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* * *
‘My daughter has epilepsy,’ he said. ‘She wasn’t too well last week, she had a pretty big seizure and oftentimes they’re not isolated. So when you told me she’d called –’ He shook his head and Frankie watched him process a parent’s what-ifs quietly to himself.
‘How old is she?’
‘She’s just turned twenty years old. You look surprised,’ he said. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment – I was twenty-five when she was born.’
So he’s four years older than me.
‘Your wife?’
Was there a wife?
‘We split when Jenna was small,’ he said. ‘Really small.’ He paused. ‘She had – has – problems with alcohol. She – Lind – and I were in a band. You know, when there’s music and alcohol and drugs and you’re on the road, that’s just how it is. It’s about dangling yourself off the edge of life just for the heck of it. But those who know it’s mainly bullshit and temporary – they end up like me. Those that don’t – so, they end up like Lind. She wanted to seize the day, I wanted to live for tomorrow. So it’s been just me and Jenna.’ He paused again and regarded Frankie levelly. ‘And it still is.’ He raised his glass. ‘Here’s to single parenting.’
There’s no such thing as soulmates and love at first sight, they both knew that from the experiences that had led to their acceptance that life not in a couple was OK. Really, after all this time, it was fine. Nothing lacking, nothing to be craved. Best for the kids. It is what it is.
But as their eyes locked again for another caught moment, they sensed a surging inevitability that outweighed any cliché of finding each other in a crowded station, any coincidence that had thrown them back together right here and which overruled any tastelessness that the anonymity of a hotel far from home insinuated.
How could a new face be known so well so quickly? It was all unfathomably liberating and dangerous and comforting and nonsensical. In this vast city, in which neither of them lived, they’d managed to meet and somehow they knew they’d now never not know each other.
Frankie scrolled through the photos on Scott’s phone, his face close to hers as if guiding her to see exactly what he saw.
‘So this is Jenna outside her apartment in Whistler which is around fifty minutes from me. You’ve heard of Whistler, right? She has a job there before starting university in Vancouver this fall.’
Frankie enlarged the picture, Jenna and a friend; their arms outstretched, roaring with laughter. She imagined them larking about while Scott had said hey, come on girls – just one picture. Come on – stop goofing. Just smile for your old Pa, will you?
‘And this is my home. I live around twenty minutes from a village called Pemberton.’
Jenna, Scott and a dog. A majestic mountain, its ravines and peaks slashed with snow, fir trees scoring dark trails through its sides, like mascara tears. A broad veranda wrapped around a home made of huge logs set in an extraordinary landscape whose vastness couldn’t be compromised by a phone screen.
Frankie turned to face him. He was very close. Aftershave. A neat nose. Bristles dipping into the vertical laughter lines on his cheeks. Eyes the colour of the rock on that mountain outside his home. ‘Wow.’
‘Pretty much sums up my life, that picture,’ he said.
‘What’s the dog’s name?’ She liked the look of the brown Labrador, he appeared to be grinning.
‘Buddy. He’s a Seizure Alert Dog – and his name fits. He’s older now, a little arthritic. It’s our turn to look after him. Actually, he’s English – he came from this incredible center in Sheffield.’
‘How does he help?’
‘He can sense tiny changes in Jenna’s manner, in her behaviour or mood – sometimes up to fifty minutes before a possible seizure. He’s trained to let her or me know.’
‘Where’s Buddy now, though?’
‘So he’s with Aaron. Here,’ Scott found a picture of Aaron with Buddy in the cockpit of the Cessna. ‘Aaron’s as close as I have to a brother. We grew up together, went to school together and we still live close by. He’s a First Nations man – a native. Aaron’s people are the Ĺíĺwat – they’ve been living in the territory for over five thousand years.’ He observed how intently Frankie was looking at the photo. ‘He’s a crazy, beautiful guy – he has his own plane and runs a skydiving business. He flies me to Vancouver when I have to go abroad.’
‘Does Buddy fly too?’ Frankie hoped he did – there could be a story in that. Buddy Flies to the Rescue, Buddy Takes to the Skies, Buddy and the Eagle’s Nest.
‘Oh sure,’ said Scott, ‘he loves it.’
‘What about when Jenna goes to college – could she take Buddy?’
‘She could – but she won’t. She wants to be seen as normal. She doesn’t like people to know, really. There are still a lot of misconceptions about epilepsy despite the fact that it’s the most common brain disorder worldwide. Unfortunately, we’re still on a bit of an expedition finding the right medication for Jenna. She’s one of the twenty per cent who don’t have much luck on that front.’
Frankie looked at Scott. ‘When Sam was a toddler we were out in the park and a man started having a fit.’ She paused. ‘It frightened me. Somebody else went to his aid.’
‘It is frightening. It still scares the shit out of me and I know how to deal with a seizure.’
Frankie thought of Sam. Taller than her now, his voice swinging from childlike to croaky; a boy-man in the making sometimes battling with himself to figure out if he was to become a rebel or remain a geek. She thought of Annabel with her button nose that was just the same as when she’d been a toddler; a contrary yet thoughtful child with a vulnerability she kept hidden behind liveliness. She thought of how they loved their bedrooms, their things, the chaos and clatter, the tempers and laughter. She’d never had to worry about their health. On those blessed occasions when all went quiet in their rooms, she always thought thank God for that, a moment’s peace.
‘I just can’t begin to imagine,’ she said quietly.
‘Well, my theory is you have to live life to the full, whatever is thrown at you. It’s like a ball game really, keep batting, keep playing, keep believing yours is the winning team.’
‘I like your philosophy, Scott,’ said Frankie. ‘I ought to pin it up on my fridge. Don’t laugh – I’m serious! Authors can be introverted and overemotional souls.’
Scott was grinning. ‘I can’t believe you told me you were an accountant.’ Frankie reddened. He nudged her. She nudged him back. She thought, I’ve just smiled coyly, on purpose. She thought, he’s not letting my eyes go.
But the hotel lobby was emptying. Sharp-suited businessmen, previously lairy, now just dull drunk, slumped around the bar like scrunches of rejected paper at the end of a brainstorm. In a corner, a couple engrossed in a hungry snog, only half-hidden by decorative bamboo. At a neighbouring table, an elderly lady sipping tea as though she’d quite lost sense of what time of day it was. And still Frankie and Scott sat side by side.
‘How long are you staying?’
‘Another night,’ said Frankie. ‘You?’
‘I fly out Sunday afternoon. I’ll have been here a week.’
‘Are you working all that time?’ Shall I say something? Shall I try? ‘Are you working tomorrow?’
‘Yes, I’m in the studio. You?’
‘I have a couple of meetings. Dinner with my agent.’ Try and make it happen. ‘Where’s your studio?’
‘Abbey Road.’
‘Well that’s a good address for a studio,’ said Frankie guilelessly. ‘There’s a world-famous one called just that. The Beatles – the zebra crossing.’
Scott laughed. ‘There’s only one Abbey Road, Frankie.’
‘And you’re there?’
‘British session musicians are the best in the world when it comes to sight-reading and playing to a “click”. I think it’s down to a lack of funding from your government – they have limited rehearsal opportunity. I love working with them.’
‘Do you use the zebra crossing every day?’
‘Oh I try to. Barefoot. Like Lennon. But the tourists get in the way. Reality is I’m inside all the time.’
‘Recording your soundtrack?’
He nodded.
‘Who’s in your film?’
‘Well it isn’t my film – I’ve just written the music. But Jeff Bridges is the lead.’
‘Oh I love him,’ said Frankie, thinking Scott’s modesty was beguiling. ‘And anyway, music is often as much a lead character in a film – like setting can be in a book.’
‘I’ll drink to that,’ said Scott but their glasses were empty and the bar was closed. Only the little old lady remained and she’d just asked for her bill. Scott was brought his though he hadn’t requested it.
They were going to have to go, really.
Frankie wondered, how do we leave these seats, this table, our little corner in which my world expanded? How can we stay in our bubble?
And then, in her mind, she heard Ruth saying go for it! and Peta saying don’t be so stupid.
‘If you get some time tomorrow,’ she said, ‘and I do too – shall we try and meet? Perhaps I could come to The Abbey Road?’ He was just looking at her, not speaking. ‘Or if not there, somewhere?’
‘Anywhere,’ said Scott softly. ‘Why don’t we make it happen, Frankie. Crazy as it sounds.’
* * *
As slowly as they walked across the atrium, soon enough they were behind the huge urns and bamboo, back at the lifts. As they stood waiting, Scott looked down on her head and thought how Frankie would tuck just under his chin. And Frankie glanced sideways at his chest and imagined laying her cheek against it. He had his hands in his back pockets and she wanted to link her arm through his.
Into the elevator, just the two of them. Her mind reeling through a thousand movie scenes of impulsive kisses when the doors slide shut, of fumbling with keys and falling into an anonymous hotel room shedding clothes, broiling with desire.
But Frankie and Scott just stood side by side.
Fifth floor.
‘This is me,’ said Frankie.
‘Tomorrow?’ said Scott.
Frankie tapped her watch. ‘Today.’
And she walked down the corridor on her own aware that, downstairs in the lobby, Kate Moss was still smiling on the magazine table.
Enormously tired. Stratospherically tired but high as a kite. Running that bath, eating chocolates left on the pillow, flicking on the television and zapping through the channels. One two three four five six seven scatter pillows pedantically rearranged at the foot of the bed. Four plump pillows and a waft of duvet enticingly folded back to reveal the downy comfort of a beautifully made bed. So long since she’d felt this wired, this alert, this sentient. So long since she’d had any of these feelings. Longing and kinship and warmth and attraction and wave after wave of desire. Something deep inside had stirred. Over the last few years, it was as if she’d switched off lights from necessity in those rooms within herself that she couldn’t afford to use.
She eased herself down deep into the bath, bubbles up to her chin, the soothe of a thick warm flannel over her face. The plastic shower cap.
If anyone could see me now.
Tomorrow.
Today.
Earlier yesterday.
Later today.
Frankie, says Alice. Who was that? Who was that man, Frankie? Will you write him into your life like you did me?
‘Can we get a rise on the string line?’
All of this was giving Scott a headache. There’d been too many interruptions and the music he’d written for a particular scene sounded all wrong today, with the full orchestra. Yet on first reading of the script three months ago, melodies had sailed through his mind like drifts of overheard conversation. His best work often germinated this way, subliminally almost. But today, though he’d watched the cut over and again all morning and asked the musicians to play it this way, play it that way, the music just didn’t segue. He felt as clumsy and inept as a child furiously hammering at the wrong piece on a shape-sorting toy. The film’s producers were in the studio today, along with the director, the music editor, the fixer and the technicians. Everyone making encouraging noises at Scott despite the stress clearly legible behind their eyes.
‘You’re a perfectionist – it’s why people love working with you,’ one of the producers said. What else could she think of to say? Sometimes she despaired at the amount of soothing flattery and ebullient bullshit her role necessitated when all she wanted to do was shake these creative types – these actors and musicians and directors – and say for fuck’s sake, get over yourselves and do the fucking job we’re paying you a fortune to do. But she’d worked with Scott before and had never known him so discontented. The director himself was concerned too. He’d worked with Scott many times. If previously Scott had struggled and vexed it had always been behind the scenes and out of earshot, before he brought a single sound to the table. He was always so quietly professional and capable, delivering excellent soundtracks on time with no drama whatsoever. Commissioning Scott to score a movie was as easy and satisfying as ordering a takeaway and having it delivered piping hot and utterly delicious exactly when you wanted it.
‘It doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do,’ Scott said quietly. ‘It sounds shit.’
The producer looked at her watch and raised her eyebrow at the director, both of them quietly calculating the cost of the studio against the days they had Scott over here for.
‘You know what? Take time out, Scott. Get out of here – go for a walk, go to London Zoo, go to Harrods or the Tate Gallery, go have a swim or a sleep. Clear your mind, then come back.’
He was watching the scene again.
‘Go for a burger, go to a strip club,’ she said, ‘I don’t know! Go and have a cuppa with the Queen at the bloody Ritz!’
It was three o’clock.
‘You’re fine,’ she said. ‘Go. Jimmy and the guys will have a play with what we’ve got so far. We just have piano this afternoon – you trust Lexi.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Scott and everyone brushed his apology away, relieved to see the back of him as he left the control room for Studio Two.
Midway over the legendary zebra crossing, his phone call to Frankie was finally answered.
‘Hey.’
‘Hello.’
‘Fancy a “cuppa”?’ he asked.
‘You sound like Dick Van Dyke,’ she said.
Scott walked straight past Maison Bertaux, reaching the end of Greek Street and having to ask at the minicab rank where it was. With all the previous talk of the Ritz and royalty, he’d been expecting somewhere grand to shout out to him, not a tiny little patisserie tucked behind a simple blue-and-white awning. However, once inside, the opulence of the pastries on display and the complex fragrances – fruit, vanilla, chocolate, baking – elevated the café beyond its modest setting.
Frankie had said on the phone that she’d find a table, now all he had to do was find her. Up the narrow crookedy stairs he went, wondering whether the café suddenly increased on the first floor, wondering if he’d have to negotiate white-clothed tables and velvet-backed chairs and little old ladies sipping their Darjeeling behind mountains of scones. But no. Just Formica tables and mismatched chairs jigsawed into a confined space. And there, in the corner, Frankie.
‘Hey.’
‘Hello.’
If he could have teleported himself to the studio right then, the whole movie could be note-perfect in the time it was taking Frankie to move her bag so that he could sit next to her. He marvelled at the madness of all of this. This place. Her smile. A cuppa. Little over twenty-four hours ago, he had no idea she existed. All these resurfacing feelings swirling and sweet as the cream and fondant on the trays of cakes downstairs.
‘You can’t work on an empty stomach,’ she said. ‘I’ve taken the liberty of ordering a selection of cakes.’ He wasn’t saying much. ‘Did you want coffee? I ordered tea for us. Is this place OK for you?’
The rickety chair and narrow table, peculiar art-college paintings on the walls, his knee touching hers, their arms a hair’s breadth apart. This place was perfect.
