The Year of Taking Chances Read online

  Harry perched on the worktop, dangling the Stetson between his legs. ‘So tell me, Caitlin Fraser. Where have you been hiding for the last fourteen years?’

  Caitlin opened her mouth to reply just as Jade Perry, Harry’s girlfriend, marched into the room on the sort of towering stilettos that would give Gemma a broken ankle within seconds. ‘There you are! Come on,’ she said, grabbing his hand so hard he almost toppled off his perch. The silver sequins on her tight little dress flashed and twinkled under the strip-lighting as she pulled him away. ‘The countdown’s about to begin.’

  You could tell Caitlin felt foolish as Harry allowed himself to be dragged from the room, with an apologetic flourish of the Stetson, but then they heard the noise levels rise from the living room. ‘Ten! Nine! Eight!’

  ‘Come on,’ Saffron said, jumping to her feet.

  Gemma realized she’d absent-mindedly broken open a third cookie, and read the message – ‘Poverty is no disgrace’ – before dropping it in alarm. No poverty, thanks. Not when they had the scarily big new mortgage hanging over their heads.

  ‘Seven! Six! Five!’ They ran out of the room together, all of them trying to think of the perfect resolution.

  This year I’ll do something amazing or brave or exciting, Gemma vowed. And Darcey will never think of me as ‘just a mum’ again. Oh, and I’ll definitely take my make-up off EVERY night too. I promise!

  Talk to Max, get fit, get promoted, Saffron thought in a rush, stop eating crisps all the time, look after my skin better, sort out a proper haircut, stop biting my nails.

  I promise I’ll make you proud of me, Mum, thought Caitlin with a pang of emotion. I’ll put last year behind me and move on.

  They’d reached the living room and for a moment Gemma couldn’t see Spencer anywhere. ‘Four! Three! Two!’ Then his eyes caught hers across the heaving throng and she felt a hot surge of love.

  ‘One! HAPPY NEW YEAR!’ everyone chanted, and Gemma jostled her way through to him just in time.

  ‘Happy New Year, wife,’ he said into her ear, his arms tight around her. The room around them was a whirl of hugging and kissing and exclamations; people were singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ at the tops of their voices.

  ‘Happy New Year, you,’ Gemma said, kissing him passionately.

  ‘It’s going to be a good one,’ he told her.

  ‘The best,’ she agreed.

  Full of bubbly and fortune-cookies, surrounded by loved ones and in her own soon-to-be-amazing home, Gemma felt rich with happiness. The New Year was here at last. She could hardly wait to get started.

  Chapter Five

  As midnight struck on New Year’s Eve, the potato-headed man with the health-hazard beard turned his attentions to Caitlin and stuck his tongue down her throat, almost asphyxiating her with his rancid breath. Uggh. Ngggaarggh. Time for another emergency resolution: I promise I won’t ever let that Spud-head near me again, she vowed, escaping his clutches as a rowdy chorus of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ started up. She glanced around for Harry, half-hoping for an excuse to get into a clinch with him instead, but he seemed to be having an argument with the woman in the silver dress, which culminated with her stamping right through the crown of the Stetson with her stilettos.

  It was probably just as well. Harry had been the hottest boy in the sixth form, as well as a serial heart-breaker. She could do without any more grief in that area of her life, especially when she still had the loose threads of her last relationship to tie up. Sort out Flynn, she thought, as yet more resolutions occurred to her. Clear out Mum’s cottage and sell it. Decide what to do with the rest of my life. Have some fun. There, that would do.

  Then Spencer grabbed her hands and pulled her into the circle. ‘For Auld Lang Syne, my dear, for Auld Lang Syne!’ they sang.

  This year would be different, she promised herself. This year she’d do better.

  Two weeks later, January had settled in with a grim vengeance and nothing much seemed to have changed. Storms were battering the country. The streets were full of wheezing joggers skirting around the dead Christmas trees abandoned on the pavements, while the shops were already packed with Valentine’s displays and Creme Eggs. Meanwhile, Flynn was being a prick – quelle surprise.

  Caitlin read the latest text that had arrived from him, her lip curling in annoyance, and typed one furiously in return:

  Yes, all right, keep your hair on! I’ll pick everything up on Wednesday. Can you bear to have my possessions contaminating your space for another 48 hours? They won’t kill you. More’s the pity. Caitlin

  She read over her words, her finger poised on the Send button. Should she? Dare she? No. Better not. Delete, delete, delete. She thought for a moment and then typed again:

  Fine. I’ll pick everything up on Wed, C.

  That was better. Cool, calm and civilized – not that he deserved it, mind. She pressed Send, feeling as if her heart was calcifying. The brave optimism she’d felt at New Year shrivelled away as she remembered what he’d done, how shabbily he’d treated her. The sooner she closed that door of her life and walked away, the better.

  Three days later she sat in her old blue Clio, hands on the steering wheel, motionless in the driveway. Come on, Cait. Removals ninja – get in, get out, get it over and done with. Now start the engine and go.

  All she had to do was drive to the flat – Flynn’s flat, as she needed to start thinking of it – and load up the rest of her belongings. By the end of the day she’d have washed her hands of him forever. As a man who was verging on OCD when it came to hygiene and cleanliness, he would probably approve of that metaphor.

  Right. Key in the ignition. Let’s do this.

  The last time she’d seen him was when he came to the cottage after her mum died, a nervous look in his eyes as he put his arm around her while she cried. ‘Jess doesn’t mean anything,’ he’d mumbled. Yeah. Course she didn’t, Flynn.

  Come on. Start the engine and get the heater going – it’s Baltic in here. And look, you’ve steamed up the windscreen now, all this sitting still and breathing. Crank up the de-mister and let’s hit the road. Go!

  Gritting her teeth, she turned the key in the ignition . . . then let out a moan of frustration as the engine made a feeble croaking sound and fell silent.

  ‘No,’ she muttered, smacking the steering wheel and trying again. Whirr-whirr-clunk. Oh, knickers, she thought. Of all the days for the car to give up on her, today was not a good one.

  Popping open the bonnet, she strode round to inspect the car’s inner workings, her breath steaming in the wintry air. ‘Right,’ she said, in as can-do a voice as she could manage. ‘Let’s see, then. So . . . ’

  She stared at the jumble of cables and mechanics, hoping something obvious would leap out at her. Nothing did. Wires were still connected to . . . things. There was plenty of water in the container. Oil. How did you check the oil? ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ she snapped, hating herself for not knowing. It was all very well being a can-do independent twenty-first-century woman, but sometimes she just wished her dad was still around to take care of stuff like this. Budge over, Cait, she imagined him saying. Make yourself useful and get us a cuppa, eh? He’d been a good dad, mending punctures on her bike, never losing his patience when he taught her to drive, fixing the heater in her student flat when she first left home. Loving her and telling her she was beautiful, hugging her and saying, husky-voiced, how proud he was of her when she passed all her nursing exams. Then he’d gone and ruined it all by dying stupidly early, of a massive, unexpected stroke.

  Maybe she should just hire a van for the day, she thought, slamming the bonnet shut in defeat. Flynn would go nuts if she didn’t turn up as arranged, after all his impatient texts. He was a bit of a control freak; he hated it when things didn’t go to plan. He was the sort of person who wouldn’t think twice about sending food back in a restaurant if it wasn’t exactly to his taste. Caitlin, meanwhile, was the sort of mug who’d silently chew down overcooked steaks or lukewarm chips b
ecause she didn’t want to make a fuss.

  ‘Everything all right?’

  The voice made her jump. She turned her head to see a man leaning out of his van window, engine idling where he’d pulled over at the kerb. Harry Sykes. ‘Car trouble?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah. Won’t start,’ she said. She spread her hands helplessly. ‘A pretty basic failing, when it comes to going anywhere.’

  He laughed, the sound carrying on the cold air. ‘Want me to have a look?’

  Oh, a man with a toolbox. HELLO. ‘If you don’t mind. Please.’

  ‘No problem.’ He parked the van and jumped down. ‘Could be the battery. Did it make any kind of sound?’

  Men were so keen to fix things, weren’t they? Caitlin mused as he clambered into the driver’s seat and tried the key himself. Whirr-whirr-clunk. Whirr-whirr-clunk. See problem – must solve it. Flynn had been the same when his precious, expensive coffee-maker gave up the ghost, and had spent hours taking the wretched thing apart on the kitchen table, fiddling around with wiring and valves. If only he’d taken such care to try and fix their relationship rather than chuck it out so swiftly.

  ‘Let’s try cleaning the battery connectors,’ Harry said, getting out of the car again.

  ‘Good idea,’ Caitlin said, teeth chattering. ‘I checked the water,’ she added helpfully, not wanting Harry to think she was a total bimbo.

  She watched him work, a little frown deepening between his eyebrows as his hands made their way around the innards of her engine. Was it good old biological programming that made the sight of a man with a wrench in his grip seem so damn sexy, she wondered absently. Was it the cave-woman in her that reacted to such cliches of masculinity, that appreciated a capable man? Or was she just acting out the crush she’d had on him as a lonely sixteen-year-old, in a rather naff ‘damsel in distress’ episode?

  Oh, shut up, Dr Freud, she scolded herself. Just be grateful that some bugger’s fixing your car, all right?

  ‘ . . . fuel-injection system,’ he was saying.

  ‘What?’ And now she’d been caught out not paying attention.

  ‘I think you’ll have to get a proper mechanic to look at this,’ Harry repeated. ‘I reckon there might be a problem with the fuel-injection system.’

  ‘Right. Damn. But thanks.’

  He shut the bonnet again and leaned against it, not seeming in any hurry to leave. ‘I can give you a lift somewhere if you want, though. Where were you going?’

  ‘Cambridge,’ she said. It was about an hour’s drive away, too far for a casual lift. ‘Don’t worry about it. Thanks for taking a look.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said, to her surprise. ‘Cambridge is fine.’

  ‘What? Oh no – honestly, you don’t have to. I’m actually . . . ’ She ground to a halt, not wanting to have to spell out why she was going to Cambridge, but his expectant face gave her little choice. ‘I need to move my stuff out of . . . of my old flat,’ she mumbled eventually. ‘I couldn’t possibly ask you to—’

  ‘That’s fine. Seriously. We’ve had to stop work on the site anyway – everyone’s waiting for the plumber to finish the bathroom, and it’s John the Snail, so he’ll be hours yet.’ His eyes twinkled and he gestured to the van. ‘Besides, it’s either this or helping my dad take a load of stuff to the dump. Hop in.’

  Caitlin’s heart gave a thump. ‘Thank you.’

  Harry’s van had a noisy heater and was littered with a surprising selection of detritus in the passenger footwell: a stray child’s trainer, an empty apple-juice carton and a cat-patterned hairband. There were also a number of stickers plastered across the dashboard. I One Direction, announced one. I Know, Right? said another. Oh God, he has kids, she thought, with a flat feeling of disappointment. Of course he had. A man as charming and good-looking as Harry had probably sired a whole brood since they’d parted ways after sixth form. No doubt there was a coterie of ex-wives lurking gimlet-eyed in his past as well.

  ‘I didn’t have you down as a One Direction fan,’ she said lightly, clicking in her seatbelt.

  He laughed. ‘Yeah, big fan. Love a bit of moshing at a One-D gig with the teenyboppers.’ He started the engine and winked at her. ‘Oh, no, wait, I’m getting muddled up with my niece. I take her to gymnastics lessons every Friday afternoon, and that seat has become an extension of her bedroom.’ He removed a red school sweatshirt from where it had been stuffed down the side of the handbrake and hurled it into the back. ‘The hairband’s mine, though, obviously. If you could avoid treading on that, I’d be grateful.’

  She smiled. ‘Have you got kids yourself, Harry?’

  His eyes were on the road and she couldn’t see his expression. ‘No. You?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any aggressive, tattooed husbands I should know about, who’ll be lying in wait for us in Cambridge, cracking their knuckles and giving me menacing looks?’

  She snorted. ‘No. You’re quite safe.’

  He glanced over at her as he slowed at a roundabout. ‘Any ex-husbands at all? Go on, let’s hear it. My Glorious Life, by Caitlin Fraser. Tell me the lot.’

  ‘No ex-husbands.’ What the hell, she thought. They wouldn’t be in Cambridge for ages. ‘I worked as a nurse for a while, then . . . ’

  ‘Excellent. Love nurses.’

  She rolled her eyes. Was there a man on earth who didn’t? ‘Lived in Norwich for a while with Serious Boyfriend number one, who was this mega-brain computer boffin.’

  ‘Hmm. I don’t like the sound of him.’

  ‘He was all right.’ Jeremy Langley, geeky and earnest, but so talented that he’d been lured by big money and glory in Silicon Valley. ‘I think he loved computer programming more than he loved me, though.’

  ‘The bastard. What happened next?’

  ‘Then I gave up nursing. I’d only gone into it because of my parents anyway. Mum was a midwife, Dad was a hospital manager. But then I had this sort of epiphany—’

  ‘A what? Is that like a seizure?’

  ‘No! I had a change of heart – and I don’t mean a heart transplant either, before you ask. I just decided life was too short to spend it giving bedbaths and fending off piss-heads in A&E on a Saturday night.’

  ‘Ah, the rebellion moment. Good for you. So what did you do next? No, don’t tell me . . . Bareback-rider in a rodeo.’

  She laughed. ‘Not quite,’ she said. ‘I went back to college and took up graphic design. Got a job building websites, and never looked back.’

  ‘Excellent. Carry on. Ah – let me guess. You were reunited with the computer programmer and made beautiful websites together. Whispered passionate lines of code into each other’s ears.

  ‘No!’ She spluttered at the thought. ‘Maybe I should have done, though. He’s probably a kazillionaire by now, working for some faceless tech-corporation in Seattle.’

  ‘Gutted. You slipped up there, Fraser. Want me to drive you to the airport instead?’

  ‘Cambridge will do, thanks,’ she said. ‘And it’s your turn now, by the way. Fill me in on Harry Sykes: The Glory Years. The juicier, the better.’

  The journey flew by as they caught up on each other’s lives. He told her about working in Auckland for six months as a painter and decorator, nearly marrying a Kiwi woman in a whirlwind romance, his parents’ divorce, nearly marrying Shelley Bridges who’d been at school with them, training to be an electrician, nearly marrying a much older woman who’d seduced him while he was rewiring her house, moving out of Larkmead, moving back to Larkmead, nearly marrying a crazy French woman, and how his New Year’s ambition was to stop nearly marrying people.

  ‘That sounds a wise move,’ Caitlin said.

  ‘It’s got me into a lot of trouble,’ Harry said ruefully. ‘My romantic proposing habit.’ He slapped the steering wheel. ‘No, this year will be different. Completely different. I have a new strategy, see. The Ten-Date Rule.’

  ‘Enlighten me. How does that work then?’

  He glanced sidelong at her, to see if
she was taking the mick out of him, but she kept a straight face. ‘It was my sister’s idea really,’ he confessed. ‘I’ve been a bit . . . impulsive in the past and things have got kind of complicated.’

  ‘No. Really?’ This time there was no getting away from the fact that she was teasing.

  ‘Hard to believe, I know. So Sam, my sister, laid the law down, told me to try the Ten-Date Rule this year and stay out of trouble. She reckons if you go on ten dates before you sleep with a partner – or propose to them – the relationship stands a better chance.’

  ‘I see. And how’s it going so far?’

  ‘Well, it isn’t, to be honest. I’ve only just split up with Jade and she’s still giving me earache. But we shall see.’ He waggled his eyebrows and pulled a comic face, and Caitlin felt a twist of envy for whoever Harry fell for next. He really was gorgeous, like a naughtier version of Daniel Craig – the same strong face and wide mouth, with eyes that seemed to see right into you. Phew! Was it her, or was it getting hot in here?

  ‘Left at this junction,’ she said hurriedly, glad of a reason to stop thinking about how good-looking he was. Calm down, she ordered herself. And don’t flatter yourself that this is anything other than a lift – a favour – okay?

  They drove along in silence for a few minutes, Caitlin remembering the last time she’d been down this road. It was the morning her mum died, when her eyes were gritty with lack of sleep, her bones aching from being crunched in the bedside chair, her heart raw and broken. The first rays of morning light were painting the sky with golden strokes; people everywhere would be yawning and stretching, and stumbling towards coffee, with no idea that a terrible, momentous thing had just happened to her. All Caitlin had wanted was to feel Flynn’s strong arms around her, the comfort of love.

  ‘You okay?’ Harry asked.

  Caitlin stared, unseeing, through the window for a moment, images from that morning falling into her mind like jewels in a kaleidoscope. The unfamiliar car in her parking space. The voices in the flat, laughter pausing abruptly as she walked in. The smell of toast and bacon, the radio playing a cheerful song, her friend Jess’s bare feet up in Flynn’s lap as they sat at the table in dressing gowns. Her dressing gown.