Same Time Next Year

by Heidi Stephens

Genres: Family Life; Siblings; Women's Fiction; Clean & Wholesome Romance; Contemporary Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

A LOT CAN HAPPEN IN A YEAR . . .

Sisters Bel and Marie are poles apart. Whilst Marie is a free spirit who spurns alcohol, casual sex and material possessions, Bel needs all of those things just to make it through to lunchtime.

When their mother dies suddenly, leaving them a rundown house on the Norfolk coast, they are unexpectedly thrown together. Because there's a condition: before they can inherit it, they have to live in it for one year - together.

Marie invites some old friends to Orchard House to form a working party, and Bel is drawn to the devastatingly handsome, yet silent and brooding, Nick. The only problem is, they want entirely different things . . .

If Bel can make it through the year unscathed, she'll consider it a success. But that means dealing with everything she's been sweeping under the rug for decades. Could it be time to leave the past behind and embrace the future? And in doing so, will the sisters finally find their way back to each other?

Same Time Next Year is the hilarious, heart-warming and joyful new novel from award-winning author Heidi Stephens about love, life, hope, family and the importance of taking chances. Perfect for fans of Beth Moran, Milly Johnson, Lucy Diamond and Jill Mansell.

Readers LOVE Heidi Stephens!

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'⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ The perfect read!'

'⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ Warm and real and honest . . . Genuinely could not recommend this book more'

'⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ I read it in one sitting'

'⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ A five-star read that will make you fall in love again'

'⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ Perfect comfort reading'

'⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ A delightful and addictive read that ventures beyond pure romance exploring the complexities of love, marriage, and self-discovery'

'⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ One of my favourite reads!'

Release date: February 29, 2024

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 400

Sample

The turnout for Lily Grey’s wake was higher than Bel had expected, considering how much the canal boat community moved around. The bar at the Black Swan was three deep with mourners, mostly sporting weathered skin, faded dungarees and knitwear that reeked of woodsmoke and weed. Nobody had bothered to tell Bel about the cheerful dress code, so she looked like a black-clad teacher in a sea of rainbow toddlers. When Marie finally graced them all with her presence, she would almost certainly be wearing neon glittery tights, but that was just a normal day on Planet Marie.

Bel took a few calming breaths and inspected the buffet with a trained eye. It definitely wasn’t winning any Michelin stars – a couple of foil trays of dry sandwiches, a selection of miniature pork pies and vegan sausage rolls, a plate of shrivelled cocktail sausages, some kind of aubergine dip that looked like a phlegmy sneeze in a bowl. On the bar were two big dishes of crisps that a group of feral-looking children kept plunging their grubby hands into. Bel surreptitiously checked her fingernails, an instinct born from years of trying to fit in with habitually clean people. They were grime-free and tidy, with a coating of pale pink polish.

Someone else had organised the food; presumably Lily’s friend Celeste, who had made the call to tell Bel that Lily was dead. We’ll deal with everything, Bluebell, we know what kind of send-off your mother would like. Celeste hadn’t even asked for a contribution to the cost, which explained the shitty buffet. But Bel had been too rattled to question it at the time, and her sister Marie had been abroad until yesterday. Volunteering in a dog shelter in Crete or Corfu; Bel couldn’t remember which. Either way, somewhere considerably warmer than this frigid pub.

Today Lily had been cremated, but in line with her wishes there had been no service or gathering at the crematorium, just this bullshit excuse for a wake. The actual funeral would follow on the vernal equinox next month, when Lily’s ashes would be scattered next to her narrowboat, the Fleur De Lys. Bel had attended several of these events as a child and was already dreading the inevitable singing of folk songs and terrible poetry.

Lily had died of a ruptured brain aneurysm, Celeste had said, quick and painless. Since Lily had been alone on her boat at the time, Bel couldn’t see how Celeste could possibly have known that. The following morning Celeste had noticed that there was no smoke coming from the chimney of Lily’s wood stove, and Bel knew that nobody lived on a narrowboat in England in winter without keeping a fire in twenty-four hours a day. If your chimney was cold, you were almost certainly dead.

She looked around the room, thinking about the moment two weeks ago when she’d taken that phone call. For a moment her world had stopped turning and all the air had been squeezed out of her lungs, and then a hollow feeling of emptiness had settled into the pit of her stomach. Bel had been to funerals before, but this was her first experience of a family death. If this was grief, it felt a lot like being hungry all the time.

The door opened with a blast of icy wind, and Marie slid into the pub, quickly shrugging off her orange coat. Bel clocked the oversized green jumper and purple sequinned tights – Marie was thirty-three years old, so why did she insist on dressing like a children’s television presenter? She watched her sister weave her way to the buffet table and consider the options for a moment, before selecting a sausage roll from the vegan platter and sidling over to Bel.

‘Thanks for coming,’ Marie said quietly.

Bel pressed her lips together as she looked Marie up and down, the first time she’d been in the same room as her sister for over two years. Marie had put on a few pounds, but annoyingly it suited her – she looked soft and pretty, like a teddy bear. They both had the same red hair, but Bel’s was longer and naturally straighter, like a soft curtain that fell to her shoulder blades. Marie’s was a shaggy mess that barely covered her ears, and at some point she’d dyed it blue so the ends clashed horribly with an inch of red roots.

‘That’s rich, considering you’re late,’ hissed Bel through gritted teeth. ‘And it’s our mother’s funeral. Why wouldn’t I come?’

Marie pulled a face as she peeled the corners of the pastry apart to inspect the filling. ‘You’re historically unpredictable. Why didn’t you do the catering?’

‘Nobody asked,’ replied Bel, realising for the first time that she was actually quite upset about that. ‘Anyway, I couldn’t have done it – Valentine’s Day is one of my busiest times.’ This was true – for the past week she’d been preparing gourmet dinners and heart-shaped desserts that were delivered in foil trays so they could be cooked and plated up with a flourish. She curated the whole package – food, champagne, chocolates, candles, heart-shaped confetti to scatter over the dinner table – all for considerably less than the cost of a fancy night out and without the need for a babysitter and a taxi home. She’d had a decent number of orders, but nothing like last year. Several other local caterers had started offering something similar, but with lower overheads and more choice.

So yes, she had been busy, but obviously knocking out a few plates of canapés for her mother’s wake wouldn’t have been a problem. She considered the possibility that Lily’s friends had known her daughter ran a party catering business and decided they didn’t trust her to do a good job. Or even worse, that Lily had never mentioned it.

‘How is the world of private catering, anyway?’ asked Marie, casting her gaze around the room rather than making eye contact – an annoying habit she clearly hadn’t shed. In fact pretty much everything about Marie annoyed her – the spangly tights, the battered Doc Martens, the swampy hair, the nose piercing, the way she skipped through life giving no fucks about anything at all. Marie had always been like this, and it had been making Bel’s teeth grind since they were children.

‘Do you actually care? Or are you just making polite conversation?’ Bel replied, not bothering to hide the edge in her voice. They were away from the main groups of mourners by the bar and the buffet table, so nobody could hear them. And anyway, what did it matter? Other than the ashes ceremony, she would almost certainly never see these people again.

‘Hmm. Good question,’ said Marie, her brow furrowing thoughtfully. She was silent for a moment, then turned to face her sister and smiled sweetly. ‘I’m just making polite conversation,’ she said, popping the rest of the sausage roll into her mouth. ‘I couldn’t give a shit.’

Eventually all the mourners had paid their respects to Bel and Marie and drifted back to their boats, leaving only three other people in the pub – the barman, an older woman in a hand-knitted mustard cardigan and unseasonal leather sandals, who Bel recognised as her mother’s friend Celeste, and a man in his late thirties with a beard and a manbun. Bel had found her eyes drawn to him several times over the course of the afternoon, mostly because he was a good six foot three, had cheekbones like razors, and was the only man in the room with a proper shirt on. He was currently ferrying empty plates and glasses to the bar, so maybe he worked here.

‘Bluebell, Marigold,’ said Celeste, clutching their hands in her rough, leathery fingers. ‘How wonderful to see you.’

‘We prefer Bel and Marie,’ said Bel instinctively, just as she had the day their mother had shuffled them into the local primary school for the first time, aged seven. Bel had been born in September and Marie the following August, an eleventh-month gap that put them in the same class – and for a few weeks at the start of each school year, made them the same age.

Until that point their education had been largely boat-based – both girls could build a fire, clean out weeds from a propeller and calculate the exact turning angle and speed required to navigate a six-foot-wide narrowboat through a seven-foot-wide bridge on a bend without crashing. They could tie complex knots and polish brass to a high shine, but formal education had been somewhat sporadic. Eventually Lily had secured a permanent mooring just outside Bradford-on-Avon and enrolled her two girls at the local school.

Bel could still remember the burning mortification as the other children laughed at their strange clothes and unconventional names, but Marie was a natural storyteller. Within days, she’d weaved a tale that transformed them from Bluebell and Marigold, the strange sisters who had never been to a proper school, to Bel and Marie, the colourful, adventurous sisters who lived on a canal boat like Rosie and Jim, the rag dolls on kids’ TV.

‘Thank you for organising this, Celeste,’ said Marie. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t around to help.’

Bel’s temper flared at what was surely a dig from Marie. At least I was on time.

‘It’s the least I could do,’ said Celeste. ‘Your mother was the best friend I could have wished for.’

Bel wondered idly if Lily and Celeste had been sleeping together, but decided the reek of incense and roll-ups would have given her mother a permanent headache. Then she remembered how Lily had died and felt a brief flicker of guilt. They said their goodbyes at the door and watched Celeste climb onto an ancient bicycle and head off down the towpath, her head bowed into the wind.

‘Hello,’ said a voice behind them, and the two sisters turned to see the bearded man standing a few feet away.

‘Hi,’ said Bel with a smile, giving him another swift glance from his blue eyes to his brown leather hiking boots. Not bad at all, although Bel had never met a guy with a manbun who wasn’t too deep and spiritual for casual sex.

‘I’m Martin. I’m your mother’s solicitor. Well, I was. I’m very sorry for your loss.’

‘Our mother had a solicitor?’ asked Marie, just as Bel was about to ask the same question. Lily had been a canal folk artist who didn’t own so much as a mobile phone. What did she need with a lawyer?

‘Yes, well, kind of,’ said Martin, wringing his hands. ‘I’m more of a neighbour, I live four boats down from Lily’s and work for a firm in town. Family law mostly, but I also do pro-bono work for some of the canal community. I helped your mother write her will.’

‘When?’ she asked, before Marie’s mouth could open.

Martin thought for a moment. ‘I suppose it was eighteen months ago, a little while after your grandmother died. Lily’s mother.’

Bel shook her head in confusion and glanced at Marie, who looked none the wiser. ‘Our grandparents died before we were born,’ said Bel. ‘We never met them.’

‘No,’ said Martin, his brow furrowed. ‘Your grandmother died two years ago. I helped Lily sort out some legal stuff.’ He paused and shuffled awkwardly as the news sank in. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you didn’t know. How odd.’

Bel immediately looked back to Marie, half-expecting to see a guilty expression that betrayed her having known all along, but she looked equally shocked and confused. Bel pulled the sleeves of her dress down over her fists; the room felt suddenly cold now it wasn’t full of people. ‘We’re an odd family,’ she said, determined not to let Martin see how thrown she was. ‘But just so I’m clear, we’ve lost a mother, gained a grandmother, then lost her too. Do you know of any other relatives? Living or dead?’

‘Bel,’ whispered Marie, clearly mortified. Bel closed her eyes and breathed through her nose for a moment, trying to stop the buzzing noise in her head, as Martin pressed the palms of his hands together, looking mildly panicked. Bel noticed his fingernails were spotless and decided to upgrade him again; right now, deep and spiritual sex might not be a bad thing.

‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘today obviously isn’t the time for us to get into the details of Lily’s will, but it would be good to speak to both of you soon.’

‘We’ll be on the boat tomorrow, sorting out all her stuff,’ said Marie.

‘Fine,’ said Martin, looking relieved and keen to leave. ‘I’ll pop over, shall I?’

‘Sure,’ said Bel, pushing aside the chaotic thoughts for a moment and giving him her best come-hither smile. ‘We’ll look forward to it.’

‘Ugh,’ said Marie as Bel waved Martin off from the pub doorway.

Bel spun to face her. ‘What’s your problem?’

‘You, as usual,’ replied Marie, folding her arms. ‘You’re going to try to shag him, aren’t you?’

Bel gave a hooting laugh, watching the barman briefly raise his eyebrows as he loaded glasses into the dishwasher. ‘Jesus, Mar. Why would you say that?’

Marie folded her arms and faced her sister, her stance combative. ‘Because when you’re feeling upset and vulnerable you drink too much and have sex with strangers.’

Bel drained her wine glass and dumped it on the table. ‘Seriously, don’t hold back.’

‘Did you know?’ asked Marie quietly, and Bel momentarily saw the scared, seven-year-old girl who had clung to her coat on the first day at school. She’d been her sister’s protector then, but in no time Marie had forged her own path and Bel had started to feel increasingly like a fish out of water. Or actually the opposite – a girl forced to live in a cramped, watery world when all she wanted was a normal life with normal people. Like Ariel the Little Mermaid, but without the crabby best friend or the handsome prince to save her.

‘No,’ said Bel. ‘Did you?’

‘No,’ said Marie. ‘I have no idea what just happened. Look, the next few days are going to be bad enough,’ she added, turning her palms to face upwards. ‘It would be nice to have some . . . stability.’

‘From me, you mean,’ said Bel, wondering if the barman would give her a bottle of wine to take back to Bristol so she didn’t have to stop at Tesco Express on the way to the train station. In the absence of a deep and spiritual coupling with Manbun Martin, wine would do.

‘Yes,’ said Marie. ‘No boozing, no getting high, no shagging strangers because you’re wasted and miserable. Then we can go our separate ways again and you can do whatever you like.’

Bel considered the request for a moment. It had been years since she’d last chased any kind of illegal high, but there was no reason why Marie would know that. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘But in exchange I’d like you to promise not to be an uptight, preachy bitch about everything.’

‘Is that what you think of me?’ asked Marie, pulling her coat off the hook and shoving her arms into the sleeves.

‘Maybe on a good day,’ said Bel with a sarcastic smile, ‘when I’m drunk and high. The rest of the time I don’t think of you at all.’

Marie rolled her eyes. ‘Christ, Bel. You’re an awful person, do you know that?’

‘So I’ve been told,’ said Bel airily. ‘Look, I’m already bored of this conversation, so let’s just agree to get through the next couple of days without killing each other.’

‘Fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ Marie stomped out of the pub and let the door slam shut behind her.

Bel stood for a second in silence, then grabbed her coat from the peg and put her wine glass on the bar.

The barman nodded his thanks. ‘Not much love between the sisters, then?’ he remarked with a smile. He had an accent from somewhere in eastern Europe, not that it mattered.

Bel considered him for a second. Not as tall as Martin, but nice lips and kind eyes. ‘No, not much.’ She put her elbows on the bar and rested her chin in her hands, watching his eyes flicker to her newly boosted cleavage. ‘Which seems such a waste, when I have so much love to give.’

The barman looked at Bel, and Bel looked at the barman. He wasn’t much, but she’d definitely had worse.

Bel had done a few walks of shame in her time, but never on a bicycle borrowed from a Slovenian barman after a one-night stand, down a wet canal towpath in a pair of heeled boots and a black wool dress that threatened to get tangled in the spokes at every turn. It was eight miles to Lily’s boat, and by the time she arrived she was covered in mud and in serious need of coffee. To make things worse, Marie was already waiting for her, sitting on the roof of the Fleur De Lys with her legs dangling over the port side.

‘Didn’t make it home last night, then,’ said Marie with a sly smile as Bel propped the bike against the side of the boat. She tried to wipe the mud off her dress, but somehow just made it worse.

‘Fuck off, Mar,’ she snapped, not even bothering to look at her sister. ‘Is there any coffee?’

Marie jumped off the boat and walked towards the stern deck, opening the door and disappearing down the steps into the bowels of the narrowboat. Bel followed, kicking off her muddy boots and glancing at her mother’s bed, which was tucked into the starboard side of the boat. The sheets were thrown back and there was still a compression in the mattress where her mother had slept for almost seventeen years. Bel shivered and squeezed down the narrow walkway past the tiny bathroom into the kitchen area, where Marie was spooning instant coffee into a mug as the kettle on the stove began to gently whistle. She looked pale and haunted, and Bel felt a rare moment of something vaguely resembling unity. Whilst Bel had found a convenient, cock-shaped distraction from yesterday’s revelations, clearly Marie had not.

Marie sloshed in some oat milk from the fridge and wordlessly handed Bel the steaming mug, then ducked into the lounge area at the bow of the boat to stoke the wood burner and throw in a couple more logs. The boat felt warm, suggesting Marie had been here for some time.

‘Have you been sleeping here?’ asked Bel, trying and largely failing to sound non-combative. Any feeling of alliance with Marie rarely lasted long.

‘For the past two nights, yes,’ said Marie. ‘I didn’t have anywhere to stay when I got back from Crete. I’ve been sleeping in here.’ She nodded to the two upholstered benches facing each other over a laminated table; Bel knew that a quick adjustment turned them into a small bed.

She nodded, not really sure why she cared other than generally objecting to her sister being warm and comfortable when she herself was wearing yesterday’s clothes and hadn’t showered. ‘So what’s the plan?’

‘I thought we should just go through her things,’ said Marie. ‘Start at the front of the boat and work backwards, organise everything into piles for throwing out or taking to the charity shop. I suppose there might be some things we want to keep.’

Bel shrugged her agreement, already wondering what other family secrets Lily had been keeping from them. She hadn’t been a bad mother, just unreachable and distant, prone to dark moods and only truly at peace when she was lost in her painting. Their father had left shortly after Marie was born, so the two sisters had quickly learned to be self-sufficient, making their own meals and getting themselves ready for school and bed. They got used to being three women on a boat, two small and one big, never using words like ‘mummy’ or ‘darling’ and responsible for nobody but themselves.

Today, however, required teamwork, so Bel fell in beside her sister and started sifting through clothes and books and kitchen equipment, consigning anything perishable or damaged beyond repair to rubbish bags, and leaving the rest for the boat community to reuse or recycle. She picked up two framed photos from the narrow shelf – one of Lily painting yellow flowers on a metal watering can, her red hair piled into a messy bun and an intense expression of concentration on a face that looked so like Bel’s, and the other of Lily, Bel and Marie together. It had been taken when the girls were about ten or eleven, standing either side of their mother on the port-side gunwale with their backs against the side of the boat. The absence of smiles and the two feet of space between each of them made Bel snort with laughter.

‘What’s so funny?’ asked Marie, putting down a pile of books and peering at the frame in Bel’s hand. ‘Fucking hell, we look like hostages.’

‘Facing a firing squad,’ said Bel.

‘I can’t remember who took it,’ said Marie. ‘I’m not sure Lily even had a camera. Christ, I’d forgotten how yellow that boat was.’ The picture had been taken on the Misty Dawn, the sixty-seven-foot narrowboat where both girls had been born and raised. Bel had been seventeen when she moved into the shared flat above the restaurant in Bath where she worked in the kitchen, and a few months later Marie had shouldered her backpack and hitchhiked to India with some people she’d met at a festival. Within months Lily had sold the Misty Dawn and downscaled to the Fleur De Lys, a fifty-seven-foot narrowboat with only one proper bed. At the time it had struck Bel as a fairly firm indicator that Lily’s daughters were not expected to return to the family unit. Bel popped by once or twice a year, usually just for a few hours to remind her mother she existed. She had no idea how often Marie visited.

‘Do you want it?’ asked Marie, holding out the photo frame.

Bel shrugged. ‘Not really. I’ll take the other one, though.’ She didn’t have a recent picture of their mother, and as much as they’d never been particularly close, she definitely didn’t want to forget what she looked like.

After a couple of hours they had uncovered a ceramic pot containing £358 in notes and coins, a building society book that held a balance of just under £1,400, and the deed to the Fleur De Lys and the mooring, but there was no sign of anything that looked like a will. There were several sketch books of designs for canal boat art – Lily had met the cost of her canal licence, diesel, firewood, food and clothing out of commissions for boat painting. Like all of the canal community, Lily had lived frugally and entirely off-grid, with her only transport being the boat and an old bicycle strapped under a tarpaulin on the roof.

‘Hello?’ said a voice, as Manbun Martin appeared through the hatch and weaved his way through the boat, followed closely by Celeste, who was wearing what looked like mechanic’s overalls. Martin was holding a white envelope and a thermos coffee cup, whilst Celeste clutched a cake tin. ‘Banana flapjacks,’ she said, putting it down by the tiny hob. ‘Vegan and gluten-free, no nuts.’

Bel sighed, wondering what joyless combination of dust and packing material had gone into that recipe. Thankfully she rarely consumed anything but coffee before 2 p.m. anyway.

‘Is that Lily’s will?’ Bel gestured to the envelope in Martin’s hand. ‘We assumed there would be a copy on the boat, but we haven’t come across it.’

‘That’s odd,’ said Martin. ‘I definitely gave her a copy. Did you check the flap?’

Bel’s brow furrowed. ‘The flap? What flap?’

Martin walked to the front of the boat and pressed the wooden panel above the door to the bow storage area. It dropped open to reveal a space about the size of a shoebox, containing a small bundle of papers and notebooks, including a white envelope identical to the one Martin was holding.

‘Sorry,’ he said awkwardly. ‘I didn’t realise you didn’t know.’

‘We never lived on this boat,’ said Marie defensively, putting the kettle on for more coffee.

Martin handed the bundle of papers to Bel before opening the envelope and inspecting the contents. ‘OK, it’s the same will as the one I have, so it’s reasonable to assume it’s the most recent.’ He looked up at the three women as he manoeuvred his tall frame onto one of the dinette benches and flattened the pages out on the table. ‘I’ve asked Celeste along because she’s one of the beneficiaries. Do you want me to read it in full, or just summarise the headlines?’

‘I’m fine with the headlines,’ said Bel, as Marie and Celeste nodded in agreement.

‘Great,’ said Martin, scanning through the text. ‘The boat and the mooring were Lily’s main assets here, along with a building society account where she kept enough money for the following year’s canal licence.’

‘We’ve found the account book,’ Marie chimed in. ‘It has nearly one thousand four hundred pounds in it.’ Neither of them mentioned the cash, which was already in Bel’s coat pocket.

‘Good,’ said Martin, taking a deep breath and looking up at the three women. ‘Lily left all of that to Celeste.’

A heavy silence fell, broken only by the gentle hiss of the kettle on the stove. Celeste covered her mouth with a leathery hand and started to cry. ‘She’s left everything to Celeste?’ asked Bel, feeling suddenly nauseous.

‘The boat and its contents, barring any personal items that you or Marigold want to keep, plus the mooring and the money in the building society account,’ said Martin. ‘The text says it’s a gesture of thanks for Celeste’s enduring love and friendship.’ Celeste’s dramatic sobs became louder as she gripped the edge of the worktop, and it took all of Bel’s self-control not to roll her eyes.

‘This is fucking outrageous,’ said Marie, trying and failing to keep her volume under control. ‘No disrespect, Celeste, but you already have a boat. Why do you need two, when I’m currently homeless?’

Celeste shook her head, unable to speak through the tears. She wafted her hands as she bolted towards the door at the back of the boat, clearly needing space and distance to process the news. The sudden movement made the ropes securing the boat to the mooring strain and creak.

‘Fucking unbelievable,’ muttered Marie, watching the door swing closed before turning the gas off.

‘Just so I’m clear,’ said Bel, glaring at Martin. ‘Lily left her entire estate to Celeste, with nothing at all for her two daughters?’

‘I didn’t say that,’ said Martin slowly, flipping to the second page of the will. ‘She’s left the two of you her house.’

The two sisters looked at each other, their faces pale with shock. ‘What house?’ said Bel, shaking her head in confusion. ‘Sorry, did you just say Lily left us a house?’ She shuffled around in front of the wood burner as Marie paced up and down in the kitchen. Martin remained seated at the dinette, watching them both.

‘Yes.’

‘This makes no sense,’ said Marie. ‘Why would she have a house?’

‘My understanding is that it was left to her by her mother,’ Martin explained. ‘I believe it’s been empty for the past two years. I don’t kn. . .