But she was more concerned about what they may have been discussing. Flickers of real fear licked at her.
Her daughter knew her mother had had a difficult childhood with a short period (so she thought) with foster parents. But she hadn’t given her many details, just said that her mother had been ill and died young. Tilly had a phase, when she was seven or eight, of being quite obsessed with the subject. ‘Did your mummy have freckles on her nose like me?’ she’d ask. Or, ‘Were you really, really sad when your mummy died?’
Melissa thinks Mark eventually took Tilly to one side and explained that Mummy didn’t like to talk about her past. He had long since stopped asking and so had she.
Tilly’s voice now, still so high and young, despite her belief in her own sophistication, was filling the room. She was telling Jamie about her Duke of Edinburgh Gold, which had involved a night rough camping in the Lakes. And exaggerating wildly. She made it sound as though a bunch of wealthy teenagers, North Faced to the eyeballs, were polar explorers.
Jamie was all smiles and open body language, listening to Tilly speak, and Melissa had the strongest urge to grab this dirty magpie by the shoulders and forcibly eject him. He was sprawled with his legs apart, arms stretched proprietarily along the back of the sofa. Owning the space. Showing that he too might belong here, given the right circumstances, just like she did.
No.
But she knew she’d have to play this just right, remembering a hard seam of stubbornness in Jamie.
‘Mum, I’ve been trying to find out what you were like from Jamie but he’s a man of mystery,’ said Tilly, smiling up at her as she entered the room. ‘Keeps telling me to ask you about when you two were brother and sister.’
She’d met his eyes. He gazed coolly back at her, a slight smile playing on his lips.
‘We just lived with the same foster parents for a while, as I said.’ Melissa kept her voice light. ‘We’re not related in any way.’
Jamie flashed her a sly grin and leaned over to pick up the voluminous glass of red wine he’d acquired since she had last seen him.
Melissa bought those wine glasses for Mark on his last birthday; they were almost eighty pounds each. Mark always said they made red wine taste even better because they were so pleasing to hold. Melissa had to fight an impulse to lean over and remove the glass from Jamie’s hand.
He took a deep sip, as though he was swigging lager, and placed the glass back on the coffee table with a satisfied little sigh before speaking again.
‘It’s much more interesting to hear about your lives, than all that crappy old stuff from the past,’ he said. ‘It was a hundred years ago! It probably seems that long to someone as young as you, anyway. Who wants to go back to the past, eh, Mel? We were different people then, weren’t we?’
Tilly giggled lightly. Melissa met his eyes again and they were cold. She had to keep reminding herself it was the old Jamie she knew. This muscular man sprawled over her furniture was essentially a stranger. But if he called her Mel one more time she was going to punch him.
Out. She needed him out of her house. Out of her life.
‘Tills,’ she said in a calm, clear tone. ‘I’d like a private chat with Jamie, so can you please go do something else?’
Tilly’s mouth rounded in outrage.
‘But my bedroom smells of puke!’ she’d squawked; Jamie over-laughed in response.
Smiling, somehow, Melissa had said patiently, ‘It’s been completely cleaned and aired in there. And anyway, you can go to the den and watch telly or something. It’s been a long day and Jamie is going to need to go home soon, I’m sure.’
‘But you can’t make him go now! It’s still pouring!’
They all went quiet as if on cue. Rain was hitting the sitting room windows like handfuls of flung gravel.
‘We’ve got another guest bedroom,’ said Tilly. ‘Unless,’ she dipped another sly look at Jamie, ‘you want to bunk up with Hester …’
Jamie started to laugh. It was surprisingly high-pitched. ‘I think she sounds a bit too much of a party girl for me!’ he said. ‘Not sure I’m man enough to handle her!’
Melissa felt something boil over inside.
‘I mean it, Tilly. Off you go.’
Grumbling and rolling her eyes, Tilly finally uncoiled herself from the sofa.
‘All right, I’m going!’ she said. ‘But you have to let him stay over, Mum. It’s a really horrible night.’
‘Close the door behind you, please.’
Sighing but moving a little faster now, Tilly got up and pulled the heavy oak door until it clicked behind her.
Melissa regarded Jamie steadily.
The laughter had gone, snapped off with light-switch speed. He stared back at her, blank-faced and expectant.
Melissa sat down on the chair opposite the sofa. She leaned forward, her arms dangling from her knees like a boxer during rounds.
‘What the fuck are you doing here, Jamie?’ She kept her voice quiet and managed a tight smile. Had to keep this light. Stay in control.
He reached for the wine glass and took another long swig, with a satisfied ‘ah’, as though a bottle of ￡20 Merlot were designed to quench thirst. It was all for effect. She knew this. She just had to play along and then get him the hell out of her house.
‘I need to kip here for tonight, Mel,’ he’d said. ‘Maybe two. And then I’ll get right out of your hair, I promise.’
Melissa forced herself to breathe slowly through her nose.
‘So … how did you find me after all these years?’
Jamie laughed and made a questioning sort of face, as though she had said something ridiculous.
‘You’re a bit of a celebrity, aren’t you, these days?’ he said. ‘You and the handsome doctor? Once I realized it was you, it wasn’t very difficult. I just used my initiative.’
He grinned and gave a little sigh, entirely comfortable in his skin.
Melissa swallowed the urge to scream that felt like a hard, bitter lump in her throat. She nodded slowly, gathering herself, literally putting her arms around her body and tucking her legs up alongside her.
‘So,’ she said carefully, ‘my husband is the jealous type. What do you think he’s going to say when he comes back in a while and sees a strange man sprawled all over his sofa, drinking his wine?’
Jamie laughed, easily, just as though they really were old friends, catching up.
‘I saw him going off with his little wheelie case earlier, didn’t I?’ he said. ‘I’m not an idiot. You always did underestimate me.’ His eyes flashed hard then and she felt another real twist of unease.
Jamie rubbed his face as though this conversation was beginning to bore him now.
‘Like I say, I’m not here to cause trouble. I just want a bed for a night or two.’
He sounded weary; all his fight seemed to drain away then.
Melissa felt it too, like a change in air pressure. Her shoulders seemed to drop and she suddenly felt exhausted. Was it really such a big deal? She could get rid of him first thing tomorrow, couldn’t she?
She’d let him drink her wine and stay the night. This would be over soon.
‘Okay,’ she said, allowing herself to smile warily. ‘Let me get a glass of wine and you can fill me in on what you’ve been up to for the past twenty years.’
They’d talked until late. Or at least, he had and she had been the perfect listener. He told her about how he’d made a series of ‘fuck-ups’ that had landed him in prison, the most recent stint ending only a couple of weeks previously. But he was ‘turning over a new leaf’ now. ‘It’s all going to change, Mel,’ he’d said. ‘I’m tired of it. I’ve had enough of behaving like a kid.’
As Melissa listened, she began to relax. It was obvious that he knew nothing about what had happened later; the pivot on which the rest of her life had turned. The relief was like slipping into a perfectly warm bath; she snuggled further into the sofa, drank more wine and found herself laughing at all his jokes.