The Truth About Melody Browne (28 page)

Aunt Susie put a clammy hand on her shoulder and said, ‘Shall we ring the doorbell?’

The door was opened by a lady with soft blonde hair teased into the shape of a tulip, wearing a fawn cardigan, a fawn skirt, fawn tights and fawn loafers, with a string of creamy pearls around her neck. She ushered the visitors through the porch and into the house, kissing Aunt Susie twice, once on each cheek, and then leaning down to address Melody.

‘Hello, Melody.’ Her voice was tiny, like a small girl’s. ‘I’m Gloria. It’s very nice to meet you.’

Melody smiled, not sure what to say.

‘How was the drive?’ Gloria addressed Aunt Susie.

‘Oh, fine, fine. Lovely day, isn’t it?’

It was a fine day, warm and spring-like with a softness in the air that felt like summer. It was the sort of day that made Melody want to put on a pair of sandals and run down to the beach with a bucket and a spade, and tuck her skirt into her knickers for a paddle. But there would be no paddling and sandcastles today, because today she’d said goodbye to Broadstairs. Canterbury was only a few miles away but as far as Melody was concerned, she may as well have been in Timbuktu.

‘Thank you so much, Gloria,’ Susie said to the lady in fawn, ‘such short notice. I really do appreciate it. But it’s not safe for her, not any more.’

‘Of course not, no, I totally understand.’ Gloria looked down at Melody and smiled fondly. ‘You’ll be much safer here. We’ll make sure of that.’

She ushered her into a neat living room furnished with two floral sofas and a blue Dralon wing chair. On the table in the middle of the room were three plates. One bore eight triangular egg and cress sandwiches with the crusts cut off, one a quintet of coconut macaroons, and the third, a small coffee and walnut cake with a silver cake slice resting next to it. A tall thin man with ash-coloured hair, thin and lovingly swept across the top of his otherwise hairless skull, emerged from the kitchen as they entered the room, holding a tray upon which was balanced a teapot in a quilted cosy decorated with illustrations of small English birds, four cups and saucers, a bowl of sugar lumps, a small jug of milk and a pile of incredibly shiny teaspoons.

‘Hello there!’ said the man, setting down the tray and smiling warmly at Melody. ‘You must be Melody.’

Melody nodded.

‘I’m Clive.’ He offered her a large dry hand to shake. ‘Very nice to meet you. I hear you’ve been having a rum old time of it.’

Melody shrugged and slipped her hands underneath her legs.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s nice and quiet here, nothing untoward likely to happen round here. Now, can I pour anyone a cup of tea?’

Melody gazed around the room. It was a bit like Auntie Susie’s house inasmuch as it was quiet enough to hear a clock ticking, but nicer than her house because they had pretty paintings on the walls, and things that looked like antiques, and their curtains were thick and snug-looking and you could tell that they had lots of visitors, unlike Auntie Susie, who never had any and didn’t even own a teapot.

‘So, Melody,’ said Gloria, smoothing out her fawn skirt, ‘I’ve phoned the local school this morning and as chance would have it they’ve got a space free for you, so this afternoon we’ll head into town and get you a uniform. You can start tomorrow morning. That’s good, isn’t it?’

Melody nodded stiffly and smiled. It was only for a few weeks, and the prospect of attending a school that didn’t have Penny in it was almost worth being taken away from Broadstairs for.

‘And your aunt Susan tells us that you like crafts, so I’ve registered you for some arts and crafts lessons in the local church hall, and, if you thought you might enjoy it, we could even arrange for you to join the Brownies. I’m a Brown Owl for the local Girl Guides, so I’m a bit of an expert.’ She paused and smiled again. She seemed somewhat out of breath, as if she’d had to do everything in a terrible hurry. ‘Would you like to see your bedroom?’ She nodded and shook her head simultaneously, then giggled nervously. It was almost as if she had something wrong with her and couldn’t stop talking. ‘Maybe later,’ she replied to her own question, almost immediately. ‘Anyway, I think it’s all going to work out very well.’ She turned to her husband, and gripped his hand, quite tightly. ‘Don’t you, Clive?’

Clive nodded and slipped his arm around Gloria’s shoulders, a gesture that Melody found immediately reassuring. ‘I do indeed. Just what this house needs, a child. Will do us all no end of good. Oh, and the house next door – two girls, ten and eleven. Someone for you to play with.’

All three adults turned and smiled at Melody, and she knew she was expected to say something, preferably whilst sounding grateful, but it was hard, because she wasn’t really grateful because she didn’t mind about people posting poo through the letterbox or painting rude words on her house – well, not nearly as much as she minded being here in a strange house miles away from Ken, from all that was left in her world that was familiar.

‘Thank you,’ she said, eventually, ‘thank you for having me.’

All three adults smiled at her, their faces softening with relief, obviously thinking that despite her reticence, she was happy to be here.

‘It’s a pleasure to have you,’ said Clive expansively, ‘a real pleasure. And don’t worry – we’ll make sure nothing bad happens to you, nothing at all.’

Melody smiled tightly and pressed her fingers into her thighs, thinking that really, it was a bit late for that.

Aunt Susie stayed at Clive and Gloria’s house for about three days and then headed back to her house in Broadstairs, slightly tearfully.

‘You be a good girl,’ she said, ruffling Melody’s hair with her big doughy hand. ‘I know you will be, because you always are. And I’ll send for you when I think it’s safe again. When those terrible people have found something more interesting to worry about than an innocent seven-year-old girl. It’s only for a little while, just a few weeks.’ She pulled a grubby handkerchief from the sleeve of her voluminous dress and blew her nose into it, slightly too noisily. ‘You’re a lovely, lovely girl, Melody Ribblesdale. I shall miss you.’

Melody took her arms from around Susie’s squashy waist and let her kiss her awkwardly on the cheek, a tiny hint of sharpness around her lips suggesting whiskery stubble. ‘I’ll see you really soon,’ said Melody, ‘really, really, really soon.’

Susie nodded and wiped a tear away with her old handkerchief. ‘You most certainly will,’ she said. ‘Now in you go; let me say goodbye to Clive and Gloria.’

Melody stood by the front door, listening as the grown-ups chatted in low serious tones on the front path.

‘I’m sure it’ll be fine,’ she heard Susie saying. ‘The doctor says it’s very common, particularly in people of a larger frame, and all the drama, all the stress, it doesn’t help. A few days’ peace and quiet and I’ll be fit as a fiddle.’

‘You know, you can stay as long as you like. There’s no need for you to rush off, we’ve plenty of room.’

‘No, I need to be at home. I need my creature comforts. You know what it’s like. But thank you, thank you so much, for everything. I’m sure Melody will be no trouble at all. She’s a very good girl, really she is.’

Melody lifted the heavy curtain in the front room when she heard the engine of Aunt Susie’s car starting up a moment later. She watched Aunt Susie struggling to look over her shoulder, the girth of her neck offering little in the way of flexibility to her movements. And then she watched as Aunt Susie reversed her car out of the driveway, found first gear with some difficulty, and then drove slowly and circumspectly out of the cul-de-sac and back towards the sea.

Melody liked it at Clive and Gloria’s house. Gloria made sure she was busy all the time, ferrying her in her fragrant Fiat Panda across the pretty city of Canterbury, with its spires and ancient fat-bricked walls, between school and dance classes and Brownies and friends’ houses for tea. In many ways it felt to Melody as though Gloria had been waiting all her life to have a little girl living with her.

She seemed to be so good at it. And Clive was so much fun. He was always doing silly things to make her laugh, and offering to go out in the garden with her to throw a ball around or play Swingball. He was springy and scampery, like a playful Lurcher, always wanting fresh air and activity. It amazed Melody that Gloria and Clive had no children of their own.

‘Why don’t you have any kids?’ she asked one afternoon while she and Gloria were in the kitchen, painting hard-boiled eggs for Easter.

‘Ah,’ said Gloria, in her little-girl voice. She was wearing an apron with sprigs of cherry blossom printed on it and frills around the edges. ‘Not everyone can have children, unfortunately.’

‘Why not?’ Melody asked, painting in the petals of a tiny daisy.

‘Well, it’s to do with biology.’ Gloria stopped and dried her hands absent-mindedly on the crisp cotton of her fancy apron. ‘Do you know about biology?’

‘I know about things that grow in Petri dishes, and bacteria and things.’

‘Well, this is more like
human
biology. To do with our insides, our bodies, and how they work, and the thing is that I have something wrong with my biology, I don’t make the right …
things
, the things that ladies need to make babies …’

‘You mean, like, eggs?’

Gloria looked at her in surprise. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘Like eggs. My body stopped making eggs a bit early and by the time I met Clive, they’d all gone. So that’s that, no babies for us.’

‘Are you sad about that?’

Gloria smiled, but only with her mouth. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’m very sad about that. Now,’ she continued briskly, pulling a second pan of hard-boiled eggs from the kitchen sink where they’d been cooling, ‘what shall we paint on these ones? I think happy faces, don’t you? Yes, lots and lots of lovely happy faces.’

Melody stared at Gloria, at her tiny waist and wispy hair, and thought about the inside of her body, her
biology
, and the poor empty spaces inside her that should have eggs in them, the poor empty spaces in her house that should have been filled with children, and then she thought about her dead baby sister, Romany, she thought about the baby her mother had stolen to satisfy her own strange emptiness and she thought about the sister in America she might never see again, and thought that really, when it came down to it, babies were nothing but trouble.

When she had been at Clive and Gloria’s house for just over two weeks, Ken came to see her. He arrived on his motorbike, wearing his big scratchy coat and a scarf that looked like a tea towel. When he took his crash helmet off, Melody could see that he’d grown a beard, not a normal one that covered his whole chin but a pointy sort of one that sat just on the very tip.

She hugged him to her, as tight as she could, and breathed in the smell of him, the slightly damp, slightly musty, slightly herbal smell of home.

‘This is Ken,’ she said, introducing her friend to Clive and Gloria.

‘Nice to meet you, Ken,’ replied Clive, while Gloria smiled primly, her small hands folded neatly in her lap.

Ken looked strange sitting in this house, in his old clothes with his straggly hair and his faded tattoos. The flowers on the Brownes’ sofas seemed almost to be recoiling in horror. Ken had suggested taking Melody for a ride into town and a glass of lemonade, but Gloria had vetoed that, on the grounds that it was ‘a bit chilly’ and that Melody already had ‘a bit of a sniffle’, so they sat in the pretty front room, sharing a plate of digestive biscuits and a pot of tea, shuffling around the edges of a hundred awkward conversations.

‘So, Ken, what do you do?’

Ken put his tiny teacup down with a rattle. ‘Well, this and that, really. I suppose you might call me an agent for change.’

Clive raised his eyebrows and leaned forward. ‘An agent for change? Sorry, you’ll have to enlighten me.’

‘Well, in my younger days I was an activist, a crusader, you know, trying to change the way the world is run, trying to make it a better place for my kids, you know, so it was all marching around with flipping great placards and hassling politicians, but these days, well, I’ve mellowed, you could say. These days I’m more …
subtle
. A well-placed letter in a newspaper, a few intelligent, well-worded pamphlets
slipped
,’ he mimed posting a letter, ‘through the right front doors. I’m too old for charging around the place screaming at people.’ He smiled and picked up his teacup again. ‘Drip drip effect,’ he said, and winked.

‘And you live in a squat, is that right?’

‘Well, yes, you could call it a squat, or you could call it an empty house lovingly occupied by decent, respectful humans.’ He said this much as he said everything, in such a charming tone of voice that no one, not even the slightly uptight Gloria, could possibly take offence. ‘But not for much longer …’ He turned and picked up Melody’s hand. ‘Bad news about the house,’ he said, his grey eyes looking sad and watery. ‘The owner’s copped it and it’s been left to some distant great-nephew who wants to sell it. He’s got a court order on us, we’ve got to be out by the weekend.’

Melody went stiff. ‘What,’ she said, ‘you mean all of you? You mean Grace and Matty and Seth and Kate and Michael and –’ She was going to say ‘Mum and me’, but stopped herself just in time.

‘Yes, sad to say, but yes. It’s all over.’

Melody dug her fingernails into her kneecaps, really hard. She wanted to scream. She wanted to break something. She wanted to scratch her own eyes out. It was all over.
It was all over
. No Ken, no Grace, no Matty, no Seth. She pushed her fingernails into her flesh until the pain turned numb and then she looked up. ‘But where will you go?’ she managed to utter, in a voice so small that she wasn’t sure if she’d actually said it or not.