by Laura Kemp
‘Right, well I’d better speak to Mel to see if the cottage is free.’
‘Marvellous news!’ Gwen crowed as Rhodri held up his pint to her.
‘Mel should be back by now,’ he said. ‘She’s been at her mam’s. Tell her we’re waiting for her if she’s not in her onesie already. And you, of course.’
It was nice of him to include her.
She nodded. Seren, though, was tutting.
‘Watch out, you’ll become one of us,’ Ceri heard her say as she left the pub and it made her chuckle all the way to Mel’s door. So much for handing in her bloody notice.
Ceri knocked and waited, still full of smiles, hoping now she could stick around for a bit. It might be a good night down the pub and she was intrigued to know what Rhodri and Mel would come up with for the Village of Love. She stamped her feet: these wellies weren’t half as warm as Uggs. She should’ve listened to the shopkeeper, who had recommended ones made from wetsuit material. But she hadn’t known she’d be getting further use out of them – if there wasn’t another booking to evict her. Blimey, Mel was taking her time. She rapped again and looked up to the balcony to see if there were any lights on. There weren’t. Maybe she wasn’t home yet. But just then Ceri heard Mel call out ‘coming’.
A bit more of a wait. Come on, lady, it’s cold out here. The door opened a crack and Ceri stepped forward – bumping her forehead, just as Mel had done when she came along to hers on Saturday. Jesus, maybe Seren was right, maybe she was turning into one of them … Mel must’ve had her foot by the door or there was something preventing entry. So Ceri tried again, pushing hard, announcing, ‘It’s only me.’ But she felt the wood resisting. How odd.
‘Mel?’
Her face popped out, but only her face.
‘Did I catch you in the bath?’
But she saw her red eyes and a raw nose showing the signs of having been blown after a cry.
‘Oh, Mel, are you all right?’
‘Yep.’ It was a clipped squeak. Not like her at all.
‘You sure you’re okay?’
‘Yep.’ The same noise. And she was in complete darkness. What was going on?
‘Everyone’s waiting in the pub to see you.’
‘I’m a bit tired.’ Her voice wobbled.
‘Oh, no. Shall I tell them?’
Mel shrugged limply. Ceri needed to keep her talking to see if she could get it out of her.
‘Hey, guess what, I’m going to stay another week. If the cottage is free?’ That should do it.
‘Yep.’ Mel’s hand remained on the doorframe, resolutely barring Ceri’s entry.
‘I’ll pay tomorrow. Okay?’
‘Fine.’
‘Rhodri wants to talk about the Village of Love, what you can do next.’ She said it softly, trying to coax her out, she didn’t want to scare her off.
But Mel put her hand over her eyes, as if she was a child. She was supposed to be … how old? Ceri didn’t know.
‘I’m not in the mood. All right?’ she lashed out. But it barely registered with Ceri.
‘If that’s supposed to put me off, let me tell you I’ve had a lot worse from my sister! I’m not leaving you like this.’
Ceri waited, and slowly Mel stepped back. Ceri gently touched the door until it began to creak open. And, oh, Mel was staring at her, looking broken.
‘You poor thing, what’s happened? Let’s turn the light on,’ she said, groping for the switch, ‘and have a cup of—’
Ceri swallowed the words. Gagged on them because the place was an absolute wreck. What the hell had happened? Had there been a break-in? But taking it in, things seemed to be ordered in a crazy kind of way. There was barely a sight of wall or floor, just stuff in piles, stacked high, in some parts almost reaching the ceiling. A dresser, hardly visible behind flyers and envelopes and notebooks. By their feet, bags, bulging bags, full of who knew what, layered with jackets and scarves and no wonder because there was no room left on the coat hooks, if that’s what was behind the hodgepodge hanging off them. Beyond, past Mel, there should’ve been a corridor but it was a narrow tunnel to the stairs and well over half of each step was littered too, leaving only just enough room to climb up. There was a smell, too. She felt awful for noticing it; a musty scent, where the air had gone stale.
Ceri struggled to take it all in: it was as if her brain was incapable of understanding how someone so merry on the outside could be so tortured within. The cabin had been bad enough. She’d taken Mel at her word the shambles there was down to the delivery and space issues. Now, she could see they had nothing to do with it. It was an extension of whatever was going on in her home and in her head. This … Ceri didn’t want to admit it, but … it was like something off one of those TV shows about hoarders.
Dear God, had no one been here recently to see what a state she was in? Maybe they were used to it, used to her being ‘messy Mel’. Or she didn’t let anyone in. It couldn’t be she’d been let down by her friends – they seemed a solid bunch. It had to be she tried to hide it. Folk couldn’t be helped if they didn’t want to help themselves. And Mel, well, right now she was a shadow of her normal self. Dressed in black all over, no sign of any colour in her clothes. As if the light had gone out inside of her.
‘Mel, love, come here,’ she said, pulling her in for a hug. Resistant, lifeless, she felt like a sack of spuds.
‘Whatever it is,’ Ceri said, squeezing her tight, ‘we’ll fix it, all right?’
She wasn’t one to make empty promises. And so she was surprised she had. But her gut was adamant.
‘I’ve tried. You can’t,’ Mel said, strangled, ‘I’m trapped. I’m never going to get out.’
‘Has something happened at your mum’s?’
She gave a nod which as tiny as it was looked like it caused her enormous pain.
Ceri’s heart shrank at the size of Mel’s anguish before swelling with concern. Because she knew why this was touching her: it was how she had once felt when Mum had been so helpless and dependent. She’d had the same feeling of the walls closing in on her. But she’d been able to get herself out. Mel needed to know you could turn things around, whatever it was troubling her. Ceri’s own problems seemed smaller now – at least she’d had the strength to accept she had reached crisis point. But Mel, she was almost paralysed.
‘Trust me, kid,’ she said to this little scrap in her arms, ‘we’re going to sort this.’ Inside a voice was wondering if an extra week was enough. This might be a longer stay than she thought.
Ceri stroked her hair and began to rock her from side to side, vowing in a whisper, ‘I’m only leaving when you can too.’
11
‘No lights,’ Mel croaked, as Ceri sat her on the sofa and wrapped a heavy blanket around her shaking body. The weight of the woollen throw, shorn from a local flock and hand-woven on a loom, subdued the tremors: it was as if she’d had a reassuring hug from the generations on her father’s side who’d sought its comfort. And its black and grey geometric design was muted enough to let her swollen eyes rest.
Ceri nodded at her request: the spread across the lounge was illuminated enough by the moon. A trove of treasures, it was to Mel; others, though, they always saw it as a crime scene. Leaving the bulbs cold would prevent a second explicit shock – Ceri had witnessed the wreckage of the hallway, why would she want to see more? The lacklustre matt of the shadowy room would lessen Mel’s trauma at catching Ceri’s reaction in technicolour too.
For even though the storm had passed and her tears had gone, even in this barely beating stillness, where she was exposed, drained of emotion, spent and flat, Mel could still taste the bile from registering her visitor’s shock and disgust downstairs. And now, as Ceri backed away, looking down at the floor, careful not to disturb anything, frightened of being tainted by touch, Mel knew what was coming next. She’d seen it all befo
re. On Mam’s face when her teenage bedroom had been a state. The slurs from her youth – she was lazy, she was irresponsible – had become pleas for her to seek help because how could she live like this, inflicting so much pain not just on herself but on her parents? They loved her deeply and she mirrored their every heartbeat – but they just didn’t understand. Mel had no reason to think that Ceri would not condemn her as they did. Yet she couldn’t rustle up the energy to prepare for the blows. She couldn’t even rustle up the energy to watch Ceri as she heard her slow manoeuvre back towards her.
A steaming mug appeared by her hand. There was no empty space or surface to put it nearby. Mel felt the reflex of relief because her precious possessions hadn’t been treated as a glorified coaster to soak up wet rings and spillages. Then a bud of realisation: Ceri hadn’t returned with black bin bags and ordered Mel to start clearing up this mess. That was how Mam had dealt with it: her collections were dismissed as ‘stuff’, as if they were useless. But to Mel, they were the stuff of dreams: a magical elixir which granted the eternal youth of her yesterdays. She took the tea and flinched at the heat, not having expected to feel anymore. They sat in silence for a while, the waves sounding tinny and distant.
‘What set this off?’ Ceri said eventually, quietly.
Mel was taken aback by the question. Usually she was asked Why? and How?, questions which made her feel judged. But Ceri’s What? was different, open and carefully neutral. It made Mel look up, and to her surprise there was no condemnation in Ceri’s eyes, only concern. Disarmed, she pushed back stuffed toys, including Roo the frayed elephant from when she was a baby, and old jumpers which smelled of safety, making way for Ceri to join her on the sofa. Why was she seemingly so unperturbed now? Was it because she had had time to collect herself, put on her poker face? Or was this person, a relative stranger, simply blessed with compassion? Wanting to trust that Ceri would listen, Mel began to speak.
‘What set this off? You mean tonight, do you? Or …’ Beyond.
‘Wherever you want to begin,’ Ceri said evenly.
A rush of memories flickered in random sequence through her mind. Where was the beginning? Losing Alwyn? Before? Now? She was disoriented – it was all a muddle. But she took a breath and plumped for now because if she got that straight perhaps she could, if she dared, follow her stream of consciousness.
‘I was at Mam’s, for my tea …’ she said, hesitant, used to concealing her sorrow, knowing it was too much of a burden for her loved ones. But, she reasoned, if she started with the details maybe the rest would unfold. ‘My sister, my half-sister, she wasn’t there. It was all fine, it was … Mam had made my favourite, Carmarthen Bay mussels and crempog, pancakes, for afters. We were talking and she said she was worried, she was, because Ffion’s turned into a chopsy teenager, hiding in her room, slamming doors. Like we all were.’
Ceri gave a little nod in agreement that hormonal schoolgirls were the same the world, or Wales, over.
‘Mam asked if I’d talk to her … see if there was anything going on. Thing is, we might look alike, we both take after Mam with our blonde hair, but we’re not close. She wouldn’t open up to me. She’s a lot younger, stuck to her phone, she is. I tried to say but Mam kept on … and …’ The whip cracked as Mel felt the shame of letting rip at her mother. ‘… I snapped. Said she hadn’t shown me the same concern when I was her age … said she was scared Ffion would turn out like me.’
‘Like you?’
Mel felt herself blooming under Ceri’s gaze because she wasn’t presuming anything.
‘She’d end up a fuck-up, like me.’ Saying it out loud, hearing what she thought of herself, it was brutal, deliberately so to lash herself. But it was also liberating, getting it out there. And the words were beginning to flow. ‘But it won’t happen, I said. Ffion is a lovely thing actually. It’s just hormones. She hasn’t been through what I have … because I’ve been such a nuisance. I have been ever since they split up, her and Dad. Who’s not my dad, by the way. He’s as good as, though, but not my biological father. I’ve known forever my real one legged it as soon as Mam was up the duff. Lyn has brought me up.’
Ceri swallowed.
‘But that’s fine,’ Mel said to clarify this wasn’t the issue. ‘No, it goes back to when they sold the house. We lived just outside of Dwynwen, we did … a chocolate box cottage with the lushest of grass in the garden, where I had a swing and Rhodri would come over. Okay, he was a boy but he was down the road, around here you couldn’t be fussy for playmates.’
Mel smiled but instantly the happy times faded.
‘So I went with Mam, no sense going with Dad because he was away with work fixing the cruise ships. Partly why their marriage didn’t work. Mam needed someone twenty-four-seven. We went to the next village.’ She pulled a grimace. ‘To her new fella Huw’s house; he’s all right, nice enough, but his place, it was pebble-dashed, like vomit. It hurt my eyes, all that mustard and brown and orange like puked-up carrots. I’d had to go through all my things, sort them into keep or rubbish. Instead I refused to chuck anything. It drove them mad, it was to be a new start. And Mam and Dad, they got on much better. Their sadness had gone. But I held onto my things, wouldn’t be parted from them. If I had my lovelies I’d be okay. I’d feel better, I would, and when I did I’d go through them. Chuck them. But …’
She stretched out an arm and pointed at all of her valuables around her. ‘I never got rid of anything. It’s all here.’
Ceri ran her eyes over Mel’s security blanket of bits and pieces scattered across the surfaces and the shelves and on the floor and on the table. Not gasping, she wasn’t. Just observing. ‘What is there? It’s hard to make out.’
‘My smelly rubbers collection from the age of nine … the superhero comics I made, I was Dolphin Girl, able to breathe underwater, used to see dolphins every day, I did … special shells and sea glass, loads of that … flavoured lip glosses … badges … candles … earrings … posters of works of art … tickets from bus trips and the cinema … cuddly bears … nail polishes … sweetie wrappers … bookmarks … books …’ It was a tapestry of joy. And pain.
‘Is it like this all the time or …?’
She shook her head.
‘Most of it was all packed away until this week. I allowed myself a few special things in the trunk, by there. The rest had been in boxes from when I’d been okay. When I’d left for Cardiff to do art. Mam and me, we’d moved it here to Dad’s, into his spare room. I thought it was over.’ Ceri handed her a tissue just in case. But the well had run dry inside of Mel. The hollow feeling was there instead.
‘But?’
‘I’ve unravelled. It’s coming up to ten years since my Alwyn died.’ Echoes inside of her now, like a dull thump. ‘He was my best friend, who stuck with me through everything, the divorce, when I got bullied … about my eyes.’ Another problem to add to the list. Why had she brought it up? She kept it to herself mostly, this bit, because it made her look even more of a freak.
‘Your eyes? You don’t wear glasses …’
‘No. I’ve twenty-twenty vision. It’s about … what I can see. Not dead people or ghosts or anything, don’t worry.’ But she’d started now, she wasn’t going to reverse – she already looked deranged, what did she have to lose?
Ceri moved forward slightly, like a mouse moving towards a piece of cheese.
‘Lots of colours, millions of them, a whole lot more than other people. Animals have it too – like some fish and birds, they can see ultra-violet light.’
A frown of incomprehension furrowed Ceri’s forehead.
‘Like, if I go to the shops and see a top and skirt apparently matching, I see they’re not the same, they’re clashing. Same with make-up, lips and nails.’
Now Ceri got it.
‘We didn’t know it had a name when I was at school. They said I was a witch. Silly stuff but hurtful when you�
�re fourteen. We know now it’s called tetrachromacy. Very rare. A variation in a gene controlling the development of the retina, the doctors have been all over me. I can see hues and shades invisible to most. Things ordinary to you, well, to me they shine like jewels.’
‘Wow. I’ve never heard of it. What a … gift.’
Mel felt the thrill of having been right to trust Ceri.
‘That’s what Al said. He was so great and alive and …’ She was floating up. ‘He wanted to be a musician. He was brilliant, an ear for it, could play anything and everything.’ Higher. ‘So one time he came to visit me in Cardiff and he’d got a job in a record shop and he had some gigs lined up. We’d save up and afterwards when I’d graduated, we’d travel, see the places I see in the sunsets here. We got drunk to celebrate and … I told him I loved him.’ Soaring. ‘All brave from the drink, knowing I could take it back, couldn’t I, but he said it too.’ The moment in the city centre bar replayed in her head, fuzzy from the number of times she’d watched it over and over and over. ‘Now that was perfect.’ His lips met hers. ‘We only kissed once. I’d waited years. Just one kiss.’ Colours popped like camera flashes. ‘He had to get some money … I should’ve insisted I’d pay, I tried to but he wouldn’t hear of it.’ The searing. ‘He didn’t see the car.’ His body flying, smashing, blood, too many shades, overwhelming her. ‘The life support machine was turned off three weeks later. I came home.’ Down, down, down. ‘And I’ve never left. Not for a single night.’
The telling of the story never got easier.
Ceri rubbed her face. It was a lot to take in. But her mind was working, Mel could tell. Please, she begged inside, please understand, I’m putting my faith in you.
‘So the things from your childhood … they were when you were happy, yes?’
Mel gave a minute nod, hoping …
‘They calm you. And it gets worse when you’re troubled.’ Oh, glory be, it was the first time anyone had got it. Everyone else prescribed a deep, savage, no-quibbling cleanse.