The Love Book

by Fiona O''Brien, Fiona O'Brien

Genres: Marriage & Divorce; Friendship; Women's Fiction; Romance

Synopsis

Three friends reunited. Three wishes made long ago. And one life-changing book. 'Not something you'll ever want to put down' Sunday Independent 'One of the smartest writers of popular fiction around' Irish Independent On an autumn day in 1981, three schoolgirls write their petitions for love at St Valentine's shrine in Whitefriar St Church, Dublin. Thirty years later, freelance journalist Vonnie unexpectedly returns home from her life in California and reunites with her two friends: Abby, now married to a plastic surgeon and Diana, a high-powered businesswoman. As the three friends examine their lives, they learn that finding love was the easy part ... it's what comes afterwards that proves complicated. If they were to do it all again, would they wish for the same things?

Release date: February 2, 2017

Publisher: Hachette Ireland

Print pages: 432

Sample

‘Hurry up!’ hisses Abby. ‘How long d’you think I can keep these seats for?’ She is lying across the coveted back seats of the school bus, her face puce with exertion from fighting off any takers, tendrils of dark red hair, which have escaped her ponytail, frame her indignant face.

‘Jesus, Abby, relax will you?’ Diana slides in beside her, indicating the seat next to her for me.

‘If we were all as relaxed as you, Di, we’d be sitting up at the front, with Sr Lezzo. Or maybe that’s what you were hoping for?’

‘Keep your hair on,’ Diana grins. ‘We’re here now, aren’t we?’

Sr Lezzo is a reference to Sr Gallaway, an elderly nun, recently returned from America, presumably to retire. She is our class mistress, although she doesn’t teach anything, just supervises study periods, during which time she has an unfortunate habit of slipping one hand underneath her brown cardigan and massaging her breasts absent-mindedly, while absorbed in her reading. She cannot understand the muffled outbursts of mirth this produces. Along with her heavily accented American twang and adopted vocabulary, study has become highly entertaining. Phrases such as ‘load up the wagon’ (the refectory trolley) and ‘put it in the trashcan’ (wastepaper bin) are used by us at every opportunity to infuriate the other nuns, accompanied by the caveat, ‘Sr Gallaway told us to.’

It is thanks to Sr Gallaway and another nun of nervous disposition, recently returned from the Philippines, that we are on this day trip to Dublin. A cultural tour of the city to welcome them home, a visit to the National Museum and the National Gallery, Trinity College, St Michan’s Church and then back home in time for tea. A day out. Our school head, Sr O’Malley, is in charge, accompanied by our History teacher, Mr Sullivan, who looks permanently flustered.

‘Right, girls,’ Sr O’Malley calls us to attention after we have completed our last stop on the tour. ‘You may have one hour – exactly one free hour – to go for coffee or have a stroll around. The bus will be at the top of St Stephen’s Green at ten to five precisely. Anyone who is later than five o’clock will be grounded on Sunday. Do I make myself clear? And, girls?’

‘Yes, Sister?’

‘Since you are in uniform, I don’t have to remind you that you are representing the school. I expect your conduct to be exemplary.’

‘Yes, Sister.’

‘Right you are – and no running.’

We’re off. A sea of floating green in our abhorred school capes that billow behind us as we make our escape.

‘C’mon, it’s this way,’ Abby instructs, as Diana and I follow her, peeling away from the others.

‘Aren’t you coming to Thunderbirds?’ Mary, who is almost as invested in food as I am, looks incredulous.

‘Later,’ says Diana. ‘We’ll catch up with you. See ya.’

I think longingly of Thunderbirds’ burgers and thick-cut chips, followed by deep-filled American apple pie, accompanied by lashings of thick, whipped cream on the side, washed down by Coke – our all-time favourite meal of choice whenever we get the chance to get in to town. But there’s no time, we are on a mission.

‘We might not get another chance – not until it’s too late anyway.’ Abby is resolute. ‘C’mon, hurry.’

We set off down Grafton Street, the main shopping drag, passing by the two large department stores that face each other – Brown Thomas and Switzer’s – then turn left into Wicklow Street and left, again, at the end, into George’s Street, which has a more rundown feel. No big stores here, mostly decaying houses fronting offices. Farther up, we reach Aungier Street, and up ahead on the right looms a large church.

‘There it is!’ says Abby pointing. ‘That’s it, Whitefriars.’ And we cross the road.

‘Are you sure about this?’ I say doubtfully. ‘Couldn’t we go to a fortune-teller instead, or something? Have our cards read?’

‘Don’t be silly, they’re only charlatans.’ Abby is defiant. ‘They don’t know anything – just want to take your money. Do you want to secure your future or not?’

‘How do you know this’ll work?’ Diana looks sceptical.

‘Because it just will. My mother says so. All her friends and family came here and they all got what they wanted – and who they wanted.’ This was said triumphantly. Abby holds anything her mother says in great regard. She is always right, apparently. Infallible, like the Pope.

‘My mother swears by Lough Derg,’ says Diana. ‘You go three times in your life, do the three-day pilgrimage, and get anything you want. You save your soul as well.’

‘Lough Derg is in Pettigo,’ Abby points out. ‘That’s in Donegal, Diana, a mere five-hour trip. And you have to fast for three days.’ She is losing patience. ‘We can do that next summer.’

The thought of fasting makes me feel weak. I have heard horror stories of Lough Derg, people fainting with hunger, their feet ripped to shreds from stumbling over the stones barefoot and having to be carried off to the mainland to be revived.

‘St Valentine is here in Dublin – right inside this church. Now are you coming in or aren’t you?’

We go in.

We enter into a large vestibule, and take a moment for our eyes to adjust to the dim light. On the walls are many plaques and pictures of past members of the Carmelite order, who run the church. Names jump out at me, of robed men who have gone to their heavenly reward. Fr Dinny Devlin and Fr John Spratt have done great work with the Poor of Dublin, I read. I wonder mindlessly if Fr Spratt was any relation to Jack, of nursery rhyme lore.

Inside, in the cavernous nave, our eyes grow wide. The church is huge, and filled along each wall with many statues beneath which flicker a multitude of candles. On the left, there is even a miniature replica of the Lourdes Grotto. At first glance, I see St Joseph, St Anthony, St Martin, the Sacred Heart and many versions of Our Lady. I have never seen so many shrines in one church.

‘Over here, this way.’ Abby heads to the right, and we genuflect and make the sign of the cross as we traverse the main aisle, bowing our heads in honour of the tabernacle, and follow Abby into the south transept. And then, right in front of us, there he is – St Valentine – his statue somehow smaller than I had imagined and, beneath it, underneath his little altar through a pane of glass, there is a small cask, the one that holds his relics. Despite myself, I feel an involuntary shudder. Someone has walked over my grave.

‘Here’s the book,’ whispers Abby. ‘Here’s where you write your petition.’

I am disappointed. I had expected something impressive, intricately beautiful, like the Book of Kells maybe, an ancient manuscript that we’d have to put on special gloves to handle. Instead, what I see before me is just an A4, wire-bound copybook, open at the page of whoever wrote the last request – the writing is illegible, spidery. A biro lies beside it, ready for use. Suddenly, I hang back, unsure, I feel short-changed and uncomfortable, and I don’t know why.

‘Oh, here,’ Abby hisses and snatches the biro. ‘I’ll go first. And there’s no peeking, okay? No looking at what each of us writes, otherwise it won’t come true, your petition won’t be granted. So stand back until I’ve finished.’

I watch as Abby writes confidently, fluidly, as if she has rehearsed this many times in her head. She is word perfect. I glance behind me. Opposite St Valentine is a statue of St Jude the Apostle, the patron saint of hopeless causes, and I wonder if he wouldn’t be a more appropriate choice to intercede for me. I catch the eye of an elderly woman, kneeling nearby with an old man, her husband presumably, and she smiles at me and winks. I feel myself blushing. I am a grade-A eejit.

But now Abby is finished, and she hands the pen like a baton to Diana, who takes her place, turns the page and begins to write her own petitions – or rather demands, I suspect. As Diana writes, quickly, methodically, she frowns in concentration. No room for slip-ups here. From what I can see, which is not enough, she appears to be writing a list, numerically ordered. This strikes me as amusing, but really I am just playing for time, distracting myself, frantically trying not to think of what I will write. What will I ask for? I don’t even know. I am unnatural, without hopes, devoid of dreams. My mind is blank. I feel slightly sick, like I used to when I was little on Christmas Eve before I eventually fell asleep, a mixture of dread and excitement.

And now it is my turn, Diana turns the page and hands me the pen. ‘Don’t bother looking,’ she grins, ‘I’ve written mine in French.’

I smile weakly and take up my position. My hands are clammy, and I can feel beads of sweat breaking out on my forehead. I turn around, like a child seeking reassurance, and see Abby nodding at me vehemently. But still there is nothing. I am supposed to ask for a lover, a soul mate, a happy marriage – but the concept seems ridiculous. For I am surely unloveable. The thought of being a disappointment to some mythical man of the future fills me with foreboding. I am not aware that I am chewing the plastic biro until I feel it crunch and taste the sourness of ink on my tongue. Oh God. I look up at St Valentine, at his kindly, or perhaps disinterested, face. Why should he care? I am one of thousands, millions maybe. I am wasting his time. And then suddenly it comes to me. I am filled with calm and I know exactly what to write. Please, St Valentine, let me be loved, just once, in my lifetime. It doesn’t have to be forever, but I would much rather be on my own than in a loveless marriage. But please, if you can, send me somebody to love me, who I can love too. That’s it. Thank you very much.

I sign it Vonnie, 18th September 1981. Then I heave a sigh of relief, put down the pen and turn the page. My hands, when I wipe them on my skirt, are shaking.

Afterwards, we head back to Bewley’s on Grafton Street for a quick coffee before catching the bus. Well, Diana and Abby have a quick coffee, I accompany mine with a chocolate eclair and a jammy donut. Then Abby gives in and grabs a brown scone before we reach the self-service till to pay up. The place is packed, as usual, not a vacant table in sight. At times like this, I am glad we have Diana with us. She is confident to the point of brazenness about using her devastating Gallic looks and charm to her own ends, particularly where men are concerned. Her father has told her it is a woman’s right. We follow, with our trays in hand, as she makes her way over to a table where a young man lingers with an empty cup in front of him, reading a newspaper. My face flames in anticipated mortification and I study my tray. I have witnessed her in action many times and the men always come off the losers. It seems vaguely unfair. But now I’m tired and hungry and my feet hurt.

‘Excuse me,’ she says in a charmingly put on French accent. And he looks up, startled. She smiles sympathetically at him, as if he is a bit dim, and pauses without saying anything (this is a crucial tactic she says). Then, ‘I see you ’ave finished your coffee,’ she glances at his empty cup and bats her heavy lashes at him.

‘Er, yeah?’ he says, as if to imply, what’s it to you?

At this stage, I or any other normal Irish schoolgirl would have fled. We’re in our uniforms for God’s sakes! He, on the other hand, is wearing a Trinity scarf.

Diana is undeterred. ‘We are very tired, and we would like to sit down – that is a Trinity scarf you are wearing, is it not?’ She seems fascinated by it, leaning in closer to inspect it, as much as the tray she is holding will allow her to.

‘What? Oh, yeah, why?’ he is looking suspicious, and quite annoyed.

‘Well, that means you are a gentleman, no? And you will let us sit down, yes?’ She looks meaningfully at the two vacant chairs and the one that he is still sitting on. Her eyes narrow slightly, and her face, which he is now studying, threatens to become a mask of disapproval.

His expression is a picture – exasperation, reluctance and a grudging admiration flicker in his eyes. Then Diana smiles, full on, the dimples appear, the eyelashes flutter shyly and he caves.

‘Oh, right, yeah, sure. It’s all yours.’ He gets up from his table, holds his vacated chair out to her, then walks away, tucking his newspaper under his arm. He looks back over his shoulder at us, shaking his head, as if he has somehow been hoodwinked, as if he is not quite in command of his faculties.

‘You’re shameless,’ grins Abby, sitting down gratefully.

Diana shrugs, grins and continues in her stage French accent. ‘Few men are born gentlemen, it is women who must make them so. That is what my papa says.’

I tuck into my eclair, relieved that our St Valentine’s ordeal is over. It has rattled me, and I am grateful for the soothing effect of chocolate-covered choux pastry filled with cream, that I savour in measured mouthfuls.

I listen to my best friends as they talk about clothes and make-up in great detail. We are not allowed to wear make-up at school, so much of our time is taken up with discussing it. Anytime I have tried to do my face, I always end up looking like a badly painted clown, it just doesn’t seem to work. Diana is very good with it, though, because she is half-French and therefore ‘naturally sophisticated’ as the girls say. One day in the holidays, she did me and Abby up, and Abby looked like something out of a pre-Raphaelite painting, with her long, dark red hair, porcelain skin, ruby lips and smoky eyes. I looked a lot better than normal, I had to admit, but there was only so much anyone could do with the raw material, even Diana.

‘Why do you eat so much?’ Diana has asked me many times. ‘Don’t you know you can never be slim if you are always eating?’

I do, but what would be the point?

I am reminded again of the unfairness that people who can eat anything and not put on weight don’t seem to enjoy their food the way they could. Abby is always giving out about her straight up and down figure and skinny legs, and Diana prefers to smoke, although she’s not supposed to, even if she is half-French, but she does. Her mother would kill her if she knew.

I have what you would describe as an athletic build. That’s what Barney says when she’s trying to be kind. She says I’m not big, just plump, but that it’s all puppy fat and will fall away naturally. But I know I’m fat. Compared to my mother and Kate, I’m huge. I tower over them too – all five foot ten of me. But I’m good at hockey, sporty, although Kate is a better tennis player. I stay off the courts, because beside Kate in her little white skirt and perfect, tiny figure, I feel like an elephant.

‘C’mon,’ says Di, draining her coffee and putting out her cigarette. ‘We’d better get a move on.’

‘Wait,’ says Abby. ‘What date is it today?’

‘The eighteenth,’ I say. ‘Why?’

I’ve had an idea,’ she says, grinning. ‘Let’s agree to meet up on this day every ten years, no matter what, to see if our wishes have come true, if St Valentine has made them happen.’

‘Every ten years?’ Di is incredulous. ‘What did you wish for, Abby, a retirement home? If mine haven’t all arrived within five years – ten max – I’m certainly not waiting around for the next twenty . . .’

‘But some might take longer than others,’ Abby reasons. ‘We’ll meet every year then! It’ll be fun, make us sure to stay in touch, keep us on track, remind us of how we used to be, when we’re old, like thirty and stuff . . . and married, y’know?’

We pause for a moment to imagine the unimaginable. Ten years from now, we will be twenty-five, almost thirty. Old. Settled.

‘Sure,’ Diana gets up. ‘Why not?’

‘I think it’s a great idea,’ I say. Abby and Di are my best friends, I can’t imagine a life without them. ‘We’ll meet every year, on this day or as close as possible – no matter what.’ I want it confirmed.

‘Of course we will, but every ten years we’ll have a more formal meeting, to make sure our petitions have been answered, to compare notes.’

‘What if they’re not?’ I venture.

‘Oh, Vonnie,’ Abby smiles at me, ‘of course they will. You mustn’t be such a pessimist.’

‘You’re not taking that with you?’ Diana looks horrified as I snatch the remains of my donut and cram it in my mouth.

‘Of course I am,’ I mumble. ‘I can eat and run at the same time, can’t I?’

Abby is ten minutes early. She puts this down to her hair appointment finishing sooner than she had allowed for, rather than her meticulous (bordering on obsessive, some might say) punctuality. The table has been booked for a quarter to one at Diana’s suggestion – early enough to beat the lunch-time throng, but not so early that they’ll feel like the only people in the restaurant – as Abby is now.

Privately, Abby thinks that Diana simply likes to make an entrance (she will be late by ten, possibly fifteen, minutes). She has done since Abby has known her – although she in no way resents her for it. No more than Diana would ever resent Abby for her nerve-wracking punctuality – although she is too kind to call it that – but Abby knows it for what it is.

‘A bottle of sparkling water and the wine list, please,’ Abby tells the waiter when he approaches with the menu. ‘I’ll have a look at it while I’m waiting for my friend,’ she explains.

She would prefer to order a glass of wine while she waits, it would calm her nerves, but she would most certainly have finished it before Diana arrives, and she dislikes the image of a middle-aged woman knocking back wine on her own, particularly if she is left sitting with a drained wine glass in front of her, just as her companion joins her at the table.

Abby doesn’t feel middle-aged. It is not an expression one hears very often. No one is allowed to grow old at all these days, she reflects, it is considered defeatist.

Abby is only forty-five, which is, by all accounts, the new thirty, but her mother informed her the other day that she was, along with the rest of them, very definitely moving up the ladder.

Abby frowns, tracking her thoughts with irritation. Why shouldn’t she have a glass of wine, and sip it casually? Any number of other women would do just that without a moment’s thought. But that’s just it – Abby thinks about everything, constantly, examining endless possibilities and permutations minutely. She always has done, ever since she can remember, and it is exhausting.

Take this morning. All she is doing is meeting one of her best friends, whom she has known since they were twelve years old, for lunch. There is nothing exceptional about this. Abby and Diana meet regularly, talk regularly, they always have. Abby knows she could trust Diana with her life – so why can’t she relax and trust herself? Why, for instance, did she feel the need to have her hair blow-dried before meeting Diana? Why was she awake tossing and turning half the night, wondering what she ought to wear, whether or not she would weigh herself in the morning and anticipating her mother’s predictable denials when she told her for the umpteenth time that she would be in town and out to lunch and therefore unable to drive her to her bridge class? ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Sheila had demanded that morning.

‘I did, Mum,’ Abby said. ‘I told you at least three times this week.’

‘Humph, that’s news to me.’

Sheila, Abby’s mother, is not forgetful. Rather she has always had a selective memory. But now that her mother is living with her and Edward, Abby is forced to endure her personality traits on a more intimate basis. She finds it trying, but thinks it is the least she can do to look after her mother after all she has done for her, her only child.

‘I’ll have to ring Barbara to give me a lift.’

‘Yes, that’s a good idea.’

‘It’s very late notice.’

‘I’m sure she won’t mind. You’re on her way, aren’t you? She passes right by our house.’

‘Not everyone is as vague as you about last-minute arrangements, Abby. You can be very thoughtless sometimes.’

Abby had gritted her teeth – only five more minutes, maybe less, and she would be out of the house.

‘If it wasn’t for my arthritis, I’d drive myself. As you know, I hate being beholden to anyone.’

‘Mum, Barbara giving you a lift to the bridge class you both go to hardly makes you beholden to her.’

‘You’re meeting Diana, you say?’ Sheila, sensing defeat, had swiftly changed tack.

‘Yes.’

‘I’m surprised she has time with all the gadding about she does these days.’

‘She doesn’t “gad”, Mum, she works bloody hard. I don’t know how she runs a business, travels and manages her family,’ Abby says in defence of her childhood friend whom she knows her mother is privately intimidated by, although Sheila would die rather than admit it.

‘She doesn’t – that’s how,’ Sheila retorts. ‘Any woman who doesn’t put her husband and marriage first is a very foolish one. God knows how that poor husband of hers manages, never mind the children – they probably can’t remember the last time they had a home-cooked meal. And don’t curse, Abby, there’s no need for it, using coarse language is a very unattractive trait in a woman.’

‘I have to go.’ Abby silently counted to ten. ‘See you later, bye, Mum.’

‘You’re not going into town for lunch dressed like that?’ Sheila looked disapprovingly at Abby’s jeans, T-shirt and her tweed jacket that is fashionably frayed at the edges. ‘Surely you’re going to change, put on a nice suit or something?’

Abby had been going to wear a nice grey linen trouser suit until Roseanna, her twenty-year-old daughter, had told her she looked frumpy and seriously needed to edge up her look.

In the event, she had no time to change anyway, even if she had had the energy. Instead, Abby had left the house feeling both guilty and badly put together, wondering why, no matter what she did, she never seemed to get it quite right.

On the Dart, on the way into town, she had discreetly studied the other women on the train, shielded by The Irish Times, which she held up in front of her, glancing over it occasionally. What preoccupied her most was their individual sizes – seeking, as she was, a similar physical example to compare herself to. Abby knew she had put on quite a bit of weight lately, a stone and a half at least, since she had last stood on the scales, and that had been almost a month ago. Reading the scales was one thing, like assessing your naked self in the mirror, intimidating certainly, but at least the horror was only self-inflicted, ending the moment you stepped off, or stopped looking. What she wanted, needed, she felt was solid, life-sized confirmation. Was she as big on top as that woman opposite with the huge boobs? Were her hips as curvy and well padded as that one, three seats up? Or was she just deteriorating into a general blob, like the expensively dressed woman to her left, with outrageously false eyelashes that made her look like a drag artist? Abby sighed; whatever size they were, she would bet they were all quite happy with themselves – you could just tell – unlike her.

She thought about that the whole way into town, had she ever really been happy? Content even? When she was younger, she always used to think that, once she was a teenager, she would automatically become cool and untroubled by whether or not she pleased people, or whether or not she was doing the right things, making the right decisions. Instead, her teenage years had been ridden with angst, closely followed by despair at her skinny, straight up and down figure and red hair, however long and silky it was. Young womanhood proved no easier. She filled out a little, sure, but, on the inside, Abby remained as devoid of confidence as ever, permanently persuaded of her many shortcomings. For as long as she could remember, she had felt as if she was in the wrong place, at the wrong time, too early or too late. She had lost count of the number of novenas she had said, books she had read, fortune-tellers she had visited who foretold of dark handsome strangers and foreign shores, which only filled Abby with foreboding. Abby hadn’t wanted a dark swarthy foreigner – or to live somewhere hot and exotic – Abby had known exactly what she wanted, she just didn’t in the world know how to go about getting it. And then, although she would never have believed it possible, the manifestation of her deepest desires had materialised in the most unlikely way . . .

Abby hardly notices the restaurant filling up with people she is so lost in her reverie, until she hears the familiar voice and catches an unmistakable waft of Diana’s perfume that precedes her. Abby proffers her cheek for a kiss as Diana passes her, squeezing her shoulder affectionately before reaching for her seat.

‘I’m so sorry I’m late, Abs,’ she slings her bag over the chair as she sits down. ‘I was cursing the traffic all the way here – every light was against me – and you’re always so punctual.’ She pauses to catch her breath and begins to fan herself.

‘Is it just me or is it hot in here?’

‘I hope it’s just you, otherwise my face will be the same colour as my hair in minutes.’

‘Yes, it probably is just me. Hardly surprising as I’ve practically run halfway down the street, no mean feat in these.’ Diana obligingly extends an elegant foot shod in expensively delicate leather, with a vertiginous heel.

‘You shouldn’t have rushed,’ Abby says. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ She indicates the wine list.

‘Ooh, yes, goodie, I could do with a nice glass of red. Have you ordered? No? Oh right, let’s get the food and wine out of the way, then we can talk.’

Halfway through the very pleasant bottle of Merlot they have chosen, and thanks to being in Diana’s company, Abby has come as close as she can to escapism. The sound of Diana’s voice still with its occasional French inflections, chatting away animatedly, relating hilarious details of the latest photographic shoot she has been on in the south of France, has lulled Abby into a dreamy world where exacting husbands, controlling mothers and demanding daughters are but a filmy shadow of the imagination. This exotic world Diana so easily inhabits is exactly the antidote she needs to distract her. She could sit and listen to her forever, she thinks, a smile softening the tension in her face.

‘Have you done something different to yourself?’ she asks Diana suddenly. ‘Hair? Skin? You look amazing. I mean you always look fab, Di, but you look different somehow.’ Abby studies her across the table. ‘More . . . animated – yes, that’s the word for it.’

Diana laughs and, most unusually for her, blushes.

Abby cannot remember, now that she comes to think of it, ever seeing Diana blush, where as she, on the other hand, with her whiter-than-white, freckled complexion has been miserably prone to it all her life.

‘I’m afraid I can only attribute it to being away in my spiritual home and surrounded by beautiful people. Young, beautiful people,’ she says, wistfully.

‘Did Greg join you?’

‘No. He was holding the fort. That’s the deal – or at least it’s supposed to be.’ Diana frowns.

‘How is he?’

‘Greg? He’s fine, better than fine, in fact, he’s just back from his own little break.’

‘Oh? Where?’

‘California. He was meditating,’ Diana explains, lifting her eyebrows meaningfully.

‘I didn’t know Greg was into that sort of thing – spirituality, I mean.’

‘Neither did I. It came upon him rather suddenly, pretty much like all the other courses he’s been exploring – life drawing, amateur dramatics, yoga . . . I could go on.’

‘Oh, Di,’ Abby grins. ‘Is it getting on your nerves, having him around all the time?’

Greg, Diana’s husband, once darling of the advertising industry, had lost his job about a year earlier. Abby, being tactful, usually never refers to it, but today Diana seems to want to talk.

‘It’s driving me bloody insane. That’s why I was so relieved to get away when this job came up.’ Diana reaches for the bottle and tops up their glasses.

‘Still, it must be handy to have him around now that you’re so busy.’ Abby is good at presenting the bright side of other people’s lives to them. ‘To hold the fort as you say. Nice for the kids too,’ she says encouragingly.

‘Uh-uh.’ Diana shakes her head. ‘I’m with whoever said, “I married him for better or worse, but I never married him for lunch.”’

Abby laughs. ‘Life is never easy, is it?’

‘We used to think it would be . . .’

‘Only because we didn’t know any better. We were just kids . . .’

‘You said you had something to tell me,’ Diana reminds her. ‘When you were on the phone?’ She takes a sip of her coffee.

‘Oh, yes – so I do. You’ll never guess!’

‘I’m not even going to try.’

‘I heard from Vonnie, just yesterday.’

‘Vonnie? No way! How is she?’

‘I don’t know, it was just a short email, but, Di, she’s coming home and she wants to see us.’ Abby can hardly contain her excitement.

Di shakes her head wonderingly. ‘How long has it been?’

‘Almost twelve years . . .’ Abby has been keeping count. There had been the occasional email from Vonnie in the beginn