by Freya North
There was a long pause and a sigh and Frankie thought no, please no.
‘So,’ he said at length. ‘I guess that was our first argument.’
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘And I didn’t like it. And I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t mean to insult you – or offend.’
‘I know.’
The pauses between them, necessary but unnerving.
‘I know you live there and I live here – and there’s equal importance in what keeps us both bound … Scott?’
‘Your kids are younger and you’re still all settling in to a new place,’ said Scott. ‘I get that.’
‘But whether she says so or not, Jenna needs you there.’ Frankie pressed the phone against her cheek as if it was the flat of Scott’s hand.
‘And whether I tell her so or not, I feel I need to be here too, in the main. The thing about epilepsy is that you are constantly balancing the presence of the disorder with the need to live a life as normal as possible. There’s still a stigma attached to epilepsy. I worry about my daughter every single day – teens, young adults, they like to think they’re invincible. No amount of time of seeing your child have a seizure lessens the trauma of witnessing it and the feeling of utter helplessness. This is how it is, Frankie, for Jenna and for me.’
Frankie thought how she wanted now to go to him even more.
Scott cleared his voice and lightened his tone. ‘Plus they don’t call Vancouver “Hollywood North” for nothing – most of my work is out here.’
‘I want to come out – I want to bring the kids at some point. If I could hop on a plane today, I would. I promise you. I long to spend time just me and you.’
‘Can you make that happen – not just talk about it?’
Frankie nodded vehemently, until aware that Scott couldn’t tell and had only her silence to go on. ‘I am going to try,’ she told him. ‘I’m going to pull in favours and check out air fares.’
‘It’s a beautiful time of year to visit.’
‘Scott – trust me when I say I believe you and I’m sold.’
‘Frankie.’
‘Yes?’
‘And we’re OK? You and me?’
That voice.
‘Better than ever,’ she whispered.
‘Can we go the distance – in every sense of the word?’
‘We can.’
‘Where are you?’
‘In my garden. The grass is wet and I’m in flip-flops. Slippery toes. Where are you?’
‘Oh I’m just in the house. Watching the game on TV. Thinking of bed.’
‘I have to go and get the children up. Sam’s hollow legs are back and I need to shovel a ton of breakfast in him before he leaves for school.’
But Scott didn’t want to slip into prosaic chat, though it was a novel side to a relationship he hadn’t truly experienced with anyone but Frankie. What he wanted to do was focus on welcoming for the first time in his life the challenge of taking a risk, of seeking courage and honesty to keep him steady on the edge of his comfort zone.
‘You know – I never got close enough to someone to fall out with them,’ he said. ‘But I never got close enough to someone to fall in love with them either. I never really wanted anyone hanging out here. I never really missed anyone, never craved company between times.’ He looked around his home, silent and warm yet devoid of something crucial which he never realized was missing because there’d been no need to consider it in the plans.
‘And then I came along?’ The mist was lifting in Norfolk.
Over Frankie’s sing-song laughter, Scott’s words came through clear and steady.
‘Yes. Yes you did.’
When there was a knock at the door just two days later while Frankie was having supper with her children, her heart vaulted to the other side of her chest and back again. The children looked at her and she looked at them. They scraped back their chairs and stared through beyond the hallway to the front door. There, through the frosted-glass panes, the silhouette of a man.
Another knock, spritely this time, like a triumphant drum roll.
Frankie wasn’t one for praying but, as she joined the children in a scramble for the door, she sent hopes and requests heavenward. The children, in school socks skating over the tiles, reached the door before their barefooted mother. Sam let Annabel open it. Frankie stood a little way back, hands clasped and a great daft grin on her face. Scott you beautiful man.
Only it wasn’t Scott.
‘Kids!’
It was Miles.
‘Kids! Say hello to your Old Man, then.’
It was Miles.
‘Frankie – hi.’
It was Miles.
‘Hi Frankie,’ he said again. ‘Hi. So – it’s just I had to take a cab and I didn’t have a chance to get any cash. Could you just …’
He looked so different. After all, it had been over a year since they’d seen him last. He looked flummoxed, irritated even, because Frankie, Sam and Annabel simply stood there and stared.
The children needed to compute that the person standing right there in front of them that very second was in actual fact their dad. The fabled man who was last heard of panning for gold on the equator or at the end of a rainbow, the man who was meant to be somewhere else doing whatever it was he did, was simply standing there in jeans with a rip at the knee, a T-shirt that looked a bit dirty and a pair of old boots. There again, his hair was now long and in a pony-tail tied back with a red band and that was pretty cool.
Frankie’s task was harder. Over and above having to compute that her ex-husband, with the most ridiculous hairstyle for a man his age, had apparently teleported from Equador to her house, was the thunking great disappointment that Scott was still in Canada. It was Miles here right now. Here in England. Not Scott.
So much for the power of prayer.
‘Hi,’ Miles said as if they hadn’t heard him the first time. Annabel scurried up to him and hugged him for all she was worth, her eyes closing as he put his arm around her. Sam stepped close enough for this father-man to give his shoulder a squeeze. ‘Hi kids.’ Frankie was stock-still. ‘Hi Frankie,’ he said.
He’s standing there with his hands on my children. ‘Miles – what are you—?’
‘Surprised, right!’ He said it as though Christmas had come early. He could see a maelstrom of thoughts racketing through her head so he decided the best thing to do was to barge on. ‘My project – well, let’s just say it’s on hold. So I thought – I know what I’ll do. I said to myself, I’ll go and see my family!’
Frankie thought, how can he make it sound like it’s a magnificent brainwave blessing us all? She thought, what’s he even doing here? She thought, why would the universe send me Miles and not Scott? She was sure Equador was even further than Canada. And then she thought, how dare he use the word family.
He was nodding, grinning all the while, as if he was agreeing with everything that Frankie was saying to herself. ‘So – any chance of a brew? Haven’t had a proper cuppa for a long, long while. Desperate for a change from the old canelazo.’
They hadn’t a clue what he was talking about.
‘Sam makes tea,’ Annabel said helpfully, forgetting how appallingly he did so.
And Frankie heard herself say, Sam – make your father a cup of tea.
Annabel pulled Miles further into the hallway and Frankie stepped aside as they passed through to the kitchen. He touched her arm as he went by and she wished he hadn’t.
She didn’t hate him; she never had. Any acrimony she’d felt had been transitional and so long ago. Now, whether by letter or phone call, impromptu visit or lengthy desertion, he exhausted her, exasperated her. He wasn’t a bad person, he wasn’t cruel – Miles was just feckless and a bit useless and not what dads are meant to be made of. And that’s why she’d left him. All these years on, she didn’t really feel very much for him at all but she felt for her children. However, when he’d put his hand on her bare skin moments ago – that
she felt. It was real. He really was here. She didn’t know why and she didn’t know how she was going to get rid of him.
Frankie watched from a distance as he spun his synthetic yarns around the children – tall tales of danger on the high seas, narrow escapes in the jungle, life-and-death situations in dormant volcanoes, fool’s gold in secret mines. She saw how the children allowed themselves to be bound by the bullshit, as if tied to their chairs by ribbons of his rubbish. She was aware that he was throwing her way every type of smile in his vast repertoire. They were all familiar and, though she knew how to deflect them one by one, Miles in all his extraordinary lightweight glory was still a heavy presence in her home.
She glanced at the oven clock: 6.30 in the evening. Any minute now, she thought, any minute now.
He left the table, making a clicking sound with his tongue while pointing gun-fingers at the children as if they were part of his special gang. Frankie quickly busied herself, scraping the cold food from the plates because there was no room for appetites with Miles filling the kitchen.
He came over to her and put his hand tenderly between her shoulder blades.
‘Sorry for turning up out of the blue,’ he said quietly. ‘There was a tsunami of events and suddenly I was here before I really knew it.’
God you speak a load of old toss, Miles.
Frankie bit her tongue, smiled briefly, continued with the dishes.
Please move your hand.
Not up and down – just remove it.
‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘it’s always lovely to see you. And the kids. They’ve grown!’
You don’t say.
‘They’re so big, so beautiful – I think of them all the time. Everything I do – it’s for them. Did you get the money the other month?’
She nodded.
‘There’ll be more,’ he said hurriedly. ‘In a month or two. In a few. When this tornado rights itself.’
His continued reference to natural disasters was ridiculous. Frankie couldn’t actually comment. Dishes, don’t let them drain – dry them. Keep busy, distracted.
She thought – here it comes, any minute now.
‘So – I might be around for a while,’ Miles said.
‘Well that’ll be nice for the children. Where will you be based?’ The level stare she gave him was meant to say don’t you dare – just don’t even think about it. He was about to speak – it was coming, it was imminent. She had only moments to intercept. ‘Would you like a lift back to King’s Lynn?’ she said brightly. ‘Just give me five minutes.’
‘Oh Mum,’ said Annabel who was keeping watch over the chair her father had vacated, as if guarding it from anyone else. ‘He’s only just arrived!’
Sam was looking down at his phone, but his cheeks had reddened and when he looked at Frankie, she couldn’t quite read his expression.
‘Your dad’s staying for a while,’ Frankie tried to appease them.
‘Staying here!’ Annabel was ecstatic.
And before Frankie had a chance to say no darling, he needs to get back to wherever but I’m sure he’ll come and visit lots – Miles had already staked his response.
‘Would that be OK?’ he said softly, his bloody hand on her bloody arm again. ‘Just for a night – I can make a couple of calls tomorrow, tonight even, and sort myself out. I am so tired – you wouldn’t believe the journey I’ve had.’
‘Oh Mum please!’
‘It’s so good to see you all again,’ he murmured. ‘Oh God you don’t know how good it is.’ His voice cracked and husked and Frankie thought damn you, Miles. Damn you.
‘He’s made himself at home,’ Frankie whispered into the phone though she was at the end of the garden and no one could hear her. The children were in the house, sitting either side of their father, the way they did their mother, watching The Simpsons. It’s what we do every night – it’s a family tradition.
‘He’s sitting there, on my sofa with my children like he does it every evening, like it’s normal. Like it’s his sofa in his house.’
There was a long pause at the other end of the phone.
‘Do you feel in any way threatened?’ Scott said. ‘Do you feel unsafe?’
Frankie smiled a little sadly. ‘No. He’s not dangerous. He’s simply a prat. And I just feel really annoyed at the intrusion. And a bit bewildered. It’s easier when he’s in far-flung places doing his thing. It’s disruptive enough on my children when he sends a card or some weird gift.’
Scott thought about the words she chose. ‘You know, Frankie – twice you’ve said “my children”. But, whatever shit he put you through, whatever shit he’s caught up in right now, however poor a person he is – your kids know him as their father.’ He paused to let her think about that. ‘He may be a crap dad – but he’s their crap dad.’
There are too many nettles in this garden, thought Frankie.
‘He is what he is,’ said Scott.
‘You know, I’ve often felt that whoever I’d become pregnant to, I was only ever going to have Sam and Annabel. Like they pre-existed out there in the ether, little souls waiting for me to be ready. I don’t actually credit Miles with – anything.’
‘That I understand,’ said Scott. ‘But it’s not about you – it’s about Sam and Annabel – their reaction to him. They’ll know his failings – you can’t kid a kid. But if they want to file it away in a soundproofed part of their soul for a while so they can just feel the fact that their dad’s come to see them – you have to let them.’
And then it struck Frankie what was happening. Fate might have dumped Miles on her doorstep this evening, but Fate had also given her a wise man, a good man who was far more present in her life than that oaf sitting between her kids on her sofa in her new home in Norfolk.
Peta was apoplectic.
Ruth was fascinated.
Peta told Frankie to tell Miles at the earliest opportunity to get the fuck out of her house.
However, from where she stood, Ruth had a completely different viewpoint.
‘You know,’ she said to Frankie on the phone, ‘if he has nowhere to stay – and the kids seem pleased to have him around …’ She trailed off, lit a secret cigarette at her back door.
‘Are you smoking?’
‘I’m thinking,’ Ruth laughed. ‘If the likelihood is that he’ll bugger off for God knows how long to God knows where in the not-too-distant future.’ She stopped for a moment, not to smoke but to phrase it as best she could. ‘If you don’t like being in his presence,’ she said to Frankie, ‘there’s the most blindingly obvious solution. To everything – to absolutely everything that’s in a whirl in your life right now.’
‘There is?’
‘Yes.’
‘You really don’t want Miles staying at yours, Ruth.’
Ruth snorted. ‘My door is not open to him,’ she said. And she thought how open her arms were to Frankie. On paper, such a new friendship, but actually such a solid one already. ‘You haven’t thought of this because it’s all a bit bonkers right now. And you haven’t thought of this because you’re the mother of all mother bears.’
And then Ruth started laughing. ‘Frankie,’ she said. ‘Frankie – leave Miles in charge for a bit. And go to Canada.’
* * *
‘Who’s your mum on the phone to?’ Miles asked his children. ‘She’s been out there for ages. Doesn’t she like The Simpsons?’
‘She loves The Simpsons,’ said Annabel, slipping her arm through Miles’s and squeezing up close, truly believing that the yellow tribe from Springfield united her family.
‘You’re sitting in her place,’ Sam said under his breath. Miles let it pass.
Annabel leant forward and looked out of the French doors, seeing the back of her mother, watching her head nod and her hands move to emphasize whatever it was she was saying. ‘She’s probably on the phone to Scott.’
‘Who’s Scott?’
‘Her boyfriend,’ Sam said.
* * *
‘Are you out of your tiny mind?’ Peta gasped down the phone.
‘No,’ said Frankie. ‘I’m not.’
* * *
‘Your house smells really nice,’ Miles told Frankie. He was giving a big stretch, a yawn. He was lounging on the sofa, his hands behind his head, a little glimpse of nut-brown stomach. He looks thin, Frankie thought. ‘It smells lovely,’ he reiterated. ‘You obviously rustled up a feast for your supper.’
She smiled politely and minimized eye contact though she could feel his eyes burning into her. He’s looking at my breasts. She turned quickly and straightened a picture that didn’t need it.
‘There wouldn’t be any left would there?’ he said.
‘Any what?’
‘Delicious-smelling dinner,’ he said. ‘I haven’t eaten properly – for days, I don’t think.’
Unbelievable! But this is Miles, remember, so not so unbelievable after all. And then Frankie reminded herself that a sure-fire way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. She needed him and he didn’t yet know it.
‘I’ll heat some up,’ she said.
The children were in bed, Sam reading, Annabel already fast asleep. Having had no men in her life, now Annabel had two. She felt lucky and intrigued and ever so tired with all the excitement.
Downstairs, Frankie sat opposite Miles, sipping wine rhythmically and probably too fast. Watching him tuck in so ravenously, she wondered whether the food wouldn’t have been better served to him in a trough.
‘Are you OK?’ she asked. ‘You’re not in any – trouble?’
He chewed energetically, pushing his wine glass towards her for a refill. He shook his head. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Nothing I can’t handle.’
And Frankie thought, that’s Miles – saying one thing and meaning another.
‘How long are you staying?’
‘As long as you’ll have me,’ he said, contorting his mouth as he chewed.
‘I didn’t mean here,’ she said, ‘I meant how long are you staying away from wherever it is you’ve been living?’
He glugged the wine. ‘I don’t know,’ he said and his voice was a little flat. ‘A while. Storms are raging – got to take cover.’