by Caro Ramsay
Like Dad and Gran said, they tried everything to get Melissa better but it was like tossing money down a hole.
Does that make it sound like we were gloating? We weren’t really. It was more like the feeling of inevitability, that ‘if it can happen to them, and then it can happen to anybody’. And that if you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything. OK, a few folk made comments like, ‘so if she actually had to work for a living, or pay a mortgage, she might smarten her ideas up a bit’, but those comments stopped eventually. They saw her in the village, the smallest of clothes hanging off her, cheekbones and shoulder blades sharp ridges under fabric, paler and weaker until she stopped being seen out in the village, then she stopped being seen outside the house, then she stopped altogether.
When Ivan Melvick married Elizabeth Rose Nicolette Palmer that should have been them set for a life full of love, laughter and privilege. They would never, ever have to worry about money. They had the Italian House and a small collection of paintings that were worth a fortune, so it was rumoured. Some were on the wall, although the talk around the village had it they were only copies, the originals were in the bank.
Oh yes, Beth had landed well on her little feet that time. She was from a good family up north, she spoke dead birds and shotguns fluently, she was perfectly capable of breaking the necks of dying animals, and shooting her own horses through the head. I’m not saying that she was heartless, she loved her two daughters very much. I don’t think that she realized how fragile Melissa and Megan were. The family had the Italian House, the land, the Benbrae and the Tentor Wood, the fields and the stables that would be home to the ponies, it should all have been perfect.
Then, to make the lovely family complete, the daughters were both adorable. Beautiful little girls, olive-skinned, dark-haired, brown-eyed.
It was those two that messed the whole story up. Somehow, after everything the parents had, it was only fair that the generation after them would be cursed.
Megan
I saw the door open out the corner of my eye and looked round, it was Drew holding his finger up to his mouth, telling me to be quiet. He tapped his ears, enquiring if I had my hearing aids in.
‘Should you even be here?’ I said, trying to wipe my tears away. I had gone back to my bedroom for some peace and quiet and here I was sticking my hearing aids in to hear the interruption more loudly.
‘I said to your dad that I needed to have a word with you, he said you were upset.’
‘Really?’
‘And then he told me why.’
‘Oh right, so you know.’ Everybody seemed to know bloody everything.
‘Well, I don’t know if what he said was true.’
‘Are you accusing him of lying?’
‘No, I am accusing him of protecting his daughter’s reputation. Have you been speaking to the doctor?’
‘The psychotherapist, yes. Again. He’s an arse.’
Drew didn’t argue. Just nodded as if that was his opinion of all psychotherapists. ‘He said that you have had a couple of episodes recently.’ He closed the door behind him, carefully using both hands, one on the handle and the other, higher up, making sure it closed without making any extra noise. ‘So, what happened?’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘I’d like to hear it from you, not what your father chooses to tell me.’
‘Did he ask you to come here and look into my mum’s disappearance?’
He doesn’t flinch, he’s either about to tell the truth or he’s a good actor. ‘He mentioned to one of my superiors, but the case has never come off the books. He has often mentioned it. Cases like that have to be prodded by some new information, because it seems to us that someone like your mum might have wanted to walk away. There has been no sign that she was a victim of foul play. It’s been three years. I thought it warranted another look. But I do not answer to your father, a fact that I don’t think he is aware of.’ He smiled at me, giving me some belief that he was on my side.
I explained it to him, all of it, all that happened when I stood at Jago’s window, and then back to when I had attacked Deborah. I told more than I intended, but his face stayed totally impassive. He got up and starting walking round the room, looking at the veranda and the view.
‘And what of that do you remember?’
‘Why do you care?’
‘I am interested. And I have a degree in psychology so I know some big words.’
He made me smile at least. ‘I remember nothing, none of it at all.’
‘And that’s not the first time that you have had a blackout that has resulted in somebody else getting injured.’ He was looking at my picture of Carla and me, flying round on the carousel, arms out, laughing.
‘It’s not the first time, but I have no memory.’
‘What is your dad going to do now?’
‘I’ll be put under some kind of house arrest. I’ll have to leave my job. Then Scobie will mess about with all kinds of medication. It takes ages.’
‘I didn’t think meds worked well for DID.’
‘They don’t, but he does it anyway. They make me sleep, keep me calm until I do get better. Or get my mind back under their control.’
‘Have you thought of getting a second opinion from somebody who is not a friend of your dad?’ He picked up some of my dirty dishes that Deborah had not cleared away.
‘Like that would be allowed.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘There’s a few forensic psychologists at work that might be able to recommend somebody. But maybe for now you should stay here. For your own good, until after the funeral and they have all gone home.’ He looked at my plate, into my Snoppy mug. ‘You posh folk are disgusting, I’ll take these downstairs.’
‘Fill your boots. Maybe I should go on more medication and walk around like a zombie, I can’t go around attacking people, can I? Maybe I should be locked up.’
‘Are you sure you did it?’
‘I don’t think somebody crept up and put lipstick on me. So yes, I must have done.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Why? Why not some other … personality?’
‘Oh don’t you start. I don’t know. Do you think I wanted to see life as Melissa saw it? Should I want to look like her? No, that’s pathetic because I don’t. But I did put all that stuff on my face, didn’t I?’
‘Keep quiet about that. We’ve never had that conversation. Could you develop a personality that cleaned up after itself?’
I nodded slowly. A wave of relief that Drew, at least, was treating me like a sane human being. ‘Who would do that?’ I asked carefully, looking at the dressing table. ‘Who would do something to her?’
‘Who are you looking at, Carla? Or your mother?’
FIFTEEN
Carla
Things were odd up at the Italian House. Once Melissa and Jago were an item it was as if the power of her personality, her rather unpleasant personality, had been multiplied by his presence and that hatred liked to focus itself on me, because it was easy.
Mum had driven me up to the Italian House for what was becoming a regular event, another bloody meeting about the wedding and Melissa telling Megan and me how to behave. Mum would pop in to say hello and get a shufti at the house, enquiring if there was anything she could do as mother of the bridesmaid, and was told to try and keep me out of trouble.
Mum said she’d been trying that for the last thirteen years as she was ushered out the door.
She was happy to leave, knowing I’d get a run home.
One such night, Melissa had been getting ready for a ball or a concert or something. She had a long black dress by some poncy designer and the dog, Marcie, had got into her bedroom and lain down on the bed, on top of the dress. Melissa went nuts, totally tonto in her now hairy dress, called Jago and demanded to be picked up right here and right now.
He didn’t, he talked her down and there were all kinds of accusations about who did this and who did that, who left the door of the
bedroom open (her), who let the dogs upstairs (the dogs always went upstairs) and why was her life so difficult, (answers on a postcard) and why was she born into this god awful family (awful but loaded) where nobody understood her (she was mental).
She strutted and screamed around the house. Beth nodded. Ivan went off to his study. I am sure Megan slipped out her hearing aids and crawled off to curl up in the corner of a settee somewhere, reading, and I followed, burrowing myself under huge cushions, watching their very small telly.
Once Melissa had banged a few more doors, silence fell over the house. Marcie, the old golden retriever that had caused all the trouble, was alive and well when everybody went to bed, but after that nobody saw the dog for a while.
Marcie was found on the front terrace of the house, right in line with the front door. The dog had her throat cut. Unlike me, Beth never believed that it was Melissa. I guess that was the way it was meant to look. Melissa had been in the company of Jago, or upstairs screaming at the top of her voice.
So it couldn’t really have been Melissa and the attention then turned on Megan. Quiet, silent, little Megan who stood in the corner and took everything in through those wide brown eyes.
Oh yes, I think Beth was scared of what Megan would do if Megan ever found out why she was deaf.
Megan
Everybody seemed to lie to me.
The water was cool against my toes, the Benbrae looked as though it was losing water through the intense dry weather. I was not worried, it had been there for years and it would outlive us all.
The house was full of lies and liars.
I hoped I was better than that.
Things were strange in the house, tense. The funeral was hanging over us all, Debs backtracking everywhere Dad had been looking for the necklace. The drawing room had a constant buzz of people drinking tea, eating scones, Heather hosting, asking Debs to refill the tea or coffee pot. Dad walked through, passing the time of day, but kept going back and forth to the study.
There, there was a lot to be said but nobody was saying it. From the corner of my eye I could see the tree beckoning to me. It was a low tree, an old oak that had grown there for many, many years, where Melissa terrified me as a young child. I can remember the water going over my head, the different kind of deafness under the surface and me letting the air out of my lungs, watching the bubbles float past my eyes, thinking that I was going to die.
And I wasn’t scared.
Then Dad’s arms scooping me out, holding me close. He was so scared, he was crying, I could still taste his tears on his face as he held me close to him, pushing my face against the crispness of his shirt so tight I couldn’t turn my head to see. I have never been down that end of the Benbrae and the faerie pools, not since. I was scared of it as a child and I am scared of it now.
She had a cruel streak, Melissa.
Generations of our family have hanged themselves in the wood once they felt the creeping madness get too much for them, even Papa, who used to sneak Oodie Jaffa cakes, killed himself in there, swinging from the hanging tree, so somebody not in the family told me. Our family doesn’t talk about such things. I wonder when I will get that mad.
Or do we kill ourselves before we go insane on the basis that if we were that mad we wouldn’t notice?
Not intentionally but I had followed Jago about most of the day. Both he and I were out in the estate, walking, remembering and forgetting but not forgiving. We were treading water before the funeral. He avoided me with little sidesteps and pulling out his mobile phone, pretending he was busy. But then in the late afternoon he walked down to the Benbrae, strolling along with hands in his pockets, shirt open. He walked very slowly on the grass beside the long drive heading towards the mosaic. I could see that he was reflecting on Melissa and how and where it all went wrong, from the glorious day of their wedding to the mess we were then in.
We had all lessened as people.
In my bare feet he didn’t hear me, he hadn’t developed those senses of listening to the movement of air, feeling the fluctuations of pressure, knowing without hearing.
I waited until he was at the mosaic and I stood at the side as he looked down at the cracked tiles that mean nothing as individuals but everything when viewed together, they are such a pretty picture.
He saw me out the corner of his eye, smiled as if he had known I’d been there all along. ‘Hello, Megan. Please go away.’
‘You talk like it is my fault, all of this.’
‘Some of it is.’
‘I want to know what you know. That little secret about me that you and Melissa and my mum know about. I heard Dad talking about me on the veranda earlier today.’
‘If you heard it there’s fuck all wrong with your hearing.’ He responded, then saw my face and added, ‘We have been chatting about a lot of things.’ He kicked something invisible away with his foot like he was wanting to kick me then said something but his face was turned away.
I grabbed him by the arm, forcing him to face me.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘I want to know what you know. You, Dr Scobie, Dad, Mum, Melissa. “Do you think Megan has found out about Beth and Melissa?” was what Dad said. What was he talking about?’
‘Ask him, ask your father.’
‘Is it the reason Melissa told me she was sorry?’
He looked up at the house, then down to the Benbrae, searching for eavesdropping ears and eyes. Or maybe a way out.
‘We only have your word she said that. My wife was not a great apologizer. And you’re deaf so who knows what she said, or what you heard?’ He smiled a rather cruel smile. ‘You like your secrets in this house, don’t you? They killed your sister, the secrets. Have you ever thought of that?’
‘I doubt that. I know she had a shit of a husband that fucked off at the first hint of trouble.’
‘Maybe you don’t know all that—’
‘All that what?’ I asked but he turned away from me again and this time I hit him on the upper arm to get him to face me.
He raised his arm. ‘I have never hit a woman, but don’t tempt me because I might make an exception for you, Megan.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Go to hell, Megan.’
He walked away. I looked back up the hill to the Italian House where Dad was standing out on the terrace. Heather came up behind him, wrapping her arms round him, no doubt to comfort him, the anger of our exchange must have been obvious even from that distance. Dad knew, and he never told me.
Not a word.
I wondered if Heather knew as well. Maybe they all did, everyone except for me. I saw Deborah standing at the door, cloth in hand, holding it open for Jago’s mum. They must have been going somewhere. They’ve all moved on and now there was only me standing in the middle of the mosaic feeling very alone. I closed my eyes with the sun on my face, and I missed Carla so much.
Carla
For a load of folk as intelligent as they were, why did nobody spot that Melissa was barking mad? I understand them missing it in Megan as she’s a bit slow, a creeping quiet madness. Whereas Melissa would have a nibble at a corner of a slice of toast and then go running for six miles to work it off. She used to moan about how slim she had to be as an actress and that the theatre lights could put the pounds on the figure, the dresses she wore were so figure hugging. Not one buggar pointed out that it might look at bit better if there was actually a figure to hug.
But it’s not about that, is it? It’s about having the power to decide your own fate and when that is taken away from you, then you attempt to control things that you really can control, like the nourishment of your own body. They feel they are not good enough. Well, I confess that I don’t understand that in this case, as Melissa Melvick was one of the most arrogant people I have ever been ignored by.
Megan thought there was a huge freedom in the fact I could be anything that I wanted to be, I could say what I wanted to say. I had to tell her that she was bloody naïve, yes I was able to
say what I wanted, but what was the point when nobody ever listened to anything I said? Whereas Bloody Melissa, who everybody listened to, never had anything of any interest to say. She was only ever really interesting when she was speaking words that somebody else had written, usually that Shakespeare bloke, who if I understood Megan correctly, was from Birmingham.
Melissa used to go running so often she actually wore out the grass in a track round the inner boundary of the Italian House estate. Her parents forbade her to do it, they tried all sorts of things like locking her in, but Melissa was too manipulative and conniving.
No surprise then that as soon as Melissa got ill, they prevented Megan from going anywhere near that path. I guess they had their reasons.
Megan
There is always sanity in doing normal things. Like making the bed. Then that falls apart when there is a small box on the pillow, left there with a note signed by Debs, saying she’d found the box in the bin in the study and the necklace in Dad’s bedside drawer.
It took me a long time to open it.
The Melvick necklace, worn by the eldest female in the family. Mum had left it when she walked out, that was a gesture we all understood. Agatha has it round her neck, I think she removed it before she hanged herself. I had witnessed Dad taking it from Melissa.
Was there a pattern here, each rejecting the house, the family and escaping in their own way? I opened the box and looked at it; it was so familiar to me, gold, unicorn and lion, entwined together, elegant and timeless. The chain has been changed many times of course. I held the lion to my lips, just as my mother had done, and as Melissa had done.
I thought they were entwined, the unicorn and the lion but studying them now, close up, it looked as if they were fighting, hooves against claws. At least if they were fighting there would be a winner. If they were entwined, they were stuck with each other.
Poor sods.
I was now the lady of the house, and nobody but me knew how bad that felt.
My work was with a friend of Dad’s of course. They will have a conversation that I am not needed back, as I would be employed here and end up running the estate.