17

2018

ORLA CAME TO INHABIT A world that was only children – even in the old house there had been neighbours and the postman and the odd friend round for lunch. Up here, she’d go days without an adult conversation other than the occasional delayed text from Nick’s mother or Helen, much too busy to visit, but concerned enough to check in sporadically. A few times a day she would stand out on the driveway and wave her phone in the air, feeling foolish but desperate for it to vibrate in her hand.

Sleep eluded her. She slept in fits and starts, no more than an hour or so at a time, and the days stretched out and she was tired – so tired, all the time. She dreamed of the house and the garden. In sleep, both were larger than they had any right to be, and she herself was diminished. Sometimes she dreamed that she, the size of a doll, was climbing the stairs, and it was like scaling Everest. Up and up she went, labouring breath, and to climb but two stairs was an unending task.

Or she might be running in that desperate, heavy way that one does in dreams, on leaden legs that take her nowhere. In her dreams she was alone in the house but not alone – the children were never there and nor was Nick, but someone else was, an unseen person Orla knew but couldn’t name. And when she dreamed of the garden, she was always lost, pushing helplessly through brambles and tangled grass towards the house. But the house was never where it ought to be – she couldn’t find it. The anchor to her life and to her children slipped away until she was devoured by the trees.

Her dreams left her bruised. The sleep was deep, but the further under she went, the harder the waking, the gasping swim to surface. The image that crept into her brain most often during those interminable night hours was the Fuseli painting of a squat, monkey-like demon, crouched with glee on the chest of a sleeping woman. The Nightmare: it had frightened Orla terribly as a child, and thrilled her, too. The possibility of a forceful, illicit visitation from another world – she loathed it and obsessed over it equally. And, in the background, the pale-eyed horse, watching.

Orla had tried to paint since the disaster of her opening, though only sporadically, and for the first time in her life she didn’t know where to start. For hours, she sat in front of blank boards and empty sketch papers, with her hands in her lap, unable to quell the raging fear that she had lost something vital to herself, that something had been taken.

The hag stone remained round her neck; it was comforting to pass its solid weight back and forth through her fingers and she had taken to worrying at it with her thumb, endlessly turning and polishing the smooth stone with restless hands. A couple of times she had lifted it to her eye, tentatively, but the world remained unchanged and Orla wondered what she had really seen through it.

When she thought about that night, it was blurred by a haze of alcohol and fear. She couldn’t entirely remember what had happened, she only remembered how afraid she’d been of something she couldn’t recall with much clarity.

Nick had apologised for scaring her, said he was just drunk and frightened.

‘You shouted at me.’ Orla was reproachful, disappointed.

‘I know. I’m so sorry, Orla. You were just acting so weird and there was so much blood – it was terrifying. Honestly, it was awful.’

‘I was frightened, too, Nick. It didn’t help.’

Alice and Claude had been extremely graceful about the whole thing; Orla offered to come in and help them clean up, but they insisted she shouldn’t. She likely wouldn’t have been much use anyway – the gash in her foot was deep and required stitches, done by a silent nurse in the surgery in the village. It had left her hobbling; only now could she put her full weight on it. The cut healed to a ragged purple line that bisected her sole.

A week later, Alice called to ask what was to be done about the ruined landscape. ‘I’m so sorry to have to ask, Orla – it’s just that the buyer wants to know. They haven’t actually paid yet, so we can just say it’s no longer available. Or you could paint another – I don’t know what you want to do.’

‘God, Alice. I don’t know. What do you think?’

Alice hesitated. ‘Well. I don’t think it can be repaired – it’s pretty well done for.’

Orla looked out of the window at the violet clouds that sailed across the bright sky, driven by the high wind like sheep before a barking dog. An image filtered through – the little figures, running, black and furtive in the desolate field.

‘I’m sorry, Alice. I don’t think I can paint another.’

‘I thought that might be the case – please don’t worry about it. I mean it, you mustn’t.’

‘But the buyer –’

‘Don’t even think about it. I’ll deal with them.’ Alice sounded so certain, so maternal, that Orla wished for one painful second that Alice was her mother.

‘Christ. They’ll all think I’ve lost it.’

‘Honestly, Orla, everyone else was so drunk, I doubt they even remember what was going on. They just think you cut your foot and it was all a bit dramatic.’

‘I hope so. I’d hate to have hurt your reputation – you know, the gallery.’

‘You haven’t – it’s been brilliant, having your stuff. Haven’t had that many people come to a showing for a while. Everything sold, that’s the point.’

Orla pulled out the sofa and adjusted Toby’s stepladder. She wanted Sam’s portrait here, in the sitting room, above the sofa. Not too intrusive, but present.

It had never come out quite as she wanted – the colours still looked odd to her eye and the proportions were still wrong. She spent weeks trying to fix it, with no further improvement, and in the end gave up, which was unlike her. But she was tired of working on it and the unfinished quality of the painting wore on her nerves. Once it was hung, she might finally accept that it was done.

Sam didn’t seem too fond of his painting, either. He mostly ignored it and wasn’t at all interested in the fact that it was him. It was as if he didn’t recognise himself, and Orla supposed she couldn’t blame him for that. It was Sam, but not Sam – a Sam doubled and altered. Now, the painted boy looked more real to her than the live one.

When the nail was in the wall, hammered deep into the soft plaster, Orla took the canvas by its lower corners and balanced it on it. She pushed the sofa back and admired the effect – the deep colours of the portrait complemented the maroon upholstery and the Turkish carpet. When she sat down, she imagined Sam watching her, surveying the room.

Orla went out on to the patio and handed Toby the folded-up stepladder. ‘Thank you, Toby.’

‘No bother – get your job done all right?’

‘Fine, all good. Tea?’

He smiled. ‘Love one, thank you.’

Inside, Orla flicked on the kettle and watched him work. He’d made such progress in the last weeks, as the weather warmed further. New grass seed was down and already a scattered bloom of tiny green shoots made the lawn look bright and promising. Today he was burning dead foliage in an old drum over by the east wall. The air sparked with heat, ash fell like snow. Toby fed the fire gently with old, grey wood and bundles of yellowed ivy.

If she couldn’t leave, if she couldn’t take her children away, she could at least try to keep them safe. From her dresser drawer, she fetched the handkerchief and unwrapped that horrible little shoe, holding it between finger and thumb as though it was rotting before her eyes.

Outside, she handed Toby a mug of tea and opened her palm to show him her rancid treasure.

‘Thanks.’ He pulled his gloves off with his teeth and dropped them on to the grass. ‘What’s this, then?’

‘The sweep found it in the nursery chimney. It’s a shoe.’

Toby nodded. ‘Yeah, bit of a thing round here.’

‘I hate it.’

He looked surprised. ‘Why? They’re for good luck, like a charm.’

‘I know, but it doesn’t feel like good luck. It feels bad, I knew it the moment I saw it. I want to burn it.’

‘Mrs McGrath, I don’t know if we should –’

‘Please, Toby.’

He rubbed a hand through his hair and shrugged. ‘All right. Go on, then.’

She leaned into the white smoke that twisted above the burning coils of ivy and dropped the shoe straight into the drum. It landed between two branches, stuck fast, just out of reach of the teeth of the fire. They watched it curl slowly in the heat and begin to catch.

‘Thank you.’ Already she felt easier, as though she’d regained some control over this house and what it saw fit to deliver. The hag stone lay cool against her chest. Although the leather loop softened and warmed with the heat of her body, the stone itself seemed always to remain cold.

‘No Sam today? You can tell him I’ve got jobs for him.’

‘Napping – Bridie’s not sleeping much at the moment and she’s waking Sam up, too. It’s been a while since he’s napped during the day, but it’s like he just can’t stay awake.’

‘Ouch.’ Toby made a face.

‘I worry about him. You know, being on his own up here with just me. Although I suppose everybody worries about their children, don’t they.’ She surprised herself, speaking so candidly to Toby like this. But hadn’t he always been something of a comfort, when she was alone so much too? ‘I’m worried he gets bored with just me.’

‘You’re a great mum, Mrs McGrath.’ Toby became suddenly serious, and turned away from Orla to look down the length of the garden. ‘The kids, they’re brilliant. That’s because of you. Honestly. They’re lucky to have you.’

Orla, who had never received such an explicit and genuine compliment for her parenting, didn’t know what to say. ‘Thank you, Toby. Really – that’s such a kind thing to say. But it’s a team effort, really, I’m lucky to not have to do it on my own.’

Toby handed her the mug and turned back to the fire. The shoe was gone now, licked into nothing by the flames. ‘Don’t you?’

Orla put the children to bed early. Poor Bridie, one of her top teeth was struggling to come through and her little face was red and swollen with irritation. Orla dosed her with Calpol and held her until she fell asleep – a terrible habit, really, but the child was inconsolable. Sam stood in the doorway to the nursery in a pair of dinosaur pyjamas that were too short in the leg, and watched them.

‘Do you want to come up for a cuddle? Come on, there’s lots of room.’ Orla held out an arm and Sam climbed up. She held both of her children tight and listened to the waves out beyond the front window.

They’d been so tired, all three of them, Sam had almost nodded off into his pasta and Bridie whined with exhaustion. When Orla took off her watch to set it on the nightstand, she saw that it was only seven o’clock. She was too tired to question why on earth she felt as though it was midnight, and why even her energetic son had been so desperate to sleep.

The next morning was mercurial – bright sun came and went beneath a sky laced with heavy clouds that threatened rain, the wind got up and rattled the old windows in their shabby frames. Toby left to buy more compost and a sack of slate chips for the lavender beds and Orla was alone in her quiet studio. After a time, Bridie woke, cried, Orla was summoned: Ma ma ma!

She rapped a knuckle against the wall to the playroom for Sam – shave and a haircut, no legs! The little rhyme had tickled Sam when she first sang it and she liked knowing that she was making him smile on the other side of the wall.

Two taps came back – quiet, almost hesitant.

‘Sam! Lunch! What shall we have, then? Bridie’s awake!’

Three knocks, louder.

‘I’m coming, Sam! You know I have to tidy up.’

A shrill whistle came from the baby monitor, the volume such that Orla dropped the wet brush she was wrapping and splattered paint all over the floorboards. It sounded like a high-pitched whistle, and then she heard a woman’s voice say, ‘Yes!’, and Orla skidded out of the door and down the stairs.

She nearly fell on the landing outside the nursery, and when she opened the door she was almost savage with fear, her throat was tight and nausea roiled in her stomach. But no one was there – just Bridie in her cot, sobbing now, reaching out.

No woman, no noise. Orla rattled the door into the passageway, but it was still locked, and she picked up Bridie and went into her own bedroom and then Sam’s and then finally the guest room, but there was no one, nothing. Just her own harsh breath and Bridie crying in her arms, angry at being held much too tight and afraid of this frantic, desperate mother.

And Sam – Sam was nowhere.

In the kitchen, a few drawings lay half-finished on the table, the same brown and grey children in among green grass. Orla went to the foot of the stairs and called for him, but she knew as the words left her mouth that he wasn’t in the house. She would feel it – feel him – if he were here.

She took Bridie out to the patio – through the orangery, warmed by translucent sun and made fragrant by two loads of laundry hung up. Outside, the wind ruffled the daffodils that hunched in clumps along the east wall and thumped against the old shed doors. ‘Sam?’

Bridie, slung across her mother’s shoulder, shouted with joy – with recognition. She squealed and wriggled and reached out, and Orla had to catch hold of a plump leg to steady the child. Orla turned, expecting to see Sam, but, although Bridie was smiling wide, she was reaching out to an empty room.

At the bottom of the garden, where Toby had cleared so much already and the edges of the dug-out pond shone bright in the cloudy afternoon, a little figure stood underneath the oaks. Sam, in his socks on the wet grass. He hadn’t seen them, hadn’t heard his mother call.

He circled the oaks slowly, looking around him all the time. At intervals, he darted behind one of the solid, mossy trunks – Orla saw his quick, dark head pop out once, twice, to look away down to the west wall. He moved his body round the trunk, slowly, staying close to the tree. And then he ran in double-quick time to the remaining thicket of yew and dogwood, flourishing now in the green space created by Toby, where he disappeared.

Orla saw that her son was playing hide-and-seek. She stepped off the patio on to the lawn.

A flicker over by the shed, right on the edge of her peripheral vision, caught her eye as it crossed the grass. Something small, no bigger than Sam, skirted the largest maple and vanished. And another, down by the oaks, down next to where Orla pictured Sam crouched on cold earth in socked feet. Nothing more than a grey shadow, but moving with purpose and intent towards Sam’s hiding place.

Orla scanned the lawn for more little shadows, but there was nothing. ‘Sam!’ She took two more steps towards the oaks and stopped. She didn’t want to go any further; she watched the yew bush with hot, acidic loathing. The tangle of maples shook, out of time with the wind, and harder, too.

There was something other than Sam down at the bottom of the garden, hiding itself in the rotted tangle. She knew now that it wasn’t a fox, or a cat. How to warn Sam, how to bring him back to her? She couldn’t shout – the wind was too high, he wouldn’t hear her, not from all the way back at the house. Orla understood she would have to go and fetch him herself, and the realisation brought a strange inertia.

She stood on the edge of the lawn with the house to her back and her invisible son somewhere out in front. To rescue him – and she didn’t dwell too long on how her mind had chosen the word rescue – she would have to wade out there and put her arms into the trees and the long, thin vines and the decay and pull him back to the world: a forced and savage repatriation.

And around them, the unknown. The limitless, deceitful garden, the sweep of shifting, undulating lawn that made Orla feel seasick just to look at. But Sam needed her, there was no room now to recant motherhood and step back to the safety of the patio.

The ground was very soft under her feet, boggy with a week’s worth of rain and cunningly slick. She couldn’t leave Bridie behind, and the baby kicked against her ribs and protested. Together they moved across the grass, urged on by the feral wind that yipped and shrieked.

Flurries of browned blossom, swept from the trees by the wind and rotting in the grass, rose and fell in violence as Orla carried her daughter further down the lawn. Clods of new soil clung to her shoes, she trampled over the delicate grass seed just beginning to take root. She looked across the garden, sickened, and waited to see something dart from behind a tree, or out from under the elderberries. But she was terribly, terribly alone. She couldn’t stand the weight of the fear that hung in her chest – a dark animal – at the thought that she would have to go in among the inscrutable trees to search for her son.

And as Orla approached the yew bush, deaf to Bridie’s urgent whimpers and with fear clawing, red, at her ribcage, she heard Sam clap once and call out. Her son – unequivocally. Not whispering, but speaking. Forming real, intelligible words with his husky, rusty voice, speaking out loud, and excited.

‘You found me! ’