A Dozen Second Chances

‘Have you heard from Caitlyn yet?’ Gran asked, when our tea had arrived and she had started on the biscuits. ‘Is she in Paris now?’

‘I don’t know. She said she would text as soon as she could.’ I touched the pocket where my phone lay, out of my handbag so I would feel the first vibration of a text arriving. ‘I’m sure she’s fine …’

So I said; but that hadn’t stopped me checking the news websites on a regular basis all morning, dreading reports of a fire in the Channel Tunnel, terrorist attacks in France, or a million and one other disasters that my imagination was all too happy to suggest. I was so perturbed by the ideas, that when Gran offered me her biscuits, I took one without thinking.

‘Of course she’ll be fine.’ Gran patted my hand. ‘She’s a sensible girl. You’ve done a grand job.’

But it hadn’t been a job – it had been love. Because Caitlyn wasn’t actually mine. She was my sister Faye’s child, the big sister I had adored with my whole being, until her sudden death when she was twenty-four, and Caitlyn just two. Faye had fallen pregnant around the time I started university, and she had never told us who the father was; it was all too easy to believe she didn’t know, given her lifestyle. There had been lengthy debate about what should happen to Caitlyn after Faye’s death, but it could only ever end one way. I had wanted her to live with me, whatever the personal cost – and it had been high, higher than I could have anticipated. But I had owed it to Faye. No price could ever have been too high.

‘I can’t help worrying,’ I said now, drawing back from the past. ‘Who knows what temptations she’s going to face in Paris?’

‘No more than I expect she’s faced already.’

‘Not on my watch!’

‘So I suppose your mum knew everything you got up to, did she?’ Gran laughed. ‘I thought not. You’ve done your bit, love, and more besides. Time to let go. It’ll do you both good to stretch your wings a bit. Here, have another biccie.’

I did, telling myself that it was my own small act of stretching. I usually tried to stick to a healthy diet, but already my worries about Caitlyn were eroding my good intentions. I didn’t know how to stop, however old she was: I had a sudden vision of myself in Gran’s position in fifty years’ time, my phone clutched in my gnarled old hand, waiting for news of Caitlyn. Perhaps she was right, and I did need to learn to let go, but I didn’t know how to do it.

‘Here, you’ll never guess who I saw t’other day,’ Gran said later, when our teas were drunk, and I was getting ready to leave. She reached for a tatty magazine on the table at her side. ‘I saved it for you. Have a look at the page folded over.’

Perhaps the unexpected sugar consumption had addled my wits, because I flicked to the marked page without a glimmer of suspicion. Oddly, it was the young woman in the photograph that I noticed first: luscious, thick blonde hair cascaded over bare shoulders and brushed against a large bust that could have earned her a place as a centrefold. I felt the familiar twinge of regret over my own boyish figure and chin-length brown hair, hastily wiped away when I turned my attention to the man attached to the woman’s side.

‘It’s the fella you went out with, isn’t it?’ Gran asked, making it sound as if I had only had one boyfriend over my entire lifetime. It wasn’t true: there had been several boys before Paddy. Not so many after, but that was hardly surprising, and not only because all my focus had been on Caitlyn. Paddy had taught me many things that I had been delighted to learn, and one thing that I hadn’t. A broken heart can be broken a second time, and a third, until only the crushed fragments remain.

‘And look who he’s with!’ Gran continued, oblivious to my discomfort. ‘She was in Emmerdale until she ran off with someone’s husband.’

I assumed she meant in the TV programme, rather than in real life, but who knew with these showbiz folk? Much against my will, my eyes strayed back to the man in the photograph. Here was Paddy Friel again, thrust to my attention for the second time in as many days, and no more welcome this time. It was a good photograph, I couldn’t deny that: he was wearing black tie, which suited his colouring, and with his raffish curls and hint of five-o’clock shadow he looked like a pirate trying to infiltrate polite society. It was hard to believe that this confident, well-dressed man had once been the boy who left dirty underpants under my bed. Hard to believe, too, what weakness lay behind that charming smile.

I flicked the magazine closed and noticed the date on the front cover.

‘This is six months old,’ I said, dropping the magazine on the table as if it were soiling my fingers. ‘He’ll have moved on by now, probably several times. Doesn’t he have a failed marriage behind him? Commitment was never his strong point.’

‘He always was a handsome devil,’ Gran said, with a wistful smile. She’d had a soft spot for Paddy, and he had given the appearance of being fond of her, but that was the trouble with Paddy: it was all style over substance, appearance over truth. ‘You could forgive a man a lot who looked like that.’

I said nothing. Some things were impossible to forgive, however attractive the face. Not that I found him attractive any more: those feelings had died a long time ago, the least mourned of all my losses at that time. I picked up my bag and bent to give Gran a kiss.

‘I thought I might have seen you as Mrs Friel.’ Gran was on a roll; I wished she’d never seen the blasted magazine. ‘I’d have liked a chance to get dressed up as grandmother of the bride. I’d have out-glitzed the lot of them. I still would. Where there’s life, there’s hope, eh?’

She looked at me with such pride and hope, that all I could do was smile back and kiss her again, too kind to tell her that life in my heart had been pronounced extinct many years ago.

*

I offered to drive Tina to the talk on Roman Britain the following Thursday night. As a longstanding teetotaller, I was used to being the designated driver, and I knew that Tina was hoping that to make up for missing tea and biscuits, we might find time for beer and crisps in a country pub on the way home.

‘It’s almost the weekend after all,’ she said, as I turned off our street and headed towards the main road that carved through the countryside, leading to the southern Lake District in one direction and to the Yorkshire Dales in the other. I loved this patch of north Lancashire, hidden away from the hustle and bustle of city life; loved the fact that I could climb Winlow Hill behind my house and see no towns but Inglebridge, and beyond that, only fields, moors, and the occasional stone-built village.

I had moved here within six months of Caitlyn coming to live with me, desperate to escape our home county of Warwickshire, and all the familiar places where memories seemed to hang like cobwebs on every street lamp. I had known nothing of the area except that Gran lived within an hour’s drive and that property prices were cheap. I had seen on the map that it was well away from any cities – any temptations – and that had been recommendation enough. Save for whisking Caitlyn away to a remote Scottish island – something I had briefly considered – it had appeared to be as safe a place as I could find to raise a child. And it was a fresh start for us, a place where we had no history. For someone who had spent her life wanting to uncover history, I had felt no compunction about covering ours up.

It had been a glorious spring day, and the setting sun was gilding the fields around us as we drove towards Yorkshire. Usually the view would have soothed away even the greatest anxiety. But tonight, not even the finest landscape could settle the nerves that jangled around my limbs. The talk sounded exactly the sort of thing I would have enjoyed many years ago, before my life twisted in a different direction. Was it wise to remind myself of that other possible life, when it might open up regrets that I had fought for years to keep at bay?

And then there was Paddy … How would I feel to see him in the flesh, to hear his voice without the distance of a television set, for the first time in seventeen years? Why had I wasted one of Caitlyn’s vouchers on this? This wasn’t being kind to myself; it was more like voluntary torture.

The school we were visiting was a well-regarded grammar school, where the central building dated back centuries. It was a far cry from the 1960s comprehensive where Tina and I worked.

‘Fancy working here!’ Tina whispered, as we climbed an ornate wooden staircase towards the hall where the talk would be held. It seemed appropriate to whisper, as if nothing we could say would be erudite enough for this environment. ‘Imagine teaching history in a place that has history of its own! I bet it’s haunted.’

‘I’d be happy to have a few ghosts helping me, as long as they could use the photocopier and knew how to fix printer jams.’ I laughed. ‘It would have been much easier to keep tabs on Caitlyn with a team of invisible spies at my beck and call.’

I hadn’t worked at all for the first couple of years after Caitlyn came to live with me: it had been too new, too strange for both of us, and we had each needed time to adjust to the unexpected life we had been given, and time to get to know each other properly and cement our bond. When Caitlyn went to nursery, I had filled my days taking online courses to learn everything I could about computer software and office management until I was the most qualified PA I could be. I had then taken on part-time jobs until I saw the perfect role advertised: PA to the head teacher of the secondary school that Caitlyn would attend. The term time hours were convenient, and I could keep a discreet eye on Caitlyn and any trouble she might face: an ideal arrangement, as far as I was concerned, and I don’t think she had minded it too much.

Tina and I took our seats at the back of the hall. It was a decent-sized crowd, and I was impressed by the local interest in Roman history until I realised that a large proportion of the audience were female, and particularly well-groomed ladies with shiny hair, smart clothes and full faces of make-up. Only a handful of parents would have made such an effort for our local comprehensive. Perhaps things were done differently in grammar school society. Or perhaps things were done differently in Paddy Friel’s society, whispered a mischievous little voice in my head. I stamped it down, not before a pang of regret had flashed through me about my faded, knitted dress and barely there make-up. But I wasn’t going to meet him. I didn’t want to meet him. So what did it matter?

The historian, Jeremy Swann, spoke first and Tina was proved right: he was a witty, engaging speaker, skilled at throwing out titbits of information about how the Romans had lived, in the style of Horrible Histories, so his talk appealed to all ages. I leant to the side, so I could see him from between the assembled heads, hanging on his every word as my long-abandoned interest blossomed back to life. I had missed this, more than I wanted to admit.

I was still leaning, rapt, when Jeremy introduced the next speaker. I shot upright, not before seeing a familiar flash of dark curl. Tina gave me a nudge and a smile, but I stared at the ruddy, bald neck of the man in front of me and refused to look. I couldn’t block my ears though. The first sound of that Irish lilt set my thoughts racing through the years, dredging up memories I had hoped never to revisit: the good memories, the tender memories of love, that made the bad memories so much more painful.

He was good, my objective self was forced to admit it. His enthusiasm covered the room like a silken net, gathering us all in, captive to the power of the story he was telling. Even I, who knew too well what a sham this was, what a false show concealing his true nature, felt the tug of excitement as he described the experience of working on an archaeological dig, of making a discovery that contributed to our knowledge of ancient times. But then he mentioned working at Vindolanda, a famous Roman site in Northumberland, and I couldn’t listen any more. We had volunteered there together during the first summer we had been a couple, and the archaeological discoveries during the day took second place in my memories to the nights spent tangled together in a sleeping bag in a tiny tent for two.

‘Wasn’t he amazing?’ Tina said, rousing me from the mental repetition of my shopping list – a surprisingly effective distraction, as it had reminded me that I was now shopping for one, and turned my thoughts to how much I was missing Caitlyn. ‘He’ll have inspired a few new archaeologists tonight. Inspired a few sweet dreams too for some of this audience. Phew! I think I’m having a hot flush. Can you hang on while I find a glass of water? There’s sure to be a water fountain along the corridor somewhere. Back in a mo …’

She scuttled off down the corridor, and I lurked at the back of the hall, safe in the knowledge that everyone else was leaving by the doors at the front, presumably in search of refreshment – a cup of tea with an extra splash of artificial Irish sweetener. I checked my phone for messages as the footsteps faded, the chatter died away, and the room fell silent. And then one voice carried the length of the hall, a voice I had heard more than enough of tonight.

‘Eve?’

Chapter 3

Impossible not to turn, though my first instinct was to run out of the door. There he was, Paddy Friel, striding down the aisle formed between rows of chairs like a joyous bride dashing towards the groom; smiling in a way he had no business to, as if he was delighted to see me – as if it hadn’t been his choice, oh so many years ago, to stop seeing me.

He paused, looked me up and down, and shook his head in apparent amazement. Curls bounced around his face, and he swept them back with a gesture that was so familiar it was as if he had swept the last seventeen years away too.

‘I thought it was you. Eve Roberts. I can’t believe it. How are you?’

He stepped forward, arms outstretched, as if to offer a kiss to my cheeks, the traditional greeting for long-lost acquaintances, I supposed. I folded my arms and moved away, wanting no contact with him. He could have stayed lost for all I cared.

‘Hello, Paddy.’

His smile wavered. He could hardly misinterpret the coolness in my tone and action. Surely he couldn’t have expected anything else?

‘You’re looking fantastic!’ he carried on valiantly. ‘Hardly changed at all. What are you doing here? Do you have a child at the school?’

‘No.’ I hadn’t planned to say more, but when he continued to look at me, a growing question on his face, I was spurred into further speech. What if he thought I was there to see him? I couldn’t allow that.

‘I came with a friend.’ Soon to be an ex-friend, I decided, glancing over my shoulder and seeing no sign of Tina. Where had she gone to find the water, the North Sea?

‘I wish I’d known there was an expert in the audience.’ He smiled. ‘How did it sound? No glaring clangers?’

‘It seemed okay.’ He couldn’t hold back a grimace at that faint praise; no doubt he was accustomed to gross adulation wherever he went as part of his celebrity lifestyle. I aimed a vague nod in his direction and edged towards the door, determined to wait in the car for Tina rather than endure this torture for a moment longer.

‘Hey, wait. Don’t rush off. What have you been up to? Did you carry on with the archaeology?’

‘No. How would it have worked? It was impossible, wasn’t it?’ It was the word he had used in his parting note to me, seventeen years ago, but he didn’t appear to make the connection.

‘And how is everyone? Wendy? Douglas?’

‘My dad’s dead.’

The expression of shock and sadness on Paddy’s face might have fooled anyone else. My dad had never for a second made me think he was disappointed with a second daughter – we were two of a kind, like Faye and Mum had been – but he had loved Paddy like a son, and the feeling had seemed mutual. But then I’d thought Paddy had loved me too, so what did I know?

‘I’m sorry.’ He reached out a hand, but I drew further back. ‘When? How?’

‘Another heart attack. Three months after Faye died.’

Briefly, his face crumpled with something like grief. My resolve to be indifferent shattered.

‘You must know this! I wrote to you … gave you all the details … told you when the funeral was.’

He hadn’t come. I had waited at the door of the crematorium, certain that despite everything, despite what he had already done, he wouldn’t let me down on this; wouldn’t let my dad down. He wouldn’t leave me to face this on my own, when I had lost two of the people I loved most in the world within a few short months. Three, if I counted him. But I had learnt beyond doubt that day that Paddy Friel didn’t think about anyone but himself; didn’t care about anyone but himself, whatever lies he told to the contrary. I took a deep, juddering breath, and managed to control my emotions. I had wasted enough tears on this man.

‘Ah, jeez, I wasn’t at home. I didn’t get the letter …’

I shrugged; a convenient excuse if ever I’d heard one.

‘It doesn’t matter now. It’s old news.’

I ignored his surprised expression at my apparent callousness. He had no right to judge me for being hard-hearted.

‘And your mam?’

‘Alive and well, and living in Spain. One of the advantages of my dad working in insurance. He left her a very comfortable widow.’

Paddy’s puzzled gaze roamed over my face. Was he trying to work out where this bitter woman had come from, how she had grown out of the girl he had known? He didn’t need to look far. I could hold up a mirror, let him see the answer for himself, but he would probably be too distracted by the view.

‘And …’ He hesitated, scratched his cheek, pushed the curls back although they were hardly out of place. ‘Caitlyn. How is she?’

‘Fine.’

‘How old is she now? Twenty?’

‘Yes.’ I was surprised he remembered.

‘Is she here?’ He started looking round. ‘Is that who you’re waiting for?’

‘No, she’s …’ I stopped short. Why was I wasting my breath? He’d made it plain enough when he left that he wasn’t interested; that she was my niece, my problem. ‘She’s not with me.’

‘Eve …’

His hand landed on my arm and for a moment I was too stunned to shake it off.

‘Hello! Sorry to be so long.’ Tina returned at last, no sign of water, but a glass of wine in her hand. ‘But I see you’ve managed perfectly well without me …’

‘And I see you’ve managed to turn water into wine,’ I said, jerking my arm away from Paddy’s hand.

‘Sorry! I was looking for a water fountain, but then I ran into the teacher from my Facebook group and she dragged me away for something better.’ She smiled and stepped around me, her eye on more interesting company. ‘Hello. Pleased to meet you. What a fascinating talk! I could have listened for hours.’

‘You should have been on the front row. I might have gone on longer if I hadn’t faced a bored kid who seemed more interested in what he could excavate from his nose …’

The sound of Paddy’s laugh grated on my nerves. I didn’t look, didn’t want to see how that cleft in his chin deepened when he laughed, see how many more laughter lines he had earned around his eyes during our time apart. I studied a black and white school photograph that was hung on the wall, rows of young faces, of students who would probably now be grandparents; the prime of life behind them, whereas mine sometimes felt as if it had never started. Unlike the man I could sense was watching me. What a lot of living he had squeezed into the last seventeen years.

‘Are you ready to go?’ I asked Tina.

‘There’s no hurry …’ She crumbled under the look I sent her and swiftly downed her wine. ‘Of course, I can’t miss my taxi.’ She turned to Paddy. ‘Do you do many school talks? I’d love it if you could come to ours.’

‘There’s no money in the budget for that,’ I said. What on earth was Tina thinking?

‘I don’t charge for school talks. I’d be happy to come. Where is it?’

Before I could instruct Tina not to tell him – although I hadn’t worked out how I could do that – she gave him what he wanted.

‘Inglebridge High in north Lancashire. Would you travel so far?’

‘Sure. I’d be happy to.’ Paddy pulled out his wallet and took out a business card. ‘Here. Get in touch when you’ve worked out some dates.’ He held out another card to me. ‘What do you teach?’

‘I don’t.’

The card dangled between us. I put my hands in my pockets, indicating as clearly as I could that I had no intention of taking it.

‘Eve, can’t we catch up sometime? There are things …’

‘No.’ I cut him off. ‘I have nothing to say, and there’s nothing I want to hear. Not every bit of the past deserves raking up, does it? You should know that better than most.’

*

Tina was unusually quiet as we returned to the car and set off home, and I was too busy concentrating on negotiating the country roads in the dark to break the silence. I was glad to have something to focus on other than the past few hours. The sight of Paddy had knocked me more than I had anticipated, stirring up all the old feelings for him. Feelings of hate, not love – that had died long ago.

‘Pull over here,’ Tina called, banging on the dashboard like an overenthusiastic driving instructor. ‘This pub’s nice. A bit gastropub with the menu, but fine for a couple of drinks.’

I turned into the car park obediently, and we wandered into the pub. It was an attractive place, tastefully decorated with a wooden floor, expensive wallpaper and cosy fabrics. A roaring fire and an abundance of lamps gave the place a romantic feeling – the sort of place where lovers might curl up in a corner, oblivious to the rest of the world. Or so I imagined. Romance played no part in my life. But that’s what I’d chosen, so how could I complain?

I found a table within range of the fire, and Tina brought over a glass of wine, and a cranberry and lemonade for me. For the first time in many years I longed for a shot of alcohol to numb my feelings.

‘I’m only having the one,’ Tina said, conveniently forgetting the one she had already had at the school. ‘I have 8B first period tomorrow. I need my wits about me. If I have to teach them in Year 9, I may stage a one-woman revolt. Hannah White never stops rubbing it in about how brilliant 8A are. Apparently, some of them can even spell medieval …’

I laughed and began to relax, glad that we didn’t appear to be heading towards a post-mortem of the earlier part of the evening. Although I wouldn’t be sorry to hear of Paddy Friel laid out on the mortuary slab … I sipped my drink, batting away the unworthy thought. I’d suffered too much loss to know that death wasn’t something to be flippant about.

‘Talking of Year 9,’ I began, remembering a piece of school gossip I had overheard today. ‘Did you know that the Biology lab …’

Tina put down her glass with a decisive bang.

‘Stop changing the subject,’ she said. I had thought I was continuing the subject, but she gave me no time to protest. ‘You and Paddy Friel. Come on, spill the beans. I’ve never met anyone who’s dated a celebrity.’

‘He’s not a celebrity.’

‘He’s been on the telly.’

‘So have thousands of other people. That means nothing, nowadays. You can’t be impressed by him. His only talent is putting on an Irish accent and waving his hair around.’

‘You mean he’s not really Irish?’

‘His name is Nigel, and he was born and bred in London.’

Tina looked crushed and I felt a fleeting twitch of guilt, but not enough to stop me continuing. ‘It’s an image he cultivated – calling himself Paddy, drinking Guinness, laying on the thick accent – all he needs now is to start talking about leprechauns. I bet he hasn’t set foot in Ireland for years. The whole thing is a sham, to make him more popular and presumably richer. Cut open Paddy and you’ll still find a weak and cowardly Nigel inside.’