The Year of Taking Chances (14 page)

‘You should have said,’ Barry scolded.
‘You can always borrow a few quid off me.’

‘Thanks, Dad.’
Gemma stirred the soup, her back to him.
‘I’m not sure when I’d be able to pay you back, though.’

‘Have it, then.
What do you need?
Would fifty do you?’

She almost laughed.
Fifty quid wouldn’t touch the sides.
It wouldn’t even cover the cost of new school shoes and trainers for Darcey, who had chosen exactly the wrong time to be
going through a growth spurt.
‘Honestly, Dad, we’ll manage,’ she said.
It wasn’t as if he had money to throw around himself.
‘Forget I mentioned it.’

‘But when’s he going to be back at work?
This is only a temporary thing, right?’

If only, she thought glumly.
How she’d love for this to be a temporary blip, a month or two of tight purse-strings before they could return to their good old spendaholic ways.
The reality
was far grimmer.
‘He’s got another six weeks at least until he can go back to work,’ she replied.
‘And even then, reading between the lines, he may not be able to return to
building work at all.’

Well, how could he, when the doctors had warned that he wouldn’t be able to bear weight on his broken ankle for some time, even when it had healed?
Building was hard physical work;
he’d always had the biceps and six-pack to show for it.
In fact, the consultant had told Gemma that it was partly down to Spencer’s general fitness that his injuries weren’t even
worse.
But if he couldn’t carry on with such a job, then what did the future hold for him – for all of them?
They could be back in a rented terrace come the spring, with the rest of the
village laughing at them for getting above themselves.

‘I might get a job anyway,’ she said quickly, before her face gave her away.
‘Something will turn up, we’ll be fine.’

Her words of bravado kept coming back to her all the way home, taunting her.
I’ll get a job, something will turn up, we’ll be fine
.
Yeah, like it was that easy.
Like there was a great long list of jobs just waiting to be filled by someone like her.

Meanwhile, the credit-card bills were coming in thick and fast now, each bill more heart-stopping than the last.
She felt sick each time she opened one and saw the list of things they’d
bought without a second thought in the run-up to Christmas.

The beautiful Victorian blue glass baubles with silver trimmings that she’d found in an antiques shop in Needham Market – twelve pounds each.
She’d bought ten of them and told
herself they were bargains, only to have Bessie, her brother’s dog, knock two of them off low-hanging branches of the Christmas tree.
So that had been money in the bin.

The juicy organic turkey she’d bought, a Norfolk bronze, had cost fifty-eight pounds, and she’d ended up dumping half of it in the food waste when they’d all had their fill of
turkey meals by December 28th.

The expensive haircut she’d treated herself to, the pedicure and facial she’d spontaneously booked.
Reams of gorgeous velvet and shot silk from the fabric barn, which she still
hadn’t got round to doing anything with.

Spencer had been equally extravagant.
The silver eternity ring he’d given her for Christmas was six hundred pounds, judging from his January statement.
He’d taken them all to the
Harry Potter studios the weekend before Christmas as an extra treat, and splashed out a new plasma-screen TV, which he’d produced on Christmas Day for the big film, as well as the latest
iPhone for himself.
All this when they were meant to be tightening their belts to afford the new house!
The idea of so much money sloshing around so carelessly made Gemma feel ill now.
There
wouldn’t be any spending sprees for a while, that was for sure.

According to the government website she’d consulted, Spencer was eligible for twenty-eight weeks’ sick pay, but the amount he’d receive wasn’t anywhere near enough to
cover their mortgage repayments and the mounting bills.
It was sink-or-swim time: time to find some kind of life-raft before they were swept under by the next big wave.
And while Spencer seemed to
have stopped caring about anything, including his own family, there was only Gemma left to save everyone from drowning.
She had to try to keep them afloat.

When she got back from her dad’s there was a florist’s van parked in the road.
A man in green overalls was opening the back doors as she got out of the car and she couldn’t
help but gaze longingly as he brought out the most enormous bouquet of red roses.
Lucky cow, whoever they were for,
she thought longingly, remembering previous years when Spencer had wooed
her with flowers, and dinner, and jewellery.

Wait a minute.
The man in green overalls was walking up her front path towards her.
So this must mean .
.
.

‘Mrs Bailey?’
he asked, consulting the little yellow envelope attached to the bouquet.

‘Yes,’ she said, light-headed with sudden hope.
‘That’s me.’

‘Then these are for you.’

He held them out, smiling, and she accepted them wordlessly, cellophane crackling as she bent over and breathed in their glorious rich, sweet scent.
Oh, thank God.
Red roses!
He still loved her.
But how much had they cost?
‘Thank you,’ she said faintly.

‘My pleasure,’ the man said, whistling as he walked back to his van.

Inside the house Spencer was in the living room, lying on the sofa, still in his dressing gown.
As she walked in, he grabbed the remote control and changed the channel before she could see what
he’d been watching.
‘I wasn’t expecting you back yet.’

‘These have just arrived,’ she said, placing the flowers gently on the coffee table as she leaned over to kiss him, trying not to think about how sour his skin smelled.
‘Thank
you, they’re beautiful.’

He pulled her in so that she was lying awkwardly alongside him, her face pressed against his musty dressing gown.

‘Is this all right?
I don’t want to squash you,’ she said.
They’d had so little physical contact recently that it felt odd to be in such close proximity again, and she
was conscious of his injuries.
She still had her coat and boots on, her handbag sliding down her shoulder.

‘It’s fine,’ he mumbled.
‘Look, I’m sorry about Valentine’s Day.
I know I’ve been a bit shit lately.’

‘Oh, love.’
She put a hand to his face, smoothed the skin gently with her thumb.
He was sallow and pasty from all the days spent indoors, and there was a sheen of grease in his dark
hair.
‘It’s all right.
And the roses are gorgeous.
They must have cost an absolute fortune.’

As soon as she mentioned money she regretted it.
In the space of a heartbeat, his face became taut and impassive.
‘Well, it’s my money,’ he said stiffly.
‘I can do what I
want with it.’

‘Yes, but .
.
.
’

‘Can’t a bloke can’t buy his wife a few flowers now and then?
I thought you’d be pleased.’

‘I
am
.
I’m delighted.
I didn’t mean .
.
.
’

‘It was supposed to be a nice surprise, not an excuse for you to start nagging on about money again.’

She sat up, feeling as if she was fighting a losing battle.
‘It
was
a nice surprise, Spence.
Stop twisting things.
I just meant you’d been generous, that’s all.
I
wasn’t nagging.’

‘I won’t bother next time.
Most women would be pleased to get red roses.
Should have known you’d have something to say, though.’

There was just no arguing with Spencer when he was determined to be the victim.
She got to her feet and snatched up the bouquet.
‘I’ll put these in a vase,’ she mumbled,
leaving the room before he could say anything else.
All of a sudden the sweet sickly scent was giving her a migraine.

Safely in the kitchen, she dumped the roses by the sink and sank into a chair, exhausted by yet another argument.
How much had he spent on them?
Forty quid?
Fifty?
Too much, whatever it was,
especially as he’d turned on her almost immediately, seizing on the chance to have a go.
She didn’t even want roses from him.
She didn’t care about extravagant, hollow gestures
– they meant nothing when his mood could change from loving to attack in a single moment.

Still wearing her coat, she reached in her bag for a tissue, only then noticing the three twenty-pound notes tucked inside.
Her dad must have stuffed them there back at his house when
she’d nipped to the loo.

The sight of those crisp notes in her hand gave her a pang.
At least somebody still cared about her, even if it was her old dad.

She pulled out her phone.

Caitlin was pleased by the email, not least because she’d thrown all her energy into creating the website for Casey James, Saffron’s singer client.
With the enormous budget afforded
her, she’d gone to town with a luxurious look, rich colours and elegant styling, creating a carousel of images, a fan community area, which she had offered to moderate, and suggesting
specially commissioned weekly video blogs – all of which Casey had apparently loved.
She had also offered to write a monthly newsletter for Casey’s fans, as well as updating the site
with a regular news feed, so as to keep it looking fresh.

After a gloomy few months in Larkmead, it had been energizing to flex her creative muscles again; she’d forgotten how much she enjoyed design work.
When she’d made the decision to
quit nursing for a more artistic career, there were some people (i.e.
her mum) who simply couldn’t understand why anyone would want to leave such a worthwhile vocation, not to mention all
those handsome doctors/prospective husbands.
‘Do you really want to sit behind a
computer
all day?’
she’d asked.
‘When you could be helping people?’

The equation wasn’t that simple, though.
Of course it was noble to help other people, but Caitlin actually found enormous satisfaction in putting together gorgeous colours and styles, and
deliberating over the perfect font and images to create something bold and expressive, something that tantalized the eye.
Did that make her a bad person?
Not according to her tutor at college.
‘You’re a natural,’ he’d said to her, after her second piece of work.
‘You’ve got it, kid.’

She was just about to reply to Saffron when there was a knock at the front door and she opened it to see Gemma and a knee-high sandy-coloured dog, which was wagging its tail very
enthusiastically.

‘You’ve got a dog!’
she said stupidly, as if Gemma might not have noticed.

‘Only for this morning,’ Gemma replied.
‘Meet Oscar: I borrowed him from Mrs Belafonte down the road.
I was trying to tempt Spencer out for a walk, but .
.
.
’ She pulled
a face.
‘Not happening.
So I wondered if you fancied coming out with us instead?’

Oscar wagged his tail again and looked from Gemma to Caitlin, as if he could understand every word.
Caitlin thought of the job she’d planned for that morning – sorting through her
mum’s wardrobe – and took approximately 2.3 seconds to decide.
‘Why not,’ she said.
‘Let me dig out some wellies and I’ll be right with you.’

They drove out to Priestley Wood, a couple of miles away, and tramped through the mighty beech trees together, their boots crunching on the hard ground.
Gemma being Gemma, she
was wearing sparkly wellies, a woolly hat with a white rose corsage stitched onto the side and a pillarbox-red coat with jet-black buttons and a huge black furry collar that she’d added
herself.
As usual, Caitlin felt under-dressed beside her, in a plain black wool coat and a pair of her mum’s muddy khaki-coloured boots.

The woods were cool, green and peaceful, the quiet broken only by the sound of Oscar’s scudding footsteps when he ran to retrieve his manky old tennis ball, and sporadic snatches of
birdsong.
New leaves were budding on the trees, with pale primroses peeping from between their roots, and it felt as if spring was truly around the corner.

‘So how’s Spencer?
Apart from not wanting to go out for a walk?’
Caitlin asked.

Gemma took a moment to answer.
‘Well, his ankle’s mending well; they’re pleased with it at the fracture clinic.’

She was unusually hesitant.
‘That’s good,’ Caitlin prompted.
‘And is he starting to feel a bit more like himself now?’

Gemma sighed.
‘I wish!
To be honest, he’s like a completely different man.
If I’d met this version of Spencer six months ago, I wouldn’t recognize him.’

‘In what way?’

Gemma bent to make a fuss of Oscar as he came back with the slobbery tennis ball in his mouth, tail wagging.
She took the ball gingerly and hurled it far into the distance, Oscar bolting after
it immediately.
For a moment Caitlin thought she wasn’t going to answer the question, but then Gemma gave another sigh, as if it pained her to speak badly of her husband.
‘He’s
just so bloody angry all the time,’ she said.
‘I know he’s fed up, I know his back hurts and he has this constant mother of a headache.
I know he’d rather be out and about
at work, at football, down The Partridge with his mates .
.
.
We all wish that.
But sometimes he looks at me, and .
.
.
’ She shrugged.
‘I swear he hates me.
And the kids.
It’s
horrible, Caitlin.
I don’t know what to do.’

Caitlin thought for a moment.
‘You said he banged his head, didn’t he, when he fell.’

‘Yeah.
Quite a nasty bump.
The painkillers don’t seem to touch the throbbing he says he has at the front of his head.
I guess that would be enough to drive anyone nuts.’

‘It’s just .
.
.
Well, it could still be the concussion.
That can alter your personality quite radically.
Did the doctors say anything like that?’

Oscar was back again, bright-eyed with triumph as he dropped the ball at Gemma’s feet and gave a short, excited bark.
‘What do you mean?’
Gemma asked, picking it up and
throwing it once again.
‘Not really.
He was kind of confused for a while, but it didn’t last long.
I thought concussion was where you lost your memory and stuff?’

‘Concussion is a brain injury, basically, and it can be really mild – say, a bad headache, that clears up quickly – but there can be complications.’
Caitlin foraged
mentally through all the medical textbooks she’d ever studied, and all the patients she’d treated.
Minor injuries had been her thing: treating burns, bandaging sprains, cleaning
festering wounds, with the occasional bit of stitching for good measure.
The more serious stuff – head injuries, chest pains, breathing difficulties and major trauma cases – was always
whisked straight past the likes of Caitlin to the doctors.
‘I’ll find out for you,’ she told Gemma.
‘Post-Concussion Syndrome, it’s called.
It’s quite common
after a head injury.’

‘And can they treat it?
How long will it go on?’
Gemma turned pale.
‘Will I ever get him back again?’

‘Let me look into it,’ Caitlin said, not wanting to dish out false reassurances before she, d checked her facts.
‘Don’t worry.
I’m sure he’ll be feeling
better soon.’
But even as she spoke, she wasn’t certain of her own words.
And judging by Gemma’s face, she wasn’t convinced by them, either.

Life was so fragile, Caitlin thought to herself, once she was home again and making lunch.
Look at her dad, collapsing with a stroke while he mowed the lawn, the lawnmower
chewing right through a bed of lupins as he toppled to the ground.
Look at her mum, felled by a rogue infection that had raged through her body with deadly efficiency.
Look at Spencer Bailey, the
life and soul of his party on New Year’s Eve and now housebound and depressed after one false move.

Talk about sobering you up.
Talk about shaking you by the scruff of the neck and reminding you that life was passing you by.
Hello?
Big wide world out there, calling Caitlin Fraser.
Activate.
Activate!

The message from her New Year fortune-cookie bubbled up in her mind with sudden clarity:
Your destiny is within your own grasp.
Take a chance!

But what should she do?
she thought helplessly.
What did that mean?

She glanced down at the small tin of baked beans while she waited for the electric ring on the cooker to heat up, as if seeking guidance.
Serves one sad lonely fucker
, said the label, or
it might as well have done.
Beans for one.
Was this what her life had been reduced to these days?

Come on, stupid crap cooker, she thought, her hand hovering over the still-cool ring.
Then a thought occurred to her.
Take a chance
, urged the fortune-cookie, rustling temptingly at the
back of her mind.
Take a chance!

She turned off the cooker and ate the beans cold out of the tin with a teaspoon instead, thinking hard.
Should she?
Dare she?

Oh, sod it, she thought.
Why the hell not?

She paused and glanced over at her open diary, where she’d scribbled an appointment just now on Thursday’s square, following her phone call.
Harry, 2.30,
it said.
What?
It was
perfectly legit.
He was an electrician, after all, and her cooker needed fixing, didn’t it?
She typed on, feeling absurdly cheerful: