Second Chance

by Jane Green

  And when she could afford it, when she married Marcus and he started to make serious money, she found that he hated the clothes she would bring home. Gorgeous shift dresses from Egg in Knightsbridge, beaded kaftans from little boutiques in Notting Hill, tumbling chandelier earrings of amethyst and quartz.

  Eventually the trendy clothes were relegated to the back of her wardrobe, then given to her cleaning lady. Marcus would joke that Ester the Filipina cleaner had a more expensive wardrobe than most of their friends.

  She learnt to dress in clothes that Marcus approves of. Sensible, conservative, luxurious. Her jewellery is classic and unobtrusive, her hair sleek and usually pulled back because Marcus doesn’t like it down.

  Today she has put on the hoops that Marcus hates and that she loves and has slipped on the high-heeled boots that Marcus deemed cheap. She looked in the mirror before leaving and felt sexy, something she hasn’t felt for years. And now, sitting in the car, Holly thinks she wouldn’t mind having some fun, funky clothes.

  She’s fed up with the cashmere bloody jumpers and the Tod’s bloody loafers. She will go to fashionista.uk.net, and she will see if they have anything she likes. She’s not even forty yet, she muses. Too young to dress like a sixty-year-old, and so what if Marcus doesn’t like it? She doesn’t like his pretentious monogrammed Turnbull & Asser shirts, but that doesn’t stop him from wearing them.

  *

  Sarah is sitting at the kitchen table as they walk in, pen in hand, writing letters to the hundreds of people who have written to her.

  As Holly walks over she looks up and Holly is shocked at what she looks like. Sarah has only ever been immaculate. Prissy is the word Holly has always thought. Hair perfectly coiffed, make-up minimal but elegant. Today her face is puffy, her eyes red-rimmed, deep shadows underneath. She is in an oversized sweatshirt that Holly immediately knows must have been Tom’s, and her hair is frizzy, coming out of the messy ponytail.

  Had you been at the service yesterday then saw Sarah right now, you would never know you were looking at the same person. Will was right. She had managed to pull it together yesterday. Quite how much, Holly didn’t realize until now.

  ‘Oh Sarah,’ Holly says, sympathy and sorrow washing over her. ‘I’m so sorry.’ And she puts her arms around Sarah, who leans into her shoulder and bursts into tears.

  ‘I just miss him,’ Sarah sobs. ‘I just miss him so much.’

  ‘I know,’ Holly whispers, rubbing her back. ‘I know.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Sarah says after a while, pulling back and digging a shredded tissue from her jeans pocket. ‘I keep falling apart on people.’

  ‘I think that’s what you’re meant to do.’ Holly squeezes her hand.

  ‘He loved you, Holly,’ Sarah says suddenly. Unexpectedly. ‘You always had a special place in his heart, and I was always jealous of you. I’m so sorry.’ And this time it is Holly’s turn to cry, her carefully applied make-up running all the way down her face.

  ‘No Will today?’ Holly has waited an hour, hoping, each time the door opens, that Will will walk through, but nothing.

  Maggie shakes her head. ‘Darling Will,’ she says. ‘We love him but he’s hopeless. Responsibility has never been his strong point, and he’s never been good at time-keeping. He’ll probably show up some time this evening. Isn’t he something? Can you believe our little Will has grown up?’

  ‘Unbelievable,’ Holly agrees, wondering why her heart is sinking. This evening. Could she come back? Would it be ridiculous? There are the kids to get to bed, Marcus to take care of. No. With a sigh she realizes she can’t come back. So much for If he likes me, he’ll be there, she thinks, and when Paul comes over and asks her if she’s ready to leave, she nods, amazed at how you can go from such a high to such a low in such a short space of time.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Mummy, can you give me some cereal?’ Daisy’s plaintive little voice is inches away from Holly’s face as the sun streams through the wooden blinds on this bright Saturday morning.

  ‘Yes, darling,’ Holly groans, opening one eye and squinting at the alarm clock. Six fourteen. Oh God. What she would give to have children who sleep in late. ‘Just give me a minute.’ Holly finds herself drifting back to sleep, when Daisy’s voice intrudes again. ‘Mummy? When are you going to get out of bed? Are you stuck?’ Holly has occasionally got away with Daisy believing she is stuck in bed, running into Frauke’s room instead, allowing Holly to get back to sleep.

  ‘No. Coming,’ she says, throwing the covers back and looking at the lump on the other side of the bed that is Marcus. In all their years together, Holly doesn’t remember a time when Marcus got up to give the children breakfast. He is busy working all week, he says, and the weekends are the only time he gets to sleep. What about me? Holly once tried to argue. I work too, and I raise the children and I run the house and I pay the bills and I cook. When do I get a lie-in?

  You have Frauke during the week, Marcus argued back. And then inferred that Holly’s job was largely irrelevant. An indulgence, she thinks he called it, whereas his job was very important and he was tired and he deserved to sleep.

  There are times when Holly looks at Marcus and hates him.

  And there are times when Holly finds herself behaving like a teenager. ‘Oh yes,’ she has started muttering under her breath when Marcus finds he can’t help wash the dishes or put up a curtain rod or give Holly a break by taking the children for half an hour, ‘I forgot you are a very busy and important man.’

  ‘You know my husband’s a very busy and important man,’ she has started saying to Frauke, and the two of them snort with laughter, Frauke having lived with them long enough to recognize that Marcus would never deign to do anything helpful around the house when solitaire and backgammon are calling him from the privacy of his office.

  Oliver is already curled up on the sofa at the far end of the kitchen, glued to some inappropriately violent cartoon that he shouldn’t be watching, but it stops him and Daisy from fighting, and it is Saturday morning after all.

  Holly spent every Saturday morning during her childhood glued to Multi-coloured Swap Shop, occasionally switching over to Tiswas (which she didn’t like nearly as much), and it didn’t do her any harm.

  ‘Morning, Olly,’ Holly calls, but gets no response. She tries again, and is rewarded with a flicker of eyes in her direction and a grunt.

  ‘Who wants French toast?’ she asks brightly, checking she has plenty of eggs, and Oliver finally rouses himself enough to say he does.

  ‘Can I help, Mummy?’ Daisy drags a chair across the kitchen and hauls herself up next to Holly. ‘I’ll do the eggs,’ she says, and Holly smiles and watches as Daisy cracks both eggs and eggshells into the bowl.

  ‘Watch me,’ Holly says, taking an egg and separating the shell carefully with her thumbs, the egg plopping into the bowl. ‘See? Now you try.’ Daisy does the next egg perfectly, her little chest puffing up with pride.

  Holly changes the radio from Radio Four – Marcus’s choice – to Radio One, and makes a strong cup of coffee for herself, opening the local paper on the counter to see if there is anything to do with the kids this weekend. Her weeks seem to zip by, she is busy flying from one thing to the next, with never enough hours in a day, but Saturdays and Sundays have started to crawl. She never thought she’d dread a weekend, but this last couple of years she has started to dread them more than anything.

  They never seem to see anybody any more. Despite Holly’s – admittedly less – frequent entertaining, it is rare for them to be invited back. Perhaps it is that no one is doing dinner parties these days, for on the odd occasion their friends have a large party they always seem to be invited; but Holly has a sneaking suspicion that it may be more to do with Marcus.

  Holly can’t organize the playdates she organizes during the week because weekends are family time, and Marcus isn’t usually up until lunchtime, so every weekend morning is now spent trying to find things for the children to do. She
would be perfectly happy to stay at home with them and, frankly, let them watch CITV, but at some point a fight usually breaks out – who has the remote control, who has more space on the sofa, who pinched whom – and the couple of times they have woken Marcus he has emerged in a fury.

  It’s easier just to take them out, so very much easier just to find something to do out of the house. Olivia had left a message last night, saying she had her nephew for the day, and did Holly want to get together. Her sister’s kids are older than Oliver and Daisy, but they’re happy to play with younger ones occasionally, and she’d love to spend some time with Holly again. Holly calls her back, and a few minutes later the date is set, and she breathes a sigh of relief.

  Because the easiest thing of all is to fill her life with distraction, with running around, with activity after activity, because if Holly ever stopped and took a breath, she might realize how lonely she is, and if she realized how lonely she is, the whole pack of cards might come tumbling down.

  The park around the corner is Holly’s favourite Saturday-morning destination, especially on a crisp autumn day like today. The children can go leaf-jumping, there’s a great playground, both of them love seeing the dogs out on walks – several of whom they have come to know – and there’s a sweet little café where Holly can get a cup of tea and occasionally a croissant or a pain au chocolat as a treat.

  Oliver and Daisy both love the playground, although Oliver is professing to be slightly bored with it now that he’s nearly seven, therefore nearly grown-up, and it’s really for children, but there are always other mothers for Holly to talk to, and she found most of her friends in the neighbourhood at the park.

  The au pairs all congregate here during the week, sitting on park benches as their charges run around, chatting nineteen to the dozen, all of them with mobile phones in hand, texting furiously at the same time as talking. Holly has watched Frauke text, feeling very inadequate – she could never attain the same speed and ease. When Holly texts Frauke, it takes her about five minutes to bash out one sentence, and that makes her feel terribly old.

  ‘Yay!’ Oliver’s face lights up as they walk through the park towards the playground, and he breaks into a run, tearing in front of them as he pushes the gate open. ‘They fixed the pirate ship!’ He roars into the playground, closely followed by Daisy, both of them stumbling up the plank of a wooden pirate ship that has been cordoned off for a month while they’ve been sanding down the splinters and resealing it.

  Holly sees Olivia sitting on a bench, and realizes that the only other boy in the playground must be Oscar. She walks over to Olivia, who grins widely as she finishes her phone call.

  ‘Gotta go,’ she says on the phone. ‘I’ll call you back later. Holly!’ She stands up and the two women hug. ‘God, so ridiculous how years can go by without seeing each other, and now I haven’t seen you in a couple of weeks it feels like it’s been years! How are you?’

  ‘I’m great. It’s good to see you. Thank God, actually.’ Holly sticks her hands in her pockets and shivers at the November sky. ‘I thought I’d die of boredom sitting in the park again by myself, it was a complete godsend when you called.’

  ‘I know.’ Olivia laughs. ‘Why do you think my phone is surgically attached to my right ear?’

  ‘Where’s your niece?’

  ‘They’ve taken her to a girly birthday party. It’s all makeovers and fashion shows, and Oscar pretty much said he’d kill himself if he had to go, hence his day with me. So what’s up with Marcus, where’s he today?’

  Holly looks away.

  ‘Uh-oh. If he’s anything like my sister’s husband I’d have to guess either working or sleeping. Hmm. I’m going to go with working.’

  ‘Nope, lazy arse is sleeping.’ Olivia rolls her eyes as Holly shrugs. ‘Why is it that they think they work harder than anything and deserve all this time off when they have no idea what we do? Christ, if Marcus had to look after the children and run the house for a week it would be a disaster.’

  ‘God, I know. When my sister went to Spain with the girls for five days she came back to find mountains of laundry and nothing had been done. And when Ruby ran out of underwear, Michael just went out to Gap and bought her a ton more. Not to mention that their routine went out of the window. He was giving them tubes of Smarties every night as a bribe to get them into bed, then wondered why they spent the next two hours thundering round the house on a sugar high.’

  Holly starts laughing. ‘At least he gave them Smarties. With Marcus it would be like bloody boot camp.’ She starts doing an impression of Marcus: ‘Oliver! Get your shoes off the sofa now! Daisy! Put those cushions back. Oliver! Upstairs to your homework now! Holly! Stop breathing! Now!’ Holly sighs.

  ‘Oh well.’ Olivia rubs Holly’s arm, surprised at how much Holly is sharing. ‘These things are sent to try us. It’s really great to see you, you know. There’s just something about getting together with people who have always known you.’

  Holly smiles. ‘I know. It’s like family.’

  ‘It is. And I’ve missed it. You and I ought to do lunch sometimes. Or a girls’ night out. Something just to get away from it all and remember who we really are. God knows I could do with a few laughs now and then.’

  ‘I’d love to,’ Holly says truthfully and Olivia’s face lights up with inspiration.

  ‘What are you doing tonight?’ Olivia says. ‘Not a girls’ night, but why don’t you and Marcus come over for supper? I always feel horrible about not doing anything on a Saturday night.’

  ‘No babysitter,’ Holly says. ‘Frauke’s going to Brighton for the weekend. But we’re not doing anything, and anyway, you’re the single girl, we ought to be cooking for you. Why don’t you come over to us?’

  ‘Are you sure? I feel like I’ve just invited myself.’

  ‘Well, you have. But that’s okay. We weren’t doing anything anyway. It will be lovely.’

  ‘I’m supposed to be dropping Oscar back at Jenny’s at five. Unless you want to do it with kids.’ Olivia looks over at where Oscar and Oliver are bonding on the top of the ship, barricading it so Daisy can’t get up, and as Daisy starts to wail, Holly looks back at Olivia with a wry smile.

  ‘Oh I think definitely without,’ she says.

  Daisy stumbles over, her face dissolving in tears. ‘The boys are being mean to me,’ she says as Holly pulls her onto her lap and makes a face at Olivia.

  ‘Yes,’ Olivia concurs. ‘Definitely without.’

  By the time they get back home – three pains au chocolat, two hot chocolates, and one cup of tea later – Marcus is sitting at the kitchen table with a cafetière full of coffee, classical music wafting softly from the speakers in the wall and the papers spread out in front of him.

  ‘Hello, my darling children.’ He smiles, putting the paper down and opening his arms wide for his giggling, excited children to run into. ‘I’ve missed you this week. Oh my goodness, Daisy, have you grown two inches since Tuesday?’

  ‘No!’ She giggles. ‘Maybe just one inch.’

  ‘Well, you look much much taller. And Oliver, where did those muscles come from?’ He squeezes Oliver’s spindly little forearm gently.

  ‘I’ve been practising my push-ups,’ Oliver says proudly. ‘And I’m very good at gym at school. My gym teacher says I’m the best in class.’

  ‘Well, that is good news, isn’t it? I can tell!’ And Marcus looks over the children’s heads at Holly and winks at her, and Holly can’t help but smile.

  At times like these, when Marcus is loving, and kind, and gentle, Holly knows that it will be fine. That she didn’t make a wrong decision, that perhaps it is possible that she will spend the rest of her life with him. There are things missing, undoubtedly, but perhaps what they have is enough.

  How could she possibly split up their family when he has the capacity to be such a good father? Yes, he is mostly an absent father, but nothing lasts for ever and, perhaps, as the children get older, he will realize how important it
is to be around for them, to leave work early to get to the children’s shows at school or the PTA evenings or just home to put them to bed.

  At times like these, Holly knows why she married him. He is a good man. He may want a different lifestyle than Holly, but she is such a good chameleon that it is not a huge hardship to step into the role he expects, and surely the pay-off is worth it. He is a good husband, a good father, a good provider.

  He is steady and reliable, the very opposite of her own parents. Everything about Holly’s life is safe and stable, exactly what she had grown up craving, vowing she would have when she was married and had children.

  But there’s no passion, no excitement, no spark.

  So what?

  Doesn’t that inevitably disappear after a while anyway? And so what if it wasn’t there in the beginning? There are other things surely that make up for that…

  ‘Oh I met Olivia at the park,’ Holly says. ‘My old friend from school, remember? I’ve invited her over for supper.’ A pause, as she remembers how much he dislikes impromptu invitations unless they have been issued by him, and she tenses, her shoulders stiff as she prepares herself for his disapproval, prepares to phone Olivia and call it off.

  ‘Is that okay?’ she asks hopefully, the strain almost audible in her voice.

  ‘It’s fine!’ he says cheerfully, and Holly feels her shoulders sink with relief. ‘I could do with a good evening,’ he adds. ‘Anyone else we should invite?’ This is when Marcus throws her, when he is unexpectedly generous, inclusive, warm. ‘It might be fun to have a proper dinner party. I could see if Richard and Caroline are around.’

  Holly’s heart sinks. A boring old colleague of Marcus’s.