by Freya North
‘You been apart long?’
That direct bluntness again. ‘Far longer than we were ever together.’
‘So if the ditch guy isn’t Miles, who is he?’
Frankie grinned. ‘He’s not anyone I know. He’s lovely – in a slightly unnerving way – a contradiction between being inept and clumsy but sensitive and gentle. He’s hideously ugly but really rather beautiful. He helps Alice and she helps him right back.’
‘Is he an imaginary friend?’
Frankie shook her head earnestly. ‘No. He isn’t. He’s real. But only Alice knows about him.’ She thought about it. ‘You could say they have a co-dependent relationship.’
‘One of those, hey?’ Scott said darkly but with a wry smile. ‘And Alice herself?’
‘Alice is Alice,’ Frankie said.
‘She’s not Annabel?’
Frankie shook her head.
‘Your artwork is gorgeous,’ Scott said. Confident, quirky line drawings bloomed over with washes of watercolour. ‘Is she always this age?’
Frankie nodded. ‘Ten-ish.’ She glanced at her drawing. She didn’t see it as being from her hand. It was just Alice, clear to her as a photo.
‘If Alice had a favourite song – what would it be?’
Frankie had never thought about it. ‘I don’t know.’
White chocolate striating the strawberries on crème pâtissière, atop a biscuit base. She loaded a fork and passed it to Scott. ‘Her favourite song would be – oh God, if I’m honest, most likely something by One Bloody Dimension.’
‘You know it’s Direction, right?’
‘I know – I like winding Annabel up. I reckon Alice is the same.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ Scott said quietly, opening the book and reading. ‘I reckon the guy in the ditch – he’s been around. I reckon he’s seen the Stones, Dylan, the Byrds. In fact, there were plenty of folk at Woodstock who looked pretty much like him. But I’d say he keeps Alice balanced – culturally. Those times when they’re not solving mysteries or saving the day – when they’re just at the end of the garden shooting the shit – I’ll say they talk about music and he steers her straight, eh.’
‘Are you saying there’s stuff about Alice I don’t know?’
Scott shrugged. ‘Maybe. You’re the secretary remember, not the puppeteer. Imagine what goes on behind your back. Imagine that.’
Frankie looked so shocked it made him smile. He split the gateau in two. ‘Why don’t you try to find out? You talk about her like she’s real – which I don’t doubt. But seems to me perhaps when you’re writing you lose sight of that.’ He ate cake and read on, quietly. ‘Seems like she’s a really nice kid,’ he said.
‘She is,’ Frankie said.
‘And Annabel?’ Scott said. ‘And Sam?’
Out came Frankie’s phone and a guided tour pictorially through her children’s lives.
‘How have they handled the move – to Norfolk?’
Frankie looked through the pictures of her children. ‘Oh well, Annabel could run the country tomorrow,’ she told Scott. ‘But Sam – he’s getting there. It’s been harder for him – less of an adventure, more of a disruption. He left his pals, a school he liked, an area he knew. He’s settling now – but there were a few hiccups to start with, a couple of occasions when he skipped school.’
‘Where did he go?’
‘He came home.’
‘But he knew you’d be there, right?’ Frankie nodded and Scott weighed it up. ‘So he’s happy at home?’
She looked at Scott. ‘He’s happiest at home. He likes to think of himself as the man of the house.’
A fresh pot of tea was ordered. The other tables emptied and refilled, not that Frankie or Scott noticed. They talked easily, eagerly and relaxed into the affable pauses in between. For all the sharing and conversation, it was privately and shyly that they revelled in each other’s physical proximity. It confronted her how the man she’d given relatively short shrift to at the station yesterday, the same man in whose company she’d felt herself unfurl during an evening she wished was longer, who’d caused her heart to race in the lift and who’d whorled his way through her sleep, was today someone known to her and trusted. Since yesterday, he’d undoubtedly become the most handsome man she’d ever met but it was the fact that she knew him, that she was herself with him, which thrilled her most.
‘Do you have to go back to the studio?’
‘Yes.’ He rubbed his eyes.
‘Not a good session so far?’
He pushed the crumbs on his plate into an S. ‘I have the music – but today, in the studio, with everyone there, it’s not right.’
‘Your music?’ Frankie asked. ‘Or the way it’s being played?’
‘If I say the latter, do I sound like a jerk?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s personal – I get that.’
And Scott sensed that she did.
‘Do you have to go back there soon?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘More cake?’
‘No – thank you.’
‘More tea?’
‘Sure.’
‘Say cuppa.’
‘Cuppa.’
The tea was now lukewarm but it didn’t matter. They put their cups down at the same time, Scott’s shirtsleeve just touching Frankie’s arm, their hands so close. If he didn’t do it now, he might never. So he did. He moved his little finger the short but loaded distance until it touched Frankie’s. She linked hers around his, like those symbolic promises she used to make in the playground with her best friends. Scott and Frankie regarded their entwined fingers and looked at each other and gently placed their heads together and, while Frankie closed her eyes, Scott brushed his lips against her forehead. A kiss without being a kiss.
‘Will I see you?’ she asked.
‘Of course,’ he said.
‘Not just later today – but will I see you? After? Again?’
‘Without a doubt.’
‘It’s all a bit – mad – really.’ She rested her head lightly against his shoulder.
‘It’s crazy, Frankie. It’s insane.’ He paused. ‘But I like it.’
‘I do too.’
Her agent appeared to know most of the other diners in the restaurant so Frankie had to smile a lot whilst fretting at the time this was adding to the evening. In the studio, Scott was utterly wrapped in his music; coasting on the vibrant energy from his afternoon with Frankie and all the Maison Bertaux calories. Why stop now? he said to the engineer – let’s get this down. When he worked like this, hours polarized into mere moments. It was two in the morning when he arrived back at the hotel. The bar area was closed and, though he wondered whether Frankie might pop out from behind a giant urn, she didn’t. He checked his phone. They’d spoken earlier – she’d ducked out of the restaurant telling him her agent was ordering a second bottle of wine but she should be back by eleven. At the time, Scott said he didn’t think he’d be much longer either. And, until he looked at his watch on leaving the studio, he genuinely thought he hadn’t been. Jubilance and frustration hand in hand. What a day.
So sorry – I’m only just back and I guess you’re asleep. Scott x
Frankie read the message and wondered what to do. It was the early hours and she’d woken with a start, reaching blearily for her phone. In the vast bed, in a froth of Egyptian cotton, she thought and thought until she infuriated herself. She could text back. She could pad off along corridors in the complimentary slippers, holding up the voluminous towelling robe like a ballgown. And then what? Knock on his door, wake him? Stand there, the both of them, with expectation oozing from one to the other. What would he do? Pull her towards him, shut the door behind them, tug her belt loose so the robe fell open, slip his hands inside to find her body, find her lips and sink his mouth against hers. Then what? Fumble and fondle over to the bed and fall together in a writhe of lovemaking. This is what she wanted and she didn’t doubt he wanted it too. But what would it
be at this time of night? Sex for the sake of it because she was leaving tomorrow?
And it’s stupid o’clock.
Frankie switched the light off and settled back into the darkness.
Not now, Scott.
But if not now – then when?
Scott woke early and he thought, she’s going today. He thought, it’s Thursday and that’s that – Frankie’s going home. Suddenly he wanted to be home too, not on his own here, negotiating the pace of London, working peculiar hours, living in a hotel, eating too much red meat and spending too much time indoors. He wanted to be sitting at his favourite spot on the Lillooet River, with Aaron and Buddy and a couple of beers. The rivers and creeks had recently turned a milky eau-de-nil colour, the glacial silt causing the change and heralding summer until the rain run-off turned the waters clear again in November. What’s the sea like, near Frankie’s place in Norfolk? What colour are the rivers there? Where can you fish? Who do you come across, whose landscape do you share? Eagles and otters, beavers, bears?
He left the bed and walked across to the window, looking down to the street five floors below, the besuited hurrying to work, their stress palpable. If this were a scene for a movie, he’d underscore it with a fidget of bickering strings and just the occasional soft melodious piano trying to establish a refrain for the pedestrian walking slowly, mindfully, against the commuting surge. He turned his back on the day and sat down on the sofa, switching the television on and a few moments later, off again. He checked his phone.
Morning!
She’d sent it an hour ago. He phoned Reception. Had she checked out? No Mr Emerson, she has not.
He left his room on the fifth floor and walked along the corridor to hers. Funny how he hadn’t wanted her to know he was on the same floor, that first night. Yes, his heart had pounded in the elevator, the air between them thick and heady with attraction and desire. But something had told him to slow down, to give grace to what was growing so fast. He hadn’t wanted the premature pressure of your room or mine; for the first time in a long time, his head was steady over his heart, his cock. That night had been too good, had had such a novel impact, he hadn’t wanted to sully it with how things used to be. Standing there, outside her door, he thought back to how he’d let her leave then had to ride up before returning down to the fifth.
Quiet Please.
She’d hung the sign on the door. He could do quiet. It was a trait of his personality that most saw as a quality though it frustrated the hell out of all his exes. He knocked gently.
And Frankie thought, Scott?
The door opened and Scott thought Christ alive, the sun really does come out when that girl smiles. And Frankie simply thought it’s him, he came.
‘Good morning sir.’
‘Morning.’
‘Did you want to come in? It’s a bit of a mess.’
No it wasn’t. Her room was tidier than his. Funny how rooms which are identical can be so different. Same curtains, same furniture, same orchid, same grainy black-and-white artsy photographs, same background whir from the minibar. Yet Frankie’s room was distinct; it was the same when Jenna was at home with him – a space personalized and warmed, made smaller yet fuller by a feminine energy. He glanced around. Perhaps it was the Converse trainers placed neatly just under the chair. Or the way her belongings were in a tidy pile on the coffee table. A drift of perfume, maybe. He didn’t know, really, and it didn’t matter anyway because as he sat on the sofa he felt this was as good as being in her living room in Norfolk.
‘Coffee? Does your room have a Nespresso machine?’
He laughed. ‘Think you’re special?’
‘Aren’t I?’
‘No – I mean yes. And yes – to coffee.’
‘Have you had breakfast?’
‘No.’
‘You can have the rest of the jelly beans from the minibar.’
Scott laughed. ‘Makes a change from granola.’
As Frankie made coffee, she thought about how Scott laughed so easily. She didn’t think herself a particularly funny person, it wasn’t any staggering wit on her part that made it happen. A gentle sound, deep and genuine, like an oversized soft chuckle. It struck her that Scott was a man who was alert for the happy in life and it was a quality that had its attractive physical manifestation in the laughter lines around his eyes.
‘Here you are.’
‘Thank you.’
‘When are you leaving for work?’ she asked.
‘Well – soon, really.’ He looked at her, sitting in the armchair just like the one in his room; hugging a scatter cushion, not drinking the coffee she’d made, her legs curled under, her hair loose with a bedhead kink to one side. ‘And you? When do you check out?’
‘In about an hour.’
They thought about that.
‘That’s too bad,’ said Scott.
‘I know,’ she said quietly.
‘I fly home Sunday.’
‘I know.’
And she thought to herself, over the sea and far, far away. Insanity. She stood up and crossed over to the window, gazing down on the irritable heave of rush hour outside, mercifully silent five floors up.
‘So glad I don’t work in a job like that in a place like this.’ He was behind her. Right behind her. His chin just perceptible against the top of her head, his body very nearly against hers.
‘Me too,’ said Frankie and she leant back just slightly until she felt him there. His arms encircled her, his lips pressed against her neck; she had only to turn just a little to kiss him.
‘Is this just crazy?’ she whispered.
‘Crazy not to,’ he whispered back and kissed her again, deeper and for longer.
On the train to King’s Lynn, just pulling out of Liverpool Street station, her head against the window, Frankie’s journey back to her life began. As the train moved, a completely new emotion swept through her; a swirl of euphoria and desolation. She was on her way home and soon, he would be too. To Canada. Would that she had never met him?
The train jolted and stopped. Started, slunk along, juddered, stopped again. Eventually, the tannoy crackled then went quiet, hissed again – then nothing. It was as if the driver had thought better of it. Now at a standstill in nondescript countryside, Frankie recalled how it was a journey like this when she’d first met Ruth. They’d been sitting opposite each other. Tall and elegant with her hair in the sleekest bobbed haircut, like varnished ebony. On looks alone, Frankie had the idea for a character, even more so when the woman called the train line bastards and buggers and for fuck’s sake just bloody get a move on you sods.
‘You speak my language,’ Frankie had said and when it transpired Ruth had a son Annabel’s age and a younger daughter and lived not too far from Frankie, the basis for friendship was formed
‘What do you do? That you travel from London to Lynn?’
‘I write,’ said Frankie. ‘And you?’
‘I teach Alexander Technique.’
‘Is that when you’re meant to walk with a penny between your bum-cheeks and a pile of books on your head?’
How Ruth had laughed. ‘No – but that’s how our grandmas were taught to walk, nice and ladylike,’ she’d said. Somehow, she’d detected that Frankie suffered headaches. ‘Come to me for a few sessions,’ she said. ‘Mate’s rates.’
Scott. What just happened? And what could happen next? Suddenly it struck Frankie that she wanted Ruth to know.
I met a man. Like no other.
Ruth phoned her immediately.
‘There are only clichés to describe it. What he’s like. I’m a bloody writer and I can’t do better than Love at first sight.’
‘But actually, you can’t do better than Love at first sight,’ Ruth laughed down the phone. ‘What could beat that? I have to see you!’
Frankie gazed out of the window again. The landscape was now passing by fast in a blur. When did the train pick up speed? When did the points change? When did they get so far from London, s
o close to King’s Lynn? Reality felt suddenly distorted. However present and alert, alive and sentient she’d felt in London, actually she was hurtling back to the real Frankie – Norfolk and children, the house that leaked and page after page of bare paper devoid of all trace of Alice.
‘Don’t let him leave before you’ve seen him again,’ Ruth said. ‘You can’t let him go just because of clichés and complications.’
‘Canada is a pretty big complication,’ Frankie said.
‘Rubbish,’ said Ruth so passionately that it struck Frankie she ought to believe her.
‘I have to go – the train is pulling in to Lynn.’
‘I’ll be phoning you later,’ said Ruth.
Her mother had cleaned the fridge though Frankie had cleaned it the day before she left. Her mother had also reorganized its contents. It was a typical gesture that could be interpreted one way or the other and responded to graciously or defensively. Her mother had gone by the time Frankie arrived home yet she didn’t know whether to be relieved or affronted.
Mum. Mother. Mother dear. Having a sparse relationship with your mother was as complex as having an overinvolved one. Would Annabel some day feel as distant from Frankie as Frankie felt from Margaret?
She left the kitchen and went to the children’s rooms. The beds were made and it was a stark sight. The children never made their beds until, bizarrely, they were just about to get into them each evening. She cast an eye over the bathroom. Sam had obviously had a wee and forgotten to flush. Margaret was obviously making a point by leaving it for all to see – though she’d picked up towels, wiped the basin and hung a damp flannel over the tap. Frankie thought of Peta’s boys and she wondered why her mother never passed comment on their bedroom walls festooned with semi-naked women, their floors obliterated with piles of dirty clothes. Neither Peta nor Frankie could work that one out at all.
She checked her phone. Nothing. She made a call.
‘I’m home and it’s very quiet.’
‘I’m in the studio,’ said Scott. ‘Listen.’