After a while we drifted down from the terrace to the sweeping lawn leading down to the bay. We stood at the cliff edge, Adam, Danny and I, watching the sea, the sea I should hate for its claim on my son, but whose beauty I would always love. The sight of the ocean, gleaming with otherworldly promise, filled me with tenderness for my lost boy. Lola joined us, Edie riding on her hip. We formed a small family circle, our arms wrapped loosely round each other; we wept and prayed for Joey, and then, together, raised our glasses of red wine to the sea. We toasted our beloved Joe and his everlasting memory.
Behind us came Ben’s gentle voice. We turned; beside him stood a young woman. I remembered her too from my graveyard vision, but I had no idea who she was. Ben took her hand, looked at all of us, and said, quite formally: ‘I’d like you all to meet Rowan.’
She smiled at us, small, dark, sweet and unmistakably Cornish. She looked shy, but spoke quite steadily in a quiet determined voice. ‘I’m sorry, I know you are all very sad. So am I, but at least I know now what happened to Joey. Ben said you’ve got something for me, I think.’
Astonished, I looked at this sweet-faced girl. ‘Rowan?’ I asked. She nodded. I took the silk pouch of precious things from my bag. I put my hand inside and brushed through the contents until I touched what I needed.
‘Joey wrote a note,’ I said. ‘He said I was to give his signet ring to Rowan. That’s you?’
‘Yes, that’s me.’
I held out the initialled ring. She took it, and slid it onto her wedding finger.
Ben spoke, almost proudly. ‘Joey and Rowan met in Polperro the summer before he died. It was a complete love-match. Before I idiotically told Joe how I felt about him, he’d already told me he wanted to marry Rowan. He was planning to bring her home to meet you as soon as our holiday ended.’
‘But why didn’t you say? Why didn’t you find us?’ I asked, unable to grasp this sudden turn of events.
Rowan looked nervous. She glanced up at Ben, who nodded encouragingly. ‘Go on, Rowan, tell them,’ he said. ‘It’s all right. They’re good people. Tell them why you didn’t want to find them.’
‘It was difficult,’ she said in her soft Cornish accent. ‘You see, I have no one in the world. I was brought up in care. I was working as a hotel chambermaid when I met Joey, living at the hotel, the only home I had. We were so happy we had found each other. He was wonderful to me; he said he would take me with him when he went back to university. He said his parents would love me. He told me he wanted to marry me. I thought I was in a dream. I was so excited to meet his family. And then… they found his boat, but no trace of him. I never saw him again. I thought I’d die of grief.’
‘But, Rowan,’ I said again. ‘Why didn’t you get in touch with us? Why didn’t you tell us? We could have helped you.’
‘I didn’t think you’d believe me,’ she said softly. ‘I never knew my parents. My mother gave me up at birth. Until Joey, I’d never trusted anyone. I just moved from foster home to foster home. I had nobody to vouch for me. I thought you’d think I was lying; that I was an opportunist.’
‘Opportunist?’ asked Adam, puzzled. ‘But how could you be?’
Ben looked at me. ‘You remember I told you I’d moved to Cornwall because I’d fallen in love with someone?’ he asked.
I nodded. ‘So it was Rowan?’ I asked.
He smiled. ‘No, Molly. Hardly. My sexuality hasn’t changed. No, I love Rowan as a friend, but it was someone else I moved to Cornwall for.’
He looked behind him towards the top of the meadow. Wren was standing at the edge of the terrace, watching us. Ben nodded and waved at him. Suddenly a small boy whirled down the slope, whooping and shrieking as he ran. He reached Ben and Rowan and hurled himself at them. Rowan shushed him and he stood giggling at us, his eyes alight with mischief.
‘Molly and Adam,’ said Ben in the same formal way he had introduced Rowan. ‘I want you to meet Joseph. He’s four years old and an absolute terror.’
I stared at this excited, full-of-life child. I knew exactly what I was looking at: his dark hair, his shining brown eyes, his nose, his mouth; God, his mouth.
I saw my boy, my son; I saw my grandson.
I looked at Adam. He, too, looked amazed but overjoyed. Like me, he recognised this child; he knew immediately the man who had fathered him. He was looking at the son of the lost boy we loved so much.
I looked at Edie, who was wriggling with impatience to get down from Lola’s hip and meet this strange new playmate. I looked at Adam, and then at Danny. Both of them stood in shocked astonishment, their faces wreathed in delighted happiness.
‘No one knows,’ said Ben. ‘Here, he’s just another kid.’
The boy clocked Edie, and started to tickle her bare feet. She crowed with laughter.
‘I’ve looked after Rowan and Joseph ever since he was born,’ said Ben. He looked away at the sea. ‘I wanted to make amends. I… I hoped Joey would know somehow, would understand what I was doing.
‘I know I should have let you know about the baby. Rowan didn’t want me to–she thought you wouldn’t believe her. I don’t blame her though; I blame myself. I was too scared to talk to you again, to bring it all back. I felt so guilty about Joey… in the end, it was easier just to block it out. I thought if I looked after the baby it might somehow be enough.’
Ben looked at the little boy. Joseph, still hanging on to Edie’s little toe, glanced at each of us in turn, his eyes sparkling with curiosity.
‘Introduce yourself, Joseph,’ said his mother. ‘Introduce yourself to your family.’
He straightened up and marched towards us, his small face now serious. He held out his hand, shook Adam’s first and then mine. And then, looking deep into my eyes, he said with all the polite formality of a well-mannered young man four times his age:
‘How do you do? My name is Joseph Gabriel Tremain.’
Acknowledgements
Everyone says writing a second novel is tough, and how right they are. For their fortitude in putting up with my hesitations, and their constant encouragement, I would like to thank the following vital people:
First, my editor at Sphere, Cath Burke, who despite producing a far more important creation of her own, her first baby, Felix, while I was writing, nevertheless found the time and energy to talk me through this book.
Second, huge thanks to my Agent, Luigi Bonomi, for, among many other helpful suggestions, encouraging and supporting my belief in the title of this book, from the immensely moving bereavement poem by Mary Elizabeth Frye. And for all the laughs Luigi and I had at the Emirates Literary Festival in Dubai with his witty wife, Alison.
Thirdly, many thanks to the wonderful team at Sphere who have been so kind and helpful while I struggled to produce this second book: Rebecca, Thalia and Kirsteen.
I’m so grateful to all of you–Cath, Luigi, Alison, Rebecca, Thalia and Kirsteen; your support, warmth and, above all, senses of humour and proportion, have been essential in stopping me tearing my hair out on more than one occasion.
Two very special thanks are due. Firstly to our first grandchild, Ivy Florence, who was born on October 16th 2012, just days after my first novel, Eloise, was published, and who throughout this second book has been the gorgeous, chubby and chatty inspiration for Molly’s granddaughter Edie.
And, as always, enormous love and thanks to my husband, Richard, who has spent many a patient hour giving me feedback and ideas. We may no longer work together on the telly, but are still adroitly enmeshed behind the scenes.
Many, many thanks, and as Bella Emberg use to say at the end of Morecambe and Wise: ‘I love you all’.
meet the author
Photo Credit: Bill Waters
Judy Finnigan is an author, television presenter and columnist. In 2004, Judy’s name became synonymous with discovering and sharing great fiction through the Richard and Judy Book Club, where authors including Kate Mosse, Rosamund Lupton and Victoria Hislop were championed and brought to the att
ention of millions of readers. Eloise was her first novel.
introducing
If you enjoyed
I Do Not Sleep,
look out for
Eloise
by Judy Finnigan
She was a daughter, a wife, a mother. She was my friend. But what secrets did Eloise take to her grave?
After her best friend Eloise dies from breast cancer, Cathy is devastated. But then Cathy begins to have disturbing dreams that imply Eloise’s death was not all it seems.
With a history of depression, Cathy is only just recovering from a nervous breakdown and her husband Chris, a psychiatrist, is acutely aware of his wife’s mental frailty. When Cathy tells Chris of her suspicions about Eloise’s death, as well as her ability to sense Eloise’s spirit, Chris thinks she is losing her grip on reality once again.
Stung by her husband’s scepticism, Cathy decides to explore Eloise’s mysterious past, putting herself in danger as she finds herself drawn ever deeper into her friend’s great—and tragic—secret.
Prologue
Yesterday I almost saw her. I was standing on the sun deck, looking out to sea, revelling in the unexpected warmth of the February sun. A butterfly trembled on a nearby buddleia and suddenly I smelled her perfume, fragrant, drifting, elusive. The same fragrance which infused the little pink silk pouch in my bedside drawer. I touched the beads round my neck; perhaps the scent lingered on them. They were hers, given to me by her mother, and I kept them in the pouch.
Then a distant shiver of motion. They had put an old rowing boat in their garden, its prow vertical against the sky, secured in an alcove to use as a summer seat. Glancing past it I saw a shimmer, a translucent shift beside the lavender. It was as if her clothes, always wispy, drifted on the breeze: a glimpse of red, a swirling skirt, a gorgeously coloured silk scarf. The way I had so often seen her dressed.
She wasn’t there, of course. How could she be, when I had seen her lying in her coffin just two weeks ago, the day before she was buried, her casket surrounded by the scented candles she loved. She lay in Cornish ground, now.
There was no possibility of her ever coming back.
Chapter One
The sea mist plays strange tricks in Cornwall. By the time we got back to Talland Bay it was impossible to see more than a few yards ahead. The sea lay invisible on the smoky-grey horizon and the trees loomed and dripped over the steep and slippery steps down to our cottage. Inside, we switched on the lights and Chris fetched logs from the little slate-roofed store tucked around the side path. Once the fire was blazing I sat on the rug, staring into it, trying to find comfort in remembering all the bedtime games we’d played with the children when they were little. With them cuddled on my lap in their pyjamas, we wove stories about the pictures we saw in each fiery nest of coals: jewelled caves glowing fiercely red, scary black petrified forests, witches’ cottages and princesses’ castles all cast their shadowy spells, and we watched, enchanted.
But today, as Chris brought more logs for the basket, all I could see in the flames were dark tombs, embers of death, coffins consumed by fire.
Chris watched me. I could feel his growing impatience but I ignored him. He poured two glasses of red wine, handed one to me and, with a loud sigh, sat on the sofa behind me.
‘Come on, Cathy. Stop doing this to yourself. If you’re not careful you’ll get seriously depressed again. If I’d known you were going to get this upset, I wouldn’t have come down here so soon after Eloise’s funeral, and I certainly wouldn’t have let you go to their house.’
‘Let me?’ I asked, trying to keep my voice light.
‘You know what I mean. I’m only thinking of you,’ he said with studied patience.
‘Yes, well, don’t, Chris. I don’t believe you anyway. If you were really worried you’d stop trying to tell me off. You could try asking me why I’m so upset instead of lecturing me.’
‘Cathy, I know why you’re upset. Eloise has died. But we’d been expecting it for years. We’re all sad because yes, it’s terrible, and she was so young; but there’s nothing you–nothing any of us–can do. Let it go, honey. You know you’re not strong enough for this.’
‘There speaks my resident psychiatrist,’ I said bitterly. ‘Could you just stop practicing your profession on me?’
‘Cathy, you’re tired and overwrought—’
‘You bet I am! Friend dies, I get upset–that really makes me a basket case, doesn’t it? Well, go on, Doctor Freud. Because once a loony, always a loony in your eyes,’ I raged, getting to my feet. ‘I’m going to bed.’
He stood up and held me by the arms, looking at me intently.
‘Cathy, don’t. Tell me what’s really making you so unhappy.’
‘I’m frightened, Chris, that’s why I’m unhappy–desperately unhappy. She’s dead–Ellie’s dead, and she was the same age as me. And I thought she would beat it.’
He shook me slightly. ‘No, you didn’t. None of us did. We’ve been playing a game of let’s pretend for years so as not to upset her. But there’s no reason to be frightened, honey. It’s not an omen that you’re going to die. These terrible things just… happen.’
Beneath my misery and anger I knew he was right, but just because he was calm and rational didn’t mean everything was all right. It wasn’t. I was scared, yes, but not just of dying. There was something else. Something very wrong. Something that gnawed at my gut like a restless rat, only I didn’t know what it was, couldn’t put it into words, and if I said it was ‘a feeling’, it would simply confirm Chris’s fears that my depression was back.
Eloise had been ill for five years, her cancer diagnosed six months after her twin daughters were born. What she had confidently assumed was a milk lump was an aggressive tumour. At first she had conventional treatment: surgery, chemotherapy. But the lump in her amputated left breast refused to be vanquished. It reappeared in the right one, and Eloise fled into a fairy tale, a story she wove in a defence against the doctors whose grave faces terrified her every time she kept her hospital appointments.
It didn’t work. So she stopped going for check-ups. Instead, she read dozens of self-help books, which told her the disease was rooted in her own anger and that if she exorcised the past fury from her mind, she would recover. She went to faith healers, visited spas in Europe where the water and the treatments promised miracles. She created her own sanctuary of denial, believing she could cure herself with coffee enemas and green tea. And the rest of us–her husband, her mother, her closest friends–the rest of us, to our shame, let her believe it. Crippled by pity, afraid to puncture her fragile sense of hope, we kept silent about her increasingly irrational routines, her avoidance of scans, doctors, hospitals. We allowed ourselves to think that keeping her spirits up was more important than insisting on proper treatment.
And for five years she seemed invincible. Still beautiful, still vibrant and full of energy, she convinced herself–hell, she almost convinced us–that she would beat the cancer, that she would live.
Of course, she was wrong.
Also by Judy Finnigan
Eloise
I Do Not Sleep
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Epigraph
The Island
Prologue
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
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Acknowledgements
Meet the Author
A Preview of Eloise
Also by Judy Finnigan
Newsletters
Copyright
Copyright
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2015 by Judy Finnigan
Excerpt from Eloise copyright © 2013 by Judy Finnigan
Cover design by Kirk Benshoff
I Do Not Sleep Page 24
