The Truth About Melody Browne Read Online Free PDF Page B

tasting it for the very first time and only just noticing the pungent bitterness. When she looked at her reflection that morning, trying to decide whether or not she needed to wash her hair, there was a split second of objectivity, the oddness that accompanies an unexpected sighting of yourself in a shop window. Melody recognised some of the sensations she was experiencing. Ed had only slept for two hours at a time from his six-month birthday until he was eighteen months old and for a year Melody had lived her life in a feathery state of sleep deprivation, the edges of her consciousness constantly blurred, the pull of lag and delay on all her actions and reactions. She had similar feelings now. She felt hollowed out and temporary. She felt wrong .
    The day itself was bright and warm, just like the day before and the day before that, but the breeze outside her bedroom window seemed to have developed an extra auditory dimension, a kind of flat, humming undertone as it whistled through the leaves of the tree outside her windows.
    Her mobile phone called to her from the kitchen counter where she’d left it to charge overnight. The caller ID came up as Unknown, but glad of the distraction she pressed answer. It was Ben.
    ‘Am I too early?’ he asked.
    ‘No, no, it’s fine,’ she replied. ‘I’ve been up for a while.’
    ‘I was just worried about you. Couldn’t really sleep last night. I was thinking about what happened. You don’t think it was anything to do with the trick, do you? Being hypnotised. You don’t think … ?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘That he did something, to your head?’
    ‘What makes you say that?’
    ‘Well, the timing. I mean, you passed out literally as he clicked his fingers. It just seems rather …’
    ‘I know. It’s weird. I feel a bit … weird .’
    ‘You do?’ he asked in a concerned tone. ‘In what way?’
    ‘Oh, I don’t know. A bit undone .’
    ‘Undone?’
    ‘Yes. Like a jigsaw or a ball of wool, or –’ She stopped abruptly. As the words ‘ball of wool’ left her mouth, something flashed through her mind. An image, as bright and focused as real life, a ball of pale blue angora wool in a basket, a small hand, a price sticker that said ‘20p’. As quickly as the image had arrived in her head, it had left. She breathed out.
    ‘Are you OK?’
    ‘Uh-huh,’ she replied, breathlessly.
    ‘Do you think you should see somebody?’
    ‘Like what? A shrink?’
    ‘No. Just a … I don’t know, someone who knows about this kind of thing. Just to be on the safe side.’
    Melody had no intention of seeing anyone about this. She didn’t even know what ‘this’ was yet. ‘No,’ she said over-brightly. ‘I don’t think it’s that bad. It was probably just a combination of things – you know, wine, nerves, adrenalin.’
    Ben paused. ‘Yeah,’ he said, sounding unconvinced. ‘Probably. But anyway, I just really wanted to make sure you were OK. You went off in such a rush I didn’t really have a chance to say goodbye properly.’
    ‘Yes, sorry about that.’
    ‘And there’s still so much I don’t know about you.’
    ‘Oh, trust me, there really isn’t much to know.’
    ‘Come on, you’re a single mother, you’re a dinner lady …’
    ‘ Kitchen assistant.’
    ‘Oh, yes, sorry, kitchen assistant. You live in Covent Garden.’
    ‘On an estate.’
    ‘Yes, but it’s still in Covent Garden. And besides, there’s no such thing as a person without a story. Look, I’d really like to see you again. Without the magic man and the dramatic fainting episodes. Next week, maybe?’
    Melody sat down and moved the phone to her other ear. This was a most unexpected turn of events and she didn’t know how to react.
    Ben took her silence as a rebuff and sighed. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘I see …’
    ‘No!’ Melody replied. ‘It’s just, I didn’t think you’d want to and I’m a bit surprised. That’s all.’
    ‘Well, I don’t know why you’d be surprised,’ he laughed,