by Laura Kemp
‘So…’ she said, prompting him to throw some light on his visit.
‘Yeah, so…’ he coughed then span around leaving trails in the dusty floor. ‘Well, I wanted to know how your diary was fixed?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Your diary. What you’ve got on.’ His smile was wide and deep and so very inviting. And his tone was playful. Amused and curious, she went in for a paddle. He had understood how fragile this all was, and he was meandering around until it felt safe to ask her out.
‘Let me think… busy tonight, washing my hair tomorrow, might be free at the weekend…’ she said, coyly.
‘How about next week?’ he said.
‘Might be okay,’ she said, now up to her calves, getting closer to him, ready to say yes to dinner or the cinema or anything.
‘Next month?’ He was moving towards her too, blinking slowly, heavily, which always sucked her in.
‘Possibly,’ she said, wading up to her waist, wondering if he was going to suggest a holiday.
‘How about six months’ time? Then…’ Jason’s face was no longer flirtatious but serious and intense.
‘Yes?’ she asked, treading water, wanting to know what he had planned.
‘Nine months after that?’ He began nodding at her slowly and pulled her into his embrace, as if he was her life raft.
Waiting, with her heart galloping, she met his eyes with expectation.
‘Frankie, I want you to marry me all over again,’ he said, wrapping his arms around her waist. ‘We can have a blessing. And we can start trying for a baby straight after.’
She laughed with a gasp; where on earth had this come from? She’d thought he was going to ask her out for dinner. But marriage? And a baby?
‘We can plan this wedding together, properly, I’ll be there with you all the way, whatever you want,’ he said, irresistibly. ‘I got it so wrong before – I wasn’t there for you, I left all the organization to you. I was a dick. But now I want the world to know I’m sorry and I love you. It’ll be the biggest, grandest day you’ve ever had. And then we can start again with a baby, our baby.’
Stunned, she gulped and felt first tearful then indecently delighted: she was being offered everything she’d wanted on a silver platter by her very own Prince Charming.
‘What do you say?’ he asked her, moving his chest and head backwards to check she had taken it in. Then his enormous smile was shining on her.
‘I… oh, God… I can’t believe…’
‘We can get you another ring, a new dress, shoes, veil, anything. We can do it in a church, or at a hotel, or anywhere. I’ve been looking into it, there are lots of places to do it. We can go on honeymoon again, Greece if you like, or somewhere exotic, and if we get pregnant straight away we could be parents, not this Christmas, but next!’
‘Is this really happening,’ she said, feeling light-headed, ‘because I’m just… blown away!’
‘I was going to ask you in a few days, have a bit of food, go for a nice walk, get down on one knee but seeing you here, checking this place out, I needed to get in quick before you signed your life away.’
Frankie took a step backwards, away from his body. Her surroundings, which had been blinkered by Jason’s aura, swooped back into view. Over his shoulder she saw an old hairy broom unemployed against the wall, and a clapped-out beauty trolley still littered with clips.
‘What?’ she asked, digging the fingernails of her thumbs into her forefingers to make herself concentrate.
‘Well, this salon. Look at the state of it! It’s a shithole! If you take it on then you’ll be bogged down with it all, and we’ll never get round to doing a blessing, and you’ll be too busy to think about kids.’
A solid brush in a crusty mixing bowl sat useless on a filthy shelf.
‘It’ll haemorrhage money too at first, you’ve no guarantee that your old clients will follow you here, and it hasn’t got great parking.’
Old magazines and latex gloves littered the floor. Wires hung from the ceiling too. He was right: it was in a dreadful mess. But still she wanted it to be hers.
‘Hang on,’ she said, holding up both palms, ‘you’re talking as though I have to choose between you, us, and the salon. It is possible to have both.’
‘Yes, of course, but I thought you wanted a baby?’
‘I do! One day. What if I want to wait a bit? What if I want to start my salon first?’ She wasn’t even sure what she wanted now: she’d been so sure about the salon but now he was confusing her. Was she in fact aiming too high? She couldn’t sense her gut feeling at all; she even wondered if she was denying him because he’d denied her.
‘You can do that anytime! But the stress of setting it up might harm our chances. It might take a while too to conceive…’
Frankie looked at herself in one of the cracked mirrors. Her bottom half, of slender legs and full skirt, was displaced from her stripy vested top. She couldn’t even rely on her reflection anymore. ‘I need to think,’ she said, covering her face, hoping the solution would be there before her when she could see again.
‘I’ll look after you,’ he said, smiling down at her. ‘I’ll always look after you.’
The effect of his words, so sweet yet so off target, jolted her to attention. ‘I don’t need looking after!’ she said, throwing her hands in the air. Jason looked bewildered by her outburst.
‘But I bring in a good wage, you can stick to your mobile job until the baby’s here, then you can go part-time, the grandparents will do their bit. I was thinking you could work three days a week and then they can share the childcare. Come on, we’ve wasted so much time, we should just crack on and have a family. It’ll be the best thing that’s ever happened to us.’
‘You’ve got it all worked out!’ she said. ‘How can you have it all worked out?’
‘I understand you must be feeling like you can’t trust me, and that’s fine. I’ve had time to think and this is my way of making it up to you. I’ll try my hardest to make you happy and keep you safe, Tink.’
‘But I’ve eaten oysters, I’ve had my hair done and finally I’m good at sex.’ Frankie was trying to understand herself again, find the person she had become.
‘What’s that got to do with it?’ he laughed, scratching his head.
‘I’m not who I was,’ she said, grabbing hold of the skirt of the new her. ‘And there’s something I have to know, Jason…’
‘Anything…’ he said, resting his hands on her bare shoulders, grounding her.
Boldly and without embarrassment, she said: ‘Why didn’t you try to satisfy me in bed the other night? Why didn’t you give me the chance to work things through with you before you walked out?’
He hung his head and exhaled. ‘You can’t keep punishing me for needing time out. I’ve said I’m sorry.’
He looked up, eyes pleading with her.
‘The sex, Jason. Answer me.’
‘Why are you so hung up on the sex? It’s got nothing to do with all of this.’ He began to search the ceiling for someone to throw light on it for him.
‘It’s got everything to do with it. I’m not who I was. I want more. Less. Oh God, what I mean is… before, I had no idea about my own needs. I was happy to just follow you around. Our marriage, our relationship, was all about you. I had no self-worth or self-awareness or self-confidence. I never even thought about it back then, to be honest. But when you left I was lost. It’s taken me this long to find out who I am, what’s in here,’ she said, thumping her chest. ‘I need you to see me as your equal.’
‘I do! I get it!’
She reached out and smoothed his cheek with her fingertips. ‘Perhaps we need some more time, to talk.’
‘Why? Aren’t I here now?’ he said, kissing her hand. ‘Communication, I’ve been reading about it, they say it’s the most important thing in a relationship, and that’s what I’m trying to do now. I know I’ve hurt you, let me show you I can be the husband I should’ve been all along. Look, Tink, we’ve got an o
pportunity here to get back together, to make a family, to grow old side by side. We can take our kids to our special beach and, who knows, maybe take our grandchildren to our special beach? Share a portion of chips, jump the waves, build sandcastles.’
Staring at him, Frankie could see the same images as Jason and it was truly beguiling. She could almost touch the baby hair of their children and feel the sand beneath her feet. There was the taste of hot vinegary chips, and the sound of squeals and the sea.
Frankie knew it was all there waiting for her: all she had to do was say yes.
Saturday
Em
‘I’ll tell you what love is,’ Em said, spearing patatas bravas with her fork, before inspecting her feet beneath the table. ‘Goodness, look at my ankles, they’re both swollen.’
‘Love is swollen ankles?’ Letty laughed through a mouthful of frittata at Viva Tapas.
‘First, Letitia, pregnant water retention is not amusing, and second, you know I didn’t mean that. And yes, I get the hilarity about me telling you two about love.’ Her face flushed – for the millionth time since Simon Brown and her had become an item.
‘You go for it, babes,’ Letty said, holding up her sherry to Em’s tap water. ‘I think it’s lush.’
‘Me too,’ Frankie added, joining the clink of glasses. ‘Tell us.’
‘Love isn’t flowers and symphonies. It’s an actual physiological process.’
‘You’ve lost me there, babes,’ Letty said. Frankie just nodded sweetly, which Em knew meant that she thought she’d lost it.
‘We’re at the mercy of our biochemistry. Lust is testosterone and oestrogen. Attraction, that’s all to do with a group of neurotransmitters called monoamines. There’s the high of dopamine. Then norepinephrine, otherwise known as adrenalin, and the happy feeling is serotonin. Attachment, well, that’s down to oxytocin.’
‘That’s romantic,’ Letty laughed.
‘But it is!’ Em smiled. It was as if she could actually feel the chemicals fizzing away inside of her. In the forty-eight hours that she had been with Simon Brown, everything had changed. Floyd’s mess didn’t both her, she had to be reminded to eat, and when Simon Brown was sleeping, she would stare in wonder at his symmetrical top and bottom lips and his precise sandy sideburns which ended at the exact middle-point of each tragus. Their tender sex, well, it made her believe in heaven. And with so much time to make up, they were already discussing baby names and living arrangements.
‘Seriously though, I thought love was all to do with the physical,’ Letty said. ‘But it’s not.’
‘What?’ Frankie said, looking alarmed. ‘But you’ve always said that sex is the glue in a relationship.’
‘Listen, babes, I’ve had sex on the beach, sex in the sea, sex in a library, tantric sex, tie-me-up sex, boob sex, armpit sex and ice cube sex. I thought it was the most important thing: finding a deep bodily connection because it signified a spiritual everlasting love.’ Then Letty’s face darkened with sadness. ‘But great sex is only great if you’re doing it with someone you think is great and thinks you’re great too. And that could happen in the most boring position in the world. The fact is, ladies, I’ve finished with Lance because the sex was too… exciting.’
Em and Frankie both reached out to her.
‘It wasn’t enough. I need more. Up here,’ she said, tapping her head.
‘Oh, thank God,’ Frankie cried, ‘you won’t be going to Australia.’
‘It would’ve been awful, you being ten thousand and sixty-six miles away,’ Em said.
‘Anyway, I have some good news,’ Letty said, perking up, ‘I’ve been offered my dream job at work – I’m going to be in charge of social media!’
Another round of cheers began but Frankie was late to the party – she was miles away.
‘Have you decided yet, then?’ Em asked her. ‘About Jason and the blessing.’
‘No,’ Frankie said, quietly, ‘it’s been a mad few months. Separation, sex education, finding out Dad’s gay, getting to know my mum properly for the first time. It’s blown my mind, to be honest. I’d rather just take it easy. Wait for the confusion to clear.’
‘Well, that’s odd because Floyd is the same,’ Em divulged. ‘Do you know something, he told me he doesn’t want to marry Sasha! Says he doesn’t love her.’
Frankie’s knife clattered to the floor.
‘I’m wondering if there’s someone else,’ Em continued.
Frankie’s mouth fell open. Then she dashed under the table. Goodness, all she had to do was ask for a new knife, there was no need to over-react.
‘He didn’t come home last night, or the night before. I’ve no idea where he is. I thought he was with Sasha at her mum’s but apparently not. Letty, you don’t know anything do you? Did he tell you, that time at the party when you were in his room?’
Frankie emerged from the floor with her knife.
‘Is it you?’ she whispered, staring at Letty with the widest of eyes.
‘Is it her, what?’ Em asked, not following at all.
‘The someone else! I saw you with him too, in a bar.’ Her voice was all wobbly and breathy, which was strange.
Em gasped – Letty? With her brother? Not in her flat, please God, no. On her best guest-room four-hundred thread count sheets from John Lewis.
‘Me?’ Letty hooted. ‘You’ve got to be joking!’
‘Thank the Lord,’ Em heaved. ‘The thought of a friend sleeping with my brother… well, I can’t even begin to describe how ill that would make me feel.’
Frankie gulped. Perhaps the octopus that she’d finally tasted – and savoured – was giving her indigestion. Or maybe she was coming down with something. She was a bit pale, come to think of it.
‘What were you doing then, meeting up with him and being in his room?’ Frankie asked, looking icy.
Letty exhaled loudly. ‘Getting some advice. I went to him about the legal stuff with Ross, seeing as he works for a law firm. And… well, look, I think I’ve got a bit of a spending problem. All to do with filling a hole in my life.’
‘Oh, Letty! Why didn’t you say?’ Em said, appalled that her friend had suffered alone. ‘I could’ve helped with money.’
‘I didn’t want to admit it. I didn’t want to worry you either. But it’s okay. Floyd’s been brilliant, he’s referred me to a counsellor so finger’s crossed…’
Letty cocked her head then and Em followed her gaze: Frankie was crying. Why would that be?
This was quite some lunch: Em had thought she was much better at reading people’s emotions these days, but she wasn’t getting the tears at all.
And then Letty took a massive intake of breath.
‘You. Are. Joking!’ she said to Frankie. ‘Oh my God. All this time and I didn’t work it out. Fuck!’
Em had had quite enough now of this. ‘Will someone tell me what’s going on?’
But Frankie and Letty were staring at each other, locked in some kind of secret understanding.
‘Please?’ she pleaded.
Frankie looked down at her plate and spoke in a barely audible voice.
‘My sex teacher. It was… it was… Floyd.’ A fat tear landed right on top of a chickpea with spinach.
Floyd? Oh my word, this was beyond. ‘My brother?’ she spat, feeling her stomach go washing-machine full spin. The shock, the lies, the going behind her back, the laughing at her ignorance.
‘Look, it’s not how it sounds. We didn’t actually do it. Much.’
Frankie squeezed her eyes shut, cursing her turn of phrase.
‘Spare me the details,’ Em said, holding up a traffic cop palm. It was quite the most upsetting, hurtful thing that had ever happened. And to think she’d been the one who’d suggested that Frankie needed a project.
‘It wasn’t like that, honest,’ Frankie said, puffy faced. ‘He just helped me. I haven’t told anyone. I knew it would be upsetting. I’m so, so sorry, Em. Really. I know you must be so cross and embarrassed.
But it’s all over. It’s done.’
Em was really irritated now: her bursting bladder wasn’t helping either. ‘But that doesn’t explain why you’re crying.’
‘What is it, babes?’ Letty said softly, getting up to give her a cwtch.
Something in Em changed then at the sight of Letty’s compassion. Frankie was so distressed she was inconsolable. She went to her bag and passed over some tissues; whatever had been going on, she was still her friend and she was hurting.
‘Thank you,’ Frankie squeaked, meeting Em’s eyes. In that moment Em could see how awful Frankie was feeling. She needed empathy, not judgement.
Em put a hand on Frankie’s forearm. ‘It’s okay,’ she said.
‘It’s not, obviously. But I’ll get over it. I never meant to hurt anyone.’
‘I know.’ Em felt a stillness fall upon her. But Frankie’s howling continued.
‘Come on, babes, what is it?’
‘I didn’t expect to… I never wanted to… I think I’ve fallen in love with Floyd,’ Frankie said through shuddering breaths, setting herself off harder.
Em didn’t think anything could’ve topped Frankie’s earlier revelation. But she was wrong. This was insane. And, for once, she seemed to have got her reaction right because Letty had looked up at her over Frankie’s dipped head and was mouthing ‘shit’.
‘But what about Jason?’
‘I don’t know, Letty,’ Frankie said, finally not leaking anymore. ‘I mean, I was desperate to get him back and I do love him, but now I’m not sure. I’ve changed and he hasn’t, well, hardly.’
The release of talking spurred her on.
‘If I went back to him could we go forward? And I don’t know if what I feel for Floyd is real or a projection of my uncertainty. Oh God, I’ve been holding this in for so long. These feelings for Floyd have been building and I’ve been denying them. It’s just as Phyllis, one of my clients, said. She said, “sit on your feelings and they’ll out”.’
Then a resigned look settled on her face.
‘But it doesn’t matter because Floyd will never want me. How could he? When you said there was someone else, I thought, I hoped, it might have been me, but it can’t be. He wasn’t with me the last two nights… so that’s that.’
