CHAPTER 63
I grinned and nodded.

“That a problem, Frank?”

He paused for half a minute, clearly weighing his words as best he could, before looking up and smiling.

“No, not really. Depends on how well you know Deb, I suppose”

He lifted his glass, frowned, and waved at a waiter.

“Could I please have another Peroni? The large bottle? Anyone else?”

We all put our orders in, and he turned back to the table with the smile still holding up.

“As I was saying, it all depends on how well you know this woman. I was working for Tesco when we first met. In-store bakery it was, and that was not what I wanted. Not saying anything too bad about them, but what they do is very prescribed. You bake so many of this loaf, so many of that one, make sure the tiger loaf is racked above the plain cottage so that the light catches it, all that sort of thing. There’s me, fresh out of college, full of ideas…”

He gave his smile to the waiter as his fresh bottle arrived, then turned back to us after filling his glass.

“Like Gemma, isn’t it? She loves to experiment, and it’s not how that word sounds. If you have a feel for how things work, how stuff works in combination, it’s not trial and error, it’s talent. That was how I saw myself, but I was tied to making a living, and that meant baking X number of one type and so on. The deliveries came in, I ended up with new chum’s job of checking delivery note against what was actually dropped off, and I got to know the drivers”

Ah. I risked a raised eyebrow at Deb, and she just nodded, and Frank continued.

“Woman driver, isn’t it? Not exactly common back then, but then she was never common. We chatted, and I started getting the kettle on when a delivery was due. Get them hooked on caffeine, give them a fix. That was my cunning plan, wasn’t it, Deb?”

My friend laughed, dipping her head.

“Never worked with me, though, did it?”

His smile drained away as he nodded slowly.

“No. Not at all, or rather not that I could see, girl. I could never seem to get through her defences. She was never rude, and I always got a smile, but no spark. Just made me more determined, though, so I asked her out. Directly”

Deb’s own laughter barked out.

“Yeah, right! Some idea of a date that was! Di, he only suggested a Dafydd bloody Iwan gig”

I had to laugh at that one, given what I knew of Deb’s background.

“Ha! Could have been worse---could have been Max Boyce!”

Deb’s face screwed up.

“At least you can understand him. Iwan’s all in bloody Welsh!”

Frank smiled again, but it was a wistful one,

“You came out with me, though. Just never again. And don’t try blaming it on Dafydd Iwan, woman. Took me years before I found out why, and by that time I was married and running my own business. Not exactly a safe thing to do, looking up old lady friends”

I had a fleeting thought about Annie, and my sort-of-stalking of her. Given what I now knew, we were incredibly lucky it hadn’t turned into a complete pile of crap and recriminations. Frank sighed.

“I just assumed she had either had a bad experience, or was doing what the Yanks say, carrying a torch for someone. I suppose I was right, in both ways. It was a very long time before I found out exactly how bad that ‘experience’ had been. She still won’t go into details”

I looked down at my boy, reminding myself why life remained worth the effort, before answering.

“Trust me, Frank. I know what went on, and you do not want to know anything more than you do already”

“Yes, Diane. I followed those trials, didn’t I? Did you know that one of those cases, there are at least three books on it? The Elliott one? He wrote one himself, the journalist who got involved did one, and so did the senior copper who kicked the door in. Now, tell me to mind my own business if you want, but I am going to take a guess here: That Cooper person is no longer with us”

I shook my head; saying nothing seemed the safest course just then. Frank stared at me for a couple of seconds, his smile having slipped rather a lot, then sighed.

“I should have expected that, so I will try and stay on safer ground, OK? Anyway. There was me, couple of shops, wife cleared off with some bloody pool boy from The Gambia and all the locks and card PINs changed as soon as I got home from THAT holiday, I will tell you, and Deb rocks up asking for a favour”

He spent a few more seconds on his beer before speaking again, looking down into his glass.

“Things had changed a lot in the years we’d been apart. I mean, we were never actually together, but you catch my drift, isn’t it? I knew who Nana Deb was now, knew what I had been chatting up all those years ago. There she is, and I am telling myself ‘man’ and still seeing ‘girl’, and I mean that word, because it took me straight back to Tesco’s and what should have been a good night out if I had had the sense god gave me, and she just says ’Hello, Frank butt’ and I am caught. I know what she is, and then I realise that I really know, and all the history is just that, and then…”

He smiled down at Rhod, who was working away with crayons at a colouring-in sheet the staff clearly held available for bored children.

“And that’s it, Di. I drop straight into daydream land, she’s going to just smile at me, whatever, and of course she’s closed up tighter than tight. Not letting anything get to you, were you, Deb?”

She dabbed at her eyes with a cotton napkin.

“Couldn’t, could I? Had my girls to protect”

“Yes. Focus, that’s what I thought she was calling it, and it was just displacement. Strangest thing, Diane. There she was, fuelled by hatred and fear, and it comes out as love and protectiveness. Alchemy, isn’t it? Base metal into gold… Anyway, she says hello, still all closed up, and then tells me about Gemma, and I make the right noises and do the right thing, and I have to ask myself what my own reasons are. Am I doing it for Deb, or for Gemma, or for me?”

Deb took his hand, lacing her fingers into his one by one.

“Does it matter?”

He was silent again, as he put his thoughts together, and then smiled.

“You know what? I don’t actually care, now. I have a wonderful pastry chef, baker, whatever she wants to call herself, and I have an old friend talking to me again”

Deb laughed, softly.

“It was after Carl’s funeral, Di. I thought, well, I just thought clearly for once. Two men, yeah? Both of them willing to take time, neither of them pushing at me, and in the end, it was a release. I let go of my Carl… I let go of the one bit of history, the one part of my life I had been clinging to, and I didn’t fall over. So I thought to myself, Deb, after all this, it’s time to live”

She was smiling now.

“So, I went and got two things. One was a stone, and, Frank, Di understands. The other was some info. Then I drove down to the shop, by way of the Norwegian church. One quick splash and then I knocked on his door. I was… little ears. I was nervous. Very nervous, and he opened up, and I said my bit, and he just laughed and said ‘Awright, then!’ and off we went”

Frank was laughing now, and shaking his head.

“Di, it tickled me, it did! Deb had clearly never forgotten, not at all, that utter disaster of a night out, and she gets me sorted out in the right kit, we pile into the van and she drives out to Rumney, of all places, to a church. I am wondering what on Earth, aye? And then I see someone in silly trousers, with a melodeon case, and I realise what is going on”

Deb was grinning now, each of them locked in the other’s gaze till Deb looked back at me.

“Folk club, Di. Got it wrong, though, and it was all in Welsh again!”

Frank pretended to frown and said something of his own in that language. Rhod looked up from his crayons, to my great surprise.

“That’s what Mrs Pugh says!”

Deb leant over the table to wards my little man.

“Does she tell you what it means, Rhod?”

“Yes, Aunty Deb. She says it means we have to learn Welsh!”