Page 24 of One Snowy Day
If this was the last time he was going to be here, then maybe those were memories that he’d like to revisit.
A few minutes later, Lachlan didn’t even have a conscious thought, before he realised the car was veering off to the left, onto the slip road that would take him all the way to places he used to know.
2 P.M. – 4 P.M.
13
JESSIE
‘Everything okay there, Georgie?’ Jessie asked, when her daughter returned from dealing with the customer who’d popped in and spoke to her at the reception desk at the front of the salon.
Georgie swiftly put on a smile that Jessie immediately knew was fake. Her girl was definitely struggling today, but she was making such an effort to cover it up that it was breaking Jessie’s heart. ‘Yes, of course. Just someone that noticed we were open and popped in on the off chance of a cut and blow dry. I’ve told her to come back tomorrow. Not having a stranger in here ruining the party.’
Jessie knew exactly how that felt because she’d been holding it together, refusing to ruin the party, ever since her conversation with Val when they’d first got here.
‘I need you to tell me everything you know about what happened between my Stan and Dorinda Canavan.’
Val had held her gaze, and the pity that Jessie saw there almost broke her. Eventually, Val had spoken softly. ‘That was a long time ago, Jessie.’
Val was right. It was a lifetime ago. So why did Jessie feel theneed to dig into it today? If she were honest with herself, she knew the answer. Seeing Dorinda in the café, with that smug expression of hers, had brought it all back. Jessie was already feeling vulnerable and upset about going, and worried about living a life with only Stan for company. The combination of all those things had sparked a need to know the truth about the man she was giving up everything for.
Val had watched her carefully as she’d gone on, ‘Are you sure you want to go back there? Some things are better left in the past.’
So Val did know something. Jessie had been counting on it.
Back then, they hadn’t discussed it, but they weren’t as close as they’d gone on to become over the years. Three decades of doing a woman’s hair forged a rare bond, and the fact that they’d both stayed in the village and brought up families at the same time had made them integral parts of each other’s life.
Jessie had nodded. ‘I am, Val. And you’re the only person I’m going to ask, so I’d appreciate the full story.’
The thing was, if Jessie were really honest with herself, she already knew. How many times had she replayed that night in her mind, then brought down the shutters on it and compartmentalised it in a box where it couldn’t hurt her or her children?
Georgie must have been about ten, which would have made Grant six. Her and Stan were in their thirties, which felt like a hell of a long time ago right now. And Stan, well, she wasn’t being biased when she would say that he was the best-looking man for miles. Ah, he was fine. Tall and always tanned from working on construction sites. Life had been smashing back then. They didn’t have much money, but her salon had been up and running for over a decade and she was rushed off her feet in all the best ways. The evenings were busy with after-school activities, and late-night opening at the salon, and spending time with the kids so that their childhoods didn’t go by in a flash that she missedaltogether. Sometimes, exhaustion would feel like it was going to take the knees from her, but she didn’t want to change a thing because she treasured it all and she knew how lucky she was. If there was a tiny dark spot in her sunshine of a life, it was that it was almost impossible for her and Stan to find time alone together. There was the odd Saturday night, when Cathy or her sister, Loretta, would babysit for them. On birthdays and anniversaries, they made a special effort to go out for a nice meal. But those were exceptions. A Saturday night was far more likely to be fish and chips, picked up on her way home from a long day in Copper Curls, and then cuddling up with Georgie and Grant on the sofa to watch whatever video they’d chosen from Blockbusters when Stan had been looking after them that afternoon.
They were a team. A squad. But they got an extra player when Dorinda Canavan began working as a barmaid at the golf club. At first, Jessie had barely noticed the shift. Like many men back in those days, Stan had often gone to the bar in the golf club for a pint after work on a Thursday or Friday. But then it became more than just one pint. He’d come in long after she’d fallen asleep on the couch and explain that he’d bumped into an old pal and got chatting. Or there was a member’s meeting that he couldn’t get out of. Or a dozen other reasons that she could barely recall now, but that seemed innocuous at the time because she trusted her husband and it never crossed her mind to doubt him.
That had changed when Val and Don Murray had thrown a party for their wedding anniversary – maybe their twentieth, Jessie wasn’t sure now – and Cathy and Duncan had offered to take the kids for the night so that Jessie and Stan could go. Thrilled to bits, Jessie had made a real effort with herself. She’d got her junior stylist to do her hair, she’d taken time over her make-up, and squeezed herself into a little black dress that looked just like the one that Kate Moss had worn when she’dbeen plastered all over the tabloids that week. Although, Jessie highly doubted that Kate’s frock cost £29.99 and got delivered on a sale-or-return basis from the Freemans catalogue.
That aside, Jessie had felt like a million dollars.
They’d arrived at the golf club in a flurry of hugs and hellos, and the drinks had flowed. Maybe that’s why Stan had let his guard down. It was late in the night, when he went off to the bar for another round of drinks. Twenty minutes later, he wasn’t back, and Jessie had gone to find him. She had no joy at the bar, so she’d asked Don Murray, who was coming out of the gents’, if Stan was in there. No luck there either. She’d been about to go back into the hall and check if she’d missed him sitting at another table, or maybe having a dance, when she’d spotted that the fire exit next to the toilets was ajar. Before she’d even pushed it open, she knew why.
There had been a choice. Step forward or step back. Jessie had stepped forward.
She’d opened the door wider, pushing it slowly, so that it made no noise, then she’d initially breathed a sigh of relief, because there was no one in sight.
That’s when she’d seen them.
They were tucked between two cars, and Dorinda Canavan, the stunning twenty-four-year-old wild child daughter of the lovely Hugo and Effie Canavan, was joined at the lips with Stan McLean.
The second choice. Step forward or step back. That time, Jessie had stepped back.
Over the years that followed, she’d thought about that decision often, but never regretted it. A few weeks later, the lovely Effie Canavan was in for her bi-monthly highlights and she’d said with a heavy heart that her Dorinda had gone off again. London this time. Or was it Manchester? Again, Jessie hadn’t worriedabout the details. All that mattered was that Stan’s pints at the golf club had gone back to being just an hour or so, a couple of nights a week, and he was more attentive to her and the kids than he’d ever been.
Maybe she should have made a different choice. God knows, Val Murray would have lambasted her Don through the streets of Weirbridge if she’d ever caught him straying – not that he ever would. But Jessie had known back then that she had too much to lose. If she and Stan split up, how would she manage? There weren’t enough hours in the day already and childcare was difficult to find in the village and impossible for her to afford, especially if she and Stan were living in two different houses and paying two mortgages. Then there was the salon. How would a scandal like that affect her business and her friendships? Effie Canavan and her whole extended family were good people who would be mortified about what Dorinda had done, and they’d never show their faces in Copper Curls again. Most importantly, there were their children. Did Jessie really want to break up their family and take one of the people they loved the most away from their daily lives? And all that aside, she loved him with all of her heart.
Maybe nowadays she would make a different choice, but she still felt that the one she’d made back then was the right one. Her and Stan had gone on to have almost thirty more years together, and nothing had ever raised her suspicions again, even when Dorinda had returned to the village a few years later. Of course, by that time she had a partner and two young children, so Stan was out of luck, even if he’d been interested in rekindling their fling.
The only lasting trace of Stan and Dorinda’s relationship was that, even from the moral high ground, Jessie could never again look at that cow with anything but distaste. And Dorinda wasmany things, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew that Jessie knew. And that had left them, for almost thirty years, circling each other like two bulls, both of them always alert to the other one’s malevolent presence.
