Page 62 of Love Unlocked

‘I did.’

‘What did she say?’

‘Not a whole lot. She was busy with the garden. She sent me packing pretty quickly.’

‘You too?’ He places two fillets of fish on a pan filled with butter and garlic and the smell immediately fills the air and Melody’s mouth waters. ‘I don’t know what happened,’ he says, masterfully cooking the fish. ‘One minute she was angry with me about the jigsaw puzzle, and then the next she was throwing the pieces around the room and telling me I had to leave. I thought she was having some kind of episode. I thought that with a bit of distance, she would change her mind or feel better but she seems to be holding firm.’

‘Have you been staying here since then?’

‘She gave me the camper van on Monday. I was staying with Karl and Gemma.’ His son and his wife. ‘But they’ve had a new baby so it wasn’t right to stay.’

‘Congratulations, I hadn’t heard. I’m sorry, Derek.’

‘So am I.’

‘I don’t want you two to be apart.’

He looks at her, a glance over his glasses to see if she’s serious. She has probably never communicated any positive thoughts on their relationship to him before. She never particularly felt it until they broke up. She liked knowing that her mother was happy, that she wasn’t alone.

‘I’ve been listening to your podcast,’ he says, to her surprise. ‘And I think there’s something in what you’re talking about with the love locks on the Grace Plunkett Bridge.’

‘You do?’ she practically splutters. Derek is one of the most practical, pragmatic people she knows. ‘You don’t believe in things like that.’

‘I do now, Melody. It’s like a spell has been cast over your mother. I don’t recognise her. I hear what she’s saying, and I value her words and her feelings, but it was like the flick of a switch. I know of two other sets of people who also separated, friends of ours who we met when we were travelling. One couple we met in France, and the other in Split, Croatia, when we were camping. They were looking for places to visit in Ireland and we told them to go to Kilmainham Gaol. They both put love locks on the bridge. They’ve both split up too. Both in their sixties, grandparents! They listened to your podcast because they know about you from us of course, and they reached out to me on Facebook to let me know. There’s a lot of us counting on you, Melody, to look into this. You must continue your research. You have all of us behind you.’ He raises his fist in the air.

He finishes the fish by splashing butter over the top, chops dill and sprinkles it on top. Melody expects him to clear the puzzle pieces before he serves her. She daren’t touch them because experience tells her that moving his pieces has dire consequences. But he places the plate before Melody on top of the jigsaw puzzle pieces as if they’re not even there.

‘I’m not sure what I can do, Derek. What do you want me to do?’

He sits down opposite her. ‘Be careful of the fine bones. Can you locate the locks?’

‘The bridge guy says they went to metal recycling.’

His shoulders drop, then lift again. ‘Have they been recycled?’

‘I assume so. I don’t know.’

‘You haven’t had confirmation?’

‘No.’ And her gut instinct is constantly telling her that Al hasn’t destroyed them. He just doesn’t seem that type of guy. Apart from being broken by his ex and best friend, he loves love, even more than bridges. She’d imagine he’d rather save love than a bridge.

‘Well you must find out! The love locks are the link to this. We must get them back and reconnect them to the bridge. Maybe it’s a message from Grace Plunkett herself. A message from the grave. Perhaps she’s trying to tell us something. And this is one way to get our attention, isn’t it?’

Derek’s coming over all Doc in Back to the Future. There’s a franticness to him. A wild man who’s spent too much time alone in a camper van.

‘What do you think she’s trying to tell us?’ Melody asks, concerned about his mental health.

As if reading her thoughts, he says, ‘I would try anything to get your mother back.’

She considers making a joke about moving the puzzle pieces off the table, but then realises that’s maybe a lesson for her mother to learn too. Why should Derek tidy them away for Belinda? Why should Belinda have to live with a kitchen table she can’t use?

Maybe that’s what Grace is trying to tell them all. Stop being so selfish and learn about sacrifice. Joe sacrificed himself for his country, she sacrificed herself and all future love, for him, for this one short beautiful marriage that became known all around the world. Their love helped spread the news of a greater cause. Love did that. Not fighting.

‘I’m sorry to let you down, Derek, but I can’t do any of that now. I quit the podcast. This is delicious by the way,’ she says quickly, hoping she can hide that revelation behind a compliment.

He looks at her over his glasses which are on the tip of his nose and takes a moment before replying. ‘You used to play tennis when you were young, why did you give that up?’

She hadn’t thought about that for a long time. She laughs and tries to remember. ‘Because I was entered into a round robin that I didn’t want to get into.’