Frankie (20 page)

He looked so beautiful when he was asleep. So like
Keith. All he needed was the tousled mop of brown hair and they'd be almost indistinguishable. She smiled to herself at the thought as June came over and stood by her. ‘It's an awfully long way to Plymouth,' she persisted. ‘Can't Keith drive you there instead?'

Frankie shook her head. ‘He can't take the time off work,' she told her, although that was not strictly true. He
had
offered – several times – but she had declined. In fact, they had argued about it every night for the past week. ‘For crying out loud, Frankie,' Keith had asked her last night in a whispered shout so as not to wake the baby, ‘why do you have to have everything your own way?' He had stormed out, slamming the door behind him, only to return an hour or two later with beer on his breath, calmer, but far from mollified. At times like that, when Keith's normally mild temper got the better of him, she wished more than anything that she had someone to talk to, a friend other than June. But the friends they had were all Keith's.

The fact remained that this trip was just one of those things she wanted to do. She loved Keith desperately, just as she loved June, but she was still not comfortable relying on them. After so many years of doing things her way, it took some getting used to being part of a family again. Maybe that was why she wanted to take Jasper up to the flower show, just the two of them – so that she could give herself the feeling of being needed. ‘He's picking me up during his lunch hour and taking me to the station,' she told June.

June knew better than to argue with her: when Frankie was in a mood like this, nothing would change her mind. ‘Whatever you say, dearie,' she backed down.

Frankie gave her a grateful smile and looked back down at Jasper. His eyes were open now – it always marvelled her how he could go from being fast asleep to wide awake and full of life almost instantaneously – so she leaned down to give him a smile. He reached out and grabbed her hair. ‘Ow!' she said playfully, unwrapping his hand from around the locks that she had allowed to grow long again, even if she did still insist on dyeing them black. Keith didn't understand why she was so adamant about it; he had just learned that it was one of those things he shouldn't talk to her about. Like her family. Like her past. Like marriage.

It was unfair on him, of course it was, and she had grown to recognize that look in his eyes when he would gaze at her, mystified, confused. She knew he was wondering what secrets she was hiding, what her past had to say about her; and she knew he had probably guessed more than she dared imagine. At first it had made him suspicious that she refused to have a bank account – living cash in hand from day to day – or sign her name on any official documents. He was frustrated that she refused to apply for a passport so that they could go away on holiday – she insisted it was because she didn't want to go abroad or leave June, but he wasn't so sure. But as they had grown closer, he had learned to dismiss these little foibles, or at least to ignore them. Her paranoia was part of her charm, he would tell her. Now when his mother gave him a hard time about Frankie's occasional abrasiveness, or the fact that she didn't want him to meet her family, or why they couldn't get married if only for Jasper's sake, he stood up for her, even though he had asked the same questions himself a hundred times. When
she finished every last scrap of a plate of food, leaving it so clean it looked as though it didn't need to be washed, he gave her an amused and indulgent smile. She would get frustrated if she had to throw food away but Keith would dismiss it with a sarcastic comment that always made her so cross. And when she quietly wept to herself after they made love, as she so often did, he would hold her in his arms, not asking the questions he wanted to ask but which he knew she didn't want to hear.

One day she would tell him. Tell him everything. But not yet.

The morning passed quickly. There were arrangements to design and orders to make. Frankie busied herself around the shop while June sat with Jasper, feeding him from a bottle and looking for all the world like a proud grandmother. As the radio announced the one o'clock news, Keith walked in. He kissed Frankie on the lips, June on the cheek, then lifted his son from the cot and held him up to his face. Jasper smiled and gurgled at the sight of his father. Keith looked over his shoulder to Frankie. ‘Come on, then, intrepid explorer. Ready to go?'

Frankie nodded. Her suitcase was already in the car but the small overnight bag she had packed for Jasper was behind the counter, so she went and picked that up before embracing June. ‘Are you
sure
you'll be OK?' she asked for the third time that day.

‘I'll be fine, Frankie,' June assured her. ‘You just have a nice time and I'll see you the day after tomorrow.' She brushed Jasper's cheek with the back of her finger and made a clucking sound, then took her place at the stool behind the counter. ‘Go safely,' she told her friend.

It wasn't far to the station, but Frankie was glad of the
lift. As they sat in traffic, Frankie put her hand on Keith's knee. It had taken a long time for her to be able to share these little gestures of affection, and she still couldn't bear to be touched by anyone other than her family; every time she gave one of these little caresses, Keith would stroke her hand in return. He knew how difficult she found it, and he wanted her to know that it was appreciated. ‘Thank you for letting me do this,' she said above the sound of Jasper's gurgling. ‘It means a lot.'

Keith shrugged, but not in a dismissive way. ‘Just as long as you're both all right. Call me when you get there. Do you have change for phone calls?'

‘Yes.' Frankie had refused to let Keith buy her a mobile phone, despite his protests. She found herself uncomfortable with such technology; and even more uncomfortable with the idea that someone could use a phone to track her down.

‘And enough money for cabs?' Keith insisted.

Frankie nodded. Suddenly she was feeling nervous. She hadn't been away from both Keith and June since they had all met, and she was going to find it difficult, frightening almost. But it was a fear that she had to face. She looked straight into Keith's eyes. ‘I know you've had to be very patient with me,' she said meekly. ‘When I get back, we'll sit down and I'll tell you a few things.'

Keith looked serious. ‘Not before time,' he chided.

Frankie nodded. ‘I know. I love you.' She squeezed his leg a little harder.

‘I love you too. Hurry back.'

It was only nine o'clock in the evening, but June found that she became tired very easily these days. She would
never mention it to Frankie, of course, as she worried about her quite enough as it was; but although she had missed her friend since she moved in with Keith, it did at least give her the opportunity to have the surreptitious early nights that she had started to crave more frequently. She poured the hot milk she had heated in a small pan into her mug, then went to bed.

Although she was tired, June seldom slept that well. As soon as her head rested on the pillow, her mind started filling with the familiar old worries. How long would she be able to live alone like this? What would have happened if Frankie hadn't been around when she had her stroke? She always did her best to hide her concerns from everyone around her, but alone in bed at night they were all too clear in her head. To keep her mind occupied on other things, she always had her bedside radio playing quietly in the background. It didn't really matter whether she was interested in the programme or not – the gentle murmur of voices kept her distracted from other thoughts. More often than not she would drift in and out of sleep until she was, ironically, woken by the lethargic music that indicated Radio 4 was shutting down. Then she would switch it off, turn out her bedside light and hopefully sleep until morning.

Tonight, though, she didn't sleep, and she didn't even hear the words of the radio announcers as they chattered their way into the small hours. It was only a matter of time, she knew, before she needed looking after properly. She had no doubt that Frankie and Keith would take her in, but their house on the outskirts of Bath was small enough as it was, and now there was a child – there was
no room there for an elderly lady. And besides, God only knew what kind of past she had had to endure – Frankie was a secretive soul, and she had seen both sides to her – but at the very least she deserved a chance of a decent future. June couldn't see how that could possibly involve her.

She chided herself for starting to think in such a way: once her thoughts took that path, she knew there would be no respite until morning. She would allow herself to keep the radio on. Perhaps it would distract her enough to start sleeping. But she would turn the light out, and close her eyes.

An hour later she was only half asleep, but her eyes sprang open when she heard a noise downstairs. It was difficult to make out above the sound of the radio, so she leaned over and switched it off.

Nothing.

She closed her eyes, cursing her overactive imagination. And then she heard it again. It sounded like the tinkling of shattered glass and the muffled noise of male voices talking. She lay perfectly still, listening in horror to the unmistakable sound of people in her shop. The door leading up to the flat was locked but flimsy – Frankie had been on at her for ages to get someone in to make it more secure, but it was just another thing she hadn't got round to doing. Like installing a grille over the front window of the shop. June insisted that no one would want to break into a flower shop when there were electrical stores nearby, but Frankie had given her an almost withering look and told her she'd be surprised what desperate people would do for money. Now June had to
suppose that she'd been right, but still – a flower shop. There was no money in the till, and she couldn't imagine there was a big market for stolen lilies.

There was no telephone in her bedroom, and she was too frightened to risk getting up and moving to the kitchen where it was kept, in case she alerted the intruders. She could do nothing but lie there and listen: to the sound below and to the thumping of her heart. She jumped when she heard one of the intruders try the handle on the door leading to the flat. They rattled it hard, as if not wanting to believe it was locked, and then it fell silent. June lay there, straining her ears to hear what was going on, but suddenly she could hear nothing. Had they left? She didn't know.

Tentatively she got out of bed. The room was dark, but she didn't dare turn on the light in case she drew attention to herself. She felt her way round the bed and, groping in the blackness, approached the door. Her dressing gown was hanging on a hook; she pulled it over her nightdress before slowly opening the door and walking out onto the landing. She put her ear against the front door and listened hard. Silence – all she could hear was the sound of her own breathing, heavy but faltering. In darkness, she felt her way along the corridor into the kitchen. She still did not dare turn on the light, so she fumbled around the work surfaces trying to find her cordless phone; she knocked over a teacup that had been left out – the silence around her seemed to amplify the noise a hundredfold, and June only made it worse as she clumsily tried to silence it.

Finally she found the phone and used the tips of her fingers to locate the buttons and dial 999. ‘I think
someone's just broken into my property,' she whispered to the woman operator who answered.

‘Are you by yourself?'

‘Yes.' June's voice was full of fear, but it came out as impatience.

‘Are the intruders still there?'

‘No … I don't know … I don't think so …'

‘Stay where you are. I'll have someone with you as quickly as possible.'

June gave the operator her address, then took a seat at the table. Everything seemed deafeningly quiet all of a sudden, and what with the silence and the darkness, she found it difficult to tell how much time was passing. It could have been ten minutes or an hour later that she was brought out of her reverie by a banging on the door. ‘Police!' she heard a man's voice shout. She shot up, fumbled for the light switch and hurried downstairs as fast as her frailty would allow.

The officer who was waiting for her at the door was tall and uniformed. He held a flashlight in his hand and gave June a reassuring look as she let him in. And then her knees gave way as she found herself overwhelmed and exhausted by the night's events. The policeman grabbed her as she fell, then helped her up the stairs and back into the kitchen.

Soon she was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of sweet tea in front of her. There were two police officers there now – the man she had opened the door to, and a woman, who had fetched a rug from June's bedroom and draped it over her shoulders. She sat opposite her, talking to her in that slow, overly solicitous voice she had noticed the younger generation used with her more and more
these days. ‘It looks as if it was just some local kids breaking in to see what they could get out of the till. They used a brick to smash the window and tried to force the till open – they didn't manage it, though.'

‘There's nothing in there anyway,' June said as her trembling hands raised the cup of tea to her lips. ‘I empty the till every night and bring the money up here.'

‘That's very sensible. We've got someone checking the shop for fingerprints at the moment – it's procedural more than anything. He'll need to take your prints just so that we can eliminate them, and he might ask you a few questions about anyone else's prints we can expect to find here. We'll have an officer posted outside until the twenty-four-hour glaziers arrive to board up the window. In the meantime is there somewhere else you can go? Somewhere you might feel more comfortable?'

June shook her head. ‘I'd really rather stay here, officer. I'm feeling a little shaken up.' She didn't mention that she had nowhere else to go. She had thought of calling Keith, but she didn't like to be an intrusion. In any case, she had guessed enough about Frankie's past to know that she would probably not welcome the police going round to her house, so she kept quiet.