The Woman Next Door(73)

‘Mark,’ says Melissa thickly after a few moments. ‘There’s something I have to tell you. Something else.’

She can’t tell him everything. Not about the biggest thing. But keeping the toxic burden of her past inside is what started it all.

It’s time to let it out.

***

She’d had a stupid, jealous tantrum. That was the worst thing. The temper constantly smouldering inside during her years in care was largely under control these days.

But she hadn’t slept properly for a while and her nerve endings were zinging with the wrong kind of energy.

Sticky summer heat and a constant topping up of vodka and weed over the weekend had muddied her thoughts and spiked her mood. When Jez suggested going to the party in Holloway, she should have said no. But she never said no anymore. And she was starting to trust him. He had been all over her when he first moved into the squat, this private school boy who liked to party and whose hands and body had made her finally get the whole sex thing.

So they’d gone to the party, and as she drank and then took the E offered by God knows who, the evening started to take on a sinister feel. Flashcards of scenes made her head spin and her stomach roil:

Jez dancing with a tiny blonde-haired girl dressed in a striped dress.

Jez kissing the girl, her arms wrapped around his neck, and their faces grinding together.

Music, so loud, and everyone laughing.

There was no air.

She’d stumbled outside and seen the car parked there, keys in the ignition. It felt like a sign. A benediction.

Later, she discovered that the owner was simply helping his elderly mother through her front door. But Melanie had so badly wanted to go home. To get to the squat and pull her duvet over her head until it all went away.

As she had roared down the road and turned into the next one, she had been aware of the thump of something against the car. When the police car pulled her over, less than ten minutes later, she had pitifully pretended she didn’t know she’d hit someone. But it was a lie.

He didn’t die. But for a time, it looked as though he might.

‘He’s called Thomas Pinkerton,’ she says now, keeping her head dipped and her voice low. ‘He was a student on his way back from the pub. He lost … lost a leg and was in a coma, but he survived.’ She sucks in a drag of air audibly and then begins to speak too fast. ‘I sometimes look him up online and I see that he has a good life now. He has kids! He works for a charity. He hasn’t made his Facebook profile private. They were on holiday in the Seychelles the last time I checked.’

Shame burns brighter and harder. Why is she telling him that? As if it makes everything okay; the act itself. The lies since.

Mark lets out a long hiss of air. ‘Jesus,’ he says at last.

Melissa knows she has to press on through to the end, however bitter the taste in her mouth right now. She can’t bear to look up and see disgust in Mark’s eyes.

‘And I got six months in Holloway,’ she says quietly. ‘I don’t want to talk about that. I did it and it’s over. But you must understand why I could never tell you. Why I don’t want to share your limelight.’

His silence is so absolute she looks up at last.

He is staring down at the table, his expression stony.

‘Mark?’ she says as fear begins to flicker inside her. ‘Can’t you say anything?’

He gets up from the table.

‘I’m glad you told me,’ he says quietly. ‘But I don’t know what to say. I don’t feel like I know who you are.’

‘Okay,’ she replies in a tiny voice.

He holds the sides of his head and then lets out a strange barking laugh.

‘Christ! I need …’, he swallows. His eyes are wide. ‘I need to think. I’m taking Tilly and going to see my parents,’ he says in a harder tone. ‘Maybe we both need some thinking time.’

He doesn’t look at her as he walks out of the kitchen, his head down.





HESTER


All my kitchen surfaces are covered in a floury residue and the floor is gritty with sugar.

I don’t want to wake Amber by hoovering though, so I must make do with dustpan and brush.

I never expected to have that little girl sleeping here, yet there she is, curled up on my bed in her new jammies, with the dragon toy she has named, ‘Toofless’, for some reason, clutched against her rosy, hot cheek. She cried a little bit and asked for Mummy but I reassured her that all was well and that Mummy would see her soon.

It did take a lot of cajoling, and only the promise that she could bathe Bertie tomorrow and tie ribbons around his ears eventually calmed her enough to sleep. I can’t imagine what Bertie will make of this indignity but hopefully she will have forgotten all about it come the morning.

Once the kitchen is back in some semblance of order, I look around with an appraising eye.

I’m quite exhausted, but I want everything to be tidy.

I still can’t really believe Amber is sleeping upstairs.

All I can think is that my prayers have been answered, after all these years. I waited for a very long time, but finally it is my time. I can do the things I’ve always longed to do.

When the kitchen is spick and span I unwrap the bright blue plastic bowl that I picked up in Asda and give it a good wash in hot soapy water. In the morning I will make porridge and scatter blueberries on the top for Amber’s breakfast.