Second Chance (8 page)

I’ll just enjoy it, Holly had thought to herself. I know he’s not the man of my dreams, but he’s so different from everyone else I’ve been involved with, maybe this is better for me, maybe this is what a real relationship looks like. Maybe I was the one who was wrong, maybe I shouldn’t have looked for a soulmate, a perfect partner, maybe this is what I am supposed to be looking for instead.

Holly had been looking for safety. She had been
looking for security at a time when she didn’t feel secure. Her heart had been broken one too many times, and she didn’t think she could do better, she didn’t think she deserved a happy ending. She told herself that happy endings existed only in Hollywood films. That friendship, security, and shared hopes and dreams were far more sensible, far more likely to result in a long and happy marriage.

She’d told herself that it was okay to settle. That she could be a grown-up for once and make a grown-up decision. That it would be enough.

But during her entire marriage, when Holly’s thoughts have turned to Tom, Tom has always there as the symbol of what might have been. He wasn’t just the one that got away, the road not taken, the love she didn’t choose.

Tom was the one Holly knows, deep down, she should have been with. And so the loss is double. She is grieving for her best friend, a man she loves, and she is grieving for the life she was never able to have.

Tonight, at this pre-service dinner, Holly is hoping for something of a catharsis, is hoping that somehow they will be able to share their grief, and move beyond it onto a path of healing.

She is nervous about seeing the others. Is excited but apprehensive. Olivia had been bristly that one time she bumped into her at the cinema with an awful boyfriend who seemed arrogant and rude.

‘I can’t believe I ran into Olivia and she was with
this awful, awful man,’ she said to Tom one night soon afterwards, when they were sitting in a small Greek restaurant in Bayswater. ‘All these years of not seeing each other, and you’d think we’d have a fantastic reunion, but he basically dragged her away. You ought to say something to her about her taste in men.’

Tom laughed. ‘It’s none of my business, Holly. She likes him, isn’t that all that matters?’

Holly sighed. ‘I suppose so, it’s just that Olivia was always so sweet and so naive around men and she doesn’t seem to have changed. What’s Saffron up to? Have you spoken to her recently?’

‘You should ask her yourself. She’d love to hear from you.’

‘It’s been too many years. I love hearing about her, but we’ve all drifted apart, and I doubt she’d want to hear from me anyway.’

‘I think she would,’ Tom said. ‘I’m sure she would. You all ask about everyone else but none of you will actually pick up the phone.’

‘It’s because I honestly don’t think any of us have anything in common any more,’ Holly said. ‘Other than a shared history, and frankly how many times can you reminisce about slow dancing in church halls, wearing donkey jackets and monkey boots?’

‘Oh God.’ Tom laughed. ‘I’d forgotten that. You looked terrible.’

‘Yes, well. You with your bad impression of Suggs weren’t so hot either.’

‘Ah yes. I try to forget. But I do think you would have things in common with everyone, of course
you would. There was a reason we were all friends.’

‘I don’t know,’ Holly said doubtfully. ‘I think it was just being forced together for so long. You are funny, though,’ Holly said. ‘I can’t believe that you’re still in touch with everyone. How in the hell do you do it? I barely have time to answer the calls on my answerphone at night, let alone make time to phone a ton of people from my past. You’re amazing, you know.’

‘I know. Isn’t that why you love me?’

‘Speaking of love…’ Holly felt a familiar flutter. Here it was again. Like a constant merry-go-round, she was sitting across the table, aged twenty-five, looking at the face she knew better than any other in the world, her best friend’s, and all she could think of was what it would feel like to kiss him. ‘… are you… seeing anyone?’ She fidgeted on her seat. Nervous.

‘Why? Do you fancy me again?’

It had become a standing joke between them, this falling in and out of love with each other, but to Holly’s embarrassment she found herself lost for words, a deep blush spreading across her face.

‘Oh God,’ Tom was mortified, ‘I didn’t mean that.

Oh God, Holly. If you’d told me two months ago.’

‘Two months ago I was with Jake.’

‘I know.’ Tom smiled. ‘I was horribly jealous.’

‘Well, why didn’t you say anything?’

‘Because you were with Jake. What difference would it have made?’

‘I might have dumped him for you.’

‘Holly, Holly, Holly.’ Tom put his head in his hands. ‘We’re not destined to be together, you know that.’

Holly’s blush faded as quickly as it had come. ‘I know.’ She sighed. ‘But what about if we’re both still single at thirty? How about we make a pact that we get married if we’re both still single at thirty?’

‘Thirty?’ Tom sounded slightly alarmed. ‘That’s only five years away. Can we make it thirty-five?’

‘Okay.’ Holly extended her hand across the table and Tom shook it firmly. ‘Thirty-five and we get married.’

‘Done.’

‘So go on,’ Holly said after a few minutes, mouth full of pitta and tzatziki. ‘Who is she, then?’

And on it went.

Holly has not had the heart to cook, but has made a salad, has picked up a gourmet pasta dish, a couple of baguettes and a tiramisu from the Italian deli down the road. Several bottles of wine are chilling in the fridge.

Holly sets the table for four, everything taking five times as long as it usually does because she loses herself in a constant stream of memories about Tom.

She finishes getting the table ready, then goes to the bathroom to attempt to mask the pain her face has been carrying the last few weeks. Murine eyedrops to wash the redness from her eyes, tinted moisturizer to even out her skin, now blotchy from the streams of tears. Eyeshadow to make her eyes bigger, blusher to bring colour to her face, recently an unbecoming shade of grey.

Not gorgeous. Not now. But presentable. That’s the best she can hope for. As the doorbell rings, Holly sighs
and smooths her hair behind her ears, then she walks down the stairs.

She has often thought about a school reunion, but never thought it would be under circumstances such as these.

Olivia is first. Standing awkwardly on the doorstep proffering a bottle of wine, Olivia is surprised at how naturally she and Holly fall into each other’s arms, and when they pull apart, both wipe their eyes and smile, shaking their heads, too overcome with emotion to speak.

A Saab crawls slowly up the road, and they turn, Holly squinting at the car, a man and a woman peering out of the window. She waves furiously as they pull into a spot, and Paul and Saffron make their way up the path, all of them smiling sorrowfully at one another, before wrapping each other up, one by one, in huge tear-filled hugs, unable to believe they are together again after all these years, unable to believe what has brought them back together.

Holly is suddenly enormously relieved that the clattering group has made its way into her kitchen in her home. Olivia had suggested going out, didn’t want Holly to go to the trouble of cooking, preparing a meal, but Holly had known she couldn’t deal with this in a public space, needs intimate surroundings to talk about Tom, needs the warmth and comfort of a home.

‘How are you?’

‘You look fantastic!’

‘Look at you!’

‘Our friend the film star!’

‘Oh my God! How long has it been?’

Their voices echo around the kitchen as they smile at one another, Olivia grinning at Saffron, Paul squeezing Holly’s shoulders, Saffron feeling, for the first time in years, that she doesn’t have to be Saffron Armitage, movie star, that she can finally be Saff. Just Saff.

‘It’s good to be here.’ Paul sinks into a kitchen chair, gulping from a glass of wine. ‘Horrible, awful circumstances but, Christ, it’s good to see all of you.’

‘Forgive the movie cliché,’ says Saffron, emotion choking her voice, ‘but I feel like I’ve come home.’

Olivia breaks the sudden silence by prodding Paul. ‘You’ve obviously eaten well all these years,’ she says with a grin.

‘Oh charming,’ Paul says. ‘I don’t see you for, what, twenty years? And the first thing to come out of your mouth is an insult. I see you haven’t changed a bit.’

Olivia puts her arm around Paul’s shoulders and squeezes, leaning down to kiss him on the cheek. ‘You look great. I’m just teasing. Anyway, you should be happy I still feel so comfortable with you.’

Saffron wanders into the living room, looking at the photographs dotted around. She picks one up – Holly and Marcus grinning at the camera as they perch on a wooden gate in the country.

‘Holly,’ Saffron calls, ‘is this your husband?’ She holds up the photograph.

‘Yup,’ Holly peers around the doorway, ‘and those are my kids over there.’

‘I can’t believe it,’ Saffron shakes her head. ‘Holly Mac married. With children, no less.’

Holly comes back in from the kitchen with a smile. ‘Hey, Paul. Speaking of married, I saw some spread you did in
Vogue
when you got married. Mr bloody Prada. I almost phoned you then just to laugh at you.’

Paul dips his head sheepishly. ‘Ah yes. Did feel a bit of a poseur. Had the piss taken out of me for weeks, and only did it because Anna thought it would be great publicity.’

‘Was it?’

‘Yup.’

‘God, I love Fashionista!’ Holly says. ‘I used to spend a fortune with that other clothes website, but the service was crap. Everything always used to arrive about two weeks late because it was always out of stock, and they never apologized, which drove me bonkers. So now I only use Fashionista and it’s amazing. Seriously, the packaging, the speed. Tell your wife I’m a huge fan and she’s doing an incredible job.’

‘I don’t suppose your wife would give us mates’ rates?’ Saffron attempts.

‘Sure. You’d have to meet her first, and she’d have to like you, which is obviously a problem, but I’ll work on it.’ Paul smiles.

‘Why do you buy so much stuff from them?’ Olivia asks.

Holly shrugs. ‘Two reasons. First, whoever is buying for the website has the most spectacular taste imaginable–’

Paul nods smugly. ‘That’d be the wife.’

‘–and,’ continues Holly, ‘it seems that one of my vices as I have grown older is compulsive shopping.’

And so it goes on… As the evening wears on, inhibitions are loosened, and connections are being made again. Whatever it was that kept them from one another all these years has now disappeared without a trace.

Olivia, so nervous about seeing these people compared with whom she always felt so inadequate, doesn’t feel inadequate any more, is surprised and moved to find that she no longer feels Saffron is prettier or that Holly is cleverer and, although it may still be true, it doesn’t bother her now, doesn’t provide a yardstick against which she constantly has to measure herself and find herself falling short.

Saffron is calmer, more measured somehow. The Saffron of old was a shrieker, but the Saffron sitting here today seems, even through her sadness, to be at peace. The drama queen of old has settled down, she is comfortable in her skin and far more beautiful today because of it.

Paul is the same. He hasn’t changed at all, despite Holly dragging out the copy of
Vogue
(she’d gone out and bought it immediately). Tom was right, Holly thinks back with pain, remembering her conversation with Tom when she first saw Paul in
Vogue
. He is still a scruff, just one with the ability to scrub up incredibly well.

And Holly? Holly is the one you might perhaps worry about the most. She is the one who seems lost. Even here, among people who have known her longer than
anyone else, although she appears comfortable, her feet tucked under her at one end of the long, squishy sofa, even here she looks lost.

‘Tom was probably the most consistent thing in my life.’ Olivia reaches over to the coffee table and pours herself more wine as she sighs. ‘Whatever else was going on, whoever else might have left me, or however crappy my job might have been, Tom was always there. Not that I saw him that often, but he was so fiercely loyal in his friendships, he’d always be there for you. God, I tried to get rid of him in my twenties, but he just wouldn’t bloody disappear…’

The others laugh.

‘You know what I loved best about Tom? That he didn’t change. That he was never impressed by people or things. He knew me for so long that he refused to be impressed by my acting or the films I was in. Used to piss me off enormously,’ Saffron admitted with a shrug. ‘After I was in that film with Dennis Quaid, I thought he’d finally treat me with a bit more respect, but he didn’t give a damn. Actually I think he even told me to get off my high horse once upon a time.’

‘Did you?’ Paul looks at her with an amused grin.

‘What do you think?’ She raises an eyebrow as she turns her head slowly to look at him.

‘Thought not.’

‘I know this sounds terrible,’ Holly says quietly, ‘but don’t they always say you never appreciate what you have until it’s gone? I spent years falling in and out of love with Tom, and then I met Marcus, and then obviously
Tom and I were just friends, but I wish I’d spoken to him more, wish I’d shown him how much I loved him. I mean, how can you know something like this is going to happen?’

‘Of course you can’t,’ Saffron says, ‘and he would have known. He knew how much we all loved him. That’s why he insisted on staying in all our lives.’

‘Let’s toast,’ says Olivia. ‘To Tom,’ she raises her eyes upwards, ‘wherever you are.’

‘To Tom,’ they all echo. ‘We wish you were here.’

‘More coffee?’ Holly sighs as she pulls her legs out from under her and hoists herself up from the sofa, knowing that there was a difference in her relationship with Tom but not wanting to share it with the others. Not yet.

‘I think more wine,’ Paul says, as he drains the dregs of his fourth glass.

It was not long after the dinner in Bayswater. Before her trip to Australia where Marcus had swept Holly off her feet, before a time when she would look at Tom and see nothing more than a best friend.