‘Why d’you think you never have a British star?’ Eka said after her second restless visit. ‘I tell you. Because those old men live in the olden days! Nobody allowed to show temper! I show you temper. I getting out of this place right now.’
And she had, running in her perilous sandals with extraordinary skill through the crowds, leaving him to pant behind her, conscious of his physical ineptitude and girth in the wake of her gazelle-like grace. At least George Riley wasn’t going to startle him by sprinting off somewhere unannounced. In fact, he seemed to be the complete opposite, shyly thanking Jack for coming and then confessing that he’d done a stupid thing.
They were sitting in a coffee place, almost at the top of the High Street, Jack painfully aware that it had cost George no effort at all to turn down a chocolate muffin with his cappuccino.
‘What?’ Jack said. ‘You think it was stupid to be so generous to Alexa and Dan?’
‘No, no that.’
‘It was certainly,’ Jack said, leaning forward for emphasis, ‘unbelievably stupid and crass and bad-tempered for Alexa to react as she did.’
‘I don’t blame her.’
‘I bet you don’t. You’re too nice.’
‘We sprung it on her,’ George said. ‘Once Dad’s got an idea in his head, you can’t shift it. He was set on telling her. He was set on her falling on his neck and thanking him. He didn’t give her a chance. I should have stopped him. I should have made him wait until we could suggest it to both of them.’
Jack leaned back again. ‘You don’t need to forgive her, you know.’
‘I want to.’
‘Have you seen Dan?’
George sighed. ‘Briefly. I went down there. He hasn’t been to see Dad yet.’
‘They’re a right case, the pair of them,’ Jack said, ‘aren’t they? Hopeless.’ He took a gulp of coffee. ‘Why do we bother, I wonder?’
George gave him a half smile. ‘You know why. Why else did you ring me?’
Jack shrugged. ‘Well, they’re a load of trouble.’
George said shyly, ‘We used to wonder if you were.’
‘Me?’ Jack said in amazement. ‘Who did?’
‘Me and the old man. We couldn’t work out you and Alexa. We thought maybe Dan needed to keep a bit of an eye on you.’
Jack was laughing. ‘Never in that way, mate. She never saw me as more than a comfort blanket. I’m as much of a threat to Dan as an armchair. What were you thinking of?’
George looked down into his coffee cup. ‘He’s my boy. And she’s a great girl.’
‘George Riley,’ Jack said. ‘Sir. I can’t believe you thought anything so stupid. Or ever did anything stupid, either. Unlike the rest of us.’
George sighed. He smiled privately down at his coffee cup. ‘I did, you know. I got myself in such a state the other day, I went out and found a house for them. After you rang.’
‘You what?’
‘Oh,’ George said, glancing up, ‘I didn’t make an offer or anything. I just saw it, made an appointment to look round. What we’re offering them’d cover the deposit.’
‘Gosh,’ Jack said admiringly. He ran a teaspoon round his cup to scoop up the remaining foam. ‘Did you tell the old man?’
‘No fear.’
‘And?’
‘It’d do,’ George said. ‘I’m not much of a one for houses, never have been, but I know what they’ve got now and they’d be better, really. Quite a bit of garden, for London. I could grow them a few veg.’
‘George!’
George picked up his coffee cup and drained it.
‘You’ve moved them in, in your mind, haven’t you?’ Jack said. ‘You’ve seen a house and moved them in. I bet you’ve found a school for Izzy, haven’t you?’
George said mildly, ‘There’s computers in the public library. And they’re really helpful in there to pillocks like me who don’t know how to get started.’
Jack struck the table. ‘Well, I’m damned.’
‘Even if she couldn’t get into the High School,’ George said in the tone of one used to having knowledgeable discussions about modern education, ‘there’s good state schools around, some with almost 70 per cent exam passes and all.’
Jack eyed him. ‘George?’
‘Yes?’
‘She didn’t mean to turn you down, you know. She doesn’t want to refuse your offer.’
George sighed. ‘So you said, on the phone.’
‘She feels awful about the other day. Ashamed. I told her to get off her bloody backside and stop whining, I was really rough with her. And she knows she’s got to do something. She knows it. And I think she will, I really do. That’s why I gave in and said I’d come and see you. For her, really.’
George hesitated. Then he said, ‘I’m—’ and stopped.
‘You’re what?’
George cleared his throat. He leaned across the table and said in a whisper, ‘I’m scared she’ll leave him.’
‘A house wouldn’t fix that.’
‘It’d help.’
‘No,’ Jack said. ‘It would only look as if it was helping.’
‘D’you think—?’
Jack put out one hand and made a tipping movement. He said, ‘Could go either way right now. We’re doing everything we can, aren’t we? You’re being nice to her, I’m being vile to her, Izzy and Dan are pulling her in opposite directions. Thank God, at least, for those twins. At least they’re on three-year-old Planet Normal.’
‘We’ve got to keep trying.’
Jack shrugged again. ‘I know.’
‘Shall – shall I – we – offer them the money again?’
‘Maybe. No. No, don’t. Yes. Yes – together. Offer it again when they’re together.’
George pushed his coffee cup away. ‘It’s a nice house.’
‘Where is it?’
George jerked his thumb behind him. ‘Just up there in a terrace. Stone’s throw from everything.’
Jack smiled at him. ‘Can I see it?’
Even walking the short distance around the Quadrant with Beetle at his heels made Dan feel conspicuous. True, a lot of people were away, and another lot would have enough similar difficulties in their own lives to sympathize, but all the same, he felt exposed in a way that was uncomfortable and mildly humiliating, walking round to Franny’s house in civilian clothes when most people – anybody within earshot of the garrison tom toms, which meant most people – would know that he was not only alone just now, but that his stepdaughter had run away from school a second time, and elected not to run home while she was at it.
He had been on the telephone for hours, since he had encountered Isabel at the roadside. Half the night, at least. Talking to Alexa, talking to Mrs Cairns, trying to talk to Isabel. He had found that he desperately wanted not to lose control of the situation, so he had managed to persuade Mrs Cairns that Isabel was better off not being immediately returned to school so close to the end of term, and – much harder – had convinced Alexa not to insist that her father drive her and the twins back to Larkford without delay.
‘I must come,’ Alexa had said. ‘I must.’
He had gripped the phone. ‘Please don’t.’
‘But Izzy—’
‘She’s where she wants to be. I’ve seen her. She’s fine, she’s well. She doesn’t want any kind of drama and you racing back will be a drama.’
‘It breaks my heart she didn’t want to come home.’
Dan had paused before he replied, and then his voice came out in quite the wrong tone, too hearty, too confident. ‘Mine too,’ he said.
‘Sounds it,’ Alexa said sardonically. ‘I’m going to ring Franny.’
‘Please don’t,’ he said again.
‘I’m afraid you can’t tell me what to do about my own daughter. You’re not to be trusted anyway, are you? I bet you knew what Izzy was planning and you chose not to tell me, because you knew I’d act on it and you didn’t want the consequences of that. Did you? Well, you’ve
been found out, whatever fast one you’ve tried to pull. You can’t stop me. You’ve pre-empted me at the school, you can’t pre-empt me with my own friends, too.’
‘Go ahead then.’
‘I will!’ she’d shouted. ‘I will!’
But Franny, to Dan’s amazement and initial relief, had said no.
‘I’m not having Alexa here,’ Franny said to Dan. ‘I’ve told her so. She can come when Isabel’s had her say.’
‘Quite right,’ Dan said approvingly, holding the telephone. ‘Just what I—’
‘Hold on,’ Franny said, interrupting. ‘Hold on. Don’t think you’re off the hook, Dan, not for one minute. I need to see you round here. I have something to say.’
‘OK,’ Dan said, reluctantly.
‘In the morning,’ Franny said. ‘I’m not working till midday. I’ll see you here in the morning. Andy won’t be here.’
Her house, Dan thought, standing on the doorstep, looked very unlike his own, despite being almost a carbon copy. The garden was ferociously kept, the windows glittered, but there was nothing warm about it, nothing welcomingly disordered or charming. And when Franny herself opened the door, trim in tailored cords and polished loafers, her expression was equally uninviting. She looked past Dan at Beetle. ‘He’d better stay outside. Mine’s in season.’
Dan turned to command Beetle, who lowered himself mournfully to the gravel and laid his chin on his paws.
‘Come in,’ Franny said.
‘Fran, we’re so grateful. We really are. I’m so sorry for the trouble.’
‘She’s no trouble,’ Franny said. ‘None at all. She’s a dear. She’s lovely. I’m flattered, in fact. It’s a relief to know Rupe has even noticed a girl, let alone shown such good taste. Isabel is not, to my mind, the problem.’
‘Ah.’
Franny turned on her heel and marched towards the kitchen. It was as tidy and charmless as the exterior of the house. Her dog, a small and lightly built black Labrador bitch, was in a basket by the back door, the lead attached to her collar tied also to the back-door handle. She didn’t move when Dan came in. He stood just inside the door, on the shining vinyl floor, and took in the somehow reproving regularity of the room. Franny, who worked part-time as a house finder for a local estate agent, maintained she got all the house fixes she needed from her work and wasn’t prepared to expend one ounce of emotional energy on four walls which would never belong to her, and which she would never, thank you very much, have chosen in the first place.
‘Coffee?’ Franny said sharply.
Dan attempted a smile. ‘I don’t think you want to give me any. Where’s Izzy?’
‘Gone with Andy to pick up Rupert’s Christmas bike. Umpteen gears. You can have coffee if you want it, but what I’m going to give you, whether you want it or not, is a piece of my mind.’
‘I thought as much.’
‘So, with or without a mug of coffee?’
Dan wished suddenly and urgently for Izzy’s return. A stab of jealousy at Andy’s taking her to the cycle shop took him by surprise. He swallowed. ‘Without,’ he said. ‘Fire away.’
Franny indicated a chair, its seat hygienically and glossily upholstered in plastic. ‘Sit down.’
‘I’m OK.’
Franny leaned against the nearest kitchen counter and folded her arms. She looked as unlike the friendly, smiling, easy-going Franny that Dan was used to as she possibly could. He stood where he was, on the far side of the kitchen table from her, trying hard not to stand to attention.
‘I like Alexa,’ Franny said. ‘Make no mistake, my life here has been pretty well made by knowing Alexa. And Andy thinks a lot of you. But you just aren’t looking, either of you, are you? You aren’t listening. When Andy won’t listen, I just go ahead and do it, whatever it is. But Alexa doesn’t behave like that. She asks you. Or she waits for you to be ready to ask. But you never bloody are, are you? You just never, ever are.’
Dan’s hand moved slightly, involuntarily. If he’d had his side hat in his hands – he vaguely wished he did have – he’d have been turning it slowly. It would have been comforting to have something to hold on to. He said, in too jocular a tone, ‘My fault again, then.’
‘No,’ Franny said. She unfolded her arms and then folded them the opposite way. ‘No. It’s both of you. Neither of you are listening to Isabel.’
‘But we are.’
‘No, you’re not. She really meant this, Dan. She’s really unhappy. She really hates boarding school. She refuses to blame her mother, she refuses to blame you directly, but she just wants the same family life as Flora and Tassy get, she just wants to be at home with you and Alexa and the twins and the dog. And because you both make all decisions for her, and she can’t bear the consequences of those decisions, and she can’t get either of you to hear her, not really hear her, she takes matters into her own hands to try and make you see that she, poor kid, is in pain. And nobody should be in pain like that for no good reason. Especially not a child.’
‘There – there was a good reason.’
‘Good reason or convenience?’
‘Oh, Fran.’
Franny stood upright and pulled her sweater over her hips. ‘Lecture over,’ she said.
‘But boarding school isn’t an ogre’s den any more. Your boys love it.’
‘My boys are much simpler mechanisms than Isabel. And like their father, they are sustained by action. Daily sport and regular food and sleep, and my boys are sorted. Isabel’s different.’
Dan looked past Franny out of the window, where three yellow dusters flapped in a tidy row on a circular washing line. ‘Yes,’ he said soberly.
‘She can stay here till Alexa gets back. She’s welcome to. Andy’s chuffed to bits to have a daughter on loan. Someone else to show off to, since I’m not exactly a good audience any more, bless his heart.’
Dan switched his gaze to her face. ‘Franny?’
‘What?’
‘How – how did Isabel have the money to get home?’
Franny looked at him calmly. ‘Rupert sent it to her.’
‘Rupert!’
‘Yes,’ Franny said. ‘I asked her the same question and she told me. Then I rang him, and he confirmed it. As he said to me, it seemed the best thing to do.’ She paused for a second and then she said, ‘Hadn’t you better rescue that dog of yours?’
The twins were crying. They had been weeping, on and off, since they woke up and realized that they were going home. Alexa had expected that they would be as they had always been, as she had supposed small children always were, thrilled to be going home to see Daddy, and Beetle, and even Isabel, who could invariably be produced as a trump card when a reward or an inducement was in order. But instead they had wailed and whined and become like floppy rag dolls when Alexa tried to dress them, and sat looking glumly at their untouched breakfast – pronounced their favourite cereal on all preceding mornings – with their thumbs in. When her father – even her father! – sat down between them and attempted to coax in a mouthful or two, they had merely leaned against him, one either side, and indicated, round their thumbs, that they could not possibly be persuaded and, furthermore, they didn’t mind how long it took to make that very, very plain.
In the end, Elaine had relented and put bananas and cereal bars in a plastic bag for the journey. She looked tired, Alexa thought, as tired as someone might well look on the fourth day of having five people in a flat designed for a formal two, and the ceaseless involvement in nurture required by two three-year-olds. Alexa’s friend Prue, who had four children under eight to look after, said that she often felt like a tree entirely covered in woodpeckers. Elaine, still attired for the Marylebone Road but with slightly ruffled hair and a distinct air of discomposure, looked as if she might have been such a tree.
‘Sorry, Mum,’ Alexa said, wedged against the dishwasher in the tiny kitchen.
‘I’ve loved it.’
‘You’ve been fantastic. Really. But we’re a lot to cope with
. I know we are.’
Elaine took out the two bowls Alexa had just loaded into the dishwasher and put them back again at a slightly different angle. ‘Daddy and I have loved having you.’
‘Please, Mum. Please. Don’t pretend we’re easier than we are. Especially at the moment. It’s – it’s been a real break for me.’
Elaine straightened up and regarded her. ‘You don’t look as if you’ve had much of a break.’
‘I will do. Promise. I just need to sort a few things.’
Elaine made a distracted, despairing gesture. ‘All this business with Isabel.’
‘I know.’
‘You really can’t—’
‘Mum. Please.’
‘I knew that would happen,’ Elaine said. ‘I knew it. The moment you told us that you’d met Dan and that he was a soldier. I said to Daddy—’
‘No, Mum.’
‘D’you remember, in Jakarta—’
Alexa put her hands over her ears. ‘Of course I do!’
‘Well, then.’
‘Well nothing. Mum, I don’t want to fight. Really I don’t. Especially when you and Dad have been so generous. Really it’s been a – wonderful stay.’
Elaine said sadly, ‘I thought seeing Jack would do you good.’
‘It did.’
‘I – we rather hoped you’d marry Jack, you know.’
Alexa sighed. From the sitting room she could hear a steady whimpering setting in again. Was it Flora, or Tassy? She said, ‘Mum, I didn’t love Jack. I don’t. Not that way. He’s lovely, loveable, but not … not …’
‘Not what?’
‘Not like you love someone you agree to marry.’
Elaine looked away. She appeared to be considering, with discomfort, the nature of the love you might ideally feel for someone you agree to marry. Then she said, as a statement rather than a question, ‘And Dan was.’
‘Yes.’
‘And is?’
There was a fractional pause and then Alexa said, not wholly with conviction, ‘That too.’
In Morgan’s car, the twins fell asleep, their heads lolling forwards on the fragile stalks of their necks. Morgan drove with deliberate casualness, his right arm on the ledge of the window, just resting his fingertips on the steering wheel as if they had all day to meander pleasurably and relaxedly down to Wiltshire. Beside him, Alexa sat and tried not to make a checklist of all the things that needed confronting and dealing with at Larkford, or to think how these few days in London had demonstrated to her that it was no good being politely and even enthusiastically reactive any more, and that if she wanted even one of the things she had realized she could no longer live without – Isabel’s happiness being paramount – she was going to have to take action.
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