Second Chance (16 page)

Truth is always an unexpected punch in the stomach.

And then the wheezing notes of the organ and the hymn I asked for which is the saddest in the world, ‘Their sleep is so gentle', and I can hear Grace sniffing quietly in the pew behind me.

And I fall over in a dead faint, knocking my head, upstaging everyone.

Water – is this holy water? – is brought up to my lips, but I can't drink it and someone with bright red hair says, ‘Don't crowd round her,' and carries me outside, lays me down on the cold September earth and then disappears, presumably to oversee my mother being laid into a hole in the same September earth, a ceremony I have to forgo since I'm noisily vomiting up my tea and toast over my Gucci suit and my Prada handbag.

Is this reality? I can't, surely, be acting now. Anyway, I'm certainly pleased that there's no audience, that everyone but Grace has gone to the cemetery.

‘Isn't Paul here?' I ask her after what seems a very long time.

But she's too busy cleaning me up to answer.

I perform pretty well after that, thanking people for coming and saying, ‘Yes, feeling much better now, thank you,' and drinking cups of tea. The vestry is warm and muggy, sun streaming in through the tightly closed windows, with everyone chatting and enjoying the food. It's not exactly a wake, but as near as we get to it in this part of Wales, not exactly a celebration, but a recognition that life, while not in the same league as death in chapel terms, is still occasionally worth living.

I'm introduced to Siwan, Bleddyn's daughter, and we work out our relationship: second cousins.

Lorna is one of the helpers. The moment I see her, I kiss her on both cheeks, realising as I do that it will be seen as wildly histrionic. ‘You warned me not to make an entrance, but I'm afraid I made quite an exit,' I tell her.

‘So I heard,' she says, putting a large stick of celery – a punishment? – onto my plate.

I seek out George Williams. ‘My mother thought the world of you,' I tell him in a sudden rush of warmth. (Did she? She must, surely, have thought pretty highly of him or she wouldn't have considered marrying him.)

‘No, no,' he says, gently putting me right, ‘but I thought the world of her. That's how it was.' He doesn't seem prepared to say much more.

‘I may be coming back here for a while. If I do, I hope you'll come up to see me from time to time.'

He gives the suggestion his deepest consideration, nodding his head, but not committing himself.

‘What do you think of the flowers?' Edwina asks me.

‘They're beautiful. Please thank your friend. Do you have a bill for me?'

‘Yes. Ten per cent discount for family, and no hurry to pay.'

It's several hours later before Grace thinks it's time for us to go home. ‘I'm going to collect all the flowers from the tables,' she says, ‘otherwise Maggie Davies will have them all. You just sit there till I've finished.'

But I have to thank Maggie Davies and pay her. She flushes with anger as Grace gathers up the flowers but my effusive words and large tip seem to soothe her. ‘I may be coming home for a while,' I tell her, ‘so I hope to see you again soon.'

I thank Lewis Owen very sincerely for his loving words, but only succeed in embarrassing him. He blinks his pale sea-green eyes very rapidly at me and turns away. He thinks I'm playing a part, even when I'm not.

I haven't spoken a word to Rhydian. He and Bleddyn are already in the car when Grace – with flowers – and Siwan and I get into the back. I'm worried that they'll feel obliged to keep me company for another evening. ‘I don't know where Paul got to,' I tell them. ‘One of his daughters is in trouble with the police, so I suppose he decided he had to stay with her. I'll have to go back to the house, though, in case he phones.'

There's a long silence, but at last Grace says, ‘Well, we certainly can't leave you on your own, tonight of all nights.'

‘But people sometimes like being on their own,' Siwan says. ‘Kate, what would you like us to do?'

‘You must all go back to the farm, obviously. The children will be home from school, won't they? I'll phone you later to tell you when I'm going back.'

‘I'm not at all happy about leaving you,' Grace says again.

‘Right,' Rhydian says. ‘We'll drop you off here, give you time for your phone call, and when I've finished the milking I'll come back to fetch you and we'll have supper at our place. All right?'

I can hardly get my breath. ‘All right. About seven?'

‘About seven. And don't do any more fainting.' He gives me a long tormented look as I get out of the car.

They drive off and I go back to the empty house.

I pressed caller-return, but no one had phoned. What had happened to Paul? He'd been fairly cheerful last night, assuring me that he'd be able to pick me up for the funeral at ten-thirty, but six hours later, there'd been no word from him; no explanation, no apology.

Arthur was already at the back door waiting for me. As I let him in, he looked me straight in the eye for a moment. ‘We both know she's dead, but life goes on, for me as well as you.' I opened a tin of tuna and forked it onto his plate. What should I do with him tomorrow when I went to Cambridge? ‘You're a heavy responsibility, Arthur,' I told him and he purred his agreement. I'd have to ask Gwenda Rees from the farm if her sons would feed him until I got back.

Until I got back. Getting back was assuming a tangible reality. I intended coming back, at least for a time. The relationship between Paul and me seemed to have been floundering for months, even years, and now, while he was preoccupied with his family, seemed as good a time as any to make a break.

I wasn't too worried about Annabel. She'd weather the storm as she'd weathered so many others at boarding school. There'd always been incidents of various kinds; orgies of drinking or drugs, or boyfriends secreted in her room.

I suddenly remembered the letter she'd sent me and took it out of my handbag. But it wasn't from Annabel, but from Selena – even their handwriting was almost identical.
Dear Kate, I was most awfully sorry to hear about your mother's death. She was a lovely person and I shall miss her. Love from Selena
. I was surprised and pleased to get it; sometimes, when they dropped their guard, Paul's daughters didn't seem as bad as I painted them. Perhaps we'd be better friends when Paul and I were no longer together.

I went into the garden and stood looking down at the valley; complete stillness, an apricot sky, the trees beginning to show traces of autumn, the river glimpsed here and there in the distance, and beyond it a blue haze of round-backed mountains.

My mother would often stand out here in the evening, listening to the last thrush – ‘He'll go on singing while he knows I'm listening to him,' – or waiting for the first stars, the first glimpse of a new moon.

I turned back to the house, my mother's and now mine. It was built about two hundred years ago by my grandmother's great-grandfather, according to Auntie Jane. He'd built well; there'd been very little done to it over the years. My mother had had a grant for having the walk-in pantry extended and converted into a bathroom when I was about fourteen; apart from that, it was much as it had always been – a sturdy stone-built house like a child's drawing; a door and four windows, a roof with a chimney at either end.

Arthur comes in with me and winds himself round my legs.

Yes, this is where I'm going to stay. For the autumn and winter, if not longer. Is it because I've fallen in love with my cousin? Probably. But at least I'm aware of the problems I'm facing, aware of his kind, infuriating wife and his family, aware that they must always come first. Shall I
ever
come first with anyone? Probably not. But perhaps I can snatch a few moments of pleasure. And manage to survive.

My heart is thumping against my ribs, but my head feels cold and clear as ice. I'm at the middle point of my life and I'm taking stock. The most critical day during my relationship with Paul was that terrible day when I had the abortion. That day, because of his reluctance and caution, I threw away any hopes of a future with him, and though I stayed with him for three more years, it was only because no crucial event happened to effect the inevitable break. My mother's death and my journey into the past has given me the chance to see my relationship with Paul for what it is; safe and dull. And I want intensity. I'm no longer young but I need to feel that I'm alive. Yes, I'm frightened of what will happen. But even that fear proves I'm alive. Rhydian has made me feel alive. I don't intend to steal him from Grace – even supposing I could – but there's no way I can pretend this momentous thing hasn't happened to me. It has.

I go upstairs to change. Fear is making me shiver and sweat.

‘I know this isn't the right time,' Rhydian says, leaning back against the door and looking at me as though catching sight of me for the first time. ‘Bleddyn came out with me to do some fencing this morning before we went to chapel and gave me a proper earful. How you were in a vulnerable state because of your mother's death, how there was nothing between you and me but a crude sexual attraction, nothing but biology, nothing but middle-aged lust. Well, he may be right, Katie, but oh Christ, it feels like a whole lot more to me.'

He comes towards me and I'm in his arms. ‘And what about you?' he breathes into my ear. ‘Do you feel as I do?'

I don't say anything. All my love words have left me. All I do is fit my body more closely into his, clutching him so that we're like one body, turn my face up to his, taste his tongue. Our deep kisses leave us shuddering.

No time to undress each other, no time for mouth-play, only time for a shocking, wonderfully brutal giving and taking and gasping for breath and wanting even more, even more, even more, clinging together as though we're both drowning. Our eyes, open wide in wonder, are like drowning eyes.

‘We've got to go, Katie, or they'll know something's up. Katie, love, come on. You can comb your hair in the car.'

Adrift and dreamy with love, I stumble after him to the car. ‘Do I look all right? Do I look fairly normal?'

‘No. You look like a sinner. God, I won't be able to take my eyes off you all evening. Bleddyn will know, even if Grace doesn't. I won't be able to carve the joint.'

‘I won't be able to say anything. I'll only be able to think of what's happened. I can't bear to let it go.'

‘We mustn't let it go. You mustn't go back to London.'

‘I have to. But I'll come back.'

He stopped the car and we kissed; a long, long kiss of longing and promise; lips and mouth and tongue. ‘We're lovers,' Rhydian said. ‘Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that terrifying?'

He drove on again until we came to the farmhouse. Two black and white sheepdogs rushed out to meet us, sniffing us all over. ‘Even the dogs know,' Rhydian moaned.

Grace was in the kitchen when we arrived, which gave us a moment or two to pull ourselves together. I was so happy I felt I could die of it.

‘Oh Kate, you look so much better,' Siwan said. ‘You've got a bit of colour in your cheeks now. The boys want to see you. Do you feel up to it? We've got five or ten minutes before supper. My fault. My cheese and potato pie isn't ready.'

The farmhouse was very different. In Auntie Jane's time, it was all flagstones and flaking whitewashed walls, now there were Laura Ashley floral wallpapers, pink and turquoise curtains, brass wall-lights and wall-to-wall carpets, even a carpet on the twisty old staircase. I wondered what Rhydian thought of the changes.

The boys were in their pyjamas, but playing computer games. Seeing them was not the ordeal I'd imagined. And I was pleased to find that they weren't at all interested in me. ‘Are you our granny?' the little one asked, when at last he did look up. ‘Something like that.' ‘Of course she's not your granny,' Siwan said briskly. ‘She's your Auntie Kate. Say goodnight, Auntie Kate.' ‘Goodnight, Granny Kate. Goodnight, Siwan.'

‘Your youngest son thinks I'm his Granny,' I tell Grace. She laughs. And the moment I'd dreaded is over.

We sit at the table, a new mahogany table with lace table mats, instead of the old scrubbed pine. Siwan serves the cheese and potato pie – the potatoes are not quite cooked but we all pretend they are – and Rhydian carves the baked ham. Grace pours out some red wine and asks me to pass round the broad beans. And Bleddyn frowns and says nothing.

We begin the meal. Siwan tells us about an exciting new nursing technique which is saving the lives of some of the tiniest premature babies. Grace supposes her new baby will be late as usual, but would love Siwan to be with her if at all possible. Siwan assures her that she's already got the date starred in her diary.

The conversation washes over me; a family argument about whether Gwyn, the eldest son, who has an outstanding soprano voice according to Grace, should apply to Wells Cathedral for a choral scholarship. Rhydian concedes that the boy's voice is passably good, but doesn't want him to leave home. Bleddyn, whose soprano voice was quite as good if not better than Gwyn's according to Rhydian, is not in favour of specialised education, but offers, for what it's worth, the theory that music and mathematics are often closely akin. Grace, while not prepared to deny that Bleddyn may have had a truly magnificent voice as a boy, is adamant that a particular timbre in Gwyn's voice has come from her side of the family and would like to remind all present that her cousin's son has turned professional and has sung in the Albert Hall with the Welsh Choir of a Thousand Voices and is set to become another Bryn Terfel. Siwan wishes that Grace had told her about the Albert Hall concert with the Welsh Choir of a Thousand Voices, since the nurses at St Thomas', where she's doing her training, are sometimes given free tickets. Grace promises to get in touch with her when her cousin's son is giving another concert in London, though she rather thinks his next engagements are in Leeds and Cardiff.