One Minute Later

Kicking off her flip-flops, she was about to read her other texts when Michelle came through again. Millie wants you to know that her little brother should be called Eeyore because he cries like a donkey.

Vivi broke into a deep, throaty laugh, and for a few minutes they texted back and forth as though almost five-year-old Millie was sending the messages about her new pony and the present she and Mummy had sent to Vivi for her birthday that smelled lovely.

Ten minutes later Vivienne stepped into the shower and closed her eyes as a power-charged flow of warm water cascaded over her. She spun around, lifting her face to the jets, and put a hand to the wall as she swayed. She was thinking about her sweet little godchildren, Millie and Ash, and what a pity it was that her own children (when she finally got round to having them, and that wasn’t going to be any time soon) would be so much younger than them. And maybe, with her living in London and them way across the country in Kesterly-on-Sea, they wouldn’t even really get to know one another. That felt sadder than sad, given how close she and Michelle had always been, but the only solution would be for her to meet and marry someone who wanted to live in Kesterly, which was never going to happen. Nor, considering Sam’s business as a local builder and Michelle’s own ties to Kesterly, were they ever likely to move to London.

By the time Vivi was ready to leave the flat she’d taken three more calls from various friends, and had managed to book herself a Shellac manicure for eight on Monday evening. She probably ought to make a hair appointment sometime soon, too, for the random whirl of waves clustered around her face and neck was in need of some taming.

Wearing ripped skinny jeans, a pair of flat strappy sandals and a waist-length leather jacket, she decided to walk to Beaufort House. The weather was too good to miss a moment of it, and capturing its buoyancy in her stride she seemed about to break into a dance as she started off down the street.

As she was turning into the Fulham Road her phone rang again, and seeing it was her half-brother, Mark, she swiftly clicked on. ‘Hey you! What are you doing up so early?’ she cried.

‘My phone went off,’ he grumbled. ‘I was working until four this morning and I’m back on at five this evening, but no one cares about me.’ A sport and exercise student at Birmingham Uni, he’d taken a job as a barman at Pitcher and Piano to provide himself with some spending money. His father, Gil, was covering the lion’s share of his other expenses, including his rent and the small car he used to bomb around town. ‘Happy birthday,’ he said with a yawn.

‘Thanks. So Mum called to remind you?’

‘What do you think? Not that I’d forgotten, I just wouldn’t have remembered until I woke up. So, are you back from New York?’

‘Yesterday. Off to Singapore on Wednesday.’ Of course. That was why she couldn’t make a sushi dinner with Greg and the others. She’d better check her calendar to be sure she was up to speed with everything else. Waiting for an ambulance to cut its siren as it pulled into Chelsea and Westminster A & E, she started across the road, saying, ‘Any chance of you getting to London sometime soon? I feel as though I haven’t seen you for ages.’

‘Since Christmas,’ he reminded her, ‘but I get that you’re missing me. It happens. I have to deal with it all the time.’

Laughing, she said, ‘So how many hearts have you broken this week?’

‘Lost count, but hey, who’s taking care of mine?’

‘That tough old thing? I think it can take care of itself.’

‘Brutal. How’s Greg? Are we ever going to meet him?’

‘He’s OK. Actually I haven’t seen him since …’ She tried to think. ‘It’s been too long. Did you get to the Six Nations match in the end?’

‘You bet. The bloke’s a genius. I already thanked him for the tickets, by the way.’

‘Great. Did Gil go with you?’

‘Sure. Then we drove all the way back to Kesterly to take Mum for dinner in case she was feeling left out.’

Vivienne had to laugh.

‘Did she tell you she’s taken up running?’ Mark asked.

‘You’re kidding.’

‘No, I went out with her while I was there. She’s pretty fit, actually, but I guess that’s no surprise when she goes to the gym quite regularly. Dad reckons the running thing is so she can run with you when you go home, or maybe she wants to do a marathon with you?’

And this, Vivienne was thinking, is why my mother is so confusing. She doesn’t mention anything about it to me, but Gil is probably right, she’ll have me in mind on one level or another, because she always has – and if not me then Mark, or Gil, then back to me …

‘Listen,’ she said to Mark, ‘I’ll let you get some more sleep before you have to go back on shift. Speak soon. Love you.’

‘Right back at you,’ and he was gone.

She pressed on towards Beaufort Street, and checked her phone to see if any more texts had arrived in the last few minutes. Several had: more birthday messages from friends and colleagues, also one from Gil, who had no doubt also sent flowers, because he always did.

The only person she knew for a fact she wouldn’t get a call or anything else from on this, or any other day, was her real father, because she never did.

Beaufort House was in the World’s End part of Chelsea, on the corner of Beaufort Street and the famous King’s Road. It was an area that Vivienne found as electrifying as the City where she worked, though for entirely different reasons. The buzz here was all about being social, cosmopolitan, and fabulously multicultural. The restaurants were as diverse as their deliciously exotic ingredients, the fashions as outrageous as they were expensive and the interior design shops as inspirational as a genie’s bottle full of crazy dreams. It could hardly be more different from her home town with its unedifying mix of tired terraces, fish-and-chip shops and donkey rides. On the other hand, she was ready to concede that Kesterly had its charms too, just not enough of them to have kept her there past her eighteenth birthday, when she’d launched herself with high excitement and yes, some trepidation on London. Being in the capital had been her goal for as long as she could remember, so too had been studying hard and working her way into a high-powered job that would open doors to all kinds of other worlds, and make her feel as important and accomplished as she’d always longed to be.

It was happening every day, sometimes in small ways, other times in great significant bursts. The headiness of success was as intoxicating as the champagne she and her friends cracked to celebrate it while the satisfaction of knowing she’d bested a rival, or helped seal a long-fought-for merger, was perhaps the greatest kick of all. Though she wasn’t particularly aware of how much everyone valued her as a colleague or friend, the way she was greeted as she entered the bustling, airy bar of Beaufort House made her swell with pride and pleasure.

‘About bloody time!’

‘Happy birthday!’

‘Champagne’s on you.’

‘Someone get the goddess a glass.’

The other five GaLs were already there, grouped around their usual table next to the window, and as a flute was thrust into Vivienne’s hand it seemed the entire room joined in a rousing chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’.

It was exhilarating and hilarious as perfect strangers bowed or raised glasses, and a couple of bar staff shimmied about with more champagne.

As the fun died down and Vivienne sank laughing into the chair they’d reserved for her, she gasped and laughed again as Trudy pointed her to the pile of gifts at the end of the cushioned bench seat.

‘All for you,’ Trudy declared exultantly.

‘All for one, one for all!’ Sachi sang out, her engaging French accent resonating even in those few simple words.

Saanvi, whose stunning black hair and exquisite features made her as exotic as the Indian divinity she was named for, began passing the gifts along. Saanvi’s much older husband ran a global macro hedge fund, where Saanvi had recently been promoted to head up the quantitative risk management team.

‘How many carats did Greg manage?’ Shaz, their Australian derivatives lawyer, wanted to know. Though Shaz mainly worked out of Frankfurt, she was back and forth to London all the time.

‘I’m sure it’ll be at least seven,’ Vivienne shot back, causing another raucous uplift of glasses to toast the prediction.

They’d shared so much during their time at uni that sometimes it felt as though they hadn’t had a life before. They never judged one another in negative ways; they did everything they could to support each other, because they understood who they were and what power their friendship gave them.

These GaLs were her family away from home, the rock that kept her safe and strong; the exclusive network that made everything possible.

‘Are you in Singapore on Thursday?’ Trudy wanted to know.

‘I leave on Wednesday,’ Vivi told her.

‘Saanvi, did you hear that?’ Trudy demanded. ‘She is going to Singapore on Wednesday.’

‘Brilliant,’ Saanvi responded triumphantly. ‘Email me your details and I’ll make sure I’m on the same flight. Where are you staying?’

‘I’m not sure yet,’ Vivienne replied, ‘but I’ll put it in the email. Oh my God, what’s this?’ She pulled the softest, palest pink something from a satin-ribboned box with velveteen stripes and diamanté studs. ‘Oh, you’re kidding me. Myla silk pyjamas. I’ve always wanted a pair …’

Trudy threw out her hands. ‘How on earth did I know that?’ she demanded in amazement.

Vivienne pressed a hand to her chest as she laughed, then leaned forwards to embrace her friend. She coughed to try and clear the tightness in her lungs and sat down again to open more presents.

From Saanvi there were two tickets for a day full of treatments at the Thermes Marins spa in Monte Carlo. ‘Oh wow!’ Vivienne cried, completely blown away. ‘We haven’t been there since we graduated. This is amazing.’

‘Open this one next,’ Shaz insisted, pushing a small silver-wrapped packet into Vivienne’s hand.

Vivienne’s eyes widened with astonishment when she found more tickets, this time for a helicopter transfer from Nice to Monaco.

‘And in this one,’ Sachi told her, ‘you will find a voucher for two return flights to Nice – and a little something else to go with it.’

The something else turned out to be a night at the Hotel de Paris.

‘Now all you have to do,’ Trudi pointed out, ‘is decide which one of us you’re going to take with you.’

‘Oh for God’s sake,’ Vivienne protested. ‘How on earth am I going to do that? Can’t we get our diaries together and work out a time for us all to go?’

‘Best idea I’ve heard all day,’ Shaz concurred, refilling the glasses.

As Vivienne watched and joined in the bubbling excitement she pushed at her chest again, as though the pressure might disperse the ache. She really ought to eat something before downing the champagne, or she’d have another dizzy spell. She reached for a smoked salmon hors d’oeuvre and popped it into her mouth. Delicious, heavenly, so she tried another.

Shaz was asking her something, but for some reason Shaz’s voice seemed to be coming through water. It bobbed back to the surface with sudden clarity as she said, ‘Vivi! Are you all right?’

Vivienne laughed. ‘Of course,’ but the room was dipping away and lurching back as though she were on a ship in a storm, and when she tried to lift her glass she found she couldn’t move her arm. Everything hurt, she realized, her whole body, and the pain was clenching so hard into her chest …

‘Vivienne!’ someone shouted. She thought it was Saanvi.

‘Oh my God!’ Hands were closing around her arms. ‘She’s fainting. Get her some air …’

Vivienne’s face contorted as she tried to breathe. ‘I don’t … It’s …’ she gasped.

‘Her lips are blue … Oh Jesus! Vivienne!’

‘Help! Someone. We need help.’

Vivienne was still trying to breath.

‘Let me through. I’m a doctor, clear some space.’

A man’s face came into view, blurred and dark and moving close.

‘Call an ambulance,’ he barked. ‘Do it now. What’s her name?’

‘Vivienne.’

‘Vivienne,’ he said urgently. ‘I’m going to lie you down …’

She was trying to listen, even to laugh, because this was funny wasn’t it, or embarrassing … It couldn’t be real, but it hurt so much …

‘Deep breaths,’ he was saying, moving her roughly to the floor. ‘Come on Vivienne, you can do it. In, out. In, out.’ His fist was banging into her chest.

She tried. In … The noise was awful. Rushing, ripping, breaking … ‘Mum,’ she murmured weakly.

‘In, out.’ The world was going black. He was still banging her chest … ‘Stay with me,’ he shouted angrily. ‘Vivienne. Stay with me.’

CHAPTER TWO

SHELLEY

Summer 1984

It was a crackpot idea.

Everyone had said so.

Friends, families, even Shelley and Jack, whose plan it was, thought they were crazy, but hey ho, they’d gone ahead and done it anyway. Why not? They’d spent holidays at Deerwood Farm as far back as when they were knee-high to tadpoles, as Shelley’s uncle Bob used to call them. They’d continued to come as teens, helping out in the barns, running wild and loving every animal as if it were a pet – and every mouthful of Aunt Sarah’s home bakes as if they were the very best in the world, which they were.

Even when Jack and Shelley had started going further afield for their holidays they’d continued to count those halcyon summers at the farm amongst their happiest memories. The place was as special to them as any place could possibly be, for it was at Deerwood that their childhood friendship had blossomed during their teenage years into an embarrassed and fumbling romance, and was also where Jack, aged fourteen, had first asked Shelley to marry him. (He’d asked several times after that and she’d always readily accepted. It was just something they used to do every now and again for the sheer joy of it.) Jack even swore Deerwood was magical, and Shelley, whose aunt and uncle owned the farm, had earnestly assured him he was right.

Jack had grown up in the semi next door to Shelley on a shady, red-brick street in Ealing. They’d been best friends forever, so it was no surprise to anyone when they’d married as soon as their uni days were over. By then Jack was a qualified veterinary surgeon, and Shelley was already teaching at a West London primary.

With a little help from Jack’s parents they’d scraped together a deposit for a two-bedroomed house in Brentford, and their first child, Hanna, was born a year after they moved in. Their second, Zoe, came along eighteen months later on the same day that Princess Diana gave birth to Prince William. They were happy, blessed, had little to complain about, with Jack’s popularity as a vet growing and Shelley’s role as a full-time mum keeping her occupied, if not entirely satisfied.

Then Uncle Bob died, four years after Aunt Sarah, and to Shelley and Jack’s amazement it turned out that Deerwood Farm, together with Bob and Sarah’s meagre savings, were now theirs.

‘Why didn’t Bob leave it to you?’ Shelley asked her father, still reeling from the unexpectedness of it that was already turning into something that felt vaguely like excitement. ‘You’re his brother.’

‘I’m no farmer,’ her father chuckled, ‘and Bob knew that.’

‘Well you can hardly say that I am either,’ Shelley pointed out. ‘Or Jack.’

‘Ah, but Bob knew you loved the place, and that’s what would have mattered to him and Sarah. I’m sure she was behind the idea, and when Jack decided to become a vet it would have made up her mind. Having said that, there are no conditions attached to the inheritance. You can sell it if you like and use the money to get a bigger house, or put it aside for the girls’ education.’

Jack and Shelley looked at one another, not needing words to know what the other was thinking, but not yet ready to confide those thoughts in anyone else.

Less than six months later they were in the depths of the rolling countryside, the proud new owners of a rambling, draughty, leaky farmhouse, several ramshackle barns, half a brick shed (the other half had collapsed like an old drunk into a pile of desolation around its own feet); seventy-five acres of untended fields with any number of streams passing merrily or sluggishly through them; ancient woods that Shelley and Jack remembered playing and camping in but were now filled with bindweed and brambles; and heaven only knew how many miles of unkempt hedgerows, rotting gates and clogged ditches. Added to this were five batty sheep of varying ages (breeds yet to be determined, four ewes and a vasectomized little runt of a ram); ten cheery hens very generous with the eggs, three Aylesbury ducks also generous with the eggs (so they were told, yet to see any); a hamster that they’d brought with them and an ageing border collie called Todger whom everyone instantly adored and who was swiftly renamed Dodger (soon to be known as Dodgy). There was also a lot of machinery they had yet to identify, an ancient tractor with a missing steering wheel, a broken trailer, a 1960s Land Rover with more miles on the clock than the clock had numbers, a few dozen bundles of very useful wire fencing, and enough furniture inside the house to keep an auctioneer busy for weeks.

By now Shelley and Jack were in their early thirties and had all the energy and belief in themselves – and each other – that was required to turn this place into a dream home, a thriving farm and an educational paradise for their girls. From the instant Hanna and Zoe arrived their eyes had glowed with excitement and wonder; the fact that there was another brother or sister on the way wasn’t anywhere near as thrilling as the apparent imminent possibility of lambs. Yes, all four ewes were expecting, Giles, the next-door farmer and interim custodian of Deerwood, had informed them on arrival (and yes, there really was a farmer Giles in the area, although that was his first name), and if they wanted any help with the lambing he’d be happy to send someone over when the time came.

They readily accepted the kindness. Jack might be a qualified vet, but it had been a while since his work experience on a farm in Cheshire, so he was definitely open to a refresher course. And if the girls wanted to watch the miracle of birth then so they should, because they might be on duty next year, by which time they were likely to have a flock of thousands. Well, dozens – or at least twelve, depending on how things went.

‘You are absolutely loving this, aren’t you?’ Shelley murmured one evening, gazing into Jack’s midnight-blue eyes and feeling (strangely, given how long she’d loved him), how wonderful it was to love him. She was lying on her side – so large with her pregnancy by now that even rolling onto her back was an effort – and he was lying on his side looking at her.

‘Aren’t you?’ he asked, smoothing damp tendrils of her fine sandy hair back from her face. It was late February and freezing outside, but for tonight at least the generator was working, making them so hot indoors that in a few minutes they might just take a moonlight stroll.

‘Yes, I am,’ she whispered. ‘I really think we’re going to be happy here.’

‘I know it,’ he murmured. ‘I’ve been looking for a way of saying this since we arrived, and now I think I have it. The minute we turned in from the road, all the way along the drive to the farm, seeing the fields, the huge sky and humpback bridge, the cattle grids, trees, hedgerows, I felt as though we were fitting back into a place we’d only ever left temporarily. Then, when I saw the house, this house, sad and neglected, I thought, I swear this, I thought it gave a little sigh of relief when it realized it was us – and if you laugh I’ll leave you.’

How could she not laugh, and at the same time not cry, because he’d just found a far better way of putting into words their return to Deerwood than she ever could. That was her husband all over, as romantic as a poet, as rash and tempestuous as the wind, and as attuned to his surroundings as the wildlife that shared every nook and cranny. And how lucky she was to have him as her lover; her rock; the father of her children, her best friend forever and now her partner in this mad, challenging and exhilarating new dream.

A week later things had moved on at such a pace at Deerwood that Shelley was struggling to keep track of it all. Builders, plumbers and electricians were assessing the cost of repairs and rebuilds; Jack had signed on with an urban veterinary practice for three days a week in order to ensure some sort of income; the girls were enrolled at a nursery school in the nearest village – six miles away – and Shelley was registered at a small health centre on the outskirts of the same village, where she’d had a long and enjoyable chat with the midwife about country living. She was due to give birth at the maternity unit of Kesterly Royal Infirmary – fifteen miles from the farm – sometime in the next two weeks.

Meantime, she and Jack were devouring all the books they could find on farming, sheep, land cultivation, understanding organics, slaughter, local markets; there was so much to learn that they’d probably never take it all in, but at least it was a start. With the support of their families, who’d descended to help out during this crucial period, they’d started to clear the cluttered farmyard of all the rusty paraphernalia, brambles and build-up of filth that had accumulated since Sarah’s passing. Giles and a couple of his workers came to ferry the junk to the tip, or move usables to a storage trailer that they’d parked in a nearby field. Giles was happy to leave it there for as long as it was needed.

‘Five quid a week,’ he announced in his gruff West Country burr. His mischievous hazel eyes were round and fox-like, his grizzly grey beard trembled with his suppressed laughter. ‘If it’s all the same to you I’ll take it off the rent I pay to put my cattle in your top fields.’

More than happy with the arrangement, Shelley made a note to find out how much rent he actually paid and for what number of acres, also whether it might be possible to interest him or any other neighbouring farmer in making further use of their thirty-odd hectares until they had need of them themselves. It would all add to their income, which stood at zero for the moment, but they still had the money Bob had left, and their savings (mostly earmarked for doing up the house and barns), and Jack’s salary would soon kick in. She also needed to check out what government subsidies they might be entitled to, and any rules, ancient or modern, British or European, that they needed to obey.

So much to do and to learn, and not only about reviving a farm, waterproofing barns and birthing lambs, but how to manage without electricity and heating each time the ancient generator took a wheezing, groaning break from its efforts. With no idea when it might get a second wind, they’d already had the chimneys swept so each of the four hearths on the ground floor was filled with flaming logs, and since Jack had managed to start up the old Aga they’d found themselves with a haphazard supply of lukewarm water. Cooking was mostly done over the fires or on a spanking new portable gas stove that Jack’s parents had brought with them, having been warned of the need. Quite what the electricity company was doing about restoring their supply was anyone’s guess, but they certainly didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get things sorted.

The girls were loving every aspect of their new existence, from having their aunt and uncle – Jack’s brother and sister-in-law – along with both sets of grandparents camping out in three of the six bedrooms (they’d brought their own sleeping bags, pillows and hot-water bottles), to lighting candles to go up to bed like Wee Willie Winkie, to toasting their breakfast over rekindled fires in the morning. Best of all was collecting eggs from the henhouse, which they carefully carried back in cardboard boxes, watching their bounty with round-eyed awe in case one of them hatched. The impossibility of that had yet to be explained to them, and no doubt would be in the fullness of time – the wicked gleam in Jack’s eye whenever the subject was mentioned told Shelley that he already had a story worked out.