The Way Back Home

by Freya North

  ‘I remember,’ he said before falling silent again. He didn’t really want to say it out loud. It would mummify his past and define his future if he did. But hadn’t he been through enough? Hadn’t they all been through enough? He looked at his brother. ‘You say you were always going to come back for her – but look what happened, Malachy. Oriana came back to you.’

  Oriana and Malachy

  Robin had said he wanted a word – but when they left the Bedwells’ and came back into the apartment, Robin had gone straight through to his studio and shut the door. Oriana knew Jed and Malachy needed time together alone. But it left her standing all on her own, in her childhood room for the second time in one day, and it was beyond bizarre. She put the LP of The Waste Land back in the stack, moved Flowers for Algernon to the top of the pile. She was still in Malachy’s clothes and she looked at the few garments of hers remaining in the cupboard. One day, she’d try them all on. But today wasn’t a day for snow-washed jeans or the particularly virulent Acid-house top. Today, the past was like a vast museum and she was fatigued by all the exhibits on show, all the history and cross-references that accompanied everything. She straightened her bed covers and left her bedroom, closing the door quietly behind her. She walked lightly through to the sitting room.

  At the far end, the studio door was shut. And she thought to herself, so bloody what. She thought to herself, for somewhere like Windward which prides itself on its open-door policy she’d been shut out too many times and for too bloody long. She didn’t bother to knock; she just went straight in.

  Robin wasn’t working. The man on the canvas was still trapped. Robin was standing in the middle of the room, looking at the portraits of Rachel. He knew Oriana would come in. And now she was there just behind him, while Rachel was right in front of him. His child. Their child. Their grown-up child with a piece of her mind on the tip of her tongue. He could pre-empt and deflect all he expected to hear her say but, just then, an overriding feeling of sorrow and shame left him speechless and somehow open.

  In Oriana’s big book of soliloquies there were a fair few she’d composed to her father. But standing there in his airless studio, staring at his back, she couldn’t recall a single one. What she did know was that the animosity that had made her estrangement seem vindicated, that had set the tone of all those speeches in her head, had dissipated today. There just didn’t seem much point having such strong feelings for someone like him.

  ‘You wanted a word?’

  ‘Not any more,’ he said, without looking at her.

  And she thought, what is the point of a confrontation if the net result is something you don’t really want? It’s just not worth it. It wasn’t as if there was a relationship to resuscitate because there hadn’t actually been one in the first place. So why waste breath? Robin didn’t want a showdown either, it seemed. He didn’t even want the paltry ‘word’ he’d asked her for half an hour before.

  ‘Well,’ said Oriana, ‘I’ll be going then.’

  And she left, quietly closing the studio door behind her.

  ‘Off to the Bedwells’,’ Robin said to himself. The phrase so familiar, so forgotten, now back again and known by rote. It caused him to drop his brush and it fell to the floor, smudging vermilion onto his brogues.

  Malachy was watching television when he looked up to see Oriana’s face appear around the edge of the door. She saw that Jed had gone. He returned his gaze to the screen but opened out his right arm. Into the room she padded, over to the sofa to curl up beside him. She took his arm and fitted it closely around herself. And there they sat.

  ‘What did your father want?’ Malachy asked her.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘He said nothing?’

  ‘Not a word.’

  ‘He’s a mad old bastard,’ said Malachy.

  And then it struck Oriana forcefully. She stood up from the sofa and paced the room. ‘You’re right, of course,’ she said. ‘But do you know something? I didn’t actually mind him being a mad bastard.’ She was pacing the room, agitated. ‘I grew up accustomed to it, I was inured to it.’ She thought about it. ‘My mother – she was more outwardly unhinged. But Robin – he was utterly consistent in his introversion and indifference.’

  ‘Don’t make excuses for him,’ Malachy said. ‘You were just a little girl.’

  ‘Malachy – I’ve only ever felt loved by you. Similarly, I always felt that to Robin I was an odd, strange little thing – a funny little curiosity he sometimes forgot was there. He wasn’t cruel, he just wasn’t interested.’

  Malachy wondered if this analysing was wise after the day she’d already had. He thought perhaps she was better off on the sofa, his arms around her, watching the television.

  ‘So these last eighteen years when I cut him off – they had nothing to do with the first fifteen years of my life. Nothing at all. They are instead a direct consequence of that one day, that Thursday right at the start of September, the day before you came home from hospital. How could he, who had eschewed all natural parental responsibility for all those years, suddenly become so strident and lay down the law and send me away?’ She was staggered, indignant. ‘Where did he suddenly get this new-found authority to do that? How dare he rip me from my home!’ She paused. Malachy could see she was shaking. ‘There was a gun in the house!’ she whispered as he went over to her. ‘We were just kids!’ He put his arm around her. ‘Bang! My childhood ended abruptly and my home and the people I loved most were taken away from me.’

  Malachy rested his chin on the top of Oriana’s head. They stood very still, very quiet.

  ‘They left me with no one,’ she sobbed. ‘How could they do that?’

  ‘There are no answers, Oriana,’ he said. He thought hard. ‘But look what you’ve done, look how far you’ve come. Look at where you are. You’ve made it back, unscathed and extraordinary. You’re here. You’re back home with me.’

  Jed and Oriana

  Jed was not expecting to find Oriana in his flat when he returned home from work the next day. The White Peak Art Space was closed on Mondays and, though he tried not to think about it, he had to concede that if he was Malachy, he’d spend his entire day off in bed with her. But here she was, with supper cooking away.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, looking at her quizzically. Could he kiss her hullo?

  ‘Hi.’ She looked different. He knew she looked different. Radiant and contented.

  ‘I didn’t –’ I don’t know how to finish the sentence.

  ‘Is it OK with you – if I stay?’ Oriana asked. ‘Till I sort out a car? Would you mind?’

  Jed put down his keys and loosened his tie, rolled up his sleeves, went to the fridge, opened two beers and gave one to Oriana. ‘Of course it’s OK, Oregano. Of course it’s OK.’ He put his arm around her and gave her a squeeze.

  ‘My stuff is here,’ she said. ‘And I start my new job next week. And – it’s all new. But you’re my old Jed.’

  ‘Enough of the old.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’ She chinked her bottle against his and he heard her swallow down a strange sound. ‘Jed – I didn’t mean to toy with you.’ She was red and teary. ‘I should have been more honest. I’m deeply sorry.’

  He held her tightly. ‘Don’t apologize for any of it,’ he said. ‘I understand. I – I’m a bit embarrassed. But I know something – I’ve realized something.’ He paused, wondering how best to put it into words. ‘How else do we sift through our dreams and work out which can make it into the real world?’

  ‘And Malachy,’ she said. ‘It’s just – what happened between you and me the other night.’ She paused. ‘Back when we were fifteen.’ Her head dropped.

  Jed held her close. ‘It was between you and me,’ he said. ‘It was ours.’ He thought about his brother. ‘No more hurt,’ he said.

  When Oriana looked up at Jed and saw how his eyes were glistening with emotion, a little bruise pressed into her heart. He saw it.

  ‘It’s fine,’ he told her. �
��I’m cool – I’m a bloke.’ She watched him think. He looked at her and he nodded and smiled. ‘And it’s not all sad, you know. I was thinking about it. I have my brother back. And my best buddy too – who rode her way out of the Wild West and back into my life, Windward Ho.’

  There wasn’t much more to say. All that was left to do was for Jed to clink his bottle against Oriana’s, smack her bottom and collapse on the sofa, finding a rerun of Top Gear to watch on TV.

  ‘What’s for tea?’ he called.

  ‘Chilli,’ Oriana said and she added salt to the water and set the rice to boil.

  Oriana and Robin

  Oriana was back at Windward the next weekend. Jed had brought her and, despite Malachy’s invitation to stay awhile, said thanks but no thanks – I’m off to the pub with my mates. Jed knew there’d be a time when he could, when he would again dump his bags in his old room and plonk down on the purple velvet sofa and say to Oriana and Malachy, let’s get a curry in. But not just yet.

  Paula and Rob had Malachy and Oriana over for Sunday lunch and Oriana marvelled at the conversion of the old shack into the Ice House, a lovely home. She understood now how the regeneration of Windward was essential to its survival – how houses, like people, have different periods in their lives. The Windward of today, with all the changes, somehow gilded the past and kept it pristine and distinct. The halcyon years. There’d been a golden heyday and people who had a connection to it were blessed. The de la Mare daughters, Emma and Kate, whom Oriana had met on her initial return, told her that if it was OK, they’d rather like to call her Binky. Malachy told them, that’s a dog’s name. But they were having none of it.

  With a plate heaped with leftovers, Malachy and Oriana strolled back across the lawn. There were the Sunday papers still to be read and so much left to talk about, to explore and discover.

  ‘I’d better take you back,’ Malachy said. Evening was drawing in and they were in bed, dangerously sleepy. ‘Big day for you tomorrow.’

  The first day at her new job.

  ‘Excited?’

  ‘You know I am,’ Oriana laughed. ‘It’s all I’ve been talking about.’ She stopped. ‘Will you meet me from work one day?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Did you phone Bernard?’

  ‘I did,’ said Oriana. ‘He was chuffed to bits to be asked to look out for a little second-hand runaround for me.’

  ‘And did you speak to Rachel?’

  ‘Only briefly – she seemed relieved that it was Bernard I’d called for.’

  They were on their way out, putting shoes on by the front door, when Oriana caught sight of the plate of leftovers from Paula on the kitchen table.

  ‘Will you be eating that, do you think?’ she asked him.

  ‘Jesus – you’re not still hungry, are you?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m not. I wasn’t thinking of me – but perhaps –’

  Malachy looked at her. He knew he could help her by finishing the sentence. But he let her work the words out and into the open.

  She shrugged at him. ‘I thought I could run them over to my father. While, you know, you bring the car around.’

  Malachy kissed Oriana on the forehead. ‘I’ll see you at the front,’ he said.

  It would have been quicker, from the front door, to go to the side of the house. But that wasn’t the known route and what Oriana had found that she liked so much was rediscovering and retracing all that was remembered. It was like finding footprints in the sand and discovering that they were your own after all and no one else’s. So she took the plate, went back into the house and through the internal door to the Corridor.

  And her thumb was still too small for the dent in the doorknob.

  And her childhood home was still silent, and a bit dark and gloomy, and pungent with turps.

  Robin wasn’t in the study. Or the sitting room. And the studio door was closed. He was in there, she could smell the fresh oil on canvas. Today, she’d respect that the door was shut. She cleared her throat and waited. There was no response. She looked around. This place needed a good tidy-up. Finally, she put the plate down on the crowded coffee table and walked away. As she passed the kitchen, she remembered the pills so she filled a glass with water and returned to the sitting room, placing it alongside the plate. The pills were on the mantelpiece so she put them on the tray, then changed her mind and propped the packet up against the glass. That was better. He wouldn’t miss them. She walked away. She walked all the way back to the internal door. And there she stood, her forehead resting on the wood, muttering oh for God’s sake! under her breath over and over.

  Robin was tired and the light was going. He’d finish now, he decided. He cleaned his brushes and wiped them. He lit a cigarette and assessed the day’s work. Sometimes, he thought he heard his subjects talking to him from beyond the canvases. Rachel especially. But that wasn’t Rachel’s voice.

  ‘Dad?’

  He listened again.

  ‘Robin?’

  He looked around his studio and tapped the flat of his hand against his ear as if to dislodge the trick which a spectre or just old age might play.

  ‘Dad?’

  She hadn’t said that word for such a long time. She never called him that to his face. She only ever referred to him as her father.

  ‘Dad?’

  The studio door opened and Robin appeared. He sucked at his cigarette and regarded her thoughtfully from behind a safety screen of smoke.

  ‘I brought you some supper,’ she said. ‘Beef,’ she said. ‘Potatoes. Peas. Yorkshires.’

  He continued to pull on the cigarette. It was so dim in the room with no lights on; the dying light from outside cast him into one stretched shadow. God, her father was tall. She’d had every right to think him a towering, glowering giant when she was little.

  ‘The food is cold,’ she said, ‘but you can just heat it up for ten minutes or so.’

  The cigarette was almost finished. Robin turned and placed it upright on the windowsill, a little cylinder with its amber top travelling down in a warm glow. It gave Oriana an idea for a building design.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Robin.

  ‘That’s OK,’ said Oriana. ‘And your pills are here.’

  He nodded, noting them leaning against the glass of water.

  ‘Well, I’m going to go now,’ she said.

  ‘It was nice to see you,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

  Oriana looked at him. She still couldn’t see his features clearly but his voice – calm today, soft even – drew the picture of his expression. But she knew, too, how he was just as likely to have been in a hurling foul temper. Next time, he might well be. It wouldn’t surprise her. She’d deal with it. There was nothing that could surprise her at Windward, she knew the place inside and out.

  Robin could see her quite clearly. Evening light washed such silk-subtle tones over a face as lovely as hers.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said. ‘I’ll pop in again – some time.’

  He nodded.

  ‘But I’d better go – Malachy is waiting.’

  And she went, with an awkward half-wave which Robin found easy to mirror.

  Robin thought he’d rather like the leftovers hot. He took the tray through to the kitchen and lit the gas oven. He placed the plate inside, shut the oven door and set the timer. What had Oriana said? Ten minutes or so. He went back to the sitting room, flicked on the table lamp and took his pill. And there he sat, listening out for the ping from the kitchen to tell him that his supper was ready.

  EPILOGUE

  Rachel never returned to Windward but, that following year, Jette and Orlando did. It was strange at first, Oriana nervously tiptoeing into the ballroom when they arrived, as if the very sight of her might hurt their eyes. But they were quick to welcome her back into their fold, to say to her, we never blamed you, Oriana, we blamed ourselves. Our dream, our idealized world of Windward – it imploded one summer and we weren’t there to
prevent it.

  ‘What kind of parents did that make us?’ Orlando said.

  ‘Dad –’ said Malachy.

  ‘But look at you!’ Jette marvelled, taking Oriana’s hand. ‘Look at what you’ve achieved – the life you’ve led.’

  ‘And look where it’s brought me,’ Oriana said. ‘Look where I am.’

  Jed visited more and more, sometimes hanging out with Oriana on Saturdays when Malachy was at the gallery. Occasionally, he brought a girlfriend with him and Oriana loved the way Jed always introduced them.

  ‘This is Oriana,’ he’d say. ‘And this is my big brother.’

  It was difficult sometimes to remember which name went with which girl, who was in and who was on her way out. But after a while Angie was the only one mentioned, the only one he brought to see them, and she was the one who often answered his landline at home when Oriana phoned for a chat or to make plans.

  Cat and Ben often came over too because a rug on the lawns at the back, or the shade of the cedar, made Windward the best place in the world for a baby to be. Django’s health dipped but levelled again and twice Robin had asked Oriana to drive him over so he could visit.

  Robin never came to the Bedwell apartment again. The only sound that he heard, if he heard any at all from there, was laughter floating in through his studio window like dust dancing in sunlight. Just little drifts of two lives rubbing along happily, day to day.

  Malachy or Oriana popped in on him a few times each week. Usually, it was on some pretext or other – but invariably it was just to check he had food and to nag him to remember to take his medication. He had shouted at Oriana the other month and flung a loaded palette to the floor, but he’d noticed how she just rolled her eyes as she turned to leave. And she’d still switched on the oven on her way out. And propped his damned pills by the bastard glass of bloody water.

  * * *

  Then Ashlyn said she was coming to visit and Malachy wondered why Oriana seemed so reflective about this.

  ‘You’ve hauled me in on your ridiculous Face-offs or whatever you call that thing you do with your iPad,’ he’d said. ‘I feel like I know her – certainly I know how you feel about her – but you don’t seem that thrilled that she’s coming. Do you still feel bad that you didn’t go over for the wedding?’