A Dozen Second Chances

‘Sod Jo Blair,’ she said. ‘Print me out one of your posters and I’ll put it up on the history display board. She doesn’t have a key to open it, so it will be safe there. I’m sure I can convince some of the other teachers to do the same. A bit of rebellion will boost staff morale no end.’

*

By the time Tuesday evening arrived, I was in the mood for a fast and furious run, so it was disappointing to see a motley collection of people arrive for the inaugural running club event. Lexy’s advertising on Facebook and in The White Hart had paid off in the end, and ten people turned up, ranging from a veteran of half-marathons to a lady who admitted with a cheerful grin that she hadn’t run since her baby was born eighteen months ago, but she was keen to get back in shape.

One of the fitter runners, Winston, was vaguely familiar and after an extensive guessing game as we jogged along at an infuriatingly slow pace, we established that we had crossed paths at The Chestnuts, where his grandmother was also a resident.

‘You’re Phyllis’s granddaughter?’ he said, when we paused on the crest of the drover’s bridge that spanned the river to the south of the town centre, to allow the others to catch up. I wouldn’t have stopped if I’d been alone, but I couldn’t deny the charm of the scene, or how peaceful it was to watch the water meander below us.

‘Yes. Do you know her?’

Winston laughed. ‘Everyone knows Phyllis. She’s the Queen of The Chestnuts, isn’t she? Nothing goes on there without her knowing, and no one comes and goes without her noticing.’

‘Noticing or interfering?’

‘Maybe both,’ Winston acknowledged with a grin, as we set off again. ‘I hear you’re organising a sponsored walk to raise money for a new minibus.’

‘Am I? I did suggest it, but I hadn’t realised it was definitely going ahead.’ I hadn’t raised the subject again with Gran, in case she dropped any more hints about a celebrity endorsement. I wanted to help The Chestnuts, but there were limits.

‘It’s definitely happening. Phyllis has even decided on the date. The third Sunday in May. She had wanted it to be the Bank Holiday weekend, but then she decided that people might be going away for half-term, so she brought it forward.’

‘But that’s only seven weeks away! How am I supposed to sort it out in that time?’

‘I did hear her mention that the Easter break was coming up, and you would have nothing else to do.’ Winston laughed as he repeated what was undoubtedly one of Gran’s bon mots. ‘Tell you what, why don’t I give you a hand? I’m on paternity leave for a couple of months. It will be good to keep my brain active. Only if you need the help,’ he added, as I slowed to let him go first where the riverside path narrowed to single file. ‘I don’t want to butt in.’

Did I need the help? Probably, if I only had seven weeks. But I wasn’t used to accepting it. I was the one who offered help, not took it. I had many acquaintances around Inglebridge, people who I would happily pass time chatting to, but in the seventeen years I had lived here, only Tina had slipped through my barriers and become a true friend. My Christmas card list was extensive, my Christmas present list short. It was the way I had chosen it to be. I prided myself on being independent, and on not relying on anyone else. My history had made me cautious; if I didn’t get too close to people, I wouldn’t go through the pain of losing them. But a sudden thought struck me, as I ran along the uneven path. I might be spared the pain – but was I losing out on happiness too? And why had a simple question about a sponsored walk turned the spotlight on my whole way of life?

The path widened again, and Winston slowed until I caught him up.

‘Sorry,’ he said, as we carried on running. ‘I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. Have a think about it. If you need some help, I’m here. Strictly speaking, me and a seven-month-old are here, but I’m probably better with a spreadsheet than she is.’

It could have been the embarrassed smile, or the reference to the spreadsheet that swung it – or perhaps I recognised in him the same urge to help that drove me. Before I could think better of it, I heard myself giving him an answer.

‘I’d love some help,’ I said.

*

I definitely seemed to have swapped roles with Caitlyn. Not so long ago, I had been encouraging her to stretch her wings and try new opportunities. She had taken childcare qualifications at a local college after A levels, and then found a job at a nursery in Inglebridge, but it had been obvious to me that she had been restless. She had always loved languages at school, and longed to travel, but I knew she hadn’t looked for jobs abroad, and I knew why. She was worried about leaving me. So I had researched a huge variety of jobs in near and far-flung places that I thought she might enjoy, printed them off, and circled a few that she seemed most qualified for. She had chosen the au pair position in Paris, and I had polished my acting skills to feign delight when she won the job, comforting myself with the reminder that she might have ended up much further away.

Now she was playing me at my own game. I arrived home from work one day to find a large envelope postmarked from Paris. Inside, I discovered a sheaf of papers, listing a range of volunteering opportunities to work on archaeological digs over the summer, from Peru to Penzance. Caitlyn had circled one in the Cotswolds and added a message: ‘Sounds perfect! Be kind to yourself!’

Flicking through the details she had sent, I couldn’t deny it: it was perfect. The dig was taking place over two weeks on a site south of Cirencester, carrying on the excavation of a Roman villa. The photographs of what had been discovered so far were tantalising: tiles from a hypocaust system that would have been used to heat the villa, numerous coins and pottery pieces, and an amazing mosaic floor that I longed to see for myself. It was an area I knew relatively well, as I had been brought up in Warwickshire and had volunteered at another dig in the Cotswolds in the summer holiday before I started university.

And as my gaze roved over the details, soaking it all in, trying to keep a check on my growing excitement, I saw who was in charge of the dig: Christopher Porter, my former university tutor, the man who had taken my raw enthusiasm and polished it. I had learnt so much from him, and my heart fizzed at the prospect of working with him again, even as a humble volunteer. Some might call it a sign, but not me: I was no longer romantic enough to be superstitious or to set any store by fate. Even so, I moved the details to the top of the pile and left it on the kitchen table. I was curious, that was all. I already had a job, one that kept me quite busy enough. I wasn’t going to do anything about it – was I?

Chapter 7

It was normally one of the most boring parts of my day – sorting through the post, allocating it into piles for each department, and filling the recycling bin with the junk mail the school inevitably received. I did it on autopilot. The last thing I expected to find was an envelope addressed to me, in the barely legible handwriting that I had once known so well, when I had eagerly pored over every loop and dot and cross of the letters that Paddy had sent me during those never-ending days of university holidays when we had been apart.

Now I looked at his scruffy scrawl and felt nothing but resentment that he had bothered me here, in a place where there ought to be no reminders of Paddy. Wasn’t it bad enough that he was giving a talk at school tonight, against my wishes? Had I not made it perfectly clear that I wasn’t interested in renewing our acquaintance?

The envelope sat on the edge of my desk throughout the morning, as I dithered over whether to open it or throw it straight in the recycling bin. In the end, and despite my better judgement, curiosity won. I opened the envelope and pulled out a postcard. The picture side showed Lindisfarne and my heart gave a few uncomfortable thumps, because we had visited there together during the glorious summer we had spent working at Vindolanda in Northumberland. He must remember, surely – so what was the significance of him choosing that card? I turned it over and read the message.

Dear Eve

Remember that summer? Happy times, weren’t they?

I know I screwed up. I’m the biggest idiot going. But can we meet after the talk on Wednesday? There’s something I need to explain – something I should have explained years ago.

Give me a chance.

Paddy

I read it three times, and it still made no sense. What good were explanations now? The moment was long gone, gone seventeen years ago, gone the moment Paddy had chosen not to attend my dad’s funeral. A stubborn streak of love had lingered, to my shame, even after he had walked out on me and Caitlyn, but it couldn’t survive a second rejection. And he really didn’t need to explain his behaviour. I’d figured it out for myself. He cared about no one but Paddy Friel. What more was there to say?

‘Personal mail again, Eve?’

Jo Blair lurked in the doorway of her office, staring pointedly at the postcard in my hand. My hand was trembling; I hoped she couldn’t see that from where she stood.

‘Junk mail,’ I replied, and without a second’s hesitation I crossed to the recycling bin and dropped in the postcard. ‘Nothing important.’

‘About the event tonight,’ she said, with an unexpected degree of awkwardness. ‘It would be helpful if you could be on hand for the Year 10 presentation, to set up the screen and the PowerPoint slides. I haven’t had a chance to familiarise myself with the system yet.’

‘Why me?’ I asked, my head still too full of Paddy’s message to make a show of good grace. ‘Can’t one of the IT technicians do it?’

‘They both have other plans. And I’m told that you are the expert on such things.’

That was true, but I wasn’t going to be won over by a titbit of flattery, especially when she hadn’t scrupled to let me know that I was her last choice.

‘I have plans too,’ I said.

‘Really?’

Of course I didn’t. That sceptical inflection in Jo’s question was infuriatingly justified. Rich was working away, Tina would be at school drooling over Paddy … My plans consisted of nothing more than a run and a night in front of the TV – an identical night to every other. Jo sniffed my weakness.

‘It will all be over by seven o’clock. It will hardly eat into your night at all. I’m sure you will be keen to support school events. It’s exactly the sort of thing I’ll be looking at in the annual Performance Management at the end of the year. And I wouldn’t be surprised to find that it’s in your job description to help out.’

She smiled and retreated to her office, no doubt pleased with herself for that parting shot – because wasn’t I the one who had relied on my job description when she had suggested I spy for her? How could I refuse now? Especially if our annual reviews were coming up. Reviews with Mrs Armstrong had been an opportunity to ignore the phone and have a natter for half an hour. I suspected Jo Blair would take it more seriously. And what if she appraised me and found me wanting? Did she have the power to sack me, as an interim head? What would I do without my job?

Determined to show my commitment, however much it pained me, I behaved as the model assistant at the Year 10 talk that evening, keeping my face neutral as Jo baffled the parents with talk of SPaG and cohorts as she tried to explain the exam system. Everything went so well that she even managed a ‘thank you’ as she wandered off to prepare for the next event of the night – Paddy’s talk – leaving me to tidy up and make sure the hall was ready. I didn’t mind. I glanced at my watch. One good thing about Jo’s love of efficiency was that she had finished bang on time. I had forty-five minutes to make my escape before Paddy’s arrival. He had never wasted time in the past by turning up a minute before he needed to, and I didn’t expect he had changed. There was no danger of seeing him.

With thirty minutes to spare, I was about to grab my bag and leave when running footsteps echoed through the hall. I looked up, expecting to see a Paddy fan dashing for a seat on the front row – she or he would be disappointed to find they were already reserved for governors and members of staff. I was half right – it was Tina, and she was dashing my way wearing an anxious expression that immediately worried me.

‘Have you finished?’ she asked, grabbing the back of the nearest chair as she gasped for breath.

‘Yes. He’s not here already, is he? He’s never usually early.’ I pulled my bag from under my chair, assuming she had come to give me a warning, and touched by this evidence of Tina’s friendship. I hadn’t thought she understood my aversion to Paddy. ‘Where have you put him? Is it safe to use the main doors?’

‘Put who? Oh, Paddy. No, he’s not here yet.’ Tina glanced at the clock on the wall, and her anxious expression deepened. ‘I asked him to be here for seven so we could chat through the arrangements. He’s cutting it fine. Is he not good at punctuality?’

He wasn’t good full stop – I thought I’d already made that clear. But I simply shrugged in response, accepting no responsibility for his faults.

‘What did you want me for, if it wasn’t about Paddy?’ I asked.

‘We have another crisis brewing – or more accurately, not brewing,’ Tina said, with a rueful grin. ‘Bev has had to go home because one of the kids is ill, so …’

‘No.’ I knew where this was going, and I didn’t like it. ‘I’m not doing the teas. No way.’

‘I wouldn’t ask if there was anyone else. But you know what Jo Blair is like. She’s expecting to make some money tonight, even if it’s only a tenner. It will be on one of her spreadsheets. And she’ll want to put on a good show as the press are supposed to be coming.’

That job had left a nasty taste in my mouth – having to ring up the local paper and invite them to the event, gushing about what a coup it was to have the renowned celebrity archaeologist Paddy Friel visiting our school. Part of me had hoped they would say, ‘Who?’ Unfortunately, I had spoken to a female journalist who had hardly let me finish my patter before she had begged to come.

‘Surely there must be someone else …’

Even I could hear the resignation in my voice. Tina pounced on it.

‘You’d be in the canteen during the talk, so you wouldn’t see or hear him,’ she said. ‘And I’d fetch him a cup of tea myself, so he wouldn’t come anywhere near you.’ She reached out and rubbed my arm. ‘I know you didn’t want to be here, but I have to make it work tonight. Jo has already been dropping hints about my Performance Management next term. Please help.’

I nodded. What else could I do? Tina had been a good friend to me over the years, and had saved my sanity on more occasions than I could remember. Friendship trumped personal inclination every time.

It wasn’t a taxing job to set out the tea things; I’d done it countless times before. But when all the cups and saucers were set out, the biscuits displayed on plates and the ‘50p per cup’ sign prominently displayed, I still had thirty minutes to kill before the first of the thirsty hordes were likely to descend. I messed around with my phone for a while, checked my emails, replied to a text from Rich and generally did everything I could to distract myself from what was going on in the hall.

I straightened a teacup and looked critically at the display. Were there enough cups? There were more in the cupboard that I had judged unnecessary – but what if my prejudice was underestimating the popularity of this event? What if I let Tina down?

It was a matter of seconds between the thought creeping into my head and my feet carrying me to the door of the hall. Standing to one side, I peered through the glass panel, focusing only on the rows of chairs stretching back down the length of the hall. It was far busier than I had expected, with the rows occupied to at least halfway; I would need more teacups after all.

I turned away and was about to return to the canteen when a familiar burst of laughter stopped me in my tracks, the sound slinking into my reluctant ears and pinning me to where I stood. I tried to ignore it, but his voice carried through the door as he spoke about the Viking occupation of Lancashire and the Cuerdale Hoard that had been found by workmen repairing the banks of the River Ribble near Preston in 1840; it was one of the largest Viking silver hoards ever found, and we had once been to see it at the British Museum. The Vikings had always been Paddy’s favourite era, and his genuine enthusiasm was clear, to me at least; the Irish accent dimmed, and he sounded less like the TV star and more like the boy I had known. I closed my eyes and listened.

The scrape of a chair along the wooden floor brought me to my senses, and I dashed back downstairs, my heart pounding with renewed fascination about archaeology, and frustration that Paddy had helped inspire it. I set out more cups, filled the urns with tea and coffee, and prepared to lurk at the back of the room, out of sight.

It wasn’t long before the audience arrived, laughing and smiling as if they’d had a good time – although the realisation that they had to pay for refreshments wiped a few of the smiles away. I sensed rather than saw Paddy’s arrival; I was well hidden behind a group of parents, and a gaggle of Year 9s who thought they could pilfer biscuits without me noticing. But the sound in the room changed when he walked in: conversations dimmed; feet shuffled as people turned to get a better look. The air was thick with the consciousness of his presence, and with anticipation of who he might talk to.

It was sickening. All this, because he had appeared on television, and was objectively what some might consider handsome? I thrust a teacup into a waiting hand, sloshing the contents onto the saucer as I seethed at the shallowness of today’s society. And then I smiled to myself for sounding more like someone of Gran’s age than my own, and as I looked across the room, Paddy caught my eye and returned my smile.

Damn the man! He was as bad as the Year 9s, pilfering things that weren’t meant for him. I focused on dispensing refreshments again, but the queue was drying up, and at 50p per cup, no one was coming back for seconds. I felt like a sitting duck behind my table as the crowd thinned around me. Spotting that Jo Blair was engaged in earnest conversation with a governor, I grabbed the almost-empty urn of tea and carried it into the kitchen, with the spurious intention of filling it up while hiding for as long as I could.

‘Eve?’

My hand slipped, and scalding water splashed over it, making me yelp. Paddy was at my side at once, switching on the cold tap and holding my arm so that the cold water ran over the back of my hand. As soon as the pain was replaced by a heavy numbness, I shook my arm free.

‘I can manage.’

‘You should leave it under for fifteen minutes.’

‘I am aware of that. I’m one of the school’s designated first aiders.’

I didn’t know why I added that. If we were going to trade achievements since our time together, it was hardly going to trump anything he could offer.

‘Well done,’ he said, and I glanced up, expecting sarcasm, but his smile appeared genuine. But then it always did. A line from Caitlyn’s A-level Shakespeare text floated into my head: ‘that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.’ It summed up Paddy perfectly.

‘You’re not supposed to be in here,’ I said, turning off the tap and drying my hand on a paper towel. I had no intention of being trapped here for fifteen minutes. ‘What do you want?’

‘Did you come and hear the talk?’ he asked.

‘No.’ I threw the paper towel in the bin. ‘Don’t you have enough adoring fans out there? Are you so desperate for praise that you have to follow people, hoping for a bit of flattery?’

‘I don’t give a stuff about adoring fans. None of that matters.’

‘Really? Is it just the money you care about, then?’ I said. ‘Something must have motivated you to take the part in Celebrity Speed Dating, as it certainly can’t have been for the critical acclaim.’

Caitlyn had been hooked on the show, and I’d been unlucky enough to catch a few minutes of it – fortunately not a segment featuring Paddy. It had been one of the worst things I’d ever seen on television, and had picked up scathing reviews – so of course, it had been a huge ratings hit.

‘Sure I did it for the money. I’m not ashamed of that.’

The old Paddy would have been, the Paddy I thought I’d known: he was passionate about his subject – devoted to it, as I knew to my cost – and wouldn’t have risked degrading it with tawdry TV shows. Briefly, I wondered what had happened to wreak the change, but I soon let the thought slip away. I had better things to do than waste a second of my time on Paddy Friel.

‘Did you get my postcard?’

‘Yes. It went straight in the recycling bin. We have nothing to talk about. I made that perfectly clear before. You were happy enough to leave me alone once, when it suited you. Why can’t you leave me alone now, when it suits me?’

Paddy leant against the stainless steel work surfaces, his hands stuffed in his pockets.

‘There are things we need to talk about,’ he said. ‘Important things. Don’t be like this. I know this bitterness isn’t you. What’s happened to you?’

My mouth and my eyes gaped wide. Was he criticising me? Who had made me bitter? Why had I ended up this way? He knew nothing about me, about who I was now.

‘Life happened,’ I said – no doubt in a bitter fashion. ‘It doesn’t always go the way you want it to.’

‘No, it doesn’t.’ Something in his face, in his voice as he said that, caught my attention – something undoubtedly real. But before I could process that, my second least favourite voice cut through the kitchen.

‘Eve? What are you doing? Why have you left the tea money unattended?’

Jo Blair stopped when she noticed Paddy, and her frown quickly changed to a smile.

‘Mr Friel! Have you lost your way? Eve, couldn’t you have shown him where to go?’

‘I tried.’

Paddy’s eyes glittered with amusement from behind Jo’s back, and all at once, I remembered how different things had once been between us. How laughter had bound us together; how he had acted the clown, never satisfied until I collapsed, clutching the stitch in my side; how I had stored up stories from my day, exaggerating the absurdities in the hope of hearing his laughter; how our radar for comedy had been so finely attuned that it had often taken only one shared glance to set us both off. I had never experienced that with anyone else. It felt like I hadn’t laughed like that in years. Seventeen years, if I was inclined to count.

‘Hurry up with the tea,’ Jo said, oblivious to the atmosphere in the kitchen. ‘There’s time to sell a few more cups.’

I nodded and picked up the urn, but before I could take a step, Paddy removed it from my grasp.

‘Watch your hand,’ he said.

He headed towards the kitchen door, and I hurried after him, with Jo Blair close on my heels. And as we made our procession into the canteen, I took a moment to analyse my feelings. Paddy’s condemnation had been uncomfortable and unarguable. I did sound bitter, and it wasn’t me. It had been my head talking, not my heart. When I looked there, I found no bitterness. I had hated Paddy once, but somewhere over the years it had gone, leaving mere indifference behind. Or not quite indifference. As I had been reminded so recently, there had been good times between us. The best, I had thought back then. Dig far enough down through the years, and there was a layer of our relationship where things had been perfect. Despite what had happened afterwards, I could never forget that. With my training, I should know better than to think that history could ever be irrelevant.

Paddy put the urn down on the table. I spotted Tina across the room, looking at me with concern. I shook my head at her. I didn’t need rescuing. It was time to face up to this.