The Truth About Melody Browne by Lisa Jewell Read Free Book Online Page B

had a reaction, a sense of nostalgic yearning, as if she’d like to go there. And then Ken . She knew someone called Ken. Ken was someone important . She just couldn’t bring his face to mind. Neither his face nor, indeed, any other detail about him. Except now she had something – a crash helmet. She focused her thoughts on the crash helmet and suddenly she felt a tightness around her skull, a deafening blast of wind in her ears, a rush of adrenalin, a thrill of excitement. And then it was gone.
    She dropped two pound coins on the table and headed home, her lemonade untouched on the table, her head in turmoil.

Chapter 9
1977
     
    Nobody smiled in Melody’s house any more. Not properly. Sometimes, if Melody tried really hard to be funny, her mum might squeeze her lips together and stroke her hair, and her dad smiled quite a lot when they went out together, when it was just the two of them, but at home, under normal circumstances, life was very staid.
    They didn’t have parties any more and friends didn’t come over, not even for tea. But the strange thing was that nobody went around saying things that might make sense of the gloomy atmosphere, like, oh, I miss my dead baby, or, I wish Romany was here and not in that cold hole in the ground. Nobody talked about Romany, so Melody was left to conclude that they weren’t sad about Romany, but that they were sad about her. She tried as hard as she could to make up for whatever it was she’d done to make her parents so sad. She always put her plate in the sink after breakfast and tea, she never splashed in puddles in her school shoes and didn’t make a fuss when her mum brushed the knots out of her hair. But there were some things she couldn’t help, like falling over and laddering her tights, like spilling her milk, like sometimes getting cross when she had to go to bed.
    One day, about three months after baby Romany’s funeral, Melody got very cross about having to go to bed. It was a Friday night, there was no school the next day, and earlier in the afternoon her mum had said specifically, ‘You can stay up late tonight if you like, for being such a good girl.’
    But it seemed that Melody’s idea of late and her mother’s idea of late were incompatible, and even though she had only two more cats to colour in and said so really politely, her mum started shouting at her.
    ‘Why,’ she said, her eyes filled with tears, ‘can’t you just do what I ask you to do? Why?’
    ‘I am,’ began Melody. ‘I just –’
    ‘No “just”, Melody. No buts. Nothing. Please. I do not want to hear another word come out of your mouth. Not one!’
    ‘But –’
    ‘ No ! Enough! Get to bed now!’
    Sparkles appeared inside Melody’s eyes then, and a big feeling of red and black flooded her head and she screamed at the top of her voice, ‘I JUST WANT TO FINISH MY CATS!!!’
    But instead of screaming back, like she might have done in the past, her mother made a strange choking sound, ran from the room and slammed her bedroom door behind her.
    Melody and her father looked at each other. Then her father put down his newspaper, cleared his throat and knocked gently on the bedroom door. ‘Janie, it’s me.’
    When he had gone in, Melody rested her crayon on her play table and tiptoed towards her parents’ bedroom. She could hear them muttering urgently to each other.
    ‘She’s trying so hard not to annoy you, can’t you see that?’
    ‘I know she is, I know. She’s such a good girl. But I just can’t …’
    ‘What? What can’t you do?’
    ‘I can’t do it any more.’
    ‘Do what?’
    ‘This! Just – this! This life. This family.’
    ‘Janie, we need you. Melody needs you.’
    ‘Exactly. And I can’t take it any more. All the … all the caring . I don’t care any more, John, do you see? I just don’t care! I’ve lost the only thing that matters to me. I’ve lost my innocence.’
    ‘Jane, you’ve lost a baby. But you’ve still got another one. One who