Heartstones: A captivating dual-time novel of love, loss and secrets

by Kate Glanville

Genres: Action & Adventure

Synopsis

' Poignant, warm, and unpredictable.' Julie Cohen '[...] the best book I've read all year *****' Amazon reviewer A heart-warming exploration of love, loss and secrets. It's hard to run away from your darkest secrets... When Phoebe's married lover dies in a car accident, she dare not openly express her grief for fear of their affair being found out. Heartbroken, she leaves her life in England to search out the old boathouse bequeathed to her by her Irish grandmother. Enthralled by the stunning scenery of the West Coast of Ireland, she soon finds herself swept up by life in the nearby village of Carraigmore. When she discovers a collection of her grandmother's old diaries hidden beneath the boat house floorboards, she becomes immersed in a story of family scandal, repressed sexuality and a passionate affair between her grandmother and a young Irish artist. With many questions unanswered Phoebe sets out to find out more, but it seems that no one in Carraigmore is telling her the truth. She's not the only one with something to hide... Find out why readers love HEARTSTONES: '[...] the best book I've read all year *****' Amazon reviewer 'I can't recommend this highly enough if you are after a cosy read by the fire with lots of smiles, sadness and eventually tears *****' Amazon reviewer 'A beautiful heartwarming story *****' Amazon reviewer ' Couldn't put it down *****' Amazon reviewer 'This feel good story will warm your heart *****' Amazon reviewer ' Well worth five stars *****' Amazon reviewer '[A] fab, lovely and captivating book by Ms Glanville *****' Amazon reviewer 'My favourite read this summer *****' Amazon reviewer 'Remarkably hard to put down *****' Amazon reviewer 'Utterly Wonderful ***** ' Amazon reviewer

Release date: March 6, 2014

Publisher: Accent Press

Print pages: 316

Sample

Chapter One

Phoebe looked down on the rain-shrouded mourners. She was too far from the grave to make out the cleric’s words; the only noise she could hear was the rhythmic sound of wheels on wet tarmac coming from the flyover behind the cemetery wall.

Her long red hair whipped against her freckled cheeks in the wind and the heels of the unfamiliar shoes were sinking into the sodden turf; mud began to ooze inside, they would no doubt be ruined. Phoebe hoped Nola wouldn’t be too annoyed. She wrapped the thin, black jacket around her tiny frame. It was at least four sizes too big; Nola had shoved it at her when Phoebe arrived at her house earlier on.

‘Here, you’d better borrow my work jacket, you can’t possibly go to a funeral in your old parka, and take off those awful boots and I’ll get you my patent shoes.’

Phoebe had reluctantly shrugged on the jacket and put on the shoes. Her sister had looked her up and down with arms folded across a suit that strained at all the seams, ‘You could have at least have done something with that mane of hair of yours and put some make-up on. You look terrible, and you really need to get more meat on your bones. No wonder you haven’t had a boyfriend for years.’

As the wind and rain increased Phoebe shivered and Nola’s words echoed in her head. She wished for the thousandth time that she could tell someone the truth

Below her she could just make out the crow-like figure of Sandra – black coat flapping around her gym-honed figure, ash-blonde hair scraped tightly back, her expression agonised. Phoebe thought her role as grieving widow could have won an Oscar; there was no doubting that she was the star of the show. Beside Sandra stood the twins, their small white faces stark against their funeral clothes; a lump rose in Phoebeʼs throat at the sight of the two little girls. She knew how they would be feeling; lost, confused, frightened. She had felt the same, standing, shivering beside her sister all those years before. Phoebe wanted to scoop them up and take them away, wasn’t it bad enough that their father had died? They shouldn’t have to witness him being lowered into the cold, dark ground.

Suddenly, Sandra covered her face with her hands and turned away from the open grave. She seemed to crumple into the line of mourners behind her; their inky forms enclosed her in a cocoon of black umbrellas and supportive embraces until she had completely disappeared.

In the distance Phoebe could see the large figure of her sister Nola detaching herself from Steve’s side and moving to join the others until she too was absorbed by the tight group.

Phoebe stood very still. Around her people had started moving, walking up the hill, slowly at first, then hurrying as the ground levelled out. Their waiting cars would take them to the brightly lit function room of the local pub where, as they dried out and filled themselves with sandwiches and tea and pints of beer, they’d go over and over it all again – almost relishing the tragic set of circumstances that had led to David’s death.

Victoria Leach touched Phoebe’s arm with a bony, blue-veined hand.

‘You’re soaking,’ Victoria said. ‘Didn’t you bring an umbrella, foolish girl?’ Phoebe didn’t reply. She had taught in the classroom next door to Victoria’s for over three years, but she had never managed to get over the feeling that the older woman thought of her as just another silly pupil rather than a fellow teacher and colleague. Phoebe looked at Victoria’s lips – two thin lines of orange lipstick. They were moving; she was talking but Phoebe couldn’t hear the words, only a gushing sound, like water filling up her head, blocking out the world around her. Suddenly words burst through again.

‘It’s such a shame we couldn’t have had a bit of sunshine to see him off,’ Victoria sounded almost cheerful. ‘This wet weather makes it all seem even worse.’

Even worse? Phoebe wanted to scream the words back at her. How could it be even worse? But she remained silent, not trusting herself to speak. Victoria began to move away.

‘Are you coming to The Kings Arms?’ she called. Phoebe shook her head. Victoria stopped. ‘You could at least come for half an hour. To show a bit of respect. He was the headmaster, Phoebe.’

‘I can’t believe you couldn’t even be bothered to come to the pub afterwards.’ Nola filled the kettle in Phoebe’s tiny kitchen. ‘I don’t think poor Sandra was in a fit state to notice who was there, but, all the same, you could have made the effort.’ Nola searched through Phoebe’s cupboards for tea bags, white jeans stretched tight over her thighs as she crouched down on the wooden floor. ‘Don’t forget that he gave you your job, though probably with a hefty prod from Sandra.’ Phoebe sat at the table, still in her pyjamas and dressing gown, her unbrushed hair a mass of auburn tangles. She stared mutely at her sister.

‘Honestly, Phoebe, when did you last go shopping?’ Nola stood up. ‘No wonder you’re so skinny.ʼ She looked disdainfully around the cramped kitchen. ʻI don’t know why I’m thinking of making tea anyway, all your mugs need washing up and I suspect you haven’t a drop of milk in the fridge. I know you’re domestically challenged but this is worse than usual. Are you ill?’

Phoebe realised she had been unconsciously twisting at the cuff of her dressing gown so tightly her wrist hurt. When she released it she saw an indented ring of red left on her skin. She thought of the bracelet David had given her for her birthday – a thin string of silver links interspersed with red glass hearts.

Nola sat down at the table and her ample chest spilled out in front of her like a shelf. Phoebe looked down at her own small breasts beneath her dressing gown and remembered how the bitchy girls at school used to call her Flat Phoebe. She’d once gone home in tears but Nola had simply told her to stuff some socks in her bra and stop being such a drip.

Nola let out a sigh and ran her hands through her messy blonde bob.

‘Poor David, I can’t stop thinking about him.’

 For the first time Phoebe could see that her sister’s dark brown roots contained a scattering of grey. She kept noticing little things like this, tiny, inconsequential things that grabbed her attention for a few seconds, offering brief respite from the painful thoughts until a deluge of misery engulfed her again.

Nola reached into her handbag and brought out two packets of M&Ms. She pushed one towards Phoebe.

‘My secret stash of bribes for the children. When all else fails, throw chocolate at them.’ She ripped the shiny brown packet apart and Phoebe noticed the tiny broken veins on her sister’s plump, pink cheeks. ‘The diet can start again tomorrow. Steve thinks I’ve gone to the gym; he’s taken the kids swimming. I just couldn’t face the gym, it’s bad enough having to exercise without everyone asking questions, ʻHow is Sandra? How are the girls? How are they coping?’ Honestly! How do people think Sandra is? She’s lost her husband; she’s devastated, in pieces. I can’t see how she’ll ever recover from this.’

Phoebe thought of the rows that David had told her about, the plate of macaroni cheese he said had hit his back as he walked out the door to go to the last governors’ meeting, the wine bottle smashed against the kitchen wall, his cold and lonely nights in the spare bedroom, the empty silences at mealtimes – was that what Sandra would miss? Or did she feel regret? Guilt? Phoebe had noticed the way Sandra flirted with the teachers’ husbands at staff get-togethers, she’d seen the way she danced with Steve at his and Nolaʼs last New Yearʼs Eve party. You make me feel like dancing, romancing … Sandra had sung along loudly with the Nolans while shimmying around a delighted-looking Steve. What did she feel now? Phoebe wondered if Sandra had the throbbing pain in her chest. Had she lost all sense of taste and touch? Did she have to remind herself to keep breathing, to keep taking breaths when everything inside her longed to give up?

‘Are you not eating these?’ Nola picked up the unopened packet of M&Ms still lying on the table between them. Phoebe managed to shake her head before Nola opened it and poured half the contents into her palm. ‘Sandra and David were together for so long,’ she said through a mouthful of chocolate. ‘Do you remember that first time she brought him to visit us? They were on their way to the airport, off to spend the summer travelling round India – I was so jealous, she seemed to have it all, gorgeous boyfriend, university, the chance to travel to somewhere so much more exotic than a caravan park in Tenby.’ Nola poured the rest of the chocolates directly into her mouth. ‘I was eight months pregnant with Amy, felt like a whale – I had no idea I’d still be feeling like that twelve years later.’ She pulled her cardigan tightly over her stomach.

‘We had a barbecue,’ said Phoebe quietly. ‘You thought Steve was going to set the hedge on fire.’

‘That’s right,’ Nola laughed. ‘We’d only just moved in, the garden was awful; overgrown and full of piles of builder’s rubble. I’m surprised you remember; I’d have thought you’d have been moping about in your bedroom taping the Top 40 or something. Steve was in charge of the cooking, he put on a terrible PVC apron with a bra and frilly knickers printed on the front – I was so embarrassed. I can still see him now, wielding flaming sausages, pretending to be some sort of fire eater, assuring us they were cooked when really they were stone cold in the middle.’ Nola smiled. ‘David was so funny; he told us stories about his tent getting washed away by rain at the Glastonbury Festival. He did some trick I can’t quite remember – something circusy, I think he’d done a circus workshop on his gap year in Australia. Was it plate-spinning?’

Juggling, it had been juggling . The images of that summer evening were still vivid in Phoebe’s mind. She had been fifteen and wearing her baggy camouflage jeans. David had juggled with Steve’s barbecue tongs, fish-slice, and fork – stainless steel flashing against the empty blue expanse of sky. Steve had tried not to look upstaged and ended up looking grumpy. Phoebe thought that David was the most wonderful human being she had ever seen.

‘Life’s too short to get tied down, ’ he had said as he helped her wash the dishes later on. ‘ You’ve got to grab each day and live it to the full, see the world, meet people, experience as much as you can.’ He’d pushed back his mane of sun-streaked hair and Phoebe had looked at the tattoo around his bicep and the bright white shark’s tooth necklace around his neck and wondered what it would be like to wake up beside him in a muddy field in Glastonbury.

‘I can’t get the image of those poor little girls out of my head.’ Nola had heaved herself  up and was running hot water into the sink, swirling Fairy liquid into a froth of bubbles before starting to wash the pile of dirty mugs and glasses. ‘Did you see them at the funeral? Did you see the twins?’ She turned to look at Phoebe. ‘They’re not much older than you were when the accident happened. You were too young to remember but I’ll never forget how it felt.’

Phoebe closed her eyes; she could see her ten-year-old self standing beside Nola. Her wild red curls had been pulled into two tight plaits by unfamiliar hands and she had felt hot and uncomfortable in a borrowed black coat. Her eyes flew open at the memory of the three wooden coffins disappearing one by one into the ground.

‘Don’t forget you’re baby-sitting for us tonight.’ Nola was drying her hands on a tea towel covered with two hundred happy faces; it had been Phoebe’s idea to get the tea towels printed, every child in the school drew a self portrait and there had been a competition to draw pictures of the staff. It had raised over £1,000. David had told her she was fantastic. ‘If you don’t feel well enough then Amy and Ruben could come round here, watch telly with you.’ Nola was using the tea towel to rub at a stain on her cardigan. ‘Tell you what; we’ll bring round fish and chips when we drop them off. You look like you need feeding up.’

‘Honestly, Nola, you know I love seeing Amy and Ruben but I don’t think I can manage …’

Nola put the crumpled tea towel on the table and sat back down on the chair.

‘Don’t worry, you don’t have to have a whole portion, I’ll have a bit of yours – it’ll stop me stuffing my face in the restaurant.’

Phoebe reached for the tea towel and slowly spread it out in front of her. She found her own face, drawn by Hannah Jewson aged nine and three-quarters. The little girl had depicted Phoebe’s hair as a mass of tiny ringlets and dotted her cheeks with so many spots she looked as though she had measles rather than freckles.  David was at the centre of the tea towel, of course. The portrait had been drawn by Samuel Elson, Year Two – he given David a gigantic tie, spiky hair, and a big wobbly smile. Phoebe touched his damp, linen face and wondered what Nola would say if she told her.

Chapter Two

Days blurred into one another. For the first few weeks Phoebe managed to make it into work most days – it was as though the reality of the situation took some time for her to understand. It took at least two months to realise that David really wasn’t ever going to come breezing back into the staff room with his cheerful smile, let alone come bounding up the stairs to her flat.

The Christmas holidays were awful – empty days without a class of five-year-olds to distract her. On Christmas Day Phoebe dragged herself and a bag full of badly wrapped presents round to Nola and Steve’s. Nola drank too much Buck’s Fizz and argued with Steve about the turkey, while Amy and Ruben could hardly be prised away from their new DS games. Everyone forgot about the plum pudding in the microwave.

Sandra and the girls came round in the evening and they all squeezed on to Nola’s leather three-piece to watch a BBC comedy special in silence. Halfway through one of the girls climbed on to Phoebeʼs lap and Phoebe had to blink back her tears as she whispered my Dad used to laugh at this show. Later Phoebe let her tears fall unchecked as she ran home through the freezing night.

Phoebe was only vaguely aware of the New Year seeping in and by the time she returned to school it became harder and harder to go through the motions of her day. On Valentine’s Day she gave up and simply stayed in the flat. By the following Monday Phoebe barely had the strength to crawl from her bed to call in sick again.

‘We can’t keep finding supply teachers to cover for you, Phoebe,’ said Victoria Leach, who was now the Acting Head. ‘We’ve all had this nasty flu bug but everyone else has managed to get in after a day or two.’

Sometimes Phoebe set off for school in the morning, feeling slightly better, manoeuvring her ancient Morris Minor out into the rush-hour traffic only to find herself unable to drive more than a few metres, her vision dangerously blurred by tears, her legs incapable of working the pedals. Often she would leave the car, parked haphazardly against the curb, and walk and walk and walk, until her feet stung from so many miles of hard pavement and her head ached from lack of food and water. Then she would go back to bed.

‘You’re going to lose your job if you carry on like this,’ said Nola, opening the curtains and picking up the jeans and jumper that lay on the floor where Phoebe had discarded them the afternoon before.

From where she lay Phoebe focused on the heart stone mobile. It hung from the curtain pole against the window. Thirteen stones worn into perfect heart shapes by the sea – tied with fuse wire and suspended from beach-bleached sticks by thin lines of black cotton.

Nola reached up and opened the top of the window. The heart stones gently tapped against the glass. ‘When are you going to grow up and get rid of all this eco-hippy rubbish?’ Nola said, giving them a push so that the tapping became a clatter.

‘Why do you have those funny stones hanging up?’ David had said to her the day before he died. Phoebe lay with her cheek nestled against his chest. She breathed in the clean citrus smell of his skin mixed with the wine they were drinking. She relished his warmth against her body.

‘They’re special stones,’ she mumbled, wishing she could fall asleep.

‘Did you find them in India?’

‘No.’

‘Thailand?’ She shook her head.

‘Australia?’

‘I found them in Ireland, on the beach with my granny.’

‘I always forget that you’re really Irish.’ David twisted a long curl of her auburn hair around his finger. ‘My little Celtic colleen.’ He pulled.

‘Ow! That hurt.’ Phoebe tweaked his chest hair in return and David caught her wrist. Briefly they wrestled until Phoebe freed herself and fell back on the pillows laughing. After a few seconds she wriggled back into his arms. ‘I’m only half Irish and anyway my dad was Anglo-Irish, not a Celt. I hope that doesn’t destroy any of your fantasies.’ David didn’t answer and they lay in a silence broken only by the distant sounds of the evening rush hour. Phoebe thought about the broad, red-headed man who had been her father. Her memories of him were hazy but she felt sure he had actually been much more Celtic-looking than his long-limbed, handsome-featured mother.

‘Are you asleep?’ David asked, giving her a little prod.

‘No,’ she replied and slowly started to kiss the smooth muscles of his chest, working her way up towards his lips. She felt him lift his arm and knew he was looking at his watch.

‘I’d better go,’ he said.

Phoebe stopped kissing him and sighed.

‘Soon, Phoebe, very soon,’ he said, reading her mind. ‘I’ve decided that I’m going to tell Sandra after Christmas.’ He sat up and drained his glass of wine.

Phoebe had hardly dared to breathe. She reached up and traced the tattoo around his arm; the skin still brown from his half-term holiday in Tenerife; she thought about the pictures she’d seen on Facebook – David and Sandra and the girls, running through waves, laughing in a restaurant. Sandra had posted them, Fab Times, she had written. It was hell, David had said on their return.

ʻWhat about the girls?ʼ Phoebeʼs voice was a whisper. ʻI thought you’d said you couldn’t put them through a divorce.ʼ

David had found his boxer shorts at the end of the bed and he began to pull them on. He turned and stroked her cheek. ʻIt will be hard at first but they’ll get used to it.ʼ He tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. ʻAnyway the girls adore you and when they see how happy we are, they’ll be happy too.ʼ

 ʻBut …ʼ

He put his fingers on her lips, ʻI love you, Phoebe Brennan, and I want to be with you for ever.ʼ

Now for ever wasn’t going to happen and Sandra would never know he’d planned to leave her. She got to be the grieving widow while Phoebe was just an acquaintance, a colleague, the little sister of a family friend.

‘It’s not like you to be ill like this,’ said Nola. ‘You need to see a doctor. I’ll make you an appointment when I get into work.’ She started smoothing the bedspread. ‘Maybe you’re depressed, though goodness knows what you’ve got to be depressed about; you should try living with Steve and two self-centred kids – and if you only knew the sort of abuse I get from patients at the surgery – then you’d have something to be depressed about.’

‘Nola,’ Phoebe shifted her head against the pillows. ‘Can I tell you something?’ She didn’t look at her sister. She could see the trees outside the window; already plump buds were pushing their way out of the skeletal branches. She could hardly bear to think of the season changing, the world carrying on without him in it. She took a deep breath in. ‘It’s about David.’

Nola sat down heavily on the edge of the bed and took a crunched-up tissue from inside her cardigan sleeve. ‘Let’s not talk about him, you’ll set me off crying again,’ she wiped her nose. ‘I’m seeing Sandra most days at the moment. I think she’s still in shock, poor thing, she doesn’t sleep, she’s lost weight. She’s hardly able to do the shopping and get meals for the girls.’

‘I just need talk to you about something that happened, something that was going on.’ Phoebe could feel her heart beginning to beat faster.

‘I think if Steve died I’d just get on and cope, I’d be sad, upset for the kids, but I would carry on. But Sandra, she loved David so much, adored him. They adored each other.’

‘Nola …’

‘Poor Sandra, last month she told me she thought she might be pregnant.’

Phoebe felt as if ice-cold water was suddenly pouring through her veins.

ʻPregnant?’ Her voice came out a whisper.

‘She wasn’t, it must just have been the trauma. I thought that it would be a relief – the last thing she needs is another child with no father – but she was heartbroken. She wanted to be pregnant, to have another little piece of him, a new life they had created together.’

Phoebe couldn’t bear to think of them creating a new life together. David said he spent most nights sleeping in the spare room, that all affection was long gone, how could Sandra possibly have thought she was pregnant? Phoebe’s head spun, the trees outside the window blurred.

‘Apparently they often talked about having another child,’ went on Nola. ‘Sandra said he’d always wanted a son.’

Phoebe felt her stomach contract and she knew she would be sick. She quickly threw the covers from her bed and rushed into the bathroom.

Nola crouched down beside her and rubbed her back as Phoebe retched into the toilet; days of not eating meant that nothing much came up.

‘Oh, Phee, you really are ill. I’ll get you an emergency appointment – Dr Riddick, not a locum; that’s one of the perks of being the receptionist.’

Phoebe sat back against the radiator and wiped her mouth with a tissue offered by Nola.

‘No, don’t,’ she said. ‘I’ll be all right.’

Nola felt Phoebe’s forehead as if she was still the little girl that Nola had had to care for. ‘If you’re not better by Monday afternoon I’m getting you an evening appointment.’ She stood up. ‘I’ll ring you, OK? I’d better get back, Ruben’s got a judo tournament and Amy’s threatening to dye her hair pink with food colouring.’

At the doorway Nola turned. ‘Was there something you wanted to tell me?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Phoebe said.

Phoebe heard the bang of the door and then, half a minute later, the distant thud of the main front door downstairs. Almost with relief, she lay down on the bathroom floor and let hot tears flow over her face and onto the ceramic tiles. She couldn’t bear to think of David and Sandra talking about having another baby, planning the future, making love; while all the time David had been making love to her, talking to her about exactly the same things. He had told Phoebe that one day, when they were together, when he and Sandra were divorced, they would have children – as many children as Phoebe wanted. They’d even had a conversation about names; how could he ever have wanted more children with Sandra?

The thought of it hurt Phoebe like a physical blow and she drew her legs up to her stomach as if in self-defence. Then, suddenly, she realised the truth. Sandra had been making it up, lying, pretending she might be pregnant to get more sympathy, making up the story about David wanting another baby to add to the pathos of her husband’s death.

Phoebe relaxed a little. David hadn’t lied to her; he would have left Sandra, he’d been just about to leave her. She pressed her hands against her stinging eyes. If only the driver hadn’t used the brake as she skidded on the black ice outside the school. If only David hadn’t been shepherding the Year Four children across the road at the time. If only David was still alive.

After a long time Phoebe went back to bed and let herself sink into memories of the past – the only thing that brought her any comfort.

Phoebe thought about the second time she had met David, many years after the barbecue on that hot summer day in the overgrown garden. This time it was winter, she had just returned from Thailand. Back at Nola and Steve’s, permanently cold, sharing her old bedroom with Amy; she felt uncomfortable, in the way, itching to get on a plane and leave again, she wasn’t even sure why she had come back to Britain.

She sat shivering, in multiple layers of clothing, in front of Steve’s computer, trying to find out how to get a job teaching English in Japan.

‘Planning your escape already?’ a voice said and Phoebe turned to find David standing beside her. Ten years had passed and this time his hair was short and he wore a suit and tie. The tie had pictures of Bugs Bunny printed on it and even though it had been loosened to reveal an unbuttoned collar and a tiny patch of chest hair, he looked ridiculously conventional. Phoebe stared at him, surprised at the transformation, though his face was just as handsome as before, his intense blue eyes making her feel like an awkward teenager again. She forced herself to swivel on the office chair and face him.

‘I’m grabbing the day, just as you advised.’

David raised an eyebrow in a question.

‘Don’t you remember, live life to the full, it’s what you told me to do, see the world, meet people.’

David grinned down at her. ‘Did I say that? I’m flattered that you remember.’

Phoebe felt her cheeks flush. Through the wall she could hear Sandra talking to Nola and the shrill shrieks of the twins up above in Amy’s bedroom – probably going through her rucksack, pulling out her bikini tops and denim shorts.

‘It was a long time ago,’ David continued. ‘Though I do remember that you looked like the kind of girl who was longing for an adventure, and from what Nola tells us you’ve certainly been having one. How long were you travelling?’

‘Too long – according to Nola – and I can just imagine the things my sister has been telling you about me. She thinks I’ve been wasting my time and wasting my education. She says it’s time to settle down and get a proper job.’ Phoebe made a face.

‘Didn’t you do something quite arty at college?’

‘Illustration.’

‘That’s right, I remember. I heard you were good.’

Phoebe shrugged. ‘What about you? Still living your life to the full?’

‘Well,’ David began slowly, ‘I’m sure you know that Sandra and I got married and that we’ve got twin girls. We moved back here to be closer to Sandra’s parents and now I’m headteacher of the local primary school.’ He paused as one of the twins let out a squeal above him. ‘I think that just about sums up the last decade for me. Is that enough information for you?’

‘I suppose I thought you’d do something more …’

‘Exiting?’

Phoebe found it hard to drag her gaze away from his. She smiled. ‘I just never expected to see you in a suit and comedy tie.’

‘Don’t knock what you don’t know. I did the travelling thing too, followed the trails, smoked the hashish, did the bungee jumps, but I’d say that becoming a father and a teacher has been the biggest adventure by far.’

Phoebe rolled her eyes and they both burst out laughing. ‘That sounded really corny, didn’t it?’ said David.

‘Just a bit,’ replied Phoebe. David leant against the study wall and ran his hands through his neatly cut hair.

‘You’re right. Life hasn’t exactly been what I was planning when I last saw you. Sandra got pregnant, I needed a job, we needed a house, teaching was the easiest and quickest option; living life to the full was suddenly on hold.’

‘Are you happy?’

‘Are you?’

‘I’m free. I can do whatever I want, go wherever I want.’

‘Run away wherever, whenever you want,’ said David.

‘I’m not running away.’

‘Then maybe you should try sticking around for once?’

There was a thud from up above, followed by the clatter of Amy coming down the stairs. ‘Auntie Sandra, the twins are fighting again.’

Phoebe and David both looked upwards. They could hear the high-pitched bickering of little girls. There was another thud, then silence followed by a long, loud wail.

‘Behave,’ Sandra bellowed from the kitchen.

Phoebe looked at David.

‘Maybe you’re jealous,’ she said.

‘Jealous? Of what?’

‘Of me travelling, taking off whenever I want.ʼ She paused and gave him a sideways glance. ʻLiving your dream.’

David shrugged. ‘I’m just saying you could stay here and give it a chance. Get a job doing something that really interests you.’

 ‘You sound like a schoolteacher.’

‘I am a schoolteacher.’

They both laughed again. At last Phoebe could see the free-spirited young man sheʼd met at her sisterʼs barbecue. She remembered the tattoo; beneath the suit and shirt it must still be there. Phoebe stopped laughing and turned back to the website she’d been looking at.

David crouched down beside her and looked at the computer screen. ‘Can I just make one more suggestion without being accused of being a teacher?’ His hand made a move towards the mouse.

‘OK,’ Phoebe could hear the drone of Sandra’s voice talking to Nola; she tried to block it out and watched David click through Google to a di