If you enjoyed Hubble Bubble, read on for a taste of Christina Jones’s new book, Fiddlesticks, coming soon from Piatkus …
Prologue
‘I still can’t believe you’re doing this. You must be mad. Even if you didn’t want to leave with your Mum and Dad, you’ve still got millions of choices. You could travel the world, move to London, live by the sea – you could do, well, anything. Anything rather than this.’
‘There’s still time to change your mind, you know. We don’t want you to go. We’ll miss you. Why don’t you stay here, get a nice little flat in Market Street – which is handy for all the nightlife and getting to work and for shopping—’
‘Shopping! I bet you haven’t even thought about shopping! What on earth are you going to do about shopping? There won’t be any shops, or wine bars, or clubs, or well, anything, will there?’
‘And hairdressers! Amber, have you even considered not having a hairdresser? You won’t be able to get your artlessly casual Kate Winslet tousle with the blonde streaks and highlights and lowlights done in some hick-stick place, will you? If there is a hairdresser – which I doubt – it’ll be someone called Cynthia who still does perms and mullets and uses hood dryers!’
‘And work? Have you actually thought about where you’ll work? It’ll be all farming and wellies and mud and cack. You won’t be able to sign on with an agency and pick and choose your office jobs there. You’ll probably end up serving in the village post office – if they’ve got one and then only if you’re very lucky and the postmistress hasn’t got several hundred inbred relations waiting in line to grab the opportunity.’
‘Or mucking out pigs.’
‘Or driving a tractor.’
‘Exactly. Listen to us, Amber. We’re your closest friends. We’ve got your best interests at heart. You’re only twenty-seven, and you’re a townie girl through and through. Listen to what we’re telling you. Who, in their right mind, would choose to leave town and go and bury themselves in some Godforsaken village when they’ve got everything they need right here on their doorstep?’
‘Anyway, what do you know about actually living in the country? I mean, the country’s fine for – well – looking at, but no one wants to live there, do they?’
‘Amber does.’
‘Amber’s completely barking, then.’
Amber laughed and rather unsteadily raised her umpteenth glass of Chenin Blanc. ‘Nice to know I’ve got the wholehearted support of my dearest friends. But seriously, this is what I want to do. I’m really looking forward to it.’
They all stared at her.
‘This place? Is it scarily remote? Like Wales or Cornwall?’
Amber drained her glass. ‘I’ve never been there, remember? But it’s in Berkshire. Almost civilised. They have huge towns like Reading and Newbury and Bracknell and Ascot and—’
‘Berkshire … Is that close to London?’
‘Close-ish.’
‘Oh well, maybe it won’t be too bad then. And is it near Reading and Newbury and wherever else you just said?’
‘Not that close, no. The nearest places are called – um – Winterbrook and Hazy Hassocks and – oh, yes – Bagley-cum-Russett.’
‘Dear God!’
‘When are you going?’
‘Next week.’
‘And you’re going to be living with someone you’ve never met? Some mad old bat?’
‘My Gran’s best friend from when they were children, yes. She wrote to us when Gran died. We’ve been in touch ever since. And I’m only going as a lodger – not as some sad Jane Austen type companion.’
‘Jesus, Amber. You’re really going to live with a wrinkly, in a village, with no job, no shops – and no men?’
‘After Jamie the last bit will come as something of a blessing.’ Amber continued to grin. ‘I’ve had enough of two-timing, spineless, commitment-phobic men to last a lifetime. In fact, it’s one of the main reasons I’m going.’
They all pulled sympathetic faces. Jamie had broken Amber’s heart, everyone knew that, but was that really any reason for her to up sticks and bury herself in the middle of nowhere with some very, very old lady she’d never met?
Normal women would make do with getting roaring drunk and then indulging in a bit of retail therapy before dusting off their stilt-heels and finding another, far better, man.
‘I’ll give you a month at the most. Then you’ll be back.’
‘A week. She won’t last more than a week.’
Amber said nothing. What was the point? She’d made up her mind. It was all her parents’ fault anyway. Well, and Jamie’s of course. But mostly her parents.
Like all her friends, she was a SLAHWP: Still Living At Home With Parents. The lack of well-paid jobs and crippling house prices, and the fact she spent every penny of her salary before it arrived in her bank account, had seen to that. So when her parents decided to take early retirement and, overexcited by the surfeit of Change Your Lifestyle programmes on the television, chose to sell up and move to rural Spain, she’d been left with few choices.
At first she’d thought she’d move in with Jamie. They’d been together for nearly two years. It made sense.
Jamie, however, had nearly passed out at the suggestion and muttered feebly about being far too young to settle down and not being ready for that sort of commitment and, well, to be honest, Amber living in might just cramp his style.
Renting was out of the question on her own; house-shares were few and far between. Her sisters, Coral and Topaz, had been thrilled at the thought of living in a tumbledown goat shed about three million miles into the hinterland of Andalucia. Amber, who felt that luxuries like electricity, running water, drainage and a roof were fairly important, was simply horrified.
Then she’d had the letter from Gwyneth Wilkins, her grandmother’s friend.
Why didn’t Amber come and live with her for a while? Maybe just for the summer? Until she could sort out what she really wanted to do with the rest of her life?
Amber, still smarting from Jamie’s rejection, and her entire family’s embracing of the Spanish peasant lifestyle, had thought about it for all of two minutes and then said yes.
Her friends all looked at her sorrowfully.
‘Well, when it all falls apart, don’t say we didn’t warn you.’
‘It’s not the other side of the world. You could always come and visit me.’
‘Get real!’
‘Yeah, well – we might … one day …’
‘And what’s this village-that-time-forgot called?’
Amber filled her glass again and smiled.
‘Fiddlesticks.’
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Table of Contents
Also by Christina Jones
Copyright
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
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Prologue
Hubble Bubble Page 31
