He doesn’t say anything, but after a moment she feels his arm around her shoulders and she turns to look at him. He’s smiling.
‘I think we both know it’s time you took that risk,’ he says. ‘I think it’s time you went home.’
*
He walks Fran back to her hotel and they stand outside, neither of them wanting to be the first to leave.
‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me any of that,’ he says. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were pregnant. It explains everything of course – not drinking, not wanting to ride a bike.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she says, thinking of all the times she should have told him. ‘I didn’t want to even think about being pregnant again. Will and I have lost four babies. Being pregnant again is terrifying. It was easier to pretend it wasn’t happening. I have no way of knowing if this pregnancy will go to term.’
‘No certainties,’ Jake says.
‘No certainties,’ Fran repeats. ‘I have no way of knowing if Will and I can survive losing another baby either. Discovering that I’m pregnant complicates an already complicated situation. It was easier to just not think about it, to not tell anyone.’
‘Frankie …’ Jake begins. ‘Fran—’
‘No,’ Fran interrupts. ‘It’s OK. I like it when you call me Frankie. I’m still that same person I used to be after all.’
Jake looks at her. ‘It doesn’t matter whether you call yourself Fran or Frankie, you’ll always be Francesca – and you know that means “free”. I always loved that about you, how free you always were. Do you still feel that freedom?’
‘Deep down, yes I do,’ Fran replies. ‘When I let myself.’ She thinks about when she is on her yoga mat, or when she’s teaching her classes. She thinks about letting herself take that sense of freedom out into the world a bit more, like she used to.
‘Let yourself be free,’ Jake whispers. ‘Go back to your husband and start a new life but let yourself be free to do whatever you want to do. Stop trying to live your life for him. I think you’ll be surprised by how much he appreciates that too.’
They stand quietly for a moment, looking at each other. Jake breaks their gaze first and bends down to kiss Fran on the forehead.
‘I always loved you, Frankie Sullivan,’ he says as he turns to walk away.
‘Jake,’ she calls after him.
He looks over his shoulder.
‘Promise me you’ll go and see your mum.’
‘I promise to think about it,’ he replies.
*
Fran thinks the atrium of the hotel is empty as she walks in, so she is surprised when she hears her name being called. She turns around to see Amado sitting behind the reception desk. It’s the first time he has ever called her Fran.
‘You’re up late,’ she says.
‘I’m just finishing some paperwork,’ he replies but Fran doesn’t believe him. She has a feeling he’s been waiting for her to get back. She has a feeling he is keeping an eye on her under Elizabeth’s instruction.
He stands up and walks towards her. He looks as tired as she feels.
‘Join me for a nightcap?’ he asks, gesturing towards the terrace.
‘Just tea,’ she replies.
‘Mint, ginger, or camomile?’
‘Camomile.’
She goes and sits on the terrace and waits for Amado to come back with the drinks. She tries not to think about the evening, about the feel of Jake’s fingers in hers, the sensation of his kiss, the conviction she has that she will never see him again.
When Amado returns he puts the drinks on the table between them – a camomile tea for her and a whisky for him. She is suddenly reminded of a hundred nightcaps she has shared with Will, tea for her and Scotch for him. Her throat tightens and her stomach flips over with a sense of longing. She misses him so much and she knows Jake is right. Taking a chance on Will again is better than living a life without him, better than living a life of not knowing. Not because of the baby they may or may not have, but for herself. For her happiness. For Will’s happiness. She has to know if he feels the same.
‘On night’s like this I miss my wife,’ Amado says, breaking the silence. ‘It’s been over ten years, but I can still feel her with me like …’ He pauses as though searching for the right word in English. ‘Electricity?’ he asks.
‘Energy,’ Fran says, remembering David’s comments.
‘Energy!’ Amado exclaims, clicking his fingers. ‘Love is like energy, and that energy never disappears, not completely. Not even after death.’
Fran breathes slowly. Even after death.
‘I had a baby last year,’ she says. Now she’s told Jake, now she has seen that she can tell people without them pitying her, she feels braver. ‘My husband and I were so excited – we’d been waiting for years. But our son was born too soon and he died too early.’
She realises as she speaks that Amado already knows and she wonders how close he and Elizabeth have become and if they plan to see each other again.
‘But you’ll always carry your son with you,’ Amado says. ‘You’ll always love him. And your son’s energy will always be with you and your husband just as my wife is with me. But eventually you have to move on. You carry that energy with you always, but that doesn’t stop you loving others.’
‘Like Elizabeth?’ Fran asks.
Amado smiles. ‘Maybe,’ he says.
Fran thinks about Will sitting alone at Oscar’s grave on Boxing Day, how she refused to go with him. She didn’t feel she needed to go because she could still feel Oscar in her arms; she could still smell him on her skin. She thinks about what she knows now, about Will’s affair, about all the emotions he would have been carrying last Christmas. She had known there was something wrong, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to talk to him.
Amado sips his whisky and the smell of it drifts towards her. It feels for a moment as though Will is here, his energy surrounding her, his love. Will’s love has never waned has it? Not really? They have a lot to talk about, a lot to work through, but they aren’t Jamie and Izzy; they aren’t Katrin and her fiancé. They still have love.
‘My husband cheated on me,’ she says quietly. ‘Not long after our son died.’
Amado doesn’t say anything for a moment but, again, she has a feeling he already knows.
‘And that is why you have been spending time with Jake Torreno,’ he says. It doesn’t feel like a question. She doesn’t answer.
‘Did you used to love Jake?’ he asks.
‘Yes,’ she replies. ‘I used to. I don’t any more.’ She had realised tonight that she no longer loves Jake. She loved how he made her feel. She loved that he reminded her of who she used to be. And she loved that he has helped her realise that she is still that person. She will always remember him for that.
‘What do you want to do?’ Amado asks.
‘I’d like to have another baby,’ she says. ‘I’m pregnant again.’
She sees a ghost of a smile play on Amado’s lips as he looks over his whisky glass. She doesn’t think he already knew that.
‘I can’t tell you what will happen,’ he says. ‘I can’t promise you everything will be OK, because I do not know that.’ He shrugs. ‘But I can sense that you still love your husband. Gather up that energy and use it to see what will happen. It’s all any of us can do.’
Fran has a feeling that he is no longer talking about her and Will.
She finishes her tea and smiles at Amado as she stands up.
‘Thank you,’ she says.
He nods once before turning his face away from her.
When she gets to her room she undresses, washes her face, cleans her teeth, and climbs into the enormous bed. She picks up the plush Piglet and stretches out. Tonight, the bed doesn’t feel as empty as usual because tonight she has something she never dared think about. Tonight she has hope.
While she doesn’t blame herself for Will’s infidelity, kissing Jake has helped her to unders
tand it. It doesn’t mean he has stopped loving her and it doesn’t mean he has given up on their marriage. He should have handled it differently, admitted it months ago, but things have changed again and now Fran is carrying Will’s baby.
She thinks for a moment about ringing him but still has no idea what to say. She can’t tell him she’s pregnant over the phone and she can’t talk to him without telling him. It can wait. In another week she can go home and everything will be more certain, more real.
Since she found out about the affair, Fran has begun to think almost obsessively about that period between Halloween and Christmas last year, trying to remember everything Will said, everything he did, every time he went out. He told her it was a handful of times, but she has been finding herself wondering where he was every time he was late home from work, every time he went out for a run, every time he met with the cricket team.
She wants to believe it meant nothing, she wants to believe what Jake said and that he had no idea what he was doing. She wants to believe he was desperate and thought he had lost her as well as Oscar. She knows she shut him out, ignoring his grief and anger and frustration.
He tried so hard to engage her, bringing home her favourite food, mountains of books and DVDs. He wanted her to get out of bed, to talk to him. But she barely had the energy to look at him. Some days getting dressed was too much of an effort.
She hadn’t acknowledged how Will was feeling at all, even after he smashed up Oscar’s nursery on that fateful October night. She had felt so betrayed, so hurt by his anger, his violence. In many ways that was a much worse betrayal than his affair could ever be. She almost understood his affair now she had kissed Jake, now she had been so close to temptation herself. But when she kissed Jake she realised that she still loved Will, that they could have a life together with or without children, if Will still wanted that too.
Since she found out about his affair she has been dealing with her own fear: a fear that she’d been quietly holding on to since their first miscarriage, that Will would meet someone else, someone younger with whom he could have the family he longed for. However many times he’d reassured her in the past, she’ll never really know if his affair was a search for the family he never had with her.
She’ll never really know that he won’t do it again if she loses the baby she’s carrying now. If they can survive this, can they survive losing another baby?
Jake was right when he said there are no certainties. And Amado was right when he said that sometimes we just have to see what happens. All anyone has is this moment. And in this moment Fran loves Will and this baby more than anything on Earth.
And she wonders if Jake was right and it’s time to take a huge leap of faith.
AUGUST 2015
I can’t remember how long it took. Will said it was about twelve hours but to me it could have been twelve minutes or twelve days; time became utterly immaterial.
We were given a private room, just the three of us. The nurses, who treated us with the utmost compassion, encouraged us to bathe Oscar, change him, take photos, make hand and footprints to remember him by. As if we’d ever forget. We were left alone in our grief. I remember trying not to cry, trying to be happy so that Oscar’s last memories on Earth weren’t of his parents being sad and tense.
I remember trying to love Will even more, to hold his hand even tighter, to try to save Oscar with our love. I watched Will grow more pale, more tired, more desperate. I watched him throw painkillers down his throat when he thought I wasn’t looking.
I held Oscar against my chest and Will held me against his and together we waited.
I had never seen Will so devastated. His cheeks were hollow, his skin almost translucent. He aged a decade during that week in the NICU. I didn’t know how he was going to cope. I didn’t know how we were going to survive.
We buried Oscar in the churchyard in the village near Will’s parents’ estate next to his grandparents’ graves. There was standing room only in the village church that morning – all of Will’s family had come from far and wide, everyone from Will’s office, everyone from the yoga studio. I found out later both businesses had closed for the morning.
It felt strange to put on nice clothes and make-up, to do my hair for the first time in a fortnight. It felt strange to think that Oscar would never sleep in the nursery that Will and Jamie had made for him, that I would never feed him, never hold him. The first whispers of autumn were in the air. It felt like the end of the world.
Standing in the packed church next to Will’s parents, Janine’s arm around my waist, I watched Will carry Oscar’s tiny white coffin down the aisle. He looked so alone in his grief. He felt lost to me then, even when he slipped into the pew beside me, taking my hand, wrapping his fingers around mine; even when we stood together by Oscar’s grave after it was all over while everybody else waited for us by the lychgate, giving us time alone together.
I remember him wrapping his arm around my shoulders and, in the distance, hearing the sound of somebody laughing. Life was carrying on for everybody else but even swaddled together in our grief it felt as though a gulf was already opening up between us. I wish I’d been able to register it at the time. I wish I’d been able to talk to Will then. I wish I’d talked to him that night, after the wake, after everyone had gone.
Instead, I went to bed before him. I took one of the sleeping pills the doctor had prescribed. I listened to him downstairs, clearing up the plates and glasses from the wake. I don’t know how he did it; I don’t know how he got through the afternoon, shaking hands and making small talk, without breaking down. I drifted in and out of sleep.
I was still half-awake when he came to bed. No sleeping pill would have been strong enough to knock me out that night. He gathered me up in his arms, burying his face in my neck, and told me he loved me over and over again. I wanted to turn around and let him hold me. I wanted his love, that feeling of being protected by him. But I couldn’t find the energy to respond. I couldn’t find the energy to breathe him in.
We started unravelling that night, I think.
JULY 2016
Fran
‘I had a funny feeling I’d be seeing you here again before long!’ Fran says as she comes down into the atrium on Tuesday afternoon and spots a familiar figure reading a magazine on one of the sofas.
Elizabeth smiles, standing up.
‘I missed you,’ she says. ‘I missed the yoga; I missed the bougainvillea.’
She opens her arms and Fran steps into her embrace. It feels good to be with somebody who knows her again. It’s been a long, slow few days. She’s been missing human contact and become too lost in her thoughts, flipping constantly between a conviction that she and Will can have a future together and a belief that they will never make it work.
‘You missed Amado more like,’ Fran says with a smile as Elizabeth lets her go.
‘Maybe,’ she says smiling. ‘What’s he been saying?’
‘Only good things!’ Fran replies, thinking about the smile on Amado’s lips when she mentioned Elizabeth on Saturday night. ‘I’m happy for you both.’
‘I saw Will,’ Elizabeth says, her face suddenly serious. ‘I went to pick up my decree absolute.’
‘Congratula—’
‘He’s a mess, Fran,’ Elizabeth interrupts. ‘He doesn’t look like he’s sleeping or eating or looking after himself. His shirt was crumpled.’
‘He’s perfectly capable of ironing his own shirt,’ Fran replies. She doesn’t know why she snaps. She feels desperate for Will but at the same time she wants to make up her own mind about when to go home.
‘I know he is,’ Elizabeth replies, placing her hand gently on Fran’s arm. ‘But we both know it’s not like him to let himself go like this.’
Fran does know. Janine had been phoning with regular updates about the state of Will all week. Fran had tried to put them to the back of her mind, to enjoy her last few days in Spain before she had to go, to face the future, the unknown. But she
does know Will is more than capable of looking after himself – he’d been doing it for four years before she met him. When it came to cleaning and ironing and laundry and cooking he was probably much better at it than she was. And she’d never known him to be anything less than immaculately turned out. Even when she and Oscar were in hospital, Will’s shirts were always ironed.
She closes her eyes, leans into the warmth of Elizabeth’s touch.
‘I feel like I should say I don’t care. I feel like I should say he deserves to be falling apart.’
‘But you wouldn’t mean it, would you?’ Elizabeth asks tentatively.
Fran opens her eyes and shakes her head. ‘No, I wouldn’t mean it. I don’t want him to fall apart. I don’t want him to be unhappy. I still love him so much and all I want is our old life back.’
‘You know you can never have that don’t you?’ Elizabeth says. ‘But that doesn’t mean you can’t start a new life together.’ She pauses. ‘With your baby.’
‘Jake said something similar,’ Fran says.
‘You’ve seen him?’
‘We had dinner on Saturday night.’ She looks at Elizabeth. ‘I kissed him,’ she confesses.
‘Fran …’ Elizabeth begins.
‘It was kissing him that made me realise how much I missed Will. Jake was a distraction, but he’s not Will.’
Elizabeth doesn’t say anything, but her gaze doesn’t falter as she looks at Fran.
‘Is that why you’re here?’ Fran asks. ‘To check up on me?’
‘I’m sorry, I …’ Elizabeth looks towards the reception desk where Amado is helping a customer. Fran sees the joy in Elizabeth’s eyes and smiles. She can’t be angry with her friend for caring about her and she clearly has an ulterior motive for being here.
‘You don’t need to worry about me and Jake,’ she says. ‘Jake has become a surprising champion of Will’s. He thinks life’s too short not to give people second chances.’
‘Is that what he said?’ Elizabeth looks surprised.
‘Words to that effect.’
The Things We Need to Say Page 21
