Chapter 16
MARCUS
I stand outside the café for a few moments, feeling like I need to clear my head.
One of the many dozens of tourists who arrived over lunch comes out and, as he exits, warm, cinnamon-scented air wafts towards me through the open door, and I’m transported back inside for a minute.
I can’t believe how much fun I had being run off my feet serving lunch to far too many very demanding people in an overheated café.
Well, being accurate, I didn’t enjoy it at all until Frankie came back, but once she was there and we were doing it together, it was great.
As we said at the end, we make a great team. Which feels like something I ought to think about, but which I do not, in fact, want to think about. Because we aren’t a real team and never will be.
‘Penny for them,’ a voice says.
I look down and see Mrs Bittern, the elderly woman who lives along the road who Frankie told me went into the café earlier with the sole purpose of asking about our relationship.
‘Good afternoon,’ I say.
‘Thinking about how you might propose?’ she asks.
‘Something like that,’ I reply absentmindedly before registering her words properly. I’m about to correct her when I realise that I can’t; I don’t want to blow any holes in Frankie’s story. ‘Early days,’ I say.
‘That’s what Frankie said.’
I nod and smile, and after a few moments Mrs Bittern also nods, and takes herself off along the road.
I obviously won’t be proposing to Frankie, or anyone else, but I do think – now Mrs Bittern mentions it – that she’d make the right person a great wife.
An image of Frankie standing in front of me smiling at me, while I smiled inanely back at her, comes into my head.
Yeah, no, I don’t want to be thinking about things like that.
We had a couple of kind of heated moments there, but that was probably natural given how little space there is behind the counter.
I need to go home and get on with my afternoon.
I actually have a lot to do today, and having unexpectedly spent all this time here I’m a little behind.
I’m still thinking about Frankie on and off when Ruby gets home from school (Sam has football club, which I’ll pick him up from in an hour’s time).
I don’t actually hear Ruby come in, because I’m in my office working (and occasionally thinking about Frankie and that strange moment we shared), so I get a shock when I go into the kitchen to get a drink and see her there.
I check my watch. ‘No after-school sport today?’
‘I never do on Thursdays. I’m always home at this time. Thanks for remembering.’ And she turns round and stomps out of the room.
Bugger. I never know what’s going to upset Ruby and what isn’t. I want to go and apologise to her right now but I know from experience that she needs cooling-off time.
Well. I think she does. Maybe I’m wrong.
I follow her upstairs and call, ‘Ruby, I’m sorry, I love you,’ through her very firmly closed bedroom door.
There’s no reply, so I go back downstairs. I have a lot of work to do. I’d really like to continue with it for another half an hour before it’s time to go and pick up Sam and Miranda’s son Ethan, who I’m dropping home today, but I don’t want to appear insensitive to Ruby.
Maybe I’ll keep the office door wide open so that I can hear if she comes downstairs and then go and apologise again.
There are no footsteps from Ruby before it’s nearly time to go and get Sam, so five minutes before I need to leave I return to her bedroom and knock on the door. This time, to my surprise, she tells me to come in.
‘I’m sorry for upsetting you,’ I tell her immediately.
Her friends’ parents would, I know, have varying degrees of sympathy for Ruby and me in this scenario.
Some would say, yes, I absolutely should remember every detail of her schedule, while others would say that’s ridiculous and everyone forgets things sometimes.
I don’t really think that’s the point, though.
The point is that Ruby, for whatever reason, today found it upsetting that I didn’t remember.
Another day, she might not have been upset.
There’s a pause, and then she says, ‘Thank you.’
I sit down on the end of her bed and say, ‘Is everything alright?’
‘Yes.’
‘Great.’ I don’t think she’s necessarily telling the truth, so I wait.
Eventually, I stand up and say, ‘I’d love to talk if there’s anything you’d like to say but I have to go and get Sam now.’
‘Wonderful,’ she says, her tone bitter. ‘What if I’d been just about to tell you something?’
‘I love you, Ruby. I’d love to talk later. It’s just that I do have to go and pick up Sam and Ethan.’
‘Whatever.’ She picks up her phone and tips her head forward so that her face isn’t visible.
I say, ‘I love you more than words can say,’ and then I turn round and leave, cursing myself for not having gone up to speak to her sooner.
Hopefully she’ll be happy to talk later.
Or maybe there isn’t even anything she really wants to talk about; maybe it was just the principle of me having to dash off.
There’s a lot of guilt involved when you’re a single working parent to two kids; you’re so often torn in half.
As I walk down the stairs, my mind strays to Frankie.
I wonder what she’d say and do in this situation.
I’ve never seen her upset anyone (apart from me, initially, but in hindsight that was all a misunderstanding).
I’d love to be able to discuss this and other tricky parenting issues with her.
It goes without saying that I never would, though.
My loyalty to my children is bigger than any desire to share the burden of single parenting.
However much I love Frankie’s company.
I should not be thinking about friends when my daughter is upset.
I push Frankie out of my mind.