Page 20 of Love Unlocked

The anger in Belinda’s voice, Melody has never heard it before, she doesn’t like it.

‘What did he do?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing? Where’s all this anger coming from? Did your feelings suddenly change on Thursday?’ Melody wants to dig into her theory a little more.

‘It may seem strange to you but he has always bugged me with his little ways but I always was able to put up with him. All of a sudden I just lost my patience. Why it happened on a Thursday is the least of my worries. Why do I have to keep putting up with things that irritate me, is the important question. It’s my life.’

If Belinda hadn’t broken up with Melody’s dad way back when, he certainly wouldn’t pass her sniff test now. Belinda had been a groupie in the Eighties. When she was sixteen she left school and moved to London to stalk rock bands. By all accounts she slept with most men she stalked and seemed to make a living travelling around as a girlfriend of one of them at different points. Until she’d gotten pregnant with Melody by Freddie Yates, from the band The Downers, who has the DNA of a rat and was as reliable as a chocolate teapot. By Belinda’s own admission he was not her favourite singer to have been stuck with. They’d become a legitimate couple for a time when Belinda was elevated from groupie to girlfriend. They travelled the world trying to be a young family, but sex, drugs and rock and roll weren’t for newborn babies and eventually Belinda returned to Ireland.

Freddie Yates continued to be Freddie Yates through the Eighties and Nineties, having hits in the charts, and though he is nowhere in the charts now, he is still touring and living the life of a lead ageing singer in a rock band. Although Melody lived with Freddie for a time in London when she was sixteen and trying to launch her career, she has no regular contact with him.

Now Belinda lives in a cottage in Waterford, and sometimes in a camper van with Derek on their adventures across Europe. She tends to her allotment, and wears Orla Kiely-esque patterned dresses and smocks with her long red hair which has only recently started to grey. After taking every drug under the sun in her early years she now is all about anti-inflammatory vegetables and healing herbs.

Derek, Belinda’s husband, couldn’t be any more different to Melody’s dad Freddie. To Melody, he was and is a nice man but boring. He tells long stories in a monotone, with no real punch line or moral. He likes Classic FM and angling. He plays bowls, does jigsaws, eats smelly cheese. He’s twelve years older than Belinda. He was old to Melody before he was old. He has all the same DNA as a cardboard box and is the most reliable person she knows. And yet even though Belinda and Derek married when she was fifteen, Melody never considered him her dad or called him ‘Dad’ or referred to him as her stepdad. He didn’t father her in a way that she felt fathered, but he was a stable, solid, dependable thing in their lives.

He’s Derek. He doesn’t have arguments, he might get vexed but would never storm out in huffs. He’s measured and pragmatic. All the things that she considered boring as a teenager, but that are to be celebrated now. Their separation rocks her. She’s too old to be upset about Mummy and Daddy breaking up. She’s thirty-eight years old, she’s anti-romantic. She doesn’t believe in monogamy or forever loves or soul mates; their break-up merely proves her point. And yet. There are many benefits to cardboard boxes. They are long-term and stable, they’re secure and preserve contents for long periods. They are an excellent, under-celebrated container.

‘Where is he staying?’

‘I don’t know and I don’t care. And it’s wonderful. I feel free, or at least I will when I get rid of the rest of his things. It’s like ivy growing around the house, strangling me.’

‘Mum, this is kind of cruel.’

‘Oh, stop it, do I ever judge you?’

No, she never has. Even with all the Sam drama and the family involvement that ensued, she fully supported Melody, quiet strong support, not because she felt her daughter was doing the right thing but because she was there for her for whatever decision she wanted to make.

Melody’s heart still breaks for Derek who, squeaky old Tin Man character as he is, surely has a heart and needs support.

‘Can I come and stay with you?’

‘I’m sorry, love, the house is upside down. You can’t even see the spare bed.’

‘I’ll stay in your bed then.’

‘Melody,’ she sighs. ‘I love you, I really do. But now I just need to take care of myself.’

Shocked, Melody has never heard those words from her mother’s mouth. She should be proud. And she would be if her mother’s sudden newfound self-care didn’t affect her.

‘Sure, okay,’ she says, understandingly, even though she is internally already beginning to panic. ‘I’m sure I can figure something out. I can find someone.’

‘Or just don’t.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t find someone. Melody, you chose to be alone, so figure out how to be alone.’

9

AL

When Al was a child growing up in Moate, County Westmeath, his dad was a quiet man who never seemed to make a decision one way or another, as if a family conversation didn’t apply to him. He was there but not there, a provider but not an engager. When his dad gave out, it was a kind of irritated, mumbled narration, a hum of unhappiness that largely went ignored. Whereas Al’s mother. She was present, in the trenches, sending dispatchers left, right and centre. When she lost her temper, it put the fear of god in them all and they all shut up and listened. Men shouted all the time; at football matches, watching it and while playing, in gyms, at school, and none of it scared him. But a woman – an angry woman – is a voice to be listened to. Alanis Morissette’s ‘You Oughta Know’ is today’s anthem. The only way for Al’s heart to be heard today is to jump on the bandwagon of a woman’s tortured heart. By god they’ll listen now.

He receives a look on the tram from another passenger and he immediately turns his music down. His iPhone is already about to explode with the amount of audio warnings. His heart might be broken but if he bursts his eardrums too then where will he be?

When he arrives at work, Natasha is in reception, her coat still on, standing at the lifts. He pushes his headphones back and allows them to sit around his neck, music blasting as if Alanis is live in the reception. He fumbles with his phone to turn the music down.