The Missing Pieces of Nancy Moon: Escape to the Riviera for the most irresistible read of 2020

by Sarah Steele

Genres: Women's Fiction; Family Life; Friendship; Historical Fiction; Historical Romance

Synopsis

'I was gripped, desperate to solve the mystery of Nancy Moon' Sarah Haywood, New York Times bestselling author of THE CACTUS THE USA TODAY BESTSELLER. Set against the glistening backdrop of the Riviera, this is a truly captivating novel about two women whose lives become seamlessly intertwined when they embark on the same journey decades apart. Take a journey and immerse yourself in this year's most irresistible read. Perfect for fans of Kathryn Hughes, Suzanne Goldring and The Paris Seamstress. To unravel that long-lost summer, she had to follow the thread... Florence Connelly is broken hearted. Her marriage has collapsed under the weight of the loss she shares with her husband, and her beloved grandmother has just died. Even the joy she found in dressmaking is gone. But things change when Flo opens a box of vintage 1960s dress patterns found inside her grandmother's wardrobe. Inside each pattern packet is a fabric swatch, a postcard from Europe and a photograph of a mysterious young woman, Nancy Moon, wearing the hand-made dress. Flo discovers that Nancy was a distant relation who took the boat train to Paris in 1962 and never returned. With no one to stay home for, Flo decides to follow Nancy's thread. She unravels an untold story of love and loss in her family's past. And begins to stitch the pieces of her own life back together. 'Wonderful. This book is a joy' Katie Fforde, Sunday Times bestselling author ' Two captivating stories of love and heartbreak, stitched together by a trail through Europe in 1962' Gill Paul, author of THE SECRET WIFE 'A gorgeous, tender debut ' Kate Riordan, author of THE HEATWAVE 'I felt so passionately involved in Flo's journey. A GORGEOUS read' Prima, BOOK OF THE MONTH 'Warm and true... Pays tribute to the heart and backbone of women who support each other when the world turns its back' Stephanie Butland, author of LOST FOR WORDS READERS HAVE FALLEN FOR THE MISSING PIECES OF NANCY MOON : 'If I could give 10 stars I would' ' Heartwarming, uplifting, emotional and immersive, The Missing Pieces of Nancy Moon is a must-read, encapsulating the essence of summer like the sun is shining from the pages ' ' OMG WHAT A BOOK. Fabulously, beautifully written book.' ' One of the best books I have read this year. It has it all - love, mystery, deceit and a secret. Five stars all the way '

Release date: August 6, 2020

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 339

Sample

Most journeys begin with a goodbye: to a friend or a loved one, often to a lover, and sometimes to a place. Goodbye sharpens the senses, reminds one of what might have been and excites one about what could be. It brings with it a little nostalgia, maybe some guilt or regret, hope perhaps, or even relief. Some goodbyes last merely for a few hours, but some will have to last a lifetime.

It was a muggy evening as they gathered for their own goodbyes, the end to one of those unexpectedly sultry days when city dwellers can’t wait to get home and rip off ties and stockings, unbutton collars and loosen girdles and fling their heels across the floor, to open the windows of their flats and listen to the sounds of a city laid bare, finally free of the terrible smogs of winter. The wide glass canopy spanning the station platforms acted as a pressure-cooker lid, trapping the hot, dirty air in a cloud of noise and fumes mingled with the smell of several hundred damp bodies.

Who’d have thought you could get on a train at Waterloo station one evening, and arrive in France the next morning? From Wandsworth to Paris, just like that. She’d looked it up: it was only three hundred miles, the same as Wandsworth to Newcastle – although some Geordies had stopped her at Piccadilly Circus the other day to ask directions, and she reckoned she’d have a better chance of understanding French. It was only for a couple of months, she told herself. London would still be here when she got back.

The platform was a chaotic tangle of passengers and sayers of goodbyes – family groups locked in tight huddles lest one of their young should break free, lovers exchanging one last kiss – and serious-faced businessmen marching towards their carriages, Crombies flapping behind them and trilbies pulled down over their eyes. She suddenly felt very English and unsophisticated in her hand-made dress, as she watched a Frenchwoman glide past on slim scissor legs, a long cigarette holder in one hand and a small dog tucked under the arm of her inverted-teardrop coat, while a porter scurried after her with her monogrammed suite of matching luggage. A couple of times she felt herself shoved as people hurried to find their carriages and get their orders in for dinner, but she barely noticed, floating above the melee and hearing the bland string of parting conventions that moved back and forth between her mouth and Peggy’s as though through a partition wall. The words they both really wanted to say had no place in this public space, with Dorothy and Phyllis standing nearby, so instead they exchanged inanities, filling the last few minutes together with post-office-queue chitchat. The distant chug of the diesel engine did nothing to prevent conversation, even when there was nothing left to say: she missed the screaming of a steam engine gearing up to leave, the smuts floating in the air, that would have provided the perfect excuse for watery eyes. Instead, she looked down to pick at an invisible fleck on her sleeve.

She supposed she had secretly hoped that her parents would come to see her off, and even if she wasn’t surprised that they had stayed away, she couldn’t help a sudden sad wave of disappointment, as she thought of Dad by now watching Z Cars on the new telly while Mum washed up the egg-and-chip tea they always had on a Monday. She was glad Peggy had come, even though she suspected it was partly to make sure she actually got on the train and didn’t change her mind.

‘All aboard, ladies and gentlemen. Last passengers for the boat train to Paris.’ A uniformed guard bustled along the platform, chivvying the remaining stragglers.

‘Well, I’d better be off, then,’ Peggy said, and it seemed that one of those imaginary smuts had found her eye too. ‘Better get back to Donald and . . .’ Her voice trailed away. ‘Well, you know.’

‘I know.’ She tried to smile, but none of the muscles she needed to perform this simple feat seemed to work.

Peggy hesitated, then gave her a quick Nina Ricci-scented peck on the cheek. ‘You mustn’t worry. Just have a nice time. And watch out for those Frenchmen, eh?’

She couldn’t help but laugh. ‘You sound like Dad. Now go on, clear off. I’ve got a train to catch.’

‘I hate goodbyes. I wish you didn’t have to go. I’ll miss you so much.’

And before Peggy could reach into her pocket, Phyllis had appeared with a hanky for her, which Peggy blew into noisily. ‘Here you go, Peg. Can’t have you looking a state for your Donald when you get home. What’ll he think?’

‘You get off home, doll. Me and Phyl will wave her off.’ She tried not to gasp as Dorothy wrapped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed hard.

Peggy could barely hide her relief. ‘Are you sure? I probably ought to get back – Maddie’s not been settling well this week, and I can’t leave Donald to nurse her.’

‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘Go, Peg. The girls will sort me out.’

‘Clear off,’ Dorothy said kindly. ‘We can see her off from here.’

‘Oh, wait!’ said Phyllis. ‘We ought to have a photo of us all. Where’s your camera? You did pack it, didn’t you?’

‘Somewhere.’ She pulled the brown leather case out of her overnight bag and opened it.

‘Here,’ said Dorothy, and grabbed a young man rushing to his carriage. ‘Take a picture of us all, would you?’

He looked as though he wanted to say no, but as Dorothy leant her head on one side and pouted at him, he relented. ‘As long as it’s quick,’ he said reluctantly.

‘Here, bunch up, girls,’ Dorothy said, pulling her three friends around her.

One quick smile and they were done. The man handed the camera back and hurried on his way, pausing only briefly to look back at Dorothy.

‘I’d better get going too,’ she said, putting the camera back. ‘See you, then, Peg.’

They grasped hands and tried to find a few more words, but they were both spent, so Peggy squeezed her hand once more before turning away and walking briskly back along the platform. By the time the train pulled out, she would be on the number 44 bus back home.

As Peggy disappeared into the crowd, Phyllis and Dorothy positioned themselves on either side of her, and she wondered how comical they must look: Dorothy towering on one side in her high heels and equally high white-blonde beehive, and tiny Phyllis looking like a station pigeon on the other, dressed in office grey and balancing her buxom chest on spindly legs as her eyes darted around nervously.

‘Don’t you worry,’ Dorothy said. ‘Peggy’ll be fine. They all will be. You just concentrate on that fantastic trip of yours. Wish it were me, lucky cow.’ She nudged her playfully, but failed to raise the laugh she’d been hoping for. ‘Come on, girl. You look like you’re about to enter a workhouse, not go off to the Continent for the summer.’

Phyllis began digging in her handbag and muttering to herself.

‘Phyl, what are you doing? You look like a bloody terrier after a rabbit.’ Dorothy sighed, taking a bored drag on her cigarette.

Phyllis pulled out a small tin and a packet of custard creams. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Thought these might come in handy. If you get hungry.’

‘They do have food over there, you know,’ Dorothy said, rolling her eyes. ‘She’ll be eating the best snails, not corned bloody beef. Won’t you?’ she added, then laughed. ‘Blimey, you’ve gone white as a sheet, darlin’!’ Dorothy opened the handbag hooked across her arm and took out a half-empty packet of Pall Malls that she passed to her friend. ‘Here,’ she said, tucking them in her pocket and snapping shut the clasp on her handbag. ‘This is more like it.’

‘Whistle’ll go in about two minutes, madam. Best get a move on now. Don’t want to miss it, do you?’ A fresh-faced young porter took her case and lifted it onto a trolley, gesturing for her to follow him.

‘Come on, girl,’ Dorothy said gently, dropping her cigarette on the ground and grinding it with the pointed toe of her black patent shoe, ‘let’s get you on that train.’ She took her arm and pulled her along so that she found herself swinging in time with her friend’s trademark sashay, Phyllis’s quick little steps pattering close behind.

She almost tripped as she turned back to see if Peggy had waited for one final wave, but the space where she had stood was already filled with the ripple of passengers now hurrying to find their carriages, and there was no sign of Peggy’s olive-green summer coat and strawberry-blonde hair.

Was that other face somewhere in the crush, coming to say goodbye, or to beg her to stay? Maybe he’d got the day wrong. Maybe she’d written it down wrong.

‘No looking back now,’ Dorothy said, seeing where her thoughts were leading. ‘Onwards and sideways, eh?’ She brushed away the porter’s offer to help her friend into the carriage and pushed her up the steps in front of her.

‘Onwards and sideways,’ she echoed, looking down from the top of the steps. Even this old in-joke failed to bring the wished-for smile to her lips, however.

‘You’re sure there will be someone to meet you at the other end?’ Phyllis said, almost biting her lip off with anxiety.

‘Yes, Phyllis, for the hundredth time, they’re picking me up at the station.’

The guard began to work his way along the long train, slamming carriage doors and shooing non-passengers away from the edge of the platform. She pulled the window down and leant out. ‘Bye, then,’ she said, clasping her friends’ hands in turn as Phyllis blew her nose heavily into a handkerchief and even Dorothy seemed to have something in her eye.

The whistle blew and the heavy train ground into motion. Phyllis ran alongside it, waving frantically, until Dorothy caught up with her and pulled her back. There was still time to change her mind, she thought as she watched the receding figures of her friends blur into small dots: the train was going quite slowly, and if she jumped off now, she would land on what was left of the platform with nothing more than a red face and maybe a bruised knee.

And then it was too late: the last of the platform had melted away and the engine was cranking up its gears. She had no choice but to see this through.

‘Stand back, please, miss,’ said the guard, gesturing her aside and slamming the window closed. ‘Don’t want any nasty accidents now. Which compartment are you in?’

Her ticket was still scrunched into her fist, and she took it out and tried to flatten it. ‘Here,’ she said.

He peered at it over his half-moon glasses, then pointed along the corridor. ‘Just on your left there. Someone will be along presently to sort out your refreshments.’

She picked up her overnight carpet bag and followed his directions, sliding open the heavy door of number 17, where she found her case waiting for her. The wood-panelled compartment, with its shiny brass and well-worn leather, exuded glamour. One of the girls from work had told her that the Duke and Duchess of Windsor used to travel on this night crossing when moving between Paris and London.

There was a gentle tap at the door, and a smart-uniformed steward who looked no older than sixteen poked his head through to ask if she required dinner in the dining car, or whether he could bring her a drink before she went to sleep. She had never been able to make the small decisions in life, so she declined dinner but requested a gin and tonic and a hot chocolate, to cover all angles. He nodded, his smart little boat hat bobbing up and down on his Brylcreemed head.

After a minute or two, she let herself out of the compartment, closing the door quietly behind her. She walked along the corridor, mesmerised by the swaying of the carriage and the thunderous rush of southern England disappearing behind them, and wondering who was behind each of the closed doors, their blinds pulled down and hushed voices from both sides of the Channel barely audible above the clickety-clack of the train as it raced towards Dover and the boat that waited there to carry it on to Dunkirk, then the Gare du Nord. Checking the guard was nowhere in sight, she tugged at the window at the end of the corridor, leaning her face into the hot rush of dusky air that carried the scream of the engine with it, oblivious to the instant damage to the shampoo and set she had paid a fortune for, as she watched miles of English countryside relentlessly eaten away and eventually dissolving into black night.

For a moment she couldn’t remember which was her compartment, and panicked at the long row of identical doors, until she remembered the number printed on her ticket. While she’d been gone, the bed had been pulled down and made, the soft tartan blanket and crisp white sheet tucked neatly in on all sides, and the bright overhead lights swapped for a soft night light. She gulped down the gin that waited for her on a thick paper coaster embossed with the train company’s logo, and quickly changed into her nightclothes, then took off her broad satin ribbon and brushed the wind out of her hair before settling herself onto the narrow berth.

Suddenly ravenous, she remembered the cheese sandwiches Peggy had made her for the journey, and ate all four in quick succession, washed down with the thick, sweet chocolate drink, only worrying afterwards whether she might lose them down the little toilet during the crossing. She’d never been on a boat before, apart from rowing on the Serpentine last summer, and had no idea whether she had sea legs or not. She’d find out soon enough, she supposed.

So this was it. She was on her way, her wardrobe made and packed with everything she needed for the next few months. She’d even brought her dress patterns with her; it had always been a bit of a ritual to collect mementoes of her favourite times wearing her dresses, and keep them in the original pattern packets. Mum said she was a ridiculous hoarder, but this wasn’t hoarding: it was more like a diary, and one day when she looked through these packets and their contents, it would bring back memories of this trip more clearly than any photograph could.

There was no going back. Not for a few weeks, anyway. An amazing opportunity to see a bit of the world at someone else’s expense. She had only once ever stayed at a proper hotel, so unlike the little B&B they always went to in Hastings for a week each summer, where you had to make your own bed and clean the communal bathroom when you’d finished with it. She couldn’t imagine the French or Italians would kick you out after breakfast and not let you in again until tea, whatever the weather.

She pinned the ends of her hair into whorl-like curls and covered them with a fine-mesh hairnet, then, exhausted, she squeezed between the tightly made sheets of the narrow bunk. Although her body craved sleep, her mind flicked from vignette to vignette, refusing to let go. Eventually, though, even her worst anxieties could not resist the rocking of the racing train as it sang its metallic lullaby, and she spent her last short time on English soil sleeping as peacefully as a baby.

Flo wiped the last of Gran’s teacups with the damp Fountains Abbey tea towel, putting it with its companions in the top-right cupboard. Not the middle one: that was for everyday crockery. The top-right cupboard was for visitors. And there had certainly been visitors today for the wake. Peggy would have been horrified if her granddaughter had brought out the old supermarket plates and royal wedding souvenir mugs today of all days. Instead, Flo had dusted off the Royal Doulton and made sure the matching sugar bowl and milk jug stood next to the cups on the sideboard, along with the best silver-plated teaspoons. She couldn’t imagine that Peggy had ever needed twenty of everything – the only other occasion had probably been Flo’s own christening, which she suspected her gran had most likely organised while Mum was away on one of her extended trips.

She rinsed out the dishcloth and wiped it across the table, rubbing at a speck of dried egg she’d not seen earlier. Not only had she forgotten to swap the faded oilcloth for a pressed embroidered linen one, but she had left the remains of what was probably Peggy’s last breakfast at home for all the neighbours to see. If her grandmother’s weak heart had not already surrendered its fight, she would surely have died of shame at this aberration. She gave the oilcloth a final wipe, so that the yellowed daisies sprinkled across it glistened briefly, then faded back into their dull beige background.

She jumped as she felt a hand on her shoulder, and turned to see Seamus standing close behind her.

‘Right, Flossie, I’m off to drop a couple of old biddies home. Reckon I’ll be safe?’

Flo did wonder: Seamus was a natural at funerals, and always had Peggy’s friends eating out of his hand, with his perfect combination of pathos and humour and Irish blarney, and of course the killer floppy black hair and blue eyes.

He squeezed her shoulder, instantly taking his hand away as he felt her flinch. ‘Be back in half an hour, if they’ve not kidnapped me and locked me in a cupboard.’

‘Seamus?’

He stopped in the doorway. ‘What is it, love?’

‘It’s fine, you don’t need to come back. Why don’t you get off home? There’s not much more to do here except keep Dorothy away from the drinks cabinet.’

She spotted the whisper of barely suppressed relief. ‘You sure? In that case I’ll get us a takeaway on the way back, bottle of wine. Run you a bath if you’re lucky.’

She wished he’d stop trying so bloody hard. He’d been so good all day, and she couldn’t have asked for more, but it made it extremely hard to carry on being pissed off with him. ‘I might stay here tonight, actually.’

‘Really? What for?’

She didn’t feel like explaining; she was virtually out of words. ‘I just want a last night here, to say goodbye, I suppose.’ And because I can’t face coming home. Not to you.

He had the grace to take the excuse for what it really was, and dropped his gaze to the ground. ‘Floss . . .’

‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Seamus.’ She knew, as she turned back to the sink and began polishing a glass, that he was still there, watching her, willing her to look at him, but eventually she heard him sigh and walk away.

She listened to the raucous, affectionate goodbyes as he took his leave of the small wake and ushered his twittering charges out of the front door and into his car.

Apart from the chit-chat of the final few guests, the house was quiet again, drifting back into its default carpeted hush. Flo couldn’t ever remember there being much noise here: Peggy and Donald were gentle, softly spoken folk, and in all the years she had lived with them, they had never exceeded a modest decibel count, not even when they were chuckling at The Morecambe & Wise Show or Donald had told one of his jokes he’d picked up from the chaps at work. There’d never been so much as a raised voice on the many occasions Mum had appeared on the doorstep with Flo and a little suitcase and a brief explanation, before disappearing to another airport and another continent. They had just quietly brought her in each time, Donald carrying her things to the little spare bedroom that eventually became hers permanently when one day they discovered Maddie would never be coming back for her.

And so Flo had found herself growing up in a sleepy coastal town whose average age never dipped below sixty-five, even after a colder-than-usual winter, and who remained indifferent to its brash London-on-Sea neighbour that she now called home. Peggy and Donald had lived at the top of one of many roads of identical bungalows that snaked around the contours of the town, fizzling out on the fringes. Through the net curtains, she saw the little green that had been built for children’s games but that was home to a few dog walkers with their Yorkshire terriers, or occasionally an old lady or two, meeting to catch up on the news. She craned her neck to look at the sliver of sea, just visible beyond the television aerials and satellite dishes, the tired cafés and pebbled beach. Today the sun sparkled on the water, reminding the residents of this old-people’s-home of a town why they had come here to quietly see out their days, rather than stick it out in the ever-changing and ever-expensive outskirts of a city they barely recognised and no longer understood.

‘Anything else I can do, dear?’

She jumped at the intrusion, and took a second to acknowledge her grandmother’s old friend standing in the doorway. ‘You’re fine, Phyllis. Thanks. You’ve been so helpful already.’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that. I seem to have spent most of the day keeping Dorothy off the sherry.’

‘Trust me, that’s helpful.’

The two women smiled at each other. In the distance they could hear Dorothy’s raised voice regaling a captive audience with some no-doubt-raucous tale of her youth.

‘Sounds like I failed, I’m afraid.’

‘Don’t worry. There’s only Marco and Aunty Bean left in there with her.’

Phyllis sighed. ‘Oh, your Seamus is a lovely man, Flo. He was a real tonic today. So funny, he is. There’s something about Irishmen, isn’t there?’

‘You should live with him, Phyllis. You might not think so then.’

Phyllis put her hand to her mouth and giggled, misreading Flo’s jibe as a joke. Flo could see why she and Peggy had been friends – they were so much alike in many ways. ‘I’m sure that’s not true. Such a kind, attentive man – your gran adored him.’

Flo wondered what Peggy would have thought if she’d known what a shambles her marriage had become. It hadn’t felt fair to burden the old lady with any more than she’d already had to endure. It had been a tough time for all of them, with one thing and another.

She was aware that Phyllis was staring at her with exaggerated concern. She really didn’t want to get into a feel-sorry-for-Flo conversation – Peggy’s friends had been part of her childhood, and there was no kidding these old birds. She smiled brightly. ‘Anyway, it’s about time we got Dorothy to the station, isn’t it? She won’t want to be getting back to London too late. It’s still so dark, these evenings.’ She had a feeling that even into her early eighties, Dorothy was still a match for most self-respecting muggers, but the feisty old queen of Wandsworth was like family, and there was no way she would allow her to get home too late for her evening tipple in front of EastEnders.

Phyllis pulled her black cardigan sleeve up over her plump wrist and looked at her dainty gold watch. She had always had neat extremities – size three feet, tiny hands and delicate, pretty features – at odds with her waistline, which had gradually caught up with her bosom and expanded over the years in line with her unabated love of the ice cream that kept the family in business, and supplemented by the carbohydrate recipe book passed down to her by her Italian mother-in-law. She had gone from Dolly Parton to Hattie Jacques in less time than it took to say tiramisu. ‘Oh, I suppose it is getting on. Marco and I can drop her. It’s on the way home. Or Aunty Bean might be driving back to London – we’ll ask her.’

‘Thanks, Phyllis. I appreciate it. You must be exhausted.’

As was Flo: suddenly overwhelmed by an urge for silence and solitude, and for an empty house. Today of all days, she could justify spending some time alone here before she locked up the little bungalow and travelled the few miles home along the coast to face the music.

From down the narrow hallway came the sound of Dorothy’s hyena laugh. Flo smiled. ‘It’s definitely time to get her home! Come on, Phyllis, let’s call it a day. Even Peggy wouldn’t be able to find one more thing to wash up or wipe down here.’ And it was true: everything had been put back in its allotted place. The dishcloth was neatly folded and hanging over the edge of the sink, tea towels pushed back into their sticky-backed rubber pegs, and Peggy’s apron hung on the back of the kitchen door.

Phyllis tugged her black sweater down over her straining polyester skirt and brushed a few stray sausage-roll crumbs from the recesses of its pleats. ‘Right you are, dear. If you’re sure there’s nothing else I can do?’

‘No, really, you’ve all been so kind and helpful. Well, maybe not Dorothy, but she wasn’t exactly made for labour.’

‘Don’t think she’s ever so much as chipped a bit of nail polish off, that one. We love her for other reasons, though. She’d do anything for friends and family, our Dot.’ Phyllis looked sadly at Peggy’s limp apron. ‘The four of us went back a long way, you know? Knew each other from babies to nippers to young girls and married women, we did.’

Flo had heard the old friends’ recollections of their childhood scrapes on the streets of south London over and over again, but never tired of listening to the first-hand stories of a London that barely existed any more. She went over and hugged Phyllis, inhaling the cocktail of Silvikrin and Charlie that took her straight back to illicit ice-cream cones after school.

Phyllis stroked Flo’s cheek. ‘You’re a good girl. Always were. Peggy loved you like her own daughter. Such a shame about your mum. She just had that wild streak – couldn’t be tied down. Drove us all wild.’

Flo had a feeling that one of Phyllis’s never-far-away tearful episodes was imminent. ‘I was lucky. I had two mums in the end. Well, four, if you count you and Dorothy! Five with Aunty Bean.’

Phyllis’s peach-powdered cheeks glowed as she pulled a hanky from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. ‘Now, dear, you fetch your things and get yourself home too. We’ll be fine.’

‘I think I might stay here tonight, actually,’ Flo said. ‘Spend one last night in the bungalow.’

‘Are you sure? Might be a bit lonely. Maybe Seamus will come back and stay with you?’

‘Maybe,’ she said, executing an unconvincing smile.

In the little sitting room, Marco was stretched out in Donald’s chair, his tight grey curls pressed against the embroidered antimacassar and yellowed dentures on show as he snored gently, knocked out by the combination of stifling heat and Donald’s best whisky and oblivious to the constant stream of invective coming from another third of the three-piece suite opposite him. His shirt collar had been unbuttoned and his black tie pulled loose, revealing a sprouting of curly greying hair that mirrored that on his head.

Aunty Bean was already in her coat, waiting patiently near the door. She saw Flo and winked, and they shared a quiet laugh unnoticed as Dorothy’s monologue continued unabated. Flo loved Bean: she had started off as a lodger with Peggy’s parents back in the sixties when she was a student, and ended up as a friend to the little network of Wandsworth families. Rumour had it that she had aristocratic blood, but Flo wasn’t so sure: beyond the plummy vowels was a down-to-earth woman-of-the-people who wouldn’t know a Barbour from a brogue, particularly in the corner of north-west London that she and her assorted dogs called home.

The heat from the gas fire had drawn out bright carmine discs on Dorothy’s cheeks, matching the crêpey rim of dark-red lipstick around her constantly moving lips and the polished nails that pointed punctuation at the dozing Marco. She had never been one to halt her stream of consciousness just because her conversation partner was asleep – besides, they all knew Marco was a master of faking a nap when it suited him. Too many noisy women in his life, Phyllis always said, which was presumably why he had chosen the sweetest, quietest bride he could find.

Dorothy pulled herself up out of the chair and held her arms out. ‘Come here, girl. Give us a hug.’ Flo squeezed past the Ercol coffee table that took up most of the floor space and let Dorothy embrace her, the gold charms on her bracelet tinkling in her ear and the heavy gold hoops that always dangled from Dorothy’s lobes pressing into her cheek. ‘Don’t you forget you’ve still got us, sweetheart. You’re as much family to me as my own lot. Bloody useless bunch they are, mind you. Never visit me unless it’s for food or money or somewhere to lie low for a day or two. You’ll come and see me soon, though, won’t you?’

‘Of course I will. I’m sure to be up in London before long. I’ll let you know, and you can bake me a cake.’

Dorothy laughed. ‘Sod that, darling. You can have shop-bought like everyone else. But I might have a nice little bottle of something tucked away for special occasions.’

It was a well-known fact in Florence’s family that you went to Phyllis to be fed and Dorothy to be watered. ‘Perfect. I’ll bring a lemon.’

Dorothy pinched her cheek, just as she had done when Flo was a child. ‘That’s my girl.’ She rearranged her fitted black lace dress around her hips and shrugged her diamanté-studded cardigan back on. Even in her eighties, she hadn’t let things slip. Flo had thought she was some kind of film star when she’d been a child – the Rita Hayworth of Wandsworth, with her proud bust and the platinum-blonde hair that now was more nicotine-yellow and came out of a bottle, defying the decades of gin. . .