Page 64 of Love Unlocked

Melody liked to get out and explore. She discovered she loved Camden. She was drawn to the vibrant energy and the eclectic mix of fashion, music and food. She could be whoever she wanted to be because no one knew who she was or cared. She found a group of friends through a son of Freddie’s music producer and the summer was wild and free and beautiful. For a while. After the first three weeks, Freddie announced that The Downers were going on tour to do summer music festivals and wouldn’t be back for three months. Muriel stayed at home because she had modelling work, but she planned to travel to be with him for days here and there. Melody realised, living with them, that the world was much smaller. A holiday with Belinda was once a year and a big deal. In Freddie and Muriel’s worlds they zipped back and forth from country to country, sometimes in one day. The world seemed more accessible to them and, because of that, it felt more accessible to Melody too. But then Muriel didn’t return from Zagreb where she had visited Freddie at a festival because they broke up, and instead returned to France to be with her family. Somebody, an assistant of sorts, arrived at the house to pack up her things and left. Melody never spoke to or saw Muriel ever again. And she was suddenly left alone at sixteen years old in the house.

This didn’t seem to occur to Freddie because, when he left, he left her in a house filled with adults. But as the adults trickled away, being sixteen years old in a house in London was an exciting but mostly terrifying thing.

Melody could make noodles and scrambled eggs, pasta and sauce, and she could microwave meals, but she didn’t know how to cook or how to do a supermarket shop. Freddie had left her money, but she felt it was easier to play being a grown-up when grown-ups were around; by yourself it wasn’t so easy.

She would hear noises in the house at night and would sit, terrified, downstairs on the couch, afraid to sleep. When she did sleep in her bedroom she left the door open and set traps from the front and back doors. She had her first panic attack on her first night alone. She spent two weeks alone in London, feeling like Kevin McAllister and not really immersing herself in the music culture as much as she’d like.

Then Freddie’s sister Deirdre arrived at the house like an angel. She had some errands to run in London and Freddie let her use the house as a base. She was surprised to find Melody there, alone, and furiously angry that Freddie had left her. Deirdre was Freddie’s oldest sister, no-nonsense, not at all interested in the music industry or her brother’s antics. Deirdre invited Melody to stay with her in Manchester, and when Deirdre returned home, Melody went with her. She lived with Deirdre until she turned eighteen. Deirdre swore like a sailor and smoked like a chimney and the house smelled of cigarette smoke and deep-fat frying but Melody adored her. From there Melody got on the path to becoming the celebrated DJ she eventually became, becoming professional at a young age, travelling to events and festivals around Europe and then when she was asked to host the Night Owl, the late night radio weekend dance slot, she moved back to Ireland, and met Sam, and stayed.

After she left his house, Freddie checked in with Melody from time to time. There was no pattern to it. He would forget birthdays and call on a random rainy Tuesday. It wasn’t a straightforward rejection. He was absent, but not always. She appreciated how effortless it was for him to float through life like a butterfly, no baggage, not weighed down by anyone. His house was a train station, no one ever had any intention of staying. They were using Freddie, and each other, to get to somewhere else. That cool summer of 2003 and the few years after were formative in that they gave her a work ethic, something she emulated from Freddie. She learned how to communicate with people, network, and work. She figured out how she loved being alone, and how she was afraid of being alone at the same time.

She never considered herself to be like Freddie. She has friends and colleagues all over the world who she remains connected to, because it’s part of her personality and because she has made a conscious effort not to be like him. The only time it crept into her head that she was like her dad was when she left Sam. The idea of commitment made her panic and she ran.

The one true love her dad has is music.

Just like her.

Melody watches Derek who’s sitting beside her concentrating on his jigsaw. Her mother’s wrong, it’s not irritating to watch nothing happen because so much and nothing is happening inside Derek at the same time.

Two thoughts occur: she has an extreme fondness for Derek that she never knew she had. And secondly, everybody naturally thinks she got into music because of her dad, but actually, it was because of Derek.

‘You finished?’ Derek asks, not looking up.

‘Yep.’

‘Fear of failure,’ Derek says, never one to sugar-coat anything, returning to the crux of Freddie Yates’s admission.

She thinks of all the things she quit. He might have a point, apart from one.

‘I didn’t leave Sam because I was afraid of the relationship failing.’ Melody is ready to fend off this accusation on all counts.

‘No. You left because you were afraid you would,’ he says.

And finally, he finds a puzzle piece that fits.

To Miss Grace Gifford,

6th Day of the Irish Republic, 29th April 1916, About Noon,

Somewhere in Moore Street.

My darling Grace,

This is just a little note to say I love you and to tell you that I did everything I could to arrange for us to meet and get married but that it was impossible. Except for that I have no regrets. We will meet soon. My other actions are as right as I could see and make them and I cannot wish them undone. You at any rate will not misjudge them. Give my love to my people and friends. Darling darling child I wish we were together. Love me always as I love you. For the rest all you do will please me. I told a few people that I wish you to have everything that belongs to me. This is my last wish so please do see to it.

Love Joe

Xxxxxx

Letter from Irish revolutionary, leader of the 1916 Easter Rising, Joseph Plunkett, to Grace Gifford, written from Moore Street during the Easter Rising, expressing his love for her and wishing her to have everything that belongs to him.

29 April 1916, five days before he was executed by a firing squad in Kilmainham Gaol.

27

AL

‘Missing You’ by John Waite, a soft-rock release from 1984, is about a heartbroken man thinking about his ex-girlfriend but who claims in the verse that he’s not missing her at all, which is a lie to himself. But as Al makes his way to work after his weekend away, physically tired but mentally rejuvenated, he hears the words in a different way. He loves the power of the chorus, the declaration that he’s not missing her. He ignores the lie, and listens only to the words. This is the message he allows to sink into his weary bones.