before the meal. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’
‘You should have had your nails done before,’ Caitlyn said, grabbing my hand and
looking at my short nails. I had always kept them short – better for digging, and in more recent
years, for typing. ‘It would have been a perfect way to use your vouchers. Be kind to yourself,
remember? How many have you got left?’
‘None! You see, I’ve been exceptionally kind to myself. I’ll give you the last two
tomorrow. One of them involved buying a new dress for tomorrow night. You must approve
of that.’
‘Sounds good. You’ll have to show me later.’
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‘Later?’ I repeated, as Caitlyn pushed her bag and Luc’s to the bottom of the stairs and
walked back towards the door.
‘I said I’d catch up with a few friends in town this afternoon. You don’t mind, do you?
They’re dying to meet Luc! I’ll let you know if we’ll be back for tea. Love you!’
And with that they were gone, strolling away down the street towards town without a
backward glance. Mum touched my arm.
‘Shall I put the kettle on? You look like you could do with a drink.’
I followed Mum into the kitchen and let her bustle around making tea. Things had been
easier between us since her last visit, and our telephone conversations were lasting longer than
ever before, but some awkwardness still lingered now we were face to face. I thought Caitlyn
would have stayed with us, to help smooth things along; I hadn’t realised she would barely step
foot through the door. But why should I mind? I was only an aunt, not a mother, even if my
feelings didn’t recognise the distinction.
‘Caitlyn tells me you were with Paddy in Paris,’ Mum said, when we were settled at
the kitchen table with our tea. ‘Paddy Friel.’ As if there could be any doubt who she meant. ‘I
didn’t know you were friendly with him again. Are you sure? After the way he treated you …’
Glancing across the table, I saw a look in Mum’s eye that I instinctively recognised,
but hadn’t expected. It was the wariness of a tiger, ready to guard her cub. It was how I had felt
about every boyfriend Caitlyn had brought home, wondering if he might hurt her and what I
could do to prevent it. It had never crossed my mind that Mum might feel the same way about
me, even at my age.
‘It’s nothing,’ I said. ‘We met a few times over the summer, that’s all. He helped out
when I needed to go to Paris to see Caitlyn.’
I stared down at my tea. That wasn’t all; not even a fraction of it, on my side at least.
But how could I be sure what he had been feeling all summer and why he had come to Paris?
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I thought he’d been helping me; that it had been like that day when we had first met at
university, and he had rushed to my rescue without a thought for himself. I’d taken it as
evidence that he cared for me. But nothing was certain now. I couldn’t shake off the suspicion
that his offer to accompany me had simply been a way for him to see Caitlyn. I’d wanted to
hurry to her side, to check for myself that she was safe. Had he felt the same – paternal instincts
prompting his offer to accompany me, rather than romantic ones? And if he had, how could I
criticise him for that? I sighed. This was all such a mess.
‘What’s the matter?’ Mum said, and she reached across the table to squeeze my hand.
‘Don’t tell me nothing. I’m your mum. I know when something’s not right.’
It was true – even though I’d had little obviously in common with Mum, she had always
been able to read me, always known exactly how I was feeling. So how much more must she
have known about Faye, when the two of them had been so close? I should have thought of
this before; if anyone knew Faye’s secrets, it would be Mum.
‘Do you know who Caitlyn’s father is?’ I asked.
My attempt to surprise her didn’t work. She took a moment before she looked up at me,
but her face gave nothing away.
‘No. You know that. We went through all this when Faye first told us she was pregnant,
and again when Caitlyn was born. Faye told us nothing. If we’d had a name, we would have
contacted him after she died.’
‘So Faye never mentioned a name at any time? Never even made a hint or suggestion
about anyone? Anyone at all?’
Mum sighed and sat back in her chair. ‘I see. I suppose you mean Paddy.’
‘You knew!’ Tea splashed out of my mug and down my hand as I slammed my cup on
the table. ‘So it’s true?’
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It felt as though my world was shattering. Deep down, I hadn’t wanted to believe it.
But if Mum knew what I was asking, before I’d mentioned his name …
‘It’s true that Faye suggested it,’ Mum said. ‘Not just suggested – she tormented him
with it for a while.’
‘But I never heard any of it!’
‘No. I hoped you wouldn’t.’ Mum’s bracelets jangled as she pushed her mug across the
table from one hand to the other. ‘She was careful not to say it in front of you. And I soon put
a stop to it when I realised what she was doing.’
That fitted with what Paddy had said in Paris; that the comments from Faye had
suddenly stopped. Was it because Mum had interfered?
‘Why would she say it at all if it wasn’t true?’ I asked.
‘That was Faye. I loved her to bits, but God knows she wasn’t perfect.’ Mum brushed
away a tear from her cheek. ‘She lived for attention, and most of the time she got it, especially
from you. But then Paddy came along. You worshipped her until you met him, and then he was
everything to you. It was clear to all of us that he wasn’t just another boyfriend. Perhaps she
thought that if she stirred up some trouble, she would frighten him off so you were all hers
again. But of course it wasn’t true about Caitlyn. How could it be? Faye hadn’t met Paddy until
you brought him home.’
So Mum hadn’t known the truth about Faye and Paddy. That was some comfort at least;
that not everyone was keeping secrets from me.
‘She had met him. Paddy told me in Paris. They met during Freshers’ Week – you
remember that Faye came to stay with me? And they …’ I shook my head. I couldn’t say the
words. ‘So it’s true. Paddy might be Caitlyn’s father. And he wants to take a test to find out.’
Mum covered her mouth with her hands, and a steady stream of tears rolled down her
cheeks, carrying her mascara with them.
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‘And I told her to stop spreading lies …’
I went round the table and hugged her. And it was a loaded hug, intended to offer her
comfort, to share her grief, and also to acknowledge this reminder that although she’d had more
in common with Faye, she had loved me just as much. She had argued with Faye to protect me,
and that meant more than I could say in any words.
‘Did she really never tell you who Caitlyn’s father was?’ I asked at last, when we had
dried our eyes and I had returned to my seat.
‘Never.’ Mum shrugged. ‘I always assumed she wasn’t sure h
erself. We looked through
her things after she died, but we didn’t find any clues.’
Her things! Why hadn’t I thought of that? Faye’s personal belongings were in the loft,
stored in case Caitlyn ever wanted them. She hadn’t chosen to look at them yet, but perhaps I
should. Mum might have searched for evidence of Caitlyn’s father before, but it was possible
she had missed something; equally possible that she might not have understood something that
I would.
I stood up. ‘I’m going to have a look.’
‘I told you, there was nothing there …’
‘A fresh pair of eyes can’t do any harm.’
‘Can’t they?’ Mum stood too, and looked at me across the table. ‘If you found
something – something that proved Paddy was Caitlyn’s father – what good would it do you?’
None. It wouldn’t do me any good at all. But I’d already decided to tell Caitlyn the truth
and let her decide whether to take part in a paternity test, and I wasn’t going to change my
mind; as Gran had reminded me, it might do Caitlyn some good, and what further motivation
did I need? The sooner we found out the better, as far as I was concerned, so this torturous state
of uncertainty would be over.
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Mum followed me upstairs and climbed the ladder into the loft after me, her bracelets
jangling all the way. Stacked in the corner, behind the Christmas decorations and boxes of
Caitlyn’s old schoolbooks, stood a couple of large plastic trunks filled with those possessions
of Faye’s that we had chosen to keep. There wasn’t much; it upset me every time I came up
here to see a life so extraordinary reduced to this meagre collection of mundane items. I lifted
the lid off the first box and started taking out the contents: CDs, books, costume jewellery – all
things kept to show Caitlyn who Faye had been, rather than because of intrinsic value. An old
shoebox of assorted photographs came next, brim-full of memories of our childhood and
teenage years.
I rummaged through the box and stopped short as I found one of me and Faye in my
first-year room at university, during that fateful Freshers’ Week – an old-fashioned selfie, taken
with the timer function on a proper camera, the top of our hair missing as we’d posed in the
wrong spot. Had this been taken before or after her encounter with Paddy? I’d never know if
the smile on her face was a result of pleasure at being with me, or of having been with him. I
threw the photo back in the box, and moved on to the next pile of belongings.
There was a stack of diaries, from the pre-smartphone days, but only appointment
diaries, nothing personal. I flicked through the diary for the year Caitlyn must have been
conceived, looking for I don’t know what – names? Dates? A highlighted entry saying, ‘Caitlyn
was conceived today!’? But there was nothing significant: just the regular sort of dental and
optician’s appointments; the dates when Faye had visited me during Freshers’ Week; and a
mysterious number of asterisks against certain dates that could have meant something or
nothing.
The diary for the following year was the same, save that antenatal checks and GP
appointments filled the first few months and a sketch of a stalk carrying a baby was marked on
a day in July.
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Mum was hovering nearby, and despite the tan and the bright clothes, she seemed to
have faded at the sight of these reminders of Faye.
‘She drew a stork in July,’ I said, holding out the diary. ‘But that’s not right. Caitlyn
was born in June.’
‘That must have been her due date. Caitlyn came three weeks early. Don’t you
remember?’
‘No.’ It had been the busy end-of-year time at university, and I would have been in the
first flush of my relationship with Paddy. I probably hadn’t paid much attention to the details
beyond the baby being a girl and everyone being well. But was it significant, that Caitlyn had
been due in July? I picked up the diaries and flicked back nine months. October. After Freshers’
Week. And then I noticed what I had missed on my first inspection of the diary: a red circle
around the date, five days after Faye had visited me. Faye had always marked the start of her
period that way. I flicked forwards. There were no more red circles until after Caitlyn was born.
‘Look,’ I said, showing Mum the page. ‘Faye had a period in October. The diary might
not tell us who the father is, but it tells us who it isn’t. Paddy can’t be Caitlyn’s father, can he?’
I stared at the page, trying to take it in. After all the trauma, all the worry of the last
couple of weeks, was it really as simple as all that? It looked it; but would one red circle be
conclusive enough for Paddy? And what it did mean for me? I couldn’t even think about that
yet.
‘Well, that’s that, then,’ Mum said. She squeezed my hand, and I squeezed back. ‘I’m
going back down. Seeing all her things …’
I nodded. Opening this box had made grief a sharp pain again, rather than the dull ache
that we had grown used to living with. All these possessions should have been in Faye’s home,
not stored in my loft; the dated CDs were a reminder of a life frozen in another time. As Mum
disappeared through the loft access, I packed up the box again, pausing on one of the CDs. I’d
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bought it for Faye, but had probably listened to it more than she had done. I opened the case
and pulled out the cover leaflet, intending to remind myself of the lyrics printed there, but as I
opened it out, a photograph and a slip of paper fell out.
It was a photograph of Faye and Caitlyn, taken in her hospital bed judging by the
background. Faye looked beautiful – even after giving birth, her luminosity shone out from the
image. I bent down to pick up the paper. It was a sheet of good quality writing paper – a rare
sight these days – and contained only a few scrawled words in handwriting I didn’t recognise.
‘Don’t send any more photos. I told you I didn’t want it. It was your decision to go
ahead. You asked me to choose, and I chose my wife, so you can stop your games. Don’t
contact me again. M.’
Didn’t want it? Was the ‘it’ Faye’s baby? Had this note been written by Caitlyn’s
father? I tidied away the box and climbed back downstairs. Mum was sitting in the living room.
She wiped her eyes quickly when I walked in.
‘Did you find anything else?’ she asked. Before I could reply, she pointed at the note
in my hand. ‘What’s that?’
I sat down next to Mum and gave her the note. She read it in silence and her hand was
trembling as she put the paper down on the coffee table.
‘Poor Faye. A married man,’ she said. ‘I did wonder. I hope to God she didn’t do it
deliberately – get pregnant and try to pressure him to leave his wife. It sounds that way.’
‘She wouldn’t have done that!’
‘She might have done, if she thought he was losing interest.’ Mum took my hand, and
rubbed it between hers. ‘She had her flaws. It doesn’t mean we loved her any less. But you
were always the stronger and kin
der one, taking after your dad. What you did for Caitlyn proves
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that. I can’t think that Faye would have taken on your child, if the situation had been reversed.
Your dad and I were so proud of what you did.’
She looked at me then, and I could see the love and pride in her face. And I couldn’t
bear it, not when thoughts of Faye filled my head, not when the loss of her felt so visceral
again. For all these years, I had mentally accused Paddy of being a sham, of not being what he
seemed – but I was far worse than him. I wasn’t what I seemed. Because I hadn’t been strong
or kind, not to Faye. I had let her down when she needed me most, and I couldn’t accept this
display of love from Mum when it was the opposite of what I deserved.
‘It’s not true,’ I said, and I withdrew my hand from Mum’s because she wouldn’t want
to offer comfort when she heard what I had to say. ‘I’m not kind. I wasn’t kind to Faye.’
Mum tried to interrupt, but I wouldn’t let her. I had to get this out at last. My guilt had
haunted me for too many years, directing my thoughts and behaviour.
‘Something happened on the night Faye died that I didn’t mention to the police, or at
the inquest,’ I said. ‘It was my fault that she took the pill that killed her.’
We’d been out to a club that night; a rare night away from Paddy for me, but Faye had
nagged about how boring I had become until I agreed to go out with her. It had been fun at
first, and I’d let my hair down, drinking more than I had done for a while. But then Faye had
drifted off to hang about with a group of lads I didn’t know and I’d grown tired of dancing on
my own. So I’d gone to find her, to see if we could go home, and had caught her with a pill in
her hand.
Even in my drunken state, I’d been horrified; Faye had always loved a good time, but I
couldn’t believe she would take drugs. I’d told her to get rid of it, reminded her that she had a
daughter at home, shouted at her not to be so stupid, and finally knocked the tablet out of her
hand. I’d left the party on my own, and after I’d gone, Faye must have bought another pill that
A Dozen Second Chances (ARC) Page 31
