Chapter 5
FRANKIE
‘That’s awful,’ gasps Miranda as I reach the end of my Rick story.
‘Frankie, I’m so sorry. What a dick.’ She squeezes me into a big hug, which I have to say is very welcome.
Ellie’s been hugging me a lot over the past week too.
It’s nice. It makes me feel like people do care about me.
Being dumped definitely makes you question whether people actually like being around you.
‘Complete arse,’ Ellie agrees. ‘He’s unbelievably self-centred. He texted several times in a strop because Frankie didn’t cancel the dinner party they were hosting that evening, and he keeps sending messages with household questions.’
‘What a tosser,’ Miranda correctly states.
‘Yes. Today, for example,’ I tell her, ‘he’s been texting asking about how to use the washing machine and where “we” keep our cleaning products because the guests he had over last night made a mess and “our” cleaner isn’t available today.’
‘Noooo.’ Miranda’s eyes are like saucers. ‘What have you been replying? And are you going to block him?’
‘I’ve been saying nothing. I’m not going to block him yet. I like leaving him on read. I think it really, really annoys him.’
‘Nice,’ Miranda approves. Then she looks closely at me.
‘You do know that what you said about being homeless and jobless and in a terrible situation is nonsense, don’t you?
As in, you have a lot of options in this village alone for places to live, and job-wise I’m sure you’ll have a lot of options too. ’
‘Exactly what I’ve been saying all week,’ agrees Ellie.
‘Thank you.’ I sniff and the three of us share another hug.
‘I’ve just realised you don’t have a drink.
’ Miranda waves at Rob who’s at the opposite end of their gigantic kitchen chatting to Marcus.
‘Rob bought actual champagne, not Prosecco, because it was lunchtime before he remembered it was my birthday today, even though he knew we were having a party. So then he bought champagne to make up. We’ll start with that. ’
And two minutes later, we each have a full glass of champagne, with the bottle on the table next to us, ready for us to do top-ups, and I’m glugging like nobody’s business, even though the hangover I had last Saturday was so bad that I swore I’d never drink again.
Other guests begin to arrive – Miranda’s invited loads of people, across the generations – and I keep on downing the champagne as I chat.
I’m onto my third glass (or maybe the fourth; it’s hard to tell) when Ellie tells me that our grandmother is on the other side of the room.
‘Gran.’ I haven’t seen her in over a month, because before my day from hell I hadn’t been back to Milbury for over three weeks, one of the longest times I’ve ever been away for, and I haven’t been to see her this week because I’ve been very miserable on and off and I haven’t wanted to risk getting upset and worrying her (Ellie popped over a couple of times to see her without me).
I practically fly across the room to hug her.
‘Frankie.’ Her embrace, accompanied by the wave of Chanel perfume she always, always wears – even when her only plans for the day are gardening, a bit of crochet and a cosy crime boxset – almost brings me straight to tears.
‘Gran,’ I repeat in a strangled voice.
‘Are you alright?’ She draws back to check my face.
‘Yes, of course.’ I tell myself sternly that I need to pull myself together right now, because she must not know what a mess my life has become.
She’s about to turn eighty-five, and has had a couple of health scares recently, and the last thing she needs is to be worrying about me.
She basically brought me up – my dad was never around and when I was thirteen my mum got married to someone who didn’t want a stepdaughter – and I can’t bear to upset her in her twilight years.
‘You didn’t tell me you were coming for the weekend,’ she says in mildly scolding tones. ‘Do you have time to come for lunch tomorrow?’
My heart clenches at the thought that I might have hurt her feelings (I’m going to have to tell her I’ve had flu or something for the past week because she’s bound to find out I’ve been around; I should have thought of that before) and I say hurriedly, ‘It was a very spur-of-the-moment thing. And, yes, I do have time to come for lunch. I can’t wait. ’
‘When are you going back?’
‘I…’ I almost tell her that I’m going back tomorrow evening, before realising that I can’t pretend that I’m still living and working in London – that level of tangled web would be impossible to maintain and she’d be devastated if she thought I’d lied to her.
‘I’m actually… I’ve left my job and I’ve moved down here to live with Ellie for a while. ’
‘Frankie!’ Gran screeches, so loudly that every head in the room turns in our direction. ‘That’s huge news. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘It was very spur-of-the-moment,’ I say to my newly whole-room audience.
‘Has something bad happened?’ Gran is very difficult to hoodwink.
‘No,’ I say very firmly, before downing the rest of my glass and grabbing another one from a passing black-tie-clad waiter.
(Miranda likes to go fancy for her parties.) ‘No, I just fancied a change of scene.’ And then I parrot Ellie’s words about me having never actually intended to work in real estate for life.
‘It’s because I’ve just turned thirty-five,’ I say, trying not to gulp again at the thought that I’m halfway from thirty to forty and my love, work and housing situations are all a complete disaster.
‘It seemed like the right time to make a change. I didn’t mention it to you before because I thought it would be nicer to tell you in person. ’
‘But what about dear Richard?’ Gran always did her absolute best to hide it but clearly – and correctly – never liked Rick.
‘Well, big news, we’ve split up too!’ I announce, not only to Gran but to all those present in the room, who are still listening to every bloody word.
‘Golly, Frankie.’ Gran stares at me. ‘Jobless and single.’
‘No, no, no.’ Simon – who arrived just behind Gran – rushes forward. ‘Frankie is not jobless. She’s working with me in the café. We have big plans for expansion.’ Such a good lie.
‘That’s right,’ I confirm, signalling a massive thank you to him with my eyes.
‘That’s why someone thought they’d seen you in the café last weekend,’ Gran muses. Then she gets back to the task in hand, i.e. worrying about me. ‘Single, though. At nearly thirty-five. I thought you wanted to start a family.’ She looks so concerned I can’t bear it. I need to stop her worrying.
I could go one of three ways. I could tell her I have no desire to start a family with a stupid man, thank you very much, but I would like kids and I’m going to go down the donor route.
I’m not sure how she’d feel about that. I could also tell her that I have no desire to start a family full stop.
I don’t think she’d believe that because it isn’t true, and she does know me very well.
And so I go for my third option and down my current glass of champagne, and say, ‘Not single. I have a new partner. He’s much, much nicer than Rick.’
I immediately think fuuuuuck. That was so stupid. She’ll want to meet my new boyfriend.
‘Oh, how wonderful!’ Gran has immediately perked up. ‘Who is he?’
‘I…’ I look at Ellie and then Simon and then Miranda, my brain working furiously but to no effect. And then I look round the room. And then I take a big slurp of champagne for inspiration.
Inspiration strikes quite quickly. I’ll just name someone!
Easy! I could just say Simon. He’d happily pretend for me.
I open my mouth before remembering in the nick of time that Gran almost certainly does know that he’s gay.
Dammit. Why does everyone in this village have to know everything about everyone? Okay. Think.
I take another slurp of champagne.
And then my eye alights on Marcus.
Who was very rude to me last weekend and ruined my cake.
He owes me. And while he is in reality someone I would clearly never, ever want to date, he is very handsome, and it’s totally believable that someone (who didn’t mind people with shit personalities) would want to date him.
And he really does owe me big. He actually owes me huge.
He can help me out for one evening.
So I draw a deep breath, point to him dramatically, and say, ‘Marcus.’
His mouth falls open and then I see Ellie take his arm in a vice-like grip. She turns him round and stands on her tiptoes to whisper into his ear.
I, meanwhile, just stand in the middle of the room, feeling very, very proud of my quick thinking.
I could have upset my beloved grandmother.
I could have disappointed her. But, no, I immediately came up with an excellent…
well, lie. But not a bad lie. It was a good lie.
Just a teeny, tiny little untruth that won’t upset anyone at all and will make my grandmother happy.
Hmm. Marcus doesn’t look very happy. He and Ellie have their backs to everyone else and seem to be talking and, although my vision’s going a tiny bit double, I can definitely see that his back looks quite rigid.
But maybe he’s just a very rigidly backed person.
Maybe he used to be in the army or something.
Maybe – this would be amazing – maybe he’s still in the army and is one of those army people who moves around a lot, and he will soon move away, and then my tiny little lie will just fizzle away somehow.
Wow, genius that I subconsciously chose a soon-to-disappear army person for my fake partner. I smile around the room, feeling very, very pleased with myself. I have kept my grandmother happy and I chose the perfect person to help me.
Hmm. Something’s niggling at the edge of my mind and I don’t like it.
I glug some more champagne and then I hiccup.
It’s a very fizzy drink. Not as fizzy as lemonade or Coke, but much fizzier than apple juice.
For example. I hiccup again. I kind of wish I hadn’t had so much of it. I don’t feel that good, really.
Gran’s been silent for a few moments, taking in the news, but has now regained her powers of speech.
‘Well! This is such a surprise. It’s wonderful.’ She beams at me while I blink to try to get the room back into focus. ‘Does this mean you’re moving to the village forever? Or did Marcus move here because of you?’
‘A bit of both,’ I say airily. ‘Anyway.’ I wave my hand, having cunningly remembered that it’s Miranda’s birthday and I should not be hogging the limelight like this.
‘Boring details.’ I raise my glass, and say, ‘To Miranda.’ Then I start clapping, which doesn’t work very well because I have my glass in my hand, but I very cleverly manage not to spill anything. Oh, it’s because the glass is empty.
Everyone’s raising their own glasses and repeating, ‘To Miranda,’ which I’m extremely pleased about. I feel as though I need some peace and quiet, without everyone staring at me, to think hard about things.
I find a chair and sit down on it, and try to do my thinking. It’s quite tricky, though, because I’m very, very tired.
‘Darling, you seem a little drunk,’ Gran says from above me. ‘Perhaps you should drink some water.’
‘On it.’ Ellie has popped up and is brandishing a pint glass in my face. I take it and drink some.
‘This is nice,’ I tell her. ‘Not fizzy. I’m bored with fizziness. Thank you very much. You’re a very nice cousin.’
Ellie laughs. ‘So are you, lovely Frankie. I’m wondering whether we should perhaps go home now.’
‘No, no, no,’ I say. ‘I do not want to ruin your evening. You like parties. This is Miranda’s party. We should stay at it.’
‘Only if you promise not to have any more alcohol at all.’
‘Fine,’ I hiccup.
‘Oh, look,’ says Gran. ‘Here’s your gorgeous new fiancé walking towards us.’
‘Partner,’ I correct her. ‘Not fiancé.’
‘Of course,’ she says, very seriously. ‘Hello, Marcus.’ She holds her arms out to him in an I-expect-you-to-hug-me-now stance, and he leans down and gives her the world’s fastest hug: hold, tiny squeeze, release.
‘I’m delighted to welcome you to the family,’ Gran says.
‘Thank you.’ Marcus’s voice sounds a bit weird. ‘You know what, partner. I’d love to have a quick word outside.’
‘Me too,’ I say. I stand up, and wobble, until Ellie grabs my arm.
‘Why don’t I come too?’ Ellie says, and begins to walk with me and Marcus towards the kitchen door, still holding my arm.
‘Eleanor,’ hollers Gran from behind us. She has great lung capacity for a woman of her age. ‘Give the lovebirds some time alone.’
The three of us all stop walking, and then turn to look at Gran.
‘I mean it,’ she says.
‘Of course,’ Ellie says.
And then Marcus and I turn back round and leave the kitchen together.