The Turning Point

by Freya North

  ‘Nice try,’ Frankie said. ‘Now come on you two – showers and then bed. It’s a school night.’

  Frankie woke with a start and scrabbled around for her clock. It read 3.47. Slightly sleep fuzzed, it took a few attempts to count backwards by eight and she had to use her fingers to do so. Whether she had it right or wrong specifically, she knew it was a decent hour in Canada. She tiptoed downstairs, avoiding the steps that groaned. Moonlight drizzled over the clay tiles in the hallway. They looked rather beautiful. If only they looked like that by day. She sat in a curl on the sofa, pulling the throw that lived across the back of it around her.

  ‘Do you like trains? You know, it’s only one stop on the train,’ she told Scott as soon as he answered. ‘Or two – I don’t know. I think it may stop in Kent or somewhere like that.’

  ‘So if I take a train, I get to see you?’

  ‘I would have loved to come to Paris,’ she said forlornly.

  ‘I guess I’ll just have to bring a little bit of Paris to you,’ Scott said.

  Ruth and Frankie strolled down Staithe Street in Wells, having dipped in and out of the shops for greetings cards and second-hand books, vegetables, bread and brightly coloured welly-socks that were on sale.

  ‘Come on,’ Ruth said. ‘Let’s buy a bag of chips and take the dogs onto the beach for an hour.’

  With the wind in their hair and the tang of vinegary paper in their nostrils, they walked across the sands.

  ‘I can’t believe I’ve eaten all those chips,’ Ruth said. ‘I made a pact with myself that it’s salad only for lunch during the week.’

  ‘Am I a bad influence?’ Frankie asked, gazing at the beach huts and wondering how much they went for.

  Ruth laughed. ‘It’s me leading you astray – I suggested chips. And all that wine last week.’

  ‘And you made me come here after my Alexander session this morning – when I should have gone home and tried to haul the bloody book out of me.’

  ‘Oh yes, Frankie – you came kicking and screaming.’

  Frankie gave Ruth a gentle shove then she looked around. ‘God this is lovely. Is this where they filmed Gwynnie walking on the beach at the end of Shakespeare in Love?’

  ‘A little further up, Holkham.’

  On they walked, the two black Labradors playing grandmother’s footsteps with the waves.

  ‘So,’ said Ruth, ‘he’s coming?’

  ‘I can’t quite believe it but yes, yes he is. I keep thinking, will he like it, what will the kids think, will they get along?’

  ‘Are you nervous?’

  ‘My sister asked me the same thing. Nervous – no, strange as that may seem. I know it sounds slightly unbelievable – but I know him, there’s been an honesty between us, an openness right from the start. The things we talk about, the depth we talk to.’

  ‘You sure you haven’t made him a bit mythical in your eyes? Remember, the day-to-day stuff can cast a different light,’ said Ruth.

  ‘You sound like my sister,’ said Frankie, comfortable enough to add a certain discontent to her voice.

  ‘I’m just looking out for you,’ Ruth said. ‘I care about you.’

  ‘I’m not a romantic you know,’ Frankie told her. ‘I think people think I must be, doing the job I do, living in a land of make-believe. I’ll happily admit that when it came to men I was a fantasist in my twenties, my early thirties. Since then, since Miles, since the children – no. I’ve had a few mini-flings – that’s all. And then I met Scott. And all I can say is, the fact that something so unexpected, so extraordinary, happened – it actually happened – means that actually, it has to be believed.’

  Ruth put her hand to her heart, even though she was holding a chip between her finger and thumb. ‘I love it!’ she said. ‘Honestly I do. It’s a little bit thrilling to live vicariously through you. Will we meet him?’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Frankie, who’d already thought how much she wanted them to meet one another.

  ‘You look – worried?’

  ‘It’s my book, Ruth – I really need it to come. I don’t get paid till I hand it in.’

  Ruth turned and faced the sea, today its surface like wafting silk. ‘You know, sometimes, when you’re with me and we’re doing the Technique, I sense you holding back. So for what it’s worth, I’d say it must be hard to be there in Alice world, if you’re not quite here, in your own world. Does that make any sense?’

  One of the dogs came bounding back with a stick twice its size. Frankie threw it as far as she could. Then she stopped and inhaled deeply, turning a slow 360 degrees.

  ‘You know, sometimes I still feel like a visitor, like the house can’t possibly be mine, can’t really be home. I think I’m happy, I think I feel at home here – but sometimes, I’m not quite sure.’

  Scott yawned as he checked the departures board. The jet lag had been vicious this time around, not helped by the fact that one of the producers was insufferably boring, the director was notoriously neurotic, the script just seemed silly and from what he’d seen of the rushes it wasn’t going to win awards. It all seemed a bit chaotic. He wasn’t even getting to see much of Paris as the meetings were in nondescript offices away from the city centre. They’d put him up in an airport hotel because they thought that was the right thing to do. It transpired that rail to the UK wasn’t viable. He liked the idea and it was comforting to think of Frankie just a train ride away, but in reality, door to door would have taken a long day. He couldn’t change his flight home to leave from anywhere other than Paris but he could delay it by three days. Timetables, options, bookings websites, maps of East Anglia, train routes, airline information, car hire – that’s how he’d passed the time when he was wide awake while all of France slept.

  It was only when Frankie had his text and the details were there in black and white – a flight to Stansted arriving the following morning – that she told the children.

  ‘Scott is coming to visit.’

  Annabel’s eyes lit up.

  ‘Where is he going to stay?’ Sam asked.

  ‘With us,’ said Frankie.

  ‘Where with us?’ Sam had muttered under his breath, slouching off to pack his bag for school.

  ‘What did Sam say?’ asked Annabel.

  ‘Not quite sure,’ said Frankie, glancing anxiously at the space he’d left. She’d heard him very well.

  Frankie took Annabel to school early the next morning, arriving ten minutes before breakfast club even started. They sat in the car together, bonding over their tangible anticipation.

  ‘I wonder what he’s like,’ Annabel said. ‘In real life.’

  ‘I hope you like him,’ said Frankie.

  ‘Does Daddy know?’

  ‘Daddy?’ She hadn’t thought about Miles in weeks, nor had they heard a word from him.

  ‘Yes?’ said Annabel, wondering why her mother looked like that. ‘Does he know – have you told him?’

  ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Well, won’t he want to know?’

  When has he ever wondered about anyone other than himself?

  Annabel thought about her father while her mum played with her ponytail. ‘We haven’t spoken to him for ages or seen him in ages.’

  ‘Well, that’s because he’s busy – and far away.’

  ‘Is Canada as far away as where Daddy is?’

  ‘Some parts of Canada are nearer, some are further – it’s a huge country. Let’s look at the atlas when we get home.’

  ‘There are maps on your phone, silly,’ said Annabel and Frankie watched her little fingers scurry over the screen until she’d brought up various maps of Canada. They pored over one together, finding Pemberton and having fun with names like Chilliwack and Garibaldi on the way.

  ‘See you later, pumpkin,’ Frankie said and Annabel waved and darted into school for a second breakfast.

  Frankie took a moment in the car, the imminence of Scott’s arrival shooting adrenalin like arrows through her blood. Was he really g
oing to be in her house, filling the space that hitherto had been draped with daydreams of him? Would he feel at home here, with her and the children? She turned away from the niggling memory of Sam’s displeasure and looked again at the map of Canada on her phone, which somehow her daughter had saved into her photo stream. She wondered if Scott had studied maps of the UK, whether he’d zoomed in on East Anglia, whether he’d found the triangle of Binham, Langham and Cockthorpe and tapped his finger somewhere in the middle wondering what it was like, wondering when he’d get there.

  It was a good two hours’ drive to Stansted. She wouldn’t hear of Scott hiring a car. After all, she’d said, when I come to Pemberton, you’re hardly likely to make me find my own way there.

  She was early and his plane was on schedule but still she paced Arrivals, never more than a moment or two from glancing at the board, or a step or two from her chosen spot to greet him. Hurry up! She looked around her. How many people here were waiting on this particular flight? Some of those people in Costa Coffee appeared so relaxed and unaware of where they were, Frankie wondered if they were there solely for a drink and a cake. But none of her meanderings were making time pass faster.

  Passengers arriving were filtering through all the time. Officious businessmen out first pulling their wheeled carry-ons as though they were annoying children. Families ambled through, nattering and bickering, trolleying a snaking path which held up the people behind.

  Where are you?

  Here I am.

  Very real, very lovely and just feet away.

  Hey you, he said over and over as she buried her face in his chest and clung to him. And there they stood. So what that people had to swerve a route around them? No one tutted, no one raised an eyebrow, no one minded at all. It was an iconic sight: a couple reunited. Scott and Frankie in each other’s arms gladdened the hearts of all who had to detour around them.

  Days like today I think I believe in God, thought Frankie the long-time agnostic. Scott was with her and nothing was impeding their journey home. There was no traffic, not even around Barton Mills, and the deeper they drove into Norfolk the more lovely the weather and the prettier the views. She felt proud of her county today. Scott watched her drive, taking the back of his hand lightly to her cheek. She glanced at him from time to time, liking the way he filled her car, that he’d had to shunt the seat back, that he’d found a way to make himself comfortable. He was in her space and he was a good fit.

  ‘That’s where I bought Sam’s bike for Christmas. Are you hungry? I thought we’d stop for lunch. Look! That’s where I get my hair cut.’ She wafted her hand at the sign for Creake Abbey as they drove past. Scott could have asked her to slow down so he could take it all in, but he liked her slightly hyper energy all the same.

  At Burnham Market they parked.

  ‘Wow,’ said Scott, standing on the green marvelling at the historic buildings lined up on either side as if they were having a good look at him. ‘It’s what every tourist wants from an English village.’

  ‘To be honest, this is the place that inspired my move,’ Frankie said. ‘I rented a cottage here two Easters in a row.’ She motioned to a young woman walking towards them, wearing a dreamy smile and strolling along to the shops, a wicker basket over her arm. ‘When I was on holiday here, that was me. When I was back in London, this was how I could so clearly envisage myself. Then I came to live here and realized that wicker baskets are too cumbersome and hard and not that feasible.’ She giggled at herself, then she shrugged. ‘Actually, for quite a while, I was disappointed.’

  ‘Living the dream needs a certain amount of practical awareness,’ Scott said. ‘Even if it doesn’t look that pretty.’

  Frankie pointed out the Hoste Arms. ‘That’s where we’re going for lunch. That’s my sister Peta’s favourite place in the world. It’s the sole reason she was so supportive when I told her I was moving this way – and so disappointed that where I bought has a very different character to here. She’ll tell you – if it isn’t Burnham Market, it’s the Back of Beyond.’

  ‘Frankie, if money wasn’t the issue, if you could have afforded a property here – is this where you would have bought? Would you have preferred it? Do you feel you’re living a Plan B?’

  She thought about that and then shook her head. ‘I love doing this – what we’re doing – dipping in and having a mooch before heading home. But they call it Chelsea on Sea for a reason, on account of so many Londoners having second homes here, so no – it’s OK that it transpired everything was out of my reach.’

  She was taking him a circuitous route to lunch, walking him over the road and in the opposite direction as if presenting the shops and boutiques to him like personal friends.

  ‘I’m just going to buy a blob and then let’s go and eat.’

  Scott thought, I must remember to tell Jenna they call their bread a blob.

  After lunch, she drove a looping route home, stopping at Holkham. Through the pines and over the boardwalk, hand in hand, to the golden sands stretching vast and relatively unpeopled to the sea and to either side. The last few days, Scott had felt hemmed in, in Paris, on planes, even in the dining room at the Hoste Arms. It felt good to be out in the very wide open. He filled his lungs with sea air and brought Frankie in close to kiss her.

  ‘This is beautiful,’ he said. The breeze had spun her hair into tangles around her face.

  ‘Isn’t it,’ said Frankie.

  ‘Nice beach too,’ he said and she laughed.

  ‘There’s more,’ she beamed, ‘there’s more.’ She walked on, pulling him by the hand. ‘Come and see the sea.’

  Scott spoke readily to the people they passed, people who might just slow down and remark on the weather, or the tide, or the daft antics of their dog or child. They picked up on his accent immediately.

  ‘Do you live here?’

  ‘No,’ he’d say. ‘I’m just visiting – but Frankie here, she does. She’s local.’

  And they’d give her a nod, as if they’d never have guessed.

  As they walked back to the car, Scott glanced at her. ‘You know, those times on the phone when you’ve said to me you feel you don’t fit in, you feel you’re still a visitor?’

  ‘Not all the time,’ she qualified. ‘But some of the time, yes.’

  ‘Seems to me you’re a head-down-in-your-own-world type of girl,’ he said, giving her hand a squeeze. ‘That’s very attractive to someone like me. But you know, sometimes, all you need to do is look up, greet the day and see who’s around and happy to say hi.’

  ‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ she told him. ‘I like everywhere so much more now that you’re in it.’

  ‘Stiffkey,’ he said.

  ‘Pronounced Stewkey,’ she told him as they drove through, the road becoming a narrow passage between flint buildings and walls. Even in the car, Frankie always had the sensation her knuckles were just inches from being scraped. She told Scott this, she told him that when she had to squeeze her car through a tight gap, she tended to breathe in, believing it would help. He laughed and realized that it was these details he’d give Jenna to paint a picture of Frankie.

  ‘Binham,’ Scott said quietly when he saw the sign.

  ‘Drop the “h” and soften the “a”,’ Frankie laughed.

  He tried it again. ‘Is it the same for Langham?’

  Frankie nodded.

  ‘I’ve seen this – all of this – on the map,’ he said, looking out. He chuckled. ‘And here I am.’

  ‘Almost home,’ said Frankie. ‘Sorry about the hedges.’

  ‘You’re apologizing why?’

  ‘I feel they crowd in on me sometimes.’ They were on a straight stretch of road where the hedgerows were so high to either side it felt as though they might arch right over the car. ‘You can’t see the view.’

  ‘But I know it’s there,’ he said. ‘And anyway, what’s lying directly ahead looks pretty good to me.’

  This is our wall, she told him. ‘We have a pos
tbox in it – do you see? Sometimes, nosey parkers spend a long time putting in their mail while they try and look over the wall. Half-four every weekday. Half-ten on Saturdays.’

  ‘Have you said hi, though?’ Scott asked. ‘Do they know you’re here, even? So maybe they just wonder, who’s that mysterious family who moved in all those months ago who don’t come out to shoot the shit while we mail our letters.’

  Who were the people who used this postbox, she wondered? She’d never stopped to ponder that one. ‘I’m always too busy anyway,’ she laughed. ‘There’s usually something bubbling over on the stove, or a war between the children to sort out. Anyway, that small field on the other side of the lane – that’s ours too,’ she said and then, in silence, they rumbled over the uneven drive and came to a stop, the sudden stillness of the car welcome. ‘And this,’ she said quietly, ‘this is our home.’

  Scott just sat and took in her house. He’d seen photos of course but now, here, the pretty little building made perfect sense. Of course she’d live here. He mused, if an architect could have designed a house to complement Frankie, this is what they would have drawn. It suited her. It was quite an unassuming cottage, really, but its components and proportions were lovely. It had a quietness about it, sitting steady on its plot, but a rose rambled up one side and, on the steps leading up to the front door, a squabble of pots puffed out the clashing colours of early summer. A hedge and a wall protected the house from the lane and orchard trees screened the other side from the metallic sprawl of the Mawbys’ farm buildings. Just like Frankie herself, he thought, find ways to shield herself and her little family. He remembered that first evening in the hotel, asking her not to go when suddenly she’d stood to leave. He looked at her now, put his hand gently on the back of her neck and waited for her to set the pace.

  ‘It is flint,’ Frankie promised him. ‘Only some time ago it was slathered in all that paint. It’s number one on my to-do list, to have it blasted off.’

  ‘It’s lovely.’

  ‘And the windows around the back were replaced with hideous aluminium at some point – so they’re going to go too. Number two – funds permitting.’