Now we are forgiven, p.12
Now We Are Forgiven, page 12
Frankie reaches forward and embraces her, but the backpack gets in the way and makes the gesture awkward. She tries to reach behind him all the same and he can feel the faint intermittent touch of her hands on the back of his jumper, hovering birds trying to land on a scorched surface.
‘Look at you,’ says Frankie, separating himself and taking the heavy backpack from her.
‘Look at me. A proper sight.’
Frankie registers that she looks forlorn and tired. There are grey bags under her eyes and the sclera are the colour of dilute tea.
‘You’ve lost weight.’
‘You’re looking a bit porky,’ she responds, with a weak but not unfriendly smile.
‘Thanks.’
She pulls the backpack out of Frankie’s hands.
‘I can manage, Dad.’
‘No, really.’
‘I said, I can manage. It’s not the 1950s.’
‘I was just trying to be helpful. Cup of tea?’
‘I’d rather have coffee.’
China takes a step inside. She stops to look at the framed 10 x 8 photo on the side table by the front door – Frankie, China and Veronica outside the old house in North Kensington. China is maybe five years old. Veronica is staring at Frankie lovingly while China laughs, mouth wide open, hair in bunches. Frankie stares amicably at the camera, which is held by a friend of his who is a professional photographer. There is authority in Frankie’s gaze – he is paying for the photograph and he is determined that it conjure the right image. It is one of the few things he took from the family house before it was sold by auction. Veronica claimed what was left with Frankie’s guilty assent.
‘Nice picture.’
Frankie follows her gaze.
‘Great days.’
‘Were they? I don’t remember.’
She bends down, and opens her bag searching for some painkillers, strewing detritus – clothes, packets of gum, a yellowed copy of Death of a Salesman – on the floor as she does so. Finding the blister pack she is searching for, she pops two co-codamol into her mouth.
‘Got some water?’
She looks through the open door to the kitchen area and registers the exotic ingredients and chopped vegetables strewn about on the table as well as the aroma coming from the stove. Too lethargic to go to the sink, she swallows the tablets dry. Frankie heads into the kitchen and brings her back a cup of coffee that he had brewed earlier, reheating it in the microwave. The mug depicts a QPR shirt with the number 8 and the name ‘Blue’ on it, a present from Roxy at Christmas.
‘Black, no sugar, right?’
She takes the cup and smells it critically. Coffee – AeroPress, cold press, siphon, Chemex – is her passion.
‘What is this?’
‘What do you mean “what is it”? It’s coffee.’
‘Where are the beans from?’
‘Tesco.’
She slumps wearily at the cheap circular wooden living-room table – the living room doubles as a dining room, since the kitchen is too small for four people to sit round a table – casting her bag carelessly on the floor. There are four matching chairs, pine with curved white-painted backs, ranged round the table and she sits on the one facing the kitchen door. To China, it looks like a flat ready to flip at any time, like a thousand rentals in the surrounding area. Not pleasant or unpleasant. Just lacking any confidence, or flair, or meaning, or history. She puts the coffee mug on the table, ignoring the coaster in front of her, and imprinting a moist ring on the surface. She takes a water bottle out of the bag, unloading more overspill – peanuts, pencils – onto the floor, and drinks deeply. Then she looks back through to the kitchen.
‘You shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble. A bowl of pasta would have suited me. You know I’m not all that fussy about food. So long as it doesn’t contain meat or fish.’
‘Yes, well,’ says Frankie warily. ‘I need to talk to you about that.’
China notices a tray of diced meat on the kitchen table. It takes her a few seconds to parse its meaning.
‘All this – it’s not for me, is it?’
Frankie sits down on the chair on the opposite side of the dining table and faces China. He looks directly at her, but she will not meet his gaze. There is a vase with a spray of palely coloured paper flowers in the centre.
‘You can’t just turn up out of the blue and expect me to drop all my plans, China.’
China’s puzzled frown turns into a complicated smile, part arch, part bitter.
‘Of course not. Obviously you have more important things to do.’
‘I was making an anniversary dinner for Roxy when you phoned.’
‘Anniversary? You’re not married. And you haven’t even been hardly seeing one another you told me.’
‘It’s been six months. Exactly six months it turns out.’
‘Is she even your proper girlfriend?’
‘You know. She’s my… main squeeze, I suppose.’
‘Don’t use that expression.’
‘We’re dating, yes.’
‘So let me get this straight,’ China says, pointlessly flattening down the crumpled front of her blouse with the palm of her hand. ‘You haven’t seen me since October. But you’re having Roxy around for your “six-month” anniversary. Which isn’t actually a thing. And you couldn’t postpone.’
Frankie tries to reach over and take China’s hand, but she pulls it away.
‘To be honest, I’m not absolutely sure that she’s coming.’
‘How come?’
‘Because she hung up on me after I told her that you were coming.’
He immediately realizes that phrasing it in this fashion is a misstep.
‘Nice to feel welcome,’ says China sourly.
‘I thought you didn’t want her to come!’
‘It’s not great when your father’s girlfriend hangs up at the mention of his daughter’s name.’
Frankie’s struggle to find the right words to use with his daughter feels to him like picking through the pimientos de Padron Veronica used to serve at the big parties they would hold for their friends and neighbours in North Kensington. He would always try and avoid the spicy one, because it would give him heartburn, but there was no way of knowing which one it was and he would infallibly pick it, giving himself acid indigestion for the rest of the evening.
‘It wasn’t like that, China.’
China pulls a pack of sugarless gum out of the backpack, peels it with remarkable speed and dexterity, and pops it into her mouth. Her slow, cud-like chewing immediately gives her face an unpleasant, sullen appearance.
‘It’s complicated. I’ve been promising Roxy this for a long time.’
‘So what, then? If she turns up the three of us are going to have a lovely romantic supper together?’
She blows a pink bubble and pops it, then draws the gum back into her mouth. Frankie finds this oddly revolting.
‘It’s not ideal, I know. But she probably won’t come.’
‘Why don’t you ring her and ask her?’ She pushes the wooden chair she is sitting on back on two legs. Also bought cheap from the junk market, she can feel that the legs are unsteady.
‘Don’t do that, China, you’ll break it. I’ve tried to call her. Roxy’s phone just goes to voicemail.’
China, still balancing on two chair legs, picks at a hangnail, then tugs at it harshly, pulling it off, exposing raw red skin.
‘You’d rather I wasn’t here – wouldn’t you?’
Frankie stands, walks round the other side of the table and takes a tentative step towards his daughter. He wants to hold her. He wants to apologize. He wants to make everything right. But words, so powerful when selling houses, seem to shrink and fade like invisible ink when he is around his daughter.
‘I’m so very glad you are here, China. I’m delighted. But let’s just get past this first night, shall we?’
China’s shoulders slump. She looks around the flat, so plain and bland and functional and ugly compared with Nodge and Owen’s elegant, expensive minimalism or her mother’s cosy shabby chic.
‘Where are you dumping me, then?’ she sighs.
Frankie gets up and gestures towards the stairs.
‘There’s a room for you up there. Next to my bedroom.’
China rises from the table and hauls up her backpack.
‘Are you going to leave that stuff there?’ Frankie says. There is now a corona of spilt items on the floor from China’s bag.
‘I’ll pick them up later.’
Frankie silently, swiftly, gathers up the items himself, then leads her up the stairs. The two bedrooms are next to one another. A small bathroom stands to the right of the landing. Frankie ushers China into her room, which he has had little time to prepare, and drops the items he is carrying on the single foldout bed. Unlike at Nodge and Owen’s, this spare room is tawdry, despite being clean and tidy. It has magnolia walls and a plain taupe carpet. Frankie had rushed out and bought a bunch of cheap luridly dyed tulips from the service station on the corner and thrust them in a vase that was too small for them on a table next to the bed. There is a flatpack desk and chair, a wooden litter bin, a folded laundry drying rack, a stand-up vacuum cleaner – the room is used largely for storage – and little else besides.
‘I know it’s not up to much at the moment.’
She sits down forlornly on the bed. Frankie carefully sits next to her, six inches away.
‘So – tell me everything that happened.’
China feels herself softening. Then, to her own surprise, she begins to cry. She hates herself when she cries, it makes her feel weak, particularly in front of her father, but she can’t hold it inside any longer.
‘Oh, Dad, it’s been horrible. We’ve all been fighting. Mason, he… ’
She suddenly throws herself against Frankie’s shoulder. Frankie is astonished but delighted at the novelty of his daughter looking for his emotional support. He tentatively puts his arm around her shoulder, feeling the curve of her thin shoulders. For once, China does not recoil. For the first time in years, he feels like a father. Then, from downstairs, there is the distinct sound of the front door opening. China immediately pulls herself away from Frankie’s shoulder and urgently rubs at her cheeks to remove the tear tracks.
‘Is that her?’
Feeling cheated and annoyed at Roxy’s timing, Frankie irrationally decides that Roxy has planned this interruption.
‘I suppose it must be,’ he says, standing up awkwardly.
‘But… I haven’t told you what happened with me and Mason.’ China’s voice is still choked with tears.
Roxy’s singsong voice broadcasts from the sitting room.
‘Frankie! It’s moi.’
Frankie calls down the stairs.
‘I’ll be just a moment.’
He hears the door slam behind Roxy, a little harder than necessary. The fact that Roxy doesn’t acknowledge his call makes Frankie nervous. He knows her moods and signals and he is anxious to keep the peace. He hesitates, then makes his way towards the door to the landing.
‘I’ll just be a minute, China.’
China drops her head, then turns and wearily begins to unpack.
‘Don’t bother, Dad. Go and see your boo.’
Frankie stares at her, a trapped rabbit.
‘I’ll be right back,’ he says, then scurries down the stairs. In the sitting room, Frankie sees Roxy is already relaxing on the sofa. She is done up to the nines. She wears a perfume so pungent it has already carried to the corner of the room where Frankie is standing. She cradles a bottle of Prosecco. Frankie notices that it is the cheap brand she purchases in bulk for the salon.
‘Hello, lover,’ says Roxy breathily. She rises from the sofa as he walks towards her, puts the bottle on the dining table and gives him a long kiss on the mouth. ‘What time’s the little madam getting here?’ Her voice, it seems to Frankie, is pitched unnecessarily loud.
‘She’s already here. In the spare room,’ Frankie hisses, glancing up the stairs. Then, in a more hushed tone: ‘And the door’s open.’
Roxy shrugs and slumps back onto the sofa.
‘Let me just… I need to… ’ Frankie turns and starts to make his way back towards the stairs.
‘Aren’t you going to fix me a drink?’ says Roxy, in a clipped voice, not too different from the one she used when she was talking to her Thai masseuse earlier in the day. ‘Something smells good.’
‘I’ve been working hard on it.’
‘Frankie – that’s so thoughtful of you,’ she says, her tone now sugared.
‘I just need to… ’
‘Just fix me that drink, would you, Frankie? I’ve been on my feet all day.’
Frankie picks up the bottle of Prosecco from the table and, too violently, he pulls the cork out. It foams and spills. He struggles to find a cloth to mop up the mess, then grabs some flimsy kitchen towel. Eventually he manages to fill a glass and hands it to Roxy. Then he makes his way towards the stairs again.
‘I’ll be right back.’
‘Did you get any munchies?’
‘Some peanuts. Dry roasted.’
‘Exotic. Be a darling and crack open a pack for me before you disappear.’
Frankie glances once again at the stairs. He hastily returns to the kitchen, rummages frantically in the cupboard and finds the peanut packet. He pours the nuts into a small bowl and hands it to Roxy, who takes them without any word of thanks, since she is now absorbed with examining her phone. At last he heads up the stairs and back to China’s bedroom. Although he had left the door open, it is now shut. He knocks gently.
‘China.’
There is no answer.
‘China,’ he repeats, in a slightly more forceful voice.
‘What?’ China mutters from the other side of the door, just loudly enough for Frankie to hear.
Frankie turns the knob and opens the door. China is lying on her back on the bed staring at the magnolia stippled ceiling. She has kicked off her shoes and Frankie can smell a faint cheesiness drifting from the soles of her naked feet, or possibly the socks that are lying on the floor at the foot of the bed.
‘Sorry I took so long.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ says China wearily. ‘I’m just so grateful that you can find any time at all for a “little madam” like me.’
Frankie sits down on the bed at China’s feet. He feels the material of his trousers make light contact with her soles. The smell is more intense and he grimaces, but keeps his face away from China so she doesn’t notice.
‘Roxy didn’t mean that,’ he says, still facing away from her.
‘Didn’t she?’
‘It’s just her way. She’s always taking the piss. Don’t be offended. Tell me about Mason and Silas.’
He turns and risks a direct look at her. China pulls up her knees so her feet are no longer in touch with Frankie.
‘The moment’s passed. It always does.’
She surrounds her knees with her arms and links her hands.
‘Roxy can wait.’
‘Clearly not.’
Frankie is defeated by the simple irrefutability of this fact.
‘Come and join us for supper, then,’ he says lamely.
China wants to demur out of pique. But she cannot escape the fact that she is voraciously hungry. As Frankie leaves the room and heads down the stairs, she slowly gets up and rummages in her bag for a clean pair of socks. Then, deciding she can’t be bothered, puts on the old ones instead.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, freshly showered, China makes her way down the stairs into the living room, dressed in a pillarbox-red tracksuit, the hood up. Frankie has made an illicit log fire – one of the reasons he bought the flat was that it had a small open hearth – and it blazes and crackles, lending character and warmth to an otherwise largely sterile space. China cannot be bothered to complain about the contribution he is making to air pollution, or quote the figures on how many children it kills every year. Anyway, the fire is nice.
Roxy rises from the sofa where she has been flicking through her copy of Marie Claire and takes a step towards China.
‘China. How are you?’
‘Fine,’ China says, warily accepting Roxy’s embrace.
‘I haven’t seen you in such a long time.’
Roxy waves her arm towards the open kitchen door where Frankie is working on preparing the meal.
‘Would you like a drink?’
‘Sure. Why not?’
‘How about a Negroni? If that’s not too controversial.’
‘Is that meant to be funny?’
‘Roxy… ’
Frankie interjects, entering the living room from the kitchen. But China is too worn out to allow herself to rise to the bait.
‘Yeh, that’ll do.’
‘I’ll fix you one,’ says Frankie. ‘You two can catch up.’
He retreats to the relative safety of the kitchen, leaving China and Roxy alone together. Roxy rummages in her handbag, a Burberry two-tone canvas with a golden ‘B’ decorating the catch.
‘I got something for you. To welcome you to London.’
Roxy retrieves a small blue velvet box and hands it to China. She takes it tentatively and turns it over in her hands.
‘What’s this?’
‘You won’t know unless you open it.’
Lifting the lid of the box, China sees an antique brass compass with a hinged lid and ring through a brass bulb at the top for attachment to, perhaps, a belt.
‘Early nineteenth century or so I was told,’ says Roxy.
China takes it out and examines it, taken aback. The last thing she expected was this kind of gesture from Roxy.
‘It looks spenny,’ says China, watching the glint of the pale gold colour in the overhead retracted ceiling bulbs.
‘Oh, it didn’t cost me anything. Colin gave it to me.’
China turns it over. On the back is an inscription – To R. In case you ever get lost. Love, C.
‘I can’t take this,’ says China.
