The Way Back Home. Freya North
know,’ Rachel said, ‘from what I’ve heard.’
Oriana thought, I could always drive over there – I loved Django. But she didn’t want to. When one had lived away from one’s roots for so long, returning always revealed such an unexpected acceleration in the ageing of those left behind. Her mother. Bernard. They always looked so much older than she anticipated. And Django – whom Oriana remembered so vividly and fondly as robust and larger than life – she simply didn’t want to see him shriven and ill and aged.
Facebook. In recent weeks, she’d stayed sensibly away from Facebook much as she’d avoided Alice Trenton in the school playground – the cool girl, the mean girl; get too close and you’re trapped. Facebook was similar, thrilling and oppressive in equal measure. The choice was between Django and Facebook. The former brought with it intimacy, the latter intrusion, and Oriana wanted to steer clear of both. There again, Facebook afforded her invisibility. She reached for her iPad which, at her behest, Bernard had gingerly had a play on the night before, his index finger out rigid while his remaining fingers and thumb were scrunched into a fist, as if merely pointing at the screen might deliver an electric shock.
Facebook. She signed in. Sixteen trillion notifications and a newsfeed jammed with peculiar app suggestions and people she hardly knew gloating about virtual farms and aquariums and poker games; photos of babies and smiling and beaches and the wild and wacky times that apparently defined everyone else’s lives. She typed in ‘Ca’. And sure enough, up came ‘Cat McCabe’ but, just above her, ‘Casey’ too. He was minute, his photo hardly recognizable at this size. Do not click on ‘Casey’. There is no need and there is no point.
With the iPad on her lap, Oriana pushed her hands under her thighs and stared and stared at the screen until the wave of nausea passed and she felt her breathing regulate. She should have unfriended him. She was aware that, if she did so now, he probably wouldn’t even notice. She clicked on Cat and sent a message.
I’m back in Derbyshire – call me! I can’t find your new number xxxx
A little white lie on Facebook was so pale it practically didn’t exist.
Bernard announced he was off out for a stroll. It was only when Rachel cleared her throat for the second time that Oriana realized there was something brewing.
‘Cup of tea, Mum?’ Clever.
‘No. Not now.’ It wasn’t tea brewing. Rachel appeared awkward and spoke fast. ‘I was saying to Bernard last night how lovely it is to have you home. And we both want you to know you can stay as long as you like and take all the time you need – you know, to find a job and your feet and somewhere to live and what it is that you want to do.’
‘Thank you.’ It suddenly seemed prudent to sound genuine, guileless. But from Rachel’s penetrating stare, Oriana knew she saw right through it.
Oriana felt irked. Four days in the last five years, a similar average over the past eighteen years, and already she’s had enough of me. ‘What you mean is, it’s been nice seeing me but you think I should get a job, ship out and get on with it.’
Rachel tutted. ‘Honestly – why must you be so defensive?’
Oriana thought, I’ve got to get out of here. Then she thought, but I have nowhere else to go. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said and it wasn’t to apologize, it was to qualify. ‘It’s just it sounded like you don’t want me here.’
‘It’s not that,’ her mother said, ‘but I really don’t know what you’re even doing here.’
For years, Oriana had felt better about her relationship with her mother by believing, quite categorically, that her mother had been in the wrong. Now it was obvious that in this current situation, Rachel was actually quite right. ‘Why have you come back?’ she asked. ‘Why give up a charmed life? What happened to Casey – I’m assuming you guys are through?’
Oriana sighed and shrugged as if it was no big deal and just a tiresome topic. ‘It was time for a change,’ she shrugged. ‘It was hard for a while – but I’ve moved on. And I don’t really want to talk about it.’
‘And you’re OK?’
‘It was my call. I’m fine.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Look at me!’
‘You’re thin.’
‘Thin’s good! I’m fit.’
‘You’re too thin – for you.’
‘Nonsense. I eat like a horse – you’ve watched me! Two poached eggs and toast for breakfast. Seconds at supper. Bernard’s “nice biscuit” at regular intervals throughout the day.’
‘You look like you’ve been in the wars,’ Rachel said in Bernard’s voice. Her transatlantic accent might have been tempered by four decades of Derbyshire, but some phrases would simply never suit her.
‘Mother, I’m fine,’ Oriana said. ‘Casey is fine too. We’re still great friends – but I had to come back. You know – work, tax, stuff. And I’m thirty-four.’
‘Time waits for no man.’ Rachel channelled Bernard again. She felt irritated. Her daughter had just said emphatically, convincingly, that she was fine. The thinness, the paleness – perhaps that was just how Oriana in her thirties was meant to look. ‘Now you’re back – for good – will you go see Robin?’
The name hung like a dead man on the gallows, and silent, loaded looks swung back and forth between mother and daughter.
‘Now you’re back – you ought to.’
‘Why would he even know that I’m back?’
‘He doesn’t. He wouldn’t.’ Rachel paused. ‘But this isn’t a holiday, a flying visit. You have a duty.’
Oriana had to take a moment. A knot of accusations and retorts were loaded onto the tip of her tongue and aimed dangerously at Rachel. She bit it.
‘You don’t keep in touch? At all?’ Rachel said.
‘You know I don’t. You know that.’
‘I just thought—’
‘Well, don’t.’
‘You’re a lot older now, Oriana – and he’s not getting any younger.’
‘What’s that meant to mean?’
‘It means—’
‘Have you seen him?’ Oriana made the notion sound just as preposterous.
‘No – but that’s different.’
‘How so?’
‘He’s your father – for all his faults, he is still your father.’
How long? When was the last time? Oriana rifled through fading memories, their chronology confused, as if sifting through a disintegrating pile of documents.
‘Louis Bayford’s funeral,’ Oriana said.
Her mother paused. ‘That was the last time I saw him, myself. But you didn’t stay. You left straight after the service. You disappeared. He never knew you were there.’
Nor did Malachy or Jed. Oriana plucked at the seam on a scatter cushion. That funeral. Five years ago? Six? She had sat at the back of the church, away from everyone, hiding down into her coat, fighting the urge to stare at the backs of their heads, Jed and Malachy; praying neither would turn and see her. She couldn’t even remember seeing her father there.
She’d left as soon as she could – to avoid him not so much as them.
The