Recipes for Melissa (28 page)

October 25
^th
. The happiest day of his life.

Sam now stared at the mess of broken crockery and perfume bottles strewn across the wooden floor.

The truth? He had never quite believed that she would love him back. Never quite believed that he would hold onto her.

There was something deep in Melissa which seemed not to want to let him love her. He had thought, naively perhaps, that time would change this. That she was just afraid of love.

Maybe the truth that he did not want to face was that he was just the wrong man.

36

MELISSA – 2011

Melissa had tried to run away to Cornwall once before.

She had waited until two days after the news about her mother and decided that she would go and find the truth. Why she imagined she would find her mother in Cornwall did not stand up to rational analysis, but the eight-year-old Melissa had so many happy pictures of her family aligned with the cottage in Porthleven that she believed somehow that if she could just get herself to that cottage, then everything around her would be all right. The past two days with all its horrors could be undone.

She had packed a bag with pyjamas and clean pants and T-shirts and had crept out of the house before her father and Granny were up. She knew that it was quite a long walk to the railway station but had deliberately selected sensible shoes and so did not much care.

It was raining hard. She remembered wishing that she had brought her other coat, but reasoned that she would be able to get a new one with Mummy in Cornwall. They would shop in Truro. She remembered it was by the water, and while Daddy went to look at art galleries and antique shops, they would potter from shop to shop and at the end of the expedition she would be allowed a giant ice cream sundae.

Yes. In Cornwall they would shop. Sort everything out.

Melissa had four pounds and eighty six pence in her piggy bank. She had no idea how much a train ticket to Cornwall would cost. The man at the ticket booth had looked at her a little oddly when she handed over her money.

‘Is your Mummy or Daddy not travelling with you, young lady?’

‘Not today. My mummy’s picking me up. She’ll pay the extra if it’s not enough.’

‘I see.’

The man had suggested that she wait over there by the seats and he would check the train times for her. Melissa had thought that he was terribly nice and had waited patiently on the seats for a very long time until she realised it had all been a horrible trick. The moment when Max had thundered through the doors shouting ‘Thank God’ with a policewoman beside him.

Max had cried, she remembered that. She had never seen a man cry before. He had hugged her so close that she could feel the cold and wet from his cheeks. And she remembered that his tears had frightened her more than anything else she ever experienced.

This time Melissa chose the car.

She decided on the route cross country – the A303 – which she had always preferred. It meant a lot of slowing down for all the speed cameras through the series of villages, but Melissa did not mind. She loved these villages. She loved the colour of the stone and the antique shops and the blackboard signs on the pavements with chalked pictures of coffee and cakes. She liked the people gossiping on the side of the road and had some fantasy in her head that in a different life she might have lived somewhere like this. Yes. One of the villages back in Oxfordshire just like these. A dog. A fire. Sam with his dreams, drawing up his secret plans for extensions and renovations.
I was thinking we go for the foil. Stainless steel and glass. Modern meets thatch? What do you think, Melissa?

She listened to classical music up much too loud. She was also driving very badly – much too fast on the stretches between the speed cameras. But so bloody what.

So.

Bloody.

What.

So long as she did not get picked up by some stupid patrol car, Melissa did not care. She stopped only once for petrol, the toilet and a strong coffee – waiting until there was a sign for the good stuff.

She was conscious of a slightly strange feeling in her stomach which was not quite hunger and not quite an upset stomach and in the end let the coffee go cold in the little cup holder by the gear stick.

Just occasionally she thought about them – the wretched, putrid words in her mother’s book – but mostly she managed not to think much at all. Just to drive.

Melissa estimated the journey would take about four and a half hours, but there were two sets of roadworks and so it was well past midnight when she pulled into Truro city centre. She wanted to carry on – to get as far as the Lizard – but wasn’t at all sure where she would find to stay this late, so instead stopped at the first chain hotel that she recognised.

After checking in, she took out the small bag into which she had thrown just two changes of clothes and a washbag. She checked her phone to find a string of messages from Sam and three from her father.

She sent another text telling them she was sorry. Not to worry. To please leave her be. She was OK. Just needed some space.
Please.

Then she turned the phone off again and lay on the bed.

She remembered exactly what it felt like – that small girl in the train station who felt that if she could just get on the train, she could find the right version of her life. The different, parallel version in which the wrong news could be undone and everything could be all right.

She did not cry because it was all way beyond that.

Exhaustion must have overtaken her at some point and she woke around four a.m. still fully clothed. She climbed under the covers and then dozed fitfully until six, taking a quick shower and changing her underwear before heading straight through to the buffet breakfast where she found that she was still, inexplicably, not at all hungry.

The machine for coffee looked unpromising and so she tried orange juice instead and it was only as she sat at a table drinking this, playing with a single piece of toast that she had the idea.

Melissa switched the phone back on, ignoring the new messages, and put the name of the cottage into Google. She was astonished to see the picture ping instantly before her eyes – the place hardly changed, bar the colour of the front door. The same two terracotta pots standing guard, containing miniature trees. The cottage was still a holiday let, managed now by a small agency. The website loaded very slowly, but through two or three pages, Melissa discovered it was available for short lets off season ‘
by special arrangement
’. There would surely not be much interest with the school term well under way.

Melissa phoned the quoted number and was astonished to recognise the name check. Mrs Hubert. Good God.

She tried to calm her voice. She explained that she was in the area for a few days and wondered if the cottage would be available on a short let. Could she pay nightly? She remembered it from her childhood.

Mrs Hubert said that – yes; with the children all back in school, quite a few properties were available on short let – a minimum of three days booking. The shoulder season rate quoted for October was perfectly reasonable. Cheaper than a hotel room. Mrs Hubert added that she now managed five cottages and
when was Melissa thinking of coming
?

‘Later today actually.’

‘Oh goodness,’ Mrs Hubert then sounded very flustered. She liked notice to get things ready. She normally liked to prepare a little welcome tray for all her guests.

So it was definitely her.

Melissa reassured that clean bed linen and towels would suffice and no special arrangements were necessary. She would shop for basics on the way down.

Mrs Hubert said she would meet her at the cottage at 3 p.m. and would arrange for her husband to get some logs in for the wood burner. It was turning cold of an evening down by the coast. The wind off the sea. Did Melissa realise this?

She did.

Melissa then had a spell of panic as she drove the final stretch. The cottage was on the outskirts of the town near woodland and it was not until she turned the final sharp bend onto the unmade road which wound its way through an avenue of trees to the detached cottage that she realised she had done the right thing.

She remembered once that they had driven through the nearby wood en route to the pub for a meal one evening, to experience one of the most wonderful surprises of her young life. An owl had suddenly broken cover from one of the trees and led the way below the canopy of leaves ahead of them. The wingspan had surprised Melissa – also the quiet and effortless glide of the bird.

It had simply and silently led the way, softly sweeping from side to side, swooping low enough for its shadow to be caught in the headlights – reflected on the ground ahead of them.

‘Wow’ was all the young Melissa managed as her mother reached out her hand to silently stroke the back of Max’s neck.

Melissa now turned the car into the little parking area in front of the cottage and felt almost giddy with the paradox. The pleasure and the shock of this all being the same when everything else had broken into so many unrecognisable pieces.

Mrs Hubert – older and a little rounder but unmistakable with her grey perm and her happy wave – was on the doorstep, looking out for her.

Melissa had never been so relieved to see a sight so familiar. The glossy door, now deep blue, the proud plants and Mrs Hubert drying her hands on her apron.

Melissa closed her eyes and stood very still. Terrible decisions…

…but the right place.

37

MELISSA AND ELEANOR

Porthleven had changed surprisingly little since Melissa’s childhood. Boats bobbing. Seagulls snatching crumbs. Fishermen a-natter at their nets because the weather was against them.

She had returned with her father, just once before, not long after Eleanor had died, with Max trying too hard to make it work – imagining that the nostalgia and the familiarity would be comforting for them. It wasn’t. Back then – too soon – it merely underlined the absence. The spare chair at the table. And so for future holidays they had gone to the other extreme – avoiding anything with an echo.

Now it was different. Now Melissa was glad to be in Porthleven.

Her father
…

Out of season, with that scent of true autumn beckoning, it had a quietness she had not seen before and she liked it; plenty of empty tables at the restaurants and coffee shops; shorter opening hours at some of the galleries and gift shops but room in the narrow aisles to browse without the fear that as you stepped back to let someone pass, you might knock something from a shelf with your back or your bag.

Melissa had slept badly that first night and still felt physically drained as she walked – a tiredness to her very bones – but she was glad to be out. Glad for the fresh air.

She had forgotten how loud the gulls were. How loud the sea. How loud the wind as it rocked the small fishing boats in the little harbour. This was all good. The loudness drowning all the words spitting fury in her head.

My father…

For now she kept her phone off and looked out on the white horses raging in the distance. She was glad that she had at least brought a waterproof coat and a scarf and was relieved now to find gloves in the pocket also. She zipped everything up tight, tight, tight and closed the neck flap so that it covered her mouth, right up to her nose.

She set off left from the cottage and within ten minutes or so was just one street back from the harbour. From here she headed west towards the old church and harbour wall. The tide was still out and the open sea beyond – choppy and cross.

My father…

The wind made Melissa’s eyes water which she liked. She followed the road past the harbour wall and took the steps down to the beach. Every now and again the wind buffeted her sideways, her coat billowing out and her hood pushed back from her head. Melissa adjusted the tie to pull the hood even tighter around her face.

On the beach, she walked past a few couples with dogs and then one family – both parents plus three small children – one in a three-wheel buggy which they were struggling to push across the sand.

Further along, Melissa climbed another set of steps back up to the road overlooking the beach. The wind was even stronger at the higher level and she leant for a time against the railings, watching the waves rolling and smashing as the parent still struggled across the sand with the buggy. She couldn’t understand why they did this. Why on earth didn’t they use the higher, tarmac road to head back into the town? And then she saw the mother pull a collection of plastic buckets and spades from the large silver beach bag she was carrying.

To her continued surprise, the two smaller children kicked off shoes and socks, seemingly oblivious to the weather and began to dig in a frenzy. Very soon the mother took the small toddler out of the buggy and set him on the sand to do the same. The father meantime produced a large flask from his backpack and sat on the sand to pour two steaming mugs for himself and his wife; side by side to provide a windbreak for the children.

Melissa watched the man put his arms around his wife, rubbing her shoulders as if to warm her and felt something inside her break.

She thought of Sam, she thought of what he had said in Cyprus. Of course he wanted to be a father. Why wouldn’t he? It was what most men wanted one day, wasn’t it?

Melissa closed her eyes.

I am so sorry, Melissa. There is no easy way to say this but there is a very slim chance that Max is not your father… I need you to read this very closely to allow me to explain – I beg you – why I have locked this inside me all these years…

Melissa pictured him.

Max who on this very beach had taught her to body board. Max who had taken her to the butchers for fat, spicy sausages for the barbeque in the evening and in the morning to the bakery along the seafront for warm rolls for breakfast and pasties for lunch. Max who had hugged her so tight in that railway station waiting room that she had thought her bones would crack.