Second Chance Page 8

  ‘Now I know you’re lying,’ the girl says, leaning forward slightly with a whisper. ‘My nose was about the size of this church at school. Thank God for plastic surgery and husbands willing to pay for it! Speaking of whom, this is my husband, Eric.’ A short, sweet-looking man steps forward and shakes hands with Holly and Saffron. ‘We were all at school together,’ she explains to Eric before looking back at Holly. ‘Didn’t you and Robin go out for a little while?’ Holly looks completely blank as Saffron lights up, realizing who this woman is, leaping in to save the day.

  ‘Holly!’ Saffron says. ‘You remember? You did! You went out with Robin Cartledge for ages. How funny that you should remember that, Sally.’ She shoots Holly a look.

  Holly does a double take. This is Sally Cartledge? Sally Cartledge was the mousiest girl in the class, with a nose that earned her the nickname Concorde. She was one of the clever girls who never seemed to discover boys, who left school to go to Oxford and was never heard from again.

  But how can this possibly be Sally Cartledge? This willowy, brunette beauty with immaculate make-up and legs that go on for ever. Holly stands in shock and squints slightly at Sally, trying to see anything of the old Sally in her, but no. Nothing.

  ‘We’re going over there,’ Sally trills. ‘But so lovely to see you. Can we swap cards? I’d love to get together some time.’

  As she and Eric walk off, Saffron breathes a sigh of relief. ‘Jesus. Thank God she brought up Robin or I would have had no idea who she was.’

  ‘How is that Sally Cartledge? What has she done to herself? When did she become beautiful?’

  ‘I’d say after she paid the plastic surgeon for the nose job, Restylane implants in the lips, Botox everywhere else, got her teeth fixed, and probably spent a few years doing something like the Zone.’

  ‘But God. I’ve never seen such a dramatic transformation. I wouldn’t have had a clue it was her.’

  ‘Good, huh? I ought to have got her surgeon’s name.’

  ‘Why? What would you have done?’ Holly is horrified.

  ‘Oh darling,’ Saffron laughs, ‘I’ve already had my boobs done twice, Botox is basically as essential as brushing your teeth, and I’d quite like to have my eyes done.’

  ‘What do you mean, have your eyes done? Have what done to them? They look fine.’

  ‘No. See these pouches?’ Saffron points to the skin under her eyes. Holly leans forward but sees nothing.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Get closer. See? This little bulge? It’s fat that’s dropped and I’m desperate to get it removed. The easiest operation in the whole world, and it should take years off me.’

  ‘Whatever happened to growing old gracefully?’

  ‘Not in film these days, my darling. Now you have to use all the help you can get.’

  ‘I think you’re bonkers. I can’t see anything at all.’

  ‘Maybe not, but I can. All I see when I look in the mirror these days are pouches. Anyway, P said he’ll pay for it.’

  ‘He will? Why?’

  Saffron shrugs. ‘He paid for his wife’s work, and he paid for my two boob jobs. At seventeen million a picture, I think it’s just a drop in the ocean. Anyway, he enjoys it. Says he likes spoiling his little girl.’

  ‘Hmm. That sounds like a healthy relationship.’ Holly grins. ‘Oh shit. Marcus is over there. Quick. Duck.’ She grabs Saffron and scoots behind some other people.

  ‘Yes,’ Saffron says with an ironic smile. ‘And you’re clearly the expert on healthy relationships. Don’t worry, you don’t have to explain anything now, but there’s definitely something up with you two. God, where did all these people come from?’

  ‘Who knows? I mean, I know everybody loved Tom, but half these people don’t look like they even knew him. Ssssh. They’re starting.’

  Holly and Saffron stand quietly as a hush descends and music starts softly playing from the speakers, Linda Ronstadt’s voice as clear as a bell as her voice reverberates around the church.

  So goodbye my friend

  I know I’ll never see you again

  But the love you gave me through all the years

  Will take away these tears

  I’m okay now

  Goodbye my friend

  And the grief that had been waiting at the door is welcomed in as, finally, people start to cry.

  Tom’s dad, Peter, is the first to speak. He walks up to the pulpit and clears his throat, and Holly’s first thought is how very old he seems, standing up there. She remembers him as a big, imposing, hearty man. Not this little, lost and, well… old man, fumbling for his reading glasses and shuffling his papers.

  ‘On August the seventeenth, 1968, I was standing outside St Mary’s hospital having a cigar in anticipation of the birth of my first child,’ he starts, his voice surprisingly strong and clear.

  ‘In those days we weren’t allowed to be present at the birth, or at least that’s what I told my wife,’ a ripple of relieved laughter throughout the crowd, ‘and I wasn’t supposed to be having the cigar, but it was burning a hole in my suit pocket and I couldn’t wait.

  ‘Well, it took the nurses half an hour to find me, but eventually they did, and they told me I had a beautiful bouncing son, Thomas Henry Fitzgerald. Good job I wasn’t in the room because I had other plans for the name – Octavius Auberon was one of my choices…’ more laughter, ‘but Maggie won and, more importantly, Thomas Henry completely won my heart.

  ‘The name Thomas means dependable, and even as a little boy, Tom was always dependable. There are plenty of other words I could use to describe him, and those of you who accompanied him on his annual New Year’s pub crawl could, I’m sure, certainly think of a few choice alternatives, but you could always rely on Tom, and he was the most loyal son, the most loyal friend any man could wish to have.’

  Laughter and tears. Pleasure and pain. The range of emotions throughout the service is so great that at times Holly thinks she can’t stand it. She looks around and sees people looking blank, or whispering to one another, or laughing about something, and she can’t understand how they can look so normal, how they can behave as if nothing is wrong, when she herself is struggling so hard to suppress sobs she can feel welling at the back of her throat that she thinks she is going to explode.

  They are all so dignified, she thinks. His dad able to smile through his speech, his mum looking pale but strong beside him. Will, his brother, telling funny stories of things they got up to when young, ridiculous pranks they had played on each other, and how they were so close people would think they were twins (‘Will being,’ he said, ‘the better-looking, more charming, more successful one,’ which cracked up all of Will’s friends who knew him to have a somewhat unreliable career).

  One more friend, and then Sarah. Still and quiet, there is something mesmerizing about her lone American voice in this oh-so-British service. She talks about why she fell in love with Tom. About their children. About what a wonderful father he was. And as she is talking a little girl runs over and tugs on her sleeve.

  ‘Mommy?’ she says loudly. ‘Why are you talking about Daddy? Can we see him now? Is this heaven?’ And Sarah picks Violet up to comfort her as the church fills with tears yet again.

  Sarah ends with a Christina Rossetti poem, her voice breaking halfway through ‘Remember me when I am gone away’, and she struggles to finish, Chopin’s Prelude No. 6 finally easing through the speakers, allowing people to hug one another and break down, file slowly outside, blinking in the glare of the sunlight as they fish crumpled tissues out of pockets and blow their noses, smiling sorrowfully at strangers.

  Holly takes deep breaths to regain her composure, then turns to see Marcus joining them.

  ‘Where were you?’ he says sternly. ‘I was looking…’ and he notices Holly’s tear-stained crumpled face and stops, holding his arms out to hug her instead.

  ‘Thank you,’ Holly says, disengaging herself after a few moments. ‘Wasn’t it heartbreaking?’

&
nbsp; ‘It was tough,’ Marcus agreed. ‘And I didn’t even really know him. I thought Sarah was wonderful, though. So strong and stoic’

  Ah yes, thinks Holly. How typical of Marcus to admire those qualities in a widow, or indeed in anyone.

  ‘I don’t think it’s necessary to go back to the house, though,’ Marcus says. ‘Far too many people, plus I’ve got to prepare for a court hearing tomorrow. We have to leave.’

  How very different we are, she thinks again; and then, as so often happens these days when she thinks about Marcus, a word flits into her head, announces its presence, then disappears.

  Arse.

  She forces a smile. ‘I have to find his parents,’ she says. ‘And Paul and Olivia are here somewhere. And I think it’s wrong not to go back to the house. Work can wait, surely. I mean, this is more important.’

  ‘More important than me preparing for a hearing?’

  Marcus says coldly. ‘I understand you’re upset, Holly, but if you’d given me notice that this was going to be longer, I could have made different arrangements.’

  That’s it, Holly thinks. Make it all my fault as usual.

  ‘I’ll bring her home,’ Saffron says brightly. ‘You go off and do your work, don’t worry about Holly.’

  ‘Oh thank you, Saffron, that’s incredibly gracious of you.’ Marcus smiles, giving Holly a perfunctory kiss, and then Saffron the standard double-cheek air kiss. They stand watching him stride off towards wherever his car is parked.

  Arse.

  Holly turns to Saffron. ‘Gawd. I’m surprised he didn’t try to stick his tongue in your mouth.’ Holly rolls her eyes.

  ‘Oh behave,’ Saffron says. ‘He’ll get over it. Frankly it’s bloody nice to be appreciated, though, particularly at a memorial service.’

  ‘Yes, nothing like a spot of inappropriate flirting at a memorial service,’ Holly says.

  ‘Speaking of which, horribly and entirely inappropriate to even mention this, but did you see Will?’

  ‘You mean, cute and cuddly little baby brother Willy, who we used to occasionally let in to watch us being horrible teenagers and play spin the bottle?’

  ‘That’d be the one. But did you see him?’

  ‘Big brown eyes, messy longish hair, gorgeous smile with dimples and an undoubted six-pack under the suit? That one?’

  ‘That’d be the one.’

  ‘Nope.’ Holly shrugs. ‘Can’t say I noticed him.’

  ‘Who would have thought he’d grow up to look like that!’ Saffron says.

  ‘Actually I think he looks just like Tom,’ Holly muses. ‘A messier, more laid-back, younger version of Tom. Imagine him with a short back and sides in a polo shirt and jeans, and he’s basically Tom.’

  ‘Maybe, but I never fancied Tom and I do quite fancy Will.’

  ‘Saffron!’ Holly glares at her. ‘That’s sick. This is his brother’s memorial service.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ she grumbles. ‘And I’m not actually interested, just observing, that’s all. Oh come on, Miss Holier Than Thou, just because you’re married doesn’t mean you can’t look. You’re married, my darling. Not dead!’

  ‘Well, ask me again when today is over. Right now I just want to find Tom’s mum and dad.’

  Holly hovers a few feet away from where Maggie and Peter are greeting a line of people. Maggie looks up and catches her eye, turns back to the people who are giving her their condolences, and then she looks back at Holly. ‘Holly?’ she says, and Holly nods shyly, then Maggie opens her arms for her to go running up for a huge hug. ‘Oh Holly!’ she says. ‘It’s been too long. Years and years. Look at you, Holly! Peter! Look!’ she calls over to her husband. ‘It’s Holly Mac!’

  After Holly’s parents divorced when she was fourteen, her mother had moped for the year after the divorce, then had got out of bed, got a job in the trendiest interior-design shop, and suddenly turned into the mother from hell.

  She started wearing tons of make-up, all the clothes that Holly and her friends wanted to wear but couldn’t afford (although no one’s mother was supposed to be wearing Vivienne Westwood, for heaven’s sake), and going out clubbing every night, staying with a series of friends, each one seemingly younger and funkier than the last.

  In short, she’d had enough of being a mother. Even though Holly, at fifteen, was more or less old enough to take care of herself, she didn’t want to. Her friends adored coming over because, save for a Spanish au pair who didn’t seem to want to have anything at all to do with Holly or her friends, there were no adults to tell them what to do.

  At Holly’s house, they didn’t have to sneak cigarettes on balconies or stick their heads outside open windows in the middle of a freezing winter. Hell, at Holly’s house, they could sit around the kitchen table and get high as kites or drunk as skunks, whatever the substance of choice happened to be that day. It was not dissimilar to life at Saffron’s, except Saffron’s parents were around. Liberal enough to let Saffron do whatever she wanted, at least they were there.

  Everyone was jealous of Holly, and all Holly wanted was to be normal. She wanted boundaries. She wanted a mother who would tell her she couldn’t wear make-up to school and a father who said she had to be in by eleven.

  What she wanted was a family.

  And what she got through her friendship with Tom was Tom’s family. Their kitchen was filled with delicious smells from Maggie’s cooking, the kettle seemed to have just boiled no matter when you walked in, and every cushion was plastered with hair from Boris the Labrador or one of the cats. It was messy, noisy and fun. There was a constant stream of people dropping in and staying for meals, and Holly felt as much part of the family as Tom and Will.

  ‘I always wanted a daughter,’ Maggie would say, taking Holly with her as she ran up to the supermarket or taking Holly to M&S and treating her to a new jumper or a pair of shoes. ‘You’re part of the family,’ she would say, and Holly knew she was.

  They even gave her a bedroom. Actually it was the junk room, but they cleared some of the stuff off the bed so Holly always had a place to sleep, and Peter found an old turntable at a car-boot sale that he picked up for a fiver so Holly could listen to her beloved Police albums.

  Holly and Tom would lie on the floor in his room (Tom had a much better turntable and stereo system, but that was okay, it was his house after all), and make compilation cassettes. Some were love songs, others dance songs, but they spent hours painstakingly recording their LPs and writing in all the songs on the tiny lines. ‘Tom, Will, Holly… supper!’ would come up the stairs, and they would yell down, ‘In a minute,’ then Tom would complain and Holly would pretend to complain when, in fact, she was overjoyed to be treated as just one of the kids.

  She stayed close to them until she got married. Even after that she saw them a bit, but then Tom moved to America, and, it was true, she hadn’t seen them for years.

  Peter’s mouth falls open when he sees Holly. ‘My goodness, Holly Mac! You’re all grown up,’ he says, and as he hugs her Holly feels herself well up.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she says, looking from Maggie to Peter. ‘I wrote to you and I tried to call but I couldn’t get through. I just wanted you to know how terribly sorry I am, how much I miss Tom.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Maggie says, squeezing her arm. ‘It’s the most terrible thing that’s ever happened to us but you know he would have loved this service. He would have loved that Peter was still able to make people laugh, and weren’t those stories of Will’s funny? For as awful as this is he wouldn’t have wanted everyone to stand around and be sad, he would have wanted to be remembered for all the good things.’

  ‘I know,’ Holly says, smiling; and then, out of nowhere, her face crumples and she starts to sob.

  ‘Oh love,’ Maggie says, and putting her arms around Holly she finds that the stoicism she has faked so well for today, this day she has been dreading, disappears and the pain of losing her son is so great she leans onto Holly and dissolves into tears.

&n
bsp; They stand there for a long time, silently crying, and then they break away and wipe the tears.

  ‘Oh Holly, I’m sorry,’ Maggie says. ‘I didn’t mean to collapse on you like that.’

  ‘Maggie, it was me. I’m so sorry. I had no right to cry on you after everything you’ve been through. I’m so embarrassed and I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be embarrassed. Come back to the house and have a cup of tea. That should make us all feel better.’

  ‘REMEMBER’ BY CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI

  Remember me when I am gone away,

  Gone far away into the silent land;

  When you can no more hold me by the hand,

  Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.

  Remember me when no more day by day

  You tell me of our future that you planned:

  Only remember me; you understand

  It will be late to counsel then or pray.

  Yet if you should forget me for a while

  And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

  For if the darkness and corruption leave

  A vestige of the thoughts that I once had,

  Better by far you should forget and smile

  Than that you should remember and be sad.

  Chapter Seven

  It smells the same. Despite all the people crowding into the hallway, the living room, every available space, the first thing Holly notices as she walks through the door is that Maggie and Peter’s house still smells the same.

  Like home.

  The same dhurrie rugs thrown haphazardly in the entrance hall, the same huge squishy sofa, now covered with various throws, under the giant mirror against the back wall.

  Paintings Holly recognizes, new ones filling every square inch of the walls. Large oils in elaborate frames, Matisse lithographs, line drawings of interesting faces, landscapes, abstracts, all thrown together and all working perfectly.