My head is like a pinball machine on the drive home, indefinable worries ricocheting from side to side. I’ve always been an overthinker, but perimenopause has brought levels of anxiety which were never going to be improved by Frankie’s announcement that she was planning this trip. The thought punches me in the gut.
She’s really gone.
Tears prick my eyes as the stiff upper lip I’ve maintained for most of the morning dissolves. For a few indulgent moments,I consider going all in and pulling over to find ABBA’s ‘Slipping Through My Fingers’ on Spotify. But my schedule is tight and I’m due in a video meeting in half an hour, which barely leaves enough time to get home, splash my face with water and find a filter fuzzy enough to hide my swollen eyes.
I live in a long, curving road in a conservation area of Roebury, a few miles from the centre of Manchester. It’s flanked by huge trees and old houses, though ours is relatively new, built in the 1930s, and nothing like as big as some of the others.
It’s a nice enough place, especially on a day like today, when it’s crisp and chilly but a bright sun shines high in a cobalt sky. It’s also not far from the house where I grew up –
though I haven’t lived in Roebury my whole life. I spent fifteen blissful years in London and only returned the year Ed and I got married, when he was promoted. Frankie had just turned four and we needed to settle before she started primary school. I remember the estate agent at the time banging on about the open-plan kitchen, original features and tennis club right next door.
‘Do you play?’ he’d asked.
‘Not if I can help it,’ I replied, which made him chuckle. I didn’t bother going into the fact that my last brush with the sport could still induce full body chills and, consequently, the ‘delightful view’ from the master bedroom window at the back of the house – six well-maintained courts overlooked by woodland and an attractive clubhouse – left me cold.
Besides, that view comes with a price.
In summer, parking – already at a premium around here – is hellish, when opposition players arrive for league fixtures every evening. My driveway was not built for big, modern cars and the gateposts are so narrow that if someone leaves their vehicle opposite, I struggle to get in or out. I discovered this shortly after moving in when I was blocked in overnightby a marquee firm van emblazoned with the words, ‘Satisfaction With Every Erection’.
Thankfully, things have improved since I wrote a letter to the club chairman, who arranged for yellow lines to be painted on the road. It was a small victory, but not one I’m proud of. I hate the idea that this is the start of a slow descent into the ‘Not In My Backyard’ brigade. I feel no affinity with the kind of person who starts petty petitions about pedestrianisation or phones the local paper about the colour of wheely bins. I think of myself as cosmopolitan and easy-going, not some pearl-clutching curtain-twitcher who gets their knickers in a twist over issues such asparking. But what can I say? Living next to that club has changed me.
In every other way, I love where I live, though that’s partly due to the time and energy I’ve spent unleashing my creativity on the house. I love playing with bold patterns and eclectic wallpapers, surprising details and colour. Over the years, I’ve treated myself to the odd luxury item, but there’s also a whole load of flea market finds – botanical prints from antique books or ceramics picked up on holiday in Italy, France or New York. Of course, with Frankie around, it’s not exactly stayed in pristine order . . .
As I enter the house, I step over the suede boots she kicked off in the hall, after making a last-minute decision to leave them behind. Her jacket is flung over the banister and there’s a smoothie holder dribbling blended banana and almond milk onto the side table. I close the door and pause for a moment.
The silence nearly breaks my eardrums.
I tell myself to snap out of this and throw my keys on the table. Which is when I spot something that makes the backs of my knees unhinge. Frankie’s passport.
Chapter 2
The first thing I tell Frankie on the phone is that she mustn’t panic, as if I am not almost radioactive with stress myself. I won’t repeat the expletives that splutter from her mouth like a backfiring lawn mower; suffice it to say that I hope she is not sitting near anyone of delicate sensibilities. Still, I take the same approach as with all domestic disasters that have befallen us over the years and mentally flick through a Rolodex of possible solutions, plump for the least-worst option and set about making it work. Somehow.
The plan I come up with involves Frankie and Milly jumping off at the next station, while I cancel my Zoom, bomb it down the motorway and deliver the passport in time for them to catch the next available London train. This should only put them an hour or so behind and let them still just about make it to their Eurostar booking. If not, they’ll have to blow the budget for the first two weeks on a same-day ticket. But I’m not going to let that happen. Sweat prickles on my brow. This will befine.
I leap into the car, pull up my boss’s number on my phone and throw the gearstick into reverse. I press call as I yank off the handbrake, glance in the wing mirrors and start to back down the drive.
‘Angus Whittingstall’s office,’ says his secretary as she answers, at the precise moment when I get a proper look in the rear-view mirror.
‘Fuck!’
‘Pardon?’
I slam on my brake. ‘Carole! Sorry.’
I swivel in my seat to look through the back window, in the hope that my eyes might be deceiving me. But no. Someone really has chosen now to park on the yellow lines and block me in. A bolt of anxiety shears down my centre.
‘Carole, it’s Jules. I’m due to meet Angus at one o’clock but something’s come up. I’m going to be late.’
‘Nothing serious I hope?’ she asks, concerned.
‘No. I mean . . .yes.’
‘Is someone ill? The wait in A&E is enormous at the moment.’
‘No, it’s not—’
‘There’s a lady I do Zumba with who sat in a waiting room for hours with her husband last week. Bad chest. They were there most of the day, before being sent away with a packet of paracetamol and some Vicks VapoRub. Can you believe that? Still, he did play golf the next day so it can’t have been that bad.’
