‘Right.’
‘Look. Max. About the other day—’
‘Please. It’s absolutely fine, Anna. If you’re happy with the transfer. With Sarah as your new mentor, then we’re good.’
‘I didn’t mean that actually. Although we’ve had a meeting – Sarah and me – and I think you’re right. We’re a good fit. She’s very keen. Very switched on.’
‘Good. Good. That’s good.’
‘But that’s not what I wanted to apologise about.’
‘Look. It’s fine. Anna. Please. We talked it all through at lunch. All good.’
She had her hands on her hips, looking at the ground, and then stepping back as he put the window up and got out of the car, checking his watch as if he were suddenly running late.
‘You in lectures all morning, Max?’
‘Yes, actually. Until lunch. Got to keep an eye on this new bailout too.’
‘Of course. Look. I’m tied up this morning too. But I was wondering. Well. If you could find a window to grab a sandwich or something again later?’
‘Oh right.’
‘I felt terrible. The way you rushed off. Me putting my size sevens in.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘Look. I have something I want to ask you.’
‘Oh right.’
She was smiling now. Not blushing any longer and looking him directly in the eye. ‘It would make me feel a whole lot better if you could spare ten minutes. This lunchtime?’
He smiled back. ‘Well,’ he checked his watch, not noticing what it said. ‘There’s no need. For any embarrassment, I mean. But if you’d like to.’
‘Twelve thirty? Same place?’
‘Fine. Yes. Why not.’ To hell with the folder.
And then she turned, waving her hand as she headed back to the main sports complex – Max watching her perfect bottom moving side to side as she jogged off.
He tried to look away but could not. Did this make him sexist? This fascination – or was it now an obsession – with Anna?
Oh, bloody hell. He wanted to ask her on a date. He really, really wanted to ask her on a date.
Three hours later and he was en route to the bistro, chanting it in his head. Do not ask her out, Max. Do not.
Think of Deborah. Think of the fallout of that fiasco.
A perfectly lovely woman. A whole year and then suddenly she had assumed that things would move on. He had not thought it through; got so used to Sophie and the no-strings agenda he had completely forgotten that was what other people expected.
He had decided to be five minutes late for Anna – picturing himself strolling up to her at the table. Sorry. Had he kept her waiting?
He had never been very good at sitting on his tod in public places. Even with a newspaper, he felt exposed. Eleanor said that he hummed when he was nervous, though Max never noticed this. You OK, darling? You’re humming.
Don’t hum, he said to himself as he checked his watch – five minutes late exactly –turning the corner towards the wide entrance to the Litebite.
She was already sitting at the same table they had used the other day – the menu in her hand, and what was sweet and made him feel guilty as he watched her for just a moment before she looked up, was that she looked uncomfortable herself. Picking up the menu for a moment and then placing it back in the little stainless steel stand. Checking the clock on the wall. Then her own watch.
‘Hello, Anna. Sorry I’m a tad behind. I always hate sitting waiting. Have you been here long?’
‘Just five minutes.’
‘So do you know what you want? I’ll probably order my heart attack again. Bit pushed for time so best I order straight off.’
‘No. My idea so my shout today,’ she stood up.
‘No please.’
And now it felt a little farcical and they did the dance over the bill, Max worrying that it was sexist to insist and so he sat down ‘Baked spud again with the bacon and a cup of earl grey.’
‘Milk?’
‘Full cream, please.’
A few minutes later and she was back at the table with the drinks and a ticket for their food which she slipped under the metal menu holder, smiling.
‘So the bailout then. Anything interesting on the radio? I missed it.’
‘Not really. More of the same.’ Max smiled. ‘So – it’s going to work out with Sarah, you think? I’m glad. Should have thought of her in the first place.’
‘Yes. She’s very nice. In fact that’s why I’ve ambushed you again.’
He raised his eyebrows.
‘I’ve invited Sarah for a little supper. Tuesday. And I was wondering if you would like to join us? A handover, if you like. More my way of apologising properly for my meltdown.’
‘Well – that’s very kind. But there’s no need.’
‘I don’t want to put you on the spot – obviously. But – well, it would make me feel better. About the other day.’
‘Right.’
‘So – you’ll come? I’ve promised Sarah paella.’
‘Oh well. If you’re talking paella,’ Max smiled but was nonplussed. He hardly ever socialised with colleagues. Not his bag.
‘I’ll email you the address. Only twenty minutes.’
‘Well – that’s very kind, Anna.’
She sipped her cappuccino for a moment and then twisted her mouth. ‘I expect you get a lot of people. Putting their foot in it. About your wife, I mean. I’m truly sorry about that.’
‘No need.’
‘So – Melissa. You said she was a consumer columnist. How did she get into that then?’
‘Chance really. She wrote a couple of features on these pay-day loans. Got a lot of letters in and took it from there. Works with trading standards now and health and safety tip her off too. Feisty stuff.’
‘Good for her. Local paper did you say?’
‘Yeah. Writes for the whole group.’
‘I’ll look out for her byline.’
‘She’s away at the moment, actually. Holiday. Cyprus.’
‘Lovely.’
‘Yes. I haven’t been but I hear good things. Though I rather fancy they’re next with the Euro mess.’
‘You think? So how long’s she away? Melissa?’
‘Just a few more days now. She’s got to make a call on this contract offer. Job versus freelancing. Tough call.’
They were both talking much too fast.
‘So you two must be very close? After losing her mother, I mean.’
‘I like to think so. Though I struggle to get her to return my texts. I do try to let her live her own life now, of course, but the worrying doesn’t stop.’
A waiter called their number then and so Max held up his hand – aghast as she bit almost immediately into her panini.
‘Do you have an asbestos tongue or just a death wish?’ He was meantime using a knife and fork to cut open his potato wider – steam pouring from the middle.
‘So what’s it like when they first go off to uni, then? I’m dreading it,’ she was gulping water to cool the first mouthful.
‘Tidy.’
She laughed.
‘No – really. It’s a big adjustment. I found it quite hard. But you get used to it in the end. So has your son decided where to apply?’
‘Oh God. Let’s not go there. Terrible when you’re on the inside, isn’t it?’
‘Awful. Melissa picked Nottingham, which worked very well for her. A good uni but it wouldn’t have been my choice.’
‘And did you manage to be diplomatic?’
‘Good God no. We didn’t talk for a week.’
She was laughing. ‘So not only me, then. The conflict?’
‘It always blows over, Anna. At least – that’s my experience.’
And then it was suddenly awkward, each concentrating just a little too hard on their food.
‘So – paella. That a signature dish, is it?’
‘Something like that.’
‘I should probably m
ention that I’m allergic to seafood.’
Her face fell – panini frozen in her hand so that Max felt it very strongly.
‘Sorry. I was kidding.’
The lurch.
‘Oh right,’ she looked disorientated and was frowning.
‘Love seafood actually.’ Wishing so much that he could take it back. Not even funny.
What the fuck, Max. Why the fuck did you say that?
23
MELISSA – 2011
And so now Melissa was very much ready to get home. Sam’s leg was starting to heal but still itching furiously, forcing him to stick to the shade by day and still interrupting his sleep. Marcus was on the phone constantly. And the journal, which she took most mornings to the beach cafe, seemed suddenly to be taking a turn she was not expecting.
Melissa had for a few days enjoyed sharing her mother’s words with Sam – especially a central section in the journal which was so upbeat and funny. It had lifted both their spirits. Eleanor called it the ‘Culinary Catastrophes’ chapter – listing stories of burned offerings and hilarious mistakes. She had found a picture of an early birthday cake for Melissa which was supposed to a caterpillar and had been nicknamed ‘slug’ by Max.
It looks like a turd, Melissa. Seriously.
There was the story of an early roast dinner which ended with Eleanor hurling the whole pork loin in the bin ‘because it smelled very strange’. The roast potatoes that just would not crisp. The first attempts at bread. ‘Is this supposed to be flatbread, Eleanor? Or is it a Frisbee?’ All of these stories Melissa enjoyed, not only for the picture it was re-painting of her mother but also because it made her feel less worried about trying the recipes as Sam had suggested. Eleanor counselled against perfection which struck a real chord.
What’s the worst that can happen? It goes in the bin? So what? We bake, we learn, we get better…
* * *
Melissa had made a few more jottings, exploring the idea of some kind of blog.
But then came the entry with the pavlova recipe which had started to unnerve Melissa. Not so much the pictures it had stirred but the new reference to her mother’s oncologist. When she was about sixteen, her father had brought up the question of gene testing, mentioning quite casually that he would like her to look into it in more detail when she was older. There was nothing at all to be scared about, he said. Her mother’s condition was never confirmed as any kind of hereditary risk or anything like that, but research had made giant strides since Eleanor’s death and Max felt that when she was older they should perhaps discuss it again.
Melissa hadn’t wanted to and so he hadn’t pushed it. Only now was she beginning to get this new and bad feeling in the very pit of her stomach. So much so that she had now stopped reading forward – choosing instead to re-read the early parts of the journal. The cupcakes. The biscuits. The skittles. The cricket. She had been talking over these recipes and memories with Sam over supper and had in this upbeat stage, suggested making a meal for her father instead of a restaurant dinner as her belated birthday celebration. Perhaps his favourites – the cheese straws and the boeuf bourguignon? Yes. It might help as she told him about the book.
And then Sam had surprised her at a taverna one night with a confession. He said it was the whole Marcus thing which had made him do some serious thinking about openness. And that he needed to better explain why he had suddenly proposed. Sam said that he wanted a family. He knew more than anything that he really wanted to be a father one day. He said that he had made the mistake of assuming Melissa would feel the same way, at least down the line, which was why it was a shock when she hadn’t immediately accepted his proposal. But it had shaken him now to hear what had gone so wrong for Marcus and Diana. That they hadn’t resolved the parent thing before they booked the church.
Sam told her that he had started a design file in work with plans for them to buy a detached cottage and double it in size. His dream to marry old stone with the foil of a magnificent glass and steel extension. He had been compiling pictures and ideas before he proposed. A surprise for her.
‘I think what I’m saying Melissa is that I need to be completely honest. I know you said you want time to think about the proposal. About marriage. But while you’re thinking, I feel I should be honest too and tell you that I can’t imagine a future without becoming a father. I know you’re young still. And I don’t mean now. I don’t even mean in the next couple of years necessarily. But it is what I want.’
Melissa had sat silently for a time.
‘Say something.’
And so it was at the same restaurant they visited on their first night in Cyprus, with children again playing in the fountain that Melissa realised something. Gave shape, quietly and deep inside, to precisely what she was most afraid of.
It was a fear of not growing old. But most of all the fear of not being there. For people who needed you.
‘It’s a really big thing, having kids, Sam. A huge responsibility.’
‘I know that. But we’d be good at it. I know we would.’
‘Not everyone can even have kids.’
He didn’t reply. And it had been left there. In the air. An unfinished sentence.
So that Melissa did not now share with Sam her new worries over the journal. That she was feeling more uneasy about why her mother had kept the book from her father. OK, so they hadn’t agreed on whether she should have been prepared as a little girl about Eleanor’s illness. And yes; it was meant to be girly, this journal. Maybe Eleanor wouldn’t have been comfortable with Max reading all that. But there was still something else.
Some little nag which Melissa could not shake off as the tone of the journal seemed to be changing.
And now, on the penultimate day of the holiday, with Sam off buying postcards, she flipped right through the book to finger more carefully the couple of pages about two thirds through which were stuck together. She had noticed this before, assuming her mother had made a mess or error and rather than tear them out had glued them. At the back of the book there was also an entirely separate section – about a dozen or so pages about motherhood under various headings. Tips and anecdotes and other bits and pieces which she had flicked through but not read in detail.
Now, thinking of the children playing in the fountain and what Sam had said, she brushed past the section. A frisson of discomfort.
There was also a ‘heritage’ chapter alongside the disasters in the middle of the journal with a detailed family tree and some old black and white photographs of Eleanor’s grandparents and other relatives.
Melissa had decided it was time to be more methodical. And brave. To work through the book – front to back - rather than jump around, reading things out of context. She wasn’t full on afraid about what was coming next, but she was on edge now. She knew definitively that there were no other breast cancer cases around any relatives (she had checked) so she had bumped the issue. It was the reason she had batted away her father’s conversation when she was younger. But it unnerved her that her mother had raised the breast cancer gene thing in the journal at all. She wasn’t aware that it was even known about when her mother died.
Melissa put on a jug of coffee – the machine spitting and hissing as she sat down at the small table on the veranda with the book.
Deep breath.
The next recipe was for pavlova – one of Melissa’s favourite guilty pleasures and she found herself re-reading the notes in greater detail, determined to give it a go when she got back. And then.
And now something less sweet.
And there it was again.
The oncologist…
* * *
I have honestly not wanted to make a bigger thing of it than that. I consider myself very unlucky to have got this bloody thing – a statistical blip. Paranoia is the last thing I want for my beautiful girl.
But Hugo’s talk this morning has rather changed things I’m afraid. I have just had to break off to talk to your dad and I made the decision
not to write any more or to worry him until I have more concrete information. But now I don’t know what to do for the best.
To be honest? I was hoping, darling girl, that I could just rip the last few pages out and rewrite them without any of this stuff going any further. But that is not how it has turned out.
Oh, Melissa. This book was meant to be a help to you. A guiding hand. Me helping you and supporting you as I wish that I could have done in person– woman to woman. But suddenly everything is out of my control. And I really don’t know what to do. Whether to rip this whole thing up and start again with a letter, spelling out this new information exactly as I have it. Whether to talk to your father and leave it with him?
So my oncologist – Hugo Palmer – has thrown me, talking about this newer research and statistics on the faulty gene stuff. He seems to be hinting that my cancer and gran’s ovarian cancer could be linked after all. I don’t see it, myself. I mean – gran never had breast cancer. Your dad is not only sceptical but cross. Reckons it’s more about lab rats and researchers going after gongs. He wants absolutely nothing to do with it.
But I’m worried, Melissa. You may well already know more about all this – but bear in mind that as I write, the gene research is still quite new to us.
Anyway, Dr Palmer has said that if I would like to check our family situation, he can arrange for me to queue jump and have the test as part of his new research. The problem is there’s no ‘unknowing’, obviously. Also the faulty gene test takes a bit of time… and I don’t, of course, know how that may pan out.
Your father will worry himself sick if I add this to all that he has to deal with at the moment, so what I am thinking now is that I will try to arrange to have the test quietly. Then if the result comes through as negative, as I obviously hope, then I can confirm to you that you have absolutely nothing to worry about.
At least not from me….
Oh God. And here is the other big thing I really need to talk to you about, my lovely girl…
Recipes for Melissa Page 14
