Of course, when Orla had first arrived, she’d had a stream of visitors to the castle. Naturally, after sitting empty for five years, people were curious to see the new resident. Orla had quickly told them through the closed door that she didn’t receive visitors. People meant well, but she didn’t want them to mean anything at all. She just wanted to be left alone. There were a couple of particularly persistent callers. The vicar and a woman with a big bank of a bosom who was always carrying a wicker basket full of Tupperware. Orla dreaded to think what would happen if she let her into her home. She’d never be rid of her. She’d be back at some indeterminate time in the future to collect her Tupperware and use it as an excuse to drop something else off. No, Orla thought, neighbours meaning well and her leading a quiet life simply didn’t go hand in hand.
Life hadn’t always been so quiet, though. When she’d lived in London, she’d enjoyed socialising and had always had a full diary and a small circle of friends she enjoyed being with. Looking out of the castle window into the garden now, she couldn’t help comparing the view in her mind’s eye to the one she’d had in her London flat. The busy street lined with bus stops had been noisy with twenty-four-hour traffic and yet it had never really bothered her. It had just been a part of the city she’d loved.
And she had loved it. In the not-too-distant past. But all that had changed after the incident.
She closed her eyes. How long ago that old life of hers seemed, yet it was only a memory away. Although she didn’t think of it very often, she found herself smiling as she thought about it now – of the evenings spent drinking cocktails with her friends and long lunches with work colleagues in swish restaurants. And her work. How she’d loved her work in the photography studio. Why had she ever let that go?
Orla took a deep, stilling breath as she let the memories of the past fade. She liked her new life, didn’t she? She appreciated the quietness of being alone and the safety that the thick castle walls provided. Sometimes it did get a little too quiet, she had to admit that, but it was safe. Quiet meant safe, she told herself, and there were other ways to reach out to people. She’d slowly learned that over the last few years, dipping into the virtual world via the internet. It felt far more comfortable than the real one, and the people who joined her there lived at a safe distance and wouldn’t be likely to turn up on her doorstep. She might never meet these online friends, or even know their real names or where they lived, but she felt all the happier for that.
Sitting down on the old sofa in the great hall of the castle, Orla picked up her phone, logging on to Galleria. She’d been using the site for two years now and had tens of thousands of followers while following just a couple of hundred accounts herself. One of her favourites was Trees and Dreams. She couldn’t remember how she’d first discovered the account, but she’d been immediately captivated by the beautiful images there, spending many happy hours looking at the world through the eyes of the photographer, taking in the scenes of cool country lanes and the gentle folds of the Kent Weald landscape and the quirky photographs often taken from train windows. There was a softness to the pictures – a delightful delicacy that resonated from the screen and completely enveloped you so that you felt as if you’d entered the picture itself. And it wasn’t just the whimsical subject matter that made one feel like this – the frothing fields of cow parsley, the shimmering leaves of an oak tree – Orla felt that this photographer could take a picture of a barbed wire fence and make it seem beautiful. Actually, come to think of it, there was a photo of barbed wire, with a spider’s web sparkling with dew suspended across it.
As Orla visited the account now, she noticed that there hadn’t been an update from Trees and Dreams for a while and, now that she thought about it, there hadn’t been any messages from her for a while either, which was unusual. Perhaps she’d been away. Orla checked the date on the last photograph. It was over a month ago. In social media terms, that was an eternity. One could easily commit social media suicide if no postings were made within the space of a single week. The world rushed by in a mad fury and, if you didn’t make yourself heard, you could be quickly forgotten. But Orla hadn’t forgotten her online friend for, unlike so many other accounts she followed, she had struck up something of a friendship with the woman behind this one. No names had been exchanged, but she knew a little bit about her, like she was happily married to a builder who specialised in old buildings and that she was forever trying to persuade him to get a dog. Messages of warmth and mutual appreciation had flown between them. From what Orla could make out, Trees and Dreams did something in the city – something she never wanted to talk about but which obviously wasn’t making her happy. But her world outside her work was one full of joy and light. Orla had always encouraged her to pursue that.
Perhaps she should send her a message now, she thought. That wouldn’t be too intrusive, would it? It was one thing to send messages about one’s online account, but quite another to ask too many questions about one’s personal life. So Orla hesitated, then decided it would be best not to.
That was the only downside with virtual friends. One could never be sure what was really going on with them. For one thing, there was the time difference with friends based in other countries and continents. If you messaged them, they might not receive it for hours and, by then, it could be lost in a jumble of other messages. Then there were the vagaries of the internet, with connections often being lost in Lorford. Orla gave up hope of linking up successfully on some days, which often meant she didn’t talk to anyone either in real life or in the virtual one for days at a time. She also found the language of the internet very limiting. She did her best to express herself with a few brief but carefully chosen words, but it wasn’t the same as being in a room with someone, where the tone of your voice or a glint in your eyes could make all the difference to the way you communicated with somebody.
But she didn’t want to be in a room with people. This was her world now.
Orla sighed. Feeling at a loss as to how to reach out to her friend, she switched her phone off. Perhaps she’d check in again later.
Walking across to the window, she saw that a van was pulling up outside her gates. She kept them shut and the delivery men were used to taking any goods to the back door. She never answered the doorbell. Occasionally, a persistent delivery man would ring the bell a few times and hang around as if Orla was going to make an appearance and offer to sign for something, but that was never going to happen. Instead, she watched now as a young man got out of the van and opened the door at the back to retrieve a small box. Orla knew what it was – a very pretty cup and bowl she’d just bought at an online auction. She couldn’t wait to see it and to run her fingers over the little hairline cracks and the sweet chips along the rim which would catch the light when she photographed them.
She watched the man approach the castle. Suddenly, he glanced up at the very window where Orla was standing, causing her to shoot back into the shadows. She closed her eyes, waiting for the moment of panic to subside. She counted slowly, as she’d been told to do in such situations. The fear was only in her own mind. The man was outside. He wasn’t near her and he wasn’t going to come any closer than he already was. She knew that, and yet the fear felt real all the same.