Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

Copyright © Freya North 2015

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers 2016

Cover design by Heike Schüssler © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2016

Cover photographs © www.WMArtPhoto.se / Getty Images (woman); Kniel Synnatzschke / PlainPicture (background); Shutterstock.com (bird).

Freya North asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007462308

Ebook Edition © March 2016 ISBN: 9780007326730

Version: 2017-11-27

Dedication

For Maureen Pegg and Jo Smith – my MoJo indeed.

I would always rather be happy than dignified.

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

La musique commence là ou s’arrête le pouvoir des mots. (Where music starts, words cease.)

Richard Wagner

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Scott

Frankie

Part One: May to July

Part Two: July to December

Part Three: April

Part Four: After and Evermore

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Reading Group Questions

Q&A with Freya

A Letter from Freya

Read on for an extract from THE WAY BACK HOME

Keep Reading

By the Same Author

About the Publisher

SCOTT

Alone in his truck on an empty stretch of road in the middle of Thompson Country, Scott cursed out loud though no one could hear him. For the previous half an hour, as he drove from the belly of Kamloops and through the entrails of its suburbs, his phone signal had been off and the radio had played crystal clear everything he wanted to hear. His own personal playlist, beamed telepathically back through the radio, providing company and a soundtrack to the three hours remaining of the journey home. And now, as the road climbed and the scenery most deserved a rousing score, the music had gone and, instead, the cell-phone networks were polluting this immaculate part of British Columbia. His phone rang, his voicemail beeped, his phone rang again, his voicemail beeped. The sound wasn’t dissimilar from some god-awful plastic Europop. A barrage of text-message alerts now chimed in like a truly crap middle eight before the calls started again. The phone was in his bag, in the footwell. Whatever risks Scott had taken in his life, he’d only ever driven with two hands on the wheel and both eyes on the road ahead. He pulled over. What, for Christ’s sake, what?

The voicemail icon with its red spot as angry as a boil. The envelope signifying text messages bursting with four unread. Missed calls. Managing his phone was the only thing in life that Scott was prepared to multitask, because to minimize the time spent on it, was time well spent. He accessed the voicemail whilst clicking into the texts. Before he’d heard a thing he knew what was wrong from Jenna’s two words:

I’m fine x

But by then, a recorded voice was filling the car with the details.

‘Hi Scott – it’s Shelley. I’ve been trying to contact you – Jenna’s had a seizure. She’s OK now but it lasted near enough five minutes. She hit her head, she has a concussion so they’ve taken her to Squamish just to be sure. It’s just gone two. You have my number so feel free to call me.’

Scott only vaguely listened to the later messages, all from Jenna’s friend Shelley repeating the information in different tones of voice: tired, upbeat, reassuring, pseudo-medical. He stamped on the gas and drove fast, without looking at the view and with the radio off. There was no quick route. Too many mountains in the way.

When he opened the door to the hospital room, Jenna was still sleeping. Four hours later she woke, groggy and bashful. She always looked that way after an episode – not that she had any control over them. They had lingered over her life, a storm cloud, a menacing smudge on an otherwise blue sky and she never sensed when they were about to cover the sun.

‘Neil Young, Jimmy Reed, Prince,’ said Scott.

She looked at him as if to say, Really? I have to do this now?

‘Joan of Arc,’ she said. ‘Dickens and Dostoyevsky.’ She knew why he did it, this roll call, to make her feel less ashamed, less alone. She was part of a club, a member of epilepsy’s renowned society – but it irritated her.

Actually, Scott did it to gauge her responsiveness.

‘They glued me,’ she said lightly. ‘See?’ Her finger hovered tentatively over the dark maroon splice above her brow.

‘Very Harry Potter,’ Scott said, thinking to himself that if he was a religious man he’d want to thank God for medical glue, for the fact that she was OK. But he wasn’t a religious man because he just couldn’t reconcile a God figure smiting someone so beautiful, so vital and harmless, with such an affliction. He sat down and put his hand gently over her wrist.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It just happened.’

He hated the obligation she felt to apologize. He hated God for that too. Why burden the victim with guilt as well?

‘I know, sugar, I know.’

‘I thought we had the meds pretty much sorted.’

Quietly, they both felt suddenly foolish for having had so much hope in the new cocktail and doses.

‘You’re booked in for your EEG next month?’

Jenna nodded. ‘Can I come home tonight?’

‘Doc says tomorrow.’ Scott looked at her and assessed in a glance the new scar she’d be adding to her collection. And then he shrugged, his signature gesture when he’d assessed all the pros and cons in a split second. Jenna had suffered a seizure but see, she’s back.

‘It’s been a while,’ he said, ‘since you had one that’s ended you up here.’ He tucked her hair behind her ear. But Jenna didn’t nod and he found he couldn’t look at her. ‘Tell me it’s been a while.’

Jenna could do neither half-answers nor white lies.

‘They’ve been, you know, manageable. And, as you say – they haven’t put me in here for a good while.’

Scott was appalled. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Because you’d react like this? And blame yourself? And worry too much?’

The accusation was fair but it irked him.

‘I kept a note – so I can discuss it with Dr Schultz next month.’

‘You should have told me.’

She looked pale and exhausted. ‘No driving for me, I guess,’ she said. ‘That’s another six months wasted, hoping for normality.’

They both thought of her little red car in the driveway at home, which had hardly moved in two years.

Back home the next day, Scott settled Jenna into the armchair and built a small fire though it was May.

‘I can cancel England next week,’ he said.

‘Are you crazy?’

‘They can do it without me.’

‘No, they can’t – you won’t let them anyway. You have to go,’ Jenna said. ‘That’s what they pay you for.’

‘The team there is great – they know me, I know them.’

‘I’m not having this thing do this to me – to you. You have to go. It’s your career. You need the money.’

They sat and reflected quietly, independently, together.

Scott went to the kitchen and took something out of the freezer. This Thing. Jenna’s epilepsy was indeed just that – an incendiary entity that would grab her when he wasn’t there, that would fight him for her when he was. All these years and he was no closer to finding any peace, any acceptance that this affliction held Jenna hostage right in front of his face and he just couldn’t rescue her. A long time ago, he’d decided that if he couldn’t rescue her, then he’d be right there with her, alongside her in captivity.

He rooted around for potatoes and onions, he clanged pans against pots, he clattered cutlery and muttered inanities under his breath but loud enough to fool Jenna if she was listening. All the while, he tossed the concepts around, like a juggler throwing machetes. It didn’t necessarily follow that though she’d had a bad seizure another would recur any time soon – so if he did cancel England next week, say she was fine? And then, say the next time she wasn’t fine when he was abroad? But how many times had there been recently that he hadn’t known about? She’d said a couple – did she really mean only two? And define ‘recently’ Jenna. How long are we talking about?

England. Would she come with him? But she had work. Anyway, she wouldn’t want to – she’d been there and done that and they both knew he’d have little time for anything other than sleep and work. Her life was here. If only the Thing would do them both the courtesy of some kind of schedule, better warning signs, softer landings. But when had it ever done that? The only predictable thing about most of her seizures was just how unpredictable they were. Scott thought about it as he sliced and chopped and steamed and fried. There was no magic solution, no cure, and still it made him furious.

Jenna was dozing when he went back through with a tray of food. He lifted a strand of hair that he felt was too close to her new wound. He had no appetite. He pushed his tray to one side and kept watch while she rested.

I’ll always be here. I’ll never leave you, baby. His oath was as solemn now as twenty years ago.

FRANKIE

Alice Alice Alice.

Frankie paused. She’d been here before, waiting for Alice. There was little point expending emotion on it. She’d just chant Alice’s name again, in case she was creeping up on her, unseen.

What are you up to this time? Frankie asked quietly. Where are we going, youngling – you and I?

She thought she could hear her, in the distance. A snatch of a giggle, the arrhythmic scamper of small footfalls over twigs and leaves, the sound of joy that propelled a leap into the air.

Alice? Are you coming?

Frankie! Frankie! Can you hear me?

Sort of, but you’re very muffled. Come closer, you little minx. Come closer so I can catch you.

Can you see me, Frankie? I’m here. Look!

Yes! There you are! Hold on – wait for me.

And then the back door opened with a creak and closed with a slam and all that Frankie had to show for her day was a stark, staring whiteness. A blankness that was as confrontational as it was empty. A sheet of white paper, with absolutely nothing on it.

‘Hi Mum.’

‘Hi darling.’

‘Are you Alice-ing?’

‘I thought I was.’ Frankie smoothed the paper in front of her as if it was as creased as her brow. It wasn’t. It might as well have been ironed flat, such was the pristine sharpness to the edges, as if potential paper cuts were its raison d’être.

‘Haven’t you done anything?’

‘Almost.’ Frankie looked at her son and glanced away. ‘No.’

‘Mum,’ Sam sighed.

‘It’s so hard –’

‘– there’s no crisps.’

It was this that was the cause of Sam’s concern, and it made Frankie flinch. Just then no crisps was worse than no Alice.

‘Have crackers,’ she said with forced brightness, ‘with butter. That’s what I had for lunch.’ She gauged her son’s response and she thought, when I was thirteen, would I have dared roll my eyes at my mother? And then she softened. My son with the hollow legs. ‘I’ll make them for you. Homework?’

‘Chemistry and maths.’

‘How awful.’

Sam thought about it glumly. Then he perked up. ‘I can show you how to do a mind map on the computer – it’s the best way for organizing ideas. It can cure your Writer’s Block. I swear on my life.’

Frankie looked at Sam, looked at the pages in front of her, woefully devoid of a single word or image. Her body felt compressed and inert from the effort of spending all day creating nothing.

‘OK, but you still have to do your homework.’

‘I’ll do it later. This’ll only take me ten minutes to show you. It will change your life. I swear to God.’

‘Sam – if I can plan my next book in ten minutes, I’ll do your homework for you.’

‘Sick! Promise?’

‘No.’

He rolled his eyes at her. ‘Can I just check Instagram?’

‘No. And don’t roll your eyes – it makes you look like you’re having a fit. And that’s not funny.’

Forty minutes later, Frankie was still flailing about with the technical demands of on-screen mind mapping. Her son truly wondered whether she was pretending to be so thick or whether it was an avoidance tactic because she didn’t actually want to do another Alice book. One time, he’d watched her clean the inside of the dishwasher rather than write.

‘Sorry darling – about the crisps.’

‘Annabel will be far angrier than me. You promised her, remember.’

For a hideous frozen moment, Frankie could not move.

‘Oh shit – not again.’

Listening to his mother fulminate her way through the house, tripping over her own shoes strewn in a doorway, hunting for keys tossed goodness knows where that morning, Sam thought to himself that resurrecting the swear jar might be a very good idea indeed. He and his sister would be rich in a matter of days.

Frankie backed her car down the driveway. Today, it infuriated her that she’d bought a house with a driveway but with no space to actually turn a car. Every day, it cricked her neck. Added to that was the headache of being really late already and now she found she was going to need to wave and wait and wave again at Mr Mawby. The elderly farmer next door was manoeuvring his tractor from the road into his yard as cautiously as if it was a Ferrari he wanted to keep pristine. Oh God please don’t get out of the cab, please don’t come over. Get back in the cab, Mr Mawby. No time for a little mardle today.

It did occur to her that she hadn’t had time last week either.

‘Hi, Mr Mawby, hi.’ She wound down her window but kept her car creeping along. ‘Are you well? Mrs Mawby too? I have to go – I’m late for Annabel.’

And Mr Mawby thought, When will that girl slow down and bed in?

Over the last few months, it had struck Frankie that the sharp bends on these empty and stretching country lanes were every bit as taxing as heavy traffic in the city she’d left nine months ago. As she drove, she suddenly felt nostalgic for the crafty back-doubles she knew off by heart around the roads of North London. There didn’t seem to be any short cuts to Annabel’s school. Or perhaps there was a clever route she didn’t know about because she wasn’t yet local enough.

Even from a distance, she could see that Annabel was glowering at her. One of the few children in After School Club and now the last child in the playground.

‘I’m so so sorry,’ Frankie called out in general, as lightly as she could, as she approached. ‘Oh dear.’ She was so out of breath she couldn’t even swear under it. ‘Mrs Paterson, I am so sorry – I was writing. And the time – it just …’

‘That’s all right, Miss Shaw. Annabel and I were having a very interesting conversation.’

Frankie didn’t doubt that.

‘Good afternoon, Annabel.’ Mrs Paterson said goodbye with a formal handshake.

‘Good night, Mrs Paterson,’ Annabel said.

‘Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit,’ Frankie told her daughter as they walked to the car.

‘That’s what Grandma says,’ said Annabel. ‘I don’t know what it means exactly – but I do know that you say oh God I sound just like my mother like it’s the worst thing in the world. So I wouldn’t say that one, if I were you.’

Sometimes, thought Frankie, there really is nothing you can say to a nine-year-old who has all the answers. She took Annabel’s hand, persevering until, after snatching it away twice and then turning it into limp lettuce, her daughter finally furled her fingers around her mother’s.

‘Not much more than a year, then it’ll be better. When you and Sam are at the same school, same bus.’

‘But I don’t want to leave my school,’ said Annabel quietly.

Frankie looked at her. ‘You like it here, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Annabel said. ‘I’ve only been here two and a bit terms but I like it much more than my old school. In fact, I hardly ever think about London.’

‘Nowadays we have the sea,’ said Frankie.

‘And a big garden,’ said Annabel, ‘and a room of my own.’

‘I’m truly sorry I was late, darling.’

‘Sometimes I really hate Alice.’

‘Why? What happened? Shall I speak to Mrs Paterson? Hate is a terrible emotion.’

‘Not Alice in my class, Mum. Your Alice. She’s like this stepsister or something. It’s like you favouritize her. What’s for supper?’

‘Baked beans, chips. Tomato and cucumber. Possibly.’ She paused. ‘I didn’t have time to go to the shops. I was working.’

‘Does that mean there are no crisps?’

‘I’m so sorry, darling.’

It was Annabel’s forlorn silence, the way her little fingers slackened as if sighing, that made Frankie feel suddenly useless at everything. She knew Annabel blamed Alice. But Frankie had no one to blame but herself.

‘Come on – let’s go via Howell’s and I’ll buy you two packets and one for tomorrow.’

But then she realized she’d come out in a rush without her purse. And she wondered, does nine months living here warrant credit at the local shop?

* * *

Alice & the Ditch Monster

Alice & the Ditch Monster Hatch a Plan

Alice & the Ditch Monster Brave the Storm

Alice & the Ditch Monster Save the Day

Alice & the Ditch Monster Go for Gold

Alice & the Ditch Monster Halloween Howls

Alice & the Ditch Monster Wonder What the Fuck They’re Going to Do Next

Children quiet in bed, one asleep, the other reading. A glass of Rioja to hand. The paper is still stark white and glaringly empty in front of Frankie. It’s raining outside and it shouldn’t be. All that relocation research done quietly in Muswell Hill over a two-year period was proving pointless, the websites and books were inaccurate. North Norfolk in May should have lower-than-average rainfall. It should be neck and neck with Cornwall in terms of daily sunshine hours and be the driest county in England. But look at it out there – streaming and soaking and that huge sky dense with more to come. She’d overheard Sam calling it Norfuck yesterday.

Alice – we have a book to write.

But there was neither sight nor sound of Alice. Frankie trickled a little wine onto the page, folded it in half and vigorously rubbed her hand over it. She opened it out and stared hard. It looked nothing like the butterflies or strange beings that the children had created with poster paints at nursery school all those years ago. Even Freud – or whoever it was who’d used the exercise in therapy – would have had a hard time reading anything into it. It was simply an amoebic splodge and a waste of wine.

Alice and the Ditch Monster Do Absolutely Nothing

PART ONE

‘It’s Daddy!’

Momentarily, Frankie’s heart ached for her daughter who was so used to fathers coming through the post that she brandished the envelope like it was a missive from royalty, running it in a lap of honour around the kitchen table before placing it carefully in front of Sam.

‘Can you tell where it’s from?’

Sam looked at the stamp and the franked mark. ‘Ecuador,’ he said as if it was some tiresome general-knowledge quiz set up by his father.

‘Ecuador,’ Annabel marvelled. ‘Is that the capital of the equator? Is Daddy at the centre of the universe?’

‘South America,’ said Frankie.

‘Open it then,’ said Sam.

Frankie’s heart creaked again as she watched Annabel slip her little finger into a gap and serrate the envelope as carefully as she could as if in anticipation of its contents bettering a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s. You never knew what Miles would send the children. Previously, they’d received a torn label from Israel which said Coca Cola in Hebrew, a wrapping from a ready meal in Japan called SuShitSu, a beer mat from Tasmania, a shrivelled-up floral lei from Hawaii, something from Venezuela they had thought was a dead beetle but turned out to be some type of bean that they’d planted without success. Occasionally, there were notes, mostly not. Usually there were months between letters but then again Miles might bombard the children for a while, like friendly fire. These days, Sam was inured to all of it, whereas Annabel’s life still depended on them.

Annabel eased out of the envelope a slim, rectangular piece of paper. It was torn carelessly from a Barclays Bank cheque book. Attached to it was the smallest yellow Post-it note imaginable.

Kids!

It’s amazing here!

I’ve struck gold!

Give this to your mother.

Dad xx

Annabel wasn’t bothered about the cheque addressed to her mother. All she cared about was that her father had travelled to the equator for her, had dug for gold and found it. She peeled off the sticky note, placed it on her fingertips as if it was a rare butterfly, and left for her room.

‘Four thousand quid!’ Sam was hard-pressed not to love his dad just a little bit more just then. He passed it to Frankie. ‘Look.’

Four thousand pounds, made out to her and signed, legibly, by Miles.

‘Sick!’ said Sam, leaving the table. ‘Four grand.’

‘Sam – please, no tweetering or facebookgramming about this.’

‘Seriously?’ His mother’s terminology wasn’t even amusing, just annoying.

‘Yes seriously.’

‘But you’re not on Twitter.’

‘That’s irrelevant. It might buy you a few more followers – but not friends. Anyway – it’s vulgar to talk about money. And anyway – it’s private.’

Sam huffed his way out leaving Frankie alone in the kitchen with all that money. If there’s four grand in your English bank Miles, God knows what you have squirrelled away under your Ecuadorian mattress. And not for the first time, Frankie thought, whoever you’re in bed with this time, I hope there’s a gun under your pillow. And then she thought, this autumn, we’ll have been divorced for seven years. These days it was strange to consider that once she’d had a husband and even odder to think that the husband had actually been Miles.

‘Frankie?’ Peta assumed her sister had phoned for a chat, yet she was doing all the talking.

‘Still here,’ Frankie said. Peta’s impassioned tirades against politics in the PTA, unfairness in the rugby club, Philip’s long hours, the boys’ adolescent mood swings and stinky bedrooms had wafted over Frankie quite soothingly, like a billowing sheet.

‘So – what’s been happening in the Back of Beyond?’

‘I don’t live in the back of beyond.’

Peta laughed. ‘Burnham Market it ain’t.’

It was just under twelve miles to Burnham Market but Frankie had to admit quietly to herself that her sister had a point. Renting a holiday cottage in the popular market town had inspired her move from London to Norfolk. But like most holiday romances, reality rendered the fantasy obsolete. Property prices in any of the Burnhams were beyond her means. The type of home she envisaged for her family, that which she could afford, took her further afield. Or, as Peta would have it, in the middle of a bloody field.

‘And the kids?’

‘They’re brilliant,’ said Frankie. ‘Loving school. Loving the outdoors, the sea. Dressed crab from a shack. Scampering.’

‘And you? New friends?’ Peta worried that Frankie’s choice to have a limited social group in a city was one thing, but to move miles away from anywhere was quite another.

‘There’s Ruth,’ said Frankie.

‘The reiki woman?’

‘Alexander Technique,’ Frankie said. ‘It’s about balance and posture, rest and realignment and it’s helped with my headaches already. She’s definitely becoming a good friend.’

‘She’s not a lentil-munching happyclappy hippy is she?’

‘Peta you’re terrible. She’s chic, sassy and my age. She’s much more Jäger-bombs and a secret ciggy than mung beans and wheatgrass shots.’

‘Thank God for that. But you can have more than one friend you know.’

‘You’re not going to tell me to join the PTA are you?’

‘No but too strong a belief in self-sufficiency can be isolating. Lecture over – how’s work?’

Frankie paused. ‘It’s back. The block. I can’t hear Alice. It’s really worrying me now.’ She misread Peta’s ensuing silence and leapt to the defensive. ‘Just because I write for kids doesn’t mean it’s child’s play.’

‘Whoa – whoa. But it’s happened before – when you’ve struggled with the story. Have you told your editor?’

‘No. He keeps leaving messages. And I daren’t tell the bank either.’

‘Are you strapped?’ Peta asked. ‘For cash?’

Frankie thought about it. She had only to ask her sister. She’d done so in the past and Peta had been generous, keen even; as if the money she’d married into had value only when she could give it to others.

‘It’s OK, Peta. Guess what turned up today? Not so much a bad penny – but four grand. From Miles.’

‘Oh dear God that man. Where is he?’

‘Ecuador.’

‘Doing what?’

‘God knows. Being Indiana Jones.’

‘Bank it – before it bounces. And go and drink wine with Ruth. Or join the school mums for a coffee morning.’

‘I don’t have time – I have to write my book.’

Frankie decided she’d try and fool Alice into appearing. She left her pencils and paper all spread out on the kitchen table like a fisherman’s nets but instead, she drove to Wells-next-the-Sea directly from dropping Annabel at school. It was all part of her plan. She went to the bank and was told it would be five working days before Miles’s cheque appeared in her account. She went to the newsagent, bought a plain notepad and a clutch of pencils that she wrapped inside a copy of the Guardian. Then she walked slowly, casually glancing in shop windows as if this was precisely the way she’d planned to spend her morning. She came to two cafés almost next door to each other, but she eschewed the crowded one that indulged mums and toddlers with cappuccinos and crayons for the one that didn’t. She wandered in as if the fancy had only just taken her. It was filled with the creak of pensioners but there was an empty table by the side window towards the back and it was perfect. Dumping all her stuff on the empty chair, she ordered poached eggs on toast – white please – and a pot of tea. And there she sat, watching the microcosm of Wells going about its business, as if the street in this small seaside town typified the world at large. Mothers with strollers, people with dogs, builders taking a break, pensioners taking their time, a couple of kids playing hooky, a traffic warden trying to be inconspicuous, a horse and rider, a lorry headed for the Londis – and just an off-duty author having a fulfilling breakfast of eggs and toast and tea.

Alice?

Alice?

You should see this place – why don’t you come and sit with me awhile?

I don’t like towns, Frankie.

It’s hardly a big town.

I like fields.

But this is fun, it’s different. No one knows you here, Alice. See – a lovely blank piece of paper. Hop onto it – it’s what you know. I’ll look after you.

He won’t come you know – not here. He’s too shy. You know that.

You went trick-or-treating together though? That was in a town – remember?

That was in Cloddington. You created Cloddington for me to live in. This place is not there.

But it’s similar.

It’s completely different Frankie. I don’t want an adventure here. But if you eat your eggs and finish your cuppa, I’ll race you home.

So Frankie ate her eggs and finished her tea and walked briskly to her car and raced Alice home. But Alice won. By the time Frankie made it back to her kitchen table, Alice had found one heck of a hiding place and wasn’t going to give Frankie even the tiniest clue as to where she was.

* * *

‘Frankie Darling.’

The voice of Michael, her editor, came through on the answering machine and Frankie closed the door to the kitchen as if he might spy the pages devoid of any creativity strewn over the kitchen table.

‘My surname’s Shaw,’ Frankie muttered at the answering machine, ‘not Darling.’

Actually, she quite liked the way her publishers always referred to her as Frankie Darling. Her agent simply called her Author. She liked that too.

‘Frankie Darling – it’s time to lure you to London. We want to run through the pre-publication plans. And of course I want to hear all about what Alice is up to. We’ll put you up somewhere gorgeous for a couple of nights. Call me.’

Somewhere gorgeous. They were the very words Frankie had used to justify her relocation to everyone. I’m going to move to somewhere gorgeous. North Norfolk: the dictionary definition of precisely that – and everyone had agreed with her, everyone said they envied her. Soon she was lightly telling everyone it didn’t matter that she couldn’t afford the Burnhams, she’d found instead a detached cottage in gently undulating fields two miles from the sea, decorated inside with soft chalky shades reminiscent of a handful of blanched pebbles scooped from the shore.

She was aware that the interior of the house had seduced her as much as the vast sky and endless quiet lanes. But there was something else: the very concept of being detached: the house, herself, her little family, it brought with it a sense of comfort and freedom, independence and excitement. Solitude would be novel and welcome after years in flats squashed between other flats like the patty in a burger, having to look down on other people’s gardens and listening unintentionally to the thunks and arguments above, below, to either side. So last year Frankie spent all her money and borrowed heavily to purchase the traditional flint-and-brick cottage with a bedroom each for the children, a spare room rather than a sofa bed for guests, an en-suite for herself and a garden that wrapped itself protectively around the house in a fragrant and pastel-coloured embrace.

Frankie looked around her home today, nine months on. Weathering winter, it transpired that the tasteful paint scheme had just whitewashed a multitude of faults and problems. What began as annoying niggles soon became a major headache in the hands of a rogue builder no one thought to warn The New Lot about. And now, in late spring, the windows that leaked could open but not close and a peculiar patch of damp had appeared in the hallway that just didn’t make sense. The plug socket in her bedroom sparked, some of the light switches became too hot and the tap in the kitchen often vomited out the water, soaking everything.

Being detached.

She saw it as a quality though it was often a criticism levelled at her by her mother, her sister. Even Miles. In fact, Peta said she was becoming increasingly introvert, even used the word deluded, but Frankie found it easy to hang up on her. Actually, Frankie found assurance in privacy and a certain relief that she could keep the devils out of the details of her life. For the time being anyway. Because apart from Miles’s cheque, which would be swallowed by the bank in one gulp anyway, there was no more money until the next Alice book was in. Currently, Alice hadn’t found her way to Norfolk and Frankie’s sense of direction had never been her strong point.

Standing at the bottom of the stairs, she caught sight of a lone sock halfway up which she’d nagged Sam about since the weekend. Suddenly it struck her how easily she could spend the day just as she was, feeling in a fug, scuffing her feet in absent-minded arcs over the clay-tiled floor. Easy to let her editor’s call go unanswered, the bills to stay unopened, the pages on which Alice and the Ditch Monster should be adventuring to remain tauntingly blank. She could go to the sea. There was something so energizing and validating about gazing at the constant swell while being buffeted by the wind, tasting the briny air while she said to herself see, this is why I moved here. For the fresh air and the good life; for the peace and quiet of feeling miles away.

Or she could take herself to task and do something about it all. She could pick up Sam’s sock and kick-start her day. She could wash the floor and make the beds, she could phone her editor with her diary to hand. Then she could sit at the kitchen table and attempt to draw Alice back into existence.

With the children bickering over TV channels, moaning at her not pasta again Mum, the concept of a couple of nights in a swish hotel at her publishers’ invitation was just then very attractive even if she’d have to lie about progress on her current book. However, Peta said she wasn’t free to come and housesit because she was hosting her book club.

‘But if you’re organizing it, can’t you rearrange?’

‘Can’t you phone Mum?’

‘Can’t you just change the date? It’s important, it’s my career.’

‘Listen Frankie – I know you think I have all this spare time because I don’t work, but every day I have to ferry my teenage boys in a car which stinks of rugby boots or rattles with cricket bats. My husband is never home before nine and all I ask is that once a month I can get lost in a book with a bunch of people even more frazzled than I. It’s good for me – it restores me.’

The sisters paused in self-righteous stalemate.

‘Isn’t there anyone local you can ask?’

‘No.’

‘I keep telling you – you need to get out more. You’re becoming too introverted – and don’t call it self-sufficient.’

‘I’m not.’

‘How about a teaching assistant from Annabel’s school? What about your new friend Mrs Alexandra Technician?’

‘Ruth has two young children of her own.’

‘Ask Mum.’

‘Come on, Peta.’

‘What about Steph?’

Quietly, Frankie considered how Steph hadn’t crossed her mind for weeks. ‘I thought she was working in a ski resort?’

‘It’s May, Frankie. The snow has gone.’

Frankie thought about her half-sister as she looked at the caller-id photo in her phone’s contacts. Neither she nor Peta had taken much notice of Steph when she bounced into their lives; they’d been too busy pursuing their twenties, then raising their own families in their thirties. Frankie’s children adored Steph, especially Annabel who thought Frankie hopelessly uncool. Just this morning she’d said, what’s going on with your hair, Mummy?

‘Steph?’

‘Frankie?’

‘How are you?’

‘Oh my God! I’m good! And you? How’s Suffolk?’

‘Norfolk.’

‘That’s funny.’

Is it? Would Annabel laugh too?

‘And the ski season was –’

‘Oh just the best.’

‘Are you working now?’

‘No I’m in my flat.’

‘I don’t mean right now – I mean, at the moment.’

‘Yes – I’m a barista.’

‘What is that?’

‘I specialize in coffee.’

‘You work in Starbucks?’

‘God no – an independent coffee emporium. I know everything about coffee.’

‘Wow.’

Steph laughed. ‘Actually, I work in a local café.’

It was Frankie’s go. ‘You’re funny,’ she said warmly and she meant it. She thought, my half-sista the barista.

‘How are Sammy and Annabel?’

‘They’re fine – they’d love to see you, though Sam insists on being Sam these days. Actually, I was just wondering if I could tempt you to visit next week? They’d love it and it would help me. I have to come to London to see my editor. I was wondering if you might come and stay? I could pay, so that you don’t go short, being away from work?’

There was a pause. ‘I’m family. You wouldn’t need to pay me.’ Steph sounded appalled. ‘Normally I’d say yes – but I’m going away next week. With my new boyfriend.’

What Frankie really wanted to do was hang up and wonder what to do next.

‘He’s called Craig?’ Steph seemed to be waiting for a response.

‘Is he a keeper?’ Frankie said.

‘Are you on Facebook?’

‘No.’

‘Twitter? Instagram?’

‘God no.’

‘I’ve posted loads of pics of Châtel and Craig and my life. Everything.’

‘I can barely use the Internet, Steph.’

‘Frankie!’ Steph all but chided her. ‘You, with your work, your fans – you should be! Do you have WhatsApp or Snapchat, at the very least?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Frankie. ‘Do I?’ And Steph laughed and laughed and said oh Frankie, you’re so funny.

Frankie looked at her phone and thought what’s the point of calling Peta – she’ll just say phone Mum.

‘Hello Mum – it’s me.’

‘Yes?’

‘It’s Frankie.’

‘I know.’

‘How are you?’

‘Oh – you know.’

‘It’s lovely here at the moment – we had rain but it’s just made everything lush.’

‘You said it never rains in Norfolk.’

Fill the pause. Just fill it.

‘My publishers want me down in London next week. For a couple of days and I was wondering –’

There was silence.

‘Might you be free? I’ll have everything organized. If you’d rather take the train I could collect you from King’s Lynn.’

‘The train?’

‘If you’d rather not drive.’

‘Meaning?’

‘I didn’t mean – I just.’

I just always say the wrong thing or I intend to say the right thing and it always comes out wrong.

‘I will come,’ her mother said. ‘Otherwise no doubt I won’t see my grandchildren this side of Christmas.’

So that was that.

Sometimes, Frankie told herself, you have to be grateful for your third choice. Her mother could come to Norfolk and pick holes in Frankie’s life while she’d be in London, in a triple-glazed hotel room. Glancing in the mirror, she conceded that Annabel was quite right – what was going on with her hair? It no longer bounced off her shoulders but seeped over them, like seaweed lanking over a boulder. She’d washed it yesterday and it was already lifeless. She couldn’t turn up at her publishers looking like this. She looked at her hands, they were dry. Jeans, shapeless T-shirt and trainers. This is what my kids see every day. I have to have my hair cut before my mother sees me.

* * *

As Frankie parked her car at Creake Abbey, she could almost hear Peta saying ah! now this is more like it. It ticked all her sister’s boxes. A short drive from Burnham Market, quietly set in rolling fields, old farm buildings in the grounds of a twelfth-century abbey had been tastefully renovated to house select lifestyle shops, a mouthwatering café and food hall, a monthly farmer’s market and even a smokehouse. Hitherto, Frankie had only visited to walk to the Abbey itself, loving the brooding melancholy of the skeletal structure, the way what was left of the church seemed to grow from the land as much as being buried by it. She saw Alice having an adventure here, places to hide, secrets to discover, trees to climb and hedgerows to explore.

The ruins of the Augustinian priory, but so much more – that’s what Peta would say and she’d head straight for the shops. She’d approve of Frankie’s choice of hairdresser; hip salon, skilled stylists, Aveda products and bare stone walls. Well here was Frankie today sitting with her hair hanging like twisted wet yarn around her face, no time to stroll around the ruins hoping Alice might pop up. The stylist combed and cut and chatted. Was Frankie just visiting, on holiday? Where was she from, what she was she planning on doing here in North Norfolk? It crushed her a little, she thought she might be recognizably native by now.

‘I’m a friend of Ruth?’ she said. ‘Ruth Ingram? She recommended you.’

‘Oh – so you live here?’

‘Nine months now – I live out Binham way,’ Frankie said as if being half an hour away was reason enough for the stylist not to know she was local.

‘Do you want your hair like Ruth’s?’

Frankie thought of Ruth’s immaculate ebony-glossed bob and she started to laugh. ‘My hair would never do that.’

‘Well, you don’t have to have a Ruth,’ the stylist said, her hands lightly on her shoulders. ‘But you needn’t look quite so mumsy.’

Sometimes, Frankie found it difficult to tell the difference between a compliment and an unintended insult.

Flipping through magazines, she found the lowbrow celebrity gossip and articles on improving her figure, her sex life, her family’s diet soothing in their inanity. One magazine proposed the power of saying Yes. Another, the thrill of saying No. She marvelled that this stuff was even published. If Alice had no story for her, perhaps Frankie could just scribble off 10 Steps to Sizzling Sex. Or, rather, Regaining Your Virginity if You Haven’t Had Sex in Three Years.

‘So you moved here with your family?’

‘Yes – last September.’

‘Does your husband work locally or go to London?’

‘I don’t have a husband,’ said Frankie. ‘I’m on my own.’

‘Oh I’m sorry.’

People often told Frankie they were sorry.

‘I hope you haven’t come to Norfolk looking for love!’

‘No. Not at all. Just for the lifestyle. And the sea. And the solitude.’

‘You know that expression seek and ye shall find? Well, in my experience, it’s the times when you aren’t looking that love finds you.’

Frankie thought about that, how people often hoped that love was on its way for her. ‘I’m happy as I am,’ she said. ‘I’m used to it. I’m too busy anyway for extra headaches in my life.’

‘But love isn’t a headache. Not when it’s what’s been missing.’

‘Nothing’s missing,’ she muttered. She glanced at her reflection and thought her fringe was way too short. She caught sight of the time. She’d have to forgo the blow-dry and rush away to school. No time to linger over the cheeses and meats, salads and delicacies in the food hall. It would have to be fish-finger sandwiches for supper. It didn’t matter about her fringe, she’d be late to pick up Annabel and everyone else would have gone.

‘What do you think, Buddy?’ Scott stood at the window which spanned side to side, ceiling to floor, one entire end of the room. In the soft silence of his home, he looked across to Mount Currie where the spike and march of the myriad firs made easy work of the steep climbs. Under his hand, the feel of his dog’s warm round head. It was his ritual before leaving – to fill his senses with the sights and sounds of home to tide himself over during his time away. ‘A good day to fly?’ Scott looked down and his brown dog looked up and they conversed silently for a moment or two. ‘I thought so too,’ Scott laughed.

‘Is Aaron on his way? You sure you’re not cutting it fine?’ Jenna said.

‘Stop worrying,’ Scott told her. ‘And anyway, I like to stand here awhile – I always do.’ He returned his gaze out over the vast valley.

‘I know – I’ve watched you over the years. Same spot, same view, different dog.’ She linked her arm through his and he kissed her forehead. They could see Shelley’s car snake up the steep serpentine drive to the house and noticed Aaron not far behind her.

‘Our own personal cab service,’ Scott said.

‘I’d do anything to drive my own car and be the lift-giver.’

Jenna’s light tone belied the deep emotion. There was not a lot Scott could say. He checked his watch. ‘Listen, Saturday the kids are coming up to use the studio.’

Jenna nodded. Scott mentored young musicians, forming and coaching bands that combined young talent from the white and Ĺíĺwat communities. ‘How’s it going with them?’

‘They’re good – but they think they’re better than they are. They just want to jam instead of work at it, practise. They get a little dumb – but hey, they’re kids.’

‘As long as they’re not smuggling in beer like the last lot.’

Scott had to laugh. ‘And there was I thinking that mentoring high-school kids would be all about the music.’

‘You love it really,’ Jenna said, nudging him. Shelley was walking towards the house. ‘See you next week – have a safe flight.’

With his hand back on his dog’s head, Scott watched Jenna leave, chat awhile with Aaron and say something that made his friend tip his head back and laugh at the sky. Then she waved and blew a kiss before climbing into Shelley’s car to head to work in Whistler.

Aaron loped up the steps and Buddy turned circles at the door, yowling with joy.

‘Yep,’ said Scott, ‘you get to hang out with Aaron while I’m gone.’

‘Beautiful day to fly,’ Aaron said, letting himself into the house and heading straight for the kettle and ground coffee.

‘Jenna says we’re running late.’

Aaron laughed, not so much at Jenna’s expense, just that he was always laughing. When Scott was a kid, a serious, reflective kid, Aaron’s laughter would physically rub off on him and he’d feel lighter about life and better about himself. Forty years on and Aaron still had that effect on Scott. That boy’s laughter could lift the tarnish off silver, Scott’s mother used to say.

‘We’re all fuelled up and ready to go. Took her out yesterday and treated her real good.’ Aaron licked his way seductively around the words as if his little Cessna was a woman.

‘It’s enough that you have my dog for me. I’m happy enough to drive to Vancouver. It’s no big deal. I always tell you.’

‘And deny Buddy here – the flying dog – his time up in the skies?’ Aaron shook his head and whistled long and slow. ‘You’re a cruel man, Scott Emerson. I always say it.’

‘You tool,’ said Scott.

‘Splaont,’ said Aaron, in his native tongue.

‘Don’t you go using your tribal insults on me, hoser,’ Scott laughed. ‘Anyways, did you just call me a skunk? Are you going to try and tell me the skunk is a heroic symbol for the Ĺíĺwat nation?’

Aaron just laughed. ‘You remember when we were kids and I’d teach you Úcwalmícwts words and have you believe they were compliments?’

‘Aaron, you made me tell your dad he was slícil – fish slime – and I thought I was telling him he was a mighty eagle.’ Scott took the cup of coffee Aaron had made him, thick enough to stand a teaspoon upright, and drank it down quickly. ‘Well, it’s a beautiful day to fly, so thank you.’

‘I’m not doing it for you, man – I’m doing it because I get to drive your truck and hang out with Buddy. Your truck cost more than my plane.’

In the air, with Buddy managing to fit on his lap, Scott looked down and around the landscape. Mount Currie, stately and benevolent today, like a wise old monarch surveying her kingdom. Pemberton and then Whistler – both glinting and self-contained, as if unaware that life also went on elsewhere. The ice fields and falls and meadows; the mercurial paths of the Lillooet, Elaho and Cheakamus rivers. All the blues and every green. Blue and green should never be seen, wasn’t that what his grandma said? What a load of bull Gramma, Scott thought. He looked at Aaron, grinning away, delighted to be flying him to Vancouver, choosing a circuitous route for the sheer joy of it. Birds might fly economically, with purpose, from A to B. Not Aaron. That was not the point of flight. Scott would still make his international flight with time to spare – so for the time being, why not just fly for the hell of it. It’s beautiful down there. Up here. Everywhere. Life doesn’t get much better than this.

* * *

Margaret Shaw could not guarantee what time she’d arrive and certainly she was not prepared to arrive before lunch. Actually, she arrived at her daughter’s at 11.00, which was a blessing and a curse. Frankie might make the earlier train but the house was still a mess and her mother greeted her with a sharp kiss and a raised eyebrow.

‘I did have a cleaner,’ Frankie said. ‘But she was a bit useless. So I’m looking for another.’

‘And you’re not doing it yourself in the interim?’ It seemed highly unlikely, to Margaret.

‘Actually – I am. With the children. I think it’s good for them to help. So we have our little timetable for an hour on Saturdays mornings.’

‘An hour?’

Frankie thought of Oscar Wilde. A handbag? It gave her a comforting private giggle. Margaret Shaw and Lady Augusta Bracknell. What a fabulous comedy of manners that would make. Who would play her mother? What a role! Her children thought their grandma to be lifted straight from the pages of a Roald Dahl story. When she was very little, Annabel had pointed to a Quentin Blake illustration of Aunt Spiker and said look! it’s Grandma!

‘Let me take your bags to your room. The kettle’s just boiled. I’ve written out everything – and been through it with the kids.’

‘Children.’

‘With the children.’ Frankie paused. ‘I’ve made supper for tonight and tomorrow night – that’s the snack drawer there. I’ve put Annabel’s fruit for school on the windowsill – there.’

‘You have labelled an apple?’

‘Well, the ki – children – put their fruit in a basket in the classroom. You see.’

‘I see.’

‘There’s Rich Tea for you. And real butter. And full milk.’ Frankie thought about what else what else what else. ‘Palmolive soap,’ she said quietly. ‘Vosene shampoo.’

‘Have you fixed that interminable draught in the bedroom?’

‘Yes,’ said Frankie. ‘I hope so. I put the electric blanket on your bed too.’

‘It’s May.’

‘It can get chilly in the evenings still. Here’s a map to Annabel’s school. And here’s Sam’s mobile-phone number.’

‘He has a mobile phone?’

‘For emergencies,’ Frankie lied. Actually, Frankie had bought Sam his phone because he desperately wanted one because everyone has one these days, Mum, everyone. However much she hated technology and couldn’t bear to see children obsessed by screens often at the expense of books, that her son could feel he was cool and that he belonged was something she yearned for him. Sam with his orthodontic braces and protruding ears and two left feet when it came to football.

‘I’d better go, Mum,’ she said. ‘Just call me, or have the kids-children call me, for the slightest thing.’ And she kissed her mother and gave her a squeeze if only to pre-empt Margaret from saying I raised two girls single-handedly, I’m sure I can cope with your offspring, Frankie.

* * *

Jenna needn’t have worried; Scott was at Vancouver airport with time enough to do a little work. He could have gone through to the lounge – they were flying him over business class – but the place he always favoured was right in the middle of the International terminal, in an amphitheatre of sorts dominated by the immense sculpture of The Spirit of Haida Gwaii, a vast jade-coloured bronze canoe filled with symbolic figures of First Nations legend. He sat on a lower tier and set his laptop up on his knees. Somehow, amidst the thrum of people in transit he could concentrate far better than in an airport lounge clogged with the conversations of self-important businessmen. He hadn’t checked his emails for a couple of days and ploughed through them, reading each carefully if only to answer them with his characteristic one or two spare sentences. His agent had emailed to say he needed to speak to him and it surprised Scott to see the missed calls on his phone from yesterday. Had he not checked it since then? He called him to apologize.

His relationship with his agent was a strong one stretching over almost two decades but the business side of his career bored Scott and he found himself listening to the sound of his agent’s voice rather the content of his words. For Scott, even in spoken tones, there was music to the human voice and just now, his agent talking combined with the rhythm of rush in the terminal. To his left, seated a tier up and in a world of their own, young lovers clung to each other, forehead to forehead, eyes transmitting the depth of their goodbye. To his right, his guitar. In his head, suddenly, an idea.

‘I have to go,’ he told his agent. ‘I need to work. I’ll call you from London.’

For a few minutes more, Scott focused fully on the couple, disparate melodies flitting through his mind as the music formed. But the young woman whispered to her lover and they both glared at Scott before moving away, hand in hand, disconcerted. Scott felt simultaneously awkward yet amused. He looked around, surprised that no one else was sitting here. He made another call.

‘Hey kiddo. It’s Scott.’

‘Hey man. I know it’s you – your name comes up, right?’

Scott always enjoyed the fact that the kids saw him as both cool and yet pretty dorky. It made mentoring them touching and amusing, alongside the work and responsibility.

‘I missed your call yesterday – I’m heading for the United Kingdom. But it’s cool for you to use the studio at the weekend. You guys need to focus, eh? Three songs in as many months does not make a great band, Jonah. It’s two and a half, really – you need to work on “She Moves”. You need a killer middle eight – not a middle bleugh.’

‘OK.’

It sounded to Scott as though Jonah was standing to attention. He didn’t want to compromise the kid’s confidence. ‘If you can do that,’ he continued, ‘I think “She Moves” might be your best song.’

‘Good enough for the Festival next year?’

‘You never know.’

‘Cool.’

‘Good,’ said Scott. ‘And Jonah – no wine, no women, no weed.’

Jonah’s protestations made Scott smile. The kids were fifteen, sixteen years old and touchingly serious about being the best band Pemberton had ever produced. They themselves decreed no distraction during band practice.

‘I’ll catch up with you next weekend,’ Scott said. ‘We’ll see if you’re ready to do a set at the Pony next month.’

Jonah’s gratitude tumbled out unchecked.

‘I have to go,’ Scott interjected. ‘They’ve called my flight.’

An airport terminal filled with all types ready to journey up to the skies and off into the world. Departures and arrivals, bound by time. Suitcases with condensed versions of home crammed inside. Stress and hurry, excitement, irritation, joy and sadness. For Scott, there was music in it all.

* * *

London changes quickly. Very quickly. Transient and restless, buildings and commerce and people are constantly in flux. In and out, up and down and out, at breakneck speed. When she lived there, Frankie saw this as a quality; that the city and its inhabitants were progressive and enterprising, pioneering even, and somehow more alive than in any other city. But that afternoon, the rush and pace seemed to blow through the streets malevolently, scuffing up the debris on the pavements, causing pedestrians to rustle against each other as if an ill wind was to blame. When she’d lived in London, Frankie had fed off the brittle energy. Now, back again, she felt bulldozed by it. Only nine months away from it all, suddenly she was the country mouse who didn’t know the etiquette of pavement pacing or jaywalking or cramming oneself into the nooks of a crowded underground carriage. She was walking and walking and not seeming to get anywhere. She was the foreigner now, the stranger in town – returning to a city inhabited by a multinational cabal in a self-centred rush. If Alice ever gave her the chance, she had a series planned for older readers called The Metromorph. As she melded herself into a space amongst the throng in the underground, she scrabbled around in her head and focused on the ideas she’d stored rather than the smells permeating from all those bodies.

A passenger standing right by her spat on the floor. She thought of Annabel and Sam and Norfolk and felt a pang for what was now home. She thought of the sea, the briny mass that had in recent months benevolently pushed its energy right into her when she stood at its edge. She thought of the oversized sky that seemed to brag and boast its extravagant cloud formations by day and its effervescence of stars at night. It was a well-known joke, to say that Norfolk people had ‘too much sky’ as if it wasn’t good for them. Just then, in the choke of human gridlock, Frankie couldn’t disagree more. She didn’t hate London, she’d been born and bred there. But for the first time she felt truly confident in her decision to leave.

And that’s why, when Scott touched her arm and said excuse me – can you help – I guess I’m a little lost, Frankie turned to him and, with some pride, said sorry, I’m not from around here either.

The publishers had cake and compliments laid out and called her Frankie Darling all afternoon. She lied through mouthfuls of gateaux and brushed away the reality of her Writer’s Block as though it was just cookie crumbs. Oh yes, the new book is coming on just fine – you’re going to love it – I think it may even be my best yet.

‘Alice,’ Frankie told everyone, ‘is on top form. She’s having a blast.’

The Alice books had been the company’s biggest children’s seller in the age range last year and Frankie had been twice nominated for the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. She was truly their golden girl but oh, the frustration of this particular author refusing to divulge the teeniest clue about the new book. Come on Frankie Darling – give us a snippet.

In between meetings, Frankie sat in her editor’s office and the two of them swivelled rhythmic half-circles on the office chairs.

‘You seem a little – out of sorts – darling. And you keep ignoring my calls.’

Frankie looked up sharply, off her guard and on the defensive. Though she was aware that she had a duty to reveal just how acute her Writer’s Block was, suddenly she felt ill prepared and reluctant.

‘I’m fine! Honestly!’

‘I think I know what’s wrong,’ Michael told her. ‘I think I know. We’ve known each other many years, Frankie. I can see you so clearly sitting at your kitchen table, or gazing out of windows for hours on end wondering what you’re going to do, how to tell people, worrying about what everyone will say. I’ve guessed. I know.’

‘She’s lost,’ Frankie mumbled. ‘I haven’t seen her – for weeks.’

There was a pause. ‘Sorry?’

‘I can’t find her. It’s like she’s run away.’

‘Run away? Who?’ Michael was used to his authors darting off at tangents only to reappear halfway through internalized conversations. He’d found it was usually best to carry on regardless. ‘Do you remember when I split up with Gerry and moved to Surrey? All my high hopes that Chobham was the centre of the universe and the answer to all my problems? Pretty quickly I hated it, yearned for London. And Frankie – Norfolk’s far more remote.’ He looked at her kindly. ‘No one will think any less of you if you come back to town.’

It wasn’t about Alice.

This wasn’t about Alice at all.

And she thought, Alice – that’s one lucky escape we’ve just had.

‘And Frankie,’ Michael said, ‘about Alice – I really do want to see something soon. We don’t even have a title.’

* * *

Michael’s words reverberated in Frankie’s ears as she elbowed her way into the underground, trying not to breathe in the swarm of the rush hour as the train lurched and rumbled on its way. Stop start stop start; more people oozing into a carriage now devoid of personal space. God this journey was far more stressful than belting to school late again. Mr Mawby loped slowly into Frankie’s mind’s eye and the image soothed her. Mr Mawby and his tractor; a man whose working day was long and constant but somehow conducted at a pace that was as dignified as it was productive. He didn’t strike her as the type of worker who missed deadlines, unlike most of the stressheads in this carriage. He called her children Brocky and Emma Belle and he’d extended them his gruff welcome from the start, letting them sit in his tractor and swing on the creaky gate and climb the straw bales that surrounded his precious sugar-beet heaps in the autumn. She ought to make more of an effort, really; find the time to pass the time with a little chat now and then. She’d only ever seen Mrs Mawby from a distance, a rather lonely sight standing on the doorstep of their somewhat plain farmhouse surrounded by barns and outbuildings in harsh corrugated steel. What would Mr Mawby make of the rush hour? And Frankie thought he’d probably just laugh and denounce it as a load of old squit.

Thoughts of Norfolk provided a surprising and welcome steadiness to the rest of the journey and now here’s the hotel, a stunning exposition of expensively understated design. They’ve upgraded her to a junior suite and all is suddenly very good with the world. She can have a bath free of soap-scum tidal marks and swathe herself in cloud-soft towels.

And in the foyer, reading his book over a coffee, Scott thought: that’s the woman I saw earlier, who didn’t know her way either. Well what do you know – this town isn’t so big after all.

He watched as she left the front desk, her head tipped back to take in the soaring triple-height atrium, almost tripping over her feet in the process. He saw how she was grinning at everything. It made him smile and, just for a moment, Scott felt something intense and forgotten, a sensation that flipped his stomach and dried his mouth. He couldn’t remember if the feeling was welcome or a warning. And then he thought, for Chrissake, just quit the contemplation and go walk up an appetite instead.

As lovely as her room was, there was only so much daydreaming Frankie could do out over gracious buildings to the Thames in its timeless flow beyond. She’d assessed all the dinky little miniatures bejewelling the interior of the minibar, eaten half a jar of caramelized nuts, put a selection of the toiletries into her bag for Annabel and flicked through all the TV channels finding nothing to watch. There wasn’t anything on the room-service menu she fancied and, though she contemplated the snowy towelling robe and complimentary slippers, it wasn’t even six o’clock and she couldn’t possibly get ready for bed. It would be slightly pathetic. Maybe she’d go for a stroll and find somewhere for sushi. Maybe. And on her way, she’d go and have a cocktail, a grown-up drink at the bar downstairs, that’s what she’d do.

But there was an art to sitting nonchalantly at a bar on one’s own. She’d seen other women do it, admired and envied them, but whenever she tried it, she hated it. She’d simply felt awkward and conspicuous, sensing she was being stared at and then realizing no one was remotely interested at all. A clash of feeling exposed and feeling invisible, neither of which was good for the self-esteem. But the Cosmopolitan she’d hastily ordered arrived before she could cancel it so she drank it down as if it was Ribena and then walked over to the vast console table loaded with magazines and newspapers, for something to take up to her room. And coming back into the hotel having walked up an appetite, Scott thought, she’s there again – that girl from before, and from before that. He thought to himself, once upon a long time ago, I knew how to do this because I used to do it a lot. I went up to women in hotels and bars. The antidote to boredom and aloneness. I knew all the steps of the mating dance; the perfunctory drink and small talk – the predictable prelude to sex and then dumb sleep.

Scott stopped. He looked at the bar area, noted a couple of women sitting alone exuding the telltale signs of confident expectation. Then he looked over to the lost girl from before, currently scratching the back of one leg with the foot of her other. That sensation accosted him again, like a zip being pulled sharply from inside. It was easy enough to walk past the bar with those slightly predatory sure-things because he just wasn’t interested. But the girl who intrigued him still standing like a flamingo? There were hot coals underfoot if he wanted to go that distance. Why should it make him smile that she appeared to be rearranging the hotel’s magazines? And now that he was so close, what actually was he going to do? He couldn’t even figure out what he was thinking about, let alone what it was he wanted to happen.

‘Excuse me,’ he said to the back of her head, ‘I think I’m a little lost.’

Frankie turned. She thought – I know you, don’t I? Perhaps I don’t.

‘Hi,’ he said.

‘Hello?’

‘The Underground Tube?’ he prompted.

His clumsy terminology made her laugh and she did remember him, the man who’d momentarily infiltrated the protective bubble she’d put around herself earlier that day. The man she’d said she couldn’t help. And here he was again. Well there’s a thing! Somehow, they’d both made their way through a day and across the metropolis to arrive right here at the same time. Lost in the city and yet serendipity had given them a map to do with as they pleased.

‘I’m sorry,’ Frankie said with a glint, ‘I’m not from round here.’

He liked her wry smile. It dimpled one cheek. There goes the zip again, catching his breath, tying his tongue.

His silence and his gaze disconcerted her a little. Perhaps he didn’t realize she was only repeating her words from earlier. Perhaps he hadn’t remembered them. Maybe she’d just said something that actually sounded idiotic.

‘Are you really lost?’ she asked him. ‘Here? It’s just I couldn’t even find the lifts before – they’re tucked away, over there, behind those massive urn-things. I couldn’t even locate the slot in the door for my keycard.’

And there they stood, chuckling slightly awkwardly while focusing excessively on the oversized furni-sculpture which had hidden the lifts and broken the ice – two huge hammered pitchers spewing bamboo poles of enormous lengths and staggering girths.

‘I’m not lost,’ Scott said.

‘Oh good,’ said Frankie. ‘I’m pleased for you.’ She cringed at her response and thought it best to turn her attention back to the magazines, to think about the bath and the towels and not this man with the nice smile and the this-way-that-way hair.

‘So – I don’t know a soul. But I saw you and I just got thinking –’ He shrugged. ‘You know?’

And all they could do next was stand there, side by side, looking intently at The Times, the Guardian, the Washington Post, Bild and Le Figaro as they wondered what to say next. Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair, Country Life and the copy of Grazia Frankie had had her eye on.

‘I’m Scott,’ he said eventually.

‘I’m Frankie,’ she said.

They looked up from the papers. She offered her hand and he shook it.

‘Nice to meet you.’

Life had been uncomplicated over recent years, Scott had made a point of it. It’s how he liked it; the gains being far greater than anything he’d had to forfeit to achieve it. What he had just done surprised him, what he was about to do surprised him more.

‘I was going to have a drink,’ he said. ‘Read my book. Think about eating.’ He paused. ‘Care to join me?’

Frankie didn’t do things like this – say yes to men she didn’t know. She never had because the concept had never appealed. She’d never courted it, never experienced it and always bypassed any such situations. She wasn’t even sure if this man called Scott’s offer was as simple as it seemed. Was it in a code she didn’t know? But actually, it seemed neither clichéd nor calculating. Was there any harm in saying yes? Would she regret saying no? And hadn’t they met already, sort of, before? Why not take it at face value. Perhaps he’d asked because they had something in common; they were both from out of town in a city that was a little too big and busy for them. Face value; she looked at his. A gently awkward smile and dark eyes. Quite handsome, actually. But still, she said to herself, but still.

She glanced down at the magazines, as if the choice was between Scott and Grazia. Kate Moss was on the cover, staring straight at Frankie. Kate Moss appeared to be laughing at her: are you crazy? He’s good-looking, polite and friendly so what are you waiting for? Go girl! Kate told her.

Annabel and Sam, safe at home, having supper around about now.

Alice nowhere to be seen.

All of them, some place other than here.

Here she was, side by side with a man called Scott who’d spoken to her earlier and made her laugh just now, who asked her a question and was shyly waiting for her answer.

‘I could do with the company,’ Scott said.

‘Thank you very much,’ said Frankie, ‘I think I will.’

They sat together a little awkwardly, nodded and smiled, until Scott thought if I don’t say something she’ll change her mind and go.

‘How’s your drink?’

‘Delicious.’ She took a sip as if to make absolutely sure. ‘Cheers.’

‘Cheers – here’s to invisible elevators.’

‘My room was upgraded.’

‘So was mine.’

‘Do you come over from the States often then?’

‘Never,’ Scott laughed. ‘But from Canada – yes, I come every so often.’

Frankie reddened. ‘Sorry – cardinal error.’

‘And you?’

‘I live in Norfolk.’

‘I do not know where that is.’

‘It’s east – by the sea. I used to live in London, though.’

‘It’s a great city – if cities are your thing.’

‘That’s why I moved. They’re not.’

‘I’ll drink to that,’ said Scott, thinking to himself there’s a story there, Frankie.

‘Do you live in a city?’

Scott shook his head and smiled. ‘I live out in the mountains, in BC. In British Columbia.’

Spurts of conversation and steadying sips of their drinks, that’s how they did it. That’s how they relaxed in their chairs and into each other’s company and yes, please – I’d love a bite to eat.

‘I’m a creature of habit,’ Scott told her. ‘I always have steak and fries here. Every day.’

‘That’s not good for you,’ said Frankie.

But Scott laughed. ‘I can think of plenty of things that are far worse.’

‘I’m usually pretty unadventurous. If I’m in a hotel, I mostly get room service.’

‘And here you are having dinner with a stranger.’

She reddened again. He liked that, as if it spoke of honesty.

‘Well, in that case, I’ll go the whole hog and have this.’ She pointed to a dish on the menu. ‘It doesn’t get more daring than ordering a dish I can’t pronounce.’

Suddenly she wanted to text Peta or Ruth to say you’ll never guess what! but her phone was up in the room and, when she thought about it, she liked it that no one had a clue what she was doing at this precise moment. It was liberating and novel. But was he actually chatting her up? Was she flirting back? She wasn’t sure and it didn’t matter. Her drink was delicious, she was hungry, he was handsome, he made her feel lively, effervescent even, and dinner was now served.

‘So what do you do out by the sea that you’re here in London on business?’

Frankie hated that question; it usually led to a barrage of questions she’d had to answer a million times before. And when it was known she was an author of some repute, people changed the way they spoke to her, even looked at her. She became a novelty. She’d never liked that.

‘I’m an accountant,’ she said.

Scott appeared to choke on his drink. ‘Seriously?’

Frankie’s face creased with awkwardness. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I lied.’

‘You lied?’ He tipped his head back and really laughed. ‘Who are you? A spy? Royalty?’

‘I – work in publishing.’

‘What kind of publishing?’

‘Books.’

‘What type of books?’

‘Children’s books.’

‘OK.’ It was the way Scott looked at her, steadily, interested, open. His eyes she’d thought were brown were actually a layered and dark slate-blue. ‘Children’s books,’ he repeated.

‘I write them.’ There you go. That’s me.

He tipped his head to one side. ‘You’re an author?’

‘Yes,’ she shrugged. ‘That’s what I do. What about you?’

Scott appeared to think about this, as if he wasn’t entirely sure. ‘I’m in music.’

‘A musician?’ That was much better than an accountant.

‘Well – I guess.’

‘Are you in a band?’

Scott laughed at the way her face had lit up. ‘No. God no.’

Frankie thought he didn’t really look like a rock star anyway; no piercings, no visible tattoos or rings in the shape of skulls, just a pair of dark jeans, a shirt loose, brown shoes or boots, she couldn’t tell. On looks alone, she’d hazard a guess at university lecturer, or perhaps some outdoorsy career. Close up, there was something rugged and lived in about his face, soft stubble that might be consciously groomed or simply because he had chosen not to shave away from home. The eyes she knew now to be steel-navy; hair in carefree brushstrokes of brown. Well, perhaps once upon a time, he had been in a band. She placed him a little older than her.

‘What do you play?’

‘So – guitar, piano.’ He appeared to be thinking whether he played anything else. ‘Harmonica.’

As he cut into his steak, his reserve struck Frankie. Perhaps her questions were precisely those he tired of too. Perhaps he was wishing he’d told her he was an accountant. She turned to her food. It was just a pasta dish, despite the fancy name. And, on first forkful and to her dismay, speckled with olives.

‘A children’s author,’ he said, chinking his glass against hers.

‘A musician,’ she said, raising her glass to him. ‘What sort of music?’

‘These days, I write for other people mostly.’

He smiled quizzically because she’d balked at that.

‘But isn’t songwriting akin to ghostwriting?’ she asked. ‘Producing work for someone else to claim as theirs and bask in unentitled glory?’

‘Do you only write for the glory?’

And it was then that Frankie experienced an unexpected surge of pure attraction. His sudden bluntness, that he’d challenged her straight, his eyes steady, his smile wry. Actually, she liked it that he wrote music, she liked his face and his hands and that she was here, right now. She liked it that she’d gone ahead and said yes to a drink and to this plate of revolting pasta. She liked his even gaze, that he was focused on her, wanted to know her, wanted her in his evening.

‘No,’ she told him. ‘I don’t write for the glory. In fact, I often feel I’m little more than my characters’ PA. I’m at their mercy, at their beck and call. I take dictation while they tell me their stories.’

He thought about that. ‘I always assumed an author was – I don’t know – like a Master Puppeteer.’

‘Oh blimey no. My characters run rings around me, especially Alice,’ she said darkly.

Scott didn’t know who Alice was. He’d like to know. He’d ask later. It was just that she had a little sauce on her cheek and he was sitting there with an urge to take his finger and wipe it away, to feel how soft her skin was, to touch her. It all felt suddenly a little crazy. He told himself, just eat your steak and talk about books and music. He felt ravenously hungry and yet full.

‘I was in a band,’ he said, ‘in my misspent youth. Nowadays, I hate performing but I love to write music, that’s the sum of it. And you know what, I don’t do so much songwriting these days anyway – I was finding it depressing. The lack of control. I’d put my soul into a song, create something I believed in, something – I don’t know – nourishing. Then the producers change it, fuck with it, manufacture it and before you know it, the stuff the labels churn out is the musical equivalent of fast food. And the kids spend their money on it. It can get a little depressing.’ Scott thought, if Aaron could see me now he wouldn’t believe his eyes or his ears: Scott Emerson actively choosing to be sociable, talking away, engaging with a girl, seeking company and conversation. ‘Mostly these days I write music for movies. That’s why I’m here at the moment – the movie I’m working on has British funding so the music needs to be recorded here for tax breaks.’

Frankie just wanted to listen. ‘You write soundtracks? Wow.’

But Scott just shrugged. ‘And you write books. Double wow.’

‘How many films do you do?’

‘Well, depending on the budget, probably up to four a year.’

‘Do they tell you what they want?’

‘Well, I guess I’m lucky. Mostly I get to work with directors I know, who like my music anyways, who give me the freedom to read the script and interpret it my own way.’

‘You’re really a composer, then,’ said Frankie.

Scott looked a little bashful. ‘Sounds a little grand. I guess so – on paper. But you know there’s a whole department that makes the music happen. The orchestrators, the editors, the producer, the engineers, the music supervisor, the copyist. You know, in a movie if there’s a song you know playing quietly in the background of, say, a scene in a bar – that’s no accident, that’s been sourced very specifically. I’m talking too much.’

‘No you’re not,’ said Frankie quietly.

‘No?’

‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘I spend most of my evenings with people who don’t exist – my characters – so this is welcome. Can I ask you, how do you write, how do you compose?’

He sipped thoughtfully. Usually when he told people what he did they pretty quickly steered the conversation to wanting autographs, even phone numbers, of actors. No one had ever asked him how do you do it, how do you come up with the music, yet it was such an intrinsic part of his life.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ll read the script and see what comes to me – like images or scenes come to you, so tunes come to me. Then, near the final cut, I’ll have a spotting session with the director and producer and we’ll discuss the various cues, then off I go. At that point, it’s probably not dissimilar to you – though the process and the output are different. You probably go about your day with a head full of words and dialogue, eh? So – my head’s full of disparate notes which tumble into melodies, feelings for rhythm, phrasing, which start to steady. Soon as I read a script – I hear it. It’s weird sometimes. Like the music’s already written, already exists out there in the ether, waiting for me to harness it. When I read dialogue something happens – I hear tone of voice in terms of musical tone, a conversation between characters carries melody, cacophony, harmony, dissonance. And I just take it from there, really. I play, I write, I’ll record.’ Surely he was talking too much, surely. But Frankie was alert, her face animated. ‘But like I said, I only play guitar, keyboard – so then my music and my directions are passed on to an orchestrator or an arranger and finally the fixer organizes professional musicians to really spin the magic and give gravitas and meaning to my simple notes.’

‘I never met one of you before,’ Frankie said quietly, with a shy smile.

‘Well, you’re my first children’s author,’ said Scott.

Their eyes locked and silently, they marvelled. Of all the places. It’s here. It’s now.

‘You don’t like your food?’ He noticed she’d hardly touched it.

‘Olives,’ she said darkly, giving an emphatic shudder. ‘It’s full of olives.’

‘Here.’ He loaded his fork with his own food and passed it to her, insisting she try it.

‘You’re right,’ she said, ‘that’s the best steak and fries.’

‘You have mine,’ he said. ‘Please.’ And the creature of habit that’s Scott let his favourite dish go, happy enough to have to eat around the olives himself, happier still to watch Frankie tuck in.

What was that feeling, that zip sensation? A heady chemical misfiring of excitement and unbalance, desire and calm. Chatting girls up in hotels was something he used to do so efficiently he could switch off part of himself in the process. It was a routine, motions, a set pattern that was self-centred and greedy. But the end product was never in doubt. He came, he went. Was that what he wanted tonight? In an hour, or two hours? No, strangely, no. Tonight wasn’t about edging towards something; it was about being in the moment. This wasn’t chatting up some girl, this was talking to a person he wanted to get to know. It was different and new and he wasn’t sure if he was doing it right. What he did know was that he liked her.

‘Norfolk?’ he said, clearing his throat and downing a glass of water. ‘But you once lived here, in the city?’

Frankie dabbed her mouth with the napkin. She’d still missed the little smudge of sauce that Scott had been so taken with earlier. It felt natural, now, to take his napkin and wipe her cheek, smile at the way she was both grateful and a little embarrassed. She called herself a mucky pup.

‘It was a fresh start,’ she said. ‘I wanted a house, not a flat. I wanted space and the sea. I wanted peace, quiet. For my writing. For my children and me. I have two children. Sam – my son – is thirteen. Annabel – my daughter – she’s nine.’ There. That’s me. ‘But actually, it wasn’t just about geography and logistics. I wanted to be gone from what I knew.’ She thought how she’d put into words for Scott something she’d never expressed to anyone else. ‘I’d felt like I was stagnating, time tumbling on with me just rooted to a spot that wasn’t letting me grow. It was like being planted in a barren place.’

Frankie saw him glance at her finger, note there was no ring.

‘I’m a single mum,’ she pre-empted.

‘So that’s a brave thing you did,’ he said and his voice was gentle, ‘finding a new place for you, your kids, on your own?’

She shrugged. ‘Or mad – if you asked my sister Peta.’

‘Frank and Peter?’

‘Peta. Our mother wanted boys.’ She rolled her eyes and Scott really laughed.

‘They see their dad?’

Again, the bluntness, the straightforward question unembellished. It could have sounded impertinent but it didn’t, it came across as thoughtful.

‘Sporadically,’ said Frankie. ‘He’s – unreliable. He’s mostly abroad.’

Scott thought about this and looked steadily at Frankie. ‘Hard on you, hey?’

She laughed that one off. ‘I’m used to it. It’s been a long time. I have a friend who summed up Miles as little more than an annoying fly on the windowpane of my life.’

Scott nodded. They both nodded quietly, then he looked up at her quizzically. ‘She said what?’

Frankie giggled. ‘My friend Kirsty talks a load of old bollocks sometimes.’

Their laughter ebbed away but it left its vestige, like the reprise of a melody remaining in the air long after the song has faded out. Frankie thought, how do we keep this evening going?

‘Room for pudding?’ she said.

‘You betcha,’ he said. ‘Any idea where the washrooms are?’

‘Probably hidden inside a huge column of bamboo.’

She watched him as he went, suddenly surprised by all the action in the busy foyer beyond; guests and their guests and bellboys and bags, the scents and the sounds and the comings and goings amplified by mood lighting and mirrors at strange angles. I am tingling, Frankie thought. It’s all mad and wonderful. A sudden recall of Ruth’s hairdresser randomly telling her it’s the time when you’re not looking that love finds you. Frankie hadn’t looked for ages, years really, because she truly believed the landscape of her life lacked nothing. But tonight? It felt as though her blood was infused with colour and sound and an energy she couldn’t believe was hers.

Just then, in between their plates, on top of a napkin, Scott’s phone beamed into life and right there, between her drink and his, Jenna arrived on the scene like an unwanted guest.

Who’s Jenna?

Frankie deflated. The caller ID photo showed Scott and Jenna, cheek by cheek, cosy in woolly hats and snowy smiles, bathed in togetherness against a stunning winter landscape.

And Frankie thought you stupid idiot – why wouldn’t there be a Jenna? Of course there’s a Jenna.

An utter fool, that’s what she felt. What had she been thinking, ordering a dish with olives when she’d’ve been perfectly happy having that bath with the glass of wine and the free copy of Grazia? Why had she listened to Kate bloody Moss?

‘Hey.’

Scott was back and Frankie thought, why would he be available, someone like him? Of course he’s going to be with a Jenna.

‘Sticky Toffee Pudding,’ he said, passing her the menu. ‘I have it every day.’

‘Your phone – you missed a call.’

Scott checked it. Checked his watch. ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘I have to call home.’

‘And I think I’m going to call it a night,’ Frankie said, folding her napkin precisely. ‘I’m tired.’ She smiled in the vague direction of the lifts. She was standing up and it struck Scott that he really didn’t want her to go. Not just yet.

‘Wait.’

‘Good night,’ said Frankie, moving away, ‘thanks so much for supper.’ But he stood too and put his hand on her arm though she continued to turn.

‘Frankie.’ He caught her other arm. ‘Wait?’ He said it quietly, now searching for what to say next. ‘Look,’ he scratched his head. ‘OK – so here’s a thing. I hate olives too.’ His eyes were coursing her face. ‘It’s just – I wanted you to eat. And I’d really like you to stay.’ He was rubbing the back of his neck now, agitated, frowning a little. ‘Please,’ he said, and he slipped his hand into hers for a moment, ‘please don’t go just yet. But I need to make this call. Please?’

Frankie watched him walk to a quiet corner to make the call back to the smiley Jenna in those picture-perfect Canadian mountains. If Jenna hadn’t called, Frankie would have been none the wiser. She wasn’t sure whether she should hate her or thank her for it. Bubble bath and a glass of wine. Divine hotel linen, a good night’s sleep. That’s what she needed most. Alice was required on parade for her agent tomorrow and it was getting late.

Oh but Scott and his eyes and his mussed hair that she wanted to touch. Scott who could be only one great big transatlantic fuck-up. Scott who she’d happily kiss. It had been so long. She turned and faced their table. Why didn’t she just stop being Frankie and take advantage of one lone night with a man she desired who she’d never see again anyway? For once in her life, why not pack her personality at the bottom of her case and not bring it out until she was back home, nice and private, in Norfolk? Why didn’t she just live a little, switch her mind off and give her body a treat?

But that’s never been me.

No. She’d go to her room.

She turned again, to head to the lifts.

But here’s Scott, back already, happy as you like.

‘That was Jenna,’ Scott said, standing close, eyes refusing to let her go. ‘My daughter.’

* * *

‘My daughter has epilepsy,’ he said. ‘She wasn’t too well last week, she had a pretty big seizure and oftentimes they’re not isolated. So when you told me she’d called –’ He shook his head and Frankie watched him process a parent’s what-ifs quietly to himself.

‘How old is she?’

‘She’s just turned twenty years old. You look surprised,’ he said. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment – I was twenty-five when she was born.’

So he’s four years older than me.

‘Your wife?’

Was there a wife?

‘We split when Jenna was small,’ he said. ‘Really small.’ He paused. ‘She had – has – problems with alcohol. She – Lind – and I were in a band. You know, when there’s music and alcohol and drugs and you’re on the road, that’s just how it is. It’s about dangling yourself off the edge of life just for the heck of it. But those who know it’s mainly bullshit and temporary – they end up like me. Those that don’t – so, they end up like Lind. She wanted to seize the day, I wanted to live for tomorrow. So it’s been just me and Jenna.’ He paused again and regarded Frankie levelly. ‘And it still is.’ He raised his glass. ‘Here’s to single parenting.’

There’s no such thing as soulmates and love at first sight, they both knew that from the experiences that had led to their acceptance that life not in a couple was OK. Really, after all this time, it was fine. Nothing lacking, nothing to be craved. Best for the kids. It is what it is.

But as their eyes locked again for another caught moment, they sensed a surging inevitability that outweighed any cliché of finding each other in a crowded station, any coincidence that had thrown them back together right here and which overruled any tastelessness that the anonymity of a hotel far from home insinuated.

How could a new face be known so well so quickly? It was all unfathomably liberating and dangerous and comforting and nonsensical. In this vast city, in which neither of them lived, they’d managed to meet and somehow they knew they’d now never not know each other.

Frankie scrolled through the photos on Scott’s phone, his face close to hers as if guiding her to see exactly what he saw.

‘So this is Jenna outside her apartment in Whistler which is around fifty minutes from me. You’ve heard of Whistler, right? She has a job there before starting university in Vancouver this fall.’

Frankie enlarged the picture, Jenna and a friend; their arms outstretched, roaring with laughter. She imagined them larking about while Scott had said hey, come on girls – just one picture. Come on – stop goofing. Just smile for your old Pa, will you?

‘And this is my home. I live around twenty minutes from a village called Pemberton.’

Jenna, Scott and a dog. A majestic mountain, its ravines and peaks slashed with snow, fir trees scoring dark trails through its sides, like mascara tears. A broad veranda wrapped around a home made of huge logs set in an extraordinary landscape whose vastness couldn’t be compromised by a phone screen.

Frankie turned to face him. He was very close. Aftershave. A neat nose. Bristles dipping into the vertical laughter lines on his cheeks. Eyes the colour of the rock on that mountain outside his home. ‘Wow.’

‘Pretty much sums up my life, that picture,’ he said.

‘What’s the dog’s name?’ She liked the look of the brown Labrador, he appeared to be grinning.

‘Buddy. He’s a Seizure Alert Dog – and his name fits. He’s older now, a little arthritic. It’s our turn to look after him. Actually, he’s English – he came from this incredible center in Sheffield.’

‘How does he help?’

‘He can sense tiny changes in Jenna’s manner, in her behaviour or mood – sometimes up to fifty minutes before a possible seizure. He’s trained to let her or me know.’

‘Where’s Buddy now, though?’

‘So he’s with Aaron. Here,’ Scott found a picture of Aaron with Buddy in the cockpit of the Cessna. ‘Aaron’s as close as I have to a brother. We grew up together, went to school together and we still live close by. He’s a First Nations man – a native. Aaron’s people are the Ĺíĺwat – they’ve been living in the territory for over five thousand years.’ He observed how intently Frankie was looking at the photo. ‘He’s a crazy, beautiful guy – he has his own plane and runs a skydiving business. He flies me to Vancouver when I have to go abroad.’

‘Does Buddy fly too?’ Frankie hoped he did – there could be a story in that. Buddy Flies to the Rescue, Buddy Takes to the Skies, Buddy and the Eagle’s Nest.

‘Oh sure,’ said Scott, ‘he loves it.’

‘What about when Jenna goes to college – could she take Buddy?’

‘She could – but she won’t. She wants to be seen as normal. She doesn’t like people to know, really. There are still a lot of misconceptions about epilepsy despite the fact that it’s the most common brain disorder worldwide. Unfortunately, we’re still on a bit of an expedition finding the right medication for Jenna. She’s one of the twenty per cent who don’t have much luck on that front.’

Frankie looked at Scott. ‘When Sam was a toddler we were out in the park and a man started having a fit.’ She paused. ‘It frightened me. Somebody else went to his aid.’

‘It is frightening. It still scares the shit out of me and I know how to deal with a seizure.’

Frankie thought of Sam. Taller than her now, his voice swinging from childlike to croaky; a boy-man in the making sometimes battling with himself to figure out if he was to become a rebel or remain a geek. She thought of Annabel with her button nose that was just the same as when she’d been a toddler; a contrary yet thoughtful child with a vulnerability she kept hidden behind liveliness. She thought of how they loved their bedrooms, their things, the chaos and clatter, the tempers and laughter. She’d never had to worry about their health. On those blessed occasions when all went quiet in their rooms, she always thought thank God for that, a moment’s peace.

‘I just can’t begin to imagine,’ she said quietly.

‘Well, my theory is you have to live life to the full, whatever is thrown at you. It’s like a ball game really, keep batting, keep playing, keep believing yours is the winning team.’

‘I like your philosophy, Scott,’ said Frankie. ‘I ought to pin it up on my fridge. Don’t laugh – I’m serious! Authors can be introverted and overemotional souls.’

Scott was grinning. ‘I can’t believe you told me you were an accountant.’ Frankie reddened. He nudged her. She nudged him back. She thought, I’ve just smiled coyly, on purpose. She thought, he’s not letting my eyes go.

But the hotel lobby was emptying. Sharp-suited businessmen, previously lairy, now just dull drunk, slumped around the bar like scrunches of rejected paper at the end of a brainstorm. In a corner, a couple engrossed in a hungry snog, only half-hidden by decorative bamboo. At a neighbouring table, an elderly lady sipping tea as though she’d quite lost sense of what time of day it was. And still Frankie and Scott sat side by side.

‘How long are you staying?’

‘Another night,’ said Frankie. ‘You?’

‘I fly out Sunday afternoon. I’ll have been here a week.’

‘Are you working all that time?’ Shall I say something? Shall I try? ‘Are you working tomorrow?’

‘Yes, I’m in the studio. You?’

‘I have a couple of meetings. Dinner with my agent.’ Try and make it happen. ‘Where’s your studio?’

‘Abbey Road.’

‘Well that’s a good address for a studio,’ said Frankie guilelessly. ‘There’s a world-famous one called just that. The Beatles – the zebra crossing.’

Scott laughed. ‘There’s only one Abbey Road, Frankie.’

‘And you’re there?’

‘British session musicians are the best in the world when it comes to sight-reading and playing to a “click”. I think it’s down to a lack of funding from your government – they have limited rehearsal opportunity. I love working with them.’

‘Do you use the zebra crossing every day?’

‘Oh I try to. Barefoot. Like Lennon. But the tourists get in the way. Reality is I’m inside all the time.’

‘Recording your soundtrack?’

He nodded.

‘Who’s in your film?’

‘Well it isn’t my film – I’ve just written the music. But Jeff Bridges is the lead.’

‘Oh I love him,’ said Frankie, thinking Scott’s modesty was beguiling. ‘And anyway, music is often as much a lead character in a film – like setting can be in a book.’

‘I’ll drink to that,’ said Scott but their glasses were empty and the bar was closed. Only the little old lady remained and she’d just asked for her bill. Scott was brought his though he hadn’t requested it.

They were going to have to go, really.

Frankie wondered, how do we leave these seats, this table, our little corner in which my world expanded? How can we stay in our bubble?

And then, in her mind, she heard Ruth saying go for it! and Peta saying don’t be so stupid.

‘If you get some time tomorrow,’ she said, ‘and I do too – shall we try and meet? Perhaps I could come to The Abbey Road?’ He was just looking at her, not speaking. ‘Or if not there, somewhere?’

‘Anywhere,’ said Scott softly. ‘Why don’t we make it happen, Frankie. Crazy as it sounds.’

* * *

As slowly as they walked across the atrium, soon enough they were behind the huge urns and bamboo, back at the lifts. As they stood waiting, Scott looked down on her head and thought how Frankie would tuck just under his chin. And Frankie glanced sideways at his chest and imagined laying her cheek against it. He had his hands in his back pockets and she wanted to link her arm through his.

Into the elevator, just the two of them. Her mind reeling through a thousand movie scenes of impulsive kisses when the doors slide shut, of fumbling with keys and falling into an anonymous hotel room shedding clothes, broiling with desire.

But Frankie and Scott just stood side by side.

Fifth floor.

‘This is me,’ said Frankie.

‘Tomorrow?’ said Scott.

Frankie tapped her watch. ‘Today.’

And she walked down the corridor on her own aware that, downstairs in the lobby, Kate Moss was still smiling on the magazine table.

Enormously tired. Stratospherically tired but high as a kite. Running that bath, eating chocolates left on the pillow, flicking on the television and zapping through the channels. One two three four five six seven scatter pillows pedantically rearranged at the foot of the bed. Four plump pillows and a waft of duvet enticingly folded back to reveal the downy comfort of a beautifully made bed. So long since she’d felt this wired, this alert, this sentient. So long since she’d had any of these feelings. Longing and kinship and warmth and attraction and wave after wave of desire. Something deep inside had stirred. Over the last few years, it was as if she’d switched off lights from necessity in those rooms within herself that she couldn’t afford to use.

She eased herself down deep into the bath, bubbles up to her chin, the soothe of a thick warm flannel over her face. The plastic shower cap.

If anyone could see me now.

Tomorrow.

Today.

Earlier yesterday.

Later today.

Frankie, says Alice. Who was that? Who was that man, Frankie? Will you write him into your life like you did me?

‘Can we get a rise on the string line?’

All of this was giving Scott a headache. There’d been too many interruptions and the music he’d written for a particular scene sounded all wrong today, with the full orchestra. Yet on first reading of the script three months ago, melodies had sailed through his mind like drifts of overheard conversation. His best work often germinated this way, subliminally almost. But today, though he’d watched the cut over and again all morning and asked the musicians to play it this way, play it that way, the music just didn’t segue. He felt as clumsy and inept as a child furiously hammering at the wrong piece on a shape-sorting toy. The film’s producers were in the studio today, along with the director, the music editor, the fixer and the technicians. Everyone making encouraging noises at Scott despite the stress clearly legible behind their eyes.

‘You’re a perfectionist – it’s why people love working with you,’ one of the producers said. What else could she think of to say? Sometimes she despaired at the amount of soothing flattery and ebullient bullshit her role necessitated when all she wanted to do was shake these creative types – these actors and musicians and directors – and say for fuck’s sake, get over yourselves and do the fucking job we’re paying you a fortune to do. But she’d worked with Scott before and had never known him so discontented. The director himself was concerned too. He’d worked with Scott many times. If previously Scott had struggled and vexed it had always been behind the scenes and out of earshot, before he brought a single sound to the table. He was always so quietly professional and capable, delivering excellent soundtracks on time with no drama whatsoever. Commissioning Scott to score a movie was as easy and satisfying as ordering a takeaway and having it delivered piping hot and utterly delicious exactly when you wanted it.

‘It doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do,’ Scott said quietly. ‘It sounds shit.’

The producer looked at her watch and raised her eyebrow at the director, both of them quietly calculating the cost of the studio against the days they had Scott over here for.

‘You know what? Take time out, Scott. Get out of here – go for a walk, go to London Zoo, go to Harrods or the Tate Gallery, go have a swim or a sleep. Clear your mind, then come back.’

He was watching the scene again.

‘Go for a burger, go to a strip club,’ she said, ‘I don’t know! Go and have a cuppa with the Queen at the bloody Ritz!’

It was three o’clock.

‘You’re fine,’ she said. ‘Go. Jimmy and the guys will have a play with what we’ve got so far. We just have piano this afternoon – you trust Lexi.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Scott and everyone brushed his apology away, relieved to see the back of him as he left the control room for Studio Two.

Midway over the legendary zebra crossing, his phone call to Frankie was finally answered.

‘Hey.’

‘Hello.’

‘Fancy a “cuppa”?’ he asked.

‘You sound like Dick Van Dyke,’ she said.

Scott walked straight past Maison Bertaux, reaching the end of Greek Street and having to ask at the minicab rank where it was. With all the previous talk of the Ritz and royalty, he’d been expecting somewhere grand to shout out to him, not a tiny little patisserie tucked behind a simple blue-and-white awning. However, once inside, the opulence of the pastries on display and the complex fragrances – fruit, vanilla, chocolate, baking – elevated the café beyond its modest setting.

Frankie had said on the phone that she’d find a table, now all he had to do was find her. Up the narrow crookedy stairs he went, wondering whether the café suddenly increased on the first floor, wondering if he’d have to negotiate white-clothed tables and velvet-backed chairs and little old ladies sipping their Darjeeling behind mountains of scones. But no. Just Formica tables and mismatched chairs jigsawed into a confined space. And there, in the corner, Frankie.

‘Hey.’

‘Hello.’

If he could have teleported himself to the studio right then, the whole movie could be note-perfect in the time it was taking Frankie to move her bag so that he could sit next to her. He marvelled at the madness of all of this. This place. Her smile. A cuppa. Little over twenty-four hours ago, he had no idea she existed. All these resurfacing feelings swirling and sweet as the cream and fondant on the trays of cakes downstairs.

‘You can’t work on an empty stomach,’ she said. ‘I’ve taken the liberty of ordering a selection of cakes.’ He wasn’t saying much. ‘Did you want coffee? I ordered tea for us. Is this place OK for you?’

The rickety chair and narrow table, peculiar art-college paintings on the walls, his knee touching hers, their arms a hair’s breadth apart. This place was perfect.

‘Tea’s just fine,’ he said.

‘Say – a cuppa.’

‘A cuppa.’

‘Sorry – I shouldn’t laugh.’

‘I like it that you do.’

A pot of tea, milk in a jug, cups and saucers and a plate of cakes in front of them. The two of them took it all in.

‘How’s your day been?’ Scott asked, nodding for Frankie to pour.

She tilted her hand this way, that way. ‘Arduous,’ she said. In each of her meetings, she’d sensed Alice beside her, protesting. You’re fibbing, Frankie – you’re a fibber – you haven’t written me a story at all.

‘How so?’

Scott watched her redden a little as she fumbled in her bag. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘I brought you this.’

‘Alice and the Ditch Monster,’ he read before flipping through the pages, lingering over the illustrations, charmed. He looked at Frankie’s author portrait in the back when her hair had been longer and it had been winter, by the looks of her turtleneck sweater. He read the dedication in the front. For Sam who’s braver than brave. Scott felt overwhelmingly proud of her. He turned to her. ‘Wow.’

She shrugged. ‘It’s just what I do,’ she said. ‘I’m not very good at much else.’ Adrenalin suddenly soured the tea.

‘You OK?’

‘I can’t write.’ She couldn’t look up either.

‘But by the looks of this – you can.’ Scott dipped into the book again. ‘Look at all these reviews. Prizes too.’

‘I can’t write just now,’ she whispered. She looked ashamed and it upset him.

‘How long?’

‘Months.’

He thought about it. ‘Anyone know?’

‘The children. My sister.’ She glanced up. ‘You.’

He speared a glazed raspberry from the tart, scooped crème pâtissièrre over it and handed her the fork.

‘I’ve been there, Frankie. I spent six months sitting under my piano, freaking out while everyone thought I was composing. A few years back – but the fear, the shame, is still vivid.’

She’d slumped a little. Gently, he nudged her. ‘It passes. Talent like yours? It evades you from time to time, for sure – but you’ll always have it.’

‘How did you get through it?’ Her eyes had gone glassy. He liked it that he knew exactly what she was feeling.

‘I drank a lot of caffeine,’ Scott laughed. ‘Then I gave it up completely. I tried Valium at night and beta blockers during the day. I got angry. I got sad. I broke a guitar. Two, actually.’

‘I just chew pencils and stare at nothing in particular.’

‘Probably cheaper – but not healthier.’

‘I am genuinely scared, not least because of the state of the industry. With all the discounting and cheap or free downloads, publishers are paying their authors less and less. A wonderful writer I know has had her advance cut by half. She feels decimated.’

‘I can understand that. It’s been the same in the music industry.’

‘But what if I can’t write at all, ever again? I’m the sole provider for my little family. What if that was it – my quota of books?’

It felt to Scott as if Frankie’s eyes were clinging to his for reassurance. ‘Has something happened?’

‘Not that I can pinpoint.’

‘But you’ve had all this upheaval – moving home. Don’t be hard on yourself.’

‘It feels utterly self-indulgent to give myself slack.’

‘I know. I felt that too.’

And it struck Frankie that Scott wasn’t saying any of this simply to cajole her into getting on with it, the way she anticipated her publishers might. It seemed he truly understood and more than that, he cared.

‘Tell me about Alice,’ he said, pouring more tea, reaching for the milk at the same time as Frankie, their fingers touching, their eyes connecting, time stopping.

‘Alice?’

‘Don’t say it like that – like you blame her. Tell me about the Alice you know.’

Frankie thought about her and suddenly felt a little contrite, as if she’d been impatient with a child who was irritating simply by being a child, just a little kid.

‘She’s a monkey,’ she smiled. ‘She lives in the countryside outside a village called Cloddington and, at the bottom of her garden where the hedge grows thatchety and the ditch is dank, He lives.’

Scott smiled. The colour was starting to come back to her cheeks and her eyes glinted. ‘The ditch dude?’

Frankie nodded.

‘Is he a euphemism? Did you consign your ex to a life in a quagmire?’

Frankie laughed, she really laughed. ‘Miles? Oh God – I wouldn’t dignify him with life in a ditch! I wouldn’t enlarge his sizeable ego with a character based on him. Actually, Miles is just Miles, a law unto himself. For one so smooth he has a lot of rough edges but he’s just Miles. Frustratingly, maddeningly Miles.’

‘You been apart long?’

That direct bluntness again. ‘Far longer than we were ever together.’

‘So if the ditch guy isn’t Miles, who is he?’

Frankie grinned. ‘He’s not anyone I know. He’s lovely – in a slightly unnerving way – a contradiction between being inept and clumsy but sensitive and gentle. He’s hideously ugly but really rather beautiful. He helps Alice and she helps him right back.’

‘Is he an imaginary friend?’

Frankie shook her head earnestly. ‘No. He isn’t. He’s real. But only Alice knows about him.’ She thought about it. ‘You could say they have a co-dependent relationship.’

‘One of those, hey?’ Scott said darkly but with a wry smile. ‘And Alice herself?’

‘Alice is Alice,’ Frankie said.

‘She’s not Annabel?’

Frankie shook her head.

‘Your artwork is gorgeous,’ Scott said. Confident, quirky line drawings bloomed over with washes of watercolour. ‘Is she always this age?’

Frankie nodded. ‘Ten-ish.’ She glanced at her drawing. She didn’t see it as being from her hand. It was just Alice, clear to her as a photo.

‘If Alice had a favourite song – what would it be?’

Frankie had never thought about it. ‘I don’t know.’

White chocolate striating the strawberries on crème pâtissière, atop a biscuit base. She loaded a fork and passed it to Scott. ‘Her favourite song would be – oh God, if I’m honest, most likely something by One Bloody Dimension.’

‘You know it’s Direction, right?’

‘I know – I like winding Annabel up. I reckon Alice is the same.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ Scott said quietly, opening the book and reading. ‘I reckon the guy in the ditch – he’s been around. I reckon he’s seen the Stones, Dylan, the Byrds. In fact, there were plenty of folk at Woodstock who looked pretty much like him. But I’d say he keeps Alice balanced – culturally. Those times when they’re not solving mysteries or saving the day – when they’re just at the end of the garden shooting the shit – I’ll say they talk about music and he steers her straight, eh.’

‘Are you saying there’s stuff about Alice I don’t know?’

Scott shrugged. ‘Maybe. You’re the secretary remember, not the puppeteer. Imagine what goes on behind your back. Imagine that.’

Frankie looked so shocked it made him smile. He split the gateau in two. ‘Why don’t you try to find out? You talk about her like she’s real – which I don’t doubt. But seems to me perhaps when you’re writing you lose sight of that.’ He ate cake and read on, quietly. ‘Seems like she’s a really nice kid,’ he said.

‘She is,’ Frankie said.

‘And Annabel?’ Scott said. ‘And Sam?’

Out came Frankie’s phone and a guided tour pictorially through her children’s lives.

‘How have they handled the move – to Norfolk?’

Frankie looked through the pictures of her children. ‘Oh well, Annabel could run the country tomorrow,’ she told Scott. ‘But Sam – he’s getting there. It’s been harder for him – less of an adventure, more of a disruption. He left his pals, a school he liked, an area he knew. He’s settling now – but there were a few hiccups to start with, a couple of occasions when he skipped school.’

‘Where did he go?’

‘He came home.’

‘But he knew you’d be there, right?’ Frankie nodded and Scott weighed it up. ‘So he’s happy at home?’

She looked at Scott. ‘He’s happiest at home. He likes to think of himself as the man of the house.’

A fresh pot of tea was ordered. The other tables emptied and refilled, not that Frankie or Scott noticed. They talked easily, eagerly and relaxed into the affable pauses in between. For all the sharing and conversation, it was privately and shyly that they revelled in each other’s physical proximity. It confronted her how the man she’d given relatively short shrift to at the station yesterday, the same man in whose company she’d felt herself unfurl during an evening she wished was longer, who’d caused her heart to race in the lift and who’d whorled his way through her sleep, was today someone known to her and trusted. Since yesterday, he’d undoubtedly become the most handsome man she’d ever met but it was the fact that she knew him, that she was herself with him, which thrilled her most.

‘Do you have to go back to the studio?’

‘Yes.’ He rubbed his eyes.

‘Not a good session so far?’

He pushed the crumbs on his plate into an S. ‘I have the music – but today, in the studio, with everyone there, it’s not right.’

‘Your music?’ Frankie asked. ‘Or the way it’s being played?’

‘If I say the latter, do I sound like a jerk?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s personal – I get that.’

And Scott sensed that she did.

‘Do you have to go back there soon?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘More cake?’

‘No – thank you.’

‘More tea?’

‘Sure.’

‘Say cuppa.’

‘Cuppa.’

The tea was now lukewarm but it didn’t matter. They put their cups down at the same time, Scott’s shirtsleeve just touching Frankie’s arm, their hands so close. If he didn’t do it now, he might never. So he did. He moved his little finger the short but loaded distance until it touched Frankie’s. She linked hers around his, like those symbolic promises she used to make in the playground with her best friends. Scott and Frankie regarded their entwined fingers and looked at each other and gently placed their heads together and, while Frankie closed her eyes, Scott brushed his lips against her forehead. A kiss without being a kiss.

‘Will I see you?’ she asked.

‘Of course,’ he said.

‘Not just later today – but will I see you? After? Again?’

‘Without a doubt.’

‘It’s all a bit – mad – really.’ She rested her head lightly against his shoulder.

‘It’s crazy, Frankie. It’s insane.’ He paused. ‘But I like it.’

‘I do too.’

Her agent appeared to know most of the other diners in the restaurant so Frankie had to smile a lot whilst fretting at the time this was adding to the evening. In the studio, Scott was utterly wrapped in his music; coasting on the vibrant energy from his afternoon with Frankie and all the Maison Bertaux calories. Why stop now? he said to the engineer – let’s get this down. When he worked like this, hours polarized into mere moments. It was two in the morning when he arrived back at the hotel. The bar area was closed and, though he wondered whether Frankie might pop out from behind a giant urn, she didn’t. He checked his phone. They’d spoken earlier – she’d ducked out of the restaurant telling him her agent was ordering a second bottle of wine but she should be back by eleven. At the time, Scott said he didn’t think he’d be much longer either. And, until he looked at his watch on leaving the studio, he genuinely thought he hadn’t been. Jubilance and frustration hand in hand. What a day.

So sorry – I’m only just back and I guess you’re asleep. Scott x

Frankie read the message and wondered what to do. It was the early hours and she’d woken with a start, reaching blearily for her phone. In the vast bed, in a froth of Egyptian cotton, she thought and thought until she infuriated herself. She could text back. She could pad off along corridors in the complimentary slippers, holding up the voluminous towelling robe like a ballgown. And then what? Knock on his door, wake him? Stand there, the both of them, with expectation oozing from one to the other. What would he do? Pull her towards him, shut the door behind them, tug her belt loose so the robe fell open, slip his hands inside to find her body, find her lips and sink his mouth against hers. Then what? Fumble and fondle over to the bed and fall together in a writhe of lovemaking. This is what she wanted and she didn’t doubt he wanted it too. But what would it be at this time of night? Sex for the sake of it because she was leaving tomorrow?

And it’s stupid o’clock.

Frankie switched the light off and settled back into the darkness.

Not now, Scott.

But if not now – then when?

Scott woke early and he thought, she’s going today. He thought, it’s Thursday and that’s that – Frankie’s going home. Suddenly he wanted to be home too, not on his own here, negotiating the pace of London, working peculiar hours, living in a hotel, eating too much red meat and spending too much time indoors. He wanted to be sitting at his favourite spot on the Lillooet River, with Aaron and Buddy and a couple of beers. The rivers and creeks had recently turned a milky eau-de-nil colour, the glacial silt causing the change and heralding summer until the rain run-off turned the waters clear again in November. What’s the sea like, near Frankie’s place in Norfolk? What colour are the rivers there? Where can you fish? Who do you come across, whose landscape do you share? Eagles and otters, beavers, bears?

He left the bed and walked across to the window, looking down to the street five floors below, the besuited hurrying to work, their stress palpable. If this were a scene for a movie, he’d underscore it with a fidget of bickering strings and just the occasional soft melodious piano trying to establish a refrain for the pedestrian walking slowly, mindfully, against the commuting surge. He turned his back on the day and sat down on the sofa, switching the television on and a few moments later, off again. He checked his phone.

Morning!

She’d sent it an hour ago. He phoned Reception. Had she checked out? No Mr Emerson, she has not.

He left his room on the fifth floor and walked along the corridor to hers. Funny how he hadn’t wanted her to know he was on the same floor, that first night. Yes, his heart had pounded in the elevator, the air between them thick and heady with attraction and desire. But something had told him to slow down, to give grace to what was growing so fast. He hadn’t wanted the premature pressure of your room or mine; for the first time in a long time, his head was steady over his heart, his cock. That night had been too good, had had such a novel impact, he hadn’t wanted to sully it with how things used to be. Standing there, outside her door, he thought back to how he’d let her leave then had to ride up before returning down to the fifth.

Quiet Please.

She’d hung the sign on the door. He could do quiet. It was a trait of his personality that most saw as a quality though it frustrated the hell out of all his exes. He knocked gently.

And Frankie thought, Scott?

The door opened and Scott thought Christ alive, the sun really does come out when that girl smiles. And Frankie simply thought it’s him, he came.

‘Good morning sir.’

‘Morning.’

‘Did you want to come in? It’s a bit of a mess.’

No it wasn’t. Her room was tidier than his. Funny how rooms which are identical can be so different. Same curtains, same furniture, same orchid, same grainy black-and-white artsy photographs, same background whir from the minibar. Yet Frankie’s room was distinct; it was the same when Jenna was at home with him – a space personalized and warmed, made smaller yet fuller by a feminine energy. He glanced around. Perhaps it was the Converse trainers placed neatly just under the chair. Or the way her belongings were in a tidy pile on the coffee table. A drift of perfume, maybe. He didn’t know, really, and it didn’t matter anyway because as he sat on the sofa he felt this was as good as being in her living room in Norfolk.

‘Coffee? Does your room have a Nespresso machine?’

He laughed. ‘Think you’re special?’

‘Aren’t I?’

‘No – I mean yes. And yes – to coffee.’

‘Have you had breakfast?’

‘No.’

‘You can have the rest of the jelly beans from the minibar.’

Scott laughed. ‘Makes a change from granola.’

As Frankie made coffee, she thought about how Scott laughed so easily. She didn’t think herself a particularly funny person, it wasn’t any staggering wit on her part that made it happen. A gentle sound, deep and genuine, like an oversized soft chuckle. It struck her that Scott was a man who was alert for the happy in life and it was a quality that had its attractive physical manifestation in the laughter lines around his eyes.

‘Here you are.’

‘Thank you.’

‘When are you leaving for work?’ she asked.

‘Well – soon, really.’ He looked at her, sitting in the armchair just like the one in his room; hugging a scatter cushion, not drinking the coffee she’d made, her legs curled under, her hair loose with a bedhead kink to one side. ‘And you? When do you check out?’

‘In about an hour.’

They thought about that.

‘That’s too bad,’ said Scott.

‘I know,’ she said quietly.

‘I fly home Sunday.’

‘I know.’

And she thought to herself, over the sea and far, far away. Insanity. She stood up and crossed over to the window, gazing down on the irritable heave of rush hour outside, mercifully silent five floors up.

‘So glad I don’t work in a job like that in a place like this.’ He was behind her. Right behind her. His chin just perceptible against the top of her head, his body very nearly against hers.

‘Me too,’ said Frankie and she leant back just slightly until she felt him there. His arms encircled her, his lips pressed against her neck; she had only to turn just a little to kiss him.

‘Is this just crazy?’ she whispered.

‘Crazy not to,’ he whispered back and kissed her again, deeper and for longer.

On the train to King’s Lynn, just pulling out of Liverpool Street station, her head against the window, Frankie’s journey back to her life began. As the train moved, a completely new emotion swept through her; a swirl of euphoria and desolation. She was on her way home and soon, he would be too. To Canada. Would that she had never met him?

The train jolted and stopped. Started, slunk along, juddered, stopped again. Eventually, the tannoy crackled then went quiet, hissed again – then nothing. It was as if the driver had thought better of it. Now at a standstill in nondescript countryside, Frankie recalled how it was a journey like this when she’d first met Ruth. They’d been sitting opposite each other. Tall and elegant with her hair in the sleekest bobbed haircut, like varnished ebony. On looks alone, Frankie had the idea for a character, even more so when the woman called the train line bastards and buggers and for fuck’s sake just bloody get a move on you sods.

‘You speak my language,’ Frankie had said and when it transpired Ruth had a son Annabel’s age and a younger daughter and lived not too far from Frankie, the basis for friendship was formed

‘What do you do? That you travel from London to Lynn?’

‘I write,’ said Frankie. ‘And you?’

‘I teach Alexander Technique.’

‘Is that when you’re meant to walk with a penny between your bum-cheeks and a pile of books on your head?’

How Ruth had laughed. ‘No – but that’s how our grandmas were taught to walk, nice and ladylike,’ she’d said. Somehow, she’d detected that Frankie suffered headaches. ‘Come to me for a few sessions,’ she said. ‘Mate’s rates.’

Scott. What just happened? And what could happen next? Suddenly it struck Frankie that she wanted Ruth to know.

I met a man. Like no other.

Ruth phoned her immediately.

‘There are only clichés to describe it. What he’s like. I’m a bloody writer and I can’t do better than Love at first sight.’

‘But actually, you can’t do better than Love at first sight,’ Ruth laughed down the phone. ‘What could beat that? I have to see you!’

Frankie gazed out of the window again. The landscape was now passing by fast in a blur. When did the train pick up speed? When did the points change? When did they get so far from London, so close to King’s Lynn? Reality felt suddenly distorted. However present and alert, alive and sentient she’d felt in London, actually she was hurtling back to the real Frankie – Norfolk and children, the house that leaked and page after page of bare paper devoid of all trace of Alice.

‘Don’t let him leave before you’ve seen him again,’ Ruth said. ‘You can’t let him go just because of clichés and complications.’

‘Canada is a pretty big complication,’ Frankie said.

‘Rubbish,’ said Ruth so passionately that it struck Frankie she ought to believe her.

‘I have to go – the train is pulling in to Lynn.’

‘I’ll be phoning you later,’ said Ruth.

Her mother had cleaned the fridge though Frankie had cleaned it the day before she left. Her mother had also reorganized its contents. It was a typical gesture that could be interpreted one way or the other and responded to graciously or defensively. Her mother had gone by the time Frankie arrived home yet she didn’t know whether to be relieved or affronted.

Mum. Mother. Mother dear. Having a sparse relationship with your mother was as complex as having an overinvolved one. Would Annabel some day feel as distant from Frankie as Frankie felt from Margaret?

She left the kitchen and went to the children’s rooms. The beds were made and it was a stark sight. The children never made their beds until, bizarrely, they were just about to get into them each evening. She cast an eye over the bathroom. Sam had obviously had a wee and forgotten to flush. Margaret was obviously making a point by leaving it for all to see – though she’d picked up towels, wiped the basin and hung a damp flannel over the tap. Frankie thought of Peta’s boys and she wondered why her mother never passed comment on their bedroom walls festooned with semi-naked women, their floors obliterated with piles of dirty clothes. Neither Peta nor Frankie could work that one out at all.

She checked her phone. Nothing. She made a call.

‘I’m home and it’s very quiet.’

‘I’m in the studio,’ said Scott. ‘Listen.’

‘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 book.’

‘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, sweetie. 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.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘I don’t know,’ Sam said, as if it was preposterous.

‘What’s Dom’s surname?’

‘Massey.’

‘I’ll give Mrs Massey a ring, then.’

‘Unless she’s a single mum with a different surname,’ said Annabel. ‘Like you.’

But Mrs Massey told Frankie to call her Sarah and assured her it would be a pleasure for Sam to stay.

‘Maybe Dom would like to come over to ours one day,’ Frankie said to Sam.

‘Cool,’ said Sam, settling down on the couch. ‘Simpsons!’ he called to his family and they gathered together next to him, and did what they did so well, with Frankie in the middle.

‘I love this one.’

‘Me too.’

‘Marge! She’s my role model you know.’

‘She has better hair than you, Mum.’

I’m going!

Ruth was the first person Frankie wanted to tell.

FanTASTic! Ruth texted back.

You coming? Scott texted Frankie.

Yes. Frankie texted back.

‘Mummy! Put your phone down.’

There had been a time, after university and once she’d landed her first job at a greetings-card company, when Frankie aspired to living in Hampstead. It seemed such a perfect place: slightly bohemian, still villagey, up high as if it had cleaner air than the rest of London. She’d gaze at the buildings and imagine herself ensconced in basement flats or up in attics – all bare floorboards and faded kilims, old tub chairs, iron bedsteads and little framed engravings of the same streets in Victorian times. But she’d never been able to afford to rent and, when a decade later a healthy advance on her Alice books could have supported a debilitating mortgage for somewhere tiny around Parliament Hill, Hampstead had changed anyway.

Around that time Peta married and moved there. Frankie had gently envied her until, before long, there was a general exodus of everything unique in the area. Quirky boutiques were seen off by upmarket clothing chains, little delis replaced by pricey generic ones, humble cafés and the occasional corner shop swallowed up by each and every coffee company. But still, above eye level, the windows and chimneys and brickwork and roofs of the beautiful buildings remained unaltered. And, Frankie had to admit, a visit to Whistles or Karen Millen for first time in nine months was attractive. She could stock up on jeans and tops for the kids from Gap and then pop across to Waterstones to check stock levels of her books after which a frappuccino might be in order.

Peta’s house had changed since Frankie had last visited.

‘Grey,’ Peta explained. ‘Actually – greige. It’s all about greige these days.’

‘Where are the menfolk?’

‘Philip’s at bloody work – of course – and the boys are at athletics. They’ll be home soon.’ Peta smiled at Annabel. ‘They’re looking forward to seeing you.’

Annabel rolled her eyes at her mother and, for a moment, Frankie was sure she was going to say bloody thugs. But then again, Peta would probably concur.

‘Take your stuff upstairs and freshen up – I’ve made us a light lunch.’

Frankie poked her head around the door to the smallest spare room to find Annabel staring at the bed.

‘Auntie Peta always puts this doll and this teddy out for me,’ she told her mum.

‘That’s because she’s thoughtful,’ said Frankie. ‘She has a soft spot for you because you’re a gorgeous girl and not a monstrous boy.’

‘I think I’d probably rather have stayed at home though,’ said Annabel. ‘What with you going out and everything.’

Frankie thought about it. ‘But Auntie Peta has planned popcorn and chocolate and a DVD just for the both of you. Also she has much better nail varnishes than me.’

‘Listen!’

The house appeared to shake.

‘It’s only Stan and Josh,’ Frankie said.

‘Do you think they’ll talk to me?’

‘Think of it as a mercy if they don’t,’ Frankie laughed.

‘Do you think Sam’s OK?’

Frankie looked at her watch. ‘The match’ll be under way.’

‘Don’t you think it’s odd – not being the three of us?’

Frankie nodded. ‘It is odd. But it’s also normal for there to be times when we have to do – our own things.’

‘I don’t have my own things to do,’ said Annabel crossly. ‘I just have to follow.’

‘Your time’ll come,’ Frankie said, stroking her daughter’s little face and putting her hand back there even after Annabel had pushed it away.

Later, Annabel watched Frankie get changed.

‘What’s wrong with the clothes you were wearing?’

‘Nothing?’ Frankie said.

‘So why are you getting changed? It’s only teatime.’

‘I felt stuffy in what I was wearing – after the long car journey and everything. Anyway, I’m going out to dinner – and I don’t often wear a frock these days.’

‘A dress – it’s called a dress,’ said Annabel. ‘What time will you be back?’

How many times today had her daughter already asked her this? ‘I don’t know. But lateish.’ Frankie wished Annabel would just rummage around her make-up bag or try on her shoes and stop asking her these questions.

‘The boys are so rude!’ Annabel whispered. ‘Did you hear them? Did you hear what Josh said about Auntie Peta’s food?’

‘I did. Ghastly – but it’s just a phase.’

‘Well, if Sam goes through a phase, we will have to kill him.’

‘He might, you know – but we’ll find a way to deal with it that doesn’t involve death.’

‘They’re so rude!’ Annabel shook her head. ‘When can I have a phone?’

‘A phone?’

‘So you can phone me.’

‘When you’re at secondary school – like Sam.’

‘But you can’t phone me tonight to tell me if you’re going to be later than lateish.’

‘I’ll keep in touch with Peta.’

‘You look – lovely,’ Peta told Frankie sweetly, glancing over at Annabel who was seemingly engrossed in Frozen. ‘Smile?’

Frankie raised her eyebrow at herself. ‘I’m so nervous. It’s crazy.’ She scanned her sister’s face for reassurance. ‘Am I mad?’

Peta sighed. ‘It is nuts – all of it. But if you were me, you wouldn’t be doing it and if I was you – then hell yes, I would!’ She paused. ‘Go. Stop thinking. Don’t worry about Annabel. Go and have fun – or there’s absolutely no point.’

Gazing at her daughter, Frankie suddenly thought perhaps I shouldn’t be doing this, perhaps my place is on a sofa, watching Frozen. She thought of Sam and the unknown Massey family. Did they win the cricket? Was he OK? Did he feel palmed off? It all felt a bit self-centred, slightly dishonest.

‘Go!’ said Peta with a friendly shove.

Frankie looked down at her shoes. Were her feet going to be sore in an hour? Did Scott really want to see her?

‘Will you make it really lovely for Annabel?’

‘I have the best night planned,’ Peta said. ‘Pink fake cocktails in sugar-crusted martini glasses, popcorn, mini-marshmallows and chocs and we’re going to watch Pitch Perfect. I’ve only ever watched it once, secretly on the laptop with headphones on in the top room. My boys would smash the DVD otherwise.’

‘Where will they be? Josh and Stan?’

‘On their phones in their rooms with music on and stinky socks.’

‘So Annabel will be fine?’

‘Yes, Frankie – and so will you. Now – go.’

The further the cab took Frankie from Hampstead, the lighter her nerves became, metamorphosing from a leaden plug of guilt and anxiety in the pit of her stomach, to a feathering of butterflies swirling up against her diaphragm. She loved her dress and it really was a frock, whatever Annabel claimed to the contrary. Petrol blue, scooped neck and back, little cap sleeves – it had something of the 1950s about it. Changing her shoes to trusty ballet pumps at the last minute was a good idea, and she felt a femininity that months of slopping around at home in old jeans and shabby tops had compromised. She checked her phone. No messages at all. The taxi was travelling down Fitzjohn’s Avenue and all the traffic seemed to be going the other way. The lights were green. Nothing, it seemed, was standing in her way.

In Abbey Road, Scott was working. He’d be back again in the morning, for a couple of hours before his flight, but was nearly done for now. The week had been a good one and he was happy with the results. He looked at his watch. Almost six o’clock – a curious in-between time, not quite evening, long since afternoon. He phoned his daughter.

‘Hey Pops.’

‘Hey Jenna.’

‘How’s it going?’

‘Oh – good. How’s you?’

‘Fine – I promise! Dad – don’t do the loaded pause. What time do you get in tomorrow – is Aaron picking you up?’

‘I arrive around six. And yes – or I’ll be hitching home.’

‘I saw him driving your truck yesterday – it’s like a totally different vehicle with him. Windows down – music loud.’

Scott laughed. Aaron posing as cooler than cool. ‘What was he playing?’

‘Springsteen or Bryan Adams.’

He laughed again. ‘No daughter of mine can possibly confuse the two.’

‘All I heard was some loud guitar as he flew past. Buddy was riding up front – with a bandana around his neck.’

Scott could envisage it so clearly it sent a pang that coursed right through him. An evening of promise stretched enticingly ahead of him and yet he thought, Godspeed tomorrow. ‘Will I see you next week?’

‘Sure! I have a day off on Thursday.’

‘I’ll come pick you up.’

‘So what are you doing tonight? How’s the work going?’

‘It’s going great.’

‘Did you meet the Royal Queen of England yet?’

‘Nope – she keeps leaving messages though. All the time. Crazy old girl.’

‘How about an English Rose – did you meet one of those yet?’

Jenna thought the connection had gone.

‘Dad?’

‘Yes?’

‘I thought you’d gone. So call me when you’re home?’

‘Sure.’

‘And see you Thursday?’

‘You bet.’

‘Travel safe, Pops.’

‘Night sweetheart.’

‘Dad – it’s the day.’

‘So save it for later.’

His phone rang.

‘You here?’ he asked.

‘I’m here,’ Frankie said.

Stock-still he stood in the control room while outside, Frankie fidgeted from foot to foot. They thought: any moment now any moment now. Out into the gentle light of early evening, Scott realized how he must have missed a lovely day in London if the warmth and clear sky were anything to go by.

And there she is. There she is.

‘You look disappointed.’

‘I was anticipating something less high-tech, more bohemian – more sixties.’

‘You wanted Paul and John sitting in a corner jamming.’

‘Yes – Ringo and George too.’

‘If you’d have come earlier in the week, I could’ve done you George Clooney – he’s producing a movie and the music was recorded here in Studio One.’

‘I didn’t know you earlier in the week.’

Scott stopped. Really? ‘Next time, I’ll make sure it’s more rock and roll for you.’

‘There will be a next time?’

Thoughts of Jenna weaved through his mind but he halted them, as if he was saying to her hang on honey, I’m just busy here. He looked at Frankie intently for a moment before nodding. ‘Oh I’ll be back for sure,’ he said.

‘Not just for work?’

‘No – not just for work.’

They were standing in a corridor crammed with trolleys heaped high with all manner of gear and gadgetry. People with mugs of coffee, preoccupied expressions and heads full of music had to negotiate Scott and Frankie standing in their way. On the walls, framed photographs looked down on them benevolently, from the Beatles to an Oasis of calm while music filtered out when thick doors opened and muffled away again when they closed, like reveals of other people’s thoughts.

‘Come,’ said Scott, leading on to the control room of Studio Two. ‘I have around twenty minutes of work left to do.’

The control room had a stillness with its soft lighting and dark red soundproofing in long padded runs along the walls. But there was a busyness too; the vast mixing desk, screens running a cut of the film, speakers so huge they reminded Frankie of props for Star Wars, compressors, distressors, amps and limiters, a coffee table with a scatter of cups and a platter of fruit, discarded headphones and sheaves of music marked up in luminous highlighter pen. And people – for some reason she hadn’t expected anyone else to be there. From the leather sofa, a woman and a man turned and nodded; at a desk by the interior window looking down on the studio itself, another woman was leafing through pages of music; at a table next to her a young man was working at a computer.

‘So this is Frankie,’ Scott said introducing her to the director, the producer, the music editor, the music supervisor and a chap called Paul Broucek from Warner Bros. who was working in Studio One but knew Scott well. Jeff Bridges was as good as there too, dominating the three large monitors running scenes from the movie.

‘Scott – we’re ready for you.’

He touched her arm and told her ten, twenty minutes, then he walked to the door at the end of the room and through to the studio itself.

‘Frankie,’ said Paul, motioning her to the table and chair by the interior window that looked down on the studio. ‘Come sit here.’

Below, she saw what looked more like a school gym, a little shabby in comparison with the control room. There were chairs and music stands for at least fifty, but there was only Scott down there, settling himself, putting on headphones, tuning his guitar. She’d only heard him play down the phone at her, just a couple of bars.

‘You see that?’ Paul was pointing to a nondescript upright piano. ‘Circa 1905 Steinway Vertegrand piano,’ he told her. ‘Or – in layman’s terms, the “Lady Madonna” piano that McCartney played.’

And Frankie thought, I really love this place.

‘Ready for you, Scott,’ someone was saying.

‘Sure.’ His voice came through on the speakers.

And then he started to play. Though Paul encouraged her to watch the screens, to see how the cue fitted the scene, her eyes were constantly drawn to Scott, a solitary figure down there in that historic room, playing the music he’d written. A world of his own.

‘He plays so so beautifully,’ Paul said to no one in particular.

‘One of the great guitarists,’ someone else responded.

‘When he plays acoustic, it’s just so complete,’ said Paul. ‘Like four or five voices simultaneously. Just beautiful.’

Watching Scott, hearing him play, something swept through Frankie just then. It wasn’t that he had added another string to his bow in her eyes; it was more profound than that. Another layer, extra depth in a world which, though different from hers in many ways, was a world she understood. To be lost in one’s craft, the need to create, whether with words or music, using a language for expression which was simultaneously intensely personal and yet generous and universal. Writing for yourself yet giving it to an audience. A kindred soul, for sure.

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