The Turning Point: A gripping love story, keep the tissues close...

‘Twitter? Instagram?’

‘God no.’

‘I’ve posted loads of pics of Châtel and Craig and my life. Everything.’

‘I can barely use the Internet, Steph.’

‘Frankie!’ Steph all but chided her. ‘You, with your work, your fans – you should be! Do you have WhatsApp or Snapchat, at the very least?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Frankie. ‘Do I?’ And Steph laughed and laughed and said oh Frankie, you’re so funny.

Frankie looked at her phone and thought what’s the point of calling Peta – she’ll just say phone Mum.

‘Hello Mum – it’s me.’

‘Yes?’

‘It’s Frankie.’

‘I know.’

‘How are you?’

‘Oh – you know.’

‘It’s lovely here at the moment – we had rain but it’s just made everything lush.’

‘You said it never rains in Norfolk.’

Fill the pause. Just fill it.

‘My publishers want me down in London next week. For a couple of days and I was wondering –’

There was silence.

‘Might you be free? I’ll have everything organized. If you’d rather take the train I could collect you from King’s Lynn.’

‘The train?’

‘If you’d rather not drive.’

‘Meaning?’

‘I didn’t mean – I just.’

I just always say the wrong thing or I intend to say the right thing and it always comes out wrong.

‘I will come,’ her mother said. ‘Otherwise no doubt I won’t see my grandchildren this side of Christmas.’

So that was that.

Sometimes, Frankie told herself, you have to be grateful for your third choice. Her mother could come to Norfolk and pick holes in Frankie’s life while she’d be in London, in a triple-glazed hotel room. Glancing in the mirror, she conceded that Annabel was quite right – what was going on with her hair? It no longer bounced off her shoulders but seeped over them, like seaweed lanking over a boulder. She’d washed it yesterday and it was already lifeless. She couldn’t turn up at her publishers looking like this. She looked at her hands, they were dry. Jeans, shapeless T-shirt and trainers. This is what my kids see every day. I have to have my hair cut before my mother sees me.

* * *

As Frankie parked her car at Creake Abbey, she could almost hear Peta saying ah! now this is more like it. It ticked all her sister’s boxes. A short drive from Burnham Market, quietly set in rolling fields, old farm buildings in the grounds of a twelfth-century abbey had been tastefully renovated to house select lifestyle shops, a mouthwatering café and food hall, a monthly farmer’s market and even a smokehouse. Hitherto, Frankie had only visited to walk to the Abbey itself, loving the brooding melancholy of the skeletal structure, the way what was left of the church seemed to grow from the land as much as being buried by it. She saw Alice having an adventure here, places to hide, secrets to discover, trees to climb and hedgerows to explore.

The ruins of the Augustinian priory, but so much more – that’s what Peta would say and she’d head straight for the shops. She’d approve of Frankie’s choice of hairdresser; hip salon, skilled stylists, Aveda products and bare stone walls. Well here was Frankie today sitting with her hair hanging like twisted wet yarn around her face, no time to stroll around the ruins hoping Alice might pop up. The stylist combed and cut and chatted. Was Frankie just visiting, on holiday? Where was she from, what she was she planning on doing here in North Norfolk? It crushed her a little, she thought she might be recognizably native by now.

‘I’m a friend of Ruth?’ she said. ‘Ruth Ingram? She recommended you.’

‘Oh – so you live here?’

‘Nine months now – I live out Binham way,’ Frankie said as if being half an hour away was reason enough for the stylist not to know she was local.

‘Do you want your hair like Ruth’s?’

Frankie thought of Ruth’s immaculate ebony-glossed bob and she started to laugh. ‘My hair would never do that.’

‘Well, you don’t have to have a Ruth,’ the stylist said, her hands lightly on her shoulders. ‘But you needn’t look quite so mumsy.’

Sometimes, Frankie found it difficult to tell the difference between a compliment and an unintended insult.

Flipping through magazines, she found the lowbrow celebrity gossip and articles on improving her figure, her sex life, her family’s diet soothing in their inanity. One magazine proposed the power of saying Yes. Another, the thrill of saying No. She marvelled that this stuff was even published. If Alice had no story for her, perhaps Frankie could just scribble off 10 Steps to Sizzling Sex. Or, rather, Regaining Your Virginity if You Haven’t Had Sex in Three Years.

‘So you moved here with your family?’

‘Yes – last September.’

‘Does your husband work locally or go to London?’

‘I don’t have a husband,’ said Frankie. ‘I’m on my own.’

‘Oh I’m sorry.’

People often told Frankie they were sorry.

‘I hope you haven’t come to Norfolk looking for love!’

‘No. Not at all. Just for the lifestyle. And the sea. And the solitude.’

‘You know that expression seek and ye shall find? Well, in my experience, it’s the times when you aren’t looking that love finds you.’

Frankie thought about that, how people often hoped that love was on its way for her. ‘I’m happy as I am,’ she said. ‘I’m used to it. I’m too busy anyway for extra headaches in my life.’

‘But love isn’t a headache. Not when it’s what’s been missing.’

‘Nothing’s missing,’ she muttered. She glanced at her reflection and thought her fringe was way too short. She caught sight of the time. She’d have to forgo the blow-dry and rush away to school. No time to linger over the cheeses and meats, salads and delicacies in the food hall. It would have to be fish-finger sandwiches for supper. It didn’t matter about her fringe, she’d be late to pick up Annabel and everyone else would have gone.