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Copyright

HarperImpulse an imprint of

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2019

Copyright © Debbie Johnson 2019

Cover illustrations © Hannah George/Meiklejohn

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

Debbie Johnson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008258887

Ebook Edition © March 2019 ISBN: 9780008258894

Version: 2019-03-07

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Epilogue

A Note From Debbie

Extra Material

Other Books

Also by Debbie Johnson

About the Author

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

For Charlotte Ledger, editor, friend, and honorary Budbury resident – thank you for everything

Chapter 1

The latest meeting of the Budbury Ladies Coffee and Cake Club is in full swing. We are all present and correct in the café; it’s a Monday and it’s closed for business to actual paying customers.

The gingham-clothed tables are loosely arranged together in the middle of the large room, sunlight streaming in through the picture windows, the sea below shining and shimmering as it rolls into the bay. The various weird mobiles made of old seven-inch vinyl singles and shells and the wooden things you get inside spools of cotton are dangling in and out of the sun, striped in shade and light like golden tigers.

Beneath the dangling mobiles, we sit, gathered around the tables. We are fully equipped with all the necessary items: coffee in its rich variety of lattes and mochas and in some cases – by which I mean mine – espresso martinis. We have wine, and bubbly, and home-made cider. We have cake of every possible type, including tipsy meringue, black forest gateaux, strawberry pudding and a rich sherry trifle with way too much sherry in it. This is a stealth piss-up via the medium of pudding.

Most importantly, we have the Ladies. Or most of them at least. Me, my sister Willow, the café owner Cherie Moon (I always like to use her full name, because it’s so awesome), Katie, Zoe, Edie, Becca and our guest of honour, Laura.

Off to one side is a long trestle table heaving with gifts, contributions from the village for Laura’s baby shower-slash-hen-do. Everyone loves Laura – at least everyone who’s met her. Normally that would be enough to guarantee that I’d at least try and hate her, out of sheer contrariness, but even I can’t manage it. She’s just too bloody lovely, with her crazy curly hair and warm smile and kindness oozing out of every pore.

I notice that she’s staring at my espresso martini with something akin to lust in her eyes, and think that maybe I could learn to hate her – if she lays one fingertip on my glass she’s dead. Or at the very least she’ll get stabbed in the hand with my fork.

Becca, Laura’s little sister, stands up and taps a spoon against the side of her own glass. She clears her throat in an exaggerated ‘master of ceremonies’ way, and gains our attention.

‘Dearly beloved,’ she says seriously, ‘we are gathered here today to celebrate the single life of Laura. Laura who was once Fletcher, who became Walker, and who will shortly be Hunter. Assuming that Matt doesn’t come to his senses and join the Foreign Legion. Pause for laughter.’

She looks up, and we are already obliging. She’s funny, Becca – sharp and sarcastic and stinging. She’s also teetotal, when most of us are at least on our way to being smashed. Being the sober person at a party always leads to some wicked observations. Often about me, as I’m usually the most drunk person at a party.

‘Today, at this solemn occasion,’ she continues, once we’ve stopped giggling, ‘I would like to share with you something from Laura’s past. Something she’s probably forgotten exists. Something that our parents found when they were packing up their house, and thought I might be interested in. I was interested. In fact, I was so interested that I even got it … laminated!’

She waves a sheet of plastic-coated paper in the air dramatically, and we all react as though she’s the villain in a pantomime, revealing the blueprints of a diabolical masterplan.

Everyone is in a good mood. Everyone is the most relaxed I’ve seen them, ever. Part of that is because all of our responsibilities, all the darling burdens we love dearly, have been taken off our hands for the afternoon.

Cal, Zoe’s partner – think rugged Aussie cowboy, Thor on horseback – has taken all of the teenagers away to Oxford for the night to visit the college where his daughter, and Zoe’s kind of step-daughter, will be studying later this year. With him are Lizzie and Nate, Laura’s teenaged kids, freeing them up from worrying that anybody is roaming the village getting pregnant or skateboarding off cliffs.

Katie’s four-year-old, Saul, is off on an adventure with Van, who is my brother and Katie’s man toy. That always makes me a bit sick in my mouth, but they seem happy, so who am I to complain? He’s also taken a mismatched set of two mums with him: Sandra – Katie’s mum – who could create a crisis if she was alone on a desert island talking to a coconut head, and Lynnie – mine and Willow’s mum.

Lynnie has Alzheimer’s, and is recovering from bowel cancer. That sounds horrendously grim, but weirdly isn’t – since we found out about the cancer and she had her op, she’s actually been having an extended good spell. She still has no idea who we are half the time, but the aggressive episodes that had been getting more common have faded. Probably because she’s not in pain any more. Pain will make anyone grumpy.

Me, Willow and Van care for Lynnie between us, and we all love her dearly – but I’d be lying if I said it was easy, and it’s a relief to know she’s off having fun with a responsible adult who isn’t one of us. Plus she’s with Saul, who has no idea what Alzheimer’s is, doesn’t remember Lynnie the way she was before, and simply reacts to everything she does with delight and love. Kids are great – as long they’re someone else’s.

Becca’s baby, Little Edie, who’s not long started toddling, is off with her dad, Sam. Even the dogs – Laura’s Midgebo, an insane black lab, and our beguiling Border Terrier Bella Swan – are taken care of, enjoying the sunshine in the doggy crèche field outside.

This sense of being carefree is unusual for most of us, and adds to the sense of elation inside the café. Nobody is working. Nobody is looking after anybody. Nobody has responsibility for anybody but themselves. Wowzers.

That, plus the fact that we’re half cut, makes us an easy audience for Becca’s speech. She swoops the laminated sheet around for a while, like it’s a magic wand, before putting her glasses on to read it.

They’re not actually glasses with lenses. She’s only in her thirties, and doesn’t usually use specs. These glasses are plastic fancy dress ones complete with a honking great Groucho nose, moustache and eyebrows.

Again, we all find this unutterably hilarious, especially Edie, who laughs so hard that Katie and I share concerned glances in case she has a heart attack or chokes on her own merriment.

Edie is in her nineties, and suffered a nasty bout of pneumonia last year. I’m a pharmacist and Katie’s a nurse, and I think we’re the only ones who realised quite how close we were to losing our much-loved village elder.

She recovers, patting her tummy as she gulps in the air she lost due to Becca’s hilarity, and I give Katie a little thumbs-up sign as the speech continues.

‘This,’ announces Becca once the furore has died down, gazing at us from behind her plastic frames, ‘comes to you directly from the mind of ten-year-old Laura. It starts with these priceless words: My Dream Wedding.’

Laura groans out loud, and we all laugh at her embarrassment. We’re nice like that. Cherie, who is in her seventies but looks like an Amazonian Pocahontas with a fat silver and grey plait hanging over her solid shoulders, nudges her and grins.

‘When I am older, my dream wedding will be all pink,’ Becca reads, glancing at her sister over the Groucho specs to check that she’s suitably mortified. ‘I will have a pink carriage drawn by pink horses and all the guests will wear pink, even the men. My cake will be pink sponge with at least ten layers, and my dress will be pink silk. I will even have a pink dog, and pink ear-rings once Mum lets me get my ears pierced, and pink high heel shoes so big they make me look tall.

‘I don’t know how I’ll get a pink dog or pink horses, but I will. Maybe some pink kittens as well. And I will wear pink lipstick and have pink rose petals thrown on the floor. It will be the pinkest day ever.’

The pinkness of Laura’s Dream Wedding is making me feel a bit sick, and from the looks of it, her too.

I glance across to the other side of the table, and see modern-day Laura. Modern-day Laura is almost forty, and the only thing pink about her is her cheeks. She’s almost seven months pregnant with twins, and the size of a sumo wrestler. Her swollen ankles are propped up on a chair, and her arms are rested over the vast expanse of her baby-carrying belly. She still looks gorgeous – but not in a fantasy wedding kind of way. More of an earth-goddess-needing-a-nap kind of way.

‘Okay, okay – so I liked pink!’ she exclaims, grinning. ‘Someone had to – Becca was already fantasising about her Satanic wedding!’

Becca nods at this, and the Groucho glasses bobble up and down.

‘True that,’ she confirms, in a mock ghetto accent. ‘I was indeed a daughter of darkness. My fantasy wedding involved a vampire groom and cake with worms and goblets of blood. Now, I will pass along the sacred glasses of My Dream Wedding, and we will each share our own story, our hopes, our fantasies, our personal choices of veil and party food …’

I feel a slight twinge of panic at that particular announcement. Obviously, Becca intends this to be a round-robin of fun – but in my case, it accidentally touches a raw nerve, and makes my nostrils flare.

I love all the ladies here present, but discussing My Dream Wedding feels perilously close to facing up to something long hidden. It’s a bit like I’m an archaeological site, and Becca is about to attack me with a trowel to unearth my secrets.

Looking around, and seeing how happy everyone else seems to be doing this, I wonder if perhaps my secrets are even worth keeping any more.

With great ceremony, Becca removes the plastic Grouchos, and walks to place them on Cherie’s face. They’re not big enough, and the arms stretch around Cherie’s wide cheekbones. Cherie stands up, and bows, majestic in a sequinned kaftan straight from the seventies, and begins.

‘My dream wedding, when I was young, probably involved hallucinogenic mushrooms and Marc Bolan. My first wedding did involve hallucinogenic mushrooms, but not Marc Bolan. But my dream wedding … well, that was the one I had right here, a couple of Christmases ago, to my hero Frank.’

We all let out a communal ‘aaaah’ at that. I wasn’t here for that wedding – I was busy perfecting my role as the black sheep of our family, travelling around and screwing up – but I’ve seen the photos.

Cherie and Frank – known universally as Farmer Frank due to his magnificent acreage – married late in life after being widowed. The ceremony was held here at the Comfort Food Café, same as Laura’s will be – but unlike Laura and Matt’s, which will hopefully be sun-drenched and balmy, theirs was a winter wonderland.

Cherie passes the now slightly bent-out-of-shape Groucho specs to Katie, who looks borderline horrified at being thrust into the spotlight. Katie is in her late twenties, petite and blonde and pretty, and manages to combine both being one of the most blunt and honest people I know with being extremely shy. She also has rotten taste in men, clearly, or she wouldn’t be hanging around with my brother. Uggh. Sick in mouth again.

‘Ummm … okay …’ she says quietly, standing up and still barely matching Cherie while she’s sitting down. ‘I’ve never had a wedding. But I suppose when I was little, it maybe involved white dresses and Justin Timberlake. These days, I’d be happy with anything that involved a lie-in.’

She sits down very quickly, and Cherie pats her knee. I get where she’s coming from. Saul is a whirlwind of a child with endless energy and endless questions. I’m pretty high energy myself, but on the few nights he’s had a sleepover at our cottage, I’ve spent the rest of the day staggering around like a zombie. Last time, he jumped into bed with me at half five in the morning quizzing me about my favourite crustacean.

Katie passes the glasses along to Zoe, who inserts them into her masses of ginger curls, and stands up to her five foot nothing height. Us Longvilles are all tall and lean; we are giants amongst midgets.

‘I have never had a dream wedding,’ Zoe announces firmly. ‘As a child I dreamt only of running off with gypsies to travel the world in a brightly painted caravan, cursing unkind villagers and making friends with freaks. I found you lot eventually, so I suppose some of that came true. I still have no dream wedding, and don’t intend on conjuring one up. Thank you very much.’

I realise, as the glasses are passed on to my sister Willow, that it will be my turn next. I feel a churn in my stomach at the prospect – not because I’m shy, or because of the many espresso martinis I’ve consumed, but because this is not a subject I want to discuss. I plan to make a sharp and timely exit to the ladies as soon as Willow nears the end of her talk, or possibly to pretend that I’ve fallen asleep, and sit snoring and drooling in my seat while the glasses of doom pass me by.

Or maybe I won’t. Maybe this is the time. Maybe I should come clean. When I first moved back here, to help Willow with Lynnie, I had no idea how long I’d stay. It could have been days, or weeks, and now it looks like possibly forever. Things are different now – I have a small business, I have friends, I have a super-sexy man in my life. I’m probably not leaving Budbury any time soon.

I’m not sure what the right thing to do is, so I put off making any kind of decision until Willow has finished. I’m sure the right thing will come to me – a bit like when you’re in a restaurant and can’t choose from the menu, and can’t come up with a decision until your waiter is standing right there with his notepad, and suddenly your instincts tell you: ‘Yes! Spaghetti carbonara for me please!’, and all feels well with the world.

Willow has neon pink hair, which would have looked great at Laura’s wedding, and it dangles over the plastic glasses as she stands. It’s been in a kind of bob for a while, but she let it grow over the winter so she could keep her ears warm. Makes perfect sense to me.

‘Growing up as we did with Lynnie,’ she says, nodding towards me, ‘you can imagine that such traditional patriarchal nonsense as dream weddings was not encouraged. It was far more important to find love than to find a husband, and in all honesty I think that’s probably fair. But I also think that if Tom and me were to plan a wedding, it would most likely be at Briarwood, and have a zombie theme.’

There are nods and giggles at this. Tom owns a big old Victorian mansion on a hill at the edge of the village, where he runs a kind of school for eccentric inventor genius types. He also has a dog called Rick Grimes, named after the hero of The Walking Dead, so it’s a fair call. In fact it would be a great wedding. I’m pondering my costume when Willow continues.

‘And now I’d like to pass the sacred Groucho glasses to my darling sister Auburn, who as far as I know is currently enjoying her longest relationship ever with the lovely Finn. Can’t wait to hear about this dream wedding …’

Damn. I’ve been caught out – so busy planning my milky-lens zombie outfit that I didn’t duck out in time. Or maybe I subconsciously sabotaged my own escape plan. Gosh, I’m annoying.

There is a general buzz and shuffle and sounds of interest as she passes the specs along to me. She’s right on one count – I am loved up at the moment. She’s also right that Finn is lovely. I might even, in the dim dark recesses of my primeval girl brain, imagine being married to him one day – but that process would not be a simple one. Frankly, nothing ever is with me.

I scrape my chair back, gulp down the remainder of my espresso martini, and perch the glasses on my nose. I pause while they all refocus their attention. Might as well create a moment – show a bit of style. I’ve trapped myself in this moment, and this is the equivalent of the waiter hovering at my shoulder with his notepad – decision time.

I glance around at the smiling faces, the expressions of warm curiosity, and realise that I actually want to be honest with these people. Friends, family, community – none of it should be built on a lie. And none of this lot are going to judge me – it’s not that kind of place. Deep breath, and in I plunge.

‘Well, ladies and gentlewomen, Willow raises a good point,’ I say. ‘My dream wedding would be an elaborate cathedral of sound and light; a lightning storm in a haunted forest; a shipwreck off the coast of Zanzibar; a magical fairy glade inside a mystical stone circle. All of these things and more.’

I glance around at my audience – they’re hooked, so I decide to hit them with the punchline.

‘Sadly, none of these magnificent feasts for the senses are likely to take place. I won’t be marrying Finn – because I’m already married! Booooom!’

I make a ‘drop the mike’ gesture, pass the glasses to a confused Edie, and give a low bow as they all stare at me – Willow, in particular, has eyes so wide they might break her face in half.

I grab a bottle of cider, and head outside. I really need a ciggie now.

Chapter 2

I find a perch on one of the tables and take a swig from my bottle. It’s been brewed by our friend Scrumpy Joe, who lives up to his name by brewing cider professionally – his parents must have had amazing powers of premonition. Or maybe it’s a nickname, who knows?

The garden of the café is higgledy-piggledy and laid out over uneven ground that makes balancing anything on the tabletops an interesting experience. I like sitting out here sometimes, waiting for people’s milkshakes to start to slip sideways.

The café is on the top of a hill on the top of a cliff on top of the world. Or at least that’s what it feels like, especially on a day like this, when the spring sky is a clear, vivid blue and the sea seems to stretch on for infinity.

The dogs let out a half-hearted woof when they see me, and I raise my bottle in acknowledgement as I count out loud. I’m counting because I’m curious to see how long it takes Willow to make it outside with her thumbscrews and eye-shining torch to interrogate me. I have a bet – with myself, so I’ll definitely win – that it’ll be less than thirty seconds.

Sadly, I’m all the way up to one hundred and eighty before she emerges from the café, pink hair blowing around in the breeze, striding towards me in her spray-painted silver Doc Marten boots. Her hands are on her hips, which tells me she means business.

‘What took you so long?’ I ask, tapping an imaginary watch on my wrist. ‘What time to do you call this?’

‘I had to listen to Edie’s story,’ she says, reaching out to punch me on the shoulder. For no good reason other than we’re sisters. She’s the baby of the family and, if I’m honest, was always the butt of our practical jokes and general twattery when we were growing up. Now she takes every opportunity to prove to herself that she’s not the runt of the litter any more.

The rest of us – me, Van and our other brother Angel – all took off when we were young, and she ended up at home with an ever-declining Lynnie, looking after her on her own until she told us what the situation was. Then two of us came back – and I suspect there’s part of Willow that thinks life was simpler without us.

‘What was that like?’ I ask, frowning up into the sunlight. Edie’s fiancé died during World War II, and she never married. She simply convinced herself he’s still alive, and talks about him in the present tense, and even takes food home for him from the café. I’m not one to judge – we’re all a bit barmy, if we strip away the layers, don’t you think?

‘It involved a swing band and the village hall and nylon stockings she’d been given by an American airman. But anyway … you’re married?’

Her face is all screwed up, and I can tell she’s both intrigued and a bit angry.

‘Yeah. You want to say “WTF”, don’t you? Except you’re too old to use abbreviations, so you want to say the whole thing. I can see the battle raging within you.’

‘The battle raging within me isn’t about saying “fuck”, Auburn – I’m quite happy to say it! Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!’

I laugh out loud – because any word, when you say it repeatedly, starts to sound silly, doesn’t it? Especially one that rhymes with duck and muck and yuck and other similarly amusing words.

I see her trying not to laugh, but that’s not really in her nature, and she cracks eventually. She sighs, and sits next to me, and steals my bottle of cider. That would normally be a strong reason for me to wrestle her to the ground and dribble spit in her face, but I reckon she’s had a shock, so I play nice.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she asks, her voice quiet and a tiny bit hurt. I glance at her, shielding my eyes from the sun, and see that she is in fact hurt. I’d never considered that. When we were young, we weren’t close – in fact we were sworn enemies, forced to share a bedroom, where we re-enacted global conflicts every single day despite our lentil-loving mama urging us towards peace, love and understanding.

Now, though, as adults – bonded over Lynnie and the fact that we each have our own room these days – we’re closer. Almost friends, in fact. The fact that I’ve kept this from her has dented her feelings, and I’m sad about that.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, patting her knee. ‘I didn’t do it on purpose. I think I just kind of … decided to forget about it. I realise that sounds insane, and it probably is, but it was in a different time. A different life. A long time ago, in a galaxy … well, at least a few hundred miles away.’

‘Well now you’ve remembered, tell me about it. I can’t believe you’re married! Does Van know? Does Finn know?’

‘Nobody here knows. Like I said, I chose to bury it. I barely knew myself. If it wasn’t for Becca and her Groucho glasses, I might have chosen to bury it forever. But … well. Here we are. Me, an old married woman, and you, my spinster sister. Sitting in the sunshine. Sharing a bottle of cider in a fair and equitable manner.’

I reach out to grab it back, but she’s too fast, and holds it on the far side of her body so I can’t get to it without falling off the table. I shrug, and pull my cigarettes out of my jeans pocket instead. She crinkles her nose up in advance, and I say: ‘If you want to hear this story, you’ll have to tolerate the second-hand nicotine, okay?’

I’ve been trying to stop smoking ever since I moved back to Budbury, our tiny corner of the Dorset coast. I’ve tried vaping, and patches, and exercise, but ultimately never seem quite able to shake off the habit. I’ll manage for a while, but then as soon as something vaguely stressful happens – like stubbing my toe, or discovering my mother has cancer, or pretty much everything in between – I start again.I’m a little bit broken, and the ciggies are an external sign, I suppose.

I light up, and soothe myself with that first lovely inhale. I take two puffs, then stub it out on the tiny tin I carry around to use as a combined ashtray and butt collector. Nobody likes a litterbug.

‘That was quick,’ she says, blinking in surprise.

‘It’s my latest health kick,’ I reply, stashing the tin. ‘I only smoke a third of it. Expensive, admittedly – but you can’t put a price on good health, can you?’

Willow rolls her eyes in a way that says she knows I’m stalling, and folds her arms across her chest. Very negative body language, that.

‘Okay, okay …’ I say, realising that she’s tucking her hands away to stop herself throttling me. ‘Well, it was genuinely a long time ago. Eight years ago, in fact, when I was young and carefree and often off my head on various pharmaceutical products. It was when I was living in Barcelona, before I came to London to do my studies and became a productive member of society.’

‘Is he Spanish?’ she asks, not unreasonably.

‘His mother is. His dad’s English. He’s called Seb – Sebastian, which in Spanish is almost the same, but kind of like “say-bass-ti-ann”.’

‘Okay. Say-bass-tian,’ Willow replies, trying it out for size. ‘So I know his name, and how to pronounce it. That’s a start. What about the rest – how did you meet him? Why did you marry him? Why didn’t it work?’

I spot movement from inside the café, and have the feeling that everyone is trying to lip-read our conversation without appearing nosy. The downside of our cosy and close-knit community is that everyone is supremely interested in everyone else’s life. It’s like an interactive soap opera, with a lot of cream teas.

‘Erm … well, look, Willow, it’s complicated. I was younger. I was … wilder, remember? I left home when I was young. I spent years in South America and Asia. I was the Queen of the Backpacking Tribe. And that had its consequences – this may come as a surprise, but I have something of an addictive personality you know …’

She snorts in amusement, and I shoot her a mock-angry look. Mock because I’ve just smoked a cigarette and have drunk approximately seventeen martinis and half a bottle of cider. The boat of normality has well and truly sailed.

‘And?’ she prompts, passing me the cider. Attagirl.

‘And … I suppose I became addicted to Seb as well. I was living in a tiny apartment above a restaurant in the Gothic quarter, working in a bar, and never seeing daylight. When I wasn’t working, I was drinking. And when I wasn’t drinking, I was clubbing. And when I wasn’t clubbing, I was sitting on the roof of the building, smoking dope. And when I wasn’t smoking dope, I was … well, you get the picture. I’d been on the road for so long, I think I’d forgotten how to live like a normal human being.’

‘Those who knew you when you were younger,’ Willow says gently, ‘might say that you never learned in the first place.’

‘You’re right,’ I reply, nodding. ‘That’s fair. I was always a little on the savage end of the spectrum. And for sure, spending so long living out of a rucksack and dossing down in hostels and only knowing people who were as transient as me didn’t help. I only ended up in Barcelona because I could speak some Spanish, and because I was trying – in my own messed up way – to get home. I’d been in Ghana – don’t ask – and someone offered me a lift all the way to Morocco. And from there I got a ferry to mainland Spain, and then Barcelona. Have you ever been?’

She gives me a sideways glance that tells me that’s a silly question, and I nod.

‘No. I suppose you’ve been busy,’ I say. She’s younger than me, and stayed at home, and became the One Who Looked After Her Mother. Not that the rest of us had any choice – we had no idea Lynnie was ill, and as soon as we did, Van and I returned to help out. All the same, I do feel slightly guilty about it.

‘So. You’re living the life of a twenty-four-hour party person in Spain,’ she says, recapping the narrative. ‘How does that end up with you being married? Were you drunk?’

‘A lot of the time, yes – but not when we got married, no. There was a lot of paperwork, it was actually quite a long, drawn-out process to make it all legal. Kind of wish I’d skipped it now, but such is life – if you’re going to make a hideous, life-altering mistake, you might as well do it properly …’

‘Why was it such a mistake?’ she asks, and Iknowthat her over-active imagination is working hard to fill in the gaps with all kinds of terrors.

‘He didn’t sell me into slavery or keep me chained up in a cellar, don’t worry,’ I reply quickly. ‘Bad things happened, but nothing like that. I met Seb in the bar where I worked. He’d come in every night, and we’d flirt and chat and he’d buy me drinks. I’d drink the drinks. Then eventually he started staying after closing time, helping me clear up, and drink more drinks, and then we’d go dancing, and we’d take some pills, and then … well, I suppose it was a relationship based on lust and highs. The problem with highs is that there has to be a low at some point.’

‘What happened, Auburn?’

‘Shit happened, Willow,’ I snap back. I hadn’t been prepared for this when I woke up this morning, and I hadn’t been lying when I said I’d buried it all. It’s an episode of my life that was so crazy, so out of control, that I can’t really cope with revisiting it.

‘Okay,’ she replies quickly, reaching out and slipping her hand into mine, squeezing my fingers as she senses my genuine anguish. ‘It’s all right. Is it why you came back? Why you went back to college?’

I gaze off at bay, and chew my lip, and squeeze her fingers in return.

‘That’s over-simplifying it, but in a way, yes. When things fell apart between us – pretty spectacularly, as you’d imagine – it made me think about my life. It made me think I’d made a mess of it. That I needed to change. That I needed less excitement and less highs and less lows. I needed a plateau. So I ran away, back to London, where I dossed around for a while before I decided to go and study. The rest, you know. And I think that’s it for now … please don’t nag me for more, and please don’t feel hurt. I’m not talking about it because I can’t, not because I want to keep secrets from you, okay?’

‘Okay. I get it. That’s fine. You can talk to me about it when you’re ready. Just one more question …’

I nod, giving her permission to ask, and already knowing what the question is going to be.

‘Why,’ she says, calmly, ‘if it’s all over, and you haven’t seen him for years, and it’s all in the past … why haven’t you divorced him?’

I was indeed right. That was the question I’d been expecting. And to be fair it’s one I’ve asked myself hundreds of times over the years. One I’ve never been able to answer. It’s complicated, and many-layered, and fraught with emotional and practical potholes. I could explain all of this to her, but I can’t bring myself to go there. Not yet. I need to keep it simple, for both our sakes.

‘I think,’ I say, eventually. ‘it’s because I’m a bit of a knob, sis.’

‘Ah,’ she replies, wisely. ‘The bit of a knob defence. Well … I can’t argue with you on that one …’

Chapter 3

Willow eventually rejoins the ladies inside the café, and I decide not to. I feel shaken and stirred, much like my martinis, and can’t face the thought of them all looking at me in that concerned and curious way. I feel like enough of a freak as it is, without parading it in front of the cake collective.

None of them would judge, or push too hard, or be anything other than kind and understanding. They’ve all had complicated lives, with ex husbands and dead husbands and imaginary husbands and loss and pain and damage, and they’ve all managed to somehow rebuild. Here, in Budbury, where the rebuilding of shattered lives seems to be something of a regional speciality.

I know that if I fell, they’d spread their arms out and catch me like a big fluffy mattress. I care about them, and I like them, and I trust them. I’m just not 100 per cent sure I feel the same way about myself, at least not all the time. I’m trying to be a better person – staying rooted, staying with a family that needs me, doing a job that matters. Trying not to flake out and run. Trying to be my best self, as they might say on an American panel show.

But my best self is feeling somewhat battered right now, and wants to sneak away. In the Olden Days, I’d have snuck away to another continent – but my life is here. Lynnie is here. Willow is here. Finn is here.

I’ve been sitting on the table, enjoying the warmth of the sunshine on my face in that way you do when it first comes back after winter, wondering what to do next. The pharmacy is closed for the day in honour of Laura’s party. Lynnie’s away. I don’t want to go back inside. I have a very rare free afternoon ahead of me, and until I think about Finn, have no idea what to fill it with.

As soon as I do think about Finn, I smile. This is a strange new feeling for me – the very thought of a man making me grin. Not just in a ‘phwoar, he’d get it’ kind of way – though that’s there as well. But also because he’s funny and kind and patient and strong in all manner of ways. Physically, yes – he’s a bear of a man – but also in subtler ways. He’s one of those people everyone pays attention to, even though he never raises his voice. A natural leader, I suppose, who might in an alternative reality have been some big cheese in the army, or elected as Boss of the Entire World.

In this reality, he runs Briarwood, Tom’s school for grown-up brainiacs. It only opened last year, and initially he tried running it himself, but there were too many problems – like the fact that supremely clever people are sometimes also supremely stupid. There were fires, and meltdowns, and minor explosions, and crises involving re-enactments of famous Jedi battles using real glass light tubes.

Eventually, Tom – who is silly rich because he invents things I don’t understand and have no interest in – decided to get someone in to manage the place. And the people who lived there.

I was involved in the interviewing process, mainly because I insisted, and Finn got the job. That was months ago, and we’ve been together for two of them. Two whole months, and so far, not a single crack has started to show – which is all the proof you need that Finn Jensen is indeed some kind of superior life form. If he’s put up with me for this long, he’s possibly eligible for sainthood.

I set off on what I know will be a long walk – Briarwood is outside the village, at the top of a hill, surrounded by the kind of wilderness Bear Grylls would find a challenge. I can’t drive though, due to my alcohol intake, and anyway the trek will do me good.

I repeat this to myself over and over again during the next half an hour, as the warm sunshine gets warmer, and the booze wears off, and I start to yearn for a glass of cold water. By the time I finally arrive at Briarwood, I’m hot and bothered and also starting to realise something: I have to tell Finn about Seb.

I should have told him about Seb ages ago, but I didn’t tell anyone about Seb. Now the cat is not only out of the bag but probably having kittens back at the café – it’ll only be a matter of time before someone else casually mentions it to him, which would be unfair and crap and also embarrassing for both of us.

I bypass the main room of the building, which is vibrating with death metal music as I approach. Them crazy kids sure do like their death metal. I glance at the big bay windows, and see them at work: skinny jeans, bright hair, rock T-shirts, piercings, glasses, a life-size replica of ET. That’s a new one, and it makes me smile as I walk through the entrance into the hallway.

The house itself is probably Victorian, and was once the home of local landed gentry who fell on hard times. It later became a children’s home – a kind of posh private orphanage – where Tom himself spent a few key years after his parents died. That’s where he first met Willow, when we were all kids – Lynnie, in her pre-Alzheimer days, used to work here, doing yoga and art workshops with the young people.

It fell into disrepair after that, until Tom came back and did CPR on it. Now it’s lively and loud and full of energy and that makes me so happy. I walk down to Finn’s office, where he also has living quarters, and where he will also have one of those lovely water coolers that make that nice glugging sound as it fills your glass. Bliss.

I pause outside his door, and quickly swipe some of my hair out of my face. My hair is long and straight and deep red, which is where I got my name. All of us siblings got given names that suited our appearance when we were born – Willow long and lean; Van with a funny ear; Angel a little cherub.

It’s also, right now, a bit sticky and glued to my cheeks. Not a good look. Once I’m satisfied that I’m as tidy as I’m going to get, I knock on the door to warn him and go inside.

Finn is sitting behind his desk, looking god-like. He’s tall and big and broad and thanks to his Danish grandfather, has silky blond hair that he keeps a bit long, crystal blue eyes, and today, like most days, golden stubble. His face is dominated by high, wide cheekbones, and a slightly crooked nose, and, the minute he sees me, a smile that immediately sends a tingle down my spine.

‘God dag, Mein Herr,’ I say, blending Danish and German on purpose because I know it exasperates him.

‘Guten morgen, mon petit chou-fleur,’ he replies quickly, leaning back in his chair.

‘I love it when you call me a vegetable,’ I say, perching myself on the corner of the desk and looking around the room. I spy some weird booty in the corner, with the word ACME scrawled on the side in marker pen, and ask: ‘Is that a box full of dynamite?’

‘Almost. It’s a box full of fireworks. Confiscated from a particularly explosive member of the brains trust.’

This kind of thing happens a lot here. It’s one of the reasons Finn was brought in in the first place. Fireworks. Huh. How stupid. How juvenile.

‘What time does it get dark these days?’ I ask, my mind filling with Catherine wheels and rockets.

‘No,’ he says simply, grinning at me. ‘You can’t have them. You’re explosive enough without the fireworks. What are you doing here? Not that it isn’t lovely to see you, but I thought you were at Laura’s do?’

He pauses, looks me up and down, and says sadly: ‘I can’t believe you were at a party at the café and didn’t bring me any cake.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, and I genuinely am. It’s kind of a sin, that, coming back empty-handed from a visit to Comfort Food heaven. Cherie has done her usual trick of figuring out his particular favourite – some mad Danish rice pudding with almonds and cherry sauce – and serves it up to him so often he should be the size of a sumo wrestler.

He’s not, though. He’s just about perfect, especially today. He does a lot of rugged things like surfing and sailing and hiking, and it’s not an enormous stretch to imagine him at the helm of a longboat planning a raid on the unsuspecting turnip farmers. As a result of all this outdoorsy-ness, he has one of those year-round touch-of-gold tans that makes his eyes pop and his stubble glow. Yowsers.

He’s sitting there, wearing a white shirt with the top few buttons open, which always gets me going. There’s no dress code at Briarwood, but he wears these semi-formal shirts when he’s working, saying it differentiates him from the others and makes them treat him more like a grown-up.

He definitely looks like a grown-up, and I’m already wondering if he has time for a quick trip into the adjoining boudoir for some adult time. I remind myself of why I’m here, and shake it off. Almost.

He’s holding a letter which he’s obviously been reading, and I stall for time by asking: ‘What’s that?’

‘It’s an invitation. To a conference.’

‘Oooh! A conference! How exciting – can I come? Will there be a swanky hotel suite and rude movies? Will there be free pastries and name tags so I can pretend I’m someone else? What’s it about? I love conferences!’

He quirks one eyebrow, amused, and replies very deliberately: ‘It’s about Institutional Financial Processes for Non-Accountancy Qualified Managers, and I’m staying in a Travelodge.’

‘Oh … maybe not then. I think I’ll leave you to it. When is it?’

‘Few weeks away. Are you all right?

‘Sort of. I’ve been better. Okay,’ I say, rallying my thoughts. ‘I kind of have something important to tell you. Not bad, but important. But I also kind of really fancy you right now, and am hoping that I can get you naked some time very soon. So the choice is yours – talk or sex?’

He taps his long fingers on the desk surface, and gives me a feralgrin that does nothing at all to help me calm my reckless libido.

‘Well, that sounds intriguing,’ he says, and I can tell from the readjustment of his sitting position that I’ve definitely piqued his interest in more ways than one.

‘On the one hand,’ he continues, ‘I’m a man, so every instinct I have says sex first, talk later.’

I’m hoping he goes for that option, but something tells me he won’t. He’s too darned clever to fall into my evil trap like that.

‘On the other … I might feel cheap if I let you have your wicked way with me, and then you tell me something unpleasant afterwards. So, reluctantly, I have to go for talk first. And, depending on what it is you want to talk about, maybe sex later.’

I nod my head, and bite my lip, and realise that there isn’t a simple way to do this – other than to just do it.

‘Right. Well. The thing is, I should have told you this earlier, I realise that, but the thing is …’

He sits, still and silent, his blue gaze steady and calm and irritatingly unyielding. I could probably crack that cool exterior if I whipped my bra off and jiggled my boobies in his face – that’s always worked before –but I know I shouldn’t. I know he’s right.

‘The thing is, I’m kind of married.’

I stare first at my knees, which are bopping up and down nervously without me even giving them permission, and then up at him.

He still looks steady, but not quite as calm. He glances away from me, at the window, for a few seconds, before turning back in my direction.

‘You’re married?’ he repeats, his voice low and an awfully lot less playful than it was a few minutes ago. Which I suppose is understandable.

‘Yep!’

‘But you’re not with him?’

‘No! God no!’ I say, emphatically. I have the sudden realisation that he was perhaps thinking this is all a lot worse than it is. My fault, for not explaining myself properly.

‘No,’ I say again, grabbing hold of one of his hands and holding it in mine. ‘It’s not like that. It’s not like one of those stories you read on the internet where I have a secret life, and a husband and triplets waiting for me on the Isle of Wight or whatever. Nothing like that, honestly. I got married, years ago, when I was much younger and much stupider and living in Spain, and we split up. I came back home, and I’ve not seen him or spoken to him in years. Years! He literally doesn’t exist in my life at all, apart from on paper. It’s completely over, and has been for so long, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, and …’

I trail off at this point, because I can’t think of anything else to add. He notices that I’ve stopped, and I see him churning it all over in his mind.

‘So,’ he says, slowly, ‘to recap – you got married to a man I don’t know. The relationship broke down years ago. You’ve not seen him since. I wasn’t at all part of the reason for it not working?’

Finn, I should have twigged earlier, was bound to worry about that. He is the product of a supremely messy divorce – his dad had an affair, and it turned into one of those lovely scenarios where two grown-ups decide to use a child as a bargaining chip. As a result, he’s fairly straightforward on the whole subject. He would never, ever forgive himself if he’d contributed to the collapse of a marriage.

‘I absolutely 100 per cent promise you that you were not.’

‘And I’m working on the assumption that now you’ve told me part of it, you’ll tell me the rest at some point?’

‘Of course I will,’ I reply. I’m going to owe this story to a lot of people.

Finn nods once, firmly, and stands up.

‘All right,’ he announces, walking from behind his desk, grabbing my hands, and pulling me into his arms.‘Then I see no reason why we shouldn’t proceed directly to the sex.’

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