by Clare Boyd
‘Fine.’ I sulked, turning back to the computer.
‘I’m trying to understand, Fran, honestly.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Why don’t you ask John about them?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Are you still angry with him?’
‘He was a total dick that day.’
‘I think you’re trying to find excuses to hate them all so that you don’t have to move out of this flat.’
‘It’s not that. Seriously, he must have had hundreds of opportunities to tell me about Aspect, but he actually wimped out and got Dilys to do it.’
‘How long has Aspect got?’
‘They’ve given us three weeks’ notice.’ I sighed.
I thought about the days when Robert had started up Aspect Films as a one-man-band. A few months later an award-winning documentary director, Lynn Taylor, had joined him. Then the small team of five, including Waheed, had won a huge commission to make a new reality series, set in the Orkneys. The stylish loft space, just off Kentish Town high street, housed his vibrant team of coffee-drinking, over-educated creatives intent on changing the world through drama, and winning awards for their efforts. It had survived the industry storms, every month eking out a living for its employees, and paying the rent on our colourful flat in the eves, just.
And now both the business and the flat were water through my hands.
‘If you sell this, you’ll have some equity, won’t you?’
‘Robert remortgaged it three times. I’ll be lucky if it isn’t in negative equity.’
Lucy crossed one long thigh over the other and pressed her hands either side of her black, razor-sharp bob, as though squeezing thoughts out of her brain. Her top teeth bit at the side of her bottom lip.
‘Can you go back to scenic painting?’
‘The hours are too long. Childcare would be too expensive.’
I continued looking at her, waiting for her to do something, challenging her to find the solutions to my problems, adamant that there were none. Everything was hopeless.
Lucy clicked into the property website again.
‘But the Tennants are offering to help?’
‘I’m not taking a penny from them.’
‘Oh, Fran. Just because of Camilla and those pills?’
‘If you’d seen her face…’ I trailed off.
‘Have you thought she might be popping them herself?’
I considered this for a moment. ‘No.’
‘She could’ve been embarrassed that you found them.’
I pictured Camilla’s expression, her mood. Had it been embarrassment? Under Lucy’s scrutiny, I began to doubt my initial instincts.
I picked at the split-ends in my hair. ‘You’re probably right.’
‘What type were they? Temazepam?’
‘I can’t remember, Zylatol or Xylophone or something. I’ve forgotten.’
Lucy snorted. ‘Zopiclone?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘My nan used to munch on those like Smarties! You’re totally mad, you are!’ Lucy laughed.
I shook my head, embarrassed. ‘I never used to be so paranoid.’
We sat quietly for a few minutes, contemplating all the maybes, and I tried to stamp out the gnawing suspicion that there was more to that pill bottle than any of us knew. It was a hunch that I couldn’t pin down with any coherence.
I began clicking into photographs of the interior of the cottage. ‘It’s pokey inside.’
‘The idea of moving is going to be hard, I get that.’
‘It’s not just moving. It’s moving there.’ I stabbed at the screen. ‘So close to them all. They’re so bloody self-involved. I’d never be able to live my life how I wanted to live it. They’d always be putting in their two pennies’ worth.’
‘Just ignore all that, or tell them to piss off, in the politest possible way.’
‘I’d feel guilty all the time for taking their money.’
‘I really think that’s dumb. They’re Alice’s family, and they’ve got pots of dosh.’
‘And be indebted to those nutters all my life?’
‘Maybe put it to them as an investment idea. They could lend you the deposit, and you could share the ownership, and you could pay the mortgage payments monthly, and give the deposit back when you’re on your feet again. It would be less than rent, and you’d get to own a house.’
‘Maybe.’
‘What are your other options?’
‘Not many.’
‘Have you got any savings?’
‘A couple of hundred from some jobs before Alice. I put it aside for Alice’s university fees. I could put a deposit down on a rental somewhere and get a job.’
‘Okay. Well, let’s imagine you don’t go for the cottage in Letworth. Let’s look at some rentals.’
Gladly, I swapped places. Lucy was going to take charge. She would find a solution for me that would not involve the Tennants. She would save me.
Ever since I had met Lucy at freshers’ week at Nottingham University, she had taken charge. Orienting me around campus, pulling me to the right parties, stroking my back when I was being sick after too many snakebite and blacks.
‘How about this one?’
She double-clicked on a fazenda in Portugal.
I spluttered. ‘Near Mum and Dad?’
‘Just kidding!’ Lucy chuckled wickedly.
‘I’d move into Camilla and Patrick’s bedroom before moving near them.’
‘I know. I just wanted to see a little bit of a smile again,’ she said, clicking into another site. ‘I don’t think Babs and O would want you, anyway.’
Lucy had always called my parents Babs and O. Their full names were Barbara and Owen Wrey, but when Lucy had stayed with them in Castelo Branco for two weeks in our second summer holiday of university, she’d decided that pornstar names were more appropriate. My parents were not pornstars – by any stretch of the imagination – but they lived what might be called an alternative life.
‘What about Lewes? Look at this one.’
We looked at two gloomy flats in pebble-dashed terraces.
‘Okay, maybe not,’ Lucy said.
‘What am I going to do?’
‘Come on, let’s just have another look at that house for sale in the village.’
Lucy grabbed the mouse to scroll through the photographs again, and then she double-clicked on one to enlarge it. ‘Is that an outbuilding in the garden?’
‘It’s a…’ I stopped. I refused to say it out loud.
‘A studio space!’ she cried.
‘Yes,’ I replied, unenthusiastically.
Lucy sat down on the arm of the sofa and sighed. When she sighed like this, I knew she was going to say something truthful about my failings.
‘Babe, you’ve always wanted a studio space.’
I blushed, my chest full of nasty butterflies. ‘Robert would never have lived in Letworth.’
Lucy cackled. ‘True. If he had, he’d probably have ended up running the pub and the village shop and the cricket club.’
‘And sermonise at church every week.’
‘And then fall out with everyone.’
‘Even God.’
We both laughed at the memories of Robert and his hyperactive energy. It had been never-ending, tireless, superhuman, even.
‘Would it be so bad to be near his parents?’
‘His mother is trouble. That’s all I’m saying. And you always say I’m too naive about people.’
‘I understand,’ Lucy said. ‘I just don’t want you and Alice living in a homeless shelter, that’s all.’
We laughed together, and tears threatened.
I clicked out of the property website, knowing there was little point in poring over the photographs of the cottage. Even if it had been a damp, windowless hovel with rats, I did not have a choice. I slumped back in Robert’s old chair.
‘I’ll miss this place.’
‘Tell
me what you’ll miss most.’
I looked at all the pretty things and all the photographs of Robert, which, deep down in my broken heart, I knew I could take with me. Like the photograph of Robert and me in Mallorca, grinning under snorkels like halfwits, as happy as any couple could be; or the photograph of Alice as a newborn, wearing a stripy babygro, flopped over Robert’s shoulder.
And the memory jar. It was two feet tall with a large cork bottling its neck. Alice had to stand on a stool to plop in her memory or drawing.
Folded into one of the sunshine-yellow cards, Alice had drawn a stick figure of Robert and written a heart next to it. Already, she could barely remember her father, but I insisted we look through the photograph albums and read the memory cards every bedtime with her stories. Sometimes I reread the messages to myself, message after message, with a bottle of wine, and cried. Sometimes I stared at the jar, shooting it dirty looks. Sometimes I imagined rolling it up and out of the skylight, smashing it onto the rooftops, when Robert would be alive again, and we could go back to how life was before.
My gaze fell to my feet. ‘We painted these floorboards together.’
Lucy and I scanned the worn, chipped and greying paint.
I remembered Robert and me on our hands and knees painting them bright white. As I remembered this happy moment between us, the same torturous question sliced through it, fracturing it: Why had he wanted to leave us?
The tips of Lucy’s shoes scuffed the floorboards and nudged at my slippers, playing footsie with me.
‘I’ll help you pull them up so you can take them with you. Okay?’
I laughed, a tear plopping onto the paint.
‘Deal?’
‘Deal,’ I agreed, wiping my eyes and sniffing.
‘And if you live nearby, you’ll be able to Miss Marple the shit out of that family and their pill bottles.’
I laughed good-naturedly at Lucy’s teasing, but deep down I was not even smiling.
However much she teased, I could not shake off the deep-seated unease about Camilla. How ugly her mood had been, how illogically frightened I had felt, standing there in the bathroom, staring down at those pills at my feet. Thinking back to it was like remembering a nasty dream. It didn’t make any sense, but I knew it had relevance, prescience even.
To protect myself, I had been resisting the idea of getting closer to Robert’s family, scared of being infected by their stifled grief, of being suffocated by their strangled emotions. But, ironically, by remaining detached, I was stuck in a holding pattern, holding my breath, inert. In the same way that my most dysfunctional friends vociferously resisted psychoanalysis, the Tennants were avoiding their pain, plastering it over with luxury and stiff upper-lips. But Camilla’s high society smile had slipped when she saw those pills, and I was going to find out why.
Living nearby would make that a whole lot easier.
Chapter Seven
16 years ago
Francesca was sitting on top of the large speakers, dangling her legs and picking at the dried paint in her hair, one eye on John at the bar. She was deliberating on the idea of going up to him. It was the wrap party. Filming was at an end. It was her last opportunity.
Her confidence waned. In the three weeks since they had shared their cup of tea, perched on the edge of her car boot, he had not once returned to her. There had been rumours that he had been moved to Unit Two, with a different crew, with the body-double with the small waist. She wondered if she had fabricated the sparks that had flown in the air between them, whether it had been wishful thinking.
Nevertheless, she held out hope, and she was keeping a keen eye on him while she waited for Waldo, one of the props painters, to get their drinks.
When Waldo returned, he had brought her red wine, and Robert Tennant.
‘Those pink buckets of yours play a starring role in the flower shop scene,’ Robert Tennant said.
‘Oscar-worthy, I hope.’
He held his hand out. ‘Robert Tennant.’
Waldo wandered off, winking at her.
She couldn’t understand why the producer, the Robert Tennant, was even talking to her, let alone why he was aware of what she had painted.
‘I’m Francesca,’ she smiled, looking over his shoulder to see if she could spot John.
‘What are you working on next?’ he asked.
‘Not sure. Karen mentioned she wanted me on something at Pinewood, I think, some kind of horror/love-story/sci-fi/thriller film.’
‘Sounds interesting.’
‘It sounds awful. You?’
‘I’ve been developing a film project. I should be securing the finance for it next week.’
‘What’s it about?’ But Francesca wasn’t really interested. She had caught sight of John again. He was weaving through the crowds towards them. Her heart beat wildly in her chest.
Robert’s voice broke into her thoughts again. ‘Do you want me to help you jump down?’
He held out his hand. He was the kind of man she didn’t feel she could say ‘no’ to.
‘Sure.’
At eye level, she could see that Robert Tennant was handsome. Dark hair and a square jaw, with deep-set blue eyes. Over his shoulder, she saw the back of John’s blond head about three feet away.
‘It’s about a crew of mercenaries who get lost in the Sahara.’
‘How lost?’
And he began to tell Francesca about the Sahara, about his three-week recce with a crew in a Land Rover Defender, and about sleeping under the stars at night in the freezing cold. The photographs on his phone of the sand dunes distracted her from John for a few minutes.
When she looked up again, she caught sight of John by the door, talking to someone, kissing them on the cheek. Was he about to leave? She considered abandoning Robert then and there, being rude, halting their conversation, running after John to ask him out. My god! She wanted to. She wanted to be brave enough. But with one small moment of hesitancy, a little pang of insecurity, she missed her opportunity. John disappeared through the doors. The disappointment was like a stone dropping through her.
Whereas Robert seemed solid next to her, attentive and interesting, and sure of himself. She was sucked in by his energy. Everything he talked about was colourful and extraordinary.
‘Do you like travelling?’ Robert asked, later on in the evening.
‘Love it.’ It was a lie. She had always wanted to be more adventurous, but she enjoyed wearing slippers and curling up on her sofa too much.
‘A friend of mine is getting married in Mumbai in three weeks. Want to come as my guest?’
The shock of his brazen forwardness made Francesca laugh. Laden with the disappointment of John’s departure and soaked in her third glass of wine, the thought of going to India for the first time seemed like a great plan, and she said, ‘Yes. Why not?’
Chapter Eight
John
John’s phone was ringing. Before he put the last of the plates into the dishwasher, he glanced at the screen to see Francesca’s name flash up. He left it on the kitchen worktop.
‘Who’s that?’ Dilys asked, buried in her own phone at the table.
‘Fran.’
‘Why is she calling?’
‘Mum said she needed help moving some wardrobe that the old lady left in the cottage.’
‘Aren’t you going to pick up?’
‘I’ll call her later.’
‘Is she still cross?’
‘Probably.’
John was trying to be happy for Francesca. But it was not going to be easy. With her imminent move to Letworth, she was to become a fully-fledged member of the Tennants, living in the heart of the village that his parents dominated. He imagined seeing her face every day of his life. The thought left him breathless. Before, in London, she had been on the periphery of the Tennant clan, never quite conventional enough for his family, never quite like them enough. He had loved that about her.
A screech echoed through the kitchen. Beatrice char
ged at Olivia, and slid along the curved slippery concrete floors, brandishing two fists. Blonde heads neared the black-glass kitchen table, elbows whooshed past valuable modern art on the wall behind them. All the while, Harry was threatening to throw his basketball at them both. Dilys’ carefully designed, mustard and grey interior would not survive a basketball.
‘Stop it!’ Dilys hollered, barely raising her head from her phone. They ignored her. ‘John? Could you deal with it?’
‘Stop fighting, kids,’ John muttered, pressing the code into his phone for his voicemail.
‘John, please, I’ve got a business call to make.’
‘On a Saturday?’ John asked absently. Francesca’s voice came into his ear.
‘Hi, John. It’s Fran. Your mum said you’d be able to help move the wardrobe left upstairs at the cottage. Wondering if you could meet me there next Tuesday? I need to get it out before the completion date. Let me know. Bye.’
She sounded frosty and businesslike. If he knew anything about Francesca, his continued failure to address the Easter day issue would eventually result in a confrontation, which was the last thing he wanted. He texted her back.
No problem. See you next Tuesday. I’m really sorry about my clumsy delivery of the news about Aspect. Wanted to tell you before the fam. Head in sand, as usual. I blame EVERYTHING on Dilys ;)
He knew it was lame to apologise by text, but he always found writing things down easier than saying them out loud.
Dilys barked at him: ‘Who are you texting?’
‘Fran. About the wardrobe.’
‘Why don’t you just call her?’
‘I’m not in the mood.’
‘That’s for sure.’ She clicked her tongue and slammed the door to her study.
Taken aback, he realised he had been incautious around Dilys, inattentive, distracted by Francesca. Supper had been pretty normal for a Saturday evening family meal and he had been chatty enough, or so he had thought. He had cooked them baked potatoes with melted cheese and bacon, and the children had talked about the latest films they wanted to see at the cinema. Dilys had quizzed them about school grades. He had tried to be as present as possible. But maybe Dilys was right, maybe he was preoccupied.
