Poppet

Level Pegging

AJ BADLY WANTS to sit down next to Melanie, but he’s got to stay standing, whatever. ‘I had to get the police involved.’ He tries to sound reasonable. ‘I mean, let’s face it, we’ve both known it for a long time. It’s not just Isaac being in your garden, it’s so many other things putting an arrow over his head.’

‘Oh God.’ Melanie covers her mouth, drops her face. ‘Oh God,’ she says. ‘Oh God.’

‘He’s clever, Melanie, much cleverer than we ever realized. He knew how to manipulate people. Zelda, and maybe Moses too. Maybe even Pauline. They were all scared – so many of the witnesses say they were scared in the days leading up to …’

His voice peters out. Melanie is raking her hands through her hair. Digging the nails in and turning her head from side to side, like someone being tortured. He keeps up the conscious effort not to go and comfort her. Stands silent and still – feet together, hands in his pockets. He’s got to see this through. He waits, watches her tearing herself apart. Shaking her head and saying ‘no’, over and over.

When she at last puts her face up there’s a complete clarity. A couple of streaks of mascara where she’s cried, but otherwise her face is completely calm. It’s as if she’s made the decision to wipe it clean.

‘AJ?’

‘Melanie?’

‘AJ.’

It is half a question, half an admission. And suddenly something he hadn’t even dreamed of swims into glaring, blinding focus. Melanie’s been hiding something else. The muscles in his jaw loosen, because he realizes on some level he’s always suspected it. Always been aware of what she wasn’t saying.

‘You knew,’ he murmurs. ‘You knew what happened. You knew it was him.’

She looks back at him steadily.

‘Melanie? Did you know?’

Now he can’t keep his stiff posture. He sinks into the chair opposite and stares at her.

‘You knew – you knew what Isaac was doing.’

She lowers her forehead again and puts her elegant fingers to her temples.

‘AJ, we’ve slept together, we’ve done things that are probably illegal together and I suppose that means we should share everything—’

‘Just answer me. Did you know?’

‘Not know as such. But if I’m honest I … suspected.’

‘Suspected?’

‘Everyone has the right to make up for what they’ve done. They all need a chance at rehabilitation. That’s what my ethics have always been founded on.’

‘Ethics? You bent over backwards to have Isaac fucking Handel released? Knowing what he’d been up to?’

‘Not knowing. Suspecting.’

‘Suspecting, even.’ He puts his head back, opens his hands, as if he’s asking God for help. ‘I can’t believe this.’

‘That’s because you’ve never been in my position. You’ve never had to face that pressure. I’m not blaming you, I’m not, but you cannot imagine what it’s like. It’s the curse of middle management, being the ham in the sandwich – which, if you’re the bottom of the sandwich, probably sounds a privileged place to be, but the truth is, it’s hell. The crap comes from both sides. To everyone in the unit I’ve got to be a figure of authority – whatever bullshit that means – but to the Trust I’m a tool. I have to take whatever they say and convert it into something that my staff can understand and respond to.’

‘I’m not all that interested, to be honest. You finessed Isaac’s tribunal so he’d be let out.’

‘Hysteria spreading through the patient population.’

‘And it still is spreading. Except now it’s outside the unit – so you’ve really shot yourself in the foot. Isaac is missing from his placement, and you and I both know he’s been in your garden. For all I know, he may have been to my place too. Maybe he even poisoned Stewart. I’m sorry, Melanie, but I’m finding it all a bit too much to take in at the moment.’

‘AJ, my job was on the line. Completely on the line. You don’t know the sacrifices I’ve made to stay in this job, the shitty things I had to do to get here in the first place. I wasn’t to know he’d come back. OK, I’m an idiot – I realize that. I do.’

‘It’s nothing to do with Jonathan, is it? Nothing he put you up to?’

She blinks. ‘What? No, of course not. What’s he got to do with this?’

‘I don’t know. Nothing – it’s just all so … You lied to me.’

‘You lied to me too. Lots, it seems. So maybe we’re level pegging?’

‘Level pegging?’ He nearly loses it then. For a man who never suspected himself of having much in the way of moral fibre, he finds it surprising how much all this bothers him. He gets up and walks from one side of the room to the other, trying to order everything in his mind in a way that makes sense.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says timidly. ‘I really am sorry.’

He keeps walking, trying not to look at her. A detached part of him knows it’s all illogical and unfair; it also knows he’ll probably forgive her. Because she is Melanie and he is in love with her.

‘AJ? AJ?’

He looks at her. She is standing, smiling hopefully, her hands out to him. He frowns, still uncomfortable.

‘AJ? Come on? Truce?’

Eventually, grudgingly, he embraces her. Her arms go up under his, her hands crossed on his shoulder blade, her face squashed against his shirt. ‘AJ, I’m sorry – I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s OK.’ He strokes her hair, a little rigidly. ‘All OK. Everything will be fine.’

‘I get so insecure. At work.’

‘I know. I know.’ He continues stroking her hair, still not quite sure what to think. A long silence passes while all he can feel is her heart beating fast and shallow against his arm. Out of the window the old clock on the tower ticks towards three o’clock. AJ imagines what they look like from outside. People who care about each other? Or people who are angry?

‘I’ve got an idea.’ Melanie takes a step back. She fumbles a handkerchief out of her cardigan pocket and wipes her nose. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Go?’

‘Yes. Just go.’ She makes her hand into an aeroplane and directs it towards the window. ‘Let’s disappear until it blows over. You can tell the police you were mistaken and we can both take, I dunno, sick leave, or annual leave or whatever – and head off. I’ve got strings I can pull in HR. A desert island, maybe. Sun, sand and sex.’ She lifts her face to him. ‘I once drank six pina coladas at lunchtime and fell in the swimming pool.’

‘I can picture it.’

‘The lifeguard had to get me out.’

‘I can picture that too. I’m jealous.’

She flashes a watery smile at him. ‘Shall we? Shall we just go?’

‘Oh, Melanie, Melanie.’

‘What?’

‘I can’t go away.’

‘Why?’

‘We can’t just pretend it’s not happening.’

‘OK. OK.’ Deflated, she bites her lip. ‘I understand.’

‘And there’s Stewart too – he’s, well, God only knows what’s up with Stewart, but I can’t leave Stewie. Not when he’s ill.’

‘I understand.’

She looks around herself helplessly – as if she’s trying to find something to divert attention. He doesn’t say anything. He knows when to keep his mouth shut. ‘I um … AJ … I …’ She begins to gather up her belongings – her handbag, her phone, her keys. ‘I think I’m just going to have a quick walk, maybe a drive. Get some fresh air, you know?’

‘It’s probably a good idea.’

She nods. ‘Yes. A good idea.’ She pulls on her cream raincoat, jams the hood down over her face and, without waiting to hear if he’s going to speak, heads for the door. A moment later he sees her out of the window: she’s gone through the pinch-point security gate in the stem corridor, through the admin corridor and has appeared outside – walking fast across the car park, her car keys out. The security lights on the Beetle flash on and off and she jumps in.

There is a moment where he sees her face lit by the dashboard, her honey-blonde hair hanging bedraggled around her face, and he sees she is crying again. Then she is through the security gates and gone, leaving him staring into nothing.