Page 55 of Calling Frank O'Hare

What was that on her face? Bollocks, it was tears. She was crying. ‘Of course not. I have to go. I’ve a pile of work to do. Thanks for calling, Adrian. It was nice speaking to you again.’

Siobhan cut the call before she made a prat of herself. That’s where softness gets you. In the end, it bites back.

36

The call of the sea

Frank had set his alarm to five-thirty to catch the sunrise. He slid the van’s side door open as quietly as he could, aware of how much noise carried in a place like this, at a time like this. Seeming to have got away without disturbing anyone, he crept out of the campsite, wincing at every step’s crunch on the gravel path.

The farmhouse’s lights were on. Grace was up early too. Farmers had no choice, he supposed. A man’s shape appeared on the other side of a frosted window. Not just any man but the man himself, Doogie Chambers. He must have stayed the night. Frank wondered whose face Doogie saw when he was in the throes of passion. Did he think of Netta or Grace as he reached his climax? Did he lie with Grace Buchanan in his arms and imagine he was with Netta Wilde? Frank wouldn’t blame him if he did. Not that he’d ever done that. Not with Netta anyway. Come to think of it, who did Netta imagine she was making love to when she was with him? Was it the knackered old git with a dodgy back and a tendency to err on the side of the status quo? Or was it the all-round nice guy with the rock star looks who liked to plough his own furrow? He shook himself out of his stupidity with a slap on the side of his head ‘Will you catch yourself on? What is wrong with you?’

The violet sky above had turned bluish by the time he got to the beach. Clouds, the colour of molten lava, hung over the horizon. Then, suddenly, a burst of white light broke them.

Frank worked quickly to capture it before it went. The faster he painted, the more his heart raced. Butterflies left a flight trail across his stomach and up into his chest. There was a momentary feeling of panic when he thought he might be having a heart attack. Then he realised it wasn’t that at all. It was just something he hadn’t experienced in years. Excitement. He laughed out loud. He’d finally rediscovered excitement. How about that?

The Battle of the Bands sprung to mind. The euphoria he’d felt that night, that they’d all felt. The feeling that they were part of something bigger than them, bigger than their little gang. Bigger even than the shit lives they’d carved out for themselves in those precarious times. For one night only, the future was theirs, and it had been exhilarating.

He carried on working at speed until the day was fully awake and the sun was a lemon orb in a baby blue sky. White foam crested the crashing waves and slid onto the empty beach. The sea was taunting him. It was calling to him. It was inviting him in.

Frank checked this way and that. He was completely alone. To hell with it, he was going in. He undressed down to his underpants and ran. The sun had no depth at this time of the year and the cold wind tore at his bare skin but it didn’t slow him down. Fuck Doogie Chambers with his super-fit physique, Frank could run too. In fact, he was unstoppable.

He hurtled forward into the sea, roaring like a raging bull and carried on until he was up to his neck in it and the full realisation of what he’d done hit him. ‘Oh Jesus. Oh fuck.’ It was freezing. Beyond freezing, if there was such a thing. It was… It was … fucking unbearable. That’s what it was. Every inch of him was screaming to get out, but Frank refused to give in. He had to do this one thing.

He held on a little longer, till he began to lose feeling in his hands and feet. Panting and gasping, he dragged himself out. The wind hit twice as hard this time. It was like being shot at by a thousand tiny nail guns, but Frank was victorious. He’d proved something to himself and that was all that mattered.

A while later, a little dryer and warmer, Frank climbed up the winding path through the sand dunes to the road. To reach the farm, he needed to go left but he turned right towards a cottage he’d spotted yesterday. Netta had stayed in a cottage she’d hired from Grace when came here to visit Doogie, a few years ago, and he guessed it was the same place. He knew there was no one staying there at the moment, and he remembered Netta saying there was a spot in the front garden where you could get a signal.

He wandered around the small garden, holding his phone out. When he came to a table and chairs the signal miraculously appeared. He sat down and waited to see if he had any messages. He’d had two missed calls. One from Netta and one from Siobhan. He thought about calling Netta but it was still early and anyway, he wasn’t sure what he’d say if she asked where he was. While he was deliberating on this, a message popped up from Siobhan:

‘Spoken to Bronagh. Call me.’

If it was too early to call Netta, it was definitely too early to call Siobhan. He’d leave it for later when he had more stomach for one of her rants.

Another message came through. This one was from Netta, telling him Adrian had called round. Shit. He’d forgotten to let Ade know he’d had to go away. He must have been worried if he’d come to the house. Ade was a good friend. The best. Frank would have to square it with him when he got back. Especially if he wanted to get him up here next year.

He rang voicemail to pick up the message Netta had left for him and replayed it a couple of times. It could have been rediscovering excitement, or his leap into the water, or even hearing her voice and those words,I miss you. Whatever it was, the emotion was filling him up and before he could stop it, it was flowing from him.

When he pulled himself together, he took a slow walk along the beach. Netta missed him. She loved him, not Doogie. Him. He had to keep reminding himself of that and stop all this comparing nonsense. That said. He needed to do something about his fitness. He made a mental note to talk to Finn about it, although not when Martin was around. He’d only take the piss, like he did when Frank had said Netta was nice. Okay, so it wasn’t passionate, but Frank could be passionate. Couldn’t he? Look at this morning with the painting, and the thing in the water. That was passion. Or was it? Did he really know what passion was these days? No, he didn’t think he did. He made a second mental note, work on exuding more passion, particularly when it came to Nettta. Not teaching though. He’d pretty much wrung out as much passion as he could in that regard. Mental note number three, make a decision about work.

He went past the spot where he’d been painting yesterday, the spot where Martin had dropped the bombshell that Da was only interested in him. The more Frank thought about it, the more he realised Martin was right about the decorating. It was Da’s way of bonding with him. But why him and not Martin? Frank had been racking his brains to find examples to disprove Martin’s theory and he couldn’t think of a single thing.

Martin’s second bombshell, that he only saw what he wanted to see, was also bothering him. Typically, Martin had refused to be drawn into further discussion on it. Taking a leaf out of Bronagh’s book, he told Frank to work it out for himself. It was more of his bullshit, obviously. It had to be.

37

The Lady of Shalott comes to life – 1983

Ellen pulled Frank down onto their new sofa, in their new flat. ‘Happy?’

‘Ecstatic.’ Frank kissed her in the hope it would distract her from his inner turmoil. He was in one of those compromise situations he was rapidly becoming used to. The flat was nice enough. Very nice, without being too grand. Ellen had spared him that much. The problem was, he’d made no contribution to it whatsoever. He was fresh out of university with no job, whereas she’d come into her inheritance and had more money than he could ever dream of. On top of that, her modelling career was taking off. Frank wasn’t one of those Neanderthals who thought he had to be the provider, but there was a doctrine deeply ingrained in him that it was a man’s job to be one, and he struggled to ignore it.

They were in London now, in Chelsea. Ellen wanted to be close to where her work was and London was easiest for jetting off to international destinations. Since Frank was unemployed, he could hardly argue with his soon-to-be wife. Very soon, in fact. The wedding was tomorrow. He still couldn’t work out how that had come about. Ellen had been the driving force behind it, not him. He hadn’t so much proposed as been led into agreeing it was about time.

His family was on their way over from Belfast. Billy and Eve weren’t invited. He hadn’t seen either of them since he’d found out they were a couple. Adrian was his best man. He’d stayed on in Birmingham and was training to be a teacher now.

Ma and Da had come over to meet Ellen last year and their verdict hadn’t been damning which was the best he could hope for. It had been left to Ma to give the final judgement. Da probably knew better than to venture an opinion when a joint conclusion was required. ‘She seems like a nice girl. You’ll have beautiful children.’

Ellen’s parents had refused to attend. Gavin was going to give her away. If the lack of family on her side bothered Ellen, she didn’t show it. If anything, she seemed happy that they weren’t coming. She filled any gaps with her odd and glamorous friends from the modelling world and old school friends who were mostly Sloanes and Hooray Henrys. It was going to be a very bizarre wedding party.

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