by Graham West
“I doubt it. It would have either been scrapped or donated to various charitable organisations over the years.”
I thanked the reverend and went back to my letters, waiting for Jack Staple to return my call.
***
Jenny began to cry when I told her the news that evening. She looked so pathetic, sitting up in her bed in her white gown with a copy of Hello on her side table. “It must be her,” she said emphatically. “She looks crazy, Dad. Anyone would think she was a mad woman.”
“But you don’t?”
“I…I don’t know. Perhaps she is… But…” Jenny hesitated. “There’s more to it. She’s so angry—so restless…but she’s not a bad person. I just know in my heart.”
My daughter read over the fifth letter and looked up at me. Her eyes flashed in anger.
“That priest—that Allington bloke—he was guilty as hell!”
“We don’t know that for sure,” I replied with little conviction.
She tapped the letter angrily with her forefinger. “His wife knew something was going on. It’s obvious! And then this woman appears from nowhere, accusing the vicar of something, and his wife believes her! Why?”
I shrugged. “Because she’s crazy?”
Jenny glared at me. “Men! You’re all the same. Listen, Dad, he was up to something. She suspected him! There must have been a good reason.”
I didn’t argue. I didn’t even want to argue. Jenny’s theory was hardly watertight but it was quite possible. She closed her eyes and sighed wearily. “The thing is, Dad…where do we go next?”
“Jack Staple might be able to shed some light on the Stanwicks,” I said brightly.
Jenny looked thoughtful, her hazel eyes fixed on the letters that lay strewn across the bed. “There’s something I need to ask you, Dad,” she said. “And I want you to tell me the truth.”
I couldn’t have possibly known what was on my daughter’s mind, yet I felt the strength drain from my legs. “This sounds serious,” I said, lowering myself slowly onto the bedside chair.
She pulled out a note pad from under her pillow. “I asked for this,” she said. “I keep it beside me, just in case Amelia gets inside my head and…”
“Like the fridge alphabet?” I interrupted.
“Yep…something like that. Sometimes I just go into a kind of daydream…”
“And is there anything? Has she contacted you?”
Jenny looked at me. “I think so.”
“Are you going to tell me?”
Jenny nodded and opened the notepad “It’s just a name…I found myself writing a name.” She paused, as if the question was being torn from her lips by a force beyond her control. “Dad, who is Melissa?”
There was no hint of accusation in my daughter’s tone, no look of mistrust in her eyes. It was just a question to which she had no answer. But now Jenny was watching me squirm under her gaze. It was no time for lying. If we were going to get through this, I had to tell her the truth.
Chapter Eighteen
Elizabeth and I had been married six years and had managed to scrape enough money together for our first holiday abroad. Most of the money we earned had been spent on the house—installing a new kitchen, replacing old furniture passed on by well-meaning family, and installing a new central-heating system. We had worked well as a team. We were happy.
Two days before we flew out to Cyprus, Elizabeth decided that I needed a haircut. My regular barber was away, leaving a rather gawky, acne-faced youth in his place. I decided to give him a miss and opted for the unisex salon at the local shops. I had been assured that these days, men could frequently be found in these establishments.
I found myself seated in front of a wall-sized mirror with a room full of females and, after a young girl who sounded as if she had only just finished school offered me a coffee, I began to relax. The coffee was good—free—and I was halfway through it when a young woman appeared behind me.
“Mr. Adams?” she said brightly. “I’m Mel. What can I do for you?”
There was a seductive air behind the breezy tone that captivated me. She was beautiful, and yet it was almost as if her appearance was of no consequence to her. Her shoulder length raven hair framed her perfect face—a beautiful, olive complexion—and there was no visible sign of any make-up. Her skin smelled dusky and sweet, and her eyes…I still recall those eyes.
Melissa Ingram had spent much of her time travelling, trotting the globe by any means of transport she could find. She told me about tiny Nepalese villages, African huts, New Year’s Eve in Sydney, and Summer in New York, the bohemian quarters of Paris and a cottage in the highlands of Scotland where she lived off the land for nearly three months. I listened, wondering if there was any part of my life worth mentioning, but before my input was required, the job was done. My hair was short, my eyebrows trimmed and my neck brushed.
“There you go, Mr. Adams,” she said, patting my shoulder. I paid up, and gave the girl a generous tip, but in the days that followed, her face haunted me. Throughout the holiday, Elizabeth held my hand, infused with the romance of the Mediterranean sunsets and the soft salsa rhythms—but in my mind, it was Melissa’s hand I held, and my imagination ran wild each time we made love. I could only feel the soft raven-black hair of the girl who I imagined had never given me a second thought.
With time, the memory would fade—that was what I believed—but I was restless in the knowledge that this mere woman had only been elevated to the status of a goddess in my mind. Maybe if I saw her one more time it would confirm that she was no more than a pretty girl on a good day. Two days after arriving home, I made my way to the salon.
It was a Friday, just past lunch, and the kids were going back to school. I pulled up outside the unisex salon and waited. Three girls arrived, opened up, and closing the door behind them as they disappeared inside. There was no sign of Melissa. I left, returning at lunchtime the following day, and went to the cash machine, punching in my code and waiting for the machine to process my request. That’s when I felt a hand on my shoulder; I swear to God, I recognised that touch.
“Mr. Adams, isn’t it? Remember me? I cut your hair.”
Remember her? If only she had known. “Of course. Melissa. The globetrotter!”
She laughed, looking pleased with my powers of recollection. “I’m sorry about that, but I love a captive audience. Just don’t ask to see the photos!”
I couldn’t think of an answer. My mind was playing tricks, and the super highway connecting my brain and my mouth was gridlocked. Melissa was looking past me.
“Er…hadn’t you better—”
“What?”
“Your money?”
The machine gave up on me just as I reached to grab the wad of cash, snatching it back with an impatient mechanical whir.
Melissa laughed again. My goddess, as beautiful as she had ever been in my mind. The madness of love, of infatuation, of obsession. It had brought down presidents and kings, and now, for the first time, I understood why. Melissa began to walk away, but I couldn’t let her go.
“I wondered if…” I called after her.
She stopped and turned.
“I’d like to hear some more…you know…about your trips…”
She frowned. I was losing her. “Really?”
The brief silence that hung between us felt like a lifetime before finally she shrugged her shoulders and said, with little enthusiasm, “Sure, why not?”
***
And that’s how it all began. Melissa pulled me into her world of Eastern mystics and ancient Mayan tribes. I loved her free spirit. She was beautiful, intelligent and engaging. We made love for the first time in her modest two-bedroom flat on a Saturday afternoon and, as in everything else she did in life, it was with an energy and passion I’d never known.
We lay naked on her bed as the early evening sunlight streamed through a gap in the curtains, and I believed that my life had begun again. It was love, but it was a destructive love—a b
eautiful tree that blossomed at the expense of everything that lived within the radius of its roots. I began to resent Elizabeth. Then I began to hate her. She had little ambition, accepting her life, tied to the home and the routine it demanded. I no longer saw the need. Melissa was free, having somehow escaped the clutches of a society that demanded we settle in our little brick boxes. The banks sold us their mortgages, the high street their furnishings, the garages and their cars, trapping us in a world that led us to believe that our worth was measured by the things we possessed. Before many of us reached thirty, we were chained to our jobs, trapped by our own materialism.
Melissa had seen it coming. As a girl, in her late teens, she had decided to reject the life her parents had chosen—parents who had rarely ventured beyond the shores of their own island.
My days at the office grew longer, my temper shorter. The idle gossip of my colleagues drove me to distraction; the girls, with their obsession with silicone tits and plastic faces, filled me with despair.
I needed to escape. I drove to the salon after work, calling Liz to tell her I’d be late. Melissa was surprised to see me.
“I need to speak to you,” I said as she climbed into the passenger seat beside me.
Mel frowned. “Is this bad?”
“No. I don’t think so, anyhow.”
There was a silence before she said, “Go on, then—shoot!”
I explained that it could wait until we were back at her flat. We’d have a couple of hours before the girl she shared it with returned. That would be enough. I felt the ring in my pocket and I prayed.
***
The flat was typically untidy. I’d almost grown to like that. “Make yourself a drink, I’m going to get into something more comfortable—then you can tell me your news!”
I poured myself a mineral water from a bottle in the fridge and sipped it, trying to clam my jangling nerves. Melissa didn’t take long, and it was obvious what was on her mind as she stood before me in a see-through negligée.” OK. What is it?”
I took a deep breath. “I’m leaving Liz!” That was it. The news was out. It was the beginning—the beginning of the end. If I’d expected Melissa to throw her arms around me and play the grateful mistress, I’d totally misjudged her. The memory of that icy glare chills me even now.
“You what?”
“I—I thought you’d be pleased,” I stammered, feeling a bead of sweat trickle down my neck.
“Pleased? Why would I be pleased?”
“We can be together—married—I want to marry you.”
Melissa could have struck me dead with her withering look. “Oh, I get it! I can sign a form and become your property, just like Liz!”
She killed the stereo with the remote and flung it on the chair. “You really don’t know me at all, do you, Rob? I’m not wife material. I don’t even understand the concept of marriage! Why should two people vow to share their love with no one else for the rest of their lives? Why? Can you tell me?”
I shook my head meekly as my world began to fall apart.
“And you’re hardly an advert for the constitution, are you?”
My shock turned quickly to anger and then to lust. She stood before me, the outline of her body tantalisingly visible beneath her negligée. I reached out, pulling my mystic princess towards me, and our rage melted. If I had nothing else—if there was nothing else—then I had this. Our love-making was frantic and almost violent, but inside I knew it was the last time I’d ever touch her.
***
Liz had watched me turning into a monster, lashing out, fighting for his freedom, and that evening, I’d hardly spoken to her, choosing to skip tea in favour or the whisky bottle. I felt physically sick. I needed a shower but knew that I would be washing away Melissa. I took small comfort in breathing her scent and hoping, with time, she would return.
I found Elizabeth crying in the kitchen. She spun round when she heard me pouring another glass. “Who is it, Robert?” she said, spitting out the words. “Who the fuck is it?”
“Her name is Melissa,” I replied before I could stop myself.
Liz staggered back, gripping the handle of a cupboard to steady herself. The colour drained from her face; her lips moved but formed no words. Then, quite suddenly, she closed her eyes, turned to the kitchen sink and threw up. I had never felt so utterly wretched, dealing with my own pain while knowing that I was destroying the woman I once loved.
There were no words. Elizabeth pushed past me, throwing herself on the chair, sobbing uncontrollably. It was at least fifteen minutes before she began to ask the questions every wife wants to know. Why? How? Where? I spared no detail, I couldn’t. It was best that she knew the truth. I was not going to give up on Melissa. Not yet, maybe never.
***
The following day, I rose early and drove round to Melissa’s flat before work. I had more news for her. I’d told Elizabeth about us and we were starting divorce proceedings. But when I pressed the buzzer, it was Rose, Mel’s flat mate, that called me up on the intercom.
I was greeted by a heavily set woman with a bob of mousy-blonde hair, dressed in a white blouse and navy pleated skirt. She looked flustered as she waved me through the door.
“I’m sorry,” she said, glancing into a small wall mirror and flicking her hair. “You must be Rob. Have you left something?”
“Left something? No. I’ve come to see Mel.”
Rose turned, looking perplexed. “Mel? Didn’t she tell you?”
I felt the knife twisting in my gut. The same knife that Melissa had plunged into my stomach the day before. “Tell me what?”
Rose shook her head. “Typical! Bloody typical!”
“What?”
“She’s gone! She said she was going to tell you!”
“Gone? Gone where?”
Rose looked exasperated. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Rob, stick a pin in the fucking map—I haven’t got a clue!”
“You mean anywhere? Anywhere in the world?”
“Yes! And she’s gone with three weeks’ rent! I’ll tell you something, Rob, she’s left me in the shit. I’ll have to find that money and a new flatmate pretty damn sharpish or I’ll be out on the street!”
She looked at me accusingly.
“Why did you have to get so serious? I mean, marriage for God’s sake! Marriage!”
“I thought that’s what she’d want…we were good together, you know…”
Rose smiled sarcastically. “Sex? Well, maybe Mel just wanted to fuck a nice guy for a change!”
She saw the look of confusion on my face. “Nice?”
“Yeah. Nice. I’m nice, too, Rob, but you want to know summat? You and me—we’re like chocolate-box paintings in a modern art exhibition. The kind that everyone stops and admires but no one wants to take home.” She shrugged her shoulders and smiled sadly. “They want excitement. Vibrant colours and energy.” Rose sprayed some perfume into the air around her, breathed in and continued. “So guess what happens to us? We stay stuck on the fucking wall, that’s what!”
For the first time, I sensed sympathy.
“I can tell you’re a nice bloke, Rob. There’s something about you. Even though you’ve done a really shitty thing, you’re basically decent. You wouldn’t be the first guy to get trapped in Melissa’s web. But you need to go back to your nice wife and build a nice life with her. Have some nice kids and take them to Disney. I’ll still be here, looking for some bloke who doesn’t need a good-looking bird to boost his ego!”
Rose opened the door to what I assumed was a bedroom and disappeared. Drawers slammed and curses drifted through the walls. “Shit! Shit! Shit! Fucking keys!”
A notepad lay by the telephone but the scrawl drew my attention. It wasn’t a list of numbers but a kind of poem.
I lie by his table
I lie waiting. Like a dog
For what?
Scraps from his plate?
Scraps of what?
Of friendship? Of love?
&nbs
p; He would smile, occasionally.
But offer me nothing on which my heart could feed.
His indifference destroyed me.
It was worse than hatred.
If only…if only he had hated me.
I could have learned to hate him too.
I turned to find Rose staring at me, framed by the light pouring through her bedroom door. She smiled, and I saw the gentleness that lay beneath. “You see, we all have sadness in our lives, Robert,” she said softly. “We all have to deal with heartache.”
***
I must have walked for hours, my world shattered. Melissa had broken my heart, and the pain was physical. I left the marital home a day later and arrived on my parents’ doorstep with battered suitcase and an ache in my gut. My father could not bring himself to speak to me for at least two days. He would avert his reddened eyes every time I walked in the room, and when he did finally find his voice it was only to tell me that he was ashamed to call me his son.
The words choked him, and we both cried. I hated hurting my father. He had goodness running through his very core. He would never have been unfaithful, I knew that. I knew it with every fibre of my being, and his presence made me feel like a snake.
My mother would look at me with hope in her eyes; she possessed an inner strength that had brought her back from the brink of death with nothing more than a limp to show for it. Now, she was praying that her son would find the strength to put everything right. She asked about Melissa. Who was she? What did she do? What did I see in her? Was she worth all the pain? But she ate little, if anything, during my four-week stay, and by the time Liz and I had decided to give our marriage another chance, she was looking pale and gaunt.
I spent the first few weeks in the spare bedroom. Liz could accept nothing more than an arm around her shoulder, and often it felt as if the physical side of our marriage had gone forever. But as my obsession with Melissa faded, I found that my love for Liz was still there, lying beneath the turbulence of an uncontrollable passion. I saw Mel for what she was: a girl with no roots and no responsibility.
