He looked around the kitchen, then walked over to one of the windows and looked out into the garden, his gaze moving beyond the wall towards the allotments, the fields and the windswept coast beyond. Orla watched without speaking, becoming increasingly anxious about him. First, there was the fainting, then the sleeping, then the shaking. Orla didn’t know much about losing a loved one. Her father had died when she was two and she really didn’t remember him at all, but this man’s wife had died – when? He hadn’t told her exactly when, but it must only have been a matter of a few short weeks ago. And wasn’t that what he was here to talk to her about?
‘Luke?’ she said softly.
He turned around from the window, his expression a little vague, as if he wasn’t fully there in the room with her.
‘You said you wanted to talk to me – about Helen.’
A dark shadow seemed to pass across his face and that gentle, vague expression was gone.
‘We don’t have to – if you don’t want to,’ Orla added quickly.
‘No – no – it’s okay. It’s what I came here for, isn’t it? And I have something for you.’
‘Really?’
‘Something from Helen. It’s in the van.’ He motioned to outside. ‘Mind if I get it?’
Orla walked to the door with him and unlocked it. One Ear accompanied her and stood on the threshold with his mistress as Luke walked down the steps and across the driveway towards his van. She watched as he opened the passenger door and lifted a box from the footwell. Carrying it carefully, he closed the van door, locked it and returned to the castle. Orla led the way back to the great hall, where Luke placed the box on a table.
‘Helen was going to send it to you, but . . .’ He swallowed hard, pausing. ‘Anyway, it’s yours.’
‘What is it?’ Orla stepped forward, her fingers touching the sky-blue ribbon.
‘Open it.’
Orla untied the ribbon and took the lid off the box, gently removing the layers of bubble wrap and tissue paper to reveal the blue and white vase.
‘Oh!’ she gasped. ‘It’s lovely!’ She handled it carefully, mindful of how fragile it was and how much care had gone into choosing it and wrapping it. She was deeply touched that a stranger should go to so much trouble for her.
‘It’s chipped, I’m afraid, but she said you wouldn’t mind that. That’s what you liked about old things.’
‘Yes. That’s right.’
‘Helen liked that about you – that you saw the beauty in broken things.’
‘She did?’
‘She said it’s easy to love something that’s shiny and new, but it takes someone special to love the old, neglected things.’
Orla felt her eyes sting with tears. ‘She said that?’
‘You were a great inspiration to her. She started her own small collection because of you. I say small because our house is small. But she took so much pleasure in every single piece she found.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
Luke nodded, and Orla could see that he was becoming emotional too and she couldn’t help wondering if he was remembering some special moment with Helen. Maybe he’d been there when she’d bought the vase or maybe he remembered her bringing it home.
‘There’s a card with it,’ he said, pointing to the box.
Orla placed the vase on the table and moved the last of the tissue paper from the box and reached in for the card. She could feel Luke watching her as she opened it and read the words, her eyes filling with tears again.
‘I can’t believe she did this for me,’ she whispered, returning the card to its envelope with shaking hands.
‘You meant a lot to her. Your friendship. Your advice.’
‘You know about that?’
‘Little bits,’ Luke confessed. ‘She used to talk about you and . . .’ Luke stopped. ‘I found her journal and – well – she said that you encouraged her. You helped her.’
Orla bit her lip but didn’t say anything and then she looked at the vase, picking it up and holding it tightly.
‘I’ll treasure this always. It means the world to me. It really does.’ She noticed that Luke was still standing. ‘How rude of me – please sit down.’
Luke nodded and, as soon as he was sitting, One Ear looked up from his basket and then got up, stretching his long body before trotting over to say hello. Luke smiled and patted the dog’s head and, after placing the vase on one of the deep windowsills, Orla sat in a chair opposite him.
Luke was perching forward on the sofa as if he were about to be interviewed for a job he didn’t want. One Ear nuzzled up against him and Luke continued to make a fuss of the dog, delaying whatever he wanted to say a little while longer.
‘Luke?’ Orla prompted him. ‘You were going to tell me what happened, weren’t you?’
He nodded, and Orla realised how very difficult it must be for him.
‘It was last month,’ he began slowly. ‘Helen had a job in London and she’d catch the train in and out every day. She usually got back home around quarter past seven. But she didn’t come back. I waited, thinking she’d gone shopping or that there were delays on the trains. It’s usually a good line, but you can never tell in this country, can you? A spot of rain or a windy day and the whole system can collapse.’ He gave a hollow sort of laugh. ‘I wish it had just been rain or leaves on the track that day, but it wasn’t. There was some sort of signal failure.’ He paused, as if trying to find the right words, and then they gushed out of him all at once as if he wanted to be rid of them. ‘There was a train crash. Two trains. Eleven people died and Helen was one of them.’
‘Oh, Luke! I’m so sorry.’
He dropped his gaze to One Ear and ruffled his head again.
‘Perhaps you saw it on
