Her eyes scan the path again looking for Sam. A couple walk towards her, holding hands, as if this is a novelty, not something they’re used to. One hand in another, amazed by the simple pleasure of it. Her natural reflex is to think, that was Sam and I once, but this is another example of her mind appropriating memories that are not her own.
She’s so focused on the young couple that she doesn’t see him at first, not until he’s almost upon her. When she notices him, she jumps.
He holds his hands up. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to give you a fright,’ he says and then realises he has seen her before. His eyes are picking over her again, the staring man from the police station.
‘About before …’ he starts. ‘I thought you were … I’m a friend of Eve Elliot’s. From a distance I thought … well I don’t know what I thought.’
You thought that I was her.
A splash of rain hits her face. He looks wretched, bulging eyes ringed with dark shadows. Ideally she’d nurture the anger she felt in the station a while longer, cling on to the sense of indignation and righteousness, but it ebbs away from her in the face of the raw grief that seeps out of this stranger. There is a question flitting about in her head, something she wants to ask him, but she can’t pin it down for long enough to grasp it.
His voice wavers. ‘You’re Melody Pieterson … aren’t you? I know your face from …’ He can’t finish the sentence, probably aware that he sounds like a stalker, she thinks. How does he know Melody’s face? ‘I hope I didn’t freak you out … It’s just all of this … I don’t think it can be real. I keep thinking someone is going to wake me up.’ The rain is coming down heavily now, like someone has turned on a tap. He is crying.
‘I’m sorry.’ She casts a look up the approach and sees Sam heading towards her. She remembers what it is she wants to ask the man. ‘The police told me your friend didn’t think he was guilty.’ She tries to keep her tone measured.
He shakes his head slowly, ‘I guess that’s not what you need to hear.’
‘That’s why you know my face, isn’t it?’ Melody doesn’t wait for confirmation. ‘How far had she got with her … investigation?’
He dips his eyes. ‘She thought she had found something that proved David Alden couldn’t have done it … the attack.’
‘Oh,’ she says. Sam is almost upon them now. She finds herself wishing he wasn’t. Another minute, that’s all it would take, two at the most, for the man to tell her why Eve thought David Alden couldn’t have attacked her. But whatever opportunity she had is slipping away. ‘I have to go,’ she says. ‘I’m so sorry about your friend.’
The man fumbles in his pocket and pulls out his wallet. Sheepishly he hands her a card. ‘I don’t expect you will, but if you wanted to … you can call me. I don’t know a lot but … well …’
She is aware of Sam’s panting breaths. Before she can turn to look she hears him ask, ‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes.’ She grips the card tight in her hand.
Chapter Thirteen
Melody
‘WHAT DID THAT guy want?’ Sam asks.
‘Oh … nothing,’ Mel says.
They are in the car. Sam’s car. It smells new, she thinks. Probably toxic, all those sealers and adhesives, not that she’s complaining. She likes the scent, it reminds her of pear drops. Did Sam tell her he had a new car? How come she didn’t notice? Not even on the way to the police station. She glances over to the steering wheel, sees the BMW logo. The last car was a BMW too. Maybe he hasn’t changed it at all. Maybe it’s her imagination, her slanted take on reality; seeing things that aren’t there without noticing those things that are staring her in the face.
It’s too clean. Barely a speck of dust.
‘Is this a new car?’
They’re still weaving through the streets of Richmond, pedestrians coming at them from all angles, so he can’t turn to her and give her the full benefit of his eye roll. You’ve got to be kidding me.
‘I got it last week, Mel, you knew that.’
‘Did I?’
‘Yes, I told you.’ He sounds bored.
‘Is it the same as the last one?’
‘Yes.’
‘So why change it?’
‘It’s a newer model, a better spec.’
‘It looks the same to me. The same colour, the same model.’ She couldn’t be less interested in cars, apart from right now when she can’t get this particular car, the newness of it, out of her head.
‘Do you want me to tell you where it differs from the 2010 model? I can run you through it if you want. We’ve got the time. I can tell you about the unique rear suspension cradle or the variable ratio steering wheel with hydraulic instead of electric boost.’
Twat. ‘Right, I get it. I’m not stupid.’ They have stopped at the traffic lights next to the cinema. Under the Coming Soon banner is a poster for Gravity, with Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. When was the last time she and Sam went to see a film together? Have they ever been to see a film together? They must have, surely. You can’t marry a person if you haven’t even been to the movies together, can you?
The lights turn green, they start to move.
‘I don’t think you told me.’
‘Mel, for Christ’s sake, I have a new car, I told you a few weeks ago. We can afford it, OK, I don’t understand the problem.’
The problem. Is there a problem? They (he) can afford it. Let it go, accept they have a new car. Say something appreciative, about the upholstery for instance. No, not that. It is leather. The last upholstery was leather too.
‘Where were we?’
‘What do you mean, where were we?’
‘When you told me?’
‘How am I supposed to remember? Actually, wait, I’ll tell you where we were …’ He’s animated now, as if he’s just remembered an answer in a pub quiz. ‘We were at Siobhan’s house for dinner and Tim and I were talking cars and I told you I had ordered a new one.’
Melody remembers the night at Siobhan’s, the chatter that involved Freddie’s tantrums and a potential ski holiday and how poor the service was in the new Spanish tapas restaurant in the village; an hour before the patatas bravas arrived and I could have sworn they were reheated. She can picture herself sitting in Siobhan’s kitchen with its oak beams to give it that olde worlde feel when it was built in 1982. They ate scallops with leeks and lemon chilli butter, and lamb shanks for main. They had chocolate fondants for pudding. Siobhan smashed a glass of red wine over her dusty pink blouse. ‘Fuck,’ she’d said. This amused Melody in the way it would if her mum swore because it was so out of character. She remembers all of this right down to the wine they brought – a Chilean Pinot Noir – but she can’t remember Sam telling her about the car.
‘I don’t think it was at Siobhan’s.’
Sam slams on the brake. ‘For fuck’s sake.’ She thinks he is talking to her until she looks ahead and sees that an elderly woman has just marched out on to the road.
At the roundabout they turn right, heading over the Thames, an elegant stretch of the river edged with white stucco buildings on one side and houseboats on the other. If they took the left fork they would climb the hill to Richmond Park. Not that they would ever do that. She hasn’t been back since she was found right next to it, although that makes it sound like she was a regular visitor in the first place, which she wasn’t. The occasional picnic, a wedding once at Pembroke Lodge. It was a friend from her first job, one of those embarrassing dos where you know no one and spend the day smiling on the periphery. Then there was one winter walk through the Isabella Plantation, a separate world of colour hidden away from the rest of the park. Yellows and oranges against the low sun. The four of them, Sam, Patrick, Honor and Melody out for a Sunday walk to ease the hangover.
‘You could die happy in a place like this.’ Had she said that?
Eight months later she’d gone back, not far from the Isabella Plantation.
Almost dead.
Had he been l
istening?
Melody closes her eyes. It’s a smooth ride, she could tell Sam that if only she hadn’t got the distinct impression that the car is now a no-go area of conversation. The day has beaten her. She wants to stay awake but she can’t fight sleep. The car slows, pulling up to a junction, she imagines; she hears the tick, tick, tick of the indicators. It reminds her of sleepy night-time journeys in pyjamas as a child, shrouded in a blanket in the back seat of the car.
‘Nearly there,’ her father would say.
Dropping down a gear, turning in to their street, the hum of the engine, crunch of the wheels over gravel.
She opens her eyes.
Their driveway was paved.
Gravel, she thinks, the tiredness of a moment ago stripped away. She knows where she heard the sound of gravel.
A wave of fear rushes through her. Her body stiffens. She sits up and begs her memory to release more information rather than a tiny snippet to taunt her. But it won’t, it’s stubborn like that, will only ever afford her glimpses, partial views obscured by shadows so she can never be sure what it is she is seeing, if she is seeing anything real at all.
London falls away behind them. Shops thin out, patches of green stretch for longer, there are fewer people around, the housing less dense. What is it she feels? Relief? Yes, partly relief. All the reasons she once loved London are the very same ones that make her want to leave now.
Once she felt plugged in just walking the city’s pavements, as if the energy was feeding up through her toes; being around so many people, all moving at speed, not wanting to waste so much as a minute or second of a day because there was so much to do and see. And the skyline drawn with Big Ben and St Paul’s, the spike of the Shard piercing the clouds; a city that offered you the chance to walk through the pages of history books while being the most modern, vibrant place she had known. At night in a taxi, or on foot, she loved nothing more than crossing one of the bridges and catching sight of the mercury snake of the Thames beneath her. The evening sky streaked raspberry red with the falling sun, interrupted by the Houses of Parliament. God, she loved this city. Was there any place in the world she would rather be? She’d see busloads of Japanese tourists disembarking to snap the sights with expensive cameras only to get on again two minutes later. She wanted to shout at them, order them to stop taking photographs. You couldn’t capture the essence of London in a photograph. You had to breathe it, live it, immerse yourself in it.
It was three and a half months after the attack before she ventured back to London again. It was Honor’s idea: Christmas shopping on Regent Street, lunch, a cocktail, just like the old days, which weren’t even that old; it just felt like they were because of the chasm that had opened up between then and now. They travelled up on the train together from her parents’ house in Dorset as they had done countless times. But whereas the chat had always been incessant, the easy fluid banter of old friends, now it was stilted. Sentences would end with neither woman picking up the baton of conversation. Mel found herself searching for topics that weren’t emotionally loaded only to draw a blank. How is Sam? That wouldn’t do. How is work? That would be a giveaway; she knew Honor hated talking about it. Even the simple matter of where they should go for lunch was fraught. Not because they disagreed but because it was Melody who had worked in town, Melody who had been tuned in to the social scene, knew where all the best bars and restaurants were. Only her mind was empty, like someone had taken her contacts book, her knowledge of London built up over the years, and deleted it with the press of a button. At this rate, she thought, we’ll end up in an Aberdeen Angus Steak House.
And why did Honor, who had suggested the trip and worn Melody down with her enthusiasm, now seem like she was doing it to punish herself? As if as soon as the train pulled away and they found their seats next to each other she realised what a terrible idea it had been. Their only time together since the attack had been flying visits, at first to the hospital and later to Melody’s parents’ house, with flowers or magazines. ‘Won’t you stay for dinner?’ her mother would ask. ‘Oh Tess, I’d love to, but I can’t, I’ve got work/emails/gym/I’m too tired.’ Delete as appropriate.
Having feigned sleep for a good hour of the journey, Melody opened her eyes as the conductor announced they were approaching Waterloo. She made a play of yawning, stretching out as if she was emerging from her slumber. Office blocks squatted at either side of the tracks, dirty grey, windows blackened from pollution. Ahead, the lines, dusted with snow, intersected like a giant macramé construction. A train sidled close by giving them a view of the carriage. A woman stared out, black hat and red lipstick. I bet she can remember the name of at least one restaurant, Melody thought.
‘Ready?’ Honor asked, as she waited for the doors to open on to the platform.
Melody nodded and attempted a smile. Ready was not a word she would have used to describe her feelings at that particular moment.
Had there always been this many people in London? A roiling mass that bumped and shoved her. Surely she was walking at a normal pace, a steady pace, one foot in front of the other, and everyone around her had been speeded up using some weird special effect that exempted her. The station tannoy deafened her, so much so that she pulled her hat down over her ears to deaden the sound. Birds whistled overhead under the dome of the station. Once they got outside it would ease, once she could see London, anchor herself to the familiar sights.
They crossed the road and walked over to the South Bank. Frost glittered on the pavement. Nat King Cole streamed out from the Christmas market stalls that lined Queen’s Walk. They were all wooden, made to look traditionally German. She had no idea why. Did Germany have a monopoly on festive markets? On the chocolates and cheeses and plates that they sold? Beyond the market were the silver threads of the Millennium Bridge stretching over the Thames.
Honor slipped, almost lost her footing. She grabbed Melody to steady herself.
‘You think they could have gritted the pavements,’ she remarked.
Melody was too busy concentrating to reply. One foot in front of the other, keep going, she repeated in her head as if the motion, the concentration alone, would hold her up.
Ahead, the river, the spire of St Paul’s; to her left the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben. All shades of murk, the sky and the river an identical colour, one continuous sweep of grey. It was, she thought, as if someone had leached the colour from the city. Around her everyone cloaked in black or brown or grey like a formidable urban army marching ahead as far as the eye could see. Only the long red trousers of a street entertainer on stilts broke it up. That and the giant white Ferris wheel of the London Eye rotating.
The ground shifted beneath her. She tumbled on to the hard, cold pavement.
It was the shoes she noticed first. All black, like cockroaches scurrying around her. So many. Too many. They were going to start crawling over her body. Stamp, stamp, stamp. The place was teeming with them. Why had she not seen this before? Still on the ground, she moved her gaze upwards, to the peak of the Shard and the Gherkin. They towered over her, dwarfed her. Was this vertigo? She corrected herself immediately. Vertigo was a fear of heights. This was its reverse, a fear of being too low down, too small next to the scale of everything around her.
‘Mel! Mel!’ She heard Honor’s voice. ‘Melody, are you OK?’
Blackness descended over her.
There wasn’t to be any lunch, or shopping, or cocktails. The old days had slipped from their grasp.
It wasn’t long after they became official that Sam suggested they move out of London. Melody had not needed persuading. Build a new home together away from it all. Start afresh. Wipe the slate clean. He’d made it sound easy.
The day the builders left and they moved into the house with its white walls and grey floors and all that glass, she knew it had been a mistake. The thunder of traffic, sirens, the sounds of life in London had been replaced by silence. It was more deafening than anything she’d heard before.
No, she doesn’t want London any more but she doesn’t want this either. People tell her it’s beautiful out in the hinterlands of Surrey, all that space and peace. To her it is desolate. The nothingness of it. She feels like she’s come here to die.
Home, she thinks. Where is that now?
She sees a sweep of coastline, jagged cliffs stooping over golden stretches of sand. The sea, dark and threatening, calling out to be explored. She would always run in, whatever the weather, to see how far she could get before the cold sliced into her bones. In the summer, when the water temperature rose, she’d surface-dive and kick downwards for as long as her lungs would allow it. She can hear Honor’s echoey voice through the water. Counting the seconds she spent below the surface … twenty … thirty … forty, keep going, Melody.
Melody rarely goes back now. Mostly when she sees her parents, they come to her. She has tried to erase it from her mind, along with a swathe of her childhood, teenage years, the memories she has lost claim to now because of what she did.
She looks at Sam, eyes fixed on the road. Well you only have yourself to blame.
The car slows as they drive through the village. A tractor up ahead has caused the traffic to back up. Autumn is turning the leaves red, pink and golden. They carpet the grass and pavements. She watches a woman and her welly-booted son trample through them, stopping occasionally to collect the best ones, the brightest colours, gather them into a white plastic bag. She used to do this herself, then make a collage and stick them in her bedroom so when it was winter and bleak and she’d have to drag herself out of bed on dark freezing mornings, stamping at the bus stop to heat her toes, she could remind herself that this would pass. That the leaves would grow on the trees again. A new season would come.
‘What are you doing?’ Sam has pulled in to the car park of Mama Rosa’s, the local Italian. ‘Why have you stopped?’
‘I thought we could get something to eat, save cooking.’
The Life I Left Behind Page 12