Trisha Ashley - Every Woman For Herself

Published by AVON

A Division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Judy Piatkus (Publishers) Ltd in 2002

This edition published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers in 2020

Copyright © Trisha Ashley 2002

Cover design by debbieclementdesign.com© HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2020

Cover illustration © Dominique Corbasson

Trisha Ashley 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 ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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: 9781847562821

Ebook Edition © January 2020 ISBN: 9780007540044

Version 2020-02-18

For my father, Alfred Wilson Long, with love.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Foreword

Chapter 1: Alien Husbandry: 2001

Chapter 2: Wrong in the Attic

Chapter 3: All Panned Out

Chapter 4: Sheared Off

Chapter 5: The Prodigal Daughter

Chapter 6: Pesto in the Kitchen

Chapter 7: Enlightenment

Chapter 8: Dangerous to Melons

Chapter 9: Nature in the Raw

Chapter 10: Small Change

Chapter 11: Parting

Chapter 12: Jumbled

Chapter 13: Jam Tomorrow

Chapter 14: In Combat

Chapter 15: Taken Out

Chapter 16: Going Hairless

Chapter 17: Surprised

Chapter 18: Absolution

Chapter 19: Nuts

Chapter 20: Returns

Chapter 21: Home Comforts

Chapter 22: First Cuckoo

Chapter 23: To the Bone

Chapter 24: Strange New Powers

Chapter 25: Much Travelled

Chapter 26: Dazed and Confused

Chapter 27: Present Magic

Chapter 28: Snapdragon

Recipes

Keep Reading …

About the Author

By the Same Author

About the Publisher

I’m delighted that Avon are reprinting Every Woman for Herself , because I have to admit it’s still my favourite literary child – and it’s obviously a favourite with readers, too, since not long ago they voted it one of the top three best romantic novels of the last fifty years, a great honour.

I haven’t rewritten it, merely tweaked a couple of errors into shape, brushed its hair and made sure it had a clean handkerchief, so since it was first published by Piatkus in 2002, it’s obviously very much of its time. But then, think how relaxing it will be to visit a remote Yorkshire valley with no phone signal for miles and only a dodgy dial-up internet connection. The Brontë family managed quite well without them and I hope you will too.

Happy reading, everyone!

Trisha Ashley

Got up at the crack of dawn to kill the Fatted Breakfast before driving Matt to the airport, only to discover that aliens had stolen my husband during the night and substituted something incomprehensibly vile in his place.

I expect their replicator was having a bad day. I distinctly remembered marrying a gentle, long-haired, poetry-spouting Jason King lookalike with a social conscience, but what was facing me over the breakfast table was a truculent middle-aged businessman, paunchy, greying, and flaunting a Frank Zappa moustache seemingly edged with egg yolk: but I knew better. The alien snot was the clincher.

It was not a pretty sight, but fascinating for all that.

I went to peer into the kitchen mirror to see if I’d changed as well: but no, I still looked like a miniature Morticia Addams.

‘Charlie,’ the Matt creature said impatiently, ‘did you hear what I said? About wanting a divorce?’

I certainly had; what did he think had ripped the veils of delusion from my eyes? But I was temporarily deprived of speech as almost a quarter of a century of married life flashed before my eyes in Hogarthian vignettes: Flake’s Progress .

The inner film came to a jerky halt. ‘Yes,’ I said finally, nodding. I understood.

Unfortunately my memory was not of the selective kind, a cheery sundial remembering only the happy hours, so my recollections were freely punctuated with loss. Lost mother, lost virginity, lost babies, lost husband, Lost in Space.

Charlie Rhymer, this was your life.

For some reason, Matt seemed disconcerted by my reaction. ‘We’ve grown apart since I’ve been taking these foreign contracts, and I’ve come to realise that this will be best for both of us. In fact, we can divorce right away, since we’ve been separated for more than two years.’

‘How can we be separated when you’re here?’ I asked, trying to get my head around this concept.

‘But I’m not really here, am I?’ he said impatiently. ‘I’m in Saudi.’

‘But you’re back for quite long holidays between contracts – and you said it would be better if I stayed here.’

‘You would have hated it – you know you don’t even like leaving the house, let alone the country.’

‘But that’s just York – it’s got the wrong sort of outside. I’m fine at home.’

‘ This is your home.’

‘I meant Upvale, and Blackdog Moors.’

‘You seemed eager enough to run away from it with me.’

‘That was love, and unplanned pregnancy, and Father.’

Matt said earnestly, ‘Charlie, it isn’t that I’m not still fond of you …’

‘Oh, thanks,’ I said. ‘In fact, thank you for having me.’

He ignored that; I’m not sure he even heard it, like most of the things I say.

‘It’s just that I’m not getting anything out of this marriage,’ he continued.

‘You make me sound like a bank. What were you expecting to get out? More than you put in?’

‘At least there are no children to complicate things,’ he said, which was a very low blow. He was starting to make me feel quite sick.

‘I’m sorry it’s come to this, Charlie, but we really can’t go on. I’ve been offered a long contract in Japan, and I can’t afford to continue maintaining two households.’

‘But the house … the mortgage?’ I said, my brain starting to limp onwards a bit, now the first shockwave had broken over my head. ‘What will happen?’

‘The divorce will go through quickly if we’re both in agreement – my solicitor will send you things to sign. Then I’ll pay you maintenance every month, so you won’t have anything to worry about. The solicitor will get in touch with you and explain everything.’

‘Will he? Is that what you’ve been doing this week, organising our divorce? Why didn’t you talk to me about it, instead of suddenly handing me a fait accompli on your last morning home? After all, I haven’t done anything, have I?’