Katie Munnik - The Heart Beats in Secret

The Borough Press

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2019

Copyright © Katie Munnik 2019

Cover photographs © Elizabeth Ansley / Trevillions Images

Cover design by Ellie Game © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019

Katie Munnik 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.

Excerpt from The Trail Of The Lonesome Pine Words and Music by Harry Carroll and Ballard MacDonald © 1927 Shapiro Bernstein & Co Inc Shapiro Bernstein & Co Limited, New York, NY 10022-5718, USA

Reproduced by permission of Faber Music Ltd All Rights Reserved.

Excerpt from Basho , translated by Lucien Stryk, Penguin 1985

Excerpt from A Doctor Discusses Pregnancy , William G. Birch, Budlong Press 1963

Excerpt from Everybody’s Pudding Book , by Georgiana Hill, Richard Bentley 1862

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: 9780008288082

Ebook Edition © April 2019 ISBN: 9780008288068

Version: 2019-12-19

‘Textured and beautiful. Katie Munnik has a voice full of quiet passion and poetry’

Kate Hamer

‘Munnik unfurls her story in quiet, reflective prose, but there is much to enjoy along the way’

Town and Country

‘[A] powerful, multi-generational novel … full of secrets, stories and discoveries’

Prima

‘Beautifully written and moving’

Woman’s Own

‘ The Heart Beats in Secret is a spacious and yet densely woven work … beautifully written’

The Cardiff Review

For Mike, of course.

What are heavy? Sea-sand and sorrow:

What are brief? To-day and to-morrow:

What are frail? Spring blossoms and youth:

What are deep? The ocean and truth.

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise for The Heart Beats in Secret

Dedication

Epigraph

Part One

Chapter 1: Pidge: 2006

Chapter 2: Felicity: 1967

Chapter 3: Pidge: 2006

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6: Felicity: 1967

Chapter 7: Pidge: 2006

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10: Felicity: 1968

Chapter 11: Pidge: 2006

Chapter 12

Part Two

Chapter 1: Jane: 1940

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Part Three

Chapter 1: Felicity: 1969

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Close: Pidge

Jane: 2006

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Katie Munnik

About the Publisher

For Columba Livia,

to be delivered after I am dead

Well, my dear, the house is yours. Regardless of what your mother might expect, I think it only makes sense. She wouldn’t really want it anyway. All the way out here on the other side of the world, isn’t it? Perhaps she might like to sell it and use the money, though I’m not sure that’s necessary. She seems comfortable where she is. And she’s never been one to look for windfalls or godsends. But maybe you could use a few, so I’m leaving it to you.

It’s a good old house. Friendly in its way. I’ve been happy here. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t be offended if you sell it, and I won’t haunt you. I promise. But before you decide anything, do come and see the old place. You haven’t been out here since you were a child, and it may feel different to you now. So come and stay for a while. Long enough to get a handful of warm days – we do get them here, you know, the kind when you open the windows in the morning and leave them open all day, forgetting about them until the curtains blow in just before sunset, when the wind shifts. I have never figured out why it does that. I always meant to ask someone, but never got around to it. Does it happen elsewhere? Or is it only here in this house? Maybe you know, my dear Pidge. Does anyone call you that any more? I must say, when I was drawing up the official paperwork, I had to be so careful with the spelling of your real name. Your mother was right – it has a lovely ring to it. But I was right, too, wasn’t I? It is a strange name to saddle any child with. Yet you, my dear, wear it well. Felicity said that the other mothers wanted to use old-fashioned names, like the ones their grandmothers wore – Jean, Rosa, Edith. Or natural-sounding names like Oak and Ivy, which are only apt out there in the woods. But she wanted something distinctive for you. Oh, your grandfather laughed! It is a beautiful name, even a little fancy in the best way, though pigeons are just as common as the rest of us. But perhaps no one knows Latin these days so that doesn’t matter. I hope you haven’t found it a burden. We all burden our children, I suppose. One way or another.

I hope this house won’t be a burden for you. It’s only a house. Or a bit of money, if you want it that way instead. You would need to clear things out first, so that’s another reason to visit. There may be a few things here you would like to keep. Books or photos, or sentimental odds and ends. It is all fairly old, but it has been useful. Useful or lovely.

When you come, you can take the car out, too. I’ve left that to you as well, though there’s a man in the village who would be happy to buy it. Just ask at the hotel and Muriel will point you in the right direction. She’ll also have a set of house keys for you, if there’s any trouble getting them from the lawyer. You’ll know her when you see her. I thought it best to provide local solutions so you don’t need to go into the city unless you’d like to. There’s more than enough to see around here. Drive out along the coast. Go see some ruins. Or the old doo’cots. There’s a man named Izaak who lives near here. A few years ago, he put together a calendar with drawings of all the local doo’cots. Beehives and lecterns and all that. He’s clever at shading and really captures the way light touches old stone. There should be a copy of it somewhere around the house. Maybe in the bookcase. I can’t quite remember.