Recipes for Melissa (3 page)

Darks to the right. Brights and lights on the left.

‘OK. So how about we just go on holiday as we planned, Sam. We celebrate both our birthdays in the sun. We get a tan. And we have a lot of sex? Yes?’ And now she was talking much too quickly. ‘Which is actually the real reason I think the whole marriage thing is overrated,’ clowning. ‘Given that when people get married they stop shagging. Proven statistically.’

He was silent.

‘Big pants, rows over the dishwasher and no sex. Is that really what you wanted for us?’ She turned to pull her tracksuit bottoms high up her waist, gesturing the shape of very big pants.

‘Don’t Melissa.’

‘What?’

‘Please stop.’

‘Stop what?’

‘Trying to turn it into a joke. To do what you always do when you don’t want to talk to me.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘You do. And it won’t work.’

‘It will.’ She pulled a face, stretching the jersey even wider from her hips until he was fighting a smile and then turning away from him again to take a deep breath. Trying very hard not to think of it. The ring box. The decision she was supposed to make on this holiday over her career.

But most of all – the book.

That beautiful fountain pen. The click of its lid. And the memory of a strange chemical smell which until today she had completely forgotten.

Of
ink.

4

ELEANOR – 1994

‘Have we spoiled her?’

‘Of course we’ve spoiled her. Why wouldn’t we spoil her?’

‘You know what I mean. Am I trying too hard?’

‘Eleanor. This is Disneyland Paris. Hardly the place to start worrying about spoiling a kid.’

She had done this at Christmas too. Bought too much and in a panic put some of the boxes back in the loft.

‘You’re right. I know you’re right.’ Eleanor glanced at Melissa in her Snow White costume, staring through a window.

Of course it was too much. They were staying in a pink froth of a hotel, for Christ sake, and tomorrow were booked in for croissants with a mouse in tails.

‘
I thought it had to be a birthday to meet Mickey Mouse, Mummy. Sophie in school said that—’

‘No. It doesn’t have to be a birthday, honey.’

‘You look tired, Eleanor.’

‘I’m fine.’ She wasn’t. ‘Though I might just take a little break. I’ve told Melissa I need the loo. Would you mind doing the rides for the next hour and I’ll meet you at the restaurant for lunch? I’ll grab a nap.’

‘You sure you don’t need us to come back with you?’ he was leaning in to check her face more closely. ‘No. No. I’m not happy to leave you. Your eyes look a bit bloodshot to me.’

‘Honestly, Max – it’s fine. Mel’s on a high. She wants to see the dragon under the castle. I’m just a bit tired. I’ll be right by the phone. Don’t worry. Don’t fuss. She won’t mind. I can ring reception if I need anything.’

‘You promise me?’

‘I promise. And you have the list of rides – suitable for her age, I mean?’

He tapped his top pocket to confirm the rustle of paper.

Back in their room, Eleanor lay down on the bed and surprising herself by drifting, almost immediately, into a deep sleep. She woke – forty minutes later, with a heavy, dragging ache low in her abdomen. She checked her watch, took two more of the stronger painkillers, with water beside the bed, and closed her eyes as she struggled to swallow them. Two days it had been like this. So very difficult to swallow her tablets. She was starting to worry that she had misjudged the timing. The book.

For this reason she had brought it with her – hidden it in a large soft zipper case containing Melissa’s hair paraphernalia – bands and ties for her ponytails.

Eleanor opened it at the first picture. She had taken it just two days earlier, baking the cupcakes with Melissa from her mother’s recipe. They had decorated half with cream cheese and strawberries and half with strawberry pink icing – the colour of this hotel. Eleanor wondered whether Melissa would remember the story of the orange zest. What she would think when she got to see this picture. The book.

Would there be time? Was she doing the right thing?

She took her fountain pen from her handbag and took a deep breath to continue…

…
which is how every single day of my life, I wish more than anything on this planet that…

…
I was more like your father. Kinder and more forgiving, I mean. You will probably have fathomed by now what I knew within weeks of meeting Max. That he is probably the kindest man you will ever meet. Well – actually, cancel that. On reflection, I hope not. I hope that you will find someone as kind as your father to share your own life with. But I am biased, of course, and I think it will be a tough call.

What I burn to tell you is a truth that I am not terribly proud of; that it took me a long time to learn from him. So often I would do the wrong thing, Melissa, before I met your father. Think the wrong thing. Say the wrong thing. I never deliberately hurt people or anything like that. I don’t think I am a bad person. I certainly hope not. But too often I simply opted out. Failed to do things which could have made a difference. And then somehow, time with Max just softened me and taught me to stop and think a bit more. To open my eyes.

And now, in this awful chapter of my own, I keep rewinding to times when I wish that I had behaved differently. Before some of your dad rubbed off on me, I mean. For some reason I keep thinking of this girl in school. She was called Monica and she was exceptionally clever but also terribly thin and terribly shy. Don’t get me wrong. I was never unkind to her. I would smile at her and try to talk to her. But I never really knew how to handle the fact that she was on the outside of
everything
. By the third year, I think I realised deep down that it was more than shyness. Her hair started to thin and she began to dye it as if by way of disguise or distraction. Dramatic red, then blonde. But I still didn’t say anything or ask anything. I just sort of gave up trying to talk to her. Opted out. And then many years later she turned up on a talk show. Turns out she had anorexia nervosa – all of her life. Very nearly died at one point and talked about how lonely she always felt. Soon after that all the papers went completely mad about eating disorders. You couldn’t open a tabloid without some feature about it. And I remember thinking how awful it must have been for Monica through all those years in school, living with such terrible sadness in the days when so little was known about it. And I wish I could go back – Melissa. To try at least to talk to her. Just to try that little bit harder to be that little bit kinder.

Max would have done better. You know that and I know that.

You may well, by now, take more after him than me, and I hope so. But this book is about honesty and so I will be frank. Be kind, my darling girl. Always try to be kind. It sounds so trite and I know that you would not be intentionally otherwise, but sometimes it is as simple as deciding not to sit on the fence. To do something instead of nothing. Am I sounding like a lunatic? Like some terrible God squadder? Or do you understand what I am trying to say to you?

Eleanor looked at the page of handwriting, skimming through the last few lines. Was she preaching too much? Would Melissa see it as criticism? She blew on the ink and bit into her bottom lip. This was so much harder than she had thought. The decision not to edit. To write straight into the book. She felt a frisson of panic.

And then the phone startled her. Max.

‘Hi – honey. I just woke up. Phone made me jump.’

‘Sorry. You OK?’

‘Yes. I feel better for a sleep. Where you ringing from?’

‘Ice cream shop.’

‘Oh right. So how was the dragon?’

‘Best not to ask. Rather too realistic for a girl of eight.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘It’s taking a lot of raspberry ripple’

Eleanor laughed. She could picture them exactly – Melissa persuading her father into double scoops. Sauce. Chocolate flakes. ‘So – she’s twisting you around her little finger again?’

‘Moi?’

‘I take it we need to bump lunch back?’

‘No. No. Twelve thirty still OK. You know Melissa. Always hungry.’

Eleanor glanced at her watch – just past noon. ‘Meet you there. I just hope it’s as good as the write-ups. Got a river with boats – right through the restaurant. The picture looked gorgeous.’

‘Not that we would want to spoil her,’ he was teasing.

‘Shut up and tell her I’m on my way.’

‘Tell her yourself. Here, Mel. Come to the phone. It’s Mummy.’

There was a fumbling with the phone and some unintelligible spit whispering.
Go on. Go on. It’s Mummy.

‘I wasn’t scared.’

‘Sorry?’

‘The dragon. I wasn’t scared of the dragon. I don’t know why Daddy said that. He shouldn’t have said that.’

Eleanor felt her shoulders move and closed her eyes.

‘He’s a silly Daddy. Of course you weren’t scared. You’re my brave, brave girl.’

5

MELISSA – 2011

That one man’s snoring could make so much noise was unbelievable. Partly her fault, to be fair. Way too much red wine.

Melissa stared at the clock – just past four a.m. – and then stared at Sam, well aware that it was not healthy to so often watch him like this when he was sleeping. To think and think and sometimes whisper in her head; to tell him things in her head only that felt too dangerous. Out loud.

She closed her eyes and leant back on the pillow, exhaling very slowly. Normally when she could not drift back to sleep, she would tiptoe through to the kitchen for a cup of tea but the door needed oiling and she really didn’t want him to wake so, instead, lifted her handbag from the bedside chair and padded through to the en-suite bathroom. She clicked the light, wincing at the glare and turning to check there was no movement from the bed. Nothing. The snoring continued, which for a moment made her smile.

I do not snore, Melissa.

She put the seat and then the lid of the toilet down and sat, carefully taking her mother’s book out of her bag as she pushed the door to. Just shy of the click. There was that same hollow feeling in her stomach now as she examined the title again. Her name in the familiar slanting hand.

Melissa paused, took a long, slow breath and turned the title page to look again at the photograph alongside the first recipe. She was wearing a green-striped top, but what was strange was she remembered the jumper very well and yet did not remember the photograph being taken at all. She looked down at her arm and could see it really clearly. The soft wool with hoops of green and cream.

In the picture she was holding a baking tray of cupcakes, half covered with cream and strawberries and half covered with vivid pink icing and tiny silver balls. The feeling in her stomach changed now, her fingers twitching…

Sprinkle them gently, love. As many as you like…

Melissa turned her head towards the shower and back again, narrowing her eyes. She was remembering a wooden spoon. The coolness of the tiny silver balls as she picked them from the container. Yes. She was allowed to lick the spoon. Melissa could feel a strange tightening in her chest and a change in the movement of the air around her. She must have been beaming right at her mother as the photograph was taken and yet she could not call this up. The image of her mother standing there with the camera. Why? If she could remember the wooden spoon and the silver balls, why not that? And then she was suddenly unsure if they were real memories at all – the spoon and the decorations – or if she was taking them from the photograph. Wanting it to be so.

Why did she not remember any of this before?

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?’