The Honey Queen (42 page)

‘Oh, you daft dog,’ said Frankie, half laughing, half sobbing.

‘Georgia,’ remonstrated Gaby, pulling at her collar. ‘Get down, there’s a time and a place for everything. I’m sorry,’ she apologized. ‘It’s always food. She thinks you might have something edible in the car.’

Frankie laughed. ‘Perhaps I should let her in, it does need a valet.’ She petted the dog. ‘Georgia, love, would you be able to get rid of all the crumbs?’

Gaby started to laugh too. ‘She only eats the things she likes,’ she said. ‘She’s absolutely no good at hoovering up things like dried fruit or seeds. Thinks they’re evil things. But if you have a bit of a sausage or a few chips or best of all crisps in there, she’ll hoover marvellously.’

Frankie dragged herself out of the car. Her muscles ached, her joints ached. She felt her age – no, she felt more than her age. She felt a hundred. She dragged her bag from the passenger seat.

‘It’s a company car, you know,’ she said to Gaby. ‘It’ll have to go.’

It was a pale-blue middle-of-the-road, middle-range sedan. Frankie had had a company car for years, it was one of the perks of the job and she’d known she was lucky, even though she was taxed for it. But still, it had been part of her, part of the job. Gaby called Georgia out of the car, shut the door, then put her arm through Frankie’s and walked her towards the house.

‘I know this is probably the worst time to have a drink,’ Gaby said, ‘but sometimes a glass of wine helps. I know, I know,’ she said holding up one hand, ‘that’s not the correct attitude and we don’t want to turn into raving alcoholics, but I don’t think either of us has that problem so maybe some cheese, crackers, a few grapes and a nice glass of red might make you feel a little bit better?’

Frankie grinned. ‘Bring it on,’ she said. ‘I might even have two glasses.’

They sat in Gaby’s back garden and let the sun toast their limbs. The garden was much like the rest of the house: pretty and with a hodge-podge of things. Gaby’s method of gardening was to plant things and then let them get on with it. The house was the same: lots of paintings and shelves with books on them and odd curios that Gaby and Victor had bought on holiday. There were things upon things. It was all very charming and lived in. It suddenly felt very peaceful to be sitting out here on the terrace where honeysuckle, an old climbing rose and what was possibly a clematis were having a battle to see who could take over most of a trellis first.

Gaby never had two dishes the same and she’d set out an eclectic collection of pottery plates and bowls, with bits of cheese, crackers, olives and relish, along with a bunch of grapes, all higgledy piggledy on the old mosaic-topped cast-iron table. Georgia sat between the two of them, eyeing each of them in turn and hoping for a giant lump of cheese to fall at her feet.

‘Georgia, go away,’ said Gaby, in exasperation. ‘You’re dreadful! You get two big meals a day.’

‘She’s fine,’ said Frankie calmly. It felt good to be sitting out here, away from the cares of the world. As long as she didn’t move from this spot, she could almost pretend that today hadn’t happened.

‘What does Seth say?’ said Gaby, and Frankie looked at her in surprise.

‘That’s why I came here, Gaby,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how to tell Seth. He texted me to say he and Lillie are home, but I didn’t have the courage to ring him back.’

‘Oh, Frankie,’ sighed Gaby, ‘you poor darling. They’re total bastards –
bastards
to let you go. I hope the place falls apart around their feet without you.’

‘It won’t,’ said Frankie in a resigned voice, ‘it never does. We’re all replaceable – even me, maybe especially me. I don’t know. I don’t think I’m past it, I think I’m very good at my job, but politically speaking I’m just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The head of HR from Unite is clearly the one who’s getting the big job, not me. And I know exactly how hard it is out there at the moment and how nobody is going to want to employ me. I’m too old, I’ve been too highly paid and had too big a job for too long.’

She took another sip of wine. She was on her second glass. She’d have to leave the car at Gaby’s. She couldn’t possibly drive it home now, and the last thing she wanted was to turn into some lush who got trolleyed in the afternoon. ‘I suppose I should phone Seth and get him to pick me up,’ she said slowly. ‘I keep thinking about him, how I’m going to tell him.’

‘If anyone knows how it feels,’ said Gaby, ‘it’s Seth.’

There was silence and Frankie reached over and petted Georgia’s shaggy head. ‘That’s the thing,’ she said, ‘I feel so incredibly sorry for Seth because he went through all this and I didn’t really understand. I gave him hell because I had no idea what it felt like. I thought I did, because I worked in HR, but I didn’t. I wasn’t there for him,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t there at all. He had no one until Lillie came –
she’s
been there for him.’

And then she knew what had upset her most all afternoon. Not being let go, but the knowledge that she’d been so unhelpful to Seth. She was the one who’d created the chasm between them.

‘You’ve been under enormous pressure, Frankie,’ consoled Gaby. ‘You can’t be superwoman and—’

‘No,’ said Frankie. ‘I messed up. I blamed Seth for things he had no power over. I should have supported him and I didn’t, but that stops now.’

‘Really?’ Gaby’s eyes were wide.

Frankie nodded. ‘Really. I have two calls to make. One, to the best employment lawyer in the business, and the other to Seth. If I leave Dutton, I’m going to leave with enough money to make us comfortable for the rest of our lives. What Mr Let’s Fire You doesn’t seem to realize is that I’ve been with the company for so long, it’ll cost him the GNP of some small nation to pay me off! And when we’ve got that, well, I’m not saying our money worries will be over, but we’ll be doing fine. We’ll even be able to do up the house. I can get some part-time work to build up the pension … You know me, Gaby, I’ll do anything!’

Gaby laughed. ‘I know you hate the idea of being told you take after Mum,’ she said, ‘but you do remind me of her sometimes. You’ve both got some of the warrior queen going on there.’

Frankie held out her glass. ‘More wine for the warrior queen,’ she said, and once Gaby had filled it up, Frankie searched her phone’s contacts list quickly and made the first call.

When she dialled the second number, Seth answered. She launched straight into it.

‘I’m at Gaby’s and I’ve had three glasses of wine so I really can’t drive home.’

There was a stunned silence at the other end of the phone, then:

‘What’s happened? Is everything all right?’ Seth asked with an urgency that made him sound like the old Seth.

‘I’ve been made redundant,’ she said slowly. ‘The best thing to do seemed to be to come to Gaby’s house. I thought that you and Lillie weren’t going to be home for a while and I wanted some company.’ This was a lie. She hadn’t wanted to face Seth and tell him this awful news, knowing how clumsily and unhelpfully she had reacted when it happened to him.

‘Oh my darling,’ said Seth, and this time he really did sound like his old self. ‘My baby. Those idiots. Wait till a few weeks go by and they find out what they’ve lost,’ he said with venom.

Frankie felt herself begin to cry. How could she have doubted him? He had been there all along and she hadn’t realized it. ‘Thank you, darling,’ she muttered.

‘I’ll be there quick as I can,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, love, it’s going to be fine. We’re going to be fine. I love you, bye.’

‘Don’t go,’ she yelled into the phone.

‘Why?’

‘Because I want to tell you that I love you, you wonderful man, that I’m sorry for not understanding, but that I’m going to make it right.’

Again, there was silence.

‘I am sorry,’ Frankie repeated. ‘And the good news is that I’ve talked to a brilliant employment lawyer. With my experience, my years with the firm and the deal I signed all those years ago, I think things could work out OK.’

Beside her, Gaby whooped.

‘You’re sure?’ Seth’s voice was almost a whisper.

‘I’m sure, darling,’ said Frankie. ‘Sure about both things.’

T
here was a party going on on Friday night, Kaz informed Freya.

‘In Decco and Louise’s house. Their parents are away and the next-door neighbour’s deaf. We’ve been invited. D’you want to go?’

Freya gave a knowing smile. Kaz was conducting a love affair from a distance with Decco, who was one of their friends’ older brothers. It was very one-sided, with Kaz staring at Decco whenever their paths crossed and blushing puce whenever he looked in her direction.

There were only two impediments to the love affair: one, Decco hadn’t ever spoken to Kaz, and two, he already had a girlfriend, an impossibly gorgeous-looking Polish-born girl with cheekbones like the Steppes, glossy long dark hair down to her bum and a look in her eyes that said she would take on all comers.

‘Bad idea?’ Kaz went on, misinterpreting Freya’s silence for a negative response. ‘You’re thinking I’d be his little sister’s drippy friend and everyone would
know
I fancied him?’

‘No,’ said Freya. ‘Faint heart never won fair hot guy and all that. I was wondering what we’d wear.’

Since Decco and Louise lived closer to Freya’s house, and since Kaz said getting ready in her place would be hampered by her four older sisters instantly running off with the new metallic cotton T-shirt she’d bought to go with her tight skinny jeans, the getting ready marathon took place at Freya’s.

Opal was delighted Freya was going to a party, although when she heard it was going to be composed of mainly eighteen-year-olds, she said she wanted her home by ten.

‘Do you good to get out for an hour, pet,’ she said, as she made the two girls tea and tried to fill them up with freshly baked cinnamon buns. ‘But do be careful. Phone at any time and Ned will be round to pick you up.’

‘You’re so understanding, Opal,’ sighed Kaz, already on her second cinnamon bun, despite an earlier plan to eat nothing after lunch so she could zip up her jeans. ‘My mother growls at me when I say I’m going out and wants me to phone in every hour with an update on my whereabouts.’

‘Freya texts me to tell me how she’s doing,’ Opal said fondly. ‘She knows I worry. After rearing three sons and a daughter and hearing the high-jinks their pals got up to, I know all about what goes on out there.’

She paused mashing potatoes for that evening’s shepherd’s pie.

‘Your mother worries, Kaz. That’s all. You can only see the fun out there tonight, but when you’re a bit older, you see all the pitfalls. You might be too young to drink, but the older lads won’t be.’

Kaz bit her lip. She had every intention of having a beer or two. Louise had said that Decco was getting kegs in – all legally bought, since he was over eighteen.

Opal sat at the table with them and poured herself tea from the pot.

‘Look at yourself, pet. You might be sixteen, but you look at least nineteen or twenty when you’re all made up with your finery on. Fellows only see how you look on the outside and not the vulnerability on the inside. I’d hate to see you getting hurt from having sex with some drunk lad who won’t remember your name the next moment. You’d be the one who’d feel devastated and violated the next day, not him. That sort of thing stays with a woman, is all I’m saying.’

Kaz stared in awe at Opal, marvelling that this silvery-haired woman who could easily be somebody’s granny was talking so calmly about under-age sex and under-age drinking. Not doing the head-in-the-sand thing of not mentioning it, but actually discussing it.

Kaz’s mother, Grace – a woman with five daughters – had a different approach.

‘Don’t you dare have a drink until you’re old enough, missy. I don’t want you coming home some night with a baby on the way,’ Grace had snapped at her.

There had been no talk of how fumbled, drunken sex might upset Kaz. Just a straightforward lecture on how the family would not be able to afford a baby and how they’d been lucky that time with Leesa, when her being a week late with her period had turned out to be stress-related rather than embryonic baby-related.

‘If any of you put me through that again,’ Grace had told them all grimly, ‘I’ll kill you.’

In the calm of her yellow-painted kitchen, Opal added milk to her tea from a jug decorated with fat peonies.

‘There’s pressure on young girls today to grow up before their time. I know there will be drink at that party and I know Freya won’t touch it because …’ Opal paused and then, realizing Kaz knew all about Freya’s mother and then some, went on: ‘… because she’s seen what it’s done to her poor mother, Lord help her. But you might get tempted, Kaz. You’re too young, that’s all I’m saying. Drink has done enough damage to this country. Have fun for an hour, and then come home.’

Kaz sat on Freya’s bed and stared out of the window at the allotments behind the garden, neatly laid out in formal lines, some wildly verdant with growth, others scattered with what looked like weeds.

‘I feel dead guilty now,’ she said. ‘I meant to have a drink or two, but Opal makes me feel …’

‘… like you’d be letting her down if you did?’ Freya finished.

‘Exactly.’ Kaz sighed, then took out her make-up and began the transformation.

She was halfway into applying a layer of foundation when she put her sponge down.

‘What if Decco offers me a drink? What then? I can’t say no and let him think I’m just a kid, can I?’

Freya, who could line her own brown eyes with smoky kohl in two minutes flat, was blending in dark ochre shadows around the kohl. She never wore make-up to school and liked the effect now, thinking that she was looking more grown up these days.

‘If he likes you, he likes you,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t mean you have to do whatever he thinks is cool.’

‘That’s easy for you to say,’ grumbled Kaz. ‘Just ’cos you do what you want and don’t listen to anybody, doesn’t mean the rest of us are like you.’

‘Hey, it’s not easy for me,’ protested Freya.

Make-up finished, she looked at herself in the mirror. If Kaz looked nineteen done up, then Freya looked much the same as she always did: small, thin, entirely flat-chested and her head a cloud of dark curls.