Kitabı oku: «A Dozen Second Chances»

To Catherine Bowdler, for being kind to herself

Chapter 1

Twenty minutes. The train would leave in twenty minutes, and time wouldn’t stop however hard I wished for it.

I looked at Caitlyn, sitting across a table littered with half-drunk coffee cups; caught her surreptitiously sliding her sleeve back down to cover her watch – not for the first time.

‘It will be fine,’ Caitlyn said. ‘No different than when I went on a school trip, only this one will last longer. I won’t be that far away. Nearer than Nan. It hardly takes more than an hour to fly to Paris.’

She would be over five hundred miles away. I’d looked it up. She’d been further on school trips, but they had been finite – a matter of days. Now she was leaving for twelve months, but really, what were the chances of her coming back? Once she’d experienced the glamour of Paris, why would she want to return to rainy Lancashire? And while part of me wept at the thought of losing her, when I had already lost so much, another part cheered her on. I’d had plans to travel once. I knew what it felt like, that heady mix of trepidation and excitement, the belief that the world was storing up opportunities with your name on, waiting to be discovered. I wouldn’t let anything get in the way of her discoveries.

‘Of course it will be fine,’ I said. I knew my allotted lines. We had played out a script all week: me trying to look pleased that Caitlyn was going, Caitlyn trying to look sorry. ‘Freedom! At last!’

I managed a smile. I shouldn’t have come. I should have dropped Caitlyn off at the local station to make her own way, not suggested driving down to Manchester and spending the night there before she caught her train. I had wanted to savour our last minutes together, not realising until now that sometimes a swift goodbye was a far less painful option after all.

‘Freedom for you too,’ Caitlyn said. ‘You could let Rich stay the night, without fear that you’ll corrupt my innocent young mind …’

I made a non-committal noise, trying to disguise my instinctive aversion to that idea. Rich in my bed … his face the first sight of my day … He wouldn’t expect that, would he? I thought we both had the measure of our relationship: it didn’t include whole nights together. Physical intimacies, yes; emotional ones, no. Besides, I’d spent years enjoying my independence. I might now have an empty nest, but filling it with a man wasn’t my idea of freedom.

Fifteen minutes. Caitlyn rummaged in her backpack and brought out a slim package wrapped in blue tissue paper. She held it out to me.

‘I’ve got something for you. It’s not much …’

I unwrapped the paper with deliberate care, eking out the seconds. It fell open to reveal a tiny gift box, and inside that lay a stack of rectangular pieces of card. I studied the top one. It was beautifully illustrated around the border with a variety of my favourite flowers – Caitlyn had inherited Faye’s artistic talent, as well as her looks. In the centre, a calligraphy message read:

BE KIND TO YOURSELF

VOUCHER ONE

I, Eve Roberts, have been kind to myself by …………………………

There were twelve numbered vouchers in total. I looked up at Caitlyn, bewildered.

‘It’s your challenge while I’m away,’ she explained, with a grin that was achingly familiar. ‘You’ve put me first forever. Now it’s your turn. You have to treat yourself, do some things that are purely for you. It doesn’t matter how small it is – even a soak in the bath with some fancy new bubble bath will count. But you have to fill in each voucher and send it to me, to prove you’ve done it. Promise?’

‘Promise,’ I replied, helpless to resist that grin, as I had always been. ‘Thank you.’ I forced myself to check the time. ‘Do you think we should …’

Caitlyn was out of her seat before the sentence was finished, wheeling her suitcase through the crowds to the platform for the London train.

‘We’ll still speak all the time, won’t we?’ she asked, hesitating at the platform barrier, ticket in hand. ‘I mean, I know it’s only Paris, we’re not going to be a million miles apart, but …’

‘Of course we will. You’ll get tired of hearing from me. Now enough of this. You can’t miss your train. Gemma will be waiting. Give me a hug and get on your way. There are amazing times ahead of you!’

I wrapped my arms around her, feeling in our embrace the memory of a lifetime of hugs, from the tiny child around my knees, to the embarrassed teenager, to the young woman who now stood over me. Who knew when the next one would be? Caitlyn was the first to draw back.

‘Thanks, Mum,’ she said. ‘For everything. I know I haven’t said it, but I do appreciate how much you’ve done.’

I hadn’t done enough. I could never do enough. I shook my head, dismissing such talk.

‘Still Mum?’ I said, though my heart tensed in dread at the possible answer. ‘Would you prefer it to be Eve now?’

‘No.’ Caitlyn lunged forward for a last, desperate hug. ‘You’ll always be Mum. Love you!’

I waited on the concourse, my cheeks aching with a smile she couldn’t see, watching until the last carriage of the train disappeared from sight, and wondered what the hell I was supposed to do with my life now.

*

It was late afternoon by the time I pulled on to the drive of my small, semi-detached house in the market town of Inglebridge in north Lancashire. The early March sun warmed the bricks on the front of the house as the light faded for the day, but I couldn’t help thinking it a cruel illusion: with Caitlyn gone, the inside of the house was going to seem horribly cold and bare. I glanced across the road to my friend Tina’s house, but there was no car on the drive, no sign of life – no chance of going through her front door for a while instead of my own.

The silence hit me as soon as I stepped into the hall. I was used to getting home from work before Caitlyn, and greeting an empty house, but this felt different; the silence was deeper, as if the bricks and mortar joined with me in mourning her absence. Before I’d even taken one step, I’d noticed the changes: her shoes were missing from the usual place by the front door; the peg where she hung her coat was empty; her house keys lay in the bowl on the table, because she had no use for them now. Would this ever feel normal?

The front doorbell rang, and I opened the door to see Tina.

‘I saw you arrive home,’ she said. Of course she did: Tina lived in the dormer bungalow immediately opposite my house, and missed nothing. She had brought over some sandwiches on the day we’d moved in, fourteen years ago, and we had been firm friends ever since. ‘I came to offer tea and sympathy, assuming I can’t tempt you to anything stronger. Forget the healthy living for today – your face says you need alcohol and plenty of it.’

‘That bad?’ I asked.

Tina nodded, without even a decent pause to consider her answer.

‘At least two wine bottles’ worth of bad. It’s what I needed when Liam went off to university. I needed three bottles when he boomeranged back here!’ She laughed. ‘You look like you might burst into tears at any minute. You can’t be on your own.’

‘I was going to come over, but your car wasn’t there.’

‘Graham’s gone to play golf. He’d better get back soon; the kitchen drawer has jammed, and I can’t get it open. It had to be the one with the corkscrew in, didn’t it? I’ve no screw tops left. It’s at times like this I wish my neighbour wasn’t teetotal …’ She grinned, and I laughed.

‘But you do have a neighbour with some basic DIY skills. Let me get my toolbox and I’ll have a look at the drawer.’

‘I was hoping you’d say that. You’re a lifesaver!’

And so was Tina; this was exactly the distraction I needed, as I suspected she well knew. I collected my toolbox from the garage and crossed the road to Tina’s. As soon as she opened the door, I was assaulted by the deep thrum of rock music pervading the house from upstairs; another reminder of what I was going to miss. Tina gave a wry grimace before bellowing up the stairs. ‘Turn that racket down! Eve’s here!’

The music faded by a barely perceptible notch.

‘There! Twenty-four and almost house-trained.’ Tina laughed and looked me up and down. ‘I’ll never get used to this. You look like a Boden model who wandered into the B&Q catalogue by mistake.’ She opened the cupboard under the stairs and plucked a bottle from the pine wine rack tucked away there. ‘I’ll drink your share. No one counts on a Saturday, do they?’

While she was making me a cup of tea, I examined the drawer that was stuck. It was a disappointingly easy job to fix it; something was obviously catching when I tried to open it, but jiggling the drawer wasn’t enough to move it. I’d brought over a metal coat hanger, and inserted this into the gap, manoeuvring it carefully until the contents shifted and I could open the drawer. I removed all the drawers and lubricated the runners while I was at it.

‘You’re better than a husband,’ Tina said, snatching up the corkscrew. ‘Graham would rather have a golf club in his hand than a spanner.’

I shrugged. ‘I don’t mind. I enjoy it.’ More than I’d expected. I’d signed up to lots of basic DIY courses over the years, in a bid both to save money and be self-reliant, but had found a real sense of satisfaction in learning how to identify a problem and to solve it – in some aspects of life, at least.

I followed Tina into the conservatory, a recent addition to the bungalow and her pride and joy. South-facing, and with views across the small patch of garden to the fields beyond, it made the most of the advantage of this side of the street. My garden faced north, and looked out on to Winlow Hill, the highest peak in the area, and one that drew ramblers and tourists to Inglebridge throughout the year. It was a view that I loved; I wouldn’t have switched sides of the street for any money.

‘Did Caitlyn get off okay?’

‘Yes. No delays, no cancellations. Where are leaves on the line when you need them?’ I glanced at my watch. ‘She’ll be in London now. One night at Gemma’s, and then they’ll catch the Eurostar first thing in the morning. They’ll be in Paris by lunchtime.’

‘Lucky them! It makes me wish I’d tried harder at languages at school. I’d have given my eye teeth to have had the chance to drop everything and work in Paris when I was twenty, wouldn’t you?’

‘Yes.’ I gazed out through the conservatory windows, seeing nothing. I remembered too clearly how, at twenty, the world had seemed there for the taking; remembered the plans built on excitement rather than practicality, to travel the globe, to take part in ground-breaking archaeological digs across the continents. It had all been so possible, so tangible. But at twenty-one, my world had shrunk; it had all become impossible.

Tina must have read something on my face, as she stretched across and rubbed my hand.

‘Sorry. Me and my big gob. I didn’t mean …’

‘I know, it’s fine.’ I clutched my mug between my hands. ‘Sometimes life doesn’t take you where you hoped it would. Better a different life than none at all. I’m the lucky one.’ I sipped my tea, mentally pushing away the guilt that threatened to roll in like the mist over Winlow Hill.

‘Are you meeting Rich tonight? Is he taking you out to cheer you up?’

Tina’s attempt to lighten the mood wasn’t a huge success.

‘It’s his access weekend. His children are staying so I won’t see him.’ Despite my best efforts, there was more relief in my voice than regret. ‘Maybe we’ll go out during the week.’

‘You can do what you like now, can’t you? Life begins at almost forty! You’re lucky to have an empty nest while you still have the energy to take advantage of it. What plans do you have?’

‘Nothing special …’ And then I remembered Caitlyn’s parting gift, and I pulled the box of vouchers out of my bag to show Tina. ‘Although Caitlyn has made me these, and I promised to do twelve things to be kind to myself …’

‘Ooh, aren’t they pretty? She should sell these. I’d buy some.’ Tina inspected the cards. ‘Have you thought of anything yet?’

I shook my head.

‘I know the perfect thing to set you off,’ Tina said, reaching for her iPad. ‘Are you free next Thursday night?’

‘Maybe …’

‘I saw this advertised on my Facebook group for history teachers this morning. There’s a talk on Thursday night at a private school in Yorkshire about the Romans in Britain.’

‘A history talk? That sounds more like being kind to you,’ I said, smiling.

Tina laughed. ‘Hang on, I’m getting to your bit. The talk is a two-hander with a historian and an archaeologist speaking.’

I sipped my tea, feeling the first stirrings of disquiet. It was foolish – irrational. How many thousands of archaeologists must there be across the country? There was no reason to think it would be him …

‘Here we go,’ Tina continued, tapping at the iPad screen. ‘Jeremy Swann is the historian – you might not have heard of him, but he’s written some interesting books about life in Roman Britain. That’s your favourite time, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ I said, when Tina paused for breath. It had been my favourite time. In the days when archaeology hadn’t only been about the past, but my future. Our future.

‘And they’ve done well to get this archaeologist,’ Tina continued. ‘He’s been on the telly – did you see that programme, Travels Through Time? Paddy Friel’s his name. Have you heard of him?’

Paddy Friel … My head began to spin. I put down my mug.

‘I’ll find you a photo. That’ll convince you to come with me.’ Tina laughed and swiped the iPad screen. ‘Here you go. Don’t tell me it’s not being kind to yourself to gaze at him for an hour …’

Tina held the iPad up towards me. A man’s profile filled the screen: a familiar face, if older than when I had last studied it in such detail, from the cleft in his chin, to the dark curls that tumbled around his face, still slightly too long for practicality. I thought I’d set aside my feelings many years ago, but as I stared at the picture, the emotions revived, flashing through my head like a spinning fairground ride: a dizzying blur of love, disappointment, hatred and anger.

‘He’s no expert on the Romans,’ I said. I turned away from the photo. Those twinkling eyes stirred too many memories, the good memories, not the bad. I didn’t want to remember those. ‘He was always more interested in the Vikings.’

And in himself – no subject was closer to Paddy Friel’s heart than Paddy Friel.

‘You know him?’ Tina looked more impressed than Paddy deserved. She smiled. ‘You’re a dark horse. How well do you know him? Academically or Biblically?’

‘Both, once. It was all over a long time ago.’

‘Blimey.’ Tina goggled at me. ‘I wasn’t serious. But, really? You had a thing with Paddy Friel? How could you not have mentioned that before?’

‘Because I’d rather forget all about him. I certainly don’t want to meet him again.’

Tina hesitated, tapping her iPad screen with her nail.

‘You won’t meet him. We can sit at the back and sneak out as soon as it ends. There’s coffee and biscuits afterwards, but we don’t need to stay for that. Come on, I don’t want to go on my own. And what about these?’ Tina pointed at the pile of ‘Be Kind to Yourself’ vouchers. ‘This is a perfect example of what Caitlyn had in mind. It’s time to start thinking of yourself again, and what you want to do. Archaeology was once your passion. You’ve no excuse not to pursue it now. You definitely can’t let some bloke put you off going to something that would interest you.’

Not just some bloke … but still, as I looked down at Caitlyn’s vouchers, a prickle of life stirred within me. I had loved archaeology once, had been fascinated by the opportunity to literally unearth traces of lives lived thousands of years ago. The Romans had been my favourite area of study. And why shouldn’t I attend a talk on them, even if Paddy Friel would be there? He was nothing to me now, and he would have long forgotten me. The time when he, or any man, had any influence over my actions was long gone.

‘You’re right,’ I said, picking up the vouchers. ‘My first act of kindness. I’ll go to the lecture, and no one will stop me.’ I laughed. ‘Paddy who?’

Chapter 2

Paddy Friel. Or Nigel Patrick Friel, to give him his full name, the name that only people who had known him in infant school days would know. And me – because once I had known him inside out, understood every shift and sigh of his body, comprehended every turn and contemplation of his mind. Until adversity hit, and I discovered that the man I thought I had known and loved was a sham in substance as well as in name.

We had met in our first year at university, both students of archaeology, but inhabiting very different social groups. He was part of the crowd of beautiful people, the sort of group my sister Faye would have naturally belonged to, but which was far out of my league. I’d noticed him at once – impossible not to, with those glossy dark curls, confident swagger, and the Irish accent that I only discovered much later was an exaggerated version of his real voice. Despite the small number of students on our course, I would have put money on him not knowing that I existed.

But then, in the third term of my first year, as I had wandered back to the halls of residence laden down with supermarket carrier bags that scored the flesh on my fingers, a shove in the back had knocked me to the ground, sending eggs smashing to the pavement and tins of baked beans rolling into the road. A hooded man had crouched over me, with a knife in his hand, and I had been too frozen with terror to react. And then, like a dark descending angel, Paddy Friel had appeared and knocked my assailant out of the way, making him run off. Paddy had picked up my shopping, escorted me back to my room and stayed with me until the police arrived. He had wiped away my tears, made me countless drinks, talked to me and, above all else, he had simply been there for me when I needed him.

Later that night, he had insisted that I join him at the local pub for a drink, determined that I had to leave my room again before the fear took hold and kept me prisoner. The next morning he had waited outside my halls to walk me to our lecture, and that had been the beginning of everything …

The memories swept relentlessly through my head as I drove through Inglebridge on my way to pay my regular Sunday visit to my grandmother, Phyllis. She had moved into the local nursing home, The Chestnuts, eight years ago, after her first hip replacement, and had loved it so much that she never moved out again. It was a not-for-profit home, where fees were low, happiness levels high, and the staff were universally kind to the old people in their care. Gran thrived on living there, and at eighty-seven, showed no sign of leaving any time soon.

The Chestnuts occupied an old manor house, extended several times as funds allowed, and as usual I found Gran basking in the sun in the large conservatory, a pile of magazines at her side. She smiled as I approached, and I relaxed, all thoughts of Paddy Friel effectively banished. With Caitlyn’s recent departure, and Mum having been settled on the Costa Brava for the last sixteen years, Gran was the only family I had left. I had never been so glad to see her.

‘Hello, Gran,’ I said, bending to kiss her soft cheek, and resting my head against hers for a moment too long. ‘You’re looking well.’

‘You’re looking thin,’ she said, never one to mince words. ‘Are you overdoing the exercise again? There’ll be nowt left of you by Christmas at this rate. I’ll be mistaking you for the turkey wishbone. You want plenty of best butter, chips cooked in dripping, and a good supply of gin. How else do you think I made it to my age?’

‘Certainly not by flattering your nearest and dearest.’ I laughed and pulled up a chair beside her. ‘I don’t know whether I should give you these biscuits now …’

‘All-butter shortbread?’ I nodded. They were her favourites; I brought them every week. Woe betide if I produced anything else. ‘I’ll ring for tea.’

Gran pressed a button on the plastic emergency necklace she wore and shortly afterwards an exasperated carer bustled in. She took one look at me and rolled her eyes.

‘You know the story of the boy who cried wolf, don’t you?’ she grumbled, but with a smile of undoubted affection. ‘One of these days there’ll be a real emergency and we won’t come. I suppose you’ll be wanting tea.’

‘If it’s not too much trouble,’ Gran said.

‘It beats some of the jobs I have to do round here …’

‘You shouldn’t take advantage,’ I said, when the carer had wandered off on her mission. ‘This isn’t a hotel.’

‘Nonsense. I’m one of the least demanding ones in here. You should hear what Mr Jacobs asks them to do. No one wants to be on rota to give him a bed bath …’

‘Have you heard from Caitlyn yet?’ Gran asked, when our tea had arrived and she had started on the biscuits. ‘Is she in Paris now?’

‘I don’t know. She said she would text as soon as she could.’ I touched the pocket where my phone lay, out of my handbag so I would feel the first vibration of a text arriving. ‘I’m sure she’s fine …’

So I said; but that hadn’t stopped me checking the news websites on a regular basis all morning, dreading reports of a fire in the Channel Tunnel, terrorist attacks in France, or a million and one other disasters that my imagination was all too happy to suggest. I was so perturbed by the ideas, that when Gran offered me her biscuits, I took one without thinking.

‘Of course she’ll be fine.’ Gran patted my hand. ‘She’s a sensible girl. You’ve done a grand job.’

But it hadn’t been a job – it had been love. Because Caitlyn wasn’t actually mine. She was my sister Faye’s child, the big sister I had adored with my whole being, until her sudden death when she was twenty-four, and Caitlyn just two. Faye had fallen pregnant around the time I started university, and she had never told us who the father was; it was all too easy to believe she didn’t know, given her lifestyle. There had been lengthy debate about what should happen to Caitlyn after Faye’s death, but it could only ever end one way. I had wanted her to live with me, whatever the personal cost – and it had been high, higher than I could have anticipated. But I had owed it to Faye. No price could ever have been too high.

‘I can’t help worrying,’ I said now, drawing back from the past. ‘Who knows what temptations she’s going to face in Paris?’

‘No more than I expect she’s faced already.’

‘Not on my watch!’

‘So I suppose your mum knew everything you got up to, did she?’ Gran laughed. ‘I thought not. You’ve done your bit, love, and more besides. Time to let go. It’ll do you both good to stretch your wings a bit. Here, have another biccie.’

I did, telling myself that it was my own small act of stretching. I usually tried to stick to a healthy diet, but already my worries about Caitlyn were eroding my good intentions. I didn’t know how to stop, however old she was: I had a sudden vision of myself in Gran’s position in fifty years’ time, my phone clutched in my gnarled old hand, waiting for news of Caitlyn. Perhaps she was right, and I did need to learn to let go, but I didn’t know how to do it.

‘Here, you’ll never guess who I saw t’other day,’ Gran said later, when our teas were drunk, and I was getting ready to leave. She reached for a tatty magazine on the table at her side. ‘I saved it for you. Have a look at the page folded over.’

Perhaps the unexpected sugar consumption had addled my wits, because I flicked to the marked page without a glimmer of suspicion. Oddly, it was the young woman in the photograph that I noticed first: luscious, thick blonde hair cascaded over bare shoulders and brushed against a large bust that could have earned her a place as a centrefold. I felt the familiar twinge of regret over my own boyish figure and chin-length brown hair, hastily wiped away when I turned my attention to the man attached to the woman’s side.

‘It’s the fella you went out with, isn’t it?’ Gran asked, making it sound as if I had only had one boyfriend over my entire lifetime. It wasn’t true: there had been several boys before Paddy. Not so many after, but that was hardly surprising, and not only because all my focus had been on Caitlyn. Paddy had taught me many things that I had been delighted to learn, and one thing that I hadn’t. A broken heart can be broken a second time, and a third, until only the crushed fragments remain.

‘And look who he’s with!’ Gran continued, oblivious to my discomfort. ‘She was in Emmerdale until she ran off with someone’s husband.’

I assumed she meant in the TV programme, rather than in real life, but who knew with these showbiz folk? Much against my will, my eyes strayed back to the man in the photograph. Here was Paddy Friel again, thrust to my attention for the second time in as many days, and no more welcome this time. It was a good photograph, I couldn’t deny that: he was wearing black tie, which suited his colouring, and with his raffish curls and hint of five-o’clock shadow he looked like a pirate trying to infiltrate polite society. It was hard to believe that this confident, well-dressed man had once been the boy who left dirty underpants under my bed. Hard to believe, too, what weakness lay behind that charming smile.

I flicked the magazine closed and noticed the date on the front cover.

‘This is six months old,’ I said, dropping the magazine on the table as if it were soiling my fingers. ‘He’ll have moved on by now, probably several times. Doesn’t he have a failed marriage behind him? Commitment was never his strong point.’

‘He always was a handsome devil,’ Gran said, with a wistful smile. She’d had a soft spot for Paddy, and he had given the appearance of being fond of her, but that was the trouble with Paddy: it was all style over substance, appearance over truth. ‘You could forgive a man a lot who looked like that.’

I said nothing. Some things were impossible to forgive, however attractive the face. Not that I found him attractive any more: those feelings had died a long time ago, the least mourned of all my losses at that time. I picked up my bag and bent to give Gran a kiss.

‘I thought I might have seen you as Mrs Friel.’ Gran was on a roll; I wished she’d never seen the blasted magazine. ‘I’d have liked a chance to get dressed up as grandmother of the bride. I’d have out-glitzed the lot of them. I still would. Where there’s life, there’s hope, eh?’

She looked at me with such pride and hope, that all I could do was smile back and kiss her again, too kind to tell her that life in my heart had been pronounced extinct many years ago.

*

I offered to drive Tina to the talk on Roman Britain the following Thursday night. As a longstanding teetotaller, I was used to being the designated driver, and I knew that Tina was hoping that to make up for missing tea and biscuits, we might find time for beer and crisps in a country pub on the way home.

‘It’s almost the weekend after all,’ she said, as I turned off our street and headed towards the main road that carved through the countryside, leading to the southern Lake District in one direction and to the Yorkshire Dales in the other. I loved this patch of north Lancashire, hidden away from the hustle and bustle of city life; loved the fact that I could climb Winlow Hill behind my house and see no towns but Inglebridge, and beyond that, only fields, moors, and the occasional stone-built village.

I had moved here within six months of Caitlyn coming to live with me, desperate to escape our home county of Warwickshire, and all the familiar places where memories seemed to hang like cobwebs on every street lamp. I had known nothing of the area except that Gran lived within an hour’s drive and that property prices were cheap. I had seen on the map that it was well away from any cities – any temptations – and that had been recommendation enough. Save for whisking Caitlyn away to a remote Scottish island – something I had briefly considered – it had appeared to be as safe a place as I could find to raise a child. And it was a fresh start for us, a place where we had no history. For someone who had spent her life wanting to uncover history, I had felt no compunction about covering ours up.

It had been a glorious spring day, and the setting sun was gilding the fields around us as we drove towards Yorkshire. Usually the view would have soothed away even the greatest anxiety. But tonight, not even the finest landscape could settle the nerves that jangled around my limbs. The talk sounded exactly the sort of thing I would have enjoyed many years ago, before my life twisted in a different direction. Was it wise to remind myself of that other possible life, when it might open up regrets that I had fought for years to keep at bay?

And then there was Paddy … How would I feel to see him in the flesh, to hear his voice without the distance of a television set, for the first time in seventeen years? Why had I wasted one of Caitlyn’s vouchers on this? This wasn’t being kind to myself; it was more like voluntary torture.

The school we were visiting was a well-regarded grammar school, where the central building dated back centuries. It was a far cry from the 1960s comprehensive where Tina and I worked.

‘Fancy working here!’ Tina whispered, as we climbed an ornate wooden staircase towards the hall where the talk would be held. It seemed appropriate to whisper, as if nothing we could say would be erudite enough for this environment. ‘Imagine teaching history in a place that has history of its own! I bet it’s haunted.’

‘I’d be happy to have a few ghosts helping me, as long as they could use the photocopier and knew how to fix printer jams.’ I laughed. ‘It would have been much easier to keep tabs on Caitlyn with a team of invisible spies at my beck and call.’

I hadn’t worked at all for the first couple of years after Caitlyn came to live with me: it had been too new, too strange for both of us, and we had each needed time to adjust to the unexpected life we had been given, and time to get to know each other properly and cement our bond. When Caitlyn went to nursery, I had filled my days taking online courses to learn everything I could about computer software and office management until I was the most qualified PA I could be. I had then taken on part-time jobs until I saw the perfect role advertised: PA to the head teacher of the secondary school that Caitlyn would attend. The term time hours were convenient, and I could keep a discreet eye on Caitlyn and any trouble she might face: an ideal arrangement, as far as I was concerned, and I don’t think she had minded it too much.

Tina and I took our seats at the back of the hall. It was a decent-sized crowd, and I was impressed by the local interest in Roman history until I realised that a large proportion of the audience were female, and particularly well-groomed ladies with shiny hair, smart clothes and full faces of make-up. Only a handful of parents would have made such an effort for our local comprehensive. Perhaps things were done differently in grammar school society. Or perhaps things were done differently in Paddy Friel’s society, whispered a mischievous little voice in my head. I stamped it down, not before a pang of regret had flashed through me about my faded, knitted dress and barely there make-up. But I wasn’t going to meet him. I didn’t want to meet him. So what did it matter?

The historian, Jeremy Swann, spoke first and Tina was proved right: he was a witty, engaging speaker, skilled at throwing out titbits of information about how the Romans had lived, in the style of Horrible Histories, so his talk appealed to all ages. I leant to the side, so I could see him from between the assembled heads, hanging on his every word as my long-abandoned interest blossomed back to life. I had missed this, more than I wanted to admit.

I was still leaning, rapt, when Jeremy introduced the next speaker. I shot upright, not before seeing a familiar flash of dark curl. Tina gave me a nudge and a smile, but I stared at the ruddy, bald neck of the man in front of me and refused to look. I couldn’t block my ears though. The first sound of that Irish lilt set my thoughts racing through the years, dredging up memories I had hoped never to revisit: the good memories, the tender memories of love, that made the bad memories so much more painful.

He was good, my objective self was forced to admit it. His enthusiasm covered the room like a silken net, gathering us all in, captive to the power of the story he was telling. Even I, who knew too well what a sham this was, what a false show concealing his true nature, felt the tug of excitement as he described the experience of working on an archaeological dig, of making a discovery that contributed to our knowledge of ancient times. But then he mentioned working at Vindolanda, a famous Roman site in Northumberland, and I couldn’t listen any more. We had volunteered there together during the first summer we had been a couple, and the archaeological discoveries during the day took second place in my memories to the nights spent tangled together in a sleeping bag in a tiny tent for two.

‘Wasn’t he amazing?’ Tina said, rousing me from the mental repetition of my shopping list – a surprisingly effective distraction, as it had reminded me that I was now shopping for one, and turned my thoughts to how much I was missing Caitlyn. ‘He’ll have inspired a few new archaeologists tonight. Inspired a few sweet dreams too for some of this audience. Phew! I think I’m having a hot flush. Can you hang on while I find a glass of water? There’s sure to be a water fountain along the corridor somewhere. Back in a mo …’

She scuttled off down the corridor, and I lurked at the back of the hall, safe in the knowledge that everyone else was leaving by the doors at the front, presumably in search of refreshment – a cup of tea with an extra splash of artificial Irish sweetener. I checked my phone for messages as the footsteps faded, the chatter died away, and the room fell silent. And then one voice carried the length of the hall, a voice I had heard more than enough of tonight.

‘Eve?’

Chapter 3

Impossible not to turn, though my first instinct was to run out of the door. There he was, Paddy Friel, striding down the aisle formed between rows of chairs like a joyous bride dashing towards the groom; smiling in a way he had no business to, as if he was delighted to see me – as if it hadn’t been his choice, oh so many years ago, to stop seeing me.

He paused, looked me up and down, and shook his head in apparent amazement. Curls bounced around his face, and he swept them back with a gesture that was so familiar it was as if he had swept the last seventeen years away too.

‘I thought it was you. Eve Roberts. I can’t believe it. How are you?’

He stepped forward, arms outstretched, as if to offer a kiss to my cheeks, the traditional greeting for long-lost acquaintances, I supposed. I folded my arms and moved away, wanting no contact with him. He could have stayed lost for all I cared.

‘Hello, Paddy.’

His smile wavered. He could hardly misinterpret the coolness in my tone and action. Surely he couldn’t have expected anything else?

‘You’re looking fantastic!’ he carried on valiantly. ‘Hardly changed at all. What are you doing here? Do you have a child at the school?’

‘No.’ I hadn’t planned to say more, but when he continued to look at me, a growing question on his face, I was spurred into further speech. What if he thought I was there to see him? I couldn’t allow that.

‘I came with a friend.’ Soon to be an ex-friend, I decided, glancing over my shoulder and seeing no sign of Tina. Where had she gone to find the water, the North Sea?

‘I wish I’d known there was an expert in the audience.’ He smiled. ‘How did it sound? No glaring clangers?’

‘It seemed okay.’ He couldn’t hold back a grimace at that faint praise; no doubt he was accustomed to gross adulation wherever he went as part of his celebrity lifestyle. I aimed a vague nod in his direction and edged towards the door, determined to wait in the car for Tina rather than endure this torture for a moment longer.

‘Hey, wait. Don’t rush off. What have you been up to? Did you carry on with the archaeology?’

‘No. How would it have worked? It was impossible, wasn’t it?’ It was the word he had used in his parting note to me, seventeen years ago, but he didn’t appear to make the connection.

‘And how is everyone? Wendy? Douglas?’

‘My dad’s dead.’

The expression of shock and sadness on Paddy’s face might have fooled anyone else. My dad had never for a second made me think he was disappointed with a second daughter – we were two of a kind, like Faye and Mum had been – but he had loved Paddy like a son, and the feeling had seemed mutual. But then I’d thought Paddy had loved me too, so what did I know?

‘I’m sorry.’ He reached out a hand, but I drew further back. ‘When? How?’

‘Another heart attack. Three months after Faye died.’

Briefly, his face crumpled with something like grief. My resolve to be indifferent shattered.

‘You must know this! I wrote to you … gave you all the details … told you when the funeral was.’

He hadn’t come. I had waited at the door of the crematorium, certain that despite everything, despite what he had already done, he wouldn’t let me down on this; wouldn’t let my dad down. He wouldn’t leave me to face this on my own, when I had lost two of the people I loved most in the world within a few short months. Three, if I counted him. But I had learnt beyond doubt that day that Paddy Friel didn’t think about anyone but himself; didn’t care about anyone but himself, whatever lies he told to the contrary. I took a deep, juddering breath, and managed to control my emotions. I had wasted enough tears on this man.

‘Ah, jeez, I wasn’t at home. I didn’t get the letter …’

I shrugged; a convenient excuse if ever I’d heard one.

‘It doesn’t matter now. It’s old news.’

I ignored his surprised expression at my apparent callousness. He had no right to judge me for being hard-hearted.

‘And your mam?’

‘Alive and well, and living in Spain. One of the advantages of my dad working in insurance. He left her a very comfortable widow.’

Paddy’s puzzled gaze roamed over my face. Was he trying to work out where this bitter woman had come from, how she had grown out of the girl he had known? He didn’t need to look far. I could hold up a mirror, let him see the answer for himself, but he would probably be too distracted by the view.

‘And …’ He hesitated, scratched his cheek, pushed the curls back although they were hardly out of place. ‘Caitlyn. How is she?’

‘Fine.’

‘How old is she now? Twenty?’

‘Yes.’ I was surprised he remembered.

‘Is she here?’ He started looking round. ‘Is that who you’re waiting for?’

‘No, she’s …’ I stopped short. Why was I wasting my breath? He’d made it plain enough when he left that he wasn’t interested; that she was my niece, my problem. ‘She’s not with me.’

‘Eve …’

His hand landed on my arm and for a moment I was too stunned to shake it off.

‘Hello! Sorry to be so long.’ Tina returned at last, no sign of water, but a glass of wine in her hand. ‘But I see you’ve managed perfectly well without me …’

‘And I see you’ve managed to turn water into wine,’ I said, jerking my arm away from Paddy’s hand.

‘Sorry! I was looking for a water fountain, but then I ran into the teacher from my Facebook group and she dragged me away for something better.’ She smiled and stepped around me, her eye on more interesting company. ‘Hello. Pleased to meet you. What a fascinating talk! I could have listened for hours.’

‘You should have been on the front row. I might have gone on longer if I hadn’t faced a bored kid who seemed more interested in what he could excavate from his nose …’

The sound of Paddy’s laugh grated on my nerves. I didn’t look, didn’t want to see how that cleft in his chin deepened when he laughed, see how many more laughter lines he had earned around his eyes during our time apart. I studied a black and white school photograph that was hung on the wall, rows of young faces, of students who would probably now be grandparents; the prime of life behind them, whereas mine sometimes felt as if it had never started. Unlike the man I could sense was watching me. What a lot of living he had squeezed into the last seventeen years.

‘Are you ready to go?’ I asked Tina.

‘There’s no hurry …’ She crumbled under the look I sent her and swiftly downed her wine. ‘Of course, I can’t miss my taxi.’ She turned to Paddy. ‘Do you do many school talks? I’d love it if you could come to ours.’

‘There’s no money in the budget for that,’ I said. What on earth was Tina thinking?

‘I don’t charge for school talks. I’d be happy to come. Where is it?’

Before I could instruct Tina not to tell him – although I hadn’t worked out how I could do that – she gave him what he wanted.

‘Inglebridge High in north Lancashire. Would you travel so far?’

‘Sure. I’d be happy to.’ Paddy pulled out his wallet and took out a business card. ‘Here. Get in touch when you’ve worked out some dates.’ He held out another card to me. ‘What do you teach?’

‘I don’t.’

The card dangled between us. I put my hands in my pockets, indicating as clearly as I could that I had no intention of taking it.

‘Eve, can’t we catch up sometime? There are things …’

‘No.’ I cut him off. ‘I have nothing to say, and there’s nothing I want to hear. Not every bit of the past deserves raking up, does it? You should know that better than most.’

*

Tina was unusually quiet as we returned to the car and set off home, and I was too busy concentrating on negotiating the country roads in the dark to break the silence. I was glad to have something to focus on other than the past few hours. The sight of Paddy had knocked me more than I had anticipated, stirring up all the old feelings for him. Feelings of hate, not love – that had died long ago.

‘Pull over here,’ Tina called, banging on the dashboard like an overenthusiastic driving instructor. ‘This pub’s nice. A bit gastropub with the menu, but fine for a couple of drinks.’

I turned into the car park obediently, and we wandered into the pub. It was an attractive place, tastefully decorated with a wooden floor, expensive wallpaper and cosy fabrics. A roaring fire and an abundance of lamps gave the place a romantic feeling – the sort of place where lovers might curl up in a corner, oblivious to the rest of the world. Or so I imagined. Romance played no part in my life. But that’s what I’d chosen, so how could I complain?

I found a table within range of the fire, and Tina brought over a glass of wine, and a cranberry and lemonade for me. For the first time in many years I longed for a shot of alcohol to numb my feelings.

‘I’m only having the one,’ Tina said, conveniently forgetting the one she had already had at the school. ‘I have 8B first period tomorrow. I need my wits about me. If I have to teach them in Year 9, I may stage a one-woman revolt. Hannah White never stops rubbing it in about how brilliant 8A are. Apparently, some of them can even spell medieval …’

I laughed and began to relax, glad that we didn’t appear to be heading towards a post-mortem of the earlier part of the evening. Although I wouldn’t be sorry to hear of Paddy Friel laid out on the mortuary slab … I sipped my drink, batting away the unworthy thought. I’d suffered too much loss to know that death wasn’t something to be flippant about.

‘Talking of Year 9,’ I began, remembering a piece of school gossip I had overheard today. ‘Did you know that the Biology lab …’

Tina put down her glass with a decisive bang.

‘Stop changing the subject,’ she said. I had thought I was continuing the subject, but she gave me no time to protest. ‘You and Paddy Friel. Come on, spill the beans. I’ve never met anyone who’s dated a celebrity.’

‘He’s not a celebrity.’

‘He’s been on the telly.’

‘So have thousands of other people. That means nothing, nowadays. You can’t be impressed by him. His only talent is putting on an Irish accent and waving his hair around.’

‘You mean he’s not really Irish?’

‘His name is Nigel, and he was born and bred in London.’

Tina looked crushed and I felt a fleeting twitch of guilt, but not enough to stop me continuing. ‘It’s an image he cultivated – calling himself Paddy, drinking Guinness, laying on the thick accent – all he needs now is to start talking about leprechauns. I bet he hasn’t set foot in Ireland for years. The whole thing is a sham, to make him more popular and presumably richer. Cut open Paddy and you’ll still find a weak and cowardly Nigel inside.’

‘Don’t hold back! Remind me never to get on the wrong side of you. You really don’t like him, do you?’

‘I hate him.’

When Tina flinched at the word, I sat back against the cushioned chair, swirling my cranberry juice. I had given the instinctive answer, but was it true? I had loved him once, but I didn’t now. I had hated him once, but that had been seventeen years ago. I hadn’t spent the intervening years sticking pins in a voodoo Paddy doll and cursing his name. There’d been no time for that, even if I’d felt inclined; I’d had Caitlyn to look after. My life had carried on, a satisfying one in many ways, especially where Caitlyn was concerned. Paddy Friel had rarely entered my thoughts, except when I’d been unfortunate and switched on the television at the wrong moment.

So no, perhaps I didn’t hate him now. But if I was being forced to examine my feelings, I’d never managed to reach indifference either. As for forgiveness … there weren’t enough years in eternity for me to ever arrive at that point.

‘How long did you go out with him for?’ Tina asked.

‘Almost three years, from near the end of our first year at university. We moved in together after we graduated.’ A memory flashed up, of that tiny rented flat on the first floor of a semi even smaller than the one I owned now; of how ridiculously excited we’d been to have a place to ourselves; of how I’d felt safe there with Paddy, little knowing he would hurt me more than anyone outside that flat could have done.

‘I’m guessing it ended badly. What did he do? Cheat? I don’t suppose he’s ever been short of offers.’

‘He wasn’t.’ And yet I had never doubted his fidelity. He had told me whenever girls tried to chat him up; we had laughed together at some of the ridiculous things they had done to gain his attention. Perhaps it would have been easier if he had cheated. Perhaps I would have found it easier to forgive him if I was the only person he had hurt.

‘He wasn’t unfaithful,’ I said. ‘Or not in the sense you mean. But he did break my faith in him.’

I studied Tina, considered the confused expression on her face. I didn’t talk about those days; everything was too closely bound together, the loss of Faye and of Dad, and Paddy’s betrayal, all jumbling together into one twisted knot of pain, so I couldn’t think of one of them without being reminded of the absence of them all. The acute feelings had faded, but they could never vanish. The encounter with Paddy had brought them closer to the surface than normal, and perhaps I needed to give them a moment’s airspace before wrapping them up again. I took a long drink of my cranberry juice.

‘When Faye died,’ I began, my heart weeping as it always would at the sound of those words, ‘Caitlyn went to stay with my parents. She’d had no contact with her father since she was born, and we didn’t know who he was so couldn’t get in touch. But anyway, she was ours: we couldn’t have given her up to a stranger.’

She had been the most adorable child: thick white-blonde hair, huge blue eyes, and the ability to wrap us all round her finger. She was the image of Faye in every way.

‘My dad wasn’t strong after suffering a heart attack a few months before, and it soon became clear that the arrangement wouldn’t work. The toll of his grief and the demands of a child were too much. I was living with Paddy at the time, and so the solution was obvious. Caitlyn would move in with us.’

How I had loved Paddy for agreeing to it! Despite the dramatic impact on our lives, the end to our plans to travel, he had backed me at once. We had begun by taking Caitlyn out with us for the odd day, so we could all get to know each other better, and my broken heart sputtered back to life when I saw my devastated niece take hold of Paddy’s hand in the park one day, and whisper in his ear.

‘So five or six weeks later, we packed up all her teddies and treasures and took her home to our flat, to begin our life as a family. And eight days later, just after we had celebrated her third birthday, just when Caitlyn had settled in and begun to trust us, to believe that we would always be there for her, Nigel Friel decided it wasn’t the life he wanted, packed his bags and left.’