Greatest Love Story of All Time (20 page)

I stared sullenly at her and her face fell. ‘Don’t let me down, Frances,’ she said less fiercely.

I realized, with a little pang of guilt, that I was going to have to stick at it a little longer. Stefania had never asked anything of me before. ‘OK, OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll sort out another date.’

‘Vhen?’

‘Christ alive! There’s some bloke called Toni who’s been emailing me, I’ll see if I can get a date out of him this weekend. OK? He spells his name T-O-N-I.’

Dave raised a bushy eyebrow as he washed back his Guinness. ‘Wow.’

When I swayed out of the toilets an hour or so later, Dave was deep in conversation with a wildly gesticulating Stefania. And Leonie was in what seemed suspiciously like a flirty conversation with Alex. I stopped and looked at them just as Leonie did her head-thrown-back laugh and touched his arm. Oh, God, no.
Why
? Of all the men in London, why would she flirt with Alex?

Slightly repulsed, I went over to Stefania and Dave,
who stopped talking abruptly. ‘What?’ I said. They said nothing.

Dave looked over at Leonie and Alex.

‘I sink zey vant to make ze sex,’ Stefania hissed in my ear.

‘Oh, gross! Vombags, Stefania! Take that back!’

She shook her head. ‘Mark my vords. She vill seduce him no problem.’

I felt sick. I didn’t know if it was the vast quantity of gin that I’d drunk, or the sight of Leonie flirting with Alex, but I realized I needed to get home fast.

As I ushered my weary corpse into a cab, my phone started ringing. I felt a fleeting sense of dread, knowing there was only one person it could be at this time of night: Drink Voice Mum. She was calling me more and more these days, making less and less sense. In fact I couldn’t remember the last time I’d spoken to her when she was sober.

Just for a moment, I let myself wallow in overwhelming resentment. Why? Why was it
my
job to deal with this?

Because you are all she has, beyond that shitbag Nick Bennett
, I reminded myself. Sighing, I got my phone out of my bag.

It was Michael.

Michael was calling me.

I froze. A million different feelings exploded in my
brain – joy, fear, amazement, relief, love – but before I was able to move again, my phone went dead.

I stared at it, stomach churning. Had that just happened?

What should I do? Call back? What the flaming Jesus would I
say?
‘Hiya! How are you? Long time no speak?’ Oh, shit. Leonie. I needed to speak to Leonie.

With shaking hands I fumbled through my address book to ‘L’ but as I did so a message arrived. I took a deep breath, braced myself, and opened it. And then I started to smile.

Still love you. Still miss you. Still waiting impatiently for our 90 days to end. 33 days and counting. Mxxxxx

Hi Fran, I wrote to you last week but you didn’t reply. Were you taught any manners as a child?? I ask you to PLEASE REPLY by the end of the week. I am going on holiday and need to know whether or not we will be going out on my return. Many thanks. All the best, Perry

On the morning of my date with Charlie I got up early with the aim of cooking bacon and eggs and doing something about my bikini line, which bore more relation to a tropical rainforest than it did a muff. Duke Ellington sat as close to the frying pan as was possible without actually being fried himself. ‘What are you up to today, my little prince?’ I asked him. He closed his eyes. ‘Got any hot dates lined up for tonight?’

He stared meaningfully at my bacon.

‘Because I have.’

He yawned.

‘Oh, Duke Ellington, come
on
. Don’t be horrible to me. Look how strong I’m being, ignoring Michael and going on a date with Charlie Swift!’

Nothing.

I flipped my bacon over, smiling. Duke Ellington was significantly wiser than most human beings and probably knew that the only reason I had resisted the overwhelming urge to reply was that (a) my friends had threatened never to talk to me again if I did and (b) I was really quite convinced that he was in a state of agonizing jealousy now he knew I was dating. If – in spite of his affair with The Daniels – he was tortured at the thought of me dating then maybe it was just sex with Nellie and love with Fran. Maybe he just needed to go out and sow some final oats before settling down. Maybe I had a lot more control over this situation than I thought.

I turned my egg over for two seconds, then slid it clumsily on to a plate, not entirely convinced. The effort of not replying had nearly killed me.

‘Oi! Stand back,’ I said to Duke Ellington, who was preparing to eat my breakfast. I was going to need my strength tonight.

I was a bit surprised, as I logged on a little bit later to organize a date with Toni the gay, to find my dating site at the top of my browsing history. As far as I was aware I hadn’t logged on for two days. Perhaps I
was
drinking too much. Had I been having virtual sex with strange men after too many gin and tonics at home?

I scanned through my inbox. The usual pondlife lurked slimily: bragging, lies, desperation and
‘off-the-cuff wit’ that whiffed of having been written and rewritten over five hours. A man calling me Sarah. Another man whose picture was of him naked apart from a plastic bowler over his knob.

I sighed as I clicked on the last.

Freddy was described by his friends as ‘handsome, tall and amazing’. I was quite impressed by his photo. It was a classic black-and-white shot; he looked distinguished and handsome, gazing off down a street in a casual sort of manner. His eyes seemed a little bit vulnerable but his stance suitably confident.

I opened his message.

Hi Fran

My name is Freddy and I am not a wanker. According to my friends I am a rock. How I feel about that I’m not sure.

What I am sure about though is that your profile is lovely. Not just the rather alternative write-up that your friend has given you but the funny self-deprecating write-up that you gave yourself. Is your cat really that bad or were you just trying to make your life sound a bit more interesting? Because, seriously, if he IS that evil he sounds like a legend. Purry cushion cats are shit.

I was going to write you a sharp witty email full of devastating one-liners like your own profile but I suspect you probably want something a bit nicer than that, in spite of the way you’ve described yourself. So for now I will just ask if you could explain what you mean when you say that your friends have taken an unhealthy interest in your
online dating exploits. Does this mean they will be there if I manage to snag a date with you?

Have a nice Saturday.

Freddy

I sat back, smiling. What a nice email! I scanned Freddy’s profile again and couldn’t find anything that I objected violently to. It appeared that he was able to cook and (bizarrely) sew and he didn’t smoke. On their final up-sum his friends had said that he was ‘basically the best person in the universe’.

Perfect,
I thought, hitting reply. Freddy the Rock. I liked it.

‘I smell cooking peeg. Is it organic?’ Stefania yelled, bursting into my kitchen in a pair of Bermuda shorts and a floral vest I’d given her last summer.

‘Morning, Stefania. I’m fine, thank you. How are you?’

She folded her arms across her chest, unimpressed. ‘Vell?’

‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘No, it was not. I can’t afford to buy organic
everything
, Stefania. Sometimes a girl just wants some dirty bacon and eggs, OK?’

‘You are a peeg,’ she muttered crossly, stroking Duke Ellington.

I got up and took my plate to the sink. Grease was congealing on it, mingled with ketchup and mustard. She had a point. ‘Fine. I’m a pig. But I enjoy eating pig too. Sorry.’

She tried not to laugh but let out a little Slavic snort before she was able to control herself. ‘Oh, Frances. I despair of you.’

‘Thank you. Is that all you came over to tell me?’ I asked, squirting washing-up liquid all over the taps by mistake.

‘No. I came to tell you not to go on zis date tonight. I do not like ze penis man. Is zere no one else you can go on a date vith?’

I thought of Freddy and smiled a bit. ‘Get off my back. I’m doing what I’m told. The next date will be soon.’

‘OK, Frances, I make a deal viz you. You go on the date tonight but you do not make ze sex viz Penis Man.’

I started to laugh. ‘And what’s your side of the deal?’

‘I do not steal Duke Ellington and take him to live in my shed.’

‘Stefania, you’re welcome to take Duke Ellington to live in your shed. He’s started sitting on my pillow staring evilly at me when I’m sleeping. I keep waking up to these demonic yellow eyes – it’s like being in a nightmare.’ Stefania shrieked with laughter and patted Duke Ellington on the head. Then she stared accusingly at me again. ‘Fine. OK. I won’t sleep with him. But you can’t stop me going on a date.’

‘You vill not be able to stop yourself once you have started ze drinking,’ Stefania pointed out.

I reddened. She was probably right. Charlie had been sending me fairly dirty messages since Tuesday. Much to my surprise, he had somehow hoicked me out of my pit of sexual stagnation and into a boiling cauldron of quite overwhelming horn.

‘True,’ I said slowly. ‘I tell you what. I’ve got a muff like a rainforest right now. How’s about I leave it on and then there’s no
way
I’ll be able to let him near me?’

Stefania was clearly unconvinced.

‘No, seriously, Stefania!’ I whipped up my T-shirt to reveal my knickers and the heavy forestation that spread out in all directions.

‘Vow,’ she said, shocked. ‘OK. Zat vill be enough. Just be careful, Frances. I am convinced there are better men out zere for you. Now, I have been vondering how your mozzer is.’

An unpleasant feeling of heaviness settled over me. I sat down. ‘She’s the same as ever. No, that’s not true. Worse. She really seems to be losing it, Stefania. I think Ni–’ I broke off, remembering that not even Stefania knew about Mum and Nick. Now, more than ever, I had to keep her safe. Nick was in the press more and more every day. If Mum ended up there too, it would finish her off.

What I’d
wanted
to say to Stefania was that I was quite sure Mum knew she was about to get dumped. It killed me, the thought of her sitting in her house waiting for the phone to ring. I imagined her, inert on
one of her damask sofas with her hands in her lap, gin lined up neatly on the coffee-table next to the phone. Would his next call be an invitation to dinner or an announcement that he was ending a relationship that had lasted seventeen years? I couldn’t imagine how wretched she must feel.

Stefania was watching me as if she could see everything that was happening in my mind. ‘Vhy does she drink, Frances?’ she asked quietly.

Sadness overwhelmed me. ‘I don’t know. I really, truly don’t know.’

Without warning, Stefania hopped over to the sofa and hugged me. ‘She must get help,’ she said. ‘You can help her do zat. And, Frances, please do not go ze same vay yourself.’

I smiled and shook my head. ‘I don’t want to. Trust me, that’s not what I want, Stefania.’

She kissed me on the cheek, took a clump of my hair briefly in her hand and left. I watched her crossing the yard, a mad pixie in Bermuda shorts. Then I went to the phone, picked it up and hit speed dial two.

‘Sunny Side Up?’ a familiar voice said.

‘Hi, Gloria. It’s Fran. Is Dad there?’ I tried to remove some of the dust on my phone cradle with my sleeve, suddenly nervous.

‘Oh, all right, darling. How you doing? TREVOR? TREVOR! IT’S FRAN, BABE.’

I heard the clatter of crockery and Dad chuckling. ‘Oh, wonderful,’ he said, as he approached the phone.
I imagined him drying his hands on the Fulham FC tea-towel he always kept thrown over his left shoulder.

‘Franny! Hello, darling! What a lovely surprise!’

I curled up on the sofa, instantly comforted. Talking to Dad
always
made me feel better. ‘Hey, Dad … how are you?’ I got out my wallet and stared at the picture of Dad and Mum on the beach while he told me about his plans to open a branch of Sunny Side Up in Barcelona and the new contract they had with an artisan baker who’d just arrived in Marbella. He sounded quite beside himself with excitement. I felt warm and fuzzy, listening to his ramblings, and wished desperately that I had just eaten one of Dad’s trendy fry-ups overlooking a lovely beach in the winter sun, rather than one of my own slimy efforts, served with a view of empty flat and a side of damp grey sky.

‘Anyway, to what do we owe this unexpected pleasure?’ he asked eventually.

I swallowed, a little nervous again. ‘Actually, Dad, I wanted to talk to you about Mum.’

There was a silence, then I heard Dad shut the door of the office. ‘Go on, love. Is everything OK?’

Tears gathered in my eyes. ‘No, Dad, it’s not. Nick’s part of the Tory campaign team and he’s in the press all the time. He pretty much told me he’s going to dump her. She’s drinking more than ever. It’s …’ My chest heaved with the effort of not crying. ‘It’s pretty much all day long now.’

Dad sucked in his breath. ‘Oh, Franny love,’ he said. ‘Would you like me to come over?’

‘No, I don’t think there’s anything you can do … I just … wanted to know, did you ever try to persuade her to get help? Like a clinic or something? Alcoholics Anonymous? Can the NHS help? I just can’t let her go on like this.’

Dad sighed. ‘Franny, I know it’s hard but it’s out of your hands. The only person who can get help for your mother is your mother. I tried, Fran, God knows I tried. But until she accepts she’s got a problem she ain’t going anywhere.’

‘But that’s ridiculous. There must be
something
we can do. I can’t bear it, Dad!’

I heard another sigh.

‘I went to Alcoholics Anonymous in Sutton one night, Fran, not long before I, er, started my relationship with Gloria. I didn’t know what else to do. But they told me she’d only get help when she was ready.’