The Truth About Melody Browne (32 page)

‘So,’ interrupted Grace, ‘you work in a school kitchen and you live in … ?’

‘Covent Garden.’

‘Oh, how glamorous,’ she smiled. ‘I always dreamed about living in the middle of town, slap-bang in the middle of the chaos. Is it thrilling?’

‘It’s OK,’ Melody said. ‘It’s just a council flat.’

‘And those people, your parents, Roger and Gloria, was it … ?’

‘Clive,’ said Melody, ‘Clive and Gloria.’

‘That’s right. What happened to them. How are they?’

Melody shrugged and took a sip of her Coke. ‘I haven’t seen them for quite a long time.’

‘Oh, why is that?’

‘Oh, all sorts of reasons. I haven’t seen them since before Ed was born. It was all very messy. But how did you know about them? I thought I went to live with them long after I lived with you?’

‘Well, yes. First of all you were with your auntie Susie, that’s right, poor old Auntie Susie … and then she sent you to live with that couple. I never met them, sounded quite pleasant. I believe the woman, Gloria, was Susie’s second cousin.’

‘You mean, we were related?’

‘I believe so, yes. And then, of course, after your poor mother lost her battle with her demons and left you all alone, well, there was a bit of a fight.’

‘A fight?’

‘Yes, between Ken and me, and the couple. We found out that they were registering themselves as private fosterers, so that they could adopt you, and we thought, well, that’s not right, who are these people, utter strangers, keeping our lovely Melody all to themselves – they wouldn’t let us see you, you know – so we started adoption proceedings too. Ken even had his hair cut short. We played the happy suburban couple, here, in this flat, visit after visit, questions,
interrogations
, like the fucking Gestapo. Ken got a job – believe that? Yes, as a road sweeper. I wore a skirt and my mother’s fucking pearl necklace. We made these people cup after cup of tea, had them in and out of here for months. We knew we didn’t stand a chance, not really. I mean, those people, they were related to you, you were already there, they were
normal
. It didn’t matter how much Ken and I pretended to be normal, we weren’t going to fool anyone. The stress on our marriage was appalling. And then, when we found out that our application had been rejected, it all sort of imploded. Ken ran off back to Spain and bought his flea pit there and I … well, my mother was elderly, she needed me here, so I just sort of
stopped
.’ She paused and looked around her flat, describing it with her eyes as a kind of well-furnished prison. ‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘we went back to see you, you know, a few months later. We got sick of our phone calls being ignored and our letters being returned and, you know, there was no house! It had been razed to the ground! A neighbour told us there had been a terrible fire, but that you and that couple had escaped. But nobody knew more than that. Nobody knew where you were. You disappeared, Melody, simply, disappeared!’

Melody stared at Grace, mutely. This stranger, of whom she had no recollection whatsoever, had attempted to be her mother. This unconventional creature, this non-conformist with a rock star and a drunk for children, had worn pearls and humiliated herself in order to appear as an acceptable parent for her. The stress of trying to adopt Melody had broken her marriage, changed the direction her life would take for ever. All this struck Melody as both exhilarating and appalling.

‘But here you are now,’ Grace smiled, revealing perfect white teeth and Audrey Hepburn cheekbones, ‘beautiful and alive and happy. Are you happy?’

Melody nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I think so.’

‘Good,’ said Grace. ‘And are you in love?’

Melody smiled, questioningly. ‘Urm, no.’

‘No one in your life?’

‘No, not really. Well, there is someone, but it’s kind of on hold at the moment, until I can get to grips with all the stuff that’s been going on.’

‘Ah, you mean the strange unlocking of your mind?’

‘Yes, exactly.’

‘Remarkable,’ Grace continued. ‘The mind is a remarkable, remarkable thing. Never fails to amaze me. So, this man, this hypnotist, he just clicked his fingers and suddenly it all came flooding back?’

‘Well, no, not suddenly, just in dribs and drabs really. Every now and then something triggers a memory.’

‘And me – do you have any memory of me?’

Melody shook her head. ‘I remember Ken had a wife and I remember Seth being a fat baby, sitting on the kitchen floor, and I remember sitting in the garden with Matty and talking about Ken, but I don’t remember you.’

‘Ah, how sad to be so forgettable.’ She feigned sorrow and then looked up and smiled. ‘I remember you, my darling. I remember you so well. Every last thing about you. Do you remember, I taught you to do finger-knitting?’

Melody shook her head.

‘Ah, well. And do you remember telling me about that girl in your school, that dreadful creature. Penny?’

At the mention of the name Penny, Melody saw an image in her head. A thick-skinned girl, heavy-featured, with a deep crease in her forehead.
Penny
. That was her name, the girl she’d remembered outside her old school last week. Penny.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I remember a girl called Penny. She was horrible.’

‘She made your life miserable. I wanted to go to the school and punch her for you, but you wouldn’t let me. You always wanted to deal with your own battles. You were always so
self-possessed
. I admired you greatly, the way you dealt with everything. Particularly your mother. You were wonderful with your mother.’

‘Was I?’

‘Oh, yes, endlessly patient and understanding. You gave her so much leeway, allowed her to be so …’

Melody searched Grace’s eyes for a clue to what she might be about to say next.

‘So
absent
. Not her fault, obviously, poor Jane. Depression. The Black Dog. A terrible affliction. And then to lose another baby like that, at twelve weeks, well, that would tip most people over the edge, but your mother was weak, you know. I’m sorry if that sounds like a heartless thing to say, but she was. I would never have allowed any unhappiness I was experiencing to stop me from being a proper mother. But there you go, everyone is made from different stuff. And your mother, I’m afraid, was made from very brittle stuff indeed …’

Melody wasn’t surprised by Grace’s words. It was clear to her from her few memories, from the newspaper reports, from the fact of the powdered remains of her thirty-three-year-old body in a hole in the ground in Lambeth Cemetery that her mother had been made of brittle stuff, but Melody had secretly hoped for more. She hoped for words of admiration, for a suggestion that there’d been more to Jane Ribblesdale than dead babies, insanity and suicide, that she’d been a good mother and that she really hadn’t wanted to leave behind her lovely little Melody.

Matthew was watching the conversation from a stool at a breakfast bar that formed an opening into an open-plan kitchen. His knee was jigging up and down frantically, and he seemed to be waiting for an opportunity to ask a question.

‘So, who’s the father?’ he asked Melody, as his mother paused for breath.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Your son. Who’s the father?’

‘Oh, Matthew, so rude,’ admonished Grace.

‘It’s OK,’ said Melody. ‘The father was a boy called Tiff, an Irish boy. He was two years older than me …’

‘And he didn’t want to know, right?’

‘Right.’

‘So you’ve brought this boy up all by yourself?’

She nodded.

Matthew shook his head appreciatively. ‘That’s pretty bloody impressive, Melody Ribblesdale.’

‘You think?’

‘God, yeah. I couldn’t even be trusted to look after a hamster, let alone raise a child on my own. And he’s all right, is he, this boy of yours? Not out happy-slapping and knifing teenagers on the streets?’

Melody smiled. ‘No,’ she said, ‘he’s a good boy. A good man. I made a good man.’

‘Good on you,’ he said, appraising her with respect. ‘Good on you, Melody Ribblesdale.’

Melody glanced down at her feet, feeling strangely touched by his comments.

‘So,’ he continued, ‘what does he make of all this weird shit, all these strange people coming back from the dead?’

She cleared her throat and replied, ‘I haven’t told him yet.’

‘You haven’t told him? Why the fuck not?’

Melody paused. ‘I don’t know. I think I just don’t want to get halfway down the path with all this, and then find out it was all – I don’t know – all a mistake, that I’m mad, that none of it ever happened. I want to be able to give it to him like a whole new world, like a …’

‘Like a gift.’ Grace smiled and nodded.

‘Yes,’ said Melody, relieved that her reasoning made sense to someone other than herself. ‘Like a gift. For his birthday,’ she smiled, ‘for his coming of age …’

They fell silent for a moment, until Matty suddenly jumped to his feet.

‘Remember that day?’ He planted himself on the sofa next to her. ‘Remember that day your mum went missing and you and me went searching all over town for her? Do you remember?’

Melody shrugged. ‘Doesn’t ring a bell,’ she said.

‘Yes, remember, after your dad had another baby, she lost the plot, went off and slept on the beach, you and I trawled the town, top to toe, found her in a café.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t remember that exactly, but I did feel things when I was in Broadstairs, things that felt familiar.’

‘You found the old house, then?’ asked Grace.

‘Yes, just before I bumped into Matty. It’s a guesthouse.’

‘Yes, poncy bloody shithole,’ said Matthew. ‘That woman thinks she’s royalty. I knocked on the door once, just after she’d done the place up, asked if I could have a look. Should have seen the look she gave me. Well, granted I was probably a bit the worse for wear, but it wasn’t as if I wanted to make off with her heirlooms, you know, just wanted a shufty at the old place.’

‘I went inside,’ said Melody.

‘Did you?’

‘Yes, pretended I wanted a room. It’s very nice. She’s done a very nice job of it.’

‘So you remember it the way it was?’ said Grace.

‘I remember the outside, I remember seeing Ken on the balcony in an old coat, I remember our bedroom, and the kitchen and the strange paintings on the garden wall. They were happy times, weren’t they?’

‘Yes,’ said Grace, ‘on the whole. Obviously the time with your mother was an emotional time. It took us all a long time to get over the incident with poor baby Edward. And then of course we all missed you horribly after you went away. I kept a picture of you, look.’ She got to her feet and wafted into the kitchen where she unpinned something from a cork board. ‘Here,’ she passed the photo to Melody, ‘look at you. Look at that wonderful little girl.’

Melody held the photo between her thumb and finger and stared at it. It was her, smaller than she’d ever seen herself before, her back against a shingled, graffiti-daubed wall, sitting on a pebble beach. She was wearing pink framed sunglasses and red jelly shoes and a denim skirt with red patch pockets. Her hair was redder than it was now, and hung from a middle parting in twisted ropes. ‘Who took this?’ she asked.

‘Ken. On one of your jaunts.’

And there, on the beach, just by her feet, Melody could see it – her crash helmet, the one she’d remembered right at the start of all this. And then, looking closer, she saw something else remarkable – a reflection in the lens of her sunglasses of a man, holding a camera, a man with long hair and a beautiful face, a man who looked like Jesus. Ken.

‘It’s a lovely photo, isn’t it?’ said Grace.

‘It’s …
amazing
. I mean, I’ve never seen a picture of myself younger than eight before. I had no idea what I looked like at … ?’ she looked questioningly at Grace.

‘Five,’ she said, ‘you were five.’

‘Wow,’ said Melody, continuing to stare at the little girl in the sunglasses and jelly shoes she had no recollection of ever owning. ‘Can I take this?’ she asked. ‘Get it copied? I’d love to show it to my son.

He’s never seen a picture of me as a child. I never thought to take any with me when I left home.’

‘Of course!’ said Grace. ‘Please, take it. I just wish I had some more. But Ken will have more. He was always snapping away. Are you going to see him?’

‘In Spain?’

Grace nodded.

‘God, I don’t know. I can’t really afford it …’

‘Easyjet!’ she exclaimed. ‘Last time I went I got a flight for fifteen pounds. And once you’re there, it’s all free. It’s not exactly nights on the strip in Puerto Banus when you’re staying with Ken! You should go!’ she exclaimed. ‘Ken would love to see you. He would just … well, he’s had a hole inside his soul ever since we lost you to those people. If he saw you, it would heal him. He’d be whole again …’

Melody said goodbye to Grace an hour later. It was early afternoon and Grace was due at a local Weight Watchers group to give a yoga class. She clasped Melody to her in the hallway, and breathed into her hair. ‘Strong as you ever were,’ she muttered, ‘strong as I knew you would be. So much to take in. So much to accept. Such a good, good girl.’ She let her go and kissed her hard on each cheek. ‘Now off you go and move on. There’s nothing holding you back now. Nothing to stop you. Knock ’em dead!’