Carry You

Copyright

Avon

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

77–85 Fulham Palace Road

Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2014

Copyright © Beth Thomas 2014

Beth Thomas asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007544813

Ebook Edition © 2014 ISBN: 9780007544820

Version: 2014–12–15

Dedication

For my Beano. Are you still doing all your walking?

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Epilogue

Keep Reading

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

ONE

Daisy Mack

is reclining on the sofa eating Jaffa Cakes watching Hugh Grant punch Colin Firth. Could life get any better?

Jenny Martin Ever thought about going out occasionally? Life can get a LOT better.

Daisy Mack Thanks Jen. Great tip.

Nat ‘Wiggy’ Nicholson Aw Daze that sounds miserable. Want me to come over?

Daisy Mack Thanks Nat, but it’s OK. Gonna get an early night.

Georgia Ling Hope your ok hun xx

Ah, the fight scene in Bridget Jones’s Diary. This calls for another cake, to maximise the enjoyment. I pull the edges of my dressing gown round me a bit more tightly and snuggle down further into my duvet. Doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen this, it always cheers me up. Well, it makes me smile, anyway, which in my life is as close as I’m going to get to actual cheer. It’s not the sight of two inept men fighting like nine-year-old girls who don’t know how to fight that makes me smile. It’s the fact that there are two men left in the world to fight over one woman. I know, I know, it’s not real, it’s just fiction. But that’s the thing with fiction – anything can happen. Boys turn out to be wizards; vampires fall in love with human schoolgirls; husbands travel through time; men hit each other with dustbin lids.

I dunk my Jaffa Cake into my hot chocolate as I work hard on suspending my disbelief for a bit longer. It’s an effort but so worthwhile. The disbelief thing, I mean. Not the dunking; that’s no effort at all. Dunking these delightful spongy confections in hot chocolate is one of God’s best and yet simplest ideas. If you get it right, the cakey bit soaks up hot chocolate without falling apart, and the chocolate and orange bit on the top goes all warm and soft, so they just melt in your mouth. Too long in the heat, though, and it’s gooey mush at the bottom of the mug. Timing is everything; it’s a lot like life. Ooh, that sounds good.

Daisy Mack

is dunking Jaffa Cakes in hot chocolate. The timing is everything: it’s a lot like life.

My laptop makes an electronic popping sound, and I glance down. It’s an instant message from my best friend Abby.

Abby Marcus Hey, what you doing?

Oh God. Quickly I grab my mobile phone on the sofa next to me and switch it off, dropping it back on the cushion. But I’m still not safe. I reach up to the landline on the wall next to me and break through the dust and cobwebs on the handset. Abby is the only actual human dogged enough to ring it, and she will when she finds my mobile switched off. I press the ‘Call’ button so the dialling tone is audible. Colin lays Hugh out on the road with one good punch. Colin and Hugh really aren’t very good names for two drop-dead-gorgeous, Hollywood A-list actors, are they? They sound more like a pair of nerdy IT geeks in specs. It’s not exactly Brad and Matt.

My laptop pops again.

Abby Marcus Just tried to ring you but mobile on voicemail and landline engaged. Are you actually talking to another human being???????

Daisy Mack Hey! Yeah, on phone. Speak later x

Abby Marcus No, speak now. Wanna go out?

Daisy Mack Can’t. Am tucked up in PJs, and on phone. X

The landline phone is starting to make that multi-tonal alarm noise that lets you know when you’ve accidentally left it off the hook. I’ve heard it so many times these past few weeks, nee-nawing away in the background like an emergency siren, it’s become the sound track to my life. I end the ‘call’, then start another one immediately. Better actually make a call now, I suppose; guilt is encroaching. I press 4 on the memory list and it connects me through to Oxfam, where I make a ten-pound donation. Immediately I feel better. I genuinely am in my PJs, and on the phone, so I have not lied to my best friend; and now I’ve made a donation to charity. I’m a saint.

Pop.

Abby Marcus It’s half past two in the afternoon.

I love Abby. I do. She doesn’t take any crap. Sometimes I wish she would. Just once or twice. Actually, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being in your PJs on a Sunday afternoon, enjoying a film with a Jaffa Cake or two. And if I stare hard enough at the telly and maintain the suspension of my disbelief – and move my head so the armchair is blocking the view – I can’t even see the three empty McVitie’s boxes on the floor. If no one saw me eat them, no one will ever know.

Abby Marcus Are you eating Jaffa Cakes?

Daisy Mack Just a couple. Watching a film. See you tomorrow. X

Abby Marcus No, now. Come on, come out for a walk.

Oh God. A walk. I so don’t want to go out for a walk. It’s bloody miserable weather today, which is exactly why I’m bundled up on my sofa with Col and Hugh, and the world’s best ever dressing gown, instead of tramping the streets in freezing fog.

Daisy Mack Too cold. X

I, on the other hand, am toasty warm, and very snuggly. I’m staying put.

Abby Marcus Get your arse off your sofa and look out the window.

Daisy Mack OK, OK, I’m up.

Abby Marcus No you’re not you’re still typing. Come on Daze, do it.

Abby really is a fantastic friend. She’s the best. So caring, so thoughtful. So … tenacious. Bridget is embarrassing herself at a party now. Not so keen on this bit.

Daisy Mack OK, horrid winter’s afternoon. Definitely not walking weather. What’s your point?

Abby Marcus It’s the 11th of April.

Oh, God, yes, of course it is. How did I forget that? I was still stuck in November for some reason. Well, not for some reason. I know the reason. Everything stopped for me in November, and I often forget that for other people time has carried on ticking, events have kept occurring, and everyone else has continued to experience things.

I suppose I’d better actually look out of the window then. She’ll never shut up otherwise. She does love to talk, Abby. She’s a driving instructor and her life is one long hilarious series of adventures, with dual control pedals. They should make a film about it. It could be called, I don’t know, Driving Games, or Driving Down, or, no, no, wait: Drive Hard. Brilliant.

I move the laptop off my lap and put it carefully down on the sofa next to my mobile phone, then push the duvet back, pull my feet up and roll unsteadily sideways onto my knees. I let my face drop into the fabric of the back of the sofa. Feel a bit dizzy suddenly. I grip the back of the sofa for a few seconds until I’m steady, then turn myself round slowly so my back is to the telly and I am facing the closed curtains behind the sofa. I wonder why Abby is so desperate to get me to look outside. I reach out and pull the curtain back a crack and am instantly blinded by the bright sunshine streaming in. My pupils practically scream out in agony and immediately shrink to the size of single atoms, which is still not small enough to stop the searing white-hot rays from burning into my retinas, leaving a trail of blackened, scorched tissue and permanent damage. I squint a bit and shield my eyes with my hand. That’s better.

‘Open the bloody door, you numpty!’ a cheerful voice shouts, and I make out at last that it’s Abby herself, waving on the lawn.

‘Oh my God, Daisy, look at the state of this place!’ she says as she strides purposefully in a few seconds later. She glances quickly around, then throws me a sidelong look. ‘Daze, it’s very smelly in here.’ I’m retreating to the comfort of the sofa and my duvet, while Abby moves around my darkened living room, scooping up the McVitie’s boxes, as well as one or two Twix wrappers, dirty coffee cups, tissues and, embarrassingly, a half-eaten cheesecake with hardened edges that I think was from yesterday.

‘One or two Jaffa Cakes you said,’ she’s muttering as she cleans. ‘God, have you been on that sofa all weekend? Have you actually had any nutrition at all since Friday lunch time?’

I’m not answering. It’s all rhetorical anyway. She knows what I’m like. Plus at this moment Bridget is running through the streets in her underpants and cardigan, about to snog Colin. I snogged someone called Colin once. Not a very enjoyable experience. We both had braces at the time and some kind of unpleasant electromagnetic force was caused by the presence of all the steel.

‘Are you even listening to me?’ Abby’s voice breaks into my thoughts and I make my eyeballs rotate towards her blurry shape. She’s standing in the middle of the floor, hands on hips, frowning hard.

‘Oh, yeah, course I am. I’m sorry, Abs.’

She cocks her head. ‘So what are you sorry for?’

I shake my head and shrug. ‘You know. All this.’ I move my hand generally in the direction of the world. ‘I’m so hopeless.’

A small beam of sunshine breaks through the thunder clouds on Abby’s face, and she moves over to where I’m huddled. ‘No, Daze, you’re not hopeless. You’re depressed, disorganised, lost, confused and … well, a bit malodorous.’ She sits down on the sofa by my feet, picks them both up by the socks and lays them gently in her own lap. ‘But you’re not hopeless. You have hope. We always have hope, don’t we?’ She rubs my shin affectionately. ‘And you’ve got me. I mean seriously, what more could you possibly need?’

Ah, she really is great. I make my face smile because I know it’s what she’s hoping to see, but I’m still not feeling the smile brewing up from inside me. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get that back. ‘Abby, you’re the best friend a girl in this mess could possibly want. Or be lucky enough to have. I don’t deserve you.’

‘You’re so right. Now get upstairs, get your teeth cleaned and get some trainers on. We are going for that walk. You’ve got ten minutes.’

I haven’t always been one of life’s smelly, shambling drop-outs. As I trudge reluctantly upstairs, my knuckles practically dragging on the carpet, one of the framed photos on the wall catches my eye, and for a moment the image there expands and brightens and fills every molecule of my mind and all the spaces in between. It’s me and my sister, Naomi, shoulder to shoulder, laughing hysterically at my graduation party. I can almost hear us, screaming drunkenly, the sounds of chatter and music from the party loud in the background, a crowd of friends and family mingling, enjoying themselves, having a fantastic night. Our heads are tilted towards each other, foreheads almost touching. I must have been twenty-one, Naomi about twenty-three, and we had our whole lives ahead of us, with nothing but fun, success and joy to look forward to. Abruptly the image greys out and shrinks back, the party noises fade away, and once again I am left floundering in silent desolation, the contrast of me then and me now almost knocking me to the floor.

It takes a bit longer than ten minutes for me to get ready. More like forty in the end, mostly because I didn’t have any clean clothes. Or partly because of that, anyway. It was an issue for a while. But also I was moving pretty slowly because I’m so not motivated to get myself ready for a walk, or a drive, or a skip – or any kind of interaction with the outside.

‘Come on, Daisy!’ Abby shouts up from the hallway. I pretend I can’t hear, and continue listlessly kicking the piles of clothes heaped around my bedroom floor. Eventually I manage to disinter a reasonably clean yellow tee shirt with a big round smiley on the front and match it with some old tracksuit bottoms that were screwed up on the floor of my wardrobe. They’ve got a couple of lilac paint splashes on them. Probably from when I was painting in here, all those months ago.

‘Beckham’s arse, Daisy, what the hell are you doing up there?’

Oop. Right. ‘OK, OK, I’m coming now.’

When I come back down the stairs, Abs is standing in my hallway holding out a pair of old trainers she’s unearthed from the hall cupboard. She’s holding them out to me with both hands and with the light behind her she reminds me so powerfully of my mum, impatiently urging me to get my shoes on when I was about five, that it takes my breath away. Then she moves and her face comes back into the light. I carry on slowly down the stairs.

‘Here you go,’ she says, thrusting the shoes at me. ‘Get them on.’

The trainers don’t look familiar at all. They’re white with a very nice metallic lilac stripe down the side, and close up it’s obvious that they’re not an old pair that Abby has unearthed. They look brand new. I must say it’s a relief to see that, although I’m currently failing at life, I’ve still had the presence of mind at some point to go out and buy myself a pair of good trainers. I’m picturing myself, making a mental list of what I needed in town: bread, milk, Jaffa Cakes, nice trainers, toilet roll, soap. Odd that I don’t remember doing it, but it wouldn’t be the first thing I’ve forgotten doing. Or forgotten to do. Or just plain forgotten. I take the trainers and sit on the bottom stair to put them on. Apparently I have very good taste in trainers. They’re incredibly light and spongy, and so comfortable that when I stand up I feel like I’ve forgotten to put anything on my feet. I glance down quickly but no, there they are, gleaming away at the bottom of my legs.

Abby is peering at me a bit oddly, her eyebrows lifted expectantly. It makes me think I’ve forgotten something else, so I check discreetly from my neck down, but it seems every item of clothing is in place. ‘I’m ready,’ I say, just in case she’s thinking I’m about to go and get some leg warmers on.

‘Don’t you want to, I don’t know, put some make-up on, or something?’ She peers at me from her flawless face and Barbie eyes.

‘Oh.’ I think about that for a moment. She’s obviously worried that I might scare children and old people as I tramp round the neighbourhood, arms swinging, in my baggy, paint-spattered outfit, glowing trainers and pasty face. I shrug. ‘Nah.’

‘Ohhh-kaaay.’ She opens the front door and the whiteness of the outside makes me blink rapidly. Good job I didn’t bother to get all mascara-ed up. ‘Let’s do this,’ she says, in an exaggeratedly dramatic American accent, then ushers me outside like a primary school teacher.

As we walk up the path to the pavement, I accidentally catch a glimpse of the ‘For Sale’ sign that’s still stuck in the front lawn, and quickly avert my eyes. Doesn’t matter how hard I try not to see it, it still punches me in the face every time I walk past. Maybe it’s because it’s bright blue, white and yellow and the size of Mum’s dining table. And now there’s red on it too, of course, with the arrival of the little ‘Sold’ sign that has been slapped on at what no doubt someone thought was a jaunty angle over the original wording. I catch sight of Abby glancing at it, then looking at me, but I’m making no comment. She knows what’s what already.

After we’ve been walking for about seventy-five seconds, we’ve completely filled each other in on what we’ve been doing over the weekend. That is, Abs has told me about the club she was in last night and the sleazy fifty-year-old guy who was there rocking his corduroy trousers and bushy sideburns. Why, I wonder, does brown corduroy appeal only to those over fifty? On second thoughts, why does it appeal to anyone at all, ever? It must be the single most drab, unattractive substance known to man.

She’s glancing at me repeatedly. I mean, more frequently than someone just out for a stroll with someone. It’s as if she’s worried I’m going to spontaneously combust in a minute. ‘What is it?’ I say eventually, after discreetly patting myself down.

‘Well, aren’t you even going to ask about the trainers?’

I glance down at the glowing trainers. ‘Um, yeah,’ I say, nodding vaguely, ‘I was kind of thinking about them. I didn’t even know I had any like these.’

‘No, you haven’t. They’re mine.’

I nod. That explains it then. It did seem a bit weird that I’m pretty much unable to function on any level except the most basic – foraging for chocolate cake, keeping myself sheltered, selecting DVDs – but still managing to buy trainers. ‘Right. I thought it was odd that I’d bought them.’

‘Odd? When you haven’t been out of the house for more than a few minutes for weeks?’

‘Yeah. Exactly.’

‘Daze, how could you have thought they were yours, when you have no memory of buying them?’

‘Um, yeah, that is odd too. I suppose I thought I’d just forgotten buying them.’

Her eyes widen further. ‘Oh dear,’ she says, in exactly the same way as Mrs Matthews did, when I was eight and had a childish accident in the toy cupboard.

‘What does that mean?’

She stops walking, turns to face me and takes both my arms. ‘Daze, come on. You’re in a state. No, don’t shrug, we both know it’s true and we both also know that it does matter, even though you’re trying to convince yourself that it doesn’t. I’m worried about you. Seriously, I am.’

‘Ah, Abs. You don’t need to. I’m fine.’

She nods, exaggeratedly. ‘Oh, yeah, sure you are. Spending days on the sofa? Living on Jaffa Cakes? This whole “trainer” thing, for God’s sake?’

‘The orangey bit makes one of my five a day.’

Her chest jerks with a tiny laugh. ‘No, Daze, it doesn’t. You …’ She stops and shakes her head. ‘You’re … You’re killing yourself.’

‘Oh what crap.’

‘All right, maybe it’s a bit of an exaggeration. But if you carry on like this, you will get rickets. Or scurvy.’ She pauses. ‘Or you know, zits. At the very least.’

I’m smiling again, making my lips curve up. ‘Zits are the least of my worries, Abs.’

‘I know that, but you need to start somewhere. Your appearance seems like a good place. I’ve been talking to Suzanne on Facebook, and when I told her what’s been going on, she was as worried as I am. And she’s come up with a really good idea. She suggested that …’

Wow, Suzanne Allen. I haven’t heard from her for a while. Suze and I used to work together, years ago when I first left school. It was some kind of terrible call centre, selling pet and home insurance. We had to make disastrous phone call after disastrous phone call, being roundly abused and insulted by virtually everyone. Hard to imagine really how we managed to forge any kind of friendship, as there was absolutely no conversation permitted during call hours. Or tea breaks. Even toilet breaks were closely monitored.

‘… so I’ve signed us up. What do you think?’

Abby looks excited. She’s grinning at me with her whole face, waiting for me to react to something she’s just said. Quickly I cast my mind back a few seconds and try to re-hear whatever it was. Oh, there’s a lovely thick band of daffodils all the way along the grass verge at the side of the road, waving gently in the breeze, their little yellow bells knocking together. Of course, it’s April already. I keep forgetting.

‘Daze?’

‘Yeah, sorry, Abs, I was just thinking about …’ She raises her eyebrows. ‘Doesn’t matter. Can you just say it again, please?’

She stares at me a moment, lips pressed together. Then she says something that completely changes my life. ‘Daze,’ she says, grinning in spite of herself, ‘I’ve signed us up to do a MoonWalk.’

TWO

Daisy Mack

is feeling a little perturbed. Is this a good sign?

Lou Stephens Depends what it’s about!

Jenny Martin Can perturbation ever be good?

Suzanne Allen Yes, that is definitely good. Perturb away – it will help.

Daisy Mack Great, thanks Suze. Now I know it’s good to be perturbed, I am less perturbed. Is this a paradox?

Georgia Ling Everything ok hun? xx

Five months ago, my mum died. It was her second outing into breast cancer, and unfortunately it didn’t go as well as the first. But isn’t that always the way with sequels – never as good as the original, are they? Look at Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. Still a great film, don’t get me wrong. Col and Hugh are still geeky sex gods, they still fight like inept girls and Bridge gets to snog both of them again. But … We’ve seen it before, haven’t we? We know she’s hopeless, and can’t stop smoking and wishes she was thinner. And as much as we love her, in the end we’d have preferred to watch the first film again. It had a much better ending.

I’m watching Love Actually in my silky dressing gown now. Second time today. I’m supposed to be cleaning. Better get on with it, I suppose.

Daisy Mack

Gloves, actually.

Suzanne Allen OK, I’m deciphering that to mean you’re cleaning.

Daisy Mack Wow, you’re good!

Suzanne Allen Elementary. It’s spring so they’re not woollen gloves. You don’t own a motorbike. You don’t like gardening. You don’t work with radioactive material or infectious diseases. Oh, and puppets scare you. Ergo, cleaning. Well done! X

Daisy Mack Mind = blown.