Freya North - The Way Back Home

‘Brimming with emotional drama and packing a huge twist, this story will keep you guessing until the very end’ Heat

‘I was gripped from the start and raced through to the end in one long sitting’ Sara Lawrence, Daily Mail

‘A lovely read that keeps you anticipating a twist that is nicely unexpected … I couldn’t put it down‘ Sarah Broadhurst, Lovereading.co.uk

‘A very telling and enjoyable take on contemporary life’ Woman and Home

‘If you like emotional family dramas with a twist you’ll love this’ Daily Express

‘Freya North has given us another poignant tale – you won’t be able to put this one down’ OK

‘An intriguing tale that keeps you absorbed from cover to cover.’ Candis Magazine

‘It is a story of reflection and redemption – a tender tale that seems to have come from the very heart of this author’ New Books Magazine

‘Packed with love, lies and drama’ Woman Magazine

Acclaim for Freya North

‘ Secrets will make you smile, sigh and cheer as this story proves love can be found in the most unexpected places’ Sunday Express

‘Darkly funny and sexy – literary escapism at its very finest’ Sunday Independent

‘The novel’s likeable central characters are so well painted that you feel not only that you know them, but that you know how right they are for each other … the beauty of the North Yorkshire countryside contrasts convincingly with the bustle of London’ Daily Telegraph

‘Freya North has matured to produce an emotivenovel that deals with the darker side of love – theseare real women, with real feelings’ She

‘A delicious creation … sparkling in every sense’ Daily Express

‘A distinctive storytelling style and credible, loveable characters … an addictive read that encompasses the stuff life is made of: love, sex, fidelity and, above all, friendship’ Glamour

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2014

Copyright © Freya North 2014

‘The Waste Land’ © Estate of T.S. Eliot printed with permission of Faber & Faber Ltd.

Don’t You Cry

Words & Music by Richard Hawley

© Copyright 2009 Universal Music Publishing MGB Limited

Universal Music Publishing MGB Limited

All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

Used by permission of Music Sales Limited.

Cover photography © Paul Knight/ Trevillion

Images (main image); Getty Images (girl, path)

Freya North 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 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: 9780007517800

Ebook Edition © May/June 2014 ISBN: 9780007507696

Version: 2016-11-11

In loving memory of Hannah Berry 1983-2013

Beautiful, funny and brave. We miss you.

www.beatingbowelcancer.org

CONTENTS

Cover

Praise for The Way Back Home

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Epilogue

Reading Group Questions

Q&A With Freya North

The Story of Windward

Keep Reading

Acknowledgements

About the Author

By the same Author

About the Publisher

When I was born there were already other children at Windward. None was beyond toddling age and, as such, we were grouped together pretty much like the clumps of perennials in the garden, or the globs of paint on a palette in one of the studios, or the music which drifted from the top rooms – discordant notes that, as a whole, wove together into a quirky harmony of sorts. We were who we were, the children of Windward – a little ragtaggle tribe further defining the ethos and eccentricity of the place.

I wasn’t born in a hospital. I was born at Windward but I wasn’t born in my home. I was born in Lilac and George’s apartment with Jette assisting my mother, ably helped by all the other females there at the time, whether permanent or itinerant, mothers or girls, lesbians, lapsed nuns and even an aged virgin. I know all about a woman called Damisi who was visiting at the time though, it seems, no one really knew where her connection lay. She was a doula, apparently, and I know the story off by heart – how she had all the women breathing and bellowing to support and inspire my mother to relax. It worked – I know I was as easy a birth as it’s possible to have, slipping out into the Windward world to a backing track that was practically a bovine opera. Some of the other children heard – how could they not – and often, they mooed at me. I didn’t mind – it seemed my own special herald. However, when I first heard a similar sound emitted by a cow it scared me senseless.

When I was five, Louis, who was always very old but never seemed to age, hosted my birthday party in his apartment. We didn’t know he knew magic. He took pennies from behind all our ears – it was probably the first time any of us had coins of our own. He gave me a piggy bank to keep mine in – to start saving the pennies, he explained. I thought I had to save the coins from some fate that would otherwise befall them.

When I was ten, my birthday party was a disaster. I’d been at the local school for three years, been to the parties of my classmates – pink and proper, simultaneously joyous and lively and yet fastidiously organized. That’s all I wanted – a party like that. A neat cake with the right number of candles. My parents got it wrong. There were only nine candles. Someone – probably my mother – had put a tenth one in, but had decided that it was incorrect. Ten? That’s wrong. That small dent in the beige icing of my lopsided, inedible cake was to me a sinkhole of indifference. It struck me then that perhaps not everyone loved everyone.