have been a right little tart. I doubt they’d’ve reprimanded me. But I didn’t do any of those things. I don’t know exactly where my sense of right and wrong came from because there was no code of ethics accompanying my family crest. If my mother was in one of her self-obsessed slumbers – when she’d lie in bed as if she’d been flung there, limbs akimbo, hair in a tangle, eyes glazed – I knew I had no hope of her driving me to school. And if the studio door was shut, my father was painting, and pulling him away from a canvas was pointless; he’d be a hazard on the roads. So I’d find some breakfast and double-check I had everything and I’d magically appear by the Bedwells’ car moments before the family emerged for the school run.

  The first time I did it, I saw the look that registered momentarily on Orlando’s face. It was surprise of course – but concern and pity too. But I saw him correct it quickly.

  ‘It’s just your car is a bus,’ I said to him. ‘Your car is the Windward School Bus.’

  He smiled benevolently, as all grown-ups tend to do at a child’s banal chatter. But I was insistent. He couldn’t open the boot for us to shove in our bags because I was standing there, tapping on the letters of the car’s make.

  ‘See,’ I said, ‘Subaru.’ I pointed at them again back to front. ‘U r a bus!’

  ‘All aboard!’ said Orlando and after that, if I wanted to catch the Bedwell Bus, I didn’t even have to ask. I was never late.

  I was never late with homework either. I liked studying, I liked the glimpse into all the possibilities the world held for me, all the ways I could make it in life.

  How old was I? Nine perhaps? It was primary school. For secondary school we all trudged down the driveway for the official school bus. Apart from Willow and Plum who were home educated. I didn’t envy them one bit – what kind of an education would I have received if it was left up to my mother and father? Well, by default, I learned what wasn’t right, what was wrong.

  I loved going to my friend Jennifer’s house. It was so ordered and precise and her parents were so strict. We weren’t allowed a biscuit until we’d had a piece of bread and butter, after which we could choose one plain biscuit and one chocolate one. Everything had to be eaten at the table. Homework was done immediately, after which we could watch John Craven’s Newsround and possibly Blue Peter on the television. Then play time. Then supper. Then bath, bed, reading. Lights out, please. No talking, Jennifer – I mean it.

  Jennifer loved coming to Windward as much as I loved going to her house. But we always made sure it was the Bedwells’ that she was dropped off at and collected from. Jette obliged because she was pleased to enable me to have a friend over. I was sworn to secrecy about my home, otherwise Jennifer’s parents would never have let her come over. You’re so lucky, she’d say. You never have to see your parents. I really envy you, she’d say. They never tell you what to do. You’re never told off for a single thing.

  I was though. Twice. There were two occasions when my father went ballistic and I had to do as I was told.

  My mother had already left. She phoned one day, wanting to speak to me. I always knew when she was on the phone if my father answered it. He softened; he became not so tall and not quite as angular. It was the only time his voice betrayed a clue to his Welsh upbringing and his few words came in a gentler, more musical tone. He never said much – just ‘hullo’ and then ‘I’ll get Oriana for you’. But it was obvious what the sound of her voice meant to him, what it did for him. He’d pass the receiver to me and he’d hover while I was on the phone, his face a picture of regret and longing. At the time I found it irritating and pathetic. What I loved best about being a teenager was that suddenly I was pretty much the same as most of my friends – we all groaned about our embarrassing nightmare parents.

  ‘It’s your mother,’ he said that time. ‘On the phone.’

  ‘Yeah and?’ I was doing my homework.

  ‘It’s your mother,’ he said, ‘and she’s phoned to speak to you.’

  ‘Tell her I’m busy,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll do no such thing.’ The sound of his vitriol made me look up and I saw how he’d clutched the telephone to his chest, right at his heart, as if protecting my mother from hearing, from me.

  So I had a good shout. ‘I am doing my homework! I do not want to speak to my mother!’

  ‘Hold on,’ he said into the receiver, as if giving her instructions on how to weather a gale. He put her back against his heart.

  I stood up, flounced over to him and snatched the receiver.

  ‘What!’ But there was silence at the end of the phone. ‘Hullo hullo?’ I looked at my father. ‘Psychotic cow has gone!’

  And that’s when he told me off. ‘How dare you!’ he said. ‘Go to your room,’ he said. He was suddenly enormous and strong and dark and glowering and powerful and authoritative. And he was also quite right. As I walked away I heard him talking.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s her age. I’m so sorry.’

  I turned. He was talking into the receiver. To this day I do not know whether my mother was still on the line or if she’d gone when I thought she had.

  He saw me. ‘Go to your room. Now.’ He turned his back on me.

  I did as I was told.

  I hated that contradiction – someone who, for the most part, barely noticed me, suddenly becoming all authoritative and laying down the law in a home where there’d been no rules.

  The other occasion was when he sent me away from Windward. Banished me. I railed and begged and cried, but he told me that I had no say in the matter. I was to go. He said so. There was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

&n
bsp; Malachy woke early and lay gazing at the window as morning made its way into his bedroom. He hadn’t closed the curtains when he’d gone to bed, he hadn’t undressed. His belt buckle was now digging into his stomach. The duvet was in a scumble. Oriana was in his arms. As he stroked strand after strand of her hair, so he pulled his thoughts through his mind. He thought years back to the arrival of an elderly lady who would live at Windward for a couple of years. All the children thought she was a witch for a while because she was pointy and stooped and moved around the grounds in a stealthy sweep; gathering things in a black basket, catkins and teasels and pine cones and little twigs and bits of bark. She also lived all the way upstairs, right at the top, and she had a spinning wheel. Jed had reported back on this when he’d climbed to the ramparts and hung like a bat to spy in to the room. One of the smaller children had asked her outright, Are you a witch? And suddenly all of us had gathered round.

  ‘No,’ she said and she was quite forlorn to disappoint them so. ‘I’m afraid I’m not.’

  ‘But you have a spinning wheel.’

  ‘And you look like a witch.’

  Malachy smiled at the memory of Jed saying that – amiable and cheeky with his butter-wouldn’t-melt face. They’d gone up with her, all of them, and she’d shown them how she carded the fleece and slowly coaxed it through the wheel into wool. While she spun, she talked, story after story coming through in the same easy rhythm. Spinning yarns, quite literally. Thereafter the children called her Granny, at her invitation. Now Malachy sells her work at the White Peak Art Space on behalf of her estate. Geraldine Shaw. She lived until she was 101 and she spun till her dying day.

  He turned his head from the window and looked at the Geraldine Shaw wall-hanging which faced his bed. Dovedale, 1996. It was five foot high and four foot wide, a landscape woven from hand-spun wool, enlivened with felting and threadwork, a little quilting here and there. Some seed pods. A few ash twigs. Flicks of limestone and a kingfisher’s feather. It encapsulated the spirit of Dovedale more than any photograph he’d seen.

  The analogy was blatant and it was helpful. Geraldine spinning; turning fleece into wool. Malachy teasing Oriana’s hair through his fingers while he worked through the bale of thoughts crowding his mind. Geraldine and he, turning the raw into something of worth.