She lets out a strange sound that is somewhere between a gasp and a laugh then but doesn’t say anything else. To calm myself, I glance down at Bertie, who is now fast asleep by Melissa’s feet. I’m glad because the poor dog must have been wondering what on earth is going on.
He’s not the only one.
Before too long I’m indicating for the westbound M25. I push myself back in the seat and grip the steering wheel as we come down the slip road and it seems to help my nerves a little.
It’s quite busy, despite the late hour, but this is a good thing because before long we have run out of overhead lighting. I am nervous about driving in the dark as it is, particularly at these speeds. But I find that I can stay close to other cars and follow their lights.
We drive in silence for some time then and, to my surprise, I begin to relax and a rather comforting feeling settles over me. Here we are, hurtling through the darkness in this metal container, linked by what we have been through together in a way that, hopefully, cannot now be undone. It’s just me and Melissa against the world.
Nothing can change what happened earlier. There are only two people, well, three, I suppose, who were party to the events in Melissa’s kitchen. Saskia, Tilly, and Mark may as well all be on another planet now. I am the one helping Melissa.
Only me.
It’s hard to stop the smile in my heart from spreading to my face.
Every now and then I glance to my left to check Melissa is all right. It’s hard to tell though, because she just looks straight ahead, her face as impassive as a sphinx. Her hands are tightly wound together and resting between her knees. She doesn’t even seem to mind the fact that Bertie is lying on her feet in their Ugg boots. I privately call them Uggly boots and can’t understand why so many women wear them. Still, perhaps Bertie feels they are comforting, as Melissa presumably does. And heaven knows we all need a little comfort today.
To be perfectly honest, as unpleasant as this all is, I’m enjoying having something to do at last. Life used to be so busy, but the days do drag now.
***
I had planned a life that would follow certain lines, you see. Bringing up children would fill my days. I would be just like those women you see in the advertisements. You know, the ones who look so happy and busy, settling down to a dinner table with the family, while everyone competes good-naturedly to share details of their days. I’d be dishing out mashed potato to one child while gently chiding another to eat their broccoli. It’s all so clear in my mind that I could almost write the script.
And then, when it became clear this life was not the one meant for me, I threw myself into my work.
I try not to dwell on it but, on some days, I still miss my job so much it gives me actual pains.
It wasn’t as though I needed the money, even with Terry’s poor career choices. Mum and Dad had left me the house and a tidy nest egg. Terry was always on at me to spend it and ‘splash out’ on this and that, but what point was there in the two of us going away on cruises or staying in hotels? I couldn’t think of anything worse. It wasn’t about the income. It was all I ever wanted, to have a family of my own. Working in the office at Butterflies Nursery was a poor substitute but the next best thing, I suppose.
They’d had fifteen years of my life at that nursery. Fifteen years of caring for those children and being the most organized Office Manager they could have wished for. I ran that office like the CEO of a successful business.
But then the company was bought by a successful chain and the regime changed entirely. The officious, ferret-faced Manager, a young woman called Irena, told me that there was no longer any need for an Office Manager under the ‘new model’.
I put up a fight, of course I did.
But as Irena continued to speak her Judas words, it transpired that there had been complaints about me. Parents who didn’t approve of their toddler coming home from school with a fuzzy lolly stick in their pocket, or were disgruntled when I told them their child could do with a scarf on a cold day.
And yes, I did reprimand the odd child and make them sit on a naughty chair if they were rude or unkind at playtime. You don’t need a degree in Education to know how to do that. No one had ever complained under the old regime, as far as I was aware. The previous owners had never minded and, apart from the occasional snippy comment from some of the younger guard of nursery nurses, I had never felt that I was anything other than an integral part of that place.
I couldn’t count the number of scraped knees I’d swabbed and bandaged, the number of toddler squabbles that were solved simply by lending a sympathetic, fair ear. And yes, there were cuddles and sometimes the odd illicit lollypop, too; but what kind of world are we living in where comforting an unhappy child is seen as aberrant behaviour? For some of those children, it was the only affection they ever got. But it turned out I had no choice in the matter. I was being asked to retire. So, come the end of the year, I was forced out to pasture.
I tried to fill my time with work in the local charity shop after that, but it wasn’t for me. The other women there weren’t my sort of people.
But I must try not to think about this now. I have to be here for Melissa. And for Tilly. I have a job to do and I must not let them down. I am the strong one in this whole equation.
A gentle rain begins to dot the windscreen. I switch on the wipers, which drag and sweep across the glass with a thumping beat that could become hypnotic. I sit up straighter in the seat, the cushion under my bottom sliding uncomfortably.
My eyes are starting to feel grainy and, despite all my protestations, I’m wondering if I am going to be able to drive the whole way after all. The dashboard clock tells me it is close to eleven o’clock. It is hours until dawn breaks and I am still very concerned about finding this place in the dark. We should stop at a service station and kill some time. I don’t think Melissa is thinking straight. It’s up to me to be the mature, sensible one.
I’m just gathering the courage to broach this suggestion to Melissa when the van starts to judder and shake and smoke begins to pour from the bonnet.
MELISSA
Until the moment they joined the motorway (travelling, Melissa noted, at 55 miles per hour), she told herself there was still time to stop this. None of it was set in stone yet and she could change her mind at any moment. They could still go back. Confess.
She pictured them reversing their earlier work, like a film played backwards at speed. But how would they explain the delay? The fact that the pestle had been cleaned and the floor bleached?
Now they are on the M25, she is suffused with an almost pleasurable feeling of helplessness. After all, they can’t easily turn round here. For now, at least, she must go with the flow.
Bundling her sweatshirt against the window, she lays her head against it and closes her eyes. There’s no possibility that she will sleep – possibly ever again. But her eyes ache and she needs to rest them for a short while.
Soon, the swish and thump of the wipers, the gentle snoring from the dog, and the throb of the engine begin to lull her into an almost hypnotic state. The physical effects of shock combined with last night’s lack of sleep start to drag at her and before long, as she is pitching into a light doze, her mind roams like a fisheye lens around the house at Fernley Close, where her world had collided with Jamie’s for the first time.
***
A small cluttered house on a respectable estate, the hallway was an obstacle course of bags of footballs and plastic cones; Greg was manager of a junior football team. Kathie always grumbled about tripping over it all but there was never any real heat in her words.
They didn’t drink or smoke and they never argued.