Second Chance (23 page)

Where Marcus puts her down – subtly, always so subtly – Will will listen. Their emails are still fun, still funny, but now Holly finds she is revealing more about herself, letting him in to how she really feels.

The one subject they haven’t discussed, not in any great depth, is her marriage, and why she feels the need to seek out a male confidant, someone to offer her a man’s point of view, someone to make her feel beautiful again, when she has a perfectly good husband sitting at home.

Or not. As the case may be.

The front door slams shut and Holly tenses as she hears the familiar jangling of keys. She can picture exactly what Marcus is doing. He is fishing his BlackBerry out
of his pocket, scrolling down quickly to see if any emails have come in during the last ten seconds that absolutely must be taken care of now. He’s putting his keys in the ashtray and emptying the coins from his pocket into the same ashtray before taking his briefcase into his office on the ground floor and unpacking it quickly.

While unpacking his briefcase, he will pick up the post that arrived yesterday and skim through just to check there’s nothing that cannot wait, and at the same time he will listen to the messages on his office answer-phone. Inevitably there will be issues that cannot wait, and he will spend the next hour tapping out emails, making calls, and hissing at any family members who appear in the doorway desperate to see their dad because they’ve missed him.

As usual, Holly gets a perfunctory kiss on the way to his office, and the kids get a perfunctory ruffle of the hair.

‘Off Daddy now,’ he says sternly to Daisy, who has entwined herself around his legs. ‘Daddy needs to work.’ He looks up at Holly, gesturing impatiently at his daughter, and Holly gets up and attempts to disentangle Daisy, who immediately starts crying. ‘Will you keep them away from the office while I just check messages?’ he says. ‘I’ll be out in a sec.’

‘Fine,’ Holly says, carrying a now – screaming Daisy into the kitchen and shutting the door behind her, slightly harder than she had planned. She sits down at the kitchen counter and sinks her head in her hands. ‘Jesus Christ,’ she whispers, ‘is this all there is?’

*

An hour later Marcus is still locked in his office, the kids are bathed and happily playing with Play-Doh in the playroom. Marcus would have a fit if he saw them playing with Play-Doh after their baths, but frankly it was a toss – up between that and TV, and Holly figured that in Marcus’s mind Play – Doh would be the lesser of the two evils.

She runs up to her studio and clicks on her inbox. Just to see. If he loves me, he’ll have sent me a message, she finds herself thinking, reprimanding herself sharply. Grow up, she thinks, but she can’t help the flutter when she sees the email waiting for her.

In another room, a few miles away, Olivia is also checking her email. Stupid, stupid me, she thinks, battling the hope that there will be an email from Fred. Stupid, stupid me for jumping into bed with him, for allowing myself to feel that this might be something special, that he would have got back home to America and thought that he missed me. That perhaps there was enough here for us both to want to work at it.

But the truth is, Olivia doesn’t really want to work at it. Deep in her heart she knows that Fred was, exactly as Tom had said, just a fling. A lovely, sweet, gorgeous boy, but nowhere near settling down and having a relationship.

Olivia doesn’t want a walk down the aisle, but she is old enough and wise enough to acknowledge that her time for mere flings is over; and if she were to get involved with someone, it would be with a view to a long-term commitment.

For a couple of days there, as she and Fred had the most blissful time, she allowed herself to think, what if… But even then she knew that what ifs were unrealistic. And it wasn’t so much that she wanted Fred, it was more that she wanted him to want her, that even though their goodbye was mutual, her ego wanted him to have got back to America and found that he had fallen madly in love with her.

She even planned the conversation she would have with him. ‘Fred, darling,’ she would say in her best Katharine Hepburn voice, ‘you’re the most delicious boy, but you need to play the field. I know you think you’re in love with me, but it’s really not real. Go and enjoy yourself, get on with your life, and we’ll always have London.’

And yet, every night before she goes to bed, she checks her email to see if he’s written. There were a couple of exchanges when he first got back, a thank you for the most wonderful time in London, for being such a special friend, and wishes of luck and happiness in the future.

She wished him the same and was then astonished when all email correspondence stopped. Was that it? She let the grey start poking its roots back into her hair, sadly relegated her black dress to the back of the wardrobe. It had been, she decided, a lovely holiday, but not one to be repeated. The confusion and uncertainty of a relationship or fling, or whatever it was you called it, was something that Olivia was quite certain she could do without.

So when Sophie told her that a sexy, single man had
come in asking about one of the dogs, and she passed his number onto Olivia, telling her she had to call him, Olivia shook her head. ‘Not this time,’ she said. ‘I’m done with men,’ and she handed the phone number back to Sophie.

To: Holly

From: Will

21/01/06 7:52:32 PM

Subject: No-shows and Apology

Holly, Holly, Holly. Am SO very sorry I wasn’t there today. Had far too much to drink last night it seems and was horribly hung-over this morning. Didn’t wake up until lunchtime and just blanked about going to Mum and Dad’s until Mum phoned after you’d gone. I feel awful about letting you down. Not to mention what a treat it would have been to see you twice in two days and meet your kids. (Mum says they’re fantastic, by the way.) Please, please say you’ll forgive me… would like to buy you lunch this week to apologize properly. On another note, fantastic night last night (what I can remember). Do remember you looking rather sexy (am I allowed to say that now that we’re becoming friends?), good music, good people. Hoping you’re not furious with me, Will x

Holly reads the email five times until Daisy starts screaming at Oliver. She walks down the stairs smiling,
every disappointment forgotten, back on the cloud of exhilaration.

He thinks I’m sexy! He thinks I’m sexy! I’m seeing him this week!

And floating into the playroom, she dives on the children and covers them with kisses, both of them so shocked they dissolve into uncontrollable giggles.

To: Will

From: Holly

21/01/06 9:11:23 PM

Subject: Apology

Hello, my lusty-leg man friend…

I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I just can’t resist calling you that, it makes me laugh so much. Have to say I’m deeply impressed at your ability to unwittingly seduce young girls. I feel like any looks I had were wasted on me when young – I didn’t have the confidence to know what to do with them, and then, of course, getting married at twenty-five I never had to think about it.

Still, I’m hoping that somewhere down the line I’ll become a MILF (I KNOW you know what that means…). I suspect I’m probably a little young, no? I think you don’t get to attain MILF-hood until you’re forty, but perhaps I’m wrong, in which case I ought to start making a bit more of an effort.

And thank you for your apology about not turning up at your parents’. We had an amazing time anyway, but it would have been fun if you’d been
there. (Tom was right when he talked about how unreliable you are…)

So, am off to have supper downstairs, kids finally asleep. LOVE getting your emails, especially the long ones. I missed you earlier.

Me xx

To: Holly

From: Will

23/01/06 11:35:11 PM

Subject: Re: Apology

To my favourite MILF,

How can you even question your status as a MILF? You are, by far, the sexiest mother I know, and infinitely more qualified than most to reign as queen of the MILFs.

I really am sorry about yesterday. I am trying in so many ways to turn over a new leaf, to be reliable and consistent, and mostly not to forget to do the important things in my life, and then yesterday I blew it royally.

Yet you’re so forgiving. Is this what you are like with Marcus? I just keep thinking about all the things you’ve told me: that he doesn’t help with the kids, isn’t around much, and I wonder if perhaps you acquiesce too easily? This isn’t a criticism, never a criticism, but you are so sweet and loving
and good, and Marcus just seems to take advantage of all of that.

But
, what’s important is that you’re happy, and maybe there’s a way for you to do the things you need to do for you and find yourself again. Anyway, enough gabbling, as you would say. I am just happy this is the start of a new year, and to have you in my life. I look forward to seeing you this week…

Me2 xx

‘Where have you been?’ Olivia sets the box she’s carrying on the kitchen counter and turns to Holly, hands on hips. ‘I’ve left you two messages and haven’t heard back, and now I’ve decided I must have inadvertently done something to upset you so I’ve brought you cakes, figuring that I must owe you an apology for something. Come on, then, what’s been going on?’

‘I’m so sorry, Olivia. Life’s just been so busy recently. This project for work, and the kids, and you know how it is.’

‘No, not really,’ Olivia harrumphs. ‘I think you’re just being a completely crap friend.’

‘Okay, you’re right. I am being a completely crap friend and I’m sorry, and I cannot believe you brought cakes over… yum!’ She opens the box and licks her lips at the sight of the tiny fruit tartlets and chocolate éclairs. ‘Oh my God, this is the most decadent thing I’ve ever seen – did you get them at that new patisserie on the high street?’

‘Yup. It’s amazing. How about you put on the kettle and I’ll get plates?’

‘Done.’

Half an hour, two fruit tarts and two éclairs later, Holly takes a deep breath and looks at Olivia. She doesn’t
want to tell her. Doesn’t want to tell anyone. Not that there’s anything to tell. It’s not as if anything has happened, not as if her friendship with Will is anything more than that – a friendship – but the urge to tell someone, to share what is happening in her life with someone, is more than she can bear.

She has thought about telling Saffron because, given that Saffron is having an affair, she would understand all about temptation, but Holly trusts Olivia more, and trusts that Olivia will be discreet, will perhaps give her the counsel she needs to hear.

Does she need counsel? She isn’t sure. What she does know is that her feelings are all over the place. All she thinks about from the moment she wakes up in the morning until the moment she goes to bed, is Will. Nothing bothers her about Marcus any more. She finds that she is able to switch off, to float away to a daydream about Will, a memory of something he said, something they did, and the less she focuses on Marcus, the less of a problem he becomes.

She is still convinced this is innocent. Convinced that she and Will are just friends. Sure, there is a little harmless flirting, but that is all it is: harmless. Holly is not the sort of woman who would ever have an affair. Of this she is certain.

Not least because of her father, Holly has never been unfaithful in her life, has always thought of infidelity as the one transgression she would never commit. And even now, when she looks at Will and thinks he is quite possibly the most handsome man she has ever seen in her life, even now she knows she will not have an affair.

What has crossed her mind, what is crossing her mind more and more frequently these days, is that perhaps she married the wrong man. She never felt this attracted to Marcus, took it for granted that physical attraction was not part of the equation, but this friendship with Will has reawakened feelings, wants, needs she had forgotten she had. Wants and needs she pushed away into a compartment in her mind, telling herself she could live without them, telling herself they didn’t matter.

They matter.

It matters that she is not, as she presumed, dead from the waist down. And now that those feelings have been reawakened, she’s not sure if she can ignore them. Not sure she can spend the rest of her life sleeping with a man who makes her feel… nothing.

And the thought that she can’t seem to push away, the thought that wakes her up in the middle of each night and prevents her from going back to sleep is this: I think I married the wrong man.

This is why she needs to talk, this is why she’s sitting at her kitchen table, swallowing hard and taking a deep breath.

‘I have a friendship,’ she says awkwardly, unable to look Olivia in the eye, but knowing she needs to say something, knowing that Olivia
is
the right person to be talking to about this.

‘Great,’ Olivia says nonchalantly, alerted to something else when Holly finally looks up and meets her eyes. ‘Oh
no
! You mean, a “
friendship
”…’

Holly nods.

Olivia’s eyes widen. ‘Are you having an
affair
?’ Her voice drops to a whisper on the last word.

‘No!’ Holly says loudly. ‘Sssh. Frauke’s upstairs, I don’t want her to hear any of this. But no, I swear to you, I’m not having an affair. Though I am having a friendship with a man, and I just feel… incredibly confused.’

‘Confused because you want to be having an affair?’

‘No! Well… maybe. No, I don’t think so, I don’t think that’s what this is about.’

‘So what is it about?’

Holly sighs deeply. ‘Oh God, Olivia, I don’t even know. I just know that my marriage feels… I don’t know. Just nothing. It doesn’t feel anything. I don’t feel anything at all, and when I’m with this man I just feel alive. I feel young and free and as if anything were possible, and this awful thought just keeps coming back to me: What if I married the wrong man?’