She skimmed down the page and was then drawn back to a section, to read her mother’s words more slowly…
* * *
So if I got it wrong and you are very cross with me then will you please … at least walk with me through these pictures and these thoughts? If not now, then some time very soon?
Please…
* * *
Melissa took a while to register that the discomfort she was now feeling was from holding her breath. She exhaled. Breathed in and out more slowly. Had to concentrate for a while to get this natural rhythm going again.
She closed her eyes and leant back against the wall.
More stillness now as Sam’s snoring softened. Melissa stood up for a moment to examine her face in the mirror, narrowing her eyes at the large, dark circles. She sat back down on the toilet seat and tried to resist them. Other memories. The head teacher in school.
I’m fine. Honestly, Mrs Pritchard. I just don’t want to talk about it. OK?
Pluto with a very large tongue in Disneyland. Scones with jam and cream in Cornwall. Some debate over whether it was cream first or jam first. And now she was unsure if these images were real either. From memories or conjured from her father’s photo albums?
She could feel this terrible sadness seeping into the room and with it the beginning of a panic. The familiar tight, tight knot of anger. She closed her eyes but it was still there. An image suddenly of kicking and screaming. Something dropping to the floor. A doll?
She was starting to feel just a little bit dizzy and was thinking that she could probably do with a hot drink after all. Sweet tea, maybe. Yes – sugar, Melissa; when…
‘Aaaaagh!’
‘What the…’
‘Shit, Sam.’ Her heart pounding instantly from the adrenaline rush – only just stopping the book falling from her knees, the door now a foot ajar. ‘You scared the life out of me.’
‘Sorry. I’m sorry. But what on earth are you doing, Melissa? Do you realise it’s four o’clock in the morning? What’s that?’
Through the gap in the door, he was staring at the book. She shut it and put it quickly into her bag.
‘Oh nothing. Just some notes for work. Something I forgot to do. It was on my mind.’
‘Work? At four o’clock in the morning?’
‘I’m sorry. Sorted now. You know me. Worry bunny. I couldn’t sleep.’
Sam was now running his tongue around his mouth, glancing back at the bed – alongside which was a glass of water. Frowning. Eyes heavy.
‘You sure you’re OK, Melissa? You look a bit odd.’
‘I’m just tired. Too much wine. Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.’
‘Look, I really need a drink. You want some water?’
‘I might make tea actually,’ Melissa stood up, clutching her bag, and to avoid his eyes moved quickly through to the bedroom and then the kitchen, the door squeaking as she called back over her shoulder. ‘Quick cup of tea then we really must get some sleep.’
6
MAX – 2011
Max Dance ran for his life. He ran for his sanity and he ran for the sake of his colleagues. An in-joke at work. On any day that he did not run, he was apparently out of sorts.
‘Missed your run, did you Professor?’
Max knew very well that this had nothing to do with endorphins and everything to do with the same OCD nonsense that saw his grown-up daughter display the mugs on her kitchen shelf in neat sections according to their colour.
‘You do know that we are a pair of bloody misfits,’ he said regularly to her over their monthly dinners as she fiddled with the cutlery until it was perfectly straight. All the angles and spacing precisely to her liking.
‘Yeah – but it works, Dad. You run. I tidy. This is what we do. Why fix it when it isn’t broken?’
Not broken?
That they were close was never in any doubt in Max’s mind. He saw far more of Melissa than many of his friends seemed to see of their children once they left home. It was only the taboo that troubled Max.
Your mother would have loved this.
At their monthly dinners – always an Italian restaurant by mutual preference – he would keep it up. Dropping in the little asides.
Your mother loved seafood.
While in turn Melissa would resist. Distract. Clown.
Only once had he pressed it. Why is it, I can’t even mention her in front of you without all this defensiveness? This atmosphere?
And you really think it would help if we wallow?
‘Do you think I wallow?’ he had asked Sophie just last month. ‘Is that what I do over Eleanor? Wallow?’
Sophie was the other symptom along with the running which made Max worry about his life.
Sophie was an artist with an unusual eye for colour and a most unusual take on the world. For the last five years he met her once a month for dinner and sex – a no-strings liaison (strictly her terms) which, in its limitations, was both perfect and completely disastrous all at the same time.
This morning Max set the alarm for six thirty to get his run in before taking Melissa and Sam to the airport. It had taken some persuading – to get Melissa to accept the offer – but what was the point of working your way to Dean of Faculty if you could not wangle your way out of lectures?
The truth? Max hated that he was no longer the one to share a birthday dinner with his daughter. Spooky that they had the same birthday – her and Sam. But there it was.
He liked Sam actually. He liked especially that he made Melissa so happy. But it had still been a huge adjustment after so many years when it was just the two of them.
In the shower after his run, Max checked his watch and realised he had pushed it. Tight for time now. In the car, his shirt was sticking to his damp back as he listened to the latest on the Eurozone Crisis. Greek’s plea for a second bailout was still at stalemate. Max was thinking Cyprus could well be next. Maybe he should warn Melissa to take some dollars or sterling? Just in case. No. Stop panicking.
Max switched to a music channel, checked his watch then and prayed for no hold-ups south of the river. He texted ahead to say he should be no more than 15 minutes late, but they were still watching out anxiously from the window as he pulled up outside the block, and appeared almost instantly on the pavement.
‘What the bloody hell is that?’ Max kissed his daughter as Sam struggled behind her with the most fantastic piece of luggage he had ever seen.
‘Don’t you start. I have had enough grief already from Sam.’
‘I’m not surprised. So what’s the plan here?’ Max stepped back to examine the case more closely. ‘To live in it?’
‘Shut up,’ she punched his arm playfully as Sam wheeled the monster toward the boot.
‘And belated happy birthday. To both of you.’
‘Thank you.’
It was only then that Max clocked just how exhausted they both looked.
‘Heavy night on the juice, was it guys?’
Melissa grimaced.
Max checked her face more closely and knew to ask no more. Max knew all his daughter’s faces.
They made good time – the traffic light – and Max felt the familiar anxiety as he pulled into the drop-off point. ‘You’ll text me when you land?’
‘Sure.’
She wouldn’t.
‘And we’re on for our regular dinner when you get back?’ He would track the flight online.
‘Yes of course – Dad. On the calendar.’
‘And we’ll talk then. You know – about the freelance contract. You haven’t made a decision?’
Melissa, only just finishing her training as a journalist on the local paper, had the unexpected offer of a try-out on a national. A big call. Local job with pension versus freelancing.
‘I’m bumping it until after the holiday. In fact I’m bumping everything until after the holiday.’
Max got out briefly, brushed imagined fluff from his trousers and eventually stretched out his hand
to Sam. ‘You look after her.’
‘Dad.’
‘Sorry, darling.’
Melissa then kissed him hurriedly on the cheek, checking her watch. ‘Look. I really am sorry but we need to dash.’
Max glanced again at the huge grey case and shook his head. ‘You have a lovely time.’
‘We will.’
At the university later, Max made himself the treat of a large cafetière of coffee and tried very hard not to worry; to prepare himself instead for Anna’s arrival.
Anna was the school’s newest seminar leader. She had started in the summer term and was now grappling admirably with a timetable chock-a-block with freshers. A couple of times each week she touched base with Max to talk through progress and the following week’s plans. Max had been right about her appointment. She was keen, bright and ambitious; though there was now a problem he had not foreseen.
Max braced himself, closing his eyes to the smell of the coffee. Ten to noon and right on cue – the click of her heels in the corridor, then the knock on his door which was already ajar.
‘Come in.’
And then – there it was again.
‘Morning Max.’
The lurch.
‘Sorry. Good afternoon, I should say. Christ. Where does the time go in this place?’ she was staring down at a single sheaf of paper.
Max had tried to convince himself that it was his imagination. The lurch to his stomach. But no. It had happened three times now for three consecutive meetings. First sighting. Cue lurch.
Today she was wearing cream linen trousers with a burgundy wrap top. There was the tiniest flicker of a thin pink silk bra strap showing on her left shoulder as she tightened a large tortoiseshell clasp holding her hair up.
Max shifted uncomfortably and looked away. Never again would he date anyone at work.
‘You got time for a quick run through this, Max?’ she was now leafing through more paperwork in a black zipped case in her hand and Max guessed it would be more on the plans she was championing for a series of lectures she was hoping to lead the following year. He approved; this ambition – the very reason she had got the job. The proposal had both academic merit with the welcome (and these days essential) bonus that it would almost certainly be a hit with foreign students. Keep the money men happy.
But that was not what Max was thinking. What he was thinking was that Anna Merrivale smelt of baby’s talcum powder. He had noticed that last week also. Not grown-up perfume – but baby’s talcum powder.
‘Won’t take five minutes. Promise.’
Max took a very long slurp of coffee and glanced to the window, trying very hard not to look at the peak of bra strap. Not long until take-off and now he was working out in his head what time he could relax. Check online that Melissa had landed safely.
‘Sorry. Is this not a good time, Max?’
* * *
Cheese Straws
4 oz plain flour
2oz butter
2 oz mature cheese (best you can afford)
1 egg yolk
Salt and cayenne pepper to taste
Cold water
* * *
Preheat oven to 200. Season flour with the salt and cayenne pepper and rub in the butter. Mix together with cheese, egg yolk and water to make a stiff dough. Roll out pastry thinly and cut into narrow strips. Place on greased baking tray and cook for 10-15 minutes until a pale golden colour. Cool slightly on the tray and then transfer to wire rack to finish cooling.
Second recipe and I am feeling a little less panicky, Melissa. I am hoping that, by now, you will be calmer and more understanding of what I am trying to share here.
Do you like the picture? It’s from a while back – the first time we made these together. I have chosen the cheese straws next because I am hoping that you will remember the ‘Jaw’s Straws’ saga?
A recap – just in case. Cheese straws have always been one of your Dad’s favourites. He likes them to ‘bite back’ so I tend to go heavy on the cayenne. So the first time that you and I made them together I came up with this little joke. The ‘Jaws Straws’… which would bite him back a little harder than he bargained for. (You will recall it was your father who ‘accidentally’, ahem, let you see Jaws far too young. Enough said.)
Is this coming back now?
We made the usual couple of dozen straws and then to three of the strips I rolled inside a huge quantity of really strong cayenne – right through the middle.
Oh Lordy! I thought we had given him a heart attack. Of course we hadn’t. Though it was so worth it. Can’t tell you how happy it makes me, Melissa, to think of how hard we all laughed. Your dad too…
And that’s the point of this second scribbling. I really don’t want you to be hanging onto all the sad bits. Especially with me popping up out of the blue like this.
I do so hope you will remember how much we laughed. And that I hope your lives – both you and Dad – are full of it still. Laughter.
Tricky for me this because I write, assuming that he will be with someone else by now and I want to tell you that I am completely OK with that. More than OK. I have tried to discuss this with him but it’s too hard. So if he is being too fussy, have a word – won’t you?
And while we’re on the topic of princes (and frogs) – I rather wonder where you will be? Much too young to be worried if it has not come good yet, of course but be reassured that – well – we all kiss a few frogs. Gawd. I did.
* * *
Eleanor leant back in her seat to review the page and, as always, blow gently on the ink to dry the final lines. She twisted her mouth then and felt suddenly guilty. She had promised honesty. The truth? It made her physically sick to even think about it. Max with someone else.
Eleanor went over to the window to see him appear around the corner. As always, he stopped just shy of the door to bend down, palms on bent knees. She smiled, taking in every little bit of him. The mad hair. The slightly dodgy shorts. The huffing. The puffing.
Max did not realise that she watched from the window as he did this – tried to recover his breath, and with it his pride, before he came inside. He had taken up running soon after her diagnosis. At first he ran to burn off his anger. Now he ran every single day, setting off earlier and for longer during the spells when chemo put the physical side of their marriage on hold.
It wasn’t rocket science.
Eleanor badly missed making love too. Only now – watching him and wishing that she could run it off also – did she feel it properly. The realisation there was only one thing worse than imagining Max with someone else.
And that was imagining him alone.
7
MELISSA - 2011
They met as children – Sam and Melissa – a story that so polarised people that on that long flight Melissa again watched Sam sleeping and did what she could never help. Overthinking.
Turns out he had been mesmerised by her from the very beginning. He had watched her and befriended her and quietly looked out for her right through their schooling – Melissa blissfully unaware it was anything more than friendship until very much later.
One camp of friends saw this as romantic. Others not so much: ‘So you two took precisely how long to get together?’
One of Melissa’s journalist pals had just a month back said out loud what others were clearly thinking. ‘Are you sure you haven’t – you know – settled for Sam?’
Melissa was thrown, not because she cared a jot what other people thought but because she suddenly worried that, deep down, this might be precisely what Sam thought. The upshot was she had in recent weeks made a point of at least trying to say more often how much he meant to her.
‘You do know that I love you, Sam...’
Small wonder he had suddenly proposed.
Melissa crossed her legs, adjusting the lever holding the food tray in place to a perfect 180 degrees and then reaching across quietly to do the same to Sam’s. Shit. She had wanted to reassure him and ended up doing
precisely the opposite. She took out the flight magazine from the pocket and again began to not read it.
She was trying now not to think about the dreadful kerfuffle at the check-in desk. Melissa closed her eyes. All her fault – the giant suitcase rejected on the grounds it exceeded the maximum weight for a single item of luggage. Her swearing and distraught then – certain the holiday was now off. Sam rolling his eyes but then quickly solving the crisis by buying a soft bag from the nearest kiosk and transferring all the heaviest shit from the case. This had, alarmingly, included the grey silk zipper pouch containing her mother’s book, and Melissa had panicked. Almost told Sam about it on the spot because she didn’t want the journal crushed in the smaller, bright pink bag. But no. She very much needed to read it on her own first. To work out, also on her own, how the hell she was going to tell her father…
The words on the in-flight magazine now blurred. A metallic jangling sound then drew Melissa’s eye to the end of the aisle where the cabin crew were setting up the drinks trolley.
Four and a half hours…
The other shock. She had no idea the flying time to Cyprus was so long. That had amused Sam also, as she had grabbed the flight magazine for the map when the pilot confirmed it over the intercom.
Did you not check the map when we booked this, Melissa?
Of course I checked…
Melissa glanced again at Sam, now so deeply asleep that even the noise of the trolley did not stir him.
The truth?
Her reaction to the whole proposal thing was irrational, confusing and a bloody mess. Melissa did not understand herself why she was so unsure about getting married and so had not the foggiest chance of explaining it to anyone. In the restaurant, she had argued that it shouldn’t matter. Only a piece of paper. But she could see this now stirring the same old doubts about their history.
Only for her, it wasn’t about doubt; at least not doubt over Sam. It was about something else. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on yet and didn’t actually want to think about…
Recipes for Melissa Page 3
