Fern Britton - New Beginnings

FERN BRITTON

New Beginnings

Copyright

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright © Fern Britton 2011

Fern Britton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 9780007362691

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.

Ebook Edition © 2011 ISBN: 9780007383801

Version: 2018-02-16

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 e-books.

To you, the reader – thank you! Xx

Contents

Cover

Title Page FERN BRITTON New Beginnings

Copyright

Dedication

THEN . . .

NOW . . . Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Acknowledgements

By the same author

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THEN . . .

‘I want Marmite on my toast. Not Dairylea,’ Libby yelled downstairs at the top of her voice.

The day Christie’s life changed for ever, began just like any other. Her nine-year-old daughter was sulking on her bed.

Nick called up to her: ‘Darling, we don’t have Marmite. Mummy’s told you she’ll get some later. How about honey? Now, come and give your old dad a kiss goodbye, gorgeous girl.’

‘No.’ Libby already had a very definite mind of her own.

‘Well, you’ll have to go hungry, get weak and feeble, and you won’t be able to go out on your bike with me at the weekend.’

‘Don’t care.’

Christie came out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a tea-towel. ‘Libby! Come down here right now and eat your breakfast or you’ll be late for school.’

‘I hate you.’

‘Don’t speak to Mummy like that, madam.’

‘And I hate you too.’

‘She’s definitely from your mother’s side.’ Nick slid an arm around Christie’s waist. ‘See you later, my beautiful, clever wife. Love you. ’Bye, Freddie.’ He kissed them both, and Christie watched the back of his familiar head as he walked away down the mews.

Her morning happened as every morning happened. Wrestling with Libby’s stubbornness, coaxing both kids into the car and getting them off to their schools. By nine forty-five she was back indoors and ready to clear the breakfast debris. It was then that the phone rang.

The rest of the day was filled with such pain that much of it she couldn’t recall. She had been told that Nick had died, suddenly, on the pavement two hundred yards from his office and that bystanders had attempted to revive him while calling for an ambulance. She remembered the hospital doctor: young, inexperienced at breaking this kind of bad news to a wife who needed to know exactly what had happened to her husband. ‘It was a pulmonary embolism,’ he explained. ‘It could have happened to anyone.’

How? Why? Why? Why?

At last she was taken to the mortuary, where Nick lay in a silent, nondescript room that she supposed had housed many corpses and heard many tears and farewells.

He was cold and gone from her, with a bruise on his cheek where he’d apparently hit the pavement. Had he been dead before he hit the ground? Had he had any warning?

She climbed up next to him and put her arms round him. He was cold. If only she could have closed her eyes and let go of her own life, right there and then, she would have. She stayed there, feeling utterly empty, hopeless. Her sane self stayed outside her body, looking down at the sad sight she made, lying next to him. Someone opened the door, asked if she was all right. Of course, she wasn’t bloody all right. She kissed Nick goodbye for the last time, then sat outside waiting to be told what to do next as she let the silent tears spill onto her coat.

Later, Fred stared at her, silent, his eyes big with incomprehension. Libby wailed, clinging to her as if she was the only life-raft in a stormy sea. ‘Mummy! I didn’t kiss him – I didn’t kiss him. I told him I hated him. It’s my fault. I love Daddy. I want him to come home.’

Libby’s grief was so huge and suffocating that Christie wanted to slap her, to shout at her. In more pain than she had ever experienced, what she wanted to say was right on the tip of her tongue: ‘Don’t you think I want him home too? He’s my husband. The love of my life. I’m his wife. I need you to comfort me .’

But what she actually did was cuddle and kiss and console.

NOW . . .

Chapter 1

‘Why do we have to stay with her?’ Libby slammed the door of the battered Peugeot estate. ‘I don’t want to.’

Christie, lugging overnight bags into the car boot, bit back her reprimand about the door, not wanting to provoke her daughter’s temper any further. Instead she forced herself into her best unruffled-mother mode. ‘You know that I’m staying the night with Auntie Mel so she can help me sort out what I’m going to wear tomorrow. You’re going to stay with Granny, who can’t come here because she’s got an early-morning Pilates class tomorrow.’ She tried to keep the amusement out of her voice. The idea of her mother and her friends as Pilates devotees always made her smile.

In the rear-view mirror she could see Libby looking thunderous, her straight hair cut into a neat bob with a fringe that almost hid her frown. Across the bridge of her nose was a smattering of freckles that ran into her flushed cheeks while her rosebud mouth was drawn into a tight line.

‘Can’t we come too?’ nine-year-old Fred begged, as they began to reverse down the drive towards the lane.