Second Chance (26 page)

Holly is mortified. Humiliated. Wishing a hole could open beneath them and swallow her up.

‘I haven’t…’ she starts. ‘I wouldn’t… I mean…’ And she can’t say anything else because the lie is written all over her face.

Maggie leans forward, holds Holly’s chin in her hand, and forces Holly to meet her eyes. ‘My darling girl, I love you, and I want you to be happy. And I love my one remaining son more than anything else in the world; and yet I, as his mother, can absolutely vouch that he is a bad bet. He is devastatingly handsome and funny and exciting, and a worse possible proposition for a relationship you couldn’t wish to find. If he is the reason for your dissatisfaction, and you leave your marriage because you think there will be a future with Will, it will not end well.’

There is a silence as Holly looks away, and Maggie drops her hand with a sigh.

‘What if you’re wrong?’ Holly says with all the truculence of a sixteen-year-old. ‘What if Will and I are supposed to be together?’

‘Oh darling.’ Maggie’s voice is now sad. ‘Do you really think that?’

‘No!’ Holly is insistent. ‘No, I don’t. I don’t even know why I said it. I just… I don’t know. I don’t seem to know anything any more other than I feel hot and bothered and as if there are big changes afoot and I just don’t know what to do about anything. Anyway,’
she peers at Maggie sullenly, ‘I thought you said you wouldn’t judge me.’

Maggie grins. ‘I would never judge you, sweet Holly. But as Will’s mother I’m afraid I have to judge him. It’s my job.’

‘So I shouldn’t leave Marcus and run away to the Bahamas or wherever the hell Will is going next winter?’ Holly is attempting humour.

‘I’d say by all means leave Marcus if that is the right thing for you to do, but do it for the right reasons. Not because of Will, or anyone else for that matter. Don’t do it to fall into another’s arms; do it, if indeed you end up doing it, because you are absolutely certain that you are not happy, that you will never be happy if you stay in this situation. That, to me, seems the only justifiable reason.’

‘So when you were ready to leave Peter, how did you know you could be happy again?’

Maggie shrugs. ‘I think because I’d been so happy before. This felt like a temporary blip. I still loved him, I just needed to make myself fall in love with him again.’

There is a long silence as the waiter brings them cappuccinos. Holly raises hers to her lips and sips thoughtfully.

‘What if…’ she begins, setting the cup down quietly on the table. ‘What if you were never in love in the first place?’

Have I ever loved you? Holly wonders later that evening as they sit in the Automat, having dinner with a couple
from Daisy’s school, a mother who has clearly been going out of her way to befriend Holly the last couple of months, who has invited Daisy to play with her daughter on a weekly basis, and who has now suggested they get together with husbands.

Holly sits and talks to the mother – Jo – about Mrs Phillips, the form teacher. They talk about nannies and about other mothers in the class. About where they might consider sending the girls for junior school. Marcus and Edward talk about work – Edward is a barrister – and when their main courses are served, the four of them finally talk in a group. Jo keeps them amused with funny stories about how she and Edward met, and Marcus offers his own version of events of when he and Holly first got together.

She watches him talk, is aware that when she tries to interject to correct him or add something of her own, he subtly puts her down or ridicules her or waves her comments aside as if they are completely irrelevant. And eventually she finds herself doing what she always does – withdrawing.

So instead of engaging in the conversation this evening, she watches Marcus and wonders whether she ever loved him.

What is love anyway? she finds herself thinking. Maggie talked today of loving Peter, of being in love with him, of losing it temporarily and then being able to fall in love again. But how are you supposed to fall in love again when you have never had anything there to begin with?

Holly knows she wasn’t in love with Marcus, not
even in the beginning, but she thought she would grow to love him and that would be enough. She knew she didn’t have passion, didn’t have the excitement, but thought those things spelled pain and discomfort, and life seemed safer without.

But her life is so safe now as to be deeply dull. And there is nothing about Marcus that she loves, little that she even likes. She realizes that those words she spoke to Olivia about her marriage are so true. They are not partners. They are not friends.

And if they are not partners, if they are not friends, if they are not lovers – although she does have sex, reluctantly, when she has to, when Marcus refuses to take no for an answer – then what are they?

And what, after all, could possibly be the point?

Olivia stands in line at Boots and clutches the pregnancy test to her chest. She’s convinced someone she knows is going to walk in and see her, convinced someone will catch her in this miserable, awful situation – a situation that she already knows can lead to only one possible outcome.

This test is merely a formality.

She hadn’t used protection, hadn’t known quite how to bring it up. Being in a relationship for seven years, she had forgotten the rules, forgotten how to play them. Plus she had been on the pill with George, never had to think about contraception. And somehow bringing up condoms at the point of entry hadn’t seemed quite, well, appropriate.

And it had been the day after her period ended so
she’d been pretty damn sure it would be fine. Who gets pregnant on day eight, for heaven’s sake? A physical impossibility, surely…

But she now knows that it’s not. Heading home with a sinking heart, she pees on the stick and attempts to read a magazine for a minute while she waits for the test to take hold, but she can wait only a few seconds, and already, as she stares, she sees the beginning of a blue line.

Oh God. Please let this be a mistake. Please let this be a false positive, let there be such a thing. She rips the other packet open, pees on the stick and, again, there it is. No doubt about it. Olivia, who has never wanted children, who is single and doesn’t have enough money to raise a child even if she wanted to, is pregnant. There it is in blue and white. Undeniable.

With child.

Saffron reaches for the phone, bleary-eyed, knocks it out of the cradle, curses as she reaches down by the side of the bed and finally finds it.

‘Hello?’ She is still half asleep, and half opens one eye to see the time flickering on the digital clock on her bedside table. Five thirty-six. Who in the hell is calling at this ungodly hour of the morning?

‘Saffron Armitage?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m calling from the
National Enquirer
. We’re running a story in the next edition about your affair with Pearce Webster and wondered if you’d like to make a comment.’

‘What?’ Saffron sits bolt upright in bed and shrieks, then slams down the phone, shaking.

The phone rings again seconds later.

‘Hello, this is Jonathan Baker from
E! Online
. We’ll be running a story on this morning’s edition about your relationship with Pearce Webster. Would you give us a…’

Saffron slams down the phone again and huddles in bed, under the covers, as the phone rings. And rings.

And rings.

Each time she hears the machine pick up and journalists leaving messages, and then, horrifyingly, ten
minutes later her doorbell rings. She gingerly opens one wooden slat of her blinds and gasps in horror as she sees news crews parked all the way up her street, journalists huddled together with microphones tucked under their arms, drinking Starbucks, waiting for her to emerge.

‘Oh fuck,’ she whispers, sinking into a corner of the room and rocking back and forth. She grabs her mobile phone and dials the only person she can think of to get her out of this mess.

P.

‘Do you know how lucky I am to have a husband who is like you?’ Anna opens her arms as Paul carefully sets her tea down on the bedside table, then sinks into her, planting a great, squashy kiss on her lips.

‘And do you know how lucky I am to have you?’ he says, turning his head to lick the marmalade off his fingers.

‘So, oh lucky man of mine, how do you feel about White Barn Fields?’ Anna has been lying in bed waiting for Paul to come home with fresh croissants and the Sunday papers, entertaining thoughts of how they could do up the house using the little money they have left.

‘You’re thinking it’s a project, aren’t you?’ Paul smiles at her knowingly.

‘I am thinking, my darling, that I want to take a break from thinking about pregnancy and adoption and babies. I just want to live for a little while without thinking about how incomplete our lives are, when they are not really so incomplete at all, so yes, in that respect, I am thinking it would be a great project. Do you
understand, my love? I need to centre myself again before diving back into Babyville, and focusing on this house could be just what I – we – need.’

‘I’m glad,’ Paul says after a long pause. ‘And I think you’re right. I feel like everything in our lives has revolved around possible pregnancies for months, and we need a break. The question is, can we do it ourselves?’

Anna props herself up on the pillows and spreads butter and marmalade thickly on a croissant. ‘Here is the thing,’ she says, chewing slowly. ‘There is no way we could do what we originally intended. As lovely as Phil’s plans are, we have not got the money to spare now after the treatments, and I do not know if I think that now is the time to do a big renovation anyway. But,’ she pauses, ‘it would not take that much to make it liveable, and just because it will not look like it is out of the pages of
House and Garden
does not mean it will not make a wonderful retreat for us.’

‘What do you think it would take?’

Anna counts off the list on her fingers. ‘The one thing that we do need to spend money on is the bathroom.’

‘You mean you don’t want to move in and use the outhouse?’ Paul grins.

‘Exactly. So if we could find a plumber to do the plumbing in that useless bedroom next to the master bedroom, we could have a bathroom; and we could also put one in downstairs. If a plumber does the work and installs the stuff, we could tile and paint it and put new floors down.

‘The kitchen needs more of a facelift than anything
else. I would love to replace everything, but we do not have the money, so for now we could paint the kitchen cabinets and replace that horrible Formica worktop with butcher block, then put simple white subway tiles on the backsplash. New hardware on the cabinets would transform them. And I found this place online that sells industrial stainless-steel worktables for nothing, which would be perfect.

‘After that,’ she continues, almost breathless with excitement, ‘we pretty much could get away with sanding and painting the floors, maybe staining them a lovely ebony.’

‘What “we” is this?’ Paul looks at her in amazement. ‘All this talk about sanding and tiling and staining. Since when have you ever tiled anything in your life?’

‘Since before I started Fashionista, my darling. I used to do everything myself. I did my first flat in London with Bob the builder.’

Paul laughs. ‘Tell me that wasn’t really his name.’

‘It actually was.’ She grins. ‘He did everything and I would watch and help out, and by the time I bought my next flat I could do everything myself. I have just never had the time since starting the business. Plus there has never been anything here that really needs doing.’

‘So given that time has always been a problem, when could we do it?’

‘That is what I have been thinking about. I think a plumber could do the bathrooms in a flash; and once they are ready, you and I could go down for a couple of weeks and get most of it done, I think. The biggest
key is having everything ordered and there so we are not waiting for anything.’

‘I know you,’ Paul says slowly. ‘You’ve already ordered everything, haven’t you?’

Anna shrugs and looks away. ‘Um… actually, I am not quite sure how to tell you this, my darling, but…’

Paul rolls his eyes. ‘You’re going to tell me it’s done, aren’t you?’

‘Well… not
all
of it. But I did get a plumber in, and the bathroom stuff has been done, well, the big stuff anyway. Not the tiling, which means we could actually stay there now and get the rest of the work done.’

‘God, Anna. Don’t you think you might have discussed it with me? I suppose you’ve bought everything else too?’

‘Well… Oh Paul. Please do not be angry with me. I only went ahead with the bathrooms because everything was on sale, and there were only two days left, and it was all very cheap. I thought I would surprise you.’ She pouts. ‘I thought you would be pleased.’

Paul shakes his head. ‘I’m just surprised that you’d make such a big decision without talking to me.’

‘Are you angry at me?’ A little-girl voice.

Paul shakes his head. ‘No. Not angry. I’m just upset you didn’t tell me. It feels dishonest.’

Anna looks aghast, then hangs her head. ‘You are right. You are absolutely right. I am so sorry. I did not mean to deceive you, I just got carried away with the excitement.’

‘It’s okay,’ Paul says. ‘I suppose it’s good that we can use it now.’

‘So can I show you the rest of the stuff I’ve chosen?’

‘So it’s a fait accompli? Where is all the stuff?’

‘Hopefully sitting in the barn, waiting for me to confess so we can plan a trip down there to start the work.’

And with that she reaches into the drawer of her bedside table and pulls out a stack of catalogues earmarked with Post-it notes.

Half an hour later Paul is having a shower while Anna lazily flicks through what she jokingly refers to as her ‘secret shame’ – the
News of the World
.

As she turns to the centre pages, she gasps in disbelief. ‘Paul! Quick! Come here… it’s
Saffron
!’

The story is everywhere. First broken in America, every news channel has picked up on it, everybody is talking about it, everyone wants to know everything they possibly can about Saffron Armitage, Pearce Webster, and how the two of them got together.