the cheek, stood up and walked away, her shoes making no sound at all against the thick, spongy carpet, a smudge of coral lipstick on Melody’s cheek and the smell of l’Air du Temps the only evidence that she’d ever been there.
Chapter 16
Now
Melody walked past the house on Goodge Place a total of eight times over the next two days. Each time she remembered something new. A large, bearded man in a tiny sports car; the girl, Charlotte, in oversized sunglasses carrying a dozen carrier bags; herself and Charlotte’s mother, silhouetted side by side in the small dormer window in the eaves of the house, the smell of sweet perfume; a Girls’ World; patchwork jeans; a lime hairband and more significantly than any of that, a room with a cot and the brand-new baby. It was up there, one of only two things she remembered about her life before the fire. The room with baby in it was in there somewhere, still carrying traces within its walls of the sweet honeyed scent of new baby and breast milk.
It wasn’t an accident that Melody had found herself outside this house. Her newly aroused subconscious had pulled her here, step by step, while her thoughts were otherwise engaged. And she hadn’t lived here, she knew that much, but she had stayed at this neat little house, tucked away in a quiet corner of central London. She had stayed here often. She remembered a man now too. Charlotte’s father? He was tall and solid, with a long face, soft eyes, a deep, gentle voice. She felt warm when she thought about this man; she felt loved.
Melody tried to find a way to fit these new memories in with the memories her parents had given her to fill in the gaps in her world, but she couldn’t. The world her parents had told her about was a small world, conducted in the hushed environs of a Canterbury cul-de-sac. It was a world peopled by an aloof auntie, a scary uncle, a pair of dumpy cousins and a friend called Aubrey who turned out to be a sex tourist with a particular liking for green-eyed Moroccan boys. In the verbally reproduced world of her forgotten infancy, there were occasional holidays to a villa in Spain, visits to grandparents in Wales and Torquay, and Easter breaks at a B & B in Ramsgate.
There were no glamorous women with extravagant Fitzrovian town houses, no bearded hippies on motorbikes, no beautiful girls in tutus and yeasty smelling newborn babies. In the childhood that Melody had previously thought of as her own, London was a place visited infrequently, and under duress. Her parents disliked London, fearing its sophistication, the sheer velocity of its pace of life. It was certainly not somewhere they would have allowed her to stay, unchaperoned. Unless, of course – the thought hit her like a thunderclap – there had been a different time, before her parents.
The moment the thought went through her head, she knew it was true. She’d always known it was true and she’d always wanted it to be true.
Suddenly all the fragments of her newly remembered life started to swirl around her head, demanding to be put into some kind of order. She turned that very moment to face the front door of the town house, she breathed in, and then she rang the doorbell.
Chapter 17
1978
‘I wish your dad had never been born.’ Charlotte dragged a plastic brush through the tangled nylon hair of her Girls’ World. ‘And you. I wish you’d never been born either.’
Charlotte was wearing purple corduroy jeans with a flower appliquéd onto each knee. Her black hair was parted in the middle and tied in bunches with lengths of thick pink wool. She was a beautiful girl. Much more beautiful than Jacqui, who was only just pretty and made the best of herself with lots of makeup and attitude. Charlotte had Harry’s dark colouring and aquiline nose, and also looked likely to have inherited his height. Beside her, Melody always felt very small and very ordinary. Melody’s hair was lovely, everyone always said so. It hung down her back
Chapter 16
Now
Melody walked past the house on Goodge Place a total of eight times over the next two days. Each time she remembered something new. A large, bearded man in a tiny sports car; the girl, Charlotte, in oversized sunglasses carrying a dozen carrier bags; herself and Charlotte’s mother, silhouetted side by side in the small dormer window in the eaves of the house, the smell of sweet perfume; a Girls’ World; patchwork jeans; a lime hairband and more significantly than any of that, a room with a cot and the brand-new baby. It was up there, one of only two things she remembered about her life before the fire. The room with baby in it was in there somewhere, still carrying traces within its walls of the sweet honeyed scent of new baby and breast milk.
It wasn’t an accident that Melody had found herself outside this house. Her newly aroused subconscious had pulled her here, step by step, while her thoughts were otherwise engaged. And she hadn’t lived here, she knew that much, but she had stayed at this neat little house, tucked away in a quiet corner of central London. She had stayed here often. She remembered a man now too. Charlotte’s father? He was tall and solid, with a long face, soft eyes, a deep, gentle voice. She felt warm when she thought about this man; she felt loved.
Melody tried to find a way to fit these new memories in with the memories her parents had given her to fill in the gaps in her world, but she couldn’t. The world her parents had told her about was a small world, conducted in the hushed environs of a Canterbury cul-de-sac. It was a world peopled by an aloof auntie, a scary uncle, a pair of dumpy cousins and a friend called Aubrey who turned out to be a sex tourist with a particular liking for green-eyed Moroccan boys. In the verbally reproduced world of her forgotten infancy, there were occasional holidays to a villa in Spain, visits to grandparents in Wales and Torquay, and Easter breaks at a B & B in Ramsgate.
There were no glamorous women with extravagant Fitzrovian town houses, no bearded hippies on motorbikes, no beautiful girls in tutus and yeasty smelling newborn babies. In the childhood that Melody had previously thought of as her own, London was a place visited infrequently, and under duress. Her parents disliked London, fearing its sophistication, the sheer velocity of its pace of life. It was certainly not somewhere they would have allowed her to stay, unchaperoned. Unless, of course – the thought hit her like a thunderclap – there had been a different time, before her parents.
The moment the thought went through her head, she knew it was true. She’d always known it was true and she’d always wanted it to be true.
Suddenly all the fragments of her newly remembered life started to swirl around her head, demanding to be put into some kind of order. She turned that very moment to face the front door of the town house, she breathed in, and then she rang the doorbell.
Chapter 17
1978
‘I wish your dad had never been born.’ Charlotte dragged a plastic brush through the tangled nylon hair of her Girls’ World. ‘And you. I wish you’d never been born either.’
Charlotte was wearing purple corduroy jeans with a flower appliquéd onto each knee. Her black hair was parted in the middle and tied in bunches with lengths of thick pink wool. She was a beautiful girl. Much more beautiful than Jacqui, who was only just pretty and made the best of herself with lots of makeup and attitude. Charlotte had Harry’s dark colouring and aquiline nose, and also looked likely to have inherited his height. Beside her, Melody always felt very small and very ordinary. Melody’s hair was lovely, everyone always said so. It hung down her back
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