Now, as they sat like so many others enjoying the view and the afternoon sun, Frankie considered Danny’s question. It had not come entirely as a surprise, but the way he’d worded it bothered her.Before it’s too late …
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said. ‘You’re worried that if we moved here and I died, you’d be left on your own without a support network.’
She shook her head. ‘That wasn’t what I was thinking, but it’s definitely a consideration.’
‘The way I see it,’ he said, ‘we can live a half life worrying about tomorrow, or one to the full taking each day as it comes and as a blessing, if that doesn’t sound too sentimental.’
Frankie slipped her hand into his. ‘Is that how you see our lives back in Chelstead; a half life?’
‘I suppose I do. You know I’ve always had a dream of living here one day, and how often did we say the time wasn’t right to make the move? We had Jenna in school and the partnership to consider, all the usual things that keep people anchored, but now we’re free of those things, we can do whatever we want and wherever we want. Doesn’t that appeal to you?’
She rested her head on his shoulder. ‘You know it does. But is this really the right time?’
‘I don’t think there’ll be a better time,’ he said, squeezing her hand in his. ‘Would you mind very much giving up your work at the Sewing Bee?’
She raised her head and looked up at him. ‘I could do the same thing here, or something similar. Maybe something better.’
‘Do you mean that?’
‘Danny, since when do I ever say things I don’t mean? I think it would be exciting to make a fresh start somewhere new.’
‘Norfolk is hardly new to us.’
‘Don’t split hairs. And just so that we’re clear. I know this business with Alastair and Valentina has thoroughly unsettled you and Simon, but please don’t think you can trade me in for some young fancy piece to complete your fresh start.’
Danny laughed. ‘God no, a younger woman would finish my poor old ticker off good and proper!’
Frankie smiled and watched a small boy toddle by in front of them. He was clutching a paper bag of bird food sold in the Information Centre and gift shop, just a few yards from where they were sitting. Doubtless catching the whiff of grain, or hearing the rustle of the paper bag, a dozen or so ducks homed in on the boy, trailing behind him as if he were the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
‘Is that how you see Valentina?’ asked Danny. ‘As some young fancy piece?’
This was the first time they had ventured down this road. Until now, Frankie had kept her counsel, knowing that to breathe so much as a hint of criticism about Alastair would upset Danny. She had always respected their close friendship, had accepted that the bond between the three friends – Alastair, Danny and Simon – was hallowed ground. She admired them for it, having no friendship of her own that was as tightly bound, other than, of course, the relationship she had with Danny and Jenna.
‘I was generalising,’ she said, ‘admittedly in a clumsy and clichéd fashion, but I suppose I do view Valentina in a less than favourable light.’ She thought of what she had seen out of the bedroom window yesterday morning, of Valentina talking in what had struck Frankie as a very intimate manner with Danny, a manner that had seemed almost predatory in the familiarity of her body language. It had shocked Frankie. She was not the jealous type, but in that instant, she had felt more than a hint of the green-eyed monster. ‘I want to like her,’ she continued, ‘but—’
‘But you can’t?’
‘No. Not yet at any rate. What about you, what’s your opinion of her?’
‘Like you, I’m trying to keep an open mind.’
‘And?’
‘I can’t see it lasting between her and Alastair.’
‘Is that because you don’t want to see it last?’
He sighed deeply. ‘I don’t want to see him hurt, and nothing about Valentina so far reassures me that won’t happen. There’s something about her that niggles at me. It’s as if she’s too knowing. I didn’t mention this before, but she knew all about my childhood, of being fostered so many times, and it annoyed me that she knew.’
‘I don’t blame you. Presumably Alastair told her?’
‘Yes. What bothered me was that she used that information, that very personal information that Alastair had shared with her, to … well, it sounds odd, but she used it to plead her own case as to why I should accept her in Alastair’s life. We all deserve a second chance, was how she put it.’
‘Clever.’
‘Exactly what I thought.’
Moments passed.
