‘Bags are in the hall,’ Tina called. ‘We’ll leave you to it. Ring if you need anything!’
Before I could beg them to stay, the front door slammed shut and I was alone with
Paddy.
‘You’d better sit down,’ I said, following him into the living room and pointing at the
sofa. ‘I’ve brought some spare pillows to rest your leg on. Is that elevated enough? I didn’t
know how high it needed to be. Have you taken your painkillers yet? Do you need a glass of
water? Have you felt any dizziness?’
Paddy lowered himself on to the sofa while I gabbled a million questions at him.
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‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ignoring everything I had said. ‘I know this is weird. You don’t
want me here, I get that. I’m the last person you want to look after. I’ll be gone as soon as I
can.’
This speech disarmed me. I had expected him to be irreverent, cracking jokes about the
situation. This thoughtful, perceptive Paddy was a more welcome guest than the one I had
envisaged. But I wasn’t sure that was a good thing; did I really want to welcome him?
Bitterness was so much more straightforward; more in line with what my head told me I should
feel about him.
‘It’s fine,’ I said. What else could I say, when the vitality I had noticed this morning
had been replaced by the gaunt face of pain? ‘But I’ll be back at work tomorrow, so you’ll be
on your own all day.’ I glanced at my watch. ‘If you would rather go home, there’s still time
for me to drive you, and you could collect your car when you’re better. Your mum and dad
could come and look after you, couldn’t they?’
‘No, they …’ He stopped, shook his head. ‘They’ve a lot on at the moment.’
There was something in the way he said that – a story lurking behind his words – but
he was plainly not willing to tell it and I wasn’t inclined to ask. Providing practical assistance
was one thing, but I didn’t have to hang around making conversation too, did I? Surely he
would have a telephone for that?
I pottered to the kitchen and came back with a bag of frozen peas which I helped
position under his leg.
‘I have salmon in the freezer,’ I said, moving the TV remote control to the table next to
him.
‘Perhaps we should stick with the peas for now. The fish could get messy and begin to
smell …’
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It was a lame joke, and I should have been able to resist. I tried my best to resist. But
the Paddy smile was there – tinged with pain, but still so much like the smile I used to love
seeing, that my own smile flashed up in response before I could stop it.
‘I meant we could have it for dinner,’ I said, retreating to the doorway, as if by moving
away I could stretch this connection that had flared up between us until it snapped. ‘It won’t
be anything like as fancy as you’re probably used to.’
‘Don’t cook. The least I can do is pay for a takeaway.’
‘No! I mean, it’s no problem.’ Far from it. It was the perfect excuse to hide away in the
kitchen and avoid spending more time with Paddy. I’d already calculated that I could probably
get away with a couple of hours by myself for preparing dinner and cleaning up afterwards, if
I worked very slowly. I might even be tempted to bake a cake to spin out the time. ‘Is there
anything you need before I go and make a start?’
It was still too early to cook, so I busied myself for the next half hour in cleaning the
oven – a job that even I, with my loathing for being idle, usually found an excuse to put off.
But then, over the quiet burbling of the radio, I heard Paddy call my name.
I ran into the living room, expecting to find that he’d fallen to the floor at the very least;
instead he was lying in state on the sofa, holding out my mobile phone and with a broad smile
chasing away the extremes of pain that had marred his face.
‘Your phone rang,’ he said.
‘And you answered it?’
‘Hey, I’m not good for much else tonight, so the least I can do is be your secretary …’
He waved the phone at me. ‘Aren’t you going to take it?’
‘There’s still someone there? Why didn’t you say?’
I snatched the phone off him and put it to my ear as I hurried to the kitchen again. I
hoped it wasn’t Rich, inviting me over to his house. How on earth was I going to explain that
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I was sharing my house with a man tonight, when I had never allowed him to stay? But my
concern was blown away when I heard Caitlyn laughing.
‘Who was that?’ she asked, and I could picture the amusement on her face as clearly as
if she’d been here. My heart sank under the weight of missing her. ‘He has the sexiest accent
– after Luc’s, of course. And what was that about him not being good for much tonight? What
have you been up to? Do I need to send you a few more vouchers so you can carry on?’
‘Stop it!’ I said, unable to resist joining her laughter. I closed the kitchen door, and sank
onto a chair. ‘It’s the celebrity who came to start the walk. He’s had an injury, so he needs to
rest for a while. I have to look after him.’
My vagueness didn’t fool her for a second.
‘How long is a while? Until after dinner?’
‘Yes …’
‘Or is he so bad that he needs to stay the night?’
‘I don’t know what you’re implying,’ I said, my attempt at primness undermined by
laughter. ‘But you’re wrong. It’s all perfectly innocent. I’ve made up the spare room for him.’
‘Really?’ Caitlyn’s laughter abruptly faded. ‘He is spending the night? Is that safe? I
don’t think you should be staying on your own with a stranger. Who did you say it was?’
‘Paddy Friel.’
‘Oh yeah, the archaeology man. I’ve seen some of his programmes. I thought his voice
sounded familiar.’
My reply caught in my throat. I had never mentioned Paddy to Caitlyn, and had hidden
away in the loft all the photographs and mementoes of our time together; the things that, despite
what had happened, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to throw away. But I had often wondered
whether she would have any memory of him.
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‘I mean, he seemed nice enough on TV,’ she continued, ‘but you never know. That
might all be an act. He might actually be a psychopath, who’ll creep up and kill you in your
sleep.’
‘He’s not steady enough on his crutches for that yet.’ I tried to laugh it off, but there
was no ignoring her concern. I would have felt exactly the same if the situation had been
reversed, and she knew it; I had drummed safety into her too well. I wrestled, but I had no
choice other than to come clean.
‘He’s not really a stranger,’ I admitted. ‘I used to know him, way back.’
‘Mum!’ she shrieked. ‘You knew Paddy Friel? When? How come you’ve never
mentioned that?’
‘It was a long time ago. There’s nothing to mention.’
I could tell by her silence that she understood. Paddy was part of the life-before-her,
>
the time I never spoke about. I had always told her that it didn’t matter – that nothing interesting
had happened in those years, that there had been nothing to miss when my circumstances
changed. My real life began when she came to live with me. It was an artifice we had chosen
to maintain long after she was too old to believe it – the Father Christmas effect applied to my
history. I couldn’t bear that she should ever think she had been a burden.
‘Text me in the morning to let me know you’re alive,’ she said, and I was happy to
agree and change the subject. She had actually telephoned to find out how the walk had gone,
and I took great delight in laughing over Gran’s exploits and monopolisation of the newspaper
photographer.
‘I’ll forward you the link when it’s in the paper,’ I offered. ‘Send her a postcard to say
how smart she looked. She’ll love that.’
‘Will do. Did she model one of the T-shirts?’
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‘No, but there were lots of people wearing them.’ The T-shirts featuring Caitlyn’s
design had proved so popular that we had had to order a second batch. ‘I wish you could have
been here.’
My attempt not to sound wistful clearly failed.
‘I’m definitely coming back in August for your birthday. We bought cheap flights
yesterday and saved a packet.’
‘We?’ I repeated carefully.
‘Me and Luc … you don’t mind, do you? I said he could stay with us. And you can
hardly object now you’ve broken the no-men-in-the-house rule …’
That was the trouble with children, I reflected, as I got on with preparing dinner after
finishing the call with Caitlyn. You spent never-ending amounts of time and money
encouraging them to be smart, bright, confident young people, and then they harnessed all that
cleverness and used it against you.
I carried our dinner in on trays, ignoring Paddy’s half-hearted protest that he could
probably move to the table: he wouldn’t be aggravating his injury on my watch. The sooner he
made a good enough recovery to go home, the better. I switched on the TV – dinner in front of
the TV! – another rule broken, but needs must – hoping it would deter conversation, but the
painkillers must have kicked in as Paddy was looking far perkier.
‘So that was Caitlyn on the phone earlier,’ he said, spearing a cherry tomato. ‘She
sounds so … grown up.’
‘Because she is. Children have a habit of doing that.’
‘So she’s away at uni?’
‘No. She’s working in Paris.’
‘When did she start calling you Mum?’
I swallowed a piece of salmon, not tasting it at all.
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‘After a few months. Everyone at nursery had at least a mum or a dad. She wanted one
too.’
I would never have suggested it myself; the last thing I had wanted to do was take
Faye’s place. But then I had gone to Caitlyn’s first sports day at the nursery she had attended
before we moved here. It was a delight to see her running round and enjoying herself, unbroken
by everything that had happened in the previous few months. But the playing field had been
full of children scampering round, showing off, shouting, ‘Look at me!’ as they clamoured for
their parents’ attention. Cries of ‘Mummy’ and ‘Daddy’ had flown through the air like a colony
of wasps, impossible to ignore. And then Caitlyn had won the giant egg and spoon race, and
without a moment’s hesitation, she had run up and clutched my hand, squealing, ‘Did you see
me, Mummy?’ It had stuck ever since.
Tears filled my eyes. My feelings couldn’t be reconciled: the love and pride I had felt
for Caitlyn in that moment, and the guilt that it was a moment I should never have known. It
should have been Faye on that playing field, not me. It should have been Faye for every
subsequent moment – the first day at school, the sports achievements, the exam celebrations,
the first period, the first boyfriend, the sleepovers, the holidays – even chatting to Caitlyn in
Paris this afternoon. None of those moments should ever have belonged to me.
Paddy was watching me. I brushed my tears away roughly.
‘As long as you’re staying here,’ I said, my voice sounding unsteadier than I would
have liked, ‘there’s one rule. No talking about the past – any part of it. And that includes not
talking about Caitlyn.’
‘But, Eve, there are things …’
‘No.’ I put down my knife and fork and looked at him. ‘I don’t want to hear your
explanation. It was all a long time ago. I can’t quite stretch to forgiveness, but I won’t waste
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any more energy on being bitter. You’re just flesh and blood, and you put yourself first, like
everyone else. I can’t blame you for that.’
‘But …’
‘Don’t. Stop pushing it. It still hurts, you know? Not your part in it, so much now – but
Faye, and Dad, and being reminded about what we have all lost. Just seeing you here brings it
all closer to the surface than it has been for years. I really don’t want to talk about it, or to rake
over the rights and wrongs of what happened back then. It doesn’t matter any more. You’re
happy with your life and I’m happy with mine. Let’s leave it like that.’
He looked at me then and, from the expression on his face, it seemed as if an internal
battle was going on. I wondered, briefly, why it bothered him so much; why he seemed to have
this overwhelming need to dig around in our past, and to justify what he had done.
‘If that’s what you want,’ he said at last. He reached out and gently rubbed the back of
my hand. ‘The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you.’
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CHAPTER 13
It was all very well to have a rule that there would be no talking about the past; I couldn’t
control my thoughts as easily. Paddy was in the same house, sleeping under the same roof as
me for the first time in over seventeen years. The smell of him lingered on the sofa where he
had sat all afternoon. I could hear the bed creak in the spare room next to mine as he tossed
and turned in the night. As I lay alone in bed, struggling to sleep, it was impossible not to
remember the past and our time together.
We had worked well – been a good match, despite the awful circumstances in which
our relationship had started. I had blossomed under his influence, finally lured out of the
shadow cast by Faye, by having to go through life following in the footsteps of an older sister
who dazzled everyone. Being the ‘clever one’ had sometimes seemed a small prize compared
to what Faye had – the power to captivate all who met her, including me. But Paddy had made
me feel the first choice at last. And for once I had led the way; I had settled down with Paddy,
while Faye had flitted from one man to another, even after having Caitlyn. There were so many
good memories from our time together; was it any wonder I had thought it would last forever?
Paddy managed to hobble to the kitchen table the next morning, sitting in Caitlyn’s
place while I
dashed about getting everything ready.
‘You didn’t need to get up so early,’ I said. I’d been creeping round, hoping to sneak
off to school before he woke up.
‘It’s fine. I couldn’t sleep well.’
‘You’re not feeling sick, are you?’ I’d read up on the signs of concussion. He shook his
head. ‘Is the leg any better?’ I asked.
‘Maybe.’ I took that as a no. I had seen him trying to stifle a grimace as he walked in.
‘Though I don’t reckon I’ll be able to drive home today.’
‘I never expected you would. Dr Gould said it could be a week.’
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‘It can’t be a week. I need to be somewhere on Saturday.’
I glanced at him, but he was looking out of the window, giving nothing away. It must
be a date, I decided. He may not have a girlfriend, but he could still be going out on dates. Not
that it was any of my business. The sooner he was out of my house, the better.
‘What about work? Are you expected anywhere?’ I asked.
‘Not this week. I’ve a project design to work on for a proposed excavation in Yorkshire.
I can be getting on with that on my laptop.’
It sounded more fun than a day spent with Jo Blair, even with the leg injury and the
bruise adorning his head.
‘I’ve made you a flask of coffee,’ I said, gesturing at the large flask next to the sink.
‘I’ll put it on the table beside the sofa. Sandwiches for lunch are in the fridge. Is there anything
else you need?’
‘A working leg?’ He smiled. ‘Thanks. You didn’t need to do that.’
I knew that, and I didn’t need to pop home in my lunch break either, but of course I did.
I’d tried to reduce his need to move as much as I could, but the upstairs bathroom was the one
thing I couldn’t fix to suit him. All morning at school I’d had visions of him misjudging the
stairs with his crutches or having a dizzy spell and crashing to the bottom, sustaining even more
serious injury, so as soon as lunchtime arrived, I abandoned my desk and drove home.
All was quiet when I let myself into the house, but I was relieved to find no body at the
A Dozen Second Chances (ARC) Page 15