Theirs had been a sweet but inevitably short-lived fling. Gaby had only been staying in Hamblehurst for the summer before leaving to start university in London, while Peter, who was a year older than her at eighteen going on nineteen, was set to return to Manchester for the second year of his own degree studies. They’d promised to keep in touch but their busy lives took them in different directions and contact eventually fizzled out.
Still, during the short time they’d shared together, she’d been completely infatuated with him, swept off her feet by his handsome face and cool blue eyes and dark unruly hair that swept over his forehead and which he could never seem to tame. When he’d smiled at her, she’d always lit up inside, and when he’d kissed her… there’d beenfireworks.
Gaby smiled at the sweet memory and blushed a little to think of the love-struck girl she’d once been.
Still standing at the bedroom window, she remembered how she’d wait at this very spot and watch for Peter to come by and collect her for their dates together, how her heart would leap when he appeared on the street, how she’d race down the stairs and out the front door to meet him, her heart pounding at the chance to be in his arms again.
The memories felt so real, as if she could reach out and touch them. But outside the window, the November night was dark and frosty, a world away from those sweet summer days.
She closed the blinds and pulled the curtains, wondering what had become of Peter, where he was now and what he was doing with his life.
She wondered if he had forgotten about her, the way she had forgotten about him, and whether, if he did remember heror ever thought about her, he felt the same stab of bittersweet affection for the brief time they’d shared together.
Shaking off her trip down memory lane, Gaby left the guest room to go downstairs and finish dinner and check up on her aunt. The rice would certainly be cooked by now and the casserole warmed through and she didn’t want Jill to wait any longer for the hot meal she was looking forward to.
As she hurried downstairs, she reminded herself that she was here to make herself useful, not reminisce about long-lost yesterdays and the whispering memories of teenage summer love.
2
Dinnerat the Bailey house was as chaotic as usual, a noisy riot of loud conversations and laughing children and shared food. Peter sat in the middle of it all, poking at his meal while trying, and failing, to get into the spirit of things.
He didn’t know what was wrong with him tonight, but something was.
His parents had been hosting this weekly family dinner for years and Peter usually enjoyed the get-together with his mother and father, Kate and Tommy, and his siblings and their families. He loved seeing his nieces and nephews, catching up with his two older brothers, Brad and Shaun, and his younger sister, Amber. He’d always been on great terms with his brothers’ wives, Donna and Lauren, and with his sister’s husband, Mikey. He came to every weekly dinner armed with sweets for his three nephews and three nieces, who were aged between ten and three, and had endless patience for their excitable stories from school and nursery and for the games they liked to play with their ‘cool uncle’ whose novelty factor allowed their parents to enjoy a few rare moments of peace and quiet.
And since arriving this evening at his parents’ house on Juniper Avenue on the opposite side of Hamblehurst to wherePeter lived on Victoria Street, he’d done all the things he’d usually do. He’d helped his mother in the kitchen, chatted with his father about his latest DIY project, talked football with his older brothers, teased his younger sister, played with the kids, and piled his dinner plate high with his mother’s famous roast chicken and mashed potatoes.
But his food remained only half-eaten when he’d usually demolish the lot. As Peter pushed the chicken around the plate with his fork, surrounded by the chatter and laughter of his family, he realised finally what it was that was irking him tonight.
One singularly irritating question had got stuck in repeat-mode inside his brain:Will I ever have what my brothers and my sister have? A partner, some kids, a family of my own?
“Hey Peter, are you okay tonight, son?”
Jolted from his ruminations, Peter looked up to see his father watching him across the dining table. His father’s bushy grey eyebrows were bunched together in concern as he peered over the top of his glasses at him.
Peter forced a smile. “I’m fine. I just got distracted thinking about something from work.” He wasn’t about to share the truth of what was actually on his mind. Those thoughts were too personal and, he realised, much too raw to blurt out in the middle of dinner while his family were enjoying themselves.
“Busy day in the classroom, I take it?” his father asked.
“As always. And I’ve got a pile of marking to deal with once I get home which I’d hoped to rattle through before coming here, but I got dragged into other things.”
Peter taught maths at Hamblehurst secondary school. He loved his job and loved teaching his students the value of mathematics and proving to them that it was a lot easier to grasp than many of them seemed to think. Maths scared too many kids, who got it into their heads that they just couldn’t do thingslike algebra and trigonometry and calculus. Nothing gave Peter more job satisfaction than convincing dubious kids that they not only could do those things, but that they could excel at them too. Understanding maths had the power to unlock bright futures for so many kids, whether they went on to use mathematical skills in the future or not. Competence built confidence, and once kids were confident in their own abilities, they’d be more likely to take on bigger and bigger challenges in life, instead of quitting as soon as things got difficult.
His passion for maths and for developing the maths skills of the kids in his classroom kept Peter motivated through the other bits of his teaching job that got on his nerves, like endless admin and paperwork. There was no getting away from those tasks, as Peter understood only too well after a decade spent in the classroom, but there was no denying they sapped time he’d rather use to teach the kids or prepare lessons or mark their homework tasks.
“How are things going with the careers tutor role you’ve taken on this year?” his father asked. “Are you still enjoying it?”
“I am, actually. There are worse admin tasks to take on, although I think the headmaster is probably softening me up for something more thorny next year.”
Tommy laughed. “I’m sure you’ll be up to the challenge.”
“I’ll have to be. There’s no option but to put your shoulder to the wheel and do your bit. I do like the careers tutor role, though, and if I can do it again next year, I’d be up for it. That said, it will all depend on whether I can pull off the careers fair we’ve organised for next week, which is looking a bit iffy at the moment.”
“How come?”
Peter was touched as always by his father’s interest in the minute details of his job and happy to chat about the various trials and tribulations he encountered. None of this was whathe’d actually been thinking about when his father asked if he was okay, but it was true that this stuff was simmering at the back of his mind. While the rest of the family chatted amongst themselves, Peter was glad of the chance for a few minutes of conversation with his old man.
“We decided to schedule some talks for the kids to listen to, so they could find out more about different career paths from people working in those areas right now and how the subjects they studied at school were important for getting them into those careers,” Peter explained. “Unfortunately, I found out today that one of the speakers has pulled out because of a last-minute calendar clash and now I have to rustle up someone new.”
