The Day She Came Back(38)
‘You live in an old-lady house!’ His opening gambit as he looked around and then laughed. Victoria laughed too, because she didn’t think it through, overwhelmed by the whole experience, but remembering enough that ‘doll-like and dumb’ were what she needed to strive for. She took in his unkempt curly hair, scruffy trainers, skinny jeans that sat tantalisingly low to reveal the navy-blue waistband of his underwear, and his slightly bloodshot eyes, their gaze a little off-centre. As her giggles burbled, however, each one left a dot of shame on her tongue.
This is your home! Prim’s home! And you know and love everything in it! Or at least you used to . . . But it was too late; she had slipped into that role. The one some take on when they meet a person they like too much and try to squeeze themselves into the shape of someone they think that person might like. Assuming, sadly, that the real them, the ‘warts and all’ them, would simply not be enough.
‘I didn’t decorate it, any of it. No way!’ She hated the disloyalty and knew deep down this appeasing cowardice paved the way to a destination she did not want to visit, but it was too late; she had jumped into a cart and it was hurtling along a track faster than she knew how to steer.
‘No shit!’ He gave her his beautiful, lopsided smile and walked forward. ‘Good morning, Victoria!’ He gave an elaborate bow with one arm flat against his stomach, his other outstretched.
‘Are you drunk?’ She laughed again, like some giggling stupid thing, stating the obvious, as Flynn wobbled on the spot and the air around him thickened with the foul odour of booze. He straightened and teetered towards the wall; his outstretched palm, fixed to break his fall, thankfully found a space between a Victorian framed needlepoint and a black-and-white photograph of Great-Granny Cutter on her wedding day, looking, it was fair to say, less than ecstatic about the whole affair. Victoria felt her heart leap at the mere prospect of something getting broken or damaged, aware almost for the first time that she was now the custodian of Rosebank and everything in it. And then another thought: if stuff got broken, so what? Who did she have to answer to? No one.
‘Where have you been?’ She thought she might be able to help him focus by engaging him in conversation, anything to try to control those flailing hands and unsteady feet.
‘What, tonight?’
‘Yes, tonight!’
‘Oh, pub, and then to Jasper’s, and then I was walking home and I thought’ – he clicked his fingers loudly – ‘Victoria!’ The slur of his speech was a little more obvious to her now.
‘Would you like some coffee?’ She didn’t know the right course of action; his state was seemingly something very different from how she felt after sipping a glass of wine with Prim over dinner. Her concern was now in figuring out how to get him to sober up – she wanted to talk to sober Flynn.
She led the way to the kitchen and he walked slowly beside her. This was not how the many fantasies of Flynn McNamara pitching up at her house in the middle of the night had usually played out.
‘So you, like, live here all by yourself?’
Even the words were alarming. It was something she was only beginning to consider, living in and caring for this big old house alone. She didn’t know if she was up to it and desperately wished Daksha was asleep upstairs.
She watched his eyes rove the painted ceilings and then peep into the open doors of the rooms leading off the hallway and wondered what his house might be like. If she had to guess, it was probably much closer to Daksha’s than to this.
‘This place is massive!’ He sounded impressed, which made her feel more than a little uncomfortable. She revised her mental image.
Like Daksha’s, but smaller . . .
‘Uh-huh. I’m on my own now, but Daksha has been staying, so I haven’t really been alone. But she . . . she’s gone home.’ She blotted out the image of her friend’s face, her look of hurt, not wanting it to blemish this interaction.
‘And now you’re not alone because I’m here.’
‘Yup.’ Her hands felt clammy and her gut full of jitters. She knew she was perspiring and hoped she didn’t smell, thinking now not only of her sweat but the worn blouse she had hastily retrieved from the bedroom floor. Her stomach jumped with all the possibilities of what might happen. She was as excited as she was petrified.
‘It sucks what happened to your nan.’ He held her eyeline and she was thankful for his sincere tone.
‘Yes, it sucks. I know it’s real, but I don’t believe it’s real, if that makes any sense. It’s all been really shit.’ She decided not to elaborate, not yet.
He nodded. ‘Yep. I know that feeling.’
‘Have you . . .’ She coughed, trying to relax but still feeling over-awed and anxious. ‘Have you ever lost anyone?’
‘Yes.’ He sat at the kitchen table. ‘My big brother.’
‘Oh no! I didn’t know that.’ She took the chair opposite him, trying not to think of how she and Prim had sat like this to eat their breakfast every morning.
‘Did you have any sweet dreams, darling girl?’
‘Grapefruit or muesli?’
‘Oh, by the way, a funny thing: you know I told you that your mum was dead, well . . .’
‘Well, it’s all a bit weird; he would have been my big brother,’ Flynn explained, running his palm over his face. ‘Except he died when he was a toddler, so he is kind of always my little brother too.’