chapter ten

Tea Circles

Mel was the new Levi’s type. The kind of lad who always had the latest style of Levi’s, two minutes after it hit the shops. I bet he had the latest DVD machine, the toppest-of-the-range stereo. I’d heard, though, he’d supplemented his wages by giving private A-level sociology lessons.

Currently on Mel’s wear list, as he stood at my front door, was the distressed blue denim with the twisted seams. Jeans and jacket. He’d teamed them with a black polo neck. He didn’t look like a dork, though. I’d always been theoretically against putting same-coloured denim together, it looked like you were trying to wear a casual suit. But what did I know? I lived in combats, jeans and long-sleeved tops.

I smiled a welcome at Mel, he grinned at me. Maybe he didn’t look like a dork because he stood erect, showing off all of his six foot frame. Or, possibly because of the chaotic way his brown hair curled on his head. Or maybe it was his light hazel eyes. Whatever it was, Melvin looked at ease in his gear. He always did. When he had his large blue rucksack slung casually over his shoulder and he wandered the corridors of the college, he seemed more student than lecturer, which was probably why so many of the students looked genuinely pleased to see him, why he often stopped for a quick chat and why he got invited to lots of student parties. He was Mr Popular, not only at our college, but also at The Met.

His popularity at The Met was how I’d found out so much about him. I’d mentioned to Ed and Jake a nice young sociology lecturer who’d helped me on my first day. When I said he was called Mel, they told me they knew him from playing footie at The Met. When I’d said we’d sat at lunch together, they’d sat me down and imparted every morsel of info about him they knew. There’d been more than a hint of the ‘you get in there, girl’ as they told me about him. ‘He’s single now, you know,’ Jake and Ed had said at various points. If only you knew, I thought back at them.

Mel had never shown up at Ed and Jake’s before then – over a week after I’d been for a drink with Claudine.

‘Come in,’ I said, stepping aside to let him into the warm hallway. The mid-March air still had a winter’s bite about it and I’d begged and begged Jake to let me have the heating on. He’d relented but he and Ed took to walking about in shorts. Ed, though, still wore his red and black lumberjack shirt. I was pretty sure he’d die wearing that shirt.

‘I forgot you lived here,’ Mel said, taking off his jacket and loosening his scarf.

Lie. Total lie. I mean, if he’d truly forgotten, then why no surprise when I opened the door? In the hundred watt lighting of the hallway, I could see the different shades of pink that made up Mel’s blush. He knew I knew he was lying so he avoided eye contact as he handed over his jacket, then took it back to stuff his scarf in the side pocket. The blue scarf spilled out like the jacket’s guts were falling out. I draped it over the hook.

‘Who is it?’ Ed called from the depths of the living room. We’d all settled down to watch the second instalment of It. (When I’d said that if I watched the film I’d end up sleeping on the floor of one of their rooms, because I didn’t ‘do’ horror films, they’d both laughed like broken drains. ‘You think I’m joking,’ I said. ‘Wait till you wake up and find me kipping on your floor with a teaspoon for protection.’)

‘Mel,’ I called back.

‘All right mate,’ Jake called.

‘All right,’ Mel replied, sticking his head around the living room door. ‘Room for a little one?’

‘Depends if you’ve brought any stuff,’ Ed replied, putting his forefinger and thumb close together and moving them towards his thin lips.

‘Nuh, huh, no drugs, we agreed,’ I said, returning to my space on the sofa furthest from the widescreen telly.

‘Yeah, Ed,’ Jake added, ‘Ceri’s old, remember.’ Wouldn’t mind if the cheeky get wasn’t only a couple of years younger than me. And Mel was my age.

‘Oh yeah,’ Ed said.

‘Whatever, just wait till I’ve gone to bed.’

‘With your slippers and cocoa,’ Mel chimed in.

‘Watch it, you, I get a vote in if you’re allowed to stay or not, you know.’

‘While you’re up, Cezza, put kettle on,’ Ed said.

My bum had almost touched the seat, as well. I sighed and hoisted myself up.

‘Mel can help, to earn his keep,’ Jake decreed.

Funny he should say that. I got the impression Mel was going to help me anyway.

Being a Southern Softie, I’d bought a water filter – to the amusement and constant abuse of the lads. I filled the filter from the tap while Mel helped by leaning against the worktop closest to the back door and staring into the mid-distance. The water dribbled and dripped through the filter, I found clean cups, dropped three ordinary tea bags into the three white cups, dropped a strawberry, Southern Softie bag into the fourth black mug. Mel’s latest contribution was to stand still in the kitchen.

‘Claudine’s nice, isn’t she?’ Mel eventually said. Very eventually. So eventually I’d thought he’d never get it off his chest. That he’d leave with his soul still burdened with whatever it was he felt so compelled to travel here to see me about. That wasn’t arrogance, his lie about forgetting I lived here proved that. And, I didn’t want to prompt him to tell me what he wanted to tell me. I could prompt him to reveal the wrong thing.

‘Yeah, she seems nice.’ I wasn’t sure how much Claudine had told Mel about our impromptu night in the pub, or if she’d even mentioned that night to him. So it was best to use my new-found power of keeping shtum.

‘Oh, she’s lovely. I’ve known her, what, ten years now. We met at The Met.’

‘Ah, right.’

‘We were in the same halls of residence.’

‘Right.’

Silence. More silence. Come on Mel, spit it out, it might be a bus. And, to be honest, I’m getting spooked stood here in silence near the sink. You know, where water comes from and where the scary clown from the film comes up and grabs people.

‘It was funny you saying that the other day,’ he said.

‘About?’ I stopped myself adding: “I’m that funny, I need constant reminding of my witticisms.”

‘About me and Clau and how long we’d been together.’

I grimaced. Even though I now knew what I knew, I still physically cringed every time I thought about how I’d done that on my first day here. ‘Yeah, sorry about that.’

‘It’s all right,’ Mel shrugged. ‘It was just funny that’s all.’

‘Funny how?’

Mel shrugged again. ‘Because you obviously guessed how I feel about her. Even though we really are just mates now.’

‘And you weren’t before?’

‘I know I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but Claudine is the love of my life, she always has been. I was, er, married for four years.’ Mel watched the sink while he talked. He cleared his throat. ‘My marriage fell apart over Christmas. The happy season was not happy for me, I can tell you. It turned into the worst few days of my life. But,’ Mel had the grace to look ashamed, ‘even before I tied the knot I was gone on Clau. I fancied her from the first year. I mean, you’ve seen her. She’s gorgeous. And, well, last year, just before Christmas we got very drunk and . . . made love.’ Mel paused, obviously waiting for judgement or shock from me.

‘I see,’ I said. Probably not the time to mention Claudine remembers it differently.

‘It was the first – and only – time it happened. Clau was so ashamed she’d cheated on, Ke— her boyfriend and what we’d done to my wife that she wanted to pretend we’d stopped at the last minute. She and my wife used to get on really well, they were mates actually. They often went out together on their own cos they got on so well. We’d actually planned to spend Boxing Day together, the four of us. My wife and I weren’t getting on anyway, but what happened with Claudine turned out to be our death knell. Clau still feels ashamed about it. I try to be normal but she can’t seem to forget it.’

‘It’s hard to be normal if you think you’ve ruined someone’s life. Especially if yours is still intact,’ I replied. This was actually a cleverly-disguised question. I was trying to get him to reveal more about the state of his marriage before he and Claudine got physical.

‘I don’t know why she’d think that. She of all people knew that my marriage was far from perfect. I’m sure Fran, that’s my wife, told her about it – Clau spent more time with her than I did at one point. We talked, me and my wife, but it always seemed to be about bills or what was for dinner. That’s how I got to know Jake and Ed so well – I started spending almost every night out, joined a footie team. Then I spent time here with them. As it got to Christmas time, I spent all my time with Clau . . . I’m not saying the means justify the end, but for me it was always going to be that end. Me and my wife splitting up.’

‘So it could’ve been anyone, not just Claudine?’ I asked.

Mel’s face narrowed into a fierce frown. ‘What are you saying? I adore Claudine.’

‘So you said,’ I replied.

His eyes narrowed to slits, his face twisted.

Mel was the angry type. Great time to find that out. The Angry Type scared me. They were the type neighbours said of, months later, as bodies were unearthed from their back garden, ‘I always thought they had killer eyes.’ I had no intention of going that way. I opened a cupboard, the nearest one to me, and started moving things around, seeking biscuits and sugar, even though both things stood in clearly labelled jars on the worktop. I couldn’t face his look of anger and betrayal and not fear for my life.

‘Why did you marry your wife?’ I asked, my head still in the depths of the cupboard.

‘Because she was beautiful. And nice. And funny. And clever and lovely.’

‘Did you love her?’ I might as well get buried for a cow as a mouse. (The saying went something like that.)

Mel slammed down his cup with such force, I expected a loud smashing sound to follow it. His tea was surely slopped all over the worktop. I couldn’t see, I still had my head in the cupboard.

‘What?!’ he snarled.

‘You said you were gone on Claudine,’ I said, moving the pepper onto the marmalade. ‘You adored her when you got married. So, did you love your wife at all?’

‘Course,’ Mel said quickly. ‘Of course I did. It wasn’t just a simple case of I loved Clau and didn’t love Fran.’

‘Right, I see. Did you like Fran?’

Silence was Mel’s reply. Not angry silence. Not even silence lightly flavoured with indignation. Just plain ol’ silence. It was safe to out myself now. I withdrew my head from the cupboard. Mel was staring down into his cup of tea, making patterns on the worktop with the spilt tea. Jake would love that, Mel staining his real wood worktop with his thought-filled tea circles.

‘Yeah I liked her,’ he mumbled. ‘Course I liked her.’

‘Oh, so she was a mate, too? I mean, did she match up to all your other friends?’ In other words, was she as good a friend as Claudine?

Mel’s tongue started to explore his mouth, seeking renegade bits of food to dislodge and chew on. I stared at him rather openly as I waited for his answer. Come on, tell me, did your wife match up to Claudine in the friendship stakes?

‘Erm, the lads will be gagging for these by now,’ Mel said. He threaded his fingers through two cups with one hand and picked up his cup with the other hand. ‘You know how much they love their tea.’

The poor cow never had a chance, did she Mel? I picked up my cup, the strawberry scent filling my senses. She thought she was marrying someone who she was going to spend the rest of her life with; you, well you wanted something completely different. She stood a snowball’s chance in hell. Poor, poor woman.

During the second part of It, Mel cast me long, thought-filled looks, redrawing those tea circles with his eyes over the space I occupied in the room. He was rethinking his marriage; his ‘friendship’ with Claudine. The lads probably thought he was running through the Kama Sutra in his head with me.

Ed started to skin up the second the credits rolled on the film. I dragged myself from the sofa, and headed for bed. Can I hold off going to the loo or brushing my teeth until morning? I wondered as I shuffled out of the room. No way am I going near any kind of water when that clown could appear out of the plug hole. In the morning, the lads will hear sounds of my demise if the clown does appear.

‘See ya,’ I called. Only goody two shoes brush their teeth twice a day anyway. And remember how you once held off going to the loo for six hours when you were in Egypt? If I go to bed straight away, I’ll wake up in the night and not remember the clown until after I’ve used th—

‘Oh, Ceri, hang on.’ Mel handed the joint to Jake and skipped out of the room after me. I stopped on the second step, my eyes hurt from telly-watching without my glasses, I blinked a couple of times to ease their discomfort and strain.

‘Yup?’ I asked Mel.

I could feel, rather than see, the lads leaning out of their seats to catch a snatch of our conversation.

‘You won’t tell anyone what we talked about, will you?’ Mel asked in a lowered tone.

‘Course not,’ I replied in the same low tone.

Mel smiled at me, placed a hand on my hand. I could feel the lads’ eyes widen. I took my hand away before they gave him a pack of condoms and directions to my bedroom.

‘Thanks for listening,’ he said.

‘My pleasure,’ I said. ‘Good night boys.’

‘Night Cezza,’ they called back.

And good luck with all that thinking and rethinking you’ve got to do, Melvin, I know it won’t be easy.