Jane Asher - The Longing - A bestselling psychological thriller you won’t be able to put down

Copyright

The characters and events in this book are entirely fictional. No reference to any person, living or dead, is intended or should be inferred.

HarperCollins Publishers

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This edition 1997

First published in Great Britain by

HarperCollins Publishers 1996

Copyright © Jane Asher 1996

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers 2017 Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com

Jane Asher asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780007571826

Ebook Edition © DECEMBER 2013 ISBN: 9780007571826

Version: 2017-12-18

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To Gerald

THE LONGING

Celebrated British actress of stage and screen, Jane Asher is also well known for her many other activities, especially her non-fiction books and journalism and her successful cake making business. The Longing is her stunning debut novel, and was published in hardcover to widespread acclaim in 1996. She lives in London, with her husband and three children, and is working on her second novel.

Critical acclaim for The Longing:

‘Topical, emotion-charged, [ The Longing ] grips from the first page and conveys with extraordinary vividness the terrible anguish experienced by couples who cannot start their longed-for baby.’

VAL HENNESSY, Daily Mail

‘A writer who does convey real emotional power . . . The Longing is a story about infertility: the desperation that overtakes couples who can’t conceive and the tragic consequences of that desperation. Like all really good novels, it is true – not in the factual sense, but in the way that its characters seem real and the world in which they move is one we recognise. Even better, its power increases as it goes on, drawing you further into its plot, gripping more tightly with every page . . . if Jane Asher were not already famous, this book would make her so.’

Daily Express

‘Thought provoking, polished and professional, a modern tale of Gothic horror.’

The Times

‘Strong dialogue drives the plot along and short, intercutting scenes add structure and drama.’

TLS

‘Tightly plotted and pacily told.’

Daily Telegraph

‘An absorbing and thought-provoking read.’

Eastern Daily Press

‘A taut psychological thriller . . . she deftly weaves each strand of the very clever plot, keeping the reader tied to every last word.’

Belfast Telegraph

‘Asher undoubtedly has an eye for character. The Longing is a good, if emotionally draining read.’

Punch

‘A celebrity novel from, at last, a celebrity who can actually write them.’

SHERIDAN MORLEY, Sunday Times

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

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

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading

About the Publisher

The effort was exhausting him; instead of getting excited he felt depressed and hopeless. He sighed and stretched his arms out in front of him until his linked fingers cracked at the knuckles, then looked down again at the magazine on his lap, turning the page to be confronted by yet another tight, artificially tanned bottom thrusting uninvitingly up at him, breasts lolling in the background. Instead of making him stiffer, it merely made him despair.

Throwing the magazine back on to the table he stood up, moved over to the line of videos in the small bookcase and scanned the covers in search of inspiration, humming an unidentifiable tune as he turned his head first one way and then another to read the titles. ‘Might be worth a try,’ he muttered to himself as he pulled one out, then slotted it into the open-mouthed recorder and sat back to watch. After a few moments of fascination at the proportions of the girls gambolling on the beach, he realised he had completely forgotten the purpose of it all and had let his mind wander off into thinking how small the little lines must be to fit in six hundred and twenty-five on the screen. ‘Oh, this is ridiculous,’ he said out loud, and blew out his lips in exasperation as he got up and switched off the recorder.

Another tack. He sat on the plastic seat of the nearest chair, leant back against the wall, closed his eyes and thought of Julie, picturing her undressing in the slowly casual way she did when she knew he was watching her. He felt a comforting little twitch of response and persevered. Julie arching her back as she undid her bra, leaning forward to pull down her tights, smiling at him from under her hair as if shy of him after ten years of marriage.

Disappointingly, she was suddenly dressed again and putting the Sunday joint in the oven. He managed to force her clothes off again with a huge effort of will but as soon as she was naked they irritatingly snapped back on again.

He opened his eyes, resisted a strong temptation to look at his watch, and picked up another magazine.

At last Harry was sleeping. After a night of walking the baby up and down, rubbing his back as he struggled against her left shoulder in the seemingly unending battle against colic, Anna had spent much of the morning trying to settle him in his cot. Finally she had given up and decided to go out, hoping that a long journey in the old-fashioned pram would work its usual magic and lull him to sleep. He had still been wide awake and grizzling as she reached the row of shops where she usually stopped, so she had kept going for half a mile or so towards another supermarket where she hadn’t shopped since before his birth three months earlier. He had drifted off only moments before she turned the corner into Streatham High Road, his eyelids closing in spite of himself, his natural curiosity at the extraordinary business of being alive stifled by the irresistible drowsiness produced by the comforting jolting of the pram wheels over the pavement.

She pushed open the heavy glass door of the shop with one hand and manoeuvred the pram inside by pushing it with her body as she gripped the handle and her bag with the other, then stopped in annoyance. It was immediately clear that there would be no chance of the large second-hand pram fitting comfortably back through the checkouts on her way out, and even the narrow aisles, though they were empty of customers, were littered with dump bins carrying special offers, and looked dauntingly difficult to negotiate. Letting the glass door swing shut behind her, she instinctively reached down to pick up the baby, then hesitated as she looked at Harry’s peacefully dreaming face, his brow smooth and untroubled, his eyes gently moving under their pink translucent lids.