by Imogen Clark
‘That would be top,’ he replied.
Top? He’d have to stop saying stuff like that, for a start, if he wanted to stick around with me!
I showed him through into the lounge, which was messy but not disgraceful. He loitered by the sofa, not wanting to sit down because of his wet jeans.
‘Pass me your kecks,’ I said. ‘I’ll stick them in the dryer. Not whatever you’ve got on under there, though,’ I added. ‘You’ll have to dry those yourself.’
‘Things aren’t wet that high up,’ he said. ‘Yet.’ His ginger eyebrows disappeared into his carroty curls.
Oh, for God’s sake, I thought.
Marlon stripped out of his wet jeans, comically hopping on one foot as he tried to get the wet denim over his soggy socks, and then passed his socks and jeans to me in a little salty bundle. I took them and disappeared into the kitchen. Five seconds later he was behind me, his milk-bottle legs disconcertingly muscly and the trim of his boxer shorts just peeping out from beneath his T-shirt.
‘Is this okay?’ he asked, and before I could work out what he was talking about he was standing close enough for him to kiss me again.
Was it okay? There were so many things about this situation that were strange that I didn’t really know what I thought. Maybe it was best not to think at all? I think I must have nodded, a tiny movement, but it was enough. He stepped towards me and kissed me again, still gentle and with none of that desperate urgency of the men I’d known in the past. I allowed myself to be kissed, fully surrendering. We were vertical and it was just a kiss. How wrong could that go? There’d be time to think about the implications later.
Then the doorbell rang and broke the spell. Clio and the kids were back. Shit! Thank God they had no key. At least it bought us a bit of time. Marlon still had no trousers on, his jeans sitting damp and cold where I’d dropped them at our feet. He scrabbled to pick them up, struggling to pull the wet fabric over his legs. He looked so earnest, and that just made me want to laugh, but I needed to answer the door so I slipped out into the hallway, pulling the kitchen door to behind me. I wondered if Clio would be able to tell what we’d been doing just by looking at me. She surely didn’t know me that well yet, did she?
When I opened the door, Noah almost fell into the house. He had a paper party hat on his head and was carrying a green balloon attached to a plastic stick. A tell-tale chocolatey mark smudged his cheek. Clio and Poppy followed behind. I eyed Poppy carefully, checking for signs of teenage sulks, but she was grinning at Clio as if the two of them shared some joke that no one else would understand.
‘Nice time?’ I asked, hoping that no one would notice my jeans.
‘The best!’ shouted Noah, dropping his balloon and kicking it along the floor, stick and all.
‘What happened to you, Mum?’ asked Poppy. She missed nothing, that girl.
‘We had a bit of an accident,’ I said. ‘I was just about to have a go at drying Marlon’s jeans.’
Right on cue Marlon appeared from the kitchen, fully dressed and displaying no clues as to what we had been up to moments before. His jeans were sticking to his legs.
‘Did you go wave-jumping?’ asked Noah.
‘We did,’ said Marlon.
27
MELISSA – THEN
Their wedding was, as Ray had wanted, very small. Ray looked extremely striking, Melissa thought, in a smart navy suit and new striped tie. She wore a pink spotted frock with a nipped-in waist and padded shoulders, which managed to disguise the last few pounds of baby fat that she couldn’t shift. Leah wore a pretty white dress, so at least one of them was conforming to convention. The witnesses were not, as Ray had suggested, pulled in off the street, but a couple of guests who had arrived early for the next ceremony. They seemed very nice, smiling and doing what was necessary before fading back into their own wedding party.
The deed done, Ray took her to a hotel not far from the registry office where they picked from the à la carte menu and drank two bottles of cold, crisp champagne. It was not, she had to admit, the wedding of her dreams, but despite that, Melissa still felt like a princess. Ray was attentive and nothing was too much trouble for his new wife, whom he insisted on calling ‘Mrs Allen’ at every opportunity. Even Leah was happy to sleep her way through the lunch so they could enjoy themselves without interruption.
With the meal over and the last of the champagne drained, Melissa’s ubiquitous smile suddenly slipped away.
‘It’s not fair,’ she said with such depth of feeling that Ray jumped in his seat.
‘What?’ he asked her urgently. ‘What on earth’s the matter?’
‘It’s not fair that we’re not having a honeymoon,’ said Melissa, the champagne smudging her words into one another. ‘We just got married. We should have a bloody honeymoon!’
The corners of her mouth drooped sulkily and she rested her chin on her hand and sighed. She had had the quietest wedding in living memory and she wasn’t even going to get a holiday afterwards. She wouldn’t have wanted much: a week in the Lake District or Wales would have been lovely. She didn’t have a passport, so they couldn’t have gone abroad anyway. But nothing? Nothing at all? That was rubbish. Tears began to blur her eyes and trickle down her cheeks.
She looked up at Ray, hoping for a sympathetic smile at the very least, but he just shrugged at her, like the fact that they weren’t going on honeymoon was just one of those things.
But then the corner of his mouth began to twitch and then his whole face broke into an enormous smile.
‘I have a small announcement to make,’ he began, his eyebrows arching like a pantomime villain’s.
Of course, Melissa thought, she had absolutely no reason to worry. Ray wouldn’t let her miss out. He must have arranged something in secret. That was her Ray all over, always doing things to surprise her.
‘I’m afraid,’ Ray began sombrely, and with those two words her heart sank into her pink court shoes again, ‘that you were right when you said that we aren’t going away. I have booked us a room here for tonight, but that’s all we can manage, so we’d better make the most of it.’
He winked at her salaciously, but Melissa suddenly wasn’t feeling all that sexy. One night in a hotel with Leah in the room wasn’t what she called a honeymoon, and she couldn’t understand why Ray thought it was. She’d almost rather go home. She picked at a fingernail and refused to meet his eye.
‘But,’ Ray continued – he seemed unable to maintain his serious tone any longer, and a grin spread across his face – ‘I do have a surprise for you, and hopefully you’ll think it’s better than a holiday.’
Melissa couldn’t think of much that was better than a holiday right now, but she played along, smiling expectantly as she waited for him to do his big reveal. He was rummaging around in his trouser pocket. Was it jewellery, she wondered? She hadn’t had an engagement ring as such, so maybe he had spent their honeymoon money on a diamond instead. But when his hand emerged it wasn’t a small velvet box that it was holding. It was a key.
Ray held the keyring between finger and thumb and swung the key provocatively under her nose. ‘Ta dah!’
Melissa stared at him and shook her head. She had no idea what he was talking about. Ray, his enthusiasm seeming to dip a little at her lack of comprehension, pressed on.
‘This, my darling Mrs Allen,’ he said, ‘is the key to our new home.’
Melissa heard what he was saying and watched the words as they formed on his lips, but their meaning eluded her. What was he saying? What home? They had talked about maybe renting somewhere together when her current tenancy at the caravan park ran out, but getting a house now, without her knowing anything about it? That was something new.
‘What?’ she managed.
‘I . . . have bought us . . . a house,’ Ray said triumphantly, and he looked so very pleased with himself that the first bubblings of anger that had started in her gut just moments before evaporated.
‘Lovely though your caravan
is,’ he continued, ‘we really can’t live there together. Not now we’re married. There isn’t the room, for one thing, and once Leah starts to crawl she’ll need more space, too.’
He had a point, Melissa had to admit. Much as she adored her caravan, she was already struggling with the lack of storage space for Leah’s paraphernalia, and staying there really would be a challenge once Leah started to move.
‘And because work keeps me away from you so much, I need to know that you’re both safe and sound when I can’t be there to look after you,’ Ray continued. ‘So I bought us a house.’
He grinned again and waggled the key. Melissa couldn’t speak. She sat, slack-jawed and unresponsive, and just stared at the key and then at Ray and then back to the key. Ray, who clearly was expecting her to be in floods of tears of excitement and gratitude at the very least, was starting to look slightly nonplussed.
‘I thought you’d be pleased,’ he said, the hand holding the key dropping to his lap. ‘In fact, I thought you’d be delighted.’
Finally, and just in the nick of time going by Ray’s expression, Melissa regained the power of speech. ‘I am! Oh, my God! This is amazing. A house? For us? Together?’
She got to her feet, threw her arms above her head and performed a rather wobbly dance on the spot.
‘Woooooooooo!!’ she shouted, and the other diners turned in their seats to see what all the commotion was about. Leah stirred, opening her eyes weakly but then drifting straight back to sleep.
‘Stop it! Sit down, you mad fool!’ said Ray, grinning at her but also looking nervously around at the audience of other diners that she was attracting. ‘So I’ve bought you a house,’ he continued with a wink. ‘There’s no need to make a song and dance about it.’
Melissa couldn’t believe it. Incredible things like this didn’t happen to people like her. She’d never even considered the possibility of living in a house again, so unlikely had it felt, let alone actually owning one.
She reached across the table and grabbed hold of Ray. ‘A house. It’s fantastic! You are the best husband a girl could ask for.’
For a moment, Ray dropped his eyes. He wasn’t going to come across all modest on her, was he? That would be a first. He was even blushing, bless him.
‘So where is it?’ she asked. ‘When can we see it? Can we go now?’
Ray shook his head at her like an indulgent uncle. ‘Calm down, Missy! I’ve just told you. We’re booked in here tonight. We’ll have our night of passion in the bridal suite and then I’ll take you to see the house tomorrow. You’re going to love it. I just know you are.’
Then suddenly Melissa had a horrible thought.
‘It is in Whitley Bay, isn’t it?’ she asked nervously. ‘I mean, I like Newcastle and that, but I need to be near the sea. It’s who I am. I can’t ever see me moving from the coast.’
As she said the words, she knew that they were true. She had never thought about it before, but the ocean was part of her. She couldn’t imagine ever living somewhere where she couldn’t hear the waves crashing on the shore or see the gulls circling overhead.
‘Don’t you worry about any of that,’ said Ray, planting a kiss on her forehead. ‘You are going to love it.’
28
MELISSA – THEN
Their wedding night was lovely but the next morning couldn’t come fast enough for Melissa. Even before room service had delivered their continental breakfast, she was itching to get up and out to see their new home. Ray, sensing her impatience, kept trying to slow her down.
‘Look at you! You’re like a kid at Christmas,’ he laughed as she scampered around the room in the hotel robe. It trailed from her, clearly designed for a person twice her size, and she kept getting caught in its folds. ‘We will get there this morning, I promise,’ he said as she threw her dress into the overnight case that Ray had secretly packed for them. ‘But until then, couldn’t we just try to enjoy ourselves here for a bit?’
As was usual, Ray’s time off work was limited. Yesterday, 25 September, their wedding day, had been a Tuesday. Melissa had sniffed at this when he had first given her the date. Who got married in the middle of the week? But Ray had explained that given the short notice, there hadn’t been a great choice of slots. Then it had dawned on her that as none of their friends would be at the wedding anyway, it made no difference which day it was on.
A Tuesday wedding was special, she decided, once she’d got her head around it. Melissa loved that her relationship with Ray was so unconventional. It stood her apart from all those other girls she knew who had organised huge weddings on tick and then spent years paying back (or dodging) the credit. Her Ray was so much more original than that with their romantic, middle-of-the-week, elopement adventure.
The downside, however, was that he could only get a couple of days off work to celebrate. They had almost rowed about it the week before.
‘But it’s our wedding,’ Melissa had whined. ‘Surely your boss will understand that?’
Ray had shaken his head sadly. ‘I’m so sorry, Missy, but I have to go,’ he said, drawing her into him and holding her tight. She could hear his heart beating as she leant into his hug, nuzzling her head into his chest where she felt very small and safe. ‘There’s an important client arriving in London from Dubai on the Wednesday and he needs his security ready and waiting when he lands. We just can’t afford to let him down. And he’s not the kind of man you want to upset, if you know what I mean?’ He gave her a meaningful wink.
Melissa didn’t know what he meant, and what was more, she didn’t care. ‘Can’t someone else cover it?’ she asked. ‘It’s not like you’re the only bodyguard on the books.’
Ray shook his head again. ‘He asked for me specifically,’ he said, and she felt him stand a little taller as she wrapped her arms around him. ‘He was very impressed the last time I looked after him, apparently. I have to go, Missy. I’d stay if I could. You do know that, don’t you?’
Despite how annoyed she was, she had felt proud of him. Ray was in demand because he was the best damned bodyguard there was. And he was all hers.
‘Will it pay well, this contract?’ she asked. There had to be some compensations for the long hours, days and weeks away from her.
Ray nodded, and so Melissa had been forced to content herself with that. She would try to put up with a one-day honeymoon without any more complaint, and things did seem to be going well for Ray so maybe they could get away for some winter sun later in the year. It was just a pity that no one needed guarding a little bit closer to home, but Melissa supposed, with a little smile to herself, that Geordies could look after themselves.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Melissa, fastening the robe belt tight around her waist for the umpteenth time. ‘I’m having a great time here in this posh hotel. Please don’t think I’m wishing it away, pet. It’s just that I can’t wait to see our new house.’
‘And see it you shall,’ said Ray, leaning back against the headboard, his arms folded behind his head. ‘But shall we eat our croissants first?’
Melissa had never had a croissant before. She knew they were French but that was about it. She wasn’t sure what all the fuss was about after she’d bitten into it. It fell apart on her plate and seemed to be mainly constructed of air and cardboard. But still, things were really looking up for her now. She had a husband and a house and she ate croissants for breakfast. Melissa Allen had arrived!
After breakfast they packed up all their wedding clobber and set off in Ray’s car back towards the coast. Baby Leah, tired now of all the unfamiliar places, was starting to get a little bit fractious, but Melissa didn’t mind. Nothing was going to spoil her mood. She dug a dummy out of her coat pocket and gave it to Leah to suck on, which did the trick.
They followed the coast road into Whitley Bay and as they passed the entrance to the caravan park Melissa let out a little sigh. She loved her caravan. Yes, it was draughty and noisy and there wasn’t room to swing a cat in there, but it had done h
er proud. She would be sad to give it up. But not that sad, she thought, as a buzz of excitement zipped straight through her. A house! A real house of their own!
They drove along the promenade that ran alongside the beach for a little way and then Ray slowed the car down and indicated left. Melissa was suddenly too nervous to look. What if she hated it? What would she say? Ray had gone to all this effort to buy them the perfect home, but it might be hideous. She covered her face with her hands, partly to join in with the game that Ray was clearly enjoying, but mainly because if she couldn’t see then she wouldn’t be disappointed.
Melissa felt the car come to a halt, heard Ray turn the key in the ignition and the engine stop. Still she kept her eyes hidden behind her hands. Her heart was in her mouth. She hardly dared breathe.
‘Here we are!’ said Ray, a note of triumph in his voice and then, when she still didn’t look up, ‘Well, do you want to see this house or not, Mrs Allen?’
Did she? Melissa still wasn’t sure, but she couldn’t sit here forever. Gradually she pulled her hands away from her eyes. She was looking at a wide street which ran at right angles to the beach. Up one side sat a string of two-storeyed terrace houses, many with their render painted in pretty shell colours. On the other was a playground and what she assumed, from the sounds of children playing, was a primary school.
Melissa turned to look at Ray, her eyes wide in expectation. Which house was it? Where were they going to be starting their new life as husband and wife? Ray grinned, his shoulders hunched up towards his ears as he rubbed his hands together with glee.
‘Well?’ asked Melissa, her voice anxious. She couldn’t decide whether she felt excited or just plain sick. ‘Which one is it?’
Ray cocked his head and she turned hers in the same direction.
They were parked at the end of the terrace. There was nothing except the beach road between them and the sea. Did that mean that he had bought the last house in the row, the one that was as close to the waves as it was possible to get?