Second Chance (4 page)

‘Their teacher says they've got good brains, but I can't judge because they never say anything in the house except “What's for dinner?” and “Any more?” And they're not in the house much, to tell you the truth. No, always haring out and leaving doors open. It would have been so nice to have had a little girl.' She sighed deeply and gave me a hug, but I knew it was only politeness; she was very proud of her boys who ate like horses, ganged up against their father and hadn't had a day's illness in their lives.

When I got to the grammar school in town I discovered that my cousins, or cousins-once-removed, were the most popular boys there. It still surprises me because country boys, and especially farm boys, were usually either disparaged or ignored. Those three certainly couldn't have been ignored; they were very tall and dark with beak noses and riotously untidy black hair. They wore only very few items of school uniform along with their farm-workers' clothes and seemed to get away with it, though the Head was strict with other boys, insisting on the full regalia; ties, white shirts, navy-blue blazers, grey trousers, black socks. Perhaps he realised that there was nothing rebellious in the way they dressed, that they simply led their own lives, made their own rules. Anyway, he'd never have dared expel them or where would the cricket team be, the rugby team, the athletics?

They weren't keen participants in any case, always having to be persuaded to turn up to any match taking place in out-of-school hours, so I think he made it clear that no one was to cross them in any way. Rhydian, the eldest, had broken the school record for the 1500 metres, but when the games master put him up for the All-Wales championship, there was no sign of him on the Saturday morning when the coach was due to start. The Head had to drive out the nine miles to the farm to fetch him. ‘Aren't you interested in the honour of the school?' he asked him. ‘No sir,' he said.

When I started school at eleven, they were sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. I think I was more nervous of them than I was of any of my teachers, terrified that they might tease me as they had when I was five or six. My hope was that they'd no longer recognise me, but I noticed the youngest of them, Iestyn, glancing at me once or twice and while not exactly smiling, his scowl seeming less pronounced than usual.

The three boys were academic, it seems, as well as athletic, but Bleddyn turned out to be a mathematical genius. It hadn't been noticed until he was in the Sixth; he'd done very little work until then. But in the Lower Sixth, when Rhydian and other older boys began to solicit his help, it became apparent that he could see numbers whirring about and sorting themselves out in his head, that he was able to come up with the correct answer to any problem without showing any working and without being able to explain his method. He seemed surprised that the other boys, some of whom seemed sophisticated and urbane, able to argue fluently in the debating society, for instance, even talk to girls, found difficulty in something which seemed straightforward and obvious to him.

Rhydian got a couple of A levels and much to Uncle Ted's annoyance – and derision – decided on a local farming college, but the following year Bleddyn was put in for a scholarship to Oxford. ‘Did they say you were an exceptional candidate?' the Head wanted to know when he got back from his interview. ‘No, sir. It was only my fingernails they seemed to notice. I don't suppose any of them have done much in the way of farm work, sir.'

As soon as any of the younger teachers discovered that I was related to ‘the Gorsgoch boys', they'd repeat those stories and many, many more. They were heroes, it seemed, particularly when they'd left school and were no longer a threat to discipline.

When the two older brothers had left, with Iestyn still in the Upper Sixth, a fiercely unambitious student, an untidy lounging prefect who avoided his duties and argued with the Head, I was astonished and thrilled to get a note from him.

Dear baby cousin, I've been wondering whether you'd like to come to the pictures with me on Saturday night. I'll put you on the nine o'clock bus after, so no worries. People may tell you that I'm a terror but don't believe them. Yours Sincerely, Iestyn Jones. P.S. I think you're very pretty.

I wasn't quite fourteen at the time and though tall for my age and well developed, didn't have the courage to go. I wanted to very badly and spent a miserable few days, desperately annoyed with myself for being so cowardly. I think it was at that point that I decided to come out of my shell; when I started school the next year I was loud and noisy and up for anything. But Iestyn was at Cardiff University by that time, playing rugby and drinking – and fancying other girls, no doubt. I kept the note he sent me for a long time, two or three years at least.
I think you're very pretty.

‘How are your cousins getting on?' the Head would ask me from time to time after they'd all left. ‘Still savages, I suppose?'

I didn't know. They rarely wrote home; I think Auntie Jane would have been worried if they did. She was suspicious of letters, holding them at arm's length for a minute or so before daring to open them.

After Auntie Jane's death, I didn't hear much about them and, when they left school, didn't see them again. Except on one occasion when, by chance, I met my eldest cousin, Rhydian.

I was in the Sixth, the Lower Sixth I think, when I was invited on one hot Saturday afternoon to Isabel Langford's house to play tennis, followed by afternoon tea. I was surprised to be asked; she and I weren't particularly friendly and, besides, I wasn't a very good player. I agreed to go willingly enough though, because her family had their own tennis court at the back of their large detached house, so there'd be no hanging about waiting for one of the town courts. Also, never having had much to do with middle-class life, I was interested to see how the other half lived: Isabel's father owned a factory in Liverpool.

I turned up, I remember, in my school uniform shorts and shirt with a school racquet I'd managed to borrow. The house was even more impressive at close quarters, built of a mellow grey stone, a turret at one corner, French windows, climbing roses and clematis; my carefully nurtured self-assurance plummeted as I walked up the drive. I'd been expecting some sort of party, but to my surprise the only other people there were Isabel's brother, Edward, who was at Leeds University and my cousin, Rhydian. Isabel introduced us, but neither Rhydian nor I mentioned our relationship; I had the excuse of being gauche and embarrassed, he seemed completely at ease so I assumed he was ashamed of me and glared at him. ‘He's my brother's oldest friend,' Isabel said, making it clear as she looked at him that he was the sole reason for the afternoon. I cast my eyes over him. Yes, I could understand her infatuation.

‘I'm not much good at this game, I'm afraid,' I said.

‘Don't worry, I'm going to be your partner and I'm hot stuff,' Edward said. He was tall and fair and English-looking, smiling a lot.

Edward was a good player, but Rhydian was even better and far more aggressive. I was pleased I wasn't his partner; when Isabel failed to return a shot he scowled at her whereas Edward smiled forgivingly at my frequent mistakes. We only played for an hour or so. For a long time, though, I remembered the way Rhydian looked up at me before smashing the ball in my direction – the way his shoulders turned, the way his eyes blazed.

He and Edward didn't stay for tea. ‘Rhydian is gorgeous, isn't he,' Isabel said after they'd rushed off somewhere. ‘He's not too bad,' I replied, tossing my hair back, a gesture I'd been practising in my bedroom mirror.

I wondered if any of them would be at my mother's funeral. Rhydian had been running Gorsgoch farm for years; his wife, Grace, had been to see my mother several times; I couldn't remember whether they had two children or three. Iestyn was a geography teacher somewhere and Bleddyn had stayed on at Oxford, still being brilliant, it seemed.

Perhaps my mother had some photographs of them at graduation or wedding. I'd rarely thought of them over the years, but now they were back in my mind – ‘the dark cloud' as the Head had once called them.

I took several boxes, chocolate boxes tied with Christmas ribbon, out of the cupboard by the fireplace, but found I wasn't, after all, ready to open them. I was sure my mother wouldn't have many secrets, all the same, it seemed too soon to be going through her things. I put them back. Then I got myself another coffee and sat down to make a list of things I had to do. But suddenly I didn't seem to have the energy or the will to do anything. For the first time since I got the news I was overtaken by grief, not so much for my mother's death as for all the sadness of her life.

Once, for all too brief a time, she'd been happy. She used to tell me over and over again about the time she'd first met my father and fallen in love with him. I could hear her voice, her young voice, in my head. ‘He was different from every other boy I'd ever met. He used to dress like a toff. I didn't want to marry a farmer's lad, and who else was there up here? I was only a shop girl, but your father worked in a bank. He had lovely fingernails, long and shiny as a girl's. I stopped biting mine when he started to take me out. In those days, when boys took girls out, it was always to the pictures, to the back row of the one-and-nines, but he took me to the Rendevous Restaurant in St David's Road and we used to have mixed grills and chocolate ice cream after. It was ever so expensive because it was such a swanky place with candles on the tables and little vases of flowers. And he always left sixpence under the plate for the waitress, too. Oh, I was proud to be with him.'

Her voice would become more and more dreamy. ‘I bought an angora-wool dress – eau de nil, the lady in D.C. Lewis said it was, a sort of pale green – with a tight navy-blue leather belt. It cost me a month's wages, that dress, but it was worth every penny, because the very first time I wore it he asked me to be engaged to him. That was the best evening of my life. When I went home on the bus after, I was still in a daze. I offered the conductor my fare twice over and I remember him saying, “You don't have to pay every time I come round, love.” That was the state I was in, my mind in some sort of shimmering, like getting up at first light on a snowy day. He didn't buy me a ring because he wanted to save to get married, but I didn't mind because Ted had bought Jane a diamond solitaire and she used to let me take it to show the girls at work, because she couldn't wear it on the farm. Jane was always a good friend to me.'

I could hear her voice, all the hope and disappointment in it. I found myself crying – I very seldom cry – and was soon sobbing hard. And then Arthur jumped up on my lap and the shock stopped me. I sat there, his hot weight pressing on my knees while I stroked his head and gulped for breath. ‘I don't want you, Arthur,' I said in a clear, loud voice. ‘There isn't room in my life for a cat. I don't like cats. And if I was having one it would be a small, elegant female, probably a mushroom-coloured Siamese with gentian-blue eyes.' He rubbed his head against my arm. The tips of his ears were transparent and very cold.

The phone rang. Arthur jumped down and I blew my nose. It was Paul, sounding tired and upset. ‘I have to go to Cambridge,' he said. ‘Annabel is in trouble and I've got to bail her out. Listen darling, I'll ring you tonight. I haven't a moment now. Bye.'

‘Bye,' I said, but he'd already put the phone down. I started to cry again, angry with Annabel and with him. He hadn't even given me time to tell him about my mother's death. Annabel was a stupid girl who'd do anything to be noticed. What had she done this time? As though I cared.

Selena and Annabel were eleven years old and at boarding school when Paul and I started living together. I saw snapshots of them, little blonde girls, slender as flowers, and looked forward to meeting them. I imagined having them to stay, taking them shopping, being their confidante and friend. It didn't work out quite like that.

Paul hinted that they could be difficult. ‘Their headmistress says they're typical of children whose parents have separated, needing to test everyone's love and loyalty. And of course, identical twins are always a law unto themselves, so absorbed in each other they don't need to seek other people's approval. You mustn't be upset, Kate, if they seem to reject you at first. I'm quite sure they won't mean it, but they can certainly be hurtful. I realise that all too well.'

I was pleased that he was being honest with me, but, of course, I was determined to succeed where others might have failed. I'd make no demands on them. I had no intention of being a mother-figure so they wouldn't resent me. I'd play it very cool, treating them as guests rather than as children. They'd be allowed to come and go as they pleased, choose when to get up, when to go to bed and what they wanted to eat. If there were rules, that would be Paul's province.

I read all the recent research on identical twins and found it fascinating. The embryo meant for one person splits in two in the first week after conception. Most of the resulting pairs didn't survive. Those that did were stronger and tougher and more resilient than other foetuses; they needed to be because they were competing for the mother's nourishment. The notion of two people evolving in this way seemed bizarre. How strange that there weren't more twins in myths and folklore; there was surely something pretty near to magic in their conception.

‘There probably wouldn't have been many twins in the ancient world,' Paul said. ‘Even today they need specialised medical care. Annabel and Selena had to be induced two months early, because the scans showed that one was taking the lion's share of the nourishment and the other was left very small and weak, in effect one was killing the other. People talk about identical twins' closeness and their special bond, but they begin with a fight for survival and I often think that remains somewhere in their make-up.'