The Truth About Melody Browne (29 page)

Ken shrugged and scratched his cheekbone with grimy fingernails. ‘Graice’s taking the boys to Folkestone, her mum’s old place, just for a while. And me and Kate and Michael are heading off to Spain for a few weeks, just to get some space, you know.’

Melody nodded but she didn’t really know. Why was Grace staying here and not going to Spain with Ken? What sort of space was he talking about?

‘But what about Mum?’ she said, beginning to panic. ‘What’s going to happen to Mum, when she gets out of prison?’

Ken took her hand again and squeezed it extra hard. ‘Oh, well, I can’t really say about that. It’s tough, because, well, I mean, nobody’s really sure what’s going to happen to your mum.’

Melody continued to stare at him, willing him to do what he always did and to make everything better. Nothing he was saying made any sense. How could nobody be sure about her mum? She’d been sent to prison for two years. She’d been in prison for six weeks. By Melody’s calculations that meant that she’d be leaving prison in one year and ten and half months. Melody had always assumed that on that day she and her mother would return to the house on Chandos Square, hand in hand, to reclaim their shadowy room in the eaves. But now she was being told that there would be no house on Chandos Square to return to and that her mother might never get to leave prison anyway.

‘Did you see her?’ she asked, in the biggest voice she could muster.

‘Yes, I visited last week. She’s not very well, Melody. It could be a long time before they think she’s well enough to send her home again.’

Melody gulped. ‘What do you mean by a long time?’

‘I don’t really know, but they’re doing everything they can to make her well again. All I’m saying is, not to expect anything. All I’m saying is that anything could happen.’

Ken’s words made Melody feel cold and scared, as if she was all alone in a big, echoey room, with cobwebs everywhere and a creaking noise and no handle on the door. But she felt too sad to cry and too scared to ask for help, so instead she picked up a digestive biscuit and offered it to Ken, who took it from her outstretched hand, silently and with a very sad smile.

Ken left half an hour later. He was off to the passport office, needed to get there before they closed, but before he went he stood for a while in the garden, with Melody, smoking a lumpy roll-up and staring thoughtfully up through the overhanging trees. After a moment he cleared his throat and turned to her.

‘They seem like nice folk, those two.’ He gestured awkwardly at the back door.

‘Yes, they are nice. They wanted a baby and couldn’t have one so they’re extra nice to me.’

‘You could do a lot worse,’ he said.

She nodded, not really grasping his full meaning. They both turned again to gaze into the shimmying leaves of the overhanging branches. Melody licked her lips. ‘Can I come with you?’ she whispered, into his shoulder, quietly so that Clive and Gloria wouldn’t hear and be upset. ‘Can I come to Spain, with you and Kate and Michael?’

Ken turned to look at her. His face was wistful. He crouched down and took her hand. ‘Melody,’ he said gently, ‘there is
nothing
I would like to be able to do more right now than to take you to Spain with me – heck, to take you to
Broadstairs
, with me. I’d like to take you everywhere with me, for ever and ever. But the people in charge of this big old ugly grown-up world we live in say that can’t happen. For some reason, which I really cannot fathom, I am not allowed to be responsible for you. I cannot put you on my passport. I cannot live with you. This,’ he gestured around the immaculate flowerbeds of Clive and Gloria’s garden, ‘is what they want for you. This, no matter what you or I may feel, is what “they” think is best. For now, at least. So, you need to carry on being the brave, special girl you’ve always been, and be nice to these good people and work hard at school and one day they might all change their minds.’

‘They?’

‘Yeah.
Them
. The trained monkeys and lab rats who tell us how to live our lives. But you know me, the eternal fighter, I haven’t given up yet. There’s always a way to beat the system, there’s always a way to make it do what you want it to do, so just hold tight, little one, hold tight and stay strong. For me.’ He kissed the top of her hand with his velvet lips, and then he kissed the top of her head, quite hard, like he was trying to suck something out of her soul, and then he got to his feet.

‘Oh,’ he said, putting his roll-up between his lips and suddenly feeling the pockets of his coat. ‘I brought you things, some stuff, hold on, they’re here somewhere.’ He finally pulled out a book, a matchbox and a red hair clip. The book was
Anne of Green Gables
. ‘Grace bought it for you, she thought it was up your street.’ The matchbox contained a small dead frog, painstakingly coated in gold leaf. ‘Matty made it for you, he found the frog down by the sidings.’ And the red hair clip was one of hers that had been found down the side of her old bed in the attic.

‘Was there … did Mum have anything for me?’ she asked, sliding the matchbox closed.

‘No, nothing from your mum, I’m afraid. She’s not really capable of that kind of thing, right now.’

‘But did she ask about me?’

Ken glanced at her from the sides of his eyes. ‘Oh, yes, of course. She wanted to know if you were OK.’

‘And what did you tell her? Did you tell her that I was here? Does she know where I am?’

‘Yes, she knows, she knows you’re here.’

‘What did she say? Did she mind? Was she cross?’

‘I don’t think,’ said Ken, gently grinding the burned-out tip of his roll-up into the soil beneath the Brownes’ neat lawn and putting the butt into his inside pocket, ‘that your mother is really well enough to feel cross about anything. Come on,’ he held out his hand for hers, ‘I’d better go. Come and wave me off.’

Melody had to use all her strength not to cry when she saw Ken putting on his old crash helmet and straddling his bike a moment later. She stared longingly at the empty sidecar and pictured herself squashed into it, wearing the furry coat that Aunt Susie had bought her from Fenwicks last month, and her new Fair Isle mittens, taking off on an adventure, one that would inevitably involve lemonade and ice cream, and then going back to the house in Broadstairs with pink cheeks and a belly full of sugar.

She smiled bravely as Ken revved up the engine and she waved at him as hard as she could. When she couldn’t see him any more she turned and ran inside, straight up to her bedroom, where she landed cross-legged on her bedroom floor and began to wail. She stared round the room through tear-soaked eyes, and her gaze alighted upon the Spanish girl. She stared back at Melody, reassuringly, her wide eyes still the same improbable, iridescent shade of blue as the wings of an Emperor butterfly, her hair still as dark and glossy as a saucepan of melting chocolate, her dress still as vibrantly scarlet as raspberry sauce.

‘It’s not fair,’ Melody sniffed between gulps, ‘it’s not fair. None of it. None of it. None of it.’ The Spanish girl smiled at her sympathetically. ‘I want to go home,’ sobbed Melody, ‘I want to go home. I want my mummy and I want my daddy and I
want to go home!!
!’

Melody closed her eyes, and let the tears run down her face. When she opened them again, she saw Gloria, her face set with sadness, closing her own bedroom door very slowly behind her and heading away across the landing and towards the stairs.

Melody blow-dried her hair on Saturday morning, not her usual hasty, heavy-handed flurry with her fingers, but a proper blow-dry, with a cylindrical brush that had come free with the hairdryer. She teased it and rolled it until it fell to her shoulders in shiny layers. Then she pulled out her old makeup bag and applied some eyeliner, some cover-stick to her under-eyes and a coat of brown mascara. It was a fresh morning again, with no evidence of summer in the air, so she put on some jeans, a white camisole top and a heavy ribbed cardigan in baby blue. On her feet she wore her brand-new Geox trainers, and in her ears, a pair of large silver hoops. She appraised herself in the mirror, wondering what sort of impression she would make. She didn’t look like a dinner lady, nor did she look like a single mum who lived on a council estate, but she didn’t look like a girl from LA called Emily who worked for the BBC and whose mother was an Oscar-nominated makeup artist, either. She sighed and pushed her shiny hair behind her ears. Her clock radio told her that it was 11.58. She was late.

* * *

She met Emily on a bench outside a café in Ladbroke Grove.

‘Hello,’ she said, approaching her softly. ‘Emily?’

Emily turned and smiled, and Melody’s heart turned over. Chestnut hair, hazel eyes, soft, round face, light eyebrows and a smile that turned her from haughty to sweet. It was like looking in a mirror: a rather flattering mirror.

‘Melody! Oh, oh, omigod!’ Emily got to her feet and Melody discovered that they were exactly the same height. Emily stood for a moment and stared at her, her eyes taking in the details of Melody’s face, her mouth agape. ‘This. Is. Un. Real.’

Melody nodded, absorbing her sister, taking in her shiny white teeth, her double-pierced ears, her pointy green pumps and skinny grey jeans. ‘Wow. This is amazing,’ she agreed.

‘You look exactly like I expected. You look just like Dad, just like …’

‘You?’

Emily laughed. ‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘just like me.’

‘So, how old are you now?’

‘I’m nearly twenty-eight. Getting old!’

‘Oh, no, twenty-eight – you’re still a baby.’

‘Well, it doesn’t really feel like it. Though my lifestyle might suggest someone
considerably
younger. Hey, look, I thought we might go for a coffee?’

They headed into a café around the corner, full of Saturday families and Portobello shoppers. Melody ordered a cappuccino and Emily ordered a herbal tea.

‘That was the most amazing phone call of my life,’ said Emily, taking off her denim jacket and revealing a plum cotton vest top and a pinstripe waistcoat.

‘Seriously. I was with my roommates and they were all like, omigod, I can’t believe that just happened, and I was like, yeah, I know, my actual sister, and we were all screaming, because, wow, you’re like a legend, you know?’

Melody smiled and pushed up the sleeves of her cardigan. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’m not sure that’s exactly how I’d describe myself.’

‘No, seriously, when I was growing up, there was this picture of you, in my sister’s room –’

‘What – Charlotte?’

‘Yeah, in Charlotte’s room, in her, like, her dressing mirror thing, and you’re wearing this like gypsy dress and you have a camellia in your hair and you’re smiling at the camera and you look like
the most interesting
girl, you know, like someone who you’d want to know, want to talk to. And I just … oh, shit, this is really embarrassing … I made you into my imaginary friend. Seriously. I would talk to you all the time, in my bedroom, I would tell you what I was doing with my dolls and I swear you talked back to me. My mother sent me to a therapist, because she thought I was nuts. And I guess I was kind of a weird kid … I didn’t have any real friends, just you …’ She smiled at Melody, almost apologetically. ‘So, you can imagine how freaky this is for me. My imaginary friend – come to life. Wow.’

Melody looked at her in amazement. ‘This photo,’ she said, ‘where did it come from?’

‘God, I don’t know. My dad – well, shit, I mean
our
dad – took it, when you came to stay?’

‘I came to stay? You mean in Goodge Place?’

‘No, in LA.’

‘I came to stay in LA?’

‘Yeah! You came on your own, on a plane. I always thought that made you the bravest, coolest girl ever, to get on a plane on your own.’

‘I went on a plane, to LA?’

‘Yeah! You don’t remember?’

Melody shook her head, and picked up her coffee cup. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I really don’t remember anything about it at all.’ She paused and stared at the table-top for a moment, feeling for the first time the dreadful reality of her broken memory. Forgetting another mother, another father, another house, another life, that was one thing, but to forget a trip to LA struck her as strangely appalling in every way.

‘Wow. That’s bizarre. I mean, you stayed for like, two weeks. You slept on the floor in my nursery.’

‘I did?’

‘Uh-huh. Mom always talks about it. She said you were “the little babysitter”, that you sat with me, like, all the time, didn’t leave my side.’

And then it hit her: a white room, Tweetypie stuck to the wall, a mobile swaying gently in the breeze, an open window, the lazy symphony of cicadas, ruffled palms, the bubble of a swimming pool filter and murmur of just-heard adult conversation. She felt the stone floor, hard beneath her body and felt the presence of something precious, a small life, beneath the cut-out animals of the wooden mobile. Her sister.

‘I remember!’ she said, slamming down her coffee cup, dizzy with the joy of remembering, ‘I remember! You had Tweetypie on your bedroom wall. And there was a swimming pool and the air … it smelled like …’ She sniffed the air, ‘it smelled like …’

‘Jasmine?’ said Emily.

‘No, not jasmine –
chlorine
! I do remember.’