Once in a Lifetime

by Chrissie Manby

  He took both of Dani’s hands in his and made her stop and look at him.

  ‘And I’d be the happiest woman,’ she said.

  ‘Then I’ll sort it out,’ said Nat.

  She loved Nat. She loved him more than she had ever loved anyone. More than she ever imagined she could love anyone. When Nat was sad, she was sad. When he was happy, she was walking on air.

  Her parents would come round to the idea. Their getting married wasn’t going to change anything. Not really. They were still both going to go to university. But it meant that when they were at home during the holidays, they could be properly together – either at Nat’s family home or hers – without their parents feeling weird about letting them stay in the same room.

  Dani was not the sort of girl who had spent her childhood dreaming of a perfect princess wedding. If she thought about getting married at all, she imagined something like the elopement Nat was suggesting. Though to a desert island rather than a cold Scottish border town. And yet …

  She thought she felt something flip inside her like a small tadpole. She was definitely pregnant. She didn’t need a test to know.

  They agreed to go to Scotland in two days.

  Nat withdrew five hundred pounds of the money he had been saving for university. He bought Dani a dress for the ceremony. It was the dress she had admired in the window of The Rainbow Shop. The one that looked as though it had been made from an actual rainbow, plucked out of the sky and turned into a skein of chiffon. He spent two hundred pounds on an engagement ring, which he presented to her when they met at the train station on Saturday morning.

  ‘It’s just a chip of a diamond,’ he said. ‘And you’re worth a diamond as big as the Ritz. I will buy you one. When we’re rich.’

  Dani nodded.

  ‘You’re really quiet,’ said Nat.

  ‘It’s a big moment,’ Dani told him. ‘I want to savour every minute.’

  ‘Good.’

  In reality, Dani was feeling oddly homesick, as though she really was running away for good and would never, ever see her hometown or her parents again. Her stomach churned and rumbled. Her head ached. Her eyes pricked and burned with tears. She wanted to say, ‘I can’t do this.’ But maybe the nausea was because she was carrying his baby.

  They got as far as Wolverhampton, where they had to change trains. Nat studied the departures board to find out which platform they wanted next. Dani told him she needed the loo. She didn’t. What she needed was to be alone.

  But Dani was in the cubicle for such a long time that eventually she decided she did want to pee after all.

  A red spot swirled in the water.

  The tears came again but this time there was no doubt. What she felt was relief.

  Back in the ladies’ room, the tension of the journey so far finally broke through. Dani leaned against the tampax machine and cried. A woman in her thirties asked if she was OK.

  Dani shook her head.

  ‘I need some help,’ she said.

  The tale came tumbling out. ‘Everything is just happening too fast. I love Nat but I really don’t want to get married. Not yet.’

  ‘Then you mustn’t,’ said her new friend. ‘What does your boyfriend look like? I’ll go and talk to him if you like.’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘Of course. He sounds like a nice guy. I’m sure he’ll understand. You’ll work it out. You can always get married when you finish university. Sounds like a much better idea to me. You stay here. I’ll go and have a chat with him and when he’s got his head around it, I’ll come and fetch you and the two of you can work out what to do next.’

  Dani watched her guardian angel head out to the concourse. She waited for three minutes then followed her through the exit and tried to see what was going on.

  She could see her with Nat. He was where she had left him, only now he was sitting on the floor with his rucksack between his knees. He had his head in his hands. Dani knew at once that he would be crying and every cell in her body wanted to rush to his side and comfort him, tell him that she was just having a moment of madness. Of course she wanted to be with him. Of course she wanted to marry him.

  But it wasn’t true and perhaps this was her one chance to make her escape.

  So instead of going to comfort Nat or even trying to explain in person, she slipped past and got on the next train south. It was the wrong train and she had to change three times to get back to Exeter but her relief grew with every mile that passed.

  Dani was back home before eight in the evening. Her parents, assuming that she’d been at work all day, barely even looked up from the television when she walked into the sitting room.

  ‘There’s lasagne in the fridge,’ said Jane. ‘Warm some up for yourself. There’s salad too.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  It was the most surreal moment in Dani’s life. That morning, she had left the house with a rucksack, thinking that she was pregnant and that she might not be back for months. Yet here she was. Her parents hadn’t noticed anything. Nat hadn’t even called to find out where she’d gone.

  Dani saw Nat just one more time after that.

  She didn’t tell her parents where she’d been and neither did Nat. They met up in The Sailor’s Trousers – the pub they would unwittingly visit with their dogs years later – neutral ground to go over what hadn’t happened and whether anything could ever happen again.

  As Dani walked up to the table, Nat could hardly look at her. He stared into his pint.

  ‘I thought you loved me,’ he said.

  ‘I did. I do!’ Dani added emphatically.

  ‘Then why …’

  ‘I don’t know. Because I was scared.’

  ‘Why were you scared?’

  ‘We’re so young …’

  ‘You didn’t trust my feelings for you.’

  ‘People change.’

  ‘And you thought I would?’

  ‘We don’t know, do we? Where was the harm in waiting? If we’re meant to be together for the rest of our lives, a couple more years won’t make any difference.’

  Dani was pleading for a second chance. That they need not break up just because they hadn’t made it to Gretna. But Nat still wouldn’t look at her. He picked up a beer mat and started to shred it, just as he had done the first time they went out together alone. On the night they first made love.

  This was different.

  ‘Dani, if you don’t know me by now, you will never know me.’

  ‘Isn’t that a song?’ Dani tried to lighten the mood.

  Nat wasn’t having it.

  ‘I was willing to give you everything. You had my body, my heart, my soul.’

  ‘You’ve still got mine.’

  ‘No, I haven’t. Not really. And you know it. I can’t keep seeing you, Dani, because every time I do, I’ll be reminded of the difference between what I feel for you and what you feel for me.’

  ‘Oh Nat. Come on. Don’t be so dramatic.’

  ‘I’m telling the truth. What we had can never be the same. You don’t get a second chance at once in a lifetime.’

  ‘Well, if that’s the way you feel.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘I think you’re being ridiculous.’

  ‘I’m protecting my heart.’

  Dani snorted. She slid the engagement ring Nat had bought with his savings across the table.

  ‘I’ll pay you back for this and the dress,’ she said.

  ‘Good luck,’ Nat said, looking straight at her at last. Dani could no longer see any love in his eyes. He walked out, leaving her sitting alone. She thought she would never see him again.

  ‘… so you see,’ she told Flossie, ‘I was once every bit as young and crazy as you were. And I didn’t back out of the wedding for any lack of love. Not at all. I backed out because my feelings for Nat were so strong. I was confused. It was all happening so quickly. I’ve spent the past twenty-two years wanting to make it right. Wanting Nat to know that I did love him. Those fe
elings were absolutely real.’

  Flossie wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve.

  ‘Thank you, Mum. Thank you. Are you going to tell Nat how you really felt now?’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll ever have the chance to speak to him again.’

  ‘You could call him right now.’

  ‘I’ve done enough damage as it is.’

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Dani didn’t text Nat again. Not after the apology she’d sent on the night of the wedding-that-wasn’t. She knew that single text had been delivered but it was still showing as unread. She pictured Nat seeing the message come in and deciding to ignore it. Perhaps he had deleted it without reading. Who would have blamed him for that?

  The only window Dani had into Nat’s world was via Lola’s social media. But Lola hadn’t posted anything much. No photographs that would really give Dani any insight into her state of mind. Just one thing on the day of the wedding itself. A sunset with a quote overlaid. ‘What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.’

  What did that mean? It mentioned ‘us’. Not ‘me’. Dani took it to mean that Nat and Lola were working things out. The cancelled wedding was not going to be the end of them. They were going to work through their difficulties and emerge on the other side as a happier couple. Strengthened by their ordeal. They were going to make it. Together.

  She checked Will’s Instagram too. Not much useful info there. A couple of sunsets taken from the sea front. Were they melancholy sea-scapes?

  ‘Mum,’ said Flossie, when she caught Dani on-line. ‘You’ve got to stop stalking them. You’ve got to do what I’ve done with Jed. Stop looking.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Dani. ‘You’re incredibly wise.’

  Life went on. Jezza still needed walking. Dani and Flossie usually took him out together on Sundays.

  ‘Duckpool Bay?’ Dani suggested, one Sunday in late October.

  Flossie shook her head. ‘I’ve got coursework, Mum.’ She was enjoying her first term at sixth form college. But Jezza had to be walked. Dani pulled out her puffa jacket. She hated that moment in every year when she had to get out her winter coat. She knew she would be wearing it until April at the earliest. Maybe even beyond.

  Fortunately, Jezza was excited to be out whatever the weather. Evan was right about Jezza’s poodle heritage. He couldn’t resist a puddle. Though strangely he was still fiercely resistant to having a bath.

  It was the time of year when dogs were allowed on the main beach. The one dominated by the pier. Dani and Jezza made the most of it. He needed a run. She needed to breathe in the sea air and let it fill her lungs, taking her sadness with it when she breathed out again.

  When they got onto the sand, she unclipped Jezza’s lead. He was soon off, chasing after a seagull that had dared to come to rest. It was a wild sort of day. No point yelling after him, Dani soon realised as the wind whipped the words right out of her mouth and tossed them away.

  Jezza ran, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth as he chased after the birds he would never catch. The braver ones let him get close before they lifted into the air and out of reach, coming to land again just a few metres away, unruffled and unperturbed.

  There was no point trying to put up an umbrella in such terrible weather.

  Dani watched a couple a little further down the beach, battling against the wind. The woman tucked herself into the man’s side, using him as a windbreak. Dani felt a twinge in her heart as she watched them make their unsteady way across the sand. She put up the hood of her coat and pulled the drawstring tight around her face.

  There was a lone figure by the pier. He stood with his hands in his pockets, watching the kite-surfers jousting with the waves.

  Dani didn’t need to see his face to know who he was. She didn’t need to see his dog, who was digging a hole in the sand.

  And Jezza was heading in their direction.

  ‘Jezza,’ Dani hissed, hoping that Jezza’s bat senses would pick up her call against the wind. ‘Jezza!’ she tried again.

  But he was running on. His ears streaming behind him like banners. He would not come back for anyone. Even if he could hear them call.

  As Jezza skidded to a halt beside him, Nat leaned down to stroke the dog’s ears.

  ‘Shall we go to The Sailor’s Trousers?’ Nat asked Dani when she caught up with him.

  Dani felt relief flood her body.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  At last, Dani found out what really happened the day of the wedding-that-wasn’t.

  ‘I knew that Lola was upset about more than paw prints on her dress,’ Nat said. ‘She was hysterical.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. We ruined your wedding.’

  ‘No. It was more than that.’

  Nat’s story echoed Jane’s opinion. ‘If what had really mattered was getting married and being with me, then a bit of dirt on the front of her dress wouldn’t have mattered. It would have been something to laugh about. A crazy anecdote to relive with our friends and families in years to come. She could have brushed the skirt down, gone out through the back door of the church and come in through the front again. But she didn’t want that.’

  ‘Some brides get very worked up about having the whole day perfect,’ Dani said.

  ‘Of course. But Lola didn’t really want to get married. Not to me, anyway.’

  ‘How did you feel?’ Dani asked.

  Nat looked down into his terrible coffee. ‘Honestly? I felt completely calm. I heard her saying the words and everyone was looking at me like they expected me to go berserk but all I could think was “that’s that then”. Her father went crazy, of course. I understand the choir had to sing the Hallelujah chorus to cover the shouting – but eventually the vicar got him to calm down and the verger ushered us all out of the back while the vicar let the congregation know what was happening.

  ‘That was the last time I saw Lola. We agreed that she would stay in the house and I would move back in with Mum and Dad while everything was sorted out. Will was there to help her, of course. He was there all along. Even on her hen do.

  ‘Lola and I met when we were both at a low ebb. I was worried about my father. She’d just seen her grandfather die. We both needed comfort. We shouldn’t have been anything more to each other than a flirtation but there was a sense that we should make it something more because we both needed to know that life wasn’t just about endings.

  ‘She should have been with Will all along. They’re made for each other, those two. I only hope Lola’s father can come round to the idea.’

  ‘He loves her, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Yes. And she loves him.’

  ‘Two jiltings in one lifetime has to be something of a record,’ said Nat then. ‘But I can tell you now that it definitely didn’t feel so bad the second time around. Nowhere near.’

  ‘I suppose everything gets easier with practice,’ Dani tried to joke.

  ‘Or maybe it’s just that this time I knew for sure that it was for the best. More than anything, when Lola said she wanted to call the wedding off for good, I felt a sense of enormous relief. Whereas the first time … The first time I knew I’d lost something really special.’

  Dani felt tears prick at her eyes.

  ‘Don’t say that,’ she said.

  ‘But it’s true. For years I told myself that I’d been wrong about you and that your decision not to get married was a lucky break for both of us. We were young and we were stupid and we were bound to have grown apart as we got older. But then I met you again and saw that you hadn’t really changed at all. And you spoke to the part of me that hadn’t changed either. When I was with you, all that youthful enthusiasm I once had for life came rushing back. I felt alive again after years of living my life with the volume down. I realised that no matter what I had achieved, something was always missing, unless you were there too.’

  Dani twisted in her chair. She could hardly bear to hear what Nat was saying.

 
‘This grotty old pub. This is where we said goodbye all those years ago, isn’t it?’

  Dani nodded.

  ‘That day when you asked me for a second chance and I refused to give it.’

  Dani nodded again.

  ‘I was wrong. I was so wrong to be so hard on you and give you no choice but to walk away. I should have opened my arms to you and told you that no matter what we’d said and done in the past, I couldn’t see my future without you. I should have pushed through any notion of being humiliated by what had happened and found the love inside.’

  ‘I don’t blame you,’ said Dani.

  ‘So this is where we said goodbye. Can it be where we say “hello” again?’

  Nat reached for Dani’s hands across the table.

  The landlord swept up their glasses.

  ‘We do have rooms upstairs,’ he said.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  By Christmas, Flossie had forgotten all about Jed. She had a new boyfriend. Dani was pleased to hear that Luke was in Flossie’s class at sixth form college. He was serious about his studies and he was no stranger to deodorant and soap.

  ‘Is it love?’ Dani asked her daughter.

  ‘Mum,’ said Flossie. ‘I’m too young to know that.’

  Auntie Sarah had come off Tinder because she’d met her match. Or rather, re-met her match. One afternoon she discovered that her ex-husband Adam had swiped right on her so she swiped him back. And gave up wearing Fracas again.

  Over the months since the sponsored dog walk, Jane had thought a great deal about what Evan the vet had to say about dogs and love. About how the heartbreak of losing a pet made you certain you would never be able to go through it again. The love and the loss. But then you realised that you had to.

  Perhaps Evan’s theory could be applied to human love too.

  Bill Hunter’s face was a picture when Jane walked back into the pet shop and invited him over for supper.