Whatever she does wouldn’t be enough. She could claw at his eyes, scratch his cornea – painful, so she’s heard – push him to the ground and kick him in the head, watch the blood leak on to the cream carpet and she wouldn’t be able to stop. Melody knows all about crossing lines of decency but right now she can’t see any lines. Fury has made them disappear. She hurls herself at him.
‘Mel … for fuck’s sake, Mel …’
‘You bastard … you—’ He tries to prise her off him but she’s quick, gauges a line down his face with her nails. He pushes her on to the floor, where she sits watching the blood bubble to the surface.
Sam traces the cut with his fingers, holds them out in front of him to examine the blood as if he can’t bring himself to believe what she has done.
‘You are off your head,’ he says. He peers down at her in the way she imagines he would study a specimen in a lab. She scrambles to her feet, feels the room swim around her.
Her hand is on the zip of the case. It doesn’t matter what she has now, whether she takes anything at all. All that matters is that she gets away from Sam while she can.
His hand comes to rest on hers. It’s cold and clammy like putty. ‘I’m afraid,’ he says, ‘I can’t let you do that.’
This is what is going to happen.
Melody will stay until she believes him. He will repeat his story. She will repeat it. The repetition will breed belief.
How will he know when she believes him?
That’s easy. He knows everything.
Just do what he says and everything will be fine.
Simple. OK?
OK.
First they must eat. Has she eaten? Of course she hasn’t. She needs to eat. He will see to that. He swings into action like he’s dealing with a major incident. He’s known as Dr Earth for a reason. Nobody panic. He’s going to the kitchen to cook, OK? OK. A healthy supper. That will help, won’t it? Kale and carrots and spinach and brown rice. An oily fish, mackerel perhaps. Have we got any mackerel? Not sure? He’ll check. Omega three, fish oils. Just what the doctor ordered.
They go downstairs together, him holding her hand on the descent the same way she used to hold her granny’s. He’s talking in a raised tone, speaking slowly as if she is not quite right in the head. ‘LAST STEP. THERE WE GO.’
Mel acquiesces. It’s not real. Not this. She feels like a puppet that only Sam knows how to operate; she no longer has control over herself. Has she slipped into a dream without remembering falling asleep? Everything around her is normal yet it is so completely askew. Like she’s walking down the high street to find everyone is speaking a language she doesn’t understand. Her surroundings, her routine, so familiar, have turned on her. Terror lies in the crushing normality of it.
She’ll wake up soon and Sam will tell her to leave, don’t come back. Or kill her. One or the other. Her expectations oscillate between the two.
When they reach the kitchen, he pulls a chair out for her. ‘Sit down.’ She sits down.
Before he begins the search for oily fish, he uncorks a bottle of wine, pours two glasses. He downs his in two gulps, pours another before giving one to Melody. ‘Drink. You need a drink.’
He starts chopping.
Onions. Garlic. She listens to the rap of the knife on the board. He could stab her with that. It’s sharp enough and she should know, she bought it two months ago from the shopping channel. Chop the onions and garlic first then start on his girlfriend. Make it look like self-defence. If I was going to kill her with a knife, I wouldn’t have used it to slice vegetables first, now would I?
It’s an image of domestic perfection: the couple converging on the kitchen in the early evening to cook, chat, share a bottle of wine. If anyone looked in right now (which they can’t, given the perimeter fence), they would gaze at the size of the space, the quality of the cabinetry, the layers of lighting (ambient, task and mood), and deduce that the couple had the kind of success early in life most will never attain. They might experience a pang of envy, the way people do when they’re flicking through glossy lifestyle magazines: why can’t I have that? Why do I have to put up with my crappy kitchen from B&Q, my knackered oven, when these people have everything?
They might not know, as Melody does, that everything is not a goal worth striving for. That even when it looks like you have it, there will always be something missing.
To stress her point she would instruct these imaginary voyeurs to move from the wide shot to the zoom. Closer scrutiny, she would hint, may reveal a different kind of truth. Look at Sam preparing dinner. He’s standing on the far side of island, a position that affords him a view of his girlfriend. Touching, you say? Look again. Chop, chop, chop, then he raises his eyes from the counter, shoots a look at her. He repeats this on a three-second cycle. Now watch her reaction. When she feels the heat of his stare, her eyes dart away. What does her expression tell you? Nothing? Precisely. It’s a mask, drawn on to conceal her fear. Look at her body, perched on the edge of the chair. Her left leg is turned to the door because that’s where she would like to go, only he has her in his sights and three seconds isn’t enough time to run without him noticing. There are clues everywhere if you look. The wine glass on the table in front of her is full. She hasn’t taken more than a sip. She needs a clear head. It’s important that she’s alert when he tries to kill her.
He sets a plate down in front of her. The mackerel stares at her with its glassy, dead eye. She hears the scrape of Sam’s chair as he drags it across the concrete, tucking himself in to the table.
‘Eat,’ he says. ‘Or it will get cold.’
Melody keeps her eyes down, takes the lemon on the side of her plate and squeezes it over the fish. Its silver skin glistens, iridescent under the light of the pendant that hangs low over the table. She can’t focus on anything except the intermittent clacking sound of Sam chewing, the unfortunate clicking of his jaw. She imagines the white flesh of the fish being shredded through his teeth, his moist mouth salivating as he shovels in the next forkful.
‘Eat something, will you.’ A speck of unidentifiable matter from his mouth lands on the table not far from her plate. With her knife she slices the mackerel down the middle. It’s translucent, barely cooked. He’s watching; she feels his eyes burn into her. She loads a tiny morsel of fish on to her fork and slips it into her mouth. It’s wet and cold, stuck to her tongue without any saliva to swallow it.
‘I want you to listen, OK. Carefully. This is what happened.’ He rests his cutlery on the table, draws a deep breath and begins his monologue.
‘Honor told me she knew it was you, she had worked out that you and I were …’ his fingers are raised in commas in the air, ‘fucking. Then … are you following? … then she told me she had just driven by Larden Road and had seen you standing there, that’s how she knew it was you. She was screaming at me, “How the hell could you do that with my best friend?” I tried your phone … yes, your other phone … but you didn’t pick up so I went out to find you and by the time I got there you had gone. I thought you’d got bored of waiting and walked home. I was in the car. I drove around for a bit to see if I could spot you, and when I didn’t, I just kept driving. Why would I have gone back home? I just drove and before I knew it I was heading out on to the M20 to Camber Sands. I parked up beside the beach and slept. The next morning I swam in the sea, bought myself breakfast and then turned around and headed back. I tried to call you again, but you didn’t answer. It was only when Patrick called later that day and told me you hadn’t come home that I started to worry. When I found out what had happened I destroyed the phone. Yours was never found.
‘That is what happened. You have to believe me. I didn’t see you. I didn’t touch you. I didn’t try to kill you. Do you understand, Mel?’ He has the satisfied air of someone who has tackled a dirty job and won. Done and dusted.
He’s watching her, waiting for a reaction. Keep up, she thinks, say something. But she’s lagging behind, caught in the complicat
ed weave of his explanation, the circuitous routes and stop-offs, swims in the sea and breakfasts and phone calls that no one witnessed.
‘MEL.’ She jumps, sucks in air and propels the piece of fish to the back of her throat, where it sticks. She coughs, rises from the chair, unable to breathe. ‘SIT DOWN.’
She wants to tell him she needs water because she’s choking. She staggers to the cupboard, grabs a glass and thrusts it under the tap, gulps the water down to dislodge the fish. Sam is next to her, his fish breath on her. ‘Get away from me …’ She attempts to push him away but her hand comes up against the solid mass of his chest. Tensed, unyielding.
‘I needed a glass of water.’
He escorts her back to the table. When they’re seated again he continues. ‘Did you hear what I said?’
She nods.
‘Good, because that is what happened. Now I want you to forget it all.’ He pushes his plate to one side. All that’s left of the fish is the head, eyes and its skeleton. The skin, in slimy grey lumps, sits next to a few remnants of kale.
For the first time since they’ve been in the kitchen she has the courage to study his face. She’s familiar with the look he wears, self-satisfied, vaguely pompous, the one he uses when administering diagnosis – you have a virus, you need rest – or expounding theories or arguments. It’s a face you’re supposed to put your trust in. Solemn, in control, knowing.
There’s nothing in his demeanour, not a twitch or a glint in his eyes, that betrays the madness of this situation.
She feels like she’s falling through a crack, slipping downwards into a parallel universe where her perceptions of truth and lies no longer hold tight.
Who is insane? Is it her or Sam? The smart money would go on Melody. No question. But … what if it’s Sam? She’s only had him to compare herself with all these years. Trying to meet his expectations, follow his thinking, understand his world view. And now sitting here in front of him she no longer knows whose grip on reality has slipped, whose behaviour is reasonable and whose is unsound.
His tongue emerges snake-like to wet his lips. ‘The only story you have to remember is that Honor and I were together all night. OK?’
‘No.’
‘What?’
‘You just told me you weren’t together.’
‘I also told you to forget I said that.’
‘Well why did you tell me in the first place?’
‘So you’d know that I didn’t attack you.’
‘And these two stories are just supposed to sit alongside each other, are they? Despite the fact that they blatantly contradict each other?’
‘That’s why I said forget it. Why are you making this so hard? You have to believe me …’
‘Why?’
‘Because if you don’t, you’ll leave here and go to the police and it will all be over.’
It’s all clear now, comes at her with force. It’s only ever been about him. Sam is at the very core of everything, conducting, manipulating. She knows how persuasive he is. The lie would have been his idea. Honor’s relationship with the truth was always more faithful than Sam’s. God, she has been thick. Even their affair, its origins that night, she can see how he must have plotted it. The swim under the stars, the kiss. What perfect stage management. He must have thought she was weak, knew she wouldn’t resist. And then later, in all the years in this house, he didn’t confront her fear of going out alone. What did it matter to him? They went out together, Melody was always there when he returned, all the better when she learnt to cook. What did he have to complain about? Sam is the sun around which everything else orbits. And Melody, in possession of a newly discovered truth, threatens to upset the planetary alignment.
It is this knowledge that sends fear slicing through her. It is piercingly clear. Sam is insane.
Daylight has faded completely. Beyond the glass, in the world outside, a sea of dark. He is still talking, there is no let-up, although his words have become slurred with booze. ‘Youhavetopromisemeyouwon’t …’ The noise assails her. She closes her eyes hoping he won’t notice, and allows herself to drift out in the shadowy blackness of the night. It holds no fear any more. This encounter has freed her of that. If she could turn a key in the door, she would wander down their driveway and out to the fields through the long grass and bracken and listen as the trees shifted and rustled around her. She’d look up and see the constellations of stars studding the sky winking down at her. And she wouldn’t startle at the cry of a fox or the sound of a snake weaving its way through the field. She’d just walk, go wherever her instincts led her. Make up for lost time.
‘MEL!’ His voice snaps her out of the reverie. There’s a stench in the room as if something is rotting. She looks down and eyes the fish. ‘You’re falling asleep, you should get some rest.’
He leads her back upstairs, passing her handbag on the way. Her phone is in it. She longs to reach out, feel its cold round edges in her hand, hear a voice on the end of the line. Has Nat called? She promised she’d ring him to tell him she was OK. Is he worried? She wants to grab the phone and call him, but it’s pointless. Wait until Sam’s asleep, sneak down, out of the house, that is her plan.
Sam undresses, waits for her to do the same. Instead she removes her skirt and slips into bed, positions herself on the outermost edge of it and draws her knees tight to her chest in a fetal position. She waits.
It’s the rhythm of his breathing, the wave-like push and suck that interferes with her plans. She is focusing on it too keenly. Without her noticing, sleep creeps up on her.
The bed is empty and cold on his side by the time she wakes. It’s ten past nine. Shit, shit, shit. How could that have happened? How could she sleep longer than she has in recent history on the very night it was imperative she stay awake?
Silence cloaks the house. Her head scrambles to remember the day. It’s Friday. He should be at work but that means nothing. She thought he would be at work yesterday and look where that got her. Her phone. She can creep downstairs and get her phone if he is in the kitchen. She reels off a Hail Mary under her breath at lightning speed, surprised she still knows the words. Please let it have battery. I’ll start going to church every week, I’ll clean the floors, do the offertory, flower-arrange … just let it have battery.
Her skirt is on the floor; she pulls it on quickly. There are only two squeaky floorboards in the whole house and she knows exactly where they are, on the threshold of the door and on the first step on the stairs. She avoids both, floats downstairs. Her bag is where she left it. Relief flushes through her. Still no sound. Do not be fooled. Her hand dips into her bag, craving the feel of her phone, the comfort of it in her hand.
It’s not there.
Not in the pocket. Not in the main compartment. She stops. The door is three metres away. What is she thinking? Just get out. Away from him and this house.
She is at the door, turning the Yale. It won’t open. It won’t open because the door is locked. Scream, she’d like to scream or cry, she could easily cry. Don’t you dare, don’t you dare. Go to the cupboard and find the key.
She’s in the cupboard.
SHED, FRONT DOOR, WINDOWS, KITCHEN DOORS, the labels are still there, to taunt her she supposes, because the line of hooks, drilled like question marks into the wall, is empty. He’s taken them all, right down to the one for the shed. He’s thorough like that. She turns, half expecting him to be smiling over her shoulder, chalking up another victory over her. He is not there. ‘SAM!’ she screams. ‘SAM!’ She repeats the call in every room she searches before concluding that he has gone.
He has gone to work and locked her in. Taken her phone. Her laptop too. In the living room she scans the sideboard where the handsets for the landline sit. They are gone. Rage ignites in her. She’s felt anger before but oh god, nothing like this; nothing has come close to the white-hot fury that burns through her now, pure and raw. She could do anything. If he was standing in front of her she could tear him apart, take pleas
ure in ripping his skin off. Running into the kitchen, she opens the cupboards. Her eyes come to rest on the wine glasses. Without thinking, she hurls them one by one across the room until the floor is carpeted with shards of glass that look like diamonds in the light morning sun.
The crackle of bare feet crunching over them pleases her. She could be walking on feathers for all she knows. Against her anger it is impossible to feel anything. When she reaches the glass doors, as far as she can go, Melody peers at the thin, shady image of the woman staring back at her. The shadow of a ghost that burns out when the sun bursts through only to return when it slips back behind the clouds. Her blond hair tumbles down; strands of it curl around her face. She wears a smile, warm and reassuring.
It is not Melody.
It is Eve.
Mel reaches out to touch the glass with her fingertips but the image vanishes. She sinks down on to the floor and lets out a wail from deep inside her. The tears come, fat and hot to sting her cheeks. She cries not out of fear but for what she has lost and squandered, for the years she has been buried in this house. She cries for Eve who has shown her so much, and gets no second chances.
Wiping the snot and tears away, she glances out to the garden. Blades of grass glisten with morning dew, leaves of gold, russet and red spin and dance on the wind. Up above she spies a murmuration of starlings like a dark cloud of iron shavings wheeling, turning and swooping in the sky. The sun cracks through the clouds, bathing everything in a golden light.
It looks like a beautiful day.
Later, hours later, the sound of a key turning in the door. A voice calling her name.
The Life I Left Behind Page 28