The Turning Point: A gripping emotional page-turner with a breathtaking twist. Freya North

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      Scott was back and Frankie thought, why would he be available, someone like him? Of course he’s going to be with a Jenna.

      ‘Sticky Toffee Pudding,’ he said, passing her the menu. ‘I have it every day.’

      ‘Your phone – you missed a call.’

      Scott checked it. Checked his watch. ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘I have to call home.’

      ‘And I think I’m going to call it a night,’ Frankie said, folding her napkin precisely. ‘I’m tired.’ She smiled in the vague direction of the lifts. She was standing up and it struck Scott that he really didn’t want her to go. Not just yet.

      ‘Wait.’

      ‘Good night,’ said Frankie, moving away, ‘thanks so much for supper.’ But he stood too and put his hand on her arm though she continued to turn.

      ‘Frankie.’ He caught her other arm. ‘Wait?’ He said it quietly, now searching for what to say next. ‘Look,’ he scratched his head. ‘OK – so here’s a thing. I hate olives too.’ His eyes were coursing her face. ‘It’s just – I wanted you to eat. And I’d really like you to stay.’ He was rubbing the back of his neck now, agitated, frowning a little. ‘Please,’ he said, and he slipped his hand into hers for a moment, ‘please don’t go just yet. But I need to make this call. Please?’

      Frankie watched him walk to a quiet corner to make the call back to the smiley Jenna in those picture-perfect Canadian mountains. If Jenna hadn’t called, Frankie would have been none the wiser. She wasn’t sure whether she should hate her or thank her for it. Bubble bath and a glass of wine. Divine hotel linen, a good night’s sleep. That’s what she needed most. Alice was required on parade for her agent tomorrow and it was getting late.

      Oh but Scott and his eyes and his mussed hair that she wanted to touch. Scott who could be only one great big transatlantic fuck-up. Scott who she’d happily kiss. It had been so long. She turned and faced their table. Why didn’t she just stop being Frankie and take advantage of one lone night with a man she desired who she’d never see again anyway? For once in her life, why not pack her personality at the bottom of her case and not bring it out until she was back home, nice and private, in Norfolk? Why didn’t she just live a little, switch her mind off and give her body a treat?

      But that’s never been me.

      No. She’d go to her room.

      She turned again, to head to the lifts.

      But here’s Scott, back already, happy as you like.

      ‘That was Jenna,’ Scott said, standing close, eyes refusing to let her go. ‘My daughter.’

      * * *

      ‘My daughter has epilepsy,’ he said. ‘She wasn’t too well last week, she had a pretty big seizure and oftentimes they’re not isolated. So when you told me she’d called –’ He shook his head and Frankie watched him process a parent’s what-ifs quietly to himself.

      ‘How old is she?’

      ‘She’s just turned twenty years old. You look surprised,’ he said. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment – I was twenty-five when she was born.’

      So he’s four years older than me.

      ‘Your wife?’

      Was there a wife?

      ‘We split when Jenna was small,’ he said. ‘Really small.’ He paused. ‘She had – has – problems with alcohol. She – Lind – and I were in a band. You know, when there’s music and alcohol and drugs and you’re on the road, that’s just how it is. It’s about dangling yourself off the edge of life just for the heck of it. But those who know it’s mainly bullshit and temporary – they end up like me. Those that don’t – so, they end up like Lind. She wanted to seize the day, I wanted to live for tomorrow. So it’s been just me and Jenna.’ He paused again and regarded Frankie levelly. ‘And it still is.’ He raised his glass. ‘Here’s to single parenting.’

      There’s no such thing as soulmates and love at first sight, they both knew that from the experiences that had led to their acceptance that life not in a couple was OK. Really, after all this time, it was fine. Nothing lacking, nothing to be craved. Best for the kids. It is what it is.

      But as their eyes locked again for another caught moment, they sensed a surging inevitability that outweighed any cliché of finding each other in a crowded station, any coincidence that had thrown them back together right here and which overruled any tastelessness that the anonymity of a hotel far from home insinuated.

      How could a new face be known so well so quickly? It was all unfathomably liberating and dangerous and comforting and nonsensical. In this vast city, in which neither of them lived, they’d managed to meet and somehow they knew they’d now never not know each other.

      Frankie scrolled through the photos on Scott’s phone, his face close to hers as if guiding her to see exactly what he saw.

      ‘So this is Jenna outside her apartment in Whistler which is around fifty minutes from me. You’ve heard of Whistler, right? She has a job there before starting university in Vancouver this fall.’

      Frankie enlarged the picture, Jenna and a friend; their arms outstretched, roaring with laughter. She imagined them larking about while Scott had said hey, come on girls – just one picture. Come on – stop goofing. Just smile for your old Pa, will you?

      ‘And this is my home. I live around twenty minutes from a village called Pemberton.’

      Jenna, Scott and a dog. A majestic mountain, its ravines and peaks slashed with snow, fir trees scoring dark trails through its sides, like mascara tears. A broad veranda wrapped around a home made of huge logs set in an extraordinary landscape whose vastness couldn’t be compromised by a phone screen.

      Frankie turned to face him. He was very close. Aftershave. A neat nose. Bristles dipping into the vertical laughter lines on his cheeks. Eyes the colour of the rock on that mountain outside his home. ‘Wow.’

      ‘Pretty much sums up my life, that picture,’ he said.

      ‘What’s the dog’s name?’ She liked the look of the brown Labrador, he appeared to be grinning.

      ‘Buddy. He’s a Seizure Alert Dog – and his name fits. He’s older now, a little arthritic. It’s our turn to look after him. Actually, he’s English – he came from this incredible center in Sheffield.’

      ‘How does he help?’

      ‘He can sense tiny changes in Jenna’s manner, in her behaviour or mood – sometimes up to fifty minutes before a possible seizure. He’s trained to let her or me know.’

      ‘Where’s Buddy now, though?’

      ‘So he’s with Aaron. Here,’ Scott found a picture of Aaron with Buddy in the cockpit of the Cessna. ‘Aaron’s as close as I have to a brother. We grew up together, went to school together and we still live close by. He’s a First Nations man – a native. Aaron’s people are the Ĺíĺwat – they’ve been living in the territory for over five thousand years.’ СКАЧАТЬ