Chapter 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.
‘I think Melody knows what she’s doing, hun, she’s been in the business for twenty years.’
Louise’s expression shuts Sam up but he takes her hand anyway.
‘If she’s such a professional, why did this happen?’
‘She can’t control the press.’
‘She can control the words that come out of her mouth.’
‘Babe,’ Sam says, exasperated. ‘Come on.’
‘Sorry,’ Melody says, feeling more embarrassed as time goes by.
Louise keeps looking at the article, her anger intensifying instead of subsiding with time. The subheading: Dance DJ opens up about her failed engagement.
‘Did you not think that it should be kept private?’
Melody squirms. ‘I thought it would be good publicity. For the business.’
It’s not Louise’s business, Melody shouldn’t have to ask permission for what she says about it, but Louise does take care of the bookings and the licences, the details that Melody and Sam are hopeless at.
‘I thought you were okay with us being in business together,’ Melody says.
‘What wife is okay with this? Melody and Sam, Sam and Melody. I realise that in your worlds that’s how your friends see you and I know that you’re both important to each other, I knew that getting into this, but I’m his wife.’ Her voice cracks.
‘Louise,’ Sam says.
‘No. Let me speak. You both do plenty of it. Did it ever occur to you that I might not have known about the ring?’
She’s truly crying now. Sam is massaging the bridge of his nose as if in pain. Oh goodness, what has Melody done to this beautiful couple?
‘I’d never even heard about his grandmother’s ring. He didn’t propose to me with that ring,’ she says, lifting up her hand and showing her the diamond on her ring finger.
Melody tries to conceal her own shock. She didn’t know Sam tried to propose to her with his grandmother’s ring either.
She swallows, briefly catching Sam’s eye before facing Louise’s hand again.
She has no interest in engagement or wedding rings, but she knows it’s not the ring that Sam had in his pocket the night of their break-up. His grandmother’s ring.
‘He told me he had inheritance money from his grandmother, and that’s what he was using to invest in the food truck.
I didn’t know it was a ring, her wedding ring, the ring he proposed to you with.
Which kind of seems like a betrayal,’ Louise says, her voice going up in a screech as she directs it at Sam.
Sam is massaging his nose then running his hands through his shaggy hair.
‘Louise,’ he says, his voice coming out angry, to both their surprise. ‘With all due respect, this has nothing to do with Melody. This is between you and me.’
‘Clearly, it’s not,’ she says angrier, her finger stabbing the tabloid, right through Melody’s right boob in a yellow string bikini top. ‘If it’s splashed out in this thing for the world to see.’
‘Melody didn’t know that you didn’t know, okay? You’ve made your point. She’s said sorry. In fact she has said it four or five times now.’
Louise looks at him in shock, as does Melody. How has it all turned around so quickly when only seconds ago the ball was firmly in Louise’s court? She appreciates Sam’s defence of her, but is he mad? He should be supporting his wife.
‘When are you going to let her go?’ Louise says, her voice wobbling.
Melody’s eyes widen, her heart pounding at the discomfort of this conversation. She just wants to get out of there as quickly as possible.
‘Louise is right,’ Melody says, keen to stop this from escalating. ‘I was wrong. I was selfish. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I was thinking of the business, not about your hearts, and that was just so cruel and stupid of me.’
Justified, Louise throws Sam a look, but Sam is shaking his head.
Melody shushes him even though he’s not saying anything. ‘Your wife is right and I am wrong, and I’m sorry.’
Melody stands up, her legs are shaking and her knees feel weak.
She doesn’t like confrontation with people who usually make her feel safe.
She feels humiliated and like an absolute idiot.
She can’t look them in the eye as she brings her full mug of cold tea to the sink, empties it, and looks around for the dishwasher.
‘Just leave it in the sink,’ Louise says wearily.
Faith chirps happily suddenly from her playpen.
‘Bye,’ Melody whispers to Faith. She would usually cuddle her but Faith is their daughter and she very much feels the lines are drawn.
She self-consciously makes her way to the door, neither of them moving from their seats to see her off which feels like a punch in the gut.
Waiting for her to leave so they can pick up on their life.
A pebble in their shoe. She hopes she’s doing the right thing when she jogs back into the kitchen, surprising them.
‘Louise, Sam never proposed to me.’ She talks to her as if Sam isn’t even in the room. ‘It never got that far. You’re the only one he’s ever proposed to. You’re his wife. And I’m sorry.’ She leaves quickly before she bursts into tears.
She was supposed to charge her e-scooter at Sam’s house but as soon as she arrived she could feel the tension and couldn’t bring herself to ask to do something so trivial. Now her scooter is dead and she wheels it down the road, her cheeks burning with shame.
On Sundays at brunch she has a set in a Georgian town house.
She tries to channel relaxing Ibiza chill house music with a live saxophone player, Vivienne, who makes her way around the tables as she plays, to try to convince brunchers that they’re not in cold crisp Ireland in January with no money after Christmas.
Music is transformative but she’s not sure if she can work that particular miracle today.
During a break in her set she sits down with her friends who are filling themselves with mimosas and margaritas.
Gemma is crying.
‘What’s wrong?’ Melody joins them. ‘What happened?’
‘She broke up with Chris,’ a friend says to her quietly.
‘What? What the hell?’ Melody shouldn’t be surprised about anything anymore.
The Doomsday clock is set at eighty-nine seconds to midnight, the closest ever to human extinction, why should she be surprised about a break-up?
There were couples you couldn’t believe were together and time was just ticking down until they realised what everybody else already knew, and there were couples like Gemma and Chris who were stable, solid, together since their teens.
This news deeply saddens everyone at the table and the party flows right out of Melody.
‘I don’t know,’ Gemma says, blowing her red nose, confused. ‘It came out of nowhere on Thursday. We were arguing about the dishwasher and then … we’d broken up.’
Ah, everyone nods, understanding. The dishwasher.
‘It feels like everyone is breaking up,’ another friend offers. ‘My sister and her husband broke up last week too. Out of the blue. Nobody else involved, four kids, just like that.’ She clicks her fingers.
They sit in sombre silence.
‘Sorry for bringing down the mood,’ Gemma says.