Page 93 of Calling Frank O'Hare

Unperturbed, Martin continued: ‘I like her, by the way. She’s not what I expected her to be.’

‘And what exactly did you expect?’ said Frank, finally giving in to bitter sarcasm.

‘Somebody quieter. Less funny. Less quirky.’

‘Quirky?’

‘You know. Different. In a good way. Not like…’ Like Ellen, he meant. Not like Ellen. ‘You didn’t mention she was a stunner either.’

‘Because I’m not fifteen. It’s not something an adult brags about. Anyway, her looks aren’t important.’

‘I know. I was just saying, she’s a looker.’

‘Keep your hands off her.’ Frank was snarling now. It wasn’t a good look but he wasn’t going to stand by and say nothing. Not this time.

‘Jesus, Frank. I was just saying. Have you any whisky? I could do with a nightcap.’

Frank poured him a whisky. He poured himself one, in the hope it would calm him down. On the phone earlier, Finn had given him some shite about breathing and candles. Forget that. He needed alcohol. ‘Why are you here, Martin? Why didn’t you go home as promised?’

Martin drank the whisky straight down, then held out his glass for more. ‘I was all set to go. I was nearly through the gate, and then it hit me. Unfinished business.’

Frank topped him up. ‘What do you mean, unfinished business?’

‘You won’t come back over to scatter Billy’s ashes.’

‘I said I’d think about it.’

‘And we both know what that means. Finn wants to do it. He thinks it’ll help us all to move on.’

Frank winced. Move on was it? That would be convenient.

Martin frowned. At the same time, the corners of his mouth turned up slightly. ‘What was that? Did you just wince? What’s going on with you, FB? Do you not want to move on?’

‘I moved on a long time ago.’

Martin shook his head. ‘That’s shite and you know it. Something’s holding you back. Something that you’re still mightily pissed off about. Is it Eve? You resent her picking Billy over you. Is that it?’

Frank laughed. Was Martin being deliberately obtuse? ‘I always knew the score with Eve. I never expected anything different, and I never really wanted anything different.’

‘What then?’

‘Summer 2007.’

62

Summer begins – 2007

Sometimes, Frank wished he could go back in time and rewrite his own history. He’d almost certainly erase the part where Ellen found out about him and Eve. Not the times with Eve. They were all too brief spells of something approaching happiness, even if they were the cause of his break up with Billy. His break up with Billy? He made it sound like they were a couple instead of friends which in itself was an ironic description, because he’d hadn’t been much of a friend to Billy at all.

If he could take a pen to his back story, there was no way he’d stop himself from marrying Ellen. Because if he did that, he wouldn’t have Robyn, and all the misery in the world wouldn’t keep him from being her daddy. But there was absolutely no doubt in his mind that if he could, he’d go back and change his answer to the question Ellen had asked him on Christmas Eve, 1997. He would have said go, and never darken our doors again.

It wasn’t that the last ten years had been complete hell. There had been some bright spots, but most of them had been when Ellen wasn’t here. Her trips to London and abroad began again in 1998, and became more frequent as the years rolled on. In fact, if Frank added up the amount of time she’d spent at home since then, it was probably five years at the most. Even then, it was too much time. When she was home there were moods to endure, tantrums to deal with that were worse than anything Robyn had to offer. And pandering, so much pandering, to her whims. The number of house redecorations was astonishing. Nothing was ever good enough. They seemed to be living in the residential equivalent of the Forth Bridge.

Worst of all, the relentless carping had come back with a vengeance, and he was finding it increasingly hard to fight off. She was grinding him down and he had nothing left to fight back with. Friends were beginning to notice. Adrian had sat him down and said he should either divorce her, or get her committed. Edie had hinted on numerous occasions that it couldn’t go on. Even Gavin had offered to get it sorted. But Frank couldn’t. Not because he didn’t want to, but because he was too busy trying to keep everything normal for Robyn. And because he was slowly dying inside.

Ellen came in from her routine inspection of the house. On her insistence, they’d hired a cleaner, but it didn’t stop her checking that the cleaner had done her job properly. It occurred to him that Ellen was turning into her mother. The thought would have appalled her, but the superior attitude, the chill that emanated from her, it was carbon copy Mrs Montague. She still saw her mother occasionally. Several years ago, the Brigadier had not so much shuffled off the earth as blasted his heart into space by once again refusing to believe the doctors knew best. When Robyn was small, Ellen had taken her along to see her grandmother, but more recently Rob had put her foot down and rejected all attempts to make her change her mind. Frank may not have any will left but Robyn had mettle enough for both of them. He took great pride in that.

‘Next time the cleaner comes, remind her we pay her for a full morning’s work. There is dust on the stair rail.’

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