Page 8 of Love Unlocked

He instinctively walks in the direction of the house he shared with Tara. He still has the key. He gave them back his key, but he held onto the spare. He’d found the house, he’d convinced her. They’d viewed it together. Drawn down the thirty-year mortgage together. They’d had long-term plans, she thought she’d love him for that long at least. Just fell short of twenty-seven years. It had been the house of his dreams, and he’d been thrown out.

The key slipping in the door is familiar and feeds his longing. He steps inside and the smell of home hits him and twists his gut. Upstairs on their bed he lies down on the mountain of cushions that decorate the immaculately made bed and it’s there that he cries like no one is watching, like no one is listening.

Tara was always at him for not arranging the cushions in the right way, as though they were pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that could only slot together one way. He recalls on more than one occasion spending an unnatural amount of time arranging them this way and that, four square pillows, two in a diamond shape and two oblong. She’d look at the apparent sorry pile of pillows and roll her eyes, then she’d swap two pillows around, turn one upside down, tutting as she went.

Tara was house-proud and that’s okay, so was Al. He cared about every single new item they’d bought for their home. He enjoyed Saturday afternoons in home furniture stores. He noticed when she added a new candle here, or a side table there. He filled the house with indoor plants. He enjoyed their discussions about what to put where, paint or wallpaper, tiles or wooden floors. Instagram knew so much about him, kitchens and fences would pop up on his feed. Every inch of this house and renovated kitchen had lived first in his head. Al had cared. They were building their future and he wanted to have a hand in it.

His relationship hadn’t just ended, he had been thrown out of his home.

He lies on the bed, conscious that the cushions are shifting beneath him. Where Tara and Walter now sleep. He turns to sniff the pillow to see if it smells of Walter.

Al and Tara had a healthy sex life; he’d always cared about her, paid attention. There are parts of the house that remind Al of their lovemaking: the stairs; a few times she’d sat there and waited for him to come home, once naked, twice in lingerie. When Walter was out or away of course. Then there was the couch. Cosy nights, hungover afternoons, spooning, her bum backed right into him.

The bed didn’t make him think of them making love. Their bed was more intimate than that, it was where he and Tara stripped down and out of their human possessions and slept side by side. Where they dreamed together. They used to fall asleep holding hands, or toes touching. Snuggling made them hot, but they would reach out to each other in some way, feelers and tentacles inching out throughout the night for comfort, to know they weren’t alone. Bodies together, heads in other dimensions. And then the whispered conversations in the dark, the pillow talk of secret revelations. The shared fears, promises, assurances, confessions. The bed had meant more to him than sex. It was where they shared their souls.

And now it smells of Walter.

Al sits up, not bothering to fix the cushions, and walks to what used to be his underwear drawer. It’s filled with Walter’s.

He takes Walter’s boxer shorts out and one by one cuts holes where his ball sack would sit, and puts them back in the drawer. He stuffs the excess fabric in his pocket and returns the scissors to the bathroom.

Then Al leaves, blaring ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ all the way back to his office, his eyes stinging, his chest aching so hard he thinks he’s having a heart attack.

6

Melody

Sam’s wife, Louise, drops the tabloid newspaper down on the kitchen table like a criminal lawyer in a murder trial materialising surprise evidence. There’s no triumph, her eyes are sad and hurt. Sam clears his throat nervously, as if he’s on trial. Melody can’t, won’t meet his eye.

The tabloid article reads DJ Melody’s Wedding Heartbreak along with a very cringey photograph of her looking forlorn, with not many clothes on from when she was DJing at a festival in Ibiza. It was taken on a beach, where everyone was dressed in bikinis, but isn’t the look she wants on page three of a tabloid.

‘I’m sorry,’ Melody says mortified. ‘I’m really, really sorry. I didn’t think that it would be picked up like that. I didn’t think the story would be picked up on at all.’

‘Melody,’ Louise says, as forcefully as her gentleness allows. ‘Your podcast has been number one on the charts every week, since it was launched. Whatever you think about yourself you’ve got to understand that you’re successful now, you’re famous—’

‘I’m not famous—’

‘I’m not complimenting you. I’m telling you the facts. What you say about your life on the podcast is none of my business but when it’s about Sam, it affects me and Faith.’

Melody winces at that, and looks to baby Faith who’s asleep nearby. Letting Faith down was never her intention, she adores the little girl.

‘I’m sorry.’ Again. ‘I’m usually so private. My radio show, gigs and music festivals are always about the music, never about me personally. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the type of show we have and the conversations. Prunella is very at home with sharing things about herself and there’s a certain expectation …’

She stops. Louise’s face tells her she doesn’t care about Melody’s personal woes right now. Sam’s face shows that he does, but Sam has that kind of face. He will probably look young forever, a teenage old man. She loved hugging him. He made her feel safe. He’s wearing a Pokémon T-shirt, from his vast T-shirt collection. There’s stubble on his chin and jaw, there are bags below his eyes, he has looked like this since Faith was born. And with the tiredness, the added sparkle and joy in his eyes. She has never seen him look so happy. Until this moment of course.

‘I told Ed, our producer, to edit out the personal aspects, which he did.’

Louise’s eyes are wide. ‘You mean there was more? You said more than this?’

‘Prunella asked why we didn’t get married, and I didn’t get into it.’ Melody shakes her head. ‘I wanted to focus on the food truck business, not the relationship.’

‘You shouldn’t have mentioned it at all,’ Louise says.

‘Sorry.’ Again. Melody shuts up and gets the message. There is nothing she can say right now that will be good enough.

Louise, who is never cruel, now feels bad. ‘Maybe Prunella knows someone who can give you media lessons.’

Ouch.