Alex Hines - Chance

‘Ooh, that reminds me, Ava! I really want to talk to you about flowers before you go.’

‘Oh girls, you must! Flowers are so important at weddings.’

‘Thanks for that, Mum,’ said Lauren, rolling her eyes at her sister. ‘More much-needed advice for Ava, who as we all know really struggles with her floral know-how.’

‘You lot are so mean, I just want to pass on the wisdom of my great age.’

‘Yeah, you’re ancient,’ Lauren prodded her shoulder, ‘practically a crone.’

While they were teasing each other, Ava was wondering exactly what it was Lauren wanted to say about the flowers for her wedding. Would it be advice on getting a good florist, or was she about to ask her to do them herself? Ava was slightly dreading being asked as she knew it would be a fresh new level of stress, but then she didn’t want to be deemed not up to the job, or too ‘difficult’ either. She was about to ask, but the conversation had meanwhile galloped on to an analysis of how much better this summer’s village fête had been organised. Unsurprisingly, Andrew had some quite firm ideas, while Jackie had the inside track on who had fallen out with whom by the end of the day.

The meal itself proved as delicious as the gossip. Lauren had brought homemade pâté, which she proudly served on Jackie’s favourite Melba toasts before everyone tucked into an amazing piece of roast pork. The crackling was perfect, the gravy sublime and the roast potatoes crisp, comforting nuggets of heaven. Jackie beamed with pride to see them all enjoying it and seemed to puff up like a proud hen as she offered seconds around the table. Ava watched Rob load a second helping onto his plate. He took a mouthful, wiped a trickle of gravy from around his mouth, and then carried on chewing his meat, completely focused on his meal. She tried to imagine how he would look and behave once he was the same age as her dad, who was sitting there with his twinkly-eyed grin and booming laugh. Would she still know Rob when he was that age? Perhaps they’d be sitting like this with their own children one day? Was this where they were heading? It seemed impossible to imagine, but then Ava remembered those years when she had found it unfathomable that they would ever be boyfriend and girlfriend.

Halfway through the meal, relaxed and with the soothing food inside her, Ava felt overwhelmed by tiredness and decided to offer to drive home. She put a hand over her wine glass when Andrew offered her a second glass and whispered over to Rob, ‘You go ahead, I don’t mind driving back – I really don’t fancy drinking.’ At this, he eyed her with suspicion. Ava spotted this and felt as if someone had pinched her heart between finger and thumb. ‘Honestly,’ she told him, ‘just enjoy yourself.’ This wasn’t met with a smile, however, just a shrug and then ‘Fine.’

Ava got up to serve the pavlova. Everyone ooh-ed and ah-ed as she brought it to the table, and Jackie and Andrew seized the opportunity to give them all a rundown of how the various fruits in their little garden were coming along. The courgettes had been the stars of the season, the basil almost out of control during the heat of the summer, but the darling fig tree had let no one down either. Ava concentrated on dividing the meringue into equal portions, preventing the fruit from falling too far down the sides of each slice and letting the chatter wash over her. She was at the exact point where sad and relaxed meet, a resigned melancholy. It was as if the room were in soft focus as she passed a plate to each of them, sat back and enjoyed her pudding, half-listening to a conversation Jackie and Lauren were having about how to keep their jewellery clean. So intent were they on maintaining sparkle without causing damage, it was as if they were in some sort of Bling Club.

‘That ammonia diamond cleaning stuff absolutely stinks, doesn’t it?’ said Lauren.

‘Oh I know, it’s ghastly! Sometimes I have to put my eternity ring in the shed if I’m cooking,’ agreed Jackie. ‘I just can’t bear the smell of it in the house. But then one day I became incredibly nervous that a squirrel or a magpie or some other creature would find its way in there and either help itself to my diamonds or drink the stuff and die.’

‘So what do you do now?’

‘I make your father clean it when I’m at bridge.’

Andrew raised his eyes heavenwards and nodded.

‘It’s like a horrible window into my future,’ said Rory, with the kind of childlike smile that made it perfectly obvious that he loved all conversations about his finest hour: the engagement ring. As the table chuckled collectively, Ava glanced idly at what she called her ‘Dunne’s ring’, with its simple band and small stone. She felt her father’s broad hand pat her leg beneath the table before he leant in and whispered in her ear, ‘Your day will come, my darling. I have no doubt.’ At this, she stared down at her plate, ashamed to be once again comparing herself to Lauren, for whom she was genuinely happy. She felt the tears well up and blinked fast to do her best to quell them: she didn’t care about a wedding or even want a big ring, just a slice of the joy that Lauren and Rory seemed to share – the sense of being in the same boat together was what she envied, not the accompanying accessories.

As Ava looked up, she noticed Rob was staring at her curiously. For the first time all weekend she was completely unable to read what his face was saying. This in turn panicked her, not because she couldn’t tell, but because once she found it so easy to do so. She smiled at him and he smiled back, but each looked as if they had just told the other bad news. Tiredness turned to sadness as she stirred milk into her coffee.

The drive home was even more silent than the one there. Rob reached for the radio controls as soon as the car was out of the driveway and they had stopped waving to Jackie and Andrew. Once he found a books show on Radio 4, they listened to it intently for the entire journey, occasionally commenting companionably. The programme provided a conversational buoy that they clung to gratefully. Anything rather than drown in the mire of the things they suddenly needed to talk about. There was none of the resentment of earlier in the day, it was almost as if their situation was something they shared. At last they had found common ground again. Maybe now they could turn a corner.

Ava pulled up outside the house and turned the engine off.

‘Would you like me to come in?’ asked Rob.

He always stayed over on a Sunday night. They might never have chosen ‘their song’, but there had never been any doubt that Sunday night was ‘their night’. The fact that he even had to ask this question made feel Ava sad. Meanwhile, the sensation of cold, prickly anxiety running through her was increasing.

‘Of course, it’s Sunday.’ She smiled up at him. ‘I’m still really full, though. Not sure about cooking.’

‘Okay, no problem.’ He smiled back, politely.

Their new-found awkwardness continued as they reached the front door, each trying to hold it open for the other: the timidity of a first date, with none of the delicious tension. When they finally entered, both were tired and took their coats off with relief.

Ava went into the kitchen to put the container from the pavlova into the dishwasher and saw that it had not been emptied from last night’s curry. She scanned the room; it quickly became obvious that the ostentatious tidying up that Rob had been doing when she had returned from her run had been somewhat superficial. As she noticed this, she heard the insistent mosquito buzz of racing cars in the living room. Clearly Rob had decided to pop his feet up and catch up on Formula 1. Ava took a deep breath. She didn’t want to be that woman – the one who whinged on about the housework, only pausing to nag about commitment. That woman was everything she dreaded, becoming her was to be avoided at all costs.