Chapter 1
PRESENT DAY
‘Claire, that guy over there is totally checking you out. Have you noticed?’
Claire flipped the tab to stop the flow of lager into the pint glass she was filling and followed her friend’s gaze. It was a typically busy night in the Pig and Whistle, so it took her a moment to locate the object of Pauline’s attention.
‘The one sitting to the right of the dartboard?’ she asked, having clocked a pair of dark eyes under full brows.
‘That’s him. He’s barely stopped looking at you all night.’
‘Eeuww, Pauline. He’s way too old.’
‘I don’t know. You’re nineteen. What’s he? Twenty-six? Twenty-seven? Perfect for someone like you. Unlike boys your age, he’s probably got a job, his own car, maybe even a house or flat. He’s not bad looking either, is he? You could do a lot worse, I reckon. Go over and say hello.’
‘Are you out of your mind? I might as well just chuck my knickers at him and tell him I’m desperate. No, if he’s interested, he’s got to make the first move, and I’m still not convinced about his age. My dad would freak.’
‘Your dad needs to realise that you’re an adult now. Time to start dating men instead of boys. There are loads of empty glasses nearby. Why don’t you do a collection run and see if he says anything? Go on. I’ll finish this order for you.’
Claire knew well enough that there was no point in arguing with Pauline when she was like this.
With a sigh, she picked up a tray, making her way slowly across the room to the table where the man was sitting.
Now that Pauline had pointed him out, she was acutely aware of his eyes on her as she moved.
‘Can I take these empties for you?’ she asked when she finally reached his table.
‘Thanks.’ He looked up at her and smiled. He had a nice smile, she had to admit, and Pauline was right. He was good-looking in a swarthy kind of way.
‘I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before,’ she remarked.
‘I’ve only just moved into the area,’ he explained. ‘I’m Darren, by the way. Darren Enticknap.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Darren. I’m Claire.’
I sigh and lift my eyes from the laptop screen to look out of the window.
Normally, I have no trouble slipping into the zone when I’m writing, but the last few paragraphs have taken over two hours.
What’s more, the text feels bland and clunky as I cast my eyes over it.
Ever since Angus left, writing has felt more like a chore than a pleasure and I can’t deny that it’s showing in the quality of my work.
If real life were anything like one of my books, I’d have seen Angus’s sudden departure coming. However, a month has passed since he decided – quite out of the blue – that he needed to be as far away from me as possible, and I still haven’t fully come to terms with it.
‘You’re not going to cry again. We’re moving on, Laura,’ I tell myself forcefully as I prepare to recite the mantra my best friend Olivia gave me when I was still raw and bewildered in the early days after he walked out.
‘Angus left because, well, I still don’t really know why he left if I’m honest, but it’s definitely more to do with him than me. ’
I shift my gaze to the dog basket beside my desk, unsurprised to see Meg’s chocolate eyes staring reproachfully at me.
I may be the one who normally walks and feeds her, but she’s always been more Angus’s dog than mine and, if anything, she’s moped even more than me since he left.
To be fair, a lot of that has probably just been her picking up on my misery.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ I chide her gently. ‘Us girls have got to stick together at times like this. For all we know, it might be you he suddenly decided he couldn’t stand any more and I was just collateral damage.’
I try to focus back on my work, but Meg has evidently decided that the fact I’ve spoken to her means something good is going to happen. She stands and shakes herself before resting her head on my thigh and staring at me, wagging her tail hopefully.
‘You’ve already had a walk today,’ I remind her. ‘Plus, the weather outside is filthy.’
The wagging only intensifies. I try hard to ignore her, but she ups the ante by nudging my elbow with her nose.
‘Fine,’ I say exasperatedly. ‘It’s not as if I’m achieving anything useful. Do you want me to see if Auntie Liv is around?’
The mention of one of Meg’s favourite human beings increases the tail wagging to such a frenzied level that her whole bottom is now swinging from side to side with the force of it. It’s impossible not to smile at such simple joy as I dial Olivia’s number.
‘Hi, Laura,’ she says breathlessly when the call connects. ‘What’s up?’
‘I feel like I should be asking you the same question!’ I reply. ‘You sound like you’re in the middle of running a marathon.’
‘I think that would be easier than the truth. Do you remember that yoga channel on YouTube I mentioned last week?’
‘Umm, no.’
‘I definitely told you about it. Anyway, I decided to give it a go. I thought yoga was supposed to be gentle, but I swear this woman is trying to kill me. Anyway, are you all right? How’s the book?’
‘The book’s fine but Meg’s hassling to see you. I’ll tell her you’re busy, don’t worry.’
Liv’s laughter is rich and full. ‘Translation,’ she replies. ‘You’re distracted and struggling to concentrate, so you’re using my favourite dog as an excuse to scrounge a cup of tea and a madeleine off me.’
‘OK, OK. You’ve got me.’
‘Have you seen the weather though? You’ll get soaked.’
‘I’ll come round to the back door so we don’t drip all over your hallway.’
‘Good plan. The garden gate is open so just let yourselves in. I’ll have a towel ready for Meg and I’m putting the kettle on now.’
‘I’ll see you in ten minutes.’
Liv was one of the first people I met when Angus and I moved from his home city of Glasgow to Margate four years ago.
She’s one of those people that, on paper, are easy to hate.
Born to idiotically wealthy parents, she coasted through various exclusive private schools, barely scraping passes at GCSE before getting herself expelled just before her A levels for ‘bringing the establishment into disrepute’.
The way Liv tells it, she was caught in a compromising position with a boy, but her father told a different story after a few glasses of wine one evening.
According to him, the incident with the boy was definitely instrumental, but the straw that broke the camel’s back was when she was found wandering through the town, drunk as a lord, one Saturday afternoon.
Any attempts to cajole her back to her room where she could sober up out of sight were met with bellowed, albeit beautifully enunciated, streams of such obscenity that the school allegedly felt the need to publish an apology in the local paper.
Whichever it was, she never sat her exams, deciding instead to gain ‘life experience’ through travel, to her parents’ horror.
At thirty-two, she may only be three years older than me, but she’s certainly crammed an awful lot more experience into her life than most people our age could manage.
In the time I’ve known her, she’s told me various stories of terrible jobs she did to keep herself afloat during that time, including one in a Thai brothel where she assures me – not entirely convincingly – that she wasn’t servicing clients, just making sure the rooms were kept well equipped with condoms, lube and the other accoutrements of the sex trade.
The one that captured her imagination, though, was a job in a patisserie on the outskirts of Paris.
She discovered a talent and passion for pastry that she retains to this day, and her long-suffering parents were so relieved when she came home and told them what she wanted to do that they had no hesitation about handing over her substantial trust fund so she could set up the coffee shop and patisserie that she still runs.
Which is how I met her; I applied for a job when we first moved south and spent a happy year working there before my writing career finally took off.
‘Fucking hell, look at the state of you,’ she drawls affectionately as Meg and I let ourselves in through the back door and I start to remove my dripping raincoat. ‘Did the rain do all of that or did you take a wrong turn through the car wash on your way over? Oh, Meg, no!’
It’s too late. Meg may be delighted to see her, but getting the excess water out of her coat onto the floor, up the walls and into the fabric of Liv’s clothes is obviously a higher priority than greeting one of her favourite people.
‘Come here, you idiotic animal, and let me dry you properly,’ Liv says as she wraps an excitedly wriggling Meg in a towel. ‘Look at the mess you’ve made of Auntie Liv’s special yoga leggings. I only bought them this morning.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say as she releases my dog, who promptly rushes over to the corner of the kitchen where she knows Liv keeps the treats. ‘I should have wiped her down outside.’
‘Don’t worry about it. To be honest, I’m really not sure Spandex is a good look on me.’ She rises to her feet and gives me a twirl. ‘What do you think?’
‘They certainly hug your figure.’
‘Very diplomatic. They don’t leave anything to the imagination, do they? You could probably count my pubes through them if you looked carefully enough. Trevor would have loved them, dirty bastard.’
‘And how is Trevor?’
‘No idea. We parted ways a couple of days ago, around five minutes after he mistakenly decided that having access to my knickers gave him the right to mansplain my business to me.’
‘Oops.’
‘Yeah. I don’t think he’ll be making that mistake again. Criticise me all you like – Lord knows I’m not perfect – but come for Maison Olivia and I’ll take your head off.’
‘Noted. Not that I’d have dared anyway.’
‘I still miss you in the shop. I know you’re a super-duper novelist these days, but are you sure you can’t fit in a few hours per week behind the counter? We did have some laughs, didn’t we?’