Recipes for Melissa (27 page)

‘Mummy didn’t finish the story.’ A convulsion of sobbing now – huge waves which made her whole chest and shoulders roll. Waves of utter wretchedness right through her little body.

Simple soda bread

1lb strong white flour

2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

One teaspoon salt

Around 14 fluid oz of buttermilk (I have also used live yoghurt)

Sift all the dry ingredients into a bowl, make a dip in the middle and pour in the buttermilk or yoghurt. Mix into soft dough and add a dash of milk if too dry. Tip onto floured board and knead for just a minute or so. Make into a rough round and cut a cross in the top. Bake in preheated oven at 200°C for around 40 minutes. You can add herbs and seeds, if you like.

So I have added an extra little recipe as an afterthought and OK, I admit soda bread is more scone than true bread but it is simple and very satisfying – and perfect when you are mad or sad, because even the simplest bread-making is so therapeutic. Do it when you need a lift and can’t think what else to do.

Now, my darling girl, it is time.

The lawyer will be here very soon to collect the book and I don’t know quite what I was expecting of this moment. Closure? Certainly some sense of peace. Some uplifting message to take you forward into the beautiful life that I wish for you.

Instead I find that I have rather messed up. And yes – things, as you now realise, have gone off piste. The results of my test are still not back so – here’s my thinking.

If there is time, I will try to contact the test labs and have an insert arranged for this book. That means we can rip out the ‘stuck pages’ and say no more about it.

But as things stand I must sign off to you with things rather up in the air.

And so – my beautiful one. When and if you have to read the ‘secret, stuck’ part try only to remember everything I have said to you before and to be as kind to me as you can.

Before that – lean in close and just listen.

I am not afraid, Melissa. Not for myself at all. I am not bitter and I am not angry any more. I am leaving you in the care of a man I love with all of my heart and who is genuinely the best person I have ever met. I know that he will keep you safe and love you always with every inch of his own heart. I am only sad that I will not see you grow, Melissa, and cannot be there for you.

Not enough days for us. Unfair. But know that every single one with you has been an absolute joy and I leave you more love than there are words to describe.

Try not to be sad – over me, at least. Be brave and be strong – and always as kind as you can.

I hope I have not left it too late to say goodbye to you properly and I hope you will forgive me for doing it this way.

Please know above all else that I could not be more proud of you. Any mistakes of mine which you must now judge were born of my flaws… and not a lack of love.

Go out there and have yourself a beautiful life.

My beautiful, beautiful girl.

Goodbye,

Your ever-loving mother x x x

Melissa was aware only of her shoulders moving and an absolute determination not to let any noise out of her mouth. This deep-rooted and certain fear that if she even dared to let it start…

She set the book aside on the floor and concentrated very hard. How long she struggled to maintain control was difficult to assess. She certainly wasn’t sure now that she was ready for the sealed pages.

Nearly a week now since she had cooked the meal for her father and still she had not brought herself to read it. Afraid.

So should she just forget it? Cut them out? Burn them? Walk away from it all. Sam. Marriage. Motherhood…

Melissa took out a tissue and blew her nose very hard.
Right.
She flipped through the book again just to triple check. No insert.

She stood up and went through to the en-suite bathroom to first splash water on her face and next to find nail scissors which she used very carefully to part the edges of the pages that her mother had stuck around three sides.

Eleanor had made it look like a mistake. Just two pages stuck together but she had actually sealed the double pages like an air mail envelope or pay slip. Just around the very rim. Melissa began carefully to cut around the edge, opening out the pages to find the familiar writing in fluid black ink confined to the centre of the pages.

The first part recapped, from her mother’s point of view, pretty much exactly what her father had told her over dinner. The falling out over the New York job. But now Melissa was thrown.

She had actually been sure the gene result would be here too. The bad news. Instead there was rambling and the evidence of tears which had blurred some of the ink.

Once your father left for New York, I was inconsolable, Melissa. I just could not believe he would go. Leave me.
…

And then the shock.

Terrible, ugly words tumbling from the page.

Melissa put the book down, no longer wanting to touch it.

No.

She pushed the bedside table on which she had placed it away from her. And then felt the sudden and absolute urge to smash something. She stood up and went over to the dressing table, sweeping her arm across the top so that all the bottles and perfume, the jewellery and the favourite ceramic bowls flew across towards the wall. And then she watched the mess of glass and fragments and golden liquid oozing down the wall.

It felt no better.

Melissa stood for a time very still, watching the pool of gold taking shape on the wooden floor, and when the feeling did not change knew that she had to go.

She needed to be in a car. Right now.

Yes.

She needed to be driving.

35

SAM – 2011

‘What do you mean she’s gone?’

‘Disappeared, Max. God knows where. Sent me just one short text. Said she needed some time out on her own and I was not to worry. Now she’s not answering her mobile.’

‘Jesus Christ. So what happened? You guys have a row?’

‘No, Max. No row. I went to work this morning. Melissa was supposed to go to that meeting about this new contract. I was expecting her home tonight to celebrate. Booked a restaurant. Instead I come home to find things all smashed up.’

‘What do you mean smashed up? You saying she’s been attacked? Dear God, have you called—’

‘No, no, Max. When I saw it, I thought that too – some burglary or something. But she did it herself. Said sorry in the text.’

‘Right. Shit,’ there was a pause. ‘We need to stay calm.’

‘Oh come on, Max. I can’t do calm. She didn’t even go to the meeting with the editor. What does it mean? Has she left me?’

Max said nothing.

‘Is she leaving me, Max? Is that what this is? Did she talk to you over that dinner? Has she been too afraid to tell me?’

‘No. I don’t think that’s what this is.’

‘I mean I thought we were OK. Better. That we were getting closer again. But I’ve been so busy. Shit. I mean – with the partnership offer and with my brother all over the place. Oh God, Max. I’m worried sick.’

‘Send her another message.’

‘I’ve sent her loads. She won’t ring. Her text just said – please don’t worry. How can I not worry?’

‘I’ll try as well, Sam. I’ll leave a message and I’ll come straight over.’

‘Right. So she really hasn’t said anything to you? About us?’

‘No. Not really.’

‘So you don’t think this is it? That it’s over, I mean?’

‘I don’t know what this is Sam. Just sit tight. I’m leaving now.’

‘Shit.’

Half an hour later and Sam was still sitting on the floor of their bedroom – head in hands, waiting for Max. Though Melissa had not known it, this was exactly the pose he took up on the floor of the men’s restroom after she stalled over the proposal.

Sam did not know how to love Melissa any more than he had. He had worn his heart out wearing it on his sleeve. Maybe, he was thinking now, that was precisely the problem.

Sam had loved Melissa from the time he watched her playing with a ladybird at school in the weeks after her mother died. He never told anyone this because he knew that they would say it could not be love because he was a child himself. It was compassion most likely – at best a crush. But no. Sam knew different.

Melissa had always completely mesmerised him – even as children. There was something about her eyes. Her skin. The way that her whole face lit up with animation when she talked. Though Sam was four years older, he vividly remembered the day he realised they shared the same birthday – Melissa with her birthday badge in school. Feeling this huge surge of complete happiness. The first proper sign.

And then the ‘awful thing’ happened and Sam had no idea what to say or how to behave. Melissa came back to school just a week after the funeral and threw everyone off by behaving as if nothing had happened. She point-blank refused to talk about it and just shrugged when he asked if there was anything he could do. ‘I’m fine. It’s actually OK.’

And then, a few weeks later, he had followed her to the orchard one day, while all the other children were in the main playground and he had watched her from behind a tree. She was sitting cross legged on the ground searching in the grass for insects. And after a while she found a ladybird, talking out loud to it and repeating the rhyme.

Ladybird, ladybird fly away home. Your house is on fire and your children are gone…

Melissa lifted her hand to let the ladybird go. She repeated the rhyme as if she was just noticing the words for the very first time. For a while the ladybird did not budge and so she chanted the verse again – this time, her voice breaking as the insect finally disappeared.

Sam was certain that she was crying but had no idea what to do. He hated it when anyone cried. His mother. His cousin. Anyone. He wondered if he should fetch a teacher. Show himself? He was worried that she would be furious that he had followed her.

In the end he just waited there, secretly watching her – feeling more and more guilty and more and more helpless. It was quite a long time until Melissa had finished, wiping her face with her sleeve and raising her chin.

She stood up then and for a moment her head sort of twitched as if she was struggling to get complete control of herself. She waited until this twitching stopped and then she brushed down her skirt, tied her ponytail tighter into a band and marched back to the class.

Melissa grew prettier and pricklier with every passing year. They became friends of a sort but she began to approach everything with just a little bit of a scowl – as if she was privately furious at the whole world. Sometimes he would wait for her at the end of the street, offering to carry her bag but she said this was ‘ridiculous behaviour’. Later, after she moved on to the grammar school, he would strike up conversation on the bus, but he could tell from the way her eyes darted past him that she had no idea how he felt.

Once he had actually plucked up the courage to ask her out to the cinema but she had pulled her head back into her neck in shock. Like a tortoise. ‘You don’t mean like a date, Sam? Don’t be silly.’

And then years later fate intervened. Sam had always known that it had to be Architecture – all his life teased by his family for the permanent crick in his neck; always walking with his head looking upwards. Checking out the buildings
.
Amazed. Enchanted
. Look at that arch. Good God – Look at the balustrades on that one
. The prospect of seven years of study was daunting but Sam guessed correctly that it would be worth it. For the first part of his degree, he tried very hard to forget about Melissa. For a short time he thought he might be in love with a girl called Sandra. Then he thought just maybe he was in love with a girl called Madeleine. And then on Thursday October 25
^th
, Melissa walked back into his life properly and he faced the truth.

By this time Sam was in the final part of his first degree. He had no idea that Melissa had picked the same campus.