by Rachel Dann
A journey she never expected…
Kirsty is happy. Really, she is. After five years with her boyfriend, Harry, she’s ready to take things to the next step and turn that spare room into a little nursery. And she thought Harry was too.
Only, it turns out that Harry’s ‘big news’ is actually not that he wants to try for a baby, but that he wants to travel to South America – with Kirsty! She’ll just have to trust that after their trip of a lifetime, Harry will be ready to settle down for good.
Arriving in hot, steamy Ecuador it soon becomes clear that Harry is hiding something. Something that he’s been hiding for years. And as Kirsty’s dreams are at risk of shattering, she begins to pick up the pieces of the life that she’s put off for so long…
Don’t miss this uplifting debut from Rachel Dann, perfect for fans of Sara Alexander, Jules Wake and Isabelle Broom.
Pieces of My Life
Rachel Dann
ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES
Contents
Cover
Blurb
Title Page
Author Bio
Acknowledgements
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
Endpages
Copyright
RACHEL DANN
was born in Sussex and grew up with her nose in a book, always dreaming of becoming an author. Her first finished work was a story about two rival horses which was read out to the class by her primary school teacher, much to her mortification.
Rachel feels very fortunate to have travelled the world from a young age, accompanying her father on many adventures in Europe, the USA and beyond. Her childhood travels fuelled Rachel’s interest in languages and she graduated from Durham University in Spanish and Italian. She has visited many parts of Latin America, and spent some time in the Yucatan, Mexico, teaching English to the local police.
Rachel was overjoyed to become a mother the same year she wrote this book and currently lives in Quito, Ecuador with her young family.
My heartfelt thanks go to Charlotte Mursell and all at HQ Digital who believed in this book based on just a few chapters, sent in a moment of crazy hope…and for their subsequent patience with me as I tried, and failed, to meet deadlines during late pregnancy and early motherhood. Thank you for all your guidance which helped shape a story into a novel.
Eternal thanks to my Mum and Dad, to whom I owe everything, for your love and support; and also to my bonus parents – David, Pauline, Pam, Victoria and Daniel, for all you do and have done for me.
Siempre gracias a mi querido Alex, for supporting me, for being nothing like Harry, and for all the long walks you took that enabled me to do this. And to our precious Sofia for your patience and good nature with us both…you are my daily inspiration and joy, and everything I do is for you.
Massive thanks to my two most valued critics – Janine Swann, for being my partner in crime (and writing) since we were small, and Debbie Carbin, a.k.a. Beth Thomas, for your ongoing feedback, ideas and insistence that I gave this a shot in the first place. You both inspired and encouraged me to keep going when I felt I couldn't.
Thank you to my dear Unc for your support and guidance, and for being a lifelong example of making dreams come true through writing.
Big thanks to all my wonderful friends, and other tenuously related people, in particular Zach, Beth, Amy, Roberta, Tam, Ania, Tania, Rory, MSL… Thank you also to Kirsty Mc for going on the original adventure with me, and for letting me borrow your name.
If it does not sound too strange to thank a country, I also feel an immense gratitude to Ecuador, especially Quito…the place that has become my second home, and whose vibrant beauty and diversity provide the perfect setting for anyone who wants to write.
Last but not least, this book owes so much to the women whose experiences I have heard about, and whom I have had the privilege to meet, in prison in South America. You gave me a new perspective on life, and I hope that through this I have gone a little way towards telling your stories.
For Sofia, with all my heart.
Chapter One
I miss the train by exactly fourteen seconds. I know this because the little digital clock on the Redhill station platform is actually working today, reading 17:30:14, and the dim red tail-lights of the train are still just visible in the distance. Resignedly I slow to a walk and slump down on to one of the metal platform benches, pulling my coat more tightly around me against the chilly late-autumn wind.
The next train isn’t for an hour.
But at least you’re not working in London, I tell myself firmly, beginning the timeworn conversation I have inside my own head every day at around this time. That terrible commute all your friends complain about. I settle back into the seat and shut my eyes, calling to mind the next item on my familiar list of the advantages of rural rail transport. All those people, getting pushed and jostled about on overcrowded city platforms… Then I momentarily draw a blank. What comes next?
At least on train connections here in the depths of Surrey you can always get a seat.
Yes! That’s it. The abundance of available seating.
And what was it Mum came out with the other day? The terrorist threat. Of course!
In more remote areas there is less of a terrorist threat. People passing through London Bridge or Victoria every day must be really scared. I nod fervently to myself. Really scared.
A crackling voice over a speaker jerks my mind back from determined visualisations of abandoned rucksacks and hordes of panicked travellers.
‘The eighteen-thirty has been cancelled, due to a fault on the line. Will all passengers travelling to Horsham, Southwater, Partridge Green, and… Fenbridge please make their way to the front of the station where an alternative bus service has been arranged.’
I wearily haul myself to my feet, rolling my eyes at my only other fellow traveller, an elderly woman smoking a cigarette on the next bench along.
‘What they really mean is someone’s topped themselves again,’ she tells me with a conspiratorial wink as we make our way over to the lone bus waiting for us at the station entrance.
I nod politely and take a seat at the back of the bus, rummaging in my handbag for my phone. The replacement bus service always takes ages, so I’d better drop Harry a message to let him know I’ll be late. Although by the time he reads it I might be home anyway.
To my surprise, there’s already a text waiting for me. I blink at it for a few moments, savouring the quick thrill of excitement at that little digital envelope. Unopened, full of potential. Of course, it might not even be from him.
U on way yet? Can’t wait to see you. Got wine. Love x x x
My heart rate quickens. Harry hasn’t used the word love in a text for… well… a while. Even as I’m staring at it, my phone vibrates and another message pops up below it.
I really want to talk to you… we may have reason to celebrate x x x
Excit
ement pulses through my veins and my hand actually starts to tremble as I type my reply. Oh my goodness, this could be it. It!
No, he won’t be proposing to me. Ever since I met Harry at university six years ago, he’s been very clear about his views on marriage. He sees it as a man-made societal structure designed to control and suppress. Or something like that. I don’t share his views, but Harry’s unique outlook on life was one of the things that drew me to him.
Is. Is one of the things that draws me to him.
Besides, what’s the point in feeling deprived of one thing in life, when we already have so much.
So I’ve accepted it won’t be marriage Harry wants to talk about tonight. But it might be… something even bigger.
The something that, if I’m honest, has been present in many conversations between Harry and me lately, without actually being said out loud.
Ever since a chain of events began that clearly only pointed at one thing. My job became permanent. After a year of living from month to month on a ‘temporary contract’ within the legal support team at Home from Home, a local housing charity, I came in one morning to find an envelope on my desk offering me a permanent contract. It was hardly the winning lottery numbers or Willy Wonka’s lucky golden ticket, but at least it meant financial stability. The following year Harry got promoted to Head of Art at the boys’ Academy (the youngest person ever to achieve this role, their annual newsletter told us proudly). The next year our mortgage rate went down by two per cent. Then, earlier this year, Harry’s Great-Aunt Mabel died, leaving him a decent lump sum. Everything was coming together perfectly.
We have the space. Okay, so our second bedroom may not be very large and Harry is currently using it as a study. (When I say study, I really mean part art-studio and part man-den, where oil paints and sketch pads and X-box chairs with inbuilt speakers all coexist in a cornucopia of organised chaos. I’m not allowed in there.)
But we could easily convert it into a nursery.
I start imagining what it would feel like to go in there and give it a really good clean out. Resting my head against the cold, damp bus window, I allow myself to be absorbed by one of my favourite daydreams. I’d start with the magazines – they’re all going in the recycling. Terrible how the world’s forests are being depleted daily, and Harry probably owns half of them in the form of gaming magazines, dating back to 1998, stashed in untidy piles. Right, the magazines are gone. Mentally I dust my hands off and survey the rest of the room. The art stuff can stay, I suppose. I’ve always quite fancied Harry after he’s been working, when he re-emerges from that room after several hours of activity, all tousled blond hair and stubble and paint splatters. Admittedly, that hasn’t happened in a while… but just in case, I imagine carefully packing away the paint cartridges, only throwing away the empty, dried-out ones, and maybe a few of the more sludgy colours I don’t like.
Now that just leaves the X-box, and of course that chair…
Caught up in a fantasy of hauling the X-box chair roughly by its arms into the garage, I almost miss my stop.
‘This is Fenbridge, love,’ the driver announces helpfully, and I realise the bus has stopped moving and I’m the only person still on board.
***
By the time my key is turning in the lock ten minutes later, I’m absolutely certain Harry wants to talk about starting a family.
We’ve discussed it before, of course. Ever since I was a teenager I’ve known it was one of the top criteria for my future life partner – like being in steady employment and having decent table manners. They must want children.
Yes, we had talked about it, but Harry and I met when we were so young that at first any conversations about children were hypothetical: one day, it would be nice to, when we’re older, etc…
It had come up again when we bought the house, naturally. I’d wanted to go straight in with a three-bed, but Harry convinced me it was more sensible to start off smaller, not to stretch ourselves or be ‘tied down’ to a really big mortgage, so that ‘one day’ (there it was again), when the first child came along, we wouldn’t be struggling financially. He hadn’t actually said when the first child came along, but I knew that was what he meant. That was three years ago and I had been starting to wonder when ‘one day’ might be, but I didn’t say too much because it always seemed to be me who brought the subject up and I didn’t want to come across as one of those barmy women who only thinks about having babies.
But deep down Harry knows I’m ready. Over the last few years I’ve managed to keep the balance between making it clear what I want and actually turning into a living, breathing fireball of oestrogen. He knows it’s down to him now to decide when he’s ‘ready’, and all the signs are pointing to the fact that today is the day.
It would explain the wine – we hardly ever drink, can often go weeks without a drop – but it would make perfect sense for Harry to want to treat me to a nice bottle of wine tonight. One last night of getting tipsy together, before going upstairs to… create a new life.
I’m grinning from ear to ear as I burst into the house and sling my handbag down. Harry is in the kitchen leaning against the worktop, watching the door, and when he sees me he also breaks into a huge smile. Wow, when he looks this happy he’s really sexy. How could I have forgotten that?
Had I forgotten it?
‘Hello, gorgeous.’ He beams at me, and comes over to give me a big kiss. ‘You took ages.’
‘I missed the train by fourteen seconds, and there was a replacement bus service.’ My transport issues already feel like they happened a thousand years ago. ‘Get that wine open then.’
Harry gives me a cheeky look out of the corner of his eye as he turns to uncork the wine, as if to say ‘all good things come to those who wait’, or something equally corny and innuendo-laden. I know him so well he doesn’t have to say it. I know what he’s thinking.
‘So, you’re probably wondering what I want to talk to you about?’ Harry twinkles at me, handing me a large glass of red then turning back to pour his own.
‘Actually, I—’
‘You see, I’ve been thinking a lot about the future lately,’ Harry continues regardless, pausing only to chink his glass against mine with a self-satisfied smile, then take a slurp. ‘Since that money came in from old Aunt Mabel, it’s really helped me re-evaluate things.’
‘Yes…’ I breathe, gazing up at him. I can hardly bear it any longer.
‘We’re not getting any younger, we’re doing okay financially, and I´ve realised life is just too short not to strive for your dreams.’
‘Yes, oh, Harry…’ This is the part where he grabs me by the waist, lifts me effortlessly and carries me into the bedroom, growling sexily in my ear, ‘Let’s make a baby.’
‘So…’ Harry puts his glass of wine down purposefully on the kitchen side, obviously gearing up for his grand finale…
‘…I think we should take some time out and go to South America.’
***
At university, society was divided into two groups: those who had taken a ‘gap year’ in a far-off country, and those who were left at the gate by their mum on the first day of term, contemplating life alone for the first time. I fell into the latter category.
Members of the Gap Year Gang were easily recognisable: a colourful chakra pendant, the flash of a Mayan symbol tattooed on an arm, or the swing of a hand-woven alpaca wool handbag gave them away.
Not to mention their subtle air of intellectual superiority. After all, these were people who had seen the world.
The rest of us wore clothes from Primark and felt homesick and lost for the whole first term. At least.
Until then, travelling hadn’t really appealed to me; maybe because I’d always known it wasn’t an option. Mum could only just afford for me to go to university, so I could hardly ask her to help me fund a voyage of self-discovery and intellectual growth in some distant land.
Only when confronted
with the Gap Year Gang in all their exotic glory did I start to feel like I might be missing out on something.
Their stories of hitchhiking across South East Asia or getting wasted and waking up on a beach in Bali, or escaping an armed robbery on a night bus to Cape Town, fascinated and frustrated me in equal measure.
Compared to them I felt inexperienced and twee. I once asked a girl in my law and social change seminar where she got her lovely woven bag from as I fancied buying one. She looked me in the eye and said witheringly, ‘Thailand.’
Harry, of course, was in a category all of his own. He had enjoyed his first gap year (inter-railing in Europe) so much that he decided to take another one (hiking and backpacking across South America), then another half-one after that (six months fruit-picking on a working holiday visa in Australia). When he finally made it to university, aged twenty-two, he pretty much got straight off a plane from Sydney and strolled into his first art history lecture, both on the same morning. He was the eldest in each of his classes by several years and was revered among the Gap Year Gang as some kind of prophet, the Wise Man of Travellers or similar nonsense.
We couldn’t have been more different, and I could barely believe it when he asked me out.
Although we were studying for different degrees, both Harry and I took an extra module of Spanish language. I did it because I’d read on careers websites that having a second language would give a law graduate a competitive edge in the careers market. I think Harry did it just because he could.
It was hard not to notice him in the classroom, partly due to his tall, blond handsomeness and tendency to turn up to lectures in tatty leather flip-flops, regardless of the weather conditions – but also because he already spoke excellent Spanish. Needless to say, a product of seven months spent meandering around Latin America.
There’s nothing more attractive than real talent or skill. I could overlook Harry’s unusual dress sense and messy hair – this man spoke Spanish like a native. He might not always have bothered with correct grammar, but he could make the perfect, tongue-rolling ‘rrrrrr’ sound. It was sexy. Infuriating as well, of course, as he just rocked up to our first class and started chatting away at the speed of a Mexican football commentator. Meanwhile I clawed my way up to his level through three years of hard study and sticking vocabulary post-its all over the house, much to my flatmates’ annoyance.
