Seeing Stars

by Christina Jones

  The only child of a schoolteacher and a circus clown, Christina Jones has been writing all her life. As well as writing novels, Christina contributes short stories and articles to many national magazines and newspapers. Her first novel was chosen for WH Smith’s Fresh Talent promotion, and Nothing to Lose, was short-listed for the Thumping Good Read Award, with film and television rights sold.

  After years of travelling, Christina now lives in Oxfordshire with her husband Rob and a houseful of rescued cats.

  Find out more about Christina Jones and her books by visiting her website:

  www.christinajones.co.uk

  Also by Christina Jones

  Going the Distance

  Running the Risk

  Stealing the Show

  Jumping to Conclusions

  Walking on Air

  Nothing to Lose

  Tickled Pink

  Hubble Bubble

  Copyright

  Published by Hachette Digital

  ISBN: 978-0-748-12919-5

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © Christina Jones 2005

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  Hachette Digital

  Little, Brown Book Group

  100 Victoria Embankment

  London, EC4Y 0DY

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Many thanks to all at Piatkus, especially my brilliant editor

  Gillian Green; to my agent Sarah Molloy; to Vivid for

  another wonderful cover design; to all my friends in The

  Romantic Novelists Association; to Mags and Wendy for

  keeping me going; to Rob and Laura for being them; and to

  my Dad for his Oscar Wilde ‘looking up at the stars’ take

  on life.

  For Berkshire’s original JB Roadshow: Del, Dolly, Richard,

  Dave, Snib, Alan, and the late David ‘Totty’ Tinson – soul-

  singer and front-man extraordinaire.

  Thanks for the memories.

  Contents

  Also by Christina Jones

  Copyright

  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

  Hubble Bubble

  Northern Lights

  Wedding Season

  Ain’t She Sweet?

  The Journal of Mortifying Moments

  Body & Soul

  Shem Creek

  The Hot Flash Club

  Prologue

  ‘Amber Parslowe! You can’t do this! You’re a northern lass! You’ve never been further south than Rhyl in your entire life.’

  Amber nodded sadly. It was true.

  ‘Listen, Amber, you do clubbing in Manchester and shopping in Liverpool and hen nights in Blackpool. You can’t go south. You’ll be like a duck out of water.’

  ‘Fish,’ Amber muttered over the rim of her glass. ‘And no I won’t.’

  Her friends, Emma and Jemma, Kelly and Bex, crowded round the wine bar table, ignored her.

  Jemma leaned forward. ‘Look, we’re not stupid. We might be Oop North but we still know all about the global village and stuff – but hell’s teeth, there are limits!’

  ‘Exactly what I was going to say.’ Bex interrupted loudly. ‘Amber, listen to us. We’re your closest friends. We’ve known you since forever. We’ve your best interests at heart here.’

  Emma wasn’t going to be left out. ‘And not to put too finer a point on it, if you’re serious about this, then you must be totally barking. I mean, why go south to do this? Even if you don’t want to leave England with your family – although God knows why not – and you really don’t want to stay here, which we find very hurtful, you’ve still got plenty of choices.’

  ‘Yeah – you could get a job on a cruise liner and travel and get paid at the same time.’ Kelly’s eyes were dreamy. ‘Or move to London as an au pair, or live by the sea as a beach bum, or – well, millions of things.’

  ‘The world’s your, um, thingy. You could do, well, anything. Anything rather than this.’

  They all stared at her, willing her to change her mind.

  ‘Are you going to let me say anything at all?’ Amber grinned at them.

  Bex shook her head. ‘Only if it’s to say you’re not going. There’s still time to say no. We really don’t want you to go anywhere. We’ll miss you. Why don’t you stay here, get a nice little flat in that new warehouse complex thingy—’

  ‘They’re luxury loft apartments for the rich kids,’ Amber chuckled. ‘I couldn’t even afford the front door key to one of those!’

  ‘OK,’ Bex conceded. ‘But what about a flat-share? Or bedsit?’

  ‘Please,’ Amber shook her head. ‘If I could even afford to do that I’d have already done it, wouldn’t I? Wouldn’t we all?’

  They nodded. They were all in the same boat.

  ‘OK – but what about shopping? I bet you haven’t even thought about shopping!’ Kelly almost choked. ‘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?’

  ‘Or nail bars and hairdressers!’ Emma flicked her dead straight glossy fall away from her eyes.

  Jemma looked horrified. ‘Ohmigod! Yes! Amber, have you even considered not having a hairdresser? You won’t be able to get your bone-straight blonde 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 bubble perms and mullets and uses hood dryers.’

  ‘And work?’ Emma butted in again. ‘ 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.’ Jemma sat back. ‘Listen to us, Amber. We care about you. We, um, love you. 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 down south in some godforsaken village when they’ve got everything they need right here on their doorstep?’

  Amber tried to stop the flow. ‘What if I said I’m bored with all this? Oh, not with you, not ever, but with all this …’ she waved her arms vaguely round the wine bar. ‘What if I said I wanted a
change – just for a little while? I’ve temped for the last five years since we all got made redundant from Bellamy’s – and to be honest, one admin desk, one reception area is much like another … And now, with what’s happened …’

  They all looked at her in sympathy. OK, life had dealt her a bit of a double-handed punch recently – but even so …

  Kelly shook her head. ‘Still don’t see why you have to go and bury yourself in the country. What do you know about actually living in the country? I mean, the country’s fine for – well – looking at once in a while, but no one wants to live there, do they?’

  ‘Amber does.’

  ‘Amber’s completely crazy, 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.

  Bex still wasn’t convinced. ‘OK then, this place you’re going to? 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—’

  ‘Reading? Isn’t that close to London?’

  ‘Close-ish, I think.’

  Jemma looked more cheerful. ‘Oh well, maybe it won’t be too bad then … And this village – 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 …’

  Emma was clearly appalled. ‘Dear God!’

  ‘When are you going?’

  ‘Next week.’

  ‘And you’re going to be living with someone you’ve never met?’ Kelly’s slender eyebrows skittered upwards. ‘Some mad old bat?’

  ‘My Gran’s best friend from when they were young, yes. She’s always written to us, sent us cards and postal orders on our birthdays and at Christmas, that sort of thing. She’s been like a sort of surrogate long-distance grandmother. She wrote to us when Gran died and we’ve been in touch ever since. And I’m only going as a lodger – not as some sad Jane Austen type companion.’

  Bex was clearly still not impressed. ‘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,’ Kelly smiled. ‘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, because – er – she wasn’t actually the only woman in his life. He’d hoped she wouldn’t find out this way, of course, but …

  Renting was out of the question on her own; house-shares were few and far between. Her much-younger twin sisters, Coral and Topaz, at sixteen, had been thrilled at the thought of living in a tumbledown goat shed about three million miles into the hinterland of Andalucia and attending the local college and learning Spanish and being able to chat up waiters. 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 deception, 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.

  Kelly pushed another bottle across the table. ‘Well, when it all falls apart, don’t say we didn’t warn you.’

  ‘It’s not the other side of the world,’ Amber said. ‘You could always come and visit me.’

  ‘Get real!’ Bex frowned.

  Jemma patted Amber’s hand kindly. ‘Yeah, well – we might … One day …’

  Emma sighed. ‘And what’s this village-that-time-forgot called?’

  Amber filled her glass again and smiled.

  ‘Fiddlesticks.’

  Chapter One

  Dark Side of the Moon

  Wincing at herself in Chrysalis Cottage’s bedroom mirror, Zillah knew that unless she could lose two stones in three days, then Saturday night was going to be a total disaster.

  Oh, why did her reflection never match her imagination?

  At least they agreed on the clouds of dark-brown hair and the black-lashed dark eyes and the tanned skin. Where they started to fall out was over the wrinkles and dimples and folds and cellulite and yes, damn it, the sheer middle-aged avoirdupois.

  Of course, the looking glass in her bedroom was less than flattering. It always had been. It wasn’t her, it was a flaw in the bevel, honest. The mirror stubbornly refused to see her as the taut-skinned, firm-jowled twenty year old she knew she was inside, and spitefully insisted on giving her the full-on, fifty-something, outward truth.

  It also delighted in giving her several chins, ridiculously shortened bulbous legs, three spare tyres and a bottom that protruded like a Volvo estate’s parcel shelf.

  However, on this occasion, maybe the mirror had a point. Maybe skin-tight lime-green spandex really wasn’t her thing.

  In fact, skin-tight lime-green spandex surely wasn’t anyone’s thing?

  How many years had she been through this rubbish? How many years had she sworn never, ever again? How many years had she then been swept up in the general village excitement and thought what the heck? How many years had she actually itched to say that maybe there was something more than a little odd about celebrating someone who might just have lived umpteen hundred years ago and who, even if he had been canonised, which was doubtful, was clearly insane?

  Oh, sod Gwyneth for suggesting the spandex. Sod Fiddlesticks for being so bloody archaic. And even more, sod mad old St Bedric for having his Eve in flaming June.

  And now she had to get out of this darn thing and –ooooh! Great. Crotch poppers undone and one arm free. Now for the other – ouch – no chance.

  In the middle of her gyrations, Zillah caught sight of the alarm clock on her bedside table. Crikey! Where on earth had the time gone? Now she only had an hour before she was due at work and there were millions of things to do before then and – oooof! – she simply had to get out of this stupid outfit and –
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  With mounting horror, Zillah came to the conclusion that second-skin spandex and the hottest morning of the year were not a great combination. No matter how much she tugged and wriggled the stupid outfit wouldn’t budge. In fact it seemed to cling even more tightly, nestling into sweating nooks and crannies she’d not even noticed before. The more she struggled the more the damn stuff squelched and snuggled.

  After a further ten minutes the situation really was getting seriously scary. Exhausted, every inch aching, she was alone in her bedroom encased in a shiny chin-to-knee body suit that The Only Gay in the Village would die for, and was probably about to expire from dehydration.

  Maybe she could hop to the window and shout for help across the village green.

  Stumble-trip-hop – sod it. Hop and hop and – hallelujah!

  Help came mid-hop.

  ‘Zil! Yoo-hoo! Are you upstairs?’

  Joy, oh joy! Big Ida from Butterfly Cottage next door. At the foot of the stairs.

  Zillah stopped writhing. Big Ida was OK. Big Ida and a gaggle of chums wasn’t.

  It was yet another problem with living in Fiddlesticks. No one locked their doors and everyone just wandered in. Now she’d probably got half the village in the hallway and she would have to waddle out on to the landing to greet them looking like something left over after a wrinklies fetish festival.

  Bugger, bugger, bugger St Bedric!

  ‘Yes – whoomph – I’m up here, Ida.’ Despite the years of living in Berkshire, Zillah’s soft Cornish accent still came to the fore in moments of stress. ‘ Aaah … Won’t be a – oooh – minute … I’m just trying to – aaah …’

  ‘You all right, duck? You sound a bit breathless – ’ere, you haven’t got someone up there with you, ’ave you?’

  ‘I wish … No, I’m all alone. Oooomph … Erph … Are you?’

  ‘What? Alone? Yes – Zil, you sure you’re all right?’

  ‘I – erk – yerp.’

  The upside, Zillah thought, was that at least Big Ida didn’t have a clutch of Fiddlestickers in tow. The downside with Big Ida as rescuer was that Zillah’d probably end up without any skin, but what the heck – she’d just have to hope Big Ida would be gentle with her.