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‘Are you OK?’ Emily put a hand on Melanie’s head, checking her temperature. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Paige seems to think she has some sort of intuition. Some sort of a gift.’
‘Huh OK.’
‘It explains the knickers,’ Melanie said on an exhale as she lay back on the bed.
‘I’m so confused,’ Emily said shaking her head.
‘What if she made the whole thing up? Well, that’s an even bigger problem, isn’t it?’
‘Do I need to get Alfie? Will this make more sense to him?’
‘Let’s say for argument’s sake that there’s something, some sort of instinct or something, but it was broken. It would have an impact, right? I imagine it would feel quite odd to suddenly be without it.’
‘OK in this hypothetical world, yes, if you had another sense, I imagine it would feel disorientating to lose it, just like it would any other sense.’ Emily was clearly just playing along at this point.
‘You’d probably do whatever it took to get it back?’
‘Is that what Paige said?’ Emily asked.
‘She said I fixed her.’
‘Oh, cool,’ Emily said, her tone flat, clearly confused as to the appropriate response.
‘I was being used and I didn’t even know it.’
There was a pause and Melanie could feel Emily thinking. ‘Paige? The woman that was helping you out with the art project? The one spending lots of her free time and not free time trying to help you out? The one that babysat Alfie so you’d have more time to do your work? The same Paige that fed you on numerous occasions? That Paige? The one my little boy, who is an excellent judge of character by the way, has all but fallen in love with? You know he’s asked for a piercing for his birthday.’
‘It wasn’t real,’ Melanie said, her voice sounding as empty as it felt. ‘I have terrible taste.’
Emily pulled out her phone, and scrolled until she found what she was looking for. The picture of Alfie asleep on Paige’s lap, and Sophie passed out on the bean bag. Melanie had that picture memorised, just like the picture of her asleep on Paige, or any other of the memories with Paige that had been caught forever. But the picture Emily was still showing, captured the peace and the love that Paige offered — so at odds to how Melanie felt right now. She turned her head away; she didn’t want to look at the picture any longer.
‘This Paige? Go on then. Explain,’ Emily said.
‘I accidentally gave her full access to the app.’
‘The one you run your life on, the one I have access to?’
Melanie nodded, releasing her grip on the coat to fold her arms over her eyes.
‘The nice things she did, they were all on the app. She was the prosecco fairy too. And she did all these things because she felt like she owed me. She felt guilty. Or worse because she didn’t think I was capable.’
‘Right, you can stop that one right there. I know exactly where your head is going. I might not know Paige all that well, but I actually trust your judgement and I trust Alfie’s too. Paige is not Laura and if you go into this expecting it to turn out like that then that’s on you.’
‘She lied to me, Emily.’ Melanie could feel the tears building behind her closed eyes, and it made her angry. She didn’t want to feel this deeply for someone who hurt her so badly. The anger made the hurt burn even brighter and she realised it was all coated in disappointment.
Emily didn’t speak but Melanie felt the bed move as she came to lie down next to her.
‘She also did some really nice things too.’
‘Out of guilt. Not because she wanted to.’
‘Oh so she slept with you out of guilt. Gave you the best night of your life, twice, because she felt she had to?’
‘You know what,’ Melanie said shooting up into a sitting position. ‘None of this matters. I never had time for any of this in the first place. I was really clear about my priorities. They were you and Alfie, and the business. Then the art project got added on. And really that should be that. So I need to go, because if I’m not painting a wall, looking after my gorgeous nephew, then I should be running a business. I’ll see you later. Thanks for the coat.’ Melanie grabbed her stuff and all but ran out of the house, and straight to her car.
Sure enough she was grateful for the coat in no time at all as she found herself harnessed and hard hat-ted up some scaffolding against a wall in Manchester’s finest drizzle. The scaffolding shook a little as each person moved around. Selena and some of her more experienced friends had spent the last couple of days setting up the wall into a giant paint by numbers type thing. It had all been outlined on top of the base layer so as long as Melanie matched up the colour number to the number on the wall she would be of use. They were all split off on different levels and despite the noise and the rain, Melanie could tell that some of the women were all chatting and laughing with each other. Melanie simply wanted to lose herself in the task.
