by Rosie Ruston
‘It’s just that when I told Nerys and Tina about my prize, Nerys was really shirty.’
‘Ignore her,’ he replied airily. ‘You know what she’s like with you – anything that makes you look cleverer than Mia or Jemma, and she’s on you like a ton of bricks. Like I’ve told you a dozen times before, she never had kids of her own and when the girls were little and Mum was still modelling, she looked after them a lot. Well, us boys too, of course, but she was always keener on the girly stuff! Mia’s always been her favourite, though. She can’t bear to think anyone might outshine her.’
Frankie had pulled a face.
‘If you get the grades you need for Newcastle – anything better than Mia’s A and two Bs – she’ll probably accuse the exam board of making a mistake!’ Ned laughed. ‘Don’t let it get to you.’
‘But she also said that if I went to the festival, I’d be insulting your dad. Something about me deliberately going against his principles.’
‘Now that’s downright crazy,’ Ned had said. ‘We’re all going to the festival, yet she makes it sound as if you’re the one rebel in the family! It’s true that Dad was pretty anti it when it started a few years back – wrote to the papers and all that stuff. And there’s no way he’d let them use our fields, or have access over any part of our property because of the conservation issues. But he’s not stupid: he knows he can’t stop any of us going. I’m going to be there practically twenty-four/seven.’
‘You are?’
‘Sure – Kids Out There are running a play area and I’m on the team. Anyway, Dad’ll be in Mexico and won’t know what’s going on, will he? Stop worrying! Now I must get over to Alice’s.’ He’d grinned at Frankie. ‘I might not be back for a while.’
‘And you reckon he’s really keen on this Alice girl?’ Lulu asked, offering a stick of chewing gum to Frankie as the bus crawled past the multiplex cinema.
‘Do birds fly?’ Frankie murmured. ‘He’s besotted. It’s all, “She’s so witty, Frankie; oh, Frankie, she’s such fun to be with; oh, Frankie, you will be nice to her won’t you? She doesn’t know anyone down here.” What hope do I have?’
Lulu touched her arm. ‘Look at it this way,’ she said encouragingly, ‘you live in the same house, you know him better than anyone and you can wangle it so you do stuff together. Anyway, she won’t be here forever. And if you get into Newcastle Uni, you’ll virtually be on Ned’s doorstep in Durham. How did the driving lesson go, by the way? Yours, not Alice’s.’
‘Huh,’ said Frankie. ‘What driving lesson?’
‘The car’s nearly out of petrol – really sorry. Tomorrow, I promise.’
That was Sunday afternoon.
‘Did I say today? Oh sorry, I promised to drive Alice down to Sussex so she can load the horse into the trailer herself. Tomorrow, OK? Absolutely definite.’
That was Monday.
But when Tuesday came, he was cleaning the stable and having a riding lesson with Alice, who stayed for lunch and tea then dragged him off to the cinema. Although ‘dragged’ was hardly the word to describe the eagerness with which he went.
After the third excuse, Frankie gave up mentioning the subject. Her driving instructor kept reminding her that she needed more practice; she was tempted to ask Mia but she was so preoccupied with scouring rightmove.co.uk for flats in Brighton, uploading pictures of her engagement ring onto Facebook, and telling the world about her forthcoming holiday in Barbados at the Rushworth family villa, that she had no time for anything else. Frankie knew Tina would take her but the last time they had tried it, Tina had screamed ‘Stop!’ every time their speed reached twenty miles an hour.
First thing on Wednesday morning, Frankie rang the test centre and cancelled her test. It would probably have been too soon anyway.
‘Now that,’ Lulu declared as the bus pulled into Greyfriars bus station, ‘is totally defeatist. Just because Ned’s a waste of space . . .’
‘No, he’s not, he’s lovely.’
‘Now who’s besotted?’ Lulu teased.
Frankie pulled a face. ‘Drop it, OK?’ She sighed. ‘So – shall we meet for coffee at Leopold’s when I’m done at the paper? Eleven-thirty?’
Lulu glanced at her watch. ‘Sure,’ she replied. ‘Then we can hit the shops. I have nothing to wear for the festival.’
An hour later, Frankie was walking down Wellington Street with a broad smile on her face. She’d been interviewed for the following day’s edition, and given the prize money, tickets to all three days of M-Brace and a clutch of money-off vouchers for various cafés and clubs in town.
The only thing niggling at the back of her mind was William. When she’d mentioned to the photographer, a ginger-haired guy called Spike, that her brother was a photographer on the Sea Siren, he had whistled through his teeth. ‘Wow! That is a ticket to serious money if he plays his cards right. He needs to get a few commissions from the blue rinse brigade – make ’em look years younger than they really are – and then brandish his card and hey presto! Before you know it, he’ll be getting invites to do the society set all over the world.’
Frankie had laughed knowing that things weren’t quite that simple, but it had started her thinking. The last few messages on Facebook from Wills had lacked his usual hilarious, punctuation-free outpourings. They had read more like travelogues, with lots of news about what Malta was like or how he hadn’t managed to go ashore at Cagliari because he had to photograph some damage to the swimming pool. In the past he’d been bubbling over with news about his plans, and his Facebook page had been full of new photos for sale; recently he had sounded flat and he hadn’t uploaded anything for weeks. Even his last message, congratulating her on her prize, didn’t contain one single joke, which for William was a sure sign that things weren’t right.
She needed to hear his voice: she would phone him as soon as she got home.
It didn’t take Frankie long, while queuing for her latte, to spot Lulu. She was sitting at the rear of Leopold’s, the newest café in Northampton, in a red leather chair, legs crossed, skirt hitched up and arms gesticulating wildly at a guy sitting opposite her.
Typical, thought Frankie with amusement, balancing her coffee in one hand and a chocolate-chip muffin in the other and edging her way towards the spare seat next to her friend. Lulu was the kind of girl who struck up conversations with total strangers on trains and buses, particularly if they were male and under twenty-five.
‘Hiya!’ Lulu waved at her and pulled the chair back at the same moment that the guy stood up and turned round.
A bystander would have been hard-pressed to decide which of them looked the more amazed.
‘It’s you!’ he said to Frankie.
‘What are you doing here?’ Frankie replied.
‘Do you two know each other?’ Lulu asked.
‘This,’ said Frankie, ‘is Henry Crawford. I was telling you about him.’
‘All good I hope.’ Henry smiled.
‘All true,’ murmured Frankie and went to find a paper napkin and compose herself.
‘Well, thanks for nothing! You frightened him off,’ Lulu moaned when Frankie returned to the table. ‘I was just getting somewhere.’
‘Lulu! I told you about the way he came on to Mia the very night she got engaged.’ She had decided to keep quiet about the way he’d flirted with her too – somehow it was humiliating to admit to being cast aside so easily. ‘And now he’s chatting you up – you didn’t even know his name!’
‘Oh puh-leese! You are so uptight! Honestly, you’re like something out of a bygone age.’ She leant across and pinched a piece of Frankie’s muffin. ‘Hey, look!’ She pointed to the floor. ‘He’s left his books behind.’
Frankie bent down and picked up the two paperbacks and a Rexel sleeve stuffed full of pages of illegible scrawl.
‘I don’t believe it,’ she said. ‘Little Dorrit and Mansfield Park.’
‘Little who?’ Lulu’s taste in reading was limited to chick-lit and Grazia magazine.<
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‘And they’re annotated,’ Frankie mused, flicking through the pages. ‘I wouldn’t have thought he . . . I’ll just go and see if I can catch up with him.’
‘I’ll do it,’ said Lulu.
But Frankie was already halfway to the door. She had hardly left the café when she spotted Henry hotfooting it up the hill towards her.
‘You found them! Thanks so much,’ he panted, taking the books from her. ‘I don’t know what I would have done if I’d lost these. I haven’t got round to transferring my latest notes to my laptop yet, lazy sod that I am.’
‘So, you’re actually reading these?’
‘Don’t sound so surprised!’ He laughed. ‘It’s part of my course. I’m doing film and theatre design at Ruskin and my summer assignment is to design two sets – a film set for Dorrit and a stage set for the Jane Austen. Trouble is, I can’t seem to break away from stereotypes – you know, all rats and clanking chains or lace bonnets and fans!’
‘Mmmm,’ Frankie said. ‘Trouble with Austen is that she’s been done to death. Great movies and all that, but most of them are clichéd and half of them nothing like the original.’ She screwed up her face. ‘You know what? I’d forget all that and focus on the starkness of Dorrit’s life experience and the shallowness of the society of Austen’s time. In fact, you could do a modern . . .’ She stopped short, furious that she could be so influenced by his choice of reading material.
‘A modern . . .?’
‘Nothing, I must go. Lulu will be getting in a strop,’ she said hastily.
‘And I’m due at the Royal Theatre,’ he said, glancing at his watch. ‘My father wangled a meeting with the stage manager and I daren’t be late. There’s a chance I might be able to shadow her for a week later in the summer.’
‘That would be so cool,’ Frankie enthused, despite herself. ‘They’re doing Ibsen next month. Good luck!’
‘See you around,’ Henry said. ‘I want to hear your ideas!’
‘Sure,’ Frankie replied and then mentally kicked herself for sounding so enthusiastic. He may be more interesting than you thought, she told herself firmly, but remember he can’t be trusted.
‘I’ll come over sometime and we can talk theatre,’ he called after her.
She knew that was probably just an excuse to see Mia again, but to her great annoyance the idea of talking to him suddenly seemed rather more attractive than she would have imagined.
CHAPTER 6
‘Selfishness must always be forgiven,
you know, because there is no hope for a cure.’
(Jane Austen, Mansfield Park)
A WEEK LATER, FRANKIE WAS SITTING ON THE SWING SEAT in the garden, eyes half closed, attempting to resolve an impossible situation in her story about the character called Jasper. She was trying to write to distract herself from worrying about her mother. She’d just come back from a fleeting visit to Hove, where the doctor had suggested her mother would soon be ready to leave for another try at a halfway house placement – which of course was good in one way, but worrying too, because it might not work out. Suddenly she heard her name being called.
‘Frankie! Oh, thank goodness I’ve found someone!’ It was Alice, trim in a pair of cream jodhpurs and an open-neck shirt, struggling with a saddle over one arm and a bridle, rope halter and hay net over the other. Since her horse had arrived, she’d been visiting the house twice a day and somehow managing to hang about for far longer than Frankie thought was necessary. ‘Where’s Ned?’
‘He’s helping Nerys move her stuff,’ Frankie replied stiffly. ‘Her boiler finally gave up the ghost and apparently the dogs get traumatised by workmen so she’s moving into the house.’
‘I would have thought that any animal who could cope with your aunt Nerys would find a couple of gas fitters a doddle,’ she said.
Frankie struggled to suppress her laughter and failed. She had to admit that, like her brother, Alice could be very witty, and if she hadn’t been after Ned, Frankie might well have regarded her as a friend.
‘Sorry, that wasn’t very kind, was it?’ Alice admitted. ‘So I guess she’ll keep Ned occupied for ages?’
‘Probably. Tina’s gone away to a health spa with an old school friend so Nerys is in charge. And don’t we all know it!’
‘I bet.’ Alice laughed. ‘So . . . I don’t suppose – well, would you . . . Could you possibly . . .?’
‘What?’
‘Help me with these?’ She hitched the saddle higher up her arm and brandished the halter. ‘And do the gates while I try to catch Fling and get him into the stable? He’s been somewhat spooked by the move and I want to get him indoors before they start testing the sound systems again for the festival. That high-pitched whistle freaks him out.’ She looked pleadingly at Frankie. ‘I don’t reckon I can manage everything on my own.’
‘OK, as long as I don’t have to go near the horse,’ Frankie replied. ‘They scare me rigid.’
She waited for some sarcastic reply but Alice simply nodded. ‘With me, it’s caterpillars,’ she said.
‘Caterpillars?’
‘Mmm, the way they loop along and their bodies are all squidgy and furry and – yuck!’
She shivered and handed the halter and bridle to Frankie as they began to walk across the lawn and round the back of the house.
‘What’s going on in there?’ She gestured through the conservatory window, where a man and a woman were setting up reflectors and umbrellas and fiddling with a camera on a tripod.
‘Country Life,’ Frankie told her. ‘They’re about to take the engagement photograph of Mia and Nick.’
Alice pulled a face. ‘Very upmarket,’ she said. ‘Don’t you find it hard?’
‘Hard? What do you mean?’
‘Well, fitting in here,’ Alice said. ‘Poppy told me that you’d had a pretty dire childhood and you weren’t exactly wealthy.’
‘Oh, that makes me somehow inferior does it?’ Frankie blurted out. ‘That and not being a live wire!’
The moment the words were out of her mouth she regretted them. She wasn’t proud of eavesdropping and, despite her feelings, she hated to embarrass anyone deliberately.
‘Live wire? What do you mean,’ Alice cried, clearly having missed the allusion. ‘I do this all the time – I open my mouth before engaging my brain. I wasn’t saying you were inferior, honestly. I’m so sorry. What I meant was, you’re more like me and Henry than the Bertrams.’
‘Hardly,’ Frankie said. ‘For one thing, I didn’t go to a posh boarding school.’
‘Our school wasn’t posh and we only went because my mother couldn’t wait to get us out of the way so that she could devote herself to a succession of different men,’ Alice said bitterly. ‘And you know what? Even now, all these years on, I feel so angry at what she did. I mean – how could she?’ She kicked at the gravel on the pathway to the paddock. ‘She woke us up in the middle of the night – we were only eight at the time – and dragged us off to Cornwall to this man Derek. She left a note for my father: Can’t do this any more, it said. Can you believe that?’
Frankie bit her lip. ‘My dad . . .’ she began and then thought better of it. Family loyalty, she thought, counted for something.
‘See?’ Alice replied. ‘I knew you’d understand – that’s why I felt a connection the moment I met you. Henry feels the same, I guess; he’s been seeing quite a bit of you, hasn’t he? Didn’t he come over yesterday when you got back from Hove?’ Her eyes twinkled as she winked at Frankie.
‘What? Oh, no it’s nothing like that,’ she said hastily. ‘He just came over to talk about his project.’
‘Hey! It’s no problem. He likes you, he told me so. What’s more, I happen to know he told one of his mates that you were cute and have got a lot of untapped potential. Which for Henry is as good as saying he’s smitten.’
Frankie smiled and shrugged, unsure of her feelings about this latest revelation. ‘So did you live in Cornwall for a long time?’ she said, desperate t
o change the subject.
‘You’re blushing,’ Alice teased. ‘I’ll tell Henry he’s in with a good chance!’
‘No, don’t! I . . .’
‘Just teasing,’ she laughed. ‘And in answer to your question, Mummy got tired of Derek a couple of years later and moved us on to Liverpool – that was Aidan – and now she’s with Greg in East Grinstead. He’s a real slimeball, which is why we’re here with Dad and —’
‘Yes, that’s it. That’s absolutely it!’ Frankie stopped short when she realised she was speaking out loud.
‘What’s it?’
She could hardly tell Alice that the saga of her mother’s erratic love life had just triggered a brilliant twist to the Jasper story that had been taxing her.
‘Nothing – I mean, I knew that was why you were here.’
They had reached the paddock and Alice took the halter from Frankie’s hand. ‘Come on, Fling,’ she called. ‘We need to get you ready for Ned’s lesson.’ She turned to Frankie. ‘He’s a cutie, isn’t he? A real sweetheart.’
‘I guess.’ Frankie shrugged. ‘Like I said, I don’t know anything about horses.’
‘Not Fling, silly! Ned. Although I suppose seeing as how you are cousins, you don’t see it. But believe me, he’s one fit guy. And you know what?
‘What?’
‘I’m pretty sure he likes me. I’m useless at this driving lark – my last instructor gave up on me in the end and Dad finds reasons to put off taking me out, even though he shelled out loads to get me insured on his car – but Ned’s so patient, and I’m sure that’s because he fancies me. By the way, your test was last week, wasn’t it? I’m sure Ned said. How did you get on?
‘I cancelled it.’
‘What on earth for?’
‘I need loads more practice.’ Frankie sighed.
‘So get Ned to take you out,’ Alice said airily. ‘Like I said, he’s really patient.’
‘And always round your place,’ Frankie muttered, and then immediately regretted it.
‘Oh, I get it! I’m sorry – I didn’t realise. Well, don’t worry, I’ll tell him to take you too,’ Alice declared. ‘He said he’d do anything I asked – isn’t that sweet? I’ll sort it, OK?’