‘It’s a streaming service,’ he explained helpfully. ‘The Crown is a truly wonderful series about Queen Elizabeth when she was young and first came to the throne. Would you like to watch an episode? I can get it for you on my iPad, if you like?’
‘An iPad?’ Violet sniffed dubiously. ‘I’m not incontinent, you know.’
But then Frank produced some sort of electronic device, the like of which Violet had never seen before, and introduced her to the very first episode of The Crown. Instantly, she was captivated.
Really, Violet thought, looking fondly at Frank and congratulating herself on having secured such a likeable lodger. This evening was turning out to be one of the most enjoyable she’d had in ages.
When the doorbell pealed out later on that evening, it shattered Violet’s concentration on The Crown, just as the young Elizabeth was about to marry Prince Philip. Frank went to answer it, and when he came back in, his expression had completely changed.
‘My daughter Amber is outside,’ he said quietly, fiddling with his glasses. ‘She mentioned that she’d called earlier and that she’d asked you to tell me.’
‘Did she, now?’ Violet said flatly, still staring at Prince Philip on the iPad screen.
‘Maybe it slipped your mind?’ he said kindly.
‘Hmmm.’
Frank looked at her, as if he were weighing up whether or not to say any more.
‘Actually,’ he said, ‘as it’s such a lovely, sunny evening, Amber and I were going to go for a stroll in the square and then get some ice cream. Maybe you’d care to join us?’
At that, Violet looked up from the iPad, horrified.
‘What did you just say?’
‘That maybe you’d like to come for a little walk with Amber and I?’ Frank repeated. ‘She’s just outside and she’d love to get to know you.’
‘A walk?’ Violet snapped. ‘Do you mean . . . outside?’
‘Yes, just around the square.’
‘Out of the question.’
‘Only for half an hour or so,’ Frank said gently. ‘We’ve been having such a lovely evening, but wouldn’t it be nice to get some fresh air?’
‘I already said no,’ she insisted. ‘Are you stone deaf?’
‘Oh now, come on,’ Frank said, ‘I’ll even buy you a nice ice cream?’
‘I don’t go out. Not now, not ever.’
‘Yes . . . but just this once . . . ?’
‘Kindly close the hall door firmly behind you and go. And another thing,’ Violet added bitterly, as she picked up the iPad and shoved it away from her. ‘You can take that ridiculous contraption with you and as far away from me as possible.’
‘But . . . I thought you were enjoying The Crown?’ Frank said, looking hurt and confused by this sharp about-turn in her manner.
‘Then you thought wrong, didn’t you?’
‘Well . . .’ Frank shrugged. ‘In that case, I’ll wish you a nice evening, Violet.’
‘It’s Miss Hardcastle to you.’
Gracie
Jesus Christ, Gracie thought, with a biro clamped tightly between her teeth as she gingerly reversed her car into the narrowest space imaginable. Like she had time for this. She was due in court in exactly two hours’ time and by rights she should have been in her chambers at King’s Inns carefully revising her notes. But instead here she was, in a tiny backstreet in the city centre, on her way to a counselling session with Frank.
Actual couples counselling. Dear God, did she ever think it would come to this? She and Frank had been together for over twenty years; they had two great kids – or at least, the kids had been doing fine up until all of this ridiculous nonsense started.
Ben and Amber. Just invoking their names in the same sentence as Frank’s made Gracie’s blood boil. What had either of them done to deserve this? One minute, Ben was a happy-go-lucky, well-adjusted, sporty eighteen-year-old who never gave any trouble, and literally overnight, he’d morphed into a wired, moody ball of tension. And who could blame the kid? He was furious and angry and confused, and Gracie didn’t even know what to say to him, because that’s exactly how she felt herself.
Then there was Amber. Gracie’s heart twisted when she thought of her daughter’s pale, worried little face asking why Daddy had to go to live at Violent Hardcastle’s horrible, stinky house? And when would he be coming home?
Gracie successfully parked, leaned back against her seat to let out a deep, exhausted sigh, then massaged her throbbing temples to relieve the dull, pounding headache that seemed to be permanently there these days.
What angered her most was that, by rights, this should have been a happy, contented time for their family. She and Frank had worked their asses off and now, with the two of them approaching mid-life, they should have been reaping the benefits. They lived in their dream home on Primrose Square, and over the years, they’d lovingly renovated the house till it was like something off a Pinterest board. They were both still reasonably young and healthy, and should have been looking forward to a long, relaxing summer ahead with Ben and Amber.
They’d had a good marriage, Gracie thought, rapping her nails off the steering wheel in frustration. Not perfect – but then, what marriage was? They were strong together, though; they made a great team, and false modesty aside, she thought they were pretty good parents too.
That’s what killed Gracie more than anything else. This should have been a fantastic, milestone year for them both. But instead, here she was, getting out of the car, on her way to a clinic to sit in a room with Frank and a councillor, and somehow try to fathom what to her was incomprehensible. That her husband, the husband she’d loved and the marriage she’d worked so hard for, was effectively put on pause – at least until they figured out what the hell Frank was going through and why he was acting like this.
Other friends and their husbands, Gracie knew, had gone through the whole mid-life/male menopause thing. But the way those guys acted out was so predictable, it was bordering on cliché. They went out and bought bikes and lycra cycling gear. They got tattoos. They started dying their hair and eyeing up considerably younger women in public.
But Frank’s latest hobby? A man who now wanted to identify as a woman, or whatever fecking buzzword you were supposed to use now? It was sickening; it was unthinkable. Worse, far worse than anything else for Gracie was the sense of betrayal. Whether Frank was a transvestite, a transsexual, transgender or had decided out of a clear blue sky that he was gay, one thing was for certain. That the man she loved and trusted more than anything had been leading a whole secret life apart from her for years. Or possibly decades, for all she knew.
You couldn’t love someone and do that to them, she thought, as her temper began to flare up again. Did Frank still love her at all, she wondered, as she walked briskly to the door of the clinic and stepped inside.
Or had he ever really loved her in the first place?
*
Frank was already there ahead of her, waiting in a tiny cramped office that barely held a desk and a few chairs. With him was a younger, smiling woman in a wide cotton floral dress, who introduced herself as Beth as she stood up to shake hands warmly.
‘Gracie – may I call you Gracie?’ Beth asked. ‘It was so good of you to take the time to meet with us today. I understand that you’re a very busy woman.’
‘Nice to meet you too,’ Gracie replied coolly, shaking hands. Frank was sitting on the chair right beside her, twitching the way he always did whenever he was on edge.
It was the first time they’d actually been in a room together since Gracie insisted he move out. The whole set-up felt horribly artificial and uncomfortable to her – so it served Frank bloody well right if he was a bag of nerves.
Frank stood to peck Gracie awkwardly on the cheek, but she instinctively pulled away from him.
‘It’s good to see you, Gracie,’ he said quietly. ‘You look well.’
A lie, she knew. She didn’t look well at all
. She looked stressed and tense and underweight, the way she always did during any court case, never mind with all the crap she had to deal with in her private life on top of that. But she wasn’t about to get into semantics; the sooner they got this over with, the better.
‘OK if we start right away?’ Gracie said to Beth, sitting down without being asked and producing a notepad and pen from her briefcase. ‘I’m under a lot of time pressure.’
‘Absolutely, let’s get going,’ Beth said, smiling towards each of them as she took her own seat behind her desk. ‘Well, first of all, thank you both for coming here today.’
As Gracie clicked her mobile phone on to silent, she noticed that she had six missed calls from her office. Six. In the last five minutes. That’s how little time she had for this utter nonsense.
‘So,’ Beth said, turning to Frank. ‘I understand that you’ve moved out of the family home, till things settle down a little. Why don’t we begin there? Why don’t you tell me how that’s working out for you both?’
Frank was still fidgeting away with his glasses, so Gracie answered for him, as she so often did.
‘With Frank gone,’ she said crisply, ‘it’s certainly less tense back at our house, that’s for certain.’
Of course there was a big part of Gracie that missed little things about Frank being home, but she certainly wasn’t going to let him know that. She missed his calm, even-tempered presence around the house, for one thing. The times when he and only he could reach Ben when he was acting out and generally being a complete teenager. Amber missed her dad too, Gracie knew; it was heartbreaking to see the child sit for hour after hour on the window seat in their hall, ‘just so I can watch out for Daddy’s car when he gets home’.
Gracie melted for a minute when she thought of her little Amber – but then she disciplined herself to remember the awful night of the party. The image of Frank, standing in the doorway, looking like that, dressed like that. The confusion on the faces of those around her. Friends she and Frank had known for years not having a clue how to react in the moment. Some looked shocked, some giggled and some took photos, which of course were liked and shared on social media to death.
Horrible, tortuous memories, which Gracie could never blank out, no matter how hard she tried to distract herself with work and the kids.
And above all, she remembered her own humiliation, trying to make light of it when people asked her what Frank was playing at, when all the time her own marriage seemed to be crumbling right in front of her. Passing around vol-au-vents and topping up drinks and trying to be a perfect hostess when everything she’d worked so hard for seemed to be collapsing around her in ruins.
Gracie took a deep breath, composed herself, then turned to speak to Beth. ‘I think it’s absolutely best that Frank lives apart from us,’ she said, calmly and coolly, just like the way she spoke in court. ‘It’s infinitely better he stays away till he comes to his senses.’
‘That’s an interesting choice of words,’ said Beth. ‘Why do you say, “till he comes to his senses”?’
Gracie took a moment, before giving her calculated answer. Years in court had taught her that words had import and should only be chosen with great care.
‘Well, why do you think?’ she said, patiently spelling it out. ‘My husband is clearly going through some sort of phase. But being brutally honest, any other manifestation of a mid-life crisis would have been easier to deal with than this. If you’d had an affair, Frank,’ she said, turning to look directly at him, ‘that, I would have understood. I’d have hated every second of it, but at least I’d have understood. But this? Cross-dressing, when you think no one can see you?’
It was torture sitting in that horrible, cramped little office, but Gracie felt a cool satisfaction at the hurt look on Frank’s face.
She’d drawn blood. Good, she thought. Now he knows how it feels.
‘I can understand that emotions are running a little high just now,’ Beth interjected. ‘So why don’t we let Frank have the floor for a bit? Frank? Is there anything you’d like to say in return?’
Both women turned to look at him.
‘I’d like to say,’ he began softly, ‘that I love my family very much. Gracie, you’re everything to me.’
Gracie didn’t know what to say to that, so she said nothing.
‘We met almost thirty years ago, you know,’ Frank said. ‘Back when we were college students. Do you remember, Gracie?’
Of course she remembered, only too well. Back then, Gracie had been something of a college star, auditor of the college history society and a frequently labelled ‘one to watch’ by her lecturers and class tutors.
The night she and Frank met, Gracie had been speaking at a raucous college debate, and when her team carried the motion, she was surrounded afterwards by backslapping, boisterous teammates and supporters.
But there, in the middle of the melee, was quiet, soft-spoken Frank Woods. Turned out he was in Gracie’s class, though she’d never really noticed him before. Somehow Frank wasn’t the type that you noticed; he was a blend-in-with-the-wallpaper sort of person. It took time getting to know him, but once you did, his loyalty and kindness were second to none. Where her other boyfriends and admirers had been competitive and high-achieving, Frank was gentle and loving and utterly devoted to her. All those decades ago, the twenty-year-old Gracie thought she knew a good man when she saw one.
She thought very differently now.
‘I want you to know how much you mean to me,’ Frank was saying to her. ‘Because I’d die for you and the kids, and it kills me to think that I’ve caused you all this pain. But Gracie, love—’ he said, shifting around in his seat so he could face her full on.
‘Don’t call me love,’ she said coldly. ‘You don’t get to call me love anymore.’
‘This isn’t a phase,’ he said. ‘This isn’t a mid-life crisis. This isn’t something that I’m going through that I’ll snap out of in time. I know it’s hard for you to take and I know it was an awful shock to find out the way you did. But this is me, Gracie. This is who I am.’
Gracie turned to Beth. ‘I can’t listen to this.’
‘If we can just let each other finish—’ Beth began to say.
‘I know exactly who my husband is,’ Gracie interrupted. ‘I don’t need to come here to be told. The man I married is a warm-hearted, kind, loving husband and father, who works for an advertising agency and who drives a Prius and who you could set your clock by, he’s so reliable and dependable. The man I married,’ she said, but faltering and failing to keep the raw anger out of her voice, ‘isn’t someone who sneaks around dressed as a woman whenever he thinks the coast is clear and humiliates me and my children in front of everyone we know.’
‘But I’m still all of those things, Gracie,’ Frank tried to say. ‘You’re acting like the man you married is dead, but I’m not, I’m right here beside you and I always will be. I’m not going anywhere; never could, never would.’
‘OK,’ Beth interrupted. ‘How about if we just take a moment . . .’
‘How about if I save us all a whole lot of time,’ Gracie said, hating that her voice was starting to sound so choked up, ‘and ask when this is all going to end? You’re a therapist,’ she said, turning her attention sharply back to Beth. ‘So why can’t you just fix this? When are my family going to get the Frank Woods we all know and love back again?’
There was a silence. Frank shifted in his seat, then coughed as Beth locked eyes with him.
‘Come on,’ Beth said gently to him. ‘Remember what we talked about. Communication is a wonderful thing.’
Frank cleared his throat before he could speak. ‘Gracie love, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along,’ he said steadily. ‘The Frank Woods you all think you know, isn’t who I want to be anymore. I’ve lived a lie for long enough and now it’s time for me to live my truth. And my truth is that I’m not Frank Woods at all. I’m Francesca.’
There was a
long, stunned silence.
Funny thing, Gracie thought much later on. Frank seemed to grow about two inches as he said it.
Emily
‘Queen of Tarts?’
‘Just sit down and shut up, will you? And what’s wrong with Queen of Tarts anyway?’
‘Nothing. Just didn’t think you’d get away with a name like that these days.’
‘This place is famous. Their frangipane has won awards, I’ll have you know.’
‘I’ll have to take your word for it.’
‘Now what do you want, coffee?’
‘You’ll have to pay for it. I’m on the dole. I’m broke.’
‘I’m a gentleman. Of course I was going to pay.’
‘A gentleman who just kidnapped me from the front steps of my house.’
‘Jesus, there’s just no pleasing some people, is there?’
Unceremoniously, Leon parked Emily at a vacant seat and went up to order for both of them. So Emily took the chance to sit and have a good look at him from behind.
Chunky. Shorter than her. Jeans too tight and the leather jacket gave him the look of an ageing rock critic. He was older than her, maybe mid-forties at a guess. He walked with a swagger, and on the drive here Emily had noticed how sweaty he smelled, as if he’d been working all night and hadn’t been home to shower since his late shift ended. Like her, he’d obviously done a stint in St Michael’s and was now in recovery. An AA sponsor, she thought, picking up a menu card and fanning her face with it. Christ Almighty, was this what it had come to?
Still, though. It wasn’t like she’d anything else to do or anywhere else to go. And a free coffee with a slice of frangipane was probably the best offer she was going to get all day.
‘So,’ Leon said, when he got back to the table, carrying a loaded tray with two Americanos and two slices of cake. ‘You’re a tricky woman to get a hold of, Emily Dunne.’
‘My mother always told me not to speak to strange men,’ she retorted, grabbing the coffee from the tray and taking a lovely, reviving sip. It was strong and bitter. Not unlike you, Emily, her mother used say, back when they were still on speaking terms.
The Women of Primrose Square Page 9
