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He hadn’t even bothered with aftershave before his television career had taken off. Mark used to get his suits from John Lewis and he’d wear whatever ties and shirts Melissa put into his wardrobe. Now, despite putting on weight, he fusses about haircuts and Melissa has caught him patting under his chin and examining the line of his jaw in the mirror.
Always an attractive man, with his dark brown eyes and the smattering of salt-and-pepper in his hair, as he approaches 44, he looks more comfortable in his skin than ever before.
And look where that led us, she thinks.
A wave of torpid, sapping exhaustion washes over Melissa now. For a second she longs to crawl under the sheets, close her aching eyes and allow darkness to press her into oblivion.
Apart from Saskia, there are very few people downstairs who she actually wants to talk to. They are mostly parents she has met over the years or neighbours. The conversations with parents always felt like jousting matches, each jabbing the other with pointed boasts about their children. She doesn’t know any of Tilly’s boarding school friends, so these guests were mainly from primary school days. They had little in common anymore anyway.
Sometimes she imagined what would happen if any of them found out about the things she had done. A cold chill creeps over her arms and she rubs them briskly. The chances of anyone from Before recognizing her in that picture must be infinitesimal. She has been told that her light green eyes are distinctive. But lots of people have light green eyes.
Giving herself a mental shake, she arranges her face into one of friendly hospitality. She can do this. It’s really no different from putting on her make-up.
As Melissa comes to the bottom of the stairs she hears a piercing, high-pitched laugh she doesn’t recognize.
The party feels thinner somehow – like it has lost fat and heft, rather than individuals – and she wonders whether some guests have left without saying goodbye. Maybe she was upstairs for longer than she thought? Or maybe it is just that all the young people have decamped to the summerhouse at the bottom of the garden. She can hear the thump of music coming from there and hopes Tilly is finally enjoying herself.
There’s that baying laugh again. Emerging onto the patio she spies Hester, talking animatedly to a couple from the tennis club, who regard her with blank expressions. The scene is so unexpected it takes a moment to make sense of it. Hester’s hair is sticking damply to her forehead and her eyes have a bright, unfocused glaze. Is she … drunk?
The woman who once said, ‘Mind my French’, after using the word ‘bloody’ and who Mark once joked wears a chastity belt under her old-lady skirts? Hester, drunk?
‘Here she is!’ Hester trills as Melissa cautiously approaches.
Gary and Sue meet her puzzled gaze and Sue raises an eyebrow, quizzically, at Melissa, barely stifling a smile.
Melissa gives her a stricken look back.
‘I was just telling your friends Gary and … um … Thing, that I used to look after Tilly all the time when she was little. I was like an aunty to her, wasn’t I, Melissa? We’re all terribly proud of her now, aren’t we?’
Melissa grimaces and tries to convey an apology with her eyes to Gary and Sue.
‘Well, you certainly helped me out once or twice,’ she says. ‘And yes, we are very proud of her.’
Hester hiccups and then turns to look around the garden, her eyes narrowed.
‘Where did that Jess one go? I liked her. Although I’m not completely sure she isn’t one of those. Not that I care! Live and let live, I say. As long as they are not rubbing our noses in it.’
Sue tuts.
‘Oh dear God,’ says Melissa under her breath.
‘Gosh, look at the time!’ says Gary, pretending to look at his watch, not very convincingly.
‘It’s Pimm’s o’clock!’ trills Hester and collapses into giggles, staggering slightly against Melissa, who takes hold of her arm.
Hester leans into her. For a small woman, she feels surprisingly solid. Melissa is momentarily reminded of holding Tilly as a toddler; the dense heat of her compact body.
‘You seem to be having a good time, Hester,’ says Melissa tightly. ‘Have you had any water?’
Hester hiccups and belatedly puts a hand over her mouth.
‘I’ve only had two drinks but I do feel a little squiffy. Perhaps I should have some of your lovely nibbles! I was just telling, um, Thing …’, Sue smiles primly but doesn’t help her out, ‘that I offered some of my scones but it seems you have done a wonderful job of catering. It’s all lovely! Darned if I can identify any of it, though!’
At this she breaks into peals of laughter. Melissa realizes that she has never really heard Hester laugh properly before. The high-pitched seal bark hurts her head a little bit more.
‘Okay, maybe you should have a drink of water and something to eat, hmm?’ Melissa begins to steer her back into the kitchen, mouthing ‘sorry’ at Gary and Sue, who are already turning to each other and leaning in with conspiratorial grins.
Nathan watches her with a small smile as she comes into the kitchen. Melissa privately thinks that Saskia panders to him far too much. He and Tilly seem to have some sort of awkwardness between them and Tilly has called him, ‘a bit of an airhead’.
He’d even half come-on to Melissa at Christmas and she’d had to pretend it was all a joke. He certainly seems very amused by something as he studies Hester stumbling towards the table of food, which is now a wreck of weary salad leaves, smeared plates, and crumbs.
She wishes they would all go home. She only had this party as a sort of ‘fuck you’; to prove to herself that Mark’s betrayal hasn’t destroyed her. She is a survivor. Not that any of them even knew about it, apart from Saskia. But it all feels so much more trouble than it is worth.
Hester is now folding a mini pavlova into her mouth in one piece so cream dribbles from the corner of her lips. Melissa sighs and says, ‘Wait there,’ and goes to the sink. A woman she knows from the tennis club, Jennie, is nearby. She does a comical staggering motion and murmurs, ‘Gosh, she’s a bit worse for wear! Who on earth is that?’
‘My next-door neighbour,’ says Melissa in a low voice as water from the filter tap splashes noisily into the tall green glass. Normally she would add ice and some fresh mint but there’s no point wasting that on Hester. ‘She’s totally off her face, isn’t she? I didn’t even want her here but she sort of invited herself.’
The other woman laughs. ‘She banged on to me earlier about being one of the family or something,’ she says. ‘I thought it was a bit strange when you’ve never mentioned her!’
‘Oh God,’ says Melissa with feeling, turning off the tap.
‘Well she’s certainly making up for lost time with the food now!’ says Jennie stifling another laugh.
Melissa turns to see Hester cramming crisps into her mouth with a robotic regularity. She takes the water over and places it on the table next to where she stands.
‘Here,’ she says, no longer bothering to hide her irritation, ‘you’d better drink this and then maybe it’s time to go home for a lie-down. I think you’re going to need it, don’t you?’
Hester gazes up with unfocused eyes. Her skin looks clammy and blotchy now. She sways gently on the spot.
The doorbell trills. The sound, like a hard flick on a lighter wheel, ignites hope in Melissa’s chest. The pure joy of it comes as a surprise.
Could Mark have come home after all? But no, that’s ridiculous. He would use his key, wouldn’t he? She hurries to the door and can see straight away that it is a smallish man who stands there. She can’t think of any single men who were invited to the party.
As quickly as it came, the euphoria melts away and ice seems to form in the pit of her belly. Melissa has the strangest feeling that she can’t move. That she shouldn’t move. It would be a foolish act to take those few steps towards the front door.
She doesn’t believe in premonitions. But she does believe in following her instincts and something is telling her that she must not open that door.
She tries to breathe slowly. Be rational, she thinks.
Hasn’t she been feeling strange and paranoid all day? Thinking people are looking at her on the High Street? Peering in at her through the hairdresser’s windows?
It’s absurd.
She turns and looks at herself in the gilt-edged mirror she and Mark bought in an antique shop in Camden Passage when they first got together. He called it ‘shabby chic’ and the expression pleased her greatly. It was new to her and she liked very much that she was now a woman for whom shabby no longer necessarily meant poor, inferior, or dirty.
Melissa tries to breathe slowly as she gazes at her reflection. She sees someone poised and elegant who lives a safe, comfortable, middle-class life. Someone with no reason to be frightened.
The doorbell trills again, insistent as an angry fly banging against glass.
Licking her dry lips, Melissa moves towards the door.
HESTER (#uf64af6e8-21e4-55a3-bf2a-6ee75102af77)
I’ve had such a wonderful time but I think perhaps I should have stayed away from all that rich food.
My tummy is churning and when I look around Melissa’s kitchen, it’s like all the edges of things have run in the wash. Everything is a bit blurry.
I’m not feeling too clever.
That’s one of Terry’s expressions. ‘Not feeling too clever, old girl?’ he’d say and it annoyed the heck out of me because he was eleven years my elder.
‘Bugger off, Terry,’ I say out loud and it surprises me so much that I belch, to my horror, really quite loudly. I mumble an ‘excuse me’ and realize a strange woman is standing very close to me. I think we spoke earlier but darned if I know what about.
I don’t know where she came from now.
She’s there with her big wobbly face, saying, ‘Are you all right? Are you okay?’ I can smell her perfume and it makes me think of the inside of old handbags that we would get in Scope, which contained all sorts of disgusting things. Old tissues. Sanitary ware. Sweeties stuck to the lining like tumours. This image is so horrible it brings bile into my mouth and the ground does a strange shift sideways. I clutch the table. The woman says, ‘Do you need to sit down?’
It’s the second time today someone has spoken to me like this.
I look her squarely in the eye. Hers are large and very dark. I think she is probably foreign. With all the dignity I can muster I say, ‘I am absolutely tickety-boo’, and then wonder why, because this is another irritating Terry expression. But the words skid and skate into each other like cars on an icy road. ‘Going to the bathroom,’ I say and this time it comes out a bit more clearly.
I am on the landing upstairs now. I remember, too late, that there is a downstairs toilet that would have been closer.
My head is swimming and my insides feel wrong. Maybe it was the pâté on those tiny blinis. It smelled so very meaty. Sometimes I am eating a chop, or a piece of pork, and I remember that it is a dead thing on my plate. It puts me right off. Then all I can think about are tumours and carcasses, which makes my stomach squeeze and relax like a big fist.
Oh dear.
I can’t quite remember which room is the bathroom.
I’m not sure I’ve ever been upstairs here in all these years of living next door. It’s certainly very different to mine. It really is twice the size. But how silly that I don’t know where to go! A small laugh turns into another belch. ‘Whoops, pardon me,’ I say to no one.
I can hear Melissa’s voice, pitched low, at the front door. Melissa! I’m so very happy and relieved that we are friends again. I think I will offer to help tidy up later. There will be such a lot to do. But I may need a small rest first.
If only I could find the bathroom.
I lean over the stairs, intending to ask her where I might find it, but there’s something strange about the way she is standing. Despite my fuzziness I can tell she is somehow braced. Her feet are apart and her shoulders seem to be high. She’s clutching the side of the door like a lifeline. How very odd.
Maybe it’s one of those Chuggers. Chugger buggers! I must say this to Melissa later when we’re clearing up, maybe over a well-earned cup of tea. It will really tickle her.
I lean over the banister a little further and somehow knock my ribs, quite hard. The pain makes me even more queasy. And now something strange is happening to the walls and landing, which tip and pulse around me.
I really must find …
I shove open the nearest door.
Sweat breaks out all over me, greasy and cold. My stomach turns inside out.
I’m staring into Tilly’s face. She’s saying something but I can’t hear because the sour sickness rises up, engulfing me and then spurting out onto the soft pale carpet.
I stare down at the small pool, pink with Pimm’s.
Things have gone terribly wrong.
MELISSA (#uf64af6e8-21e4-55a3-bf2a-6ee75102af77)
‘Hello, Mel. Well don’t just stand there, gawping. You going to invite me in, or what?’
Melissa clutches the doorframe. Viscous shock floods her spine.
She can’t think of a single word to say.
He can’t be here? On her doorstep?
He’s laughing; enjoying the moment. Immersing himself gleefully in her distress like a dog cavorting in a filthy puddle.
When she manages to find words, they tumble out messily.
‘What are you …? Why …?’ It feels imperative that she doesn’t say his name aloud. If she does, it will make this all the more real.
Jamie? At her house?
‘Come on, aren’t you even a little bit pleased to see me after all these years?’
Blind instinct makes Melissa try to close the door, but he is too quick for her and pushes his white trainered foot into the gap. She immediately feels foolish.
‘Really? Come on!’ he says, head cocked to one side, not smiling now.
Of course, she can’t just slam the door in his face. Can she?
‘This is a bit of a surprise.’ Her voice sounds very far away to her own ears.
‘I bet.’
Jamie holds out his arms, as if to say, ‘this is me!’, and she looks at him properly now, registering that he is both unchanged and yet completely different.
The dark brown eyes are feathered by lines but the features that once crowded his teenage face, gawky and out of proportion, now suit him. His face is thicker, more square-jawed, but it is his body that is quite transformed. Although still on the short side, the skinny, concave-chested boy now looks like someone who works out with dedication. A broad chest and arms rounded with muscle are showcased in a tight t-shirt. His hair is cropped short.
The last time Melissa had seen him, his face was covered with snot and tears. He’d looked like the little boy he still was inside: sixteen to her seventeen.
He has a large holdall slung across one shoulder and an expectant tilt to his eyebrows. Surely he can’t think …
‘What the fuck are you doing here, Jamie?’ she says in little more than a whisper. Saying his name makes it all feel worse, just as she’d anticipated. ‘How did you …’, she swallows, ‘find me?’
Jamie shifts position, moving the bag onto the other shoulder, and his expression slackens. He’s always done that puppy dog thing to guilt trip her, but then his eyes and mouth thin and harden and she feels a flash of something else. The back of her neck prickles. This is new.
‘That’s not very welcoming, is it?’ he says, shifting the holdall in a way designed to emphasize how very heavy it is. ‘After all we’ve been through together? Can’t a girl make an effort for her own brother?’
She’s about to speak when she feels a hot, clammy hand on her bare arm.
