Chapter 6
The next thing I know, I am jolting upright at the sound of my phone and look up at the window. It’s morning and I must have drifted off at some point. Rubbing my eyes, I grab my mobile and find a text from Jeff.
‘I AM DYING.’
‘I assume you are referring to a hangover?’
‘I think if I actually had a terminal illness, it would merit more than a three-word message. What are you up to today?’
My first job of the weekend will be to blitz Frankie’s bedroom, though I can’t say I’m looking forward to it. Even as a teenager, I was never as messy and chaotic as she is: my dad used to jokingly call her room The Temple of Doom.
I head upstairs to her attic conversion, bracing myself for what I’ll find.
She assured me she’d tidy up before we left, but it’s fair to say that her definition is different from mine.
I must stress that it’s not that my daughter isn’t clean.
On the contrary, she can stand in the shower for hours before emerging like Bonnie Tyler out of a dry ice machine.
But, as I attempt to open the door it gets wedged on something that turns out to be a sweater. I push again and I stumble into a scene I’ve seen a thousand times before, the sort that suggests an angry bear has been trapped inside, fighting off a swarm of wasps.
There are empty cups, hair products and album sleeves on the floor.
The duvet is scrunched up at the end of the bed.
I pick up a pair of jeans, with underwear rolled up inside a leg, and throw it in the basket, before closing three drawers.
I hadn’t planned to spend the whole of Saturday morning cleaning Frankie’s room, but manage to potter about in it for hours.
By the time I’ve finished, the en suite smells like a Tuscan lemon grove, the clothes are neatly away and the bedding stripped.
I sit down on the end of the bed and should feel pleased by this, in the same way I get that weird, Kondo-esque endorphin high when I’ve reorganised the fridge.
But all I can think about is how there is no music being played too loudly anymore.
No girls sleeping over, squealing with laughter as they learn dance routines.
Nobody now needs me to drop everything to give lifts, or help with homework, or rescue a favourite shirt after a ketchup spillage.
It is organised, clean, quiet. And I’ve never felt so empty.
My phone beeps and when I pick it up, I discover a message from Frankie.
‘Sorry it’s taken this long to text. Phone battery is rubbish! X’
My relief on hearing from her has an immediate effect on the knots in my gut, even if I am fully aware that the fault here is unlikely to be with her device.
Frankie has spent the last few years losing it, forgetting to charge it, or cracking its screen in various inventive ways.
Accumulated, I must have devoted weeks of my life to rummaging down the back of sofas, walking the streets like we’re undertaking a police search or negotiating with roller-coaster staff at Alton Towers after it once flew out of her pocket at 160mph (she didn’t see the signs, apparently).
She’s not even particularly big on social media – although she’s on TikTok, that’s primarily so she can spend hours scrolling through other people’s videos rather than posting anything interesting herself.
‘I ? ?Paris!’ says another message that arrives before I can respond. ‘I feel like I’m in a movie. Look at this! x’
The picture is a selfie in front of the Eiffel Tower in which my daughter is pulling a goofy face, while Milly looks at her sideways with a faintly disapproving smile. I notice the whistle around my daughter’s neck and the tension between my shoulder blades begins to thaw a little more.
‘How was your journey? What’s the hostel like? Do you want me to look online for a phone shop you could go to tomorrow to get the battery checked? What about—’
I pause. And breathe. I delete it all and instead write: ‘Great photo! Glad it’s all going well x’
She responds immediately.
‘I hear you had a late night at Uncle Jeff’s. Did the two of you do your “Walk Like an Egyptian” routine like at Christmas? LOL’
I realise my brother must have been in touch, to nag her into saving me from my next nervous breakdown. Thank you, Jeff.
‘Also, I meant to say in the car – I did start tidying my room but ran out of time and it might not be up to your standards. If you do go in while I’m away . . . don’t hate me.’
‘Don’t worry about it. All sorted x’
‘Thank you Mum. Sorry! xxx’
‘It’s fine. Love you lots. Have a fun night and remember to charge that phone! x’
I lie back on the bed and sink into the pillow, gazing at the ceiling for a few moments before I hear another beep. I pick it up hoping for another text, but instead find a Facebook memories notification.
The picture on my screen is not the most flattering, thanks to a blob of unabsorbed suncream on my nose and the weird fringe I’d been experimenting with at the time.
But it was taken on one of my favourite family holidays, to Kefalonia when Frankie was nine.
It was Ed’s idea to go after I’d been obsessed by Captain Corelli’s Mandolin the previous summer.
The three of us look so relaxed and happy, all sun-warmed smiles and bright eyes.
I don’t know how long I lie on top of the duvet after that, flicking though old photos, from as far back as when it was just Ed and me living in London.
Before Frankie. Before his fatal asthma attack.
Back in the days when life was so ridiculously good that it seems incomprehensible now that we ever assumed it would last.
My pictures didn’t stop after he died, just as life didn’t.
For the first six months, I felt like I’d been caught up in a bomb blast and was stumbling to the emergency exits, choking on black smoke.
But even then, I knew that my job now was to make life as normal and happy as possible for Frankie.
That was what I channelled all my energies into as soon as I possibly could.
Before Ed died, I was your average slapdash mum.
But for a time afterwards, I became that parent who hosted sleepovers every weekend.
The one who organised movie marathons, spa afternoons and mocktail parties for all her friends.
There wasn’t a weekend when I didn’t have some wholesome activity planned.
Then, as she got older, I became her unpaid Uber driver, the first to offer lifts to the cinema, parties and, latterly, her shifts at the care home.
I really didn’t mind all this. On the contrary.
It suddenly felt all too precious – and the minimum requirement for a fatherless daughter.
But as I’m lying there, cold and covered in goosebumps, all of this begs the question: what the hell am I going to do with myself now that she’s gone?
I sit up and walk to my bedroom window, gazing out at the courts below as I recall the conversation from the previous night.
Am I really considering this, a sport that once nearly drove me out of my mind with anxiety and crushed my self-belief ? Jeff’s reaction alone would be unbearable. But, at this stage, exactly what is the alternative tomorrow?
I take a deep breath and compose a text before I change my mind.
‘Hi Nora. Just wondered if you might still be able to squeeze me into Rusty Racquets tomorrow? x’