Vivien Brown - Five Unforgivable Things

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One family torn apart by secrets and betrayals. Perfect for fans of Sue Fortin.Over twenty years ago, Kate’s dream came true. After years of struggling, she was finally pregnant after pioneering IVF. But the dream came at a cost. Neither Kate nor her husband, Dan, could have known the price that they would have to pay to fulfil their cherished wish of having their own family.Now, years later, their daughter Natalie is getting married and she’s fulfilling her own dream of marrying her childhood sweetheart. Natalie knows she won’t be like most brides in her wheelchair, but it’s the fact her father won’t be there to walk her down the aisle that breaks her heart.Her siblings, Ollie, Beth and Jenny, gather around Natalie, but it isn’t just their father who is missing from their lives… as the secrets that have fractured the family rise to the surface, can they learn to forgive each other before it’s too late?

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Dan was like a different person that night. He had stopped being the quiet, smart, suited accountant I had grown to know and love and transformed into Dan Campbell, farm boy. He wore an open-necked checked shirt I was sure I had never seen before, and moved around the room, kicking his heels and swaying his shoulders to the music and greeting every newcomer as if he’d known them all his life, which he probably had. Every now and then, when he could tell from my face that I was struggling, he would come and rescue me from a baffling conversation about milk quotas or silage and pull me back into his arms to dance.

‘Well? What do you think? Is country life what you expected?’ he said, sitting me down in front of a plate of bread and cheese and spooning a dollop of his mum’s home-made pickle out onto the side.

‘Not at all. But I’m sure it’s not like this all the time, is it?’ I gazed at his face as his warm fingers brushed against mine and the candlelight sent tiny flecks of colour bouncing and sparkling in his eyes, and just for a moment I wondered what it would be like to give in to what I was feeling, to forget the world outside, Mum and Trevor, my job at the bank, and just stay here in this magical place for ever.

‘Of course not. Dad will be up milking at the crack of dawn as usual, and Mum will be out here with a broom in one hand and probably feeding the hens with the other! It’s who they are. Creatures of habit. Hard workers. At one with the land and all that. But it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, and probably not mine, to be honest … Now, come over and meet Helen. She was the first girl I ever kissed! A long time ago, in the playground when we were five, but I’ve never forgotten it, even though she probably has!’

The floorboards creaked later, on the landing between Dan’s room and mine, as he crept across and closed the door behind him, like a naughty schoolboy sneaking about after lights out, but suddenly I couldn’t bear the thought of us sleeping separately, and if anybody heard us they were probably too tipsy to care. I couldn’t bear the thought of him kissing anyone but me either, even if it had been years ago when this Helen friend of his was just a little girl with pigtails. I’d met her tonight and she wasn’t so little nowadays, particularly in the breasts department. And Dan was mine now. Whoever he had chatted to, danced with, even flirted with in a mild kind of way, during the party, it was my bed he was curled up in that night, and my breasts that were squashed, snugly and sweatily, against his skin.

I think that was the night I decided I would marry him. Not that he’d asked me yet, despite his mumblings on the train, but it was coming. I knew it was. I could feel it. And big happy dreams of our future life together filled my head as I slept, my head resting on his bare chest as it rose and fell, and the gentle contented sounds of his snoring filled the room.

Chapter 4

Ollie, 2017

Ollie put his glass down and reached for another handful of crisps. He really mustn’t drink too much tonight. He needed to keep his wits about him and create a good impression if he could.

He took a deep breath, feeling the familiar tightness that he often felt in stressful situations, wished he had thought to bring his inhaler, and turned his attention back to the girl sitting in front of him. She was small and pretty, with a rather chubby but cheeky face surrounded by an unruly mane of dark curly hair. In the brief silence that fell while they were both thinking of something to talk about next, she was toying nervously with the stem of her wine glass. Her fingernails were painted in a shiny shade of pale pink with a strange darker pink band sweeping across the tip of each, and he wondered how long it must have taken her to do that, and why she would even want to.

The bell rang and she stood up. ‘Well, it’s been nice meeting you, Ollie.’

He took her hand and half rose from his chair to lean forward and kiss her on the cheek. Were you allowed to do that? Probably not. Still, she didn’t seem to object. ‘You too …’ Oh, no. His mind had gone blank and he had no idea of her name. ‘Yeah, you too!’

Within seconds another girl arrived to take her place across the table. ‘Hi, I’m Caroline.’

‘Ollie.’

He could already tell that this one was not his type at all. Too tall, too loud, too heavily made up. Still, he only had to be polite to her for three minutes. How hard could that be? He reached for his drink, took a swig and started counting the seconds off, one by one, in his head.

He hadn’t told anyone he was coming here tonight. He wasn’t really sure why he had come, except that there had to be more to life than sitting alone most evenings and feeling sorry for himself. He missed female company, someone to have a laugh with, to chat to, someone to share a bottle of wine with, to stop him drinking it all himself. And, yes, he missed the sex. Of course he did. He was a young man, a man on his own, and it had been a while.

He should have been at the chess club tonight, silently gazing at a wooden board, the clock counting down beside him as he pondered his next move. He hadn’t played much chess since he was a child but he’d come back to it recently, finding it somehow therapeutic, something to focus the mind.

He smiled to himself. The chess club wasn’t actually all that dissimilar to where he’d ended up, was it? In the back room of the Crown and Treaty, a very plain and ordinary West London pub, facing a series of strangers over a small table, with only minutes to decide when and if to make his move. Winners and losers, and not hard to guess which he was likely to be.

There were a lot more girls here than guys, which struck him as odd but, in theory, should work in his favour. Not bad looking most of them, which made him wonder why they were here at all, why they were finding it hard – perhaps as hard as he was – to meet someone in a more conventional way, or pluck up the courage to do something about their lives. It was probably all just a bit of fun for most of them, though, groups of girls giggling together at the bar afterwards as they compared notes and decided whether to put ticks or crosses against the names on their little slips of paper.

Nobody would choose him, of course. He’d not taken the trouble even to try to impress, either in what he was wearing (old jeans, frayed at the hem, and his favourite comfy grey jumper that hadn’t seen a washing machine in weeks) or in what he’d said. In fact, he’d sat back and let each of them do most of the talking and just added the occasional nod or grunt when it seemed expected. Was that because he couldn’t be bothered, or had he lost the art of conversation? Forgotten how to chat up women? It all seemed like such a lot of effort for so little reward. He was hardly going to find the love of his life tonight, was he? Not when he already knew exactly who she was, and where. Not here, that was where. Hundreds of miles away, probably, and not coming back.

The last girl stood up and moved away. He didn’t kiss this one. Didn’t feel the urge to. Looking down at the slip in front of him, he realised he’d stopped making any sort of mark on it three girls ago, when he’d rather rashly put a tick against the busty one. Julie. Not that he could remember much about her face, but he did like a good pair of tits, and you never knew, she just might let him have a feel later, if he bought her a few drinks and offered to share a taxi home. The drivers didn’t usually care what went on in the back, so long as you tipped well and kept bare flesh and bodily fluids off the seats.

Oh, God! He was starting to think like some kind of perv. Perhaps it was time to slip away before having to face the embarrassment of finding himself without a single match. He glanced at his watch. The chess would still be on down at the Scout hut. A bit late to get a game, maybe, but he could sit and watch, and have a quiet drink or two while he did. He pulled his coat off the back of his chair and put it on, crumpled up his voting slip (and with it any chance of becoming better acquainted with Julie’s cleavage) and dropped it onto the table, then went out into the street before anyone could call him back. The sounds of laughter dimmed as the heavy wooden door swung shut behind him. The offie should still be open on the high street, and it was a lot cheaper option than buying drinks here in the pub, that was for sure. He pulled his collar up against the rain and quickly walked away.

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