My God, how I loved Frank then. Iyearnedfor him. If I could have jumped into the sea and swum to Portugal, I would have.
Of course I still loved him once we’d tumbled into a world of nappies and night feeds and daubings of baby sick on our shoulders. But somehow, it was never quite the same again.
Until now.
Now Frank comes home from work, and the sight of him all oily and mussed up gets me going again.
Or I’m about to head off to work in the morning, and our goodbye kiss quickly turns into something else. And I no longer head off to the library early, just to snatch that little bit of peace for myself.
I want him more than I want to be in the library alone.
Frank Silva, you crazy man, taking over an ice cream shop with malfunctioning fridges. I still love you so very much.
Then one bright, crisp Friday morning we are thatspeck in the colourless winter sky. We are on a plane heading for Paris, a city we’ve only ever seen in films. It’s not quite noon, yet Frank and I are drinking wine. ‘This is all right, isn’t it?’ He smiles.
‘It is,’ I say. ‘So, d’you think we’re managing on our own?’
‘It’s hard,’ he teases, ‘but yeah, just about.’
In fact, I’ve stopped fretting that Eddie will sever a finger in that restaurant kitchen. I’ve learnt how to let go – and about time too, Frank reckons. It’s just taken a little getting used to as, unlike Ana and Bella, Eddie never calls. It’s me who’s been keeping in touch, mainly through messages, and Eddie’s replies are brief:
Yeah all good Mum.
Or, more often:All fine.
He hasn’t come home yet and we’ve only visited him once, when he could squeeze us into his packed schedule. In his flat, while he and his dad chatted over coffee, I snuck into his room and speedily measured the window so I could surprise him by ordering a blind. The nailed-up towel just seemed so depressing. Then we took him out to a café where he wolfed a panini, a slab of chocolate cakeanda doughnut, as if he hadn’t eaten for a week. But he also seemed happy, and I realised,this really is it.Eddie moving out wasn’t a mad experiment that was bound to go terribly wrong. Frank and I really are on our own now.
And as the days unfold in Paris, it’s no longer Eddie who’s at the forefront of my mind, but the two of us. All the years seem to fall away as we stroll around the Musée D’Orsay and the Petit Palais and a delightfully ramshackleflea market. Some afternoons, instead of sightseeing, we nip back to the hotel and fall into bed.
A middle-aged couple having sex in the daytime? I’d never imagined that that would be me and Frank. But something has reignited in us. Afterwards, we lie together in a tangle of crisp white sheets in our little top-floor room with the wrought-iron balcony and the whole of Paris going about its business below.
On our last night we celebrate Frank’s fiftieth birthday in a cosy bistro. The girls have called, and Eddie managed to fire off a text (admittedly, I sent him a firm reminder). Five days have whipped by in a delicious whirl, and all too soon we’re up at dawn to catch our flight, and touching down at Glasgow airport.
Coming home from a trip can be a real downer. Maybe the house smells bad, as if it’s soured, like milk.Does it always whiff like this and people are too polite to say?However, this time there are no nasty surprises, because it’s only us. Nothing terrible has happened to my Bathsheba rose. Nothing ‘just fell’, or smells terrible, because I did a thorough clean before we set off. Seeing that everything is as we left it triggers a surge of happiness in me, and I kiss Frank on the lips.
‘Hey, what’s that for?’ He grins.
‘I’m just happy, Frank. Paris was wonderful, wasn’t it?’
He nods, smiling. ‘Yeah. It was brilliant, darling. I had the best time with you.’
After dumping our bags in the hallway, we head through to the kitchen where I fill the kettle. This kitchen – in fact,this house – seemed so poky when there were five fully-grown people here. Now it feels perfect.
‘Never mind tea,’ Frank announces. ‘How about a glass of wine?’
I set down the milk carton we picked up at the airport. ‘In the daytime? You are feeling wild, Mr Silva!’
‘Well, why not?’ He lifts out the bottle of chilled sauvignon that’s been sitting there untouched.We’ve been away for five days and no one’s guzzled our booze!My God, I reflect, as he pours two glasses, and we head through to the living room. We’ve entered the era when we can trust that a bottle of alcoholic beverage hasn’t been topped up with water.
We sip our wine and snuggle upon our saggy old corduroy sofa. ‘I loved our family holidays,’ Frank says, ‘but I think this trip’s been my favourite.’
I smile. ‘Mine too. You know what that book would call it?’ I indicate it sitting there on the coffee table.
‘No, what?’
‘“An empty-nester marker trip”.’
‘What on earth’s that?’ He laughs.
