‘I don’t understand why you bought this great fortress of a home if you were going to leave it.’
Orla stared at her mother in disbelief. ‘But I’m not leaving it. I’m only walking around the village.’
Bernadette didn’t look happy. It was as if she wanted Orla to lock herself away from the world for ever like some fairy-tale princess.
‘It’s not been easy for me, going out,’ Orla confessed. ‘It’s been the hardest thing I’ve ever done, especially since . . .’ She paused, finding it hard to even speak his name. ‘Since he came here.’
‘Luke!’ Her mother spat the name out.
‘No!’ Orla said in horror. ‘Brandon! Luke helped me! I don’t know what you’ve got against Luke. He’s been nothing but kind and good to me.’
‘He put you in danger.’
‘I’m always going to be in danger. We all are! Anyone who is around other people is in danger. If there’s one lesson I’ve learned from all this, it’s that we can’t control anything in this world. But we can control our response to it.’
Bernadette was shaking her head again, her lips pursed so tightly they’d almost disappeared completely.
‘I don’t want you going out again, Orla. I don’t want you taking unnecessary risks.’
Orla took a moment to process this, not quite believing what her mother had said.
‘What?’
‘You heard me. You’re not to go out again.’
‘Are you being serious?’
‘I’ve never been more serious. And you should start by getting rid of that ridiculous dog. Fancy getting lumbered with a beast like that! Heaven only knows what he costs to feed. If you didn’t have him, you wouldn’t need to go out at all. And I could come and stay more often. Take care of you, like I did after the attack.’
Orla’s mouth dropped open. She was finding it hard to breathe as realisation dawned.
‘You actually like me when I’m helpless, don’t you?’ she said. ‘Trapped in a hospital bed or locked away in my room when I’m terrified. You like knowing where I am every second of the day.’
‘Well, of course I do! I nearly lost you, didn’t I? Did you know what that was like for me – to see you in that state? My own flesh and blood. Only you were more blood than flesh, Orla! Oh, God! I can hardly bear to remember it.’ Her eyes had flooded with tears now and Orla came forward to embrace her.
‘But I’ve got to live, Mum. I feel I’ve been dead for the last two years, hiding behind these walls and turning my face from the world whenever I dared to go outside.’
‘But you’ve been safe, haven’t you?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Maybe’s not good enough.’
Orla took a step back. ‘I’m really trying to make progress here.’
‘You call putting yourself at risk progress?’
‘Don’t say that – please don’t say that! I need to do this, Mum – with or without your blessing. It just feels right to me now.’
Bernadette reached out to her, but Orla took a step back, feeling on the verge of tears.
‘Orla! My baby!’
‘No, Mum. I’m not a baby any more and you’ve got to stop treating me as if I am. I can’t live with you like this. You’re suffocating me! I feel like I can’t take a single breath without you being there to inhale it. You’ve got to give me some space.’
Bernadette looked genuinely perplexed. ‘What rubbish you talk! You need to rest. Let me help you to your room. You’re stressed.’
‘Yes! I am stressed! And you’re causing it.’
‘How can you say that? You were helpless when I arrived. Helpless!’
‘I know! But I’m trying to get better and . . .’ She stopped, wondering how on earth she was going to say it. ‘You’re not helping.’
‘What?’
‘At the moment – with where I feel I am – you’re really not helping.’
They stood staring at each other as if they were in some terrible stand-off.
‘Mum,’ Orla said at last, ‘I really think it’s best if you leave. You do understand, don’t you? I need to take care of myself now.’
‘But you needed me.’
‘I know I did. I really did, and I’m so grateful that you came. But I’m all right now. Or, at least, I’m better than I was.’
‘You don’t want me here?’
Orla swallowed hard. She felt she was being unnecessarily cruel. ‘Not at the moment, no.’
Bernadette took a moment to process this, and then a strange, almost strangled sound emerged from her.
‘So you call me up and then throw me out when it suits you. Is that it? Is that what you think I’m for?’
‘Mum, please—’
‘I dropped everything to come here, you know? I have a life in London and yet I make you the centre of my world.’
‘I know you do, and I’m so grateful.’
Bernadette’s face was flushed with fury now. ‘You don’t know the half of what I’ve done for you. The sacrifices I made so I could be by your side day and night, month after month, in hospital.’
‘Please – don’t!’ Orla felt like she was losing control again but was quite determined not to this time, so she took a deep breath and spoke slowly and deliberately. ‘I appreciate everything you’ve done for me – really – but I need to be on my own now. That’s all.’
There was a tense, silence-filled moment and then Bernadette spoke.
‘Very well then.’
Orla watched as her mother turned to leave the room, not wholly convinced that Bernadette would ever forgive her for making her go before she herself was ready.
‘Mum!’ Orla called after her.
Bernadette stopped by the door and looked back at her daughter.
‘Thank you.’
Chapter 22
Once her mother had left, Orla felt like she needed some air so, grabbing a hat, she found herself walking through the village. She hadn’t exactly planned her route, but her feet instinctively knew where she needed to go and she soon found herself at Oyster Cottage. She stood for a moment, wondering if she had the nerve just to turn up at somebody’s house unannounced. It certainly seemed as if she did, so she knocked on the door, not really expecting anybody to be at home. But, rather surprisingly, Margy answered, a large ball of caramel-coloured wool in her hands.
‘Orla!’ she cried. ‘How lovely to see you. Come in, come in!’
‘Oh, no,’ Orla said. ‘I don’t want to disturb you. I was just wondering if Bill was around. I mean, only if he’s not busy.’ Orla suddenly felt awkward. For two years, she’d ignored her neighbours, and now she was making a nuisance of herself.
‘He’s at the allotment,’ Margy told her. ‘You should be able to catch him there.’
Orla smiled in relief. ‘I should have thought to check there first.’
‘Everything okay?’
‘Yes, fine. I just felt like a bit of company.’ She laughed. ‘I never thought I’d say that.’
‘I’m not surprised you have, though,’ Margy said. ‘And Bill’s the best company there is. Now, just you wait a moment.’
Orla watched as Margy disappeared into the cottage. She came back with a brown paper bag which she handed to Orla.
‘Flapjacks. Warm from the oven,’ she said. ‘Enjoy.’
‘Thank you,’ Orla said, deeply touched.
She made her way back through the village towards the allotments and, with each step, she began to feel slightly lighter in mood. Perhaps it was the blue sky or the warmth of the sun on her back or the delicious scent of the flapjacks she was carrying. Or maybe it was just the fact that her mother had left. As much as she appreciated her being there when she’d needed her, Orla had felt a kind of oppression too, and she’d needed to be free of it. Sighing, she determined to ring her mother later to make sure she’d got home safely and, hopefully, she’d have had time to calm down and would be able to see her daughter’s point of view.
But she wa
sn’t going to worry about that now because she’d arrived at the allotments and couldn’t help smiling at the view it afforded her of Lorford Castle.
‘My home,’ she whispered. It was still a strange sensation for her to see it from the perspective of the rest of the village. The views she was used to were from inside looking out, but now she realised just how important this building was within the context of the village. She took a moment to admire the way it perched on its hill, looking down over Lorford and the allotments spread out beneath it. A great stone guardian, she thought, protecting the motley wooden sheds, the polytunnels and the wondrous produce grown by the residents.
Orla surveyed it all now, smiling at the towering sunflowers, the neat rows of chard and salad, the profusion of marigolds and snapdragons, and the towers of sweet peas and beans. It was a feast for the eyes and nose as well as the belly and she couldn’t believe it was all on her doorstep and that she’d never spent time here. Well, she’d make up for that now.
It didn’t take long to find Bill. He had a central plot with a faded blue shed at the far end. He was pulling some large green leaves from the earth when Orla approached.
‘Hello there!’ she called, and he straightened up, looking surprised to see her. Surprised, but pleased.
‘Hello there,’ he echoed. ‘What brings you this way?’
‘Oh, you know – stretching my legs. Actually, I have a special delivery!’ She motioned to the little wooden gate into his plot and, when he nodded, opened it and approached him, showing him the paper bag.
‘What’s this, then?’
‘Flapjacks from Margy.’
‘She called at the castle?’
‘No. I called round to yours.’
‘Everything all right?’ Bill asked, opening the bag and sniffing appreciatively.
‘Not really. I had a little altercation with my mum.’
‘Ah!’
‘She’s left in a very bad mood.’
‘Left?’
‘Back to London.’
‘I see,’ Bill said. ‘Might a cup of tea be in order? I have a flask and a couple of enamel cups.’
‘Very civilised,’ Orla said.
‘I won’t take offence if you’d rather have a nice cup of tea back at the castle.’
‘Where would be the fun in that? I can do that any day,’ Orla told him.
‘Then come and see the shed.’
Orla grinned. It wasn’t every day that you got invited to look at a man’s special hideout, and she wasn’t disappointed. As with everything to do with Bill, it was meticulous, with its neat shelves on which sat terracotta and plastic pots of all sizes, great fat balls of twine, tins full of seed packets, jars stuffed with plant labels and baskets full of old tools with worn-away wooden handles. And, on a little worktop on the right sat a red flask and two enamel cups. Orla watched as Bill filled the cups and handed one to her. They then went out into the sun again to sit on a bench in the shade of the shed, where Orla opened the paper bag and offered Bill a flapjack.
Orla could feel herself physically decompress from just being there, sitting next to Bill, sipping tea and eating her flapjack while looking out over the allotments and on down to the sea.
‘Nice spot,’ she said. ‘No – not nice. Glorious!’
‘Can’t argue with you there,’ he confessed. ‘Everyone should have a place like this, even if they don’t grow anything – a place to just come and sit. To think or not to think. I do my best no-thinking here.’
Orla laughed and felt herself relaxing even more.
‘My mum means well,’ she began, not wanting to reopen a painful subject, but feeling the need to talk about it for a moment. ‘But she can be a little . . .’ She looked out across the allotments as if searching for the right word.
‘Domineering?’ Bill suggested.
‘Oh, yes! But perhaps that’s a little harsh.’ Orla gazed into the middle distance. It was hard to describe her mother. On the one hand, she’d been there for Orla in some of her darkest hours, and yet she had the capacity to make Orla feel so small and helpless, just when she needed to be built up emotionally. That wasn’t healthy, was it? Orla felt instinctively as though it wasn’t.
‘The strange thing is, she never came with me whenever I went out into the village. How do you explain that?’ Orla asked, genuinely perplexed by this. ‘One minute, she doesn’t want me leaving her sight, and then the next she refuses to come out with me.’
Bill seemed to mull this over for a moment.
‘Sounds to me like she didn’t want to share you. She wanted you all to herself. Doesn’t like seeing you with other people.’
‘But that’s so weird,’ Orla said. ‘It’s as if she doesn’t want me to get well.’
‘She probably does – but on her terms.’
Orla shook her head. ‘Why are people so complex?’
Bill grinned. ‘I like to think I’m real simple.’
‘Simple is good.’
They sat sipping their tea in good, simple silence.
‘Heard from Luke?’ Bill asked at last.
‘No. You?’
‘Nope. You miss him, don’t you?’ Bill asked.
‘I do. I really do. Isn’t that funny? I never knew him before this summer, and he was only here for a few months, but he became such a big part of my life.’
Bill looked out over the allotments. ‘He slotted in, didn’t he?’
Orla smiled. ‘Yes! That’s it exactly. He slotted in.’
‘Why don’t you call him?’
‘I’m not sure he wants to talk to me.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘The thing with my mother arriving and him leaving. She blamed him for the whole Brandon affair and I locked myself away and couldn’t speak to him. It was all such a mess.’
‘But it’s easier now that your mother’s gone, isn’t it?’
‘I suppose.’
‘Then call him.’
Orla finished her tea. Should she call Luke? Would he really want to hear from her? Well, there was only one way to find out, wasn’t there?
‘Thanks, Bill. It’s really helped being able to talk about all this.’
He smiled. ‘You should come here more often,’ he told her.
Orla took a deep, slow breath of fresh air and gazed out over the allotments towards the coast beyond.
‘Yes, I should.’
‘Why not meet me here tomorrow? I’ll be down after tea to do a spot of watering – once the sting of the day’s gone and the air’s a little cooler. You could help me, if you like.’
‘I’d like that.’
‘Good.’
Bill got up and took Orla’s cup and Orla made to move.
‘Don’t be going on my account,’ he said. ‘I’m just going to do a few chores, but you’re welcome to sit a while longer.’
And so she did, watching Bill as he worked, a sense of peace flooding through her. Life was good. Really good. She felt like she was entering a new phase now and that the darkness was behind her at last. Perhaps she’d never feel the total calm that she craved, but who did? What she was feeling right now was close enough – good enough. And perhaps some of that had come from her mother having left. She took a deep breath in, inhaling the sweet scent of the allotment, tinged with the salty air coming from the sea.
More than anything, she longed to share that moment with Luke – to reach out to him and share how she was feeling and to apologise and explain what had been going on with her mother and inside her own head. She felt he should know and yet, when she reached for her phone, she hesitated. The truth was, she felt as if she’d lost that special connection with Luke. He’d left and he’d probably written her off as some madwoman, and she really couldn’t blame him for that. She’d made his life difficult and decidedly uncomfortable and she wouldn’t be surprised if she never heard from him again.
Chapter 23
That first week home was the hardest for Luke. While he’d bee
n staying at Lorford Castle with Orla, he’d forgotten what it was like to live on his own, but there was no escaping it now and the little home he’d shared with Helen suddenly seemed so big without her in it. He tried to love it – he tidied up, he dusted a few shelves, brought some flowers in from the garden and opened windows to inhale the summer air, but nothing could lift his mood and he felt himself slipping into a depression.
‘You’re living in a twilight time,’ one of his neighbours told him when she met him out in the lane. She was a widow, having lost her husband eight years ago. But that was different, Luke couldn’t help thinking. She was in her eighties. People were expected to die in their eighties – not their thirties. It wasn’t fair that Luke was a widower.
‘It’ll pass, as all things do,’ she’d told him. ‘The only way to get through this is to get through this.’
Her words sort of made sense, but they didn’t bring him any comfort as he crawled into bed alone each night and got up alone each morning. He truly felt as if his sadness would never lift, and it didn’t matter how hard he worked or how much he managed to cram into his waking hours because those moments of heartache would still find him.
The only way to get through this is to get through this.
The words of his neighbour seemed nothing more than a taunt.
Evenings were the worst. He could just about fill his days with his work and household chores, but the long, lonely evenings stretched out emptily and he felt unable to reach out to anybody then, because people had their own lives, didn’t they, with their own families and things to do. And so he was left to wander around the empty rooms of his home, his mind filled with the dark thoughts of depression.
The only time he didn’t think of Helen was when he was thinking of Orla. One evening, after a particularly dusty and dirty day at work, Luke showered, ate a piece of toast because he just couldn’t be bothered to make anything else and sat on the sofa with his phone. He was thinking of Orla again, wondering how she was getting on and hoping she was doing okay, or at least doing better than him, which wouldn’t be hard.
The Beauty of Broken Things Page 25