Second Chance

by Jane Green

  Saffron starts to laugh. ‘Ow,’ she groans again, holding her head. ‘Shit, that hurts. You have to be kidding

  … Me? Tiling a bathroom?’

  Olivia’s mouth opens in amazement. ‘Tell me you haven’t seriously become that much of a diva.’

  ‘No!’ Saffron exclaims in horror. ‘It’s just that I’m hopeless at anything like that. I’ve never tiled a thing in my life. I mean, fine, I’ll do it, just as long as you don’t mind wonky tiles.’

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ Anna brushes her off. ‘I’m doing it with you and I’ll show you what to do. It’s easy. Of course you could do the floor-sanding instead if you want.’

  ‘No, no,’ Saffron shakes her head, looking at the vast expanse of rough, stained wood in the living room, ‘tiling’s fine.’ She starts to laugh.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Paul looks up.

  ‘Just that I never expected to be here tiling a bathroom. Life seemed so settled, and then… It’s just so bizarre how everything in life can change in a heartbeat.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’ Holly snorts. ‘Just so you know, I think I’ve left Marcus.’

  ‘You have? Good girl!’ Saffron exclaims.

  ‘Why good girl?’ Although it’s not as if Holly doesn’t know.

  ‘Because he’s a pompous, stuck-up arse, that’s why.’

  ‘Saffron!’ Olivia admonishes her.

  ‘Why? It’s true, isn’t it?’ And at this, Holly starts to laugh.

  ‘You haven’t changed at all.’ Holly grins. ‘You still say exactly what’s on your mind.’

  Saffron shrugs. ‘I’d rather be honest, although I apologize if I upset you. I could have been less mean.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Holly says. ‘He is a pompous arse. I’m just not used to people coming out and saying it. Do me a favour, though, and don’t say anything in front of the children.’

  ‘I imagine that once people know you’re definitely separated, you’ll be hearing that from pretty much everyone, but of course I won’t say anything in front of the kids. Can I meet them?’

  ‘Is breakfast ready?’ Saffron looks over at Paul, who nods. ‘Let’s get them in.’

  ‘Mummy,’ Daisy has put down her fork and is staring at Saffron, ‘I thought you said your friend was a beautiful famous actress.’

  Paul shouts with laughter and Saffron gives him an exaggerated evil eye.

  ‘Daisy!’ Oliver says loudly. ‘That’s very rude.’

  ‘No it’s not!’ she says, her voice rising towards tears. ‘It’s not rude, it’s true.’

  ‘It is rude. Isn’t it rude, Mummy? To make comments about people when they’re sitting in front of you?’

  ‘I wasn’t making comments.’ Daisy pouts. ‘I was just saying she’s not beautiful.’

  ‘It’s okay, Oliver.’ Saffron smiles. ‘I don’t mind. Usually I am beautiful and famous, but today I’m just ordinary. I change, a bit like Cinderella.’

  ‘You forgot to say modest.’ Paul grins.

  ‘Ah yes. That too. Olivia?’ Saffron suddenly looks over at Olivia. ‘You look horrible. Are you okay?’

  ‘Back in a sec,’ Olivia gulps, standing up and rushing from the table, hand over her mouth.

  Seconds later the unmistakable sound of retching and heaving comes from the upstairs bathroom.

  ‘Oh God.’ Paul stops chewing and lays his knife and fork down. ‘Just what I need to hear in the middle of breakfast.’

  Saffron reaches over and steals a piece of bacon off his plate, chewing on it thoughtfully. ‘Doesn’t bother me. Is she ill or is she pregnant?’

  Paul starts to laugh. ‘Olivia, pregnant? Hardly,’ and then he sees Holly’s face. ‘Oh God. Is she?’

  Holly tries to feign ignorance, but she has always been a terrible liar.

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ she says eventually. ‘It’s got nothing to do with me.’

  Olivia comes back into the room, breathing newly brushed minty breath, looking more than a little uncomfortable.

  ‘So… are you preg?’ Saffron looks straight at her.

  ‘God, Saff.’ Paul rolls his eyes. ‘Subtlety would take you a long way, you know.’ Olivia shoots a look at Holly, who shakes her head vigorously. It wasn’t me, she wants to say.

  ‘What’s preg?’ Oliver pipes up loudly. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Sssh, Oliver,’ Holly says. ‘I’ll tell you later.’

  ‘It’s okay, Oliver.’ Olivia sinks down at the table, and shrugs. ‘It means I’m having a baby. It also means it’s a bloody nightmare. Whoops, excuse my language. But, yes. It would seem that despite being resolutely single and having never wanted children my entire life, I am now pregnant.’

  ‘So who’s the lucky man?’ Saffron says.

  ‘No one worth talking about. Nice guy, American, we’re no longer in touch.’

  ‘Not the guy Tom introduced you to?’ Saffron says, and Olivia nods miserably.

  ‘Does he know?’ Anna asks. Olivia shakes her head.

  ‘I can’t see the point,’ Olivia says quietly. ‘I haven’t decided whether or not I’ll keep it.’

  Holly is looking at Anna as Olivia talks and sees the shock on Anna’s face. The shock and dismay that Olivia could so casually get rid of a baby, when she and Paul would give anything in the world to have one.

  ‘You would have an abortion?’ Anna asks softly, attempting to keep the emotion out of her voice, attempting not to judge, or at least not to let her judgement show.

  Olivia, suddenly remembering Paul and Anna talking about IVF, starts to backtrack furiously. ‘I don’t know…’ she says quickly. ‘I mean, I haven’t decided. I just don’t know what to do, haven’t really made any decision…’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Paul says, taking Anna’s hand under the table and squeezing it. ‘You don’t have to censor yourself because of us.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ Olivia looks directly at Anna, who looks as if she’s going to cry. ‘I didn’t want to say anything. I wasn’t going to say anything. I thought I could just quietly go and have a termination and nobody would ever know.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Paul says as a tear rolls slowly down Anna’s face. ‘Don’t worry. What’s important is how you feel.’

  ‘Mummy?’ Oliver again, looking confused. ‘What’s a bortion?’

  Holly rolls her eyes and leans towards him. ‘Ask your father,’ she says with a sigh, reaching over to pour herself more coffee.

  ‘How are you?’ Paul crunches over the field to an old tree stump where Anna is sitting, gazing out at the view, a crumpled damp tissue clenched in her hand. Her eyes are red-rimmed, and at the sight of Paul a few more tears squeeze their way out.

  ‘It just does not seem so fair,’ Anna starts to talk; it comes out as a sob. ‘We have tried so hard and for so long, and then someone like Olivia just falls pregnant at the drop of a hat, and she is going to have an abortion. How does this happen? How could she do that?’

  ‘I never realized you were anti-abortion,’ Paul says gently, surprised.

  ‘I’m not. I mean, I was not. I never had any feeling about it at all, but now, I… just do not understand how someone could do that when there are so many people in the world who are desperate to have children and who cannot have them.’

  Paul puts his arm around Anna and hugs her as she settles in, leaning her head on his chest. Safe. Loved. Exhausted. No more sobs for now, too tired, just a blankness as she whispers over and over again, ‘It’s just not fair. It’s just not fair.’

  They keep to their separate corners of the house for the morning, waiting for the emotions to die down.

  Anna and Saffron in the bathroom, Paul sanding the floors of the living room, Olivia painting the window frames. Holly and the children are sanding down the kitchen cupboards, the children delighted to be taking part in grown-up work, each clutching sandpaper and working on their own cupboard doors.

  Saffron doesn’t ask Anna about the IVF, or how she feels, or if she’s okay, for which Anna is
grateful. There are times when talking about things is exactly what you need, and there are other times, times like today, when no amount of talking will make you feel better. When all you can do is breathe, put one foot in front of the other, get through the day until you can sink into unconsciousness, hoping that tomorrow things will be easier. Tomorrow you will be fine.

  ‘Paul!’ Holly walks into the living room, yelling over the noise of the industrial sander, coughing as a cloud of dust settles over her.

  ‘Hang on.’ He switches the machine off and pulls the mask off his face. ‘Yup?’

  ‘You need to come and look at the kitchen cupboards. I think all the wood might be rotten.’

  ‘Oh God,’ he groans. ‘Let’s get Anna down here; she’ll know more than me.’

  Anna crouches down, stroking a finger down the wood, then looks up at Paul with a frown. ‘Yes. They are rotten all right. If one is, then they probably all are. We need new kitchen-cupboard doors.’

  Paul sighs. ‘That’s the problem with these bloody renovations. You think you know exactly what you’re going to be doing, but the more work you do, the more you uncover that needs doing. Great. I don’t suppose any of us knows anything about building kitchen cupboard doors…’ They all look blankly at him and shrug. ‘So now it will probably cost a small fortune to get this done. Just what we need.’ His irritation is obvious, and Anna shifts uncomfortably, guilty at having initiated this project at a time when clearly they couldn’t really afford it.

  Holly’s face lights up. ‘We could ask Will!’ she says, and Olivia suppresses a smile, raising an eyebrow instead as she turns to look at Holly. ‘No, seriously.’ The others look blank. ‘Will. Tom’s brother. He’s a cabinet-maker. He’d come in a heartbeat.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Anna starts leaping in delight. ‘What an excellent idea! I did not know Tom’s brother is a carpenter. Does anyone have his number?’

  This time, Holly avoids catching Olivia’s knowing eye. ‘I think I do,’ she says, happiness lifting her up and floating her towards the door. ‘I’ll go outside to get a signal and call him.’

  A beaming Holly comes back twenty minutes later.

  ‘What took you so long?’ a still-disgruntled Paul asks, convinced Will won’t come, convinced Holly won’t even have his number.

  Holly blushes. ‘It took me a while to get through,’ she lies unconvincingly. ‘But he’s coming. He’s taking the train this afternoon. I’ll go and pick him up at the station with the kids.’

  ‘Yay!’ Anna shouts with joy, turning to Paul. ‘See? I told you everything would be all right.’

  ‘We don’t know how much he’s going to charge us,’ Paul grumbles. ‘It might still be more money than we can afford to spend. Even this plumber coming out to fix the heating is yet another unexpected expense.’

  ‘Will said he’d do it for cost,’ Holly says, unable to wipe the smile off her face – and not because he’s doing it for cost. ‘He’s bringing all his tools. Apparently lumber is much cheaper out here, and he’s not going to charge anything for his time.’

  Anna plants her hands on her hips and shoots Paul an I-told-you-so look as Paul shrugs. ‘If that is true, that is amazing.’

  ‘Of course it’s true,’ Holly says. ‘Remember, he’s Tom’s brother. Tom would never have promised something he wasn’t going to deliver. Think his brother’s going to be any different?’

  ‘Let’s just hope you’re right,’ Paul says, and donning his face mask he goes back into the living room to finish sanding the floor.

  Holly hasn’t thought much about Marcus. Hasn’t thought much about her marriage ending or about the fact that she probably isn’t going home to the same life she left behind. Marcus has left two messages. The first furious, the second sad, asking if they could talk.

  She responded not by calling him, but by phoning Frauke. She left details of where she was with Frauke, in case of emergency only, and told Frauke to tell Marcus they’d talk when she got home.

  The rest of the time, she hasn’t thought about him.

  Partly, she is burying her head in the sand. Just as she did throughout her marriage. When her unhappiness became almost too much to bear, she would bury her head in the sand and pretend that everything was fine. If she didn’t think about it, it wasn’t happening.

  There is only one thought filling her head today. One thought that is keeping her going, keeping her as dizzy as a teenager.

  Will.

  Saffron, when sober, is as perceptive as she is direct. She has learnt to become an expert people-watcher for her acting profession, and as soon as Holly mentioned Will, Saffron saw how her eyes lit up, how she couldn’t stop smiling when she came back from having phoned him, how it would appear that she is practically bubbling over with happiness since that phone call.

  Saffron would have to be stupid if she really believed that Holly is bursting with joy over the fact that the kitchen cupboards will be done at cost.

  Hmmm, she thinks. Interesting. Not that she can see Holly and Will together – Will, though sexy and charming, is definitely not ready to settle down – but doesn’t Holly deserve a bit of fun after being married to that awful bloody Marcus? And Holly may not have the strength to stay separated – Saffron can see how Marcus might talk her back – so maybe it’s a good thing there’s someone else around to help Holly see she’s made the right decision.

  Maybe it’s a very good thing indeed.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Holly pulls up to the tiny little station and zooms right into one of the parking spaces next to the tracks. She is nervous, jittery, keeps pulling the mirror down to see what she looks like, so lost in her own world she tunes out of the constant questions from Daisy in the back seat.

  ‘I’ll be back in a second,’ she says to the kids as she sees the distant lights of the train, and she jumps out of the car and up the steps onto the platform, feeling dizzy with excitement and nerves.

  It feels like an age since she last saw Will, but it is only, what, a few days? She is used to speaking to him all day; and somehow, now that she has left (for in her mind, over the last few hours, she has not been thinking that her marriage may be over, but she has rewritten history as her having left Marcus, as it being signed, sealed and delivered), something has shifted. She no longer feels guilt at the amount of time she spends thinking about Will or the thrill she feels at the prospect of seeing him.

  She paces nervously as the train doors sigh their way open and squints as she sees him – one of three to get off the train – walking up towards her from the far end of the platform, waving an acknowledgement.

  There is no mistaking Will. Could never be any mistaking Will for Holly, and her heart leaps as she takes in his familiar face, his familiar stride. In old Levi’s, leather boots and a beaten-up old jacket that can’t possibly be keeping out the February chill, Will looks, as far as Holly is concerned, perfect.

  His hair is not as short as Tom’s. It’s growing longer again, messy brown hair that doesn’t seem to be in any style other than tousled, his green eyes sparkling as he gets closer, his grin widening. Holly’s heart skips another beat.

  He is quite simply the most gorgeous man she has ever seen – the most perfect specimen of maleness Holly could possibly imagine, oozing testosterone out of every pore. His legs are long and strong, his shoulders broad, his neck thick. His hands are large and clean but calloused from the work, and that smile – oh that smile! Dimples and unbearably cute, it is a smile that could launch a thousand love songs.

  Holly smiles. Cannot stop smiling.

  If you were an observer, perhaps sitting in your car waiting to catch the next London train, you might think, watching how Holly and Will both speed up and fly into one another’s arms, that they are like magnets. The force of mutual attraction pulls them together with such speed and such intensity that when they stick together in a tight hug that lasts and lasts, you might think that it would take greater strength than you or I have to prise them
apart.

  It is their first serious physical contact. Holly didn’t plan a hug like this. Didn’t think about how she would say hello, was far too busy attempting to calm her nerves to worry about whether to kiss him, hug him, whether there might be any awkwardness.

  Her arms automatically wind themselves around his back, his around hers as they squeeze one another tight and he rests his head on the top of hers, pulling away after what feels like hours to reach down and plant a kiss on her cheek, all the while grinning like a schoolboy.

  They pull apart reluctantly, and for a few seconds it does feel awkward. Holly is shaking, hadn’t realized the effect it would have, to rest in his arms, to feel so secure, so looked after, so loved.

  She hasn’t realized until exactly this moment how much she has missed this, how much she has missed affection. But she knows now that even if Marcus were to give this to her, were to put his arms round her and hug her close, resting his cheek on her head, she wouldn’t want it, not from him.

  But Will? With Will, she could stay in his arms all day. She has been fighting these feelings for so long now, so guilty at feeling this way about a man other than her husband, knowing how wrong it is, knowing she would never be unfaithful, would never have an affair, that now she no longer has to hide her feelings, they are overwhelming.

  ‘God, it’s good to see you.’ Will grins down at her as he picks up his bag and toolbox and they start walking towards the car.

  ‘I look a complete mess,’ Holly says, stupidly, feeling like a nervous sixteen-year-old.

  ‘No. You look lovely. I know it’s ridiculous to say this, but you look happier. Already,’ Will says. ‘I was sort of hoping I might get an invitation down here, and then there you were on the phone, my damsel in distress.’

  Holly blushes. ‘Not quite. If anyone’s the damsel in distress, it’s Paul. He’s being a bit of an old woman about the kitchen cupboards, although I think money is a much bigger issue than any of us realized. He really seemed to panic when Anna said they needed replacing.’

  ‘Glad to be the knight in shining armour,’ Will says as they reach the car. ‘Hi, you two.’ He pauses before climbing in, looking into the back seat. ‘I’m Will. You must be Oliver.’ He leans into the back and shakes Oliver by the hand. ‘And this cute little thing must be Daisy.’ Daisy smiles flirtatiously up at him and Will laughs, turning to Holly. ‘Good lord, Holly. She’s exactly like you. She’s gorgeous.’