Anything Could Happen

by Lucy Diamond

Genres: Women's Fiction

Synopsis

'Captivating' Woman & Home

'A wonderful read - the twists and turns of the story meant I couldn't put it down' Jill Mansell

'The book we all need - full of escapism, romance, hope and kindness. I adored it' Milly Johnson

Your big secret is out. What next?

For Lara and her daughter Eliza, it has always been just the two of them. But when Eliza turns eighteen and wants to connect with her father, Lara is forced to admit a secret that she has been keeping from her daughter her whole life.

Eliza needs answers - and so does Lara. Their journey to the truth will take them on a road trip across England and eventually to New York, where it all began. Dreams might have been broken and opportunities missed, but there are still surprises in store...

Anything Could Happen is a warm, wise, funny and uplifting novel about love, second chances and the unexpected and extraordinary paths life can take us down.

'Tender, bittersweet and funny . . . A truly touching love story for our times' Veronica Henry

A star-crossed lovers story with so much heart and humour' Fiona Palmer

'A feel-good, uplifting book' Sheila O'Flanagan

'Romantic, uplifting and a total joy' Heidi Swain

'A wonderful book about the What Ifs of love and loss' Laura Kemp

Release date: December 14, 2021

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 384

Sample

Prologue

All those years ago

Even the next morning, when the two of them might both have been self-conscious and hungover, Lara still felt exactly the same as she had the night before – as if she had stepped into a new and better life. With him. Light-headed from happiness and lack of sleep, she made coffee and had just enough bread left for them to have a slice of toast each, and then they sat in bed together, bare legs entwined, sleepy and content, not saying much. Friday morning, and she was due at work before long, despite his attempts to persuade her to skive off.

‘But I’m free this evening?’ she suggested shyly. ‘If you are too.’

‘Definitely,’ he said. ‘Let me find us somewhere stunning to meet, so that we can celebrate a whole twenty-four hours of knowing each other.’ He reached over to grab her New York guidebook from the bedside table and began flipping through its pages. ‘Hey, how about Grand Central Station?’ he suggested. ‘We can pretend we’re in a movie and run towards each other, like long-lost lovers.’

‘I’m up for that,’ she said, trying and failing to hide how pleased his words made her feel. Long-lost lovers! So this was going to be a thing then, the two of them; a proper, wonderful thing, she thought joyfully. It was as if every other event in her life had led up to this precise moment: the pair of them lolling on her crumpled sheets making plans for that evening, a shaft of warm June sunlight falling through the broken blind and leaving a golden splash on his bare shoulder, the smell of slightly scorched toast in the air. Each tiny decision and step and turn she’d ever taken had brought her all the way through the long, winding maze that was her previous twenty-six years to this exact time and place. She’d only just met him and already he felt like everything: a door opening to her future that was suddenly full of bright, shiny colours. Her New York experience was bursting from its tight chrysalis there and then, on the verge of shaking loose its wings into the best summer of her life. ‘Although . . . the station’s presumably massive, right?’ she pointed out. ‘How will we find each other?’

‘Good question,’ he said, running a finger down the page. He even had nice fingers, she thought dreamily, wondering if he played the piano or guitar. How could you feel so sure of another person, when in reality there was so much you didn’t know? ‘Okay, there’s a very posh oyster bar downstairs apparently,’ he went on. ‘How about meeting outside that? Six-thirty? Look how fancy it is,’ he added, showing her a picture. ‘I’m not sure I can run to actually going inside it, but we could pretend for a moment that we live that sort of life. Before moving on somewhere more in keeping with our pitiful budgets. What do you think?’

‘Wow,’ she said, leaning against his arm to see the page. His skin was honey-coloured and he smelled faintly of soap and coffee. ‘Nice. Six-thirty sounds perfect. I think I can just about make it till then without you.’

He grinned at her, his cheekbones catching the soft morning light, his dark hair tousled. Had she appreciated quite how good-looking he was last night? How generous his mouth, how beautiful his eyes; how, when he smiled like that, it took her breath away? She could feel herself becoming intoxicated by him all over again from his sheer closeness, the warmth of his body, and the instinct to touch him was so strong, she found herself reaching over to brush a stray toast crumb off his cheek.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘See? Yet another reason why I’m better off with you in my life.’

She laughed, knowing he was exaggerating, but somehow the words felt right nonetheless. Then she peeled herself reluctantly away. ‘I wish I didn’t have to go to work,’ she groaned, sorting through the scant contents of her wardrobe and wondering if her flatmate Toni had any nice tops she could borrow. It felt like a day for wearing something eye-catching, for alerting the rest of the world to the fact that delight was spilling from her like an overflowing fountain.

He stood up, buttoning his shirt. ‘I too wish you didn’t,’ he said. ‘Last night was seriously one of the best nights of my life. I feel as if everything has changed, don’t you?’ He glanced over at her as if his tender words had left him feeling vulnerable.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I know what you mean.’

‘But I’ll see you in . . .’ He screwed up his face, making calculations as he pulled on his jeans. ‘Ten and a half hours? The countdown starts now.’

They kissed again, even though neither of them had brushed their teeth, and held each other close. She could feel his heart beating through his soft rumpled shirt. She liked him so much, she thought dazedly. She really, really liked him. He hadn’t even left the flat, and already she could feel the ache of his potential absence starting to form; a delicious, tormented pain at the prospect of missing him. Of course, if she’d known then what was to happen later, she wouldn’t have let him out the door at all, she’d have phoned in sick and led him back to bed by his shirt collar. But instead . . .

‘See you later, Lara,’ he said, and let himself out.

Chapter One

Eliza was sitting on the wall, the hedge behind her prickling through her jacket, when a grubby white van slowed to a stop nearby. Right on time. A flurry of nerves whirled up inside her like a shaken snow globe on seeing the van’s logo: Steve Pickering, Painting and Decorating. The lettering was crummy and basic-looking, like something stencilled from a cheap kit. The P of Pickering was even wonky, as if the person applying the letter had coughed in the middle, or lost concentration. She allowed herself a scornful lip curl. If she ever started up her own decorating business – or any business for that matter – you could bet she would at least put some effort into her branding. Eliza Spencer Magnificent Transformations, she could market herself. Or maybe . . . She rummaged through every paint-inspired pun at her disposal. Brush Hour? she considered, wrinkling her nose. Fifty Shades of Great?

Whatever. Right now, she had other, more pressing items on her agenda. Number one: the puffy-faced man with a sparse thatch of reddish-brown hair and low-slung paunch currently clambering down from the van, as shambling as a bear emerging from a cave, post-hibernation.

A bold new chapter in your life begins today, Eliza’s horoscope app had encouraged her that morning, and the words came back to her now. Here goes, she thought, jumping off the wall.

‘Hi,’ she said coolly, taking in the stain on his faded T-shirt and the ancient trainers flecked with paint. So he was a slob as well as a terrible person, she thought in disapproval. When she was a proper grown-up with a job and everything, there was no way she would ever dream of leaving the house looking so unkempt. She’d been in the Co-op the other day when a woman had walked in wearing a dressing gown, with tangled bed hair. What was wrong with people?

‘I’m your two o’clock,’ she said now. And then, because she couldn’t help herself, she blurted out, ‘Remember me?’

His pudgy face creased in a frown, then he glanced down at his phone before looking uncertainly back at her. ‘Mrs Robinson?’ he said. You could almost hear the cogs grinding in his brain with painful slowness. Is she even old enough? he’d be thinking. What am I missing here?

Eliza folded her arms across her chest and tapped her foot. Come on, Steve, make the connection, she thought. You can do it.

‘You asked me to quote for . . .’ he said, followed by another swift check of his phone, renewed doubt in his eyes. Apparently basic logic was still beyond his means. ‘A kitchen redecoration?’

Eliza snorted sarcastically, louder than was necessary, in an attempt to cover up precisely how crushed his blankness had left her. Despite everything. When she should have known better. Because he clearly didn’t remember her at all, unless his gormlessness was merely an act of cruelty. Her insides felt newly hollowed out; she was an avocado with the flesh scooped clean away. ‘Yeah, I did, didn’t I?’ she replied, deadpan. Still nothing.

He hesitated, then gestured at the house. ‘Er . . . Shall we go in, then?’

‘No,’ she said impatiently, and then her muddled feelings gave way to facetiousness because it seemed to be all she had left. ‘Let’s not. Because I don’t live there and we probably shouldn’t go breaking and entering. Not on a Thursday, anyway.’ Her own home was twenty miles away in Scarborough; her journey had involved two buses and a walk up from the bus station, plus a lie to her mum that morning about a migraine, so that she could have time off school. And now here she was, standing in front of a smart semi-detached house just outside Whitby, her heart thumping while Steve Pickering gazed at her in confusion. She was starting to wish she hadn’t bothered.

Dejection took hold and she sighed. Even after so many years, she’d hoped there might be at least a flicker of recognition. Blood calling to blood. ‘I’m not Mrs Robinson,’ she said through clenched teeth, because clearly she would have to spell this out to him. ‘I’m Eliza. Eliza Spencer. Your daughter.’

A flash of pure astonishment crossed his face, then he blinked several times before he looked at her with a new, unreadable expression. Fondness or regret? Horror? Eliza wondered, hardly able to breathe as they stood staring at one another for an intense, heart-pounding moment.

‘Eliza, hey?’ he said eventually. ‘Wow. Look at you. You must be – what, seventeen now?’ He shook his head. ‘Wow,’ he said again, as if that was all he could come up with.

She rolled her eyes, fists curled so tightly that on the bus ride home, she’d find crescent-moon imprints gouged in her palms from her fingernails. For crying out loud. Was that it? He was hopeless. An abomination of a man. Could he make it any more obvious that he didn’t care? ‘Eighteen,’ she replied crisply. ‘An adult. And I arranged this because I want some answers. I need some answers, all right? Dad,’ she added, for good measure.

Was it her imagination or did the name make him cringe momentarily? His wide shoulders slumped and he stared down at the pavement for a long few seconds. The wind blew in Eliza’s face, cold and spiteful, and she felt her eyes begin to water. Great. Now it would look as if she was crying, she thought, furiously wiping them with her jacket sleeve. At last he lifted his head and spoke. ‘Listen, we should probably talk about this inside,’ he said gruffly, with another miserable glance over at the house.

‘I don’t live there!’ Eliza repeated, throwing up her hands in annoyance. God, was he completely thick, as well? How many times did she have to tell him? Although he had a point, she conceded grudgingly in the next second. Nobody wanted to air their dirty laundry in public. ‘We could sit in your van though,’ she suggested after a beat of silence. ‘If you’re that embarrassed about talking to me out here.’

He hesitated, running a hand through his hair. It needed a cut, she noticed, feeling more and more contempt for him with every minute. He was pathetic! Mum was right, they were definitely better off without him. It was rubbish being related to someone like Steve Pickering, now that she had seen for herself exactly how weak and shabby he was.

‘Look, Eliza,’ he said, then stopped again. He seemed to be having some kind of internal wrestling match about what to do. ‘I’m not sure there’s much point us having this conversation,’ he went on eventually, his voice so gentle it seemed impossible that he could be saying these horrific words aloud.

Fury burst up in Eliza, consuming her entirely. ‘Well, what a fucking surprise,’ she snapped, glaring at him with such hatred she almost believed she could scorch him with it, given long enough. Blow up his van too, while she was at it. Set the privet hedge alight with crackling flames. ‘And there was me hoping we could both be adults about this. Start again. Attempt some kind of connection, like two human beings, but—’

‘Eliza, stop,’ he said, then rubbed his face, seeming exasperated. Possibly even sad, on a closer look. She could hear the bristles rasping on his chin now that the breeze had dropped. ‘She hasn’t told you, has she? She’s never actually told you.’

That brought Eliza up short. ‘Told me what?’

‘That . . .’ His shoulders sank again. He could barely look at her, glancing instead over at his badly painted van. ‘On second thoughts, yes, let’s sit in the van. Have a proper chat, rather than—’

‘Just tell me,’ she broke in, unable to bear stringing this out any longer. ‘Please. Whatever it is.’

‘Okay,’ he said heavily. ‘Well . . . bottom line is, I’m not your dad. That’s why we broke up, me and her. All right? I’m sorry, love,’ he added, his brown eyes moist all of a sudden. ‘I was devastated. Because . . . you know.’ His voice had become gruff. ‘Because I really liked being your dad. But . . .’

She blinked because his words were hitting her belatedly. I’m not your dad. All right? No, she was not all right. Each word was like a sledgehammer, battering the breath from her lungs. ‘You’re not . . .’ she croaked before breaking off. ‘Well, who is, then? Who is my dad?’

There was an air of apology, even mournfulness, about his shrug. ‘I’m not sure, Eliza. Sorry,’ he said again. ‘You’ll have to ask your mum. I’ve got no idea.’

She scowled at him with new ferocity because what he was saying couldn’t possibly be true. It simply couldn’t. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said. ‘God! Even now you still can’t be honest. You can’t admit that you’ve been a total shit to me and to her.’ She wheeled around on the spot, partly to avoid letting him see the hot tears that had suddenly swelled in her eyes. ‘Well, sod off, then. We don’t care. We don’t need you anyway!’

Marching away, something seemed to crack inside her. The hopeful buoyancy that had propelled her this far crumbled abruptly to rubble, leaving a paralysing disquiet in its place. It couldn’t be true, could it, what he’d said? Because who even was she, if not the daughter of Steve Pickering? What did this mean?

‘Hey!’

His shout took her by surprise and she stopped dead on the pavement. He was back in his van and had pulled up beside her, leaning out of the window. Her heart galloped, her hands squeezing into tight knots of expectation. ‘What?’

He looked cross now. ‘Is it you who’s been leaving me all those made-up reviews, by the way?’

Eliza rubbed her eyes, trying to dash away the tears. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she managed to reply, nose in the air.

‘I think you do,’ he said. ‘And I’d appreciate it if you could take them down. It’s not a game, all right? I’ve done nothing wrong. Ask your mum if you don’t believe me.’

He drove away, leaving her standing there shaken, unable to breathe momentarily, the very ground seeming to shudder and fracture beneath her feet. His van disappeared around the corner and she was alone. She felt as if she were an image on a computer screen, disintegrating into pixels before reforming in a new, unknown shape; her old self gone, invalidated. But who remained?

The wind rushed around her again, tugging at her long chestnut hair, and she shoved her hands in her pockets, bowed her head and began walking back to the bus stop. One last tear dripped from her chin on to the pavement and she gave an angry sniff. She had come here hoping for answers but had been left facing more questions than ever. So now what?

Chapter Two

While her daughter fumed tearfully on the bus back from Whitby, Lara Spencer was at work, sitting as usual in the passenger seat of her dual-control car, as one student after another stalled the engine, crunched the gears or, if she was lucky, pootled slowly and without incident around the quiet backstreets of Scarborough. When she’d initially trained to be a driving instructor, she had optimistically imagined herself jaunting about all over the place, but in truth, she tended to patrol the same old suburban estates week in, week out. Driving for a living but never actually getting anywhere, endless three-point turns in silent cul-de-sacs: that was about the sum of Lara’s life, really. But look, it paid the mortgage, it meant she could keep herself and Eliza warm and fed, and that was all that mattered. Right?

On this particular Thursday afternoon, eighteen-year-old Jake Watson was having his lesson and he was always entertaining company, if sometimes eccentric. ‘Have you ever, like, tried to kill someone with your eyes?’ he asked, midway round a roundabout, as if to confirm Lara’s private opinion of him.

‘Indicate left now,’ she replied. ‘Next exit. That’s it.’ She waited until he was safely through the junction before returning to his inquiry. ‘Say that again. You were asking me about, er, killing people? With my eyes?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, jerkily changing gear from second to third. ‘You know, by really staring at them? Like this—’

‘Eyes on the road, Jake,’ she said automatically as he swung his head towards her, presumably to demonstrate. Christ, a death glare was the last thing you wanted when you were trying to teach a young person how to operate a heavy piece of machinery moving at thirty miles an hour. ‘Concentrate on what you’re doing. Check your mirror. Look – the car behind you is overtaking.’

He tutted. ‘Someone’s in a hurry,’ he said, sounding more like a critical fifty-something than a teenager. ‘Idiot’s breaking the speed limit, too.’

She hid a smile at his self-righteous tone. ‘Thank goodness you’re far too sensible a driver to even think about doing such a thing.’

‘I know, right? Anyway – have you?’

‘What, tried to kill someone by staring at them? No,’ she said firmly. Amusement rose in her nonetheless. This was what she knew of Jake Watson so far: he lived in a pleasant street of 50s-built bungalows where people tended their front gardens and kept their cars gleaming. His mum sometimes waved him off from the doorway and on more than one occasion had been wearing an apron, indicating a bout of pastry-making or some other domestic goddessery. So far, so pedestrian – and yet here he was now, asking her innocently, startlingly, about killing people. Despite her instinct that this could be straying into inappropriate conversational realms, she was intrigued enough that it was impossible not to ask, ‘Why, have you?’

He shrugged. ‘I mean, I gave my French teacher a seizure with a look, back in Year 10, so . . . you know. Kind of, I guess. It was pretty bad.’

‘Gosh.’ Lara gently took the wheel where he was starting to drift across the central road markings. ‘Stay in lane,’ she said, guiding him back. ‘Let’s try not to kill anyone today, eh?’

He made a pleased sort of sound through his nostrils. Heavens, he was adorable, she thought to herself. She especially liked the kooky kids she came across, the ones who were so themselves, so other to the rest of the crowd. She couldn’t help wondering how the saintly, apron-wearing Mrs Watson dealt with such conversations though. ‘How’s college going?’ she asked now in order to change the subject. ‘What are your plans for next year?’

This was one thing about teaching teenagers that she loved: the fact that they all had their big life hopes glittering like beacons ahead of them. They talked to her about university applications, about apprenticeships, applying for jobs and training courses. Some shyly mentioned boyfriends and girlfriends; one boy a few years ago had come out to her before he’d even told his parents. Of course, it wasn’t all dreams and wishes – there were painful situations, too; she’d noticed what looked like self-inflicted cuts on more than one student’s arm and had wondered with anguish what misery must lurk in the shadows of their lives. Others poured out their sadnesses to her: first relationships faltering, parents separating, exam stress and disappointments. Last year, there had also been one girl, Romilly, who’d become thinner and thinner with each passing week, until she’d eventually passed out at the wheel, weak from starving herself for so long. She’d had to stop lessons and Lara hadn’t heard from her since.

For students undergoing such difficult times, she consoled herself that she was at least teaching them a valuable life skill, one that could make a real, practical difference to their lives. On the whole, it was hard not to become very fond of most of her clients; she adored their general resilience and spirit.

Take Jake, for instance. Here he was, telling her enthusiastically of his plans to study marine biology, followed by a tub-thumping sermon on the joys of fish. ‘I mean, people think that fish are just, like, cold, right? That they don’t have any feelings or much of a brain. But they’re so interesting,’ he said, accelerating triumphantly out of a successful three-point turn.

‘I’ll take your word for it,’ Lara replied, smiling to herself. She felt a small stab of envy though, as she often did when hearing about her students’ aspirations – especially as becoming a driving instructor had definitely not been a career ambition back when she was a teenager. Her dreams then had been of escaping her quiet Cumbrian town for the bright lights of London, becoming a journalist, working in busy, gossipy offices full of interesting twenty-somethings, wearing black, having excellent hair and drinking red wine in bohemian bars. And, to be fair, for a number of years, she’d managed all of those things, and more. Until—

A siren was wailing behind them, an ambulance with its blue lights flashing. ‘Okay, slow down, move over to the left, you need to give way,’ she instructed Jake.

‘The feds are coming for me!’ he cried, forgetting to slow down in his thrill as he flung the car over.

‘Foot on the brake,’ she said as the ambulance loomed in her rear-view mirror, its siren in crescendo. ‘Brake!’ She had to stamp on her own brake pedal, jerking the car to a stop as the other vehicle hurtled past, resisting the urge to cross herself, like her mother always did whenever she saw an ambulance or funeral procession. Lara wasn’t all that superstitious but she knew that life could surprise you, and not always in a good way.

‘Sorry,’ said Jake, chastened.

‘And we call them “police” in this country anyway,’ she teased as he recovered himself. ‘Or actually, if it says “ambulance” across the top of the vehicle in big letters, “paramedics”. Okay, straighten up and let’s go again.’

They were trundling around the northern outskirts of Scarborough, the town that had been home to Lara and Eliza for the last eighteen years. She’d moved here amidst a flurry of big life changes; leaving her job and her small shared flat in North London five months’ pregnant, in order to make a new, fingers-crossed start with Steve. Since then, life had taken a slower turn and she’d settled into the place, loving its big skies, sandy beaches and old-fashioned seafront. Unable to pursue her fashion journalist career here – at the time of moving, the internet was still in its infancy and the scene very much London-centric – she had trained as a driving instructor as a stop-gap role, plucking the notion pretty randomly from the air when her relationship fell apart and single motherhood demanded back-up plans. What else could she do, besides write about the season’s new hemlines and trouser styles? Drive. That was about it. Okay, she’d thought, signing up for a course – she would give it a whirl as an interim measure, then return to journalism once the dust had settled. Somehow or other though, fifteen years later, here she was, still booking lessons and arranging tests, motoring up and down the same roads, as the sun went on rising and setting, and the seasons wheeled slowly around her. It was early spring now, with its heavy rain showers and fresh winds; the time of year when every student of hers familiarised themselves with the windscreen wipers pretty quickly.

‘How are you ever going to meet a new man, though, teaching teenagers to drive all day?’ her best friend Heidi tutted now and then, and it was true, Lara did spend most of her time with young people, the small confines of the car scented with their cheap perfumes and hair products. There was no flirty office banter when you were a driving instructor, no watercooler chat with attractive colleagues to get your pulse racing. How did other people meet their soulmates anyway? It all seemed so random. Heidi, for instance, had got chatting to her now-husband Jim purely by chance when they’d been given seats next to each other at a Violent Femmes gig twenty years ago. Lara’s brother Richie had met his husband Jordan at a bus stop in Sheffield following a train cancellation; these days they lived in Auckland together and had recently celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary. To think that such perfect couples had only met because they had been allocated certain tickets from a concert venue or were meant to be catching a particular train . . . it blew Lara’s mind, actually, to think that these paths could so easily never have crossed at all. And what if you had met your soulmate, only to have lost them almost immediately? Maybe it was better not to dwell on that.

 

She found herself thinking about Jake and his love of marine biology as she made her way home at the end of the day. He’d told her about a phenomenon called ‘mouth-brooding’, where certain species of fish incubated their eggs in their mouths, which often meant the parent fish not being able to eat, presumably for fear of swallowing their own offspring. The sacrifices made by parents – humans and fish alike! She wondered how it must feel when the parent fish eventually dared release their young, in the hope that they could survive alone, swim safely away. Then she gave a hollow laugh, recognising her own projection. No surprises where that particular train of thought was coming from. This autumn, exam results permitting, her daughter Eliza would be heading off to university and leaving her mother behind. While Lara was excited for her that the world was about to open up so thrillingly, she couldn’t deny that she also felt a stomach-turning dread at the prospect of being completely alone for the first time in years. Sometimes in the dead of the night she lay awake, the same old questions looping around her mind. What would she do to fill the evenings and weekends? How would she manage in a silent, empty house, with no one to chat to about the day, to laugh with, groan over trashy TV, nag about leaving wet towels on the bathroom floor for the millionth time? She thought again of her mum, who allotted different chores to each day of the week so that she always had ‘something to look forward to’. This was not a future Lara wanted for herself. But how else should she fill the absence Eliza would leave? Who was she, without her child?

‘Hi love,’ she called, letting herself in to their small semi, a mile or so out of town. Up on the hill, there was a sea view from the bathroom window if you leaned out far enough, and a sky full of swooping gulls. Tonight she was greeted by a thud of loud music from upstairs – presumably this meant Eliza’s migraine had abated. ‘I’m home!’ Lara shouted, but no reply came.

Ah well. She’d make a start on dinner. Eliza babysat every Thursday evening for the Partridges, three doors down, so there wasn’t much time to cook anything elaborate, just some noodles and a stir-fry, she decided. She made a fuss of the cat, then washed her hands, switched on the radio and began chopping an onion. The news was being read and she frowned as she heard one story about a sinkhole in China, where a busy road junction had just cratered out of sight with no warning. Fifty metres deep, the newsreader said in sober tones. An entire bus and several other vehicles had been swallowed up, with the number of casualties unconfirmed as yet.

It gave her pause, her hand momentarily still on the knife, as she tried to imagine how it would feel to have the road suddenly collapse like that. Would you even have time to process what was happening as you plunged into the crevasse? Would you pray, scream, clutch at the person next to you on the bus seat? She visualised the terrible crash of impact, followed by the moments of stunned silence immediately afterwards, the startled cries of birds as they scattered above the scene.

Shuddering, she resumed chopping, only for Eliza to burst into the room, looking stormy. ‘Hi,’ Lara said, taken aback. ‘Is everything okay?’

The question was met by a disdainful snort. ‘Is everything okay, she says,’ Eliza commented sardonically to the air around her as if a vast TV studio audience were hanging on her every word. ‘Well, no, actually, everything is not okay, Mother. Starting with you, lying to me – that’s really not okay.’

Lying? This didn’t sound like the preamble to a standard moan about missing tights or Lara having failed to iron a top she’d promised to. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked, plucking a clove of garlic and peeling off its papery outer layer.

‘I did