The Life I Left Behind Read online

  Yet the ticking clock is a source of irritation today. It is five minutes to one. She has prepared the food to be ready at one o’clock and there is no sign of her guests. By one fifteen the beef will be either overcooked or cold. Neither thought is pleasing to her. She knows all about timing and measuring to the exact milligram. She follows recipes to the letter and it has produced results. Three years ago the preparation of fish fingers would have tested her culinary expertise. She hasn’t come all this way without learning that precision is everything.

  ‘Smells good,’ Sam says, emerging through the door carrying the heat of the shower with him. His hair is still wet, the outline of his muscles visible beneath his blue T-shirt. For a beat it surfaces as strong as ever: the reflex to pull him close, feel him tight against her. She’s always pleasantly surprised in these instances to find her muscles are still capable of spontaneity even if her mind is not.

  She turns to the clock.

  ‘It’s not like Patrick to be late,’ she says. Patrick is habitually early, can’t abide tardiness. This she remembers from their years flat-sharing. If she was late home, he’d be calling her, enquiring as to her whereabouts, just to make sure she was OK. The same if they’d arranged to meet, he’d be texting after five minutes, saying ‘Where are you?’ It was reassuring to have someone looking out for you in London, good to know you’d be missed if something ever happened. Not that it made much difference in the end. She stops herself at this juncture, recognises that this is a negative thought and works on isolating it before it sprouts and colonises her mind completely. She knows the drill: close it down, think of something else. In this case the something else is the gravy, which she now gives her full attention, adding flour slowly, carefully, to ensure lumps don’t form. She has an irrational fear of lumps. As a child she remembers the globules of brown matter that would appear in her potatoes when her mother had been cooking. ‘Just pick them off,’ she’d say, as if you could then go on to enjoy your meal with them congealing on the side of the plate. She stirs the gravy and, satisfied to feel it thicken to the right consistency, turns off the gas.

  ‘Has he called to say he’ll be late?’ she asks Sam, who is leafing through the Sunday papers. They have The Times and the Observer delivered each week. He reads the sport, news and business sections, she reads the magazines, property and travel. A perfect division of tastes, she likes to think.

  ‘He isn’t late.’

  ‘But has he called to say he will be?’

  ‘I haven’t checked my phone.’

  ‘Can you check your phone?’

  ‘If he’s late I will,’ he says, turning a page in the news section.

  Melody checks the calendar in case she has mixed up the time or even the date, although a mistake on her part is not a probable explanation. Her weeks are expertly planned, so too the weekends. Sam often goes kite-surfing at Camber, so when he is at home their time is accounted for with lunches and dinners and lately wedding planning. There are no spare slots because if she sees a gap she will fill it. Sure enough, PATRICK LUNCH 1 P.M. is written in red capitals.

  The intercom buzzes. She expels air in relief. Sam crosses the room to answer it. ‘What time do you call this? You’re almost late,’ he barks into it before letting out a deep belly laugh. She smiles, rises above the sarcasm. Sam presses the button that opens the gates to the driveway and goes to meet their guests at the door.

  Patrick has brought a friend with him, a woman he met at work. There has been a long run of these friends, who they no longer refer to as girlfriends because the term implies a longevity they rarely manage to achieve.

  She hears their voices in the hallway. ‘This is Lottie,’ Patrick says, followed by the sound of kisses. There’s laughter too, footsteps coming towards her. ‘God, that smell is making me hungry,’ Patrick says as he enters the kitchen. ‘Sorry we’re almost late … the traffic was awful on the M25, bumper to bumper.’ He kisses her on both cheeks. ‘You look lovely as usual.’

  ‘Don’t try to charm your way out of it,’ she says, digging him in the ribs. He looks tired, overworked no doubt. Probably could have done without the drive out here, she thinks, but it’s not his style to be flaky. In all the years she’s known him he’s let her down once and that was because he had eaten a dodgy curry the night before and had to remain within two metres of a toilet, preferably his own.

  ‘I know by now I can never charm you,’ he laughs, and turning to his friend he puts his arm around her. ‘This is Lottie. I’ve told her all about your cooking.’

  Melody raises an eyebrow. ‘I wish you hadn’t.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he gives Lottie a wink, ‘she’s moved on from her experimental phase.’

  ‘That’s one way of describing it,’ Sam says as he hands them both a glass of prosecco.

  ‘There is a very average takeaway down the road where you might find yourself if you’re not careful,’ Melody says. ‘Lovely to meet you, Lottie.’ She thinks about offering her hand but stops herself, knowing that it’s too formal. The kissing comes naturally to most people but Melody has a keen sense of personal space, protects it fiercely and struggles with the forced intimacy of kissing someone she’s only just met. She does it all the same.

  At a guess she’d say Lottie is a few years younger than herself, rake thin, wearing skinny jeans and thong sandals and a light cotton top with little birds on it. Mel glances at her own outfit, a wrap dress Sam bought her a few years back, and feels frumpy by comparison. Lottie has blond hair which she wears down and pushes back from her face in movements that make the silver bracelets on her wrist jangle together.

  Melody instructs them all to sit and puts the beef on the table, along with roast potatoes, roasted parsnips and carrots and onions and greens, which, she notes with consternation, are only just passable, having spent too long in the steamer.

  Patrick and Sam engage in surfing talk, a new board that Patrick has bought and the size of the waves in Cornwall when he was there a few weeks ago. From there the conversation segues into football before descending into the juvenile banter of friends who support different teams.

  Sometimes, on these occasions when Patrick has brought a guest and Melody feels the chat run away from her, she allows her mind to shuttle back. Honor takes the place of Patrick’s friend at the table. The years that have come between them fold in on themselves so that there is no gulf to bridge. The air rings with laughter and easy, uncomplicated chat. Melody is someone else entirely. This Melody is quick-witted, thinks nothing of opening her mouth and letting words flow out, words that entertain and draw laughter from her audience. Her voice is loud, as if it wants to be heard. She is the kind of woman who reaches for the wine bottle and tops herself up without so much as a thought to the consequences. Melody watches her old self perform this feat like she would a gymnast back-flipping across a mat. She has no idea how she does it.

  ‘Do we have any horseradish?’ Sam asks.

  Melody blinks, refocuses. ‘Uh, yes, I think we do.’ She pushes her chair out and goes to retrieve it from the back of the fridge. She should speak to Lottie because Patrick and Sam are not. They are talking about the usual stuff that entertains them. What should she say? She considers this for a moment before remembering that Patrick knows her from the hospital where he works as a doctor. ‘What is it you do?’ she asks, sitting down at the table again. When did she start to sound like her mother?

  ‘I’m a pharmacist, been there for a couple of years. To be honest, I’m slightly bored now, it’s not the most exciting job. What do you do?’

  It’s obvious to her now that this wasn’t the ideal line of questioning to initiate. Melody does lots of things, never stops. She could produce the lists she writes every morning to prove it, the training programmes to keep fit, the cooking, the planning of the wedding, but she knows this is not the answer to the question Lottie is asking. She does lots of jobs but she doesn’t have a job.

  ‘Nothing,’ she says and watches Lottie turn
to her, beef suspended on the fork a few centimetres from her mouth, waiting for some kind of qualification, an explanation at the very least. When she realises none is forthcoming, she returns to the beef with renewed enthusiasm.

  ‘I am stuffed,’ Patrick says, pushing his chair away from the table as if his belly is so full he needs extra room to accommodate it.

  ‘There’s panna cotta for pudding,’ she says.

  ‘The woman has no mercy,’ Patrick laughs. ‘I think I need a breather first if you don’t mind.’

  ‘The football is just about to start,’ Sam says, heading into the living room.

  Lottie starts clearing the plates from the table. She’s gathering the serving dishes. ‘Leave that, I’ll do it,’ Mel insists.

  Lottie ignores her, carries on. ‘It’ll be twice as quick this way.’

  Why does everyone assume saving time is a good thing?

  ‘Your house is amazing, by the way.’

  ‘Thanks. You get a bit more for your money the further out you go,’ although she’s minded to correct herself: Sam got more for his money.

  ‘You could fit my whole flat into your kitchen.’

  It is true that space is not something they lack. The building was a derelict barn before Sam bought it at auction and then enlisted an architect who advised knocking it down and getting planning permission to build a new house.

  She wouldn’t have been brave enough to take on a project of this scale. But Sam had never been short of confidence. He even picked up the language quickly, started talking about creating something with architectural integrity and structural authenticity. She wondered where he had learnt his spiel until they watched Grand Designs together one night and heard the presenter Kevin McCloud say the same thing. ‘He’s stealing your lines,’ she said, although from the vacant look on Sam’s face she wasn’t convinced he got the joke.

  The neighbours’ antipathy didn’t worry him either. Not even when they got up a petition against the proposed build. Melody wasn’t keen on the thought of moving into hostile territory, so it fell to him to reassure her. ‘They’ll come around,’ he said.

  They have never come around. Not in the physical or literal sense.

  ‘Space isn’t everything,’ Melody tells Lottie as she wipes the endless white worktops clean. Sometimes when the sun streams through the vast glass wall at the back of the kitchen it blinds her, and in the height of summer the room gets unbearably hot. Even with the windows open.

  She raised this with the architect when she saw the plans. There was too much glass. Couldn’t they have a smaller, cosier area?

  He gave her the strangest look, as if she had said something unintelligible. ‘You can never have too much light or space,’ he told her.

  Turns out you can.

  She keeps these misgivings to herself, reminds herself she should be grateful to live in a house like this. Sam would take any criticism personally because he clings to the belief that he has poured his soul into this place, that his personality is reflected in its beams and glass panels and vaulted ceilings and the paperless toilet that washes and blow-dries your arse.

  Secretly she doesn’t like the idea of this being a mirror of Sam’s soul. No matter how hard she looks, she can’t find any soul in it.

  ‘Patrick tells me you’re getting married soon.’ They’ve almost finished the tidying now. Melody puts a tablet in the dishwasher, presses start and hears the satisfying sound of the water sloshing around inside.

  ‘Three months.’

  ‘Do you still have loads to do or are you on top of it all?’ Lottie asks, sitting down at the table. Melody sighs. The fact that she is routinely asked this question by guests makes her feel indescribably lonely. She’d like to show them her wedding mood boards, the magazine cuttings. Hasn’t she already blind tasted eight brands of champagne, selected red and white wine, dessert wine too? Then there’s the timetable she has drawn up to make sure no detail is overlooked.

  ‘There are a few finishing touches, flowers, favours, that kind of thing to choose, but mostly it’s done.’

  ‘And the dress … or am I not allowed to ask?’

  ‘No, ask away. It’s simple, really, more like an evening gown in champagne silk.’

  ‘Sounds gorgeous. You’ll look amazing in it I’m sure.’

  Melody thinks of the final fitting she had last week. The way her mother started to cry when she tried it on. How she herself started to cry too, which sent Anastasia the designer into a meltdown in case the tears stained the dress.

  ‘Come here,’ her mother said when she’d stepped out of the dress. In a rare show of affection she had hugged Melody.

  She didn’t have the heart to tell her mother she was crying because it was so tight she couldn’t breathe.

  Mel opens another bottle of wine. ‘Thanks,’ she says to Lottie. ‘Sam will love you for getting him out of tidying up,’ she adds, to create the impression there is a fair division of labour in the household. They go back to the living room. It is the ad break, half-time in the football. She is topping up Patrick’s glass when Lottie nudges his elbow and sends wine splashing on to the floor.

  Melody follows Lottie’s finger, which is pointed at the TV screen. It’s a local news bulletin, showing shots of woodland and Richmond Park and people in white forensic suits padding about inside police tape.

  ‘I was there with the dog the other day,’ Lottie says with a theatrical shiver.

  The headline tickering at the bottom of the picture: Body found outside London park.

  ‘Mel!’ Sam shouts. She looks down and sees she has carried on pouring the wine long after Patrick removed his glass. Dark red liquid pools at her feet. ‘I’ll get a cloth,’ he says, springing from the sofa.

  She stands motionless as heat rushes to her cheeks. She can feel Lottie’s eyes on her now and tries to ignore them. ‘You OK, Mel?’ Patrick asks gently. She nods and waits for Sam to come to her rescue. He returns with kitchen roll and begins soaking up the wine around her. She watches the red seep into the white paper. When he’s finished, he hands her a glass, kisses her.

  ‘This might come in handy next time, honey.’ Until now she’s only been drinking water, but she takes the glass from him, fills it to the brim with wine and takes a gulp.

  ‘I wonder what happened,’ Lottie says as Sam and Patrick settle back down to watch the second half. Perhaps they haven’t heard her, Melody thinks, because they don’t acknowledge her question. She could tell Lottie what might have happened. Run her through a list of possibilities, each one worse than the next. Out of everyone in the room she is best placed to do this. It’s her chosen subject, starter for ten. But you need air to speak and her lungs have had it sucked out of them. She moves across the room and sits on the sofa next to the window. Occasionally Patrick looks over and gives her a reassuring smile but Sam and Lottie pay her no attention, which is good, because the last thing she wants is them noting the involuntary twitch in her upper lip, the way she holds her smile, rictus-like, for too long because if she lets it go her whole face will crumple. She needs to focus, so her eyes find Lottie, who is sitting closest to her, next to Patrick. The pendant she’s wearing catches her eye. Is it a butterfly or a dragonfly? From this angle it’s unclear. It is silver and rises and falls gently with each breath she takes. Why do I feel like there is no air when everyone else is breathing easy?

  A voice in her head runs through the drill like a sergeant major. SHUT IT DOWN, FOCUS ON SOMETHING ELSE, THINK POSITIVE. CATCH IT, DON’T LET IT TAKE HOLD.

  Too late, she thinks. The thought is already snaking through her brain.

  Time is a healer, so the saying goes.

  The first time someone said it to her was at a support group, one she had gone to at her mother’s behest. It was January, a church hall not far from her parents’ house in Dorset, draughty and musty-smelling. Richard, the counsellor, sat underneath a giant cross that looked like it was growing out of his head. Everyone was issued with tea or coffe
e. Melody had opted for tea, which actually tasted like coffee on account of the flask not being cleaned properly from the previous use. She couldn’t drink it but cradled it in her hands to heat her fingers instead. Around her, a circle of woolly jumpers, nervous eyes staring out from blank faces. As far as she knew she wasn’t officially depressed, but a few more sessions like this and she’d definitely be on her way.

  ‘Time is a healer,’ the woman had said. She was called Tabitha or Tamara, one or the other. Not much older than Melody probably. Threads of grey ran through her hair. She fiddled with the cuff of her cardigan as she spoke.

  ‘Honestly, it gets easier.’ This was directed at another man later in the session whose daughter had died in a car crash, as if time alone could erase all his pain. All he had to do was sit and wait for the months and years to pass. Melody thought about getting up to leave, feigning a headache, but there was always someone talking and she didn’t want to appear rude so she sat it out, vowing never again to listen to her mother. When Richard the counsellor declared, ‘That’s all for this week,’ she sprang from her seat, ready to flee when Tamara or Tabitha appeared at her shoulder.

  ‘I know what it’s like, really, but you’ll feel better after these sessions,’ she said, nodding her head in tiny, furious movements. Her body was straight like a rod, so taut Mel was tempted to touch it to see if it would ting like a violin string. Bright eyes, shiny and manic, pinned her down.

  Melody felt like she was being inducted into a cult, half expected the other woman to tell her she’d found God. Instead she stared and waited for Melody to agree.

  Just say you believe me.

  If we all believe the lie we can make it come true.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ Melody said, guilt filling her. She couldn’t give the woman what she wanted. She couldn’t say yes I believe you, I’m sure it does get easier. Because she didn’t believe Tabitha then and she doesn’t believe her now.

  Chapter Three

  Eve