Page 9 of All Our Missing Pieces

I’d almost given up and decided to send a text when Orla opened the door.

She was wearing what I was almost sure were the same camel-coloured wide-legged trousers I’d seen below her coat the first time I met her, and a bright red jumper in fine wool. There were small gold hoops in her ears and her short hair was tousled, her face free of make-up.

She didn’t seem at all surprised to see me.

‘Livvie.’ She smiled. ‘I hoped you’d come and here you are.’

‘Hello.’ I felt an answering smile over my face. ‘I thought – I wanted to come and see the room.’

‘Of course. Come in. I’m glad you waited, because it’s all ready for you now.’

She turned and I followed her into the long hallway. A flight of stairs rose above us at its end and I caught a glimpse of a black cat sitting watching us, before it darted away.

To my left, I could see a closed door; to my right, another door leading to a room that seemed to be little more than a building site – or a bomb site. Planks of wood were propped up against the walls, cans of paint littered the floor and a ladder stood in the centre of it all like a heron watching over a pond.

‘Don’t look,’ Orla urged. ‘It gets better.’

So I averted my eyes from the room that opened up ahead of us, focusing instead on the stairs – bare wood, scuffed and paint-stained, each one dipping in the centre where centuries of feet had trod.

‘So when did you buy the house?’ I asked as we began to climb.

‘I didn’t.’ Orla’s voice came back to me over the sound of a power tool whirring to life somewhere. ‘I inherited it. It was my grandmother’s. Well, my grandparents’, but he’s been dead more than fifty years. To be honest I barely knew it existed – my grandmother never mentioned it. I think she was distressed by its… by what happened here. I was abroad when she died and not expecting anything to come to me, anyway, so it took a while for her solicitors to…’

The noise increased and I couldn’t catch what she said next, so I answered, ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’

‘Yes. Thank you.’ Orla led the way on to a landing. More doors opened up off it, and I could see rooms that must once have been grand and spacious but were now poky, divided up by makeshift walls into little more than cubbyholes. There were curling carpet tiles on the floor and suspended tiles on the ceilings, many of them suspended only by a corner.

‘Have you lived here long?’ I asked as she turned and began climbing yet another flight of stairs.

‘It’s been several weeks now. To be honest, I was a bit overwhelmed when I first saw it – I didn’t know where to begin. But then Luke came, and it feels – not achievable, exactly, but not entirely unachievable either.’

‘It’s quite the project,’ I said, remembering the TV show Emily was addicted to watching. ‘A real Grand Design.’

Orla laughed. ‘That’s what Luke said. But we’re a long way from designing anything. Now, here’s the bathroom – it’s one of the better bits.’

She tapped on a closed door, presumably in case Luke – whoever he was – was inside, waited a second and then opened it. I gasped. The bathroom was bigger than my bedroom in the house in Mile End, but almost entirely empty. The floor was bare boards, the walls painted white. Sunlight poured in through a vast window that overlooked the garden – a tangle of brambles and trees, somewhere in which I could hear a blackbird singing. There was a vast claw-footed cast-iron bathtub in the middle of the room with a shower above it, rust staining its surface beneath the taps. Underneath the window was a porcelain washbasin on an ornate stand. Against the wall was a toilet with a wooden seat, a long flush chain hanging from its cistern.

Everything was spotlessly clean.

‘We had to get the basics sorted first.’ Hands on hips, Orla surveyed the room with satisfaction. ‘You’d have to share this with Luke and me for the time being, until we get the next one done.’

‘Is it just the two of you living here?’ I asked, hoping the answer could shed some light on who Luke actually was.

But it didn’t. ‘Us and Maud, the cat. I heard her crying in the street one night and invited her in, and she hasn’t left. Would you like to see your— the room that would be yours?’

‘Yes, please.’

I turned and stepped aside, waiting for Orla to take the lead again. She climbed another half-flight of stairs, this time to a landing with four doors leading off it. All were ajar, but she pushed open the one that I worked out would be at the front of the house, on the right-hand side.

‘Here you are.’ There was satisfaction in her voice – pride, even.

And I could see why. Even bigger than the bathroom, this room had the same wide hardwood floorboards, but these had been polished as well as sanded. Their smooth golden surface reflected the blue sky visible through two more sash windows. The walls were white with cornice mouldings, the ceiling high with a plaster rose at its centre. The smells of sawdust and paint hung in the air.

‘I love it,’ I gasped. ‘It’s beautiful. You must be so proud.’

I could hardly get the words out. Downstairs, the glimpses of dirt and disorder I’d caught had made me decide that this was a non-starter – however intrigued I was by Orla, I couldn’t live in such a place. But now I’d changed my mind completely.

This wasn’t a house that was slowly succumbing to neglect and apathy, sinking into ruin under the weight of forces stronger than I could ever be. I knew what that looked like, and it wasn’t this.