Page 72 of Love Unlocked

‘Melody, oh my god,’ she says, bawling. ‘He heard us. He heard us on the doorbell.’

Mascara is running down her face. Her hair is wild, she’s wearing a vest and underwear, with an open silk robe. ‘The Ring doorbell picked up on our conversation from downstairs.’

‘I know, I know.’

Melody notices a large piece of glass on the shaggy rug beside her, then is conscious of the banging on the ceiling overhead as Jasper unleashes his rage on their bedroom.

‘Prunella, you have to move. It’s dangerous here.’

‘He won’t hurt me and I’m not leaving my kids. He can’t make me leave my kids.’

‘You don’t have to leave your kids but there’s glass, right there on the rug. You’re cut.’ She notices blood on her leg, Prunella has mistakenly rubbed against some shards.

Grateful for her boots, Melody crunches across the rug and reaches for her hand.

‘I’m not leaving.’

‘You don’t have to leave, just move from this rug. There’s glass everywhere.’

Jasper comes banging down the stairs with piles of clothes in his hands, Melody’s not sure how he can even see where he’s going and fears he’ll lose his footing and trip down the stairs. Anger guides him and he goes straight to the front door and throws the clothes outside. Some land on the steps, others, shoes, bounce on the path and onto the road.

‘Come on,’ she whispers urgently to Prunella, her heart pounding. ‘Get up. Move.’

Jasper swears and spins around, coming into the living room. He sees Melody trying to reach for Prunella.

‘This has nothing to do with you, I’m sure you’re a nice person, now please leave and take her with you.’

‘I’m not leaving my kids.’

‘GET OUT!’ he bellows and Melody closes her eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, hoarse, looking at Melody, ‘I’m sorry but you heard what she said earlier. About the other guy. About being in LOVE WITH HIM,’ he yells at her. ‘Who is he? Who is he?’

Prunella stares numbly at the ground.

The energy seems to leave him suddenly and he slumps. ‘I’m going to bed,’ he says, in a croaky voice, broken.

Melody moves towards the door, then looks back at Prunella. What a shambles, what an absolute shambles love is. Melody was afraid she couldn’t live up to the standards of people like Prunella and Jasper, with their public love, their shiny eyes and happy faces. All the photographs on every wall of the house, everyone ageing from wall to wall like a flicker book. But there is no failure. Everyone is trying, and trying again. Just like Derek and Belinda, Belinda and her dad. Al and, she can’t remember his fiancée’s name, and Al and Walter.

The cold damp night is filling the hallway. Melody shivers and goes outside. The ground is wet from recent rainfall. She starts picking up as many clothes as she can. A shoe has rolled under a parked car. It’s too dark to see it, too far to reach. Prunella had been worried about Melody’s clothes being destroyed in the flood and now her perfect wardrobe is scattered across the wet concrete. Melody pulls a silk blouse from a puddle, and brings the clothes into the house. She dumps them in the hallway. Prunella has started picking up the shards of glass. She cuts herself and drops the glass, sucking her finger. Melody goes to the kitchen, searches for a dustpan and brush and, together, they silently tidy.

‘Prunella,’ Melody says, exhausted. ‘I think it’s best if you leave with me. You can stay in my place.’

‘But you can’t go home. The flood in your apartment,’ Prunella reminds Melody of her earlier lie. ‘I’m staying here. I can sleep in the spare room with you. You don’t have to leave.’

‘I want to,’ she says simply.

In a surprising twist of events, Melody would very much not like Prunella’s company tonight. She would rather take her chances alone. It’s midnight; five hours to five a.m.

‘It will be different in the morning.’ Prunella speaks in a faraway voice as if she’s totally distanced from what is happening.

Melody is thirty-eight years old, she knows things are never as they seem, but she had held Prunella’s marriage up on a pedestal, a relationship the likes of which she could never achieve. The revelation that she and Jasper are human, and fallible, is like a bombshell discovery. And now so very obvious, and tiring. Another life illusion, shattered.

Melody had broken up with Sam but had tried to keep him in her life, telling herself it was for him, knowing it was partly for her. Doing so could have destroyed his marriage, it certainly destroyed their friendship.

She takes one last look around the house before closing the door. This is what happens when you want everything. When you want too much, you end up with nothing.

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AL