Second Chance (12 page)

‘Sounds frightening.’

‘I rather think it is, but it seems this is what they do in America. Still. Hopefully she’ll be up tomorrow. I’m sure she’d love to see you.’

I’m not so sure, Holly thinks but doesn’t say.

At three in the morning, as usual, Holly finds herself wide awake. She tries lying in bed for a while listening to Marcus snore, and eventually gets up, throws on a robe, and goes upstairs to her studio. Sitting down at her desk and turning on her computer, she slides the scrap of paper that Will had scribbled his details on from under her notebook and studies his email address.

Opening her email account she taps his address in and is smiling as she writes. A few sentences about how lovely it was to see him, how much she misses Tom, then she erases and starts again.

A few sentences about how good it was to be able to really talk to someone, how rare to reconnect so strongly with someone from your childhood, then she erases and starts again.

‘If I was the first,’ she taps, a smile playing on her lips, ‘who was the second? From Curious Insomniac in Brondesbury.’ And she switches her computer off and goes downstairs to make herself some tea.

Marcus leans over to kiss her goodbye, as he always does at five thirty in the morning. He leaves the house to drive to the tube station, briefly rousing Holly who,
if she isn’t already awake, tries to go back to sleep for an hour until the kids come in to wake her up.

Today Holly lies in bed listening until the front door closes, hears his car start up and pull out of the driveway, and when she can no longer hear it she leaps out of bed and runs up to her studio, turning her computer back on, going straight to her inbox and smiling as she sees a reply from Will. Wow, she thinks. Sent at 4 a.m. He doesn’t sleep either.

Dear Curious Insomniac in Brondesbury,
    Interesting question. Am thinking that perhaps
there has only been one great love of my life,
however had a lesser love at Durham for Cynthia
Fawley. Worshipped her from afar (seems to have
been a pattern of my younger years) for a year,
ended up going out with her for a year after she
broke up with her muscular but dim-witted
rugby-playing boyfriend. Have had several loves,
unsurprisingly for a thirty-five-year-old, over the
years but none quite as innocent or pain-searingly
sweet as my pre-pubescent dreams. Do you
remember we almost snogged once? You and Tom
let me join in spin the bottle and I spun that thing,
praying to God and promising that I’d never do
anything bad again if I got you, and I did. And we
went into the cupboard and you kissed me on the
lips, and I was desperate to kiss you properly but I
didn’t know how. That kiss kept me going for years
(may still be keeping me going even today)…

Is he flirting with me? Am I flirting with him? What is this? What am I
doing?
Isn’t this how affairs start? Haven’t I always said I would never have an affair, not after my father? Haven’t I always said infidelity is the greatest betrayal a human being can make? Oh for heaven’s sake, Holly, this isn’t flirting. This is just having some fun. Who said anything about an affair?

And it
can’t
be flirting. This is Tom’s brother, and Tom’s not even cold in his grave. The last thing Will’s going to be thinking about is this, and it’s the last thing I would be thinking about. How entirely inappropriate would flirting be? There. Settled. This isn’t flirting. This is friendship.

Odd, perhaps, that these questions are even there, albeit not in the forefront of Holly Mac’s mind, so Holly tells herself that she has rediscovered an old friend. That the reason she is sitting in front of her computer at 5.30 a.m., checking emails, is because she is excited at finding the Fitzgeralds again, excited at seeing Will again after all these years.

And so what if there is a touch of innocent flirting going on? How lovely, actually, to be flirted with after so many years of having no one look at her.

Holly used to feel gorgeous, but lately she feels harassed. In her running-around-with-kids clothes she feels like a stressed mum, and in her cashmere sweaters and pearls, out with Marcus in the evening, she feels like a fraud.

Rarely does she feel like Holly, the real Holly. The Holly that Will has known. Perhaps this is why she feels
so comfortable, she muses, as she thinks about what to write back.

And if he is flirting gently, so what? Holly would never do anything, and how invigorating to have a gorgeous, single man pay you attention. They will just be friends, she decides, and how lucky to have a male friend, how much she has missed male friendship since she and Tom drifted so far apart.

It doesn’t occur to her that this is almost always how these things start.

Paul rings later that morning. ‘Maggie said you were going to their house today and I’d love to go too. I barely saw you yesterday, and Saffron disappeared early to take a call from P. I’m picking Olivia up at eleven, then heading over to the house. Want me to come and get you?’

‘Thanks, Paul, I’d love it,’ Holly says, replacing the phone and wondering how it is that you can go for twenty years not seeing people, then when you do, nothing has changed, it is instantly comfortable and familiar, as if all the years in between had been erased.

She takes extra-special care today before going to Maggie and Peter’s. A little more make-up than usual, a little more blow-drying to ensure her hair is smooth and silky. A sexy shirt and navy trousers, high-heeled boots – thank God it’s October! – and peridot flowers in her ears.

‘Wow! Look at you!’ Olivia grins as she gets in the car. ‘Are you off for a job interview later?’

Holly blushes, instantly self-conscious. Perhaps she
should change, perhaps this is over the top. She had sent an email back to Will telling him she was coming over today. As she showered she found herself thinking: If he likes me, he’ll be there. And immediately reprimanded herself for being so childish.

‘No, but a meeting at work,’ Holly lies. ‘I usually try to dress up a bit when I go in.’

‘You look great,’ Paul says. ‘Hey, both of you, if either of you want anything from Fashionista just let me know. You should look at the website because Anna said she’d give you anything wholesale.’

‘I’m not sure that Fashionista is my thing.’ Olivia laughs, gesturing at her old jeans and workman’s boots. ‘I think my fashion days are long gone.’

I wouldn’t mind looking, Holly thinks. Although she said she bought from the website all the time, it isn’t strictly true. She has bought from the website and does love it, but Marcus never seems to like anything from there – too trendy, he always says, inappropriate, he says, just wrong.

So it has been a while since Holly browsed Fashionista’s clothing online.

It’s time I treated myself, she thinks, hearing Paul’s offer. Time I bought something for myself, something that I love, never mind about Marcus.

Before Marcus, Holly had loved expressing herself through her clothes. She had spent hours at Portobello looking for the perfect vintage dress, had always known exactly what was in and what was out that season, and even though she couldn’t afford it, she could make do between Miss Selfridge, Warehouse and the markets.

And when she could afford it, when she married Marcus and he started to make serious money, she found that he hated the clothes she would bring home. Gorgeous shift dresses from Egg in Knightsbridge, beaded kaftans from little boutiques in Notting Hill, tumbling chandelier earrings of amethyst and quartz.

Eventually the trendy clothes were relegated to the back of her wardrobe, then given to her cleaning lady. Marcus would joke that Ester the Filipina cleaner had a more expensive wardrobe than most of their friends.

She learnt to dress in clothes that Marcus approves of. Sensible, conservative, luxurious. Her jewellery is classic and unobtrusive, her hair sleek and usually pulled back because Marcus doesn’t like it down.

Today she has put on the hoops that Marcus hates and that she loves and has slipped on the high-heeled boots that Marcus deemed cheap. She looked in the mirror before leaving and felt sexy, something she hasn’t felt for years. And now, sitting in the car, Holly thinks she wouldn’t mind having some fun, funky clothes.

She’s fed up with the cashmere bloody jumpers and the Tod’s bloody loafers. She will go to fashionista.uk.net, and she will see if they have anything she likes. She’s not even forty yet, she muses. Too young to dress like a sixty-year-old, and so what if Marcus doesn’t like it? She doesn’t like his pretentious monogrammed Turnbull & Asser shirts, but that doesn’t stop him from wearing them.

*

Sarah is sitting at the kitchen table as they walk in, pen in hand, writing letters to the hundreds of people who have written to her.

As Holly walks over she looks up and Holly is shocked at what she looks like. Sarah has only ever been immaculate.
Prissy
is the word Holly has always thought. Hair perfectly coiffed, make-up minimal but elegant. Today her face is puffy, her eyes red-rimmed, deep shadows underneath. She is in an oversized sweatshirt that Holly immediately knows must have been Tom’s, and her hair is frizzy, coming out of the messy ponytail.

Had you been at the service yesterday then saw Sarah right now, you would never know you were looking at the same person. Will was right. She had managed to pull it together yesterday. Quite how much, Holly didn’t realize until now.

‘Oh Sarah,’ Holly says, sympathy and sorrow washing over her. ‘I’m so sorry.’ And she puts her arms around Sarah, who leans into her shoulder and bursts into tears.

‘I just miss him,’ Sarah sobs. ‘I just miss him so much.’

‘I know,’ Holly whispers, rubbing her back. ‘I know.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Sarah says after a while, pulling back and digging a shredded tissue from her jeans pocket. ‘I keep falling apart on people.’

‘I think that’s what you’re meant to do.’ Holly squeezes her hand.

‘He loved you, Holly,’ Sarah says suddenly. Unexpectedly. ‘You always had a special place in his heart, and I was always jealous of you. I’m so sorry.’ And this time
it is Holly’s turn to cry, her carefully applied make-up running all the way down her face.

‘No Will today?’ Holly has waited an hour, hoping, each time the door opens, that Will will walk through, but nothing.

Maggie shakes her head. ‘Darling Will,’ she says. ‘We love him but he’s hopeless. Responsibility has never been his strong point, and he’s never been good at time-keeping. He’ll probably show up some time this evening. Isn’t he something? Can you believe our little Will has grown up?’

‘Unbelievable,’ Holly agrees, wondering why her heart is sinking. This evening. Could she come back? Would it be ridiculous? There are the kids to get to bed, Marcus to take care of. No. With a sigh she realizes she can’t come back. So much for
If he likes me, he’ll be there
, she thinks, and when Paul comes over and asks her if she’s ready to leave, she nods, amazed at how you can go from such a high to such a low in such a short space of time.

‘Mummy, can you give me some cereal?’ Daisy’s plaintive little voice is inches away from Holly’s face as the sun streams through the wooden blinds on this bright Saturday morning.

‘Yes, darling,’ Holly groans, opening one eye and squinting at the alarm clock. Six fourteen. Oh God. What she would give to have children who sleep in late. ‘Just give me a minute.’ Holly finds herself drifting back to sleep, when Daisy’s voice intrudes again. ‘Mummy? When are you going to get out of bed? Are you stuck?’ Holly has occasionally got away with Daisy believing she is stuck in bed, running into Frauke’s room instead, allowing Holly to get back to sleep.

‘No. Coming,’ she says, throwing the covers back and looking at the lump on the other side of the bed that is Marcus. In all their years together, Holly doesn’t remember a time when Marcus got up to give the children breakfast. He is busy working all week, he says, and the weekends are the only time he gets to sleep. What about me? Holly once tried to argue. I work too, and I raise the children and I run the house and I pay the bills and I cook. When do
I
get a lie-in?

You have Frauke during the week, Marcus argued back. And then inferred that Holly’s job was largely irrelevant. An indulgence, she thinks he called it, whereas
his job was very important and he was tired and he
deserved
to sleep.

There are times when Holly looks at Marcus and hates him.

And there are times when Holly finds herself behaving like a teenager. ‘Oh yes,’ she has started muttering under her breath when Marcus finds he can’t help wash the dishes or put up a curtain rod or give Holly a break by taking the children for half an hour, ‘I forgot you are a
very
busy and important man.’

‘You know my husband’s a
very
busy and important man,’ she has started saying to Frauke, and the two of them snort with laughter, Frauke having lived with them long enough to recognize that Marcus would never deign to do anything helpful around the house when solitaire and backgammon are calling him from the privacy of his office.

Oliver is already curled up on the sofa at the far end of the kitchen, glued to some inappropriately violent cartoon that he shouldn’t be watching, but it stops him and Daisy from fighting, and it is Saturday morning after all.

Holly spent every Saturday morning during her childhood glued to
Multi-coloured Swap Shop
, occasionally switching over to
Tiswas
(which she didn’t like nearly as much), and it didn’t do
her
any harm.

‘Morning, Olly,’ Holly calls, but gets no response. She tries again, and is rewarded with a flicker of eyes in her direction and a grunt.

‘Who wants French toast?’ she asks brightly, checking
she has plenty of eggs, and Oliver finally rouses himself enough to say he does.

‘Can I help, Mummy?’ Daisy drags a chair across the kitchen and hauls herself up next to Holly. ‘I’ll do the eggs,’ she says, and Holly smiles and watches as Daisy cracks both eggs and eggshells into the bowl.