The Truth About Melody Browne Read Free Page A

into a shaggy helmet. Teeth stained slightly from twenty years of smoking. Slim but un-toned physique. Primark tunic top; red, v-necked and sequined. Old Gap jeans. Primark diamanté sandals. And a slight look of terror in her hazel eyes.
    ‘You don’t think I should put some heels on,’ she said, standing on her tiptoes and examining herself in the full-length mirror, ‘to lengthen my legs?’
    Ed crossed his arms in front of his body and shook his head. ‘Now we are entering “daughter-I-never-had” territory. I’m afraid I’m not actually gay.’
    Melody smiled and stroked his cheek again.
    ‘Right,’ she said, picking up her handbag and putting it over her shoulder, ‘I’ll be off then. There’s pizza in the freezer. Or yesterday’s roast chicken in the fridge. Make sure you heat it through properly . And er …’
    ‘And er, goodbye .’
    ‘Yes,’ she smiled. ‘Goodbye. I’ll text you when I’m on my way back.’
    Ben was waiting for her outside Leicester Square tube station, in a pale blue shirt and jeans. She breathed a sigh of relief. He’d come. And then she felt her heart sink with terror. He’d come .
    She glanced at him from across the road, sizing him up before his darting eyes found her. He looked bigger than she remembered, taller and more masculine. But his face was so soft, like something freshly hatched and untouched by life. Subconsciously she lifted her fingertips to her own face and felt the roughness of her skin, the tiredness of it. She knew she looked older than her age (the same age as Kate Moss as she frequently reminded herself, cruelly and unnecessarily) and the thought repulsed her, somehow.
    ‘You look lovely,’ he said, touching her bare forearm as he leaned in to kiss her cheek.
    ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘So do you.’ The unfamiliar sensation of being touched by a man, even on the chaste planes of her lower arm, left her feeling flushed and slightly breathless.
    ‘Shall we get a drink?’ he said. ‘The show doesn’t start for half an hour.’
    ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘let’s.’
    They went to a small pub on Cranbourn Street and she ordered a large glass of white wine for herself and a gin and tonic for Ben.
    ‘So,’ he said, ‘a toast. To brazen strangers, beautiful shoulders and to warm summer nights.’
    She knocked her glass gently against his and wondered if that was the kind of thing a normal bloke would say. Every time she looked at him, she found fault. His nose was too smooth, his chin was too square, he was too clean, too fresh, his hair was too fluffy, his shoes were too clean.
    He was taking her to see Julius Sardo, the famous mind-controller and hypnotist. Ben’s brother worked for a ticket agency and had managed to get them seats even though it was sold out. Ed had been teasing her all week – ‘ look into the eyes, not around the eyes, look into the eyes ’ – and she knew what he meant. There was something silly and school-yardish about the idea of hypnotising somebody, the sort of thing that someone would only learn to do in order to get better-looking people to pay them attention.
    ‘So, have you ever seen his show before?’
    ‘Not live,’ he said, ‘just on the telly. You?’
    ‘Same,’ she said, ‘just on the telly.’
    ‘Did you see that show where he got that woman to rob a security van? And she was a community police officer?’
    ‘No.’ Melody shook her head. ‘I must have missed that one.’ She noticed a Tubigrip bandage peeping out from beneath his shirt cuff. ‘What have you done to your arm?’ she asked.
    He touched the bandage. ‘Sprained my wrist,’ he said. ‘Three hours in casualty.’
    ‘Ow,’ said Melody. ‘What happened?’
    ‘Squash happened,’ he said, miming a swing of the racket and wincing slightly. ‘Got a bit carried away.’
    Melody narrowed her eyes. In the context of her entire existence, playing squash seemed such an arbitrary and random thing for a person to do. ‘That’ll teach