Jim was still talking. ‘You’d best you speak to your dad about it next time you call him. I can talk to him as well, if you want me to. And remember, you’re not under any obligation to say yes.’
‘What – other than the fact that I killed their daughter!’ That shut him up for a few seconds.
‘Harry, speak to your dad, please. Take some time to reflect. My advice, for what it’s worth, is that there can be benefits from doing it, but you need to be in the right frame of mind; and you’ve got to be prepared for the fact that they can be very unpredictable sessions. With the best will in the world, no matter how well we all do the groundwork, you don’t really know – not until you get into the room – how people are going to react.’
‘I’ve had seven months to “reflect”.’ That was the problem. All he could do was think. It was time he apologised – inadequate as that might be. ‘I want to do it. Get back to them and say I’ll do it.’
‘I really think—’
Harry stood up. ‘I said I’ll do it. Please, Jim. Just get the thing organised.’
Chapter 65
BEING BACK into the routine of work, after the barren despair of Christmas, was helping – a bit. The skills required to perform her job came back readily enough and the daily grind filled the days, but it didn’t change the way Fran felt. That wasn’t a surprise. It was other people who seemed to want her to feel different. A new year, a new start. She knew that was an impossibility.
The opticians’ branch where she worked was in the centre of York, so it necessitated getting up, early, getting dressed, smartly, then catching the bus like other folk, and joining the shuffling wodge of bodies heading into their jobs. The whole process could, she discovered, be done on automatic pilot. Even the customer interactions, the sight tests and glaucoma checks, the mindless small talk and complicated lens equations could all be performed competently by the version of Fran that still looked, spoke and behaved like any other rational, professional, middle-aged woman. The other staff were kind, bringing her extra cups of tea, spacing out her appointments, dropping their voices and shutting off any laughter when she went out to the front desk. The part of her that registered such consideration appreciated it, but it didn’t really help. If anything, it made her feel more under pressure to put on a good show.
She was sitting in the examination room, staring at her hands, when Eileen knocked softly at the door. Fran composed her face, expecting yet another brew. ‘Come in.’
Eileen stuck her head round the door, but didn’t enter the room. ‘Sorry to disturb you, Fran, but we have a bit of a situation with a young lady in reception. I wouldn’t normally bother you, but…’ She waited. ‘She has a sight test booked, but she’s only fourteen and she’s come along on her own. I’ve explained that she needs an adult with her, but she’s insisting on being seen.’
Fran stood. ‘That’s okay. I’ll come and speak to her.’ Eileen looked relieved.
After the cocooning gloom of the examination room, the shop was uncomfortably bright. Fran’s eyes took a moment to adjust. The girl was sitting on the seats by the designer frames display, hunched forward.
Martha.
Fran walked over. Cautious and confused. ‘Martha?’
‘Lucy!’ Martha stared at Fran, challenging her to disagree. Lucy White – the name against the appointment booking.
Eileen was watching the exchange with a puzzled expression.
‘Sorry. Yes. Lucy.’ Fran stumbled over her own inept pretence. ‘It’s okay, Eileen. I know this young lady. She’s a family friend.’ Not true. Not any more. ‘Do you want to come through, Lucy?’ Martha stood and gathered her coat and bag. ‘Would you like one of the girls to be present while I conduct your examination?’
Martha looked stricken for a second or two, but she recovered enough to mutter, ‘No. Thank you.’
Fran pointed her in the right direction and plastered on a smile. ‘Okay. Well, come on through.’ Neither of them looked at Eileen as they walked past the desk, both of them acutely aware of their clumsy performances.
Fran closed the door behind them and gestured to the chair that real clients sat in. Martha didn’t resist. She climbed up into it and sat clutching her coat to her chest. Fran perched on her stool. ‘So?’
Martha was silent for a long time.
Professionalism was all Fran could offer her. ‘Have you been having problems with your eyesight?’
Martha blinked. ‘No.’
‘And yet you want a sight test?’ The answer to this was presumably ‘No’, but after a long pause Martha opted for ‘Yes’. Because there seemed no other alternative, Fran went into her usual spiel. ‘Okay.’ She reached for the glasses and fitted them onto Martha’s face. Martha sat like a statue, neither helping nor resisting, as Fran tucked the earpieces into place and adjusted the fit. She slid in the trial lens, dimmed the lights and clicked on the light box. ‘Okay, if you could read as much as you can for me, please.’
Martha blinked and started, ‘R O K Z D.’ She took a breath that sounded shaky and went on, ‘K V D R O.’ She kept going. ‘C H S D N…I think.’ This was said in a rush, as if getting it wrong was a crime.
The optician in Fran briefly wondered if there might be an astigmatism in Martha’s left eye and was about to reach for the black lens to cover it and begin a thorough check. Then she snapped out of it.
‘Martha, why are you really here?’ She leant back, demonstrating that the charade was at an end.
Martha slowly took the glasses off. ‘I wanted to see you.’
‘But why go to all this effort? Why not just come to the house, or text me?’
‘Because I wasn’t sure you’d speak to me. Not after everything’s that’s happened.’ At least she had some grasp of the gulf that now existed between their families. Martha shuffled in the seat when Fran didn’t help her out by saying something. ‘And because I didn’t want Dad to know.’
Fran stuck to a simple, direct ‘Why?’
This finally provoked a flicker of defiance in Martha. ‘You know why.’
Fran couldn’t be bothered with working out the riddle of Dom and his family. Not any more. She held her silence. Martha fiddled with the glasses. Fran somewhat roughly snatched them out of her hands. They were expensive; she didn’t want Martha breaking them.
Under pressure, Martha blurted out, ‘I know you’re thinking about going to see Harry.’ How the hell had she found that out? Martha answered Fran’s unspoken question. ‘Dad told me that you’ve applied for a visit. Well,’ she paused, compelled to be truthful, ‘he didn’t actually tell me – I heard him talking to Harry about it. Harry said you could visit him, didn’t he?’ Fran was taken aback that Martha was so well informed about something that was so intensely private. ‘I want to come with you.’
Fran saw that Martha was serious. She was actually asking Fran to take her to the prison to see her brother – as if it was a reasonable request. ‘It’s not appropriate.’ What did Martha think Fran was going to see Harry for? A reunion?