‘Who are you going to believe? Me, or him?’
‘It’s just that … come on, Mel. It’s not exactly something you’d have on your likely list, is it? Are you sure you weren’t … misinterpreting …’
‘No! Fuck! Thanks for the show of support.’
‘Well, we’ll have to see about that. I don’t know what to make of it. But honestly, even if it did happen …’
‘It did.’
‘OK. Whatever. But why on earth didn’t you call someone and let them know you were coming back?’
I fold my arms and let out a noise that’s somewhere in the region of a ‘huurngh!’ ‘I did!’ I continue. ‘Your bloody mother said she’d pass the bloody message on!’
‘Don’t swear about my mother.’
‘I’ve got every right to swear about your mother. She’s the one who dumped me on some bloody station in the middle of bloody nowhere.’
‘What on earth,’ he asks, ‘do you think you’re going to achieve by lying about it?’
‘I’m not bloody lying!’
‘Well, it may not be lying where you come from …’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
He just pulls a face.
‘Love it,’ I say. ‘Love the ’tude.’
He turns the key in the ignition, slams the car into first. ‘Let’s just go home,’ he says, ‘I’m not in the mood …’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ I say sarcastically, ‘you’re not in the mood.’
We take off, showering gravel behind us.
We swish through the gates and, heading down the drive, he speaks again. ‘And another thing,’ he says.
‘Oh, right. Here we go.’
He ignores me. ‘What I don’t understand. If you could make it to the village, why on earth couldn’t you come down to the house?’
‘Rufus, listen. I called your mother and told her I was coming back. And then no-one came and picked me up, so I had to find a taxi. But when I got down to the house, it was all locked up. No-one came to the door, and all the lights were off.’
I catch a glimpse of his face in moonlight. It’s slack with astonishment, disbelief. ‘Oh, come on.’
‘Listen!’
‘Melody, you’re talking bollocks.’
It’s my turn to be flooded with disbelief. ‘Why would I do that?’
‘I don’t know,’ he snaps. ‘I don’t have the foggiest fucking idea.’
I’m devastated. ‘So I’m a liar, is that it?’
‘You’re – n’well …’
‘You bastard!’
‘Well, I don’t know, Melody. What am I supposed to think?’
‘You’re supposed to believe me! Why don’t you believe me?’
‘Because it doesn’t make any sense!’
‘Of course it bloody doesn’t! I know it bloody doesn’t!’
‘Do you have to bloody swear so much?’
‘Yes I bloody well do!’
We subside into resentful silence. The house comes into view: lights on all over; on the ground floor and the second. The back yard is lit up like a football pitch by the security lights fixed to the upper walls.
‘Mummy says they’ve been in all evening,’ he says.
‘Well, Mummy –’ I emphasise the word with all the contempt in my body – ‘is lying.’
Again he shakes his head. It’s obvious he doesn’t believe a word I’m saying.
‘I could have broken my leg out there,’ I tell him. ‘Don’t you give a damn?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Look, arsehole! I had to walk all the way up here in the dark!’
‘Don’t use that word.’
‘Arsehole.’ I repeat. Then, overcome by my inner child, I say, ‘Arsehole, arsehole, arsehole,’ for good measure.
‘Jesus,’ he says, ‘do you have to be such a pain?’
So I pinch him. Not very hard, and on the upper arm, but enough to make him gasp and slam on the brakes.
‘What the fuck did you do that for?’
He rubs his arm and looks at me with a heart-wrenching combination of surprise and reproach. ‘Ow.’
Having been on the edge off giving him the gobful to end all gobfuls, I find myself, instead, covered in mortification. I never thought anyone would push me to that point again. I swore I was done with that sort of behaviour after Andy. I thought I’d learned my lesson. What’m I doing here? Leading by example?
‘I’m sorry,’ I tell him. ‘I’m really, really sorry.’
He rubs the assaulted arm again, though this time in more of a point-making fashion than anything else. I didn’t pinch him that hard. ‘So you bloody well should be. What do you want to do next? Black my eye?’
‘I’m sorry. I am really sorry, darling. But you weren’t listening to me, and—’
‘So you bash people for not listening to you?’
‘Not as a rule, as it goes.’
‘By the way,’ he says accusingly, reaching across me. ‘I found your passport and your driving licence. They were in the glove pocket.’
‘What were they doing there?’
His voice has gone quiet. I don’t like it. ‘I don’t know, Melody. Maybe Hilary put them there.’
‘WHAT?’
He reins himself in. ‘Sorry. That was uncalled for. But you must have put them there and forgotten about it or something.’
‘Of course I didn’t.’
‘Well, you seem to have forgotten to call and let anyone know your travel plans.’
‘Oh, Jesus. This is impossible.’
‘Yes,’ he replies. ‘It is.’
‘Look, I—’
‘No, look!’ He’s snarling at me, now. ‘It’s not all about you, Melody! Not everything in the world is about you!’
‘Oh, forget it!’ I snarl back.
‘Right!’
‘Yeah! Right!’
He slams the car back into gear, and drives on. The silence is overwhelming, the gulf between us so huge it gives me vertigo. I want to cry, want to howl at the moon. This isn’t the way it’s meant to be. We’re meant to be adults. We’re meant to talk things out, not shriek and snap like feral dogs.
After a hundred metres, I say: ‘Rufus, can we start this again?’
He heaves a sigh. ‘Yes. Of course. I’m just – really confused.’
‘So am I.’
‘They’ve been in all evening. Mummy says she didn’t hear a thing.’
‘Well she’s—’ I just stop myself from renewing my accusation. ‘Maybe she needs to get her ears tested.’
‘Maybe,’ he says. Then, as an olive branch: ‘It must have been horrid for you.’
‘Yeah, it was. It’s really – creepy here by yourself.’
‘Yuh. Yuh, I should think it is. I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have left you if I’d known.’
‘I know you wouldn’t,’ I tell him.
He puts a hand on my knee. I pat his arm.
‘But please don’t pinch me again.’
‘I won’t. I promise.’
‘OK.’
I give it a two-beat pause, then: ‘I’ll smack your arse for you if you like.’
He laughs, and the atmosphere in the car lightens.
‘They do call it the English vice.’
‘Don’t push it, Mrs.’
‘Push it? That’s a new one on me.’
‘I was really worried about you, you know. I didn’t know what had happened.’
‘You don’t need to worry about me. I’ve been looking after myself for a bit now.’
‘Yes, but … seriously, it would have been a bit bloody embarrassing …’
‘I can see that. Yeah, I can see that it might be a bit embarrassing, telling people you’d lost your wife …’
‘Nothing like,’ he says, ‘as embarrassing as finding her in the pub.’
‘What’s the problem with the pub, anyway?’
‘They gossip.’
‘Oh dear. Gossip.
That’ll be the end of the world, then.’
‘From some points of view.’
‘Oh, Jesus, Rufus. So people fill their time in with a bit of talk. Seriously. What does it matter?’
‘I don’t know. People can get their lives ruined by gossip.’
‘I know that. But I just went to a pub and had a couple of beers.’
‘Mmm. People like us … we don’t … women don’t … you know.’
‘People like us?’
‘Yes. That’s what you are now. If you want to fit in.’
‘Hmm. Rufus, do I detect a smidge of snobbery?’
‘Not at—’
‘I dunno. If you guys won’t admit you’ve got a caste system, how on earth am I going to avoid the tripwires?’
Typical Englishman. He clams up.
‘Seriously, Rufus. I’m going to need help.’
‘Yes, and then you’ll accuse me of being a snob if I give you any advice.’
Touché.
The stableyard comes up on our left. I have to think fast. If I pursue my current line, we’ll have nothing sorted out by the time we get back and we’ll be going into the thick of it still at odds with each other. And maybe … I don’t know. Now I’m even starting to doubt myself. No. I can’t have made that sort of mistake. But if that’s so, the only obvious reason would be that someone is trying to create discord between Rufus and me. And if these women are as possessive and rigid as Nessa says, the last thing I need is for seeds of doubt to be sown in his mind.
It’s going to be a case of winkling him out. And you know how it is with winkles. Grab on and pull, and they’ll hang on to their bit of rockface like they’re welded. The only way to get a winkle off a rock is to slide your blade in there, slowly, slowly, so they don’t notice you’re doing it. And once you’re firmly in there, embedded beneath the suckers, all it takes is a twist and a wrist-flick to get them free.
I’ll put it another way: softly softly catchee monkey.
Or another: if you’ve got a great white circling you, you’d be well advised not to splash about too much.
It’s better, I think, if I make my peace now and live to fight another day. ‘Well, babe,’ I say, ‘I don’t understand what happened, but I’m sorry I swore at you and I’m sorry I shouted at you.’
Rufus sighs. ‘And I’m sorry you had such a gruesome experience. I have no idea what can have happened. I really don’t. But it’s OK now. I’ve found you.’
‘Perhaps,’ I offer, ‘there was something wrong with the bell?’
I know that this is rubbish: the sonorous ding-ding-ding of the early evening is engraved on my memory. But you’ve got to offer olive branches.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised,’ he says. ‘Everything else is falling apart, after all. I’ll look at it tomorrow.’
Chapter Thirty-Five
Brekkie
I have to get a grip on this listening at doors thing. But it’s not easy. I’m paranoid by nature as it is, and the setup at Bourton Allhallows is calculated to feed my weakness. It’s all very well thinking that people are talking about you behind your back; when you know they are, the urge to snoop is well-nigh irresistible.
Mary’s got her reasonable voice on again. That let’s-have-a-houseparty tone that sets my teeth on edge.
‘Well, darling,’ she is saying, ‘it’s possible that Melody is making it up, of course.’
I’m relieved to hear that Rufus isn’t having any of it. ‘Melody doesn’t make things up,’ he says. ‘I’m certain of that. She’s the most truthful person I know.’
I’ve been so low on compliments lately that this show of support sends a warm glow all through me.
‘Well, you don’t really know that, do you, darling?’ asks Mary. ‘It can take years to find out what people are really like.’
‘No, Ma,’ says Rufus. ‘If she says it happened, it happened. I’m more than prepared to accept that there’s been some sort of unholy cock-up, but I’m not going to go any further than that.’
‘But, darling,’ she says, ‘it simply never … you’d have thought I’d have remembered if I’d spoken to her on the phone, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes, you would have,’ he says, with an edge to his voice.
Tilly speaks. ‘It is a bit weird,’ she says doubtfully. ‘Of course, I was dead to the world from seven onwards. Didn’t even hear the dinner bell. But I’d have thought I’d’ve heard something.’
No-one responds.
‘Of course,’ she says falteringly after a few seconds, ‘I’ve been so tired lately. I could have slept through an earthquake. Thanks for letting me miss dinner, by the way. I’m grateful for the sleep.’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ says Mary, ignoring her, ‘if you’re not prepared to listen to other people’s points of view …’
‘Go on, then,’ Rufus says. ‘Give me your point of view.’
‘I just think,’ she says, pauses as if considering her words, ‘that perhaps … well, perhaps she’s feeling rather neglected.’
I feel myself redden, feel the intestinal lurch that has become such a familiar sensation over the past few weeks. Is she really suggesting that this is a hysterical attention-seeking put-on? She can’t be.
You’ve got to hand it to her: she’s skilled in the art of the veiled put-down.
‘I mean,’ she says sympathetically, ‘we are rather dull, here. And I should think that after the glamour of such a protracted honeymoon … especially if you’re used to a … lively social life …’ She leaves this hanging in the air.
‘What are you saying, Mother?’
‘Well, darling. She’s not used to our sort of structures, is she? I know it was an odd way of going about it, but perhaps, with you being so busy and so few young people around … one can hardly blame her if she feels the need to go to the pub and find herself a p’tit ami …’
I don’t know a lot of French, but I know when I’m being insulted. I open the door and enter the breakfast room, in the full knowledge that my expression is murderous.
They all look up. Well, all except Beatrice. I spot her seeing that it’s me and turning her head away with grande dame deliberateness. Edmund clutches a copy of the Telegraph, peers at me over his specs with a small smile and immediately reburies his face. This is roughly how he has coped with morning small-talk since I got here. Tilly moves her chair round to make room for me. Mary beams at me like the treacherous witch she is.
‘Good morning, Melody,’ she says. ‘I hope you’re feeling better today.’
I slip into my chair and say, ‘I wasn’t aware that I was ill, Mary.’
I hear a sigh from Rufus.
‘Not ill, darling. Though I did hear you’d drunk a certain amount of beer last night.’
‘Well, I don’t know what else I was supposed to do. I was in that pub for the best part of three hours.’
The smile spreads. ‘So I hear,’ she says archly.
Ooh, you bitch. I am this close to giving her a slapping.
Mrs Roberts enters the room. Lays a plate of kippers lovingly down in front of Rufus, bangs one down in front of me, wheels on a heel and leaves.
‘I don’t know why you couldn’t have just called the house,’ says Mary, the smile never wavering. ‘Someone would have come and picked you up.’
I just give her a look.
‘Mummy says they were at home all night,’ Rufus tells me.
I struggle with my manners, lose. ‘Well, Mummy’s lying.’
The Telegraph rustles. ‘Melody!’ mutters Edmund reprovingly.
That’s all I need: upbringing from someone who almost certainly has a shot of whisky in the bottom of his teacup.
‘Well, if they were at home all night, how come the lights were off all over the house?’
Tinkle tinkle, goes Mary. ‘But darling, why on earth would we want to have the lights off?’
A big ‘graaargh’ rises in my gorge. I ram it back down, dig my nails into the palms of my hands under the
table.
‘I’ll think you’ll find,’ I say, once I’ve got myself under control, ‘that that was my point.’
She knits her eyebrows, tilts her chin and gives me the sort of look you give to stupid children. And people you want to insult.
‘But, darling, it’s just silly. What did you think? That we were creeping about in the dark playing hide-and-seek?’
‘She shouldn’t be living in the house anyway,’ announces Beatrice. ‘There are plenty of houses in the village for that sort of thing. I don’t know why you put up with it, Mary.’
‘Morning, Beatrice,’ I say. Her mouth collapses in on itself. She goggles at me for a single second, turns away.
‘Well, I’m sorry,’ says Mary, ‘if you think we all turned the lights off and hid from you.’ She leaves the sentence hanging in the air.
‘Oh, please,’ I say.
‘Rufus!’ says Beatrice. ‘I will not have her talking to the family like that!’
‘What, I’m not allowed to express my opinion?’
‘Mel,’ says Rufus. And I think: yeah, well, perhaps I should go a bit easy on the old girl. She is nearly a hundred, after all. A hundred years old and crouched over this family like a corpulent old spider in a web.
‘Excuse me,’ says Tilly, scraping her chair back and standing up, ‘Toast. Must walk it off.’
‘How’s your back?’ I ask.
Her hands fly instinctively to the top of her hips. Then, remembering the house rules, she plasters a smile on and Doesn’t Make A Fuss. ‘It’s fine. Thank you for asking.’
‘Would you like a bit of a rub-down later?’
Her eyes dart about. In the world of Bourton Allhallows, massage still only means one thing: anonymous doorways with red lights. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard someone pursing their lips, but I know for a fact that Mary is doing it right now. Then suddenly, Tilly shows a bit of intestinal fortitude. ‘Thank you, Melody,’ she says. ‘That would be very nice.’
‘I’ll come find you.’
She smiles, and the tight, white little face is transformed for a moment. I can see the skinny, freckly teenager Tilly once was, and I like what I see. Now, there’s Rufus’s sister, at last. Here’s something I can build on.
I attack my kippers with new enthusiasm. They are dried out like shoe leather. Pinpricks from tiny bones assail my throat.
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