The Truth About Melody Browne Read online

  ‘How do you like your sister?’ said her dad.

  ‘Is she really my sister?’ said Melody.

  ‘Yes, of course she is,’ laughed Jacqui.

  Melody looked at her again and assessed her. She wasn’t very pretty. But she was quite cute. She picked up one of her tiny little hands and stroked it. ‘She looks like a Red Indian.’

  Jacqui and her dad looked at each other and smiled.

  ‘She looks exactly like you looked when you were a new baby,’ said her dad.

  ‘What, like a Red Indian?’

  ‘Yes, just like a Red Indian.’

  ‘Did baby Romany look like a Red Indian, when she was born?’

  Her dad smiled sadly. ‘No,’ he said, ‘she had no hair at all, and a tiny rosebud mouth. She looked more like a little leprechaun.’

  ‘Did she?’ said Melody, forming for the first time in her life the beginnings of a picture of her dead sister. ‘And did she have brown eyes? Or blue eyes?’

  ‘Well, all babies’ eyes are the same colour when they’re born. The same colour as Emily’s. Look. A sort of murky blue. And when they’re a few months old they become the colour they’re going to be.’

  ‘So did I have murky blue eyes when I was born?’

  ‘Yes, you did.’

  ‘And then they turned hazel.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I wonder what colour baby Romany’s eyes would have been.’

  ‘Well,’ said her dad, ‘sadly, that’s something that none of us will ever know.’

  Melody stared at the little baby, stared really hard, trying to bring the picture of her other sister into her head, but already it had started to fade. Already the more tangible, immediate features of this new sister were starting to imprint themselves over the blurred picture of Romany’s little leprechaun face that existed only in Melody’s imagination. Already her earliest memory was starting to fade.

  Chapter 20

  1978

  Melody kicked a tennis ball across the courtyard and watched it come to a rest between two flowerpots.

  ‘So,’ said Matty, whittling the tip of a large twig into a sharp point with a Stanley knife, ‘what’s the deal with your dad?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, why did he and your mum split up?’

  ‘I think it was because they were cross with each other.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘I think they were cross about me.’

  Matty stopped whittling and glanced at her thoughtfully. ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yes. Well, a bit sure. I mean, I had a baby sister called Romany and she died when she was two days old, and I think my mum and dad were sad about that and then they were cross with me. Especially my mum.’

  Matty nodded sagely.

  ‘I think my mum was annoyed with me because I wasn’t properly sad and because I still wanted to keep doing things, like making cakes and going to the playground. And then I think she got cross with my dad because he didn’t want to be sad any more either and wanted to try and have another baby.’

  ‘Why would that make her cross?’

  Melody shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It just did. Maybe she thought it might die again, or something.’

  Matty nodded and returned to whittling his stick.

  ‘She got furious with him when he said it.’

  ‘God, you’d have thought she’d have been pleased.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Melody, nodding vigorously, ‘I know.’

  ‘But adults are really fucking weird. Like, take my mum.’

  Melody looked at him expectantly.

  ‘No, really, take her …’

  Melody furrowed her brow at him, feeling slightly worried that she was being slow.

  He sighed. ‘Sorry. Just a stupid joke. Never mind.’

  ‘Tell me, though,’ said Melody. ‘Tell me about your mum. Why is she weird?’

  He shrugged. ‘Just is. My dad, right, my dad is this great, great bloke. He’s really big and strong and funny and stuff. We lived in this really cool house in London and Dad was really rich and took us to cool places and stuff. And Mum just decided to go.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. She said that she didn’t like it when he’d been drinking but you know, he didn’t really drink that much. I never saw him drunk, not really, just funny. And now my dad’s all sad and lonely and my mum’s married to some idiot who think he’s Jesus fucking Christ.’

  Melody wondered who he was talking about for a moment. ‘What, you mean Ken?’

  ‘Yeah, Ken.’

  ‘Why do you think he thinks he’s Jesus?’

  ‘Oh, come on, look at him. With his stupid ponytail and his little beard and his big eyes all the time.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Melody, feeling a little deflated. ‘I really like him.’

  ‘Well, then you’re an idiot, Melody Ribblesdale.’

  Melody blanched. Nobody had ever called her an idiot before.

  ‘Ken is just some bloke, that’s all, some bloke who’s basically stolen a house, who’s never had to work and gets stupid gullible women to do whatever he wants them to do just by fluttering his big puppy eyes at them.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Melody again.

  ‘Oh God,’ said Matty, ‘he’s got to you too, hasn’t he? Well, listen, Melody Ribblesdale, you’re a bright girl and you’re young. Take my advice. Get your mum away from him before she’s giving him baths and having babies for him too.’

  He then ran his fingertips around the point of his sharpened stick, held it to the light, examined it from every angle and turned to leave.

  ‘Where are you going?’ called Melody.

  ‘Fishing,’ Matty said. ‘See you around.’

  After he’d gone, Melody stared at the yellow tennis ball really hard, until her eyeballs started to ache. Thoughts and questions flew around her mind like sheets of newspaper in a windy street. What did Matty mean about baths and babies? Why did he need a sharp stick to go fishing? And when was someone going to sit her down and tell her what was happening?

  Chapter 21

  Now

  Melody felt more certain of what needed to be done as she climbed aboard the train to Broadstairs at Victoria Station later that week. She had specific goals and was armed with the reassurance that the strange story that had been stitching bits of itself patchily into her consciousness was real.

  She glanced around at the other passengers on the sparsely occupied carriage. She smiled to herself. Hello, she wanted to call out, I’m Melody! I’m on my way home! Instead she turned her gaze to her phone, to the message she’d received from Ben ten minutes ago, the one that said: ‘Hello stranger. Not stalking you, just concerned about you. Hope all’s OK. Would be great to hear from you (but not holding my breath). Ben x’

  Melody paused, halfway between a sigh and a smile. He was persistent, that was for sure, but she had yet to decide whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. Softening to his complete disregard for the Rules of Attraction, she started to type: ‘Hi. Sorry haven’t replied to your other texts, life’s been hectic and’.

  She stopped, abruptly. What was she doing? She was entering into a dialogue, breathing life into a delicate, fledgeling relationship at a point in her own existence when she had barely the slightest idea who the hell she really was. No, she thought, closing down the unfinished message, no, not now, not yet. Maybe later …

  Broadstairs was even busier than it had been the week before. The grey, lukewarm tones of the day had not dampened the holidaymakers’ enthusiasm for wandering in a meaningless way around the few streets that constituted its centre. They sported cagoules and brightly coloured Crocs, furled umbrellas hanging from crooked arms ready to be employed at the first sad splashes of rain. Melody, with a far greater sense of purpose, headed for the house on the square.

  She stood in front of the house, closed her eyes and tried to think what else may have lain beyond that front door thirty years ago. She saw anot
her baby, this one a boy, fat and solid, chewing on a spoon. She saw a boy, olive-skinned and unruly-haired. And then she saw a young woman, pale and drawn, with long hair and a yellow dressing gown. She felt the softness of the letter L playing upon her tongue, lelelele … Laura.

  Chapter 22

  1978

  One day, about a week before Emily was born, a woman called Laura moved into Ken’s house. Melody didn’t know she’d moved in until she saw her coming out of the bathroom the following morning, in a yellow candlewick dressing gown, clutching a drawstring toiletry bag and looking slightly nervous.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, passing her on the landing, ‘who are you?’

  ‘I’m Melody.’

  ‘Melody?’ she said. ‘That’s a lovely name.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Melody, who was used to people telling her that she had a lovely name.

  ‘I’m Laura. It’s very nice to meet you.’

  ‘Nice to meet you too,’ said Melody.

  Laura had long brown hair that was parted in the middle and hung in strands over each shoulder. Her skin was very pale and shiny and she had big splodgy freckles all over her face and neck.

  Melody waited for a moment on the landing to see where exactly this new person would head and felt shocked when she saw her casually push open the door to Ken and Grace’s bedroom and walk in.

  ‘Mum! Mum!’ She leaped up the stairs to the attic floor, two at a time. ‘There’s a woman!’

  Her mother emerged from behind her wardrobe door, clutching a green sweater and looking slightly puffy. ‘What?’

  ‘A woman. In Ken’s room! She’s called Laura!’

  ‘Oh, yes, Laura. I met her yesterday.’

  ‘Who is she? And why is she in Ken and Grace’s room?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure she wasn’t.’

  ‘Yes, she was. She had on her dressing gown and she just walked straight into their room without knocking or anything.’

  ‘Well, maybe she had the wrong room.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Melody sat down on the foot of her bed and stared at her toes. ‘Mum,’ she said, ‘why are we living here?’

  ‘Well,’ said her mum, in her annoyed voice, ‘where would you suggest that we live?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Melody said. ‘With Auntie Maggie?’

  Her mother tutted and sighed distractedly. ‘Maggie’s got her own problems right now. The last thing she needs is her wreck of a sister landing on her doorstep with another mouth to feed.’

  ‘Well, what about Auntie Susie?’

  ‘I thought you didn’t like it at Auntie Susie’s.’

  Melody shrugged and banged her toes together. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I didn’t. But at least …’

  ‘At least what?’

  ‘At least she was family.’

  Jane inhaled noisily. ‘Melody,’ she said, ‘I’m very tired. And you talk too much. Why don’t you go and play?’

  ‘I don’t want to play.’

  ‘Well, then, why don’t you go and read a book?’

  ‘I don’t want to read a book.’

  ‘Well, then, just do anything. Just leave me alone.’

  Melody sat on the end of her bed for another moment after that, staring disconsolately at her feet. Then she walked to the door and left. She walked slowly enough for her mum to change her mind about being annoyed and call her over for a hug, but she didn’t. She just stood there with the green jumper in her hands, looking like she’d forgotten something.

  Melody stood outside the bedroom door for a while, and listened to her mother sobbing, quiet and soft as a whispered prayer.

  Chapter 23

  Now

  Melody couldn’t find the man called Matthew. She walked around the town three times, peered through the windows of lard-scented cafés and wandered the aisles of off-licences. She scanned the beaches and benches and found not a trace of him. In a musty, grafittied man-made cave, dug out beneath the sea front, she came upon two young men with cider cans, stretched out across slatted wooden benches. They didn’t look like they were homeless or down-and-out, but they were the only people she’d seen in two hours who looked vaguely like they might know a drunk called Matthew, so she stopped and waited to be addressed.

  ‘You all right?’ said the older-looking of the two boys. He seemed nervous, and it occurred to Melody that maybe she resembled a plain-clothes police officer.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’m looking for someone. A man called Matthew.’

  The youths glanced at each other and frowned. ‘Matthew? Nah. What’s he look like?’

  ‘Forty-ish,’ said Melody, ‘dark hair. Drunk.’

  They glanced at each other again. ‘Ah,’ said the spottier of the two, ‘that Matthew. The pisshead?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Melody, ‘I guess so.’

  ‘He should be in town. He usually is.’

  ‘Is there a special place where he hangs out?’ she asked.

  ‘Nah. He just hangs about everywhere, really.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said the other one, ‘scaring the out-of-towners.’

  ‘Where does he live?’

  ‘I dunno,’ said the older-looking one. ‘Rough, I reckon. Round here, most probably. This is where the vagrants live, come night-time, down here in these caves.’

  ‘Why d’you want him, anyway?’ said the spotty one.

  ‘Oh, I used to live here, when I was a kid. I think he might have known me.’

  ‘Yeah. Matthew’s been around since we were kids.’

  ‘Has he always been a drunk?’

  ‘Yeah, pretty much. But he goes dry sometimes. Every few weeks. He just disappears and comes back with a haircut and some new clothes and then starts drinking again.’

  ‘Oh right, so he could be doing that now?’

  The spotty one shrugged. ‘Yeah. I suppose so. If he’s not in town.’

  ‘And you don’t have any idea where it is he goes to?’

  They both shrugged. ‘Maybe to his mum’s? Maybe to hospital? Dunno. Never asked.’

  ‘Right.’ Melody bit her lip. ‘So, you’ve spoken to him?’

  ‘Nah. Not really. Just in passing. Just like, you all right, that kind of thing. No one really talks to him.’

  ‘Why not?’

  They both laughed. ‘Because he’s a pisshead, innit!’

  Melody smiled, and nodded. She was done here. The man called Matthew was out of town. She would have to come back another time.

  Melody stood on the beach with her hands in her pockets, surveying the curve of the town in front of her. It seemed to curl towards her, like arms opened for embrace. A building in the middle of the sweep caught her eye, an ice-cream parlour with a salmon-pink exterior and chrome 1950s signage. She moved immediately, took the stone steps up from the beach two at a time and was a little breathless when a moment later she pushed open a large pair of heavy glass Art Deco doors into a shiny, brightly lit 1930s-style parlour, all chrome, Formica and Bakelite fittings in shades of mint and salmon pink. Melody stopped, for just a moment, on the threshold and looked around her, this way and that, across the heads of dozens of water-proofed families. A woman walked past holding a tray. On the tray were four fat goblets, each containing a different medley of coloured ice creams, sprinkles, wafers and sauces. Knickerbocker glories.

  This was it. This was the place – she knew it immediately – the place she’d been to with Ken.

  Chapter 24

  1978

  Ken and Melody got back from London at eight o’clock, the day he took Melody to London to meet her new sister. As they approached the coast, the October sun was setting over the sea in streaks of peach, silver and gold. There was a cruise liner moving slowly away from land, across the horizon, lit up from inside like a lantern. They rode up the sea front, past the flashing neon of the empty arcades, the vinegary fish shops and sickly sweet souvenir shops, and pulled up outside Morelli’s Ice Cream Parlour.

  ‘Fancy a sundae?’ said Ken, sliding off his helmet.

&nb
sp; ‘What, now?’ said Melody.

  ‘Yes, why not?’

  ‘But we told Mum I’d be home by eight.’

  ‘Well, we’ll just tell her we got stuck in some traffic. Come on, how about a knickerbocker glory?’

  Melody gazed through the door at the pastel-hued utopia inside, at the happy families clustered together inside salmon-pink booths, dipping long spoons into oversized goblets of ice cream. She’d seen this place from a distance many times over the past year but her mother always told her that they couldn’t afford ‘unnecessary luxuries’ like ice cream.

  ‘My treat,’ said Ken, as if reading her thoughts.

  She felt like someone else as she walked in. Visiting ice-cream parlours after dark with a handsome man and a crash helmet in her hand wasn’t the kind of thing she expected to find herself doing. It was the sort of thing that Charlotte did.

  She ordered a raspberry ripple sundae and Ken ordered vanilla with chocolate sauce and a cup of coffee. His hair was all messy where his helmet had been and his cheeks were pink from the autumn wind. He looked less like Jesus and more like a teddy bear, which made her feel less shy about being in a restaurant with him.

  ‘So, you liked the baby, did you?’

  ‘Mm-hm,’ she nodded. ‘She was cute.’

  ‘I bet. Must be a great feeling to have a new sister.’

  She nodded again.

  ‘Bet you felt sad having to say goodbye, though, didn’t you?’

  Melody dipped her head and smiled. She always hated leaving Jacqui’s house, even when she’d had a horrible time there, even when Charlotte had been a pig and Jacqui had barely acknowledged her. But this afternoon had been the worst ever. She’d spent the whole day with Emily, she’d helped change her nappy and Jacqui had even let her give her a bottle of milk. Dad and Jacqui’s bedroom had become more and more magical as the day went on. By late afternoon the sun had started to sink and Dad switched on the table lamps and they all sat on the big soft bed just staring at the baby.