Chapter 14 Fran
FRAN
‘Cleaver Square, Kennington, please,’ I say nervously to the driver of the black cab, hailed for me by the hotel doorman.
‘Certainly, madam,’ he replies with a cockney twang.
I take a moment to make myself comfortable, the back of the taxi feeling too roomy for one, putting on the seatbelt and placing my open handbag neatly beside me.
The postcard of the Moulin Rouge pokes out from the pages of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, and I look at it, as I did most of yesterday evening, questioning why I didn’t keep it when Alistair gave it to me, and what it means: a sign that I’m meant to find him?
All I know for certain is that I was compelled to get out of bed this morning before Elsa was even awake, to sneak out and hail a cab for Kennington.
‘You’ve made an early start,’ the driver says, glancing in the rear-view mirror.
‘As have you,’ I deflect, through the open glass partition.
‘Part of the job – early mornings or late nights are the busiest times, and I’ve never been a night owl.’
I refrain from telling him that I’ve always been more of a night person than a morning one.
Ever since I left Edinburgh at eighteen to study English in London, I’ve slept late and worked later.
Often I was the last student in the library, more accustomed to working to the whirl of the floor cleaners than to the sound of birdsong.
But this morning I felt I had no choice but to be up early, before Elsa and Carly awoke from the festivities of the night before, to slip out of the hotel and journey towards my past.
‘What brings you to the city?’ he asks, as we wind our way down Shaftesbury Avenue, the street cleaners tidying up the rubbish of the theatre-goers and Soho revellers from last night.
It reminds me of Saturday nights as a student, going out for drinks and on to a gig, and of the few years I worked in the city as an editorial assistant at a small publishing house, going to talks or the theatre after work, before returning to Edinburgh to care for Mum.
‘I’m here for work, just an overnight visit,’ I reply, not wanting to get into the details of the book train to Paris, or indeed this taxi ride into the past.
‘What line of work are you in?’
‘I’m a novelist.’
‘Anything I would have heard of?’
I check to see if he’s wearing a wedding ring, which he is. ‘Your wife might have; I write romance novels.’
‘Aye, aye!’ he laughs, and I play along even though the response annoys me. ‘What’s your name then?’
‘Frances Henderson.’
He takes a moment to mull over this piece of information.
‘I have heard of you!’ he beams. ‘My wife’s got a load of your books. Well, well. Just you wait ’til I tell her I’ve had you in the cab. I’m John, by the way.’
As we drive round Trafalgar Square, I glance up to the National Gallery, recalling the many weekends I spent walking its halls with my parents before moving to Scotland, looking up at looming portraits and landscapes, and women in gossamer dresses.
My mother didn’t live to see my first novel but when I studied English and worked in publishing, she said my love of words must have come from all the artwork I saw as a child, that all those images must have grown stories in my mind.
Driving down Whitehall, John tells me about his wife, Sue, and their three children and all the stages of life they’re in. ‘How about you, you got kids?’
‘Just the one – Carly,’ I reply.
‘Nice name. Like the singer,’ he says.
‘Exactly.’ I smile and Carly’s birth springs to mind. The song ‘Let the River Run’ had been playing in the background like an anthem of hope. Carly Simon to me was the epitome of a free spirit at that time, something I wanted more than anything for my own daughter to be.
‘Not far now,’ says John, as we skirt past Lambeth Palace and on towards Kennington Road.
Turning on to Cleaver Street, I notice my heart rate rise and head turn woolly, my anxiety dial ramped up to ten.
‘What number are you looking for?’ John asks as we enter Cleaver Square, a quadrangle of Georgian terraced homes surrounding a tree-lined square. It’s peaceful, with no one around, only a man in the distance walking away.
‘Sixteen C,’ I reply, my mouth dry.
‘Sixteen,’ John mutters, slowing the cab to a crawl, eyeballing every door.
I’m tempted to ask him to drop me any old place so that I might sit on a bench for a moment and gather myself, but before I can he says brightly, ‘Here we are then. Sixteen C, Cleaver Square. And very nice it is too.’
‘Indeed,’ I say, fumbling with my purse, my shaking hands making it almost impossible to remove my payment card.
‘Have a good day, love,’ he says from his window, after I’ve paid and I’m standing on the pavement. ‘I’ll be sure to tell the wife about you. It’s not every day I pick up a famous author!’
He drives away before it occurs to me to ask him to wait.
‘Right,’ I say, adjusting the strap of my handbag on my shoulder and staring up at the top floor of the narrow, pale-brick building. ‘Interesting decision.’ I question again what I’m doing here, what Robin would think if he knew, and what I’d say should Alistair still live here.
I approach the black front door, an elegant semi-circle of glass above it, and with a deep breath, my fingers cold from fright, I press the button labelled 16C.
As I wait, my heart feels as if it might burst from my chest, and my mind is awash with what I might say, if I’m capable of saying anything at all.
Just as I’m about to press the buzzer again, I feel someone appear behind me.
For a moment I hold my breath, the sound of my heart pounding in my ears.
‘Can I help you?’ comes a voice, and I turn as if in slow motion.
‘Who are you looking for?’ asks the person impatiently, and I’m met by a young man in Lycra leggings removing his cycle helmet.
‘Sorry,’ I say, feeling suddenly foolish, aware of my fifty-something-year-old self standing like a lovelorn teenager outside the flat of an infatuation. ‘I’m looking for Alistair,’ I tell him, only then realising I have no idea of his surname. ‘He lives at sixteen C.’
‘Good luck with that. He’s never around,’ he says, brushing past me, putting a key in the lock and slamming the door behind him.