Free Second Chance by Sian James Page A

We were happy, I swear we were, and it could have lasted for ever. Who knows what made him leave me? If only I could understand it. No one could understand it. Your Uncle Ted got his solicitor to make enquiries, it cost him a pretty penny too, but no one found out anything about him.’
    I could hear her words all around me in the bedroom. Words don’t seem to leave a place. ‘If only I could understand it. We were happy, I swear we were.’
    I found myself answering her as I used to, found myself remembering something I’d once dared say when I was fourteen or fifteen and she very nearly recovered. ‘Perhaps he was afraid of too much responsibility. Perhaps he suspected there was another baby on the way.’
    â€˜Why did you say that?’ There was a sob as well as a swell of anger in my mother’s voice. ‘What did you mean by that?’
    I realised at once that I’d gone too far. ‘Nothing. I didn’t mean anything in particular. I was only trying to imagine something which might have frightened him away. Men are nervous of commitment. They’re not as brave as women. That’s all I meant. That’s all.’
    It was no use trying to comfort her. She was crying bitterly, remembering, I suppose, the abortion she’d had – or was it an accidental miscarriage? – that little coiled-up foetus I’d seen all those years ago in the chamber-pot.
    Perhaps that fit of desperate crying resolved something. It was the last I can remember.
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    She hardly cried at all when we had the news of my father’s death a few years later. His body was found under the floorboards of a cheap lodging house near the docks in Liverpool, along with the bodies of three other young men who’d gone missing in the same year.
    It was a sensational case at the time, with shrieking headlines in certain newspapers about vice rings and male prostitution, but since the hostel had been closed after the owner’s death almost fifteen years before, nothing was proved beyond the identity of the murdered men.
    I was eighteen at the time, still at school doing my A levels. I had no memory of my father, had never even seen a photograph of him, but I certainly mourned him deeply, realising how unhappy his life must have been and how terrifying his death. I suppose if such a thing happened today, professional counselling would be provided by the school. As it was, the Headmaster called me into his study, told me that the staff had discussed the tragedy at a meeting, decided that it would be too much of a strain for me to receive their individual condolences, so had asked him to pass on their sympathy and support. Furthermore, he continued – he was fond of that word – my subject teachers would be pleased to offer me individual tuition at any time when I felt I might be losing my concentration.
    I thanked him and we shook hands.
    I don’t remember anyone being unkind at school. If there were any who considered the news something to snigger about, they kept out of my way. I suppose I was very lucky.
    I didn’t lose concentration on my work; the tragedy had the opposite effect. I worked like a demon, feeling, more than ever, that I had something to prove. I had to do well. I had to rise above my background. I realise now that the determination to succeed marked me as both judgemental and snobbish. I’m not proud of it. But that’s how it was.
    I mourned my father, of course I did, but at the same time, couldn’t help being aware that his unexplained disappearance showed great weakness. I remember asking Uncle Ted – who had re-married by this time, but was still calling on us from time to time – whether he thought my father was homosexual. ‘He was a decent chap,’ was all he’d say. ‘He’d worked hard and got on. Everybody spoke highly of him and he seemed to be good to your mother. Who knows what pressure he was under? Well, he may