Happy Endings (32 page)

It was a slightly damp afternoon and I was in the union bar waiting for a girl. Not Kate, but a girl I’d slept with the previous night. I didn’t have many one-night stands at university, but the previous evening I’d gone out with some friends and met a girl. We were drunk and I ended up back at her place in Palmers Green. I didn’t remember much in the harsh light of morning, but we agreed to meet for a drink later on in the union.

As a student, I wasn’t the sort you’d generally see loitering around the union bar in the middle of the day. There were plenty of those: the usual crowd of mature students and bohemian types who always seemed to be hanging out and rolling their annoying little cigarettes. I wasn’t really interested in the student life and, to be honest, I couldn’t wait to leave, get a job and earn some money. I was sick and tired of being poor. Unlike a lot of other students I knew, I wasn’t given handouts from my parents and had to pay for everything myself. On that day, as the bar was filling up, I sat and waited for my one-night stand to show up. We were supposed to meet at three o’clock, but by four I realised she probably wasn’t coming. By five I had given up all hope and was about to leave when I noticed a girl walking my way. She was really pretty and unlike the rest of the afternoon drinkers, she was dressed smartly and had the most gorgeously intoxicating smile.

‘Do you have the time?’

I looked down at my watch. ‘Just past five.’

‘Thanks.’ She was about to walk away, but I knew I had to stop her.

‘Wait,’ I said quickly, standing up as if I was about to make a huge announcement. I, of course, had no idea what I was going to say, but she was looking at me expectantly.

‘Yes?’

‘I was just wondering, now you know the time, if you had time for a quick drink?’

I hadn’t asked many girls out before. There had been girls, but they were usually friends of friends and so it happened organically. But with Kate, I’d had to actually put myself out there, put myself in the shop window and it was terrifying. Luckily, after a brief moment when the whole world seemed to lose all shape and form, she said yes.

‘So, is this your thing?’ she said when I sat down with a couple of drinks.

‘Thing?’

‘You know, you hang around the union trying to pick up unsuspecting girls without watches.’

‘Oh yeah, definitely my thing.’

‘Good job, it worked,’ she said, and I was in love.

She had dark hair that was tied back neatly in a ponytail, the greenest eyes, a slightly pointy nose that was littered with freckles and a wide slim mouth that glistened with red lipstick. She had the fairest lily-white skin and a tall, slim body with the most incredible long legs.

‘Are you waiting for someone?’ I asked, desperate to keep the conversation going.

‘No, well, yes, sort of, but it doesn’t matter. I’m free.’

‘Me too.’

Meeting Kate was like finally finding the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle. For years I’d often wondered how I would know when I met the right person, if that person even existed, but from the moment she sat down, we just clicked. We were ending each other’s sentences before the first drinks were finished.

‘Where do you think you’ll be in ten years’ time?’ I said, pushing the conversational boat out.

‘Wow, ten years, I’ll be thirty-one. Shit that’s old. Let me see. I want to be doing something that makes me happy, something I’m passionate about, not just a job, you know,’ she said, tilting her head slightly. ‘Something that makes a difference. I’ll probably be living in London or somewhere near. I don’t care really. I’d like to live near the coast one day because I’ve never done that. Maybe Brighton. I’d have been travelling for a year and be with the perfect man who loved me unconditionally, just as I was. And what about you, Ed? Where will you be ten years from now?’

I looked at her and I thought for a moment. I didn’t really have a grand plan except to do well. I’d spent so many years knowing what I didn’t want that I hadn’t really figured out what I did want. I knew then though that what I wanted was her. If I had Kate then I would be OK.

‘I’ll be married to you,’ I said, and I knew it was a gamble. I knew it was risky, but she didn’t get up and leave. She didn’t freak out and instead she smiled. A warm, happy smile.

‘That’s quite a statement. And how are you going to support me?’

‘By then I’ll have my own business.’

‘Oh, really.’

‘Really.’

‘Here’s to ten years from now,’ she said, raising her glass in the air.

‘Ten years.’

Just then a Snow Patrol song, ‘Chocolate’, came on.

‘Oh God, I love this song,’ said Kate.

‘Me too,’ I said and I smiled.

‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ I said, but I already knew we had our song.

On the train home from Nottingham I was thinking about the day I first met Kate because it suddenly dawned on me that we were almost at ten years. Ten years since we’d met and ten years since we’d mapped out our future. Everything seemed so certain then, so easy and open. Our lives stretched out before us and we were eager, full of hope and wonder. Nothing seemed impossible and I was so certain Kate and I would get married and live happily ever after. Happy endings seemed so easy back then, but somehow, over the last nine years, we’d messed it all up. I’d never told Kate I was there to meet another girl, but it wasn’t because I thought she’d be mad or because I was embarrassed, but because I believed I was really there to meet her.

Being unemployed and having time to actually sit back and take stock, it was so much easier to see where it had all gone wrong. I was sitting in our lounge looking around at the house we had created. It was beautiful, but it meant nothing without Kate. Kate was the spark that made it all possible and worthwhile. Without her it was just a room and that’s where I’d gone wrong. I’d lost sight of why I was doing what I was doing.

I wanted in that moment to go back, start again from the day I met Kate and get it right. I wanted us to have all of those things we’d said back then. That was when the plan came to me. It wasn’t by any means foolproof and it could backfire, but I had to give it a go. I wanted what we’d dreamed about at twenty-one and it was possible. I couldn’t go back in time, but I could change the future and hope and pray that Kate came along with me because without her nothing else mattered.

I went upstairs and rifled through some old boxes we’d been storing in the spare room. They were boxes of childhood memories and things we hadn’t found a place for yet. I rummaged around until I found the box I was looking for. I hadn’t been inside it for a couple of years and it was packed full of memories and memorabilia. I’d wanted to chuck it away when we moved in, but Kate insisted we keep it and I finally understood why. I looked through the box until I found what I was looking for. I took out some old clothes and laid them on the spare bed. I smiled because I hadn’t seen them in years and I didn’t even know if they’d still fit me. I quickly tried them on and amazingly they did. I looked in the mirror and it was like going back in time. It was the exact outfit I was wearing the day I met Kate. I smiled because I finally knew what I wanted. I finally knew what would make me happy.

Emma

There had been days when I hadn’t just questioned whether I liked my mother, but whether I even loved her. She’d been a cold, hard, taciturn woman for most of my life and I’d become used to it. It was just her. My father was hardly home, always working so we could have the best of everything. I saw other parents who would cover their children in kisses and cuddles and I always wondered why I never got that. It wasn’t that she didn’t love me, but that she couldn’t show it. From the day I was born she was preparing me for the real world. Maybe it was the honourable thing, the dignified way to raise a baby, but so many times in my life I would have swapped it all for a simple hug and a kiss.

I drove to Oxford on my own. Since Jack’s fantastic news, he’d been so busy between working at To Bean or Not to Bean and going backwards and forwards with his literary agent on changes for the book. I was so happy for him because he’d wanted it for such a long time and he deserved it. I’d never seen him so happy and so energised, but as much as I wanted to jump on his bandwagon of bliss, I was still thinking about the baby. Our baby. I was sure Jack was too and it wasn’t as if he was being insensitive about it, but he seemed to have moved on, while I just couldn’t.

It was a Thursday afternoon. Dad was off playing golf and I wanted to see Mum alone because I needed to talk to someone other than Jack. When I walked in Mum was in the living room waiting for me. I hadn’t told her about the baby yet or Jack’s news, but as soon as she saw me her face changed and she stood up.

‘What’s the matter, darling?’ She’d barely finished her sentence before I was in tears. They seemed to come so easily and so strongly I could barely control them. I fell towards Mum and she hugged me. It was slightly uncomfortable, as it always was with her, as though I had a handle-with-care sticker on me and she didn’t quite know where to put her hands or how hard to squeeze. ‘Sit down, darling, and I’ll get you a stiff drink. Oh, wait, the baby,’ she said, but as soon as she did, she seemed to realise.

‘I lost the baby, Mum.’

‘Then you’ll definitely need that drink,’ she said and walked off towards the drinks cabinet. She returned with two large gin and tonics. ‘Here you go, darling.’ She handed me my drink and I took a sip. It was strong, but I didn’t care.

‘Thanks,’ I said, and took a longer sip.

‘What happened?’

‘Everything was fine, it seemed fine anyway, but then Jack was at work and I started feeling sick. At first I thought it was just the pregnancy, but soon I started to realise it was something serious. I probably should have called for an ambulance straight away, but I didn’t. I knew I was losing the baby and it sounds crazy, but I wanted to be alone with them before they were gone.’

Mum didn’t do well with tears at the best of times. Her traditional English stiffness made me stronger and harder because we didn’t cry in our family. I’d never seen Mum cry, not even at her mother’s funeral. ‘Tears are just biology, darling,’ she told me afterwards. ‘The physical act of sadness, but just because you don’t cry, it doesn’t mean you aren’t sad inside.’ However, the usually stoic, heavily made-up face of my mother, for once, showed a crack.

‘Listen, darling. There’s something I’ve never told you before, never told anyone for that matter, not even your father. I was twenty-one. Your father and I had only been married for a few months. He was still at university and we lived in this little flat in Chiswick. Lovely little place and we were so happy there. I had a part-time job at a local doctor’s surgery . . .’

‘You worked?’

‘Five years, darling, until I had you and then I stopped. I enjoyed it. It gave me a sense of independence and your father was busy with studying and I had a few girlfriends. We had only been married a couple of months when I fell pregnant. I didn’t even tell your father because I wasn’t sure. I was late and so after a few weeks I asked a doctor at the surgery to give me a test and it was positive. I can’t tell you how happy I was. Your father was away for a few days on a course, somewhere up north, and before he came back the baby was gone. It wasn’t meant to be. I was distraught. It felt like my whole world had suddenly crashed around me, so I know what it’s like,’ said Mum with a comforting smile. ‘But it gets better.’

‘God, Mum.’

‘It’s fine because then we had you and that made everything all right.’

‘But do you still think about the baby you lost? Don’t you ever wonder what might have been?’

‘Of course, all of the time, but what’s done is done. I often say a prayer for them at church. It’s all we can do, darling.’

‘A part of me feels like I’m being punished for what happened with Paul.’

‘Absolute nonsense,’ said Mum, suddenly sterner, and her old stoic face returned with a vengeance. ‘Tosh and you know it. You did what you had to do back then and this had nothing to do with that.’

‘It’s just, I can’t help but think it’s some sort of payback.’

‘Emma Fogle, you look at me and don’t forget this. You don’t deserve to lose a baby. No one does and if there’s one thing I’m certain of, it’s that you didn’t lose that child because of any kind of karma nonsense. It happens. It’s a sad part of life but it happens. We grieve and then we move on. I did and you will too. You and Jack will try again and you’ll have another baby.’

‘I hope so,’ I said, fighting back the tears.

‘You will,’ said Mum and she reached across and put a hand on mine. ‘You will, darling.’

It was a strange feeling, being emotionally connected with my mother. We’d never shared anything quite so personal before and I suddenly felt a warmth for her.

‘I know you probably think of me as this cold-hearted ogre, but all I have ever wanted is for you to be happy.’

‘I know.’

‘I love you so much, Emma; we both do.’

‘And what about Jack?’ I said, throwing a spanner in the works. ‘Do you love him too?’

For a moment she looked like she didn’t know what to say.

‘Jack’s lovely, but you know I’ve had my reservations about him. We’re just worried he isn’t good enough for you, that’s all.’