Chapter 19
19
‘Hello, Mum.’
Orla was in Jacques’s kitchen being watched by Hunter while the others were in the living room. She could hear Erin and Jacques’s brother all making loud comments about the wood burner Jacques was trying to relight. How was she in this weird domestic situation all of a sudden?
‘Oh, hello, Orla love. I know I said don’t worry about me, but I was starting to worry about you. There’s no storm front is there?’
Orla swallowed. Her mum sounded so far away and coming from someone who had spoken to her mum from places much further from the UK than France, Orla knew it was completely to do with the family predicament.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Just Hurricane Erin.’
‘Oh, Jesus, what’s she got herself into?’
‘Not the size-eight dress yet, apparently,’ Orla replied. ‘But that’s probably a good thing with this weather.’ She looked to the window. The sky was black outside but the bright white snow illuminated everything from Jacques’s truck that had brought them back here to the craggy mountain backdrop. ‘No storms, but it’s pretty cold.’
‘You need candles,’ Dana answered. ‘Warm you up a treat when the heating’s on the blink.’
‘Your heating’s not working now?’ Orla exclaimed.
‘Temporarily. Your dad’s getting Terry to look at it when he can. I told him if we don’t have the cash I’m selling his golf clubs the way he sold my mother’s jewellery. The liar can’t even admit to selling it. Says I’ve misplaced it like I’m an eejit or something!’
Orla could hear the emotion in her mum’s tone now. ‘Mum, don’t cry.’
‘Catch yourself on, I’m not crying. I have no tears left for that man right now.’
Orla leaned against the countertop, adjusting the phone at her ear and Hunter raised his head, watching. ‘Oh, Mum.’
‘Don’t you worry. Everything will be grand. Well, you know, not grand perhaps, but OK.’
‘Did you manage to speak to the doctor?’
‘Yes, love, I did.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘He said I could have some anti-depressants if I wanted.’
‘What?’ Orla exclaimed.
‘I said no. For now. But, you know, it mightn’t be a bad thing.’
‘Mum, no! What did he say about seeing Dad? About the drinking.’
‘He said that unless Dad wants help there’s no help to be had.’
Orla closed her eyes and took a breath. This was a nightmare and it wasn’t good enough. She opened her eyes again. ‘Is Dad there now?’
‘In spirit. Full of spirits actually. Fell asleep before the end of Would I Lie To You .’
‘Wake him up,’ Orla said. ‘I want to speak to him.’
‘Orla, no. I can’t wake him up. In fact, the local brass band couldn’t wake him up.’
‘Well, someone needs to speak to him. Things can’t go on like this! He’s not well and he’s making you unwell and… I don’t want Erin to come back to this.’ She swallowed as she heard Erin’s laugh filter through from the living room.
‘That girl barely spends any time with either of us. She wouldn’t know if your father turned into Jeremy Clarkson.’
‘I disagree,’ Orla said. ‘I think she notices much more than you think.’
‘How can she? She’s permanently on the phone to that man in Morocco! And what have you found out about him?’
‘I haven’t had much of an opportunity to ask her about Burim. I’m working here, Mum.’
And her mother had expertly pulled the subject of the conversation away from her dad. What was she going to do? From this far away?
‘Mum, I want to talk to Dad. I want you to tell him that I will call him tomorrow and I want him sober when he answers.’
‘He’s not going to like that I’ve told you half of what I’ve told you,’ Dana said, sighing.
‘I don’t care,’ Orla stated. ‘That’s what’s going to happen.’
Hunter made a noise and got up, starting to pant, mouth opening and tongue hanging out. It was then she realised Jacques was entering the kitchen as, on the phone, her Mum began to protest again.
‘Mum, I have to go. I’ll call Dad tomorrow. Don’t forget to tell him. And… don’t worry, OK? Everything will be all right.’
As a lump arrived in her throat, she rushed a goodbye and ended the call. She forced an overenthusiastic smile and petted Hunter on the head.
‘Parents!’ She gave a dramatic sigh and hoped that explained everything she definitely wasn’t going to say.
Jacques pulled the large coffee machine forward and opened a cupboard above.
‘Did you manage to get the wood burner going again?’ Orla asked him.
‘You really think I would not?’
‘No, I just… I don’t know… I guess I was just thinking… I…’ She stopped talking as the lump in her throat had somehow managed to grow in size and become a boulder lodged in her chest.
‘Listen, Orla, I want to apologise for earlier. The way I reacted was… not how I should have reacted.’
She shook her head as she tried to maintain some equilibrium with her emotions. ‘No, I was to blame too. I was unprofessional and those things I said were, I don’t know, ridiculous.’
‘Is everything OK?’ Jacques asked her. ‘With your parents?’
‘Yes,’ she said quickly. Too quickly. ‘No, actually… they are… going through something right now and it’s difficult, you know?’
‘They are separating?’ he asked, pressing buttons on the machine.
‘No!’ she said immediately. But then she thought over his question. Would they? Because this was no good for either of them. Except when you had been married for as long as they had surely you worked through every kind of problem without deciding there was no hope? And she still hadn’t given him an answer.
‘My parents,’ Jacques said. ‘They separated.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Orla replied.
‘No, don’t be sorry,’ Jacques answered. ‘Sometimes people just aren’t meant to be together forever. No matter what promises they’ve made.’
‘Do they still both live in France?’ Orla asked him.
He shook his head. ‘No, we are originally from Canada. The French part. My mother’s parents were both French. My father’s parents, Canadian. Tommy and I are a mix of the two.’
‘So, that’s where he’s come from now? Canada? All that way?’
Jacques smiled. ‘Yes, but knowing my brother he probably began this trip a week ago. He has never been one to shy away from exploration. It would not surprise me if our father hadn’t even realised he had left the country.’
‘And now here you are, going from a recluse with only his trusty canine companion to having a house full of people,’ she remarked.
‘And two teenagers who demand I must try to use this fucking coffee machine I’ve never been able to get to work the same way twice.’
She smiled, enjoying the slip in Jacques’s usual aloof demeanour and a sliver of humour.
‘Do you want me to look at it?’ she asked him.
‘Please! I thought you would never ask,’ he said with another smile.
‘OK,’ Orla said, sizing it up like it was an opponent in a wrestling ring. ‘How hard can it be?’
‘Well, it was not originally mine and I have never established a working relationship with it.’
‘So do we go through it methodically? Or shall I just press each button in turn and see what happens?’
‘That is really what you are going to do?’ Jacques asked, sounding a bit shocked.
‘You haven’t had a better idea in years so…’
She started to hit buttons one after another and suddenly the machine burst into life, whirring and whizzing and spurting until steam started shooting out of places that it didn’t look like steam should come from. Orla screamed.
‘I don’t want to be burned again! Make it stop!’ She pressed more buttons, trying to halt what she had started.
‘ You did this!’ Jacques exclaimed, pulling the handle.
The machine started vibrating so much it was almost walking itself across the counter. Instinctively they both rushed forward to pull the plug and Orla slammed into Jacques’s shoulder. It was like running into a brick wall.
‘Orla, are you OK? I am so sorry!’
‘It’s OK,’ she answered, holding her arm but laughing. ‘Stop the machine!’
He pulled the plug out and the machine gave one last spurt and Jacques ended up with foam on the end of his nose.
‘You look like one of the snowman faces Delphine drew on those cookies she was serving tonight!’ Orla said, laughing even more.
‘Really?’ he replied. He put a finger to the foam, scooped it off and, in one quick move, wiped it on her cheek.
‘What? That’s disgusting!’ Orla exclaimed, immediately putting her fingers to the cream and getting it off her face.
‘Don’t do it,’ Jacques warned her, taking a step back from her.
‘Do what?’ she asked, advancing.
‘I’m warning you, Orla. Don’t do it.’
There was nothing she loved more than a challenge. And being told not to do something was one of her personal favourites. She went for him, intending to wipe her foamy fingers all over his beard… except, somehow, in a split second, she was on her back on the table, her foamy hand up above her head, pinned into a position where she couldn’t strike. How had she got here? And how was this man managing to keep her in place with one hand on her wrist and one hand… where was his other hand? She could kind of feel it, but she also couldn’t and she was sort of temporarily immobilised.
‘How did you do that?’
‘I can’t tell you,’ he answered.
His body was close, nothing touching her apart from that hand on her wrist, but she could feel the sensation of him. Her stomach did a deep dive.
‘O-K,’ she managed to say. ‘So… what happens next?’ Her mind was already conjuring up images of how this might play out and most of them involved fewer clothes. What was she thinking? All this man had done since she had met him was wind her up!
‘That is up to you,’ Jacques answered, a wry smile on his face that was somehow peppering her vagina.
‘Is this like the locked-door scenario?’ she asked, her throat becoming drier. ‘Because I thought we as good as agreed that was weird.’
‘I’m going to stop pressing on your ear if you promise not to wipe that foam on me.’
He was pressing on her ear? Why couldn’t she feel it? And now she was focussing on why she couldn’t feel his touch on her ear more so than anything else…
‘Whoa! OK! I am closing my eyes and wishing I hadn’t witnessed this!’
It was Tommy’s voice and suddenly Jacques had rebounded from the table like someone had thrown a grenade into the room… or tried to wipe his face with foam.
‘Tommy,’ Jacques said. ‘We were just?—’
‘Yeah,’ Tommy said. ‘I get it! I’m eighteen now, bro. But, seriously, in front of Hunter?’
It took the dog to whine for Orla to realise she was still lying on her back on the table. She propelled herself upwards, her hand still covered in foam.
‘Yeah,’ Tommy said, nodding at Orla, hand held out awkwardly. ‘I don’t even want to know what that is.’