Part one- the beginning/end

She wanted him to notice her with every fibre of her body. He was so, so, so, so, so, so, so… perfect but in a totally imperfect way. Like an apple that looks a bit bruised but you swear to god, it’s the best fucking apple you’ve ever had. Or in her case, wanted but not had. Anyway. This is not a porn novel, or a love story with a totally happy ending.

She tried to believe to herself and even had her own self affirmation ritual every morning that she was beautiful, clever and should be totally confident. She told herself every boy in school must be secretly aching for her. Yyyyeeeaaaahhhh. So, she got dressed and left for school. She was British, but moved to America because her father had been advised to move there so his business could take off. She secretly thought that her father’s advisor just wanted him to fuck off for a while so he could go on holiday or whatever, but she never told her father that. He wouldn’t have listened anyway, he had his head stuck in the clouds. She could have brought friends home and smoked crack right in front of him and had an orgy after and he would’ve just thought she was doing studies like a good girl. Truth was and she always told the truth because she was SUCH a good girl she wanted to rebel. She wanted to pierce everything on her body that could be pierced, even though some areas still made her blush, and she wanted a dangerous older boyfriend who smoked drank and stole from department stores. Ah well, like that was going to happen.

She met up with friends on the way to school and did her usual ogling and wishing as soon as she entered the high school. She wanted hair like that girl, a stomach as toned as that girl and to be as popular as miss queen bee Annabel Trent-Miller. The guy she wanted to notice her was the school bad boy, Keith Kleiner. Even his name to her made him dangerous. DEAR LORD, DOUBLE K! But there was a rumour going round that he swung the other way. Or both ways. Or whatever way there was possible. This just made him more desirable in her mind, something interesting like a shiny child’s toy. She fantasized about him picking her up on his motorbike and riding off with her to Canada because he was wanted by the police. Her dad probably wouldn’t realise she was gone. As usual, her fantasy was cut off by Miss Milligan the lonely spinster economics teacher who was famously dumped by her husband in front of school where she proceeded to break down, sobbing and fell down the stairs at the entrance of the school. She had only been back from her paid recovery she broke her leg for a week and still couldn’t look any of the students in the face without her welling up or them laughing hysterically and giving her wedding rings. This seemed cruel, but that’s just how students were.

‘Right class, roll call’ Miss Milligan squeaked. ‘as you know, I don’t know your names yet so you must raise your hands.’ The entire class let out a small groan at being treated like children, because apparently, they were like so totally young adults. Miss Milligan went to sit down and was greeted by a seat of paint. For the fourth time this week.

‘Yes, very funny boys and girls. Now, roll call. Bailey’

‘here’

‘chapman’

‘here’

‘Gerard’

‘absent, but isn’t that partly your fault Miss Milligan?’

A ripple of laughs ran through the classroom. Gerard was there, but by coincidence her husband’s last name was Gerard and for the fifth time this week they had made jokes. Miss Milligan’s lip started to tremble, and Melanie our passive author decided to step in.

‘It’s ok Miss Milligan, they are just imbeciles.’

‘Oooooooohhhhh, did you just call me an icicle?’

‘No, Lulu I did not call you an icicle. And no, imbecile is not some fancy English word, it is basic language and anyone with half a brain should know what it means. So not you.’

‘Well, Melanie’ Lulu said in a very bad British accent ‘at least I don’t dress like a skank, come from a crap country and at least I don’t look like that.’ this was met with applause from most of the rest of the class, apart from a few people who looked mildly disgusted by Lulu’s words.

‘Well, at least I’m not a racist hillbilly with nothing more important to do than insult teachers and black students. I pity you, even though you are white and apparently, popular.’

The room went silent. Everyone stared at Melanie.

‘Melanie, I think…’ Miss Milligan was stuttering a stage whisper ‘I think you sh-sh-should go to the principal’s office. That was very rude of you and you cannot talk to us like that.’

‘Who’s us? The white people? I did nothing wrong, I was trying to defend you. Just because you’re a stupid and close minded as the rest of them.’

‘detention young lady and watch your tongue in front of people that are better than you.’

‘EXCUSE ME? BETTER THAN ME?’

Melanie punched Miss Milligan in the face and walked out, slamming the door. Lulu poked her head out of the shocked classroom and yelled

‘yeah you better run you bitch nigger.’

Melanie walked out of the school fuming, unable to understand how people are allowed to walk around like that. She walked out of school, her hand still smarting and covered in creamy white foundation. She was one of the only students that knew that Miss Milligan was mixed race, but caked herself in make up to avoid prejudice.

‘FUCK SHIT BOLLOCKS DOUCHES WANKERS FUCKKKKKK’

She ran home to her tiny two bedroom house. She walked up the drive, through the graffiti filled gate with slogans like ‘get out of our country you good for nothing blacks’ written in harsh red. She ran passed the car full of key scratches that people did when her father foolishly left the car on the street.

‘dad. Dad. DAD.’ she whimpered, needing someone to come and calm her down and tell her it was okay.’

But no one came.

She waited until the evening, then put in a ready meal and tried to call his cell phone. No answer. Where the fuck was he?

She stayed up. Twelve o’clock. One o’clock. Two, three, four, six, eight. And it was time for school again with no sign of her father.

Where was he? He’d crashed through the door late before, but this was different. There seemed to be a sense of trouble hanging in the air. Her father usually rang if he was going out late, talking in a drunken mumble and belching randomly. He was still not home when she went out shopping three hours later.

Ring ring. Ring ring.

The phone. Eerie around the empty house while Melanie was in Wal-Mart.

‘Hello this is Doctor Stevens from the hospital, Miss Hall needs to come to room 118 on floor 3. Her father has suffered severe attacks, believed racial, and has bled quite a bit. Could Miss Hall please come to the hospital as soon as she gets this message? Thank you.’

The phone seemed to be put down, but not before the doctor said under his breath to himself ‘damn darkies had it coming’.

Melanie crashed through the door, laden with shopping bags and carrying things that had spilled out of the bags in her mouth.

‘Dad?’ she mumbled, mouth full of bacon packet. Then she saw the bleeping red symbol on the answering machine that meant there was a message and knew something was wrong. No one ever left a message, unless it was some one that didn’t know the Halls. And that usually meant police, school, some kind of service like the cleaning lady, or…

She didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to think about how this could all turn out to be the shittest week of her life. She put away the shopping while listening to the message over and over, scrutinizing it, trying to decode a hidden message while ignoring the fact that the message was perfectly clear. She left the house, reciting the message over and over in her head, like some kind of morbid mantra.

‘He’s going to be OK. He’s going to be OK. He IS going to be OK. I know he is. He’s dad. He wouldn’t leave me like this. He wouldn’t just… die. He wouldn’t.’

She tried to reassure herself as she began to pant but urged herself to keep moving, in case it was her fault he died because she had to have a breather.

She got to the hospital, found the room and hoped against hope it wasn’t too late. It couldn’t be too late. She went into the room and saw the doctors and nurses around the bed with ashen faces. The machines turned off. Everything unnaturally still for a room where someone is meant to be receiving treatment. Time turned off. Even the tear drop running down Melanie’s face seemed to freeze mid stream, as she looked shocked at her dad’s greying face, his glassy still open paralysed eyes, his lifeless lips.

Suddenly everything sped up. The doctors realised who she was and tried to guide her gently out of the room so they could talk, but she wouldn’t move. She was still fixed, frozen, taking in that he

was dead. And she was alone.

‘no. no. NO. HE CAN’T BE DEAD THAT’S MY FUCKING DAD. DO SOMETHING!’ she screamed at the nurses, trying to make them realise that he could be saved. She ran over to his body and began to shake it, making his hairs move.

‘wake up. Please. Wake up. don’t leave me. Please. Please. Please.’ she whispered, sobbing.

‘please. Please. Please.’ this became her new mantra. She repeated it over and over until she felt a hand on her shoulder. Her head hung, her shoulders slumped and she realised it was over, there was nothing she could do…and she had mascara all over her face. It was a stupid thing to realise, but it distracted her from the horrifying truth that people, people that she lived in the same village as, had murdered her father.

Three days passed. Melanie sat numb on her couch, drinking a cold cup of coffee she had made six hours ago, watching a blank television screen. No one had come to comfort her, to wish her well in this time of sorrow or to bring her a casserole, as was customary. The only thing that she had really decided about what to do was that she would organise the funeral later, once her head was together. The three days had been filled with forced eating, washing, going to the toilet, forced living. Everything became a pattern. She would only let herself cry once a day for half an hour and timed it on the microwave.

There was a knock on the door, an unfamiliar noise that startled Melanie. She blinked and rapped herself in a blanket, a minor shield if it was someone coming to kill her so there would be no black people in the town. It was a bland man in a black suit and stained tie, holding a shabby briefcase that seemed to have holes in it. He spoke in a gently rasping voice, like he hadn’t drunk much for the last decade.

‘ahem… miss Hall? I’ve come to give you your father’s will. He left you most of his ..ahem…belongings. I am…ahem… very sorry for your loss.’ he couldn’t look her in the eye, searching the floor instead and clearing his throat a lot.

She opened the envelope and saw £70,000 in her name, along with the house and all his other possessions except his guitar, which he left to his brother. This brought around the sharp reality that she had to tell the rest of the family that she hadn’t seen for so long. This meant she had to go back to England an’d face everyone. They hadn’t left on the best of terms, with some name calling on her father’s part when his mother told him not to leave.

‘ahem…miss Hall?’

She came out of her trance. ‘Yes? Mister…’

‘Swindle’

‘Great. Mister Swindle.’

‘I am meant to make you sign this document saying you received the will, and then I can go back to my crappy job and my crappy apartment.’

‘Mister Swindle?’

‘Yes Miss Hall’

‘Would you like to buy a house?’

He cleared his throat a few times. ‘Excuse me?’

‘You heard me. Would you like to buy a house. I don’t want it anymore, I’m going back to England. The only reason I have been staying here is because of my dad. So, would you like to buy it?’

‘well yes! of course! How much?’

‘let’s see, it was 400,000 but we put in a cooker, but I really want to get rid of it… let’s say 400,500? Is that OK?’

‘OK? Its perfect! Thank you so much.’ he hugged her ‘and if you are ever coming back to the USA, you are always welcome to stay here. Thank you.’

He gave her a cheque and bounded out of the house. She wasn’t entirely sure what they had just done was legal, but she would be out of the country before anyone realised. She put the cheque in the bank and bought a plane ticket for the next week. She left everything except her and her dad’s things in the house, including furniture and appliances and managed to squeeze everything into four suitcases. She surveyed them, realising that this was all she was taking with her from her old life. And she was glad.

Melanie got onto the plane with no hassles and sat in her business class seat, relaxing and having a party in her head thinking about how she would never have to go back to that racist, stupid, irritating town everyday. She fell asleep, dreaming dreams of being greeted by the queen and her dad, who had mysteriously come back alive from ashes he was cremated, and now was in a jar in Melanie’s hand luggage because they were in England.

Once she woke up, they were five minutes away from landing. She was so excited, she had missed England so much.

Four minutes.

But what if it didn’t miss her? What if her uncle didn’t want to see her again?

Three Minutes.

She sat biting her fingernails as the plane began to shudder.

Two Minutes.

What if she became homeless and jobless and addicted to heroin, hated by her family and thrown up by civilization?

One Minute.

She was sweating ferociously, forgetting what she had left and focusing on the horrors of the future.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen, we have landed in Gatwick airport. You may now leave the plane in an orderly fashion. Thank you for flying with American Airlines and we can’t wait to see you again’

Yeah right, thought Melanie. I bought a single ticket thank you very much. She left the plane and looked up at the sky, seeing clouds and felt a drop of rain on her face. She began to shake, laughing and crying, it didn’t really matter which and stuck her tongue out.

She was home, finally.