The Beauty of Broken Things Read online

  Sure enough, a round-towered church seemed to be a recurrent theme with BB. Taken from different angles and in different seasons and weathers, it was never photographed as a whole, but the little sections she captured of it were very distinct and might just be enough to help Luke in his search.

  Carefully, methodically, he searched Google for a little while longer, examining image after image of round-towered churches, comparing the flint work, the porches and the shapes of the windows, and he soon had a result. The church he was looking for was St George’s in a village called Lorford on the Suffolk coast. He googled Lorford, recognising some of the cottages he’d seen in BB’s photos and the stretch of lonely beach too.

  Then he went back to her account, looking at the still-life photos, seeing what he could learn about the rooms they were taken in. One thing was certain – they were no ordinary rooms. He saw great grey flagstone floors, deep stone windowsills and – wait a minute – was that an arch flanked by a column? This was definitely not a modern home, Luke thought.

  He looked at a few more images and smiled as realisation dawned.

  BB lived in a castle.

  Chapter 4

  ‘Luke? Take a look at this. What do you think?’

  Luke looked up from his phone, where he was trying to find a footpath on an Ordnance Survey map. Helen was holding her camera out towards him.

  ‘I can’t really see it,’ he said, squinting at the screen on the back.

  ‘Move into the shade and shield your eyes,’ she told him, and he did.

  ‘Ah, nice!’ he said, looking at the fern Helen had captured, half in sun, half in shadow, its unfurled form like an ammonite fossil he’d once found on a beach in Dorset on a family holiday.

  ‘Do you think so?’ she asked with all the uncertainty of a naturally talented artist.

  ‘It’s beautiful.’

  Helen smiled, obviously relieved. ‘I’ve been learning about chiaroscuro.’

  ‘Bless you!’

  She laughed. ‘It’s Italian! It’s the effect of light and dark working together.’

  ‘So you didn’t completely waste your time on that course, then?’

  ‘No, I didn’t learn it there. You can’t learn everything in a single day and we focused mainly on composition. Basic stuff, really.’

  ‘But it was good?’

  ‘I enjoyed it, yes.’

  He watched as she bent down, her camera poised in front of her as she took some more pictures. Luke went back to examining his phone.

  ‘I can’t tell where the footpath goes.’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘It does if we don’t want to get shot by a gamekeeper.’

  ‘Let’s just wander around here for a while,’ she suggested. ‘We don’t have to rush off anywhere, do we?’

  ‘Well, I’d quite like to get to this pub for lunch.’

  ‘You and your stomach!’

  ‘What?’ he protested. ‘It’s only demanding its rights. One square meal a day!’

  ‘Well, all right, then.’ She got up and put her camera away. ‘Let’s find this pub.’

  Shortly after that day, Helen had printed out the fern photograph and placed it on the dresser. She’d spend hours looking at it, her eye always critical.

  ‘How could I have made it better?’ she asked Luke.

  ‘I’m not sure you could have,’ he told her.

  ‘Should I have moved an inch to the right perhaps?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘What if I’d knelt down lower? Would the composition have been better then?’

  ‘Probably not,’ he said. ‘You might just have ended up with damp knees.’

  He smiled sadly now as he remembered. She was always so harsh on herself.

  Nicola, Helen’s sister, had said it would be nice to get a few of her photos enlarged and framed for the funeral. Luke had agreed; he’d left Nicola to it, but he’d never forget the sight of them all lined up together at the reception afterwards. Words like ‘gifted’ and ‘talented’ had floated through the air to distress him even more than he already was.

  And one of the photos had been of that unfurled fern, half in sun, half in shadow. Perfectly captured.

  Nicola had brought the photographs round a couple of days later and Luke had put them in the spare room. He looked at them now, marvelling at their beauty, the words ‘gifted’ and ‘waste’ circling tauntingly in his mind again. He’d never really encouraged her, had he? Not really. Not seriously. If only he could go back to that walk in the woods and really listen to her instead of making silly jokes and going on about his stomach. What would he have done differently, he wondered, if he could go back? He’d have put his phone away for a start. What on earth was he doing staring at that when his beautiful wife was in his company? He’d watch her instead, bending and stretching, squinting and smiling as she captured the beauty around her. And he’d listen instead of talking. He’d wait for her to make suggestions and take the lead and, if that meant they got lost in the woods or chased by an angry gamekeeper, then so be it. She would have been happy to spend all day there with her camera and that, in turn, would have made Luke happy too.

  Luke couldn’t help feeling that he’d failed Helen in so many ways, but perhaps he could do something really special now in taking her gift to her friend, BB.

  It didn’t take long for Luke to make his mind up. It was as if he instinctively knew that this was the right thing to do.

  The first thing was to ring Chippy.

  ‘Listen,’ Luke said, ‘this is going to sound strange, but I’m going to meet a friend of Helen’s.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound strange,’ Chippy told him.

  Luke paused before continuing, wondering how his friend would react and if he’d think he’d gone completely mad. ‘They never met. Actually, they never even knew each other’s names.’

  ‘Okay,’ Chippy said, ‘that does sound a little strange.’

  ‘It just feels right, though,’ Luke tried to explain. ‘I think it’s what Helen would have wanted me to do.’

  Luke told Chippy about the gift and how strongly he felt about delivering it in person and how he also didn’t want to tell the friend the news about Helen’s death via a cold and impersonal email.

  ‘Well, don’t worry about anything here,’ Chippy told him.

  ‘I was hoping you might keep an eye on this place while I’m away. I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone for.’

  ‘No worries.’

  ‘Make sure there aren’t any stacks of sympathy cards sticking out of the letter box,’ Luke said. ‘I’ll drop a key round to yours before I go. Thanks, mate. I appreciate this.’

  The next thing Luke did was to shave. It felt odd seeing the old Luke after so long a disappearance, but there he was, staring right back at him from the bathroom mirror, with his slightly too long dark hair and his brown eyes which still had that haunted look about them.

  Then, after packing a few things in an overnight bag, and with only a vague idea about where he might stay, Luke went through to the spare bedroom and carefully wrapped the Victorian vase in its protective bubble wrap and box, together with the blue ribbon and Helen’s card.

  ‘I’m taking it to BB for you,’ he whispered into the room, hoping, somehow, that Helen knew what he was doing.

  It was almost a three-hour drive from Kent to the Suffolk coast and, with each mile, Luke became more and more nervous. To drive across the country to tell a stranger that his wife had died and to give her an unexpected gift was the craziest mission he’d ever contemplated, and he was beginning to wish he’d simply sent a message via the Galleria site.

  Don’t give up now, a little voice said, and he had the feeling that it wasn’t his inner voice but that of Helen.

  Go and see her because I never did.

  ‘Okay,’ he said as he took a road which headed east, straight to the coastal village of Lorford, driving through deep forests and passing heathery heathland.
r />   He wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he arrived, but he drove down to the small quay and parked his van, getting out and stretching his legs and inhaling the fresh, salty air of the estuary. The water was wide and calm and a silvery blue. A few boats bobbed about on their moorings and a couple of waders ran up and down the pebbled shore and then out into a vast expanse of shining mud. It was a beautiful spot and he spent a moment drinking it in before returning to his van.

  The centre of the village was easy to find. He simply followed a road leading from the quay which passed rows of tiny cottages. A gentle incline towards the church followed and he immediately recognised the round tower from the photos. He was definitely in the right place, he thought, looking around for his destination. Surely a castle shouldn’t be hard to find, he told himself, coming towards a small square around which sat a baker’s, a village store, an antiques shop and a pub. But no castle. He drove on, leaving the square and reaching a bend in the road, and then he saw it.

  Set back from the road, it soared five storeys up into the glorious blue sky like a rectangular rocket. The pale golden stone was peppered with arrow-slit windows and larger arched ones which winked at him in the sunlight. At its centre, at the top of a steep flight of steps, was a large wooden door. The castle had obviously been built for defence rather than beauty and it puzzled Luke as to why BB, who had such an eye for the beautiful in life, had chosen to live in a rather unforgiving sort of building rather than one of the pretty cottages he’d seen in the heart of the village. Mind you, he had to admit that the castle was impressive. From the little he knew about castles, this looked like the keep; its curtain wall and the protective buildings which would once have surrounded it had long gone.

  A wrought-iron gate stood across the driveway and he parked outside it, staring up in wonder at the building that greeted him. He couldn’t tell how many sides the building had, but it was at least five, which made it polygonal – a word that he loved. It was quite unlike any other building he’d ever seen.

  ‘Remarkable,’ he said to himself, getting out of the van and walking towards the gate. He expected to find some kind of intercom, but there wasn’t one. However, the gates weren’t locked so he opened them and walked up the driveway flanked by neat lawns. A hedge divided the garden and he caught a glimpse of a long greenhouse, a wooden shed and stunning flower borders. So she grew her own flowers for the arrangements she photographed, he thought. Helen would have loved to have seen this.

  Reaching the steep steps at the foot of the castle, Luke paused, looking around in case somebody had spotted his arrival. It felt eerily quiet standing at the huge wooden door of the castle, and he turned back to look at the village, which suddenly seemed a long way away.

  An old-fashioned bell with a rope hung outside the door and he pulled it now, wondering if it was loud enough to hear from inside. It probably wasn’t for humans, but it didn’t need to be because there was a dog inside who had no trouble hearing it. His loud barks made Luke realise he might be unwelcome. He really shouldn’t have come.

  Don’t lose your courage now.

  There was that voice again.

  ‘Helen?’ he whispered.

  ‘Who is it?’

  It wasn’t Helen’s voice this time, but a woman’s on the other side of the castle door.

  ‘Hello,’ Luke called. ‘My name’s Luke. Luke Hansard. You’re friends with my wife, Helen.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘I don’t know anyone called Helen.’

  Luke frowned. He couldn’t have got the wrong place, could he? And then something occurred to him.

  ‘You know her as Trees and Dreams. On Galleria.’

  ‘Trees and Dreams?’

  ‘That’s right. She said you were good friends.’

  ‘We are.’

  ‘And I – I have something to tell you about her.’

  ‘What?’

  Luke took a deep breath. ‘Look, I’d really rather not shout all this through a thick wooden door.’

  There was another pause as he waited for the door to open. Only it didn’t.

  ‘I don’t see people.’

  ‘Pardon?’ Luke said, wondering if he’d heard her correctly.

  ‘I don’t see people,’ she repeated.

  ‘But I’ve come a long way,’ he told her.

  ‘Then I’m afraid you’ve had a wasted trip.’

  Luke blinked. She really wasn’t going to open the door?

  ‘Please, I think you’ll want to hear this. I have something for you too. A gift from Helen.’

  Only silence greeted him, and he couldn’t even tell if she was still on the other side of the door or if she’d walked away. He thought about ringing the bell again but decided not to. He hadn’t expected this, he thought, as he sat down on the cold stone doorstep of the castle. Why on earth wouldn’t she let him see her for just a moment? Some friend, he thought. If Helen really knew the truth, she’d likely change her mind about BB. But that was the problem with online friends, wasn’t it? It was easy enough to type a few messages to one another, quite a different thing to be civil in the real world.

  He reached into his pocket and got his phone out, bringing up the messages he’d swapped with Helen on the night of the accident.

  Got a proposal for you. H x

  Luke looked at the message, as he had hundreds of times already. What had Helen been going to say to him? Their unfinished conversation tortured him to distraction. Perhaps it was something simple like replacing the ancient bedroom curtains or perhaps it was more life-changing, like having a baby. That was one of the other things that they hadn’t had time for. Maybe she’d even talked to BB about it. It was one of the things he’d planned on asking her. But that didn’t look as if it was going to happen. At least not today.

  Well, Luke had nowhere to go. He didn’t fancy driving all the way back to Kent tonight so he might as well hang around Lorford for a while. He had some sandwiches in the van and a flask of tea. He’d have himself a little snack and see how the evening unfolded.

  A few minutes later, he sat himself on a garden bench in view of the castle, knowing full well that BB would be able to see him. Surely, he thought, she would open the door at some point and, in the meantime, he really was exceedingly comfortable.

  Orla crept closer to one of the windows that looked out over the drive to the front gate. What had he said his name was? Luke something. Hansard. That was it. Anyway, his van was still there but, as far as she could make out, he wasn’t in it. Had he walked into the village? If so, it was pretty cheeky of him to leave his van at hers.

  Her heart was still racing at him having called. She couldn’t remember the last time somebody had rung the bell and actually expected her to answer the door. All of her shopping was done online and her obsession for collecting meant a constant stream of packages arriving at the castle, but she never answered the door.

  She was just withdrawing from the window when something caught her eye. It was him – Luke Hansard – and he was sitting on a bench in her garden. He hadn’t left at all. And he was – what was he doing? Eating a sandwich! Orla’s mouth gaped open at the cheek of it. Her garden wasn’t a public park, for heaven’s sake! For a moment, she thought about knocking on the window, but he might see her if she did that. She could send One Ear out to frighten him off, but the dear dog wasn’t really up to the job. He might look the part with his huge, wolf-like body, but he was far more sheep than wolf in nature.

  ‘What should I do?’ Orla asked him. One Ear cocked his head to one side, but he really wasn’t any use when it came to such dilemmas.

  Orla looked out of the window again, watching as Luke Hansard opened his flask. He was there for the duration, it seemed. Well, there was no use in her standing there watching him. No doubt he’d grow bored once it got dark and would make a hasty retreat when he realised she wasn’t going to talk to him.

  She twisted her hands together. There was the tiniest part of her that wished she
knew what it was he wanted to tell her about her friend. Helen. Helen Hansard. She’d never known her name. She’d always been Trees and Dreams. But knowing her name now suddenly made her seem more real. Was she in some kind of trouble, Orla wondered? Why else would her husband be here? And why hadn’t he just sent an email like a normal person? He could have contacted her via Galleria, surely.

  Orla sat down on the squashy Knole sofa she’d bought via an online auction, not noticing the big rip down the right-hand side. She’d get that fixed at some point. What was troubling her more than the ripped Knole sofa was how Luke Hansard had managed to find her. She hadn’t given out her address to anybody other than her mother, and Luke’s wife hadn’t even known her name. So, how had he found her? As much as she wanted to ask him, she wasn’t sure she wanted to speak to somebody who had so clearly tracked her down. Surely he wasn’t to be trusted. Maybe she should message Helen.

  She got her phone out and went to send a message via Galleria.

  Hello dear friend. This might sound strange, but there’s a man here who says he’s your husband. Is everything okay?

  She hesitated before sending it.

  Then she waited, putting her phone down and pacing up and down the room.

  Her phone chimed a moment later. She had an answer. Helen at last.

  Only the message wasn’t from Helen. Orla gasped as she read it.

  This is Luke on Helen’s phone. I really need to talk to you.

  Orla usually liked to take a walk on the beach just as the sun was going down, but that wretched man was still there. He’d been sitting in his van for a while, perhaps listening to the radio, but it looked like he was staying the night. He was practically laying siege to her castle and he probably realised that she’d have to come out at some point.

  For the first time in her life, Orla cursed having a dog. If it wasn’t for One Ear, she could happily manage without surfacing for at least a week. But there was no way she was going to leave the safety of the castle tonight. One Ear would have to make do with a quick run in the garden.

  ‘Come on, boy,’ she said, tapping her side. The great beast, whom nobody else had wanted to take away with them from the rescue centre, was up from his mattress like a cannon being fired.