Authors: Rachel Hore
Looking back on that night many weeks later, Mel was to wonder if she had somehow sensed, even then, that it was to be the last time she and Patrick were to hold one another. There was a deep sense of sadness, of urgency about their lovemaking, as though they had been told the world was about to end. At the time she had put these feelings down to grief, the knowledge on both their parts that she and Patrick were captives of their own pasts, clinging together for comfort. Of course, they were mature adults; they had learned from experience the motions they had to go through to plaster emotional wounds, to find closure, to go on with life. That night, however, they seemed as vulnerable and needy as young children.
How then, after the intensity of that experience, could the events of the very next evening ever have taken place?
The day started normally enough – if you can call being woken at 7.30 a.m. by rumbling lorries and the screech of mechanical saws normal – though Patrick was very quiet. Mel came downstairs to find him standing at the kitchen window, staring unseeing across the garden. She caressed his shoulder briefly as he made way for her to fit the kettle under the tap. She filled it to the brim, realising he hadn’t yet made tea for the workers.
‘Better go into work today,’ he muttered, pouring himself some cornflakes. ‘Do you mind being catering manager today?’ He nodded his head towards the front of the house, where the noise was reaching teeth-jarring level.
‘Should be all right. I’m planning chapter thirteen today,’ said Mel, buttering toast. ‘About the arrival in Lamorna of Alfred Munnings and Augustus John.’
‘How many chapters are there?’
‘Fifteen. Then lots of fiddly stuff. Appendices, footnotes, that sort of thing.’
‘You’ve nearly finished, then?’
She had considered how long it would take her once she returned to London, visiting the British Library, and a couple of museum libraries, a conversation she needed to have with a curator at the Tate. A month’s concentrated work, she calculated. But that would be if she could find everything easily. Waiting for people to answer emails, especially in August, was frustrating enough. And once she returned to work, the teaching would intervene.
In addition, there was an important visit to make, to Ann Boase, Pearl’s granddaughter, to see other pictures by Pearl, to find out what more Ann knew about her grandmother, to learn Ann’s own story. No, she certainly couldn’t consider her paper finished until she had spoken to Ann. Yesterday she had tried ringing the number Richard Boase had given her, but it just rang and rang without ever awakening an ansaphone. Possibly Ann was away. She visited the States a great deal, her brother said.
Wasn’t it funny, was her gloomy thought, how everything was conspiring to draw her back to London? Rowena’s recent call had seemed at the time a slight annoyance, but even that was worrying her now. Rowena, it seemed, would still be teaching at the college next term. Why?
Kissing Patrick goodbye quickly – ‘I’ll get some food in on the way home,’ he said – she walked down to the cottage, immediately wilting in the scorching heat. There, after debating the relative demerits of heat or noise, she opted for the sound of the saws and opened both front and kitchen doors to get some air moving through the house. The computer was feeling the heat, too – it took ages to boot up – and while she waited, the feeling of dread that had ebbed and flowed inside her all morning, swirled into a ghostly manifestation.
Bella
.
Why did she feel so anxious? Patrick would see Bella tonight, and at the end of the week, she would be gone. But as she called up her own Inbox she thought of two nights ago, when Bella’s name had shown up on Patrick’s computer. What had she written to Patrick? If only Mel had looked.
Even Bella was momentarily forgotten as two emails popped into her box. The first one was from Chrissie, the second from Jake.
She stared at Jake’s name for a moment, then looked at the heading. NEWS, it said. It had to be for her only, not a round robin this time, as this was her personal email address.
He’s either getting married again or he’s got another job, she thought. That’s why he’s writing. Bracing herself, she double-clicked on his message. It seemed an age before it opened up and she read:
‘Hi, Mel,
Are you still in the back of beyond? Hope you’re having a wild time, whatever. Must send you this as it’s so funny, I can hardly believe it myself. Anna and Freya are great – would send you their love if they knew I was writing. Helen’s taken them to Spain with her new man.
Good for Helen, thought Mel, genuinely pleased for her. She read the website link Jake had sent her. It was for a publishing magazine and when she opened it up she read:
Sirius Books wins British Dan Brown. Yesterday, Sophie Wright of Conway & Eaton Literary Agency concluded a ‘high six-figure’ deal for two thrillers by poet and Creative Writing lecturer Jake Friedland, based on a partial manuscript and synopsis. Sirius Editor Bill Meek describes the first of these, Deciphering Delacroix, as ‘an intriguing and fast-paced tale about an international art conspiracy that puts Dan Brown in the shade.’ Sirius plan to publish . . .
Mel closed the link, the initial sense of surprise fading and a smile spreading across her face. He had done it. Good old Jake. Two thrillers, eh? Well, there would be a certain amount of twittering in the staff bar, about it being commercial fiction rather than the erudite satire of the art world he had been working on for so long, but there would be envy, too, she knew. A high six-figure sum. That meant at least several hundred thousand pounds. How many years’ salary was that for most of her colleagues? Even she was being paid only a pittance for her book. It was extraordinary!
Clicking on Reply, she tapped out a quick but heartfelt message of congratulation. She squeezed her eyes shut as she pressed Send, and when she opened them, immediately regretted what she had written. What devil had possessed her to suggest a celebratory drink in the same message?
Slightly cross at her recklessness, she stabbed the mouse twice on Chrissie’s email, which turned out to be mostly about some paperwork connected to their mother’s affairs that needed Mel’s signature, then finished:
Can we come for a few days in August when the day nursery is closed?
She replied to that, agreeing to do the first and promising to check with Patrick about the second.
She sighed. In some ways it would be lovely to see Chrissie and the boys. And yet she also wanted to be on her own with Patrick. Which made her think of the intruder. Bella.
Concentrate, girl, she told herself, and forced herself to open up the document labelled
Lamorna book
.
Two hours later, she became aware that the sound of the saws had ceased, glanced at the time and cursed. She had forgotten the next tea break. She could feel the sun burn through her on the short journey round the house to check that the men hadn’t all died of dehydration.
Patrick arrived in the early evening, hot and irritable, with several carrier bags of shopping. Mel mentioned Chrissie’s request, and he seemed pleased at the idea of seeing her. Then she was able to tell him that Irina had rung again.
‘It still seems unbelievable, but apparently she and Greg have sorted everything out. Or rather, Lana has.’
‘Lana?’
‘Yes. She instructed her parents at dinner last night that she wanted to live with Irina, but go to stay with her father often. And since her parents were both sitting there at her mercy, and neither wanted her to view them as responsible for further conflict, they agreed. Oh yes, and he’s happy to pay for her music.
Voilà
. Sorted. Irina sounded very proud of her.’
‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings . . . wisdom. She is an unusually mature little girl, isn’t she? Still, I’m surprised Greg agreed to it just like that.’
‘Yes, he’s a tough nut, isn’t he? Though, if Lana is really his little princess, perhaps she winds him around her finger.’ Like someone else I know, Mel thought resentfully of Bella but just said, ‘So what time are you going out tonight, O Master?’ If she made a joke of it, perhaps the whole thing would turn out to be as inconsequential as he pretended.
‘Meeting her at eight at some pub in St Ives.’
‘You’d better get a move on then. It’s seven already.’
When he left, he kissed her lightly, but once he was over the threshold, Patrick didn’t look back.
Mel drifted around the house and wondered what to do with herself while she counted the hours until his return.
Ten to eight. He’ll be nearly there now.
Five to eight. He’ll be finding somewhere to park. Patrick had left a T-shirt draped over the back of a chair in the kitchen. Mel cuddled it to her and breathed in the smell of him – earthy, slightly sweaty.
Eight. He’ll be meeting her, unless she’s late. Was Bella the sort who would be deliberately late? Mel thought she might be.
She tidied up, stuffed a great heap of clothes in the machine, did some ironing, taking particular care over anything of Patrick’s. After that she tried to read a novel, but couldn’t concentrate so she gave up. Switching on the television, she watched the first twenty minutes of a romantic comedy, but she’d seen it before and, anyway, the repartee didn’t seem funny any more. Love going wrong and right again. Why should it be the subject of such amusement? She knew all about love going wrong – the feelings of rejection, desolation, the death of hope, the sense that the future has been taken away. There was nothing funny about any of it.
She slouched into the darkening hall, intending to make yet another cup of coffee. Or she might see if there was an open bottle of wine in the fridge.
But as she turned towards the kitchen, her eye was caught by a strange glow in the dark recesses of the hall and her heart gave a jolt. It only took a second or two for her to realise that Patrick must have left a light on in his study.
She took several steps down the corridor, telling herself she would just turn off the light and march straight back on her mission to the fridge, but when she looked into the doorway of the old estate office, she saw that the light was from Patrick’s computer, which he had failed to shut down properly.
A little nagging voice inside her, that she tried very hard to shut out, started shouting at full volume.
Look at the emails, look at the emails!
It would be wrong. She would hate it if Patrick turned on her machine and started going through her Inbox – saw those messages from Jake and jumped to the wrong conclusion. She cringed at the thought, whilst a priggish part of her stridently protested that there was nothing of blame in her correspondence.
But if there was something going on with Bella, really going on, she had to find out – didn’t she? Her sanity was at stake.
She pressed a few buttons and she was in, clicking on his email Inbox, staring at the screen.
She scrolled up and down quickly. Every now and then was an email from Bella. In the last couple of weeks there had been five or six. She turned to the Sent box. There were as many responses from Patrick.
She sat down on the chair and started to read.
The final one, dating from several days ago said,
I don’t know what to do, I really need to speak to you. Love, your Bellaxxx
The one before said,
Your advice is good as always, but I can’t decide. Can we meet in Cornwall next week?
So he had known that she was coming, even before the phone call two days ago.
Some way up the screen, at the beginning of the previous week, had come the email she had been dreading.
I’m going to tell Ed I can’t be with him any more. We just don’t see things the same way. I thought what he and I had was special, precious, but he doesn’t take me seriously enough. Not the way you used to. And he’s quite selfish. When he works late he doesn’t think about me being on my own in the flat, and you know how I hate that. I wish I could see you, Patrick. I don’t mean to mess you up all over again, but you’re very comforting, you say all the right things and I just need you at the moment – a friend until I pull through.
How manipulative the woman was. Mel went down the list of Patrick’s replies, heart in mouth. She read them all and then she sat dazed from the blow she had in effect inflicted upon herself.
The hours passed. Ten o’clock, eleven o’clock. At half-past eleven, she had had enough of sitting in the dark morning room, nursing glass after glass of wine, watching for car headlights to play across the wall.
She wouldn’t hang around for Patrick. She wouldn’t sleep here tonight, she’d go back to the cottage. Her own hidey-hole.
She was just locking the front door with a key Patrick had given her weeks ago, when his car purred into the drive. She stood on the steps as he parked, snapped off the headlights, and got out. The night was moonless, warm, the air still.
‘Sorry I’m so late,’ he called in the darkness. His voice sounded weary.
She said nothing, waited as he slammed the car door and stumbled up the steps.
‘A good evening?’ Her voice was precise, her words like shards of glass.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Going back to the cottage? I’ll walk with you.’
There was something flat about his tone. Alarm bells started to ring in her mind. She set off around the side of the building, picking out her way with the narrow torchbeam, aware of him struggling to keep up some way behind.
Outside the cottage, she scrabbled in her bag for her key but dropped the torch, which went out.
‘Damn,’ she said, and stood listening for Patrick, standing somewhere behind her in the opaque darkness. ‘Just looking for the key.’
‘Mel,’ Patrick said, behind her. His voice still sounded odd. She froze.
‘It’s not fair. I have to tell you.’
‘I know what you’re going to say.’
‘No, you don’t.’
‘Yes, I do, Patrick. You’re going back to her, aren’t you? She’s given up the other bloke and wants you back. And like a great wuss you’re going to do it.’