Page 79 of Love Unlocked

‘Ever put a love lock on a bridge, Mikey?’

Mikey gives him a shrivelling look that lets Al know where he stands on that, and slams another lock into a container without love, care or tenderness. Al grins. He knows how Mikey feels.

Al runs his eyes over the locks in the container by his feet. He picks them up and studies them. Names, dates, some quotes. Initials. Different information but they’re all pretty much the same. He drops them back into the container.

Two women cross the bridge and stop by Mikey to inquire about what they’re doing.

Mikey points at Al with his bolt cutter as if it’s a weapon, which it is, then gets back to work.

‘We’re protecting the bridge, doing some maintenance.’

‘What are you going to do with the locks?’ one asks, leaning over to look into the container.

‘Sending them to recycling.’

‘That’s a shame,’ one says. ‘All those people.’ They take a moment to read a few locks on the bridge, a respectful silence before the locks are taken away forever. Then between them they start reading some aloud, awwing and ahhing at the sentiments, laughing at the quirky ones. Al listens to them and then, when they’ve moved on, he looks again at the padlocks. Suddenly they’re not locks. They’re people. He wonders if he could find Natasha’s.

A press photographer arrives to cover the story. Wanting to avoid a photo, Al removes his high-vis jacket and moves closer to Mikey’s vehicle, allowing Mikey and the team to take centre stage. Mikey is not one for being centre stage. He barks at the photographer to hurry up.

‘Are you wallpapering your house with these photos?’

The photographer, finally satisfied and intimidated, leaves.

Al doesn’t have to stay here. He has given the instructions, overseen the plans to remove the locks, he should head back to the office. But he doesn’t want to be there, not with Walter there. Avoiding him has become energy-sucking. Or he could go to the house. Al and Tara are both at work, he could have time to get up to mischief, but his heart’s not in it today. Sabotaging the love locks on this bridge will have to be how he gets his kick today.

He takes a spare bolt cutter from the van and proceeds to clip the shackles of the padlocks, then drops them into one of the containers. It’s satisfying work and he gets lost in the flow of severing each lock and time passes easily, the most distracted from his personal problems than he has been in weeks.

When the containers get heavy, they transfer them to heavy-duty construction bags in the van. Al continues cutting and looking for Natasha’s lock, and lo and behold, front and centre of the bridge where he should have expected to find Natasha’s padlock, he finds it. A padlock with two linked red hearts, just as Natasha described with her initials NK, and PG. He’s about to cut into it with the bolt cutter but realises Natasha will break him if he damages it.

‘Hey, Mikey, do you know how to pick a lock?’

It takes Mikey ten seconds and the padlock is open. ‘Used to be a locksmith,’ he says, with a cheeky wink, dropping it into the palm of Al’s hand.

Al smiles, feeling pleased; he’ll give it to Natasha tomorrow. Even though he’s found her padlock, he wants to continue. There’s something therapeutic about removing the locks, about clearing the space. He clips a padlock and studies it before dropping it into the container. This one has a photograph of a baby on a key ring attached to the love lock. Another has a photograph of a family. He discovers a photograph of an older couple, the padlock with a tribute to them and their love. Married sixty years. The padlocks are a combination of all kinds of love, not just romantic.

He pockets the padlocks with the photographs, it doesn’t feel right to destroy them but soon his pockets become heavy with the weight of the locks he’s saving. Why should he choose who’s worthy to be saved and what does he know?

‘Hey, Mikey, do you still have that barn out the back of your land?’

Mikey grunts. ‘Yeah. Why?’

‘Mind if we keep the locks there? Until I figure out what to do with them?’

Back in his office, Natasha is staring him down, toned boxer’s arms folded across her chest. He knows he’s caught out.

‘Funny you should mention that, I was just about to deal with it now.’

‘Oh yeah?’ she asks disbelievingly.

Al crosses his office to his desk drawers. Natasha doesn’t have access to his personal drawers.

‘I was waiting for the right moment,’ he says, taking out the padlock with her initials and sliding the drawer closed. Not giving it to her was more out of fear than anything else. The longer he left it, the angrier he knew she would be. She was out sick on the Friday following the removal of the locks, and then the weekend came and went and when he returned to work on Monday she was crying about breaking up with Pedro. He didn’t think the timing was right to give her the lock. And then Melody arrived with her theory and he doubled down with Tony and everyone on the locks being melted down. He didn’t want Natasha to have any inkling that he had held onto the locks, which are currently in storage in Mikey’s barn, because he didn’t know what to do with them. He just knew that as angry as he was, as hurt as he was, as determined as he was to never love again, he wasn’t ready to destroy a symbol and celebration of the love of so many others.

He holds his closed fist out to Natasha, and opens his palm. She steps forward slowly, as if expecting a trick, preparing for something to jump out at her. Her fists are closed and ready to attack. She peers into his hand. He didn’t need to be worried about her anger. It melts right away from her.

‘Al!’ she gasps, fists dissolving and hands flying to her face.

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