Second Chance - Jane Green [47]
Heads turn as she strides behind Samuel to the car park. A few Brits recognize her, but it is more likely that they are looking because she is beautiful. Beautiful and clever, but not so clever that she knew not to get involved with a married man. Not so clever that she was able to resist the demons that even now are hovering just above her shoulder.
Saffron was six years old when she met Holly. She was the new girl in school – a tiny, pretty blonde thing who walked into Miss Simpson’s classroom with a confidence and assurance immediately envied by Holly.
They didn’t become friends. She fell in with one of the cool kids – how ridiculous it is now to think that even at that age there were cool kids, and that they all knew exactly who they were – and Holly sat with the clever kids on the other side of the classroom.
Saffron, it turned out, was clever as well. She crossed the bridge between the groups, and as they grew older she gravitated towards Holly and Olivia, and the threesome worked, rarely degenerating into the bitchy scenarios that so often occur with pubescent girls.
Saffron’s parents lived in Hampstead. Her mother was an architect and her father was a magazine editor, and they lived in a house that was so avant-garde, so unconventional, that Holly and Olivia begged to go over there on a daily basis.
Saffron’s bedroom was the converted attic. It was enormous, with huge windows that had no curtains, and in the middle of the room was a see-through acrylic tube, which was actually Saffron’s shower.
At one end was a sunken living room, complete with fuchsia velvet cushions and, during the teen years, a bong that she never bothered hiding. In fact, Saffron claimed she smoked with her parents, and even though Holly and Olivia had never seen it happen they were quite certain she was telling the truth.
Because Saffron’s parents were the unlikeliest parents they had ever seen. They were… well, exotic is the only word that comes to mind. They were also hardly ever there. They still seemed to be madly in love and had no qualms about snogging in front of Saffron and her friends, none of whom had ever seen anything like it.
Saffron and Holly bonded over their shared freedom although Saffron handled it differently. Where Holly was desperate for boundaries, for parents to be around, for someone to tell her what time to be home, Saffron thrived on the freedom, was enough of a free spirit to recognize that conventional parents would have suffocated her.
Conventional parents might also have stopped her drinking.
It seemed to be normal for all of them as teenagers. Perhaps Saffron had a little more than the others, but God knows most of them would get drunk or stoned when they went to parties.
The difference with Saffron was that she would drink on her own. Not much, but a beer, or a gin and tonic if she was feeling particularly grown-up. Not to get drunk, just because it felt good, and if she wasn’t drinking, she’d have a joint; everyone was doing the same thing.
And then, at university, she didn’t drink very much at all. Unlike her friends, most of whom were away from home for the first time and took advantage of the freedom by getting drunk every night, Saffron just made sure she had a steady supply of grass to help her wind down at the end of the day.
Back in London, having got a first in English and drama, she started working, one of the lucky few to get immediate castings in TV ads. Drinking seemed to become easier in London but, still, never enough to get drunk, just enough to unwind, and even if it took a little more alcohol to do the trick, nobody ever saw Saffron drunk.
She didn’t eat much during these years. Got very thin, although no casting director ever told her she was too thin. Her mother admired her jutting hip bones – very seventies, darling – and her friends expressed concern, but Saffron waved them away. She liked