If there was someone to lead the rush to the dance floor as the first strains of ‘The Summer of ’69’ rang out at any family wedding or club party, it was Colm. He was also good for a pint, and never dodged his round.
He was declared ‘sound’ by almost everyone who met him. And Jo thought he was perhaps the most beautiful creature she had ever set her eyes on.
They met on their first day as holiday reps in Magaluf six years earlier. Their pale Irish skin immediately marked them out as new to the job – something that more senior staff members and some of the rowdier holidaymakers liked to take advantage of.
They were thrown together covering the late nights out, or helping to carry the occasionally much too drunk holidaymaker back to their accommodation. They were goaded into drinking too many shots, and rewarded with early-morning sea excursions, which had them both swearing they would never drink again, a vow which was all but forgotten by the time the evening was upon them.
It was full on, wild and hedonistic and Jo had loved every moment. She had become a rep to see some of the world, and to experience a life outside of the close Derry community, where everyone knew everything about everyone. Her experience repping had delivered that, and more. The ‘more’ being a romance she hadn’t expected.
When she saw her name beside Colm’s on the rota, she would feel warm and fuzzy inside. He made her laugh every single day. When her spirits were flagging, he could lift her mood in minutes with one of his jokes, or hugs, or just by telling her she was beautiful.
When he told her that he loved her, as they sat together on the beach on a rare night off, sun-kissed and blissed out, she had thought life simply couldn’t get better.
He was her first big love and she threw herself into their relationship wholeheartedly. It was heady, intoxicating and had all the passion of the chick-flick movies she loved so much. She felt as if she was permanently smiling, as if she had found the one who completed her. The Harry to her Sally.
They made an incredible team and even though the work was exhausting, and quite often stomach-churning, it was the best summer of her life.
But when summer turned to autumn and then to winter, and that first holiday season was well and truly over, what had seemed perfect had started to crack around the edges. Jo hadn’t been ready to give up on their relationship and she spent too much time trying to recapture the infatuation and fun of the summer months. If it had been there once, she was sure she could get it back again. They would be okay. It was natural to find it challenging to deal with the changes to their routine and how that affected their relationship. Having both decided to stay in Spain, they got bar work where they could and scraped together enough money – just about – to live on. But the fun was all but gone.
When Noah had flown out for a short break as winter turned to spring, the cracks were more like chasms. He tried to tell Jo this, but she had reacted angrily. Noah didn’t know Colm like she did. He hadn’t seen him at his lively, fun and supportive best, leading a sing-song on a bus trip with thirty hung-over holidaymakers.
‘We always knew it was going to be a challenge,’ Jo told him. ‘When the season gets underway again, it will all be fine.’
But it wasn’t fine. Colm started having more and more nights out with the other reps without inviting her along. When he worked on excursions and booze cruises, he didn’t always tell the more handsy female guests that he wasn’t single. Whereas everyone had known they were a couple the year before, Colm now seemed to revel in flirting and being flirted with by other women.
It was at first a slow process, this unconscious uncoupling they went through. Jo had been so desperate to hold on to the memory of that one perfect summer, she put up with how distant he was becoming because she did love him. And she was just as sure that he loved her. He wasn’t a bad person. She had seen the best of him and that hadn’t gone away. That part of him was still there, if only she could reach it. There were moments when she was convinced she’d seen that amazing side of him again, but they were only fleeting.
In hindsight, she could see he was trying not to hurt her. But this just amounted to him throwing her the crumbs of his affection. They limped along together, acting the role of a couple – even sleeping together on occasion, but it just highlighted to Jo just how wrong things were. She felt worse after. Hollow.
When she found out she was pregnant, as she sat and cried in the loos of a taverna staring at two lines on a stick, a tiny bit of her hoped that this would be the thing that brought them closer together.
She allowed herself a tiny, very short-lived fantasy of the two of them walking along the beach, a curly-headed, sun-kissed toddler between them as they recalled that really tough winter they’d gone through and agreeing it had just made them stronger.
But, of course, that was just a fantasy. Colm had been horrified and then he had cried. She had cried too.
‘I’m not ready to be a dad,’ he’d wept. ‘I don’t want to be a dad.’
‘I know it’s scary,’ she’d said. ‘This was not in my plan either, but look, it is what it is. I’m pregnant and there is going to be a baby and I know, Colm, that we can make it work.’
He’d walked out and gone on a two-day bender. Two days in which Jo hadn’t know which way was up or what she was going to do if he didn’t come back.
Her relief when he did come back was short-lived. He’d sat her down and told her outright that there was no future for them. He’d do ‘the right thing’ and help support the baby financially, but he didn’t want a relationship with either her or their child. He was not going to be a daddy. It was as simple, and devastating, as that.
When Jo had miscarried a week later, after the most painful seven days of her life as she pleaded with Colm to reconsider, he took her to the hospital and held her hand as the nurse broke the news in broken English that there was ‘no baby any more’.
Colm did his best to hide it, but his relief was palpable.
It took that for Jo to finally accept that they didn’t have a relationship worth saving.
She had sobbed down the phone to Noah, who had booked her a flight home and had met her at the airport. He’d never once said ‘I told you so’, he’d just held her as she cried, watched out for her when she got home and then invited her in on his new business.
Between Noah, and Erin, and her parents, Jo was given the support and love to start to heal. She was able to see a future, and possibly even a happy one, away from Spain and Colm and the memories of how low she had been.
But it was Clara who had really saved her. It was Clara who made her feel she could laugh again. And love again. Just not in a romantic way. All the love she had held in her for the baby that never got to be, she found she was able to shower on this funny, inquisitive, vibrant little soul.
She was happy with the love of her family and friends. She was reminded there was good in the world through her growing relationship with Clara, then just a chubby toddler. Watching the world through the eyes of a child was a great leveller.
But Jo Campbell still held a part of herself back. She never wanted to be hurt again like she had been hurt by Colm. So she put up walls around her heart and settled into her safe zone where she lived and worked among people who she knew would always love her.
And until recently that had been more than enough for her, but at the same time that she unlocked the need to chase her dream of becoming a published author, she started to wonder if there were other chances worth taking.