The Truth About Melody Browne (19 page)

Jacqui cooked a chicken and avocado salad for supper that evening, which they ate at a long marble table on another terrace by the pool. Emily sat in a plastic high chair, slowly chewing on a hunk of French bread. Her dad sat at the head of the table, casual in an unbuttoned linen shirt and cut-off denim shorts. His hair was longer than he wore it at home, and his chin was shaded with stubble. He seemed restless and fidgety, and Melody wondered if it was because of what her mum had said, because he didn’t have a job any more and spent all day looking after Emily.

Jacqui sat next to him in a floaty chiffon top and flared white jeans. Cicadas chirruped from the flowerbeds and a sprinkler in the next-door garden made a shimmying noise as it sprayed water over orange trees and cactus plants. Charlotte, in a shirred muslin top and matching gypsy skirt, was kicking her feet against the table leg and pushing her salad around her plate with her fork.

Melody stared at them all in wonder. This Hollywood Hills family looked tanned and lean and foreign. They looked like a TV show.

‘So, how’s your mum?’ asked Jacqui, pouring more wine into her father’s glass.

‘She’s fine,’ said Melody.

‘Good,’ Jacqui said. ‘All better then after … ?’

‘Jacqui means after the time she went missing,’ said her dad, noticing Melody’s confused expression.

‘Yes,’ she nodded. ‘She’s not unstable any more.’

Jacqui and her father exchanged one of those irritating smiles that made Melody want to throw her cutlery down and scream, ‘It’s not funny!’

‘Oh, that’s good,’ said Jacqui. ‘I’m glad to hear that. And how’s everything else? How’s school?’

‘It’s OK,’ Melody replied. ‘Although there’s this girl, called Penny, and she hates me.’

‘Oh, no, I’m sure she doesn’t hate you …’

‘Yes,’ said Melody, ‘she does. She says awful things to me, about Mum and about Ken.’

‘What sort of awful things?’

‘Oh, you know, that they’re disgusting and I’m going to get the clap.’

The smile fell from Jacqui’s lips. ‘What?’

‘They say that me and Mum and Ken are doing dirty things to each other and I’m going to get the clap.’

Charlotte snorted into her napkin and her mother threw her a look.

‘Have you told Mummy about this?’ asked her father.

‘No! Of course not!’

‘Why not?’

‘Because she’d say something to the school and then Penny would hate me even more.’

‘Have you told anyone?’

‘I’ve told Grace.’

‘And what did she say?’

‘She said that was a wrong thing to say and that if she said it again that I should just walk away. And I tried that, but they just follow me around and say it even more.’

‘But why would they say such a thing?’ said her dad. ‘I don’t understand.’

Melody shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Just because they don’t like me.’

‘Oh,’ scoffed her dad, ‘now that’s just silly. Of course they like you, everyone likes you.’

‘No, that’s not true. Only adults like me. All the kids hate me. They say I’m dirty and I smell and I live like a tramp.’

Her father’s face fell. ‘But, sweetheart – I mean, why would they … what sort of … is there anything wrong at home? Anything you’re not happy about?’

She shrugged again. ‘I don’t like it when Ken has his meetings.’

‘Meetings?’ He looked concerned.

‘Yes, when all the people come and talk about stuff and they all get loud and shout at each other. And I don’t like it when Seth cries in the middle of the night –’

‘Who’s Seth?’ Jacqui interrupted.

‘He’s Grace’s little boy. He cries a lot. But apart from that I like everything.’

Her father paused, licked his lips. ‘So, Mummy and Ken, are they still … friends?’

Melody nodded and chewed on a garlicky lettuce leave. ‘Yes, and they share a bed now because Ken wants to keep her close at hand.’

Jacqui and Dad threw each other a strange look.

‘You mean,’ said Melody’s dad, cautiously, ‘that they sleep together?’

‘Yes. In Ken’s room. Laura was sleeping in Ken’s room but she’s moved out now to live with a wizard, and Grace and Seth sleep with me in my room, in Mum’s bed, and Matty’s still got his own room because he said if anyone makes him move he’s packing a bag and heading for the hills.’

Melody stopped to catch her breath and glanced around the table. Jacqui, Charlotte and her dad were all staring at her in amazement and she got the distinct impression that she’d said some things they weren’t expecting to hear. They were, she suspected, strange things for a girl of six and a half to be talking about, but she’d had no one to talk to about things for so long and here she was, in paradise, bare skin warmed by humid, camellia-scented air, brand-new flip-flops licking the floor, a captive audience, a million miles from home. She wanted to make an impression on this glittering Hollywood Hills family, wanted to make them sit up and notice her. So she continued.

‘And Matty said that Ken’s no good, that all he wants is for women to make babies for him and clean him in the bath, but I know that that’s not true because he’s been so kind to us and Mum’s never made a baby for him or cleaned him in the bath. I think Matty’s just sad because Ken’s not his dad and he’s not allowed to see his dad because he drinks too much and he once put a man’s head through a pub window. I think if Matty just gave Ken a chance he’d see that he’s a good man. And if Penny ever came to my house she’d see that everyone is kind and good and no one is doing anything dirty at all. Except for when Matty goes hunting for rats with his harpoon that he made himself.’

She stopped again and smiled. ‘Sometimes he comes back with bloody hands,’ she finished.

‘Well,’ said her dad, ‘it sounds like you’re living a very colourful life.’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘And this Penny character sounds like a nasty piece of work.’

‘She is. I hate her too.’

‘Well, actually, I think you should feel sorry for her. It’s rather sad for a six-year-old girl –’

‘She’s seven.’

‘OK, a seven-year-old girl to have such thoughts, to think such things. She must come from a very unstable home.’

Melody nodded thoughtfully. She wasn’t sure what an unstable home might be like, but if her own brief experience of an unstable mother spending a night on the beach was any measure, it seemed to her it must be a thoroughly bad thing.

‘We saw Aunt Maggie a few weeks ago,’ she said. ‘We went on the train and went to their house.’

‘Oh,’ said her father, ‘Maggie. How is she?’

‘She seemed a bit sad. She said she’s having nightmares.’

‘Oh dear,’ he said.

‘But we had a really lovely time and Nicola gave me her painting and Mum seemed to be so happy when we got home. I think we’re going to go back again soon. And Nicola says we might even move back to London.’

‘You’d like that, would you?’

Melody nodded. ‘Yes, then I’d be near them and near you and I’d be able to see Emily every day!’

She turned to smile at her sister, who was attempting to slice up her bread with a plastic spoon. She squeezed her hand and nuzzled it against her lips. ‘Tomorrow,’ she said, feeling brave, ‘can we go to the place where you took Charlotte and Emily to have their picture taken and have one taken with me in it?’

Her father threw a look at Jacqui. ‘Oh, yes, well,’ he said, ‘I’m not sure about that. It was very expensive and you have to make a booking.’

‘But,’ Melody felt tears pricking her eyes, ‘it’s not fair that Charlotte has a lovely picture with Emily and I don’t have one. I’m her sister too.’

Her father smiled and put his hand on her shoulder. ‘Absolutely,’ he agreed. ‘You are absolutely right. Wait right there. I’ll be back in a tick.’

He came back two minutes later holding a large camera.

‘This,’ he said, ‘is a magic camera. Now, you go and stand next to Emily, that’s right. OK, now smile!’

Melody opened her mouth and pushed her teeth together and smiled as hard as she could. There was a pop and a flash and then a strange whirring noise and something emerged from the front of her father’s camera. He pulled it out and waved it back and forth.

‘There you go,’ he said a moment later, ‘it’s coming.’

She stared at the piece of shiny white paper in his hand and, as she watched, a ghostly image appeared, the luminescent outline of a small girl and a baby. Details surfaced one by one, the buttons on her shirt, the clip in Emily’s hair.

‘It’s us,’ she breathed.

‘That’s right,’ said her dad. ‘It’s called a Polaroid.’

She took it gently from his hand and watched the colours intensify. And there they were, Emily and Melody, almost identical with matching shy smiles and dark eyes. ‘Look,’ she said, showing the photo to Emily, ‘look. It’s us. You and I. Look.’

Emily glanced at the photo inquisitively and squeaked.

‘Can I keep it?’ said Melody.

‘Of course you can,’ said her dad. ‘It’s yours. To keep for ever.’

Melody smiled and propped it up against her tumbler on the table. It was, she decided, a truly magic photograph, in every way and a hundred times better than the stupid portrait outside Emily’s nursery.

Melody couldn’t sleep in her little room at the back end of the house. Cars kept zipping past on the road that ran past the driveway and there was an extra loud cicada right outside her window. After about half an hour she took her pillow and her Mexican blanket and climbed silently up the open-tread stairs to the first floor. She tiptoed down the parquet-floored landing until she got to the nursery and then she pushed open the door.

Emily was asleep in her cot, with her arms above her head, snoring gently. Melody stared at her for a moment or two, resisting the temptation to stroke her lovely cheek, before laying herself down on the floor by her cot and nestling under her blanket.

From here, all Melody could hear was the gentle lap of the swimming pool, the scratch of distant cicadas and the murmur of Jacqui and her father still chatting on the terrace. She was drifting peacefully off towards sleep when she was startled by the sound of her own name.

‘Melody’s only a child,’ she heard her father say. ‘She’s six years old. She doesn’t understand about sex, or manipulation.’

‘Oh, of course she does. I mean, she may not know exactly what sex is, but she knows when something’s right or wrong.’

‘How can you say that?’ snapped her father. ‘If that was the case then there’d be no sex abuse. All it takes is a smooth talker –’

‘Are you saying that you think she’s being sexually abused?’

‘No,’ he said impatiently, ‘I’m saying that she’s living in a house with sexually promiscuous people and a mother who hasn’t cared for her properly since she was four years old. I’m saying she’s
vulnerable
.’

‘Hmm …’ Jacqui acquiesced.

‘Imagine if it was Charlotte,’ he said. ‘Or Emily. Imagine if one of them was living miles away from you, with a depressive parent, in a house full of hippies and political activists, God knows who coming in and out of the house.’

‘Of course I’d be concerned,’ Jacqui said, gently. ‘But, John, you made this decision, you committed to us, to this family. You have to live with the consequences of that.’

‘No, Jacqui, I don’t. She can come here. Come and live with us.’

‘How, John, how? Do you honestly think Jane would let her go? And where would she sleep? She can’t sleep in the maid’s room for ever. I would actually like to put a maid in there at some point.’

‘She could share with Charlotte.’

‘
With Charlotte
! Are you kidding! Can you imagine what Charlotte would have to say about that?’

‘Well, then, with Emily?’

‘Hmm, maybe.’ Her tone softened again. ‘But what about school? I can just about stretch to Charlotte’s school fees. And I’m sorry, John, I’m incredibly fond of Melody, I really am, but she’s not my child. I will not have my own children going without to pay for your daughter’s education.’

‘So you can afford to pay for a maid, but not for my daughter’s school fees?’ said John in a raised voice.

‘Yes,’ snapped Jacqui, ‘a maid to clean my house and cook meals for my children and my boyfriend. A maid so that I don’t have to clean the whole house when I get back from fifteen hours on set. It’s not a luxury, you know, it’s a necessity.’

There was a brief silence then and Melody heard her father strike a match and breathe in on a cigarette. ‘Well,’ he said softly, ‘I’m up shit creek without a paddle then. Because I want my daughter to come and live with me but I haven’t got any means to support her. And if I go back to England to look after her I won’t be with you and Emily.’

Jacqui sighed. ‘That’s the long and short of it, yes.’

‘Fuck. What a fucking mess.’

‘Yup,’ said Jacqui. ‘That’s life for you.’

‘Poor Melody,’ he said. ‘My poor little Melody.’ And then he started to cry.

Melody sat up. She’d never heard her father cry before. It was a strange noise, a little like a dog snuffling and worrying at a bone.