Kate Field - A Dozen Second Chances

With thirty minutes to spare, I was about to grab my bag and leave when running footsteps echoed through the hall. I looked up, expecting to see a Paddy fan dashing for a seat on the front row – she or he would be disappointed to find they were already reserved for governors and members of staff. I was half right – it was Tina, and she was dashing my way wearing an anxious expression that immediately worried me.

‘Have you finished?’ she asked, grabbing the back of the nearest chair as she gasped for breath.

‘Yes. He’s not here already, is he? He’s never usually early.’ I pulled my bag from under my chair, assuming she had come to give me a warning, and touched by this evidence of Tina’s friendship. I hadn’t thought she understood my aversion to Paddy. ‘Where have you put him? Is it safe to use the main doors?’

‘Put who? Oh, Paddy. No, he’s not here yet.’ Tina glanced at the clock on the wall, and her anxious expression deepened. ‘I asked him to be here for seven so we could chat through the arrangements. He’s cutting it fine. Is he not good at punctuality?’

He wasn’t good full stop – I thought I’d already made that clear. But I simply shrugged in response, accepting no responsibility for his faults.

‘What did you want me for, if it wasn’t about Paddy?’ I asked.

‘We have another crisis brewing – or more accurately, not brewing,’ Tina said, with a rueful grin. ‘Bev has had to go home because one of the kids is ill, so …’

‘No.’ I knew where this was going, and I didn’t like it. ‘I’m not doing the teas. No way.’

‘I wouldn’t ask if there was anyone else. But you know what Jo Blair is like. She’s expecting to make some money tonight, even if it’s only a tenner. It will be on one of her spreadsheets. And she’ll want to put on a good show as the press are supposed to be coming.’

That job had left a nasty taste in my mouth – having to ring up the local paper and invite them to the event, gushing about what a coup it was to have the renowned celebrity archaeologist Paddy Friel visiting our school. Part of me had hoped they would say, ‘Who?’ Unfortunately, I had spoken to a female journalist who had hardly let me finish my patter before she had begged to come.

‘Surely there must be someone else …’

Even I could hear the resignation in my voice. Tina pounced on it.

‘You’d be in the canteen during the talk, so you wouldn’t see or hear him,’ she said. ‘And I’d fetch him a cup of tea myself, so he wouldn’t come anywhere near you.’ She reached out and rubbed my arm. ‘I know you didn’t want to be here, but I have to make it work tonight. Jo has already been dropping hints about my Performance Management next term. Please help.’

I nodded. What else could I do? Tina had been a good friend to me over the years, and had saved my sanity on more occasions than I could remember. Friendship trumped personal inclination every time.

It wasn’t a taxing job to set out the tea things; I’d done it countless times before. But when all the cups and saucers were set out, the biscuits displayed on plates and the ‘50p per cup’ sign prominently displayed, I still had thirty minutes to kill before the first of the thirsty hordes were likely to descend. I messed around with my phone for a while, checked my emails, replied to a text from Rich and generally did everything I could to distract myself from what was going on in the hall.

I straightened a teacup and looked critically at the display. Were there enough cups? There were more in the cupboard that I had judged unnecessary – but what if my prejudice was underestimating the popularity of this event? What if I let Tina down?

It was a matter of seconds between the thought creeping into my head and my feet carrying me to the door of the hall. Standing to one side, I peered through the glass panel, focusing only on the rows of chairs stretching back down the length of the hall. It was far busier than I had expected, with the rows occupied to at least halfway; I would need more teacups after all.

I turned away and was about to return to the canteen when a familiar burst of laughter stopped me in my tracks, the sound slinking into my reluctant ears and pinning me to where I stood. I tried to ignore it, but his voice carried through the door as he spoke about the Viking occupation of Lancashire and the Cuerdale Hoard that had been found by workmen repairing the banks of the River Ribble near Preston in 1840; it was one of the largest Viking silver hoards ever found, and we had once been to see it at the British Museum. The Vikings had always been Paddy’s favourite era, and his genuine enthusiasm was clear, to me at least; the Irish accent dimmed, and he sounded less like the TV star and more like the boy I had known. I closed my eyes and listened.

The scrape of a chair along the wooden floor brought me to my senses, and I dashed back downstairs, my heart pounding with renewed fascination about archaeology, and frustration that Paddy had helped inspire it. I set out more cups, filled the urns with tea and coffee, and prepared to lurk at the back of the room, out of sight.

It wasn’t long before the audience arrived, laughing and smiling as if they’d had a good time – although the realisation that they had to pay for refreshments wiped a few of the smiles away. I sensed rather than saw Paddy’s arrival; I was well hidden behind a group of parents, and a gaggle of Year 9s who thought they could pilfer biscuits without me noticing. But the sound in the room changed when he walked in: conversations dimmed; feet shuffled as people turned to get a better look. The air was thick with the consciousness of his presence, and with anticipation of who he might talk to.

It was sickening. All this, because he had appeared on television, and was objectively what some might consider handsome? I thrust a teacup into a waiting hand, sloshing the contents onto the saucer as I seethed at the shallowness of today’s society. And then I smiled to myself for sounding more like someone of Gran’s age than my own, and as I looked across the room, Paddy caught my eye and returned my smile.

Damn the man! He was as bad as the Year 9s, pilfering things that weren’t meant for him. I focused on dispensing refreshments again, but the queue was drying up, and at 50p per cup, no one was coming back for seconds. I felt like a sitting duck behind my table as the crowd thinned around me. Spotting that Jo Blair was engaged in earnest conversation with a governor, I grabbed the almost-empty urn of tea and carried it into the kitchen, with the spurious intention of filling it up while hiding for as long as I could.

‘Eve?’

My hand slipped, and scalding water splashed over it, making me yelp. Paddy was at my side at once, switching on the cold tap and holding my arm so that the cold water ran over the back of my hand. As soon as the pain was replaced by a heavy numbness, I shook my arm free.

‘I can manage.’

‘You should leave it under for fifteen minutes.’

‘I am aware of that. I’m one of the school’s designated first aiders.’

I didn’t know why I added that. If we were going to trade achievements since our time together, it was hardly going to trump anything he could offer.

‘Well done,’ he said, and I glanced up, expecting sarcasm, but his smile appeared genuine. But then it always did. A line from Caitlyn’s A-level Shakespeare text floated into my head: ‘that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.’ It summed up Paddy perfectly.

‘You’re not supposed to be in here,’ I said, turning off the tap and drying my hand on a paper towel. I had no intention of being trapped here for fifteen minutes. ‘What do you want?’

‘Did you come and hear the talk?’ he asked.