‘Nothing, Melissa. You are a great map reader. I’m very much looking forward to it.’
She was pleased to see his spirits lifting; feeling more positive now. With the new pink bag and her mother’s journal safely in the boot, she was thinking that perhaps the trip was going to be OK after all. Time for her to deal with the journal and to build bridges also.
Melissa turned to Sam as he suddenly frowned at the new dashboard.
‘So when would you like to do Troodos, Sam?’ Yes. The break could be what they both needed.
‘Hadn’t really thought about it. Don’t mind.’ Sam pulled away, turning down the sun visor and experimenting with the indicators.
Just so long as the pact held. Their agreement after the restaurant was no spiralling into dramatic heart-to-hearts during this holiday. Sam had agreed to give Melissa time out on the proposal and she was thinking the Troodos trip could help them both. A distraction.
The route to their resort further north was, in the event, straightforward. Good signposting and the convenience of driving on the left meant Sam was adjusting more quickly than usual to the unfamiliar car.
Melissa reached out to stroke the back of his neck. ‘Well how about we settle in for a couple of days. Flop. And then do Troodos – say Monday?’
Sam turned to catch her eye, his expression softening.
Cyprus had been his idea from the off. They had each wanted somewhere hot to recharge their batteries after a busy stretch at work. But Cyprus meant Sam could also include a very personal gesture for his Grandfather Edmund. He had died eight months earlier, but in the weeks before his illness had been sharing with both Sam and Melissa his ambitious plans to write an autobiography.
Much as she liked Sam’s grandfather, Melissa had to bite away a smile as he asked how one went about acquiring a literary agent. And did she think it would sell well? His autobiography?
Diplomacy aside, the many ensuing conversations about his project became more interesting. The story was to include details of his time serving in the army in Cyprus in the late 1950s. After his grandfather’s death, Sam gained access to the files on his computer. He was very close to his family – Sam – and was very shaken by the story Edmund had wanted to share. He had shown Melissa all the research material and notes and there was one episode in particular – written up in draft form only – which had deeply moved them both.
During the Cyprus troubles of that period, the British Army was deployed to try to put down anti-British insurgents operating in the Troodos mountains. Edmund’s story centred on an early summer’s day when several different British battalions were operating in the same mountain area. On this particular day their boundaries became confused. Edmund never quite got to the bottom of it but the outcome was that one group of British soldiers fired on another and he witnessed a young soldier’s death as a result of this friendly fire.
‘I held him in my arms,’ he wrote. ‘Just a boy. I really had not noticed how young we all were until that very moment.’
Edmund’s notes explained that as a child in school he read a book on the First World War in which observers said soldiers often called for their mothers at the end. He had disapproved of the remark, dismissing it as sentimental. Pacifist propaganda designed to undermine recruitment. An insult to bravery. But in the draft of his story, Edmund’s attitude completely changed.
‘I must tell the truth here and the truth is this. He was just a boy – that lad in the Troodos Mountains. Nineteen tops. And it completely broke my heart because, in those final moments, he was very, very afraid, for all that we tried to do for him. And there is no shame in my telling you this, that he wanted one thing and one thing only in his final moments. Which, indeed, was his mother.’
Melissa became conscious of the discomfort from staring as she turned this line over and over in her head. She blinked several times at the dusty vegetation – just a blur as it raced past the car window.
‘Of course I don’t know where Granddad was stationed and where exactly it all happened,’ Sam was fumbling with the controls to try to find the windscreen wash. ‘But that doesn’t really matter, I guess.’
Edmund had written of his plan, once the book was finished, to revisit Cyprus and lay flowers for the soldier and his family. But that of course had never happened.
Sam’s idea was to make a trip into Troodos on his Grandfather’s behalf. He was explaining now to Melissa more details from his research; that the official British Cemetery was tricky to access and, in any case, the British dead were apparently buried in the ‘no-man’s’ land controlled by the UN, twixt the Cypriot south and Turkish-controlled north.
‘All a bit sensitive these days and I’m not for rocking the boat or upsetting anyone. I was thinking of something low key. You know – find a church. Light a candle. Pay respects. What do you think, Mel?’
‘Definitely. I told you. I think it’s a really lovely idea.’
‘OK then. Monday.’
Melissa still felt very tired herself on the drive but was surprised by a second wind as they arrived in the small and largely unspoilt resort of Polis to find their apartment even better than detailed online. It was spacious and had been completely refurbished since the photo shoot, with an airy sitting room, a vibrant colour scheme and a huge, modern bathroom tiled floor to ceiling. It had a small shared pool with cafe alongside and was walking distance from the beach.
There was just one problem now dawning as Melissa got her bearings, moving swiftly from room to room. The apartment was entirely open-plan. No door to separate the bedroom from the sitting area with its additional sofa bed. She had not noticed this when they booked and was wondering now how she would find the space and privacy to deal with her mother’s journal.
Melissa still felt uncomfortable keeping it from Sam. But she needed the space to get her head around it all before deciding if it was right to tell him before her father.
Sam liked a lie-in but could easily surprise her as he had last night, and any light, even the lamp, was bound to disturb him.
Melissa frowned and glanced through the patio doors. There was no way she would take the book to the pool. It could get wet; damaged. Also the terraces and sunbathing area were clearly visible from their balcony. She felt nervous suddenly, even thinking about the journal. The image of her mother writing it.
‘So you don’t mind, Mel, do you, if I take a stroll into town? Check out where to eat later?’ Sam, standing behind her, sounded sheepish – entirely unaware that this, their familiar arrival dynamic, was now to be a gift. Melissa liked to swim before unpacking while Sam liked to get his bearings. Did not settle until he had worked out the lie of the land.
‘Sorry?’
‘I was wondering if you minded me taking a recce? Earmark a restaurant.’
‘Oh right. No. Not at all. You go,’ Melissa smiled and then watched from the balcony as he turned the corner, pausing for a moment to run his hand through his hair – that familiar little gesture of self-consciousness. As ever, he was also looking upwards. Even as a child, Sam, the born architect, had done this – walked with a permanent tilt to his chin, forever checking out the buildings, the balconies and the rooftops. And now he was noticing the signposting to the town square, turning to disappear from view. Melissa took her mother’s book from the zipper case in the foul pink bag, heart racing to find that – no; it had not been crushed.
Cheese straws…
…and then to three of the strips I rolled inside a huge quantity of really strong cayenne…
Oh Lordy! I thought we had given him a heart attack. We hadn’t of course, and then how we laughed. That made it all so worth it. Can’t tell you, Melissa, how happy it makes me to think of it.
I do so hope you will remember how much we all laughed…
Melissa had been reading for ten, maybe fifteen minutes tops and closed the book on the shiny, pine table by the kitchenette – aware of the oddest sensation of returning. Back suddenly in this strange room. She sta
red down at the unfamiliar wood – a little too orange, its heavy lacquer stamped with circular stains from hot mugs – and was again struggling to find the scene that her mother had been describing. Jaws? She remembered some body board with a shark – at least she thought she did. There was a photograph of her carrying it in a frame at her father’s house, so maybe she was just remembering that? But – no. Try as she might, she could not work it out. Did not remember the joke with the cheese straws at all.
Melissa stood up and paced. She went over to the window, hands on her hips, to watch the activity by the pool. There was a father teaching his son to dive. Holding his stomach as he bent his back to the right angle, stretching out his arms straighter and pressing his hands together.
Melissa paced. To and fro, searching for the memory. But – no. She turned back to watch the child complete the dive, the father applauding as the boy surfaced.
So – where was it? Her picture?
She thought of Sam, always babbling with stories of larks and of laughs as kids with his older brother Marcus.
Melissa had read somewhere that most people could recall events from around the age of three. That technically gave her five years of memories with her mother. So where precisely had she put them?
Melissa placed the book quickly back into the zipped case and concealed it among T-shirts, which she unpacked from the monster case into the shelves of the bedroom wardrobe. She then found her swimming things and headed out to the pool. Five lengths of breast stroke. Five of crawl. Five of butterfly stroke.
By the time she had returned to the apartment and fully unpacked, Sam was back – looking for a nap ahead of their evening out.
Later they enjoyed their first dinner at an excellent taverna – right on the town square, with children playing in a disused fountain nearby. Melissa watched them mesmerised, at first smiling and then her expression changing as a ripple of discomfort and realisation began slowly to move through her.
Sam watched the children also but pointedly made no reference. Instead they each talked – only upbeat – about the food and the wine and how lovely it was that Polis was so unspoilt. Not high-rise. Neither of them mentioning the subject now temporarily taboo.
Their future.
The children playing in the fountain.
* * *
They spent the weekend relaxing and mostly reading – talking very little – and then rose early on Monday for Troodos. It was impossible to know precisely where Edmund had been patrolling and so they chose a church at random on the map, some forty minutes within the forest. The journey took longer than they had expected – unable to resist regular stops for photographs of the spectacular views from the winding mountain roads. En route to the village originally earmarked, they happened upon an utterly charming and particularly atmospheric hamlet, with women crocheting and gossiping around a neat, village square.
After coffee and pastries at a cafe, they headed through a stone arch off the square to find a cool and quiet Byzantine church where Sam decided there was no need to travel any further. This was perfect. He lit two candles – one for his grandfather and one for the man he had held in his arms all those years ago. Melissa watched the blokey awkwardness as Sam stood utterly still, hands on his hips. He had been close to his grandfather who taught him to fish and in his will had left him all his kit. It was in the garage and Melissa caught Sam just staring at it some days. Standing ever so still for a moment. Hands on hips. Just like this.
She waited, saying nothing, until he walked ahead outside and then, as a memento for him, took a picture of the two candles against the background of the stained-glass window before quietly lighting a third candle for all the Cypriot young men who had been lost. And one for her mother also.
They had parked the hire car on a steep road on the outskirts of the village, unsure how difficult it would be to find a spot in the centre and it was as they walked back to the vehicle, around a wide bend that everything changed.
From the quiet and the stillness of the church there was suddenly the intrusion of a tremendous roar. Melissa was walking a few steps behind Sam who had struck up a conversation with a young, local man as the roar registered. She turned to see a great swirl of dust as the motorcycle lost control on the bend. With tremendous screeching, it then slid at an angle directly towards Sam.
And then everything happened very, very quickly.
And also in slow motion.
9
ELEANOR – 1994
Eleanor flipped down the sun visor to check her face in the mirror and in leaning forward caught a glimpse of Melissa in the back – the new body board still across her lap.
‘You can put that down, you know – sweetie.’
‘I’m going to call it Jaws.’
‘You haven’t seen Jaws,’ Eleanor glared across at Max as he indicated to overtake. ‘At least – I hope you haven’t?’
‘Daddy let me see the nice bits. The bit where the little boy copies his dad. And the bit where they’re all on the beach and—’
‘I thought that was our little secret, darling…’
‘Tell me, you didn’t let her see Jaws?’
‘Only a very little bit by accident. No gore.’
‘So that’s why she wanted the body board with the shark?’
Max shrugged.
‘I’m surprised you haven’t put her off the sea completely. Oh Max. Really.’
‘The sharks are only in America and Australia, Mummy. Not in Cornwall. And in the film they killed it. Daddy was watching and I was doing colouring.’
‘I switched channels, Eleanor. It’s no big deal. I didn’t even realise she was looking. As soon as I did, I turned over. It was ten minutes. Maximum.’
‘Unbelievable.’
‘You let her watch Dr Who videos.’
‘Yes – but not the Cybermen.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Oh come on, Max. Jaws? She’s seven, Max.’
‘I’m nearly eight.’
Max and Eleanor exchanged a conciliatory glance.
‘I’m sorry, Eleanor. I’ll be more careful. She didn’t see anything gross, I promise you.’
‘How long till we get there, Mummy?’
‘One more coffee stop and then about an hour.’
Twice a year they made this trip. It was Max’s idea. He had been taken to Cornwall for bucket and spade holidays by his own parents and wanted Melissa to know the ups and downs of the old-fashioned seaside break. The zip of a wetsuit in a cold wind. Tea in flasks. Sand in sandwiches. Eleanor, whose parents had both taught, spent every summer in France as a child – gîtes mostly – so was less convinced, but Max’s knowledge of the best coves and beaches around the Lizard peninsula very soon won her over.
By the time Melissa was toddling, Max had taken up a new post at the university and, with a more flexible timetable, they often managed a long weekend in addition to a week at Easter and during the summer. Eleanor and Melissa, over time, became as enthusiastic as Max – loving the coastal walks, the steep streets of cottages tumbling down to the sea and the early evening spent watching children race crabs on the shoreline.
Melissa would watch, mouth gaping – just that little bit too shy to join in – but shrieking with laughter when some of the competitors set off in entirely the wrong direction.
She also grew to love all manner of seafood, just like her mother – with Max knowing exactly where to buy straight off the boats.
They stayed, wherever possible, in the same cottage overlooking the beach in Porthleven – a small and unspoilt fishing port with art galleries and a good choice of restaurants, cafes and gift shops where Melissa loved to buy shells and polished pebble pendants while Max watched the boats returning with their catch.
Sometimes Eleanor wondered if they should cast their own net wider but was so tired by the end of each term that the familiarity and the rhythm of the same cottage was too much to resist. Beach View, the three-bed they rented, was owned by a couple in thei
r late fifties – the Huberts – who lived in the centre of Porthleven themselves and used the income to boost their early retirement. They were sweet and considerate – leaving a tray set for tea with scones, home-made jam and clotted cream in the fridge for every new visitor.
‘Yay! Cream tea!’ Melissa would chime as they opened the stable door into the kitchen to clock the treat already set out on the table. And Eleanor had come to love the rhythm and the echo of all these things. The sense of a memory being etched deeper and deeper with every repetition.
Truth was, she hoped and prayed that the Huberts would never sell the place; that they would leave it to their own children to let – so that one day Max and Eleanor would come here with Melissa and her husband and grandchildren, and they would tell the story of how they found the place – just the way Max’s parents would talk when they sometimes joined them for a few days. Stories about Max on the beach when he was a little boy.
‘You OK?’
‘Yeah. Just daydreaming,’ Eleanor smiled as Max deposited bags in the hall while Melissa headed straight for the fridge to check for the cream.
It was only later as they unpacked Melissa’s small bag that Eleanor caught herself trying not to look at the second single bed in her daughter’s room. The agreed pact was that they didn’t dwell on it. Her and Max. They were still trying – technically. Had been trying for more than three years now, but Max felt there was no need to be panicked into fertility treatment. Not while they were still so young. And Eleanor was trying very, very hard not to panic.
Technically.
‘So tomorrow we go shopping for food. And I was thinking we could get the stuff to make cookies. Give us something nice to do if it rains, Melissa?’ Back in the kitchen, she was watching Melissa spread an alarming quantity of jam onto half a scone as Max rifled through a drawer for more cutlery.
‘Do you know that in Devon they put the cream on first?’ Max interceded.
‘Can we get pink icing?’
‘For the scones?’
Recipes for Melissa Page 5
