Page 71 of Love Unlocked

‘You had a love lock on the bridge with someone else?’

She nods.

‘And you’ve broken up with that person?’

She cries.

‘Is it … Ed?’

‘No way!’ Prunella yells, then actually smiles, realising it’s a joke intended to lighten the moment.

‘Who is it?’ Melody whispers, even though nobody is around.

‘I’m not telling you that,’ she says, wiping the tears from her cheeks. ‘But I loved him very much. I still love him.’

Whoa. ‘Did you end it?’

Prunella shakes her head. She holds her hand over her heart as she quietly cries again. Melody feels her pain; it’s real. ‘He did. Just out of the blue. The same way it happened to everybody else.’

‘Does Jasper know about him?’

She shakes her head again and the tears fade immediately as she straightens up, game face back on. ‘He would kill me. Jasper travels, I’m alone a lot, so,’ she shrugs. ‘Everything was perfect one moment, it was bliss, then the locks were removed from the bridge and then it was over. He broke it off just like that. And I can’t accept it. He’s not taking my calls, he won’t meet with me. All he said was that he knew what we were doing was wrong but he didn’t care. And all of a sudden his conscience got to him.’

‘So he grew a conscience.’ Melody tries to figure out if there’s a pattern emerging other than sudden splits.

‘I want him back, Melody, I want this love lock thing to work so we can get back together again.’

‘You want to leave Jasper?’

‘No, I love Jasper.’

Melody is confused.

‘I want them both.’ She laughs. ‘The expression on your face, Melody. Honestly, you think love and relationships are these great big puzzling things that people other than you can do, you haven’t realised that nobody can do them? Or that everybody makes up their own rules.’ She leans in and taps the ash from her cigarette. ‘I want everything to return to the way it was. I want it to be the way it was before the locks were removed. I want everything.’ A smile plays on the corners of her lips. ‘I have always wanted everything. It’s just the way I am.’

Melody sinks into the bed in Prunella’s spare room for the night with delight. It feels like she’s sleeping on a cloud in a hotel room. She’s on the top floor where the servants historically lived and the view over the chimney tops is one she could watch for hours. The streets are quiet now but tomorrow morning will be filled with traffic and commuters.

A little before midnight, while Melody is scrolling through her DMs and emails to see if there’s a connection between all the break-ups, in her enormous marshmallow bed, screams and shouts spring from downstairs. At first she thinks they’re under attack and she scrambles from her bed, pulling on her jeans and sweater, pushing her feet into her boots. With trembling fingers, she puts her phone in her bag and the few belongings she has with her, thinking that the moment she has feared for so very long has come. Disaster in the night. Abductors, attackers, rapists, whoever they are, are here, and she’s not even alone, she’s in a safe house with a sleeping family. Her bedroom door is already open of course and as she starts to wake up properly she hears Prunella shrieking and a man bellowing dangerously at the top of his lungs.

‘Jasper! Stop it! The children!’

‘I heard you, Prunella, I was at the airport on my phone and I heard you on the BLOODY RING DOORBELL. WHO IS HE?’

Jasper and Prunella are on the ground floor, he has returned from his business trip in a rage after hearing whatever he heard on the Ring doorbell. Melody recalls their conversation outside in the basement garden. Just above them was the front door. Prunella had confessed to her affair and he had heard it all.

Something smashes downstairs. Melody’s heart skips a beat, then races.

A door opens beside her and the childminder steps out, sleepy-headed, dishevelled hair, wrapped in a robe, eyes tired and confused. They share a look of concern.

‘I’ll sleep with the girls,’ she whispers, going downstairs to their bedroom.

Melody makes her way downstairs, hesitantly. The front door is open and Jasper is standing at it, throwing things down the stairs onto the path outside. Prunella is shouting at him to stop, her voice hoarse.

Jasper turns around and runs upstairs towards Melody. He clocks her, his eyes dark, his pupils enlarged. Melody freezes on the stairs, then flattens herself against the wall.

He charges past her. ‘Thank you for your enlightening conversation with my wife. The only one I’ve managed to listen to the end of.’

Melody hurries downstairs, runs through the rooms to find Prunella, who is on the floor in the living room.