Part One
It would all have to be done again - all of it, everything was hopelessly messed up.
She'd have to erase all of the rows and columns of figures from the duly glowing
screen in front of her and begin again. There were so many errors this time that there was
no easy way to correct them. If only she could shut away the desperate part of her mind
and concentrate on the keyboard and screen, concentrate on the things she was good at so
that at least the day's work would give her a moment of pleasure ... some small jab
of confidence.
Mentally pushing away any thought of five o'clock and finishing work was what she
struggled with. Finishing work and walking out of the office saying 'bye' to
Janet and Anne and the others ... walking out of the hospital gat ...
Tears stung her eyes as she watched the sudden figures glow on the screen as her
fingers stumbled across the keyboard again. Today was the end ... Melody Treglown, barely
seventeen, wondered if it would be really difficult to take her own life. Today was Friday
and tomorrow morning she had to pay two hundred and twenty one pounds and eighty-six pence
to the landlord before twelve o'clock or the rented bedsit-cum-kitchenette would be
locked, with all her belongings out on the landing. Tomorrow, being Saturday, Mr Tilman
would be at her door first thing demanding the two weeks' payments on the stupid
loan. The clothes she'd bought with the borrowed money were all she had that was
presentable now.
Melody Treglown allowed a flicker of thought about the first day ... no, about the
preceding interview just along the hospital corridor in the Chief Pharmacist’s office. The
clothes were new then ... smelt and felt new ... neat blouse, neat skirt and flat shoes.
Today was Friday ... Saturday she would have nowhere to live, people would be demanding
the money. Her stomach turned nauseously as she thought about debt and Court and probably
the police ... the same police. The crumpled piece of buff paper in her purse demanded
that she go to the police station at 11 o'clock on Monday ... Oh God, this coming
Monday. By then she would have lost her job as well, the local paper would print her name
and everyone would know about the awful pavement scene a week ago outside Tescos. 'We
always prosecute shop-lifters,' he'd said, gripping her arm as passers-by stared
and turned quickly away. Melody Treglown felt sick, frightened, ashamed and desperate.
Tapping almost blindly at the computer keyboard, eyes smarting and fighting back tears,
her mind offered her a moment's fantasy of escape ... offered her an image of herself
as a small girl in her aunt's house, escape into the scary comfort of her childhood
when she had no need to think for herself ... no need to be responsible for all these
things around her. Now, because she'd been naughty she would have nowhere to live and
nothing to eat except what the one pound and five pence in her purse would buy and she
would go to prison because she'd stolen some food. There was nobody to help her,
nobody to say nice things like 'never mind, Melody.’ When she had been a girl living
with her aunt she'd always been naughty and continually apprehensive but in those
day's Aunt Rose was there to set it all right again. Aunt Rose would smile at her and
peck the top of her head gently, say 'run along now, Melody dear,' and Melody
would smooth her short skirt down over her hot bottom and 'run along' to replace
the plimsoll in the kitchen dresser drawer. Then being naughty was horrid but there were
no consequences, nothing ... only Aunt Rose smiling as she took the worn white gym shoe
from your hand and you turned away, trembling a little as you lifted your skirt to show
your knickers and bent down to see the rather comforting sight of your canvas shoes.
The computer beeped at her as she ignored the 'yes/no' prompt. It was now
four o'clock and her last desperate hopeless chance had come. At ten past four she
was to see Fiona Cope, the Staff Support Officer. Everyone said she was marvellous ...
people with mortgage arrears ... people with debts ... people in the depths of
desperation, anyone who worked for the Health Authority and who had some desperate
personal problem ... it was Fiona's job to try to help. Angela, the Personnel
Director said that employees with overbearing personal problems couldn't devote
themselves to their work so Fiona was there to help, advise and listen, just like Aunt
Rose. When Melody had gone so nervously to make the appointment she had said,
'don't look so worried, my dear, I'm sure we can sort it out, whatever it
is.’ She had a smile just like Aunt Rose, too. She had wanted to delay the appointment for
two weeks, two whole weeks, 'because I shall be away on holiday from five
o'clock on Friday', but had relented after hearing Melody's plea for
'just a few minutes' and so it was to be at ten minutes past four on Friday.
************
Fiona Cope's thoughts were on the two weeks of leave to come. Getting home to the
cottage, having a shower and a meal ... on the luxury of being able to dismiss everyone
else's troubles for two whole weeks. The next day she would drive into town, tour
Sainsbury's for the shopping then have a quiet coffee back home before climbing into
her dungarees and set about the cottage with paint and brushes. Quietly enjoying the work
with nobody to please but herself.
The girl sitting opposite her in the small office ... what was her name? ... Melody ...
pretty name. The girl had all the signs of desperation ... hands in her lap turning
anxiously, feet shifting and eyes downcast. Tiny little thing just about seventeen ... she
was thirty-five. The girl had a mass of copper coloured hair that stood out against the
collar of the cheap white blouse. Green eyes to go with the hair...? Yes, deep, deep
emerald green eyes that illuminated the pale freckled face. A real killer with those eyes,
despite dark half-circles of sleepless nights and reddened eyelids. Slender as a rake,
almost boyish except for the very nice bosom ... lucky kid. The 'awful trouble'
was probably some silly business with a boy. Pregnant...? No, almost certainly not. Cheap
clothes ... cheap worn shoes...
"Well now, Melody, you tell me all about it and I'll see what we can do. Just
take your time if it's difficult. Let me just listen, eh?"
It came out very slowly as it often did with the youngest of the staff. The move from
Northumberland to the south for a job ... the death of this Aunt person ... small young
country girl on her own in the unfamiliar, scary big town. It was her first job and she
was totally unable to manage her life ... unable to manage on her small wages. Living on
her own for the first time and with no friends. It all came out very slowly, haltingly in
fact and the tears began in minutes.
“Oh I'm so sorry, I know it's stupid, crying like thi ..."
"Of course you're crying, Melody, it's all right, you know."
The girl would spend more than her wages every week, had stopped paying the rent on
what sounded like a dismal slovenly bed-sit ... had borrowed money from one of those who
advertised 'loans' in tobacconists windows. Just couldn't cope on her own.
The shoplifting of eggs and bread had been because she'd only eight pence in her
purse for the weekend.
"Oh, what will I do? What will they do to me?" The small hands twisted a
sodden handkerchief in the slender lap ... tears came loudly.
Make a joke, cheer her a little.
"Oh, spank your behind, I expect, Melody. Now, let's try and sort this one
thing at a time."
'Spank your behind' ... Fiona had a fleeting image of fantasy ... the usual
magazine story of the boss offering the secretary the sack or a spanking.
"You can't sort it out ... nobody can sort it all out. Everything I do goes
wrong."
The small figure was abject and crying openly with her body movements on the verge of
the 'get up and leave'. "Nothing happens like that any more, nothing.
There's nobody..."
"Nothing happens like what, Melody...?" Fiona couldn't follow the girl.
"Like when you're small there's always someone else to put it right ...
like at home with Auntie. Spanking, like you said..." The girl blushed bright red
over her freckled face.
Fiona felt the familiar stir in her senses and said in a voice that had that different
timbre, "Did you get spanked at home when you were naughty, then?" she said,
forcing a smile to make the joke of it.
"What? Oh, yes..." There was a silence filled by deep sniffs and heavy
breathing as the girl tried to control her sobbing. "Then it was all right ...
everything." The chin lifted and the pretty tearstained face looked at Fiona with a
tingling wry grin. The first near-smile so far. "Then ... that was all that ever
happened when you did something."
Try it ... try it ... construct the sentence and say it as if it were part of the joke.
"Come on now, Melody, you're grown up, an adult. Suppose someone came along and
said they'd put it all right ... the debt, the rent and the shoplifting thing but
you'd have to be spanked. It's not like that any more you know, not at your age.
You have to take the responsibility for your own life - of course you do. There's no
grow- up figure to make it all right except yourself. No grown up figure with a hairbrush
to put you across her lap, is there?"
The girl managed a broader grin across the blushing red face. "It was a plimsoll,
not a hairbrush." There was an attempt at a laugh.
A plimsoll ... warm coarse canvas in your hand ... ribbed worn rubber under your
fingers as you gripped it by your side waiting for the figure to bend ... a plimsoll ...
The girl would lift the cheap dark skirt and put those tear moist fingers on the toes of
her shoes. She would grunt and gasp as the flat thwack of the rubber sole on taut briefs
filled the room.
With a wrench Fiona put on her best counselling tone. "Now come on, Melody, we
have to be sensible. I can't magic you back to being a little girl, these are your
problems, not mine, all I can do is try to help. Let's think about your rent first -
can't live on the streets and it won't come to that, I promise." How the
hell do we sort this out?
As they pecked at the girl's problems, Fiona became aware of the growing
'other-self' that was trying to take over the whole thing. It kept presenting
microsecond images of this girl bent over the edge of the bed in the cottage. Bent
touching her toes on the hearth-rug in the cottage living room ... of the feel of the
plimsoll in her hand. Of her hands, Fiona's hands tugging at straps round the slender
wrists as the small figure spread outstretched on the narrow bed in the spare room. In the
real world Fiona listened and said the usual plain things ... the creeping forceful
'other' Fiona kept trying to turn the conversation, to phrase and construct
sentences to fill-out the powerful rising fantasy. The fantasy that had crystalised years
ago ... that had fed on the expensive magazines, Janus, Kane and all those others. Fiona
yielded to it ... not wholly or in reality. She argued within herself that what she was
going to suggest to the girl was the only proper, kind and caring thing to do. She forced
herself to look at her watch.
“Look, Melody, I'm going to do something I never do ... get involved ... I'm
on leave as of three minutes ago and I want you to come home with me and have a good meal
... you'll feel better after you get some hot food inside you. We can then try and
sort out the rent and somewhere for you to live before tomorrow morning. I've no
plans for this evening and I think that's the best thing..."
The small form climbing into the spare bed with the plain nightdress on and an arm
around the anxious shoulders ... the girl saying thank you, thank you, as Fiona's
hand strayed over the round firm breasts. The thank you goodnight kiss that lingered. She
would find some excuse to slip into the spare bedroom before the girl went to bed and hang
one of those old gym shoes ... wher ...? Perhaps on the knob of the bed head as if it had
always been there. Oh, the worn rubber sole under her fingers.
"Oh really, I can't ... I can't let you do anything like that..."
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