Second Chance Page 5

  There’s a pause as Holly nods, the voice trying to place itself, stopping her from speaking.

  ‘It’s Saffron.’

  ‘Oh Saff,’ Holly starts to cry. ‘Tom.’

  There are tears on the other end of the line. ‘I know,’ Saffron says, her voice uneven and small. ‘Tom.’

  Chapter Three

  Olivia steps through the door of her basement flat and flicks the light switch on as her three cats and two dogs come running to greet her excitedly. She bends down to cuddle them, folding her lips inwards as the dogs lick her all over her face, then she walks through her flat turning on all the lights and all the table lamps until there is a warm glow throughout.

  Grabbing the leads from the Shaker pegs by the front door, she clips them onto the dogs as they whirl around in joyous delight. She allows herself to be dragged up the front steps, turning once at the top to look back at her flat, which now looks warm and welcoming even from the busy street.

  Olivia never used to keep all the lights on, but since she and George split up, coming home to a dark flat makes her feel far more alone than is altogether necessary, and her routine now involves whisking the dogs out for a walk and returning to a flat that could almost, almost, have a husband lying on the sofa reading the papers.

  Except it doesn’t. Not any more.

  Not that George was her husband, but since she was with him for seven years he might as well have been, and frankly she wouldn’t have stayed with him all that time if she hadn’t thought that at some point they would be walking down the aisle.

  Olivia was thirty-two when she met George. Fantastically happy with her job as deputy director of the animal shelter, she was oblivious to the dating world unless one of her well-meaning friends set her up on a blind date – she had, much to her chagrin, unwittingly become something of an expert at these. Tom always said most of the dates would fall madly in love with her, but she was not particularly interested in any of them.

  She had never wanted children – her babies were her animals, she said, and she was close to Ruby and Oscar, her niece and nephew, as close as she ever wanted to be – so didn’t feel the pressing ticking of the biological clock that so many of her friends seemed to feel around the age of thirty, and was quite happy with everything in her life. Then George turned up one day to find a dog, and her life tipped upside down.

  It was his sweetness that did it for her. That, and the fact that he was as lovely with his three-year-old as he was with the animals. Not that she had given him any hint of a clue that she found him lovely – that would have been horribly unprofessional, but she leant in the doorway and watched him play with one of her favourite dogs, Lady, a dog that had been in the shelter for months, that no one would adopt because she was eleven years old, not terribly pretty, and deeply terrified of people.

  George had taken his daughter, Jessica, into the meet-and-greet room, and Olivia had brought Lady in, crouching down with her and soothing her as Lady looked frantically around for a corner in which to hide.

  And George hadn’t done what most people in this situation would do. He hadn’t advanced on Lady, crooning in an attempt to make her feel comfortable, overwhelming and crowding her; he had just sat at the other end of the room, Jessica sitting next to him, and he had watched Lady as he talked to Olivia.

  The usual questions. About Lady. About the shelter. How could she do it, didn’t she want to take all the animals home? And then a little about her. How she started. Did she know she wanted to work with animals when she was a little girl?

  ‘See?’ He turned to Jessica. ‘You might grow up and work somewhere that helps to save animals when you’re big.’ The little girl’s round face lit up.

  ‘We have an open house next Sunday,’ Olivia volunteered. ‘It’s our big annual fund-raiser. We have stalls and games and pony rides. And the kids get to play with some of the animals.’

  ‘Oh we’d love that,’ George said. ‘Next weekend you’re with Mummy, though, but I’m sure she’d let you come with me. Let’s call her when we get home.’

  Ah, Olivia thought, her heart fluttering in a way she’d almost forgotten. Divorced. But he can’t be single, not this kind, lovely, gentle man. Surely he has a girlfriend, someone. And even if he were available, surely he wouldn’t be interested in me. Not looking the way I look at work.

  Olivia spent far longer than usual preparing for the open house. Instead of scraping her hair back in a ponytail and wearing old jeans, a sweatshirt and wellies, she let her hair fall loosely on her shoulders and slicked on lipgloss and a touch of mascara. She wore cords and a shirt, and tiny silver earrings, and told herself that she was making this extra effort only because it was a special event, a fund-raiser, and as the deputy director of the rescue home she had to present a professional face.

  Never mind that she had worn her old jeans and sweatshirt for the past four fund-raisers.

  ‘Oooh,’ said one volunteer after another, after another, and another, when she walked in. ‘Don’t you look fancy!’

  ‘Off for a job interview?’ They laughed.

  And finally: ‘Why are you looking so posh?’

  ‘Just ignore them,’ said Sophie, her able and lovely assistant. ‘You look gorgeous, Olivia. You ought to dress up more often.’

  ‘I’m hardly dressed up,’ said Olivia, who by now felt so self-conscious she may as well have been wearing a ball gown.

  ‘But you look lovely nevertheless.’

  ‘Well, thank you.’ Olivia headed straight to the loo to check herself in the mirror, feeling overdone; but she wasn’t, she realized – just more done than they had ever seen her.

  George and Jessica came for the entire day. He bought twenty-four raffle tickets and won a course of pony rides for Jessica (‘I think you may have to wait until she’s a little older,’ Olivia said with a smile), a giant bag of dog food, and dinner for two at Chez Vincent on the high street.

  ‘I hope that as the deputy director of the shelter,’ George said, having collected his prizes, ‘you’ll be my guest at Chez Vincent.’

  ‘Oh… um…’ Olivia flushed. ‘Well, yes. I’d love to.’

  ‘Good’–the delight in his eyes was clear–‘I’ll phone you tomorrow and we’ll organize it. And thank you for the most wonderful day. Jessie and I have loved every minute,’ and with that he leant over and planted a soft kiss on her cheek.

  She floated home.

  One dinner became many, then became a relationship of weeks, which became months, then a year.

  After a year Olivia’s mother sat her down and asked whether George was planning on marrying her. Olivia’s mother had divorced her father five years before, and Olivia was always surprised that, given this unexpected turn of events, her mother still seemed to think that marriage was the very pinnacle of achievement for a woman.

  Olivia’s mother continued to ask, on a regular basis, whether they were planning a wedding soon, inevitably sniffing and on one occasion stating, to end the conversation, ‘Of course he’s never going to do it. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?’

  ‘Mum!’ Olivia reprimanded her sharply. She had heard enough, and Fern eventually backed off, but couldn’t resist asking from time to time if Olivia thought it might be happening.

  ‘I don’t know when we’re getting married,’ Olivia said. ‘Or even if we’re getting married. I imagine we will at some point, but there’s no hurry. Look at Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, they’ve never got married and their relationship seems great. We’re quite happy as we are.’

  Which was true. Olivia had never thought she would need a ring on her finger to be utterly committed to someone, and there was no doubt in her mind that she and George were utterly committed to each other.

  They had Jessie every other weekend, which was also easy for Olivia. Although Olivia had never been entirely comfortable with children other than family, Jessie loved animals, which always helped, so they bonded over the animals, and Olivia found a way of being
Jessie’s friend.

  And Ruby and Oscar adored Jessie. Olivia’s sister, Jen, would drop the kids at Olivia’s almost every weekend they had Jessie, and when she and George went out with all of them, everyone would tell her what gorgeous children they had, and after a while she stopped explaining that none of them were, in fact, hers.

  One year became two, then three, and after seven years Olivia knew that she was going to be spending the rest of her life with George, ring or no ring.

  Until the night they went out for dinner and George announced that they were setting up an American branch of his advertising firm, and he was one of the people going out to New York to get it going.

  ‘New York?’ Olivia felt as if the air had been knocked out of her. New York. What could she possibly do in New York? What about the shelter? She couldn’t leave now, not after she’d worked so hard to build it up, and where would they live? What about her friends? Her flat? But even as she thought that, she was thinking, New York! How exciting! How many people get the opportunity to even go to New York, much less live there!

  ‘I’m going alone,’ George said gently, taking her hand across the table.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Olivia didn’t understand. Still doesn’t understand, for that matter. ‘What about Jessica?’

  George sighed. ‘I know, this has been the hardest thing. I get her for the entire holidays, every school holiday, and I’m going to try to come back a couple of times a month, so hopefully it won’t be so different. But when I say alone,’ he looked back up to meet her eyes, ‘I mean…’ He sighed. ‘God, this is so hard. I’m not going with you, Olivia. I love you, I’ll always love you, but I think this is a perfect opportunity for us to go our separate ways.’

  ‘What?’ Olivia froze, feeling as if she were stuck in a bad dream. What had happened to her safe, predictable world? Why was it spinning out of control? ‘What are you talking about?’ she managed. ‘Are you finishing with me?’

  ‘That’s not how I look at it,’ George said. ‘It’s just that I don’t see where this is going, it feels like we’ve been coasting, and I think this has happened for a reason, that it’s time for us both to move on.’

  ‘But I don’t want to move on,’ Olivia said, tears already welling in her eyes, hating herself for sounding like a five-year-old. ‘I want us to be together. I thought we were happy.’

  ‘We were,’ George said sadly. ‘But I’m not any more.’

  Tom was the one who had sat on the phone that night as Olivia sobbed into the receiver.

  ‘How could he do this to me?’ she kept saying over and over again.

  ‘I agree,’ Tom said from time to time. ‘Fucker. Do you want me to come over and break his legs?’

  ‘I just want him back,’ Olivia sobbed, and this time Tom didn’t say anything at all.

  Six months on it was supposed to have become easier, but the truth was, it hadn’t much. Tom checked in on her regularly, other friends dragged her out, and although she threw herself into her work, often the last one to leave the shelter, she still came home and lay on the sofa for hours, completely numb.

  Bed offered no respite. She would wake up in the middle of the night and replay their relationship, wonder how it went wrong, think about the reasons why she wasn’t good enough for him to stay.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ Tom would say, his voice tinny on the line, as he sat at his desk at work in Boston. ‘It’s not you, don’t ever think it’s you. He’s obviously got some issues he needs to work out but, Olivia, don’t ever think it’s because you weren’t good enough for him.’

  She had even been on a couple of dates. Not willingly, it has to be said. She had hoped they would be a welcome distraction, but it was awful to have to be sitting across a table from a stranger, sharing your stories again, wondering how quickly you could possibly leave and crawl into bed. Olivia thought those days were over, thought she would never have to endure that particular hell again.

  And then George phoned one night with some news. He sounded happy, as high as a kite, and Olivia expected those words she had been waiting for, for months: ‘I’ve made a mistake. I miss you. I love you and I’m coming home.’

  But instead George told her he was getting married. Oblivious to the pain that would cause, he went on to tell her that Cindy was someone Olivia would love, that he hoped Olivia would come to the wedding, and that he knew that Olivia would also find a love like this one.

  ‘Cindy!’ she spat to Tom later that night on the phone. ‘How could he? How could he do this? And why is he getting married? Why didn’t he want to marry me? What’s wrong with me?’

  Tom listened, and then, a couple of weeks later, phoned and said he thought the best thing for Olivia to do would be to have a fling, someone fun to take her mind off George, and he had just the person in mind.

  ‘Oh God, Tom,’ she groaned. ‘Not you too.’

  ‘Look, I’m not trying to fix you up with the love of your life, but what harm could it do to go out and have some fun, at least recognize that George isn’t the only man in the world, that there are plenty of great men out there who would be thrilled to be with someone like you. There’s a guy in the office – Fred – who’s really great, and he mentioned he’s got a trip to London in the New Year, so I said I had a friend he should get together with who could show him around. He lives here, so I’m not thinking anything permanent, but you’d like him, and it could be a fun few days.’

  ‘Fred? Doesn’t exactly conjure images of gorgeousness,’ Olivia said.

  Tom snorted. ‘Yes, because George is such a sexy name.’

  ‘What about George Clooney?’

  Tom sighed. ‘Okay, point taken. But you of all people know you can’t judge a man by his cover. Or his name.’

  ‘So tell me about him,’ Olivia said reluctantly.

  ‘He’s thirty-three, single, freakishly fit – he does these Ironman competitions that are all the rage in our office and are completely mad and horribly addictive.’

  Olivia burst into laughter. ‘I suppose your idea of exercise is still ambling around a cricket field?’

  ‘Yes, well. Quite. It was before I worked here. Have a look at his picture. It’s on our website.’ And so Olivia looked while talking to Tom, and Fred was rather dishy, and even though she wasn’t looking for anything at all, far too soon after George, maybe Tom was right, maybe a revenge fuck was just the thing she needed.

  ‘Go on, then,’ Olivia said. ‘You can give him my email address.’

  Fred emailed her the next day, and the two of them embarked on a fun, and rather more flirtatious than she had expected, email exchange.

  He sounded boyish and relaxed, and although she had always thought George was the perfect man for her, at forty-seven he was definitely set in his ways, and there was something about Fred’s thirty-three years, his youth, that filled her with delicious anticipation.

  ‘I wish I was coming over sooner,’ Fred wrote. ‘It seems so long to wait to meet you, until January. I was thinking maybe I could orchestrate a London meeting in November… what do you think?’

  ‘I think that’s a wonderful idea,’ Olivia wrote back. ‘I’d love to finally put a face to your name.’

  Olivia walks back into her flat, unclips the dogs, and feeds the animals before starting to think about feeding herself. She has become a creature of habit these last six months where food is concerned. When George was living here she would cook, would plan elaborate meals, or at least hit M&S food hall for something every night.

  Now she can barely think about food. She keeps a stock of sliced turkey breast in the fridge, and usually eats it with half a bag of carrots and a couple of spoons of hummus.

  When she remembers, she has Lean Cuisines on hand too. Not because she particularly likes them but because they are easy, because she presumes she is getting the nutrition she requires, and because she can throw them in the microwave and blast them without putting any thought or effort into it.

  As a consequence, she
has lost a stunning amount of weight. Not through choice, she is quick to tell everyone who asks her what miracle diet she has been on, but through stress and unhappiness. Her clothes are now hanging off her, and she knows she will have to buy new ones soon, but the thought of shopping for clothes has always filled her with horror.

  Still. There are times when she feels like eating, and tonight is one of them. Sod’s law, when she opens the fridge door, she is confronted with a nearly clear expanse of white: the wax rind of a slice of cheese that should have been thrown away when the cheese was finished, a clear plastic bag of greenish-black slime in the bottom drawer that she seems to remember may once have been mixed lettuce leaves, and half a pint of rancid milk.

  The cupboard doesn’t offer much more. A couple of Ritz crackers rattling around in the box, a full box of cornflakes, which doesn’t hold much appeal without milk, and some tea bags.

  There is only one thing to do on nights like this. She grabs her keys, heads out of the door, and drives up the road to Maida Vale. To her sister’s house and, more specifically, her sister’s fridge, which is always stuffed with delicious leftovers.

  ‘Jen!’ she calls out, throwing her coat on the chair in the hallway – something their mother has always hated, and something Olivia and Jen both started doing when they were about ten – except now that Jen is married and a mother herself, she hates it almost as much as their mother. ‘Jen?’

  Olivia knows she’s home, her car is in the driveway, so she heads through the hall to the kitchen, planning on rifling through the leftovers in the fridge while her sister makes her a cup of tea, able to do it now that both kids are fast asleep in bed.

  As she opens the door of the kitchen, she sees Jen sitting at the kitchen table, and immediately she knows something is wrong. Her sister is just putting down the phone, and she is as white as a sheet.

  ‘Jen?’ Olivia feels fear grip her chest. ‘Jen? What is it? What’s the matter? Is it Mum?’ There is a touch of hysteria in her voice as it becomes louder.