A Year of Second Chances

by kendra Smith

  Wasn’t she the mummy?

  Suzie watched them intently and listened to their conversation, to how the nanny – as she appeared to be – smiled and cared for the baby, tidied up and let the mother take over. Her eyes flicked to Dawn, to the baby and back to the mother. She watched the shafts of sunlight lighting up the dust motes as they danced above the wooden floorboards in the café while thousands of thoughts percolated in her brain. And the one that had been going around and around lately, not only started to seed itself there, it was positively growing roots.

  She felt a new sense that what she was planning was right.

  10

  Dawn

  ‘Won’t you be a darling and put this on the cake stand?’ Dawn smiled sweetly back at one of the mothers at the school cake competition as she handed Dawn a beautifully iced two-tier showstopper. This was no ordinary chocolate cake: it was covered in a thick, creamy layer of heavenly white chocolate and beautifully decorated with tiny dark chocolate stars on the top. Inside, Dawn suspected, would be melted fudge, pieces of gold and probably a first-class return ticket to Barbados. Such was the fever of cake competitions at this bloody school.

  Dawn glanced sideways at her lemon drizzle cake and narrowed her eyes into focus. It had sunk in the middle and the lemony bits on top had congealed; they looked more like rabbits’ droppings than drizzle. Her shoulders slumped.

  It hadn’t been her idea. Alice had brought home a flyer and was insistent that she had a go at the Find the Next Mary Berry Baking Competition! run by the school committee. Winning the competition was a dubious victory in Dawn’s view. The ‘lucky’ winner was expected to come up with amazing baking throughout the school year at various events: from gingerbread houses at Christmas to Simnel cakes at Easter – all that rolling out of icing – who had time for that? She’d tried it one Easter. Eric had come in to find bits of icing hanging over the edge of kitchen surfaces and Dawn barely hanging on to her sense of humour. It would be no bother for the Baking Queens. As for Dawn – it gave her a headache even thinking about it.

  ‘Dawn, we were just talking about you!’ Victoria came up to her and beamed. The one woman she wanted to steer clear of; the one woman who would want to win. Victoria, the Professional Mother. There was no committee or school competition that she didn’t get her mitts on. Her children were immaculate; never seen with Nerf bullets lodged in their hair, nor notes for unfinished quadratic equations.

  ‘Just saying you try really hard at your baking, don’t you, darling?’ She mock-frowned and pouted at Dawn. ‘Did you have a bit of an accident, my love?’ She nodded over to the lemon cake. ‘Lemon drizzle? More like a downpour hit that cake!’ She smiled sweetly.

  Dawn could feel her cheeks prickle. She tried to laugh as images of hitting Victoria with a non-stick spatula flashed through her mind.

  ‘Oh well never mind, I’m sure there are lots of activities you are good at, Dawn,’ Victoria purred, ‘but baking’s not your thing, eh? Oh, here comes Mrs Govenor…’ squealed Victoria.

  What is my ‘thing’? She looked pointedly at Victoria, who raised her neatly plucked eyebrows at her and with a swish of her ponytail, like a horse about to canter off, Victoria turned around and greeted Mrs Govenor like a long-lost friend. She would probably shag her, Dawn suspected, if it meant winning the competition.

  She watched the Baking Queens flutter about the table and shriek at each other like they hadn’t just seen each other an hour ago at drop-off and her mind wandered to Suzie. She wished Suzie were here. She wouldn’t stand for such nonsense. But she’d have to have children to do that – she couldn’t believe it when her old uni friend had said she was moving from the ‘bright lights’ of London to ‘her neck of the woods’ and ‘was there a good gym?’ She remembered dragging Suzie to a baby and toddler coffee morning at the gym to raise money for a local charity. If only she’d known then about all of Suzie’s IVF hell…

  That came later. Many, many tears had been shed – both hers and Suzie’s – about the painful journey of IVF. Cycle after cycle – seven years of hell that had, if everyone was being brutally honest, left a permanent mark on Suzie and Rex’s marriage. They’d gone on to talk about adoption, but Suzie desperately wanted her own baby, which was natural.

  It would have been easy to lose touch after university. They’d both been at Reading, although Dawn was a few years older due to several false starts about her course – she should have probably enrolled in a course on decision-making. Art or History of Art? And that was after she’d taken a year off to see if she wanted to be a nursery school assistant – ghastly! All those nappies!

  So when she finally got on the course she wanted, she was in her second year as Suzie was a fresher – about to start her Marketing degree. You’d never have put the two of them together; it was a case of opposites attracting, she supposed. Where Suzie was slim and stylish, Dawn was more – well, especially now – motherly. Suzie had persuaded her to try a Zumba class once she’d had Felix, to ‘tone up’ and that was that – it had become a firm fixture on a Saturday morning. If she was honest, for her it was more about the coffee and chat afterwards, but it was fun watching the Yummy Mummies in their latest dance outfits.

  ‘Dawn?’

  ‘Sorry, miles away.’ It was Candice, nodding to her cake. ‘What happened?’ she stage-whispered theatrically.

  That did it. Dawn was about to leave, but just as she bent down to gather her bags; there was a sharp tap on a baking tin. ‘Right, ladies, now let’s get the judging started,’ Mrs Govenor announced cheerily. She looked up and noticed Victoria nudging someone next to her and pointing at Dawn’s cake. She inhaled deeply and thought about what her being there meant to the kids.

  She’d always felt like an outsider at that school, with its massive Georgian façade. She remembered when they’d first seen it on the open day, it had seemed to her like a swanky hotel. And all the visitors’ loos had Jo Malone soap in them. Imagine the cost! But after her great-uncle George had died and left them specific details in his will about his grand-niece and nephew’s education and a set sum was released every term from the bank for their fees, they could actually afford it. Just.

  But she’d never fitted in… didn’t work like most of the uber-efficient mummies here – goodness, but she did! If she could count the hours she spent hoovering, dusting, ironing those annoying little school shirt collars, baking dreadful cakes for yet more dreadful cake sales, offering to help at readings, at the art club, working on Eric’s accounts.

  She looked at the assembled women. They all seemed so together. Suddenly that terrified her enormously.

  *

  When Dawn got back from the hairdresser later, Eric was nowhere to be seen. She glanced at her phone: no message. That was odd – he knew they were going out to dinner. He was always back on a Friday by six. It was almost like a religion in their house. Friday was their gin and tonic night. Dear Lord, had they become that boring, ordering their week by what they drank? She shuddered.

  Dawn looked at herself in the hall mirror and admired her new haircut. The lady in the salon – Suzie had recommended her – had cost twice as much as her usual, but never mind. Her stylist had said it was a ‘kick-ass’ style. She played with the sound of those words in her mind. Kick-ass. She swished her hair around her shoulders, pleased with the way the layers fell, the way her new fringe skimmed across her eyebrows, taking five years off her (she was sure).

  The new me starts here, right now, with my hair. The shoplifting was a bit of a disaster, admittedly, but at least I felt alive.

  ‘Mummy, you look different!’ Felix came up to her and she turned around from the hall mirror to give her adorable nine-year-old a cuddle.

  ‘That’s nice of you, darling,’ she said, releasing her wriggling boy from her embrace. She turned from the mirror and wandered upstairs just as she heard the front door bang.

  ‘Darling, I’m back!’

  ‘Eric, where have you been?’ She hurried back d
own a few stairs and gave him a peck on the cheek. He looked rather flushed – and slightly furtive. ‘We need to leave in ten minutes!’

  ‘Got a bit caught up, said I’d help Allan with those budgets. Our VAT figures have to be with the accountant by next week.’

  ‘OK, darling, but do hurry up, the babysitter will be here soon.’ Strange. Allan was a whiz with the budgets – it was usually him helping Eric…

  Dawn quickly darted back upstairs to get changed.

  Just as she reached the top step, Eric shouted up: ‘Fancy a gin and tonic?’

  *

  By eight o’clock, they were sweeping up the gravel driveway at the Larsons’, or they would have been ‘sweeping’ if they’d had that kind of car. Instead, they had a nine-year-old Skoda. Dawn took in the tiny rows of lights twinkling on the drive and looked up towards the manor house at the end of it; she clutched the side of the seat and took a deep breath. It was so grown-up.

  Eric turned to her. ‘You all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ she breathed out. She was not all right. There was quite a draft blowing up her legs where her knickers should have been.

  Juliet was at the door to greet them. Juliet had Sam who was in Felix’s class. She worked full-time as a marketing assistant for a local charity and her husband worked in shipping insurance in London. Juliet was dressed in an elegant dark navy jumpsuit teamed with a stunning diamond choker around her throat. She had subtle, perfectly applied make-up: nude lips and fawn shadow across her eyelids. Her hair was immaculate, a beautiful honey-blonde bob, which bounced as she turned her head to be kissed on both cheeks by Eric. He positively glowed with the attention.

  Dawn stood rigidly next to them and sniffed loudly as she pulled down her blouse to cover her stomach, then realised she was revealing a bit too much cleavage by doing this, so yanked it back up again.

  ‘Dawn, darling, come in. We’re all having pink champagne!’ As they both pecked each other on the cheek Dawn marvelled at how Juliet smelt (‘it’s Chanel “Chance” darling’), she could see the assembled guests in the living room. Her heart sank – there were loads of them! Bloody Victoria was here! She handed Juliet her scruffy coat. (Dawn had been in such a fluster she’d grabbed her school-run anorak, as Eric had been honking noisily on the car horn in the driveway.)

  Walking through to the living room Dawn braced herself. You can do this.

  11

  Suzie

  Rex was late again. She was getting agitated, especially as she wanted to tell him what she’d decided. The cycling had been getting between them more and more lately. It was almost as if he was running away from something – What? Her? His life? Their failure to be parents? She couldn’t help remembering that little piece of information she’d read on some fertility website… ‘with up to 150 million sperm only a few hundred will get close…’

  It was ridiculous. And anyway, it was too late for all that. They had their embryo; it was just that it was in a lab. Nonetheless, she could almost hear her biological clock ticking in time to the one on the wall. Tick, tick, tick. I’m forty-five – I haven’t got ‘over’ it as everyone thought, moved into gardening, (gardening! – as if spring bulbs could replace a baby) like one well-meaning neighbour suggested, it’s become worse. When will I have a baby?

  She’d been pouring her heart out on the Doyouwantababy forum, explaining her dangerous liaison on that Friday night. The reactions had been varied. Quite a few women had posted encouraging messages, supporting her decision to have a bit of fun.

  Well done for going out of your comfort zone… you deserve a good time.

  Others had been less encouraging.

  How could you do that to your husband?

  A few Christian types had been quite horrified and she had blocked them on her page. #youareunfaithfulinyourheart had alarmingly started to trend with her name tagged on it. Thank goodness it was only her Christian name.

  And she’d removed her wedding ring that night. She winced in shame, remembering that. Dear Lord. She was disgusted with herself – Rex meant too much to her.

  ‘Señora Havilland!’

  Suzie jumped. She hadn’t heard Ramone open the kitchen door. He was standing in the doorway to the kitchen clutching a tea towel. He beamed at her, his mop of golden brown curls flopping on his head, his lanky frame silhouetted in the doorway.

  It had been Rex’s idea to get a male au pair to help around the house. Someone from abroad, you know, to liven things up a bit, he’d said. Although he’d already lost one of her diamond earrings, which had been in her skirt pocket when he’d done the laundry, mixed her aubergine jeans with her white ones producing murky grey ‘white’ jeans. But despite his laundry skills, he had come in useful. He lived in the small cottage in the grounds and was learning English at the college near Winchester – only a few miles from Chesterbrook. He knew how to cook a mean paella, especially useful when they both came home from eleven-hour days in London.

  ‘I ez finish my studies at college. Do you needing any more help today, Señora? I was maybe going to go to Chesterbrook, to ze pub? You look tired, no?’ He bent his head to one side.

  ‘That’s fine, Ramone. You can take the Honda if you like but be careful of the parking in Chesterbook – remember to read the meters. Have you got your phrase book with you?’

  Ramone nodded enthusiastically. ‘Yes! Google translate on zee mini iPad! Berry good.’ Only last week Suzie had had to foot a £55 bill for parking on double yellow lines. Ramone had shrugged his shoulders and looked dismayed that the colour of lines on the street bore any resemblance to the cost of the fine. Ez not like zis where I live in Spain!

  ‘Well, we’re not in rural Spain now, Ramone, we are in a small town in Hampshire with Nazi parking wardens,’ she’d said at the time.

  ‘Nazi?’ He’d looked very panicked until she patiently explained the expression.

  Half an hour later, Rex was standing next to her, by the sofa. ‘Darling!’ he said, as she looked up from her laptop. His hair was soaking wet and his Lycra was clinging to his body. She adored Rex; she couldn’t get enough of looking at him, at that face. The dark spiky hair, the chiselled jaw, those sparkly green eyes and the always clean-cut look about him. And his body… He just looked American. Like he’d walked out of an advert for some American football team in mufti. He oozed smart, preppy.

  ‘How are you?’ He ruffled her hair. Calmly, she lifted her hand up and smoothed it down. ‘Yes fine, listen, can we talk, darling?’

  He looked at her and sighed. ‘OK, sure. Let me grab a shower.’ And he strode off, grabbing an apple from the bowl in the kitchen, biting into it with force as he walked away.

  When he came back, he was dressed in dark navy jeans and a clean white T-shirt. He grinned at her and she almost chickened out. How was she going to break this to him? To muddy the waters that had been getting clearer lately, to throw all their hopes and dreams back into a blender and turn it to max, to watch as feelings, money, hope became entangled in their day-to-day lives again as the old wounds opened up.

  ‘Rex darling,’ she said, pouring him a glass of wine from the bottle on the table, ‘come and sit down. I’ve been doing a bit of thinking lately…’

  ‘You’re always thinking, babe…’ He smiled and sat down, taking the wine. ‘What do you want to discuss?’ His eyes were fixed on her.

  She knew she was about to pick at a scab that should be allowed to heal. There was one more embryo left, frozen in a lab in north London. She wanted her last chance. Didn’t she deserve a last chance? She’d known it would be a struggle from that first day they’d seen the consultant in Harley Street. He’d said that there had been nothing wrong with her eggs, but that from Rex’s sample it looked like there was a problem with the motility; it had been such an affront to his alpha manhood.

  She took a sip of her wine and shakily put it back on the table as she remembered the one time when she had been pregnant, that heart-breaking time, when they still lived in London, when s
he felt they had defied the doctors; that her body had come to the rescue. She’d looked at the pregnancy test and wept. Wept all day. In the ladies’ loos at work, at her desk. On the Tube home. Tears of joy. The presentation to the biscuit people had been hard won that day, that’s for sure. It was all she could do not to leap up and kiss all the account directors when they said they’d won the bid.

  It had lasted for ten weeks; they’d even had an early scan. They were so close to the ‘safe’ twelve-week threshold… She and Rex had hugged the secret to themselves. She’d allowed herself to look online at baby clothes, baby names… but the week after her scan, she’d gone to the toilet at work and had frozen in her tracks. The sight of blood; the messenger of doom for every IVF woman – blood-soaked underwear. It was all over.

  She went down in the lift quietly, walked silently to the empty Tube at 2 p.m., travelled ashen-faced to her doctor’s surgery near home to be told: yes, at this early stage I’m afraid you have miscarried, Mrs Havilland. Cried all the way home in a cab. Sobbed. Until Rex had come home later and made her eat tomato soup in bed. He’d held her and they both fell asleep with their clothes on, woke at 3 a.m. to find the TV blaring in the bedroom. That had been the last round of IVF, nearly seven years of trying and they’d stopped. They’d had enough.

  Until now.

  Rex closed his eyes and raised his hands above his head and stretched. She watched his strong arms, the muscles in his biceps flickering. Why wasn’t the rest of him so perfect?

  Now was her chance.

  Pixie, their Chihuahua poodle cross, jumped up on the sofa and curled up next to them.

  ‘Get down!’ Suzie tried to shoo him off her silk cushions. ‘Rex, I’ve been thinking, and I want to try again.’ She squeezed his knee quickly. ‘Please. That egg, well, it’s coming up for a year and we need to—’