Recipes for Melissa (9 page)

And then Alexandros was asking questions. What they were doing in the area? How long they were staying in Cyprus?

‘We were just exploring up here,’ Melissa said finally, feeling a little guarded about their true motives. ‘We heard it was very beautiful.’

‘Yes. But no one told you about the problem we have with the motorbikes?’ Alexandros was shaking his head. ‘They go off road through the woods at night too. Madness.’

He went on to explain that he was studying medicine at the University of Nicosia under a collaboration with the University of London. The scheme involved the early years in Cyprus and then later secondments abroad. He was still working out the terms for his studies overseas.

‘Alexandros is going to be a doctor in London,’ his mother was beaming as her son sighed.

‘Maybe. We’ll see,’ and then lowering his tone for Melissa and his new patients. ‘They have sacrificed a great deal – my family – to help make this happen. So let’s all hope so.’

‘Well you get top marks from us,’ Melissa said, beaming her thanks to his family and friends, more of whom were now crowding into the room, word of the drama having apparently spread.

With the wounds properly washed and dressed, Melissa was feeling a good deal calmer – revived also by the sugar in the pastry.

‘So – are you sure you’re OK to drive, Mel?’ Sam was looking right into her face. ‘I know you don’t like mountain roads.’

‘Yeah. Yeah. Of course. If Alexandros is sure this is OK, we should get straight off. Soon as possible.’

She said her own thanks again to the young man who had so bravely swept Sam out of the bike’s path, offering her business card if he was ever in England. Melissa then tried to offer money for the drinks and as a thank you to the cafe, but Alexandros and his mother shook their heads and so she took a business card from the counter, thinking of an online review at the very least, as volunteers helped Sam back out to the car.

He had been given painkillers plus a little local anaesthetic and temporary butterfly stitches but was still pale and clearly pretty uncomfortable.

She drove very slowly – Sam silent with his eyes closed now.

‘Hang in there. Should only be about an hour.’

And then she was embarrassed as she made it back onto the main route and had to fight hard to keep it in: the wave of delayed shock which had not yet evolved into relief. Reaching into her pocket for a tissue. Feeling it all over again – that terrifying split second in which she was sure of a different outcome.

Melissa had to let out little puffs of air, making a strange noise. Her breathing all over the place. In the end she had to pull into a layby.

‘I’m sorry, Sam. I just need a minute.’

11

MAX – 2011

The lurch again.

Max tried very hard not to even look at Anna who was entirely oblivious and utterly professional, shuffling papers, her reading glasses on the top of her head like sunglasses. He glanced at the phone in his hand and put it quickly in his pocket. Still no return text from Melissa.
Why was it she couldn’t just acknowledge a text? One second it would take
…

He looked back up. Could actually not fathom it at all – this ridiculous reaction every time Anna walked into the room. She was not the kind of woman who dressed for attention and Max was, ordinarily, no kind of flirt at work – most especially since the debacle that was Deborah – his one relationship at the university.

So why the hell was he sitting here right this moment, fighting the urge to examine, again, the little dip at the base of Anna’s throat? Did other women not have precisely the same biology? Why this neck? Why now?

No, Max.

He was ashamed to find his gaze darting to her hand. No wedding ring.

Stop this.

‘Is this a bad time again?’

‘No. No. Absolutely not. Fire away, Anna.’ He lifted his jug of coffee by way of invitation and began fussing with the milk as she began to discuss her seminar group. By the time he had swung back around with a second mug, she looked for a moment startled. Max had very deliberately not offered her coffee on any of their previous weekly encounters.

No wedding ring.

And then – as he was pouring the coffee, she was suddenly both smiling and apparently, for the first time, actually relaxing. It was a broad and full-on smile of genuine relief with absolutely perfect teeth.

‘Do you have any plans for lunch, Anna?’

‘I’m sorry?’

Shut up, Max.

‘It’s just I was planning to grab a sandwich at the Panier Cafe and if you wanted to join me, we could talk some more then?’

Jesus Christ, Max... Do you learn nothing?
He was remembering Melissa’s face when he shared with her the debacle over Deborah.

Anna was meantime now looking at her watch. ‘Well. It’s just – I normally do a run this lunchtime actually.’

‘Oh right. You run, Anna?’

‘Well. More walking with bounce – but I’m in training for a half marathon with my son. In danger of rank humiliation.’

‘Oh right. Well. Good for you – for giving it a go, I mean. That’s excellent. Really. Jolly good.’

A son? Of course she’s spoken for. Just because she doesn’t wear a bloody ring, Max, doesn’t mean that…

‘Though – the sandwich was a nice offer. Thank you.’

‘No problem. We’ll finish up here then.’

‘Right.’

‘Good. Excellent.’

That evening Max put in an extra run of three kilometres before supper. He pushed himself really hard, bending down for rather longer than usual to catch his breath before facing the steps up to his front door.

And then, as soon as he was inside, he couldn’t help himself – standing sweaty and still out of breath as he dialled.

‘Hi. It’s me.’

‘As in Max me?’

‘Yes. As in Max me. You OK?’

‘Yes. I’m fine. Just finishing a new watercolour for the gallery. I’ve been a bit lazy lately and they’ve been nagging. Anyway. It’s come out rather well so I’m rewarding myself with a second glass of extremely good Sancerre.’

Max glanced at the sofa, then down at his sweaty shorts and walked over to the window. The light was just fading and across the park he could see the first warm glimmers of a sunset over the grouping of three oaks. He suddenly felt very hot, wishing that he was back out there. In the breeze. Beneath the oaks.

‘The sky’s good here. How about you?’

‘Not so special. Cloud cover.’

‘Shame.’

‘So you were right about Greece. More trouble, I mean.’

‘Yes. Absolute shambles. But someone will blink soon.’

She paused for a time.

‘OK. So are you going to tell me what’s the matter, Max, or am I going to have to guess?’

‘I was thinking – wondering actually if I could come and see you tomorrow.’

‘Oh right. I see,’ there was a distinct change now in Sophie’s tone. In Max’s head one voice wanted to suck the words back in. Another wishing he had faced up to this long ago.

This was breaking the rules.

Max and Sophie saw each other on the first weekend of every month. Her suggestion. Her rules. They had dinner, they went to the theatre and sometimes to an art exhibition and afterwards they had extremely enjoyable sex. But they did not ring each other in between these encounters and Max no longer asked questions about the rhythm of the rest of her life.

Sophie was intelligent, beautiful and like no other woman he had ever met. She did not do commitment or conventional relationships, eschewing all the usual conventions over how liaisons might normally progress.

Max had broken off their ‘connection’ as she called it once before when he had experienced the disaster of dating Deborah at the university. Melissa had met Deborah. Quite liked her. But Max did not discuss Sophie with anyone…

‘Is this what I’m thinking, Max?’

‘I don’t know’

‘You don’t know?’

‘To be honest – I don’t know what I know any more. That’s why I need to see you.’

‘I thought we had talked this through, Max. The last time. I thought we were both OK?’

‘Yes, I know. And so did I. But I’m not sure if I really am OK.’

‘I see.’ There was a pause. ‘OK, Max. If talking is what you need to do then talking is what we will do. Tomorrow at 7 p.m.? I’ll cook us something nice.’

‘Oh don’t cook. Please don’t go to any trouble. I’ll book somewhere. Hartleys?’

‘And now I am really worried.’

‘I’ll text you. Pick you up around 7 p.m.’

Max put the phone down and stared at it.

He had no idea if he was doing the right thing but the truth was Sophie had become a paradox in his life, making him both very happy and terribly sad. The very reason he had not told Melissa about her.

They had met at the Tate of St Ives gallery in Cornwall – admiring an exhibition to champion local artists’ residencies. It was years after he lost Eleanor - in the phase when friends felt Max should be ‘moving on’. But he did not. Later that same day Max and Sophie bumped into each other again at the nearby Barbara Hepworth museum. They talked very easily and so walked on the beach and shared coffee which turned into lunch. It was not until they were parting reluctantly and several hours of excellent conversation later that Sophie shared that she was an artist herself.

A very good one as it turned out. Her paintings – mostly watercolours and charcoal sketches – sold well, especially, she confided, since she had hit upon a darker streak. Sophie began to weave shadows into the water and skies of otherwise bold and bright colour ways – an effect which always seemed, to Max at least, to be terribly sad and also rather brilliant.

For the most part, Sophie reflected the vibrant shades of her work – a torch beam in the room. The kind of person who always had some fascinating titbit from Radio Four and the Sunday papers, which she seemed to find the time to read from cover to cover every single week.

Max had for a short time imagined that this might be the relationship which could surprise him. But – no. It was not many weeks before he realised that the very thing that had drawn him to Sophie – her enigma – was the key. She had a switch. On. Off. And while she was very happy to ‘connect’ for their dinners and the occasional weekend, she did not want a conventional relationship.

Those dark shadows through her paintings.

Max had wondered if he might help her with this. If they might help each other? But Sophie did not see her situation as anything that needed solving. And so Max simply went along with her rules. They enjoyed each other’s company. They enjoyed each other in bed. She was kind and funny and made the best fish soup he had tasted outside of France. But – sorry; she did not ring and she did not need to talk in between their monthly dates and very soon Max realised it was precisely why he was both drawn to her and had stayed with her.

With Sophie he had found a place where he did not need to ‘
move on
’ from Eleanor.

Which was – yes; perfect and completely disastrous all at once.

12

MELISSA - 2011

Melissa woke with a start – at first disorientated and then, slowly registering the new anchors. The hum of the air conditioning. The shutters instead of curtains at the window. The large and ridiculous case casting a shadow in the corner of the apartment.

And then her mind was moving somewhere else – slipping back for just a second into the dream so that she had to close her eyes tight to it. Turn her head away towards the wall. She felt her right hand flinching. Imagined the wet sand between her toes. The sound of the ocean.

Melissa opened her eyes and sat up quickly to shake herself fully awake. To try to compute what was happening.

Jesus.
She hadn’t had that dream in years. Relieved now, heart pounding, that she had moved during the night onto the sofa bed. Sam had felt guilty – tossing and turning and keeping them both awake
.

I’ll go on the sofa bed, Mel.

No, Sam. We’ll both sleep better if you stay in the bedroom. You need the space for your leg. Just for a night.

Melissa kept very still and listened. No sound from the room next door. He must finally have dozed off.

Melissa picked up her phone from the floor alongside the sofa bed to check the time – three a.m. She tightened her lips at the message tag reminding her of two unanswered texts from her father – her eyes slowly adjusting to the half-light as she leant back now against the wall to slow her breathing. To wait for her heartbeat to settle.

She didn’t want to wake Sam but badly needed a drink and so, after a few minutes, swung her legs ever so carefully from the bed. She tiptoed then to the kitchen area and poured water from one of the large bottles on the surface. It was unpleasantly warm but she daren’t risk the fridge door – couldn’t remember how noisy it was.

Sam, if he woke, would want to sit with her. And talk. And because he knew her face better perhaps than anyone, he would very soon work out from that same face – her hands and her demeanour also – that it wasn’t just the accident that was disturbing her.

Melissa glanced over to her bag, zipped tight in the corner, now containing her mother’s book which she had retrieved from the wardrobe.

Just four days since she had first set eyes on it in James Halls’ office. How could it possibly be just four days?

She had so far read very little but now that Sam was safe, she couldn’t quite understand her reluctance to read on. Felt guilty about it.

Shouldn’t she want to devour it? Page after page? To finish the book.

How could it be normal that she didn’t want to do that? Read on. Somehow couldn’t.

Melissa closed her eyes again to the familiar prickle behind each one. She remembered how in school she would do arithmetic to control this.

Eight eights are sixty four. Nine nines are eighty one
.

She had the dream a lot back then. Once she had asked a friend if she ever had the same dream over and over and her friend – Laura – had said –
absolutely
. She had this dream about sitting a test and not being able to do it because it was all in a foreign language.
Seriously. Like Russian or something
. Other friends much later at university said they had recurring dreams about being naked in public. Or having to re-sit their A levels without having done any revision.