‘Hmm,’ Orla said, shaking her head. ‘Well, she hasn’t seen how forceful I can be when I think there’s a reason to be.’
He saw the fire in her eyes, the hot determination, like the passion he had seen reflected back when she had moved on top of him. He swallowed, the whisky burning his gut.
‘We need to do research,’ Orla said, slapping her hand to the counter. ‘We need to find out exactly what she’s facing and then we find out the facts and statistics. When people are presented with evidence it’s much more difficult to decide the other way.’
Like with his job. The risks he’d had to take to get absolute proof so there was no get-out clause for the gangs he had infiltrated.
‘And there’s so much more to wellness these days! When I was in the Amazon rainforest I spent time with this family who had managed to create all kinds of alternative medicines and I mean so seriously effective that a pharmaceutical company wanted to do research and, you know, perhaps if we talk to Delphine about natural treatments then she will be more open to it.’
Hope. Orla was spreading hope right now. And that was another thing that was at the heart of all her writing. He sighed, pulling out a chair and sinking down into it like his body was suddenly full of heavy mountain rock.
‘Why aren’t you saying anything?’ Orla asked him. ‘Because you can’t want this woman who cares so much about you to have one last Christmas and cease to exist? I mean, tell me I’m wrong, but she’s pretty much the only thing that’s been stopping you from turning into Howard Hughes.’
‘You are right,’ he answered, staring into his glass.
‘Then, what’s the problem? We should go now. Back down to the village. Talk to her.’
He shook his head. ‘Because if we went down there now and told her all these things, that would be for us and not for her. She has said this to me herself.’
‘Well, OK,’ Orla said, pulling out the chair opposite him and sitting in it. ‘I can see where you’re coming from but, you know, sometimes when people are presented with a new angle, a different perspective, then they have an opportunity to change their minds.’
‘I think the English word for this is “coercion”, no?’
‘I think that’s a bit of an extreme take on it.’
He looked up at her then. ‘I have spent a lot of time running around the edge of coercion, Orla. At the end of the day, no matter what we might think is for the best, people have to be able to make their own choices. Be it good or bad.’
‘I know that!’
‘Do you?’
‘Of course!’
‘Like when you are putting Band-Aids across your parents’ marriage? Or when you are telling Erin how she should feel about the man in her phone?’
He watched her eyes cloud over at his words, the fire extinguishing like the flame of a candle when it’s snuffed. He hadn’t wanted to do that, he had wanted to jump on the wave of her enthusiasm and ride it with her.
‘You think we shouldn’t try to help people? Isn’t that what you’ve also done in your job?’
‘I didn’t say we shouldn’t try to help.’
‘Then what?’
‘Just that, “helping” is very different to “fixing”.’
‘You think I’m a fixer.’
‘I think you find it hard to accept that sometimes, no matter what you do, people have to be allowed to make mistakes, to make bad choices, to fail even.’
‘Oh, right,’ Orla said. ‘So you feel qualified to make these statements now just because we’ve slept together?’
He shook his head, inhaling through his teeth. ‘Not at all. But at least you are acknowledging that it happened.’
‘I didn’t evernotacknowledge it,’ she clarified. ‘I just chose not to parade it around my impressionable sixteen-year-old sister.’
‘Because you think it was something you should hide and be ashamed of?’
‘Because we haven’t known each other very long and I don’t do that sort of thing and I’ve been trying to tell her not to think about doing that sort of thing with the Albanian in her phone.’
