Chances

by Kate Field

  ‘Well, would you take a look at that!’ Beverley murmured at my side. ‘If that’s lunch, I’m ready for it.’

  So it was true! Paddy really was here on site. I wasn’t ready for it. I was hot and sweaty, and my face was undoubtedly shiny from all the sun lotion. My hair was sticky and flattened by my hat – and oh, I was furious with myself for caring about any of that. Paddy walked up to the side of the trench nearest me.

  ‘How’re you doing, Eve?’ he said, smiling broadly. ‘Fancy seeing you here.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked. The information about the dig hadn’t mentioned that Paddy was involved; I wouldn’t have missed his name. ‘Are you joining the dig?’

  ‘I’m now leading it.’ He leant forward and stretched out a hand to help me out of the trench. I took off my gloves, grasped his hand and climbed out, conscious of the other volunteers staring.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I asked, immediately fearing the worst. ‘Is Christopher okay? I knew I should have checked up on him this morning. He’s normally the first to arrive.’

  ‘It would have been too late. He left last night.’ Paddy drew me away from the trench, so we wouldn’t be overheard. ‘He had a family crisis and needed to go home urgently.’

  I hoped it wasn’t anything too serious; a family crisis was never a good thing in my experience.

  ‘But why are you taking over?’ I asked. ‘You’re no expert on the Romans.’

  ‘Do you think you could shout that any louder? Jeez, remind me never to ask you for an introduction.’ He smiled, and I had to laugh at his expression. ‘I’m free for the next week and could come down here at short notice. It was either that or cancel the dig.’

  ‘I didn’t realise you were still in touch with Christopher.’ It was odd – Christopher hadn’t mentioned Paddy at all over the last few days, although he’d known we’d been a couple at university. Now his silence made sense. He must have known we were no longer a couple.

  ‘We’ve been in touch on and off since uni. My company has provided work experience for many of his students. We’ve become closer in the last few years.’ Paddy’s smile dimmed and he pushed back his hair. ‘He has a daughter with chronic kidney disease,’ he said, leaning towards me and lowering his voice. ‘I’ve helped him out a couple of times before, covering events he was due to attend. When he phoned last night …’ He shrugged. ‘Well, there was no question but that I’d come and take over.’

  And so it went on – the gradual erosion of all my former prejudices against Paddy; the vain, selfish, shallow man, who proved that description wrong every time we met. Why did he have to keep showing me this decent, thoughtful side? I was glad I didn’t hate him any more, but I could have settled for that – for tolerating him. Now I began to worry I was in danger of liking him – and look where that had got me before.

  ‘Are you sure you’re well enough?’ I asked, stepping back. I wobbled on the edge of the trench and Paddy’s hand shot out to steady me. His grip was strong and firm on my arm. ‘Is your leg fully recovered? You wouldn’t want to risk an injury again.’

  ‘It’s as good as new. But it’s kind of you to care.’ Paddy grinned. ‘This is going to be like old times, isn’t it?’

  That was exactly what I was afraid of.

  *

  Much as I had enjoyed working with Christopher, I couldn’t deny that Paddy brought a new dynamic to the dig. What he lacked in specialist knowledge – and if I was honest, there was less lacking there than I had expected – he more than made up for with his energy and passion. He was more hands-on than Christopher had been, spending time with each team, digging in the various sections of the trench, and uniting everyone at break and lunch in enthusiastic discussion about what we had found and what we were learning. He drew out opinions and ideas from everyone, and with a series of barely visible nudges and seemingly casual questions, stimulated theories and propositions that we might never have come up with on our own.

  He was good at this; he stretched our minds, making us learn from each other, educating us without us even realising what he was doing. And all the time, as I watched him interact with the members of the dig – engaging the quietest members of our group, calming the cockiest, brushing off any mention of his television career – my opinion of him shifted, as the prejudices I had stood on for so many years wore away beneath my feet.

  On Saturday afternoon, as I was making my way back from the Portaloos – my least favourite part of any dig, but essential given the amount of tea we drank – I heard a whistle and then Paddy’s voice calling my name.

  ‘I’m not a sheepdog,’ I grumbled, as I nevertheless stomped obediently over to where Paddy was working in the trench with the team looking for bones. My curiosity got the better of me. ‘Have you found something?’

  ‘A piece of pottery. Come and look.’

  I scrambled into the trench and Paddy carefully handed me the pottery. From the shape, it looked like a section of a bowl or vase, as there was part of a flat base and a curved side. It was a good-sized piece, about fifteen centimetres high, and the glossy red colour was still so rich that it could have come straight from a shop that morning. It would be the job of our finds expert to clean it properly and analyse the details, but I gently brushed off some of the dirt, so I could have a closer look.

  ‘What do you think?’ Paddy asked.

  ‘It’s beautiful.’ And it truly was – the curved section featured an exquisite pattern of trailing foliage and flowers, moulded in intricate detail. ‘It looks like Samian ware, doesn’t it?’ I added, referring to one of the most common, high quality types of Roman pottery, which was distinguished by this vivid red colour.

  ‘That’s what I thought.’ Paddy smiled at me. ‘But do you reckon it’s an original piece, imported from Gaul, or a British copy?’

  ‘Hard to say. But based on the fine quality and the finish, my guess would be an import, probably from one of the better potteries. Is there a maker’s mark?’

  I carefully cleaned around the base, so I could see it properly. Decorated pots like this often carried a stamp or signature to show who had created the mould, and who had made the pottery piece. It helped to identify where a piece had been made, and also to date the pottery, as we knew that certain makers worked at certain times. There was a stamp on this fragment, but there were only two letters before it was cut off. ‘L … E …’ I read. ‘That’s not enough. We need the rest of it!’

  ‘Yes, ma’am!’ Paddy laughed. ‘Come on, team. We have our orders.’

  He grinned at me, and I smiled back, totally lost in the past; not in Roman times, but in our past – mine and Paddy’s. I held out the fragment to him and he reached out to take it. His arm was tanned like the rest of him, from spending so much time outdoors. It was stronger and more muscled than it had been, and his hands were roughened from years of digging. This body was unfamiliar, and yet I knew it intimately. What would it be like now, to experience it on mine – the tender familiarity mixed with the exquisite pleasure of new discovery?

  I caught my breath. What was I thinking? Paddy was still watching me, and I felt as if I’d been mesmerised. I rushed back to my own trench, horrified at the turn my thoughts had taken and hoping that the sudden warmth I felt was nothing more than an early hot flush.

  Chapter 19

  By the time Sunday evening arrived, I was ready for our day off on Monday. I was relatively fit from all the running, but the dig was physically demanding in other ways, using a different set of muscles, and I would be glad to spend a day on my feet rather than on my knees. The pub where I was staying didn’t serve food on a Sunday night, so after a shorter run than usual – disappointing, because I loved pounding along the bridleways through the glorious Cotswold countryside – I went out for a meal in a neighbouring village.

  It was still warm when I returned, and many people were soaking up the evening sunshine in the beer garden. By contrast, the interior of the pub was almost empty, and as I headed thro
ugh the snug towards the stairs to the bedrooms, I almost missed the solitary figure sitting in a gloomy corner. It was Paddy, a full glass of whiskey in his hand and an empty one on the table in front of him. He seemed to be looking down at his phone. Of all the pubs, in all the villages … I hesitated for only a moment, but it was long enough. He looked up and the distress on his face – so different from the laughing smile he had worn all day – made me ignore my better judgement and walk over to him.

  ‘Hello,’ I said, ignoring the bleakness, the hazy eyes, the fumes of alcohol and the overwhelming evidence of something being not right. ‘You’ve not been staying here all week, have you? I’m sure I’d have spotted you over breakfast.’

  ‘First night here,’ he said, and there was less Irish, more drunk about his voice than usual. ‘I’ve had to move around. Wherever there was a room.’

  I immediately felt bad. Christopher had been staying with friends, but I hadn’t considered how Paddy would manage to find accommodation in the peak holiday season, or given any thought to how he was spending his evenings. Should I have offered to meet up? I’d spent so many years avoiding all mention of him that it hadn’t occurred to me to do anything else. Perhaps I needed to readjust my behaviour as well as my views. I pulled out a chair and sat down.

  ‘I’ll be crap company,’ Paddy said, talking to his glass. ‘No fascinating conversation. No witty banter. None of the blarney.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘I didn’t come over for any of that. You look terrible. What’s the matter?’

  In answer, Paddy tapped at his phone and slid it across the table towards me. It was open at a Facebook page for Amy Friel who, according to a recent status update from this afternoon, was ecstatic at the birth of her son. I studied the photo of a red-faced, crumpled baby, trying to work it out – trying to spot a resemblance.

  ‘Is he yours?’ I asked at last. Paddy met my gaze and the sadness on his face spoke for him.

  ‘No.’

  ‘But that’s your wife?’

  ‘Ex-wife.’

  ‘She still uses the name?’

  ‘Only useful thing about me, apparently.’ He gave me a wry smile. ‘You were unlucky. You got all the grief and none of the benefits.’

  My answer slipped out, unplanned. ‘The only benefit I ever wanted was to be with you.’

  ‘I know.’ He glanced up briefly, and I saw a flash of deeper sadness cross his face before he looked away again. ‘You were always too good for me, right from the start.’

  That wasn’t true. I hadn’t always been good, far from it. But I was making the mistake I had warned Paddy against before – of talking about the past. Our part of it, at any rate – I couldn’t help being curious about his.

  ‘How long have you been divorced?’ I asked.

  ‘Two years.’

  So she’d moved quite fast, to have found someone else and had a baby since they separated. She must have wanted to put Paddy comprehensively behind her. I knew the feeling.

  ‘What did you do to cause the split?’

  That made him look up again. ‘Jeez, you really don’t have much faith in me, do you? Can’t you believe we just drifted apart? Had irreconcilable differences?’ I waited, knowing him too well. There was more to this than he was saying. He sighed and took a swig of whiskey.

  ‘The irony is,’ he said at last, ‘that this time, with Amy, it was the lack of kids that pulled us apart.’ I flinched, wondering what I’d started, not sure I wanted to hear any more. ‘We couldn’t have them. Not for lack of trying – God, we tried until it felt like we hadn’t done anything else – like talk, or laugh – for months. And then the tests showed nothing wrong with either of us, so we started IVF and that didn’t work either, but it began to feel as if that was the only thing binding us together, you know … Have you ever wanted something so desperately, but been terrified of what might happen if you get it?’

  I shook my head. The only things I had ever wanted were beyond my reach. Faye. Dad. Paddy. All gone too soon. All impossible to get back.

  ‘And then Mam was diagnosed,’ Paddy said. He was talking to his glass again. ‘We had money saved up for a third go at IVF. I wanted to use it for Mam instead – to go private, get a second opinion, get her anything she needed. Amy didn’t agree. We were getting old, she said – our time was running out.’

  ‘So what did you do?’ None of this was my business, but I was engrossed. This story hadn’t featured on Paddy’s Wikipedia page. This was a part of his life after me that I knew nothing about. And I wanted to know, because these were the stories that had changed him; these were the things that had transformed the boy who had walked out on me into the man slumped in the seat opposite me now.

  Paddy sighed. ‘I took the money and spent it on Mam.’

  ‘Without telling your wife?’

  ‘I told her I was going to do it. She said she’d leave me if I did. I stuck to my word. She stuck to hers. But you tell me – how do you choose between the family you want and the family you already have? Sometimes there are no good decisions and you have to make the one that feels right at the time, you know? Was it wrong?’

  I shook my head. Not because I was agreeing with his decision, but because it was impossible for anyone else to judge it. I wasn’t surprised at the decision he’d made – it was the one I would have expected Paddy to make: based on gut instinct, how he felt in the moment, without reflecting on what the consequences might be. He’d always had an impulsive nature. But without being in his shoes, I couldn’t say if he was right or wrong. And I couldn’t judge his wife either, bizarre though it seemed to me that she should have left him over this. I had no idea what it must have been like for her, desperate to have a baby and not receiving the support she wanted from Paddy. How could I say whether I would have made the same decision in her position? Although it was hard to imagine being with Paddy, and choosing to give him up.

  ‘I’m sorry, Paddy,’ I said, and reached out and fleetingly brushed my thumb against his. He let go of his glass and grasped my hand.

  ‘I loved her. Amy. Not like …’ He broke off, squeezed my hand. ‘In a different way, but a good way, you know? We were happy. And when she left, and I realised she wasn’t coming back …’ He looked at me and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the expression on his face. ‘Jeez, it hurt like hell. And it made me realise what I’d done to you. What you must have felt back then – and Caitlyn too. I’m sorry, Eve. I got it all wrong. I made the wrong call. You deserved better than that. You both did.’

  I pushed back my chair, breaking contact with Paddy. I didn’t want to hear this. What was the point? I had spent years learning to live with my own regrets. How would it help to know that he had regrets too?

  ‘Another drink?’ I didn’t wait for an answer, but headed to the bar and ordered another whiskey. I dithered over my own drink. I had never come so close to craving alcohol – or rather, the numbness, the oblivion it could bring. Why had I thought it a good idea to have this sort of conversation with Paddy tonight? I should have stuck to my decision not to rake over the past. It was easier to keep an emotional distance from him when I could focus on the bare facts of what he had done – leaving me and Caitlyn when we were both bowed down with grief, and counting on him to carry us into the future.

  But now I could see the facets and nuances of another Paddy: the man at the table behind me, with tears in his eyes, aching over a child who could have been his; the man who prostituted himself on television to help his dying mother; the man whose enthusiasm for archaeology had revived my own interest and who I wanted to learn more from. He had grown up, become more introspective, more thoughtful and more sensitive. A new Paddy, with the looks that I had loved and the character I wished he could have shown before … It was a dangerous mix. I could feel the emotional distance closing day by day, whether I wanted it to or not. Alcohol would be a terrible idea tonight. I resisted temptation and ordered myself an orange juice.

  Paddy smiled when I
put the drinks down on the table.

  ‘You won’t help me drown my sorrows?’

  ‘You’re more than capable of doing it on your own.’

  ‘I hate being on my own.’ He picked up his fresh glass. ‘When I look at Mam and Dad … still together, despite everything. Still strong. Stronger, if anything. Why can’t I have that?’

  ‘You’re seriously asking me to answer that?’ I said.

  ‘Wouldn’t I like the answer?’

  ‘Probably not.’ Because what other answer could I give, but that he’d had all that with me – or the potential for all that – and he had chosen to throw it away?

  ‘And what about you? Still on your own? Or have you had a change of heart, and forgiven your man?’

  I sipped my drink and gazed around the pub. It was beginning to fill up now as the night grew cooler. The landlord had switched the lights on, making it seem pleasantly warm and snug, even on a summer’s evening. It struck me how much I’d missed this: nights out in cosy pubs, being part of society, being with someone else. I’d probably shared more conversation with Paddy this evening than I had over months with Rich. The appeal of the independent life seemed to have dulled tonight.

  ‘Eve?’ Paddy needled when I didn’t say anything.

  ‘There won’t be a change of heart.’ Should I be honest? I supposed Paddy deserved it, after some of the things he had told me tonight. ‘I’m not going to forgive him. I don’t care enough about him to try.’

  He looked at me then with unexpected clarity for someone who had drunk several whiskeys.

  ‘Will you ever forgive me?’

  The question hung, suspended between us. At last, I gave the only answer I could.

  ‘I don’t know.’ And the moment stretched, because that answer seemed too much, too bare, and we both knew it. Why couldn’t I give the same answer as I had done about Rich? That I didn’t care enough? Because it wouldn’t have been true. How I wished it was.

  I finished my orange juice and began to push back my chair.