The Way Back Home

by Freya North

  With the effort of admitting it, of ripping away the veil and seeing it for what it had been, Oriana’s head fell to her knees and for a moment Cat wondered whether she’d passed out.

  ‘He’d switched his mobile off,’ she said. ‘So I phoned his landline,’ she whispered. ‘He didn’t even know I knew the number. I’d snuck it from his phone one night – you know, for emergencies.’ She was wide-eyed now.

  Cat thought, please God, tell me you didn’t tell his wife. ‘So you phoned his home?’

  ‘It was really late.’ Oriana nodded. ‘And his wife answered and she sounded like Dolly fucking Parton and I said I needed to speak to Casey and the terrible thing – the terrible thing – was that she was just so nice. Sure! Sure! You hold on now, honey, I’ll just go get him. I could hear her – she calls him Sugar. Sugar – there’s a call for you. Did you switch your cellphone off? He simply couldn’t believe it was me, Cat. He sounded mortified. Appalled. Hateful.’

  ‘What did he say?’ Cat patted at her chest. This probably isn’t good for my nerves, for the baby, she thought.

  ‘He said, Oh, hi! Hi! Sure! My bad! I’ll have the measurements with you first thing.’

  ‘What does that mean? What did that mean?’

  ‘It meant get off my fucking phone and out of my fucking home, you bitch.’

  They sat in a huddle in the corner of the nursery, Oriana reliving it as if it was a scar she’d sliced open, Cat as if she was at a private screening of the horror movie that had been her best friend’s secret life.

  ‘He phoned me at work the next day, asking to meet for lunch. He sounded OK – so I told myself everything was going to be fine. I fantasized he’d had a sleepless night and had finally, finally, left his wife. We met for lunch at this really lovely place – expensive, crowded. I thought it was a sign – why else would he take me there?’

  But Cat knew why. ‘Because it would intimidate you from making a scene.’

  Oriana nodded. ‘I worked so hard being as smiley as possible. Fresh make-up. The hope that I was exuding inner beauty as well as looking gorgeous. And I sat down in my perfected sinuous way – isn’t that pathetic? Hours – I spent hours home alone practising sexy ways to sit, stand, recline. I looked deep into his eyes – barging through the animosity I could see there, concentrating on the striations of his irises, boring through his pupils, deluding myself I could see straight through to his soul.’ She paused. ‘I remember the wine waiter came and I ordered rosé.’ She paused again. ‘And I happily buttered my bread roll as if this meal had no portent, it was just two loved-up people lunching.’ She motioned with her hands. ‘I had my bread here, and my wine here. And I had my mouth full.’ She stopped, as if the imaginary bread was stuck in her throat and the wine had just spilled all over her. She brushed her hands up and down her legs. ‘He had no food. No drink. He said, It’s over, Oriana. It has to be over.’ She gave herself a moment. ‘He could see I didn’t believe him, that I wasn’t going to hear it, that I was about to say something even though I had this stupid glub of bread wedged tight in my mouth. If he’d just driven the knife in, telling me it was over, he then followed it with an almighty twist of the razor-sharp blade. I love my wife. I love her very much. I don’t want to leave her.’ Oriana looked at Cat, and continued as Casey. ‘I will never leave my wife because she’s who I want to grow old with. I hate myself for having come so close to fucking it up. So it’s over. And I hope, if you feel anything for me, you’ll respect that.’ She paused a final time. ‘He put his hand on my wrist and he thanked me for saving his marriage. Whatever the fuck that meant.’

  Oriana waited for Cat to say something. But Cat was speechless.

  ‘Then he said I was never to contact him again. That I was to let him go and that I was to get on with my own life. And then he left the restaurant and I had to sit there trying to swallow the bread and not draw any attention to the fact that I had been, quite literally, left.’

  ‘Dear God.’ Cat shook her head.

  ‘Insult to injury?’ Oriana said with a sad smile. ‘When I went to leave, they came after me. Ma’am, they said, the check?’

  Cat and Oriana sat contemplatively alongside one another.

  ‘When was all this, exactly?’

  ‘Just before Christmas.’

  ‘And he’s having a baby?’

  ‘I just found out.’

  ‘How? You’re not still in touch, are you?’

  ‘No. Indirectly.’ Oriana scrunched her hand into a fist.

  ‘Ashlyn?’ said Cat, glancing across the shadowy room at Oriana’s flung phone. Oriana nodded. ‘Why would Ashlyn tell you something like that? She’s meant to be your friend.’

  Oriana laughed softly. ‘Oh, she is. It’s now her life’s mission to keep hammering nails into the coffin of Oriana and Casey.’

  And Cat thought, hang on – did Ashlyn know the full story and I didn’t? She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

  ‘I am over him, Cat. I promise you,’ said Oriana. ‘That part of my life is like an old home movie which has lost its sound – the film is fuzzing and fading before my eyes.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure. But there was something about the news – him all sorted and progressed and grown up and improved. Whilst here I am, five months on, with no certainties in my life, hoicking a battered knapsack of baggage around Derbyshire.’

  ‘Bloody good image, that,’ said Cat sweetly. ‘But a bit over the top. It hurts today – but I don’t think it’ll feel so painful tomorrow.’ She nudged Oriana, nudged her until she returned Cat’s smile.

  ‘I don’t even know if it actually hurts. I mean – sure, it’s a little humiliating in some ways. I was quite shocked, actually. But I know it wasn’t deep love that I felt for Casey – not really. Just a neediness. There was no reality in what we had – it was all overcharged emotion and that becomes addictive. The clichéd drama of which you spoke.’

  ‘So why so sad?’

  Oriana shrugged. ‘Because even someone like Casey has his life on track – doing the things he should be doing at this age, ticking off the list of appropriate timing. But look at me.’

  ‘Is Casey why you left? Why you came back?’

  Oriana exhaled. ‘Actually – no. Though I suppose that’s what everyone thinks. It expedited a return I feel I was destined to make anyway. It’s taken so long to feel ready to come back. It was out of bounds to me, remember. For years I felt I couldn’t do anything about that. But I’ve always needed to come back. To see – how I feel.’

  Cat thought about that.

  ‘It’s strange, isn’t it – I’ve been away longer than I ever lived here. But it’s always been the place where I’ve assumed home to be.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Malachy had trained himself to be pragmatic, not to bear grudges, to calmly turn the other cheek. The ex-girlfriend he’d been with the longest had initially loved this quality. Ultimately, it had driven her mad.

  ‘You slept with the guy because deep down we both know it’s over between us,’ Malachy had told her, his voice as even-tempered as a BBC broadcaster’s. ‘You had sex with him because your feelings for me have changed and, subliminally or not, you want a way out.’ He’d been calm and collected; she’d wept and hurled her words and herself around the room. ‘It’s OK,’ he’d said. ‘I don’t blame you. I want you to be happy. Let’s just – let it go, let each other go. Let’s remember three great years and forget the one, not so great one.’

  That had been two years ago.

  Actually, at the time, her infidelity had hurt him like hell; slow-release acid in his stomach, a rusting infection in his heart and a blow to his self-esteem that made it feel as though his lung had collapsed. But Malachy had taught himself not to countenance confrontation. It was easier just to pretend to be the sympathetic pragmatist. To turn his back on it all and saunter away.

  It was almost three weeks since Oriana had flown into and out of the lives of the Bed
well brothers again. There’d been no contact between any of them. Two Fridays had come and gone without Jed calling to arrange that night out for Malachy. No messages had been left from either of them. Malachy’s fury at Jed’s perceived deceit had dissipated and flattened into a manageable indifference. His conscience was clear and he was untroubled by barbed thoughts. He had no need to contact his brother. And his brother hadn’t had time to think to call him.

  Jed was busy, too busy to remember loose invitations. He saw Malachy as he saw Windward – part of his past, always there, unchanged and in a satisfying time warp. In between visits, he neither craved the place nor missed Malachy. He didn’t need to; he took for granted that they were just where he’d last left them and they’d be there for him when he next wished for them. A little like a living family photo album – quietly tucked in the same place on the same shelf; there to be taken out and flipped through at his leisure, dependable always to elicit a smile, comfort, reflection, a feeling of balance.

  Oriana reappearing, however, had thrown Jed utterly off kilter. She was, quite literally, a blast from the past and had inadvertently surged through his life like a whirlwind, leaving a scatter of details, memories and emotion in her wake. He’d turned his flat upside down to locate old photographs of her and, on finding them, had kept them spread over the kitchen table for days, studying them like a game of pelmanism whenever he passed. Then he’d scanned them into his phone because it felt prudent to keep her there – his phone was like a third hand, an extra lobe of his brain, used all the time. If she was on his phone then she was real, current and probable – she was connected; all she had to do now was call. As yet, she hadn’t. But Jed was convinced that she would.

  ‘You look like Janis fucking Joplin,’ Cat told Oriana.

  ‘I slept really heavily,’ said Oriana, trying to pad out her hair on one side and flatten it on the other.

  ‘That’s good, but you still look like Janis fucking Joplin. Your hair has gone A-line. It’s terrible.’

  Ben tutted. Cat tutted back at him. It’s how friends talk to each other, she told him.

  ‘I’m phoning Gay Colin right now. I know it’s Saturday but he’ll squeeze you in. I mean, Janis Joplin was an incredible singer and songwriter and the voice of a generation and a top woman and all that. But you wouldn’t want to have a hairdo like hers. Not in this day and age.’ Cat phoned the salon. ‘It’ll do you good to get out, too. There’s only so many times a day you can plump our cushions and hoover under our furniture.’

  ‘Where’s Gay Colin?’

  ‘Pop.’

  ‘Pop?’

  ‘That’s his salon.’

  ‘Where’s Pop?’

  ‘He’s just moved the salon to Blenthrop. It’s where Our Price Records used to be – remember? I don’t know what the place was latterly. I haven’t been there in ages – if I go shopping, I usually go to Meadowhall.’

  ‘Don’t let my wife bully you,’ Ben said, having caught sight of Oriana’s expression and assumed it was because she actually didn’t mind her hippy hair. ‘I’m going to get the papers.’

  ‘Is there a problem? Do you not want to cut your hair? Are you happy channelling your inner Janis?’ Cat asked. Oriana had to laugh. Cat’s freak pregnancy energy came in bursts as refreshing as a tropical downpour for all who stood near.

  Oriana thought, I wasn’t planning on going into Blenthrop again. And she thought, Our Price was nowhere near where the gallery is. But what if we see Malachy? And then she thought, what if I never see Malachy again?

  Oriana was quiet in the car, hoping Cat would somehow eschew driving the most direct route to Blenthrop which passed perilously close to Windward. In the event, as they approached and then passed the turning for the lane, Cat glanced at Oriana who was staring fixedly ahead. She didn’t comment. They’d both had their fill of emotional workshopping the previous evening when they’d chucked Casey onto the pyre.

  Three Saturdays ago, thought Oriana, I was here. Was that really all it was?

  ‘Town’s busy,’ she said.

  ‘We always called it Town, didn’t we,’ Cat recalled.

  ‘I could’ve driven myself,’ Oriana said. ‘You could’ve put your feet up.’

  ‘It’s a shag that Colin’s moved Pop here, really. But I wouldn’t put my head in anyone else’s hands.’

  ‘And your hands and feet?’

  Cat laughed. ‘Cindy does the best mani-pedis – and as I can no longer reach my toes, I’m treating myself.’

  Colin didn’t pass comment on Oriana’s hair. He merely lifted sections gingerly, as one might an old tarpaulin in a garden shed. The arch of one eyebrow said plenty.

  ‘I can help you,’ he said at length, kindly, as if referring to a catastrophic birthmark.

  ‘I usually have it point-cut, choppy.’

  ‘I don’t need to know that.’

  She liked him. He was camp and coy and his salon was chic and buzzing. Cat was in one corner, mid-manicure, infuriating the beautician by trying to gesticulate to Colin how much she thought Oriana should have cut off.

  ‘Ignore the Catwoman,’ Colin said, rolling his eyes at her. ‘You’re safe now.’

  As he started cutting, he guessed her zodiac sign correctly and her age incorrectly, shaving off ten years. He asked about America and theorized that she’d left because of love or lack of. But he couldn’t work out what Oriana did. Teacher? Journalist? Reflexologist? Botanist? His suggestions became more exotic.

  ‘Porn star? Astronomer? Spy?’

  ‘Architect.’

  ‘You’re an architect?’

  ‘Why do you look so surprised?’ Actually, Oriana thought he looked rather disappointed.

  ‘Because I’d never have guessed.’

  ‘Have you met many architects?’

  ‘A couple – clients – and they seem more, I don’t know.’ He thought about it, scissors and comb poised. ‘Serious.’

  ‘I don’t seem serious to you?’

  ‘You look more – artsy.’

  ‘That’s my Janis Joplin hair.’

  ‘That’s gone now, duck.’

  ‘I wear a smart suit to work,’ Oriana told him.

  ‘Where do you work?’

  ‘Wore,’ she corrected. ‘I used to wear a smart suit. I don’t have a job at the moment.’

  ‘Would you like me to put in a word?’

  Oriana thought about it. And about the list of names on her computer. The character references. The emails from old clients and her ex-boss, trying their best to help. And now Colin, flying her flag too. She thought about how she’d been feeling. She thought about the steps she could take to change that. She thought about what she was qualified to do, what she was actually really good at.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’d be grateful.’ It was out there. Finally she was doing something – about doing something.

  Colin said ta da! Cat said wowzer. Oriana just said thank you, to everyone. She felt lifted.

  ‘Let’s get some lunch,’ said Cat.

  ‘Here in Blenthrop?’

  ‘Town’s no longer just greasy spoons and Chinese takeaways.’

  ‘I think we should mosey on.’

  ‘I need to eat.’

  Oriana wasn’t sure whether Cat was patting her stomach or stroking the bump.

  ‘Can we go somewhere else – how about the Druid? Or the Rag and Thistle – we could pop in on Django after?’

  ‘I’m craving a cheese and onion toastie,’ said Cat. ‘Come on.’

  They were outside the salon and suddenly Oriana was disorientated, convinced that the gallery could be round any corner they were headed for.

  ‘I can’t,’ Oriana said. ‘Not today. Let’s just go. Please.’

  Cat was confused, and somewhat irked. Pregnancy should enable her to have her own way – or so Ben’s deference had thus far led her to believe. ‘Look – I genuinely need to eat.’

  ‘I could quickly buy you a flapjack or something?’

>   ‘What the fuck?’

  ‘Malachy,’ Oriana explained.

  ‘Malachy?’ Cat was startled. ‘Where?’

  ‘He has a gallery here. In Blenthrop.’

  ‘Malachy Bedwell?’

  ‘How many other Malachys do we know?’

  ‘He’s still here? How did you find out?’

  ‘I saw him.’

  ‘You saw Malachy?’

  ‘When I went to Windward,’ Oriana said, her eyes constantly scanning 180 degrees. ‘Three weeks ago – the day I later went to see Django. The day before I came to stay with you.’

  Cat stared, open-mouthed. ‘Look, I really need to sit down. And eat something.’

  ‘Can’t you just grab a Mars Bar?’

  ‘No!’ Cat looked around. ‘There – that tea shop. Can we please just go there?’

  With Cat lingering over every mouthful of two rounds of hot buttered teacakes, Oriana spoke fast, rattling through the details of Windward and Jed, Malachy and the gallery.

  ‘That’s why I went to yours – Django’s – that evening,’ she said. ‘It’s the place where I always felt I could calm down.’

  Cat nodded. It made sense but still she wished she’d known about it when it actually happened. ‘How was Malachy?’ Cat hadn’t seen him for years – she’d moved to London after university. She hadn’t seen Malachy since – since it all happened. Cat dropped her voice. ‘How does he – look?’

  Oriana gazed at the florid tablecloth but it was too bright and busy. She looked up at Cat and shrugged.

  ‘He looks –’ She thought about it, vividly recalling how he used to look and remembering the altered version she’d seen three weeks ago. ‘Silvered here and there,’ she said, touching the hair at her temples for emphasis. ‘Filled out a little, I guess,’ she said, ‘his face not so angular.’ She looked at Cat and whispered, ‘Still handsome.’