Once in a Lifetime

by Chrissie Manby

  Sarah claimed she was bored of marriage and was much happier out of it. Jane thought she might have made a mistake. Adam was a lovely man. Still was. All these years later, Jane sometimes saw him in Waitrose. He hadn’t remarried and he always asked after Sarah’s health with a wistful look in his eyes. But Sarah wanted adventure. Novelty. She hadn’t given up on the idea of having one more roll of the dice.

  She’d started looking in the conventional way. She joined the local amateur dramatics society – the NEWTS – in the hope of finding a new leading man there. Alas, the demographics at the society were strongly in favour of the men. There were at least four women for every male member. When she was asked if she would consider playing Lord Capulet in the society’s production of Romeo and Juliet, Sarah decided she was wasting her time. Tinder was a better idea.

  ‘This gives me a much bigger pond to fish in. We could install it on your phone too,’ Sarah suggested.

  ‘I don’t think my phone could cope,’ said Jane.

  Jane loved her dear friend Sarah very much but their approaches to life and love were very different. Sarah had been divorced for fifteen years by the time Jane was widowed. Having her next door helped Jane to get through the hardest moments. She could tell Sarah things that Dani didn’t need to hear. Sarah understood what it was like to roll over to face an empty space in the bed where a loved one used to sleep.

  But unlike Sarah, Jane was not keen to fill that space in the bed again. Though Tom was gone, he was not forgotten. Never would be. No matter how much time passed. Jane didn’t feel the need to replace him because her head and heart were still so full of their love for one another.

  Though from time to time Sarah joked that Jane should look for husband number two, she didn’t press Jane on the matter. Jane was grateful that her old friend sometimes knew when she was about to push a joke too far. Sarah never tried to get Jane to justify the way she had lived her life since losing her husband.

  ‘You had what I always wanted,’ Sarah had said on more than one occasion. ‘The pair of you were my romantic ideal. Always there for one another. Like two peas in a pod.’

  You couldn’t find that sort of love on Tinder. Jane was sure of that.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Sunday, 3 June 2018

  Just as Dani expected, Flossie had not given up on her campaign to be allowed to go backpacking for the summer. When she got home from Xanthe’s that afternoon, she was full of stories of how much Xanthe’s big sister Zara had benefitted from her own happy travels.

  ‘How can you be a proper citizen of the world if you don’t know anything about it?’ Flossie asked.

  ‘Zara was not sixteen when she went backpacking. Perhaps we can go on a holiday to the Lakes or something?’ Dani suggested.

  ‘Not the same.’

  ‘Well, now that we’ve got a dog,’ Dani countered, ‘we’re rather limited when it comes to jetting off abroad for weeks at a time. If we weren’t already severely limited by money. You didn’t think about that, did you? Remember you’re responsible for Jezza now?’

  ‘Of course. How was his training class?’ Flossie asked.

  ‘He did well.’

  ‘I knew he would. He’s such a clever puppy.’

  Flossie ruffled Jezza’s ears. He was delighted.

  ‘And he needs walking. As do you.’

  Flossie rolled her eyes so Dani piled on the pressure.

  ‘If you remember, my dear, one of the conditions of our keeping Jezza was that you would walk him every single day. So far, I haven’t seen you take this puppy out once.’

  ‘Mum!’ Flossie protested. ‘GCSEs.’

  ‘Funny how much more diligent a student you’ve become since Jezza came on the scene.’

  ‘I’ve still got two exams to go,’ Flossie reminded her. ‘As soon as they’re over, I promise you I will take Jezza out every day. Twice a day. Three times a day. But until then …’

  Flossie took out her phone.

  Which Dani gently prised from her hand.

  ‘I don’t care. We’re going for a walk right now. It’s Sunday. The weather is beautiful. You need some fresh air. Even star students deserve a break once a week.’

  ‘Going for a walk isn’t a break,’ said Flossie.

  Using the tone of voice Nurse Van Niekerk insisted upon, Dani commanded, ‘Flossie. Walk. Now.’

  Since Flossie was small, Dani found that the best way to talk to her about anything important was to get her out of the house. There was no point sitting her down at the kitchen table in an attempt to get her to spill the beans. That was too confrontational and even the slightest hint of confrontation made Flossie, who was stubborn as an ox having a bad day, determined to take her secrets to the grave. Even if they were really quite innocuous.

  There was a lot to talk about now. Flossie’s determination to be allowed to go travelling or at least to a festival with Jed was worrying. Dani uttered a silent prayer every time Jed left the house that she was seeing the last of him. But three months after he’d first appeared in their lives, Jed was still there. Still cluttering Dani’s kitchen and eating her out of house and home while telling her she was living all wrong. He was still the main topic of Flossie’s conversation even when he wasn’t there. Still the centre of Flossie’s universe. Dani couldn’t help but be worried that fate would deal Flossie a hand that meant she could never get rid of Jed even if she wanted to.

  Dani was horribly sure that Jed and Flossie probably got up to more than she wanted to think about when they were alone. When Dani was a teen, her parents had insisted that if she had a male visitor, she was not allowed to shut her bedroom door. Times had changed but Dani half wished she could enforce her parents’ old rules. Would it be too patronising for her to initiate a conversation about ‘not getting pregnant’? She didn’t think Flossie was secretly on the pill (Dani had done a search of Flossie’s bedroom while she was at Xanthe’s one night) and she’d found no sign of condoms. But was that a good sign? She hoped it meant that Flossie wasn’t having sex at all, rather than that she wasn’t being careful.

  Dani knew what it was like to be left holding the baby. It wasn’t much fun.

  Five minutes after Dani insisted on the walk, Flossie came downstairs in her ‘walking gear’. It looked pretty much the same as her pyjamas with the addition of a pair of combat boots. Jed had found them for her at a local second-hand shop.

  ‘Are those shoes comfortable?’ Dani asked.

  ‘Mum, they were made for soldiers to walk thousands of miles.’

  ‘OK,’ said Dani. ‘It is twenty-five degrees out there today, you know.’

  Flossie just rolled her eyes.

  It didn’t take long for Jed to come into the conversation. Just that morning, he’d sent Flossie a link to a website where people could arrange to share lifts from the UK to the continent.

  ‘Which would be useful if you were allowed to go,’ said Dani. ‘Which you’re not.’

  ‘Mum, Jed would look after me,’ Flossie insisted.

  ‘You’re too young. You and him. I don’t think he’s anywhere near as capable as you seem to think he is. What about the other day, when he came round on his bike? He hadn’t even noticed he had a flat tyre.’

  Dani had fixed it for him.

  ‘He’s artistic, Mum. He’s about philosophy, not practicality. He doesn’t always notice the obvious because his mind is on a higher plane.’

  Dani shook her head. ‘How can I let my baby girl go all the way to Greece in the company of a young man who can’t change a bicycle tyre?’

  ‘He’d know how to ask someone else to do it in Greek though?’

  ‘Does he speak Greek?’

  ‘He’s downloaded Duolingo.’

  ‘You won’t persuade me, Flossie. Not about travelling or about Jed. The fact is, I don’t think you’re really old enough to be in such a “committed” relationship at all. You should be spending time with a big group of friends, not putting all your energy into one boy.�
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  ‘He’s not a boy.’

  ‘He is to me. I think we need to change the subject.’

  ‘Mum, just because Jed and I seem young to you doesn’t mean our feelings aren’t fully-grown. In some cultures, I would probably be onto my third child right now. There are places in the States where you’re allowed to get married at fourteen.’

  ‘If you belong to one of those churches where everyone marries their brothers.’

  ‘That’s really judgmental, Mum. Just because people have a different way of doing things, doesn’t mean they’re incestuous.’

  ‘You’re sixteen. You’ve got so many years ahead of you. There’s no rush to spend all your time with one person.’

  ‘Didn’t Gran meet Granddad when she was my age?’

  Dani shrugged.

  ‘She did, didn’t she?’ Flossie persisted. ‘And they worked out, didn’t they? They were together right up until Granddad died. They’d have stayed married for eighty years if they could.’

  ‘Yes,’ Dani agreed with a sigh. ‘I’m sure they would have. But things were different then. Life was simpler. People didn’t move around so much. They didn’t have so many choices. There wasn’t the Internet. People didn’t know what they were missing so it was easier to be happy with the decisions they’d made. It was easier to settle.’

  ‘I’ve got the Internet, I know what I’m missing and I still love Jed. He’s everything I want in a man. I’m sure he always will be.’

  ‘People change,’ said Dani. ‘Even people you think will be the same forever. Almost everyone starts out full of idealism and optimism, like you and Jed have now. But life knocks you. Sends you in different directions. If I’d married the man I was with at your age, I’d have ended up very disappointed.’

  ‘Who was that, Mum? Did you even have a boyfriend when you were sixteen?’

  ‘Don’t look so surprised. Of course I did. His name was Nat and he wasn’t that different from your Jed, only perhaps not quite so … pungent.’

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘I know. Jed doesn’t believe in polluting the earth with detergents … Anyway, Nat was a lot like Jed. He was open-minded, he had a great heart. I had never met anyone quite like him and I was sure I never would. But I met him again a couple of weeks ago – he was throwing a party for his girlfriend at The Majestic – and he had completely changed. He was barely recognisable as the boy I fell in love with. It was clear he’d completely sold out. He was wearing a blazer and chinos.’

  Dani knew that would make Flossie want to puke.

  ‘Chinos!’

  ‘I know. Exactly. The Nat I knew would have laughed at the idea he would ever wear clothes like that, but there he was, looking like he’d just stepped off the set of Dragon’s Den. Talk about selling out. We’ve got nothing in common any more. If I’d married him, I’d have ended up living in a new-build semi in Newbay View. Which is where he is now.’

  A fate worse than death according to Jed (and therefore according to Flossie). Dani didn’t explain that it was a temporary move for Nat, while he and Lola did up a much nicer place. That didn’t fit the narrative she needed to make her point.

  ‘So, all I’m saying is, you never know how things will turn out. Give this big love of yours some time to find out if it’s really going to go the distance.’

  ‘I get what you’re trying to say, Mum, but it really doesn’t apply to Jed and me. I mean, the clues were there from the start if you look. Your boyfriend didn’t smell “pungent” as you like to put it, so he was obviously always a suit in disguise. Nothing matters more than the planet. If you know that, then you do what you have to do.’

  Dani had to laugh.

  ‘And I will make sure that Jed and I don’t end up in a semi in Newbay View. There’s no way. I’d rather live in a tent. In any case, that’s probably all we’ll be able to afford, thanks to Grandma’s generation stealing all the cash in the boom years …’

  And then she was off on another Jed-influenced rant about the selfishness of the older generation. Who still paid the younger generation’s mobile bills, Dani observed.

  Dani felt a little bad for having used Nat as an example of someone who’d grown up and abandoned all his ideals when the truth was that Nat had only done what so many people do. He’d embraced his responsibilities. He’d come back to Newbay to take over the family business so his mum could concentrate on improving his father’s health.

  In fact, in complete contrast with what she’d tried to make Flossie believe, Nat was exactly the kind of man Dani and most of her friends were looking for now. Sensible, solvent, still had his own teeth. (It was surprising how many didn’t. Dani had heard a lot of horror stories from Liz, who was a dental hygienist.) He was also funny, kind, and sexy in a self-deprecating way. Nat was the kind of bloke any straight woman would be happy to have as a partner in life.

  Ah well. Nat would never know that she had used him as an example of the corrupting influence of capitalism and a poster boy for why you can’t possibly know you’ve found ‘the one’ when you’re still not old enough to drive.

  Dani had recently read a newspaper article that said scientists had proved the human brain didn’t mature until twenty-five. Perhaps that explained why Dani had chosen so badly when she hooked up with Flossie’s dad.

  That Flossie’s father wasn’t on the scene was a great cause of sadness for Dani. Less so now, after sixteen years of coping without him. But still, there were moments when Dani wished she could turn to Flossie’s father – Lloyd – for back-up or just for a second opinion on the way Flossie approached life.

  But Lloyd had never wanted to be a father. Oh, he talked the talk when Dani first told him she was pregnant, but he soon changed his tune. He tried to persuade her she should get an abortion, telling her that a boozy weekend they’d had soon after Flossie was conceived might have left her somehow damaged. When Dani decided to ignore that, Lloyd still continued to find ways in which they could both duck out of parenthood. Adoption was an option.

  In the end, it was Dani’s father who told Lloyd that he could go. He could walk away and never think again about the baby Dani was carrying. Jane and Tom would look after their daughter and their grandchild. Better an absent father than a resentful one, said Tom.

  Was that right? Or had being raised by a single mother in a house that was always full of women left Flossie vulnerable to hero-worshipping the first man she met?

  Big thoughts for a Sunday afternoon.

  Soon Dani and Flossie were almost at Duckpool Bay. Flossie seemed to have forgotten that she didn’t want to go for a walk because she had ‘so much’ studying to do and was now happily chatting away about Donald Trump and his latest insults to humanity.

  Dani loved that her daughter was so passionate about the greater good. She really did. If only she could have been passionate about the greater good without the essential accessory of a pompous pungent boyfriend.

  Jezza was also enjoying the walk. From time to time, Dani remembered to acknowledge how well he was doing, just as Nurse Van Niekerk had told the class they should. When Dani did that, Jezza looked up at her with something approaching adoration. Though he was Flossie’s dog by name, his heart was all Dani’s.

  ‘Shall we have an ice cream at the beach café?’ Dani suggested.

  ‘Yes!’ said Flossie, with almost as much enthusiasm as when she was five.

  Ice cream had always been Flossie’s kryptonite. When she was little, just about anything could be solved with the promise of a cone topped with a ball of vanilla the size of a baby’s head, studded with chocolate buttons. Fortunately, the beach café did a great vegan version of Flossie’s life-long fave. Dani preferred mint choc chip studded with miniature Matchmakers. The hedgehog effect made it impossible to eat without getting in a mess but it was worth it.

  Dani and Flossie bought their ice creams and a little tub of special dog ice cream for Jezza, which he practically inhaled, so fast did he get it down. After that, Jezza sat b
etween Dani and Flossie and tried his best ‘starving’ look on each of them in turn. It was difficult to stay resolute and not slip Jezza the end of a cone. Especially when he fixed you with those big brown eyes of his.

  ‘Aw! Look at that little face. Do you think Jed did the right thing, yet? Getting us a dog?’ Flossie dared to ask.

  ‘The jury is still out,’ said Dani, primly, though it was plain to see that she was falling deeply in love with the puppy. The little ball of fluff was impossible to resist.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The beach was busy. It was Jezza’s first time on the sand and he was very excited. So many new things to see. So many new smells to smell. With so much distraction, Jezza soon forgot his training and Flossie, who hadn’t been at the class, was not equipped to remind him.

  ‘You’ve got to keep the lead shorter,’ said Dani, as they walked towards the sea. ‘And talk to him. Keep getting him to look up at you and reward him for his attention. Like this.’ Dani reached across to take the lead from Flossie. At the same time, Jezza abruptly changed direction. Flossie stumbled over his lead. Thinking that Dani had hold of it, she let go. Dani felt the end of the lead whip through her fingers as Jezza made his dash for freedom.

  He may have been half poodle and half Staffy but his spirit animal as he headed for the waves was pure greyhound. By the time the two women had righted themselves again, Jezza was nowhere to be seen.

  Flossie went straight into a panic. Dani, thinking quickly, said they should split up to search.

  ‘Back here in ten minutes,’ she said. ‘He’ll probably come running back anyway.’

  ‘Jezza!’ Dani called as she walked towards the rocks, while Flossie headed back towards the car park. ‘Jeremy! Jeremy Corbyn!’