Mothers and Daughters (16 page)

He sat up, gulping back his tears, a shudder shaking his body, his mouth quivering. His misery tore at her heart. How could his mother dash off to Hong Kong leaving such a vulnerable child behind?

And what about Laura? What a start to her marriage. Would she be able to cope with such a child, fill up the void in him caused by his parents’ bust-up and his mother – in his eyes anyway – all but abandoning him? What damage would that do to a child knowing that their mother had chosen to live without them? But then, a voice reasoned within her, his mother was obviously a successful businesswoman and been offered a prestigious job. If it had been Douglas going for it he wouldn’t be criticized, accused of abandoning his children, though perhaps, if their marriage had been strong, she would have stayed or they could have all decamped abroad together.

It was wrong to make assumptions about people she didn’t know – one of whom was going to marry her daughter. She’d been so fortunate with Julian. They both believed if children were born in a relationship they were equally responsible in raising them with love and security, but then they were happy together and the possibility of breaking up the home was never on the cards.

‘When will we go?’ Johnny asked, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, gulping back tears.

She smiled to hide her anxiety.
Where
would they go more like? ‘Let’s look it up on the Internet,’ she said, putting out her hand for him to take it so they could both get up from the floor. ‘Are you hungry, did you have time for breakfast?’

Still holding his hand, she led him into the kitchen, offering him a paper handkerchief.

‘We had breakfast,’ Johnny said, his voice wobbling as he regarded her with agonized eyes. ‘W… when will they be back?’

It struck her then that as he’d lost his mother to Hong Kong he might imagine that if his father went away he too might not return, and he’d be left here like an unclaimed parcel vainly waiting for collection. She put her arm round his shoulders; he was as delicate as a bird. ‘Tomorrow, Johnny. They go to the wedding today and fly back tomorrow and will come straight here and pick you up.’ She hoped she sounded positive but he smiled sadly.

‘I s’pose they will.’

‘Of course they will, they just couldn’t take you to the wedding and you’d be bored anyway as there won’t be other children. They’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.’

She put her laptop on the kitchen table, clearing away the debris of her own breakfast and a pile of half-read newspapers, to make space for him to see, and turned it on. The telephone rang and, expecting it to be Douglas or Laura checking on Johnny, she moved slightly away from him, not thinking it a good idea for him to know it was them just as he seemed to be settling down.

‘Alice, it’s Frank, hope it’s not too early.’ There was an energy in his voice that lifted her spirits.

‘Oh… Frank, how are you?’

‘Fine, I know it’s short notice but I wondered if we could meet up today. I have to go away tomorrow on business, something’s come up, and I’ll be away a week, a nuisance, but there it is. Would you like lunch?’

‘I’d love to but I’m looking after Johnny, Douglas’s son,’ she smiled at Johnny, who was watching her with trepidation, ‘my new step-grandson-to-be. Laura and Douglas have gone to Scotland for a wedding.’ The thought suddenly hit her: Frank might know about paragliding. She went on, ‘We have a problem you might be able to solve for us actually. Johnny wants to go paragliding, well, just watch for the moment, we might have a go when his parents get back, and I wondered if you knew of a place, a reputable place, near London.’

Johnny was holding his breath, his eyes huge on her face. She felt trapped by his anticipation.

‘I do know a place, not too far away. I’ll come round and take you both, I might even have a go myself if the conditions are right. What about you, Alice? I thought you said you wanted to do it, Laura said you did anyway.’ He laughed, ‘She’s so like Julian and she’s quite worried that you seem to be breaking out, test-driving sports cars, talking of doing extreme sports… good on you if you are.’

‘I can’t today because of Johnny, we must ask his parents’ or, rather, his father’s permission before he does it. Anyway, there’s probably an age thing.’

‘I don’t know, but I’ve seen quite young children do it, after all they go up with an instructor, they’re not let loose on their own. Give me an hour and I’ll be with you.’

He rang off and she stood there for a moment feeling a mixture of relief and puzzlement. Why did Frank know all these things when he’d said he rarely came to London and then only for some quick business commitment. He lived in France and travelled all over the world wherever his journalistic work took him. She remembered Julian saying, not long before he became ill, that he wished Frank would come and live in London where there were surely more than enough legal articles to write and financial experts to interview. She hadn’t questioned Julian on it then, she wished she had now, for she wondered why Frank didn’t stay longer in London when he came over for work, and more importantly, when he was here why Julian never asked him home for supper or they all met up for dinner or something.

‘Are we going?’ Johnny broke into her thoughts, looking hopefully at her.

‘Yes, I have a great friend, Frank. He’s Laura’s godfather. He’s going to come here and take us to a club he knows. We won’t be able to do it ourselves, you knew that didn’t you?’ Seeing his disappointment, she put her arm round him. ‘I must ask your father’s permission and he’d surely want to see you do it for the first time,’ she finished lamely, suspecting that Douglas would never agree to having his insecure, little son skimming about like a kite high up in the sky, and after this, he, perhaps spurred on by Elspeth, might think Alice a bad influence and never let her look after Johnny on her own again.

Alice settled Johnny with his Lego and ran upstairs to make sure she looked her best, though Frank had seen her at her worst halfway up a tree and hadn’t minded, so why was she making such an effort now? She was not Petra or Margot who never went out, or probably even opened their front doors, without glamming up, but she brushed her hair until it shone and checked her make-up before going downstairs again to wait for him.

He was not long and she opened the door to him with Johnny creeping behind her.

He kissed her on both cheeks, smiling. He’d recently shaved and his skin felt taut and smooth and the scent of his aftershave made her long to hold on to him. She sprang away from him, afraid of sending out the wrong signals.

‘You look good,’ he said before turning to Johnny who watched him warily. ‘So Johnny, you want to watch paragliding?’

Johnny nodded, his body twitching with shyness and excitement.

‘Do you know somewhere we can go?’ Alice said, really for something to say, for she was feeling slightly dizzy with all of them cramped together in the narrow hall.

‘I do,’ he followed her into the living room. ‘It’s in Sussex. I’ve been there but not for some time, so I checked if it was still open, and it is. So when you’re ready we’ll set off, my car’s outside.’

He stood in the middle of the room, surveying it. He wore a pale pink shirt and a grey wool jacket and dark grey, wonderfully cut jeans and black loafers. The slightly continental combination could have looked effeminate on some men, but on Frank it seemed to define his masculinity.

She’d forgotten how attractive he was, or she hadn’t noticed, being so in love with Julian. She must stop being foolish; she was behaving like Petra, always falling for any passable man. Her body sparked with half-forgotten desire, then sorrow grabbed her, she was missing Julian. She liked men, liked being around them, and now he’d gone there was a huge male void in her life.

‘No thanks, just had breakfast; I’m ready to leave when you are. We can have lunch down there too, would you like that, Johnny?’ Frank smiled at him and Johnny smiled shyly back. He has a way with children, Alice thought, before remembering that he had his own.

‘How old are your children?’ she asked.

‘Oh, much older than Johnny, seventeen and nineteen.’

‘Do they come to London?’ She wondered why Julian had never told her Frank had children, perhaps he was godfather to one of them, but if he were surely she’d have known that?

‘Yes, sometimes,’ he said as if it was not important. He turned to Jonny and asked him if he was ready to leave and had his coat and everything.

Johnny nodded and ran to pick up his overnight bag that was still in the hall.

‘We’re coming back here tonight, you needn’t bring that,’ Alice said, but Johnny insisted and Alice, thinking he might feel insecure without it, said no more.

‘We must put in his car seat,’ she said to Frank, seeing it sitting in the hall; she’d forgotten about it. ‘Will it go in your car?’

‘I expect so,’ Frank said, ‘it’s a long time since I’ve had one of those.’ He smiled at Johnny. ‘I expect you can show me how to fix it.’

‘Daddy knows how to do it,’ Johnny said, his lower lip quivering when he realized that Daddy was not here to do it.

‘I’m sure I’ll manage it,’ Frank said to him. ‘Come and show me which side you’d like me to fix it.’ They left the house together, Frank adapting his pace to Johnny’s, while Alice locked up the house.

The seat went in easily and they set off. When they reached the A3 and were settled on their way, Alice said, ‘did you often come to London? It’s just that everyone seemed to know you at Mosimann’s, but I was under the impression you hardly ever came here, you never came to see us anyway.’ She hoped her remark sounded casual, as if it were of no consequence, though she was determined to find out more about his life.

‘I did come to London quite a bit, but it was always for work so I didn’t have time to see you.’ He glanced at her with a half smile,

‘But you saw Julian?’

‘Sometimes, but usually because we went to the same business meetings, but then I didn’t come here for a while, I was dealing with some large companies in Asia, so I missed his illness and saying goodbye.’ He turned back to the road, his face set hard as if he was controlling his emotions and she said no more for a while, then she remembered his nephew.

‘You have a nephew who lives here, don’t you?’ she said.

He glanced at her warily and she felt he was startled by her question she went on quickly. ‘I think it was Laura who said you had a nephew staying in your flat and I was just surprised we’d never met him. We could have entertained him. Is he the same age as my girls?’

‘No, he’s older, almost thirty, and you know how the age difference matters when they are teenagers.’

‘But all the same, we could have had him to a meal or something,’ she said, waiting for Frank to say more about him but he didn’t.

He seemed uncomfortable now. He stared ahead at the road, deep in thought. Perhaps his nephew had some problem? He could be autistic, there seemed to be a lot of that about, or maybe he’d been in trouble with drugs or something, or… she’d better not pursue the subject. If Frank had wanted to tell her about his nephew surely he would have done. She mustn’t pry into his life; it was none of her business.

She glanced at Frank surreptitiously, his profile serious now, wary – no she was imagining things, there was a lot of big, thundering lorries on the road, he was just concentrating on his driving. Having lived in France for so long perhaps he wasn’t used to driving on the left any more.

He seemed to have changed from the charming, devil-may-care man he’d been when he’d first arrived back here and the time he’d taken them out to dinner, and even since this morning. He was obviously upset about Julian’s death and was determined to do all he could for her and for Laura and he was so kind to give up his day for Johnny, but she felt now that he was a stranger and was keeping something to himself. She was pricked by anxiety, something about him was not quite right and she had no idea what it was.

Fluffy white clouds drifted across the sky like islands in a sea of blue. Surely it was a perfect day to fly? Alice had watched people paragliding from the mountains in Switzerland, taking off on skis with an instructor, jumping over the edge of the mountain and then the sudden jerk as the airstream or thermals, whatever the technical terms were, caught the kite and it drifted like a strange bird of bright plumage over the snowy scene.

She’d wanted to have a go then, but Julian said, ‘It looks wonderful, but there’ve been quite a few accidents, and what if you don’t like it, you’ll be stuck up in the sky waiting for the right current of air to bring you down?’

‘But I’d be with an instructor,’ she’d said, thinking how amazing it would be floating in that silent sky surrounded by the savage beauty of the mountains. She’d seen the anxiety in his eyes. To fly was expensive and she wouldn’t be able to afford it herself, and she couldn’t expect Julian to pay if he didn’t want her to do it. The skiing holiday had cost enough as it was, and so she’d laughed, teased him about being afraid she’d fly away with one of the sexy instructors, and said no more about it.

Remembering that time now, she turned to Frank, who’d broken his brooding silence with an animated description of the times he had flown, in answer to Johnny’s tentative question about how many times he had done it.

‘Was there a reason, that you know of, why Julian was almost scared of such sports? I mean, we skied most winters and that can be quite dangerous, especially now with all those clowns on snowboards who don’t know how to manage them.’

He shrugged, ‘I don’t think so, he just liked to live safe, he had a family after all.’

They had reached the club, Frank seemed relieved, he turned in, saying, ‘Here we are Johnny, are you excited?’

‘Yes,’ Johnny answered, craning to look about.

They got out of the car; Johnny hovered close to her as they walked to the clubhouse, his eyes scouring the sky.

Frank said, ‘It may not be time to go up yet, you have to wait until the conditions are right, Johnny, but there are quite a few people here, so I expect they’ll go soon.’