Chapter 1

Chapter One

         Lucy Cox clutched her laptop case and sighed as she pushed her handbag back onto her shoulder. The soft fabric of her blouse was comfortable on this rather hazy September afternoon, but ideal for positioning the leather strap of her handbag on her shoulder it was not. Bloody thing kept sliding off.
         Boarding the train as she had done so many times before, she headed straight for one of her favoured seats. She preferred sitting close to one of the exit doors, facing in the direction of travel, ideally in the final row with no one sat behind her. There were reasons for all of these preferences, of course, although to her it was just habit, a routine formed over a brief period of time. In reality, she wanted to be close to the exit in case there was, God forbid, a crash, an accident, or some other kind of an emergency so that she could make a quick escape. Assuming she was alive, of course. And assuming the crash had not caused the train to roll onto its side, blocking all exits from there. Lucky then, that there would be exit doors on the opposite side of the train. Assuming someone would know how to open the doors after the crash. Yet she wasn’t afraid of travelling. Not by car, train or bus, and flying was one of her greatest pleasures.
         The fact that she preferred facing the direction of travel was a menial gesture to her father who had often reminded her to always look forward, never back. ‘There is no such thing as a problem, only a challenge’ he used to tell her. Easy for him to say, she thought. This wasn’t what he had meant by that, of course. She hated anyone looking over her shoulder, which was why her seat should be in the seat furthest back in the carriage. It also gave her a sense of privacy, however small.
         Chug-chug-chug! According to children’s stories, this was the noise a train made. To her it was more like, clankety-clank or guche-gun. Chug-chug! certainly didn’t capture the whole spectrum of individual fragments of sound that made up the noise of a train in motion: the thud-thud of the sleepers beneath the carriages, the swishing of the wind howling through the open windows, the screeching of the breaks and humming of the engine as it progressed through the changing of the gears.
         There was nothing new to be gleaned from the view out of the dust-streaked windows but still, looking out gave her something to do. It was somewhat reassuring, this twice-daily journey, with all its predictability. Give or take a few minor delays, prolonged but unexplained stops alongside platforms long after the closing of the doors and the weather. She was not alone in wondering how, regardless what the weather conditions were, rail operators were never satisfied. If it wasn’t too hot, it was too cold and then there were the famous ‘leaves on the line’.
         After five stops the view changed from city to suburban. A further two stops along the journey, well it was almost like being in a different country: lush, green fields and grazing sheep and cows, distant villages, a combine harvester atop a hill.
         To her, it seemed almost absurd to have these trivial thoughts, today of all days. On any normal day, she would have entertained herself on her forty minute commute to and from work by reading a book or writing poetry in her trusted, battered notebook. Today, however, her mind was in too much turmoil to concentrate on anything. Five weeks on the waiting list hadn’t really prepared her for this day, her first visit to her counsellor. She clicked open her purse and pulled out the card she had been handed by her GP when he advised her to speak to someone who could assist her in making some positive steps in her life.
          ‘It’s either three to four weeks off with stress or you sign up with the in-house counsellor. I prefer if you do both’ he said.
          ‘But I can’t take any time off’ she replied, ‘I start a new job on Monday!’
          ‘How about holidays, have you got anything planned? I think it would be good for you to get away for a few days’ he insisted.
         Her mind racing, she hesitated as the full impact of what he was suggesting began to nest itself into her head. Oh my God, he thinks I’m a total nut case, a fruitcake. I’ll have to talk to some shrink who, trust my luck, will certify me as insane and they will take the twins away from me!
          ‘I have a couple of spare holidays left at my current company, I could take them at the end of the week before I start the new job’ she suggested. Could she ask Dennis to take the boys for an extra long weekend? She worried he would hold it against her and try to suggest that she was unfit, incapable or uncaring, that she put herself first. What should she say, she wondered, when calling him to ask if he could collect them on Wednesday night rather than Friday morning? He would jump at the chance of spending more time with the boys, but he would also look at her with suspicion, she knew it.
         In fact, Dennis was considerate, sensing something must be very wrong for her to offer him extra days, and she was certain he thought it odd she would choose to spend several days away from the boys. However, he didn’t ask any questions and accepted her offer of an extended weekend with grace. He didn’t even complain at having to reschedule any meetings, didn’t mention work at all. She wondered at how much disruption it had caused him, and was grateful for his consideration.
         She had called him from the Yorkshire retreat she had rented for the weekend. His voice sounded full of genuine concern when he asked her how she was doing.
          ‘I am OK, I just have a lot on my plate at the moment and need a bit of space from everything, to get things into perspective. But I miss the boys’, she started crying at that point.
         Dennis sighed ‘I know’ he had said ‘that is how I feel whenever they aren’t here.’ Her heart ached at the sorrow and pain of his words. He would never know that she had been on the verge of saying ‘and I miss you’. And she did miss him, in some ways. The only questions was, was it enough?
          ‘That’s great’ the young doctor had said after she succumbed to his appeals, and he scribbled away on a bright yellow pad. That was when he’d handed her the counsellor’s business card. She wondered now at that term. What she had previously thought was her business she would now be sharing with a complete stranger. She was going to spend the thirty minutes in the office of… what was her name? Janice Somebody-or-other… she looked at the card again. Janice Farnell… talking about things of which not even her mother had the slightest inkling. The thought was unsettling and she hoped that it would not be quite as bad as she anticipated.
         One stop to go, she thought. Exactly six minutes to run through another mental checklist, what to say, how to phrase what she wanted to bring across. She had decided to be distant at first.

          ‘I mean, Christ, what does she know about me? How can she fix my life when she’s not living it’ she’d asked Mandy only the night before, though not for the first time. Mandy was good like that, she would let her rant and rave, have her say and then she’d put her straight. In the way that she’d only ever allowed Mandy to do.
          ‘She may not know you but you are not the first person in this world to go through a divorce. Also, she’s not really there to fix you. She’ll just listen, ask probing questions and lead you to the answers that only you can arrive at’ Mandy had said, pouring another glass of Chardonnay.
         She recalled staring at Mandy’s well-manicured hand with its Gucci watch, her engagement ring and wedding band still firmly in place; she envied Mandy for her hassle-free life. She was sorted, knew what she wanted from life, from her man, and she was with the man of her dreams. Mandy and Mike were perfect for one another and they knew it. There were no insecurities, only a relaxed relationship based on trust and love. That was all she’d wanted. She thought she had it herself once, but she’d lost it, or thrown it away, depending on how you looked at it. She sighed.
         The screeching of the brakes was followed by an indistinct and bored announcement of this being the last station stop, 'All change please, all change’. How apt, she thought.
         The walk to the Greenwood Health Centre took only ten minutes, which meant she would be almost a quarter of an hour early. The last thing I want, she thought, Is to sit in some waiting room flicking through last year’s Readers Digest or past issues of Needlework Weekly. She stopped by the Newsagents and flicked through the OK! magazine, then bought some chewing gum and a bottle of still water.
         She sat down outside the Church on a wall, facing the railway station, sipping the water and watching an elderly woman getting off the 45 Bus. Much of her time was spent reflecting on people who, directly or indirectly crossed her path. She would speculate at the kind of life they were heading home for, were they married, and were they happy, where did they go on their holidays? She checked her watch; it was time to enter the lion’s den.

          ‘Hello, you must be Lucy?’ the woman who, by sheer process of elimination must be Janice Farnell asked, pointing to the chair next to her. Lucy assumed this was an invitation to sit down. ‘Lucy Cox’?
          ‘Ahm yes, sorry, that’s me’ she replied.
          ‘Please have a seat, Lucy. I am Janice, the counsellor.’
         Lucy did as told, placing her laptop and handbag on the floor to the right of her chair.
          ‘You were referred by… ‘ Ms Farnell opened a light blue document wallet with “Cox, Lucy” written in neat, black capital letters on the front; it contained a single sheet of paper, ‘ah yes, Dr Chen, is that right?’
         Lucy’s voice was croaky as she replied ‘yes’. She cleared her throat. She hadn’t expected to feel quite so emotional before even having started the session. The filling in of paperwork, Ms Farnell’s general introduction to counselling and handing over of leaflets also came as a bit of a surprise to her. Its sole purpose appeared to be to fill the gap between the now and the inevitable: Lucy opening up and poring her heart out to a complete stranger.
          ‘Well perhaps you could tell me, in your own words, why you are here today?’ Ms Farnell said, placing a large notebook on her crossed legs and leaning back in her chair.
         Already, Lucy felt herself blinking back tears, looked up at the ceiling as if there were answers to be found up there, or at least a thread that she could pick up and run with. Where should she begin? Where had it all begun? That first, innocent kiss twelve months earlier, long before either of them had an inkling of the love and passion that was to envelop their very beings? Or her first night in Adams arms? Did it in fact all begin with Dennis’ long sought and hard-earned promotion? Or were the answers to this entire desolation rooted much further back, when… The faintest recollection of what she had done made her heart want to burst with pain all over again.
         Her eyes welled up with tears; she wiped them away with the back of her hand, sighed deeply, and then said, “My life is such a mess”.

          ‘What do you mean, you sobbed?’ Mandy asked in a rather concerned voice, refilling Lucy’s glass with her favourite tipple.
         ‘Well, I just said, “my life is a mess”, and then I started sobbing’ Lucy replied.
          ‘Understandable, I guess, but honey, where is the counselling in that? I mean, you spend a lot of time with me, sobbing, and I don’t charge God knows what an hour for the pleasure!’ It was Mandy’s way of making Lucy smile through her misery and as always, it did the trick.
          ‘Well, we did talk after that. It just took me a while to compose myself. It’s… I don’t know, a bit bizarre I suppose, to be talking to a complete stranger about all of your innermost demons and secrets. I know counsellors aren’t supposed to judge, but I can’t help but wondering whether, deep down perhaps she’s thinking I’m a nincompoop and totally irresponsible and therefore solely to blame for… for this mess.’
          ‘Hon, you are not to blame. You fell in love, you took a gamble, it didn’t come off and now you have to put your life back on track. We all make mistakes in life, it’s all a journey, remember. Just another lesson in the University of Life.’ Mandy liked talking in clichés. At times, this annoyed Lucy but today she wasn’t bothered. She knew precisely what Mandy meant.
          ‘I’m not what you would term a Grade A student, though, am I? Not likely to pass with a Distinction?’ Lucy said, looking wistfully at the almost empty wine bottle in front of her.
          ‘It’s not about passing or failing, Lucy, it’s about living. If you hadn’t gambled you’d have stayed in your marriage and never known, you would always have wondered. That, in my opinion leads to regret and if there is one thing I try and live by it’s not to have regrets, that whatever I do I do because it’s what I believe to be right at the time. Nobody could have foreseen all of this, you might just as well have been happily settled with Adam by now.’
         Lucy sighed. ‘Yeah I know. But I can’t help thinking, if only, you know?’ The mere thought of the ‘if onlys’ she had pictured so many times in her head, brought her to a renewed breaking point, and she buried her face in her hands as she sobbed yet again.
          ‘Here, Hon’ Mandy said, passing her a Kleenex from the familiar square, blue box. ‘Blow your nose, finish your wine and then let’s go down to The Duck, ok? The fresh air will do you good.’ Lucy gave a quick, snorting laugh into her tissue. It had been a long-standing joke between them that the Ladies’ toilet at The Duck Pond should be renamed to The Duck Pong. Still, the drinks were cheap, the crack was good and it was only a ten-minute walk from Lucy’s three-bedroom house.
         They linked arms as they walked out of her driveway, turning right towards the school the twins attended. Lucy shuddered at the cold September air. She recalled warm summer evenings, linked in arms with Adam, walking for hours without realising where they were going but always ending up somewhere nice; a cosy old village pub, an antique’s shop, a bridle walk with wild flowers and grazing horses. They had been such carefree days, filled with love and promises.Well, almost carefree, Lucy thought and sighed deeply. They continued walking in silence until they reached The Duck.
         Upon entering, Mandy’s knack of locating a free table within a nanosecond of arriving came in handy, and she made a beeline for a comfortable looking corner, right by the fireplace. I’ll get the drinks, then, shall I? Lucy thought with a grin as she waited in the queue behind a thickset chap in a chequered shirt who she knew to be called Tony. As he turned around, lifting up two pints of lager above the crowd, he was pushed by another person in the overcrowded bar. Lucy’s pride of prides, her Donna Karen handbag was soaked with lager.
          ‘Oh I am so sorry, love’ he said, with a look of genuine apology on his face. ‘Busy in here for a Thursday night, eh?’
          ‘Yeah’ Lucy smiled through her frustration. Stupid of her to take her most expensive handbag to the pub in the first place. Someone’s out to get me, surely, she thought. Someone with one heck of a vendetta against me. You’re being paranoid, she reasoned with herself.
          ‘Don’t frown, it might never happen’.
         She looked up and locked eyes with the most handsome face she had perhaps ever come across. Well, in The Duck anyway. Jet-black locks fell onto his forehead in that casual, model way that so many British men tried but failed to emulate. Perhaps this was the reason why they all opted for the short cut, spiked up with lots of Brylcrem? His eyes were so green they seemed like two clear crystals. He smiled. Lucy felt her knees weakening.
          ‘Sorry, I was… away with the fairies’ Lucy said, flustered, then turned to the barman and ordered two double vodkas and a two cans of coke, with plenty of ice.
          ‘Duh!’ Lucy said to Mandy, as she put the drinks down on the table. She recounted the tale of her meeting with the handsome stranger in the bar. ‘Away with the frigging fairies! I couldn’t have come up with anything less endearing and dimmer to say than bloody fairies! What am I? Some stupid fifteen-year-old with porridge for brain or what?’
         Mandy was in fits of laughter. ‘Well, I am glad you find it amusing’ Lucy said as she took off her coat and sat down on the bench next to her friend.
          ‘Ah come on, you’ve got to admit it’s funny!’
          ‘I know, I know. Well, I shan’t hold my breath for him asking for my phone number anyway!’
          ‘Never say never’ Mandy said and indicated for Lucy to look to her right. ‘Is that him?’ Mandy whispered.
          ‘Yeah that’s him’.
          ‘Cute. You’ve gone up in my estimation, honey.’
          ‘Listen, just because I made a fool of myself in front of a hunk rather than the pathetic dregs whose eye I usually tend to catch, doesn’t mean anything, except of course he’ll be having a good old laugh with his pals for the next twenty minutes.’
          ‘Oh I am not so sure about that, Hon. He just seems to be having a quiet chat with that tall blonde guy.’
          ‘It’s only a question of time before he does, trust my luck. Anyway, it’s not as if I came here to pull, is it?’
          ‘No, we came here to get bladdered. So there’, Mandy said, pushing Lucy’s glass towards her, ‘get that down you, girl!’ Lucy howled with laughter.

         The foolishness of a night on double vodkas became all too obvious within a second of the alarm going off. Lucy wished she’d changed the ringing tone on her mobile phone to something much more subtle. Her head throbbed with pain, her mouth was dry, her bladder filled to bursting point, and she didn’t dare to move. She was thankful that, at least, the twins were with Dennis for an extended weekend so she only had herself to concentrate on.
         With great care, she swung her leg out of the bed, and then waited to see whether she could face moving the rest of her body. She felt awful but, still, it was no excuse. There were things to be done, a wage to be earned. Get your sorry arse out of bed, girl! She heard someone yelling inside her head. It sounded suspiciously like her mother. Now! Get into that shower, you’ll feel much better! Come on, shake a leg! All right, all right, she thought. Just stop yelling, will you?
         Sure enough, after brushing her teeth and a long, refreshing shower she felt marginally better. She had her usual bowl of Weetabix and a large glass of orange juice while watching the Breakfast News. She looked at the toys piled up in the corner of the living room and with a pang of guilt recalled having been grateful at the twins’ absence when she first woke up.
         Her separation and subsequent divorce from Dennis had been incredibly painful, much more so than she had expected. Deep down she knew this to be partly because she still loved Dennis like no other man before him but she also knew their relationship had taken so many twists and turns over the course of their ten-year friendship, relationship and ensuing marriage that the part of her life which Dennis had come to represent had best be left well alone. No point in going back.
          ‘We were onto a good thing but lost our way, somehow, along the line’ she had written in a card she had sent Dennis on the day the Decree Nisci was declared. That all seemed so long ago now, and yet the thought of it filled her heart with as much sadness as it had on the very day, three months earlier. The divorce would be final any day now. In fact, she was surprised Dennis had not applied for the Decree Absolut straight away. She checked her watch. She was late for her train yet again, kids or no kids.

         Grateful once more for being able to board the train from its original destination, she sat down in one of her favoured seats. The bulky laptop case was placed on the floor as usual, and she retrieved her notebook and pen. As the train rolled off the platform, her mobile phone sounded to warn her of the reception of a text messages. She retrieved it from her bag, tried to second-guess who the message might be from and hoped it would be Adam. It was from Mandy.

‘Don’t know about you but I got a raging hangover this morning. See you on Sunday’.

         Neither Mandy nor Lucy had ever adapted the short text message forms and always spelt out every single word in full. A generational thing, perhaps, or maybe it was just their way of trying to hang onto some individuality and not to conform to the stereotypical city girls brandishing Gucci handbags and expensive manicures.

‘Don’t feel too bad but am looking forward to relaxing pampering on Saturday. Have a good day’ she replied.

         Her pad and pen went back into her handbag, along with the phone. She knew without trying that the words were not going to come today. The only thing on her mind was her meeting with Ms Farnell, or Janice as she had insisted on being called, the previous afternoon. Between all the sobbing she had managed to make some start of telling Janice what had led her to visit her consultation that day.
          ‘I don’t really know’ she had attempted after her rather clumsy start. ‘Well, I do but it’s just so difficult to say where it all begins or how it all fits together. I can’t work it out myself sometimes’. She had blown her nose at that point, trying to put on more of a professional approach.
          ‘I was married for six years. I fell pregnant soon after we got married but had a miscarriage’. She stopped, unsure of how to proceed.
          ‘It’s ok, take your time, Lucy’.
          ‘I felt so guilty after that, as if it was my entire fault. You see, I had been pregnant once before, when my husband and I were still at University. I was in my final year and Dennis still had another year to go after that. I was in the process of writing my dissertation. I only had four more months to go. When I realised I was pregnant it was such a shock to the system. I had been on antibiotics over the Christmas holidays, that’s when it must have happened, you know, that the pill didn’t work.’ She wiped the tears from her eyes. Janice said nothing, didn’t even take any notes. She wondered whether this was so insignificant to Janice as to not even warrant a mention on her notepad. She felt angry with Janice at that point.
          ‘My thoughts… my feelings at that time were that I could proceed with the pregnancy. I could still sit my final exams and complete my degree long before the baby was due. It would have been born late September. I could then stay at home, looking after the baby while Dennis completed his degree. Our families and friends would help out, and we would be OK financially. And when Dennis graduated we could both start looking for our first jobs in our respective careers. The baby would be old enough to go to nursery by then.’ She paused, shaking her head slightly. The memories were so painful even after all this time.
          ‘Dennis wasn’t having any of it, though. He kept banging on about how there was a right way to do things, and that right way didn’t mean having a bastard for a kid.’ She almost spat the words out and lost her composure. It took several minutes for her to find her thread in what she was trying to say. She found it so difficult to string her thoughts together.
          ‘Anyway, Dennis somehow managed to convince me in the end.’
          ‘And were you convinced?’
         Lucy hesitated for a moment. ‘No, not at all’ she finally said. ‘But I didn’t feel I had much of a choice. I didn’t feel I was being listened to, or heard even. Eventually my arguments fizzled out, and compared with his, mine seemed feeble and invalid.’ She paused, wiping her eyes with a crumpled tissue. ‘So when I say, convince, I mean bully, I guess. His mother is a Catholic, you see, she would not approve. He promised me that one day we would have it all, the big wedding, the family, a wonderful life together. Everything we both wanted. Just not right now. So… against my better judgement and will, I went ahead and had a termination.’
          ‘That is a typical trait of a bully, as you quite rightly say’ Janice said, handing Lucy the box of tissues once more. ‘Emotional blackmail and coercion, swiping aside the other person’s feelings and arguments.’
         Lucy didn’t quite know what to say; this was the first time she had ever called Dennis a bully but as Janice spoke it made sense. He always seemed to have the upper hand in their relationship, always had his way. Even in small ways, such as which film they watched at the cinema, which restaurant they ate at. And in bigger ways, too. Each time she went shopping, he checked how much she spent and on what. She often felt she had to justify even the smallest of spending on herself, and he wasn’t much better when she spent money on the boys. Funny how she had never thought of it this clearly, it was obvious now, that she had been ignoring this issue between them.
          ‘How long ago was this?’ Janice asked in a quite, almost whispery voice, pausing to turn over the A4 sheet of paper, which was now filled with her scribble; Lucy hadn’t even noticed that Janice had started taking notes.
          ‘It was nine years ago. On February eleventh. I will never forget. In many ways it was the worst day of my life.’ There had been another prolonged pause at that point, with lots more tears and soaked tissues.
          ‘I believe, now, that Dennis and I should have split up at this point. The foundations for a relationship were far too rocky. I didn’t receive any counselling and didn’t ask for it. Perhaps if I had all of this could have been avoided. But deep down, I thought… I hoped that our love for one another would always be enough. And it was, for a long time. Dennis made good his promise and we were married a year after graduation. We had a dream wedding and no expense was spared. We both wanted this to be the best day of our lives, and it was wonderful, everything I had dreamed it would be.’ For the first time since entering the counsellor’s office there was a small hint of a smile on her face. It soon creased into a frown as she continued.
          ‘Like I said, I fell pregnant soon after that and we were both delighted, ecstatic. When I was eleven weeks gone we went for a dating scan and that’s when they told us that the pregnancy had not been successful. They could not find a heartbeat and it appeared the baby had died in the fifth week of pregnancy.’ Lucy looked down at her hands, struggling to keep back the tears and wanting to proceed, to get to some point where Janice would jump up from her seat and shout ‘Eureka! Therein lies the answer!’ Her exclamation remained elusive. Lucy sighed.
          ‘So, I had to go through the whole procedure once more, three years after I had chosen to kill our baby almost to the day. February fourteenth. Valentines Day would never be the same for either of us. What was supposed to be a celebration of our pregnancy instead became another hurdle that we, as a couple, had to cross. After that, I found it so hard to live with myself. As I said, I felt it was my fault. I had given up one child, now God had taken one away from me, as a punishment. Dennis was loving and supportive towards me, I can’t fault him on that. He felt the loss as much as I did. But after three months we both decided to try again and I fell pregnant very soon after that. The twins were born the following April, they are now five years old. The pregnancy was hard but they were perfect and they were ours. The fact that they were twins was a good omen, I thought. It was as if everything had been cancelled out.’
         At that point, Janice had called an end to the first session, which was, after all, only supposed to be half an hour long. Lucy felt torn between being upset at not being able to relieve all of her troubles at once; she wanted Janice to see, to understand the full picture. She wondered what Janice thought now, not having heard the whole story.
         The end of this, their first session, came far too soon yet Lucy could also not wait to get the hell out of there. She felt so raw inside, having ripped up old wounds that clearly had never even begun to heal. All she had done the previous seven or eight years was to apply Elastoplasts to them thus disguising the true depth of the wounds they were mending.
          ‘I would like to see you for a further five sessions, Lucy. I think there’s a lot of work to be done but we should be able to make a fair bit of headway during that time. There’s also the drop-in centre in town, do you know about that one?’ Lucy shook her head in reply, still trying to stem the flow of tears so that she could re-enter the world outside the office feeling at least somewhat human. ‘Well, the service is there if you need it’ Janice said, handing her the appointment card.