Chapter 33 Ore
Chapter 33
Ore
Ore was sure she was getting the hang of the place, but somehow after going down what she could have sworn were the same stairs and corridors she always did, she found herself at an intersection that she had never come across before. She kept wandering, choosing turnings at random.
If she was being honest with herself, she was preoccupied with the revelations from Carlos’ interview and the ones about Daniel and Agatha. If she was even more honest with herself, she was currently only preoccupied with the latter, and in particular about Daniel.
It was an interesting departure from how she usually thought about men. Her thoughts were not anxious or swirling. She didn’t feel wrongfooted, misunderstood or gaslit. In fact, she was settling into a quiet certainty that Daniel liked her. Not just that he fancied her, but that he wanted the best for her, that he cared for her. That was not something she was accustomed to getting from men. As Kyle had so tactfully put it, it was textbook daddy issues.
Ironic, she thought, that he’d so successfully needled his way into her heart off the back of those very ‘issues’. She’d told herself she wouldn’t let that happen again, not until she was ‘ready’, not until it made sense. In her mind that meant not until she was at least, say twenty-eight, with an apartment of her own, and a staff contract to pay the rent. She was nowhere near any of those milestones, and that was before you took into consideration that Daniel was a yacht captain who literally lived on the other side of the world.
So even though she was finding it increasingly hard to deny that she enjoyed Daniel’s company, and that in the kit cupboard today there had been a moment when she wanted to kiss him, she recognised that it was the same impulse she’d had in Kyle’s office: a yearning to be cared for, to be looked after. And as nice as the feeling was, she wasn’t sure it was the same as love. Nevertheless it was a nice change from the chaotic, head-spinning liaisons she was used to having back in New York.
She was lost in thought, and meandering through the belly of the boat aimlessly when she heard a noise from a door left ajar. Where was she? She noticed that the carpets were plusher here, and that the doors were further apart than they were in crew quarters.
The sound crystallised into distinction: someone was crying. She considered turning around, finding her way out of the warren another way, but something about the cries resonated in her, pulling at her heartstrings. She approached the door, recognising the particular wails of adolescence. She knocked quietly.
‘Come in.’ The words were muffled between sniffs and sobs. Almost without thinking Ore pushed the door open to find Melanie, Chuck’s daughter, sitting on her bed, her knees drawn up to her chest, eyes puffy and hair scraped off her face into a strangled ponytail.
‘Oh … it’s you.’ The disappointment was palpable. Ore felt immediately embarrassed. Why had she felt the need to intrude on such a private moment?
‘I’m so sorry. I don’t know why … I’ll go …’ Ore began retreating.
‘No,’ Melanie said forcefully, and then, more sheepishly, she added quietly: ‘No, I … I thought it was my dad.’ Something in her expression once again sent a pang of pity through Ore.
‘Are you OK?’ Ore instinctively moved towards her, sitting gingerly on the edge of the huge bed. She couldn’t help scanning the room quickly, and noticing that it was even more luxurious than her own. Designer sunglasses were strewn across the large mahogany dressing table, and a set of multicoloured swimming costumes were hung up on a clothes rail in the corner, each still on one of those hangers shaped like a woman’s silhouette and adorned with a thick bundle of tags. Melanie herself was wearing a pair of excessively distressed, stonewash jeans that looked like they could have been found in a Camden charity shop – though Ore couldn’t be sure if that was by very expensive design – and an ACDC band T-shirt that hung off her slim shoulders like a poncho.
‘I just thought maybe he’d notice I wasn’t around and come and find me. I don’t know.’ She shrugged and tried on a nonchalant expression, scrubbing at her eyes with a balled fist. It didn’t last, and when the determination melted back into quiet sobs, Ore inched closer and tentatively laid a hand on her shoulder.
‘It’s OK. It’s not your fault; dads are just useless.’
At that, Melanie let out something between a snort and a giggle. Ore joined in, and after a moment, Melanie’s heaving shoulders had calmed and her breathing fell back into a steady rhythm.
‘You know he said that this trip would be a great opportunity to hang out?’ Melanie said suddenly, her tone harsh, mocking. Ore understood the substitution: away went self-pity and out came disdain.
‘Like, I wanted to go to Bali with Emily and our other mates, but he like, insisted, like basically begged me to come, and then like the moment we get here, he’s invited all these other randoms, like that creepy mate of his, and all the other money guys and like you …’ She paused and shot Ore an apologetic look. Ore batted the comment away and Melanie carried on. ‘And Agatha like won’t even let me talk to him most of the time, like I’m just getting in the way of the all his business deals or whatever, but really she just cares about her bonus!’
Melanie had worked herself up again.
‘Just breathe,’ Ore said calmly, taking in a deep breath and then slowly letting it out, then repeating the exercise until Melanie joined in.
Ore found herself marvelling at how universal some ‘issues’ were. All the money in the world couldn’t save you from a shitty dad. Ore hadn’t really thought about hers in a long time, at least not in detail. These days he was more of an abstract concept, a font of all evil, a bogeyman that could explain away all of her neuroses. She hadn’t seen him in person for about five years, and she had to admit that she hadn’t made an effort to change that. Eventually he’d given up trying. Maybe she’d wanted to punish him, for all those years when she was the one yearning for him, and he was nowhere to be found.
Ore wondered if one day Melanie would find herself in the same position, attributing all her woes to the failings of this one man. It felt strangely karmic that as she had been lost wandering the halls, mulling on her own relationship with her father, here was Melanie, ten years behind, only at the beginning of her journey into the world of unsatisfactory men.
‘I’m sure he does want to spend time with you, Melanie,’ Ore began.
‘Mel … call me Mel. I hate Melanie … Only Agatha calls me that.’
‘Sure, Mel, I …’ Ore tried to think back. What would she have wanted to hear, back when she was sixteen, torturing herself about what made her so unlovable, so beneath notice to a person who had literally bought her into being? ‘I think … I know that he does want to. He just … he probably doesn’t know how.’
Mel sniffed, her big green eyes welling. ‘Why? Why doesn’t he know?’
Ore’s heart ached. ‘Maybe he was never shown how.’
Mel was quiet for a moment. ‘He never speaks to his dad,’ she said softly. ‘I’ve only met him once, and Mum always says that their relationship is whack.’
‘Well there you go. I think often people need to be shown how to love, you know?’ Ore couldn’t help but pry a little further. It was probably unethical to use Chuck’s teenage daughter for deep background, but she reasoned that that hadn’t been her intention.
‘Do you know what happened between them?’
Mel shrugged, staring at the bed covers with a distant look in her eyes. ‘Well Mum says it’s because he got shipped off to boarding school when he was a kid, but like, who knows. It’s not like he would ever talk to me about it. All he ever asks me about is school. You know sometimes I go and like hide in the cinema room like all day, just to see if he’ll notice? He never does. He doesn’t even know about Emily.’
Ore was getting out of her depth, but despite herself she felt a jolt of excitement for having verified the boarding school fact.
‘Who’s Emily?’ Ore asked softly. She didn’t want to spook Mel, but she looked up suddenly, that defiant expression returning to her face.
‘Emily is my girlfriend.’ Mel’s tone was combative, and Ore sensed that this was a sentence that had been practised in the mirror, rehearsed a million times in her head.
‘And you think he’d have a problem with that?’ Ore was having to tread carefully.
Mel rolled her eyes, ‘no, obviously not – he’s just never asked.’ Mel was quiet again for a moment. ‘Like isn’t it ridiculous that you basically know more about my life than he does, and like you’re basically a stranger? No offence.’
‘None taken,’ Ore reassured her, but Mel was on a roll.
‘I’ve literally wanted to go to the Barrier Reef for forever on this stupid boat and it’s only now that stupid Claude is here that Dad finally wants to go. He’s only interested in his stupid business, like now that Claude wants to go, all of sudden it’s got to happen right now.’
Ore felt a tingle run down her spine. Why would Claude want to go to the Barrier Reef so badly? And what did their business have to do with it? It could just be a red herring, but Ore had a gut feeling that it was at least worth adding to her bundle of notes.
‘Well, it might still be fun to go to the reef?’ Ore offered lamely.
‘I guess.’ Mel lowered her chin to her knees and sighed. After a minute or so of silence, Ore began to feel awkward.
In true teenage girl fashion, Mel’s own barometer for discomfort was pretty sensitive. ‘You can like, go, you know?’ Ore knew that the sneery remark was defensive.
Ore stood up from the bed. ‘You should tell Chuck about Emily. He might just be waiting on you to open up a bit; maybe he’s afraid of overstepping?’
‘Maybe, whatever.’ Mel was looking out the window, and Ore took her cue to leave. As she reached door, Mel turned her head, and almost inaudibly she said, ‘Thanks.’
Ore nodded, mirroring Mel’s own sad smile, and shut the door gently behind her.