The black shape all at once stopped being scary and became understandable. ‘No, it’s a person not an animal,’ Tom said and then shouted, ‘Hey!’
The shape stopped moving and a head appeared from behind one of the gravestones.
Grey-blonde hair.
As the rest of Fran rose up and into view, Tom could see that she not only looked embarrassed, but had obviously been crying. When she was standing upright, she gave him an awkward wave.
‘Who the hell is that?’ Rob asked.
‘Woman called Fran Mayhew,’ Tom said, not taking his eyes off her. ‘Artist. Does paper pictures … sculptures. Wanted her to create something for the magazine. She’s … she’s a little unconventional.’
‘You don’t say.’ Rob did an exaggerated mime of someone looking amazed.
Tom saw Fran glance towards the entrance as though she wanted to escape, but perhaps she realised that would seem weirder than the weirdness she was already involved in. She started weaving her way towards them through the tombstones. She appeared older today, more sophisticated in a sleeveless black dress and with her hair up. Black bag
slung over her body and black shoes too, as if she’d been to a funeral. That would explain the crying.
‘Is she dangerous?’ Rob asked, out of the side of his mouth.
Tom thought of Greg Vasey lying on the floor. ‘Possibly.’
Well at least that had taken Rob’s mind off the baby.
Fran stopped a few feet away, smoothing down her dress as though she was deliberately trying to avoid eye contact.
Tom did not ask her if she usually crawled around in cemeteries – he sensed that it would not take much to make her cry again.
‘This probably looks a bit … bizarre,’ she said, as if choosing her words carefully.
‘A little.’ He’d wanted to add ‘even for you’, but let the better man in him rise to the surface.
‘Well, the thing is,’ she said, hesitantly, ‘I did spot you both earlier and I was going to come over and say hello, but I didn’t want to interrupt your …’ She was struggling for words. ‘Your embrace. It seemed so very intimate, that I—’
‘We’re brothers,’ Tom said quickly at exactly the same time as Rob did. Rob was also pointing from his own chest to Tom’s and back again repeatedly, just in case the words hadn’t explained things enough.
Fran’s smile animated the whole of her face so that for an instant the old her was back. ‘Oh, you’re brothers! Well,
that’s lovely. Not that it would have mattered if you hadn’t been, but I would have felt I was interrupting something a bit … um, you know. Anyway. Brothers. Marvellous. Yes, I can see that now.’ She stepped towards Rob with her hand held out and it was almost comical the way he looked at Tom as if to check it was safe to take it.
‘I’m Fran Mayhew, by the way,’ she said. ‘You must be Rob. Your name came up when Tom was talking to Greg Vasey.’
Rob let go of her hand and Tom wondered how Fran managed to step unerringly on the mines in conversations like some demented sniffer dog. While Rob was philosophical about being bullied at school, it wasn’t something he needed to be reminded about. Tom tried glaring at Fran, but she was focused on Rob, as if trying to work out why he’d let go of her hand so abruptly.
‘I think it’s an overstatement to say I was talking to Vasey,’ Tom said, still glaring. ‘He was talking
at
me while I did my best not to strangle him.’ As Rob was still looking confused, he added, ‘I went round to talk to Fran about the magazine and Vasey was there. He’s her landlord. He was cutting her lawn. I was hoping he’d cut his toes off.’
Rob snorted. ‘He’s not worth even thinking about, mate. Tosser. Being himself is his own punishment. Shall we talk about something else?’
Tom wanted to hug Rob again. He didn’t – twice in one lifetime would have been too much, so he just said, ‘Good man,’ and punched him on the arm.
He was waiting for Fran to mention that Vasey had ended up on the floor, but when he checked her face, her expression reminded him of how Hattie looked just after she’d said goodbye to Steph and before she put the phone back on its stand. He couldn’t work out what it meant, possibly because at the same time, he was also appreciating the way the black of her dress looked against her skin.
‘You been to a funeral?’ Rob asked and Fran’s expression solidified into one of misery again.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I was much too late for that.’
Rob gave him a perplexed look and Tom batted it right back. Again he wanted to ask her what she was doing. Had she been hiding in the cemetery the entire time he’d been there? Or just walked in when he and Rob had been holding each other and plummeted immediately to the ground?
She appeared to have gone into some kind of trance and then, suddenly, she was saying, ‘Well, this has been lovely, but I’d better go now. Goodbye, Tom. Goodbye, Rob.’
She had got as far as the gateway when he saw her stop, turn and walk back towards them and he waited with unease for the next weapon of mass tactlessness to be dropped on them.
Please God she hadn’t heard them talking about babies and wasn’t going to offer Rob some of her blunt advice.
She was doing that look again. ‘Tom,’ she said, gently. ‘I’ve had a rethink about creating some work for the magazine. Do you think I could come in tomorrow, talk it through?’
She was gone again so quickly that he wasn’t sure he’d given an answer, and that brisk pace of hers reappeared to carry her right to the gateway. But once there, her posture sagged and it was obvious that she had stopped pretending everything was all right with her.
CHAPTER 20
Tuesday 20 May
1) The graveyard was not quieter than the library.
2) Words on stone are much more upsetting than words on newspaper. There is something so final about them; a name: some dates, a trite piece of verse, that’s all you get for a whole life.
3) Being really, really hollowed out and sobbing buckets does not stop you from noticing a thrusting obelisk and thinking how apt that is. It does stop you noticing that a man has come into the cemetery and is sitting quietly on a bench.
4) Hiding among tombstones is not an uplifting experience and may actually be against some kind of religious law. Also, crawling along the ground gives new meaning to the phrase ‘maintaining a low profile’.
5) Two heterosexual men can look very jittery when you suggest they may have been involved in a gay tryst.
They are so busy telling you they are not gay or trysting that most of the questions you thought you’d get asked, don’t materialise. Such as: where were you crawling away from?
6) I still have a monumental ability to put my foot in it – although perhaps in the cemetery context, monumental is an unfortunate choice of words.
7) With regard to point 6, it is obvious that Greg Vasey has hurt Rob in some way in the past and Tom still feels protective towards his brother about it. I wish that I had not only executed Mr Yakamito’s Striking Cobra with Half Twist on Vasey, but also Charging Rhino with Full Flex.
8) Tom either has a squint or a thing about black dresses.
9) It is amazing how the sight of Tom gently holding his brother, and his efforts to protect him, can make you understand that he does have the right name (see entry for May 13). It also makes you even more intrigued about what life has done to him.
10) It is easy to reverse a decision you thought was watertight, because:
A. The hardness of a monument and the sharpness of words are enough to convince you that it’s vital to make a favourable impression on the person you came to see – before they know that you are you. (This may in fact be gibberish, as I am halfway down a bottle of Merlot. It is my second one.)
B. Seeing siblings looking after each other (in a manly way, obviously) makes you feel that you’re privy to something very tender, but also utterly, utterly alone. In this frame of mind, spending hours in a ‘cottage’ with only a scalpel for company is a bad idea. Getting out in the world is a better one.
CHAPTER 21
‘This is absolutely wonderful, just like being in a galleon as it sails down Middle Street.’ Fran was in the bay window of Tom’s office, bending so that she could fit and running her hand over the surface of the glass as if it was precious to her.
He was watching Liz’s expression. It was shouting, FRUITCAKE ALERT! FRUITCAKE ALERT!
‘You’re so lucky to have such a beautiful place to work,’ Fran said, lowering herself into a sitting position and then jumping down from the windowsill. ‘So
simpatico
.’
As she walked back to her chair, Tom could see she had plaster dust on her bottom. And that it was a very good bottom. He diverted his attention back to her face.
Fran had enthused about everything from the moment she’d entered the main office. She’d done it so fulsomely that he’d heard her before he saw her.
Liz, still looking wary, was asking Fran if she would like a coffee. To Tom the question sounded like a challenge being thrown down. Liz didn’t like what she called
affected
people and he could tell that Fran, with her plaits and her cardigan with big multi-coloured buttons, was irritating Liz merely by existing.
‘A coffee?’ Fran asked. ‘You have time to do that? But I thought you were the sub-editor – you more or less run the magazine, don’t you?’
Liz glanced towards Tom as if she suspected some sarcasm hidden beneath those words. ‘Yeah, well, I can do a lot of different tasks at the same time. No room here for prima donnas.’
Fran was oblivious to the way that last phrase had been aimed at her. ‘Goodness,’ she said, ‘you muck in with everything? I do hope Tom appreciates that.’
‘Of course I do,’ he said, defensively. He got a big smile from Fran and a ‘patronising git’ look from Liz before she started moving for the door.
‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ she said, grimly, and Tom found himself feeling sorry for Fran and what was about to come at her in a cup.
‘So,’ he said, trying to get Fran’s mind back on to business. ‘You said that you’d had a change of heart …?’
Fran studied him for long enough without replying to make him wonder if she’d heard him, but just as he was about to rephrase his question she said, ‘Yes. A change of heart. Exactly,’ and did a strange little smile before looking down at her hands.
‘Great. I’ll get Felix, the Creative Director I mentioned, to pop down. I’d also like Derek, our photographer, in on the discussion.’ He glanced at Fran’s website which he had brought up on the screen in front of him. ‘I guess you might want to have your agent involved too? We can set up a conference call—’
‘Oh, that won’t be necessary.’ Fran frowned. ‘To be honest, Tom, my website is a teeny bit out of date. I’m what you might call “between agents” at present.’
‘Between agents?’
‘Yes. My last one was excellent at getting work, but I was beginning to feel a little like I was on a galley ship.’ She grinned. ‘Not a galleon. No sooner had I finished one commission than I was off on another. Did you see the sculptures for the shopping mall in Singapore?’
He found the huge waves with tiny boats riding on them. Just packaging all the pieces up and sending them off must have been a nightmare.
‘Two months’ work,’ she said and grimaced. ‘And then straight on to the Christmas windows for a store in Glasgow. And things change, don’t they?’ She peered at him as if expecting him to confirm that. ‘I wanted to slow down for a while … and he wasn’t very sympathetic. The only work I’m doing at the moment is to please myself. I suppose it’s a kind of sabbatical.’
Tom wondered why she’d wanted to slow down, but guessed that was too personal a question to ask, so went instead for, ‘Any particular reason why you chose Northumberland?’
She looked blank before saying, quickly, ‘Castles … and … sheep. I heard there were a lot of sheep here. And beaches … Oh, goodness!’ She suddenly got up. ‘Is that an original ventilation grille?’
She was off to peer at what looked like a very dull piece of metal high up on the wall behind his desk. He took the opportunity to find the autobiography section of her website again. It told him practically nothing apart from the fact that she had lived in a variety of locations around the world and studied at Central St Martins in London.
‘It says here that you studied in London, but I’m sure you told Natalie that you’d—’
‘Been at Warwick?’ She was still looking at the ventilation grille. ‘Well done, Tom, you’re very observant, I’ve noticed that. Which makes me very observant too, I suppose.’ She laughed and sat back down. ‘I started off studying Classics and Ancient History at Warwick. My mother’s choice, but I hated the course. So I left and went and did what
I
wanted to do.’ Another laugh, but not an amused one this time. ‘Goodness. I had no idea you’d be checking my background. Are you worried I’ll run off
with the tea money? Or that I’m an imposter? So many questions, Tom.’
‘No, it’s just—’
‘You think I’m a little strange?’
It was a direct question delivered with a direct gaze, and he didn’t have enough warning that it was coming to deny it.
‘Silence speaks volumes,’ she said. ‘But don’t worry, lots of people think I’m strange.’ She was leaning forward. ‘But I’m going to say two words, Tom, that will help you understand me better.’
What, ‘escaped inmate’? ‘Alien life form’? No, that was three
.
‘Go on,’ he said, liking the way her pale-blue eyes seemed to spark at that instruction.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘Here they are:
home-schooled
.’ She laughed. ‘Ah, there it is,
that
look. The one I always get when I tell people. A mixture of amusement and pity.’
He couldn’t deny what his face had been doing. ‘Home-schooled,’ he repeated, ‘I’d never have guessed.’
‘Very funny, Tom.’ A quick flick of her gaze towards the ceiling and then right back at him. ‘And before you ask, no, I did not have to be taken out of a conventional school for my own safety. We moved around a lot, my mother and I, and home-schooling provided me with continuity. And when we did settle somewhere, it was very remote, so
being educated at home still seemed like the best solution.’