A Vera Wang dress, the reception at a sophisticated London venue, and a guest list that reads like a society gossip column are all the ingredients of Anna Whitehall’s perfect wedding that never was…

Spending the summer uncovering hidden treasures in a vintage shop, Anna can still vividly remember both her childhood dreams – neither of which included unpacking dusty boxes whilst wearing her oldest jeans…

The first was that she’d become a Prima Ballerina, and dance on stage resplendent in a jewel-encrusted tutu. The second was that at her wedding she would walk down the aisle wearing a collective-gasp-from-the-congregation dress.

Years ago Anna pirouetted out of her cosy hometown village in a whirl of ambition…but when both of those fairy-tale dreams came crashing down around her ballet shoes, she and fiancée Seb find themselves back in Nettleton, their wedding and careers postponed indefinitely…

Don’t they say that you can never go home again? Sometimes they don’t get it right… This one summer is showing Anna that your dreams have to grow up with you. And sometimes what you think you wanted is just the opposite of what makes you happy….

Also available by Jenny Oliver

The Parisian Christmas Bake Off

The Vintage Summer Wedding

Jenny Oliver

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2014

Copyright © Jenny Oliver 2014

Jenny Oliver asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for 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, downloaded, 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.

E-book Edition © June 2014 ISBN: 9781472096319

Version date: 2018-07-23

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Book List

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Extract

Endpages

About the Publisher

JENNY OLIVER

wrote her first book on holiday when she was ten years old. Illustrated with cut-out supermodels from her sister’s Vogue, it was an epic, sweeping love story not so loosely based on Dynasty.

Since then, Jenny has gone on to get an English degree, a Masters, and a job in publishing that’s taught her what it takes to write a novel (without the help of the supermodels). She wrote The Parisian Christmas Bake Off on the beach in a sea-soaked, sand-covered notebook. This time the inspiration was her addiction to macaroons, the belief she can cook them and an all-consuming love of Christmas. When the decorations go up in October, that’s fine with her! Follow her on Twitter @JenOliverBooks

Chapter One

They arrived in the dark in a heatwave. As Anna stepped out of the car, all she could smell was roses. An omen of thick, heavy scent. She remembered being knocked off-kilter by a huge vase of them at the Opera House once – big, luxurious, peach cabbage roses – and shaking her head at her assistant, trying to hide her agitation by saying scathingly, ‘Terrible flower. So clichéd. Swap them for stargazers or, if you must, hydrangeas.’

‘Wondered whether you two would ever turn up.’ Jeff Mallory, the landlord of the new property, a man with a moustache and a belly that sagged over his dark-green cords, heaved himself out of the cab of a white van.

‘Sorry, mate.’ Seb strode forward, arm outstretched for a vigorous handshake. ‘We would have been here earlier but—’

He left the reason hanging in the air. They both knew it was Anna’s fault. Stalling the packing at every conceivable opportunity. Dithering over how clothes had been folded and obsessively wrapping everything in tissue paper, then bubble-wrap until tea-cups were the size of footballs.

‘Not a problem.’ Jeff shook his head. ‘Just been reading the paper, nice to have a bit of time to myself if I’m honest. Nice little cottage this ‒ you’ll love it, just right for a young couple.’

Anna turned her head slowly from the view of the field opposite, the pungent smell of cowpats and hay and something else that she couldn’t quite put her finger on that had mingled with the sweet roses and was drawing her back in time like a whiff of an old perfume. She let her eyes trail up from the white front gate, the wild over-grown garden, the twee little porch and the carved wooden sign that she knew would spell out something hideous like Wild Rose Cottage and held in a grimace.

You have to try, Anna.

Seb did all the chatting while she opened the car door and grabbed her handbag.

‘It’s good to be back.’ She heard him say, taking a deep breath of country air. ‘Really feels good.’

‘Well I never thought I’d see the day.’ Jeff ran a hand along the waistband of his trousers, hitching them into a more comfortable position. ‘Anna Whitehall back in Nettleton.’

She scratched her neck, feeling the heat prickle against her skin, wondering if by some miracle someone had thought to install air-conditioning in this hell-hole. ‘Me neither, Mr Mallory,’ she said. ‘Me neither.’ She attempted a smile, felt Seb’s eyes on her.

‘You know I played you at the village Christmas play the other year.’ He nodded like he’d only just remembered. ‘Best laugh in the house I got. Dressed in a pink tutu I had to shout, “I’m never coming back, you fuckers. Up your bum.”’ He snorted with laughter. ‘Brought the house down.’

Sweat trickled down between her shoulder blades as she huffed a fake laugh, ‘I’m so pleased I left a legacy.’

‘Too right you did.’ He moved round to the boot of the car to help Seb with the other cases, hauling them out as his trousers slipped lower. Seb was smiling along, trying to smooth out the creases of tension in the air. ‘Whole village has been waiting for you to come back.’ Mr Mallory went on, regardless.

Seb wheeled a case past her over the uneven road and let his hand rest for a moment on her shoulder. She wanted to shake it off, not good with public shows of sympathy, trying to keep her poise.

‘Well I’m glad I gave them something to talk about.’ This won’t be for ever, she said to herself as she gathered some of the plastic bags crammed with stuff out from the back seat.

‘Gave?’ Jeff laughed as he hauled another case out the boot.

‘Oh mind that—’ She ran round and rescued the dress-bag that was being crumpled under the stack of suitcases he was piling up in the street.

‘No past tense about it, Anna. Still giving, sweetheart. Still giving.’ He laughed.

She folded the Vera Wang bag over her arm and took a deep breath. That was it, that was the smell that mingled with the rest. The unmistakable scent of small-town gossip. I bet they loved it, she thought. The great Anna Whitehall fallen from her perch. Rubbing their hands together gleefully, hoping she landed with a painful bump.

Well, she’d made it through worse. She may have promised Seb a year, but she was here for as short a time as she could manage. All she had to do was get a decent new job and, she stroked the velvety skin of the dress-bag, get married. The wedding may no longer be at the exclusive, lavish The Waldegrave and it may not have tiny Swarovski crystals scattered over the tables, a champagne reception, forty-four bedrooms for guests and a Georgian townhouse across the street for the bride and groom, a six-tier Patisserie Gerard chocolate frilled cake and bridesmaids in the palest-grey slub silk, but there was still this bloody gorgeous dress and, she looked up at the cottage, a bare bulb hanging from the kitchen window that Seb had clicked on, and took a shaky breath in, well, no, not much else.

They hauled in bag after bag like cart horses as the dusk dipped to darkness. When Seb handed over the cash for rent, Anna couldn’t watch and, instead, drifted from room to room, flicking on lights and opening windows to try and get rid of the stifling heat. But the air was still like the surface of stagnant water, mosquitos skating over it like ice, buzzing in every room, their little squashed bodies, after she’d spied them, oozing blood on the paisley Laura Ashley wallpaper similar to the type her granny had had.

Looking out from the upstairs bedroom window, she could see Seb talking with Jeff in the street, their shadows as they laughed. She leant forward, the palms of her hands on the cracked, flaking windowsill, and watched as Jeff waved, clambered into his van and cranked the engine and imagined him pootling off to the King’s Head pub, his pint in his own silver tankard waiting for him on the bar and a million eager ears ready for his lowdown.

‘So what do you think?’ A minute later she heard Seb walk across the creaking floorboards as he came to stand behind her, his hands snaking round her waist, the heat of him engulfing her like a duvet.

‘It’s fine,’ she said, leaning her head back on his shoulder and feeling the rumble in his chest as he laughed.

‘Damned with faint praise.’

‘No, it’s really nice. Very cute.’ She turned and almost muffled it into his T-shirt so he might miss the lack of conviction.

‘Yeah, I think it’ll do. It could be much worse, Anna. I think we’ll be OK here. Get a dog, plant some vegetables.’

She bit her lip as her cheek pressed into the cotton of his top, swallowed over the lump in her throat and nodded.

He stroked her hair, ‘We’ll be OK, Anna. Change is never a bad thing. And you never know, you might love it.’

The very thought led to a great wave of nauseous claustrophobia engulfing her and she had to pull away from him. Going over to the big seventies dressing table she unclipped her earrings and put them down on the veneer surface, the reflection in the big circular mirror showed Seb’s profile ‒ wide eyes gazing out across the fields of wheat that she knew from her quick glance earlier was accented with red as the moonlight picked out the poppies. She couldn’t miss the wistful look on his face, the softening of his lips.

She wanted to say, ‘One year, Seb. Don’t get any dreamy ideas. It’s not going to happen.’ But she wasn’t in any position to lay down the rules. The fact that they currently had nothing was her fault. The dream she had been pushing had broken, now it was Seb’s turn to try his. And the feeling was like having her hands cuffed behind her back and her smile painted on her face like a clown.

He turned to look at her. ‘Think of it like a holiday,’ he said with a half-smile.

She thought of her vacations, two glorious weeks somewhere with an infinity pool, cocktails on the beach, restaurants overlooking the sea, basking in blazing sunshine. Or there was schlepping round Skegness with her dad in the rain as a teenager. At the moment, this was more the latter.

‘I’m going to have to shower, I’m too hot,’ she said, peeling off her silk tank-top, wondering whether if she just hung it by the window, the little dots of sweat would dry and not stain.

The bathroom was tiny, the grouting brown, the ceiling cracked where the steam had bubbled the paint. She pulled back the mildewed shower curtain and found herself perplexed.

‘Seb!’ she called.

‘What is it?’

‘There’s no shower.’

‘No shower?’

‘No shower.’

He stood in the doorway and laughed, ‘You’re going to have to learn to bathe.’

‘Who doesn’t have a shower?’ She whispered, biting the tip of her finger, feeling suddenly like a pebble rolling in a wake, her façade teetering.

‘Primrose Cottage, honeybun.’

Oh she knew it was going to be called something dreadful like that.

‘Home sweet home.’

Chapter Two

‘I lay awake most of the night.’ She said this without moving, as if her limbs were tied to the sheet. ‘And do you know what I could hear?’

Seb was standing at the end of the bed in just his boxer shorts, drinking a glass of water.

‘No, honey, what could you hear?’ He raised a brow, waiting for it.

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Nothing. Not a sound. Just total and utter silence. And do you know what I could see?’

‘Let me guess…’ He smirked.

‘Nothing.’ She started to push herself up the bed. ‘I could see nothing. It was black. Pitch bloody black. I couldn’t even have made it to the bathroom if I’d needed to. I couldn’t see my fingers in front of my face.’

‘I think that’s nice. Cosy.’

‘It’s like being in a coffin buried underground. Where are the street lights? Where are the cars? What does everyone do after ten o’clock? Does no one go out?’ She was so tired she wanted to just bury her head under the pillows. The engulfing darkness of the night had made what was bad seem worse. ‘I thought the countryside was meant to be being ruined by motorways and lorries and flight paths.’ Seb gulped down the last of his water as she pulled the sheet up towards her chin. ‘I didn’t hear any bloody planes,’ she said. ‘At least an animal would have been good. A fox or an owl or something. Anything. A cow mooing would have sufficed.’

‘Anna, are you going to get up?’ Seb said, going over to a suitcase to pull out a shirt he’d ironed before they’d left the Bermondsey flat. Always prepared for every eventuality, she thought. Some Scout motto or something. She saw him look at his watch as she rolled herself in the sheet and turned away so she could stare at the crack in the wallpaper join. The little leaves didn’t match up. She thought about the clean white walls of their old place, the wooden floors she padded across to make a breakfast of yoghurt and plump, juicy blueberries.

‘You’ll be late for work,’ he said, looking down at his buttons as he did them up.

While Seb had landed his dream job of teaching at Nettleton High, getting back to his roots as he put it, Anna was about to begin a new career working in a little antique shop that her dad had pulled in a favour for. If her memory served her correctly, it was a grubby hovel that she had had to sit in as a child while he haggled the price of his wares up before he took her to ballet lessons. It was going to pay her six pounds fifty an hour.

‘Come on, get up and we can have coffee in the village before I have to go to school.’

‘Do you think there’s a Starbucks?’ she asked, brow raised.

‘You know there isn’t a Starbucks.’ He rolled his eyes.

‘It was a joke!’ she said, heaving herself up. ‘You have to allow me a joke or two.’

‘You have to allow me some semblance of enjoying this.’

‘I am!’ She put her hand on her chest. ‘That’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m trying, I promise.’

He didn’t look at her, just fumbled around in his suitcase trying to find his tie. She bent down and fished one out of the side pocket of a different bag and went over and hung it round his neck.

She thought about the look on his face when she’d told him that The Waldegrave had gone into administration. That all their money was gone. Everything. That even just the loss of the fifty percent deposit was actually the whole shebang. That she hadn’t been exactly truthful about the extent of the cost.

And he had turned to the side for just a fraction of a second, clenching his face up, all the muscles rigid, shut his eyes, taken a breath. Then he’d turned back, eyes open, squeezed her hand in his and said, ‘It’s OK. It’ll be OK.’

She turned his collar up now and laced the tie underneath, knotting it over and looked up at him and said, ‘I will try harder.’

He shook his head and laughed, ‘All I want to do is have coffee with you before my first day of school.’

‘And that, my darling,’ she said with a smile, hauling the sheet further round her like a toga, squashing the part of her that wanted to sneak back under the covers, and kissing him on the cheek, ‘Is all I want to do, too!’

He raised a brow like he didn’t quite believe her but was happy to go with it.

Driving to the village, Seb had trouble with the narrow lanes, bramble branches flicking into the window as he had to keep swerving into the bushes as Golf GTIs and mud-splattered Land Rovers hurtled past on the other side of the road, beeping his London driving.

‘It’s a fucking nightmare,’ he said, loosening his tie, knuckles gripping the steering wheel. ‘You just can’t see what’s coming.’

‘I thought you always said you knew these roads like the back of your hand.’ Anna straightened the sun-visor mirror to check her reflection. She’d been told by Mrs Beedle, the antiques shop owner, on the phone to wear something she didn’t mind getting mucky in. Anna didn’t own anything she minded getting mucky. Her wardrobe had predominantly consisted of Marc Jacob pantsuits, J Brand jeans and key Stella McCartney pieces. The only memory of them now were the piles of jiffy bags that she had stuffed them into and mailed out to the highest eBay bidder. For today’s outfit she had settled on a pair of khaki shorts that she had worn on safari three years ago and the most worn of her black tank-tops.

‘I did. I think they’ve planted new hedgerows since my day.’

Anna snorted and pulled her sunglasses down from the top of her head, closing her eyes and trying to imagine herself on some Caribbean beach absorbing the wall of heat, about to dive into the ocean, or settled into the box at the Opera House to watch the dress rehearsal, sipping champagne or a double vodka martini.

‘Eh voila,’ Seb said a minute later, cutting the engine and winding up his window.

She opened her eyes slowly like a lizard in the desert.

There it was.

Nettleton village.

The sight of it seemed to lodge her heart in her throat. Her brow suddenly speckled with sweat.

‘OK?’ Seb asked before he opened the door.

Anna snorted, ‘Yeah, yeah, fine.’ She unclicked her door and let one tanned leg follow the other to the cobbles. Unfurling herself from their little hatchback, she stretched her back and shoulders and surveyed the scene as if looking back over old photographs. Through the hazy morning mist of heat, she could see all the little shops surrounding the village square, the avenue of lime trees that dripped sticky sap on the pavement and cars, the church at the far end by the pond and the playground, the benches dappled with the shade from the big, wide leaves of the overhanging trees. Across the square was the pharmacy, its green cross flashing and registering the temperature at twenty-seven degrees. She looked at her watch, it was only eight o’clock. The window still had those old bottles of liquid like an apothecary shop, one red one green, it could have been her imagination playing tricks on her but she thought she remembered them from when she was a kid. Next to that was the newsagent, Dowsetts. A bit of A4 paper stuck on the door saying only two school children at a time. Now that she did remember. Three of them would go in deliberately and cause Mrs Norris apoplexy as they huddled together picking the penny sweets out one at a time and pretending to put them in their pockets. Then, when her friend Hermione locked Mrs Norris in the store cupboard one lunchtime, it earned them a lifetime ban. Did that still stand, she wondered. Would she be turned away if she dared set foot inside? Or was it like prison? Twelve years or less for good behaviour?

Nettleton, she thought, hands on her hips, there it was, all exactly as she remembered it.

Seb came round and draped his arm over her shoulders, giving her an affectionate shake. ‘Isn’t it lovely?’

She forced a little grin.

They strolled over towards a bakery coffee shop, its yellow-striped awning unwound over red cafe tables and chairs, a daisy in a jam jar on each.

‘Charming,’ Seb mused, pointing to the cakes in the window ‒ rows and rows of macaroons all the colour of summer and displayed to look like a sunrise, deep reds into lighter pinks and brilliant oranges fading into acid-lemon yellows, their cream bursting out the insides and their surfaces glistening in the shade. Like jewels jostling for space. Behind them were trays of summer fruit tarts, fresh gooseberries sinking into patisserie cream and stacks of Danish pastries with plump apricots drizzled with icing next to piles of freshly baked croissants, steaming from the oven. There was a small queue of people lined up in the cool, dark interior waiting to buy fresh baguettes and sandwiches. ‘Truly charming.’

Anna thought back to when she’d picked the wedding cake in Patisserie Gerard. The slices the chef brought over on little frilled-edged plates and metal two-pronged forks, watching as she placed the delicate vanilla sponge or chocolate sachertorte into her mouth and sighed with the pleasure of it. How he had suggested that she had to have between four and six layers, less was unheard of for weddings at The Waldegrave; two chocolate with a black forest-style cherry that would ooze when cut and soaked through with booze, heavy and dense. Then a light, fluffy little sponge on the top, perhaps in an orange or, he suggested, a clementine. Just slightly sweeter. The guests would be able to tell the difference. They’d definitely be the type to appreciate such delicate flavours.

Then, without warning, her mother’s voice popped into her head. We never had a wedding, Anna, and it was a sign. Anna didn’t see the cakes, just her own reflection as the words carried on. Pregnant with you, Anna, and standing in some crummy registry office with a couple of witnesses he’d dragged in from outside. I didn’t even get a new dress. And in those days you didn’t have pregnancy clothes, Anna, not the flashy things you have now. Oh no, I had a big hoop of corduroy pleated around my belly like a traffic cone. There were no photos. Thank god. But when I think about it now, I know it was definitely a sign. He wanted to gloss over it. A wedding is more than just a day, Anna. It’s a statement of intent.

As Seb pulled out a chair and stretched his legs out in the morning sun, Anna perched on the edge of the one opposite and said, ‘My mum rang yesterday.’

He twisted his head round to look at her. ‘What did she say?’

‘That she’d give us the money to get married. All of it.’ Seb sat up straighter. Anna licked her lips and pulled her sunglasses down over her eyes. ‘As long as I don’t invite Dad.’

Seb spluttered a cough. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. No way. What did you say?’

She brushed some of the creases from her top. ‘I said I’d think about it.’

‘Anna, you can’t not invite your father.’

‘Why not? What difference would it make? At least it’d solve my problems.’ She paused. ‘Maybe then I wouldn’t have to invite yours either.’ She snorted at her own little joke, but Seb didn’t find it as funny as she’d hoped.

‘You can’t not invite him.’ He raked a hand through his hair. ‘I can’t start my married life on that kind of threat. She’s being a bitch.’

Anna bristled. ‘She’s not, he just hurt her.’

‘It was a long time ago, Anna,’ he said.

Anna glanced to the side, away from looking directly at Seb and, in doing so, caught a look at the girl behind the counter.

‘Oh god, it’s Rachel.’ Anna whipped round so fast her sunglasses fell off her head and landed with a clatter on the metal table.

‘What? Who?’ He stuck his nose right up against the glass. ‘No it’s not.’

‘It is. You’re so obvious.’ She pulled him back by the arm.

‘Well what’s wrong with it being Rachel. I liked Rachel.’

‘Urgh, that’s because you were a big old square at school just like her.’

‘I don’t think people say things like that any more. Not when they’re grown up.’ He raised a brow like she was one of his pupils.

‘God, I bet she’s loving this.’ Anna said, picking up her glasses and sliding them on to over her eyes. ‘Me back here with my tail between my legs. I bet that means Jackie’s somewhere about the place as well.’

‘Of course she is, Anna, she’s a teacher at the school, she helped me get the job.’ Seb shook his head at her like she was mad, as Anna started to breathe in too quickly.

‘Oh great, that’s all I need. Come on, we have to leave.’

‘Anna, stop it. This is ridiculous, you’re being ridiculous. You’re going to see people you used to know.’

And they’ll think, stupid Anna, now it’s our turn to laugh at her, she thought. They’ll think, what’s Seb doing with her? Have you heard, she lost all their cash? Spending outside her means. Running off to London, we all knew it was doomed. Never made it though, did she? Very few do, it’s a tough industry to break into. Did you hear she lost her job as well? Tough times though, isn’t it? Or the time to cut loose dead wood?

‘I can’t sit here.’ She started to push her chair away.

‘Anna!’ Seb raised his voice just a touch. ‘Anna, calm down. Sit down.’

‘No, I’ll see you later. Have a good first day,’ she said, grabbing her bag from where she’d slung it over the back of the chair and marching away in the direction of Vintage Treasure. She heard him sigh but couldn’t turn round. She caught sight of her reflection in the window of the old gift shop, Presents 4 You, and tried to regain some of her infamous poise. Her eye caught a T-shirt draped over a stack of gift boxes, on it read Paris, Milan, New York, Nettleton. In their dreams, she thought, in their dreams. Who would ever want to end up back here?

‘How do you like your tea?’ A woman’s voice called as soon as the bell over the door of Vintage Treasure chimed.

‘I’m fine, thanks.’ Anna said, her eyes pained by the catastrophe of objects piled around the place.

‘That’s not what I asked.’

She heard a clinking of teaspoons and the air-tight pop of the lid coming off a tea caddy, and made a face to herself at the woman’s tone.

Contemplating describing her love of Lapsang Souchong, her dislike of semi-skimmed milk and her tolerance for normal tea as long as it wasn’t too strong, she thought it easier to reply, ‘I just have it white.’

There was no answer, so Anna carried on her journey into the dingy Aladdin’s Cave, just relieved to be out of the scorching heat and the gossiping voices that seemed to lace the air. Inside, dust swirled in the beams of sunlight that forced their way through the dirty windows and shone like spotlights on such delights as a taxidermy crow, its claw positioned on an egg, a crack across the left-hand corner of the glass box, a dark-green chaise lounge, the back studded with emerald buttons and a gold scroll along the black lacquered edges. A looming welsh dresser stacked full of plates and cups and a line of Toby jugs with ugly faces and massive noses.

If there was one thing Anna hated, it was antiques. Anything that wasn’t new, anything with money off, anything that had to be haggled for or marked down.

All it did was remind her of being wrapped up against the cold, having her mittens hanging from her coat sleeves, her dad bundling her up at five in the morning in the passenger seat of his van, a flask of hot chocolate and a half-stale donut wrapped in a napkin that she ate with shaking hands as he scrapped the ice off the inside and outside of the window of his Ford Transit before trundling off to Ardingly, Newark or some other massive antique market. She had inherited her mother’s intolerance of the cold. The fiery Spanish blood that coursed through her veins wasn’t inclined to enjoy shivering in snow-crisp fields, her fingers losing their feeling, her damp lips freezing in the early morning frost as she trudged past other people’s mouldy, damp crap for sale on wonky trestle tables.

As she edged her way through the maze of a shop, a woman bumbled out of the back room with a plate of Gingernuts and two mugs of stewed tea clanking together, their surfaces advertising various antique markets and fairs.

‘I made you one anyway,’ she said, pushing her glasses up her nose with her upper arm as she pushed the tea onto the glass counter.

Mrs Beedle. How could Anna have forgotten? Huge, dressed in a smock that could have doubled as a tent, round glasses like an owl, white shirt with a Peter Pan collar, red T-Bar shoes like Annie wore in the film, a million bracelets clanging up her wrist and pockets bursting with tape measures, pencils, bits of paper and tissues. Her greying hair pulled back into an Anne of Green Gables style do, the front pushed forward like a mini-beehive and a bun held with kirby grips.

‘Anna Whitehall, now look at you.’ She leant her bulk against the counter, took out her hanky and wiped her brow. ‘Still as much of a pain in the arse as you always were, I imagine.’

‘Hello, Mrs Beedle,’ she said, running a finger along the brass-counter edge.

Mrs Beedle narrowed her eyes as if she could see straight inside her. ‘Mmm, yes,’ she murmured.

Anna licked her lips under the scrutiny of her gaze.

‘Now, remember, I’m doing your father a favour, I don’t want you here. Got that?’ She took a slurp of tea. ‘And why he wants you here, I have no idea.’

Anna didn’t say anything, just pushed her shoulders back a bit further.

‘To my mind, you’re a jumped-up, spoilt brat who’s caused more harm than good. But, I’ll tolerate you. As long as there’s none of your London crap, or—’ She picked up a Gingernut, ‘Any of that attitude.’

‘I’m not sixteen any more, Mrs Beedle.’ Anna said with a half sneer, her hand on her hip.

Mrs Beedle’s lip quivered in a mocking smile. ‘That’s exactly the attitude I’m referring to.’ She dunked her biscuit into her tea and sucked some of the liquid off it, before saying, ‘So what can you do?’

Anna thought back to the Opera House. She was very good at mingling at parties, casually introducing people, she could calm down an over-wrought star with aplomb, she could conjure a masterful quote out of thin air for any production, she could throw a pragmatic response into a heated meeting. And her desk was impeccable, perfect, spotless. A place for everything and everything in its place, her mother would say. ‘I’m very organised,’ she said in the end.

Mrs Beedle snorted. Then, clicking her fingers in a gesture that meant for Anna to follow, she pulled back the curtain behind her to reveal Anna’s worst nightmare. A stockroom filled with stacks and stacks of crap, piled sky-high like the legacy of a dead hoarder.

Anna swallowed. She had imagined spending most of the day sitting behind the desk reading Grazia. ‘What do I do with it?’

‘You organise it.’ Mrs Beedle laughed, backing out so that Anna was left alone in the damp-smelling dumping ground and settling herself down in the big orange armchair next to the desk, a thin marmalade cat appearing and twirling through her legs. ‘I’ve been meaning to do it for yonks.’

Anna opened her mouth to say something, but Mrs Beedle cut her off. ‘You know, I think I might actually enjoy this more than I thought I would.’

There had been a time, Anna thought two hours later, as she carefully plucked another horsebrass from a random assortment box and put it into the cardboard box on the shelf she had marked, BRASS, that she had had an assistant to do all this type of manual work in her life. In fact, she’d had two. One of them, Kim, she’d rather forget. She had given her her first break and, in return, the ungrateful brat had stolen her contact book and then promptly resigned and was now clawing her way up the ballet world while Anna was holding what looked like a Mexican death skull between finger and thumb.

Anna had had people to move boxes and post parcels and send emails to the people she’d rather avoid. Her status had defined her. Had made her who she was. She liked the fact she had her own office with her name on the plaque on the door. She liked the fact people came in to ask her advice or crept in in tears and shut the door to bitch about some mean old cow in another department. She liked the signature on the bottom of her email and the fact that she didn’t follow most of her Twitter followers back.

She patted the beads of sweat from her face with a folded piece of tissue she’d got from the bathroom and blew her hair out of her eyes. The room had heated up like a furnace and she felt like a rotisserie chicken slowly browning.

She had been somebody. And it didn’t matter that at about three o’clock, most days, she had stood in a cubicle in the toilets holding a Kleenex to her eyes after catching a glimpse of the dancers rehearsing and thinking, That should have been me. Before blowing her nose, telling herself that this was just life, this is what happens, this feeling is weakness and you’re not weak Anna Whitehall. Then calling up Seb, all bright-eyed and smiling voice, asking if he wanted to go for cocktails after work, her treat.

Anna lifted up another brass object: a revolting frame shaped like a horse-shoe, and thought of her old air-conditioning unit, her ergonomically designed chair, the fresh-cut flowers in her office, her snug new season pencil skirt and a crippling pair of beautiful stilettos.

She wanted to grab her old boss by the shoulders and shout, Look at me, now! Look what you’ve made me become, you stupid idiot! Why did you have to scale down the PR department? Why?

‘Everything all right back there?’ Mrs Beedle had pulled back the curtain and was watching Anna as her lips moved during her silent tirade. The cat was curled up under Mrs Beedle’s arm, nestled on the plump outline of her hip. A wry smile was twitching the woman’s lip as she said, ‘Christ, you still stand in third position.’ She shook her head.’ Well I never, you’ll be doing pliés in here next.’

Anna, who hadn’t noticed how she was standing, moved immediately and leant up against the stack behind her.

‘Haven’t got far, have you?’ Mrs Beedle peered at her work.

Anna frowned. ‘I thought I’d done quite a lot. Look. I have boxes for all the different items. Here‒’ She waved her hand along one of the lines of shelves. ‘China, figurines, brasses, decorative plates, medals…’

‘Maybe.’ Mrs Beedle said with a shrug. ‘I’m going for lunch and, as it’s so quiet, I’m going to shut the shop and make a couple of deliveries. I’ll be back, what? Three-thirty? Four?’

‘What should I do?’ Anna asked, her forehead beading with sweat, her shorts dusty, her fingers rough with dirt, her Shellac chipping.

‘Just carry on as you are. No point stopping now,’ Mrs Beedle said and backed out, shaking her head at the marmalade cat. ‘She has a lot to learn about work this one, doesn’t she? A lot to learn. Always the little princess.’

Chapter Three

‘That’s it, I fucking hate it here.’ Anna was sitting opposite Seb in the King’s Head. She could feel the dirt and scum from the shop nestling into her pores.

The pub was as she remembered. Flock wallpaper in red velvet and gold, and a deep-maroon carpet worn threadbare by the end of the bar where the regulars stood. The bar top was dark mahogany, shiny under the low glass lamps and dappled with patches of split beer. Silver tankards hung from hooks around the lip of the bar top, swinging below the spirits that were mostly different types of whiskey. One side of the room was booth seats, and a smattering of round wooden tables. At the back was a dining room that had placemats with hunting scenes or ducks flying.

‘Here, drink this, it’ll make you feel better.’ Seb put a glass of yellow wine down in front of her.

She held it up between finger and thumb, inspected the colour and said, ‘I very much doubt it.’

Seb tried to hide a smirk. ‘It can’t have been that bad.’

‘I don’t think I can talk about it.’ She sighed, taking a sip. Then, unable not to, said, ‘She made me clear out the stockroom. Urgh, look at this, sing-along piano tonight.’ She picked up a flier that was resting between the mustard and tomato ketchup bottle on their table.

Seb took a sip of his pint and read over the list of songs. ‘Knees Up Mother Brown. It’s like the good old days.’

Anna took another sip and winced. ‘I did a really bad job.’

Seb glanced up. ‘Why?’

‘Because I didn’t want to do it.’

‘Anna.’ His brow creased. ‘You kind of need this job. We seriously don’t have any money and if you want a wedding…’

‘Sebastian.’ She leant forward. ‘I get six pounds fifty an hour. Whether I have this job or not, it’s not going to cover a wedding. No, I have to get back to London, I have to do some serious looking.’

‘Come on. You know there’s nothing out there at the moment, and the commute will really cost.’ He traced the beads of condensation down his glass. ‘You’re just going to have to get on with it.’

‘What if I can’t?’ she said, and he sighed like he was exasperated with her. The sound took her by surprise, she’d never heard it before. This wasn’t the way their relationship worked. Seb adored her. That was their dynamic. It had been since the moment she had walked out of Pret a Manger with her sushi and can of Yoga Bunny and he had walked straight into her, fresh from his interview at Whitechapel Boys’ School, fumbled his briefcase and said, ‘Wow, god, Anna Whitehall. Didn’t expect to bump into you of all people. Wow.’

Really all she wanted now was for him to hate being back as much as she did.

As the fan in the corner of the pub whirred away like it might take off, circulating the stale beer-soaked air, they sat in silence for a second. Murmurs of laughter drifted in from the tables outside the front that Anna hadn’t wanted to sit at in case she got bitten by mosquitoes.

‘So how was your day?’ she said in the end.

Seb held his hands out wide, ‘Now she asks!’ he said with a smile. He was good at changing the atmosphere, at not holding a grudge. His aim in life was for everyone to get along, not like Anna who could cling onto a grudge like nobody’s business. But, as usual, she felt herself get sucked into the lines that crinkled around his eyes as he smiled and winked at her across the table.

She rolled her eyes. ‘Did you save any poor, badly educated children?’

Seb was back in Nettleton to make a difference. To give back. To do for the new Nettleton generation what their teachers had done for him. Anna could barely remember a teacher, let alone anything good they’d done for her. She could vaguely summon a memory of being whacked with a lacrosse stick accidentally on purpose by Mrs McNamara for calling her a lesbian. And the satisfaction she’d felt when she’d handed her a note from her ballet teacher exempting her from all school sport because it clashed with her training and the development of her flexibility.

‘I made a huge impression,’ Seb joked. ‘And young minds across the village are rejoicing that I have arrived as head of year.’

A female voice cut in next to them, ‘I’m sure they are, Seb, no doubt about it.’

‘Jackie, hey, how are you? Come and join us.’ Seb edged along his bench seat so Jackie could sit down.

‘Anna.’ Jackie said by way of greeting, with a distinct lack of emotion.

‘Jackie.’ Anna replied with similar flatness. Their relationship was as such that they’d spent much of their youth circling each other, snogging each other’s boyfriends and generally pissing each other off without ever fully acknowledging their mutual dislike.

‘So how are you?’ Jackie ran her tongue along her lips, then grinned, ‘Never made it to New York, then?’

‘No,’ Anna winced a smile, cocking her head to one side and then saying sweetly, ‘I see you didn’t either. Ever make it out of Nettleton?’

Jackie shrugged. ‘Everything I need is here.’

Anna blew out a breath in disbelief.

‘Whereas you...I mean, what was it we were meant to see? Your name in lights at the Lincoln Center? Wasn’t that always the dream?’

Anna pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. ‘I grew too tall to be a dancer.’

Jackie sat back and crossed her legs. ‘Shame.’

As the air between them hummed, Seb clapped his hands and said, ‘So, what does everyone want to drink?’

As Jackie said she’d die for a gin and tonic, Anna hitched her bag onto her shoulder, stood up and said, ‘I’ll get them.’ Just to get away from the table.

She stood, tapping her nails on the bar. Her name in lights at the Lincoln Center. It was like a jolt. New York, Lincoln Center. Her mum had said, holding up an advert listing the New York City Ballet’s winter programming in the paper. If I hadn’t got pregnant, that’s where I would have been. Imagine being on that stage. Anna, that’s the pinnacle.

When she heard laughter behind her, Anna swung round thinking that it must be about her, but saw instead a couple in the corner enjoying a shared joke. She blew out a breath and tried to relax. But she was like an animal on high alert, poised and ready. At her table Seb and Jackie were looking at something on Jackie’s phone and giggling. Anna found herself envying Seb’s effortless charm, the ease with which he slipped back into relationships. The way he could be so instantly, unguardedly, involved. Not that she’d ever admit it.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked as she pushed the tray of drinks onto the table.

‘Jackie is educating me on the world of Internet dating.’ Seb laughed.

‘It’s nothing,’ Jackie waved a hand, ‘Just Tinder.’

Anna nodded, not sure what she was talking about but, rather than ask, pretended that she wasn’t really that interested. She felt herself doing it on purpose, fitting into the role Jackie expected.

‘The website. No?’ Jackie said, taking a sip of her gin and tonic, as Anna obviously hadn’t been able to hide her blankness as well as she thought. ‘Well I suppose you wouldn’t know, not being single. It’s meant to be the closest thing to dating in the normal world.’ Jackie went on, leaning her elbows on the table, ‘You know, you rate people on what they look like, it’d be right up your street, Anna.’

Anna narrowed her eyes.

‘Look—’ Seb leant forward, Jackie’s phone in his hand. ‘If you like them, you swipe them into the Yes pile and if you don’t, you swipe them into the No. Isn’t it amazing? I just can’t believe it exists. It’s so ruthless, like some sort of horrible conveyor belt of desperation.’

‘Thank you very much, Seb.’ Jackie sat back.

‘I didn’t mean you. I meant them.’

Forgetting her act for a moment, Anna inched her head closer, fascinated, as she watched men appear on screen and Seb swipe them into the No pile as easily as swatting flies.

‘Hang on,’ Jackie snatched it off him. ‘Don’t waste my bounty,’ she laughed.

Seb leant over her shoulder and said, ‘I mean, look at this guy.’ He stabbed the shadowy profile picture on the screen, ‘Why put that picture up? Why wear a hat and a scarf and take it in the dark? All it does is say I’m fat and or ugly. Surely that’s an immediate no from everyone, because fat, ugly people know the trick because they’d do it themselves, and everyone imagines if they were fat and ugly that’s what they would do. He’s a fool.’

Jackie laughed and swiped the shadowy image away.

‘He’s quite nice though.’ Anna edged closer as a picture of a snowboarder popped up, all tanned, chiselled cheekbones and crazy bleached hair.

‘Never fall for the snowboarders or surfers. Believe me, without the get-up they’re all pretty average and all they talk about is how great they are.’

‘I take it you’ve been on quite a lot of dates.’

Jackie shrugged. ‘A fair few. Before this it was eHarmony and Match. I’ve done them all.’

Seb crossed his arms over his chest and sat back against the wooden slates of the booth, ‘It’s interesting isn’t it, the idea of being paired by a computer?’

‘I wonder if you two went on something like eHarmony,’ Jackie said without looking up from her swiping, ‘whether they’d match you.’

‘I doubt it,’ Seb guffawed.

Anna tried not to show her shock. ‘You don’t think?’ she asked, as neutrally as she could.

‘Oh come on. You’re always going on about how different we are,’ he laughed, taking a sip of his pint.

Anna felt her mouth half open, saw Jackie glance up with a wicked look in her eye.

‘Well you are!’ Seb said, as if he knew suddenly that he’d said the wrong thing. A slight look of worry on his face.

‘Yes.’ Anna nodded. ‘Yep, I am. Yeah, they’d probably never match us,’ she said casually and sat back with her wine, her legs crossed, trying to set her face into a relaxed expression.

Seb looked away from her, back to the phone screen and she felt a chill over her skin despite the stifling humidity. This was a man who used to look at her like she was made of gold, who saw a goodness in her that she barely saw herself, who saw the softness beneath the plating.

She suddenly felt like her dusting of glamour was wearing off.

‘Actually, Anna‒’ Jackie said, handing her phone to Seb. ‘I wanted to ask you a favour.’

‘A favour?’ Anna felt herself stiffen.

Seb paused momentarily and glanced up.

‘Well it’s just,’ Jackie licked her lips and Anna wondered if she was nervous. Wondered how long she’d been sitting there, laughing and joking, building up to asking whatever it was she was going to ask. ‘There’s this, this dance group. In the village. They’re only little ‒ you know, eight to sixteen. No one’s older than sixteen. And well, they always perform in the summer shows and they put on little routines and stuff and everyone really loves it. Well, they’ve been working towards a Britain’s Got Talent audition.’

Anna snorted in disbelief at the idea of wanting to go on some hideous ITV show like BGT.

‘They’re really excited. I mean, really excited. And I know they’re not the best but well, the whole village is kind of behind them.’

They never got behind me, Anna thought with a feeling not dissimilar to jealousy.

She could tell Seb was listening despite feigning disinterest.

‘Anyway,’ Jackie shifted uncomfortably in her seat. ‘They’ve been working super, super hard and well, Mrs Swanson’s au pair was teaching them but her visa ran out a fortnight ago and she hadn’t told anyone, so now, well, she left on Wednesday. There’s um, no one to help them.’

‘I see.’ Anna did a quick nod, rolling her shoulders back. No way, she thought, no way in God’s own earth, Jackie, no way. Keep going, but this is never going to happen.

Someone wedged the front doors open and the sounds from outside got louder, the laughter and chatting, but the heat stayed where it was, like a wobbling great blancmange.

‘You could do it,’ Seb said, jumping into the silence, unable to keep his trap shut.

‘I don’t think I could, Seb,’ Anna glared at him.

‘Well yeah, I mean that was exactly what I was going to ask. You see, it’s been me and Mrs McNamara—’

‘She’s still there?’

Jackie nodded.

Anna blew out a breath of disbelief. ‘It’s like time literally stood still here.’

‘Neither of us are particularly good dancers. I mean, I can hold my own at a party but you know, I don’t exactly know enough to teach them and well, we all know McNamara’s not exactly a lithe mover. I just don’t want to let the kids down.’

‘I’m sure you don’t.’ Anna tried to find something to distract herself, and rummaged in her bag for her lip gloss. Anna didn’t dance. Anna hadn’t danced in ten years. She hadn’t set foot on a stage, hadn’t warmed up, hadn’t looked out at the glare of the spotlight or felt the hard floor beneath her feet. Anna’s name had never been in lights. ‘God, it’s so hot. Why does it have to be so goddamn hot?’ She could feel Seb watching her.

‘Some of them aren’t the best kids and it’s really good seeing them involved in something—’

‘Jackie, I’m really sorry,’ Anna cut her off. ‘God, it’s just insufferably hot.’ She pulled her top away from her stomach, ‘I’m not going to do it. It’s just a definite no.’

‘Could you just think about it? We’d pay you?’

‘No.’ She shook her head again, reaching for the sing-along song sheet to fan herself with. ‘All the money in the world and I wouldn’t do it.’

‘Well, that’s not strictly true,’ she heard Seb add and shot him a look. ‘Actually,’ he said, sitting back with a grin on his face, ‘You’d be bloody awful teaching kids.’

She narrowed her eyes. He raised a brow. While half of her could sniff out his attempts at reverse psychology in an instant, the other half felt like he was deliberately being mean. Like this was almost her punishment ‒ for hating Nettleton, for spending all their money, for not trying hard enough.

‘It’s OK.’ Jackie shook her head, picking up her gin and tonic and taking a sip. ‘I just thought I’d ask.’

Anna rubbed her forehead and felt the heat prickle over her body. Jackie looked away, pretending to glance at the menu chalked up on the blackboard. The fan whirred on above the din of chat in the bar, a low hum beating out the seconds of their silence. Anna watched a fruit fly land in a spilt drop of her white wine and was about to lift her glass to squash it when Seb almost leapt from his seat.

‘Holy shit!’ he shouted.

‘What?’ Both Jackie and Anna said at the same time, equally desperate for some distraction after the dance snub.

‘It’s Smelly Doug.’

Jackie pulled the screen her way. ‘God, it is as well. And look, he has a Porsche, he’s photographed himself leaning against it. Oh no.’

‘I don’t know who you’re talking about.’ Anna said, confused.

Jackie took another sip of her drink. ‘You know, Smelly Doug. Never washed his hair, trousers too short, huge rucksack...?’

Anna only had a vague recollection. ‘Was he in the year below us?’ Everything to do with school, pre-London, pre-The English Ballet Company School, was a bit of a blur. All she could remember was coming back for a few summers to stay with her dad and despising every minute of it.

‘This is fascinating,’ Seb said, as he clicked to look at more photos. ‘There’s one of him in Egypt. Doing that point at the top of the Pyramids.’

‘You should go on a date with him, Jackie.’ Seb nodded at her over the rim of his pint.

‘No way.’ Jackie shook her head.

‘Go on. It’d be a social experiment. Catch up, see what he’s up to. Find out how he could afford a Porsche. It’s a fact-finding mission. I’m putting him in your Yeses.’

‘Don’t you dare,’ Jackie laughed. Anna watched them, feeling stupid for feeling left out.

‘Too late.’ Seb sat back, smug, and Jackie snatched the phone back, incredulous.

As Seb went to take a final gulp of his drink, his eyes dancing with triumph, Anna toyed with a coaster, pretending not to envy their laughter.

Then a shadow fell across the table. And Anna heard a familiar voice drawl, ‘Seb, darling, I thought you were going to pop round as soon as you arrived.’ Hilary, Seb’s mother, was standing at the end of their table, feigning her disgruntlement with a dramatic wave of her hand. But when she then pressed her palm over her creped cleavage, the pearls looped round her neck bunched up and caught on the buttons of her cream silk blouse, causing her to turn to Seb’s father, Roger, for help disentangling herself.

Seb glanced between the two of them, ‘Sorry, Mum, yes we were going to pop round. Arrived late last night though.’

‘Hi, Hilary. Hi, Roger.’ Anna stood up as much as the table would allow against her legs.

‘Hello, Anne.’ Hilary said, not looking up from her tangled pearls.

Anna rolled her eyes internally; she knew she called her the wrong name deliberately. Every time she met Seb’s parents, they made her feel like she wasn’t good enough for their son. Like he’d trailed his hand in the Nettleton mud one day and pulled out Anna. The list of problems was endless. Her parents’ divorce, their messy break-up, her father’s job, her mother being Spanish, like her immigrant blood would pollute the famous Davenport gene pool. They must rue the day their lost, London-shell-shocked son had bumped into Anna Whitehall on her lunch break in Covent Garden. They must look back and wonder why they didn’t do their weekend orienteering round London rather than the Hampshire countryside. That way Seb would have been savvy and street-wise, not like a lame duck ready and waiting for her fox-like claws to swipe him away. And now, of course, despite getting their precious youngest son back under Nettleton lock and key, the reason behind it had been her fault. Her inability to keep her job. Her fault he left his position at the elite Whitechapel Boys’ School. Nothing to do with him hating fucking Whitechapel, all the boys who just put their iPhone headphones in during lessons and said things like, ‘My father pays your salary, Sir. Which kind of means he owns you, doesn’t it? He paid for that suit you’re wearing.’

‘So what’s happening with this wedding, then? It’s very unusual, this limbo,’ Hilary sighed. ‘Postponed? Everyone’s been ringing me up, asking what it means. People like to be able to make plans, Anne. They have to book hotels. You must understand.’

Anna nodded. ‘We are sorting it, Hilary.’

‘Well that’s all very well for you to say, but it doesn’t look like you are. As far as I can see, you have a dress and a hotel that’s gone into receivership. And when people ask me what’s going on I simply don’t know. I know you’ve lost money, but what about what we gave you?’

Anna could feel herself getting hotter again. Wanting to shoo Jackie away so she didn’t witness her humiliation at the hands of Hilary and Roger.

When she’d told Seb how much she’d paid and, as a result, how much she’d lost, the main point he’d kept repeating was: just don’t let my mum and dad know.

‘It’s young people and the value of money, Hilly.’ Roger mused. ‘I just can’t believe you didn’t pay for it on a credit card. Everyone knows you pay on credit cards. Instant insurance.’

Anna swallowed. The credit cards she’d kept free to pay off the rest of it, month by month, to syphon off from the salary that she no longer had. ‘I’ve applied to the administrator, I’m doing everything I can.’

Roger snorted. ‘As if that will do anything at all. You won’t see a penny. You’re just a generation who thought they could have, have, have. I blame Labour. All you Guardian readers thinking that the world owes you another pair of shoes. What’s that woman in that ghastly programme?’

‘Sexy in the City,’ Hilary sighed.

‘Yes, just like that. Well, it’s come back to bite you.’ Roger tapped a cigarette out of a silver case that he always carried in the top pocket of his shirt, put it between his lips but didn’t light it, just sucked on the raw tobacco.

Jackie at least had the decency to absorb herself in her phone, Anna noticed, as Hilary leant a hand on the table and said, ‘You need to sort it, Anne. Can’t fail at your first job as a wife. That wouldn’t do at all.’

Tell them to stop, Seb, she thought as they carried on. Tell them to stop.

But he said nothing, just looked at his glass.

The conversation swirled on around her until she heard Jackie say, ‘I know, I’ve been trying to persuade her to put her phenomenal talent to use back here in Nettleton. Razzmatazz are heading towards a big Britain’s Got Talent audition.’

‘And Anna‒’ Hilary frowned, ‘You’re not doing it?’

‘I just‒’ Anna made a face, glanced at Jackie and thought, you sly cow.

‘You really should, Anna. I would have thought you’d jump at the chance of extra money. Seb, what do you think?’

Tell them that you think it’s a terrible idea. Tell them something because you know, more than anything, I don’t want to dance.

Seb licked his lower lip and said, ‘I think it’s Anna’s decision.’

Chapter Four

Anna’s ballet teacher pulled her mother aside when she was eight and told her she had talent. Real, proper talent. Talent that she couldn’t really do justice with her own teaching. Anna’s mother had wanted to whisk her off to London there and then, but it had been her father who’d said no. Who’d said a child should enjoy their childhood. So the compromise had been Summer, Easter and Christmas holidays spent at The Yellow House, a precursor to The English Ballet Company School.

But the second her father had been caught in bed with Molly, the local auctioneer, he forfeited, in her mother’s opinion, any rights to Anna’s future. And, quick as a flash, they were speeding down the M3 to London, towards an audition for a full-time placement at The English Ballet Company School.

As the sun edged its way over the Hammersmith flyover, her mother had said, I should have done this years ago. In fact, no, I should have just gone back. I should have gone straight back to Sevilla. What is there keeping me here? There’s nothing, nothing for me here.

The feelings of the springs in the back of the car seat jutting into her back and whether she’d ever see their cat again were Anna’s predominant memories of the trip. Which distracted her from the fear of her audition and the possibility that she wasn’t quite good enough. That everyone else there had started when they were six, and weren’t chastised every lesson at summer school for their lack of flexibility. That if she did get in she’d suffer the humiliation of being in classes with younger kids, that she’d be described as a ‘late bloomer’.

You, her mother had looked over from the road, the sleeves of her black fur coat flopping down over her hands on the steering wheel, and said, You’re the only thing keeping me here, darling. You. You’re going to be a star. I can just see it. You’re going to be a star and we’ll wear Chanel and we’ll go back to that bloody village and we’ll show them that we’re better. We’re better, Anna.

Anna was lying in the bath when Seb popped his head round the door to say that he was going out with his brothers, then added an eye-roll, as if it was just something that had to be done.

Anna laughed involuntarily. She knew that meant he’d be forced to drink shots and go to some hideous club on an industrial estate out of town that they’d gone to when they were sixteen. An image of his siblings with their middle-aged One Direction haircuts made her wince. She knew they called her a stuck-up cow and blamed her for the loss of Seb’s apparent sense of fun.

As he leant over and kissed her on the top of the head, Anna found herself saying, before she could stop herself, ‘Why didn’t you stand up for me in the pub the other day?’

Seb turned and leant against the sink. ‘I don’t know what you mean?’

She looked at the bleeding cuts on the backs of her hand where she’d been lugging boxes around all day, her chipped nails with dirt underneath them, her bruised legs. ‘It just feels a bit like you’re punishing me.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ He shook his head. ‘Anna, I was unhappy in London. I’m not ashamed to admit it. We both made mistakes, we both lived outside our means, the wedding was just the icing on the cake. I promise, I’m not punishing you. By no means am I punishing you. I suppose I just want you to try.’ He paused, his fingers thrumming on the edge of the porcelain basin, ‘Also, I wonder if maybe you weren’t as happy as you think you were.’

Anna guffawed. ‘I was happy!’

Seb shrugged and nodded, then turned and opened the bathroom cabinet, fishing about for some aftershave. ‘I saw the vicar today,’ he said after a moment.

Anna paused, popped a bubble in her bath.

‘He said we were welcome to use the church for the service. Said that it would be nice you know, to go full circle, since I was christened there. I thought that was nice. You know, a nice thing to say. He didn’t have to say anything, did he? But I thought that was nice.’

‘You’re rambling.’

‘It’s because I’m nervous about telling you this. Nervous of what your reaction is going to be.’

‘If you know my reaction, why are you telling me?’ She suddenly wanted to be out of the bath, dry and dressed and having this conversation at eye-level.

‘Because I think it could solve quite a lot of problems. And if we use the village hall it’ll be one hundred pounds. That’s it, Anna. One hundred pounds. That’s nothing.’

‘The hall I did Brownies in and ballet lessons and choir practice and sat with my dad at the antiques fairs? That hall, you mean?’

Seb nodded again, a little less vigorously.

‘The hall where all the old people have their weekly bridge sessions and that smells of cabbage and boiled potatoes afterwards?’

‘That’s the one.’

Anna nodded.

Seb bit his lip and seemed to close his eyes for slightly longer than a blink.

‘And the vicar who counselled my mum to stay with my dad even though he’d been having an affair for two years? That one? Still the same one?’

Seb did a really small nod, almost imperceptible.

‘That it was her duty to stay with him even though he had no intention of giving his mistress up? That the sanctity of marriage meant turning a blind eye.’

‘I had actually forgotten that bit‒’ Seb swallowed.

Anna breathed in through her nose and slowly exhaled like they used to do at her Bikram yoga class that she couldn’t go to any more because there was only one in the next village and it was twenty pounds a class. She was lucky if there was Pilates in Nettleton, and Zumba…Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

The bubbles on her fingers glistened in the drooping sun, pearlised pinks and blues like sequins. Twinkling on white, reminding her of the first costume hand-stitched just for her. The individual silver sequins flickering on netting under the heat of the strip-lighting in the shabby costume department. The material as it was ruched and pinned, the corset as it was nipped and tucked, the patterns traced with tiny seed beads and embroidery against her chest and up over her shoulders in trails on fine gauze.

The flat that her mother had rented just off the Charing Cross road was horrible. A dingy little place that lit up bright blue when ambulances and fire engines screamed past at all hours of the night.

They’d had nothing but a couple of suitcases of clothes, some pots and pans and a massive heap of bitterness. There was one bedroom, which Anna slept in, where a lamp in the shape of a white horse sat on a stack of old Hello! Magazines left behind by the previous tenant, flickering from a dodgy connection in the plug. And it was cold. The kind of cold that made the blankets damp and kept toes frozen. That first night Anna had lain staring at the ceiling doing everything she could not to cry and, as if her mum could sense it, she came in from her own make-shift bed on the sofa, a red crocheted blanket wrapped round her and snuggled up next to Anna. She had stroked her hair away from her face and said, We’ll be ok. You, you’ll be fabulous!

Then she had leant over and grabbed a Hello! from the pile. When I was a child we used to make scrap books, she’d said as she’d started flicking through the glossy pages. We’d stick in pictures and postcards of places we wanted to go or people we wanted to be. I had a big picture of the ceiling of the David H. Koch theatre at the Lincoln Center. It’s paved with gold. Did you know that? A gold ceiling. That’s the best you can get, isn’t it? And then I had a picture of Buckingham Palace, can you believe it! Still, we’ve never been. As she talked, she let her finger trace the outline of the big chandeliers, the Caribbean super-yachts, the million-pound stallions in stately home stables, and Anna watched silently as the moisture collected in the corner of her eyes. I stuck in all the things I’d ever wanted and dreamt of.

From that night they sat up together in bed and went through the Hellos!, one by one, staring at pictures of Princess Grace of Monaco, Ivana Trump, Joan Rivers’ daughter’s wedding extravaganza. Caroline Bassette-Kennedy on the arm of John Jnr, Princess Diana photographed by Mario Testino, Darcey Bussell in Swan Lake, Claudia, Naomi, Cindy and Kate draped on the arm of Vivienne Westwood or Jean Paul Gaultier. Houses that dripped in gold, taps shaped like dolphins with emeralds as the eyes, satin sheets and heart-shaped beds, wardrobes that cantilevered to reveal rows and rows of shoes like coloured candy, chandeliers that hung like beetles glinting in the camera flashlight, oriental rugs as wide as ballrooms and mirrors trimmed with gold and giant porcelain figurines. This was a world of faces turned a fraction to the left, a tilt of a smile, a waft of arrogance and confidence. This was a world that made her mum smile when she looked at the pictures, that would forever remind Anna of being tucked up together in that cold, damp bed.

That’s who I’m going to be, Anna had thought as the light flickered in her bare bedroom and the noise of an ambulance howled past along the street below. In this enchanted world they have everything.

The next day she had started her own book, one that until a week or so ago was crammed with scraps of every picture, article, photograph, postcard, ripped-out catalogue page she’d seen over the last however many years.

The book that went everywhere with her. The book that housed pages and pages of her dreams. The book that, when they had packed up their beautiful Bermondsey flat, she had left in the bin on top of her old ballet pointes.

‘The thing is, Seb. ’ Anna said, ‘I think I’d rather not get married than get married in Nettleton Village Hall and be married by that man.’

Seb ran his tongue along his bottom lip and then said, ‘Isn’t it about us, Anna? I understand about the vicar, but isn’t it about us, rather than where it is?’

She looked from her bubbles back to him, she thought about her book, about the stupid, simple promises she’d made to herself all those years ago. ‘It’s not enough for me.’

‘Christ.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know what to do then. We don’t have the money for more. I don’t have the money. I honestly don’t know what to do.’

She leant over the bath, her movements languid still by nature, arms crossed gracefully on the rim, water dripping from her skin. ‘We’ll work something out,’ she said, then nodded furiously to try and convince him and made her eyes go all big and persuasive.

He shook his head and she saw him start to smile, then he pushed away from the sink and took the few steps over to her and kissed the top of her head. ‘Maybe.’

As she heard the sound of the front gate clicking shut through the open window she had a sudden flash of Seb’s phone ringing as she was cutting up her credit cards in their London living room. It was a call to offer him a place at Nettleton High. Fuck, no way! Anna had sneered. But Seb had shrugged and said, I’m not sure we have any other options. What we have here, Anna, it’s not real.

At the time, they had both assumed he was talking lifestyle.

Chapter Five

The next day was another spent in the sweatshop stockroom but Anna, fed up with destroyed skin and dusty hair, was slightly more prepared. She had a green Hennes headscarf to protect her hair, that she had given a little snip that morning to try and maintain the Trevor Sorbie cut as long as possible, and her fuchsia leather gloves, so that however much her hands might sweat, they would protect her nails.

‘You’re not handling priceless antiques, you know,’ Mrs Beedle noted as she clocked the gloves while ambling in to make the tea.

‘Oh I’m well aware of that,’ Anna replied, staring scathingly at the mound of junk before her.

‘Mind your mouth, young lady. I know your trick, do as little as possible and still get paid. Well if you’re not careful, I’ll start paying you by the square foot you clear. That’d get you moving, wouldn’t it?’

Anna glanced at what she’d done so far and realised if that became the case she’d have earned about £2.99.

Mrs Beedle pushed her glasses up her nose and watched as Anna upped her pace a touch. ‘Have you been to see your dad yet, young lady?’

Anna paused, then turned round with a box of novelty teaspoons in her hand. ‘Where should I put these? With the silver or do they warrant a space all of their own?’

Mrs Beedle narrowed her eyes. ‘I take it that’s a no.’ She shook her head. ‘Still a selfish little madam, I see.’ When Anna made no move to reply, she sighed and then said, ‘Put the spoons with the silver. I have to look at a cabinet in Ambercross, it’ll take me what?’ She looked at her watch. ‘Forty minutes. Do you think you can handle it here on your own or should I lock up?’

Anna scoffed. ‘Yes, I think I’ll manage,’ she said, unable to hold down a condescending raise of her brow.

‘I’m not sure.’ Stubby fingers on her hips, Mrs Beedle stared at Anna and then the counter behind her, contemplating the safety of leaving her behind, while Anna tried to remember if a customer had actually come in on the occasions she’d been in the shop.

‘It’ll be fine.’ She waved a gloved hand. ‘I’m good with people.’

It was Mrs Beedle’s turn to scoff. ‘I find that very hard to believe. OK, I’ll try and make it half an hour.’

‘Fine.’ Anna had turned away and focused on the next box to sort through, which seemed to be mainly more horrible old teaspoons each with the name or image of some different tourist landmark on the handle. She thought they were best suited to the bin, but instead tipped them into the box marked Silver, and made a show of moving relatively quickly onto the next one.

As soon as the bell over the door tinkled closed, however, she was out of that room, gloves off, Lapsang Souchong in hand, sitting in the tatty orange armchair and switching the CCTV to Murder She Wrote.

Then she picked up the shop’s phone and called her friend Hermione.

‘Darling.’ Hermione’s cut-glass accent boomed out of the receiver. ‘Hang on, I think there might be a pause, like you’re calling long distance.’

‘You’re hilarious.’

Hermione made a noise between a snort and a laugh at her own joke. ‘I try. How is it there? Have they driven you out of town with pitchforks yet?’

Anna snuggled down in the chair and smiled. ‘They’re just sharpening the prongs.’

‘Tines.’

‘What?’

‘They’re called tines. The prongy bits.’

‘Not on pitchforks.’

‘I think they are. Google it.’

‘I’m not Googling pitchforks.’ Anna took a slurp of tea.

‘So I laughed out loud at my desk when I got your email about having to hang out with Jackie. I can’t believe she’s still there. What’s wrong with people?’ Hermione’s voice clinked in her ears like champagne flutes touching. ‘But, you know what, I was so intrigued I’ve joined too.’

‘Joined what?’

‘Tinder.’

Anna sat up straight, a smile spreading across her face. ‘And have you said yes to anyone yet?’

‘Christ no, they’re all dreadful. All from bloody Milton Keynes. Ugly and poor.’

Anna snorted a laugh.

‘I just thought though, why should I sit at home in a fucking heatwave and not go on some dates. Especially if even Jackie’s doing it. But I’ve set my lower age limit to forty-five just so I don’t get Smelly Doug,’ Hermione went on.

‘Well no wonder you don’t like any of them.’ Anna casually started flicking through an antiques magazine on the counter.

‘I’m waiting for a silver fox.’ Hermione drawled. ‘I’m looking at them now, there are so many that are so dreadful. You should join.’

‘What?’

‘Just to keep me company while we’re on the phone.’

Anna ignored her and kept on flicking aimlessly through the magazine. ‘I think you should say yes to some even if you aren’t sure, Hermione. Just to warm up.’

Hermione snorted. ‘I’m warm enough thanks, Anna. I don’t want anyone not good enough to think they could have me. I’m not having some old duffer in the pub bragging that Hermione Somers-Brown said yes to the catalogue photo he’d uploaded instead of a picture of himself. Go on, join, it’ll give us something to talk about, otherwise I’m hanging up because I don’t really want to hear any of your depressing Nettleton news.’

Anna shut the magazine and looked around the shop. The idea of being stuck there on her own with nothing to do except sweat buckets in the stockroom and no one to talk to was enough to make her log onto the Vintage Treasure WiFi and download the Tinder app.

‘It links to your Facebook,’ she said after a minute, ‘I can’t do that.’

‘Oh who goes on Facebook any more.’ Hermione waved away her concern.

And as soon as Anna was up and running, any niggles were soon replaced by the sheer joy of happily discarding so many over-eager looking men.

‘Oh Jesus!’ She heard Hermione say, as she was swiping away a snowboarder doing a double thumbs-up for the camera.

‘What?’

‘Your dad’s on here.’

‘No!’ Anna made a face of horror.

‘Shall I put him in my Yes pile?’ Hermione laughed.

‘Don’t you dare.’

‘He’s a silver fox if ever I saw one. You know, I’d forgotten how handsome he is.’

‘Hermione, you’re talking about my father.’

‘I know and he’s a dish. Perhaps I could have a torrid fling with him.’

‘Hermione, don’t even thi—’ Anna paused, her hand hovering over the screen of her iPhone on the picture that had just appeared in front of her.

‘What?’

Anna didn’t reply.

‘What? What’s happened?’

She stared at the face that had popped up, thick dark hair all messy and lightened at the tips from too much time in the sun. Desert Storm fatigues, huge white-toothed grin, pale lips cracked, face tanned around goggle marks. ‘Nothing,’ she said to Hermione.

‘Don’t give me that. Who is it? Who have you seen?’

‘Luke.’

‘Luke Lloyd?’ She could hear the delight in Hermione’s tone. ‘The delightful Mr Lloyd back from saving the world and looking for sex. How marvellous. You must Yes him.’

Anna shook her head. ‘I’m not going to Yes him. I’m not Yes-ing anyone.’

‘Why not? You should meet up with him, show him what he’s missing. Show him what a glamour puss you’ve become.’

Anna looked down at her dirty cargo shorts and made a face at the idea of ever being referred to as a glamour puss again.

‘I couldn’t do it to Seb. ’

‘Seb schmeb,’ Hermione sighed. ‘He doesn’t even have to know. Email me a screen shot so I can see Luke.’

A few minutes later, after some convoluted and irritated instructions from Hermione teaching her how to take a screen shot and then how to email it, they were both staring at the same image.

‘He was always a delight. Always. And so exciting. Nettleton would have been unbearable if he hadn’t been around. You should do it, just meet him for coffee.’

‘Hermione, I’m engaged.’

There was a pause. ‘Anna. What did you do today? In fact, don’t tell me, it’ll make me ill. Just think what you would have done had you been here. What are you doing now? Let me tell you what I’m imagining and you can tell me where I’m wrong. Stop me anytime.’ There was a clinking noise as she assumed Hermione was taking a sip of her drink. ‘You’re in that crummy shop and, day to day, maybe one, two people come in. No one buys anything and if they do it’s a ghastly side-table or figurine. Tonight you’ll go home and sit in the garden, the scrap of lawn has possibly been trimmed recently with a Flymo or some other suburban tool. There are bedding plants in various arrays of life and death. Perhaps a fruit tree at the far end, which makes you convince yourself that you’ll make jam at some point and become a domestic goddess when really you’ll get fat and never eat the fruit because it will get some kind of disease or the apples will be too sour. I imagine there are birds tweeting and cows mooing which is all very lovely if you ignore the smell. I know that smell, Anna, I lived with that smell for eighteen years. And I bet your fence is just low enough for some busybody neighbour to stick her head over and say hello, bitch about someone in town or tell you that her colicky baby had her up all night. You haven’t stopped me yet, Anna. Let me think about you. The wine in your fridge is the only white wine you could find in the town, perhaps a Hardys or, if you’re lucky, an Oxford Landing. It’s warm because it’s so fricking hot that you can’t keep it cool enough, and, oooh I know, I bet you’ll lie on one of those ghastly sun-loungers that had brown and orange flowers on it and spiders that live in the metal fold-out posts while Seb watches the rugby or plays on his PlayStation. Am I close?’

Anna had shut her eyes. ‘He sold the PlayStation.’

‘Thank fuck for that.’ Hermione snorted a laugh.

‘Shall I tell you what I’m doing? Anna, I’m sitting on the balcony of my flat, the Thames looks beautiful, the sun just catching the water. I can see the Houses of Parliament and the wheel, the sky is red. Actually red, like someone’s squashed a handful of cherries and smeared it over the sky.’

‘That’s very artistic.’

‘Well I don’t work at Sotheby’s for nothing, darling. I am sitting on an Adirondack chair and I have my feet up on the glass wall of my balcony. And I have next to me a bottle of Bollinger in a cooler and a glass that I am topping up little by little so it doesn’t warm. And, later, my darling, don’t get jealous, I am popping to a party on the top floor of the Gherkin where the alcohol will be free and the Michelin-starred canapés my dinner.’

‘OK, that’s enough, thank you.’ Anna watched the marmalade cat perk up as the bell rang above the door and someone came in, nodding a greeting as she glanced over.

‘Put him in your Yeses, Anna. Seb doesn’t have to know. You need to grab yourself a little excitement while you still can. Before you forget, Anna. Before your waist starts thickening and you think getting 50p off your cappuccino because the milk wouldn’t froth is a bargain.’

‘No.’ She shook her head, looking back at the photo of Luke and trying to ignore the feeling that his crazy, action-packed existence conjured inside her, the taste of adrenaline and adventure in her mouth, the idea of slipping into something new, something chic and expensive and strutting into some bar and making him realise what he had given up in search of Sandhurst officer training and army fatigues. To show him what she had become since their teenage years snogging on park benches whenever she was back in the village. To see that glint in his wicked blue eyes, the cocky arrogance, to feel the shiver that ran through her just because he’d sauntered over to where she had been preening next to Hermione.

Then she shook her head to make the image go away. Feeling an instant rush of guilt about how just the idea of Luke Lloyd made her feel.

The customer was moving around the shop and Anna did a quick check to see they weren’t listening in on her call, before cupping her hand over the receiver. ‘Stop winding me up, Hermione, I know what you’re doing,’ she hissed.

‘Tempting though, isn’t it?’ Hermione said, gleefully. ‘It’s just a shame you’ve become so dull. If anything, just for us to have something to gossip about that’s not you getting married in the stinking cabbage hall.’

‘How did you know about that?’ Anna straightened up, forgot about whether the customer could hear her or not.

‘Seb phoned me to ask what I thought. And I told him it was a dreadful idea and that he should forget about it ASAP.’

‘He called you?’ Anna closed her eyes. ‘But he knew, he knew I wouldn’t want to do it.’

‘He’s a simple man, Anna. He wants a simple solution.’

‘Why would he have asked you before me and then still asked me? How do you know me better?’ She thought about their conversation the night before in the bathroom. Thought about the feeling of her pedestal teetering, her glamour slipping. Thought of the future and saw an endless wheat field stretching out ahead of her.

‘Look, Anna, Hermione is always right. Listen to me. What have you got to lose? Fucking hell, what are you expected to do, just stay cooped up in the country all your life, staring at cows and becoming the little wife? No. You need to live. People become boring in the country, it’s a proven fact. I mean, you never know, you think it’s Nettleton that makes you unable to breathe, but it could be the thought of marriage. Often I find that what we think is wrong in our lives is rarely what is. I’m not saying running off with Luke Lloyd is the answer but live a little, do some casual flirting, it’s fun. It’d make you feel better ‒ you’ve been through a shitty time recently ‒ it’ll make you feel more alive. And that can only be a good thing, Seb’ll notice the difference. And, he’ll never have to know either. If he did, he’d probably advocate it anyway ‒ wasn’t that his rationale about Smelly Doug ‒ a social experiment. ’ Hermione paused and Anna could almost hear her brain thinking of a new tack to take. ‘And anyway, you should come up to London, set up some meetings. Did I tell you I bumped into your little assistant the other day, the one who stole all your contacts. What was her name?’

‘Kim,’ Anna said, nodding vaguely at the customer as they did another lap of the shop.

‘Oh yes. Well, she said you should have a catch-up. And, look, listen to this, it says on Wikipedia that a pitchfork has long, thick, widely separated, pointed tines. Tines, Anna. Tines. See, always right, Anna. Hermione is always right.’ She snorted a laugh down the phone.

The bell tingled over the door again and Anna heard the familiar out-of-breath panting of Mrs Beedle, so scrabbled to get her feet down off the counter, ‘Look I’ve got to go, H,’ she whispered.

‘Only if you swipe that man into your Yeses, Anna. Swipe him,’ Hermione carried on regardless.

‘OK, fine.’ She pulled her phone out from where she’d quickly shoved it in her pocket and swiped Luke Lloyd into her Yeses. ‘I’ve swiped him. Happy? Now I have to go.’

Anna cut Hermione off, but kept the telephone to her ear as Mrs Beedle came towards her. ‘Yes,’ she said to the dial tone, ‘Absolutely, we have a range of different antiquities, something for everyone, and if there’s something specific you require, we can have it in mind as we scour the markets across the country and across the channel. Oh yes, many of our pieces are from France.’

As she hung up, she noticed that Mrs Beedle was smiling, which never happened.

‘You sold the Russian clock?’ she said, dumping a shopping bag of milk, custard creams and an antiques magazine that Anna remembered her father getting delivered, down on the counter.

‘No.’ Anna shook her head. ‘I haven’t sold anything.’

Mrs Beedle paused and then looked out into the street. ‘I just saw a man leave with it.’

‘Not from here.’

‘Anna, it was from here.’ Mrs Beedle huffed back to the front door but there was no one in the street. Anna could see her standing on the pavement with her hands on her hips, looking right then left, calling to the group of men sitting on the bench on the other side of the square who shook their heads in response. When she finally came back in, she was shaking her head. ‘Bother,’ she sighed.

Anna straightened her shoulders. ‘He didn’t buy it from here.’

‘I bought that clock as part of a repossession auction of a Russian oligarch. Anna, it was the only clock of its type west of the Ukraine. Don’t tell me that wasn’t my clock.’ Her cheeks started to flush. ‘Clearly he didn’t buy it at all. See over there‒’ She pointed to a cabinet that had a dust-free square on the top about the size of a shoebox. ‘That’s where it was when I left.’

Anna glanced over at the shiny, polished square of emptiness and bit her lip, then pushed a strand of hair from her face and said, ‘Was it expensive?’

Mrs Beedle closed her eyes and sucked in her top lip before muttering, ‘You could say that.’

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ Anna said, almost without thinking.

‘I’d rather you didn’t say that, Anna.’ Mrs Beedle opened her eyes, she looked sad and tired and old suddenly, and glanced from Anna over to the CCTV monitor that was currently rolling the closing credits of Murder She Wrote.

Anna felt herself inwardly cringe as Mrs Beedle squeezed past her, took the remote down and flicked the TV back to the security monitor, then took her bag of shopping into the stockroom.

Anna yanked off her gloves and rubbed her hand over her brow. All her usual defence mechanisms kicked in straight away. It wasn’t her fault. It could have happened to anyone. Even if she had been watching, what would she have done, tackle him to the ground? She leant against the counter top and gave it a bit of a polish with an old rag to look like she was doing something, anything rather than go into the back room with Mrs Beedle. As she polished and listened to the kettle being flicked on and saw the cat scamper underneath the curtain, her eyes kept being drawn to the dust-free patch on the top of the mahogany cabinet. She could actually remember the clock, and she knew it was probably the most expensive item in the shop. Gold and magnificent with two lions holding up the dial and an eagle on the top, its wings spread wide. A square base with claw feet like talons. She had remembered admiring it as quite a gem amidst the taxidermy, the assorted crockery and the jumble of chairs that blocked the back half of the shop.

When Mrs Beedle came out with her tea, Anna leant back against the counter and mumbled, ‘I’m sorry.’

Mrs Beedle paused as she brought the mug up to her mouth. ‘That’s not really much use to me.’

Anna bristled, unused to that kind of reaction. She thought of Seb squeezing her hand and telling her that it was OK after she’d lost all their money. ‘It could have happened if you were here or not—’

‘Anna.’ Mrs Beedle locked her with a look that cut her off immediately. ‘Don’t make excuses to me. It wouldn’t have happened if I was here, I know that, because this shop is my life and the things in it are my life. To you they may be nothing, but to me they are my livelihood and I respect them. I have given you a job when a lot of people here wouldn’t and all I ask in return, is you show my possessions just a little respect. That’s it. That’s all I ask,’ she said, her lips taut, her jaw as rigid as it could be in her round little face.

Anna opened her mouth to reply, but chose instead to say nothing, just nodded.

‘I don’t need you here. In fact, I’d rather you weren’t here. But your father has been my friend since I was at school and he asked for a favour. I’m not putting up with your shit, Anna Whitehall. I see through you. And, quite frankly, I’d say it’s about time you grew up.’

At five on the dot, Anna grabbed her bag and sloped out so that Mrs Beedle wouldn’t see her, and once outside she’d never been happier to feel the scorching heat of the afternoon sun on her face.

Pausing for a moment to sit on one of the chairs outside the French bistro, she leant her head against the wall and took a deep breath. She’d spent the rest of the afternoon flitting between fury about her telling off and guilt over the clock theft. Why had this had such an effect on her? It was just a crappy antiques shop, but it felt like the culmination of everything. The conversation with Hermione had rattled her, shaken her foundations. Her relationship with Seb felt like it was being wedged apart by a huge Nettleton crowbar, and now she had the big, sad, watery eyes of Mrs Beedle’s disappointment to contend with.

‘I don’t care,’ she whispered under her breath. ‘I do not care.’

As she was repeating the mantra to herself, the owner came out of the bistro where Anna had taken residence of one of his chairs. He very good-looking in a dark, Gaelic way she thought as he started watering the pots of red geraniums with an old glass bottle. ‘Bonsoir, Mademoiselle. Can I get you something to drink?’

‘Oh no sorry, I was just sitting.’ Anna pushed herself up. ‘I’m just going.’

He shook his head, pouring the last of the water into one of the gnarly pots. ‘There is no hurry. You can sit as much as you like.’ He winked, shook out the drops from the bottle, and then disappeared back inside. She watched him go and wondered in how many places you could sit at someone’s cafe for free.

Standing up, she hauled her weary body across the cobbles, the sun burning on her back, the group of old men sitting on the bench staring, hands resting on their bellies, the old sheepdog at their feet turning its head away as she passed. She felt like everyone knew about the clock.

I don’t care, she said again under her breath. But then why was she so riled?

As she neared the bakery, she saw Jackie and Seb sitting on the chairs, laughing together over chocolate cake. She could see Rachel inside, behind the counter, wrapping up bread and scooping chocolates into gold boxes. The window had changed again, piles of jellied sweets shaped like strawberries and green apples, orange slices and bobbly raspberries glistened in the afternoon sun. Scattered nasturtium flowers fluttered like butterflies, shots of bright vermilion and dazzling cerise. And hanging from ribbons in the window were tiny glass test-tubes, each with a sweet pea drooping from the weight of its pastel petals. If she still had it, a photo of the display would have been worthy of her book.

‘Anna!’ Seb called with a wave.

Jackie was still sniggering as she approached. Again Anna felt like the outsider.

‘Jackie was just asking me whether you’d ever change your mind about coaching her dance group,’ Seb said, as if by way of explanation for the giggling.

Why was that funny? Anna wondered.

‘Seb said that you didn’t really do things for other people.’ Jackie said over a mouthful of chocolate cake.

‘I didn’t say it like that.’ Seb shook his head, waving a hand to try and make her disregard Jackie’s comment. ‘I just said that you weren’t, you know, community-focused.’

Anna didn’t say anything. Just watched the pair of them, a thousand possibilities of what Seb had said swirling through her head. In London this was her time with him. Where she’d call and arrange to meet him in swanky bar, but he’d catch her just before she went in and pull her into a sweet, family-owned tapas place where they’d get free sherry with their chorizo, or make her stroll down the Embankment to look at the river in the twilight and the blue and white lights threaded through the branches of the ragged trees. Like when they first met and she’d led him round London like a pro, pointing out various landmarks and over-egging her knowledge of the history, he’d stopped her with a raised brow when she said something with total conviction about Big Ben or the fact there had to be more than two people in a London Eye pod in case you had sex in there, and he’d said, ‘You’re full of shit, Anna Whitehall.’ And she had turned, ready with a quick retort but had seen the twinkling in his eyes and realised that he was laughing at her. No one had dared laugh at her before and she had loved it.

But this was a different type of laughter. One that excluded her and made her feel foolish, out of the joke.

Jackie sat back in her chair, took a sip of her espresso, and said, ‘Don’t worry about it. You probably don’t have the skill set to do it anyway, Anna. Teaching kids, it’s hard, it’d make working in PR at the Opera House seem like a walk in the park.’

I was at the English Ballet Company School, Anna thought, bristling. I was going to be a star. She closed her eyes and saw sequins and feathers and Swarovski crystals. Powder on a white puff, flicks of eyeliner and the sparkle of shadow. Tights with a hint of shimmer, pointes worn down to the box, ribbons frayed around her calf, the hoops of sweat on her leotard, the vomit in her mouth the split-second before the curtain went up, the thrum of the orchestra, the darkness of her eyelids as she waited, one deep breath after another until she could feel the warm, engulfing heat of the lights. The steely determination, the poise, the in-built stubbornness that fired like the strike of a match as soon as anyone questioned whether she could do it, whether she wanted to or not.

‘Tell me what time they rehearse,’ she said, pulling on her sunglasses, deliberately not looking at Seb. ‘I’ll be there.’

Chapter Six

The Nettleton village hall was at the far end of the square, red brick with a parapet and a white key stone with the date, 1906, carved into the masonry. It was flanked on either side by plane trees, their prickly seeds swaying like hedgehogs, the leaves shading the front steps with spots of dancing light breaking through like rain. By the looks of the noticeboard, it was used for everything, from old people’s tea dances to after-school clubs. From the outside, Anna could see the windows decorated with paper-plate suns and pipe-cleaner daffodils.

She could feel her hand shake as she pushed open the heavy wooden front doors and was almost blown backwards by some hideous pop track as it blasted in her face like a roar.

Perfect, she thought. It was like her once only venture to Glastonbury. Same annoying-looking teenagers, same painful music, same hippy-dippy niceness and probably only one toilet that worked.

Jackie and Mrs McNamara were standing at the front of the stage chatting while, what looked to Anna, a bunch of malnutritioned juveniles bounced around like malcoordinated maniacs on stage wearing tracksuit bottoms, oversized T-shirts and crop-tops. One, she noticed, was actually wearing a onesie with a tail. That would have to go.

‘Anna!’ Jackie called, clearly delighted to see her for the pure fact she could now pass the buck of this terrifying shambles.

The hall was stuffy and Anna felt completely overdressed in tight leather-effect leggings, flimsy blue tank-top and a gossamer MaxMara cardigan. The heat, mixed with the nerves of coming back into this type of situation, of drawing on skills that lay happily dormant, made her wonder if she might faint.

‘This is the dream team, Anna Whitehall,’ Mrs McNamara shouted, and Anna’s name on her lips catapulted her straight back to gym class. Huffing and puffing across the lacrosse pitch in the freezing cold. Come on, Whitehall, none of your ballet flim-flam out here!

Anna gave her a tight smile, and then they all stood side by side for a second and watched the debacle on stage. The horror of what she was watching quickly gazumped her fears.

‘OK, Matt,’ Jackie shouted. ‘Turn it off a second.’

A loping, spotty teenager flicked off his iPod on the stand and Anna felt like she’d experienced a miracle.

‘Everyone, this is Anna Whitehall. She’s here to put the final touches to the routine. Iron it out before the big audition.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Anna whispered, perplexed. ‘Was that the routine?’

‘Yeah, what about it?’ A girl with a bright-orange Amy Winehouse beehive shouted from the stage, a tiny nose stud glinting as she sneered.

Anna just waved a hand. ‘Nothing,’ she said, but could feel a wave of the stifled giggles washing over her, mixing with the adrenaline of her nerves, which must have done something strange to her expression because another girl sprang forward, this one with a platinum fringe flicked like Farah Fawcett, and said, eyes narrowed, ‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘Well, it’s just—’ Anna glanced at Jackie and Mrs McNamara for back-up, but they both just looked at her with blank expressions. ‘Well, it has no steps,’ she sniggered, as if it was obvious. She was the first to admit that this style of dancing wasn’t her forte, but it didn’t take a genius to see it was just a hotch-potch of random jumping about the place.

‘It’s got fucking steps.’ Matt, the iPod owner said, running his hand through his dirty-blond hair and frowning, his freckle-smattered nose runkling.

‘OK, Matthew, don’t swear,’ Mrs McNamara cut in.

The flicky fringe girl pointed a finger at Anna. ‘What would you know, anyway?’

Anna raised a brow, was the girl baring her teeth at her? Christ, it was like being in the zoo. Anna shook her hair and straightened her back in an attempt to maintain her hierarchy. ‘I’m a professionally trained dancer—’ she said, and was about to add her qualifications; that she was a goddamn expert in everything from classical ballet to jazz and contemporary to bloody mime, when Jackie cut in, ‘Lucy, Anna was going to be a star!’

Anna turned to see if she had deliberately said it like that to belittle her, and from the slight tilt of Jackie’s lips, realised that that was exactly what she’d done.

‘But you weren’t? You never made it?’ Lucy’s lips pulled into a smug smile and a couple of the others giggled.

Anna swallowed. ‘I grew too tall,’ she replied quickly and too defensively, she realised. ‘I would have done. But I was too tall,’ she said again, slightly slower and with a hint more poise.

‘You don’t look very tall to me. Darcey Bussell is tall.’

Anna rolled her eyes. ‘TV makes you look taller.’

‘What’s your excuse then?’ some little wavy-haired shit called from the back and they all laughed.

‘Billy!’ Mrs McNamara said with a warning tone, but even her lips twitched.

Anna ran her tongue along her bottom lip, furious. As they all eyed her with delight, she just managed to stop herself from retaliating. She was better than this, than them. She glanced up at the ceiling. There was no marble ceiling rose here, no golden cherubs carved into the plaster, no fleur-de-lis in the arched moulding, no giant spotlights or even a lighting rig, no royal box with duck-egg-blue furniture and velvet drapes. No, this was nothing.

She surveyed the motley crew, all attitude, Beats headphones round their necks and low-slung tracksuit bottoms. She thought of her stars at the Opera House ‒ their elegant grace, their long limbs like gazelles as they stretched, their fluid beauty as they poured themselves into yards of net and tulle that shone and frothed and flickered as they danced. She thought of sitting in the stalls, watching with her notepad, pen poised for notes, swallowing down the giant lump of envy, of failure, of disappointment, lodged in her throat.

She didn’t have to do this.

She glanced across the row of them as they flopped down on the edge of the stage, at the spots, the barely there stubble and the Wonderbras, and shook her head as if to say that they were lucky to have her, and then made the movement to turn and walk away but, as she did, she saw the chin jut out of Farah Fawcett Lucy and was catapulted back further, to exactly where she hadn’t wanted to go: to her interview at the English Ballet Company School. Her hands shaking and sweaty as she’d passed the state-of-the-art, air-conditioned studios, head down, eyes glancing furtively to the left and seeing only the unwavering confidence reflected off the faces of the dancers in the three-sixty wall of mirrors.

‘You will give your life, Anna, and most probably fail.’ Madame LaRoche had said, her black cigarette pants and spotty scarf making Anna feel like Audrey Hepburn was sitting crossed-legged in the chair in front of her, cigarette dangling between her red lips. ‘Less than one percent make it, Anna. And you are already old. Already you will have to catch up. One percent.’ She held her fingers close together to show the tiny amount. ‘Are you in that one percent?’

Anna hadn’t answered.

‘Of course she is.’ Her mother had crossed her hands over her Chanel bag, the only designer item she owned, that she pulled out of its tissue paper at the bottom of the wardrobe to impress at moments like this.

‘Anna?’ Madame LaRoche had fixed her in her beautiful, beady gaze. ‘Are you in the top one percent? Do you have the hunger?’

And Anna had swallowed. She thought of the auditions, of the classes she had watched, of the girls who might be thinner, harder, cleverer, tougher than her. Girls who didn’t blink when they looked at her. Who danced through stress fractures, twisted ankles, who pushed themselves till they were sick on the floor, vomiting blood they’d worked so hard. Toes bound and crushed and bleeding; blistered, swollen feet frozen in ice. The constant, gruelling quest for perfection, the hours at the barre, the gnawing hunger. Knees strapped into place, tiredness that seeped into the bones like lead, weighing you down like an astronaut suit. Did she have the hunger?

In Nettleton, Anna was the top one percent. Here. Here she felt suddenly tiny, soft, fragile, breakable, scared, nervous, terrified. She could see her father watching them leave, cheeks wet, begging her mother to stay, that he was sorry. She could see the eyes in the street as they sped out of the town. She glanced momentarily at her mother, saw her rigid jaw, her defiance, her determination.

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