The morning air felt curiously thin, as if Melissa had ascended a mountain instead of clambering into the driver’s seat of her SUV. She felt a little dizzy. Maybe it was nerves or something. Silly really. She wasn’t doing anything wrong. Melissa breathed deeply. Once. Twice. Good. Then she fired up the engine and drove out of town, occasionally checking herself out in the sun visor mirror, humming a half-remembered Nine Inch Nails tune.
A congested single lane took her to the interchange beneath a crisscross of flyovers. After a crawl through traffic lights, she hit the dual carriageway, whizzing past car showrooms and high-rise office blocks until she spotted the rectangle obelisk of the retail park sign silhouetted against the blue sky. 128
B&Q was already busy. Bald-headed men emerged through the sliding doors, pushing platform trolleys stacked with merchandise. Melissa circled the mass of stationary vehicles until she reached the car park’s perimeter, where a verge of bark chippings met a box hedge. Here the white lines of the parking bays were faded and scorched with rubber from nocturnal wheelspins, the kerb littered with crushed cans, cigarette butts and sun-bleached crisp packets.
In this B&Q hinterland, there were relatively few cars. Not only was it the area furthest away from the store, but it was on the other side of a strip of pine trees, bordered by a wooden fence, which jutted into the car park, rendering the store as a patchwork of orange fragments among the foliage. It was the parking zone of last resort. But even if it filled up, Melissa supposed nobody would pay much attention to her. People were here to buy power tools and lawnmowers, tiles and flooring, paint and wallpaper paste. The car park was nothing more than a tarmac sea, to be crossed as quickly as possible. She watched shoppers hurry from their vehicles as she bit her nails, hoping that Letitia would appear, as promised.
Melissa had first bumped into Letitia the previous Saturday morning. Sick of being stuck in the house, she’d volunteered to buy paint for her eldest’s bedroom. Axel wanted black walls, inspired by his discovery of her old Placebo CDs. She was pleased that he was crate-digging her teenage music collection – but black? No, no, no. Her in-laws stayed in his bedroom at Christmas. Black wasn’t conducive to a harmonious visit. ‘It’s very gloomy in here, Melissa.’ ‘Is Axel on drugs, Melissa?’ That kind of thing. Neither would black fit with the sophisticated neutrals from Farrow & Ball throughout the rest of her house. Besides, 129Axel was one of those kids who went through phases faster than pints of milk. No doubt he’d be a hippy in a month’s time when he discovered her Kula Shaker CDs and they’d have to paint his room again. So Melissa encouraged him to choose grey, to match his bed frame. To get the hues right, she opted for B&Q’s colour matching service. The paint needed mixing by the lad with the buzzcut who manned the counter. Once he’d blended the colours, he slid the pot into a Valspar paint machine and pressed a button. The mixer juddered so hard that the counter shook. Melissa heard guffawing and turned to see a plump woman in a tie-dye top and blue jeans, sporting an astonishing number of bangles on one wrist and rings on every finger.
‘I love this bit!’ Letitia cried. ‘Gotta get me one of these for home, wink wink.’ She nudged Melissa so roughly that she almost fell over.
The more the machine juddered, the more Letitia laughed, setting off the lad behind the desk, who also began to laugh. Suddenly Melissa was at it too, HA HA HA HA HA, she couldn’t help herself. HA HA HA HA HA HA. She laughed her guts out, folded over, holding onto the counter. HA HA HA HA HA.
It felt like an exorcism. All the months of stress over work, the arguments with Matty about the kids and who wasn’t pulling their weight with the cleaning and shopping and childcare. It all came roaring out of her.
‘You alright?’ said Letitia.
‘Christ no,’ said Melissa.
‘Come here often?’
It was what a bloke might have asked Melissa at a pub, back when she could freely go to that kind of place. It 130sounded so funny here with the sawdust smell and pot-bellied men bumbling around with trollies full of U-bends, brushes and beading.
‘I come here as little as possible,’ said Melissa. ‘And you?’
‘Can’t keep me away. I’ve got a thing about paint machines.’
They talked for a while about the weather and how the disruptive roadworks in town were taking far too long to complete. Neither of them cared about the roadworks, nor the weather. But it distracted them from the raucous drum ’n’ bass of the paint mixer. And ten minutes later, when they bumped into each other again at the checkout, they laughed once more, this time for no obvious reason at all.
As Melissa returned to her car, Letitia followed, both swinging tins of paint by their sides, chatting breezily. It turned out they were parked near each other. Letitia said that her van was on the other side of the dented shipping container which had been dumped on the perimeter. Melissa laughed at the idea of her driving a white van, like some kind of catcalling builder.
‘Don’t be so prejudiced!’ cackled Letitia. ‘I’m doing good work busting clichés here. Not like you with your people carrier. Just how many people do you have, girl?’
‘I’ll happily swap. Then you can go home and feed my kids tonight!’
Their banter felt so comfortable, Melissa didn’t want it to stop. She was overcome with a compulsion to ask Letitia inside the car to chat for a while. Anything to delay the drive home. She hadn’t talked in confidence to another soul outside of her family for so long it felt thrilling to sit with a stranger, especially this one. Letitia had an infectious 131warmth and piercing eyes – stark black rings around green irises that seemed to whirl as she smiled. Those eyes remained fixed on Melissa, with barely a blink, which was disconcerting at first, but soon became comforting, as if they were somehow pulling her closer.
Melissa was unable to resist. As she started to speak, feelings tumbled out which she had never consciously formulated into words. She told Letitia that she was sick of the life in which she’d ended up, surrounded by flatpack furniture, pasta machines and Nigella Lawson cookbooks, enslaved by sulky children and ignored by a husband whose only remaining passions were football and Rachel Riley from Countdown.
It hadn’t always been like this. Before she met Matty she’d enjoyed a misspent youth of mascara, speed and ear-bleedingly loud rock music. Now she had found herself parked somewhere she had never meant to stop. Marriage and two kids had scrubbed out any expectation that anything genuinely new could happen. Nothing of significance, anyway. Nothing that would redefine her. It was as if time had stalled and the future had vanished. Every day was another circling of the same airspace.
Letitia listened eagerly. She nodded at the right times and made the right noises –‘ummm’ and ‘ahhh,’ and ‘oh yes’ – consuming Melissa’s troubles like a fine wine. At the end of the confession she said, ‘This can happen in life. But we all have the power to change.’
She told Melissa about how she used to be a junior building surveyor but grew weary of valuing properties she could not afford herself. When the pandemic struck, she was furloughed. With extra time on her hands, she started 132decorating the house she shared and discovered a real knack for it. After restrictions eased, she would do up her friends’ and neighbours’ homes at the weekends for cash. Soon she was getting enough work through word of mouth to cover her rent. That was when she abandoned her career.
‘None of it seemed important any more, what with the world going to hell. People dying. Racists on the streets. Bigots in my office. Fuck that. I’d rather fix things up. Hammers and nails, glues and paints. In all the madness they’re things I can control. I use them to make something beautiful. For me, each day is a fresh canvas.’
‘I’m so envious. Do you know that before I came into the store today I parked up and sat for a while? Just because I was out of the house. Just because I could. How sad is that?’
‘Oh, I saw you,’ said Letitia. ‘As I came out of the van this morning, I saw you well enough. I see lots of you out here, sitting alone.’
‘Is that why you talked to me – back at the paint counter? You felt sorry for me?’
‘Nah, course not. I like to listen, that’s all. It feeds my soul.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘You know what I mean?’
Letitia wanted a cigarette, so they stood on the verge behind the SUV, like girls on a school trip. Melissa cadged the occasional puff, enjoying the head rush. Must have been fifteen years since she smoked a fag. The feel of a cigarette on her lips, it was like hurtling through a time portal. She had a sudden craving for a can of lager. That metallic tinge you only get from drinking a tinny outdoors.
The taste of youth.
‘I miss this,’ she told Letitia. ‘Not the nicotine. Just the not-giving-a-shit.’ 133
Ever since she settled down to marriage, career and kids, Melissa ditched the drugs, pubs and gigging and tried to do the right thing. Being a good team leader at work, even when most days she didn’t care because she knew, deep down, that the company didn’t care about her. Chatting with mums at the school gates, pretending to enjoy their gossip. Making costumes for World Book Day, even though she could barely sew on a button. Hosting dinner parties, replete with scallop entrées and chocolate fondants, at which she never allowed herself to tell the wicked jokes that popped into her brain or dared challenge the anodyne generalisations of the braying men who dominated conversations. She kept her unruly edges hidden so that she could be the kind of person that everyone got on with. Yet she doubted anybody really knew anything about her beyond the generic working mum schtick she’d been so desperate to uphold.
During the coronavirus pandemic, few bothered to get in touch, or invite her to their Zoom chats. After the restrictions began to lift, what little social life she had was nothing more than a series of ‘likes’ and comments on other people’s Facebook posts. She told Letitia that she doubted anyone outside her family would bother much if she vanished suddenly. They’d make some consoling noises to Matty, but it wouldn’t make much difference to them. It wouldn’t leave a hole.
‘You are not a hole, girl,’ said Letitia. ‘You’re a whole girl, do you get me?’
Melissa laughed. ‘Thanks.’
‘I’m serious. I’m getting something from you, and it isn’t nothing.’ 134
Afterwards, Melissa and Letitia both agreed that it had been good to talk. To get things off their chests. They should meet the next weekend and do it again. Same time, same spot. Letitia would need to return to B&Q for more supplies, while Melissa could make up any old excuse, as Matty wouldn’t listen anyway. They said goodbye and Letitia sashayed between rows of cars that glistened like disco balls in the sunshine.
It only occurred to Melissa later that evening, staring at the bedroom ceiling while Matty snored, that Letitia had gone in a completely different direction to where she said that her van was parked.
* * *
The following Saturday morning, Melissa made her excuses and left Matty with the kids in front of Netflix while she drove out of town, bristling with an excitement she couldn’t place.
As she entered the B&Q car park she was thrilled at how the centrifugal force from the curve of the access road tightened the seat belt against her chest. She enjoyed the way the speed bumps rattled her buttocks as she made her way alongside a grey gabion wall, passing a parked Vauxhall Corsa with its door wide open. A man in tracksuit bottoms sat with his legs outside the car, head hung down. He glanced up and momentarily caught her eye with a desperate look as she continued around the corner to the space she’d occupied the week before, near the dented shipping container.
After all that anticipation, the wait was interminable. Melissa switched on the radio to pass some time. A news 135reporter talked about the latest moor fires. People were fleeing towns and villages in the Peak District. They said it was the worst year for it yet, right across the northern hemisphere. California. Siberia. Greenland. All that permafrost melting and those long summer droughts. Global warming had gone past the tipping point, the reporter said. Melissa kept hearing this over and over, that the catastrophe was already under way. But at B&Q, everything looked the same as it always had.
It was the end of the world and she was totally bored.
The next news item was about eight deaths during riots at the migrant detention camps in Kent. Three of them children. With a sigh, she switched the radio off. There was too much bad news these days. It had become unbearable to listen to current affairs shows the way she used to. But whatever passed for popular music on the radio wasn’t for her either. Instead, she sat in silence with her phone, grimacing at her friends’ Facebook updates, hoping to find one from someone leading a duller existence than her own.
Rachel Hagerty, recently remarried, was off to Borneo and looking really fucking happy about it, obviously.
Melissa’s cousin had just got an Open University degree in forensic psychology.
There was a photo of Alan and Fee Granger doing star jumps at the top of Ben Nevis.
A colleague from her company had announced she was leaving to focus on her inexplicably successful Etsy business, selling earrings made from bottle tops.
Worst of all, Julie Thompson had posted a picture of a sunrise with the words: ‘Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.’ 136
Dear god.
Melissa craved a post where someone admitted they’d made a bad choice. That they’d wasted their time. Fallen off the rails. Like when the little-miss-perfect head girl from her schooldays admitted she was battling alcoholism. Or when that QAnon prick Alan Smedley posted an incoherent rant about how a paedophile network at the bank had stolen money from his account. These posts made her feel better about herself. It was awful, she knew it. Like she was a pitiless Facebook predator, hunting her newsfeed for weaklings to feast upon.
A sudden commotion disturbed her. A few feet away, a couple of crows fighting over some discarded fries were interrupted by a gaunt, bald man in a dirty anorak who looked a bit like Nosferatu. As the birds flapped away, he stopped to observe Melissa for a few moments, rocking slightly from side to side, chewing his lip. He stepped forward as if to approach, then changed his mind and sidled behind the shipping container.
Bloody weirdo.
She hit the internal door lock, glancing around her for the nearest security camera. Mind, even if there was a camera, who would be watching? Who would put a stop to anything terrible happening? She’d read all kinds of stories about people in superstore car parks getting stabbed or robbed. Cameras never seemed to make a difference. She doubted they were ever actually recording.
Melissa was grateful when Letitia emerged from between a Nissan Micra and a Ford Mondeo. She leapt down from the SUV, beaming and waving. Almost as soon as they’d hugged and said ‘hi’, Melissa felt the overwhelming urge to 137release all that pressure which had built up inside of her. She told Letitia about how glad she was to find someone she could talk to, truthfully, about how she really felt. And what she felt was tired.
Tired of Matty.
Tired of being a parent.
Tired of customer service management.
It had only been meant to give her some income after university while she sought a career in publishing. But then seven years drifted by, in which she got married and bought a house. At that point it seemed foolish to switch career and jeopardise their mortgage. Now she was forty-one years old, running her team online because the office had closed during the pandemic, never to reopen. Which meant endless days of working at home, communicating with invisible people by email. Endless evenings watching television with Matt while Axel sulked upstairs and her eleven-year-old daughter Macy stared at her phone like a zombie.
Was this how modern life was supposed to be? Or had she done something wrong? It felt like they were in prison, awaiting some heinous sentence for a crime they did not know they had committed.
Melissa became shamefully aware that she was the only one talking but Letitia was an eager listener. She gripped her arm tightly, as if to take her pulse, the numerous rings on her fingers digging into her flesh, throat pulsing with tiny swallowing motions, murmuring with enraptured empathy.
When it was over, Letitia breathed deeply. But instead of responding with words of wisdom, she pulled out a cigarette and lit it. The ensuing silence wasn’t exactly awkward. Just strange. Melissa had thrown Letitia a ball, expecting her to 138play the game, but Letitia had simply pocketed it. She seemed distracted. Her nose twitched and she sniffed air, as if she had caught a scent. She tossed the cigarette butt into the woodchip mulch and grabbed Melissa’s shoulder.
‘That’s it, girl,’ she said, without her usual smile, those green eyes drilling into her. ‘Until we meet again.’
Melissa desperately wanted to say something to make her stay, but she felt glued shut. Fixed to the spot, she watched in dismay as Letitia ambled towards the pine trees without looking back. Once she was out of sight, Melissa slumped against the car, feeling drained. Light-headed. A little bit sick.
There was a rustling behind her. A rat scurried towards one of the Rentokil traps poking from beneath the fronds of the box hedge. It stopped near the entrance hole, as if to consider its options.
‘Don’t,’ said Melissa. ‘Just don’t.’
* * *
After the kids were in bed, Melissa stood at the back door while Matty watched Match of the Day, looking out over their Astroturf lawn, smoking a sneaky cigarette. She thought about her last trip to the car park. Letitia’s farewell was so abrupt.
‘Until next time,’ she had said.
Did that imply they’d meet again at the same place, next Saturday?
Or was that just a big brush-off?
Melissa wished she had asked for an email address or phone number. She scoured Facebook looking for Letitias 139but none of the profiles matched. She googled ‘Letitia decorator’, but nothing.
That night, Matty asked her for sex, something they hadn’t done in a long time. For the first few minutes, all she could think about was Letitia. Her kindly face, listening to her moans and groans, nodding fervently, tell me more, Melissa, tell me more about your problems. Give it to me. Give me the hard stuff.
Then it wasn’t Letitia at all, but the B&Q store looming over her with its massive orange face and its dirty edges, those pine trees thrusting upwards, the Valspar paint-mixing machine hammering away and the sound of someone singing ‘You can do it when you B&Q it.’
She begged Matty to stop.
No more. No more.
But it wasn’t over. Later, she had a dream that she went to B&Q with Macy but once they were inside it looked more like a supermarket, not a DIY store. When they opened one of the upright freezers, there was a creepy man inside with dark holes instead of eyes, who handed them a box of fish fingers. Macy screamed but Melissa turned to her daughter and told her that it was okay. He lived there because he had nowhere else to go.
The next morning, she was still thinking about B&Q. Days turned into nights, into days, into nights, and the yearning to go there and talk to Letitia did not go away. And when Saturday came round again, she returned to the same spot, where Letitia’s cigarette butts, stained with her lippy, lay on chippings that bore the faint imprint of their feet from the last encounter. She reversed into the slot and waited, scrolling through Instagram, occasionally looking out the 140window, hoping to see her. It was a long shot, but not an impossible one.
After a while, a Vauxhall Astra reversed into a space about four empty lots away. The sole occupant was a man around her age, wearing a beanie hat. Once parked, he didn’t get out of his vehicle or switch off the engine. For over half an hour he sat there. It was disconcerting. She just wanted him to do something. Eat a sandwich. Make a phone call. Anything. His presence was unbearable.
Go away, you sad little man, she thought, be gone with you.
It was usually alright being parked out on the edge, with only her thoughts for company, but not when guys like him made it feel tawdry and desperate.
Melissa was about to give up and leave when she saw Letitia, cutting between two vans, carrying a new pot of paint. But she didn’t approach Melissa’s car. She didn’t seem to see her at all. Instead, she walked towards the man in the stupid hat. Melissa slid down into her seat as far as she could, watching Letitia approach his passenger door. His window rolled open and she bent down so all Melissa could see was her buttocks waving from side to side. They talked for a while like that, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying.
From this angle, Letitia looked disconcertingly like a sex worker propositioning a john, but she was not like that. It couldn’t be that. But then, what was it?
Did they know each other? Had he been waiting for her all this time?
Was this a rendezvous?
Eventually, the man got out of the Astra and stood in front of Letitia. He was wearing ironed jeans and a denim 141shirt that was far too big. It was as if a wizard had shrunk him inside his clothes. Double denim. Never a good look. But on him it was a catastrophe. It looked like he had been crying but he was smiling now that Letitia was here. Well, she couldn’t blame him for that.
The pair talked some more. This time Melissa could make out fragments. ‘Ex-wife… depressed… we used to come here… bad memories… socket button screws… bedsit… wish they would come and visit… Bosch combi drill… discount sale.’
Letitia nodded as he spoke, just like she did when Melissa poured out her heart to her. She clutched the man’s wrist in the same way with that same backward tilt of her head. Then she said something to him. It must have been significant because the man’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he tried to swallow back his emotions.
What a baby. It was hard to imagine Letitia falling for this nonsense. But at the end of this excruciating exchange, Melissa was mortified to see them walk together through the car park in the direction of the store. The man paused once to activate the remote-control lock of his Astra, and then they were gone.
The air inside the SUV was stifling. Melissa jabbed at the button for the electric window. It opened with a buzz that sickened her. All this pointless convenience. All this hopeless luxury. All this wasted energy.
Enough.
She exited the car and began to walk away from it. She couldn’t face driving home. Not right now. She needed air. A brisk circuit of the retail park would let her gather her thoughts and calm the fuck down. Perhaps on the way she 142might bump into Letitia. She could pretend she was heading into the store to buy more paint and that their encounter was a happy accident. Oh hello, they’d say to each other in unison, do you come here often? Or something like that. Then they’d guffaw at their little in-joke. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. Letitia with her big laugh. Melissa slapping her own thighs, doubled over. Like the day they met. And after they recovered from their hysterics, Letitia would explain what she was doing with that ridiculous man in their sacred spot on the edge of the car park and everything would be okay.
The clouds sat heavy and low. An occasional drop of rain bloodied the dry tarmac as she traversed the cracked lines of parking bays, tracking the box hedge as far as it would go. She passed a woman in an expensive Mercedes, slowly applying red lipstick while a mournful love ballad blared from the stereo; a Volvo with tinted windows, its solitary occupant a shadow within; a Ford Fiesta, parked at an angle, the driver with his forehead on the steering wheel, face obscured. She tarried a few moments, observing him closely, concerned that he was dead, until he reached out his left arm, clenched his fist, and began to strike the dashboard repeatedly.
Okay then.
Eventually she reached a thick mass of cotoneaster, bursting with berries. There was a crude break where people had repeatedly forced their way through, the trail littered with disintegrated McDonald’s packaging. Probably those late-night car cruisers who left figure-of-eight marks on the tarmac, stomping to their makeshift racetrack with drinks and burgers. 143
Melissa felt compelled to step into the gap. As she did so, a whiff of cotoneaster flashed her back to a moment in time. She and her mates at the Tesco near their school, sneaking into the maze of hedgerows with a spliff during a lunch break. She remembered bursting into hysterics at the sight of discarded underpants covered in shit and how they found women’s stilettoes in a little clearing – ‘right scary’ they said, puffing on the joint, coming up with elaborate theories about the murderer who left them there. Funny, she hadn’t thought about that incident in decades. She’d pushed it to the back of her mind as a childish misdemeanour, best forgotten. But now it felt like the happiest time ever.
At the other side of the hedge, a grassy slope led to a lower car park for the other major stores in the retail park: M&S, Currys and Halfords, as well as a Costa Coffee and a McDonald’s Drive Thru, its golden arches glowing like a neon church.
This car park was smarter. Cleaner white lines, less litter and fewer people lingering. Red walkways for pedestrians were lined with shrubs in giant pots and ornate cast-iron litter bins. There was a smell of hot dogs. In contrast to the drab corrugated grey and orange of B&Q, the modern glass-and-steel edifice of Marks and Spencer reflected a shimmering vision of the car park back onto itself. It was like staring into a parallel dimension. She strained to catch herself in the reflection but she was too far away to register in the seething mass of metal machines; nothing more than a footnote in the story of cars.
As she made her way along the pavement, a besuited man gave Melissa a suspicious stare. When she looked down, her jeans were dirty. There were a couple of tiny 144leaves in the creases at the knee. He must have thought she was one of those saddos lurking at the edges of car parks.
How embarrassing.
Melissa hurried on until she came to a little wooden bridge, surprising amidst all the concrete and asphalt. She stopped in the middle and leaned against the barrier. A few metres beneath was a narrow gully filled with shingle and lined with blocks of old, worn stone. In the lower car park it was only a shallow trough running between the trolley bays, but once it passed under the bridge it became a deep gorge that cut through the elevated B&Q car park. Steep banks on either side were littered with dead needles from the pine trees she’d observed from her parked car these past few Saturdays.
How curious. It looked like a dried-up stream, or perhaps a trackway from a time before the retail park existed. It was remarkable that despite all her visits over the years, she had never noticed it. Then again, why would she?
There was a slope leading to the track at the side of the bridge with a muddy trail gouged into it. Perhaps formed by the same nocturnal denizens of the car park who created the gap in the cotoneaster. Melissa was tempted to follow it. She could walk up the path and see what was at the end. Maybe an interesting historical feature. Sure, it was a little foolhardy. A lone woman in a concealed alley beneath B&Q. But it was unlikely that anybody uncouth would be there in the daylight. Besides, she enjoyed the shiver of trepidation. It took her back to those Tesco truancy days. That time when life was still wide open and even smoking a poorly rolled joint in a stinking hedgerow could be an adventure. If this was teenage life, with all its restrictions, she marvelled at 145what thrills adult life had to offer. In the forbidden edges of the local car park, she had once dared to dream.
Nervously, Melissa entered the gorge, feet crunching on stones. She noticed there were circular iron hatches along the sides of the channel. They looked old. Victorian perhaps. The light was already gloomy because of the amassing black clouds and the canopy of bushy pines above her, but there was a thickening of the darkness as the vale narrowed. She stopped and checked for an escape route. It would be easy to scramble up the bank in a few seconds, she figured. While she couldn’t see it, the car park was still there. She could hear a man barking at his kids. An engine turning. A baby crying. These sounds drifted into the gully and settled like mist. Offered her some comfort.
This was silly, a woman of her age, doing dares with herself for the hell of it, but she continued onwards, wondering how the path could feel so much longer to walk than it appeared from the outside.
Soon there was another noise. But this time it was from up ahead, around a slight bend. A voice. Quiet and whiny, almost mewing, but certainly human. Melissa slowed to a more cautious pace, readying herself to make a dash for it.
A few steps more, and she could see that the route terminated in a circular area, walled with mossy stone. Yellow water seeped from the cracks and dripped a glutinous beat on the concrete floor. In the centre was a bench and a bin for cigarette ash.
There were three people there. One of them was the creepy bald man in the anorak who she had spotted earlier by the shipping container. One of them she couldn’t see properly, because he was lying on his back. 146
The other was Letitia.
She and the bald anorak man were on their knees, on opposite sides of the prostrate figure, bowed as if in prayer, faces close to his chest. For a moment, it seemed like they might be giving him CPR. Or that they were already weeping over his demise.
With rising panic, Melissa ran forwards. ‘Letitia! Is he okay? What happened?’
Letitia stood up quickly, pivoting to face her – startled, like a kid caught smoking. Now Melissa could see that the man on the ground was wearing double denim and a beanie hat. It was the sad little guy from the Astra. His eyes were closed but he murmured a feverish, whimpering babble.
‘They don’t respect me… they don’t… I never see them any more… it’s not fair… all the lies… I never… all lies… they don’t come to see me… I’m building them a bunk bed…’ He started to choke up. A horrible strangling noise like a distressed cat. The bald anorak man grinned, nodding his head up and down to the rhythmic undulations of the sound.
‘Is he alright, Letitia?’
‘My, my, aren’t you the curious one?’ said Letitia, frowning. ‘I have to say, I didn’t expect to see you here. You must be in far worse shape than I thought, girl.’
‘I wasn’t… looking… for – I was – I was just having a wander. But really, is he alright?’
‘Does he look alright?’
‘No.’
‘That’s your answer then.’
Letitia sounded odd. Rather cold. A bit aggressive. Then again, what did Melisa really know about her? Aside from 147that opening gambit at the paint counter and her inspiring story about ditching her career, she had not revealed much more than was necessary to start a conversation. She had made a simple cut in the flesh and then waited for Melissa to bleed out.
It was always Melissa talking while Letitia listened. She was a good listener. Always listening.
‘Shall I call an ambulance?’ Melissa reached for her phone.
‘No, he’s not that kind of ill,’ said Letitia. ‘Nothing a hospital’s gonna fix, anyway. Tell you what, sit down here with me. Let’s talk about it.’
‘I don’t think…’
‘Come.’ Letitia gripped her wrist and drew her to the bench as if she was a naughty child. It didn’t feel right to complain about her life, what with the distressed man lying there on the ground like that, and that weirdo in the anorak hunched over him, doing nothing to help. But one look into Letitia’s eyes and Melissa numbly acquiesced, feeling faint suddenly. She noticed there were a lot of sealed tins of paint and orange B&Q bags around the bench, like discarded props.
‘I missed you at the car park earlier,’ said Melissa woozily. ‘I thought – I hoped – we were meeting again but then… you were with him…’
The double denim man was muttering something about divorce settlements while the anorak man uttered little grunts and sighs of appreciation. Neither of them seemed to notice Melissa’s presence at all.
‘…I didn’t know if you saw me or if you wanted to see me,’ said Melissa. ‘But then I came to look for you. Sorry. 148God. I don’t mean to sound weird. It’s not like that. You know. Not weird. I’m not weird. It’s just…’ Her words began to slur. She felt a heaviness in her bones. Prickling skin and shivers. Like she was coming down with the flu. ‘It was just that I needed to talk. I really needed to talk… to you… to anyone, really… anyone… I hate it at home… I hate me… and I don’t know why but I…’
‘Yeah, it’s okay, tell me all about it,’ said Letitia, cradling Melissa’s scalp gently, easing her back onto the bench. ‘You must be very tired.’
‘I am, I am.’
‘So tired.’
‘Yes…’
‘You say what you need to say, Melissa. Don’t hold back.’ Letitia leaned over her, lips parting to bare brilliant white teeth. ‘Let it all out.’
* * *
It was dusk when Melissa clambered up the bank of the gorge and stood for a while by one of the pines, looking over the fence into the car park where a fine rain sparkled in the glare of the floodlights and oily puddles welled in the tarmac. Her head was thick. Mouth dry. She had no idea how long she had been down there or what had happened to her. Her left hand felt unusual. It took her a few moments to realise that her wedding ring was gone.
Oh well. It didn’t matter. She would find another ring. There were always more rings. More fingers. More hands. More people. So many people coming from miles around to congregate in this car park. They wanted to buy home 149improvement goods but what they really needed was a banishing ritual to release them from their burden, like those liberated young car cruisers who scorched black rings into the tarmac at night to keep their demons at bay.
She could see them now, the weary remnants of B&Q’s congregation, leaving the infernal church. A woman in a hijab pushed a pallet trolley towards a Perspex bay, while her husband loaded their purchases into the boot. A man in overalls approached his white van. A young couple ducked into a smart car, headlamps flashing as their vehicle swung out from its space.
These people were too strong and healthy for her. But at the furthest edge of the car park were those who sat alone in silence, staring out the window or gazing at their smartphones, scrolling through social media feeds in an interminable hunt for consolation, desperate for help which they never believed would come, and so – unable to think of an alternative – remained in limbo. Even in the dimness of the evening, she could tell which cars they were because a greenish aura emanated from them. Domes of loneliness shimmering on the perimeter. A scent, too, like rotten meat, carried on the breeze to her lair in the trees. It made her hungry, but not in a way she recognised. A heart hunger. A hole in the chest that must be filled.
Eventually, it became impossible to resist. Melissa clambered over the fence and made her way to the perimeter, where a Skoda was parked, throbbing with phosphorescent light.
Inside was the silhouette of an elderly man.
Melissa was fully aware that she looked a bit of a state. Pine needles and cotoneaster leaves were stuck to her 150clothes. Hair damp from the mizzle. But she knew that the old man would wind down his window when she knocked upon it three times. He would find it surprising when she said, ‘I’m sorry for bothering you, but are you okay?’ A little odd, perhaps. Yet at the same time, he would feel relief that somebody had asked him, and an overwhelming desire to reply.
He would speak. She would listen. And when heavier raindrops began to drum on his roof, he would invite her inside the car to talk some more.