The Beauty of Broken Things

by Victoria Connelly

  ‘Can I talk to you about something?’

  ‘Of course.’ Bill gestured to the bench under the rose arch and they both sat down on it together as if they were old friends. ‘What’s on your mind?’

  ‘I’m worried about Luke,’ she said at last. ‘He’s been so focused on helping me and I can never repay his kindness. He’s helped me so much.’ She paused, looking down at her hands.

  ‘So, what’s the problem?’

  ‘I’m not sure he’s mourning properly.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘He hardly mentions about Helen. He only really talked about the accident when he first arrived and we haven’t spoken about it since. It’s touched on every now and then, like last night, but . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know. Shouldn’t he be talking about her more?’

  Bill sighed. ‘Who can say? He might be processing everything quietly.’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘Then I wouldn’t worry.’

  Orla knitted her fingers together. ‘But I do. I think he’s hiding away here.’

  ‘Like you did?’

  ‘Exactly! It’s easy to do.’

  ‘Then you should understand.’

  ‘I do, but he’s helped me to see how unhealthy it is.’

  ‘And it’s unhealthy for him?’

  ‘I think it might be. You see, he’s been sleepwalking.’ Orla turned to face Bill now. ‘He did it shortly after arriving and a couple of times since. At least, that’s when I’ve known about it. He might do it more often than I catch him. I’m a pretty light sleeper these days. Anyway, I can’t help feeling that his locked-in emotions are trying to find a way out.’

  ‘In sleepwalking?’

  ‘I read about it a bit, and sleepwalking can be linked to stress.’

  Bill nodded.

  ‘What do you think?’ Orla asked.

  ‘What do I think?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Bill stared out across the garden as he thought about the young man he’d first seen collapsed on the beach. The same young man who’d brought Orla out into the community, but who was obviously fighting his own battle.

  ‘Our neighbour lost his wife a few years ago,’ Bill began. ‘They were both in their late eighties. Spent their entire lives together. He took it bad. We used to hear him crying through the walls.’ Bill shook his head at the memory. ‘Margy couldn’t bear it. Used to go round and cook for him, listen to him, and hold him as he cried. But time passes, doesn’t it? The pain becomes a little easier to bear.’

  ‘You think we should do nothing?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. But I think we have to let him process all this the way he needs to. We can be there for him, but we can’t do his mourning for him.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Just as you had to heal yourself your way,’ Bill said. ‘The way I see it, there’s no right or wrong way. There are as many different ways to go through an experience as there are people in the world, and Luke will do it his way.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right.’

  They sat in silence together, and it felt so natural. They were becoming friends, he thought, sharing stories and asking for help. That was good. That was as it should be.

  ‘Well, I’d better let you get on,’ Orla said at last, standing up and adjusting her hat.

  Bill stood up too. ‘I’m always here, you know, if you need anything. Always have been.’

  She smiled. ‘I know. It just took me a while to realise, didn’t it?’

  Orla returned inside, her sun-warmed limbs cooling in an instant within the ancient walls of the castle. She took off her hat and went in search of a jumper, pulling it on and suddenly realising that she’d gone outside without sunglasses. When she’d removed them in front of everybody at the meeting the night before, it had been one of the most nerve-wracking moments of her life. How she’d found the courage, she’d never know, but part of it came from having Luke beside her. He believed in her and now she wanted to reach out to him in the same way he’d reached out to her.

  Only she had to find him first.

  Luckily, it didn’t take her long. He was working on a section of wall in a small chamber off the upper hall, his sheets and tools laid neatly around him.

  ‘Hey – how are you getting on?’ Orla asked as she entered the room with care.

  ‘Good, I think.’ Luke stood back from the wall and removed the goggles he’d been wearing. ‘Don’t touch anything. It’s all setting.’

  ‘It looks great.’

  ‘Well, it’s better than it was. The lime plastering will allow everything to breathe.’

  Orla gave a little laugh. ‘Yes, it’s good to breathe, isn’t it? I think this castle’s been holding its breath almost as long as I have.’

  Luke smiled. ‘But you’re both breathing now.’

  ‘Yes.’ She watched him as he tinkered around, building up the courage to say what she had come here to say.

  She took a deep breath. ‘Luke, you know, you’ve helped me so much.’

  He turned back to her. ‘You’re doing a lot of the work yourself. Don’t forget that.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have, though, if you hadn’t come here.’

  Luke smiled and then turned back to his work.

  ‘I’d like to help you, Luke.’

  He looked back at her and frowned. ‘What do you mean? With the plastering?’

  ‘No, not the plastering. I want to help – if you ever want to talk about anything. About Helen. I’m here and I’m happy to listen.’

  He looked at her blankly, as if genuinely confused about what she might mean. It was the strangest sensation to see him like that because he was usually so warm and open, but she could see that her words had closed something up in him and that she wasn’t going to get through to him.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said in a dreadfully distant monotone.

  ‘Are you?’

  He picked up one of his tools. Orla had no idea what it was, but his message was clear – he didn’t want to talk to her.

  ‘Luke?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he told her again, making her flinch.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, feeling deflated and defeated as she left the chamber.

  Chapter 14

  There was a genuine uneasiness between Luke and Orla over the next few days, with both of them concentrating on their respective work, conveniently at opposite ends of the castle. Orla was quite sure Luke had arranged things that way, working in parts of the castle where he was least likely to run into her.

  Orla did her best not to be upset, but it was hard. She bought more damaged crockery that week than she had in a long time. Box after box was delivered to the castle and great mountains of bubble wrap and tissue paper soon accumulated. Orla tried not to think about it, although she felt horribly guilty about the waste. She’d have to find a way to recycle it all at some point. There were stacks of boxes and wrapping from her years of collecting. That was one of the benefits of living in a castle, she thought – there was plenty of room for rubbish.

  For now, though, she was focused on her art. It was a while since she’d posted to Galleria and she’d missed the friendly community, but it felt funny going back there now, having been out in the real world. She allowed herself a little time to acclimatise, scrolling through her favourite accounts, liking photos and leaving comments. Then she got down to business, looking through her new acquisitions for the piece to showcase to the world. She’d bought a job lot of blue and white china and she looked through the pieces now. Some of it wasn’t very old at all and so wasn’t of interest to Orla, but there was a handful of pieces that were very pretty indeed and she placed them on one of the wide windowsills in the great hall, which was a favourite place of hers to photograph things.

  The light was honeyed and warm there and gave the plates and cups a glow which was beautiful to photograph. She took some photos from above so that you could see the whole pattern on the plates, then some from th
e side so that the cups were shown in their full glory. It was a delightful dance with the camera that she always enjoyed, finding that angle which brought the true beauty of something to the fore. Orla was used to bending down on her knees or clambering up a step ladder in order to find just the right place to be. That was her job – an angle explorer, teaming the objects she’d sourced with the light available on any given day. And light could be a very fickle business partner indeed.

  Once she was happy that she’d got a few images that would work, she took the cups and plates back to the china room to store safely. One Ear knew that this was the one place in the castle where he wasn’t allowed. It wasn’t that Orla didn’t trust him, but the mere size of him and the enthusiasm of his tail could easily wreak more havoc than the proverbial bull in a china shop and so he would wait in the hallway outside.

  When everything had been safely put away, Orla sat down with her camera and her phone, doing a quick deleting round of the photos she deemed hadn’t worked as well as she’d hoped. This left her with a shortlist of two dozen or so and she loaded those onto her laptop so she could view them better before whittling them down further. This process took another half an hour and she chose three photos to use over the coming weeks, uploading one to the Galleria site that day. She was instantly hit with ‘likes’, and comments quickly followed, filling her with gratitude for her online friends, who had an eye for beauty too, even in the broken things in life.

  I love the way the light plays on the chip in that cup, somebody wrote. And the way that hairline crack travels just beneath the pagoda – as if there might have been an earthquake.

  Orla had liked that too. She always tried to imagine what might have caused each little chip and crack. A clumsy pair of hands, perhaps, or a dog’s waggy tail. Life had a way of finding the beautiful things and leaving its mark.

  Then came the usual questions from those who only desired to own things after seeing them beautifully photographed by somebody else.

  Where did you get those plates from?

  Orla would smile. The joy of vintage finds was that they were hard to replicate. One couldn’t just log on and buy the exact same thing, and Orla liked that. It made her collection special.

  And, finally, the more personal messages came.

  So glad to see you back!

  Missed you. Hope you’re okay.

  Orla read them all, choosing not to reply, but touched that, in venturing out into the real world, she had been missed in the virtual one.

  But there was a huge void there now. A void that could never be filled. Never again would Helen’s voice chime out loud and beautiful amongst the crowd. There would be no more messages, no more sweet exchanges between them and no more photos posted on her Trees and Dreams page.

  Tears began to fall as Orla felt the loss again. With having been so focused on herself over the past few weeks and being anxious about Luke’s state of mind, she’d forgotten about the loss of her friend and realised that she hadn’t mourned properly for her at all. When Luke had arrived and told her about Helen, Orla had wanted to be brave for him, but now she realised that she hadn’t really made time to think about her own loss. But the tears were coming now, hot and relentless, and she couldn’t help but be glad that Luke wasn’t there to see them.

  Luke was struggling. He’d tried to distract himself with his job, but it didn’t seem to be working and he knew why. The twentieth of July. He’d been dreading it.

  He’d worked right through lunch, grabbing a sandwich in the middle of the afternoon and taking the shortest of breaks with a quick walk around the village to get some fresh air. Then it was back to it.

  But he couldn’t very well work right through the night for fear of disturbing Orla. It wouldn’t be fair. He hadn’t spoken to her – not properly at least – for days now, and it was cutting him up. He knew he was being an idiot, but he was doing his best to keep his emotions in check and, if she started on at him about opening up, he didn’t know where it would lead. No. Luke was determined to keep a lid very firmly on his emotions and if that meant that Orla thought him a little gruff, then so be it.

  The twentieth of July.

  He’d known it was approaching, and he’d known he’d have to face it. It was one of the reasons he hadn’t wanted to be at home. Maybe it was one of the reasons he’d been dreaming about Helen too. The last few nights, her face had been so clear to him. Her voice too. Like the dream he’d had just the night before.

  ‘Let me read you something,’ she’d said, and he’d been smiling, shaking his head, as he knew what was coming.

  ‘“With the new moon in your sign this week, change is on its way.” Isn’t that exciting?’

  ‘I don’t believe in star signs,’ he’d told her.

  ‘I know. I don’t either, but they’re fun, aren’t they?’

  She’d laughed at his seriousness.

  ‘Let me read yours, you crotchety old Capricorn!’

  He’d sighed in resignation. ‘Go on, then.’

  ‘“Don’t let your ambition stop you having a good time. Remember to relax! Life isn’t all about work, you know, so put that toolbox down and spend time with loved ones.”’

  ‘It doesn’t really say that, does it?’ He’d moved to pull the magazine from her.

  ‘It jolly well does and you should pay attention to it, too.’

  When he’d woken, he realised he’d been crying in his sleep. It had all felt so real. Helen had been there. He’d not just seen and heard her; he’d felt her. Waking up had felt like losing her all over again and the echo of the dream had haunted him throughout the day.

  Looking at the blank wall of lime plaster in front of him now, he still couldn’t shake the mood which hung over him no matter how much he tried to focus on the job in hand, switching his radio on in an attempt to fill his head with inane music and DJ babble.

  He wasn’t quite sure how he got through the day, but he did and, by the time he got into bed that night, he felt utterly drained. He still hadn’t seen or spoken to Orla and he was glad he hadn’t because he knew he was dreadful company and it wouldn’t be fair to inflict himself on her.

  He let out a long sigh, staring up into the darkness of the room, and then he closed his eyes on the day, whispering three words before he fell asleep.

  ‘Happy birthday, Helen.’

  It was a couple of days later when Orla decided that something needed to be said. Whatever Luke was doing and whatever mood he was in, she was going to confront him because things simply couldn’t go on in the way they had been. Selfishly, she thought that she’d been making such good progress and that the gulf that had come between them was a setback. Luke hadn’t offered any days out since the day she’d said she’d listen to him if he ever wanted to talk to her. But it was more than that – she was seriously worried about him. Whereas she’d been making progress, she truly felt that he was getting worse. Part of her wanted to confront him about it and just get it all out in the open, but she’d held back because she remembered how difficult it had been for her to navigate her way through troubled times and the last thing she’d wanted was some mad person shouting at her to buck up. So she’d given him time and space. Only she believed he’d had plenty of that now and it was time to start talking.

  It was easy to lose somebody in a castle, particularly if you didn’t even know they were actually inside, Orla thought as her search for Luke began. He might have taken himself off, for all she knew. With not speaking properly, she wouldn’t blame him if he’d downed tools and gone off for the day. In fact, thinking about it now, she wasn’t really sure why he was still here. Perhaps he was a man of integrity and wouldn’t just walk out on a job he’d promised to do, she thought. But there was another possibility. Perhaps him remaining at the castle was preferable to going home to an empty house – a house Helen wouldn’t ever be returning home to. The thought made Orla intensely sad and all the more determined to find Luke and sort things out.

  ‘Luke?�
� she called as she went from room to room and floor to floor, One Ear by her side. ‘LUKE?’

  ‘I’m in the basement!’

  ‘Oh, thank goodness,’ she said under her breath, glad that he was still under her roof.

  Reaching the basement a moment later, Orla stood at the bottom of the steps anxiously as One Ear barged in ahead of her.

  ‘Hello, boy!’ Luke said, ruffling the dog’s head affectionately. He then looked up at Orla. ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hi.’

  Luke cleared his throat. ‘I owe you an apology.’

  ‘And I owe you one too.’

  ‘Are you going to make me go first, then?’ he asked, a tiny smile lighting his face.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being moody and withdrawn and gruff and—’ He paused. ‘You can stop me whenever you like.’

  ‘No – you can go on,’ she told him.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry. There’s no excuse for bad behaviour.’

  ‘Yes, there is.’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  They looked at one another, the space between them suddenly seeming a little less intimidating now that they’d both apologised.

  ‘I missed you,’ Orla said.

  Luke smiled at that. ‘I missed you too.’

  ‘Liar!’

  ‘I’m not lying!’

  ‘You missed One Ear.’

  ‘Well, of course I missed One Ear! That goes without saying.’ He bent to make a fuss of the dog again, who was very pleased indeed to have so much attention. ‘I missed our walks.’

  ‘You could’ve come along.’

  He shook his head. ‘I would’ve been bad company.’

  ‘What have you been doing?’

  ‘Mostly plastering. A bit of carpentry. Got those shutters sorted for you in the west turret, so that room should be cosier, come winter.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘My pleasure.’

  ‘You working in here now?’

  ‘Not sure. I’m still wondering what’s behind this,’ he said, tapping the board.

  ‘Why don’t you find out?’