by Peter James
Edward looked back at him seriously. ‘Can’t we just have things cooked normally? Like Mrs Beakbane does?’ He turned to Frannie. ‘He reads too many recipe books.’
Before she could speak in Oliver’s defence, a man and a boy of about Edward’s age came into the courtyard. The man was tall and sturdy and looked a little younger than Oliver; he had a pleasant face with a healthy outdoors complexion, hair bleached by the sun, and was wearing grubby jeans and an old shirt. The boy had a round, rather watery face, with an impish grin, a high forehead and thin blond hair brushed vaguely flat – apart from one lock which stood defiantly upright. He was wearing a yellow Mickey Mouse T-shirt, clean but creased trousers, and trainers.
‘Charles, hi!’ Oliver said, standing to introduce them. ‘This is – ah – Frannie Monsanto – my brother Charles, and my nephew Tristram.’
‘How do you do,’ his brother said rather shyly, shaking Frannie’s hand with a strong grip and looking down awkwardly at the ground. Frannie could see the family resemblance in their features.
‘Tristram,’ Edward said, ‘would you like to see my new Game Boy cassette?’
The boy’s eyes lit up. ‘Yes!’
‘Got time for a drink?’ Oliver asked his brother.
‘No – er – thanks, ought to get going; I’ve got to pick some stuff up from the vet on the way.’
‘When’s the homeopathic chap coming?’
‘Tomorrow morning.’
Oliver suddenly shouted at the boys, who were scampering off. ‘Hey, where are you going?’
‘Tristram wants to play with my Game Boy.’
‘Another time. Uncle Charles wants to get going.’
Charles scratched his head and looked at Frannie. ‘Do you – er – know – er – this part of the world?’
‘No, hardly at all.’
‘Ah; right.’ He looked down at the ground again as if trying to think of something to say.
‘You’ve got problems with your cattle, I gather?’ she said. The pain of the stings was being anaesthetized by the wine, but her lip still felt swollen and she wondered if she looked strange.
He dug his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and addressed the ground again. ‘Yes, one or two, I’m afraid.’ He looked at Oliver, at his watch, then back at her. ‘Nice to meet you – excuse us dashing. The children are all being taken off somewhere for a mystery picnic and the mother was very insistent they should arrive on time.’
‘Nice to meet you, too.’
‘Don’t forget the present,’ Oliver said to Edward.
‘Do I have to give Jamie Middleton a present, Daddy?’
‘Yes, of course you do, it’s his birthday.’
‘I’d much rather give it to Tristram.’
His cousin’s eyes lit up. ‘Yes, please!’
Frannie felt a sense of freedom as Charles and his mud-caked Land Rover disappeared beyond the far end of the facade; the same way she used to feel as a teenager when her parents had gone out. It was exciting to have Oliver to herself for a few hours. She took his hand and squeezed it hard. Oliver took her other hand and kissed her lightly on the forehead. ‘Feeling better?’
‘Lots.’ She looked into his eyes, seeking reassurance; reassurance that his son had not deliberately given her a plum with a wasp in it.
They lay on loungers by the pool, in the sun. Then, after a while, they went into the wooden changing-hut and made love on the hard, dusty floor. Rays of sunlight played above their heads like the beams of cinema projectors. And the stifling air contained the rubbery smell of some old swimsuits hung up and forgotten.
Afterwards they lay in silence. Frannie held his wrist, pulled his hand to her face and gently nibbled his forefinger. Then she caressed him lightly, feeling the warm, spent air of his breath on her face. Perspiration ran down her forehead and her cheeks, down her neck, and her hair was matted to her head. She watched a spider hover warily above them on its glinting thread. The pain was returning again now, so she sucked in cooling air through clenched teeth and after a few moments the burning subsided a little.
Oliver rolled on to his side, propped himself on his elbow and moved his face closer to hers. ‘I’m sorry that you got stung,’ he said.
‘Do you think Edward could be a little jealous of me?’
Her words seemed to strike him like an electrical current. She detected the sudden change instantly; it was as if he were bristling. ‘What do you mean?’ He pulled away from her and the warmth left his eyes.
‘Nothing,’ she said, scared by his reaction.
‘You think he did it deliberately?’
‘No – not deliberately; not maliciously. I just wonder if there’s a part of him that’s – you know – that he’s not even aware of – that resents me; or anyone you go out with.’
‘You really think Edward would deliberately have given you a plum with a wasp in it?’ His voice was cold; a stranger’s. He sat up, morosely hunched over his knees.
Frannie watched the spider winding itself back up its thread, and was afraid to look at Oliver. ‘No. No, I don’t mean that.’ Then immediately she was angry at herself, because she did mean it. It was exactly what she meant.
*
They swam in the pool separately, like two strangers, Oliver doing bursts of two lengths at a time in a powerful crawl, then lying back against the side, regaining his breath. Frannie meandered up and down in her steady breast-stroke. Each time she stopped, Oliver lunged off again.
They had tea by the pool in the last of the sun, their conversation awkward and banal. Frannie felt choked, trying to retrieve the situation and scared that she had blown it. Oliver did not attempt to touch her and failed to reciprocate with even the faintest squeeze when she took his hand. She cursed herself silently for what she’d said.
Then he left her by the pool, saying he was going to have another attempt at starting the plane, and did not ask if she would like to come with him. She heard the Range Rover roar off, being driven hard by someone in a temper. A few minutes later, the still of the air was broken by a muffled bang that sounded at first like a gunshot. There was another, then a distant but fierce roar that lasted about a second. The same procedure was repeated several times over the next quarter of an hour, until the roar grew into a steady, monotonous drone that went on for some minutes. It seemed to increase Frannie’s loneliness.
They were going back to town tonight. Oliver was having a day’s holiday to take Edward to London Zoo tomorrow. Frannie thought it strange that when she had first met them they were returning from another zoo; coincidence, she thought; barely worth noting.
In a few hours they would part on her doorstep and she would return to her world. To the flowers in the vase in her bedroom. To an angry phone conversation with her parents about why she had not told them she would not be coming to lunch today. And to an expectant phone call from Debbie Johnson wanting to hear all about the weekend.
All about how she blew it.
The clouds closed like curtains across the dying sun. She shivered as the warmth went out of the day.
The stable clock chimed five times. Each bong rang out, echoing in the still air like a warning. Bong, it pealed. Keep away! Bong. Danger! Bong. I hope you’re not planning to sleep with my daddy. Bong. Non omnis moriar. Bong. I shall not altogether die.
The first spot of rain struck her cheek like a tear.
It was raining hard as they came off the end of the motorway into the haze of orange sodium that marked the beginning of the suburbs of London and the end of the weekend. The wipers squeaked and clunked, fresh spats of rain filling the arcs as soon as they were cleared. Tail-lights stretched ahead into the distance. They began brightening in sequence; brakes. A cube of ice-blue light hurtled towards them like a slingshot. It was followed by another. The Range Rover slowed.
‘Why are we stopping?’ Edward said tiredly from the rear seat.
Oliver changed gear. ‘Looks like there’s a pile-up,’ he replied above the din of
the engine and the tape of Michael Jackson’s Thriller which Edward insisted on being played at an ear-splitting volume.
Edward pressed his face to the window. The traffic filed by a sign: POLICE. ACCIDENT. SLOW. A white car lay upside down across the central pavement, almost cut in half by a street light that was badly buckled. Another car with most of its front missing and its roof sticking in the air, as if someone had had a go at it with a tin-opener, faced the opposite direction. Two people sat inverted and motionless in the first car, their heads slumped forwards. The windscreen had frosted. Frannie looked away, feeling the dread accidents always gave her, but her eyes were drawn back involuntarily.
A siren screamed behind them. A policeman was stopping the traffic, moving everyone over to the side. A fire-engine pulled past them and, moments later, an ambulance. Blue lights slicked across the glossy tarmac.
‘How do you think that crash happened, Daddy?’
Several people stood around a lump that lay in the road. Sickened, Frannie saw it was a girl, not moving. A dark pool was flowing from her head.
‘Is that lady dead, Daddy?’
‘I think she’s just unconscious.’
A knot of people were standing around the cars and more were joining them. Two men were pulling hard on a door. As it opened, Frannie heard the shriek of protesting metal above the rumble of the Range Rover’s engine and the music. It hit just the right frequency to grate on her nerve endings.
Edward tapped Frannie urgently on the shoulder and lowered his voice. ‘I think she might be dead. She’s not moving at all.’
A policeman was waving them on, agitatedly. Edward turned and peered at the scene through the rear window. ‘Daddy, put the rear wiper on please. Quick. Quickly! I can’t see!’
The traffic picked up speed and the accident receded behind them. The image of the girl in the road stayed with her.
Edward said: ‘Elephas maximus.’
She turned.
‘Loxodonta africanus. Giraffidae.’ He spoke clearly but quietly, and at first it was difficult for her to make out exactly what he was saying. ‘Diceros bicornis. Diceros simus.’
Frannie glanced at Oliver. He was looking in the rear-view mirror with a frown. She turned round again. Edward was unsmiling. The inside of the car was cold, suddenly, and she felt her body break out in a chill of goose-pimples. Shock from seeing the accident, she thought.
‘Hippopotamus amphibius. Hippopotamus libieriensis.’ Edward stared ahead, reciting expressionlessly.
‘Are these the animals you are going to see tomorrow?’ she said.
‘Lama huanacus glama. Panthera pardus. Panthera uncia. Neofelis nebulosa. Panthera leo. Erethizontidae. Hystricidae. Hyaena hyaena. Hyaena brunnea. Hyaena crocuta.’
There was something compelling about the Latin words and Frannie felt the hairs on the back of her neck rising and something spiralling inside her. Fear. She looked at Oliver who continued looking at his son in the mirror, his face set like a mask. She was unable to read his expression.
‘Crocodylus. Osteolaemus. Crocodylus porosus.’
‘Edward, enough,’ Oliver said suddenly.
The traffic had been moving steadily for a while, and familiar landmarks were looming ahead. The grimy, Odeon-style building that was a wine warehouse. The Gulf petrol station. Clapham South tube station. The weak red glow from the mosque-like windows of the Indian restaurant. The chemist. The wine bar and the pizzeria, their outside tables deserted in the rain.
‘Struthio. Gorilla gorilla. Gorilla berengei.’
‘OK, Edward, enough!’ Oliver said more loudly and firmly. ‘Next right, isn’t it?’
She nodded gloomily. There had been no thaw in his frostiness.
‘Anthropopithecus troglodytes. Camelus dromedarius. Camelus bactrianus.’
‘Quiet!’ he said, losing his temper. ‘Tell us where you learned all that?’ He looked in the mirror again.
‘Turn right here,’ Frannie said.
Edward fell silent.
Oliver turned down the street of terraced houses with cars parked on both sides, drove to the end and left into Frannie’s street. He pulled up outside her flat.
Edward peered out. ‘Is that your house?’
‘I just have a flat there.’
‘Can I come in and see it?’
‘Not tonight,’ Oliver said. ‘It’s late and you’re tired.’
‘I’m not, Daddy. Couldn’t we just go in for a few minutes?’
‘No.’
Frannie turned to him, and winced as one of the stings in her mouth suddenly pricked sharply. ‘Bye, Edward. Back to school on Tuesday?’
He nodded, then his face crumpled. ‘I don’t want you to go, Frannie.’ He put his arms around her neck and hugged her tightly. ‘Am I going to see you again very soon?’
‘I hope so,’ she said flatly.
Oliver opened the tailgate and lifted out her overnight bag. She slid down on to the wet pavement. Edward looked totally doleful. ‘Bye, Frannie.’
‘Bye!’ She blew him a kiss.
‘Hey, Frannie!’ Edward said, suddenly. ‘Dead on!’
She frowned, then grinned. ‘Dead on!’ she said, and held out her hand. He slapped it. Then she closed the door, getting wet fast. Oliver carried her bag down into the basement, and held it whilst she fumbled for her key. Then he stepped into the hall with her and put the bag on the floor among a clutch of leaflets. She switched on the light. There was an awkward silence between them. Oliver lowered his head, opened his mouth as if to say something then patted his hands against his thighs. Frannie felt close to tears.
Suddenly he moved towards her and placed his hands on her shoulders and looked her squarely in the face. ‘Thanks for coming. I’m sorry about the things that happened.’
She stared back for a while before replying. ‘I’m still glad I came. Really.’
His expression thawed and he smiled for the first time since his anger in the changing-hut. ‘I – I have an invite to a private view of a painter I rather like, Andrew Kiewzka, on Wednesday. Would you like to come?’
‘I’d love to.’ She dismissed all thoughts of her aerobics class.
‘It starts at seven. I could pick you up from here or the Museum.’
‘The Museum might be best as it’s early. What time?’
‘About ten to seven?’
‘The Great Russell Street entrance?’
They put their arms around each other and hugged tightly. ‘I enjoyed being with you,’ she murmured. ‘I’m sorry about what I said. I didn’t mean it.’ Her eyes were wet; as she clung tightly to him she could smell faint traces of chlorine from the pool on him.
‘I’d better go, before Edward decides to come down,’ he said. They kissed lightly, then she stood in the front door as he ran back up the steps, his head ducked against the rain, and she waited, listening to the bellow of the Range Rover’s engine as it drove off, and the slosh of its tyres.
She closed the front door and scooped the leaflets off the floor. A pizza delivery service, a DIY removals service and a builder called STACKMAN – CHEAPEST IN TOWN! She dropped them on to the hall table. A baby cried upstairs and she heard a man’s voice raised in anger. Then silence; just the drumming of the rain.
The gloom of the hall closed around her and she shivered once in reaction. The passage down to her bedroom was dark and a hundred miles long. She walked down it slowly, listening for any sound. As she stood outside the bedroom and gripped the handle, her eyes checked the living-room door; the kitchen door; the bathroom door. She turned the handle and went in and was met immediately by the smell of Oliver’s flowers. She switched on the light.
And breathed out.
The flowers were where she had put them, in the white vase with the green ceramic bow, on the mantelpiece. Lilies and carnations. She walked across and smelled them; they were still fresh and their scents were sweet. The phone rang. Probably her parents or Debbie. She let it ring twice, three times, breathed the scent
s again. Another ring. Then she went over to the bed and lifted the receiver.
It was a man’s voice that she knew and yet she could not immediately place it.
‘Hello, Frannie?’
Serious; she did know it, but it was different; not the way he usually spoke, whoever he was. It sounded wrong, like a recording played at the wrong speed.
‘Hi!’ she said, trying not to reveal that she could not place the caller.
‘I’ve been trying to get you all weekend.’
‘I’ve been away.’
Silence.
Paul Bryce. Meredith’s husband. That was who it was.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Right. You haven’t heard?’
The words came out heavily, charged with leaden portent. Her reply was weak, her vocal cords constricted, ‘Heard?’
‘About Meredith?’
She felt the sudden pull of gravity tugging her jaw, the base of her neck, her stomach, her thighs. The floor pushed up through the balls of her feet and her legs buckled to meet it. She sat down on the bed, her dread rising like water in a lock. ‘No? About Meredith?’ Whispering now.
‘She was killed on Friday morning in a car crash.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The landscape slipped by the window of the train, the colours flat and lifeless as if the sombre grey of the sky had leaked over everything. Chimney-stacks, housing estates, reservoirs, factories, canals, coalfields, lines of traffic at level crossings. Frannie watched a woman unpegging her washing in her back yard. A man stood near a bridge, his dog cocking a leg on a lamppost. A lorry crawled up a hill. Life was going on; the daily business; relentless, remorseless routines, patterns. For all except Meredith and her family.
She used to love this journey so much. Now she was making it probably for the last time. It was a month ago that she had brought the double bass up here and met Oliver and Edward on the platform. Meredith had been alive and Frannie had never imagined she would see Oliver again. She had not even known his name then.
The train shook and some coffee spilled over the rim of the polystyrene cup and scalded her fingers. She took a bite of the soggy breakfast bun; the hot meat and the slimy tomato burned the roof of her mouth. She chewed disconsolately; the food was tinged with the cardboard flavour of its carton. It was half past nine and the train was due in York shortly before eleven. The cremation was at twelve.
