The Turning Point Read online

  ‘How was Grandma?’ Frankie asked Annabel who’d run across the playground into her arms chanting Mummy Mummy Mummy – something she’d never do usually, though admittedly Frankie was usually late and her daughter was cross. This afternoon, she was bang on time. ‘Was everything OK when I was gone?’

  Annabel settled herself into the front seat, fastened her seat belt and leant forward to open the glove compartment. Mummy Mummy Mummy. Chocolates and crisps to choose from.

  ‘She was all right,’ Annabel said. ‘She wouldn’t let us watch The Simpsons. She wouldn’t even let Sam watch The Simpsons and he’d done all his homework and everything.’

  ‘You can watch double Simpsons this evening.’

  ‘Her cooking is disgusting.’

  ‘I don’t like the word disgusting. Did she let you have ketchup?’

  ‘Yes – but she blobbed it on because she said too much was bad for us. Stop checking your phone. You have to be hands-free to drive.’

  That evening, during triple The Simpsons, Frankie’s phone beamed through a text from Scott. He’d attached a photograph of the control room at the studio – his left arm just visible; a bank of switches and knobs and empty paper cups.

  THE Abbey Road.

  It wasn’t how she’d imagined it.

  Been thinking of you, Frankie. Scott x

  She looked around the room. Could she really envisage him here? Was there room on the sofa? Yes, if they all squashed up a little. Did he like The Simpsons? Would he like everything she liked and would it matter if there were some things he didn’t? She alighted on her CDs and LPs. Would he approve of her taste? Was Duran Duran a deal breaker? She glanced at Annabel and Sam. What on earth would her children make of a man in their home, a man in their mother’s life?

  If you ever get a boyfriend I will spill his dinner down him and make his life hell.

  Annabel had come out with this, apropos of nothing, a few months ago. But the three of them had laughed because the sentiment was so random and the concept so far-fetched anyway.

  ‘Mum – no double-screening, that’s what you say to Sam.’ Annabel tried to take Frankie’s phone. ‘It’s “Grift of the Magi” – we love this episode!’

  ‘I missed you,’ Frankie said to her children, nudging them, trying to kiss them.

  Sam grunted and Annabel said shh!

  I miss you she texted to Scott.

  Frankie looked up and away from the burning brightness of the empty paper in front of her, gazed out of the window to the sunlight dancing on dewy grass, the light from the unseen sea bathing the garden with clarity. But she wasn’t focused on the garden. She was back in the hotel foyer with Kate Moss on the magazine and Scott saying care to join me? Over and over again she replayed the sensation of turning and seeing him and hearing his voice and thinking me? me? really?

  She started to write, displaced words and short justifications, a technique she used to shape character and build a backstory.

  Polite/thoughtful (hates olives/didn’t say)

  Strong/principled (raised daughter single-handed)

  Talented/modest (shining career/doesn’t court limelight)

  Secure (happy to say he’d been thinking about me)

  Handsome (but not the point)

  Foreigner.

  ‘A man who lives on a bloody mountain in sodding Canada.’

  She took another page and quickly sketched Alice, enveloping her with chains. Alice in Chains she scrawled, leaving the table and going over to scan her CDs for the band of the same name. She played ‘Check My Brain’ very loudly, her forehead pressed against the wall.

  What did her brain say? What was going on behind the scramble of thoughts? Was it ludicrous to feel that this could be life-changing and wholly good? Or was she just selfish and insane to pursue it? Her romanticizing tendencies had brought all sorts of trouble in the past.

  ‘Be rational.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Defy reason.’

  She shook her head.

  Returning to the table she pushed the page with the words onto the floor and stared at the furl of pencil sharpenings and tiny shards of lead.

  She looked at the sketch of Alice and drew her again, quickly, with the chains now around her feet.

  Thank you, said Alice.

  It’s a pleasure, said Frankie.

  Can you write me a story where the Ditch Monster comes to my rescue? Instead of the two of us always unravelling everything together? Think about what Scott said.

  What did Scott say?

  When he told you – to actually ask me.

  Frankie was transported back to Maison Bertaux and there she stayed awhile, conjuring the taste of the cakes, the warmth from Scott’s knee next to hers, the lurch in her stomach, the soar of her heart, the buzz between her legs when his fingers had entwined with hers. All they had talked about. The timbre of his voice. The way he looked when he listened, the way his mouth moved when he talked, the way his eyes made her feel when they locked onto hers.

  What’s your favourite song, Alice?

  Not that noisy one you just played about your brain, thank you. My favourite song is ‘Mr Tambourine Man’.

  I never knew that.

  You do now.

  It had been a jingle-jangle morning of sorts.

  I’ll be back in a mo’ – don’t go anywhere, Alice, I just need to make a phone call. Then I’ll play you the Byrds’ version. Which I like better than Bob Dylan’s.

  Frankie walked into the kitchen, to the window which looked out to the garden. It was her favourite place to muse. Her heartbeat competed with the silence. She phoned Scott.

  ‘It’s Frankie.’

  ‘I know.’

  Just two words and she could hear him smiling. She laid her head gently against the wall.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked. ‘How’s Norfolk?’

  ‘Alice is back.’

  ‘Well that’s just great.’

  ‘Are you at work? Can you talk?’

  ‘I’m at work but I can talk. I’m playing some guitar.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Listen.’ He really was. ‘You liked it?’

  ‘It’s beautiful!’

  Should she tell him about the Byrds? That’s not why she’d phoned.

  ‘It’s Friday,’ she rushed.

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Scott.’

  ‘Yes.’ He waited. ‘Frankie?’

  ‘If I – if I.’ She caught sight of herself reflected back from the window, changed her focus to look out over the lawn to the hedge and the Mawbys’ fields beyond. A beautiful day. ‘If I could make it to London, tomorrow, could we have any time?’

  ‘I would like nothing more. I need to cancel something, rearrange something else. Can I call you back?’

  ‘Of course you can call me back.’

  And, behind the silence, they could hear each other grinning.

  Frankie arrived at Annabel’s school later that afternoon a full half-hour before the bell went. She wasn’t worried about being late, she just needed to know that she could sit in the car and have the time to phone her sister and not rush.

  ‘Peta? It’s me.’

  ‘I know – it says so. How was London? Did the kids cope with The Mother?’

  ‘Yes – they did. She cleaned the clean fridge and reorganized the contents.’

  ‘You know she changes the sheets on my spare-room bed as soon as she arrives here – even though I lay them fresh for her?’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And Alice?’

  ‘I don’t want to jinx it – but we had a little progress today.’

  ‘Good for you, Frankie.’

  ‘How was your book club?’

  ‘It was – heated. I drank too much and told them I thought the choice was over-verbose, pretentious and essentially dull and that they were silly twats if they thought otherwise.’

  ‘You rebel.’

  ‘Anyway – I got to pick the next boo
k.’

  ‘What did you choose?’

  ‘Maggie O’Farrell.’

  ‘She’s a genius. I’m phoning – I’m phoning, Peta.’

  ‘I know you’re phoning me!’

  ‘I mean – I wanted to –’ Frankie slapped the steering wheel. ‘Peta I was just phoning, really, to tell you something. And actually to ask you something.’ She took the phone off hands-free and pressed it to her ear. ‘Something happened in London.’ Her voice had changed, she liked the sound of it – no awkwardness, just delight. ‘I met someone.’

  Nothing from Peta.

  ‘A man. Called Scott.’

  It remained silent in Hampstead.

  ‘Who?’ Peta finally responded.

  ‘He’s called Scott.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You know something, I felt exactly that way. Only now I do understand – I truly do.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘He’s – just amazing.’

  ‘But who is he, Frankie?’

  ‘He’s called Scott Emerson. And he’s a musician.’

  ‘Oh for Christ’s sake, Frankie. Not a musician. Oh dear God.’

  ‘What’s your problem?’

  ‘My problem? I don’t have a problem, Frankie. You do. A musician? That’s the problem. No more artsy-fartsy fuckwits.’

  ‘He’s not a fuckwit!’

  ‘You may well say that now, while he’s serenading you.’

  ‘You have to trust me on this one.’

  ‘No Frankie – you have to listen to me. You had musicians and actors and painters and that stupid bloody poet and they all systematically broke your heart and then trod the pieces down hard into piles of shit. Then came Miles. Oh Peta, you said, wait till you meet him. He’s a free soul you said, he’s amazing, you said. He’s someone who can make a difference. He’s an ideas man – you said. He’s so spiritual and real and I never felt this way before.’

  ‘I’m not the impressionable girl I was then, I’m forty-one,’ Frankie said quietly. ‘And Scott is nothing like Miles.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Well he’s older, for a start.’

  ‘Oh great. Frankie! Some waster still tinkling the ivories, or strumming his guitar or playing his fucking fiddle because he’s never knuckled down?’

  ‘Jesus Peta. He’s a talented musician. He writes soundtracks for movies. He’s won awards. He’s in demand. He’s respected.’

  ‘I have a respectable man I’ve been trying to introduce you to for months – Chris!’

  ‘Oh God – not him again.’

  ‘You could at least meet him.’

  ‘We have nothing in common – and anyway, you showed me that picture of him.’

  ‘Christ you’re shallow.’

  Peta wanted to retract that. Her sister was not shallow. Her sister’s problem was that she was unable to see trouble even when it was up so close and very personal. She pitied her, really, worried for her. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I didn’t mean that. I just meant – it’s been so long, and I have to be your sensible older sister and say please, please don’t go for anyone flaky who’s going to hurt you.’

  ‘Why should being a musician make him flaky? Maybe he really likes me and has no intention of hurting me – have you thought of that?’

  ‘You’ve known him for what – forty-eight hours? Please don’t come out with but I feel I’ve known him my whole life.’

  ‘But it honestly feels like I have.’

  Oh Frankie. Peta calmed herself. Soundtracks for films? Well it was better than poems that made no sense and were never published, or that actor who was too arrogant to learn lines or attend auditions, or the artist who didn’t know one end of the paintbrush from the other. Or Miles – bloody Miles with his charm and his bullshit and his gorgeous face and abject disregard for responsibility and total uselessness when it came to anything important, anything that could hurt or endanger those he professed to love.

  Peta laughed gently. ‘What do you call a guitarist with no girlfriend?’

  ‘Is this an actual joke?’ Frankie asked. Peta’s skill lay in neutralizing atmospheres, however bizarre and untimely her tactic.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK – what do you call a guitarist with no girlfriend?’

  ‘Homeless!’

  Frankie had to giggle.

  ‘Is this Scott person homeless? Ask yourself that.’

  ‘No he’s not homeless, you silly cow.’

  ‘Well,’ Peta sighed, ‘that’s something, I suppose.’

  Frankie took a deep breath. ‘He has an amazing house, with land and everything.’ She let that information settle. ‘In Canada.’

  Peta thought, I am actually going to close my eyes, dig my nails into the palms of my hands and count to ten. ‘Canada,’ she said, when she’d done so. It wasn’t a question.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You truly think it’s remotely feasible to fall in love with a musician who lives in Canada?’

  ‘Yes!’ Frankie sang it out. There was nothing wrong with any of it. It was brilliant – all of it.

  ‘Frankie.’ Peta knew to tread carefully but she wasn’t entirely sure what to say next. ‘How long is he here for before he returns home – to Canada?’

  ‘He flies on Sunday.’

  ‘Sunday as in the day after tomorrow?’

  ‘I need to see him tomorrow. That’s why I’m phoning – to tell you what happened and to ask if the kids and I can stay.’

  ‘You mean the kids to stay – because you’ll be elsewhere shagging Scott senseless.’

  ‘Don’t say it like that. I just need to see him again,’ Frankie said thoughtfully. ‘Before he goes.’

  ‘Have you slept with him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you going to?’

  ‘I don’t know. I hope so. I don’t know.’

  Peta heard her sister, her voice level yet full of thought, passion, need. And she thought to herself, you know what, even if Frankie and this Scott bloke have a night of passion and she never hears from him again – is there really anything so wrong in that? She’s only known him two days so he can’t actually break her heart. Perhaps a stupendous shag – or whatever she wants to call it – is no bad thing. Hopefully, it will get it out of her system. He lives in Canada. He’ll be gone the day after tomorrow, a different continent, a different time zone, a different world. Perhaps it’s a very good idea – scratch that phantom itch and then pave the way for something more realistic with someone like Chris.

  ‘OK,’ Peta said. ‘Come. I’d love to see you – and the kids. Come. You’re welcome.’

  ‘Thank you so so much.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  Annabel was excited; she’d been given a Claire’s Accessories voucher last Christmas but had been bemused to find she lived nowhere near a branch. But London? There were as many Claire’s Accessories as there were pigeons. Sam, however, was utterly resistant. He’d have to miss a cricket match, his first for the B team.

  ‘I’ll write a note,’ Frankie told him.

  ‘That’s not the point,’ he said. ‘It’s not about the note – it’s about what I want to do.’

  ‘Sometimes I have to make decisions for the family, though,’ said Frankie.

  ‘Moving out here was a decision for the family,’ Sam retorted. ‘And I had to leave my old school and my mates and everything. And you told me to try hard to join in – well that’s what I’ve been doing. I’m crap at winter sports but I’m good at cricket. And now I can’t play because I’m being dragged off to London because of your stupid work. I’m letting the team down, I’ll never get chosen again. God!’ He was picking up random items and banging them down again; an orange, Annabel’s school book, his mother’s hairbrush, all of which he’d rather throw at the windowpane while yelling fuck! whatever the consequences.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Frankie, meaning it.

  ‘No you’re not.’

  ‘I am, sweeti
e. But I can’t change things now. Peta’s looking forward to seeing us. So are Josh and Stan.’

  ‘Josh and Stan are thugs – you said so yourself. Not even in private. You said so yourself – to us – after our last visit.’

  ‘That was then,’ she told her children brightly. ‘Teenagers go through phases – they’re probably sweetness and light these days.’ Quietly, they all doubted that.

  ‘If I can find someone on the team and they say I can stay at theirs – then can I stay?’ Sam’s cheeks had reddened and his voice creaked.

  Hitherto, Sam hadn’t asked if any of his schoolmates could come over and though the school assured her he was much more settled, she worried that his friendships were conducted via Instagram rather than reality.

  ‘Yes,’ Frankie smiled. ‘That’ll work.’

  Still slightly slouched, Sam went off with his phone.

  Annabel fixed Frankie with her oversized hazel eyes. ‘Why do you have a work thing on a Saturday – when offices are closed at weekends?’

  Frankie didn’t lie to her children. Ever. She just manipulated language instead. ‘It’s someone I met when I was down in London working last week. They don’t live here. They live in Canada and I need to see them before they go.’

  ‘What’s their name?’

  Frankie paused. ‘Scott,’ she said. ‘His name is Scott.’

  ‘They’re a man?’

  ‘Half the world is men, Annabel.’

  Annabel looked at her mother long and hard. ‘What time will you be back?’

  ‘I won’t know till I’m there, really. But I’ll let Auntie Peta know.’

  ‘Or Sam.’

  ‘Yes – or Sam.’

  ‘If he comes,’ said Annabel, ‘if he can’t magic himself some friends by then.’

  ‘Dom says I can stay at his.’ Sam bounced back in.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve heard you mention Dom,’ said Frankie.

  Sam shrugged. ‘He’s a brilliant bowler.’

  ‘Is he nice?’

  Sam balked at the question. ‘He’s in my maths set,’ he said. ‘He’s cool.’

  ‘I ought to speak to his mum,’ said Frankie.

  Sam shrugged. ‘She said it was fine.’

  ‘Still – I ought to speak to her.’

  Sam sent a text at breakneck speed and a reply pinged back almost immediately. ‘Here – this is her mobile number.’