by Clare Boyd
Before John left, he spoke to Francesca on the landing outside the front door, which they pulled to.
‘We thought these phases had ended,’ he said. ‘Since he met you.’
‘Who’s “we”?’
‘The family.’
‘How long do these “phases” last?’
‘Usually for a few weeks. After a film has finished.’
‘That’s normal, isn’t it? I can get low after films.’
‘Sure. It’s normal.’
‘But?’
‘No buts.’
‘No buts?’ Francesca slapped her hip, like Beyoncé, and snickered, feeling a need to release the tension of the evening.
‘Sophisticated,’ he chuckled.
And there was that glimmer in his tired eyes, the one she had seen when they first met, which they had not once acknowledged. Francesca was relieved that she had never mentioned it. They had become friends, settled with their position as almost family.
Chapter Sixteen
John
John left Francesca’s house smiling to himself, with only a pang of amused irritation at the thought of Paul, with his big, stupid muscles and special foam.
As he drove his unusually quiet mother back to Byworth End, John thought about Francesca’s email to Dr Baqri. He worried she was obsessing about nothing, filled with conspiracy theories, looking for conclusive answers to a nebulous thing. They could never talk to Robert again – which would be the only sure way of finding out why he had jumped. And Francesca had not known Robert as a child, in the way that he and his parents had. He had always been difficult, years before his mind could have been altered by medication. Moreover, John did not want her raking up the past. He was finding it difficult enough to move on as it was.
‘How’s Harry getting along with his GCSE choices?’ his mother asked, pressing open the car window.
‘He can’t decide between German and Spanish.’
‘He should do both, of course.’
‘But he wants to take art and drama.’
‘He can do art in his spare time. And drama isn’t a real subject.’
But John didn’t like how serious life had become for his son. ‘It seems like yesterday that he was playing with his Transformers.’
‘I thought the school was letting him take some of his subjects early.’
‘I’m worried it will put him under too much pressure.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘That’s what Dilys said.’
‘She wants the absolute best for him, for all three of them. That’s why she pushes them. She is a wonderful mother,’ Camilla said.
‘In spite of being Welsh?’ John joked, reminding his mother of her usual rhetoric, to try to make light of what she was implying, challenging her to laugh at herself.
She did not laugh. She closed the window again. ‘All three children are very happy. They are so very lucky to have the life they have. They are exceptional children. Exceptional.’
‘You don’t have to tell me that.’
Before they turned right into Byworth End, his mother clicked on the indicator for him. He tightened his fingers around the wheel and pulled up outside the gates.
‘One nine four six,’ she said.
‘I do know the code,’ he said, stabbing it into the security system.
They waited for the gates to open onto the long driveway, whose grassy banks were lined with evenly planted rows of silver birch. When the trees had been seedlings, he and Robert had woven in and out of them on their bikes, using them as an obstacle course.
‘Do you remember meeting Ian and Penelope Fraser at your dad’s seventieth?’
He recalled a stuffy gentleman in a cravat and chinos, and his timid wife who had fiddled incessantly with her coral necklace. This could have described most of the people at his father’s seventieth, but the Frasers had been notable for their grown-up son, who had sloped around in black drainpipe jeans, smoking cigarettes and combing his long fingernails through his greasy blue-black hair.
‘Umm, I think so. They brought their son, didn’t they?’
His mother nodded, her chin bunching as she spoke. ‘Their son, Jasper, was a shining star at Marlborough. In all the teams, head of house, hundreds of “A” stars. He was headed for Oxford. But then Ian had an affair and Penelope found out about it, and you know what happened?’
‘No,’ he said, driving a little too fast over the sleepers.
‘Jasper began failing everything at school. He became a total dropout. Did you see the state of him at our party?’
‘He looked a bit grungy. He had a band. They were about to play a gig in Camden.’
‘This was a boy destined for Oxford!’ Camilla repeated, slapping her hand on the dashboard. ‘But his father couldn’t keep his little pecker in his trousers!’
‘A charming tale, Mother.’
She sniffed. ‘Just making conversation.’
And pigs might fly, he thought. He swung the car around in front of the house, slammed on the breaks and waited, sullenly, for his mother to get out of the car.
‘Thanks, darling. See you at the weekend,’ she said lightly, letting the dogs out.
John watched her hold her chin high as she walked in front of the car. He wanted to run her over.
Chapter Seventeen
Francesca
‘You’re Paul?’ I asked. He did not look like Pest Control. I was reminded of John’s joke about his special foam, and almost burst out laughing.
‘I’ve come to sort out your wasp problem.’
‘Sorry. Yes. Come in.’
He seemed too tall and solid to be in my tiny house. It was like squeezing Superman into a dolls’ house.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘I’ll have a look at the nest first, if that’s all right?’
‘Of course. Sorry.’
Once I had shown him where it was, I left him to it, and fiddled around in the kitchen trying to remember how to make tea, feeling a little flustered. Alice was playing with her mini china tea-set in her room. By the time he came down from the loft, I had at least managed to boil the kettle.
‘All sorted,’ he said, putting his tool bag on to the floor, adding, ‘Don’t let your little one outside for a few hours.’
‘Did you meet Alice?’
‘She left me a cup of tea on the ladder, and a puzzle to do.’ He grinned.
‘A better host than I am then. How do you take it?’
‘Milk, two sugars, thanks. So, you moved last week?’
‘This week. Monday.’
‘From London?’
‘Yup.’ I sighed.
‘I grew up in Ladbroke Grove, before it got trendy.’
‘You’re a Londoner?’
‘Through and through.’
‘What made you move down here?’
‘My wife’s from around here.’
‘Do you have kids?’
‘Two daughters. They live with her now.’
‘Oh. Sorry.’ I stirred in his sugar and decided to try sugar in my tea for a change.
‘Don’t be. I think I’m a better dad now than I was when we were together.’
‘Really?’
‘I make more effort. Before, I used to take it all for granted.’
‘I know what you mean,’ I said, absently, still stirring.
‘I’m so sorry you lost your husband. I can’t imagine what you went through.’
I studied his face. He had pointy cheekbones and crinkles around his eyes, as though he smiled too much in the sunshine. His sandy brown hair was receding, but his strong features made up for it. I handed him his mug.
‘Did you ever meet Robert?’
‘Once or twice, at Byworth End. He was a real force of life, from what I gathered. A proper gob on him, that one. I liked him.’
‘Yes.’ I laughed, grateful that he did not talk about him awkwardly, as though his life had been sad before he had died. ‘I bet he hovered around a
nd asked hundreds of questions about what you were doing.’ I took a sip of my tea. The sweetness made my teeth tingle.
‘Honestly, once, when he was down visiting Mrs Tennant, I was fixing the drains at Byworth End, and he wanted to understand the whole drainage system of the house. Honestly, he could’ve sat an exam in plumbing by the end of day. And he made me four cups of tea. I was wired when I got home.’
‘You’re a plumber, too?’
‘Nah. I just picked up some basic stuff from Dad.’ He laughed. ‘I’m a fireman.’
‘A fireman. Wow.’
I imagined him stalking out of a burning building holding a child in his arms, muscles bulging under his smouldering clothes.
‘Most of it’s rescuing cats and waiting out shifts.’
‘Yes, but you do have to go into burning buildings sometimes.’
He shrugged. ‘Everyone has their shit to deal with,’ he said simply.
It felt good to talk to someone I didn’t know, to experience a different perspective, free of the Tennants’ complex, overprivileged dramas. I pictured John’s shy, neurotic handsomeness, and felt weighed down by it. With Paul, I felt a desire to reinvent myself.
‘Sometimes I worry about Alice. She’s experienced too much heartache at such a young age. I feel guilty about it all the time.’
‘You feel guilty?’
The emphasis on ‘you’ unsettled me. ‘I want to be both parents, and I can never be.’
‘It’s all about the Plan B.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I read this book once, when my wife left me, which talked about accepting Plan B when Plan A doesn’t seem to be panning out.’
I liked the idea of Plan B.
‘Do you think Plan B will ever feel anything other than a compromise?’
‘Don’t know. But you won’t know unless you try.’
‘How’s your Plan B going?’
He grinned. ‘It’s a work in progress.’
‘I like that.’ I smiled back, then shyly looked to the ground.
‘Right. I’ll be off. I’ll leave my card just in case you have any other things that need sorting.’
‘Thanks, Paul. I really appreciate it.’ I followed him to the door.
On the doorstep, he turned back briefly, and said, ‘If you fancy a drink in the pub any time, let me know. No strings. It’s just, I know what it’s like to be on your own suddenly. I was lonely after Katie left me.’
I didn’t know what to say. If I had spoken, I would have burst into tears.
He walked off, waving behind him. I realised I hadn’t paid him. ‘Oh, wait, sorry, I’ve got your cash.’
‘Nah. Owe me a drink. See you soon, Francesca.’
And he jumped into his pickup truck. I watched him drive away, around the green, his red taillights sparkling in the dusky evening.
As soon as he had gone, the anxiety about Robert’s medical records rushed back into my mind. How could I possibly make a Plan B, when I hadn’t yet let go of Plan A? The task ahead of me, and what I might uncover about Robert’s suicide, clashed with my desire to live freely, to find hope beyond death. I wanted to put it all back in the box, and rewind myself back to London.
Chapter Eighteen
12 years ago
‘How long is this speech going to be?’
Francesca reached for the stack of pages that lay on Robert’s desk.
‘Don’t read it,’ Robert snapped, slamming his hand down on the mess of words.
‘Why don’t you have a break?’
‘I’ve got to get it done.’
‘You’ve got three weeks.’
‘It’s not enough time.’
‘It’s only meant to be a few short words about how much you love me,’ she teased.
‘I want to put some stuff in about Mum and Dad, and John.’
‘It’s not a memoir.’
‘I need to get it all down and then I can edit it.’
‘I’ll leave you to it.’
‘Don’t watch television in here, please. It’s distracting.’
‘Sure.’
She kissed his head, found a book and snuggled up in bed, vaguely worried about him. A wedding speech should not have been causing him this much angst.
Before going to sleep, she checked on him. His eyes were wild and his handwriting barely legible. The written pages had accumulated, as had those in the wastepaper bin at his feet.
She brought him a cup of herbal tea, to calm him. To see him like this tormented her.
‘I can’t say it how I want to say it.’
‘Maybe write less. Start again.’
‘Start again? Are you mad?’
‘Or ask John?’
‘John?’ he spat.
‘He’s a writer.’
‘On a crap kids’ show,’ he snorted, flicking a bottle of his sleeping pills across his desk. It clattered against a paperweight, sounding empty. Francesca assumed he had taken one, and wondered whether this was the reason his focus was cloudy.
‘Sorry, I’m just trying to help.’
He put his head in his hands. ‘I need to get it down. What’s in my head.’
Francesca retreated, deciding it was best to leave him.
When she woke up the next morning, she saw that he was not lying beside her. A light shone from under the door of their bathroom.
Blurry eyed, she peered around the door.
He was sitting slumped on the edge of the bath. There was an open box of paracetamol on the basin opposite him.
‘Are you okay?’
He slurred his words. ‘Feeling a bit sick.’
‘Have you been sick?’
‘Headache,’ he replied, looking up at her. His face was clammy and deathly pale.
She picked up the packet of painkillers. ‘Have you taken one?’
‘A few,’ he snorted, and then he slid off the bath and sank onto his knees in front of the toilet and wretched.
Her breathing slowed, her hearing sharpened, her vision tunnelled.
‘When did you take them?’
He spat bile into the toilet bowl and rasped, ‘Hour ago, half hour, two hours… Dunno.’
As she picked up the box of paracetamol, her movements were measured and careful. She counted each empty pocket. At twenty-six, she awoke to the reality of what he had done.
‘We have to get you to the hospital.’
‘Nooo,’ he mumbled.
In a state of absolute calm, Francesca methodically dressed him and herself, and drove him the five minutes to the Whittington A&E department.
There was no five-hour wait for Robert: they were rushed straight through as soon as she described how many pills he had taken. She waved the empty box at the doctors. The curtain was pulled. A nurse bustled her away to a waiting area. A gastric lavage was performed.
After the procedure he slept, and then he and Francesca talked. He was groggy but raw and honest.
‘I was writing about growing up at Byworth End and how happy we’d been and then I hated what I’d written. It was false, and I started all over again. All this horrible crap about Mum came out. I mean, I can’t say all that crap, can I?’
‘What horrible crap?’
‘You know what she’s like.’
She nodded. She did indeed.
‘So, I started again and again and AGAIN. Like a vicious cycle. It was sending me completely fucking mad.’
‘And so, you took paracetamol to…?’
He interrupted, ‘I didn’t want to die, Fran.’
Tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘We’re getting married in three weeks.’
He crushed her fingers. ‘I just wanted to stop my thoughts. I couldn’t stop my thoughts.’
‘Do you still want to marry me?’ she asked tearfully.
There had been a delay. He had looked up to the ceiling. In that pause, she held her breath and wished for him to release her from their bond. They had been together for four years and Francesca was only thirty y
ears old and she suddenly felt stifled by the prospect of a whole life of him. She could not cope with the constant ups and downs, with the disquiet.
‘You’re my rock. I’d be a mess without you, Frannie. I love you more than life itself.’
The latter was a bleak and appropriate cliché. A threat, perhaps. And she accepted it.
She had a feeling that she was on a speeding train that was going too fast to jump from. She couldn’t leave him. He was unstable. He was a wreck. It would kill him.
Chapter Nineteen
John
‘The receptionist at the clinic said he’d call me sometime this afternoon,’ Francesca said.
‘Let’s try and enjoy the day, until then.’
The strip of green sea hung in front of them. John’s ankles were crossed on the pebbles, next to Francesca’s crossed ankles. Their feet were too near to the lapping shoreline. His skin tingled after a bracing swim. A blue, yellow and red striped windbreak was in a semi-circle around them. John had almost thrown his arm out of the socket hammering in the stakes. In the distance, the wind was blowing the children’s hair horizontally from their heads, but John and Francesca were sheltered; warm in their fleeces, the newspapers strewn at their feet, hot tea in paper cups in their hands.
‘We should move our stuff back,’ she said, pulling her knees up.
‘We probably have about twenty minutes before we’re gonners.’ John yawned, trying to ignore how tense she was. It had been an effort to persuade her to come, and now he was beginning to wish he hadn’t bothered. All afternoon, Fran had been guarded and uncommunicative. There was a physical unease between them. She wasn’t holding eye contact.
She began gathering their towels, her fringe blown flat back, a scowl on her pretty features.
‘Don’t worry! Let the sea take us!’ he cried over the wind, trying to bring out her smile.
She stopped, sighing as she stood straight, rubbing her temples as she looked out to the horizon.
Then a mobile phone rang from her bag.
She scrabbled in her bag to answer it as though her life depended on it.
