Down to Earth - Melanie Rose

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back, my breath caught in my throat with anticipation.

      The door opened and I thought at first that the man standing before me was a complete stranger. The Calum I’d left the previous morning had dark unruly hair and blue eyes set in a handsome face. He had always dressed with care, and even when working at home he’d been a stickler for neatness and order; I’d always teased him, it was probably a throwback from his strict Scottish upbringing.

      This Calum had dark circles under his eyes, the once glossy hair dull and lacklustre. He seemed pale as a ghost. He peered at me from tired eyes and then those eyes widened in recognition and fixed on me in shock. He clutched the doorframe as if to stop himself from reeling backwards. ‘Michaela? Oh my God. Is it really you?’

      His reaction was as violent in its own way as Kevin’s had been. It sent my last hopes plummeting to the depths of my stomach where the butterflies crash-landed in a sickening heap.

      ‘It’s me,’ I confirmed, standing stock still. This man was a stranger; I didn’t feel at one with him at all. Not only did he look haggard but he also smelled faintly stale and musty as if he’d just crawled out of bed. The gloomy interior behind him didn’t look or smell much better.

      He stared at me for a moment or two then seemed to pull himself together. His mouth settled into a grim line as he stepped back and beckoned me inside. ‘You’d better come in.’

      After one last glance at the empty road behind me, I followed the man I had lived with into the house I had called home. It was unrecognisable.

      The once cosy sofa in the sitting room, where Abbey and I had sat only a couple of days ago and pored over her homework, and Calum and I had curled up to watch TV together, was covered with a filthy throw; it appeared that someone had spilled tomato ketchup and nacho crumbs over it and no one had bothered to wash it. The coffee table was full of half-eaten pizza in greasy boxes. Beer and coke cans littered the floor. I spotted a couple of empty whisky bottles stashed behind the television set. When I continued to stand, Calum rounded on me with what seemed to be a mixture of anger and confusion.

      ‘I don’t know whether to hug you or throw you back out the door. I thought you were dead.’ He rubbed his throat where the top button of a blue, checked shirt gaped open, and slowly shook his head from side to side. He sank suddenly onto the sofa as if his legs could no longer support him and sat staring up at me with an incredulous expression on his tired face. ‘So where the bloody hell have you been for the last six and a half years?’

      ‘I haven’t been anywhere.’ I adjusted my weight awkwardly from one foot to the other, uncomfortable looking down at him but not sure if he would want me to sit down. ‘I don’t know how to explain this, but I’ve just come back from the airfield.’

      He stared at me in silence, his angry eyes roaming from my dark blonde hair to the tips of my toes. ‘What do you want?’

      ‘I don’t want anything … at least I don’t know what I want, except to come home. I wanted to see you, that’s all.’

      ‘You wanted to see me? After all this time? After letting us search fruitlessly for you for months and months, putting our lives on hold as we hoped and prayed you’d turn up alive, never wanting to give up hope of seeing you again? Letting us grieve for you …?’ He shot to his feet with surprising speed and stood with his face inches from mine. ‘Have you any idea what you’ve put us through?’

      I took a step back. ‘I’m beginning to realise, yes.’

      ‘You really are something else.’ He began to pace up and down in front of me. ‘I think I preferred you dead.’

      ‘Look, I’m sorry, Calum. I didn’t mean to leave you or Abigail. If you’d just listen, I’ll try to explain.’

      He stopped pacing and stared at me, waiting. The hurt in his eyes cut me to the core. ‘It had better be bloody good.’

      I twisted my hands together wishing Calum would sit back down so that I could sink onto that filthy couch too. I wasn’t sure my legs would hold me up much longer. Swallowing, I cleared my throat. ‘Something weird happened during the jump. There was a strange wind, more like a hurricane really. It sort of enveloped me, and when I landed on the airfield it was dark and there was no one there.’ I stumbled to a halt, aware that he didn’t believe a word I was saying. Taking a deep breath I ploughed on. ‘That was only yesterday. I know it sounds far-fetched, but it was truly only yesterday that it happened! As far as I’m concerned I haven’t been away at all. I got a lift back here from a pub by the airfield and the newspapers say it’s 2008 and I’m so confused …’ My voice tapered off lamely. ‘I just wanted to come home to you and Abigail.’

      He reached out and tentatively laid his hand on my arm. I realised that some of the anger had melted away and his shoulders were sagging tiredly. ‘I don’t know what’s happened to you, Michaela, but if you really believe what you’ve just told me, you should get help.’

      ‘I’m not mad, if that’s what you think. Matt and Kevin believe me.’

      ‘Matt? Are you talking about that bloody parachute instructor?’ He dropped his hand as if I might contaminate him somehow. ‘I knew he had something to do with your disappearance. Your parents were convinced of it too, but the police couldn’t pin anything on him.’ He furrowed his brow and peered into my eyes. ‘Was it him all along? Have you been with him all this time?’

      ‘No! It was nothing like that.’

      ‘Has he been holding you somewhere against your will?’

      ‘No! It happened like I told you. Matt just dropped me back here but he wasn’t involved.’

      ‘Where is he now?’

      I shrugged feeling rather like a naughty child being confronted by an angry parent. ‘I suppose he’s gone back home.’

      ‘And would you happen to know where “home” might be for Mr Innocent?’

      ‘Not really.’

      ‘Come on, Michaela. You can’t expect me to believe that. Has he tired of you? Is that why you’ve come crawling back here?’

      ‘I haven’t been with him!’ I insisted, blushing at the memory of the previous night and my having begged to be allowed to stay in Matt’s room. ‘Look, I’m sorry for everything you’ve been through, I’m sorry you thought I was dead, but from my perspective I left here only yesterday morning.’ I lowered my voice, trying to regain some semblance of control. ‘I tried phoning you from the pub to ask you to come and fetch me, but no one answered. Matt’s number was in the pocket of my jumpsuit, so I rang him and he brought me back here.’

      I decided not to mention sleeping in Matt’s bed; it had been a stupid mistake anyway. ‘Where were you when I needed you?’

      Calum sank down on the sofa again, this time shaking his head. I decided to risk perching on the arm next to him. We sat in silence for a moment or two and then he turned and looked at me more closely. ‘You don’t look any older.’

      ‘That’s because you only saw me yesterday.’

      ‘Yesterday,’ he said bitterly, ‘I was at the hospital with my daughter, who was found lying comatose in the park by some boy and taken to the accident and emergency department in Guildford to have her stomach pumped.’

      ‘Oh, Calum, I’m sorry. Is Abbey going to be alright?’

      He ran a hand wearily over his eyes and I understood now why he looked so tired and drawn. ‘Abbey’s in with a bad crowd. They call themselves emo’s or something like that. They seem to be into very loud music, alcohol, smoking, self-abuse; you name it. I appear to be enemy number one, and I don’t know how to help her.’

      I pictured the bright, cheeky

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