Alex Hines - Chance

Rob’s punctuality was a real bonus when it meant long romantic evenings in together while his portable, self-employed ways seemed a modern, cutting-edge way to live but it was less enticing when he started tinkering around with his phone late at night, checking up on things in the second half of a film, suddenly jabbing at the touch screen in a frenzy. In fact, it pushed Ava to the very limits of her patience and reminded her of how glad she was to have a shop whose well-polished brass plated door she could firmly shut at the end of the working day. She smiled to herself as she locked up, feeling a small, almost smug glow about heading home to such dependability and love, before crossing the market square towards her car.

Ava walked past the cinema, the butchers and her favourite shoe shop, pausing to admire a pair of strappy sandals that she was hoping to find the excuse to buy any time soon. After crossing the cathedral square just as the bells were briefly pealing, she walked beside the river, whose banks were delicately lovely in the hazy evening light. She stopped to buy a bottle of crisp white wine at an off licence not far from the river and as the shop owner handed it to her, she could feel the condensation from the fridge chilling the paper he had wrapped it in. She pictured herself peeling off the paper, pouring two glasses and handing one to Rob at the hob. Maybe she could persuade him to give her one of his shoulder massages, too. She was almost hugging herself with contentment by the time she reached her car and began the 10-minute drive to her little house. The roads were clear and she was home in no time, pleased to see that the roses she had spent years encouraging around the front door were now as English and elegant as she had always hoped. Now the sun was dipping over the horizon and Ava could hear a cuckoo in the distance as she reached for her handbag and the wine from the passenger seat, then shut and locked the car door. She peered into the front window – her sitting room was neat, untouched since last night.

On turning her key in the front door Ava gave it a shove, but it was slow opening, edged on a heap of post beneath the letter box. For the second time that day she picked up an uninspiring clump of bills, direct mail and flyers. She dumped it on the hall table, with the wine and started to take her coat off.

‘Hellooo! I’m home!’

Silence. She paused. The house was clearly empty. After hanging her coat on one of the pegs above the table, she walked through the hallway to the kitchen at the back of the house. The evening light made the room look so pretty, but it was unavoidably empty. There was a used mug on the wooden surface next to the sink. It was the same one that Ava had left on Rob’s bedside before heading to work that morning. Next to it was a half-full milk bottle, gently warming in the sun’s rays. And in the sink itself was a used cereal bowl containing the dregs of some old, once-damp muesli, slowly cementing itself to the edges. Ava turned and went back to the hallway, where she placed a hand in her coat pocket to retrieve her mobile phone. She glanced at the screen: nothing. Following this, she placed it on the hall table next to the wine, which was now in a small puddle of condensation, its tissue paper sodden. She picked up the bottle and put it in the fridge. As she did so, she heard the buzz of a text on her phone and went back to look at it.

‘Sorry darling forgot I had squash with Laurence. Promise dinner tomorrow? At mine?’

Ava glared at the screen, as if she might develop special powers – the ability to rearrange the letters into something a little less rage inducing, perhaps. Stepping into the sitting room, she hurled the phone and then herself on to the soft leather sofa. She slumped, staring into space, with nowhere to vent her frustration. In seconds her evening had transformed from the kind of perfection that justified her every adult choice to an anxiety-inducing pity-party for one. How could he be so casual about it? Why had he only thought to tell her now? Surely they were already at the courts? So why hadn’t he suggested coming over afterwards? Why did he care about none of this, and how was it that she suddenly felt so desperately flat?

She took her shoes off, rubbed her feet and then rubbed her shoulders. All alone, an evening in … Maybe she was the woman no one bought flowers for, after all.

The phone buzzed. Ava wriggled a hand back down behind the cushions and glanced at it again. An apology? Not a chance.

‘Hey hey you. Can we talk later? Major dress stress coming up. Can. Not. Deal.’

Ava winced a second time. It was not Rob, but Lauren. Ugh, an enticing suggestion for what would inevitably be a half-hour conversation about wedding dresses! What a way to finish the day. More ambitious, tougher-skinned and more inclined to relish a confrontation than her sibling, Lauren often seemed to play the older sister role, despite being five years younger. Relishing every life stage, she sailed through them, competence oozing from every pore. Her career as a property finder for Wiltshire’s finest appeared to go from strength to strength, she had a gorgeous and supportive fiancé in Rory and she was also a rigorous athlete, regularly competing in local and regional triathlons. Lauren seemed intimidated by nothing, prepared to take on anything and with the ability to create drama and excitement, wherever and whenever she felt like it. Invigorating as she was infuriating, she had thrown herself into wedding plans with the enthusiasm of a woman accustomed to succeeding.

‘Just got in. Give me 5 mins’ typed Ava, keen to buy herself enough time to open that wine and pour herself a large glass. She’d need fortifying for this particular chat.

To be held at the same stately home in whose adjacent garden centre Ava had been employed when she first returned to Wiltshire, Lauren’s wedding was to be one of Wiltshire’s finest: a full country-house extravaganza, complete with the dress of her dreams. Only trouble was, Lauren’s dream dress wasn’t quite coming into line with her dreams. Where her pragmatism and straightforwardness usually served her well, it now meant she was struggling to explain her ‘vision’ to the dressmaker she had chosen. Tensions were rising. Somehow, Ava had found herself Designated Listener.

Shoulders slumped, she wandered into the kitchen barefoot, casting a dismissive glance at the cereal bowl in the sink on her way to the fridge. She swung open the door, looking for inspiration – or at least a snack. There was a lump of old Parmesan, nearly at the rind, some watery ham in its supermarket packet, the top now curling, and three eggs. Omelette it is , she thought to herself. In the shelf on the fridge door was half a lemon, turning green at the edges: the remnant of a long-forgotten gin and tonic. Next to it was the wine, which Ava opened and tipped liberally into her glass, cherishing the glug that only comes from the first pour. She took a sip and returned to the sofa, where her phone was already ringing.

‘Hi there!’

Momentarily confused, she paused. That wasn’t Lauren’s voice. She glanced at her phone to check: it was Mel.

‘Oh hi there! Sorry about that – I thought you were Lauren for a minute. She was about to ring and now you’ve saved me. Anyway, boring! How are you?’ Ava took another big sip, relaxing into the idea of a good gossip with an old friend.

‘Marcie, NO! Sorry, Ave, just a minute …’ There was a pause. Mel was one of the legion of Ava’s friends from college who was currently knee-deep in homework, scribbled-on walls and bruises from accidents sustained by slipping on Lego. She had two small children: two-year-old Marcie and six-year-old Jake. Ava waited, half-listening to Mel as she reprimanded her youngest, who was at the stage where experimenting with paint while wearing a highly flammable-looking pink princess dress were life’s greatest joys. She was mindful never to judge Marcie, though. After all, she spent several hours a week daydreaming about the infinite romance of owning a proper ballroom dancing gown – one with a train, sparkling diamante straps and a skirt that swished with every movement. She realised she would much prefer to talk to Marcie about her dresses than to Lauren about hers.