by Laura Kemp
‘What do you mean?’
‘This wash and set, it’s to make me look nice for Norman across the corridor. We’re courting. He’s taking me to the pictures tonight. You’ve done a good job, I think he’ll mistake me for that Scarlett Johandsome.’
Pensioners dating? Frankie was agog. ‘What’s he like then?’
‘Very polite. Ever so funny but not crude, mind. He’s got a lovely head of hair and treats me like a lady – what more could a girl ask for?’ Phyll said.
‘Quite a catch then,’ Frankie laughed, marvelling at the way women always wanted the same thing, no matter how old they were.
‘Oh, I should say so.’
‘What are you going to see?’
‘He says I can choose, so either that one with George Clooney or the Judi Dench one. Afternoon showing because of the seniors’ discount.’
Phyll was silent for a few seconds but Frankie knew she wasn’t finished.
‘Life goes on, you know. Dai was the love of my life. Always will be. But you have to get on with things.’
‘But how?’ Frankie asked, feeling beaten and hopeless that even this pensioner had a better love life than her. ‘Because I still want him back.’
‘Live your life, and if it’s meant to be, he’ll come knocking.’ Then she said the most curious thing: ‘But you might find if he does, that things have changed.’
In the traffic jams on the way home, Frankie sat in her old red Mini mulling over Phyll’s words and it was still taking up headspace as she let herself in. In the early days of separation, getting up and about, showered even, had seemed an impossible challenge. Yet now, she could do it. Maybe they were all right, Phyll, Em and Letty, maybe she was capable of moving forward. Maybe she could come up with a plan to win back Jason.
After a tea of spaghetti hoops on toast and a large glass of wine, she couldn’t help herself: she needed to check Jason’s Facebook. As his page came up, her heart cracked all over again at his profile picture: he was grinning in the sunshine on his stag do in Magaluf. Hers was of their wedding day.
Then her stomach turned choppy when she saw his latest post. A photo from a surfing course. He was amongst a gang of people in wetsuits pulling ‘wild and crazy’ faces on a stunning beach. Behind the group were huge waves and their boards had been stabbed into the sand as if they were showing off their kill. I know that place, Frankie gasped, it was Oxwich, a gorgeous spot they had visited many times as a couple to walk Dad’s dog and share chips as the sun set. How could he!
With adrenalin flowing, she zoomed in – and she was floored by a stab of jealousy. He had his arm round a blonde girl, one of those gorgeous sporty types. Admittedly he was doing the same to a bloke the other side of him, but that wasn’t the point! He looked happy, deliriously so. It was obvious he had discovered a new lease of life. And he looked so incredibly hot. Brown from the sun, his teeth looked even whiter and his wet suit, oh my Lord… It was peeled down to his waist, exposing his ripped chest. Frankie began to imagine him with that girl, doing it in the sand dunes on a surfboard. Doing all sorts of things. Not that she knew exactly what because as he’d said SHE WAS BORING IN BED.
Jason was having fun and loving it. He was clearly not wondering about her. Hell-bent on trying to forget all the awful boring sex he’d been having with me, she thought.
Once the at-it-like-rabbits phase had ended, she and Jason had settled into a twice a week routine on a Friday night and Sunday morning, which she hadn’t thought was bad after so many years together. There’d been no need to experiment – love was all they needed. At least she had thought it was.
But now, terrifyingly, she understood what he’d meant: sex with her had become regimented, middle-aged. She knocked back another glass, then another, her mind racing for words to describe what sex should’ve been but wasn’t. Exciting. Erotic. Adventurous. Thrilling. Tears began to prick her eyes as the cat appeared on the armchair of the sofa. He always popped up when something was on Frankie’s mind, so much so she swore she had a mystic pet. ‘Oh, what am I going to do, Leonardo?’ she said, before realizing asking an animal for direction was verging on mad cat lady territory.
She needed to talk to someone who understood. Letty. She’d know what to do. Frankie picked up her phone, and with one eye screwed up because she couldn’t focus both, scrolled down her contacts. She dissolved as soon as she heard Letty’s voice.
‘Oh, babes, maybe Jase just needs time,’ Letty said.
‘I just feel so helpless.’
‘I know. What you’ve got to do is take control.’
‘But how? Because I don’t want to go on the pull. I’ve no confidence. I don’t think I could sleep with anyone ever again.’
‘You will, trust me.’
‘If only someone could teach me what to do. I’m good at learning. I always liked—’
‘Jesus, Frankie! That’s it!’ Letty sounded excited.
‘What?’
‘Get a teacher! Someone to show you the ropes. You’ll feel empowered and when Jason comes back with his tail between his legs, you can show him what he’s been missing.’
Frankie’s head was swimming now. Doing a course in hairdressing was one thing but in sex?
‘I don’t think so. It’s just too… weird. And I’m tired.’
‘Fine. But sleep on it. And do me a favour, because you’ve been drinking, you’ll forget this in the morning. So, go and get a glass of water, two paracetamol and then before you go up, write it down on your Cath Kidston chalkboard.’
‘Write what?’ Frankie wasn’t following her here.
‘The sex education of Frankie Green, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Frankie replied with sarcasm. ‘Aged thirty-and-three-quarters. Like Adrian bloody Mole.’
A sex education was entirely ridiculous. And there was no way Frankie would ever contemplate it.
Saturday
Em
I really should’ve just bought the coleslaw, Em thought, feeling a wave of nausea at the smell of mustard, onions, mayo and lemon juice as she started on her contribution to the barbecue. Frankie was hosting one this afternoon as part of her ‘getting on with things’ project, which pleased Em. Not many people took her up on her advice.
But if she didn’t make the coleslaw herself, because she always made everything from scratch, people might ask questions. She wasn’t ready to announce her condition let alone her decision.
Em took a moment to steady herself by looking at the horizon out to sea from her apartment kitchen window. Four days she had known and her distress hadn’t subsided. Discombobulated, that was how she felt, going about her business at work. She knew people were wondering what was up – she was hardly an airhead – so she had to try twice as hard to concentrate. The odd moment when she would forget, the memory that she was carrying another being would storm in and she would need to take a minute in whatever aisle she was in. Stick her head into the freezer compartment, busy herself with the shelf labels. Deliver herself a good talking to that she was not to panic, she could deal with the consequences. The problem was the hormones, which had altered her ability to think clearly. Like last night, when she’d worked out exactly how pregnant she was. Although she was quite certain of her decision, she had wanted to know all of the facts. An innocent ‘ten weeks pregnant’ search on Google had sucked her in deeper and deeper, click after click. She swung from horror and fear to wonder and amazement as she learned not only was she a walking test tube of chemicals but the foetus – the size of a prune – already had tastebuds, knees and elbows. Bile rose in her throat; a flood of human chorionic gonadotropin was working away to develop the placenta and that caused sickness.
A long groan, the sound of scratching and a loud yawn came, which told her Floyd was stirring. He never bothered to shut his door, so she was used to his morning soundtrack. But while she needed ten minutes to come to, he would be raring to go as soon as he’d flushed the loo. And true to form, he bounded into the kitchen.
‘Afternoon,’ she said, pulling herself together with an instinctive bit of sibling sarcasm.
‘You sound like Mum, Emerald,’ he said, sticking the coffee machine on and clattering around, opening cupboards and drawers before slamming them shut as he searched for mugs and breakfast.
‘Very funny,’ she said, ‘except Mum would’ve woken you up hours ago to do sun salutation yoga at dawn. Instead, I’ve been slaving away making beef burgers and marinating prawns for Frankie’s barbie.’
‘Excellent. I’ll be making a cocktail and providing the tunes.’ Floyd held his arms aloft, taking in an imaginary round of applause.
Em couldn’t help but giggle at the sight of him. Six foot four, his crazy sticky-up bed hair added even more inches to his height, and with that big beard, bare chest and baggy boxers, he looked like a castaway.
‘I know. Gorgeous, aren’t I?’ he said, trying to flatten down brown tufts with one hand and adjusting his black-rimmed glasses with the other. People never guessed they were related on first sight. Like Dad, Floyd was a boyish, brown-eyed brunette, whereas Em had inherited Mum’s green eyes and mousey hair, which they both dyed – albeit very different shades of red: Mum’s was hennaed, Em’s was chestnut. But Em and Floyd shared straight noses, expressive eyebrows, a willowy and lean physique, and the second the sun came out, their complexions blossomed with freckles. That though was where the similarities ended because Floyd was like a spaniel to her self-sufficient Siamese. Not that they fought like cat and dog; they got on and always had done.
But that’s not to say Em was entirely happy sharing her home with him. It was extremely gratifying that she’d bought her own place thanks to hard work. She could clear her head up in this smart fourth-floor two-bed apartment, which felt like her own ivory tower. The spotless white kitchen overlooked the Bristol Channel and, on a good day, all the way to Somerset, while the bedroom vista took in the immediate bustle of the upmarket docks, the distant skyscrapers of the city centre and the rising hills beyond. It was hard to enjoy the views when Floyd was bashing around, but she had a soft spot for him, he was fun and good company – most of the time. He’d had a run of bad luck; first his cow of a girlfriend Sasha had left him, then his landlord had decided to sell up, leaving him homeless. Even so, she needed to know what his plans were because that was the way she was. And she wanted to imagine that one day her radiators wouldn’t be covered by his enormous T-shirts. ‘Any flats coming up?’ she asked.
‘Trying to get rid of me?’ he said, pulling a pretend hurt face as he plopped two sugars into his cup.
‘No! You said you wanted your own place, that’s all,’ she said, returning to her food prep.
‘I do but there’s nothing coming up in my price bracket. Cheap as chips equals scummy, and professional pad means out of my league. Just like it is with women,’ he said, laughing at his own joke.
‘But you’re always pulling!’ she said. ‘How can you complain about that? Speaking of which, I didn’t hear you come in last night. Anything to report?’ Em revelled in his roller-coaster love life because it was so different to hers, which resembled a big dipper, having not heard from Simon Brown since that night. Floyd fell for someone every week yet they never lasted. She rarely met any of them because it never got to that point where he would introduce them to the gang.
‘Well, now you come to mention it,’ he said with an enigmatic lift of his right eyebrow.
‘Ooh, what? Who is she?’ Em said, dropping her knife and twirling around.
‘So, you know that bird I’ve been after, the one at work?’
‘Which one?’ she said because Floyd was spoilt for choice for alpha females at the legal firm where he was the in-house counsellor. To them, this hippy offshoot represented something free and unfettered compared with their structured lives.
‘That lawyer, the one who looks like Nicole Scherzinger. We went for drinks,’ he said, taking a slurp of his coffee.
‘Sounds promising,’ Em said, trying to keep it low-key. He looked happy still playing the field but she wanted to see him settled because he’d be a great dad and husband.
But Floyd shook his head. ‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ he said, ‘I thought I was open-minded sex-wise – don’t make that face – but she’s twisted.’
‘I’m not sure I want to hear this, after all.’
‘Don’t be such a prude! The second we got back to hers, she jumped on me—’
‘My ears!’ she said, holding the sides of her head.
‘And she produced a…’ and he stopped to mouth the word ‘strap-on dildo’ before resuming. ‘So I scarpered. I mean, fair enough, but not on a first date,’ he said, shrugging.
‘Never!’ Em gasped.
‘Yep. So, wahey,’ he said, doing jazz hands, ‘I’m back on the market.’
‘You really are unbelievable – don’t you ever just want to be by yourself for a bit?’ Em sighed in judgement. She was a staunch believer in being alone if you couldn’t have the one you wanted. It had made her resourceful and independent. ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit pathetic that you seem to need someone?’
‘Cor, you’re touchy today. You all right?’ he said, eating cereal straight from the box. ‘Not that you’d ever tell me, of course. I mean, I’m only a qualified professional who earns a living listening to people.’
‘I’m fine,’ Em said, returning to the coleslaw, she didn’t need anyone’s help, thank you very much.
Later…
Frankie
Ten minutes before the barbecue was about to start and Frankie’s Mum appeared with a bowl of coronation chicken.
‘Hiya, love!’ she said, handing over the tepid dish which turned Frankie’s already churning stomach to curd. Mum marched into the kitchen and began rearranging the nibbles to make room, pride of place, of course, for her contribution.
This was just typical of her mother, Frankie thought. Poor timing not to mention turning up uninvited. But then Frankie only had herself to blame – she should never have told her she was having a party. She was nervous enough as it was, hosting a do for the first time minus Jason.
Thank God Dad had already been and gone, setting up trestle tables borrowed from his painter and decorator friend Gareth in the garden. Frankie always died inside when her parents came face to face. They were very good at pretending to be friends but she worried Dad felt his loneliness even more keenly when he had to make small talk with his successor, a Lego-haired car salesman who loved Jeremy Clarkson and Top Gear.
‘Colin’s just parking up,’ Mum said, flicking her brassy and dated weathergirl hair. She’d tried to persuade her to update it – it was a terrible advert for Frankie’s hairdressing skills – but Mum knew best. As she’d always done. ‘Any drinks going? How are you? Excited? Gorgeous weather for it. I’m sure lots of people will turn up, don’t worry, they always do if there’s free booze!’
‘Thanks for the support, Mum.’ Frankie pointed to the gin on the side. ‘I’ll have one too,’ she said, needing a confidence boost. Not only had her mothers just identified Frankie’s key worry that no one would come, she had managed to point out that her guests wouldn’t be there for her scintillating company but whatever they could get.
Luckily, her mum had been proved entirely wrong and by midnight, Frankie was in a camping chair, drunk on Floyd’s Banging BBQ cocktail and her devoted friends’ company. Yes, it had been a success, way beyond her limited expectations when she’d simply hoped not to trip over her maxi dress or cry into her hot dog.
Sadly though, it was time to start thinking about calling it a night, she thought, taking a moment to admire Letty’s arrangement of candles and fairy lights.
The summery soundtrack was long gone: a chill-out playlist on low accompanied the murmur of voices of a handful of people outside on bean bags and cushions. Em had gone hours ago with a headache, poor thing. Letty was still there, slapping her bum and asking if anyone wanted a lap dance. She was doing well, Frankie th
ought, considering how upset she had been earlier, wishing she was in a normal relationship and could bring her man with her. Frankie hoped she’d come to her senses soon and get herself out of that no-win situation. But she would never lecture her friend. Then there was Leonardo, up on the fence on his haunches, sniffing the air as part of his night-time inspection.
Frankie considered getting out of her seat and clearing up. Yet she was made of cement and mesmerized by the glow of the barbecue which was now burning bits of wood. Shift your bum, she told herself. For two seconds she was upright but a bat flying low made her dizzy and she landed with a thump on her backside.
‘All right, Frankie?’ came a deep, melodious voice.
Her eyes searched the semi-darkness and she found Floyd holding two kebab sticks and a bag of marshmallows. ‘I need to go to bed,’ she said, smiling at his friendly face, ‘that’s all.’
‘Me too,’ he said, settling down on the decking at her feet. ‘I miss my bed.’
‘It’s not far!’ she laughed.
‘I meant my own bed. It’s in mum and dad’s garage, I’m in Em’s spare room, yeah, and the mattress is too soft for me.’
‘How is the flat hunting going?’
‘Crap,’ he said, ‘I just can’t seem to find anywhere. I feel stuck. Like I can’t move on.’
Frankie nodded and stifled a yawn. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk, it was just she was so tired. ‘I better get tidying,’ she said, pushing herself up by the armrests. She had to start dropping hints to tell the stragglers it was over.
‘I know what you’re going through,’ he said, which made her briefly stop. Then she waved away the temptation to have yet another conversation about her relationship. She’d spent the night not talking about it, as in trapping anyone who’d listen to the woes of wanting her husband back.
‘Right. Do you want me to call you a cab?’ She looked up at him, making it obvious it was closing time. But he completely ignored her question.
