The Book of Second Chances

by Katherine Slee

  Of course, there’s always the risk that this goes horribly wrong and I have to head back home and grovel to Dad, but it’s worth it, surely? Regret the things you do, not the things you don’t. That’s going to be my motto, my rule, to live by from now on.

  In fact, I think that, from this very second, I will be that person. I will take risks. I will embrace everything the universe has to throw at me. I can be whoever I want to be, because to the world I am just another stranger, sitting on a train, heading who knows where, to do who knows what.

  Just like that man over there with his top button undone, looking a little flustered as he reads a copy of Ulysses without anyone staring and thinking him crude—I wonder if he’s got to the bit in the brothel? I imagine he has a sweetheart waiting at home for him with a glass of sherry and slippers that have been toasting by the fire. Or perhaps he lives alone, with a dog who he takes for hikes on the moors at weekends. And he writes poetry that he recites to women before making love to them under the stars.

  Then there’s the woman sitting neatly in her tweed skirt and silk blouse. Hair lacquered into a chignon and a cluster of pearls around her slim neck. No doubt she is someone’s secretary. Perhaps a government minister or company director. That’s what Mum always dreamt of for me. Sitting in an airless, soulless office somewhere, taking dictation and making endless cups of tea. She thought it would be a stepping-stone to something more, to meeting an influential man who might one day become my husband.

  Does this woman, with not a smudge on her shoes or hair out of place, have a sweetheart, a man (or perhaps a woman?) who she is pinning all her hopes on? Thinking that there is nothing more hopeless in this world than never finding someone to love? Or does she have secret longings to be a chorus girl, like those who dance each night at the Moulin Rouge in Paris? Does she sing in the bathtub and once dreamt of swimming in a sea so clear it was as if you could simply reach in and scoop up a handful of sand from the ocean’s floor?

  Mum told me once about how she’d been offered a job during the war, but her own mother made her turn it down. Said she needed her at home, not off gallivanting around Whitehall. When she told me, she was standing by the back door, cup of tea in hand, simply staring out at nothing. Or maybe she was thinking of what her life could have been if only she had dared to say yes.

  Everyone has their secrets, their private stories they dare not to tell. But I want to tell them all. I want to create worlds within worlds. Have people talk about my books, rip them apart, try to understand the motivations behind what I’ve written. Love them, hate them, but make them remember me for something, anything. I have no desire to live an ordinary life.

  Somewhere in this carriage a baby is crying. I can hear his little sucks of breath, the softer shush by his mother. I saw them when I first boarded the train. He was all milky newness, with tufts of blond hair and blushing cheeks, one hand stuffed into his mouth, the other wrapped tight around his mother’s curls. She looked exhausted and confused. As if she’d woken up one day in someone else’s existence.

  I think that’s what happened to Mum. I never got the chance to ask what she used to dream of when she was young. Before she got married. Before I was born. I don’t want to end up like her. Staring out of the window, with my hands covered by the bubbles in the sink, wishing upon wishing that I had lived a different kind of life.

  Has she found the letter I left? Propped up against the teapot on the kitchen table where it would be seen as soon as she came in to start Dad’s breakfast. She knew, at least I think she must have suspected, when she saw my yellow suitcase tucked under my bed. Or when I refused to talk to Henry, his mother, anyone at all, about wedding plans. When I argued with Dad about wanting to be more than someone’s wife, someone’s mother. That I would rather be poor and happy than rich and alone, trapped by the misery of boredom.

  I want to live a different life, write a different story. I’m still young, I can be someone other than who my parents expect me to be. There’s still time to change my world, my future. Nothing more than my passport, this diary and a pocketful of hope to help me along my way. And I will not stop until I have a whole lifetime’s worth of memories to keep me going when I’m old and gray.

  The sun is at last appearing over the horizon, bleaching the sky and waking up the world. I feel so awake and ready. Part of me is terrified, but a whole lot more of me can’t wait for what happens next. To steal the words of the Bard himself, “Come what come may, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.” So I shall lay myself down in front of the hands of fate and embrace every last second of this so-called life. This is me, Catriona Mairi Robinson, eighteen and counting…

  CMR

  7

  PIGEON

  Columbidae

  People. Everywhere Emily looked, there were people. Walking, talking, zigzagging through and around one another. Like worker ants, busy, busy, all with somewhere important to be. The sound of so many footsteps, voices on phones that expanded and retreated over and over. Station announcements of platform changes, train departures, and safety procedures. Music from dozens of brightly lit shops selling things that no one really needed.

  So she stopped, placed her suitcase on the ground, and looked up to see the latticework of steel overhead, interspersed with sections of sky. Pigeons marched up and down the long lines of black, and if she listened carefully, she liked to think she could hear their coo-cooing communication.

  Birds are constant, she thought to herself. Pigeons will be here, long after humans have expanded and destroyed everything all over again. It provided a token of comfort to go over something familiar, stopped her heart and mind from racing even more.

  They swooped down, one by one, to perch on the train’s roof. One of them looked at her, head cocked as if recognizing an old friend, then came to land by her feet, walked full circle around her, pecked at her shoe once, twice more.

  “Hello.” She crouched down, held out her hand, and waited for him to come close, then ran the very tip of her finger over his head before he gave a soft coo and fluttered away. One of the villagers, a Spitfire pilot named Fred, always sat next to Emily in the back row of the church and told her stories about how homing pigeons were used as messengers during the world wars, saving lives by carrying messages across enemy lines.

  Emily had liked to think of those birds wearing tiny little helmets, carrying guns or dropping bombs on the enemy as they flew across the Channel, back home. Now she thought of home, of Milton, and whether he sat by the back door, waiting for it to open. For her to share her slice of cake, or scrap of cheese, and she wondered if the birds really cared for her at all.

  “Emily?” Tyler was walking back toward her. He picked up her suitcase and gave her no more than a token glance before turning around and heading toward an escalator, all the while scanning his phone.

  “Wait,” Emily called out to him, but he was gone, sucked up by the never-ending stream of people that appeared from all sides. She could turn around, get back on the train and disappear into the countryside. Return to Norfolk, her village, her home. The vicar would take her in, surely, look after her, provide her with shelter until she figured out what to do.

  It was an indulgent fantasy. A momentary glimpse of “what if?” But Emily knew it would be pointless, because there was nothing she could do. Not without her grandmother’s money, which was all tied up in a trust until she completed this ridiculous task.

  Then there was the letter, or rather diary entry, she had been given, from when her grandmother was barely more than a child. When she had left a whole life behind to pursue a dream, a wish, a folly. It was a part of her past she never talked about, and Emily had never questioned why.

  By showing her a piece of her history, Catriona had opened up a sort of longing, a curiosity, in Emily that would not leave her be. A puzzle like no other she had ever been given.

  Emily watched stranger after stranger brush past her. Not a single one of them stopped to ask if sh
e was okay, to question why she stood alone, in the center of a bustling station. No one stared at her, or wondered about her scar, because here she was another random person, just like them. One more stranger in a sea of millions; all too busy to pay attention to the finer details of everyday life.

  One more clue, Emily told herself. Just one more clue and then she could decide if it was all too much.

  At the top of the escalator, she could see Tyler turning full circle, knocking into someone with his guitar, holding up one hand in apology. A frown between his eyes as he sought her out, then relief, then frustration as he beckoned her onward and upward.

  One step onto the metal grooves, one hand resting on a faded black plastic handrail, and Emily felt the slightest of lurches in her stomach, as she rose like one of those penguins on a toy she used to have. Penguins who would climb a ladder, only to be sent spinning around a circuit and back down again. Over and over, with nowhere to go.

  “You okay?” Tyler was there, right in front of her, pulling her away from the escalator and out into the stifled air of London.

  Am I okay? Emily repeated the question as she trotted behind, then down some steps to wait next to a stack of newspapers. Where’s the clerk? she thought as she saw someone pick one up, then walk on without leaving any money behind.

  Outside, the noise, the light, was intensified. Bright red double-decker buses, black taxicabs, drills and cars and people, everywhere there were people. The ground was slick with early rain, the sky overhead heavy with cloud.

  To her right, a cylindrical tower of brown with slits of glass rose from the pavement, more people spilling from double doors at its center, heading in all directions, never stopping, never straying from their path. Beyond this was a building that resembled a New York warehouse, so out of sync with the pale, gray Regency buildings that lined the streets. Straight ahead the horizon was littered with cranes, like metal giraffes stretching their necks to the sky, only with no trees to feed from.

  It had been so long since last she was here that everything looked like the shadow of what once had been. London seemed to her like an old master painted on top of a forgotten, discarded picture, and her mind tried to reconcile her memories with the reality she now stood before. Nothing looked the same, nor as she remembered, apart from the ivy-clad building on the opposite corner, with the perennial Union Jack hanging above the main door and Victorian gas lamps either side.

  “Emily, where are you going?” she heard Tyler shout as she crossed the road.

  Standing outside the Railway Tavern, she looked up at the metal sign depicting an old steam train, which was swaying a little, as if it had been up drinking all night. The scent of stale beer drifted out of an open window, showering her with the memory of her father.

  “Good idea,” Tyler said as he held open the door, waited for Emily to step inside. “I think we could both do with a drink.”

  It was just like any other traditional pub in London. Stripped wooden floor, large square windows looking out onto the street, a collection of mismatched tables and chairs, and a long bar with a brass pole running around the edge.

  Only this was the pub her father used to come to. Every Friday after work, for a quick pint and a smoke before heading home. His office had been in the building opposite and once, just once, she and her mother came to meet him here before getting on the sleeper train up to Scotland, to visit old friends.

  “What can I get you?” A rather plump man stood on the other side of the bar, one shirt button stretching over his stomach, and Emily could see a curl of hair peeping through. He was chewing something that smelled akin to licorice and regarding Emily with bulbous eyes that skimmed over her scar then across to Tyler.

  “Pint of Guinness and…?” Tyler waited for Emily to reply.

  “White wine spritzer, perhaps?” The barman gave a patronizing wink, then reached up for a glass.

  “Whiskey,” Emily said as she pointed at the row of bottles stacked on a shelf up high. “Dalwhinnie.” The name came out all wrong and she saw the bartender’s eyes flicker back to her scar.

  “Single or double?”

  “Double.” Her tongue got stuck on the blend of “b” and “l,” made her jaw clench in irritation as she retreated to a corner table.

  Emily watched Tyler share a joke with the bartender, envied the ease with which they simply swapped words without the embarrassment of having to try, of preempting the way the words would sound. If she were a foreigner, no one would judge or comment on her pronunciation; they would think it endearing, or simply accept all the strangeness. But it was a physical problem, one that would always catch people unawares and make them look, make them intrigued as to what had happened to the woman who, apart from the obvious scar, seemed just like anyone else.

  Tyler slipped into the seat across from her, took a long sip of his pint, then licked away the thin line of cream from his top lip.

  “Didn’t have you down as a whiskey drinker.”

  Emily swirled her drink, watched the liquid as it clung to the sides of the glass.

  “Mind you,” he said with a chuckle, “Aunt Cat used to drink tequila straight from the bottle. I remember one Christmas Eve when she brought one all the way from Mexico, then bit the worm in half, just to piss off my dad.”

  Emily could picture the scene so vividly. The look on Mr. Montgomery’s face as her grandmother picked out the worm from her glass, tilted back her head with deliberate extravagance, then placed it neatly on her tongue before biting the creature clean in two. She and Tyler had screeched with delight before being ushered upstairs by their mothers and told to go to sleep right that minute or Father Christmas wouldn’t leave them any presents.

  They had spent every Christmas in the Montgomery mansion, overlooking the park. The rooms were filled with the scent of citrus, nutmeg, and roasting meat. The sound of jazz mingled with the pop of champagne corks and crackling fire as she and Tyler weaved through the party in their pajamas, begging to be allowed up for a few minutes more.

  On Christmas morning they would tumble down the stairs to drink hot chocolate in the kitchen with the resident housekeeper, waiting and waiting for their parents to brush aside their hangovers and come downstairs. Later they would feast on goose, chestnuts, and pudding set alight with whiskey, the blue flames dancing as it was brought with a flourish to the table.

  Each and every year was spent together. Two families entwined. Until one summer’s day ruined it all.

  “As I recall, she did it at your christening too.” A voice so familiar interrupted Emily’s thoughts, and she looked across to where a middle-aged woman approached. She was wearing dove-gray leather trousers, black stilettos, and a cream satin blouse with pussycat bow at her neck.

  Tyler’s mother. He must have texted her, told her where he and Emily were, which meant she knew both that they were coming and about her grandmother’s plan. She bent down to kiss Tyler lightly on both cheeks, then leant across to pull Emily into a hug.

  “Emily, my darling, you look so pale. I do hope my son has been taking good care of you?”

  Four weeks had passed since Emily had last seen her godmother, Adrianna Montgomery. Four weeks during which she had known of her grandmother’s plan yet said nothing, leaving Emily alone, with no one there to see her through the day-to-day, as she had tried to collate Catriona’s life into cardboard boxes now stored safely in the loft.

  “You’re mad at me, I can tell,” she said, placing her handbag on the seat next to her. “But I promised, you see, and you and I both know how persuasive, how stubborn Catriona can be.”

  “Could.” Emily let the word tumble out as she took another sip of her drink. She felt the burn at the back of her throat, coating the frustration she knew she dared not speak. It was infuriating, having her sit there and pretend that the last fifteen years hadn’t happened. To assume that Emily would simply forgive her godmother for ignoring her all that time.

  “Could.” Adrianna gave a small smile. �
�Of course. She really was a remarkable woman. She helped me mend my first broken heart. Told me no man deserved my tears, especially one who cheated on me with a so-called friend.” She let out a small laugh, absentmindedly stroked her hair. “Got your mother and I drunk as skunks on cheap wine from Tuscany. Said it had helped her on more than one occasion.”

  When did she have her heart broken? Emily wondered. The idea of Catriona Robinson being vulnerable was so strange. Even more so the image of the three women, intoxicated and bonding over the disadvantages of men. It made Emily want to go back, to know them all when they were young.

  “Like the time you fell asleep and forgot to pick me up from swimming?” There was a distinct note of bitterness in Tyler’s voice, one that he didn’t even bother to try to conceal.

  “I seem to remember Emily being the one who taught you to swim,” Adrianna replied, fixing her son with a look.

  “Hardly.” Tyler took a long drink, looked absently out of the window.

  “If she hadn’t been diving under the water and calling out for you to jump in, you never would have had the nerve to try.”

  “Says the person who refused to ever go in the sea for fear of ruining her makeup.”

  It was like some banal game of tennis, watching the two of them try to pick points off each other. What had happened between them, or was she forgetting that it had always been that way?

  “How Margot and I laughed at the sight of you two with your bottoms in the air like little ducks.” A stray tear made its way from the corner of her eye and she tapped at it gently. Almost as if she were grateful for its presence. Almost as if she wanted Emily to see that she still grieved.