Second Chance

by Jane Green

  For that is what is so hard. Nobody is reading about the wonderful love story that Saffron has with Pearce. They are painting Saffron as a marriage-wrecker, a cheap harlot who set her sights on Pearce and is determined to break him up with his wife. Ghastly men she has dated once or twice have emerged to say that Saffron is the most ambitious woman they have ever met, that she has always said she would do anything to go out with a Pearce or Mel or Tom, that nothing could stand in the way of her drive.

  None of it is true.

  An hour to go before her flight is called, Saffron finds herself walking past the bar. A wall of free drinks. In the old days, she would have perched on a stool and ordered one after another, just because it was free and because she could.

  But she doesn’t do that any more.

  ‘God grant me the serenity…’ she starts to recite in her mind, but the serenity prayer is drowned out by a buzz. A buzz she hasn’t felt for a long time, a buzz that seems to drown out everything else, all sane thoughts, any mechanisms she may have used to stop herself.

  She should call her sponsor. Call someone in the programme. Anyone who could talk her down from this.

  But the buzz has propelled her to the bar.

  Fuck it. After what I’ve been through, I deserve a drink. Just one, just to calm me down, and who wouldn’t deserve a drink after this? What normal person wouldn’t be entitled to one drink after all this?

  And what harm could it do? I mean, really. What harm could it possibly do?

  Chapter Twenty

  Holly phoned Marcus that morning and asked if they could go out for dinner that night. It’s been a long time since they have properly talked, and there are some things Holly wants to discuss.

  And this time Holly really does want to talk. Her conversation with Maggie has stayed with her, and although, as time progresses, she is becoming more and more unhappy, she knows that she can’t just let things slide without involving Marcus. She’s never told him anything about how she feels about him or their marriage, other than the perfunctory ‘I love you’ after they have sex, or occasionally on the phone.

  They never talk about what each of them wants, where they are going, or whether they are continuing to grow in the same direction. This, particularly given her growing friendship with Will, bothers Holly the most.

  What if Marcus could be a different man? she keeps thinking. Would I love him then? Would I be happier? The devil on her shoulder repeatedly whispers that people don’t change and that Marcus isn’t a different man. She will have to accept it. But the angel persuades her to give him a chance, to at least let him know how she feels.

  And yet… it is so very hard for her to find the willingness given that she has switched off, has, almost without realizing it, absented herself emotionally and mentally from her marriage. The only move left to make is physical.

  And it is so hard given that the only person occupying her thoughts, twenty-four hours a day, is Will.

  Their emails and occasional lunches have progressed to phone calls. When things happen to Holly during the day, if the children make her laugh, or she reads something interesting, or she is thrilled with herself for a new card design, the very first person she calls – the only person, in fact – is Will.

  Her initial discomfort at her attraction to him has waned somewhat. She still thinks he is the most handsome man she has ever seen, but she has grown comfortable with him. They are able to tease each other, she is able to reveal things to him she has never told anyone else, and certainly not Marcus.

  There are things in her past that Marcus would find abhorrent, shameful or disgusting. Stories he could never enjoy. He never enjoys hearing about who Holly was before she became his wife. Who the real Holly is.

  ‘What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you?’ Will asked her one day when they were having lunch.

  Lunch has become a somewhat regular occurrence these days. It feels safe to her: friends meet for lunch all the time, and there is nothing that needs to be read into lunch.

  She is also mindful of Maggie’s advice. As humiliated as she was at having been ‘caught’, she did hear Maggie when she told her to be careful. Not that she can help the way she feels, but she certainly doesn’t have to act upon it.

  ‘I hate those questions.’ Holly rolled her eyes. ‘Why would I possibly tell you something that’s completely embarrassing? And anyway, I can never remember things like that.’

  ‘Oh go on. I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.’ He grinned at her, knowing she was going to talk.

  Holly groaned. ‘Oh God. I can’t believe you’re going to make me tell you something embarrassing. Okay. One time I was in Jamaica on holiday…’

  ‘How old were you?’

  ‘Sadly, old enough to know better. I was twenty, I think. Maybe twenty-one. I was in a bar with some guys we’d met at the beach that day who seemed really nice. I ordered a rum and Coke, and instead I got a huge glass of every conceivable alcoholic drink you can imagine, with Coke splashed in for colouring.’

  ‘So you didn’t drink it, right?’

  ‘Yes, I bloody drank it. I’ve never been a big drinker, and I’ve always hated rum. I was just drinking it because everyone else seemed to drink rum and Coke, and it never occurred to me that it was particularly disgusting because of the mix.’

  ‘So let me guess, you passed out?’

  ‘Well, yes, but not before jumping up on stage to take part in a wet T-shirt competition, snogging about eight men in the club, then projectile vomiting from the stage onto the entire front row.’

  ‘Wow!’ Will leant back, his whole body shaking with laughter. ‘Holly. That’s really disgusting.’

  ‘Yeah, well. Told you.’

  ‘Quite like the idea of the wet T-shirt contest, though… Fancy a rum and Coke?’ As he said it, he started to gesture the waiter over, and Holly yelped and smacked him on the arm.

  ‘Ha bloody ha.’ She grinned. ‘Your turn.’

  Will looked all wide-eyed and innocent. ‘I don’t have one.’ He shrugged. ‘Seriously. I’m a bloke. There’s very little that embarrasses me.’

  ‘You big old liar. There must be something.’

  ‘Okay. Not the most embarrassing, but last year my friend Nick got married and we all went down to Brighton for a stag weekend. Bear in mind, we were all rugby players at school, and this was all the old team, so we knew we were in for a weekend of heavy drinking. So… we spent the afternoon doing a pub crawl, and then someone had the brilliant idea of playing rugby on the beach wearing just underwear.’

  ‘So far it’s not very embarrassing.’

  ‘Yes, well. Some bright spark had thoughtfully provided pink furry thongs from Ann Summers as the underwear.’

  A smile spread wide on Holly’s face. ‘Now I’m starting to enjoy this story.’

  ‘So here we are, nine great big rugby players, pretty pissed, wearing nothing but a piece of pink fur over our crotches, tackling one another on the beach, when this guy comes over – completely normal-looking guy –and says he’s a photographer and would we mind if he took a few pictures.’

  ‘Uh-oh.’ Holly leant forward, chin on her hands.

  ‘Had we been sober, we might have thought the same thing, but as it was we all basically said, sure, mate, take whatever you want. So we’re all showing off, flexing our muscles and being super-macho as this guy’s snapping away; and then, just as he leaves, Nick calls him back and asks him if he’s going to use the photos anywhere. “Yep, they’re for Boyz, a gay lifestyle magazine. Thanks so much, guys,’ he says and disappears, leaving us all completely mortified.’

  Holly burst out laughing. ‘Ha! Serves you right, appearing in a public place with nothing but women’s pink furry thongs on.’

  There was the time she went to a Police concert when she was nineteen. She and Saffron had slept the night before at Saffron’s house, got stoned beforehand, and had excitedly approached Wembley Stadium with the determination to get b
ackstage, meet Sting, and have him fall madly in love with them. They didn’t particularly care which one he would fall in love with. Hell, he could have had both for all they cared. The important thing was to get backstage.

  And backstage they got, but only by virtue of turning themselves into classic rock-star groupies and delivering blow-jobs to a couple of roadies who couldn’t believe their luck. Incidentally Sting did say hello, asked them if they enjoyed the show, and that was it. Much to their consternation, he didn’t fall in love with either of them.

  ‘So from Sting to Marcus,’ Will mused. ‘Can’t say I can quite see the similarity there.’

  Holly still doesn’t talk much about Marcus with Will. Can’t talk about Marcus with Will. They touch upon it, upon Holly’s unhappiness, but she doesn’t go into the details, doesn’t share the intimacies of their life.

  And she hasn’t shared that tonight she’s asked to go out for dinner with Marcus. She’s going to take a deep breath and tell her husband that she’s not happy. She’s going to ask him to spend more time at home, to pay more attention to the kids. To pay more attention to her. She doesn’t particularly want him at home more, but perhaps, she thinks, it would all be better if they were together more, if they had more of a partnership.

  He is coming home at seven, and they have a table at E&O for eight.

  At a quarter to seven, just as Holly is stepping out of the shower, Marcus phones. ‘I’m sorry, darling,’ he says. ‘I’ve just had a call from a client who needs me to do some urgent case-history research on child support. It won’t take too long, but I’ll never get home and get back into town. Can I meet you at the restaurant?’

  Holly shakes her head in dismay. What can she say? What, other than it’s not exactly a great start.

  Holly is sitting at the table, nursing a Cosmopolitan, and smiling broadly as she reads a text from Will.

  These days, Holly goes nowhere without her phone. The Holly of old would forget her phone daily, forget mostly that she even had a phone, but today’s Holly has her phone clutched in her hand twenty-four hours a day. Even when she is out shopping or picking the kids up from school or sitting on a bus on her way to the office, she can text Will. Not as good as email, but not far behind.

  And their emails, texts and phone calls flow thick and fast. Her eyes light up when she gets a text from him; she will excuse herself from the table, from dinner with Marcus and the children, and escape into the loo to read the latest message, tap out something quick and witty before rejoining her family or her friends.

  ‘Hello.’ Marcus swoops down and pecks her on the cheek. ‘I’m so sorry I’m late. What are you drinking?’

  ‘A Cosmopolitan,’ she says, leaning back and watching him as if watching a stranger. Dutch courage, is what she thinks. This is her second. She was early, Marcus was late, and she has been sitting here for twenty-three minutes. The first Cosmopolitan took the edge off her nerves; the second is making tonight’s mission – the business of telling Marcus she is unhappy – almost ridiculously easy.

  ‘How was your day?’ Marcus smiles across the table at her as he accepts a menu, his thin fingers opening it up, and as he glances down, Holly thinks about Will’s fingers. She loves his fingers. Loves his hands. Loves watching him move them, could spend hours fixating on his forearms. She has become used to Marcus’s lanky, pale body, the hair on his arms black against the whiteness of his skin, his fingers elegant and expressive but not strong. Not sexy.

  Will has large hands. Thick fingers. Holly can see the muscles move under the skin when he moves his wrists. His skin is dark, almost olive. He looks as if he has been sunbathing even in the middle of winter, although, as he points out, he usually is sunbathing in the middle of winter, on some exotic island with some exotic woman. Holly tries not to think of the woman.

  But how different from Marcus. Holly suppresses a slight shiver – lust? Revulsion? She doesn’t know, but she moves her gaze away from Marcus’s fingers to meet his eyes.

  ‘Everything all right, darling?’ he says, but he is not asking because he suspects anything; it is just one of his stock phrases.

  ‘Let’s order.’ Holly forces a smile and swigs another gulp of her drink as the waiter comes over, taking a deep breath when he finally leaves.

  ‘Marcus,’ she starts, ‘we need to talk. I…’ She pauses. How does she say this? What are the words she should use? It felt so easy earlier today, practising in front of the bathroom mirror, having a one-way conversation with herself in the car after she’d dropped the kids off at school.

  ‘I feel so disconnected from you,’ she says slowly, barely able to look him in the eye. ‘You seem to be at work all the time, and uninterested in us, and I’m not happy.’ There. She said it. She raises her eyes to meet his, almost scared of his reaction. ‘This just isn’t what I expected marriage to be.’

  ‘What?’ Marcus looks dumbstruck. ‘What on earth are you talking about? I don’t understand. What are you trying to say?’ He looks hurt and angry, exactly the reaction Holly expected. Exactly the reaction she doesn’t want.

  Because Marcus’s anger scares her. Has always scared her. It is why she has never confronted him before. His temper is not something she sees often, but when it emerges it is explosive. He shouts and stamps, much like a little boy, and he can be both cutting and cruel.

  He has said many a thing in anger that has wounded Holly deeply, and she has retreated from him for a few days to lick her wounds and attempt to heal. He is always contrite eventually and she has always forgiven him and has tried hard not to do or say anything that will set him off again.

  She has thought, she realizes tonight, many times of what her life would be like if she were single, if she were to leave Marcus and raise her children herself. She has lain in bed and planned it many times, but the plan always starts with her telling Marcus she is leaving, and she can almost predict what he will say. ‘Me, leave?’ he would shout, his voice fierce with anger, causing Holly to shrink. ‘Me? You’re the one who wants to leave. You leave. I’m staying in the house with the kids.’ And he is a divorce lawyer, after all, and knows what he’s entitled to. He knows how to fight the dirty fight, and Holly has always been just too damned scared.

  ‘I’m not saying anything,’ Holly speaks calmly, trying to smooth things over, and she reaches over and takes his hand. ‘Marcus, listen to me. I’m saying that I’m not happy. That I’m sure this is just a phase in our marriage, but that something needs to change, I can’t go on like this.’

  ‘Like what?’ His voice is icy cold.

  ‘Like this!’ Her voice rises with anger, and she consciously takes a deep breath. ‘Like you being late for everything. Like you being away all the time, cancelling our plans, not seeing the children. Daisy cries almost every night wanting to see you. We don’t have any friends left because nobody bothers making plans with us any more, and I never see you. When I do see you, it feels like we’re two ships passing in the night. We barely even talk any more. Perfunctory questions about what our days are like, but that’s it. I don’t feel married, Marcus. I don’t see the point.’

  ‘So what are you saying?’ Marcus leans forward, his voice now dangerously soft. ‘You want me to leave work so you can see me more? You want me to leave my job so I can spend more time with the children? Fine.’ His voice starts to rise, and as people sitting around them turn to stare Holly wishes she could disappear.

  ‘You want me to be a stay-at-home husband or dad, fine, but who’s going to pay the mortgage? Who’s going to put food on the table? Who’s going to put the children through school? Your illustrating work doesn’t exactly contribute to anything; but fine, if that’s what you want, I’ll give my notice in tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ Holly whispers, rolling her eyes. ‘I’m not saying that, I’m just saying that we have to find a different way of doing things.’

  ‘Fine.’ Marcus sits back and crosses his arms, waiting.

  ‘How?’

>   ‘I don’t know, Marcus!’ Holly is almost in tears. ‘I’m trying to talk to you about this, to tell you how I feel. I’m not attacking you. I don’t know why you’re jumping on the defensive.’

  ‘I’ll tell you why,’ Marcus hisses. ‘Because I work like a dog to keep you happy. Do you think I’m doing it for me? I couldn’t care less about work. All I care about is my family, you and the kids, and I’m doing this so you can live in your big, beautiful house in Brondesbury. I’m doing this so you can wear your cashmere sweaters and not worry about anything. You can’t have it both ways, Holly. That’s not how it works.’

  Holly sits back and looks at him, four words going through her head. Over and over and over.

  You big fucking liar.

  He’s not doing this for her. Or the children. The truth is Holly doesn’t give a damn about the big, beautiful house or the cashmere fucking sweaters. She never has.

  She doesn’t give a damn about any of the stuff that Marcus deems so necessary in order for people to look at him and think he is someone important, someone special. A big shot.

  You big fucking liar.

  He’s doing exactly what he always does. He doesn’t hear her, can’t hear anything he might be able to interpret as criticism. He throws it right back at Holly, making it her fault, painting himself as the victim, sending Holly retreating with the force of his denial.

  Their hors d’œuvres arrive. Holly looks miserably at her parsnip and apple soup – her appetite long since disappeared – and back at Marcus, who has now fished his buzzing BlackBerry out of his pocket and is punching an email into the phone.

  ‘So what do you want me to do?’ Marcus says, when he finishes his correspondence, placing the BlackBerry on the table next to his plate. ‘What am I supposed to do?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Holly shrugs. ‘I wanted you to know how unhappy I am. I wanted you to care.’

  ‘I do care, Holly.’ His voice is gentle now, now that he no longer feels attacked. ‘Of course I care if you’re unhappy, but darling, I don’t think it’s anything to do with me. I have no idea why you’re so unhappy… Do you have your period?’