Should Have Known Better

by A J McDine

  Chloe consulted her map. ‘Thirty quid.’

  ‘A week?’

  Chloe squawked with laughter. ‘Are you mad? Thirty quid a night. More than two hundred a week. Eight-and-a-half thousand for the year.’

  Kate blanched. ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘Springett Court’s eighty quid a week cheaper. It’s less than five grand a year.’

  ‘It still sounds ridiculously expensive. And you’d better see if you like it before you make up your mind.’

  But the moment Chloe walked into Springett Court, she declared, ‘This is the one.’

  ‘You’d have to share a bathroom,’ Kate pointed out.

  ‘I don’t care. Look how big the rooms are.’ Chloe wandered over to the window. ‘And they were right about the view.’

  Springett Court backed onto a dense area of oak, sweet chestnut and birch. The dark green canopy of leaves was yet to be tinged with russet even though it was mid-September. Once autumn took a proper hold, it would be stunning. The only blot on the otherwise beautiful landscape was a dilapidated building with boarded-up windows and a desolate air a couple of hundred metres away. Bright blue wooden hoardings surrounded the perimeter.

  ‘I wonder what that building is,’ Kate said.

  ‘Does it matter? It looks like it’s about to be demolished.’ Chloe trailed her hand along the built-in desk. ‘There’s so much space.’

  ‘It is quite nice,’ Kate conceded. She paused. ‘You think you’d feel at home here?’

  Chloe’s eyes shone. ‘I love it, Mum.’

  Suddenly the trees blurred as tears glazed Kate’s eyes. She gave her head a little shake. ‘You haven’t seen the law school yet. You might hate it.’

  ‘I doubt it. It has a great rep. Anyway, we’ll find out soon, won’t we? The law talk starts in half an hour.’

  Kate sucked in a lungful of air and breathed out slowly. She had to be strong. ‘Come on, then,’ she said. ‘I suppose we’d better check it out.’

  Chapter Three

  KATE

  The law school was an impressive structure of glass and steel that, according to the brass plaque outside, had only been completed the previous summer. The windows gleamed in the September sunshine. There was an arrogant look-at-me vibe about the place. Beside it, neighbouring faculty buildings looked down at heel.

  ‘Now this is really cool,’ Chloe said, striding through the open doors into an airy atrium with a wide staircase in the middle and a café at the far end.

  Regretting the second cup of coffee she’d downed at breakfast after yet another restless night, Kate saw a sign for the ladies and touched Chloe’s arm. ‘I’m nipping to the loo. Won’t be a sec.’

  Glad the toilets were empty, Kate closed the cubicle door behind her and sat on the toilet seat with her head in her hands. Chloe had been looking forward to the open day for months. She couldn't wait to finish her A-levels and leave home. From the moment the first prospectus dropped onto the doormat with an ominous thud, she’d been single-minded in her search for the perfect university, compiling spreadsheets listing the pros and cons of each. Kate had to admire her dedication, even if night-life did appear to figure higher on her score sheets than the courses themselves.

  But Kate was dreading her leaving with every cell in her body. The mere thought of an empty nest filled her with sadness.

  At least Kingsgate was only two hours’ drive from home, she thought, as she attempted to dry her hands on a square of blue towel that promptly disintegrated into a pulpy mess. Imagine if she’d set her heart on Newcastle. Or, even worse, Edinburgh. Rubbing her hands on her jeans and reminding herself to be grateful for small mercies, Kate marched back into the atrium and scanned the crowds for her daughter’s familiar blonde curls.

  Chloe was standing on the periphery of a group of parents and kids milling about as they waited for the talk. She was nodding and smiling and waving a hand in that expressive way she had. At first, Kate assumed she was on her phone, but then realised she was talking to someone out of Kate’s line of vision. Typical of Chloe to strike up a conversation with a complete stranger.

  Later, Kate would think back to that moment. What if they’d gone to the afternoon talk instead? What if she’d slept better, hadn’t needed a double dose of caffeine and a subsequent visit to the loo? Would that have changed anything? Would he have chosen someone else? Maybe. Maybe not. But it was pointless obsessing about it.

  Because by the time Kate had weaved her way through the throng to join her daughter it was already too late.

  ‘Mum, there you are,’ Chloe said. ‘Come and meet my new friends.’

  Kate barely had time to paste a smile on her face before Chloe stopped in front of the dark-haired man from Tunbridge Wells and his sulky-looking son.

  ‘Mum, this is Ben and his dad. Ben’s studying law, too. Isn’t that a coincidence?’

  ‘Lots of coincidences today. Hello, I’m Kate.’ She held out a hand.

  ‘Adam.’ His handshake was warm and firm.

  Chloe frowned. ‘Have you two met already?’

  ‘Only briefly.’ Adam laughed. ‘You were too busy with your lolly to notice.’

  Chloe’s cheeks turned pink.

  Adam finally let go of Kate’s hand. ‘Chloe's been telling us all about the social life here.’ He sounded amused. ‘She's pretty clued up.’

  ‘That’s Chloe for you,’ Kate said. ‘Did she tell you about her spreadsheet, too?’

  ‘Mum! Don’t embarrass me.’

  Adam laughed again. ‘Isn’t that our main role in life, to embarrass our kids?’

  Kate found herself smiling. ‘Absolutely. It’s payback for all those sleepless nights and nappy changes.’

  ‘The tantrums and the sick bugs.’

  ‘The nits and the chickenpox,’ she countered.

  ‘The endless hours in the pool watching swimming lessons.’

  ‘The constant ferrying back and forth. After school clubs, drama classes, dancing and riding. I needed a sign on my car, Mum’s Taxi.’

  ‘Agreed. Or in our case, Dad’s Taxi,’ Adam said.

  A woman in a fitted trouser suit with a university lanyard around her neck cleared her throat. ‘If you’re here for the law school talk, please make your way to the Edmund Plowden Lecture Theatre. The talk is due to start in five minutes.’

  They shuffled up the stairs and into the lecture hall. Adam stopped by an empty row and gave a little bow. ‘After you.’

  Kate stopped at a seat halfway along the row, and shrugged off her jacket. Chloe sat beside her and motioned Ben to join her. Adam was still in the aisle, deep in conversation with the woman in the trouser suit.

  ‘Who’s your dad talking to?’ Chloe whispered to Ben.

  Before he could answer, the lights dimmed and Adam took his seat next to his son. The woman strode to the front and stepped onto the stage. Introducing herself as Professor Jan Steel, head of the law school, she welcomed them to the faculty.

  Kate’s mind drifted as the professor launched into a polished pitch about compulsory and elective modules, league tables and employability records. It all sounded so terribly dry. A profession for pedants. Or was that being unfair? Chloe had her heart set on advocacy, the drama of the criminal courtroom, defending people who couldn’t defend themselves. Ethical and sincere, she saw herself as a crusader, fighting against injustice.

  As Professor Steel blathered on, Kate turned her attention to Adam and Ben. They shared the same brown eyes and thick, dark hair the colour of wet peat. Ben wore his longer than his father and it curled over the nape of his neck. Their ears were identical, too. Small and neat with hardly any lobe. But Adam’s shoulders were much broader than his son’s. Ben still had the almost effeminate narrowness of an adolescent boy who had yet to fill out.

  Adam was wearing a grey crew-neck jumper over a white teeshirt. It looked expensive, a cashmere mix. Ben’s teeshirt was a faded red. The neck was stretched loose, and Kate soon realised why. Ben was pulling it awa
y from his neck as if he was trying to loosen a chokehold. Adam had noticed too. He bent his head towards his son and murmured something Kate couldn’t catch. Ben's hand fell to his lap, and he was still.

  Finally, Professor Steel thanked them for coming, and the lights went up.

  Kate stood and stretched her back. ‘Where next?’

  ‘I was thinking we could grab a coffee.’ Chloe turned to Ben and Adam. ‘Fancy joining us?’

  Adam’s eyebrows creased in a question mark. ‘What d’you think?’ he asked Kate.

  Her usual rule was no more than two cups of coffee a day. Too much caffeine made her anxious. ‘A coffee sounds perfect,’ she said.

  Chapter Four

  KATE

  Adam commandeered a table in the small café in the foyer of the law school. ‘My treat,’ he said when Kate offered to pay. ‘Sit down. I’ll bring them over.’

  Chloe was prattling away while Ben worried at the hem of his teeshirt. Every so often, his eyes would dart to her face, lingering for a beat before he lowered his gaze again.

  ‘It’s crazy. You can do law and languages, law and criminology, law and philosophy, law and social anthropology, law and economics. You can even do law and English literature. I just want to do plain old law,’ Chloe was saying.

  One of the spaghetti-thin straps of her pink top had slipped off her shoulder. Kate reached over and hoicked it back up.

  ‘Mum! Your hands are freezing,’ she screeched.

  ‘Cold hands, warm heart,’ Adam said, setting a tray of drinks on the table. ‘What did you think about the talk, son?’

  ‘Good, yeah.’

  Adam raised an eyebrow. ‘Just good?’

  Ben took a sip of his hot chocolate, leaving a line of froth on his upper lip. He wiped it off with the back of his hand. ‘To be honest, I preferred Bristol.’

  Kate realised it was the first time she’d heard him speak. His voice was growly, deeper than she’d expected, and at odds with his slight frame.

  ‘Bristol? Tell him Kingsgate ranks much higher, Chloe,’ Adam said. ‘And look at this place.’ As he gazed up at the glass and steel roof, the sun appeared from behind a cloud and bathed him in a golden light that turned his eyes hazel. ‘You kids don't know how lucky you are.’

  ‘Yeah, totally,’ Chloe said. ‘Apart from the fact that we’ll be paying over nine grand a year for tuition fees, never mind the thousands in maintenance loans we’ll have to take out just to live. Whereas your generation had full grants, you lucky buggers.’

  Kate shook her head, but Adam laughed. ‘Touché. But it was all a lot more run-down when I was a student here.’

  ‘You came here?’ Kate asked.

  ‘A lifetime ago.’

  ‘You never did!’ Chloe cried. ‘Why didn’t you say?’

  ‘Probably because you never gave the poor man a chance,’ Kate said, smiling at Adam. It occurred to her that she hadn’t smiled so much in years and a flush crept up her neck. She hoped he didn’t think she was flirting with him. Because she really wasn’t.

  ‘That’s why I want Ben to come here, isn’t it, Benjy?’ Adam biffed his son gently on the shoulder. ‘I want him to follow in the old man’s footsteps.’

  ‘Did you do law, too?’ Chloe asked.

  Adam nodded. ‘’Fraid so. I’m a solicitor. Family law.’

  ‘I want to be a barrister like my uncle and grandad, although Grandpa was a judge when he retired. What about you, Ben?’

  ‘A f-finance lawyer,’ Ben stammered.

  Adam looked at Kate. ‘Are you a lawyer, too?’

  She opened her mouth to recite the ‘why I didn’t go to university’ spiel she’d perfected, but Chloe beat her to it. ‘Mum had a place at Durham to read law, but she had me instead.’

  Adam looked sidelong at Kate, who remained silent.

  ‘And now she works at a wedding venue in the village and looks after Grandpa.’

  ‘The retired judge?’

  Chloe nodded.

  ‘I’m sure Adam and Ben don’t want to hear our life story, Chloe.’ Kate’s voice was sharper than she’d intended and her daughter blinked.

  Adam didn’t seem to notice. He’d turned his attention to Ben. ‘I want you to put Kingsgate as your first choice.’

  ‘You should, Ben.’ Chloe's face was earnest. ‘If we volunteered with the law clinic here, we could help with real cases. The replica courtroom’s amazing. And if we both came, we could hang out together.’

  ‘I guess,’ Ben said, the tips of his ears turning pink.

  He may have inherited his father’s height and hazel eyes, but he had none of Adam’s easy charm, Kate thought, as she sipped her coffee. He was so awkward she wondered if he was on the spectrum, before chastising herself for being so narrow-minded.

  ‘This is going to be your first choice?’ Adam asked Chloe.

  ‘There are still a few things I want to see, but I think so, yeah.’

  ‘Speaking of which, we’d better make a move,’ Kate said. ‘Thank you so much for the coffee. It was lovely to meet you both.’

  Adam jumped to his feet. ‘The pleasure was all ours. I’m sure our paths will cross again.’

  ‘I’ll see you around,’ Chloe said to Ben.

  ‘Cool,’ he said, smiling back, his face transformed.

  After Chloe dragged Kate around the students’ union, they bought sandwiches and ate them on a bench outside the library. Kate found herself scanning the crowds for Adam and Ben. When she saw a dark-haired man waiting in a queue by a hotdog stand, her heart beat a little faster.

  ‘Is that Adam?’ she said squinting, wishing she hadn’t left her glasses in the car.

  ‘No.’ Chloe frowned. ‘Why? Oh my God, you fancy him, don’t you?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘I wouldn’t blame you if you did. I wouldn’t say no,’ Chloe said. ‘If I was into older guys. Which I’m not,’ she added hastily.

  ‘I thought it would be polite to return the compliment, that’s all.’

  Chloe raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Buy him and Ben a coffee,’ Kate clarified, ignoring the smirk on Chloe’s face.

  The man she’d thought was Adam walked towards them, ramming a hotdog in his mouth as if he hadn’t eaten for weeks. Her nostrils filled with the cloying smell of fried onions.

  ‘Ben’s not hot, but he’s kinda cute,’ Chloe continued.

  ‘He doesn’t say much, does he?’

  ‘You know me. I like the strong, silent type.’

  ‘You’re not coming to university to meet boys,’ Kate reminded her. Don’t make the same mistakes I did, she nearly added. And then felt a stab of guilt. She may have screwed up her chances of university and a meaningful career and wrecked her relationship with her father, but there wasn’t a single day she regretted having Chloe. She was the glimmer of golden perfection in her otherwise grey and mundane existence.

  ‘Anyway, Ben messaged me to say they’ve gone. They’d seen everything they needed to,’ Chloe said.

  ‘You gave him your number?’

  ‘Messaged, Mum. Snapchat.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Kate supposed it was fine. It was how kids operated these days, wasn’t it?

  ‘You could have given Adam your number,’ Chloe said. ‘He was definitely into you.’

  Kate held up a hand. ‘Enough. Can we please change the subject?’

  ‘You’re thirty-seven, Mum, not sixty-seven. You are allowed to have a life.’

  ‘You’re my life.’

  Chloe groaned. ‘I knew you’d say that. But I’ll be gone soon. You don’t want to be on your own forever, do you? Like a bitter Miss Havisham, sitting in your decaying mansion in your dusty wedding dress?’

  Not for the first time, Kate wished Chloe wasn’t studying Great Expectations for her English Literature A-level.

  ‘I’m fine. I’ve got work and Grandpa to keep me busy.’

  ‘You should think about getting a boyfriend, though.’

  ‘Y
ou don't just “get” a boyfriend, Chloe. It either happens, or it doesn’t.’

  ‘You could be proactive and use a dating app. Not Tinder though, you’d meet all sorts of weirdos. But one of the upmarket ones for professionals.’

  ‘And tell them what - I’m a professional waitress?’

  ‘Or try speed dating. Or an evening class in car mechanics.’

  ‘And meet a load of other sad, single women on the hunt for a man? I don’t think so. Anyway, I don’t know why we’re even having this conversation. I’m perfectly happy as I am. I’m not one of those women who needs to be one half of a couple to feel validated.’

  ‘Whatever you say. But I’m right, you know. Adam definitely has the hots for you. And I think you like him, too.’

  Chapter Five

  KATE

  By four o’clock, Kate and Chloe had both had enough, and caught the shuttle bus back to the sports centre to find the car. While Kate set the satnav for home, Chloe rolled up the picnic blanket they kept on the back seat and positioned it between her head and the window. She was asleep in seconds, her left hand under her chin and her right hand curled protectively around her phone.

  Kate wondered yet again how she would cope with Chloe away at university.

  ‘What d’you mean you’ll be lonely? You’ve got Pa to keep you company,’ her brother Rory had said when she’d voiced her fears after one too many glasses of Chablis at Christmas.

  Kate had snorted, the crisp white wine making her nose fizz and her eyes water. ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’

  They’d glanced at their father, who was playing a rowdy game of Scrabble with Chloe by the fire.

  ‘Look at him,’ Rory had said. ‘Nearly ninety and still as strong as an ox.’

  ‘He’s not an ox. He’s a cranky old goat who finds fault with everything I do. He’s hardly company.’ Kate had taken another slug of wine and glared at her brother. ‘It’s all right for you, buggering back to your beautiful beachside apartment in Sydney while I’m left in this draughty old wreck of a house with a curmudgeon for company. I know where I’d rather be, but I don’t have a choice, do I?’