Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
ORLA
Through my open window, I can hear the rattling of bins as Anna takes out next door’s recycling.
The sound makes me sad, because it always used to be Gray’s job to do that and I would often hear him calling out a good morning to a passing neighbour or whistling, surprisingly tunefully, over the clattering of bottles.
Now I know I will never hear him whistle again, and I cannot recall when it was that the task passed from him to Anna. I am thinking of him now, imagining him lying there in his bed by the window, hearing the same sound I am hearing from my front room.
I feel so helpless, being a witness to what is happening to that family.
But I am doing what I can: having Barney round here most afternoons to play the piano; taking round home-baked scones and asparagus from my garden, although Anna is a better cook than I am, and she tells me Gray’s appetite has dwindled almost to nothing; listening when they seem to want to talk.
Yesterday, though, I was given a task of my own to perform, by Gray himself.
Anna had asked me to go and sit with him for an hour in the afternoon while she took the children to whatever activities they were doing after school.
He would probably be asleep, she said, she just didn’t feel right leaving him alone for long any more.
But Gray wasn’t asleep. He was propped up on the pillows, his laptop on his thighs. His hands were resting on the keyboard in a way that reminded me vividly of the way Barney’s look when he has been wrestling with a particularly challenging piece on my piano.
I wondered whether I should tell him about his son’s visits. I wondered whether he can hear the music drifting across from my home to his as clearly as I can hear the crescendo of tumbling glass bottles into the Grahams’ recycling bin.
He looked exhausted. But he greeted me with a smile and said he was glad I had come.
It’s good to see you, I said. Is there anything I can do for you?
He said yes. He said he had been waiting for me to come. But it wasn’t a cup of tea he wanted, or his pillows fluffing.
He asked me to go to the room next door, the room he uses – or used, because I fear he will never go in there again – as his home office, and switch on the printer on his desk. I obeyed, and seconds later I heard it click and hum as it pulled a sheet of paper into whatever feeder mechanism it has.
Is it working? I heard him call anxiously. Temperamental bloody thing.
I assured him it was. There were envelopes in a drawer, he said, and asked me to bring him one, along with a pen.
I did. Then I watched as he folded the sheet of paper into thirds, slipped it into the envelope, sealed it and hand-wrote an address on it.
Will you post this for me, please, Orla? he asked. After… you know.
I said I would.
And Orla – don’t tell Anna. Please.
Before I could agree, he reached out and shook my hand – a peculiar thing to do, given we have been friends and neighbours for almost twenty years.
It felt like a pact, that handshake. It felt as if I have signed up to some sort of agreement, or even a conspiracy – like the phrase forcing my hand.
He had entrusted me with something secret: something he does not want his wife to be aware of.
I feel deeply uneasy about that: I have held on to my own secrets for far too long to welcome other people’s.
But I will do as he asked. I have no choice – do I?