Coming Home

by Fern Britton

  Copyright

  Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2018

  Copyright © Fern Britton 2018

  Cover photographs © Jan Bickerton/Trevillion Images (cottage and path); © Shutterstock.com (additional images)

  Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018

  Fern Britton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

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

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

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

  Source ISBN: 9780007563005

  Ebook Edition © February 2018 ISBN: 9780007563012

  Version: 2018-01-10

  Epigraph

  ‘A mother is always the beginning. She is how things begin.’

  Amy Tan

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Part One: Adela’s Only Love

  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

  Part Two: Sennen Comes Home

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Part Three: Ella’s Wedding Day

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  A Year Later

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  By the same author

  About the Publisher

  PROLOGUE

  Trevay, 1993

  The house was still.

  Her heart was hammering – she could hear it in her ears, hear her breath whistle in her nostrils.

  She tried to quieten both.

  In the dark of her bedroom, she strained her ears to listen for any noise in the house.

  The church bell rang the half hour. Half past eleven.

  She’d gone up to bed early, her mother asking her if she was feeling all right.

  ‘Yeah. I’m fine.’ She’d shrugged off the caring hand her mother had placed in the small of her back.

  ‘If you’re sure?’ Her mother let her hand rest by her hip. ‘Is it your period?’

  She had hunched her shoulders and scowled at that. ‘I’m just tired.’

  ‘Ella and Henry had a lovely day with you on the beach,’ said her mother, bending her head to look up into her daughter’s downcast eyes. ‘You’re doing so well.’

  Sennen shrugged and turned to head for the stairs. Her father came out of the kitchen. ‘Those little ’uns of yours asleep, are they?’

  ‘She’s tired, Bill,’ replied her mother.

  ‘An early night.’ Her father smiled. ‘Good for you.’ She could feel her father’s loving gaze on her back, as she ascended the stairs. She wouldn’t turn around.

  ‘Goodnight, Sennen,’ chirped her mother. ‘Sleep tight.’

  Her parents had finally gone to bed almost an hour ago and now she picked up the heavy rucksack she’d got for her fifteenth birthday. It had been used once, on a disastrous first weekend of camping for the Duke of Edinburgh Bronze award. Even now the bone-numbing cold of one night in a tent and the penetrating rain of the twenty-mile hike the following day made her stomach clench. Back home she refused to complete any more challenges and dropped out. She used Henry as an excuse. He had just started to walk and her mother expected her to come home from school every weekend and do the things a mother should do for her child. On top of that she was expected to work hard for her exams. Why the hell would she want to learn how to read a map and cook a chicken over a campfire as well?

  And then Ella came along.

  Sennen had sat in the summer heat of the exam hall, six weeks from her due date, hating the kicks of her unborn child, hating being pitied by her teachers.

  She rubbed a hand across her eyes and tightened the straps on the rucksack. What a model daughter she had been. Two babies by a father unknown and now she was leaving. Leaving them, her A levels, her over-indulgent liberal leftie parents who had supported her through it all – and leaving Cornwall.

  She hovered on the landing outside Henry and Ella’s room. She didn’t go in. She knew she would never leave if she saw them, smelt them … She kissed her hand and placed it on their nameplates on the door. Downstairs, she tiptoed through the hall. Bertie the cat ran from under the hall table with a mew. She put her hand to her mouth to stop her startled cry then bent down to tickle him. ‘Bye, Bert. Have a nice life.’

  Slowly she turned the handle of the downstairs loo and edged in carefully, making sure that the rucksack didn’t knock over the earthenware plant pot with its flourishing spider plant. Bert came with her and she had to nudge him out with her boot before closing the door behind him. The front door was too noisy to leave by.

  The loo window always stuck a little and the trick was to give it a little thump with your palm. She held her breath, listened for any noise from upstairs. Nothing. She wound the small linen hand towel around her fist. It took three good pushes, each stronger than the last before the window swung open, noiselessly.

  She threw the rucksack out first and then carefully climbed out after it.

  She pushed the window shut and stood in the moonlit, tiled courtyard. In a corner was Henry’s little trike and in another, Ella’s beach pushchair. She had meant to take both in in case of rain, but had forgotten. She looked up to the night sky. Cloudless. It would be a dry night.

  She picked her way over the sandpit, held in a wooden box that her father had made for her when she was little and now given fresh life to with a coat of scarlet paint, and made her way to the gate. The hinge creaked a little, but before it had shut itself she was already gone. Around the corner, down the lane and out to the bus stop by the harbour.

  PART ONE

  1

  Pendruggan, 2018

  Kit Beauchamp stirred the tomato soup in front of him. ‘When will your brother get here?’

  Ella put her bowl down on the kitchen table and sat opposite him. ‘Why? Nervous?’

  Kit looked up into Ella’s golden eyes. ‘Should I be?’

&nbs
p; ‘He’ll adore you,’ she reassured him. ‘And if he doesn’t, you’ll know about it pretty quickly.’

  ‘Oh blimey.’ Kit really was nervous.

  Ella loved that her boyfriend was taking this meeting seriously. Her brother was the only family she had left. His opinion counted for everything. She picked up her spoon and replied, ‘Tomorrow lunchtime. He’s getting the early train down from Paddington. Should be at Bodmin by about one.’ Ella pushed curls the same colour as her soup behind her ears and dipped her spoon into the steaming bowl. She sipped and burnt her top lip. ‘Ow.’

  ‘Careful,’ Kit said, blowing on his own spoon.

  Freckles bounced across her face as she opened her mouth to fan cool air onto her burning tongue.

  Kit tore at the centre of his crusty French roll and handed her some. ‘It’ll cool you down.’ She took it gratefully.

  For a couple of minutes neither spoke, quietly enjoying their simple lunch.

  ‘I suppose,’ frowned Kit, ‘I don’t want to make a bad impression.’

  Ella giggled. ‘I think Henry is the one who needs to be more worried. He can be a total arse.’ She pulled Kit’s hand over the table and rubbed it against her cheek. ‘You’ll be the brother he never had.’

  Kit let his hand trail her cheek and chin. ‘He’s very important to you, isn’t he?’

  She blew on another spoonful of soup and nodded. ‘We are the last of the Tallons.’

  Kit wiped the final crust of bread around his bowl. ‘Why do you think the solicitor wants to see you both?’

  ‘The usual, I expect. Mum has either hidden herself so well that she doesn’t want to be found, or she’s dead.’ Ella put her spoon down. Kit saw the lost child in the woman in front of him.

  ‘He’ll find her,’ he said with a certainty he didn’t feel.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Ella sighed. ‘Pass me your bowl.’

  ‘I’ll wash up,’ he said glancing out of the window and looking at the sky. ‘Fancy a walk? The dogs could do with one. Or are you too tired after all that vacuuming for your brother?’

  Ella looked over at Terry and Celia who were lounging in their separate beds looking as disdainful as only Afghan hounds can.

  ‘Well, Doggies? Fancy a walk?’

  Terry managed a discreet waft of his feathery tail while Celia sighed and raised an eyebrow. ‘What a pair of lazy gits,’ laughed Ella. She put her arm out to Kit as he passed on his way to the sink. ‘But can it be to Trevay? I need to pick up some steak to make pasties for Henry tomorrow.’

  Henry couldn’t wait to get out of London. When the most recent solicitor’s letter had arrived last week he had managed to wangle a decent chunk of leave in Cornwall. He wasn’t too bothered about the letter. Another routine meeting. He and Ella had had so many since their grandmother had died. The problem lay with his unreliable, irresponsible mother who had left him and Ella when they were just tiny. He had been about two and Ella just over one. She’d disappeared to God knew where for God knew what whim and never come back. It had left Granny and Poppa heartbroken. Not to mention Henry, who still had vague memories of his mother. Sitting on her lap, being folded into her arms … Stop it, he told himself. Hopefully the solicitor would tell him and Ella that his mother was lost forever, or dead. Either would be fine with him. Then at last they could sort out Granny’s estate and move on with their lives.

  He returned his attention to the work on his desk. Two reports to finish, three phone calls to make and a handover to his colleague on how to deal with any issues that might arise in his absence and then – he rubbed his hands gleefully – Cornwall here he came.

  Ella and Kit closed the door of Marguerite Cottage and waved at their nearest neighbour, Simon Canter, the vicar of Holy Trinity Church.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ Simon greeted them as he walked through the churchyard. ‘Beautiful day. Enjoy it.’

  ‘We will,’ Ella called back.

  He was right. It was a lovely day and as she waited for Kit to open up the car and load the dogs, Ella took time to absorb the moment. The Pendruggan village green with its cluster of old and new homes around it. Above her, tiny white cloud puffs floated in the bluest of skies. The smell of gorse on the wind, bringing with it the light rumble of surf on Shellsand Beach.

  ‘Come on. Jump in,’ said Kit, jangling the keys of his slightly aged car.

  She climbed in. ‘It’s a day to be happy.’

  ‘It’s always a day to be happy for me,’ he replied reversing out of the short drive.

  She laughed. ‘You’re always so bloody happy. It’s exhausting.’

  ‘I’m a glass half-full man.’

  ‘Don’t I know it. My healthy scepticism, hoping for the best expecting the worst, balances us perfectly.’ She waved and smiled as she spotted Queenie, owner of the village store and harbinger of all news, taking a quick fag break outside her shop. ‘Queenie, however, is on permanent standby for disaster. Like Henry.’

  Kit shoved the car into first gear and set off around the village green towards Trevay. ‘So your brother’s a miserable sod, then?’

  ‘Yep. But he cheers up when he has beer inside him.’

  ‘I’m the man for that job.’

  They drove in friendly silence up the dappled lane that took them past their local, the Dolphin Pub and out to the top road headed towards Trevay.

  Ella had always loved this road, even as a child living in Trevay with her brother and grandparents. She unwound the window and watched as the trees and small cottages gave way to high hedges with gateways offering tantalising vistas of the sea beyond. As the road reached its highest point the trees and farms opened to acres of green fields, with the glittering Atlantic below, crashing onto the rocks of the headland that sheltered her childhood village.

  The final descent into Trevay revealed the busy harbour with its working fishing fleet tied up on the low tide. How she loved this place. How she had missed it when her old family home had been sold as a bed and breakfast business.

  ‘Which way?’ asked Kit as they got out of the car.

  ‘Over to the headland?’ Ella was opening the hatchback boot and putting Celia and Terry on their leads. ‘These two can run around safely over there.’

  The walk took them up the steep hill to the left of the harbour, past the Pavilions Theatre and onto the coastal path. The view from here was breathtaking. Jagged, slate-layered cliffs fell to the rolling boil of a gentle sea. Celia and Terry were unleashed and ran like cheetahs through the gold and purple of gorse and heather, forcing the shy skylarks to take to the wing and sing their beautiful song.

  Kit pulled Ella towards him by the collar of her jacket and kissed her. ‘Happy anniversary,’ he said.

  ‘Happy anniversary, my love.’ She kissed him back. ‘How many months is it now?’

  ‘Five.’

  She sighed. ‘Five months. The best five months of my life.’

  ‘And mine, sweetheart.’ He kissed her nose and they walked on hand in hand. ‘Fancy dinner out tonight? I mean five months is a hell of an anniversary, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’ve got to make the pasties for tomorrow. Henry will be disappointed if I don’t.’

  ‘Okay. How about coffee and a cake when we get back to Trevay?’

  ‘Done.’

  They walked and talked and threw Celia and Terry their balls until all four of them were ready to go back to the car.

  ‘They’ll sleep well tonight,’ said Kit, shutting them in the boot.

  ‘We all will.’ Ella took off her jacket. ‘I’m ready for that cake too.’

  The Foc’sle was an old-fashioned teashop on the quay, two doors down from the Golden Hind pub.

  ‘We could have a quick pint if you want?’ said Ella.

  ‘Much rather have a pot of tea.’ Kit perused the slightly sticky, laminated menu. ‘How about a cream tea? You need fattening up.’

  ‘Do I?’ She fluttered her eyelashes winsomely.

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ he said seriously.
‘Being as lovely as you takes up many more calories than the average person. Fact. All that smiling and thinking kind thoughts is almost aerobic.’

  ‘Well, in that case …’ She nudged his knee under the table with her own. ‘I can always do some exercise … at bedtime. You could join me if you wanted.’

  ‘Oh, Miss Tallon,’ he shrieked, pretending to be shocked, ‘Just because you are a blazing firework of a woman with marmalade curls, you think you can do what you want with me?’

  Ella giggled, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I am helpless, pulled by a current so strong I can’t resist. Do what you will, but …’

  She raised an eyebrow and in a deep voice said, ‘Yes?’

  ‘Be gentle with me.’

  ‘Can I help you?’ asked the middle-aged waitress with a name badge saying Sheree, who was standing over them.

  Without missing a beat, Kit said, ‘Two cream teas, please.’

  The pasties didn’t get made that night after all. When Ella came down in the morning the remnants of a chicken salad and a bottle and a half of wine were winking at her from the coffee table in the sitting room, reminding her of the evening they had spent curled up together, talking about everything and anything.

  As she collected up the plates and stubs of candles she thought back to what they had talked about last night.

  Ella wanted to talk about her plan to offer short painting courses for locals and holidaymakers. ‘The cliffs, the harbour, the church. There’s so much here for little children. We could go to the beach and find shells to paint or pebbles to paint on. That would be fun.’

  ‘Like your granny did for you? Revisiting your childhood?’

  ‘Oh.’ Ella was anxious. ‘Is that a bad thing?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Kit reassured her. ‘It’s lovely, and I think taking the little darlings from their parents for a couple of hours is a wonderful thing – for the parents.’

  She flapped her hand and took another sip of wine. ‘What about you? When are you going to get on the cliffs and paint?’

  ‘I’ve got that portrait of Lindsay Cowan to finish, with her cat, dog and horse.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘She’s lovely, but what she sees as handsome, intelligent companions, I see as bloody pains in the arse. The cat is a toothless bag of bones, the dog stinks and growls at me and the horse farts and tries to bite me. But,’ he topped up his glass, ‘she pays well.’