by Jenny Oliver
JENNY OLIVER is a bestselling author of contemporary fiction. She has been an elf in the Disney Store, a personal trainer, journalist, editor and, by far the best, a writer. Twice nominated for the RNA Best Contemporary Novel Award, Jenny’s books explore the ups and downs of relationships and an unwavering belief in happily ever after. In her spare time, she can be found cajoling her family out to car boot sales, trying to reign in her competitiveness on the netball court and subtly eavesdropping on strangers’ conversations as inspiration for her next book.
Follow her on Twitter @JenOliverBooks, Instagram @JenOliverBooks, and Facebook @JennyOliverBooks.
Also by Jenny Oliver
The Summer We Ran Away
The House We Called Home
The Summerhouse by the Sea
The Sunshine and Biscotti Club
The Vintage Summer Wedding
The Little Christmas Kitchen
The Parisian Christmas Bake Off
Copyright
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2021
Copyright © Jenny Oliver 2021
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.
Ebook Edition © July 2021 ISBN: 9780008297565
Version 2021-07-01
Note to Readers
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Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008297572
For my sisters,
Leanne and Emma
Contents
Cover
About the Author
Booklist
Title Page
Copyright
Note to Readers
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Acknowledgements
Extract
Chapter One
Chapter Two
About the Publisher
Chapter One
Returning to Willoughby Park had never been at the top of Ruben de Lacy’s to-do list. Now he was there, he recognised why. The rooms were as cold and dark as they always had been. Littered with ostentatious antiques and dustsheet-clad furniture. So far, Ruben had confined himself to just two rooms. A plain guest bedroom formerly known as the blue room for obvious reasons, and the kitchen, which had been rarely occupied by his parents when they had been alive; meals were always cooked by lovely Geraldine, a matronly figure who smelt of washing powder and sometimes onions.
From the cupboard under the stairs, Ruben had dug out his old wellington boots and Barbour and whiled away five minutes yesterday taking photos of himself by the giant stone lions out the front for Instagram, captioning the best: Lord of the Manor? It was amazing what boredom and being completely ill at ease in a place could bring out in a person.
Now he was sitting on the back terrace, soaking up some sun, waiting for the estate agent to get back to him, which was an ongoing battle due to the lack of phone reception. He was also struggling with a humongous black cat who seemed to have some wily point of entry into the house that Ruben hadn’t yet discovered. To his horror, he’d found it asleep on his bed that morning. Oh well, it’d be someone else’s problem soon enough.
The doorbell rang. Ruben sighed. Who was it? Someone to offer their condolences maybe? No, he couldn’t imagine anyone in the village sad to have seen his father, Lord de Lacy, go.
Ruben yawned, stretched in the warm sunlight, then got up to open the front door. On seeing who was standing there, all he could say was, ‘Oh, Jesus Christ. I completely forgot.’
‘Yes, you did,’ replied the woman on his doorstep, thin lips and beautifully coiffed blonde hair. ‘Hello, Ruben.’
‘Hello, Penny,’ he managed.
Standing awkwardly next to his ex-girlfriend, feet turned out like a duck, eyes as saucepan-wide as they’d ever been, stood his eleven, no, twelve-year-old daughter.
‘Hey, Zadie,’ Ruben said with a lame half-wave that he regretted as soon as he’d done it.
‘Hi, Ruben,’ said the girl, smiling shyly.
Ruben looked back up at the ferocious blonde. ‘I’m really sorry. It totally slipped my mind.’ He winced as he said it, aware that one wasn’t meant to say they had forgotten about looking after their daughter, in front of said daughter, who was sucking up every detail like an overzealous Dyson. ‘Why didn’t you ring me?’
‘I did ring you but it went straight to answerphone. And I emailed,’ Penny said, eyes narrowed, expression challenging.
As he had discovered trying to finalise things with the estate agent, the signal at the house was terrible. And Ruben doubted he’d updated Penny with his new email address.
‘How did you know I was here?’
‘Instagram, Ruben. Where does anyone look to find the vain?’
Ruben could feel himself blush as he remembered posing in front of the Georgian entrance columns in his flat cap and Barbour, and suddenly felt like a bit of a tool.
‘When I didn’t hear from you I was going to ask my mother, but she’s taken a fall – she’s OK, don’t worry, not that you would. And as you know, but you’ve probably forgotten, I’m going on my honeymoon tomorrow – yes, I did get married, it was wonderful, thanks for asking.’ Ruben had the inappropriate recollection that Penny hadn’t paused for breath the one time they’d slept together either. ‘And Zadie was insistent she stayed with you.’
They turned to look at Zadie, who was beaming up at Ruben, her sequinned rucksack glinting in the sun, her heart-shaped sunglasses perched on her head.
He tried to remember the last time he’d seen her. There was that dreadful time he took her to the Royal Academy of Arts champagne reception and she set the alarms off reaching for a Damien Hirst. Or was it when he’d lost her at the London
Aquarium, which, while very stressful, had actually led to a pretty good date with the mother-of-two who’d found her.
The giant black cat appeared from the bushes and wound its way through Zadie’s legs, making her giggle. Distracted from the current predicament, Ruben tried to unsuccessfully block its entrance into the house with his foot but the cat went in regardless. Zadie followed, delighted. Any further attempts Ruben might have made to evict the mangy animal were paused by Penny’s authoritative beckoning for him to move out of Zadie’s earshot.
Ruben frowned, one eye still on the enemy cat as he followed Penny down a couple of steps.
‘I can’t believe you forgot, you complete moron,’ Penny hissed, dragging him further away by the sleeve. ‘You’d better treat her right or I will kill you. And I mean it. Actually murder you.’
Ruben reared back, unused to people taking such a tone with him. ‘All right, steady on.’
‘If it was up to me, I’d have told her exactly what a loafing good-for-nothing you are, but that is not the kind of parent I am,’ she snapped.
‘I’m not a loafing good-for—’
She cut him off. ‘I’m not interested, Ruben. Do you know how often she goes on and on about spending time with her real dad? Not that Barry isn’t like a real dad to her, but there you go. You have two weeks, don’t mess it up!’
Ruben looked from Penny’s murderous ire back to Zadie lying on the floor with the cat on her belly. The sight of both causing him a great deal of discomfort. ‘I’m not actually planning to stay here that long.’
‘I don’t care where you go, Ruben, as long as you take her with you, you can go to the bloody Bahamas if you want. Just stay away from St Tropez because that’s where I’ll be.’
‘Nice choice.’ Ruben loved St Tropez.
‘Please focus on the task in hand,’ Penny sighed. ‘Here’s her suitcase.’ She hoisted a pink Hello Kitty suitcase up the front steps and plonked it down next to Ruben. ‘She’s a vegetarian now …’
Ruben rolled his eyes.
Penny ignored him. ‘If the worst comes to it just give her cereal, she loves cereal.’
‘I love cereal,’ Ruben said, pleasantly surprised.
‘Well, there you go, perfect for each other,’ Penny said curtly, and without pausing for breath turned towards Zadie and said sweetly, ‘Darling, Mummy has to go now. You’ll be good, yes? Anything you need, you call me.’
‘OK,’ Zadie said brightly, scooping up the cat and coming over to give her mum a kiss goodbye.
‘Erm, hang on a tick—’ Ruben tried to interject.
‘You’ll be all right, yes?’ Penny bent down so she was level with her daughter.
Zadie nodded.
‘It’s only two weeks,’ Penny said, seeming to reassure herself more than anyone. Then she glanced uncertainly from Zadie to Ruben and added, ‘It’s not too late to change your mind, honey.’
‘Absolutely, it’s not too late,’ Ruben agreed.
But Zadie went to stand by Ruben’s side, still clutching the fat flea-ridden cat. ‘I’ll be fine. We’ll be fine! We’ll have a great time,’ she added, placing her soft hand in his.
Ruben held it awkwardly.
Penny pursed her lips. ‘Mmm.’
Zadie laughed. ‘Honestly, it’ll be fine.’
Ruben felt his face get warm. ‘Penny, listen, I think we should …’
But Penny ignored him and gave her daughter a giant hug, the cat squashed between them, determined not to give up his new-found ally.
‘Penny, really …’ Ruben said a little more urgent now.
‘Like I said, I’ll kill you,’ Penny hissed.
‘OK, OK,’ Ruben held up a hand to ward her off.
Penny blew Zadie lots of kisses and called, ‘Bye, honey. I love you,’ while beeping open her BMW.
‘Have a good honeymoon,’ Ruben shouted with saccharine insincerity.
‘I will,’ Penny called back, her tone equally false. ‘Look after her,’ Penny ordered as she got in the car.
Ruben did a bored nod as if he’d got the message.
Penny was looking worriedly at Zadie, who called, ‘I’ll be fine here with Dad.’
‘Ruben,’ Ruben corrected.
‘Ruben,’ Zadie giggled like it was a joke.
Penny shook her head like he’d failed at the first hurdle.
Twenty-four hours in, Ruben had failed at the second, third and fourth hurdles too.
All he wanted was a second on his own. Half an hour tops and he’d be happy. He had wondered more than once if it was possible to take the batteries out of a person. When he’d gone to bed he’d been so exhausted he’d fallen straight to sleep only to be woken up at seven o’clock sharp with her standing over him, dressed in a multicoloured unicorn onesie saying, ‘Me, my mum and Barry all read together in the morning. Barry gets up and makes us both a cup of tea, like every day, without fail.’
‘That’s nice,’ Ruben had replied, bleary-eyed. ‘I don’t drink tea.’
‘You don’t drink tea?’ And she was off. By the time he’d managed to locate his dressing gown and fumble himself to a sitting position, he’d found out that Aunty Janice drank seventeen cups of tea a day and Uncle Peter couldn’t understand the obsession with high-street coffee when you could have a cup of PG Tips for relatively free. Who were these people, Ruben wondered, and why hadn’t they taken Zadie for two weeks? As if on cue, ‘They now live in Australia. Barry was really sad to see them go. He cried.’
‘Did he?’ said Ruben, trying to sound engaged. Ruben usually enjoyed a leisurely wake-up that involved a good stretch while Amazon’s lovely Alexa brought him up to date with the news and what weather to expect.
‘Barry says that real men aren’t afraid to cry. Do you cry, Ruben?’ Zadie was sitting on her knees on the bed.
‘When was the last time I cried?’ Ruben rubbed his forehead. He couldn’t remember. By all accounts it should have been when he’d got the call to say his dad had died, but he knew for certain that there had been no tears.
The rest of the day with Zadie had carried on in much the same fashion. Question after question. Ruben longed for a glass of ’52 Latour in his pants on the balcony of his London flat smoking a Cuban and indulging in some Radio Four quietly so the attractive Gen Z on the floor below didn’t hear. Instead, it was Little Mix and Stormzy. Ruben had actually bought a pair of Stormzy tickets recently to impress a Tinder date but the affair had come to an end before said concert had taken place.
Outside it had started to rain. Huge great globs of water keeping them inside. The black cat sat forlornly soaked on the windowsill. Ruben didn’t want to be confined indoors with his ever-present daughter following him round as he hauled open drapes in the various bedrooms just to get some light into the place.
‘Ooh, this is nice, that’s nice,’ she said, picking things up, putting them down. She opened things and shut things, she dropped things. She broke things. ‘Sorry, sorry!’
‘It’s fine, it’s fine,’ he heard himself say, growing increasingly tight-lipped while trying his hardest to remain relaxed. He caught his facial expression in one of the giant gilt mirrors and saw a flicker of his father in his agitated expression. Internally imagining, while a candlestick toppled as Zadie reached for a porcelain figurine, what his dad would have said had he done the same.
And if he heard another word about bloody perfect stepdad, Barry … Barry who cried but also Barry who fixed things. Barry who was great at washing-up and could kick a football like a pro. Barry who built their extension single-handed and had the neighbours queuing up for one of his unique garden water features.
And she was always hungry. Ruben thought he was hungry a lot of the time, but this was another level. When the incessant moaning got too much, he drove to the Co-op at the petrol station, wound her up and let her go. Hence why, by dinnertime, they were eating Sugar Puffs standing up in the kitchen. ‘My mum says we have to have dinner at the table, it’s proper family time.’ R
uben was too exhausted to listen. He closed his eyes and dreamed of his noise-cancelling headphones lying casually on his desk at his London flat. For a little calming self-indulgence, he furtively checked his Tinder, Instagram, Twitter and weather apps. ‘Barry says we’re not allowed phones while we eat.’ Suddenly a drop of rain landed on his nose and Zadie said, ‘Oh, you’ve got a leak.’
Ruben looked up to see a large grey damp patch on the flat-roofed kitchen ceiling spreading above them. ‘Shit.’
‘Shall we call Barry?’ Zadie asked. ‘He’d know what to do.’
The cat, who Zadie had brought in dripping and refused to let Ruben evict, was asleep on a kitchen chair. It opened one pitying, disdainful eye, exacerbating in that look everything Ruben was feeling.
‘Shoo!’ he said to the cat, clapping his hands.
‘Don’t!’ Zadie stepped between them but it made no difference, the cat wasn’t going anywhere, it just curled back up in a different position.
The rain dripped from the ceiling to the tiled floor.
‘I’ll call someone,’ said Ruben, getting his phone out and finding there was only one bar of reception. He had to go right up to the top floor to get anything resembling a signal. Zadie trotted after him. When he turned to question her shadowing, she said, ‘It’s scary down there on my own.’
Ruben remembered being terrified of the house at night. The creaking of the stairs. The hoot of the owl. His father’s irate bark, ‘For Christ’s sake, leave him. Let him cry. No son of mine is a coward.’
He called the emergency roofer. ‘I’m sorry, sir, I can’t really hear you. Tonight? Oh no. No one available tonight. We can be there first thing tomorrow.’
‘Fine.’ Ruben would just put a bucket under the leak for now.
They headed back to the kitchen, Zadie so close she was almost wrapped round his waist, followed by the thump of the cat. She caught him checking his reflection in the hallway mirror, an ingrained habit, and pulled his hand to make him pause.
‘Do you think we look alike?’ she asked, a little shy as she stood next to him. Her wide eyes and black-framed glasses. Plump, pink puppy-fat cheeks. Expression so open it was almost painful. In contrast, Ruben looked old. The other day he’d discovered his first grey hairs. His cleaner, Hildegard, had recommended a spray that women use to cover it up. There was nothing, he discovered, like spray-on hair colour to make you feel old. Standing beside Zadie he looked ancient.
