With that in mind, she headed to the kitchen. It was one of her favourite places in the castle – a large square room on the first floor with two huge windows looking out over the garden. There was a beautiful old butler sink and a massive range that she had been terrified of at first, but which she was now coming to love.
Pulling a pan down from a rack, she started gathering ingredients. Bill had left her some fresh spinach and a spring cauliflower pulled from the garden and she’d got some potatoes left over from her shopping delivery. What was more hearty or heartening than a soup made from all that was good in the season?
Orla had been surprised at how much she enjoyed cooking for herself. In her previous life, cooking just hadn’t been feasible with her busy timetable and a hot meal at home had meant buttered toast but, since her move to Lorford, she found that she enjoyed browsing through cookbooks and assembling different ingredients. She’d even bought herself a spice rack, and she always delighted in plucking the little glass jars from it.
Getting to work now, she washed and chopped, inhaling the earthy goodness of her garden ingredients and hoping it would do Luke some good once he was ready to eat. Once the pan was on the range, Orla walked back through to the great hall. The light was just right now, lancing through one of her favourite windows onto a little oak table. It had a wonderfully mellow patina, with chestnut highlights, and was silky smooth to the touch. It made the perfect backdrop to so many of her still lifes and she was going to use it now for this morning’s Galleria post.
The day before, a new box had arrived full of china purchased from an online auction. It had been a job lot and some of the pieces were commonplace, but there were a couple of really beautiful Royal Albert cups and saucers that she knew she had to have for her collection. They looked exquisite when she placed them on the table in the sunlight, as she’d known they would when she’d seen them advertised.
Orla had to admit that she’d become rather addicted to online auctions. First, there was the thrill of the chase – of hunting those beautiful items down. Then there was that delicious moment when they arrived at the castle – the weight of the box, the heaps of bubble wrap and tissue paper which made it feel like a little Christmas on a perfectly ordinary day. Then there was the joy of seeing and handling the pieces for the first time, examining the shapes, colours and all the little imperfections that made each piece unique and beloved. Orla never tired of it.
Now, as she chose and positioned one of the Royal Albert teacups and saucers, she congratulated herself on her special find, marvelling at the way the light hit the gold rim of the cup and how gloriously rich the burgundy, pink and yellow roses looked against the dark oak of the table. She remembered reading the description at the online auction and how they had listed all the little chips and hairline cracks, probably believing that these would put people off. Of course, this was the very thing Orla looked for and she gazed at the little chip on the elegant curl of the cup handle. She touched it with a finger, feeling its roughness where it should have been smooth.
Like my own skin, she thought to herself, not for the first time. Briefly, her fingers touched her left cheek, feeling the coarseness of it. It still made her wince, even though it had happened four years ago. But the horror of it would never leave her. Her face – the one her parents had given her – had gone for ever. In its place was an angry-looking, lumpy, bumpy mess. The right-hand side, the side that hadn’t been affected, had also lost its beauty, but to fear at the world around her.
Orla closed her eyes and tried to banish all thoughts of herself. She was learning to do that well these days. She was just beginning to control the fear and she was proud of the new life she had made for herself with her photography and her love of rescuing broken things. With that in mind, she picked up her camera and started photographing the teacup. When she’d first started this venture, it had been purely self-indulgent. She could see the beauty in broken things, but would anybody else care? Would she be making a fool of herself by putting her pictures online? That was one of the reasons, although not the main one, for her coming up with the identity Beautifully Broken.
At first, things had been slow. She’d gained a few followers, found a few accounts to follow herself, took more photographs and began interacting. It was the beginning of an incredible journey. For somebody who had turned away from the world, she had still managed to find a way back into it, albeit without physical interaction. But that was part of the attraction for her. She didn’t need to actually talk to people or be in the same room with them, because she’d really rather not be. But there was a part of her that still craved contact, that sharing of ideas, the exchanging of thoughts.
And how her number of followers had grown. Orla was amazed by it all and, increasingly, felt under pressure to deliver. She found that, if she didn’t post daily, messages would pop up asking her when her next post would be. It fascinated her that people were taking notice and were anxious for more of what she had to give them.
Putting her camera down, she took a few more photographs with her phone. She would then compare them and see which looked best and which she would choose to post. Hours could be lost in this simple task, but she was wholly absorbed and never begrudged a second. It had taken the place of the job she no longer did. This was her new work, although it didn’t earn her a penny. She’d been approached by several companies, offering her money for product placement because of the number of followers she now had on Galleria, but she had turned them down. She didn’t do this because she wanted to make any money from it, and doing so would complicate things. If she worked with people, they would have to know her real name, they would most likely want her address or her telephone number. They might even want to talk to her face to face. No, her art was her own private thing. She might share it with the world, but she was never going to share herself with the world ever again.
The next few minutes were spent looking at the photos she had taken, deleting the less than perfect ones and then comparing the few that she liked the most, making her selection and then uploading it to Galleria. Sometimes, she would take a series of photos in one session, formatting them and saving them in a file for use at a later date. Rainy-day photos, she called them, using them when perhaps inspiration was lacking. Of course, these photos weren’t seasonal ones. It would be very poor to use an out-of-season image – for example, one would never post a photograph of a bluebell wood once the bluebells were over. Users on Galleria were very strict when it came to such things. Seasonality was king. But a photograph of a teacup was seasonless and so many of Orla’s subjects could be used all year round.
Orla selected a few simple words to accompany her chosen photo. She didn’t use the most poetic of language as some Galleria users did, nor did she quote from literary tomes like others. Her words were simple, conveying her appreciation for her subject.
Mellow light and Royal Albert. A winning combination.
That was enough, she thought.
Hitting the upload button, Orla scrolled through the day’s offerings, smiling at her little window on the world, admiring the flowers in people’s gardens, the views from their windows and the scenes from the places they lived. Orla sometimes wondered if she could ever summon the courage to take part in normal life again. Could she ever open that great castle door with the intention of stepping out into the world? Could she ever venture further than the beach and go up to strangers again and trust them not to hurt her? Her mouth went dry just thinking about it, and so she tended not to. Galleria would be as close as she got to forging relationships. Even some of those hadn’t always felt safe and she’d found herself blocking some of the users who asked her too many questions.