Second Chance (17 page)

Cardiff's Millennium stadium is a sore point with both Bleddyn and Rhydian, a shocking waste of money and what was wrong with the old Arms Park? Bleddyn asks me whether I'd ever gone to international matches when I was at Cardiff University and I said I had, which was a lie, adding that I still watched rugby matches on television when Wales was playing, another lie. Siwan, braver than I and with not so much to lose, admits that she'd never been to a rugby match in her life, but she had visited the International Eisteddfod at Llangollen last June and wonders whether Grace's cousin's son had ever sung there, but Grace replies, rather abruptly, that that was only for foreigners.

We have blackberry and apple tart for pudding, which Grace has made specially for Bleddyn, who says she makes the best blackberry and apple tart in the world. Rhydian then praises the damson cheesecake Siwan made for last night's supper and Grace says she must, please, give her the recipe before she leaves.

And all the time, whatever was being said, I sat thinking about the moment when Rhydian had blindly crossed the room towards me and wondering whether he would be taking me home and what would happen if he did.

Coffee and mints in the lounge – dove-grey dralon with touches of maroon – and more desultory conversation, then a tape of Mozart's
Requiem
, with everyone sighing and looking a little embarrassed, and the evening seemed to be over.

Rhydian got to his feet to take me home, but Bleddyn, knowing a thing or two, and possibly three, insisted that Siwan go with us. He would be more than pleased to help Grace with the washing-up, but felt his daughter would like a quick look over her great-grandmother's cottage.

‘Won't Kate be too tired?' Rhydian and Siwan asked together.

‘Of course not,' I said, with more enthusiasm than I felt. ‘I'll be delighted to show you the house. It will only take two minutes, Siwan. It's very small.'

We went out to the car. The night was dark and cold, the sky silvered with stars. I clung to Rhydian's arm. Bleddyn might be suspicious of us, but I felt sure that Siwan considered us old and quaint. Rhydian's calloused farmer's hand held mine as he drove one-handed along the murderously twisted lanes. And quivering with sinful thoughts, I looked out for lay-bys where we might meet when I returned.

The drive was soon over and we were back. (How distance has shrunk. It used to take two buses and half a morning for Auntie Jane to get to our house.) As we got out of the car, we could hear the phone ringing, but I couldn't find the key, couldn't find the lock, couldn't find the light switch, and by that time it had stopped.

‘That was probably Paul,' I said, ‘but he'll ring again. This is my mother's cat, Siwan. Arthur. He didn't like me at first, but now he's getting quite friendly.'

He seemed intent on tripping me up. Did cats have yet another meal at half-past ten at night?

‘Will you be taking him back to London with you?'

‘I think I may be staying here for a while. At least until I get my next job.'

The phone rings again. It's Paul. ‘Hello. Where have you been? I've been ringing you all evening.'

‘Where have
you
been? You promised to be here in time for the funeral.'

A long silence. ‘Kate, I've got some terrible news. Kate, it's Selena. Selena has committed suicide.'

‘Selena? Good God. Oh God, how frightful. Oh Paul, I'm so sorry. Paul, give me a minute and I'll ring you back. At the moment I simply can't think. I've just got to sit down and take this in. Oh my dear, I'm so very sorry.' The room swirls round me.

‘What the hell's wrong?' Rhydian asks.

‘I know it's very bad news. Let me make you a cup of tea,' Siwan says.

‘One of Paul's daughters. Killed herself. God knows why. Twenty-one. Oh God, how frightful. Oh God, what a frightful day.'

Rhydian is chafing my hands which have turned white with shock.

Siwan has made me a cup of tea and is holding it to my lips. ‘Have one sip. It's got a lot of sugar in it. Just one sip. Good girl. Good girl.'

‘There, I feel better. I'll have to ring him back now. Rhydian, I think you and Siwan had better go and let me deal with this in my own way. I'll get in touch again when I can.'

‘I think Grace will be very angry if we leave you in this state,' Siwan said. ‘Rhydian, you need to go back, but I can stay here for the night. And I'd really like to.'

‘We'd both better go. I think Kate needs to be on her own. Kate, will you phone later? At eleven-thirty? We'll want to know that you're coping.'

They leave. Siwan kisses me and Rhydian touches my face with the back of his hand and when Siwan turns towards the door, traces the line of my mouth with his fingers.

But I'm back with Paul again; Paul and Selena. I pace about the living room trying to get to grips with this new trauma, trying to find a way to bear this new pain.

‘What happened, Paul? What did she do?'

‘Took all Francesca's sleeping pills. We don't know why. She wasn't at all implicated in the drugs affair. She wasn't even at the rave. That's all we can get out of Annabel. She screams if we ask her any more.'

‘Had they had a quarrel?'

‘We daren't ask her, Kate. She gets hysterical and has to be sedated if anyone asks her anything.'

‘Poor girl. No wonder she's hysterical.'

‘And Francesca's almost as bad. Can you possibly come tomorrow? I know you've had a tough time, but I really need you. I've had to cancel the Spain thing – not that that matters. Nothing matters now, that's how I feel. I'm at rock bottom, Kate.'

‘Of course you are. Nothing in the whole world can be worse than this. And I know that nothing I can say or do will help, I know that too. But I'll come, of course I will. I'll ring you tomorrow morning as soon as I find out about trains.'

‘Thank you, love.'

At exactly eleven-thirty, I phone Gorsgoch and Rhydian answers. I fail to say anything except that I have to leave the next day.

He doesn't try to dissuade me, doesn't say anything at all except those three words that mean everything and nothing.

Will he forget me? Will I forget him? I don't know. I don't know.

How can you comfort a man – your partner – whose twenty-one-year-old daughter has committed suicide? You can only hold his hand and be very loving, I suppose. Which would be easier if you hadn't made violent love to another man, whose image was still in your mind, less than twenty-four hours before.

It was the first time I'd been unfaithful to Paul since the beginning of our relationship. We'd discussed the ground rules: we were to consider ourselves married, it was to be everything except the scrap of paper. I remember the hours we spent talking it over, even making wills so that everything was settled, signed and sealed.

I can't be totally wicked, I kept telling myself as my train drew nearer and nearer Cambridge, or I wouldn't be feeling so guilty. I honestly believed I'd be able to break it off with Paul. Now that has to be postponed, perhaps indefinitely, but that's due to circumstances beyond my control. And behind that legal terminology is a young girl; Selena, my stepdaughter, lying white and cold and dead in a mortuary. Such a horrid, icy image that I shivered in the warmth of the
compartment.

I'd bought a newspaper and a paperback at Shrewsbury, but couldn't read either. Throughout the journey I sat back against my seat, eyes tightly closed, hands clenched together. Even travelling to Wales immediately on hearing of my mother's death, hadn't been as traumatic and shocking as this.

‘Would it help to talk?' the woman sitting opposite me asked. I looked at her for the first time, a woman of about my own age with a strong, intelligent face; concerned, but definitely not a busybody.

‘Thank you. But I don't think so. A young girl, my stepdaughter, is dead. She's dead. There's nothing to talk over, is there?'

‘No, I suppose not. When did you get this news?'

‘Last night. She committed suicide the previous night.'

‘Suicide? Oh, God! Was she a student? Was it because of her studies?' She leaned across the small table between us and laid her hands on mine. ‘I never usually talk to strangers,' she said.

I looked up at her and nodded to assure her that I believed her, trusted her. ‘I never usually reply.'

‘Have we met before? I know it sounds a cliché, but I feel I know you.'

‘You may have seen me on the box. I'm an actor. I'm usually reluctant to tell people, because they either want to know everything I've done, or whether I've ever met John Thaw... What do you do?'

‘I teach at the University. German literature... and
have
you ever met John Thaw?'

‘Not yet.'

‘There, you smiled. I don't pretend this is going to be easy for you, in fact I know it will be devastating, but go on working and let people help you negotiate it. It's the only way. We're arriving now and I suppose you'll have someone meeting you, but here's my card. Please get in touch with me. Let's meet and have a drink. I'm in London most weekends.' I took the card and glanced at it. Dr Joanna Morton.

‘I'd like that. Thank you... You're speaking from experience, aren't you? About suffering?'

‘Yes. My daughter died of leukaemia when she was just seven. Thirteen years ago now, but I still need people's help.'

When we were out on the platform, I took her arm and squeezed it. ‘My partner's over there, so I'll leave you. But I will get in touch. I'd really like to.'

She smiled and walked away and I hurried to join Paul who, without a word of greeting, led me out of the station. He looked old, the lines on his face deeper than I remembered. We walked to the car park, still without either of us managing to say a word. He unlocked the car. ‘Will you drive to Newnham?' he said then.

‘I'd rather you did, Paul. I don't know Cambridge.'

I willed him to pull himself together. I wasn't prepared to let him go to pieces, not even for a day. I got into the passenger seat and smiled at him and after what seemed a whole long minute he got into the driver's seat and started up the car.

‘I keep on wanting to drive into something,' he said, when we were out on the busy road in heavy traffic.

‘That wouldn't help anyone and could prove quite painful. I remember playing a woman whose lover had deserted her. That Christmas she bought a bottle of gin which she intended to drink before throwing herself out of the window. But a friend happened to call who told her that a second-floor flat wasn't high enough to kill, but only to maim, so she gave up the idea and they drank the gin instead.'

‘That was the Jean Rhys autobiography,' Paul said in an almost normal voice. ‘You played it on BBC 2 about seven years ago.
Smile Please
. You were pretty good in it, I thought. I'm very sorry about your mother, by the way. Sorry I couldn't come to the funeral. Did everything go well?'

‘As well as could be expected, I suppose. I mean, it wasn't much fun but we got through it.'

‘God, I didn't mean to say that. Did everything go well! I'm not myself, Kate.'

‘Of course you're not. I don't mind what you say as long as you keep talking. Tell me about practical things. Where are we staying tonight? Where are Annabel and Francesca? Where are we eating? How long are we staying in Cambridge? Have the police dropped their charges against Annabel?'

The last question seemed to galvanise him. ‘Yes. They seem to have accepted that it must have been... Selena who passed on the drugs.' He turned to look at me. ‘I find it almost impossible to say her name.'

‘She wrote to me about my mother's death.'

The car swerved, almost hitting the kerb. ‘Really?'

‘I was very moved by it. Let's find somewhere to eat and I'll show you the letter. Have you eaten today?'

‘No idea.'

We drove into the car park of the Garden House Hotel. When we were shown to a table, he leaned across and kissed me. ‘I couldn't face this without you,' he said. ‘We've been drifting apart lately, I know. But please see this through with me.

At first I thought Annabel looked remarkably normal. Paul had been telling me about her bouts of screaming and head banging, now, dressed in Paul's dark green sweater, she was very pale but seemed composed.

I think I was too tense to say much, which may have been a good thing. Perhaps too many people had been giving her too much fairly useless advice, so that she was pleased that I was prepared to squeeze her hand, smile at her and say very little.

After a few minutes she made some coffee, so dark and horrible that I wondered whether she intended poisoning the three of us. ‘I don't think I can drink this,' I said. ‘Is it something Turkish and expensive? Or something cheap and nasty? It tastes like creosote.'