Recipes for Melissa (29 page)

It felt like grief. Yes. The same numbness. That same out of body sensation where you were waiting for the mistake to be rectified. For someone to come along and say –
Whoops.
Sorry about that. Wrong information. Our mistake.

It was the same feeling when she sat in the train station waiting room all those years ago, not quite understanding what had happened. Feeling that if she could just change the geography; get herself to the right place then the mistake would be undone.

Melissa leant forward onto the railing and pressed her forehead against the cold metal. What surprised her most was that she was no longer feeling rage at her mother. That had now passed. What she felt instead now was anger at whoever or whatever controlled the shit that was her life. Who was it who decided she could take this? That all the blows so far were not quite enough?

Melissa did not often swear. But she was screaming every filthy word she had ever heard in her head now.

I lose my mother and now I am supposed to lose my father too?

She would have liked to have screamed all the words out loud.
Fuck you.
To scream them into the wind. But she was worried that the children on the beach would hear.

Melissa could not bear to watch the family any longer and so turned back towards the town, walking faster this time – the wind pushing her along and almost lifting her off her feet every third or fourth stride. Back finally on the main street, she ducked into a small cafe and ordered a cappuccino, heart pounding. She sat at a table by the window, waiting for it to arrive and pretended to read the menu. She looked around the room, confused by how detached she felt. As if in some bubble.

Yes. It was if she had stepped just a little bit outside of her body and was watching herself from the sidelines.

The waitress – a pretty, tall girl with her dark hair pinned up with a single pencil – walked carefully across the cafe with her drink, watching the froth on the cappuccino, evidently worried that it would spill.

Melissa nodded a thank you. She put the cup up to her lips but winced. The smell acrid and the drink much too hot.

She glanced across at the machine behind the counter – an impressive brand. Cream and shiny proper pods and a steamer for the froth. She put the coffee up to her lips again – but no. Still too hot. Still wrong.

Melissa wished that she had brought her mother’s book with her, needing to read it again. Panicked suddenly that the words were all there still in the book on the coffee table in the cottage and that if anything happened to her they would be found. Read.

She could feel her heart pounding, realising that she should have thought of this before and hurried to the counter to leave coins for the coffee plus a small tip.

‘Was the drink not OK?’

‘Sorry. I’ve got to go.’

Back at the cottage she found matches in one of the kitchen cupboards and lit the wood burner which had been set ready by Mr Hubert. It roared wild and promising but she knew to wait until it settled, using the oven glove from the wood basket to open the latch and feed three more of the larger logs.

And then while she watched as the colour behind the glass changed to the steady glow she needed, Melissa read her mother’s words one final time.

Once your father left for New York, I was inconsolable, Melissa. I just could not believe he would go, Melissa. Leave me.
…

… In my stubbornness, I felt that my refusal to go with him would make him stay and would save him from being hurt. I thought I was doing it for him. Out of love.

Looking back, I am not so sure I wasn’t being selfish. I didn’t want to live in a land of guns and I didn’t want to be with a man who would speak up at press conferences on behalf of a shitty bank.

And yet I did want to be with Max.

I went to bed, Melissa. For days – no kidding. I suppose it was some kind of depression. I just closed the curtains on the world.

My two best friends back then were Amanda (who you may well know; I suspect she will keep in contact) and a male friend from my degree course who you will not know.

Amanda came to stay first and saved my life. She wanted me to see a doctor but I refused so instead she cooked soup and made me eat on a tray in bed, sleeping on a little camp bed beside me. But then she had to go on a trip for work and so she called the other friend to take over.

He was good and kind, Melissa, but with every passing day I became more and more disorientated and distraught that you father did not get in touch.

And then something very, very stupid happened. More than a week with no word from Max and one night I got drunk with this friend. No excuses. Stupid. I was weak and low and I reached for comfort.

We both regretted it badly – him as much as me, fearing I would feel he had taken advantage. I have to tell you he didn’t. Six of one. Just a madness in a dark hole.

I sent him packing and after two more days, Amanda returned and I finally got up. And then just a week later – there he was. Your father on the doorstep.

We married as you know then very quickly and I fell for you immediately.

I have always felt sure in my heart and in my head, Melissa, that Max is your father. But the truth, from the dates, is there is this slim possibility that he is not.

Should I have told Max? Taken some test?

I didn’t think so because I just FELT you were his. And the selfish truth? I loved him so much that I could not bear the risk of losing him ever again.

But now I realise that if you go in for some kind of testing in the future, this may possibly come out. I’m no scientist but – blood groups? DNA? Somehow?

And what frightens me is that if my gut is wrong and Max is not biologically your father, then I will not be there to explain what it really was and that my darling man and you will think such terrible things of me. Even worse than the truth.

I swear that I have
never
messed up before or since. It would never have happened but for that bloody job. But – no excuse. It would break your father’s heart in half to know this, which is why I just pretended it was not so. I called it an act of love. You may disagree.

Please don’t hate me…

It took a while for the pages to burn. Melissa fed the two ‘secret pages’ in, one after another. Then she flicked through the book to rip out any reference to them and let those pages join the flames also.

She closed the glass door and watched the secret burn. Max was not to know about this. Not ever. It did not matter what she thought. It only mattered that her father should never know about this.

Her father.

For a moment Melissa considered putting the whole sodding book into the flames but something just held her back.

And so next she got out her laptop, put in the Wi-Fi password from the cottage information folder and searched for the solicitor who had handed the journal to her. James Hall. She turned her phone back on to see several more texts and recorded messages from both Max and Sam. She felt guilty, but what else could she do?

She phoned the London office and asked to speak to Mr Hall who, by chance, was at his desk.
Of course he remembered her.

He confided now in a low whisper that he was actually the one who had visited her mother to collect the book. He hadn’t liked to say before; been worried, given the context, that this would upset her.

‘Right. I didn’t realise it was you who met her.’

‘A lovely and very brave woman.’

‘Thank you.’

‘So what is it that I can do?’

‘The journal said there was another letter left for me.’

Eleanor had explained this at the end of the confession. If Melissa had wanted or ever needed the name of the other man… it was contained in a letter with the solicitor.

‘Would you destroy it please?’

‘Destroy it?’

‘Yes. I will send you an email to confirm in writing that this is my instruction. My decision.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes. I’m absolutely sure.’

There was a pause.

‘Sorry. Is there a problem, Mr Hall?’

‘No, no. It’s just—’

‘What?’

‘I don’t want to speak out of turn.’

‘No. Please do go on.’

‘It’s just – this is exactly what your mother predicted.’

‘I’m not following.’

‘Well when your mother gave me the journal and the separate sealed envelope….’

‘Yes?’

‘She said that we were to keep the envelope after you were given the book and it would be up to you whether you chose to have the additional material.’ There was a much longer pause now and Melissa became conscious of her own pulse in her ear as she pressed the mobile closer to her head.

‘It was an unusual request as you can imagine. But what I remember very clearly is that she said you would hopefully not want the envelope at all.’

‘What?’

‘Your mother. She said that if she had got things right, she believed – well; that you would ask for it to be destroyed.’

‘She said that.’

‘Yes. I found it rather cryptic at the time. That she would go to all the trouble of leaving something additional in our care that she hoped you would want to destroy.’

Melissa held her breath, turning her head to watch the flames again.

‘Did she say anything else?’

‘Yes, actually. She said that she would be very proud of you.’

Melissa now moved the mobile from her ear to her chest, pressing it flat to her jumper. She looked back again at the log burner, the pages just black confetti now. She watched the draw of the fire lifting some of the charred pieces to float in the flames.

‘She said that?’

Her father…

‘She did.’

‘Well thank you very much. I’ll send that email,’ Melissa conscious of her eyelid beginning to flicker, cleared her throat and needed suddenly to be off the phone. ‘And will you confirm by reply when it’s done?’

‘I will.’

Melissa then sat, watching the flames, with the phone still in her hand, waiting for the flickering of her eye to subside.

One decision.

One to go.

She added more logs, ever conscious of some strange detachment. Like watching herself. Some out-of-body-awareness.

Yes. An
awareness.
That was the word she had been looking for.

She watched herself watching the fire and she thought, after a time, about fate and chance. And odds.

Fifty-fifty
.

Melissa took a coin from her purse and placed it on the table.

Heads she had the gene. Tails she didn’t.

It landed heads the first time. Tails the second. Heads the third and fourth. She felt nothing.

Of course. No scope for relief or for fear unless she took the test for real.

Melissa knew exactly what Sam would say. He would say that it didn’t matter. He would say that he wouldn’t care if she needed both her breasts chopped off; that he wouldn’t care if she didn’t want children because of it.

But it wouldn’t be true. Because the truth was what he told her at the restaurant in Cyprus. That he couldn’t imagine life without becoming a father.

And yes; he would deny it now. And he would twist it. He would say that he felt entirely differently now because of her new circumstance.

But it would always be there secretly between them.
The truth
. And one day she would catch him watching a family on a beach…

Melissa thought then of her mother facing all of this on her own, turning to the corner of the room to watch her sitting there at the desk in her bedroom with her beautiful fountain pen, smiling at her. And then she remembered something else suddenly.

It was when she had been flicking through the journal earlier – deciding which pages to destroy. Yes. She had glanced at the final section – the part on motherhood. She had just skimmed these – much too upsetting. The recipe for banana and avocado mush. Tips on colic.
Don’t buy a
wooden high chair – a nightmare to clean
.

A sea of words.

Upsetting.

But there was one word repeated over and over on a page. Melissa narrowed her eyes and could see it quite clearly.

Dear God.

She rushed to fetch the book again. Skimmed the pages, licking her fingers.
Where? Where?
Come on – come on.

Recipe after recipe. A note on cots. A page on sleep and bedtime routines.

And then, there it was…

…this strange
awareness
. I don’t know how else to describe it, Melissa. But I just knew. Even before I took the pregnancy test, I knew. It was like I was AWARE – walking around in this bubble. This strange sense of detachment. As if I was looking out on the world in a different way; aware of something… I just didn’t know what it was yet.

Yes. That’s the word – an
awareness.

Why ice is so nice!

OK, so this is not really a recipe, Melissa – more a tip. I know there are lots of brilliant baby foods out there, and some think DIY is OTT, but making your own is so
easy-peasy
, I just have to share my method. Just make up batches of pureed fruit and/or vegetable, cool and pop the mixture into ice cube trays. Freeze and then transfer the cubes into freezer bags with labels. Defrost a few cubes at a time and heat gently to feed delicious, healthy food for babs!