by Lisa Jewell
Melody smiled and took her friend’s hand. ‘I’ve had quite a couple of weeks,’ she said. ‘Help me get this food unpacked and I’ll tell you all about it.’
The afternoon unfolded before Melody’s eyes like something out of a dream. The sun shone without a pause, the Champagne and beer flowed, and for once Melody wasn’t using Stacey and her family as a kind of prop. She had her own people here today. Ben, tall and handsome in his business suit, pared down in the hot afternoon sun to a pale blue shirt, unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up, smart suit trousers and bare feet; Emily, giggly with Champagne and the excitement of being somewhere she’d always dreamed of being, and Melody’s own, beautiful son, stripped to the waist and leaping high into the sky to reach for a Frisbee, his young body taut and furled, ready to take on the world.
She saw Pete gently cup his wife’s tiny stomach while Cleo and her boyfriend sat entwined beneath a tree, sharing a bowl of strawberries. Clover was being spun in circles by her big brother, Charlie, and Ed’s friends from school, kids she’d been serving beans and chips to every day since they were eleven, hung around in little groups, tucking into the buffet that Melody had provided, drinking beer from bottlenecks and flirting with each other.
Behind a tree, hidden from view, Melody and Stacey lit the candles on a huge chocolate cake, made by Stacey and Cleo, and brought it out to a chorus of ‘Happy Birthday To You’. Melody stared in awe at her son’s face as he blew out the eighteen candles. She thought of that face over the years – three years old, five years old, ten years old – those same cheeks filled with air, that same look of concentration, that same beautiful profile that had once made her think only of his estranged father and now made her think of a man called John Ribblesdale and a woman called Jane Newsome and she felt even prouder than she had before.
The cake was divided into large blocks and passed around on paper plates. Ben sat down next to Melody and draped his arm across her shoulder. She liked it there, and gently pushed her body closer to his. Across the blanket, she could see Ed talking to Tiffany Baxter, the object of his affections. How much more he had to offer her now, she thought – not just a mother, but a mother with roots, a mother on the brink of something new and wonderful, a real family.
Emily sat down next to her and Ben, and crossed her legs. It amazed Melody to think that for Emily it was completely normal that Melody should be sitting here with a man, that to Emily, Melody having a man in her life was unremarkable and entirely to be expected.
‘Wow,’ Emily said, looking around her, ‘I really love your world!’
And that was it, thought Melody, that was exactly it, succinctly and completely. Melody had always loved her son, always loved her friends and her flat, but until this exact moment, she had never loved her world. And more importantly, until the doors to her memory had been unlocked two weeks ago by an over-tanned prat in a mohair suit, she had never really loved herself.
Melody brought her other arm around her sister and sat there for a while, safe, and happy, full of Champagne, chocolate cake and hope for the future.
Melody Browne is Dead! she thought to herself. Long Live Melody Ribblesdale!
Epilogue
August Now
The taxi driver refused to take his car up the potholed dirt path that led to the farmhouse, and dumped Melody and her rucksack on the side of the road. She gave him a tip anyway, primed as she was to give everyone she met at every juncture of her first trip abroad a tip, just to be on the safe side.
She eyed the road ahead warily. It didn’t seem possible that there could be a house up there, with people living in it, but this was definitely the right place, unless there was another dirt track next to a wind farm with a sign outside saying ‘El Durado’. She slung her rucksack over her shoulder and started to walk, the afternoon sun burning overhead like a ball of fire, sweat trickling down her spine and dampening the underarms of her T-shirt.
The rucksack was Ben’s. It was scuffed and weathered and festooned with old airline tags. Ben’s rucksack was more widely travelled than Melody. He’d seen her off at the airport at five forty this morning, bleary-eyed and full of sleep, but insistent. ‘I want to see you go,’ he’d said. ‘I want to watch you so I know what it looked like when you finally found your wings.’
She walked for over five minutes, until she was thoroughly convinced that she was in completely the wrong place and that she would die out here, of heat exhaustion and dehydration, her body ultimately stripped of its flesh by the vultures that circled overhead, her bones left to bleach in the harsh Spanish sun. But just as she was starting to panic, a vista appeared on the horizon, a set of rustic, low-rise buildings, a cluster of fig trees, a vine-draped footpath, a line of washing, three small white goats, clustered around a metal tin, a white camper van, a moped and there, to the left of it, an aged, rusted motorbike with a sidecar. Her heart leaped in her chest. This was definitely the right place.
A woman smiled at her as she saw her approaching. She was about Melody’s age, dark-haired and very thin, wearing loose jeans and a floral camisole top. ‘Hola,’ she called.
‘Hola!’ said Melody. ‘Hello! Do you speak English?’
‘Yes,’ smiled the woman. ‘I speak perfect English. My name is Beatriz. Can I help you?’
‘Yes, I’m, um, I’m looking for Ken? Ken Stone. Is he here?’
‘Ken, yes, he is here. Who are you?’ she asked this in a friendly tone of voice.
‘Oh, I’m Melody, I’m an old friend, I’m kind of a … surprise.’
A small girl with dark hair and wide blue eyes appeared from behind Beatriz’s legs and eyed Melody curiously. ‘Hello!’ said Melody, ‘I mean – hola!’
The little girl blinked at her and then ran back into the house. ‘That’s Daria. She’s a bit shy. Come in. Follow me.’
Melody followed Beatriz into the house. She’d been expecting it to be basic, from what Grace and Seth had told her, but was still surprised by the lack of modern living on display inside the home. The kitchen consisted of three walls of open shelving, an old gas hob and a butler’s sink. The floor was bare concrete covered over in places with threadbare rush matting. Two more small children sat at an old table in the middle of the kitchen, eating oranges and reading a comic. But it was cool in here, and smelled good, of roasting meat and orange zest.
Beatriz led Melody through the house and out the other side, down a footpath lined with orange trees and sun-bleached old garden furniture. At the other end of the path was a smaller building and outside this house, sitting astride a stool and combing the thick hair of the biggest dog that Melody had ever seen in her life was a tall, slim man with long hair and a kind, beaten-up face. He looked up at the sound of their footsteps and squinted.
‘Hola!’ he called.
‘Hello,’ said Melody, smiling.
He got off his stool and walked a few paces towards them, his face still scrunched up in concentration, as he tried to place her face. ‘I know you,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Melody, ‘you do.’
‘Oh my God,’ he said, his blue eyes starting to shine with tears. ‘It is, isn’t it? It’s you.’
‘That depends,’ said Melody, ‘on who you think I am.’
‘Melody! It’s Melody. Oh my God!’ He ran towards her and held her before him by the arms, his eyes taking in the details of her face. ‘I knew it!’ he said. ‘I knew you’d come. I dreamed about you last week. I dreamed that you and I met on a boat, by chance, that you had twelve children and that you’d dyed your hair blonde! You don’t, do you,’ he said, ‘have twelve children?’
She laughed. ‘No. Just one. And I’ve never dyed my hair blonde.’
‘This is just – wow – like something out of a novel. This is the most perfect moment. Beatriz!’ He pulled the dark-haired woman towards them. ‘This is Melody. Remember, I told you about her, the little girl who used to live with me when I lived by the sea, the little girl I tried to adopt. This is her! This is her! She came!’
Melody smiled at Beatriz, and then at Ken, and as she looked at him she felt something warm wrapping itself around her heart. She’d been worried that the real Ken wouldn’t live up to the Ken of her memory, that he’d be just a sad old man, a man whose life had been a failure, the man that Matthew had warned her about. But he wasn’t, she knew that already. He was everything that she remembered and everything she’d hoped. She put out her arms and he entered them.
Her story was complete.
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