Page 17 of Love Unlocked

This piques Prunella’s interest. Ten minutes in the bathroom, make-up fixed, and Prunella is glitch-free again. They sit in their places in the studio, Prunella on the couch, Melody in the chair.

‘I don’t know about you, but in my life, it feels like everybody is breaking up,’ Melody says as an opener.

‘Are they?’

‘And not the obvious ones, not the people who have no right being together in the first place, it’s the good ones. The ones who’d almost make you believe in love.’

‘So you should be happy about this, Ms Anti-Love.’

Melody thinks of her discomfort over Belinda and Derek’s separation. It has rocked her in a surprising way. ‘I’ve realised it’s quite nice to have people around me in love. Like when I gave up smoking but liked standing around smokers and made them blow smoke in my face.’

Prunella laughs.

‘So I have a theory,’ Melody says, excitedly leaning in. ‘I think I’m really onto something here. Ed, drumroll please.’

There’s silence. Ed grins. Prunella snorts.

‘All the people I know who broke up, all broke up last Thursday. Everyone on the same day. Just sit with that for a moment.’

‘Okay,’ Prunella says, after a beat.

‘At first I thought there must be something in the water. Or maybe to do with the moon cycle.’

‘Naturally,’ Prunella says, playing along.

‘Then I scoured the newspapers for something that would explain why so many people just fell out of love on the same day and I came across a news article that explains it all. I now know what happened. I know why these couples have broken up.’

She leaves a dramatic pause. Ed finally finds the drumroll button.

‘Why?’ Prunella asks impatiently.

‘All of their love locks were removed from the same bridge on the same day.’

Prunella looks at her in stunned surprise. She wasn’t expecting that.

‘Do you know what a love lock is?’ Melody asks, hoping for a bigger reaction.

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Do you know the Grace Plunkett Bridge in Kilmainham near the gaol? The one where people attach padlocks aka love locks to the bridge.’

‘Yes.’

‘On Thursday the love locks were all removed,’ Melody says in a conspiratorial tone.

There’s complete silence.

Apart from Ed who has clamped his hand over his mouth to prevent his laughter from exploding out.

‘Even Ed believes me,’ Melody teases. ‘He’s so into this. If you could all see his face right now.’

Ed is vehemently shaking his head no.

‘Honestly, there’s something in this. I’ve checked with my friends who broke up last week. All of them broke up on Thursday, very specifically and very suddenly, and all of them had love locks on the bridge. Now I know what you’re going to say, there are probably thousands of love locks on the bridge and not everyone has broken up, so I sent the question out on my social media this morning and you will not believe the response.’ Melody checks her phone. ‘At least two other people have replied with yes.’

Ed laughs out loud.

‘I know it’s only two! But that’s two couples, which is four people, and added to my five other couples that’s fourteen people. So it’s not nothing.’