Page 59 of Love Unlocked

Well now it makes more sense. ‘Who?’

‘The third party is Belinda Crean. I forgot about her. So I’m taking care of her now.’

Belinda Crean is her own name. Melody can’t argue with that.

Side bar, but, ‘Why did you give me Dad’s surname?’

‘Because he was your dad. Correction, he is your dad, but that’s debatable, isn’t it? I would have also taken his name but he wouldn’t marry me.’

‘Didn’t or wouldn’t?’

‘Wouldn’t. I proposed!’ she says, laughing, biting a biscuit. ‘Did I never tell you this? We were in an Irish bar in Kaiserslautern, Germany, after a gig, and I proposed to him in front of everyone. The band, the crew, the girls.’

‘Were you drunk?’

‘No. High as a kite.’

‘Where was I?’

‘You were there, in the buggy. So technically he turned us both down. He didn’t want to be tied down. He was quite keen on a blonde named Daisy then, he used to see her when I was putting you down for the night. But it didn’t stop him marrying three times after that, did it? The thing about your dad was that there was never a disconnect. He liked to keep people hanging on.’

Melody freezes, wondering if that’s what she had done with Sam.

‘He didn’t leave me, technically I left, but he didn’t give me much choice. It was shortly after the failed proposal that I came back here and moved in with Nana, but as you know she and I were never the best of friends. I sometimes wondered if we were better off with him and his indifference, instead of her obvious disapproval. She was a complicated woman, tough as anything but fragile in many ways. She drank too much and it sent her doolally. We never saw eye to eye, she was incapable of agreeing with anyone but she had a tough life herself. But Nana was good to you.’

Melody remembers cigarette smoke and baking. She remembers watching ash fall from the cigarette hanging from Nana’s mouth and into the flour, and then searching for the ash in every bite of the baked apple tart.

The mood becomes sombre as Belinda thinks of her mother.

‘If she hadn’t been my mother I’d have had more compassion. Women like her come into the office every day and I help them, I don’t think I had a helpful word to say to Mum once. I think, Melody, the older you get, the more you admit truths about yourself because hiding things inside yourself kind of zips you up.’ She pulls up an imaginary zip from her crotch to her neck and she holds her hand around her neck as if she can’t breathe. ‘Now that Derek’s gone I can hear myself think, and I can say it out loud, without having to care about what he thinks of me.’

‘Do you think that the wild side of you is coming back?’

‘I don’t think wild is the right word. Free. We all should be free to please ourselves, shouldn’t we?’

‘Do you not think that you can have both, be yourself and be in a relationship?’

Belinda studies her, curious. ‘Are you reconsidering it?’

‘No.’ Yes, maybe. ‘It’s just that I gave that advice to this guy who came out of a relationship recently and thought it made sense. I almost believed myself.’

‘Yes, tell me about this guy, is this the one who kept you company on an alone night?’

‘It’s actually very funny how we met.’ Melody giggles. ‘I got stuck in the revolving door with my scooter at his office building. He was in one section of the door and I was in the other. We were separated by glass, which is how we first met.’

Belinda smiles. ‘That would be a nice story for the podcast. The meet-cute thing Prunella does.’

‘Oh, I quit the podcast.’ Her chest is tightening. This is what she came here for. She’s ready for her mother’s help now. She needs to unload this and be fixed.

Belinda barely reacts. ‘I see. And how is Sam?’

Melody isn’t sure if her mother heard what she said, but now that they’re on the issue, she needs to discuss Sam as well, so her mother can fix that too.

‘I think I wanted him to kiss me today. And I got fired from the food truck. Sam and Louise want to do it alone.’ She waits for the mum medicine.

‘Well that makes sense,’ she replies practically, unsurprised.

Does it?