She sipped her water to make sure she didn’t add dehydration to her problems and when Lucy went on her way Melissa tried to psych herself up to drive on too. But a line of four horses leisurely trotting past and towards Heritage Cove kept her in the lay-by a little longer and she turned to thinking about how everything had flipped on its axis over the last thirty-six hours.
Yesterday morning she’d been at the airport having just flown in with the rest of the cabin crew on their flight from Dubai to London Heathrow.
‘I’m sorry,’ she had apologised to a colleague who almost bumped into her as he tried to pass her in the passenger boarding bridge. Eager to meet up with Jay in the terminal when he came in on a different flight, she’d been wheeling her case with one hand while checking her messages and emails on her phone with the other. And the name in her inbox had stopped her in her tracks. Harvey. It took her a moment to grasp the fact that after five years without a phone call, message or email, the man she’d once considered the love of her life was making contact.
She read Harvey’s words a couple of times before she carried on walking. Short and to the point, the email was about Barney, the man who was like another father to the both of them. He’d had a fall, he was in hospital, and that was all it said.
Jay was in the waiting area at the gate already. ‘Good flight?’ she asked as she felt the warmth of his arms around her briefly.
‘Shaky landing but touched down an hour ago. I’ve been reading the paper while waiting for you.’ He kissed her fleetingly, enough for a work environment.
How was she supposed to break the news that after finally aligning their schedules so they had a whole week off work together, she had to travel back to the village he’d never once visited? It was the part of her she kept hidden from Jay – not that anything was a secret, more that moving on had meant closing the door on a time in her life that hadn’t been easy to bear.
In one of the windows that looked out over the tarmac she caught sight of their reflection as they walked, pilot and flight attendant who’d been together for over four years and would soon announce their engagement. A couple of weeks ago in one of their favourite Italian restaurants Jay had asked her to marry him, she’d agreed without hesitation, and now all they needed was a ring to seal the deal.
‘How was your flight?’ he asked as they walked their way down the long halls, the familiar route they’d trod hundreds if not thousands of times.
‘Straightforward,’ she said. ‘Always a good thing. Especially after last week.’
The previous week she’d had an irate passenger who’d thrown a drink at the man in the seat next to her, except most of the red wine went over Melissa’s uniform as she was walking past. Another flight attendant had cautioned the passenger, who later apologised to Melissa – lover’s spat, apparently – but soon after they’d calmed that incident down they’d had a baby with a worryingly high temperature who would need medical attention the second they landed, and shortly after that they’d hit some turbulence that saw a passenger fall and twist his knee.
As she walked next to Jay now, smiling at other cabin crew passing in the opposite direction, Melissa knew she’d done well to keep her pain buried deep all this time and not dwell on Heritage Cove or anyone there. These days she always looked together and unflappable, particularly at work in her charcoal uniform, the tailored dress that had a touch of sophistication added with a turquoise neck scarf to keep away the draught circulating constantly on flights no matter what class you chose to sit in. Looking immaculate, holding things together, was part of the job, what she’d trained for. She wished it was as easy to have that control in your personal life because at work, nothing could get in the way. It didn’t matter whether you were tired, or had a headache, or felt anything less than one hundred per cent, flight attendants had an image to portray. It didn’t matter if the aircraft was struck with sudden turbulence, you couldn’t show your fear – even though she’d had enough moments where she’d been terrified it would be her last flight. Her job was to smile, to comfort, to aid her passengers as though nothing got to her, as though the minutiae of everyday life didn’t affect her in the same way as it did them. But nothing could be further from the truth. She was only glad Harvey’s email hadn’t come when she was in Dubai, before she’d returned on the flight and had to do her job, that she’d read it only after she’d seen passengers safely off the aircraft and had finished up, ready for what Jay still believed was a bit of holiday time together.
A little old lady stopped and asked the way to baggage claim, directing her question to Jay. Melissa was used to it, because Jay did wear a pilot’s uniform exceptionally well. The classic, double-breasted dark suit with creases in the fronts of the trousers that daren’t steer off course, the four gold stripes on his jacket sleeves and the cap with the airline’s emblem covering neatly cropped ebony hair made him appealing to plenty of women.
His polished shoes continued their familiar tapping along the floor until they reached the carpeted sections, then started again when the surface changed. Coordinating time off wasn’t an easy thing to do and she was still working up the confidence to tell him their planned staycation in his beautiful classic Windsor townhouse wasn’t going to happen, the leisurely strolls and brunches wherever they chose would have to be put on hold.
Cabin-crew life looked glamorous to outsiders with all the jetting off to exotic locations but in reality it was hard work. So was the job of the pilot, but Jay was always happy to drive them back to his place in Windsor and let her kick back in the passenger seat of his BMW.
Out in the car park they climbed into the plush seats and, as they set off, Melissa’s eyes shut from exhaustion and the shock of Barney’s fall, of Harvey’s abrupt contact that he surely must have known would worry her. She waited until Jay had negotiated the car park exit, the roads surrounding the airport, and they were firmly on their way home. And when he groaned as they slowed to millipede pace along the M4, she found her moment. ‘I need to go back to Heritage Cove.’ She daren’t look at him, instead focusing on the bank of cars ahead of them, the rear windscreen of the one in front filthy except for where its wiper blade had shifted grey dirt in an arc and left a clean section in the centre.
When the man in the truck next to them lit up a cigarette and its smoke somehow curled through the vehicle pollution over to their car, Melissa did up her window and faced Jay. ‘Did you hear what I said?’
‘I did.’ He waited until the ten miles per hour reduced once again to a standstill. ‘But I didn’t think you were serious.’
‘Unfortunately I am.’ The only thing she’d ever told Jay about Heritage Cove was that she was born there, she’d spent her childhood in a village she’d outgrown since her parents died, and she’d wanted to get away. She hadn’t told him anything more, he hadn’t asked, and she’d floated along in an existence of denial ever since. It had been the easiest way. Just as she ignored any malaise when she was up in the air with full make-up and a smile on her face, any time the village or her years growing up were mentioned she kept up the pretence that those times were normal, no dramas needed to be discussed or reflected on. It helped too that her brother had left the village years ago, before even she did, and moved to Scotland, where he had a wife and family. It meant that her links to Heritage Cove had reduced and she could talk with Billy on the phone without having to hear about the village and its residents. And if he mentioned them, she quickly found a way to turn the conversation around.
Looking out at the drizzle now, the sort of rain that tricked you into thinking you couldn’t possibly get wet, coming down from the greyness blanketed above, she longed for the blue skies of Dubai, the scorching temperatures she’d just left, the feeling of another world that wasn’t quite reality.
‘It’s taken ages to arrange time off with each other,’ Jay complained when he realised she was completely serious. ‘Why do you need to go now? Why all of a sudden?’
‘It’s Barney.’
‘Who’s Barney?’
‘The man I still send cards to, I’ve told you about him before.’
He shook his head but as he negotiated moving to the outside lane in the vague hope of progressing a little further, something seemed to click. ‘You’re right, sorry, I must’ve forgotten. I didn’t think you were that close.’
‘He’s in hospital, he had a fall.’
‘Is it serious?’
‘I’ve no idea.’ Barney had once been everything to her. She’d never forgive herself for abandoning him, for leaving him the way she had, but staying had become too painful. And just because she hadn’t seen him and didn’t get in touch often, it didn’t mean they weren’t still close. Harvey’s email had proven that. As soon as she’d read his message, her feelings had come right back to her and she knew she had to see Barney.
She wasn’t going to mention that it wasn’t Barney himself who had contacted her and, thankfully, Jay didn’t ask. He was too busy moving back into the middle lane now that the traffic was progressing.
After Melissa left for London all those years ago she stayed in touch with her best friend, Tracy, for a while but, over time, their phone calls had stopped. Melissa’s life had moved on, she’d got a job she loved, she was off travelling the world. For a time she’d called Barney to let him know she was safe and well; they’d chatted often, and he’d always told her never to feel guilty for living her life the way she needed to. But because Melissa’s job took her out of the country so much, the phone calls gradually stopped happening. Barney wasn’t a homebody either so coordinating their times was difficult – or, if Melissa was entirely honest, shutting herself off had been the easiest option. So instead, she’d sent Christmas and birthday cards as well as the odd letter and Barney had done the same in return. She’d sent postcards from exotic locations as a way of telling him that she was living her best life, that leaving hadn’t been the wrong decision, that she was seeing the big wide world as she’d always wanted. Neither of them ever mentioned Harvey in any correspondence, but Melissa hoped he’d gone on to find happiness in the same way that she had.
