by Freya North
‘Ruth said pack swimmies and Crocs,’ Frankie said, burrowing into drawers and cupboards to find them.
Scott still sat at the kitchen table, where Annabel was now writing her friends’ names in a curlicue script. Sam came and plonked himself down, earphones on, Instagram at the ready. Scott reached to take a piece of paper. Then he remembered the fish and chips.
‘May I have a page?’
Annabel pushed one over to him.
He wrote down his email address and gave it to Sam. ‘Ever you want to share music stuff, write me. I’d be happy to send you some links to bands I like.’
‘Are you not on Instagram or Twitter?’
‘God no.’
‘You’re just like my mum,’ said Annabel. ‘Can I have your email too?’
‘Sure,’ said Scott, writing it again.
‘You don’t even have an email,’ Sam said.
‘I don’t have an email,’ Annabel told Scott.
‘You will do some day,’ Scott told her.
On their way out to the car, Scott noticed a woman mailing a letter into the box within Frankie’s wall.
‘Go say hi,’ he nudged her.
Frankie glanced over. ‘Oh that’s just Mrs Mawby – she’s the farmer’s wife, next door. And we’re in a rush – I said we’d be at Ruth’s by now.’
Scott raised his hand to the woman who gave him a quick, awkward smile before she was on her way. ‘I met Mr Mawby yesterday – Sam and I saw him when we were waiting for you to get back with Annabel. We walked down to visit the ruins of the priory and he passed by so Sam waved and he stopped. Amusing guy. His name is Keith.’
Frankie realized she hadn’t known Mr Mawby’s Christian name until now. She’d never thought to ask, really.
* * *
Scott and Frankie stood side by side, engrossed in the departures board. His flight was on time but perhaps if they kept staring at the information long enough they might jinx the flight and it would be delayed. And then he’d miss his connection and he’d have to stay. He could cut the lawn and help with the school run and become good pals with Ruth’s husband Peter. He could teach guitar or play in pubs and bring home the bacon and fish ’n’ chips on a Friday.
GO TO GATE.
He looked at Frankie. ‘I guess that’s me then.’
She nodded.
‘Write your book,’ he said. ‘It’s in you – write it out of your system.’ He kissed her forehead, lifted her chin, kissed her lips and brushed his nose against hers.
‘I’ll try. Will you phone me from Paris? Will you let me know when you’re home?’
They’d discussed many times when the next time would be, they’d sat at her table poring over the kitchen calendar, with a pen to hand. All those empty days apart, stretching beyond June and through July. The concept of a date with a big red marker on it making the time between now and then finite and manageable. But they couldn’t find one. Possibilities, yes, with some major reorganization of their lives. I’ll push forward here, you do that then and move this there and then and then just maybe.
GO TO GATE. It felt as though they’d done something wrong. GO TO GATE.
‘I have to go.’
Even Paris seemed too far.
In the end, it wasn’t Annabel, working covertly for Scott, who brought Alice and Frankie back together again. It wasn’t Scott either. It wasn’t down to the sharp email from her agent or the call from her editor she hadn’t managed to avoid. In the end it was the final-demand gas bill arriving in the post with her credit-card statement on the same day she visited a class of eight-year-olds.
Frankie looked at the sea of hands, the expectant faces, enthusiasm mingling in the air with the stale classroom smells of pencil shavings, a hidden apple core and, faintly, bums. Frankie had been invited to Annabel’s school, not as Annabel’s mother but as a special guest during the school’s Reading Week.
A real author? Frankie Shaw who writes the Alice books. The Alice books? And Frankie Shaw looks – like – this? I thought she was a man! I thought she was a little old lady! She’s Annabel from Year 5’s mum as well.
‘Good morning children,’ Frankie said. ‘It’s lovely to be here. Hands up if you don’t like reading.’
One hand, defiant. She smiled at the child and spoke to her.
‘Well, it’s my job today to see if I can help you change your mind about that.’
As she started her talk, she remembered how much she loved this part of her job, interacting with the children who often turned out to be her liveliest critics and most honest fans. Her publicist would call it something like reaching to the core readership or engaging the target market.
They’re kids! Frankie simply thought of it as hanging out with Alice’s friends. So she did what she always did – read aloud from the very first Alice book. Two, three pages she read, before placing the book face down yet continuing the story verbatim. She moved through the class as she told the story off by heart, charmed and bolstered by small faces with eyes wide, transfixed.
‘Frankie Shaw,’ asked one who had her hand up but just couldn’t wait for permission to speak. ‘Do you know every single word in the whole book?’
In answer, Frankie just kept reciting, crouching at the desk of the little girl who didn’t like reading but who hung on Frankie’s every word.
‘Frankie Shaw,’ another asked, ‘Are you writing a book now?’
And it struck Frankie that she had to. She just had to, if not to ease her financial headache, then at least for this child. Alice and her friends.
‘I’m trying,’ she told the class. ‘You know in your lessons when you try your hardest and you still find it difficult and you don’t know if anyone believes just how much effort you’re putting in?’ Thirty nods. ‘That’s what it can feel like for an author. Some days, I call and call for Alice and she doesn’t come. Other times, it’s like we’re talking in different languages. Some days she’s in a grump with me. Other days I’m in a bad mood with her.’
‘Why don’t you both just say you’re sorry, Frankie Shaw – that’s the best way to get on with things.’
‘And why don’t you put your hand up before you speak, Ryan Smith?’ said the teacher.
‘Sometimes I just sit immobilized by a day-long fog,’ said Frankie, looking at the floor. ‘Followed by restless nights when disjointed sentences come at me out of the dark like spears. Sound ideas that I can’t capture which taunt me by remaining just beyond my grasp. The tiredness and the worry. No book, no money. To be honest, I feel catatonically inept. I sit there and sit there and wonder what on earth I can do for a living instead. How am I going to support my family? I sit there, not writing, day after day, weeping, severe stomach cramps and blinding headaches, thinking of my children and –’
The teacher cleared her throat and Frankie was suddenly aware of thirty brows furrowed with unease at a grown-up imparting distress. Frankie’s head throbbed. She needed paracetamol, or a session with Ruth, but she pulled herself up tall, waved at the air as if there was a nasty smell and forced out a jolly laugh.
‘But you don’t want to hear about all that nonsense! You want to know about Alice don’t you? Who has another question?’
‘Miss,’ asked a boy, who promptly forgot his question to much laughter. ‘Oh yes!’ He took a deep breath. ‘When you were my age, what was your favourite book?’
‘I liked a book called The Six Bullerby Children, by Astrid Lindgren – who wrote Pippi Longstocking. This time last year I was living in London – but I started thinking about those books. Bullerby is in a country called Sweden – but I feel where I live now is a little like my own slice of Bullerby. Oh, and I also loved Roald Dahl too – but that goes without saying.’
He wasn’t finished. ‘And exactly how old were you when you wrote your first story?’
Frankie considered this. ‘Well, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t write stories. If I found things difficult at school, or if I felt lonely or sad or angry or
worried, I’d write a story. I liked disappearing away from the real world for a while – and I always felt better when I returned.’
‘So how many have you written?’
‘Scores – I have two boxes full of old green exercise books filled with my stories. If I used up all the pages, I’d continue on the covers, squidging my writing, tiny tiny, to cram in all those words that were spilling out. Would you like to see one? I brought one with me today. I wrote this when I was your age. It was called The Mystery of Mangrove Manor. See – can you recognize my artwork even then?’ The child was still looking at her expectantly. ‘But to answer your questions, I’ve had fourteen books published – including the six Alice stories.’
‘Can you buy them online?’ a child wanted to know.
‘Yes,’ said Frankie. ‘Or better still, at an independent bookshop run by impassioned hard-working and knowledgeable people who love books.’
The teacher cleared her throat again and peered at Frankie over her glasses. ‘Next question? Lucy?’
‘Are you really rich?’
Frankie balked. ‘No! These days books are sold too cheaply to make anyone in the industry much money.’
‘Yes, but how much do they pay you for each book?’
‘That’s enough now. Charlie, pipe down, please,’ said the teacher. ‘Time for two more questions. Yes – Georgia?’
‘Do you have any pets?’
Frankie was relieved at the left-field question. ‘No – our cat died last year and my children are nagging me for a dog.’
Sympathy filled the room like feathers.
‘Hush children – final question. Yes – Felix?’
‘Well, it’s not really a question like everyone else’s,’ the boy said. ‘I was just going to ask you – please Frankie Shaw, can you just try and write a new book because I’ve read all your other books. It’s like Alice exists.’
Frankie looked out of the French doors to her writing room at the end of the garden. Barefoot she stepped outside and crossed the lawn tentatively. She peered in through the window. Why wasn’t it working for her in there? All that expensive paint, Swan Down or Eider Kiss or Duck Nuzzle or whatever it was called. Her study in Muswell Hill had been relatively stark – it was how she liked it, how she worked best. But out here there was a coldness, an isolation too. She turned and walked back to the house, stopping to gaze at a pair of honey buzzards wheeling high. She turned her focus to the garden chairs, the wood already warmed by the midday sun. She could sit there awhile, coax ideas to keep her company.
No.
Come on.
She turned her back on the day and went into the house.
Three hours. She had three uninterrupted hours if she wanted them. She made a cup of tea, filled a pint glass with water and took them to the kitchen table. She had a pad of lined paper to her right, and nine leaves of plain cartridge paper set out in a square to her left. Sharp pencils and a rubber. Watercolours in a tin, a set of coloured inks, six brushes and a water pot near enough so that she wouldn’t have to stretch. Before she switched off her phone, she reread Scott’s last text message.
Morning baby x
Funny how he called her baby when actually Scott made her feel truly grown up.
She propped the gas bill and the credit-card statement against the water pot and looked at them.
Alice?
Yes?
You have to help me here. Are you ready?
Yes.
It’s your birthday, isn’t it?
Yes.
But you sound glum. Why is that?
Because I’m having a party here – all the kids in my class are coming.
That’s fantastic.
No – they’ll want to go outside.
And you’re worried they’ll see Him?
Yes. And if they do – well, what might happen?
Shall we find out?
I don’t know, Frankie.
Don’t worry Alice – I’ll look after you.
Over the day which followed, it felt like the time Frankie broke her leg and came out of her plaster cast; relief but also frustration that she still had to limp awhile though she wanted to run again, a sense of freedom despite feeling still weakened. The illustrations came more fluidly than the words at first and she’d dip her brush in the ink and sweep it into the outline of Alice in her one long, signature stroke until the ink ran dry and the girl was on the page. To that, Frankie added washes of watercolour like faint music in a background, building carefully into a tune she knew. The setting, the weather, a gloamy sky, the scratch-dense hedge where He lives. And then the fine details; the glance of the eyes, the up or down turn of Alice’s mouth, her hair bouncy or flat to echo her mood. And Him. Gnarled and fantastically ugly but drawn with such care that his sweet shyness danced off the page.
The credit-card statement and gas bill were hidden from the children but then placed against the water pot to invigilate Frankie’s day. It took willpower and tears and, little by little, surges of euphoria. The book started to dominate Frankie’s life. When she drove, she wondered how on earth she just got from A to B because she certainly wasn’t thinking of the road. She burnt the dinner and forgot to do the washing, the children’s bedtime was whenever they wanted. She found her mobile phone in the cheese drawer in the fridge and walked past knickers and socks on her bedroom floor three days in a row. But there was a book in the making; however slow the progress, it was happening. The milk was off and life was good.
Ruth was there. She’d come to Frankie’s and check her posture and make her laugh; sometimes the two were interlinked.
‘Don’t cross your legs. Always think of the flow up and out the top of your head. Imagine your spine ending right in the middle of your skull, somewhere behind and between your eyes.’ Frankie had grown to love the feeling of putting her body in Ruth’s hands. She remembered Ruth saying to her how she felt she held something back; not any more. ‘People with sedentary jobs underestimate ergonomics,’ Ruth said and tutted. ‘We do it all wrong. It’s not our faults – we just do.’
That she could make Frankie laugh, amidst the intensity and gravity of writing again, was crucially important.
‘Imagine a pair of tiny shoes, one on each bum bone,’ Ruth said.
‘Jimmy Choos?’
‘I was thinking Converse.’ Ruth tapped Frankie affectionately. ‘The point is, when you’re sitting, your seat bones become your feet and the chair becomes the ground.’
And actually, Frankie found it worked. She didn’t twist in her chair and therefore she didn’t ache at the end of the day, despite how tired she felt.
It was time to contact Michael, her editor.
‘I had a bit of a blip,’ she confessed. ‘I found it very hard. But we’re going great guns now, Alice and I. Do you want me to send you the first couple of pages?’
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: hey!
Hey Scott
So my Mum is madly working on her book thank God. You probably know that by now. Did you really write the music to the Matt Damon film? Also, I got this brilliant album called The Glorious Dead – it’s by The Heavy and it’s epic sort of indie-soul-rock.
See ya!
Sam
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: re: hey!
Sam
Great to hear from you. Yes – your Mom told me about the book – that’s so good. I did write for that movie – but with others too. I wrote the song ‘What Darkness Sees’, it plays at the end and the melody weaves through some of the scenes. Thanks for the recommendation – I’ll check out The Heavy. It’s really warm here in Pemby right now. The mountain bikers are having a blast – do you ride? So, say hi to Annabel – and hug your Mom, not just from me, but also from you!
Scott
It was novel, really, having a kid email him. He liked it. He liked the connection with Frankie but a
lso the feeling that Sam simply quite liked him, looked up to him. Mostly, emails sent to Scott were business related, curt and badly phrased, from people wanting stuff from him. Then there were Frankie’s emails, which weren’t like emails at all. They were like long intimate conversations which could make him laugh out loud or become intensely thoughtful or overwhelmingly joyful, even horny. Sam’s emails, however, made him feel alert, that he had a duty to read them carefully and then read them again and detect what was between the lines. They weren’t long but they usually contained something shyly said which Scott had to find and consider. Like last week – when Sam mentioned that a boy in his class was a jerk but said that it wasn’t a problem because his dad was a jerk too so he could deal with it. Jerks, Scott told him, make us happy to be who we are. Bullies, he wrote in conclusion, are something else – don’t stand for those, Sam.
Twice in one email Sam had written of his own relief that his mum was writing even if it means other stuff’s not getting done. And it crossed Scott’s mind that the household on the lane behind the high hedge might be in something of a churn. Frankie’s calls were sometimes distracted, sometimes almost manic. He could hear in her voice that she was both wired and exhausted and he thought if I was there, I could help. If I was there, I could make sure there was fresh milk and the kids didn’t miss the bus. But he wasn’t there, in that undulating landscape that petered off to a great flat grey sea, he was where he loved, where he belonged, in the mountains. With a new movie to score that he was really looking forward to, and Jonah and the boys’ debut at the Pony which would raise a little money for the epilepsy charity and which he wouldn’t miss for the world.