Page 56 of One Moment in Time
The mention of her mother and her daughter had made Brenda’s heart swell. Trite as it was, she’d felt like there was a small victory in there. Eileen might have got the guy back in the day, but Brenda had landed two young women who were flipping spectacular. That was worth so much more than Gary bloody Gregg.
And while she was on her blessings, she’d had a lovely mum, one who’d loved her until the day she died, late last year. How lucky had she been to have a lifetime with her? Eileen had never got to share that with her mum and Brenda felt a genuine sympathy for her. It couldn’t have been easy dealing with her life without support.
The perspective had softened her, given her a sense of empathy as they went back to sharing the stories of their lives.
The wine had been delivered and they were just about up to date, when the door opened again. Brenda expected it to be Zara or Millie. She held her breath when she saw that it was Colin. He looked older than he had this morning and the makeshift sling he’d made from a towel to support his hand was almost pitiful.
Like Millie, he stopped dead when he saw that Eileen was with her. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he said, and Brenda could hear the uncharacteristic anger in his voice.
‘No, stay. Please. Eileen just came to talk. I think maybe it might help.’
‘How’s your hand?’ Eileen asked him, operating as a tag team to keep him engaged and stop him leaving. It was so bizarre. This was exactly the kind of telepathic communication they’d had when they were younger and now, after thirty years of estrangement and loathing, after devastating betrayals and unconscionable decisions, after heartbreak and disappointments on both sides, here they were, and Brenda wasn’t sure how she should feel about it. For years, she’d wondered where Gary and Eileen were, if they’d stayed together, or if they’d gone their separate ways that night in Vegas. She hadn’t had the courage to approach Gary’s parents because she didn’t know them very well, and Eileen had no family that she could have checked with. It was the days before social media was a thing. It still wasn’t her thing. The girls were forever nagging her to get Facebook, or Instagram or the Twitter lark, but Brenda had never been particularly interested. Her world was her girls, her work and she preferred to see her friends in person. Yes, she knew that made her a dinosaur, but hadn’t these last few days proven her point? Look at the chaos contacting a stranger on Facebook had brought them. A mortifying reunion, skeletons out of the closet and a badly bruised hand that was being supported by a Planet Hollywood bath towel.
‘Come and sit, Colin,’ Brenda encouraged him, knowing that he’d do the polite thing. She wasn’t wrong.
‘Is it broken?’ Eileen asked, still trying to engage him in the conversation.
Years of working in A&E had given Brenda the skills to pick up on the micro signals that people gave off when they were in tough situations. Right now, she saw that the tightness around Eileen’s eyes betrayed her nervousness.
‘It’ll heal,’ Colin replied. ‘Before you say anything, he deserved it and I’d do it again.’
‘I’d hold your jacket,’ Eileen offered, surprising him. ‘He’s gone, by the way. Back to South Carolina. Decided the notion for partying in Vegas had gone off him.’
This time it was Colin who was giving off signals, and it was a slight lowering of the shoulders, as if that news was a relief.
‘The most surreal day ever,’ he mused. ‘I’m glad he’s gone. I had nothing else to say to him. I’m surprised to see you here though.’
He didn’t say it unkindly, just in that direct, honest way that he’d always had.
‘I came to apologise to Brenda and she was kind enough to let me in and hear me out.’
‘Without punching her in the face,’ Brenda added with a cheeky glint in her eye, trying to make him relax a little. ‘We’re a bit more civilised over on this side of the gender line. By the way, before I forget, Millie says she’s changing your name to Lennox Lewis by deed poll so you might want to have a word.’
That made him smile, and Brenda thought how attractive he still was when he did that. It had been so long since he was the funny, sweet, carefree guy who never stopped grinning. What had happened to him? What had happened to them all? Had their choices and the hands they were dealt robbed them all of the very core of their personalities? And was it too late for them to rewind the clock and make decisions that would restore their happiness, their enthusiasm and their curiosity about life? Brenda really believed that there was still time. She just had to convince him that they should do it separately.
Eileen was still talking. ‘But I owe you an apology too, Colin. I treated you terribly. What I did… well, we all saw how that turned out. I know that we’re thirty years down the line and it’s too late to make amends, but for what it’s worth, I just want to say again that I never meant it to happen. I didn’t plan it. Brenda and I were just talking about how we honestly think that if that night hadn’t gone like that, then our lives would have turned out very different. But we were also saying that we wouldn’t want to go back and change it now, because look where we all are. You have your daughters, I’ve got Aiden. We’ve all managed to make it this far without too many heartbreaks. Maybe there’s something to be said for that.’
‘Maybe there is,’ Colin said, with typically calm thoughtfulness. ‘To be honest, Eileen, there’s nothing I would go back and change either. We’ve had a good life, haven’t we, Brenda?’
That one hit right in the heart and snapped a tiny piece off. ‘We have,’ she agreed. For the most part it was true, and she wasn’t going to embarrass him by bringing up their problems in front of his first love. She owed him more than that.
‘Tell me something – did you divorce Gary because he had a wandering eye, Eileen?’ Colin asked, with the air of someone who had already guessed what the answer would be.
Eileen nodded, a sad smile confirming his question. ‘I did. How did you know that?’
‘Because he was always the same. I think it was in his genes. His father was married three times, last I heard, and went off with someone else every time.’
Brenda was stunned. ‘When you say, “always the same”, do you mean when we were going out together back then?’
She recognised the look on his face. He was deciding whether to be honest or kind, because whatever he was going to say couldn’t be both.
‘Be truthful,’ she urged.
He went with her request. ‘Yes.’
Brenda felt her chest deflate. ‘I always suspected. Actually, more than that. I think on some level I definitely knew. Why didn’t you ever tell me?’
‘If I’d said that to you back then, you wouldn’t have believed me,’ he explained, and she knew he was right.
