Recipes for Melissa (17 page)

‘No. No. Eleanor. Do you not think we have enough going on? I don’t want you having some test that you don’t need to have. And what’s the bloody point, anyway. Just for something for him to write up in his research?’

‘You’re right. I said I didn’t think you would like the idea. I was just a little bit thrown by it all...’

Neither of them mentioned Melissa.

Over supper they were almost ridiculously upbeat to compensate. Max doing his funny walk for Melissa while preparing a particularly delicious risotto. It was only much, much later when she had gone to bed and Max and Eleanor were downstairs, both not listening to a play on Radio Four. When it had finished, Eleanor snapped off the radio and offered him a hot drink.

‘So this test, Eleanor. This new gene thing. Did Dr Palmer say it could have implications for Melissa? Is that what he was saying now?’

Eleanor turned on the corner lamp which shed a warm glow across the two rear walls of the sitting room. By the time she had turned back into the room, Max’s face in contrast was white.

‘Please tell me he’s not now saying that Melissa could be at risk?’

20

MELISSA – 2011

The water was absolutely beautiful – clear and warm. Melissa watched the froth wash over her toes and felt the pull of the sand beneath both feet as the wave retreated. She stood still until the next much stronger wave took her by surprise.

‘I’ll laugh if you go over,’ Sam had retreated from the water, still nervous over his injured leg, sandals in one hand.

Melissa now joined him and they moved further back to the drier, firmer sand to sit down with Sam stretching his bad leg straight out in front of him.

‘God – I love this part of the day. Before it gets too hot. Should get up this early more often,’ Melissa was now leaning back on her straightened arms, head tilted to the sun with her eyes closed.

‘Yeah. Me too. The heat later really makes this bloody leg itch.’

‘Fancy breakfast at the cafe?’

‘Good idea…’

It had been so much better since he knew about the journal. She had shown him some more carefully-chosen sections. The entry on the biscuits and the boeuf bourguignon recipe. Melissa was still cautious, but they were beginning to talk a little about some of the memories her mother’s writing had stirred. She was surprised by how much this helped.

In fact, she had been making a few jottings since she remembered about the box of equipment in the garage. Melissa had been noting down all the little scenes unlocked by the recipes and her reading. The little comments her mother made when she was cooking. The sound of the jam bubbling. That image of the damp cloth in her mother’s hand as she so proudly cleaned her Kenwood Chef. The writer in Melissa had wanted to try to put down on paper her shock at all this; that food and cooking could trigger this, especially in someone like her who had in the past been so very disinterested in the kitchen. A part of her wanted to share these jottings but she wasn’t quite sure how.

‘Listen, Melissa. I’ve been having a think. About the journal. How about we cook all these recipes in sequence when we get back?’

Melissa sat up straight, not entirely surprised they were thinking about the journal at the same time. ‘You serious? Me? Jam – and pavlova? I don’t think so…’

‘Oh come on, Melissa,’ he had turned towards her, trying to read her expression. ‘You’re not as bad a cook as you make out. And you must surely want to? Have thought about it?’

Melissa was looking back at him closely. ‘You’re right,’ she brushed sand from her legs. ‘I do want to try them; of course I do. In fact I’ve been thinking a lot about all the stuff they’ve stirred up,’ she was remembering that time on the balcony. The very transient but strong sense of what it felt like to have her mother in the room.

‘But I want to get it right. I don’t want to rush it. And I’m worrying about how to tell my dad.’

‘I get that. And I didn’t mean go hammer and tongs. I just mean try a few of the recipes. See how you feel. I expect it’s what your mother hoped.’

Melissa was just about to share her idea about writing something. She didn’t want to trespass on her family’s privacy, of course – and she wouldn’t do anything until she had finished the journal, spoken to her father and cleared her head. But she was thinking that it would be really nice to create some kind of open platform to share what her mother had called ‘stories at the stove’. Maybe some kind of blog? Yes – a forum to both share and honour the way food and the kitchen could so surprise.
Unlock things.
She couldn’t, surely, be alone in the powerful feelings her mother’s recipes had triggered. Perhaps she could encourage other people to share their own stories too?

Melissa was just working out how to bounce this idea past Sam when his phone rang. He pulled a face. There had been very few intrusions. Just one minor query from the office – a hiccup over listed building consent over another chapel conversion which only Sam could sort.

Melissa watched his eyes widen as he listened.

‘Yeah. And I love you too, mate. But you sound as if you could do with some coffee. Where are you, Marcus?’

Melissa frowned. Sam’s older brother.

He listened for a little longer, interrupting where he could. ‘Look. It’s lovely to hear from you too, buddy, but I’m on a beach. In Cyprus. You need to get yourself some coffee and get some kip. Yes?’ He listened some more, frowning and then widening his eyes in turn. ‘OK. Yep, I hear you. But I’m going to have to ring off now, Marcus. All right? You need to go to bed, mate. Yes. Yes. And I love you too.’

He ended the call but then began to dial immediately.

‘Sorry, Mel. But I’m going to have ring home. He says he’s at Dad’s. Drunk as a skunk.’

‘Are they all right. Your parents?’

‘Apparently.’

Sam then walked and talked for several minutes, hobbling to and fro on the sand, his face falling and putting his right arm up over the top of his head. His posture of panic.

Finally he rang off, let out a long sigh and tilted his head towards the beach bar.

‘Come on. I’ll fill you in over breakfast.’

Sam waited until their coffee arrived, his lips tight. Face pale. The story, when he finally shared it, was a shock. Marcus was apparently back with his parents in a state of complete meltdown after his wife Diana had suddenly left him.

‘You are kidding me?’ Melissa could genuinely not believe it. Marcus and Diana were the golden couple. Matching convertibles. Waterside loft apartment. Just two years earlier they had had the dream wedding at an art deco hotel on an island in Devon. They had actually left the reception by helicopter

‘So much for my campaign for wedded bliss,’ Sam stirred two sugars into his coffee.

Melissa blushed.

Sam then explained that his father had been hoping to spare them from the crisis until they got back. Hadn’t realised that Marcus, just returned by taxi after an all-night bender with a friend, had rung Sam. They hadn’t wanted to spoil their trip.

Bottom line – Marcus’s company – was going down the tubes. He had taken out a second mortgage without telling Diana. And she – oblivious over the dosh and suspecting Marcus of an affair – had decided on a fling to balance things up. The rift had apparently all started within six months of the wedding. Marcus wanted to start a family and Diana very definitely didn’t. They hadn’t thought to discuss it properly before the aisle.

‘Run off now with some guy in IT at her bank, apparently.’

‘Oh dear God, no. Poor Marcus.’

‘Well, according to Dad, he’s been a real silly arse himself. Stuck his head in the sand over the financial mess. Ignored pleas from the bank for meetings. Right pickle.’

‘Jeez. And I was always a bit jealous. They always seemed so sorted.’

‘All smoke and mirrors, it seems. Worse thing is Diana doesn’t yet know that the bubble’s burst financially. She’s banking on a healthy divorce settlement, by all accounts.’

‘Well I don’t want to be in the room when that chicken comes home,’ Melissa raised her eyebrow as the waiter appeared with a basket of warm bread and a plate of butter and jam in a small bowl.

‘I’ve told Dad I’ll go over as soon as I get back.’

‘Of course.’

Melissa examined Sam’s face closely as he began to spread the butter on a large hunk of bread.

‘I really am very sorry, Sam. So is there no way back for them?’

He shook his head. Drank more coffee. Swept his hair back. Gazed out at the sea. Sam idolised his older brother. Marcus could be a bit brash, she had thought when she first met him, but he had a good heart, and Melissa, being an only, had rather envied and admired how close the brothers were.

‘So – do you want to talk about it? Marcus?’

‘Do you mind actually if we don’t. How about we talk about you and this job instead? I know you haven’t had the energy to think about it – with the journal, I mean. But you’re going to have to make a decision soon. Or bump the meeting with the editor.’ He was fidgeting with the sugar sachets.

‘Still undecided, then?’ Sam caught the waiter’s eye to order some more bread and two more coffees, setting the extra sachets of sugar ready by his spoon.

‘Oh – I don’t know, Sam. I’m still shit scared,’ Melissa felt a frisson of guilt, realising that she really ought to have been giving this more thought rather than letting her mind wander with ideas for new writing projects. ‘You know me. PhD in fearing the worst. No idea what to do.’

It was all so unexpected. And the fact it was a tabloid made things tricky. Melissa had rather rashly once sworn that she would never work for a red top. But she had already carved out a niche for herself as a consumer columnist, starting with freelance articles in her final year at uni and continuing during her training at The Bartley Observer.

Melissa not only loved consumer journalism but had just pipped more experienced colleagues to win a national columnist award after campaigning against Rachman-style landlords who were taking advantage of the buy-to-let boom and overcharging for under-par and in some cases dangerous accommodation. The whole rented sector had gone nuts since the housing bubble burst. Many potential home-owners were renting, waiting for house prices to fall further. Others were renting simply because they had no choice. No deposits to buy. The mathematics of supply and demand had made it a landlords’ market and some of the less scrupulous were taking serious advantage.

Melissa had been exposing the worst cases in a series of columns. Her editor was turning grey over the pile of litigation threats, but Melissa knew they were all empty. She loved the territory and the threats to sue simply made her more determined. Campaigning journalism was by nature potentially libellous. But she researched each case meticulously, publishing only when she was sure of the defence of ‘justification’ to keep the paper’s own legal team happy.

Very soon trading standards and then the police became involved. A student was burned badly when a faulty immersion heater exploded in a property owned by one of the landlords she had been exposing. The tenant had complained many times about the immersion heater and Melissa had taken up the case in her column but the protests fell on deaf ears.

The story made national television news with Melissa interviewed and quoted across television, radio and the national press. She immediately started to get headhunting calls – the best of which was this offer of a one-year freelance contract to launch a national campaigning consumer column for the tabloid. But Melissa was worried about the reputation of the red tops. Also her future.

‘What I’m worried about Sam is that it’s running before I can walk. That I will balls it all up, get myself fired and be left with nothing at all.’

‘Just to look on the bright side,’ Sam was smiling.

The truth was Melissa was scared of freelancing. The financial uncertainty. She was very much an ideas person, which was good for freelancing. But for all that, she also liked the certainty of a monthly cheque. Yet others on the Bartley Observer were green with envy – arguing that the lights were going out on the local newspaper industry anyway. What did she really have to lose?

‘You know what I think. That you should just bloody well go for it. Take the contract,’ Sam locked eyes as she stirred her own coffee. ‘I mean – look at Marcus. So much for being financially sorted. Reckon there’s nothing safe these days. You may as well take a risk, Melissa. Might just work out fine.’

She held his gaze for just a moment then took a deep breath and looked away toward the beach as the waiter arrived with their second basket of bread and more coffee. For just a moment, Melissa suddenly had a new thought. Maybe the London editor would like the idea of the blog too? Melissa narrowed her eyes and felt the frown.
No. Too personal. And I’m not qualified. Don’t know a thing about food. Don’t be ridiculous, Melissa. One thing at a time.

‘Oh, I don’t know. We’ll see. So – Marcus then. Was he very drunk?’

‘Well, let’s just say he phoned me up specifically to tell me how much he loved me. That I was his best friend in the whole of the world.’

And then he clinked his coffee cup to Melissa’s. ‘Happy holidays, eh?’

Melissa tilted her head ‘Is he going to be all right? Marcus?’

‘God knows.’

21

ELEANOR – 1994

‘So you don’t think this gene trial wotsy – this new work Dr Palmer is doing – has any real knock-on for Melissa?’ Max was checking his tie in the mirror. They had not talked of this since Eleanor’s last appointment which had so winded each of them. Separately. Secretly.

‘Didn’t seem that way but I’ll ask him again today. To clarify? So what sort of day have you got ahead?’

‘Usual. And you won’t let him talk you into it. No more tests, I mean. Just for his international buddies.’ Max had made it clear this was non-negotiable. Unless there was something involving Melissa, he wanted no part of it.
Look, I have gone along with you – not telling Melissa. Preparing her. So I need you to go along with me on this? Yes, Eleanor?