Taking a Chance on Love Read online

  I pause and check the computer clock: 9 p.m.

  I listen to the silence, and see myself as others would, should they enter my house at this precise moment.

  Suddenly, the prospect of being stood up by an internet nobody feels slightly more desirable than my current situation: a lonely single mum, wearing joggers and a messy bun, cradling her second glass of cheap wine, who, after a long day creating and delivering beautiful bouquets to excited customers, now relaxes by signing up to a dating service on Valentine’s night.

  ‘Bloody cheers!’

  Such a fine achievement for a thirty-nine year old.

  I instantly correct myself – my finest achievement is fast asleep upstairs in the front bedroom, dressed in his favourite Spider-Man pyjamas, minus his tiny glasses and clutching the raggedy ear of a toy elephant.

  But I still really don’t want to sign up and pay hard-earned money for a dating app.

  And that’s when I spot it, in the right-hand side panel, edged in a glimmering gold border.

  Do you want experts to help you find true love?

  Are you prepared to be honest, open and frank

  about your future desires?

  Would you participate in a social experiment

  to identify ‘the one’?

  If so, click here for further details . . .

  I click. I wait and read the next screen, which introduces Channel 7’s new TV programme Taking a Chance on Love, and calls for the enrolment of singles who’d like to participate. I read with interest: the blurb offers qualified psychologists, psychometric testing, personality matching, feedback and support to the carefully selected few destined to find out whether true love can be scientifically engineered.

  I’ve watched many reality shows – the big ones with voting lines and a huge public following – but this online advert suggests a small independent TV production, nothing too risky. I’m not sure I’m up for the public scrutiny of a major fly-on-the-wall documentary, but I doubt that a small independent programme will get a decent audience or a prime-time slot and I could do with the panel of experts and their various tests. Anything that will curtail the time-wasters, the two-timers, the players . . . need I carry on?

  It takes me five minutes to answer a set of basic questions about me and my situation. Even less time to read the terms and conditions, and one click to submit my enrolment form.

  I sit back. Now that feels better than the dating website. Enrolment in a social experiment conducted by professional people fills me with confidence. Plus it’s a free application, debit card not needed, so I can’t be scammed.

  Some confidence.

  A smidgen of confidence.

  A wave of guilt flash-floods over me.

  Am I being fair to Luke?

  Fair to myself?

  I really must stop doing this self-flagellation routine, having to justify myself every time I choose to chase a desire. Something for me. Something I want . . . need . . . would like . . . I beat myself up purely because I feel guilty for wanting something outside my relationship with my child.

  My eyes well, the screen blurs. Who am I trying to kid? Thousands of people will see the very same advert, fill out the questionnaire and be selected ahead of me. Interesting people, with fabulous stories, overflowing with confidence . . . because, let’s face it – I never win anything.

  An incredible urge to hug my son envelops me. I put my wine glass down.

  As if in a re-enactment of the chummy-mummy one-hundred-metre final frantic dash for a front-row space at the school railings, I take the staircase two at a time. Luke won’t wake, he never does.

  I stand on the landing and stare at the sliver of shadow around his door, left slightly ajar because he’s scared of the dark. This allows the cute snuffles of my sleeping son to be heard on the quiet landing. I touch the door gently, knowing it’ll swing open freely without noise to reveal my sleeping child. He’s a pyjamaed lump of sprawling chubby limbs; his face is turned to the wall, a crumpled duvet kicked to the bottom of his bed. His elephant, snared by its right ear, stares back at me. His tiny blue glasses sit by his bed, awaiting a new day of fingerprints and smears.

  I don’t need to see Luke’s face. I’ve examined his features every day, they’re committed to my memory for life: his stumpy button nose, slanting inquisitive eyes, and his indelible smile, freely available to everyone he greets.

  My boy.

  My baby.

  My son.

  Snuggled and dreaming in his own precious world, where elephants and Spider-Man fight for justice and peace for all by giving a little extra to this world. Just like Luke, who gives a little extra to everyone he meets.

  Ensuring that I must do the same.

  I lean against the door jamb, admiring the image as he noisily slaps his lips and snuffles into his pillow, unaware that this world, with its cruel reality and harsh society, does little to justify his good nature. One day, when he’s a little older, I’ll attempt to explain the chance meeting of human cells, the forging of a new being in a moment of love, even the strength and disposal of such love once issues arise. I know I’ll fail miserably, science will evade me. No doubt I’ll cry. No doubt he will too. How wrong that a child so loving, boisterous and bright – every quality I’d have chosen for my son – is destined to walk a slightly different path in life from his classmates, destined to have to give a little extra focus and effort to everything he achieves or desires in life. Ironically, his little extra is contained within chromosome twenty-one.

  Polly

  ‘Is that it?’ sneers our son, pointing at our mantelpiece, as he watches the early evening news. ‘I know you’re a pair of old fogies, but even so, that’s pretty pathetic. Where’s the romance?’

  ‘Oy, cut it out, Cody! Since when have we ever done the whole Valentine’s Day guff? You shouldn’t need to be told when to tell someone you love them, worse still, do it en masse as a nation, all on the same day,’ I say, ironing his white shirt, which I should have done last night but forgot to – or rather couldn’t be bothered to when I did remember, given that it was quarter past ten. ‘Where’s the romance in that?’

  ‘You would say that though, wouldn’t you?’ grunts Cody from the sofa, feigning interest in our simple cards standing side by side. Fraser has signed his usual ‘Fraser X’. I’ve been slightly more extravagant with a simple message of ‘Love always, Polly xx’. Neither of us feels the need to declare undying love inside a Hallmark card, just because the calendar dictates we should. We’ve survived the sunshine and shadows of twenty-one years together, paid off a mortgage month by month, both worked around the clock to hold down full-time employment and raised the aforementioned son – though the fact that he can’t iron his own bloody shirt at nineteen years of age probably speaks volumes regarding the layer of cotton wool we’ve wrapped him in.

  ‘It’s a commercial ploy simply to line the pockets of florists and card manufacturers, you know that, don’t you? Over the years, I’ve saved your father a small fortune by refusing to allow him to buy me roses on Valentine’s Day. And believe me, he’s grateful. I’ve always said . . .’

  ‘I’m happy as long as I receive a nice card and a kiss,’ interrupts Cody, mimicking my voice, though I know I don’t sound half as whiney as he makes out. I sound genuine, I sound like a woman who is sure of her man and his affections, a woman who wants real day-to-day love, not some bullshit idea created by the admen.

  ‘I’m glad you’ve heard me say it. I know your father loves me, and he knows I love him. We don’t feel the need to be mushy or gaze adoringly at each other, unlike your aunty Helen and uncle Marc! How would you fancy having those two as your parents, bloody smooching and snogging all over the place?’ My older sister and her husband have never been any different. They’ve never matured from the arse-groping stage of a relationship, despite three years of courtship, t
wenty-five years of marriage plus two daughters.

  Helen and I have always been close, although given our seven-year age gap, we were always at different stages. As teenagers, she and Marc used to scare the life out of me when I watched them through the crack of the kitchen door, terrified that they’d die of asphyxiation as they French kissed for a whole ten minutes, while our parents sat in frosty silence watching Tomorrow’s World in the front room. I’d squirm whilst peeking, like watching a David Attenborough nature programme but without the long lens, decorative ferns and billowing long grass – though the Moulinex mixer and a Sodastream were their camouflage backdrop. It probably explains why I’ve never been one for public displays of passionate affection. With my first boyfriend, I was content with hand-holding, pecks on the cheek and a cheeky arse-feel when a private moment arose, ‘There’s a time and place for everything’ being my favoured line. How I ever kept that first boyfriend and made him my live-in lover just three years later I’ll never know, but he didn’t complain. And now here we are, two decades later, and our beloved Cody, into whom we have ploughed all our hopes and energy, mocks our attempt at being romantic. As if he’s the bloody Casanova of Lansdowne Crescent!

  ‘Urgh, the very thought of it.’

  ‘Exactly, so be thankful for small mercies.’

  ‘Old people snogging – yuk!’

  ‘More importantly, wait until you see the price of twenty long-stemmed roses plus the delivery charge – then you’ll be hoping your future partner has my attitude. So don’t knock it, OK?’

  ‘They’re not that expensive. A dozen red roses delivered locally only costs . . .’ Cody’s words fade on seeing my stunned expression. I automatically lift the iron to ensure no burning.

  ‘How on earth would you know?’

  ‘Mmmm, wouldn’t you like to know?’

  ‘Cody, have you . . . ?’ I daren’t finish my sentence. I want to, I am desperate to, but I can’t bring myself to ask for fear of the answer.

  Iron held aloft, face still stunned, I take in the sprawling frame of my son. He might be six foot one, with size eleven feet and a collar size which matches his father’s but an invisible umbilical cord sits comfortably between us. Stretched as it might be at this current moment, still it is present and correct. They tried to convince me nearly twenty years ago that it had been physically cut, but I refuse to believe it. In my book, it gives me an innate right to ask my son questions, though Fraser tends to disagree with me about this on a fairly regular basis, usually in hushed tones behind a closed kitchen door. But, hey, what do the Y chromosomes in this house know? Not as much as the X chromosome does, that’s what I’ve learnt over the years.

  ‘Don’t worry, I wasn’t ripped off.’

  I give a weak smile and resume ironing, my mind spinning faster than a weather vane in a tornado.

  Bless him, he thinks I’m bothered about the cost. As I said, what does he know? Bugger the cost! I’m more bothered about who the recipient was and whether she’s actually worthy of the affections of my strapping lad! Or – and I really don’t want to venture down this line of thinking, but here we go, needs must – dare I ask if it was his ex-girlfriend, Lola?

  Shall I?

  Should I?

  Surely not!

  No, it really isn’t my business. It shouldn’t be my problem, but it feels like it could be. I shouldn’t ask. He’s entitled to a private life, away from his parents’ scrutinising gaze. At nineteen, I’d have hated my mother interfering in my love life, asking questions and prying, although maybe her quizzical stare over the rim of her glasses, her persistent tutting and her subtle ‘little chats’ did guide and influence my choice.

  Oh dear, I’ve turned into my damned mother!

  I continue with my ironing, his ironing.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I observe him watching the news.

  Maybe I should ask purely to show interest? It isn’t being nosy. How many times do parents get slated in the media for not taking an interest and, boom, their kids end up taking drugs on the way to college, being arrested for illicit internet activity or fathering three babies in the space of two postcodes!

  But what if he confirms the return of Lola? Who, whilst absent from our lives, has no doubt dated another ten men since she wrangled with our son, has perfected her repertoire of bad behaviour and now plans to make a grand comeback into our lives.

  The last time I saw her she’d fallen over on the dance floor at my father’s sixty-fifth birthday bash, her legs akimbo, flashing her lime-green gusset whilst congratulating herself for holding aloft her oversized glass of cheap plonk, of which she hadn’t split a drop. Hoorah!

  ‘Cody, anyone I know?’

  He looks at me surprised: there’s been a lengthy pause while my brain wrote a pros and cons list. I half expect him to ask what we are discussing.

  ‘Nah!’ He returns his attention to the TV as I finish ironing his shirt.

  ‘Praise be for small mercies,’ I chunter. My relief is instant, I can’t hide it. Such a glorious confirmation erases my fears – much like my reaction when he received his A-level results. Though given his current employment at a local bathroom showroom, he’s hardly made good use of the qualifications that took such graft to earn. One day I might wave him off to uni, here’s hoping it’s soon.

  Not Lola anyway. Excellent. No fear of repeating the string of embarrassments endured purely by association then. The half-nakedness, her slovenly drunkenness, her nocturnal phone calls disturbing our sleep and the constant worry that our son is being drawn into a social vortex of her erratic lifestyle and make-believe.

  So, someone new.

  Someone lovely.

  Someone I don’t know.

  Bloody great! So the allowance which his dad and I provide him with in order to top up his low-paid job has been blown on a dozen roses and a delivery charge! I congratulate myself on completing seven hours of overtime last week at the travel agents purely to provide an unknown girl with a doorstep delivery and a rush of teenage pheromones. I hope she enjoys my gift and fully appreciates the care and consideration I showed towards her. Whereas I happily settle for a solitary card with a simple sentiment and single kiss.

  ‘Here . . . here’s your sodding shirt.’ I fling it in his direction, narked that the realities of motherhood frequently bite me on the arse, and his carefully ironed shirt crumples into his lap.

  ‘Cheers.’

  Chapter Two

  Friday 21 February

  Polly

  ‘Mum . . . I’ve been thinking,’ says Cody, entering the kitchen as I dash about; juggling burnt toast and boiling kettles is the norm at breakfast time in our home.

  ‘Sound ominous,’ offers Fraser, nabbing the least blackened piece of toast from the bread board and settling at the breakfast table to consume it alongside his morning coffee.

  I stop in mid-action, butter knife held aloft, with two burnt pieces awaiting camouflage. I sense what Cody’s about to say before he even says it and I will want to bloody scream if it’s what I think.

  ‘Go on,’ I say calmly, knowing full well that my ordinary working day at the travel agents is up the swanny if I’m right.

  Cody stands beside me at the countertop, nodding at the burnt toast as an indication that he’s waiting. I slowly resume my task, aware that his casual manner is hiding something.

  ‘You’re right . . . for once,’ he says, watching my hand busily buttering. ‘Having a party for my twentieth would be pretty neat – given that I didn’t get an eighteenth party.’

  He can’t look me in the eye.

  ‘I bloody knew it! Why didn’t you say before now? I asked you back in October . . . that’s four months ago. But oh no, Mum’s making a bloody big fuss about nothing and now . . . now with –’ I glance at the kitchen calendar for confirmation – ‘eight days to go, you decide I had a good idea
.’

  Cody snatches a piece of toast from beneath my knife and drifts towards his father, crunching.

  ‘Just saying, that’s all . . . nothing posh, but somewhere decent with music, drinks and a few laughs – but not the old scout hut like my mate Josh had . . . that wasn’t a great night.’

  ‘Well, that narrows it down, Cody,’ I say. ‘How about a back room in a local pub?’

  ‘A classy pub?’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘The Red Lion is pretty decent but not the Welfare Club.’

  I stare open-mouthed at Fraser, who comically lifts his eyebrows as if questioning why I am surprised by my offspring.

  ‘Can you believe it?’ I mutter, as if Cody weren’t present at the table, munching his toast.

  ‘He’s never been any different, Polly,’ says Fraser. ‘He’s always been last-minute.’

  ‘Isn’t that the truth!’ I say, buttering my own piece of cold toast, as Fraser finishes his coffee, plants a kiss on my temple and heads out for work.

  ‘You love me,’ mutters Cody, as laid-back as ever.

  ‘Fraser . . . Fraser, how much do you think we are talking?’ I call, from the kitchen. There’s no answer, just the sound of the front door slamming.

  Carmen

  My hand reaches for the heavy curtain and I give the bride-to-be a knowing smile as she takes a deep breath. My aim is to pull back the curtain in one fluid movement, enabling her mother and three sisters to view her wedding gown, fitted to perfection, for the first time.

  ‘Ready?’ I whisper, seeing a mixture of nerves and excitement surface as she fiddles with her flowing veil.

  She gives a nod. My hand dramatically sweeps the curtain aside, revealing all. A princess-styled ballgown with a sweetheart neckline in ivory with a sequined panelled bodice.

  The gathered females, sitting and standing around the chaise longue, give a simultaneous gasp, then ooh and ah as my bride-to-be lifts her hemline and gracefully steps into the open space of the boutique. Trish and Anna linger in the background to admire. I move in front to help her step up on to the circular platform set before our largest gilt mirror, in which her gown can be viewed from every angle using the reflections in other mirrors.