Kate Field - A Dozen Second Chances

I looked at Caitlyn, sitting across a table littered with half-drunk coffee cups; caught her surreptitiously sliding her sleeve back down to cover her watch – not for the first time.

‘It will be fine,’ Caitlyn said. ‘No different than when I went on a school trip, only this one will last longer. I won’t be that far away. Nearer than Nan. It hardly takes more than an hour to fly to Paris.’

She would be over five hundred miles away. I’d looked it up. She’d been further on school trips, but they had been finite – a matter of days. Now she was leaving for twelve months, but really, what were the chances of her coming back? Once she’d experienced the glamour of Paris, why would she want to return to rainy Lancashire? And while part of me wept at the thought of losing her, when I had already lost so much, another part cheered her on. I’d had plans to travel once. I knew what it felt like, that heady mix of trepidation and excitement, the belief that the world was storing up opportunities with your name on, waiting to be discovered. I wouldn’t let anything get in the way of her discoveries.

‘Of course it will be fine,’ I said. I knew my allotted lines. We had played out a script all week: me trying to look pleased that Caitlyn was going, Caitlyn trying to look sorry. ‘Freedom! At last!’

I managed a smile. I shouldn’t have come. I should have dropped Caitlyn off at the local station to make her own way, not suggested driving down to Manchester and spending the night there before she caught her train. I had wanted to savour our last minutes together, not realising until now that sometimes a swift goodbye was a far less painful option after all.

‘Freedom for you too,’ Caitlyn said. ‘You could let Rich stay the night, without fear that you’ll corrupt my innocent young mind …’

I made a non-committal noise, trying to disguise my instinctive aversion to that idea. Rich in my bed … his face the first sight of my day … He wouldn’t expect that, would he? I thought we both had the measure of our relationship: it didn’t include whole nights together. Physical intimacies, yes; emotional ones, no. Besides, I’d spent years enjoying my independence. I might now have an empty nest, but filling it with a man wasn’t my idea of freedom.

Fifteen minutes. Caitlyn rummaged in her backpack and brought out a slim package wrapped in blue tissue paper. She held it out to me.

‘I’ve got something for you. It’s not much …’

I unwrapped the paper with deliberate care, eking out the seconds. It fell open to reveal a tiny gift box, and inside that lay a stack of rectangular pieces of card. I studied the top one. It was beautifully illustrated around the border with a variety of my favourite flowers – Caitlyn had inherited Faye’s artistic talent, as well as her looks. In the centre, a calligraphy message read:

BE KIND TO YOURSELF

VOUCHER ONE

I, Eve Roberts, have been kind to myself by …………………………

There were twelve numbered vouchers in total. I looked up at Caitlyn, bewildered.

‘It’s your challenge while I’m away,’ she explained, with a grin that was achingly familiar. ‘You’ve put me first forever. Now it’s your turn. You have to treat yourself, do some things that are purely for you. It doesn’t matter how small it is – even a soak in the bath with some fancy new bubble bath will count. But you have to fill in each voucher and send it to me, to prove you’ve done it. Promise?’

‘Promise,’ I replied, helpless to resist that grin, as I had always been. ‘Thank you.’ I forced myself to check the time. ‘Do you think we should …’

Caitlyn was out of her seat before the sentence was finished, wheeling her suitcase through the crowds to the platform for the London train.

‘We’ll still speak all the time, won’t we?’ she asked, hesitating at the platform barrier, ticket in hand. ‘I mean, I know it’s only Paris, we’re not going to be a million miles apart, but …’

‘Of course we will. You’ll get tired of hearing from me. Now enough of this. You can’t miss your train. Gemma will be waiting. Give me a hug and get on your way. There are amazing times ahead of you!’

I wrapped my arms around her, feeling in our embrace the memory of a lifetime of hugs, from the tiny child around my knees, to the embarrassed teenager, to the young woman who now stood over me. Who knew when the next one would be? Caitlyn was the first to draw back.

‘Thanks, Mum,’ she said. ‘For everything. I know I haven’t said it, but I do appreciate how much you’ve done.’

I hadn’t done enough. I could never do enough. I shook my head, dismissing such talk.

‘Still Mum?’ I said, though my heart tensed in dread at the possible answer. ‘Would you prefer it to be Eve now?’

‘No.’ Caitlyn lunged forward for a last, desperate hug. ‘You’ll always be Mum. Love you!’

I waited on the concourse, my cheeks aching with a smile she couldn’t see, watching until the last carriage of the train disappeared from sight, and wondered what the hell I was supposed to do with my life now.

*

It was late afternoon by the time I pulled on to the drive of my small, semi-detached house in the market town of Inglebridge in north Lancashire. The early March sun warmed the bricks on the front of the house as the light faded for the day, but I couldn’t help thinking it a cruel illusion: with Caitlyn gone, the inside of the house was going to seem horribly cold and bare. I glanced across the road to my friend Tina’s house, but there was no car on the drive, no sign of life – no chance of going through her front door for a while instead of my own.

The silence hit me as soon as I stepped into the hall. I was used to getting home from work before Caitlyn, and greeting an empty house, but this felt different; the silence was deeper, as if the bricks and mortar joined with me in mourning her absence. Before I’d even taken one step, I’d noticed the changes: her shoes were missing from the usual place by the front door; the peg where she hung her coat was empty; her house keys lay in the bowl on the table, because she had no use for them now. Would this ever feel normal?

The front doorbell rang, and I opened the door to see Tina.

‘I saw you arrive home,’ she said. Of course she did: Tina lived in the dormer bungalow immediately opposite my house, and missed nothing. She had brought over some sandwiches on the day we’d moved in, fourteen years ago, and we had been firm friends ever since. ‘I came to offer tea and sympathy, assuming I can’t tempt you to anything stronger. Forget the healthy living for today – your face says you need alcohol and plenty of it.’

‘That bad?’ I asked.

Tina nodded, without even a decent pause to consider her answer.

‘At least two wine bottles’ worth of bad. It’s what I needed when Liam went off to university. I needed three bottles when he boomeranged back here!’ She laughed. ‘You look like you might burst into tears at any minute. You can’t be on your own.’

‘I was going to come over, but your car wasn’t there.’

‘Graham’s gone to play golf. He’d better get back soon; the kitchen drawer has jammed, and I can’t get it open. It had to be the one with the corkscrew in, didn’t it? I’ve no screw tops left. It’s at times like this I wish my neighbour wasn’t teetotal …’ She grinned, and I laughed.

‘But you do have a neighbour with some basic DIY skills. Let me get my toolbox and I’ll have a look at the drawer.’

‘I was hoping you’d say that. You’re a lifesaver!’

And so was Tina; this was exactly the distraction I needed, as I suspected she well knew. I collected my toolbox from the garage and crossed the road to Tina’s. As soon as she opened the door, I was assaulted by the deep thrum of rock music pervading the house from upstairs; another reminder of what I was going to miss. Tina gave a wry grimace before bellowing up the stairs. ‘Turn that racket down! Eve’s here!’