Village Fortunes (Turnham Malpas 17) (16 page)

Bel handed Fran the box of chocolates as she was leaving, expecting Fran would be delighted, but she accepted them without any enthusiasm. ‘Goodnight, Fran, love. See you tomorrow.’

‘Goodnight, Bel.’ There was a big fancy waste bin outside the store and Fran was very tempted to put the chocolates in it, but decided that her mum, to say nothing of her dad, would be delighted to help her eat them. And why not? That’s what chocolates were for. Was she wrong? Should she be more welcoming to Chris, when that was what she wanted to do more then anything? Was she throwing away something she would never have within her reach ever again?

Harriet fell on the chocolates with delight. ‘I love these. If I was being hanged for murder and they asked me what I would like for my last meal I’d say these chocolates. There’s only one centre I don’t like and that’s the coffee cream.’

‘Find one and I’ll eat it. In fact I’ll eat all the coffee creams to make sure you don’t get one by mistake,’ said Jimbo.

‘Oh, darling. What a sacrifice. That’s devotion for you, isn’t it, Fran?’

Whereupon Fran burst into tears and fled upstairs.

Harriet started up, intending to follow her, but Jimbo said, ‘Leave her a while, Harriet, then go up.’

‘But she needs me.’

‘She needs time to cry too. Bel called and told me that Fran deliberately gave him the cold shoulder in the store this afternoon when he wanted to see her, and he had to leave without her really acknowledging him. Hence the chocolates.’

Harriet sat down again. ‘Ah, right. How long shall I leave it?’

Jimbo sorted out another coffee cream, saying, ‘You’re right, these are a bit disgusting, aren’t they? Give it ten minutes.’

‘Right.’ Harriet religiously watched the clock and when the ten minutes was up headed off upstairs calling out, ‘I’m having a gin and tonic, Fran, would you like one?’

There was no reply.

Harriet rapped on Fran’s door. ‘Are you all right?’

When there was still no reply she opened the door and said, ‘It’s me, darling, can I come in?’

Fran was laid on the bed staring at the ceiling through tear-filled eyes. Harriet sat on the end of the bed and waited. Eventually Fran said, ‘I’m being a fool. This person, who wants to be treated as an adult, is behaving like a twelve-year-old with a crush on the school’s head boy.’

Harriet burst into laughter. ‘Honestly, for heaven’s sake, he bolts off back to his old stamping grounds, and then comes back here imagining he can carry on where he left off. The absolute gall of the man, who does he think he is? He really needs a kick up the backside.’

‘Mum!’

‘Well, he does, thinking you’ve gone into a state of suspended animation while he prances off into the night.’

‘My trouble is I half-expected he would ask me to go back to Rio with him. I knew he wouldn’t, but I was convinced, kind of, that he might, that he
would
.’

‘I can understand that, he seemed so keen, didn’t he?’

‘He did to me. Then he went. He hasn’t even emailed me while he’s been away. Mind you, I haven’t emailed him either.’

‘Ask yourself why you haven’t.’

‘Mmm. I don’t know the answer to that. I wonder why I didn’t?’

‘Some sixth sense telling you something? After all, he’s almost an old man compared with you.’

‘He isn’t, honestly.’ Fran drifted off into another world but then said, ‘We did it, you know.’

‘I guessed.’

‘I wasn’t going to tell you. Perhaps that shows I’m not old enough for him. Fancy, telling my mother, like a child in primary school wanting a gold star for good behaviour. I must be an idiot.’

‘No, Fran, that you definitely are not.’

Fran sat up, swung her legs off the bed, saying at the same time, ‘I’ll have that gin and tonic now if it’s still on offer.’

‘It certainly is.’

Fran drank three and asked for a fourth, which made Jimbo say, ‘Are you sure? You don’t normally drink four gins.’

‘Yes, I am sure, Dad. Here you are.’ Fran offered her glass for a refill. ‘I did when Chris and I went out. One night I had six. I don’t know how I got home.’

Appalled by the prospect, Jimbo said, ‘And then you drove home?’

‘Yes. He followed me just in case.’

‘Just in case! You still could have had an accident, whether he was there behind you or not. And it wasn’t such a big deal on his part, he was on his way home himself seeing as he was living at Alice and Johnny’s.’

‘Dad. Honestly. He did care.’

Harriet, seeing they were on the brink of a full-scale argument, interrupted. ‘Chris should never have let you drink
six
gins and then cheerfully let you drive home. That was irresponsible, Fran, whatever you say, it was downright irresponsible. He knows better than that. He’s not a fool, just too blessed good-looking for his own good.’

‘That’s about the first true word you’ve said. He treated me like an adult—’

‘Only because it suited him to,’ Harriet snapped back.

‘Mum! If you’re going to speak of him like that I shall not mention him again in your presence. He deserves better than that from you. You’re usually so fair-minded.’

‘She isn’t any more,’ said Jimbo. ‘She didn’t want to welcome poor old Merc and Ford back to the village.’

‘Why not? They’ve never done you any harm, now have they?’

‘No, but he is an ex jail-bird, and there’s no smoke without fire.’

‘It was a miscarriage of justice, they said so.’

‘“Not enough evidence to convict him” doesn’t mean he was completely innocent. They jailed him when perhaps, give or take a bit, they shouldn’t have, I know. But there are no grey areas within the law. It’s either yes or no.’

Jimbo declared he’d never known his dear wife to be so dead set with her ideas. ‘It’s not fair to Merc, who is lovely.’

‘I don’t like her going along with him being the innocent party. I think she knows more than she lets on.’

Turning to speak to Fran, Harriet said, ‘However, you’re well shot of Chris, darling. Be brave and don’t let him persuade you otherwise.’

‘That’s for me to decide, not you. If he genuinely asks me to go to Rio when he goes back, I very well may go with him. It would be so exciting, so different, especially with him. Now I’m off to bed. Goodnight. Don’t eat all the chocolates.’

After they had listened for her footsteps crossing the landing and the door to her room being shut, Jimbo said, ‘Well, that was well handled, I must say. Very reassuring.’

‘Oh, shut up, Jimbo. Just shut up.’

Upstairs Fran lay in bed thinking about crossing the world to be with Chris. She imagined herself meeting his mother, his friends, and how envious the old girlfriends would be that a slip of a thing from good old England had won him for herself. She had to admit she loved parties and when he’d talked about life back at home it appeared that the parties were super exciting, far more so than here in England; more daring, more dynamic. All Fran could think about was Chris and how he felt, and what he looked like, and his sense of humour, and his roars of laughter when she said something even only mildly funny. He really was well and truly the man for her. He wouldn’t want babies one after the other like Alice and Johnny; he’d want life to be more fun than that. Alice once told her that Johnny wanted at least four children and wouldn’t be satisfied with less.
Wouldn’t be satisfied with less
? Huh! Not likely. For one brief second before she fell asleep Fran recollected what a happy childhood she’d had with two brothers and a sister all older than her, lavishing endless time and patience on her. She’d been so lucky. But now she had Chris to look after her.

But at three o’clock in the morning Fran woke with all her thoughts about Chris in a total jumble. Was he really as wonderful as she always imagined? If there was a major crisis of some sort in her life, would he be the man to stand alongside her, supporting her, caring for her, helping her to sort out her life, like her dad had always been there for her mum? After all, life isn’t actually always full of parties and laughter. Sometimes there are bad times that have to be got through, like when Mum lost that baby when she, Fran, was about three. She was too young to understand about it all, and remembered wondering why they talked about a baby though she hadn’t seen one anywhere; but she was aware of the complete sadness in the house, and how the others were so thoughtful to Mum and Dad, and how Grandmama Charter-Plackett had come to run the house and keep everyone well looked after because Mum was so depressed.

Fran remembered Dad shouldering the burden of managing everything to relieve Mum of her worries about them all. How he put Fran to bed, when it had always been Mum who did that, and how he had given her the wrong pyjamas to wear and she’d cried. How he even sewed a button on her cardigan because she definitely wanted to wear it to nursery and she wouldn’t go if she couldn’t wear it. How Mum cried and Dad was so patient and loving with her. That was the kind of man you needed when your life had crashed. Fran fell asleep at about half-past five, but the alarm rang at six because she was on early start and she crawled out of bed feeling like death.

She felt like that for most of the day, like death was just around the corner, and yet she rarely had such morbid grave thoughts. She was one of those people who felt as if she would live for ever; but today an early grave almost felt welcome. Chris had left a note for her. He must have pushed it under the door after closing time so it was there for her to find when she opened up. Love notes at that time in the morning for some strange reason didn’t appeal today, and so she put it in her uniform pocket to deal with when she felt more in the mood.

The endless day dragged on and finally, about four o’clock, when she was due to finish, she decided that she’d go home, strip off, have a shower and go to bed to catch up on her sleep. Before she put her uniform in the wash as she was expected to do every day she took the note out of the pocket, along with the tissues that had gathered there, and opened it.

Dear Frances. If you are feeling like it I shall be at the Wise Man at eight tonight and would love to book our favourite table (!!) for the two of us. How about it? Yours, Chris.

She knew that (
!!
) really meant he’d book a room for them too. Well, not tonight, Chris. I’m in no fit state to bare my all for anyone, least of all for someone who thinks he can disappear off into the night and not communicate for weeks. So Fran tore the note into little pieces and put it in the waste bin in her bathroom. She showered and went to bed falling asleep almost before she’d pulled the duvet over her and got cosy.

When she woke about half-past nine she vaguely recollected her mother coming in at some stage to ask if she wanted dinner but she had no recollection of answering her, and at the same moment Fran realised the bed was wet. Horrified to think she could possibly have wet the bed she leapt out and went straight to her bathroom to find she was wrong, she was bleeding. Copiously. Frightened she shouted, ‘Mum! Mum!’ as loudly as she could.

Harriet didn’t hear her at first, but Jimbo did. ‘Harriet? Fran’s shouting for you. Shall I go?’

‘No, I’ll go.’ Harriet raced up the stairs and straight into Fran’s bedroom, knowing in her heart of hearts that something was seriously wrong. ‘It’s me, Fran. Shall I come in?’

‘Yes, please. Oh! Mum! This is awful. I can’t move, I’m losing so much blood and stuff as well.’

‘Blood?’ Harriet opened the door and rushed to her daughter’s side.

‘Yes. Blood. A haemorrhage. You know, really bad. And I’ve got a lot of pain too. What can I do? I can’t sit here on the loo for ever.’

‘Oh, darling.’ Harriet knew instantly what it was. It was an early miscarriage. That must be what it was. How to deal with it? She didn’t know. But she’d better tell Fran outright, no messing. ‘Do you think you might be having a miscarriage? I mean, it may not be, but perhaps it is. Have you missed a couple of times?’

Fran, already pale and delicate looking, went paler still. ‘I’m always so irregular that I never know when. I suppose I might be, you know, like you said. I’m not on the pill. Chris took the precautions.’

‘Mmm. Well, there’s no doubt about it – we have to get you medical attention, Fran.’ Harriet stroke her hair to calm her.

Fran grimaced. ‘I’m not going to hospital, definitely not.’

‘You are, because I say so. This isn’t normal at all.’

‘I really don’t need to go to hospital. It’ll stop in a bit.’

‘Is it stopping?’

Fran shook her head.

‘I’m sorry, darling, but you do, for whatever reason it turns out to be. Now I won’t be long, but I have to talk to your dad about what to do.’

‘Does he have to know?’

Harriet nodded. ‘Absolutely. He does. Stay where you are till I get back.’

Jimbo, not realising the seriousness of the situation, was in his office working on the computer. When he saw that Harriet was as white as a sheet and trembling, he asked, ‘She isn’t alright, is she?’

‘No, she is not. As far as I can tell she’s,’ Harriet took a deep breath, ‘having an early miscarriage.’ She cleared her throat. ‘It’s so bad she can’t get off the loo.’

Jimbo shot to his feet. ‘Right, let’s go.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Hospital, of course. After that I shall be up at the Big House tearing Chris Templeton to pieces. He won’t be called good-looking after I’ve finished with him.’

‘Right.’

They left Fran at the hospital looking more worried than they had ever seen her. Vulnerable and very desperate. Fran whispered to her dad, ‘I’m so sorry. So very sorry. I’d no idea, though I have felt funny today, I thought . . . anyway . . . a miscarriage. Oh, God. Chris will be so upset.’

Harriet didn’t think that he would be upset; just the opposite, more likely.

Jimbo answered her. ‘Look here, darling child of mine, what you have to do is get on with being brave. Have this minor op if you need it in the morning to make sure there’s no infection and that everything has come away as it should, and then you come home and you’ll be loved and cherished and cared for, and you’ll be better in no time. You’ll have to get better. After all how will the store manage without you? The takings will plummet without you there. I know I certainly can’t cope without you, and neither can your mum. We’ll all be rooting for you, believe me. Good night, my darling.’ Jimbo pressed a kiss on his daughter’s forehead.