Second Chance (41 page)

‘Yes?’ Her voice is terse.

‘Holly, I need to explain. I didn’t do anything last night, Saffron just jumped on me and started kissing me, it was nothing to do with…’

‘You think I believe that?’ Holly hisses softly so the children don’t hear, trying to sound angry, upset. Trying not to smile, for she believes Saffron, and she can see how this works to her advantage. ‘You think I didn’t see your arms around her? How many other times have you done this? How many other women have there been?’

‘None,’ Marcus almost shouts. ‘I swear.’

‘Right. And I’m supposed to believe you. And another thing, Marcus, don’t you dare tell the children this is my fault. Not now. I’ve never said a word against you, even after last night, and I expect you to do the same. I’m going now. I don’t want to talk to you any more,’ and she ends the call just as she turns into the driveway of the house.

*

The house seems empty when they get back. The only person around appears to be Will, and Holly doesn’t want to be around him right now. She feels guilt and shame, and mostly she feels stupid for thinking that Will was going to be the one to rescue her, that Will was her soulmate, when he so obviously isn’t.

She doesn’t know what to say to him any more. After all these months of telling him everything, sharing all the tiny details of her life, she doesn’t know how to act or how to pretend that everything is normal, when nothing is normal.

Nothing about her life is normal. Nothing is as it was. It is, she realizes, like having an accident. One minute you are fine, the next you have sliced your hand open on the food-processor blade, and it is ridiculous to suddenly have blood pouring down your wrist when a second ago there was nothing.

It is true, she realizes, how everything in your life can change in an instant. Tom was Tom – a husband, a father, a friend – and in an instant, Tom was gone. Sarah thought she knew where the rest of her life would lead her, and now she is going down a completely different path.

And Holly, Holly who has defined herself all these years first as a wife, then a mother, is realizing that, if she is no longer a wife, she has to replace that with something else, and being a girlfriend, being Will’s girlfriend, is not the right choice.

She knows that on some level she has to trust that it will all work out the way it is supposed to. Just this morning she was realizing that, despite everything, she
wouldn’t change a thing about her past. She has her two beautiful children after all, and these fourteen years of marriage have brought her to where she is today, forced her to a place where she can acknowledge that she has wants and needs and that she is no longer willing to stay in a situation where those needs are not met.

People can change. This she knows. But even if Marcus changed it wouldn’t matter. Even if he was granted the gift of humility, even if he started being an attentive, loving, adoring husband, it wouldn’t matter, because Holly doesn’t love him. Holly has never loved him.

‘Where is everyone?’ Holly asks, finding Will on his own in the kitchen.

Will puts the hammer down and comes over to help Holly unbutton the kids’ coats.

‘It’s Olivia,’ he says gently. ‘She was bleeding. They’ve taken her to the hospital.’

Holly takes a sharp intake of breath. ‘Oh God, the baby. Is she losing it?’

‘I don’t know. She was having some cramping as well, and they just bundled her into the car and took her to the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital. Paul said they’d phone when they knew something.’

‘When did they leave?’

‘About an hour ago.’

Olivia is scared. She doesn’t like hospitals, has never liked hospitals, and wishes that she could turn the clock back to yesterday when everything was fine. Except it
wasn’t fine. Yesterday she was pregnant, and until this morning when she went to the bathroom and discovered blood in her knickers, she wanted to turn the clock back to when she wasn’t pregnant, to when it wasn’t something she ever,
ever
thought about.

Anna sits on a chair in the corner of the room. Paul and Saffron are outside in the waiting room as the radiologist places icy-cold gel all over Olivia’s bare stomach.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I know it’s cold but it won’t last long.’

Olivia is transfixed by the television screen. Her head is turned uncomfortably, eyes glued to the screen, wanting to see. Not wanting to see. This is a blessing, she keeps trying to tell herself. This is a blessing in disguise. I don’t want this baby.

She steals a glance at Anna, who looks far more terrified than she does. This is the way it’s meant to be, Olivia thinks. Now I won’t need to make a decision. This is God’s way of taking the decision away from me.

There is silence in the room as the screen lights up with a greyish triangle. In the middle of the screen there is something pulsing, and Olivia squints at it, trying to make it out.

‘What do you see?’ she says after several minutes of silence as the radiologist scans and clicks and types numbers into the screen. ‘Is it dead?’ she whispers.

‘Very much alive, I’d say,’ the radiologist says. ‘Look, can you see?’ And she moves the scanner on her stomach, and Olivia and Anna both gasp, for there, quite clearly, legs furled up, arms reaching out, is a baby.

‘You have a thumb-sucker there,’ the radiologist says as the baby lifts a hand towards its mouth.

‘It’s a baby,’ Olivia whispers. And she bursts into tears.

‘So the bleeding? The cramping? What was all that about?’ Paul looks at Olivia, who has walked into the waiting room with such a huge smile on her face he assumes she has lost the baby and is thrilled.

‘I’ve got a tiny subchorionic haematoma. It’s basically a collection of blood between the placenta and the uterine wall. They said that, given the size, it’s probably going to be fine, but I’ll need to be carefully monitored.’

‘You’re keeping the baby?’ Saffron is the only one who dares to ask.

‘I have to.’ Tears well up in Olivia’s eyes. ‘I mean, I don’t know about adoption, or Paul and Anna…’ She turns to look at them as the tears spill out. ‘I’m so sorry, I know you want me to make a decision but I just can’t do that, not yet. The only thing I do know is that I can’t have an abortion. Not now.’

Paul looks at Anna, then back at Olivia. ‘We understand,’ he says, walking over to Anna and putting his arm around her. ‘It’s your baby and your choice. Just know that we’re here if that’s what you decide.’

‘What the hell is going on?’ They are about to turn into the driveway when they see cars lined up and down, parked on the grass, men running around, stepladders everywhere.

‘Oh fuck,’ Saffron whispers, just as someone turns
and shouts, pointing at the car. ‘They’ve found me.’

‘Saffron! Saffron!’ Dozens of paparazzi swarm the car, light blubs flashing in the windows as Saffron buries her head.

‘What the hell do I do?’ Paul, in his panic, has frozen, not knowing whether to try to reverse out of there, or whether to keep going. Either way, he’s convinced he’ll run at least six people over.

‘Let’s just get inside,’ Saffron says. ‘They’re not going anywhere. I guess it was too good to last.’

‘Olivia! Are you okay?’ They get inside, slamming the door in the face of what feels like a pack of wolves, and Holly gives Olivia a huge hug as Will explains he’s covered the windows with sheets, that they just about managed to get reception on the mobile phone, and the police are on their way.

Paul’s face is grim as he directs everybody into the kitchen, then he goes to the front door, opens it wide and waits for the photographers to stop yelling for Saffron, to quieten down enough to hear him speak.

‘You are standing on private property,’ he says calmly and clearly. ‘The police are on their way, and I would suggest you all get off my property immediately, or you will be arrested for trespassing.’

‘Where is she?’ someone shouts. ‘We just want one shot,’ another says. ‘A quick comment,’ says someone else.

‘You have two minutes to get off my property,’ Paul says and, grumbling and swearing, the paparazzi start moving their equipment to the top of the driveway.

‘Will it make a difference?’ Olivia asks.

‘Not much,’ Saffron says. ‘They’ve all got these super-powerful zoom lenses. The best thing to do is exactly what Will did – cover up the windows.’

‘It’s just like a movie,’ Olivia says. ‘Now we’re all prisoners in the house.’

‘Saff,’ Holly says quietly, pulling her aside and taking her hand. ‘There’s someone upstairs to see you.’

‘
What?
Who?’ Saffron is immediately suspicious.

‘You need to go,’ Holly says. ‘Your room.’

Saffron walks upstairs, shooting quizzical looks at the others, who shrug, and when she has disappeared Olivia looks at Holly and raises an eyebrow.

‘Who?’

Holly starts to smile. She had been sitting at the kitchen table with Will, both of them sharing their concern for Olivia, when they heard the noise of the first cars arriving. She was stunned when she looked out of the window and saw all the commotion. Stunned but unsurprised. A part of her had been waiting for this. And then she heard a frenzy outside and, as she watched, a black Jaguar with tinted windows pulled up and Pearce Webster climbed out, striding quickly and purposefully towards the front door, ignoring the shrieks and shouts and the frenzy that his arrival inspired.

‘Shit,’ she whispered, and Will turned towards her questioningly.

‘Mummy!’ Oliver piped up. ‘You just said a bad word.’

‘Look!’ She pulled Will over to see. He immediately
ran to the front door and opened it, pulling Pearce in and slamming the door in the face of the snappers.

‘I’m Will.’ He extended a hand as Holly quivered in the corner. She’d never been in the presence of someone so famous before, and even though she tried to think of him as merely Saffron’s boyfriend, or lover, the fact was she had seen every film he’d ever been in and read almost every piece of gossip ever written about him, and here he was! Two feet in front of her!

‘And I’m Pearce. Good to meet you,’ he said, shaking Will’s hand, then he turned towards Holly.

‘Hello.’ She blushed like an idiot. ‘I’m Holly. These are my children, Daisy and Oliver.’

Pearce was so… ordinary. If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t know. He came into the kitchen and sat down as Holly made tea. He asked questions about the house, about them, and then, finally, about Saffron.

‘She’s not good,’ Holly said. ‘I mean, she’s great, obviously. She’s Saffron. But she’s drinking.’

‘Out-of-control drinking?’

‘Shit-faced,’ Holly said, nodding.

Pearce shook his head, lost in thought. ‘Do you know if she’s called her sponsor?’

‘I don’t know,’ Holly said. ‘I just know that we all feel lost. None of us knows what to do.’

‘It’s okay,’ Pearce said. ‘You aren’t supposed to know. That’s why I’m here.’

Saffron doesn’t say a word. As she walks in Pearce rises from the bed he was sitting on in the darkened room, and she flies into his arms.

They stand there, hugging each other tightly for a long time, as the photographers’ shouts recede. Nothing else matters except these two people, locked together in this darkened room.

‘You’ve got
some
friends,’ Pearce whispers, kissing her hair, her cheeks, her nose, her mouth. ‘They’re worried about you. They called.’

‘You’re here!’ Saffron wipes the tears off her cheeks as she pulls back to look at him. ‘I can’t believe you’re here. Oh God. The press. Everyone will know.’

Pearce shrugs. ‘They know. They got me on the highway and now they have pictures of me walking into the house. Fuck it.’

‘What about Marjie?’

‘I just had to be here,’ Pearce says. ‘I couldn’t bear hearing that you were struggling. We’ll figure it out.’

‘A day at a time, right?’ She smiles up at him.

‘Exactly.’ He pulls her into him, marvelling at how perfectly her head fits under his chin. ‘A day at a time. I have the Big Book downstairs. Would you be willing to have a meeting? Right now? With me?’

Saffron looks up at him, feeling for the first time in days that she can breathe, that everything will be all right. ‘Yes.’ She exhales loudly. ‘It’s exactly what I need.’

The first flakes come quickly, swirling slowly over the Connecticut countryside, twirling around trees, floating softly down to the grass. Softer, fatter, wetter, the snow – flakes fall faster and faster, no longer swirling, now simply settling on the ground, turning the trees and barns white, landing on the tongues of overjoyed children bundled up in snowsuits and sent outside to play in the first snow of the season.

They are warning drivers to stay inside. Warning that this first snowstorm will be a big one, that unless it is absolutely necessary, people should stay inside.

However, there is a small contingent of cars that will not be turning back. They are crawling along the highways, slowly and carefully, on their way to the Mayflower Inn for a birthday party. Some are making their way along the Sawmill Parkway from New York. Others are on their way from JFK, having flown in from Los Angeles, London, Gloucestershire.

They are gathering in Washington, Connecticut, for Saffron’s birthday party. Her fortieth. People she hasn’t seen for years. People she hasn’t seen for months. Some since a gathering in a yet-to-be-renovated barn in deepest, darkest Gloucestershire.

*

‘Holly!’ Saffron squeals as she walks out of the Tap Room, turning into the lobby and seeing her friends. She rushes across, feet flying noiselessly over the carpet, flinging her arms around Holly, then holding her at arm’s length to look at her.

‘It’s so good to see you.’ She squeezes her again. ‘I’m so happy you’re all here.’ She turns and hugs the others, stepping back to wipe the tears from her eyes.

‘I cannot believe we are here,’ Anna says, looking at the grand staircase behind them, the antique Persian rugs on the floor, the whole air of faded elegance. ‘I mean, I cannot believe you sent us tickets for your birthday.’ She turns back to Saffron. ‘Organized a plane… This place is gorgeous, and I just…’

‘She feels guilty.’ Paul grins. ‘She doesn’t think you ought to be paying for everything. I think she wants to pay for the room.’