Chances

by Kate Field

  A couple of hours passed quickly and with more ease than I would have thought possible. Paddy’s family had always been close, and the love that knit them so tightly together was obvious in every word and gesture between them. But after a while, Alison became visibly tired, her speech less frequent and more laboured, and Paddy stood up.

  ‘We’ll let you rest now, Mam,’ he said. ‘I’ll just have a word with Dad about the conservatory. I’ve been offered a spot on a panel show so we can go ahead …’

  Paddy and his dad wandered out and moments later I saw them in the garden, gesticulating at the back of the house.

  ‘You’re having a conservatory?’ I said, moving closer to Alison. ‘That will be lovely, looking out over that view.’

  ‘God’s own country,’ Alison said. Her words were starting to slur, and her breaths were shallow. ‘Wanted to end my days at home.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ I perched on the sofa arm where Paddy had sat earlier and took Alison’s right hand in mine. She hadn’t moved her left hand at all since I had arrived. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Don’t fret. Every curse and complaint has already been said. I went through the why me stage. Now I’m at the why not me. I wouldn’t wish this on any other bugger.’ She stopped and gestured at her water and I helped her to have a drink. ‘Hate being such a burden. And so much not done.’ Silent tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘So much not done.’

  I was wiping tears from both our faces when Paddy and Ray came back in. I said goodbye to Alison, hugged her frail body as best I could, and returned to my car so that Paddy could have a few minutes alone with his family. When he finally walked down the drive towards me, I wondered how I could have thought I’d seen pain on his face over the last week. That had been nothing in comparison to his expression now: true pain, from the heart, not the body. My own heart ached in sympathy.

  We drove away and headed home in silence. Paddy looked too upset to talk and I couldn’t think of anything to say that could possibly make him feel better. But when we were halfway home, I spotted the country pub where Tina and I had stopped on the night of the school talk when I had first seen Paddy again. I pulled into the car park.

  ‘You need a drink,’ I said, when Paddy looked at me. He smiled for the first time since leaving his parents’ house.

  ‘I can’t argue with that.’

  Paddy found a quiet table and I bought the drinks. I waited until he’d had a first, long swig of his Guinness before I reached out and took his hand.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. I squeezed his hand and he gripped mine back, so tightly that it hurt.

  I glanced around. There were a few other people in our section of the pub – couples, families, a large group celebrating a birthday – but no one was watching us, and no one was near enough to hear our conversation.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘MND. Motor neurone disease.’

  ‘And …’ I didn’t know how to ask the question, or whether I should.

  ‘There’s no cure.’ Paddy stared into his pint. ‘No standard progression either. There’s no way of knowing how or when she’ll lose some function, or when …’ He stopped, took a breath. ‘She slurred more words than usual today. That’s not good.’

  His forehead creased into well-established lines of concern that I hadn’t seen before, marking him more clearly than ever as a man of his age rather than the boy I had known.

  ‘When did it start?’ I asked.

  ‘About three years ago.’ Paddy took a drink. ‘She had some numbness in her foot, started to stumble and eventually the doctor ran some tests. It was the worst possible news. You just can’t imagine …’ His drink was disappearing rapidly. ‘Mentally, she’s as alert as ever. It kinda makes it worse. She knows as every bit of power is taken from her. She knows exactly what’s to come. How do you bear that?’

  I had no answer. My experience of loss had been swift and unexpected. Painful though it had been, perhaps I had been lucky. What must it be like to go through this torture, seeing a loved one suffer and gradually fade? Day after day of grief, both longing for it to end and dreading that it would? I rubbed my thumb over Paddy’s hand. Even when I thought I’d hated him, I couldn’t have wished this on him. But I had never hated this heartbroken man in front of me.

  He stood up, breaking the contact between our hands. ‘Another drink?’

  I had barely touched mine, and he headed to the bar for another pint, still walking stiffly on his injured leg. A few people looked at him as he passed, and frowned as if trying to place him, but he was lost in his own world and didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I asked, when he came back. ‘You only needed to say, and I would have driven you anywhere.’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t talk about it. I choose to be in the public eye. Mam doesn’t. She’s a private person. You know that.’

  ‘And so all the TV work,’ I said, remembering the conversation about the conservatory. ‘All the celebrity stuff …’

  ‘Yes. If it pays, I’ll do it. The speed dating show paid for the garden to be landscaped so it was wheelchair-friendly. Then there’s the car, the environmental control system, the top-up therapy, the extra holiday costs, the respite care for Dad … She’ll have the best of everything as long as I can earn the money for her.’

  And this was the man I had accused of being hollow! I sipped my cranberry juice, wishing it was a glass of Merlot instead, to numb the shame that was eating away at me. I’d thought I was living with a stranger, far removed from the Paddy I had known, and now I knew it was true – but in the best, not the worst way. This man at my table was ten times the character the boy had been. Adversity had shaped him, made him stronger – made him someone that in another time, in other circumstances, I might have wanted to know better.

  ‘So is this why you don’t join digs abroad now?’ I asked, as many of the things he had told me began to fall into place.

  ‘I won’t leave the country for more than a week, and I’ll only go to places with regular and short flights home. We just can’t know …’ He looked across the table at me. ‘This is what I’ve been wanting to tell you. I get it now. About Caitlyn, about realising what’s really important in life. I get why you would do anything, give up anything, for someone you love. I didn’t understand it then. There was a lot I didn’t understand back then.’

  He reached out for my phone, which was lying on the table beside my car keys, and pressed the button to wake it up. Caitlyn’s picture flashed up.

  ‘I was a coward to walk out,’ he said. ‘I’ve had a long time to think about that. About what I missed.’ He glanced at me, but I didn’t stop him, even though he was well within forbidden territory. ‘She’s exactly like Faye. Have you looked after her entirely on your own? No partner? No contact with her father?’

  ‘No.’ I shrugged, and ignored the first question. Now wasn’t the time to tell him how devastated Caitlyn had been when he left; how wary it had made me of hurting her again by introducing her to other boyfriends who might leave. ‘We never found him. Faye must have fallen pregnant just after I started university. You didn’t know what she was like back then. Let’s just say that Faye didn’t tend to stick with one boyfriend for long.’

  I smiled, to try to take the sting out of my words. I hadn’t meant them critically. Faye had never turned down an opportunity for fun or pleasure, whatever the consequences. Live hard, die young, she had once said to me. We couldn’t have known how prophetic those words would be. I felt a quiet tug in my heart, as if the frayed edges of my well-worn grief were being pulled again.

  ‘Has Caitlyn never wanted to find him? What would you have done if her father had shown up?’ Paddy asked.

  ‘I …’ The question floored me. I’d never seriously given it any thought. We’d always been honest with Caitlyn: that we didn’t know who her father was, but that I, Mum and Gran would offer her as much love as she could ever need. What if someone had turn
ed up and staked a claim on Caitlyn? How could we have given her up?

  ‘I’d have been pleased for Caitlyn,’ I said, clutching my glass between my hands. ‘Assuming he was a good man who deserved her. But he couldn’t have been a good man, could he? Faye’s death was reported in all the national papers. All the stories mentioned that she had a child. A decent man would have turned up then, wouldn’t he?’ Thank goodness I’d never been put to the test, I added to myself. I wasn’t sure I could have borne one more loss.

  I held out my car keys to Paddy as we were leaving the pub.

  ‘Let yourself in. I’m just popping to the ladies.’

  I looked around and spotted the sign pointing past the bar. I started to head that way, but Paddy grabbed my arm.

  ‘Couldn’t you hang on? Only, the painkillers have worn off and I’m in sore need of a top-up …’

  ‘What?’ I laughed. Was he seriously trying to stop me going to the toilet? But he wasn’t joking; the frown had reappeared, and he was staring over my shoulder.

  ‘Don’t be silly. I’ll only be a minute.’

  ‘Listen to me, Eve. Don’t go that way.’

  I shook off his arm and took two steps towards the bar. The pub was divided into sections, creating cosy rooms for a more intimate atmosphere, so it was only now that I could see what Paddy had presumably seen over my shoulder. Tucked away in a corner, at a table for two that was spread with the remains of lunch, sat Rich and a young blonde woman scarcely older than Caitlyn. If I was in any doubt about the nature of their relationship, Rich clarified it when he leant over and kissed her, drawing her closer with his hand on the back of her head.

  I recoiled. What a gullible fool I was. When Rich had told me he was spending the weekend with the children, I’d assumed he’d meant his own …

  Paddy put his hand on my shoulder, just as Rich disengaged his lips and looked up. He froze, then started to stand, knocking cutlery to the floor. While he bent to pick it up, Paddy grabbed my hand and dragged me out of the pub.

  We drove home in silence. My head was too crammed with thoughts about the day to make conversation; all that I had learnt, all that had been revealed. All that had changed. Alison, Paddy, Rich … But as I drove back along the country lanes, instead of Rich’s betrayal, my uppermost thought was how, despite his own hard day, Paddy’s instinctive reaction had still been to protect me, just as he had done when our relationship started all those years ago.

  Chapter 16

  It was inevitable that Paddy would come with me to The Chestnuts to visit Gran the next day. He followed me out of the house without us even discussing it, and I couldn’t say no, even if I’d been tempted to. Not even a bumper tin of all-butter shortbread could beat an appearance from Paddy Friel in Gran’s eyes.

  We hadn’t spoken about the events of Saturday, but it had been a comfortable silence; it felt like we were respecting each other’s privacy rather than choosing to avoid awkward conversations. I didn’t want to upset Paddy by pressing him to talk more about his mum, and although the situations hardly compared, I sensed that he was keeping silent about Rich for the same reason. Did he need to? Was I upset? Not enough. I knew what heartbreak felt like and it wasn’t this. This felt more like a paper cut: a quick sting and then all but forgotten. What a sad reflection that was on a relationship I had hung on to for the last two years.

  Gran’s eyes lit up as soon as she saw Paddy walk into the conservatory. I was clearly relegated to third place behind him and the shortbread. Gran wasted no time in pressing her emergency button to call for attention. The carer did a double take when she rushed in and found Paddy sprawled in the chair at Gran’s side.

  ‘See!’ Gran said, before the carer could utter a word. ‘It’s a real emergency. We have a celebrity here. We need proper china for our tea today, not those stained old mugs. And you should let everyone know there’s someone here off the telly. They can sleep after he’s gone.’ She grinned. ‘I can’t wait to see Mrs Pike’s face! This beats her nephew being on Pointless.’

  I pulled up another chair and settled down on Gran’s other side.

  ‘So you’re still here?’ she said, passing the box of biscuits to Paddy to open. ‘There’s a turn-up for the books. There was a time when you made a habit of leaving, not sticking around.’

  ‘Gran!’ I tried to shut her up, but Paddy only smiled.

  ‘Oh, he doesn’t mind me,’ Gran said. ‘I mean no harm. Where are you living now, Paddy? Some swanky place in London, is it? One of those million-pound houses on celebrity row? You must have a bob or two to be able to afford to stay at the Fairlie.’

  ‘The production company paid for that. No, I’m renting a flat in Ripon at the moment. Not a celebrity to be seen, thank heaven.’

  ‘Renting?’ Gran repeated, pulling a face. ‘You should have put down roots by your age. I hope you’re not eyeing up our Eve’s assets … not the financial ones, any road …’

  She nudged his arm and cackled with such glee that it was impossible not to join in, even when Paddy surprised me by looking my way and giving a lazy wink. Shortly afterwards, the room started to fill as the other residents of The Chestnuts shuffled in, and Paddy wandered round with infinite patience, chatting, listening and occasionally throwing his head back and roaring with laughter in exactly the same way he used to do. He focused his attention on the old people, milking his celebrity on this occasion, but for their benefit not his. He held hands, kissed cheeks, sat quietly and talked, with no one left out and nothing beneath his notice. Before Saturday, I might have assumed it was all a sham and condemned him. Now I knew it was a sham, to conceal his own terrible sorrow, and I admired him. It was a remarkable performance.

  ‘Not lost any of his charm, has he?’ Gran said, as we sipped our tea and watched him work the room.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ooh, are you softening towards him again?’

  ‘Maybe. But don’t get carried away,’ I said, when I could see from Gran’s face that she was reading much more than I had intended into that one word. ‘There’s no need to be borrowing another of Mrs Pike’s hats.’

  ‘I wouldn’t borrow.’ Gran sounded outraged. ‘The grandmother of the bride deserves a new hat. And if the day ever came when you were marrying Paddy Friel, I’d go the whole hog and have a new dress and new shoes too.’

  ‘You’re incorrigible!’ I said, laughing.

  ‘I do my best.’

  Gabby, the manager of The Chestnuts, rushed out of her office as Paddy and I were leaving. I feared another complaint about Gran, but it was Paddy she wanted, not me.

  ‘I wanted to thank you,’ she said, blushing scarlet when Paddy smiled at her. ‘Since that article appeared online last week, donations have poured in. A dealership has made us an offer on a minibus. We can afford a new one and still have cash to spare. You’ve worked wonders!’

  ‘Ah, you’re too kind,’ Paddy said. ‘Eve deserves all the credit. None of it would have happened without her.’

  Now he was being too kind. I’d seen the state of the fundraising before Paddy’s article had appeared in the paper. We’d done well, far better than I’d ever dreamt when I first came up with the sponsored walk idea, but had still been short for buying a second-hand minibus, let alone a new one.

  ‘That’s fantastic news!’ I said to Gabby. ‘If the public are so interested in the story, why don’t we run a competition to find a name for the new minibus? Perhaps Paddy can come back to officially launch it.’

  ‘Like the royal family do with ships?’ she asked. ‘Smashing the bottle of champagne?’

  ‘Exactly. We could invite the press along to cover the event. It would be great publicity and might keep the donations coming in for a bit longer.’

  Gabby agreed, delighted with the idea, but I hadn’t done it for her, or even for The Chestnuts. It was for Paddy and maybe, if things worked out well, for Alison, and his quiet ‘thanks’ as we left the care home told me he’d understood.

  *


  There was an unfamiliar car parked outside my house when I arrived home on Tuesday morning. It was the first proper day of the half-term break, after the Bank Holiday, but I’d been up and about early with a visit to the dentist and a trip to the supermarket, leaving Paddy to fend for himself for a while. I let myself into the house, pausing in the hall to listen out for voices. But there were no voices – only the sound of music from the radio, drifting from the kitchen, and the sight of a bag at the foot of the stairs. Paddy’s bag, so that could only mean one thing. He must be leaving. And wasn’t I glad? Hadn’t I been wanting to have the house to myself again? My answer to those questions wasn’t quite as clear-cut as I would have expected.

  I carried my shopping bags through to the kitchen. There were more than usual: I had bought provisions for two. Paddy was in there, arranging some flowers in a vase.

  ‘Caught red-handed,’ he said, with a smile as I walked in. ‘I ought to say green-fingered, but I suspect it’s not an impressive display, is it?’

  It impressed me: a dozen large-headed white roses mingled with vibrant lilac freesias, and the whole bouquet was surrounded by silvery eucalyptus leaves. It was a simple but elegant arrangement: the sort of thing that must have come from a proper florist, not the local garage forecourt.

  ‘From one of your many admirers?’ I asked Paddy.

  ‘They’re for you. Not from an admirer,’ he added quickly. ‘From me.’ He laughed and brushed his hair back from his face. ‘That didn’t come out as I intended … They’re a thank you. For putting me up for the last week – or should that be for putting up with me?’

  ‘Definitely the latter,’ I said, going over to examine the flowers. I closed my eyes and inhaled the scent, taking the moment to let my feelings settle. No one had bought me flowers for years, not since … Paddy. Paddy had been the last person to buy me flowers, but then it had been a token of love, not thanks. So many years had passed, layers of new memories building on top of each other all the time, but the foundation of them all was Paddy. Would it always be this way? I opened my eyes, saw him watching me, and smiled.