He laughed, a little chuckle in the back of his throat, and all at once I could see him, as I had not seen him all these years.
‘I know,’ he said, ‘it’s wild. I’m getting married. Guess who to?’
‘Who?’
He paused, and I knew that he was smirking, as he always did before saying something shocking.
‘Nicola,’ he said.
‘Nicola?’ I said. ‘Nicola who?’
He made a mock-sigh.
‘Nicola,’ he said. ‘Simon’s sister Nicola.’
15
‘Simon’s hopping mad. Absolutely bloody hopping mad.’ Franny nodded, agreeing with herself, poured another glass of wine and went on, ‘He’s every right to be. Mark’s done a real number on his parents.’
‘Mark can be very impressive if he tries,’ Jess said evenly.
‘Too bloody right,’ said Franny. ‘Too bloody right. All those houses and money, very impressive. I mean, what the hell is he playing at?’
The anger in her was tight-coiled, as if Mark had done her some personal injustice.
‘You think he’s definitely serious?’ asked Jess.
Franny picked at her casserole and took a swig of wine.
‘Simon thinks he is. Simon’s parents think he is. Bloody hell, more importantly Nicola thinks he is.’
‘It’s not some kind of joke, is it?’
‘What, playing a joke on Nicola? God, even Mark couldn’t be that cruel, surely?’
She lit a cigarette without asking our permission. I surreptitiously pushed a window open as I carried the plates through into the kitchen.
When I came back out, Franny was sitting on the sofa, one foot curled under her, saying, ‘He can’t get back from Chile for two weeks. He’s trying to talk some sense into his parents in the meantime, but they’re not listening.’
Jess said, ‘Has Simon mentioned that Mark’s gay? Surely that’s the clincher.’
Franny tutted and sighed.
‘Well, that’s the thing. He says he’s changed. And they’re old enough to go, “Oh, yes, that’s how it works. Everyone’s a bit gay when they’re young and then they grow out of it.” ’
She shrugged and stubbed her cigarette out in the earth of a pot plant.
I breathed in and out, controlling the slight flutter in the pit of my stomach.
I said, ‘Couldn’t he have? Changed?’
‘Changed? Can you really see Mark ever changing? You know what he’s like. It’ll be marriage this year and then next year, I don’t know, water polo. God, how can Simon’s family possibly buy it?’
We sat for a minute or two in silence. I contemplated how differently Franny felt about Mark now, compared to our time at university, when she had been his staunchest ally. I wondered what he could have done to her. Perhaps it was simply what he had done to everyone — ignored us, fallen out of contact, moved on with his life of wealth and privilege.
After a little while, Jess said, ‘Don’t forget about Leo. I’m sure they still remember.’
We fell silent again. It was so easy to forget that about Mark, now that he no longer went about reminding us. He had once, actually, saved someone’s life.
Franny poured another glass of wine.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘yes, they’d believe anything he said, wouldn’t they?’
I brought in dessert, a pavlova, and cut it into large wedges, the strawberries bleeding into the meringue and cream. We picked at it. None of us had much of an appetite.
Jess said, ‘What does Emmanuella think? Do you know?’
Franny nodded, swallowing.
‘Spoke to her yesterday. She doesn’t believe it, thinks it’s some kind of wheeze of Mark’s. She laughed when I told her. She thought it was that English humour she doesn’t understand.’
‘Is she coming back? For the wedding?’
Franny raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh, what wedding? There can’t really be a wedding. She’s seventeen, for fuck’s sake. She was supposed to go to college next year but now she’s saying that, no, she’ll go and keep house with him.’
Jess, becoming more mild as Franny became more ferocious, said, ‘She’s quite religious, after all. They believe in that sort of thing.’
‘Oh yes, that’s another bloody thing. Now she’s suddenly converting. Roman Catholicism. So yes, I’m sure they won’t use contraception and then there’ll be a whole brood before long. That’s if he doesn’t get distracted and jilt her for some bloke.’
As she lit another cigarette, I noticed that her hands were shaking.
Later, after we’d finished the meal, Franny returned to the question again, this time pushing it from another direction. She was more drunk, more calm.
‘Perhaps it is a joke. Maybe they’re both in on it: she’s just about smitten enough to participate in any tease with him. He’s probably terribly amused to imagine us all having anxious conversations like this about him.’
There was a long pause while we contemplated how like Mark it would be: something to have us all talking about him.
Franny was lying on her back on the carpet now, staring at the ceiling, balancing her wine glass with one hand on her chest. There was an expression of dissatisfaction on her face, a twist of the mouth as if she had tasted something which disgusted her.
She said, ‘It’s not a joke. I know it’s not, not really.’
She spoke so quietly that it was difficult to hear her, as if she herself did not want to hear her own words.
‘It’s not a joke,’ she said again. ‘This is what he’s always wanted and he’s found a way to get it.’
She sat up and leaned against the wall, her knees pulled up to her chest. She dug the fingers of one hand deep into the pile of the carpet. Her hands were quite pale and her face set. She looked up at the ceiling.
She said, ‘This is what he’s been looking for, you know? You remember how much he loved being on the farm with Simon’s family, how much he wanted to be part of that kind of Englishness? That wholesome, salt-of-the-earth, country lifestyle? Like the bloody Hay Wain. Well, he’s found a way to step into the painting. He’ll marry Nicola, they’ll be blissfully happy, he’ll supply the money, she’ll supply the homeliness, it’ll be perfect.’
She took another swig from her glass.
‘I’m only surprised he never thought of marrying you, Jess. Only I expect you wouldn’t have gone for it.’
Jess, speaking softly, said, ‘Surely … I mean, he’s never even slept with a girl, has he?’
Franny ran her finger round the wine glass. She swirled the dregs, staining the bowl of the glass.
‘I slept with him.’ She drained the glass. ‘More than once actually. It was quite good — very vigorous, if you know what I mean — so he can’t be completely, well not exclusively. I mean, he seemed to enjoy it, it wasn’t as if there was any coercion involved.’
She tipped back her head and gave a short barking laugh then, hiccuping, began to cry.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, in heaving gasps. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean … I’m sorry.’
Jess knelt down on the carpet next to Franny and put her arm around her shoulders.
‘Shhh,’ she said, ‘shhh. It’s OK, it’s OK.’
Jess stroked her hair and after a while Franny gulped and brought her tears to an ebb.
We helped her to the spare room, drunk and staggering as she was, and at the doorpost she wished us goodnight. Leaning against the jamb, she said, ‘It’s not that I thought it would be me, you know. I was never so stupid as that.’
Jess smiled. ‘We know.’