Welcome to Jenny Oliver’s brand new Cherry Pie Island series! There’s nowhere more deliciously welcoming...

The Cherry Pie Island series

The Grand Reopening of Dandelion Café – Book 1

The Vintage Ice Cream Van Road Trip– Book 2

The Great Allotment Challenge – Book 3

One Summer Night at the Ritz – Book 4

The Vintage Ice Cream Van Road Trip is Book 2 in The Cherry Pie Island series.

Also by Jenny Oliver

The Parisian Christmas Bake Off

The Vintage Summer Wedding

The Little Christmas Kitchen

The Grand Reopening of Dandelion Café (Cherry Pie Island Book 1)

And look out for the next two books in the Cherry Pie Island series, coming soon in summer 2015

The Great Allotment Proposal

One Summer Night at the Ritz

The Vintage

Ice Cream Van Road Trip

Cherry Pie Island

Jenny Oliver

Jenny Oliver

wrote her first book on holiday when she was ten years old. Illustrated with cut-out supermodels from her sister’s Vogue, it was an epic, sweeping love story not so loosely based on Dynasty.

Since then, Jenny has gone on to get an English degree, a Masters, and a job in publishing that’s taught her what it takes to write a novel (without the help of the supermodels). Follow her on Twitter @JenOliverBooks

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Book List

Title Page

Author Bio

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Excerpt

Endpages

Copyright

Chapter One

‘Have a look! Have a look! Quickly! You’re going to crash… You’re going to crash! Have a LOOK! Oh god.’

Holly Somers started jogging up the river bank, shielding her eyes from the sun so she could see the full impact of the chaos on the water in front of her.

Two junior rowing eights were careering down the river, blades all askew, panicking from the adrenaline of the side-by-side race, the umpire shouting at their coxswains to get them to move apart from one another as their blades crashed, while the crowds on the bank were cheering and pointing or hiding their eyes with their hands, because they knew disaster was coming.

‘Crews, move apart!’ the umpire shouted again, waving his white flag, but no one was listening. This was the youngest Cherry Pie rowing team, the crew members just thirteen ‒ awkward, gangly and not the most accomplished ‒ and this was their first race. Panic had overtaken reason.

‘They’re gonna hit the bridge,’ said Holly’s dad, head coach of the senior rowers. He was cycling up to the start but had paused next to Holly.

Holly had her hands up to her face, ‘STOP!’ she shouted again from the bank but to no avail.

Everyone had come to watch. Martha and Annie, from the cafe, had stopped serving teas and had run over to the water’s edge in their aprons, the crews waiting to boat had abandoned their equipment and grouped together to point and peer and shout instructions at the tiny, inexperienced, panicking rowers on the water.

And then the inevitable happened, the two boats, locked together by their oars, hurtled into the bridge, the noise of wood splitting, carbon fiber cracking, disgruntled swans flapping, and the yelps and screams of eighteen thirteen year olds filled the warm late spring air. The spectators in the hospitality tent let out a great roar of delight. This is what they’d come for ‒ a bit of action and drama to go with their champagne.

Holly’s dad sped off on his bike to the finish line to orchestrate the rescue efforts. ‘That’s two grand’s worth of equipment written off, Holly,’ he threw back over his shoulder. ‘Maybe you should go back to rowing rather than coaching,’ he added with a dry laugh.

Holly refused to rise to the bait. Ever since she’d quit, post-Olympics, he’d taken every opportunity to encourage her back into a boat. He thought it was wasted talent. Wanted her to keep going forever. She hadn’t crushed his dream completely by telling him that stopping had been like taking off a pair of sunglasses. The world suddenly brighter, sharper, hers to explore however she wanted.

But then neither had she then been able to tell him that she’d possibly explored it a little too much. Been a little too free.

She jogged to where the launches were tied up and jumped into one of the boats. The kids in the water, over their panic, now thinking it was hilarious, were splashing each other and swimming around in the sunshine. One of the rowing boats had snapped in two and the other had lodged itself upside down in the reeds on the bank. Some of the rowers were clambering out the water while the little coxswains were bobbing about like Violet Beauregarde in Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory, their life-jackets having inflated on impact of the crash.

‘Wait!’ shouted Annie, Holly’s friend and owner of the Dandelion Cafe, who was serving tea and cake at the regatta. ‘You can’t go and help on your own!’ she scolded.

‘Annie, I’m fine,’ Holly hissed.

‘Get Matt to help you.’ Annie looked around for her boyfriend.

‘He’s on the water already,’ Holly said, ‘He’s the next race.’

‘Well I’ll come with you then,’ Annie said, starting to untie her apron. ‘You can’t go and start hauling out kids from the river in your condition.’

‘Annie!’ Holly snapped. ‘Keep your voice down.’

Annie looked around. ‘No one’s listening, they’re all watching that–’ She pointed to the broken boats, the sopping wet kids, the blades snapped and broken that were floating forlornly downstream, then she jumped in the passenger seat of the motorboat. ‘I’ll do any lifting, you just drive.’

Holly sighed. ‘Fine,’ she said and they drove over to where the safety boats, the umpire’s launch and a couple of friendly tourists in a rent-a-boat were helping pull the giggling kids from the river.

‘Hi, miss!’ One of them, Julian, a lanky blond, shouted from where he was treading water, ‘Sorry about that!’

‘It’s fine, Julian,’ Holly said. ‘You getting in here or are you going to swim? We need to clear the race course.’

‘I’ll swim, miss.’

‘OK, off you go.’ Holly stood up in her seat making the boat wobble and Annie grip onto the sides. ‘You lot, start swimming to the edge, let’s go, come on!’ She ushered them all across the river. ‘Stop messing.’

‘We crashed, miss, did you see?’

‘Yes,’ Holly said to an eager red-head, ‘We all saw. As crashes go, it was very impressive.’

‘Holly!’ A voice shouted from the bank. ‘Is that you! And Annie! Hi, guys!’

They both turned and saw a woman with big, bouffant blonde hair standing on the bank in front of the hospitality tent. She had a glass of champagne in one hand, her sunglasses in the other and a turquoise straw trilby on her head.

‘Emily!’ Annie waved from the back of the boat. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Drinking champagne!’ Emily laughed.

‘Get the river clear, Holly,’ Holly’s dad shouted through a megaphone.

‘Hello, Mr Somers!’ Emily turned to look in Holly’s dad’s direction and waved enthusiastically.

Holly’s dad gave her a nod but was more interested in getting the regatta back under way and boomed some more instructions through his megaphone. ‘I’m going up to the start, Holly, can you get that half of the eight that’s stuck by the bridge, drag it over and then we can get going.’

Holly sat back down. All the kids were now either clambering out by the bank or in the safety launch, so she started to drive towards the broken bit of carbon fiber. Annie sat forward in her seat. ‘You haven’t told him, have you?’

Holly didn’t say anything.

‘You have to tell him, even just so you aren’t dragging great bits of boat out the river. Here, stop, Holly, I’ll get it.’ Annie reached forward from her seat and caught hold of two of the metal riggers on the broken boat and, hooking the oars across their motorboat, managed to secure it like a sidecar so Holly could drive them slowly back towards the bank.

They watched as all the soaking-wet kids congregated where Holly was about to moor, all bursting with stories to tell of the crash. Holly glanced over her shoulder at Annie. ‘I will tell him. I just…’ She shrugged. ‘I think I have to believe it myself first.’

Annie smiled, ‘Are you looking after yourself? Taking folic acid?’

‘Ssh!’ Holly glanced back around, checking no one could hear.

‘Holly, they’ve got no bloody idea what folic acid is!’ Annie laughed, pushing cropped blonde hair away from her face. Her clothes were wet from where she’d pulled the boat out the water. ‘It’s quite refreshing actually, being covered in river water! It’s so hot,’ she added, ‘And I’ve got to get back in that ice cream van.’ For the duration of the regatta, the Dandelion Café had decamped into an old blue ice cream van that was parked on the left of the boathouse. Previously owned by the late island matriarch Enid, it had been pulled out of retirement for the day’s events.

Holly tried to land the motorboat, but it was too hard with the addition of the broken rowing eight and reversed so she could get a better angle.

‘We’ll get it, miss,’ shouted Julian.

‘No you stay there…’ she started but, ignoring her, all eight of them plopped into the water again and swam over to unhook the bit of boat.

‘Ah, you’re so good,’ Annie said as they swam-walked it back to the bank. ‘They’re lovely, your lot, and they clearly worship you.’

‘Annie…’ Holly glanced over her shoulder, ‘I know what you’re doing.’

‘I’m not doing anything, I’m just ‒ well ‒ I want you to know that I think you’ll be a lovely mum.’

Holly glared at her, worried that people on the bank might hear.

But Annie just leant forward and nudged her on the shoulder, saying excitedly, ‘You’re having a baby!’

Holly exhaled slowly and turned to look at the next race coming down the river.

‘Oooh, it’s Matt,’ Annie said and got up on her knees to start cheering from the boat.

Holly watched the race coming towards them. Cherry Pie Island Regatta was always her favourite day of the year. The sun was usually shining, the blossom was out, big, fluffy white balls of it, the petals getting in people’s hair and landing like confetti in the water.

Matt’s crew was winning by no more than a foot. The crowd on the bank were shouting and cheering. The two boats stormed past them like great, thundering racehorses, kicking out a wash that rocked their little launch. Annie wobbled and had to sit back down again.

This world Holly understood. But the world that was coming her way, she had no idea about. People often asked her what it was like at the Olympics. How she’d managed to cope with all the pressure. But it was like her old coach said to her, ‘There’s no such thing as a bad race, Holly, just bad equipment and bad preparation.’ She couldn’t have been more prepared when she’d sat on the start line of the Olympic final. Mentally, physically, she was in top shape. This, however, this now, this little lemon-sized baby, this was bad planning and bad preparation. And she was absolutely terrified.

Matt’s crew won. The crowd let out a roar. She watched her dad punch the air from where he’d just skidded his bike to a halt. Corks popped from the hospitality tent. Someone inside the ice cream van flicked the switch and the nursery rhyme tune blared out. Matt and all his crew saluted, dressed in their matching Cherry Pie pink racing kit.

In the motorboat, Holly drew them up level with the landing stage and cut the engine as Annie hopped out and tied it to the mooring.

Then, grabbing a megaphone that was on the bank, Annie shouted, ‘Free cherry pie all round.’ Then she grinned, held out her hand to help Holly out the boat, and when they were side by side, nudged her again and said, ‘It’s so exciting, Hol. You’re having a baby!’ Then, checking no one was coming over, went on to say, ‘Are you sure you don’t want to tell me who the father is?’

Chapter Two

The kids all went wild for free cherry pie and ran to queue at the ice cream van where Martha and Ludo from the Dandelion Café were serving from the little hatch.

As Matt’s crew pulled up to the landing stage, triumphant, he called Annie over as she was heading back to the ice cream van to serve. As she got close, he pulled her into a great sweaty kiss that made all the kids cheer and then the rest of his crew prised them apart and chucked Matt into the water.

Holly was dragged by the hand over to the line of rowers waiting for cherry pie slices and the story of the crash was recounted to her in great, excited detail. Then she saw Julian get distracted by something behind her, put two fingers in his mouth and do an ear-splitting wolf-whistle.

‘What’s that for?’ Holly asked and glanced over her shoulder to see Emily Hunter-Brown, the woman from the hospitality tent, sashaying towards them. She moved like a Praying mantis, long legs and arms almost feeling the way in front of her, stepping over a fallen tree trunk as elegantly as she could in six-inch peep-toe ankle boots, a denim mini-dress and a huge leopard-print scarf that hung off one shoulder like she’d just dragged it on as she stepped out of bed. She was holding her turquoise hat in one hand and had taken down her ponytail so Holly could now see that half her white-blonde hair had been dip-dyed blue. Over her eyes were sunglasses the size of melons.

It felt like the whole boat club turned to look, the guys carrying their single sculls from the water paused with their boats on their shoulders, the umpires stopped mid-manoeuvre in their motorboats, even Matt paused as he towelled himself dry after his soaking.

‘Darlings…’ Emily called when she was within earshot. ‘Holly!’ She waved. ‘Annie!’ She looked beyond Holly to where Annie had got back into the van and was helping to serve the cherry pie and tea. ‘I haven’t seen you for ages, Annie. And, Holly, we hardly got to catch up the other month. You did an amazing job on the vocals. I was so impressed.’

Holly smiled almost shyly. Since she’d given up rowing she’d done some ad hoc sessions for Alan Neil who owned the Lighthouse Recording Studio and had been working for him the week The Rolling Stones had come in to record. Emily had been there as part of their exclusive entourage.

Decades ago Alan had noticed Holly’s vocal talent when she sang in the school choir, but it was around the age that she’d chosen rowing over singing. It wasn’t a choice she regretted ‒ rowing had taken her across the world, introduced her to amazing new people, pushed her to limits she had never thought possible, all the while offering her a focus away from her crumbling home life. But she was never a hundred percent certain whether she’d chosen the rowing path to spite her mother who was so keen on the singing one, or whether she’d just acted on an instinct that happened to clash with her mother’s preference. She hoped it was the latter ‒ but she remembered her fourteen-year-old self as being very stubborn.

Now, the work at the recording studio offered the option of a different path and was like a second chance, a breath of new air. The week Emily had been there had been the best week Holly could remember and she’d loved it ‒ the smell of the studio, the intensity of the work, the camaraderie and then the ensuing buzz and the wind-down that had led to lock-ins at the The Dog and Cherry, champagne in the cherry orchard and, as rumour had it, some naked midnight swimming in the river. It had been such a contrast to her life up to that point that she’d felt freer than she thought possible.

But then she’d made one classic mistake and now she was pregnant. And her mind was still clinging desperately to that sense of freedom, willing it back, willing it to stay.

‘Emily Hunter-Brown. Well, look at you!’ Annie jogged over and gave her a kiss on both cheeks.

‘Annie!’ Ludo called from where he was working furiously inside the van, ‘She comes, she goes, she does no work! Nothing!’

‘Sorry, Ludo,’ Annie laughed, then made a guilty face to Emily and Holly and sloped back to the van. ‘I’ve spent all week stuck inside the café with the builders. If I’m not there they do nothing. How hard can it be to fix a café roof?’ she added as she pulled the van door open and hauled herself inside.

‘I heard you’ve taken over the café?’ Emily said to Annie, wandering over and resting her elbows on the shelf of the ice cream van.

‘Off!’ ordered Ludo, bashing her arms away with his spatula, ‘There’s too much work for chatting.’

‘Aye, aye, tiger,’ Emily said with a giggle. ‘He’s a feisty one, isn’t he?’ Then she took a step back and ran her hand along the side of the ice cream van, ‘I loved this van. It’s so sweet… Do you remember it was every afternoon after school in the summer it’d be by the park gates? God and you used to work in it, didn’t you, Hol? I forgot about that. And Enid would always get cross cos you gave us free Mini Milks. Ha, have you got any Mini Milks, Annie?’

‘’Fraid not, just cherry pie, Victoria Sponge, tea and coffee. It’s Holly’s van now, did you know that? Enid left it to her.’

‘Is it?’ Emily turned Holly’s way. ‘I’m so jealous. I just love it.’

Julian sauntered over in just his tracksuit bottoms, his bare thirteen-year-old chest puffed out and said, ‘We cleaned it yesterday.’

‘Did you now?’ Emily said with a smirk, humouring his seriousness.

‘Oh yes. I can give you a tour if you like. Show you all the work we did?’

‘I think I’m OK, actually,’ Emily smiled. ‘But thanks for the offer.’

‘Well, anytime,’ Julian said, chucking his T-shirt over his shoulder and loping away, trying to look like a real dude. Emily scrunched up her nose at Holly to show how sweet she thought he was.

Holly laughed.

‘So what are you going to do with it? The van? Do you rent it out?’

Holly walked over to join her next to the window and the little shelf that had flower pots of cutlery and blossom twigs in jam jars on it. ‘I don’t know really, as Julian said, I’ve only just got it out from beside the boathouse. It took the whole day to scrub it down. I have no idea what I’m going to do with it.’

‘I’ll hire it.’

‘What for?’ Holly frowned.

‘You know my mum’s getting married. Again. In the South of France. She'd go nuts for this van. Like totally nuts. She loves ice cream.’ Emily walked round to the front and traced her hands over the little round vintage headlights, ‘Weirdly, her favourite flavour is vanilla. Who has vanilla as their favourite flavour?’

‘I like Ben & Jerry’s Karamel Sutra,’ shouted Julian from where he was packing up his bag.

‘Oh god!’ Emily giggled and shook her head. ‘I’m old enough to be your mother, so stop flirting.’

Emily Hunter-Brown founder and CEO of EHB Cosmetics, was best known to the public as the girl left at the altar by Hollywood megastar Giles Fox. Branded by the paparazzi as a romantically-doomed, eternally-single party-girl, Holly and Annie knew her because she’d been at school with them for a year after being expelled from a flash boarding school in London. Her father had died when they were little, leaving more debt than money, and their mother had subsequently married a variety of very rich, very old men who kept them in the manner to which they’d become accustomed, but some were nicer than others. For their few years on the island, they’d lived in the old manor house on the other side from the boathouse, near the new-build estate. It was an old Georgian building with sprawling grounds and an east and west wing.

The year that Emily had been at school with them had been the funniest, naughtiest year they’d known. She was like this bright burst of flame; a devil-may-care, live-for-the-moment, try-anything-once-kinda girl with an infectious, dirty laugh and a face like a pixie.

‘How’s your brother?’ Annie asked as Emily finished inspecting the van and came back to stand with Holly.

‘Oh Wilf’s the same as always. Gallivanting around. I don't see him that often at the moment. He came to the island though, with me the other month when The Rolling Stones were recording. We had so much fun, didn’t we, Holly?’

Holly, whose heart had started beating really loudly in her ears at the mention of Wilf, nodded as casually as she could.

Emily paused and seemed to study her more closely. ‘I thought you and Wilf seemed to get on particularly well, Hols.’

‘Not really.’ Holly shook her head, knowing she’d said it too quickly. She felt Annie glance up from the tea she was making and look her way.

‘Yeah you did, I thought you looked very cosy in the pub,’ Emily winked.

Holly shrugged. Annie’s mouth started to open.

But they were interrupted by a shout behind them. The kids, who were meant to be washing down boats, putting blades away and generally tidying up, had all got bored and started throwing sponges at each other and flicking water from their water bottles.

‘Stop it!’ Matt, who had dried himself off and was now dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, shouted again as he got sprayed with water meant for Julian.

On the river the last two boats were racing, storming down side by side as all the spectators in Alan’s hospitality tent were roaring drunkenly. The kids paused their water-fight to stop and watch and Matt cupped his hands together to cheer for the losing Cherry Pie team. Holly watched her dad cycle down the tow-path, red-faced and shouting furiously at his crew. Emily, completely uninterested in the racing, kicked off her boots and bent to pick them up, ‘My feet are killing me. Holly, listen, I’m serious about hiring out the van. My mum’s been looking for something like this for ages but the idea of sorting it from France - nightmare! Her theme is all boho chic and she wants all these little vintage touches. We’ve been collecting bloody jam jars for yonks for the flowers - I had to carry them over in my suitcase last time I went over there. If they’d stopped me at customs they'd have thought I was nuts. This couldn’t be more perfect because she adored Enid and this would tie it all up so brilliantly. She’d probably love to have you there too, she always thought you were marvellous. Much better than me,’ she laughed, ‘Come on, how would it work? Who would drive it? Would I drive it? I’m a terrible driver.’

Holly shook her head. ‘Emily, I have no idea. I’m not even really hiring it out.’

‘Will Wilf be at the wedding?’ Annie asked, not really taking her eyes off Holly.

Emily nodded, ‘Definitely, he’s just invested in a bar with my mum’s new husband.’

Annie looked pointedly at Holly, ‘You should do it, Hols. You should go with Emily.’

Holly ignored her.

‘I’ll pay you. What are you thinking, cost wise? You name it, I’ll double whatever you’re thinking if I can make this happen.’ Emily looked at Holly, her face serious, as if she’d suddenly snapped into business mode.

Holly watched Annie lean down at the window and wait to listen to what Holly would say. She knew Holly needed money. She had no steady job, she’d taken the last seven months off and had very little savings left. Now she was about to have a baby to support and only the minimum government maternity allowance to do it with.

‘I don’t know,’ Holly said in the end. Behind her she could hear Matt shout again as the kids started to chuck water at each other again, ‘If you lot spray me again, I’ll put the hose on you. Julian! I’m warning you.’

‘I really think you should, Hol,’ Annie said, eyebrows raised.

‘Why are you using that tone of voice, Annie?’ Emily asked. ‘Is this to do with Wilf? Holly, did something happen with you and Wilf, because you know I thought something did and I asked him and he said that nothing happened, which is unusual for him, but I was sure something happened. Did something happen?’

‘No.’ Holly shook her head. ‘Nothing happened.’

But as she said it, she was caught in the midst of the full-blown water-fight that had broken out between the juniors and Matt, who had just turned the hose on full force.

‘Oh my god!’ Holly held her hands up against the water.

A second later, they were all dripping. Emily’s bare legs and the hem of her denim dress were soaked. Annie’s choppy blonde fringe was flattened to her head. But Holly had got the brunt of it and was wet from head to toe. Auburn hair darkened to black, skin glowing with water, eyelashes all clumped together, black leggings wet through and baggy white T-shirt now see-through and sticking to her body.

Anyone who was looking would notice, before she turned away to grab her sweatshirt, that she was probably about three months’ pregnant. And, of course, Emily was looking.

‘Oh Jesus,’ Emily said as Holly stood there, trying to get her jumper on as fast as possible. ‘Are you preggers? You’re not…? You are!’ She held her hand to her lips for a second, then asked, ‘Is it Wilf’s?’

‘Can we just not talk about it?’ Holly said, waving her hands to try and make Emily be quiet.

‘Holly, this is all the more reason to come to France. You could sound Wilf out.’

When Holly didn’t reply, just looked around to see who might be within earshot, Emily added, ‘the worst thing you could do is not tell him, Hol. He doesn’t trust people very easily at the best of times.’

‘And how do I tell him?’ Holly whispered, not looking at Annie, who seemed to exhale with relief that she’d finally admitted who the father was. ‘I can’t just text him and say, by the way, I’m having your baby.’

‘Why not?’

‘Oh please.’

‘I could tell him for you.’ Emily shrugged and got her phone out of her pocket.

‘Don’t you dare!’

Emily laughed as Holly tried to snatch it from her. ‘So come to France, then! Please. It’ll make my mum love me and she’s been in a filthy mood since that whole Rolling Stones nightclub paparazzi incident. And you can tell Wilf all softly, softly in lovely warm South of France-esque surroundings. Pleeeease.’ Emily held her hands together and stared at Holly with her big blue eyes. ‘If nothing else, do it for the money.’

‘The money would be useful, Holly,’ Annie added.

Holly looked up at the van, at the blue and white striped awning and the inside patterned with tiny blue forget-me-nots. She wondered what Enid would have told her to do. Enid was always about straight-up honesty. Except Annie had found a government letter in the café clean-up addressed to Enid about a guy injured in the war. A guy who wasn’t Enid’s husband. So maybe she wasn’t so honest after all.

She thought back to when she was an angry fourteen year old. Holly remembered sitting on the fridges in the van, eating a 99 with chocolate sauce. It was just after her mum had left. Ran off with one of the men she cleaned for. They’d apparently been having an affair for two years. Two years Holly and her dad’s life with her had been a lie.

Two years.

She remembered a conversation she’d had with Enid, who had subtly stepped into the void left by her mother. She was there keeping watch, always just checking…

‘Coach Billy says you haven’t been training for two weeks,’ Enid had said while serving a little boy a lemonade lolly.

‘Why is he telling you?’

‘Well, if he tells your dad he knows he’ll probably take it a bit too seriously. And if he tells you, he knows he’ll get some smart-arse response. So, seeing as I have to put up with you every afternoon, not really working—’ She’d turned to look at her. ‘Am I paying you to sit on the fridge? Or to clean the fridge?’

‘Clean the fridge,’ Holly had said, crunching on the cone of her 99.

‘Well clean the bloody fridge. Jesus Christ, girl. Your mother has a lot to answer for.’ Enid pulled a couple of 99 cones for a group of school kids and then wiped her hands and took a swig of her Coke. ‘You make your own future, Holly. Don’t let your mother’s mistakes mess up yours. You’re a good little rower and you could go far. I want to be cheering for you at the Olympics, not watching you getting stoned round the back of the playground like the kids I’ve seen you messing about with. Go and find Annie, be nice to Emily ‒ she’s not all bad ‒ and get back in a boat. OK? You have potential. Yes?’

Holly slid off the fridge top and went and got the Mr Muscle.

‘Yes?’ she said again.

Holly stared down at Enid’s orange flip flops. ‘Maybe.’

‘For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve never been afraid of anything. Don’t start now.’

Back in the present, Holly looked from Emily to Annie and back again. Emily was watching her, all big eyes and nodding. Annie’s eyes were narrowed, clearly unsure which way it might go.

‘OK. OK.’ Holly nodded, and Emily clapped her hands together. ‘It’s not a bad idea. I know I have to tell him, and yes, this could be a good way of doing it.’

‘Awesome,’ Emily said, standing back to admire the van. ‘The ferry leaves tomorrow evening.’

Chapter Three

From: WilfredHunterBrown@gmail.com

To: HollySomers22@gmail.com

We need to talk. Emily says you’re pregnant and it’s my baby.

I’m playing polo tomorrow. Come by the club on the way to your ferry.

Were you ever going to tell me?

W

Chapter Four

‘Jesus, you told him?’ Holly was waiting by the ice cream van, hopping from one leg to the other, waiting for Emily to turn up. As soon as she could see her at the end of the road, she shouted the question at her.

‘It slipped out,’ Emily called back. She was walking slowly in high wedge mules and skin-tight black Capri pants.

‘It slipped out?’ Holly held her arms out either side of her. ‘You only had to keep it in for an evening! How did it slip out?’

Emily got to the van slightly out of breath, ‘Oh I don’t know, I was excited. I didn’t think you’d ever tell him.’

‘Oh man, Emily, now he hates me. He thinks I was never going to tell him.’

‘No, he doesn’t hate you.’ She bit down on her slick red bottom lip, ‘He just maybe isn’t quite sure, you know? Needs maybe calming down a bit.’

Holly raised her eyebrows, aghast.

Emily looked sheepish, ‘It didn’t go quite how I thought it would. But I think it’ll be OK. You've got all of France to talk about it.’

‘Shit!’ Holly hit the side of the van.

‘You look really tired.’ Emily pulled her sunglasses off and stared at her.

‘That’s because I didn’t really sleep last night! Oh god, Emily. Why do you do this to me?’

‘It’s fine.’ She waved her hand. ‘Oh look, there’s Annie. Hey, Annie, do you want to come to France with us? I’m worried that Holly might kill me. I need a chaperone.’

Annie was holding in a smile as she appeared with a big shopping bag that she handed to Holly, ‘I made you both some travelling sustenance. Thought it might help.’ She made a face at Holly, half sympathetic, half encouraging.

‘Is there pie?’ Emily asked, tottering over to peer in the Sainsbury’s bag. ‘Ooh there is, and what’s this, a Thermos. Well done, Annie. It’s like a proper road trip.’ She glanced at Holly. ‘Oh come on, smile, talk to me. You can’t ignore me the whole way. We’ve got a twelve-hour drive ahead of us. So I messed up. I think it’ll be a good thing in the end. Look, we swing by the polo, we sort it out, we meet up in France in a couple of days when he’s calmed down.’ Emily glanced at Annie who nodded enthusiastically at Holly.

Holly rolled her eyes. ‘Fine,’ she said, trying not to look across the river at the boat club and the white froth of cherry trees behind it, trying not to feel that she was driving away from everything she knew and everywhere she felt safe. ‘Let’s go, let’s get this over with. Thanks for the food, Annie,’ she said, pulling herself up into the driver’s seat and picking her sunglasses up off the dash. ‘Wish me luck.’

‘Good luck, Hols. It’ll be OK. Just think that you’re doing it for the baby.’ Annie crossed her arms in front of her and smiled.

Holly blew out a breath and nodded, covering her eyes with her aviators.

Emily went sheepishly round to the passenger side. ‘Bye, Annie,’ she whispered. ‘Wish me luck.’

Annie scrunched up her face in sympathy, ‘Good luck, Em. Email me…’ she called as Holly started the engine. ‘Keep me updated. I want to know everything.’

They drove pretty much in silence. Emily, who clearly had a hangover from all the champagne at the regatta and didn’t want any more tellings off, wrapped her scarf round her head, put her bare feet up on the dashboard and went to sleep against the passenger side window.

Holly had been practising a technique from a stress-management talk given to the GB team at one of their international training camps. At the start of a race they’d been taught to think of a time they felt strongest and a time they felt calmest. The aim being to channel those feelings instead of the sick-making, hand-shaking pre-race nerves. Which were similar to how she felt now. Morning sickness was nothing compared to her current nausea. A couple of Rich Tea biscuits would not make this go away. Instead she thought of her strong time. She used to use a memory of winning her first-ever race, crossing the finish line and seeing her dad cheering and waving his arms triumphant. Now she needed something else, something less physical strength and more emotional.

She thought of kneeling down next to her dad’s chair in the living room when she was back from university and saying, ‘You have to tell Mum she can’t come back. Dad, she’s using you. She’s using us. She comes back and then she leaves, can’t you see that? You have to tell her that she can’t come back this time. You have to.’ All the while thinking, let her beg to stay, please let her beg to stay and say that she’s changed. Please let her surprise us. Please let it be different.

She thought of her dad taking a deep breath, shaking his head and leaving the room. Her thinking that it would be the same. That once again her mum would come back for six months or so and then break their hearts again. That all the courage it had taken for her to tell her dad to make this change was for nothing.

Until she looked out the window the next morning and her mum was getting into a black cab. And her dad was watching from the porch. And Holly felt this shuddering sense of relief that it was over.

She had waited on the stairs for her dad to shut the front door and when he’d seen her he’d come to sit down next to her, the paisley carpet under their feet, put his arm around her shoulders, kissed her hair and said, ‘Thank you.’

That was her feeling of strength.

That was the courage that flooded through her veins.

And the calm? The calm was the mornings on the river. Always the same. In winter the sheets of ice would crack and float like sculptures, in spring the cherries would flower and the river would flood and burst its banks, in summer the cygnets would grow into big, fat swans and in autumn the leaves would paint the sky red like a bonfire. Every morning she would take her boat out, she would row up to the weir and back, past the willow dipping its leaves tentatively in the chilly water, past the pub, closed and shuttered up, under the bridge where she’d lie back and look up and see the moss growing on the wooden slats. The river would always smell the same, a sharp tang that infused her skin, her clothes, her life. And as her boat floated in the stream, she would watch the water as it eddied and flowed and the waves danced in the rising sunlight.

That was calm.

Two minutes later, Emily woke up, all groggy and complaining of a crick in her neck. And as she yawned and stretched her arms and the van rounded a bend, ahead of them a huge white and maroon sign for the polo club, she peered forward and said, ‘We’re here. That’s Wilf’s car.’

And all Holly’s inner calm and strength went straight out the window.

Chapter Five

The drive up to the polo field seemed endless. Lining the road were people dressed in polo shirts and blazers, chatting in groups by their flash cars. Arriving in an ice cream van, Holly had never felt so conspicuous in her life. Especially when Emily got over-excited and switched on the nursery rhyme Tannoy so the whole place turned and looked at them and the van sang its way in.

‘There’s Wilf, over there…’ Emily pointed to the far field where a match had just ended. One guy was sitting astride his pony, the other was leading his by the rein. ‘And that’s Alfonso, the guy on the pony. He’s Argentinian, bloody awesome player and absolutely stunning. Just wait till we get close up.’

Holly wasn’t really listening, her blood was rushing in her ears. Wilf had looked up at the sound of the van approaching and stopped where he was. Alfonso had paused, glanced up to see what it was that had caught Wilf’s attention.

‘Pull up on the end of this row,’ Emily said, jumping down out of the van almost before it was parked. ‘Come on. Quicker we get this done, the easier it will be.’ She stopped and turned when she realised Holly hadn’t got out the van. ‘Holly. I promise, it’ll be OK.’ She walked back over to the driver’s side. ‘I shouldn’t have told him, but…’ She blew her hair out of her eyes. ‘It’s done now and I think it’s for the best. At the very least it means that you don’t have to do this on your own. I told him he had to support you. He’s loaded.’

‘I don’t want his money, Em.’ Holly put her hand to her mouth. ‘God, do you think he thinks that I want his money? I don’t want any money. Oh god, it gets worse.’

‘You’re entitled to his money, Holly. For the baby. Oh he’s coming over. Get out of the van. And flump up your hair a bit. And put your sunglasses back on because your eyes look knackered. Hey, Wilf!’ Emily waved. ‘Hi, Alfonso. Oh I love your pony, she’s so lovely. Look at you…’ Emily skipped over to the chestnut mare, rested her hand on the white star on its forehead and made faces into its big unblinking brown eyes.

Holly slipped cautiously down from the cab of the van, brushing down her jeans and then pulling her hands into the cuffs of her jumper, preparing herself almost for battle.

But the reality of it all, the bright sunshine, the lush grass and the chugging of the sprinkler, Emily jabbering on at Alfonso and his pony, Wilf’s palomino munching on a polo mint, wasn’t as she expected.

In her mind she’d had the Eastenders’ theme tune, shouting and maybe a bit of hair-pulling, death stares and ‘how dare you’s. But instead, standing in front of her was Wilf. The same guy who she’d bumped into in The Duck and Cherry pub when they all came to visit the island. The guy who’d sidled up to her all lazy confidence, a pint in one hand, the other toying with a beer mat and said, ‘Miss Somers. What a pleasure…’

Holly, who had been sitting alone while Matt went to get drinks at the bar, had leant forward, elbows rested on the little pub table and said, ‘Nice to see you, Wilf. It’s been a while since you were back on the island.’

‘Hasn’t it just?’

The last time she’d seen him was at the one and only Cherry Pie Festival about fifteen years ago. Wilf, a budding entrepreneur, had just finished boarding school and was desperate to make some cash, start his empire and never look back. Teaming up with his best mate, Alan Neil’s eldest son, Jack, quite possibly the coolest kid on the island, they’d put on what was meant to be a mellow, bijoux little festival. The plan had been to laze about on hay bales in the grounds of the manor house, dance to some local bands, eat food from cute stalls and get drunk till dawn. That all happened, except the flyers got photocopied and passed on and on until more people arrived than the island had ever seen. For Holly, Annie and Co. it was brilliant. For the residents it was less so. By 1 a.m. the police had been called and the little festival shut down. Wilf and Jack scored it a success because they’d more than doubled their money. The residents banned it from ever taking place again. Holly remembered sitting eating cherry pie in the cafe the next morning, dreamily remembering the cheeky snog she’d had with Wilf behind the band marquee. She’d left for a warm-weather training camp in Seville the next day and by the time she got back, Wilf had moved onto bigger, better things. His empire had indeed started and his face, like his sister’s, was all over the society pages of Tatler and Harper’s Bazaar. But while interviewers seemed to fixate on Emily’s single status - ignoring details about her new product launches and asking her over and over again how she felt about her almost-marriage and her doomed relationship history - Wilf just got a few lines referring to him as a bachelor business mogul or playboy restauranteur, then acres of coverage about whichever of his new restaurants was about to open.

‘I hear you’re doing OK for yourself,’ Holly had said, thrumming the pub table with her fingers, glancing up at Wilf, licking her suddenly dry lips.

‘As are you, Miss Somers. What was it at the Olympics? Bronze?’

‘Silver.’

‘Congratulations.’

‘Thank you.’

‘My pleasure.’

‘Don’t look at me like that.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like you think I’ll jump straight into bed with you.’

Wilf had laughed and said, ‘I think you’ll find you’re looking at me exactly the same way.’

Now, at the polo ground, as Holly walked further away from the safety of the ice cream van, for a second or two, when her eyes met Wilf’s, before anyone spoke, there was that same unguarded connection. He looked dishevelled and tired. His white trousers were grass-stained, his duck-egg polo shirt muddy, his hair pushed back with sweat, the tips of his cheekbones pink under his tan, the hollow around his eyes dark like he’d slept as little as Holly.

But then he glanced to his right, saw Emily and Alfonso watching them, waiting, and turned back, one eyebrow raised and said, ‘Well, if it isn’t the mother of my child.’

Holly sighed and turned away from him, running her tongue under her top teeth and fixing her stare on the ponies warming up on the practice ring. Emily said, ‘Wilf!’ And Alfonso coughed as if he had embarrassed shock caught in his throat. Then he jumped down from his pony, took a couple of strides in Holly’s direction and, hand outstretched, said, ‘Excuse my friend for his rudeness. We lost today and he doesn’t like to lose. You must be Holly? Alfonso,’ he said, one hand on his chest to indicate he was talking about himself.

‘Hi,’ Holly said, swallowing over a lump in her throat, half anger, half held in tears. ‘It’s really nice to meet you.’

‘The pleasure is absolutely all mine. You are going to France this evening, yes? I am driving over later in the week. I have never actually been to France before, can you believe it?’ He smiled and the corners of his eyes tipped up like a cat.

Holly bit down on her thumbnail and smiled, ‘It’s really beautiful, I’ve heard. From Emily.’

‘And I have heard from Wilfred.’ Alfonso turned to try and include Wilf in the conversation, but his jaw was set and he clearly wasn’t in the mood for casual chit-chat.

‘We should probably go to the clubhouse, talk privately,’ Wilf said, indicating towards the big white pavilion, its arched windows sparkling in the sunshine, beautifully topiaried pot plants lined up along the terrace and a huge viewing platform just behind it from where you could survey the entire grounds of the club.

‘I’m not sure there’s time for that,’ Emily said, taking a step forward so she was standing next to Alfonso.

Wilf frowned. ‘What do you mean there’s no time? Your ferry’s not till tonight.’

‘No, actually it’s in two and half hours from Dover.’

‘What?’ Holly held her hands out wide in disbelief.

‘Yeah,’ Emily twizzled her hair around her forefinger. ‘I got it wrong.’

‘Like hell you did,’ Wilf dragged a hand through his sweaty hair and exhaled slowly, his sigh practised over years of exasperation with his sister.

Emily trotted barefoot over to the van where she pulled out her wheelie suitcase and thumped it on the shorn grass, ‘Yeah and also, I can’t come with you, Holly. Sorry.’ She bit her lip, ‘I’ve realised I have stuff to do, important work stuff, so I think the only way it can work is if I go with Alfonso‒’

‘Hang on.’ Wilf held up a hand, ‘What important work stuff?’

Emily looked affronted, ‘Just some stuff that has come up at the office.’

Wilf narrowed his eyes. ‘I don’t believe you.’

Emily shrugged. ‘Well that’s your prerogative. Anyway, I’ll drive with Alfonso later in the week.’

‘No, Emily, you can’t do this.’ Wilf shook his head. ‘I’m driving with Alfonso.’

‘Well it can’t be the three of us because there’s only two seats in the Ferrari,’ said Emily, concentrating intently on a strand of her blue hair.

‘She has a point.’ Alfonso agreed.

Holly couldn’t quite believe this was happening. But, more than she was annoyed with Emily for getting her into this situation, she found herself increasingly irritated with Wilf. She’d spent the last three months confused, terrified, alone, frustrated, unsure ‒ yet, right now, he could barely look her in the eye. How would he have handled it? she wondered. Conference-called her at the office? Turned up on her doorstep the day the stick turned blue? Called on his mobile as he was slumped against a wall, sobbing outside the doctor’s? Course he wouldn’t. That was what she wanted to tell him, now. Pull him aside from this stupid bickering about who was driving who and say, ‘You would have panicked too. Because this is hard. So stop bloody looking at me like that!’

She turned away and watched a couple of guys warming up on the pitch closest to her, hitting the ball back and forth, shouting jokes, their ponies tight balls of energy.

She got out her phone and texted Annie:

I think Emily’s set me up. She’s making it so Wilf will have to drive me to France. I don’t want to go with either of them. I wish I’d never agreed to this.

Almost immediately, her phone bleeped back at her.

Just go with the flow. Stress is not good for the baby. A x

The baby.

Her baby.

Their baby.

The very idea of a baby growing inside her, a baby tied to this world, to this guy, made Holly suddenly have to rest her forearm on the post next to her.

‘Are you OK? What’s the matter?’ Wilf was at her side in an instant. Quicker than she actually thought someone could move.

‘I’m fine,’ she said, slightly taken aback. ‘I just… I was hot, I think.’

‘Do you want some water?’ He reached around to his back pocket and pulled out a bottle of Evian.

Holly frowned. ‘Yeah, thank you.’

‘It’s OK.’ He unscrewed the cap and took a sip.

When she tried to give it back, he waved it away as if she should keep it. Putting the bottle down on the bonnet of the van, Holly cleared her throat and said, to all of them, ‘Look, I don’t want to hang around and listen to all of this. I can go on my own. Wilf, you clearly don’t want to drive there with me and, to be honest, I think it would be all a bit weird, so I’m just going to go on my own and that’ll give us some time to…you know, calm down a bit. OK? Good.’ She turned and headed towards the driver’s side door. Anything to get her away from here, away from the heat and scent and closeness of Wilf standing next to her.

The more she thought about it, the more the idea of going on her own felt like it could be a good thing. Get her to bond with the baby. She’d tried talking to it last week and had felt ridiculous so stopped. A couple of days’ journey on her own might force them into conversation.

‘Codswallop,’ she heard Emily say. ‘Can you imagine what Annie would say if I let you drive, pregnant and alone, to France in a bloody ice cream van. No way.’ Emily shook her head, ‘No, Wilf, you’ve got to go with her.’

Holly paused as she opened the van door, just to check what his reaction was going to be.

Wilf’s top lip tilted up in a half-sneer. ‘I can’t just go now.’

Holly huffed a laugh. Emily raised her eyebrows and did a slight shake of her head. Wilf looked away, scraped his hand through his hair again, then wiped sweat off his forehead with his wrist. ‘It’s just. No. We can’t go together.’

Holly got in the van, slammed the door and started the engine.

Emily ran her finger along her bottom lip, drew her eyebrows together in a frown. The window of the van was open and Holly heard her say, ‘So you’d be happy to let Holly drive, pregnant ‒ with your baby I hasten to add ‒ and alone, all the way to the South of France. Go Wilfred. Very gentlemanly. Nice one.’

As Holly was reversing out of the space, she saw Emily backing away towards the clubhouse with Alfonso, her expression one of disappointment, shaking her head at Wilf. Alfonso was looking at the grass.

Holly was halfway down the rubbly path, passing the spectators having picnics from wicker baskets and lounging in deckchairs. She was contemplating their freedom when suddenly the passenger door swung open and Wilf jumped in. She slammed on the brakes. He was out of breath from his sprint but still frowning when he said, ‘Why are you stopping? There’s a ferry to catch.’

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