Chapter 4
4
Orla could count on one hand the number of times she had seen her mum cry. Three funerals and one very bullish parent/teacher meeting at Erin’s school. Dana Bradbee was not a crier. But the tears were soaking her cheeks before Orla could get off the chair and make moves to put her arms around her. She had hesitated though, hadn’t committed to it, knowing the show of physical affection would likely make her mum batten the hatches rather than the other way around. Instead, she had offered a cup of tea. There was a bottle of Baileys next to the kettle and although Orla was tempted, alcohol was not the solution right now. It also set to remind her of Frances and France. How was she going to break that to her mum now? Maybe she could embellish the assignment a little. Make it sound like it had some kind of gravitas…
‘Here we are,’ Orla said, holding the steaming mug out to her mum.
‘I’m all right. Don’t make a fuss.’
‘It’s just a cup of tea,’ Orla said. ‘No fuss.’
‘I hate tears,’ her mum said, wiping her eyes with a tissue. ‘Such a waste of energy.’
‘Well,’ Orla said, sitting down next to her mum. ‘Some people find it therapeutic. To get the negative feelings out.’
‘Soothsayers.’
‘So,’ Orla said, not wanting to lose what momentum she had. ‘Is Dad really struggling with alcohol?’
Her mum sighed. ‘I’m not sure, to be honest. I thought it was a phase, you know, boredom after the greenhouse project and the brief spell as a Yodel driver, but then, money started to get tight. And I know your sister’s beauty regime claws away at the budget but I’m not going to have a child of mine not having what everyone else has and being bullied for it, so I indulge it to a certain degree by making personal sacrifices. Except for the luxury of the scented candles but that’s to give Helen a boost, you know.’
Orla swallowed. She’d had no idea about any of this. Why hadn’t her mum told her before things had got to this crying point? Or had she missed signs?
‘Have you asked Dad about it all?’
‘Are you mad? What do you think he’d say? “Oh, my love, yes, it’s true, I can’t get through the day without a tot of Captain Morgan’s at dawn, the rest of the crew throughout the day and a final Famous Grouse before I turn in for the night.”’ Dana sighed, ‘And he doesn’t acknowledge that money is tight. He says it’s a lean spell, then mumbles things about pensions maturing.’
‘But ignoring it isn’t going to solve anything. It isn’t just going to go away.’
‘I wish it would.’ She sighed. ‘Because worrying about a beautiful sixteen-year-old girl who’s just ripe for being taken advantage of is hard enough as it is.’ She raised her eyes to meet Orla’s. ‘Did you ask her? About the Moroccan?’
‘Burim’s Moroccan?’
‘Ah! Is that what he’s called?’
She suddenly felt she had been duped into giving up a secret. ‘Does he live in Morocco?’
‘Not a clue,’ her mum replied. ‘Let’s be honest, he could say he lived anywhere, that he’s called anything, it wouldn’t be the truth. I read an article that said 85 per cent of men on social media tell lies within the first three messages. So you have “hello” and “how are you?” and then it’s straight down to “I’ve never seen a girl as pretty as you before”. Utter bollocks.’
Orla swallowed, ripples of her last situationship playing on her mind. Henry. Someone she’d given months of her online life to. Another failure. The dating game wasn’t so much of a game any more, it was more like full-on warfare where it seemed everyone was your enemy, even the person you were legitimately trying to get to know. How did that work?
‘Maybe you could speak to your dad.’ The topic had turned again.
‘Me?’ Orla said, like the idea was as crazy as eating mussels with their shells still on.
‘You’ve always had that way about you that says “friendly” but with an undercurrent of “serious” that you can’t miss.’
Had she? And did her mum mean in confrontation or all things? Now she was starting to overthink the whole of her personality.
‘I don’t think I’m the one who’s best placed to raise the topic,’ Orla answered.
‘And now you’ve gone BBC newsreader on me.’
‘No, but I’m not here all the time like you are and I’m going away tomorrow so?—’
‘You’re what?’ Dana cut in, tea almost sloshing into her lap.
Orla hadn’t meant to drop it quite like that. She sighed. ‘I’ve been given a last-minute assignment and?—’
Suddenly her mum’s eyes widened, and the tea mug was quickly dispatched to the one table that used to be part of a nest of three… ‘This is it, isn’t it? This is the assignment you’ve been waiting for. The one that’s going to get you to Time magazine and New York! Oh, Orla, this is big news! The biggest! Much more important than a few silly drinks too many and Dad getting a bonk on the head, because I expect your sister told you that too!’ She finally drew breath. ‘I always knew you’d get there! Always knew it! Your sister got all the beauty but you got all the brains! This is something to be celebrated!’
As Dana bounced up out of her chair and took a couple of steps towards the mantelpiece Orla ignored the backhanded compliment and knew she should stop this train of thought before it pulled into a station. Because on first email glance, this trip to France was the very opposite of something that was going to further her career dreams. In fact, it had all the potential to be a nightmare. ‘Mum, it’s not exactly?—’
‘Look!’
A switch was flicked and Orla’s gaze was drawn to one string of white fairy lights now glowing across the family photos and a resin duck ornament Erin had made in pre-school.
‘I know they don’t seem much,’ her mum said. ‘But they change rhythm – there’s twenty-nine different settings. I don’t know why there’s not thirty but there we are. Oh, Orla, you’re making me so proud. Just knowing you’re really on your way now is making everything seem a tiny bit brighter. Maybe I will call the doctor in the morning, see if she can have a chat with your dad, perhaps make up some middle-age check-up he should have and get to the root that way.’
‘That sounds like a good idea, Mum. But this assignment, it’s?—’
‘So, tell me more about it, if you’re allowed to that is. But, if you can’t tell me everything now, make sure you get the go-ahead to tell everyone all the details over Christmas dinner because Bren’s still crowing that her godson’s daughter got into Cambridge and I swear the length of time she’s been talking about it, the degree must be done by now.’
And, after that sentence, Orla knew there was no way she was going to be able to miss Christmas dinner at home this year, no matter how long the reindeer took to give birth.