The Turning Point

by Freya North

  ‘It’s OK, kids,’ Frankie told them. ‘I know what happened – and I think you did brilliantly.’

  A jolly rhythm was knocked out on the front door. Frankie wouldn’t put it past Miles to call out Honey! I’m home! Annabel walked cautiously to open the front door. Fretful with jet lag, Frankie couldn’t remember what it was she was going to say. Just the word cunt.

  She fixed a smile on her face for Annabel’s sake who was high in her father’s arms, regarding her mother anxiously.

  ‘Samuel!’ Miles bellowed jovially. Sam glanced at Frankie. No one called him Samuel, ever. It wasn’t even on his birth certificate. Sam pulled his new hat down a little lower and mooched out to the hallway.

  ‘How was your trip?’ Miles asked Frankie, calm as you like, sauntering through to the kitchen, picking at leftovers whilst making himself a round of toast.

  ‘Out of this world.’

  ‘How’s your – boyfriend? How’s the Scott from Canada?’

  ‘He’s – beautiful,’ she said. ‘Kids – why not go upstairs and bring down the presents to show your dad. Before he goes.’ She didn’t take her eyes off Miles. ‘But I’ve put it all away – like you asked,’ said Annabel.

  Sam got it. ‘Come on Annabel – I think I got more than you.’

  ‘You did not,’ Annabel protested, chasing after him. ‘Mummy would never do that.’

  ‘So – Canada!’ he said. ‘Really great kids, by the way. You’ve done an incredible job, Frankie – just wonderful. Humbling, actually. The fact that Sam’s so mature that I could leave him in charge while I saw to some business – just amazing. A credit to you.’

  How Frankie wanted to hiss at Miles, scratch him, insult and rage at him. Not just for what he’d done, but that he dared to underplay any wrongdoing.

  ‘Miles,’ she said. How much toast does the man eat? He looked at her steadily but this time she wasn’t going to let it unnerve her. ‘You’re going to say goodbye to the children and you’re going to go. Away.’

  ‘Well – actually, I thought the kids and I might—’

  ‘No,’ said Frankie and her voice sliced out through tightly clenched teeth. ‘You’re not fit to be a father. You never were. So fuck off to wherever it is that you’re fucking up your life – again. And by all means, send your stupid, sporadic cards when you remember. Scott’s been more of a father to them in the short time I’ve known him than you ever have.’

  Frankie pointed her finger at him; silent momentarily while she tried not to spit her rage out across the table and considered what to say next. He was looking at her blankly, staggered, as if finding it hard to reconcile her rage with his own self-regard.

  ‘These days, I don’t actually care that you don’t man up and support your children financially,’ she said. ‘It’s of no interest to me that you have so little self-respect, that your moral fibre is so frayed beyond repair, that you don’t see how bankrupt you are on so many levels. But know this – if you ever plunder my children’s emotional welfare again, if you ever squander their trust, or rob them of their hope, I will hunt you down, Miles. I will hunt you down.’

  He reddened like a scolded child. However taken aback he was at Frankie’s justified vitriol, there was a part of him in awe of her composure and passion. She was a lioness and he ought to cower. Just desserts and humble pie – both hard for a man like Miles to swallow.

  Then Frankie did something she’d never done and she wasn’t aware, until that very moment, that she would do it. Later, she’d doubt whether it had been right or wise, though it would garner fond praise from those who loved her.

  Under the table, she kicked Miles hard, twice, right across his shin.

  Oh good. He’s choking on the toast. Finally.

  ‘Where the hell did you have to go, that you left the children all on their own overnight?’

  Miles cleared his throat and tongued food away from his gums. Frankie was tempted to kick him again, on the other leg.

  ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I was in London. About a job – which I’m going to take. About a flat to rent – which I’ve now put the deposit on. I’m moving back in a couple of months, Frankie. I want to see more of the kids. I know I’ve been a total fuck-up, but for what it’s worth, I want to try, now, to be a better dad. It’s time for me to stop messing about. I really love them, Frankie.’

  July rolled its way through Norfolk and British Columbia with long days, blue skies and a heat like no one could remember. Scott’s house stayed cool and there was always the porch, but Frankie’s was like a kiln; the flint baking the interior relentlessly though windows were kept open all the time. When she thought back to how cold the house had been during the winter months, how draughty, she pondered why no breeze now came in through wide-open windows. And why didn’t the stone cool down in the summer or at least store some of this heat for the winter?

  Annabel asked about air conditioning and Sam begged for a swimming pool.

  ‘I hose my children down,’ Frankie told Scott. ‘I stand them in the garden and turn the hose on them, like they’re mucky dogs.’

  However enervating the heat was on the children in their final days at school, it cooked Frankie’s writing well, enabling the ingredients of the story to prove and rise and bake to a wholesome finish like the perfect loaf of bread. She was proud to have finally pulled the book out of herself and she was pleased with the story. But though she sent if off to her agent and editor, still she thought about Alice. Now, in addition to the fondness she felt for her character, came a burgeoning sense of doing the right thing by her – and by the readers too, though Frankie anticipated they’d hate her for it. It was a risk to take. She was nervous about telling her agent and editor. She lost sleep over it.

  ‘It’s like I’ve clipped Alice’s wings,’ Frankie told Scott over the phone. ‘I’ve prevented her from growing up because I don’t want to lose her.’

  ‘Well, she’s a big part of your life,’ Scott said.

  ‘But niggling at the back of my mind is the feeling that in the next book, I ought to let her go.’

  Frankie sat at the bottom of the stairs with her chin in her hand and her neck crooked against the phone. Ruth would have her work cut out in their next Alexander session.

  ‘Do you think I’d be mad to take such a step?’ she asked Scott.

  ‘Only you can truly work that one out,’ he said.

  Scott had written a melody for Alice. It was simple and pure, suited a kid her age and was complete enough just on piano. But he could hear her tune in a larger work, carried on the crests of harmonies, finding its way through themes and variations. He thought of it in terms of maturing the melody, giving it gravity, bringing it to fruition, bestowing longevity. He’d read the Alice books now – Frankie had sent a package to him to give to Aaron’s children. Jenna had read them too.

  ‘I’ve never read anything like them,’ Jenna told her father.

  ‘You weren’t short of books though.’

  ‘I know – but I wish I’d had these when I was young. I’d like to have had an imaginary friend – or whoever he is – like Alice’s.’

  ‘You had your dogs.’

  Jenna gazed at Buddy.

  ‘You OK, kid?’

  ‘Everyone needs an adventure, Pop,’ Jenna said. ‘Everyone needs to sense that out there, something is saying that everything will be OK.’

  ‘Don’t let fiction twist away fact. Too much adventure is tedious,’ Scott said. ‘Believe me.’

  Jenna rolled her eyes. ‘I’m going to join all the clubs when I’m at college, Dad,’ she said. ‘And I’m going to go to all the parties. University is one adventure I want to experience first-hand. I don’t want to watch it from the sidelines. I’m not going to let my epilepsy spoil it.’

  Frankie told the children first. They were shocked initially and then greeted the news with a shrug and a change of subject.

  She told Scott very late one night when she was lying on top of the sheets too hot to sleep.
‘I’ve made up my mind,’ she said. ‘I need to let her go. The next book will be the last one in the Alice series.’

  ‘You know, Alice may come back in another guise,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t follow that you’ll leave each other for good. You’re not killing her off. You’re just giving her freedom to leave – and I bet you she’ll come back at some point.’

  ‘I’ll tell that to my agent,’ Frankie said. ‘He says I should stick with her.’

  ‘He wants his commission,’ Scott laughed.

  ‘I’m going to start the book tomorrow. But I need a title,’ Frankie said. ‘Give me a title that will give her the send-off she deserves – Alice as we know her now.’

  Scott thought about it. It was late afternoon yet still he could feel his skin prickle with the sear of the sun. He moved into the shade of the porch. Buddy looked up at him. I should hose you down, Scott thought, like Frankie does her kids.

  ‘Alice and the Ditch Monster Say Goodbye,’ said Scott.

  In an instant, Frankie sensed the story as if it was out there already, floating around waiting for an author to collect the ideas delicately, like a bee with pollen. It would be down to her to spin words into a story, to build colours into imagery, to weave the two into a detailed tapestry to be treasured on bookshelves and stick fast in memories.

  ‘I can do that,’ she told Scott. ‘It’s what I do.’

  ‘Is it August with you?’

  Frankie looked at her watch. ‘Yes – it turned August around twenty minutes ago.’

  Frankie told the children as they walked back to the car after a long, lazy day on the beach.

  ‘I really feel like a proper local now there are so many tourists,’ Annabel said.

  ‘It’s us and them,’ Sam laughed. ‘Look at all the stuff they have to heave and hoick down here every day. We’re all about just a towel and flip-flops.’

  ‘And when they go crabbing at Blakeney, they actually buy kits,’ said Annabel.

  ‘That’s just because Mum’s tight,’ Sam said. ‘Making us those pouches from the washing-tablets nets.’

  ‘We catch bigger crabs than the tourists anyway,’ Annabel said. ‘That’s my point about us being – from here. The visitors always look in my bucket and then they look at me. Like they’re thinking she’s a local girl, the big crabs know her.’

  ‘You’re so lame,’ said Sam.

  ‘Mum! Tell Sam off. Didn’t you hear him? He called me lame.’

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Hmm? The day after tomorrow, we’re off to Canada.’

  Frankie could hear Peta rolling her eyes. It wasn’t something that she sensed; she could actually hear it, over the phone. It started with loaded silence followed by a just perceptible sharp intake of breath and then a frustrated exhale. Why was her sister always so disapproving? Was Frankie’s happiness of so little importance to her?

  ‘Have you told Mum?’

  ‘Jesus Peta. I’m taking the children on the trip of a lifetime – and you’re only response is, have I told Mum? Like I have to confess to something I shouldn’t be doing, like I have to justify what I’ve decided to do?’

  She’s bloody rolling her eyes again – I can hear it!

  ‘What I meant was – you were due to visit her next weekend, weren’t you? Now you won’t be.’

  Frankie’s ensuing silence was downcast rather than contrite. ‘I forgot.’

  ‘I can tell.’

  ‘I can’t cancel our trip. Why have you gone silent Peta? You can’t honestly expect me to cancel?’

  ‘No – I didn’t say that. Christ Frankie.’

  There was a lengthy stalemate, which Peta finally broke. ‘Look – I know she’s awkward, but I know too that in some ways your visit was going to define the week leading up to it, the week after it, for her.’

  ‘I’ll phone her – right now.’

  ‘OK – but don’t expect her to express understanding or encouragement – whatever.’

  ‘She rarely does, when it comes to me.’

  ‘What I’m trying to say is – if she doesn’t, it might just be because she’s upset or disappointed, for herself, not at you.’

  ‘I wish you could be happier for me, Peta.’

  ‘I know you do. And do you know what? I wish that too. But I’m just worried, really – how fast this is happening. The Canada thing. Holidays are just time out, Frankie – a dreamy getaway from reality. It’s not a genuine way to conduct a relationship – long melancholy periods apart and then intensive times together outside of the day-to-day.’

  ‘You don’t have any authority to make claims like that.’ Frankie was on the verge of hanging up.

  ‘But what if something happens? What if he breaks your heart?’

  ‘He wouldn’t do that,’ Frankie said. ‘You don’t know him – so you can’t judge. But when you’ve met him, then you’ll know. Then you’ll see how I mean as much to him as he does to me.’

  August. Hot skin and sticky hair. Ice cream and lukewarm showers twice daily. Sand between the toes and somehow, always in the bed sheets too. Bugs and buzzing and bottles of sun lotion. The garden needed a drink each evening and birds vied for the vast arc of the Norfolk sky just as the tourists did for its beaches. Frankie looked out at her garden where the children were bouncing on the trampoline in their swimming costumes then leaping off to run through the garden sprinkler which was valiantly trying to infuse a little green back into the parched lawn. They’d never had a garden before. Potentially, she could give them a whole mountain range.

  ‘Peta,’ Frankie said, ‘Scott’s part of me now. You’ll see. Christmas is at mine this year, not yours – and all of you are coming. Mum. Even Steph.’ She waved at Annabel who was dancing across the lawn with such abandon that Frankie wanted to join her. ‘And Scott. And his daughter. Family,’ she told Peta. ‘All the family will be here.’

  * * *

  What Sam loved most about Canada was arriving at Scott’s after an insanely long journey, for Scott to show him to his room. They were all watching Annabel settle herself in, unpacking her carry-on and placing all manner of ornaments brought from home all around the room. She’d only been to France on holidays and stayed in hotels. This was home from home so she had to make it so.

  Scott turned to Sam. ‘So there’s the room next door to this one,’ he said. ‘But I reckon you might prefer to stay in the studio.’

  It was a separate building to the side of the house reached by steps. A self-contained annexe, with a tiny kitchenette, compact shower room and sofa bed. But it was the monitors, mixers, mics, instruments, amps, speakers, headphones, foam sound-dampening, gadgets and gear Sam loved at first sight.

  ‘Cool,’ he said under his breath.

  ‘Welcome,’ Scott said, giving the boy’s shoulder a quick squeeze. ‘I hear you did great at school, eh?’

  Sam shrugged.

  ‘You should be proud. Can’t have been easy, starting all over.’

  ‘I’ve settled in now. I have mates. I didn’t at first – when we moved. But there’s a couple of teachers who, you know, get me.’ Sam wanted to say: like you do. He really did.

  ‘I’m so pleased for you,’ Scott said and Sam was startled by the sound of so much emotion. ‘So! I’ll let you settle in – should be everything you need. And make your way over whenever you want. Oh and Sam – don’t lie down and don’t shut your eyes. You have to beat the jet lag.’

  ‘One thing,’ Sam said as Scott was about to leave. ‘Is this a bear-free den?’

  Scott laughed. ‘Bears don’t like noise.’

  ‘But there are bears?’

  Scott nodded.

  ‘Will we see one?’

  ‘Jesus Murphy I hope we do,’ Scott said. ‘For your mom’s sake.’

  Sam had better things to do than succumb to his inordinate tiredness. Soon enough, his Instagram was awash with views from every possible angle. Of the interior alone. Yeah, huge mountains and stuff outside or whatever – but get THIS! Ultimate Man Cave
yo!

  Most mornings, so that Frankie could work on her book, Scott took the children into the village for cinnamon buns, or a swim at One Mile Lake, a visit to Nairn Falls, a walk along Owl Creek or the Ryan, calling in on the Sturdys at North Arm Farm or springing a visit on Jenna mid-shift.

  Again, Frankie was finding it cripplingly hard to write and yet this time, the words were there, the pictures too; the sentences had slowly started to flow and the illustrations had her hallmark fluidity. But emotionally it was more draining than any book she’d written, because always at the back of her mind was the portentous fact that this was it. Time for goodbyes.

  I’m going to miss you Alice, but you’re moving house and it’s for the best.

  But what about Him, Frankie, what about Him? He’s the truest friend I’ve ever had. Can’t he come with? Can’t you find a way that he could? Write him a journey where he treks over land and sea, over rivers and through forests, to find me?

  But Alice, as much as you love him, you don’t need him any more.

  Oh but I do I do I do!

  No Alice, it’s time for you to go. It’s time for him to be there for another child – like a slimy, freaky, clunkingly ugly, wart-worn version of Mary Poppins. The ditch and April Cottage are what’s special, Alice. There’ll always be a time when a new family needs to live there and so it passes on and on. The pretty house that draws grown-ups to it. Parents who’ll say oh my little darlings! just look at the lovely garden! The children who’ll find the ditch which the adults will think is just a straggle of weeds. Brambles, they’ll say. Watch you don’t get scratched and dirty, the grown-ups will say.

  And He’ll be there. Because he knows when he’s needed. When a child feels lonely or worried, sad or angry, when a child feels misunderstood like there’s no one in the world they can talk to – He’ll be there. He’ll make their world an all-right place. Like he did for you.

  But I don’t want to go, Frankie. What will I do without you? Who will write it all out?

  Alice my darling, you’ll write your own story now. I’m going to miss you but your parents are emigrating to Canada and you’ll thank them for it. I promise you.