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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.
