The Forgotten Village

by Lorna Cook

  Agonised, he put his hands into his hair as he looked around. The long road stretching past the petrol station was devoid of pedestrians; Melissa had vanished and pursuing her on foot would be futile. Guy leaped into his car, which now felt empty without Melissa, and he drove along the country lane painfully slowly until he eventually spotted her. She was sitting on a bench inside a churchyard, her head in her hands. Guy parked and got out, praying she wouldn’t make a run for it.

  Melissa heard Guy calling her name. Her head shot up and she stood, wiping tears from her face and dragging smudged mascara onto her fingers. She tried to walk past him on the shingle path, but he reached for her arm.

  ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Don’t go.’

  ‘Go away.’ She pushed his arm aside, angry at how quickly she’d moved from one cheating man to another. Two adulterous men in the space of one week was definitely a new record, a whole new level of humiliation. She didn’t know how this kept happening to her.

  Guy looked pained and his face was empty of any colour. She thought back to that first kiss on his boat when he’d told her he’d planned a picnic for a first date. Melissa felt sick remembering last night. What the hell had been happening this whole time? He’d been having nothing more than a casual fling with her in Dorset while his wife was elsewhere.

  ‘No.’ He stepped forward and barred her way on the narrow path that ran alongside the twelfth-century church.

  Melissa stepped onto the grass to get round him, tripping over a tilting gravestone in her desperation to get away. He grabbed her to steady her and she flung his arm away.

  ‘Let me explain and then, if you still hate me, you can leave and you never have to see me again,’ he said.

  She swung round and looked at his face, wracked with pain, his eyes pleading with her. She stayed silent and clenched her hands to her sides, controlling the urgent need to punch him. Instead she waited for a veiled excuse as to why Guy Cameron thought it was fine to cheat.

  ‘Go on then. Make it fast.’ She spat the words out.

  He sighed and his shoulders dropped. ‘I am married, yes.’

  Melissa began walking again.

  ‘But we’re getting divorced,’ he called after her retreating figure.

  She faced him, uncertain if he was telling the truth.

  ‘I signed the divorce papers this week. I don’t know how long it will take.’ He ploughed on. ‘But it will all be over soon. We’ve not made an official announcement, so this newspaper can’t possibly know that my marriage has been over for ages. It’s all spiralled horrifically out of control now.’ He pushed his hand through his hair and then let his arm drop to his side.

  Melissa felt numb and her head was throbbing in the heat of the day.

  ‘I was strongly advised by my publicist not to tell anyone until it was all signed and over and done with. We just wanted a clean break. The last thing we needed was for anyone to say anything to the gossip columns. And look how that turned out. But I should have told you, especially after last night,’ Guy continued. ‘You and I were getting on so well. Then suddenly we were getting on very well indeed and I knew I could trust you, but I didn’t want to ruin things by telling you. And then last night happened, which was … Christ, it was amazing. But I like you, Melissa. I do really like you. And there didn’t seem a good moment to just blurt out by the way, I’m in the middle of a really nasty divorce. Somewhere along the line, between meeting you and last night, if there was an opportunity to tell you, then I missed it. I’m so sorry.’ He stopped talking and looked at her. His eyes searched hers. ‘Melissa, please say something.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say. Are you really getting divorced?’

  Guy nodded.

  Melissa looked at him, trying to work out whether she could trust him. Could she? She had no idea.She spoke quietly, uncertainly. ‘Am I just a rebound for you? An easy shag while you figure out what your life looks like as a single man?’

  He stepped forward, his face serious. ‘No. Absolutely not.’

  There was silence between them.

  ‘Am I a rebound for you?’ he asked eventually. He looked shocked at the prospect.

  ‘No, of course not. I liked you the first time we met.’

  He smiled. ‘The first time?’

  ‘Maybe the second time.’ Melissa smiled back. ‘You should have told me,’ she said helplessly.

  ‘I know. I wanted to forget it was all happening. It’s been going on so long now that I just want it all over and done with.’ He pushed his hand through his hair and then let his arm fall down by his side.

  Melissa walked back to the bench. She sat down with a thump. Guy followed and stood awkwardly in front of her. He gestured to the space on the bench and when she didn’t object he sat down beside her. Melissa looked at him as her anger faded to disappointment.

  ‘How long have you been married?’ Melissa’s voice was flat.

  ‘Ten years,’ he said.

  ‘What the …?’ Melissa hadn’t been expecting that.

  ‘Maria and I met at university and married when we were twenty-two. We were young. Too young,’ he explained.

  Melissa exhaled loudly. ‘What happened?’

  She didn’t want to hear any of this, but at the same time she needed to know absolutely everything.

  Guy shrugged and his shoulders sagged heavily. ‘I’m afraid it’s the usual story: we grew apart. After a while, we just completely ran out of conversation. I could see I bored her whenever I talked to her. She didn’t enjoy anything about history. Neither did she care about what I did with my days. She didn’t do an awful lot with her free time sadly and didn’t seem to have too much to talk about when she did find something to do. We were young and so it didn’t become apparent until much later that we had almost nothing in common. My career took off straight after university and I suppose she rode my coat-tails a bit. I didn’t mind. It took me a long time to see that she loved the little bit of fame I’d garnered and everything that came with that: the lifestyle, the travel.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘The money.’ He kicked at a stone with his shoe. ‘Mainly the money, actually.’

  ‘Oh.’ Melissa was lost for words.

  ‘I was working so hard, travelling a lot and she’d given up her job so she could travel with me. A couple of years ago, I suggested we try for a baby. She said she wasn’t ready. I respected that.’ Melissa looked bleakly at the clumps of grass that were growing through the gaps between the paving stones by the bench.

  ‘When we talked about it again, she said she didn’t want children at all now. That hit me hard. It wasn’t because she didn’t like children, or didn’t want me to father children with her, apparently; it was that she didn’t want to be saddled at home with a child while I got to live the high life as she put it. I offered to tone down the travel and she said she didn’t want to be stuck at home at all. She asked who the hell would pay for the houses and cars if I turned work assignments down.’ He sighed before continuing. ‘We went to marriage counselling, but in the end we just fell apart and she walked out on me. Or rather, I thought she had. She was seeing someone else. I’ve still no idea who. Then she came back to me, a few months later, and begged me to take her back. She said she’d give counselling a better try this time. So we got back together. I was too much of an idiot to see she still didn’t want me though. She just wanted the lifestyle she’d been used to.’

  Melissa looked up at him. He had a pained expression on his face and she felt sorry for him. Like her, he had been cheated on. She put her hand on his and held it while he stared straight ahead towards the low wall dividing the churchyard from the lane. He summoned a small smile at her touch.

  ‘She made an effort for a while and so did I. I booked the counselling, but she was angry and didn’t want to go. We argued about it and she told me she was seeing the man she’d left me for the first time and that they had more in common. So that was that. And now here we are, getting divorced. I’ve been holding on to the divorce p
apers for a while. It’s not that I can’t let go – I swear, I’m ready to never see her again – but every time I looked at them I just felt like a failure. I thought if I signed them, I’d be admitting that most of my adult life had been a disaster. Yes, my books, TV work, lectures were all going well. But that’s career. That’s not real life, not what you go home to every day. But what I went home to every day had never been good. It wasn’t love. For either of us. I was too scared to admit it or too busy to realise it. One of those.’

  He paused and then, ‘I’m sorry.’ He turned to her. ‘I should have told you. I found myself falling for you and I didn’t know where it was going to go, or if you even felt the same, and then yesterday … well, yesterday confirmed it. I felt like you’d just blown into my life from out of nowhere. You’re incredible, Melissa.’ He put his hands on her tear-stained face and looked into her eyes. ‘I know we’ve not known each other very long but I think … I think I’m falling in love with you.’

  Melissa’s mouth dropped open, but no words came out. She was amazed. She had no idea how she felt about him. Not now. Her brain hurt. She was too confused.

  ‘It’s a lot to process,’ she said, unsure herself if she was referring to the declaration of love or the news about the divorce.

  His hands dropped from her face.

  ‘I understand if you can’t trust me,’ he said. ‘But I promise, if you forgive me and give me a chance, I will never lie to you or keep anything from you again.’

  Melissa exhaled. She didn’t know where to start. ‘I think I just need a bit of time,’ she said, rising from the bench. She needed space. She couldn’t think with him sitting next to her.

  He looked up at her as she stood in front of him; the pained expression back on his face. ‘Of course. Shall I drive you back to the hotel?’ He stood with her and thrust his hands in his pockets. He looked lost.

  Melissa shook her head. She couldn’t deal with his well-bred manners right now. ‘No. I’ll walk, thanks. I need some fresh air.’

  He nodded and Melissa could feel his gaze on her back as she walked away. Her emotions were all over the place; she felt as if she was Alice falling down the rabbit hole.

  She stopped at the end of the lane and looked blankly at a signpost, trying to remember which way they’d driven moments before, but she couldn’t click her brain into gear. She stared ahead as she walked the way she thought she’d come, through a canopy of trees that had formed themselves over the years into what she had always called a tree tunnel when she was a child. Melissa concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, barely aware of other cars whizzing past every few minutes. She had been falling for Guy. She could see that now. But a week ago, there’d been Liam. And although Liam had turned out to be a complete bastard, it had taken her a while to work that out for herself and, even then, it had only been cemented when she’d spotted his name on the suspicious restaurant booking. Like almost everything remotely unsavoury in her life, she’d avoided addressing it until the last possible moment.

  Eventually, the turning for the hotel came into view and Melissa stopped at the entrance and sat down on the warm brick steps, thinking, mulling over all the obvious points that had got her to this situation. She was still here, in Dorset, when she should really have been back in London, job hunting. Up until the events of last night, it hadn’t been the fledgling romance with Guy keeping her here. Well, maybe in part. But the mystery of what happened all those years ago in Tyneham between Veronica and Albert Standish was troubling her. She and Guy were on the trail of something. But it wasn’t only that. It was Veronica herself. The similarities between the unhappy relationship Veronica had been subject to echoed those between Melissa’s own mum and dad. Almost, but not completely. Thank God her mum had finally seen sense and left. But it had taken years of unhappiness. And then, in the end, when she hadn’t been expecting it, she’d found a kindred spirit in the man who had become Melissa’s stepdad.

  But the scars of her childhood had meant that Melissa had forever been scared of going into any relationship, feeling that if she ever spoke out of turn, she’d be shouted at the way her dad had instantly shouted at her mum. It had never seemed worth it, the knowledge that an argument must be just around the corner, leading to eventual heartache and pain. She was sure, in part, that’s why all her relationships had been destined to fail from the outset. Easy to please Melissa, never speaking out even when Liam had ditched her almost every day on their so-called holiday. She needed to change this kind of pathetic behaviour.

  The black clouds moved overhead and raindrops started falling, splattering onto her face and dampening her T-shirt, but it wasn’t enough to make Melissa move inside.

  Her thoughts turned to Guy. He’d looked distraught at having kept his divorce from her. He’d been lost under the weight of it all. They’d started out whatever this was, not with lies and deceit, but with something else, a quiet inability to share what was really troubling them both deep inside. But did people share that kind of thing when they’d only just met? Melissa had no idea. The short time they’d spent together told Melissa almost everything she needed to know about Guy. Until the frightening revelations in the newspaper, he’d seemed perfect. Almost too perfect. It was probably a bit of a relief that he wasn’t. At least she knew now and at least she wasn’t actually being cheated on. Again.

  Guy had poured his heart out to her, telling her about the breakdown of his marriage and then he’d told her he was falling for her. And Melissa’s only action had been to walk away, leaving him looking lost. The more she thought about it, the more she wanted to kick herself for having been less than understanding. Avoidance and running away were nasty habits. She couldn’t seem to stop herself. She’d avoided sorting her terrible job for an embarrassing amount of time and in the end had just run away from it, without having found another one. And now she was avoiding Guy.

  What an idiot she’d been. Guy had confessed his deepest troubles to her and if Melissa didn’t want to send this relationship the way all her others had quickly gone, she needed to do the same. She needed to tell him why she felt she was so messed up. She liked him, she really did, and she just knew in her heart he was different to any of the other men she’d been with before. A slow feeling crept in that he was worth taking a risk on.

  Melissa’s phone vibrated in her pocket. Her best friend Imogen was calling.

  ‘Just checking in. You okay?’ Imogen said when Melissa answered.

  Melissa smiled. ‘I will be. Any second now.’ It was the truth.

  ‘Atta girl. Want me to hunt Liam down? Do the world a favour and remove him from the gene pool?’

  Melissa couldn’t help it, she laughed so hard she snorted. ‘No thanks. I like my friends not on remand.’

  ‘You never know. I might get parole?’ Imogen suggested.

  Melissa stood up and started walking towards the road. She was going back to the church. She was going back to find Guy and to apologise for just leaving like that. Right now, she couldn’t have given two hoots about Liam.

  ‘I’ve got these fabulous new ceramic kitchen knives,’ Imogen continued. ‘They’re really sharp. I could cut something of his off really quickly – if you get my drift. He’d never see it coming.’

  Melissa scoffed. ‘I have to go, Immy. Can we discuss your homicide plans later?’

  ‘Fine, fine, I’m going. But only because you’re laughing. Call me if you need me? Okay?’

  Melissa agreed before ending the call and pocketing her phone to protect it from the rain. She felt so lucky that she had such a good friend in Immy. And now, maybe, if she didn’t mess it up, there was Guy.

  As the rain grew heavier, Melissa quickened her pace, but just as she ran towards the road, Guy’s Range Rover pulled round the corner and into the hotel car park. Melissa sprang out of the way as Guy slammed on his brakes inches from her.

  He got out with a look of concern that he’d almost run her down and opened his mouth to speak. But Mel
issa got to him first.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said as she approached him.

  He shielded his eyes against the rain. ‘You’re sorry? Why are you sorry?’

  ‘I shouldn’t have just left like that. I’m always running away, avoiding the issue,’ she said, wiping raindrops from her eyelashes. ‘It’s easier than having to face the real problem, easier than having to talk about it.’

  He smiled. ‘You’ve used that thinking time well.’

  ‘It was high time I did do some thinking. I’m so sorry for what you’re going through,’ she replied.

  ‘So am I,’ he said. ‘But you shouldn’t have found out like that, Melissa. Not from a bloody newspaper. Those pictures. Christ. What a mess.’

  ‘Oh God, those photos. It’s a good job I don’t have a faint heart.’ She stepped closer.

  ‘I want to be with you, Melissa. I’ve let this get so out of hand. You aren’t the only one who runs away. I’ve held off on this divorce for as long as possible. I’ve put it off long enough. I think I’m only ready now to finally start thinking about it all. I’ll fix it. The newspaper. I’ll sort it all out. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ She blinked the rain out of her eyes. ‘Really it doesn’t.’

  They stood in the rain and she told him about her parents, about how it had made her feel over the years, about how worried she always felt going into any new relationship that it was all probably going to end in tears regardless.

  ‘And now there’s the hunt for Veronica and her situation. What did she go through in that house with her husband? Did she ever find happiness? I need to know that she did.’

  Guy opened his mouth to speak, but Melissa hadn’t finished pouring her heart out.