by Jules Wake
I winced, feeling sicker than ever. ‘What did you say?’
Finally, Alice looked ashamed. ‘Look, there’s no point pulling punches. I’m not coming back any time soon. She needed to know the truth. You can hand them over to Mum and Dad. They’ll be better off with them.’ Her face flickered and I saw something else, something that broke my heart. ‘Let’s face it, Claire, I’m not a good mother. The school, they were talking to social services. Neglect, for Christ’s sake. They’ll be better off without me.’ She lifted her chin but, behind the façade, I saw the bravado. I stepped forward, instinctively wanting to help. To offer to work out a solution, so that she could stay with the children but make her life easier. Ideas were flashing through my head: maybe I could have the girls every weekend to give her respite, maybe I could…
And then I realised it was the same old pattern.
I softened my voice, realising that, deep down, she did care and that she was a little bit broken at the moment. ‘Are you sure?’
Her voice wobbled. ‘Sure as I’m sure about anything at the moment. I just know that in India I was a little bit happy.’
I nodded, too drained to say any more. We were done. ‘We need to find Poppy.’
‘Yeah, I’m sorry I upset her. It was… just a shock seeing her.’ Alice’s lips curved into a mirthless smile. ‘Never thought she had it in her to run away. More Ava’s style. They’re like you and me. Don’t let Ava be the fuck up, Claire, will you?’
Tears stung my eyes. ‘No, I won’t.’ I shook my head, trying to blink them back. ‘Do you know where she went?’
Ash’s thumb rubbed over my knuckle, reminding me of his stalwart, steady presence.
‘No, she ran off but I’d guess she’s gone down to the Valley Gardens. It’s the only place she’d know how to walk to from here. Dad takes them a lot. Gets an ice cream at the pavilion.’
‘Do you know the way?’ asked Ash.
I nodded and led the way out of the house, not saying another word to Alice.
‘Let me know if you find her,’ she called after us. Ash, still holding my hand, growled under his breath.
As the door closed behind us, I stood for a moment staring at the solid panelled front door with its cast-iron knocker and black letterbox and sighed. It felt as if I’d reached the end of a very long journey and there was no going back.
Ash kissed me softly on the cheek. ‘Come on, sweetheart. You can think about it all later but we need to find Poppy. She needs us.’
I swallowed back the lump and smiled a little stupidly at him. ‘Sweetheart?’
His smile was gentle. ‘Seemed appropriate.’ And then he smirked, with that classic Ashwin Laghari lift of his eyebrow. ‘Don’t get too used to it. Come on, let’s find our girl.’
I directed him down the hill towards the nearest entrance to the park, the route one I’d walked a thousand times in my own childhood and could probably have done blindfolded. I knew every tree, hedge, and crack in the pavement along the way.
There were plenty of mothers and toddlers dawdling along in the sunshine, a few of them with ice creams. Grandad brought Poppy and Ava for ice creams, just liked he’d bought them for me and Alice.
‘The pavilion’s this way,’ I said. ‘It’s an ice-cream café but it’s in a pavilion, just like The Friendly Bean. It’s familiar. I bet that’s where she’d go.’
I walked quickly, too exhausted by the emotional storm to run, and sighed with hope when I saw the cupola on the top of the pavilion. I looked left and right along the wide path and put a hand out to Ash’s arm when I spotted a familiar flash of red school-uniform sweatshirt. My heart stopped at the sight of Poppy huddled, her knees up to her chin, on a wooden bench just a few strides ahead. She was sobbing her heart out.
On shaky legs I ran over to her, Ash close behind.
‘Oh, Poppy, darling.’ I scooped her up and somehow hauled her leggy body onto my lap, hugging her tight. She cried harder and I hugged her tighter, tucking her head under my chin as Ash sat down next to me, putting his arms around both of us.
‘It’s okay, sweetheart,’ I murmured, tears pouring down my face. ‘We’ve got you. We’ve got you.’
Lifting my head, I gave Ash a relieved, watery smile. We’d found her. My bones felt like water and I had to hang on to her otherwise I thought I might collapse. Ash hugged us both and kissed the corner of my mouth, his eyes shimmering with his own tears.
Eventually, Poppy’s sobs subsided but we clung together after the storm as if none of us could bear to let go. When Poppy finally lifted her head, one of her hands came up to touch my tear-streaked face. ‘I’m so sorry, Auntie Claire.’
‘Shh, darling. I’m not mad at you. I’m just so relieved you’re okay.’. Hell yes, she’d frightened me, and there would be recriminations later, but they’d probably just be threats that I was never going to let her out of my sight again until she was at least twenty-nine.
With a sniff, she straightened and I arranged her body more comfortably on my knee, with Ash’s arms around both of us.
‘I went to see Mummy.’ She gulped and her mouth trembled.
I cupped her cheek and smiled sadly at her, doing my best not to cry again. ‘I know, darling.’
‘She’s not in India.’ The lump in my throat was so huge I had to take a second to breathe.
‘I promise, I didn’t know until I went to Nanny and Grandad’s just now. I’m really sorry. I honestly thought she was still in India.’ Inside, I felt sick for her and defeated by how she must be feeling.
‘Alice doesn’t want us anymore.’ Her lower lip began to quiver in earnest and tears filled her eyes again. Try as I might, I couldn’t hold back the sob and it came out a half-swallowed hiccough.
Bloody, bloody, Alice. How could she?
I’d never wanted the girls to know that. It would have been easy to explain, to create excuses, but for Poppy’s sake, I wasn’t prepared to lie on Alice’s behalf.
‘But I do.’ I clutched her fiercely. ‘I want you.’
She began to cry again and Ash, who hadn’t said anything, dropped a kiss on my cheek.
‘Me too,’ he murmured.
Poppy looked up and her gaze went from me to Ash and back again, her eyes narrowed in sharp assessment. Thoughtful, clever Poppy.
‘You should be at work.’
Ash snorted. ‘I don’t think so. Not when there’s a Poppy on the loose. Who else but me and Claire was going to come and find you?’
Again, she looked from him to me and back.
I kissed her nose. ‘You’re far more important than that. Than anything.’
She swallowed and sniffed bravely. ‘Not to Mummy.’
‘To us. I love you, Poppy Harrison. More than anything.’
‘More than Ava?’
‘Well…’ I hesitated and kissed her again. ‘The same as Ava.’
‘That’s okay. I don’t mind that.’ She paused and with a tiny spark of her natural cheekiness, asked, ‘More than Ash?’
My heart stalled and I looked at his warm eyes reflecting love and hope.
‘The same as Ash.’
He laced his fingers through mine.
‘And I love you, Poppy… and Ava, and Claire. Nothing in the world is as important as you three.’
‘What about Bill?’ Poppy’s eyes glowed with outrage which made Ash and me laugh. ‘And Hilda.’
‘I love you, Ava, Claire, Bill, and Hilda,’ declared Ash, stroking her face with his hand.
‘That’s okay then.’ She gave him a trusting smile and I had to swallow hard again. ‘Can we go home, now?’
‘Home?’
‘To your house.’
‘Our house,’ I said firmly.
The three of us stood up, Ash took one of Poppy’s hands and I the other, and the three of us walked slowly up the path back to the car.
Ash sent me a gentle smile over the top of Poppy’s head and I smiled back, secure in the knowledge that we were on the same page after all.<
br />
Life ahead of us was going to be tough but we were a team and between us, between me, Poppy, Ava, Ash, Hilda, and Bill, there was enough love, friendship, and community to build lasting foundations for the future. Poppy and Ava would not be short changed in love.
And – my eyes met Ash’s – neither would I.
Epilogue
‘Morning everyone. I’d like to welcome you to our one hundred and fifty-eighth parkrun. Today’s our third anniversary.’ I paused and sought Ash out in the crowd. ‘Hopefully it will mean that someone will never forget the date.’ I shot him a meaningful look and a loud cheer went up followed by a storm of clapping. Ash, in a black ‘100’ T-shirt, grinned back and Poppy, now nearly fourteen, in a red ‘50’ T-shirt, clapped him on the back and gave me a grinning thumbs up. At the back, in a tail-walkers hi-vis vest, Ava was hanging on to a straining Bill and waved madly at me with her spare hand, while next to her Hilda was busy chatting to Harold. The two of them, very much an item – although she’d decided that she quite fancied living in sin rather than making him husband number five – were taking it easy today and were in charge of cutting up the multi-tiered cake that Hilda had spent a couple of months planning, baking, and decorating in her newly modelled kitchen in her maisonette just around the corner on Abernathy Road.
We took it in turns to have tea at her house or at mine on Saturday afternoons, often joined by Farquhar and his girlfriend, Antonia. They were a perfect match, and she had an even more cut-glass booming voice than he did. I owed Farquhar a huge debt that I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to repay. He’d helped me through the endless paperwork to ensure that legal responsibility for the girls was mine and would remain so until they were eighteen.
Both girls saw their mother on the fleeting occasions she returned home. She was now an experienced yoga teacher who taught at the retreat in India. Ava, being younger and of a more laid-back, sunny disposition, was more easily reconciled to the ever-youthful Peter Pan figure who turned up unannounced every six or seven months. Poppy was troubled by her mother’s infrequent visits but a good counsellor, recommended by Ash’s sister, was gradually helping her come to terms with the rejection she felt. Ash and I did everything we could to make sure she knew she was loved unconditionally by us.
Today we were having a bit of a celebration in the park after the run. Not that the last three years had all been plain sailing. We’d had to reroute the run a couple of times in the winter because ankle-deep mud and running are not happy partners; there’d also been a couple of dicey moments when complaints from the general public about us using the park free of charge had set off a spate of emergency council meetings, but thankfully Neil Blenkinsop continued to champion us and, with the help of his dad, had dug out some old covenant which revealed that the park had been gifted to the town by one philanthropic Victorian, Thomas Outhwaite, who happened to have competed in the first Modern Olympics in 1896 in Athens in the 100m race. With far-sighted design, he had stated very specifically that the park was to be used for the promotion of a healthy lifestyle.
Good old Neil Blenkinsop. I sought his tall frame out in the crowd. Next to him was the auburn-haired girl from my old commute, Sally. I’d got to know her a lot better over the last three years and she had got to know Neil a lot better too. They were now engaged and officially our first parkrun couple.
I wondered if on the morning of her wedding she’d also be crazy enough to do the run in a second-hand wedding dress. I smoothed a hand down the gauzy fabric of the ballerina-length white dress, the floaty fabric creating an interesting juxtaposition with my pink trainers.
Charles wrenched the loud-hailer from my hand, forcefully taking over his role as run director, and I worked my way back through the crowd, receiving lots of congratulatory back slaps and smiles, to join Ash and Poppy.
‘Ready, Mrs Ashwin Laghari to be?’ Ash’s magnificent eyes twinkled.
‘Yes, although I still wish we hadn’t put that sodding hill in.’
‘It’s been three years; get over it.’ He winked and grabbed my hand. ‘But I’ll help you up the hard parts today, and the easy bits, and the not-so-straight-forwards bits.’ I smiled mistily at him. He wasn’t just talking about the run.
We’d decided to do the parkrun hand in hand today and to celebrate with all our friends in the park after the run before going home to change (into a straight sheath number that there was no way I could run in) to arrive at the registry office for two this afternoon.
‘You’d better. That hill never gets any easier.’
‘It will be today. I’ll pull you up.’
‘And I’ll push,’ chimed in Poppy.
I smiled at the pair of them. ‘I guess when you have the support, it’s like life: it’s easier with family and friends.’ I looked around at the nearly three hundred people waiting for Charles to send us off. Some I knew, some I didn’t, but they all belonged to the Saturday morning parkrun and we were a community. I smiled at Ash.
‘Three, two, one. Go.’
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THE END
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Don’t miss Jules Wake’s next heartwarming novel, The Spark, which follows the tempestuous will they-won’t they rivalry between Sam and Jess as life and a disgruntled ex try to keep them apart.
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You can get your copy right here!
Acknowledgments
You might have guessed I’m a bit of a Parkrun fan, although I definitely fall into the category of plodder rather than runner. I’m never going to beat any records or impress anyone with my times but it’s become an essential part of my weekly routine and even on those days I come home dripping with wet, the colour of my trainers scarcely discernible under the inches of mud, I feel a huge sense of achievement and, moreover, that I’m part of something.
The sense of the community that I describe in The Saturday Morning Park Run mirrors that of my own local Parkrun in Tring but isn’t unique to that event. I’ve found the same wonderful welcome, friendliness, inclusivity and belonging when visiting other venues, as a ‘tourist’, whether at St Andrews, Delamere Forest, Luton or Aylesbury. There are over 700 Parkruns in the UK all of which are ‘free forever for everyone’ thanks to the teams of volunteers that turn out every Saturday. Parkrun is a fabulous organisation which has done a wonderful job in encouraging more people to improve their health and well being by taking up running and I could bang on about it for some time but do check the website www.parkrun.org.uk to find out more.
At every Parkrun there are lots of wonderful stories and characters and I’ve stolen quite a few from my own Parkrun, including Jim, the wonderful marshal (sadly the boom box has now been banned) who cheers us on with enthusiastic smiles week in and week out; the amazing Luciana, who really has lost 12 stone and is an absolute inspiration; the former Olympians who flash past in a blur; and the couple who met and subsequently got married. I have to thank my friend Vicki Wilson who encouraged me and my husband to go on that first run, although I’m not sure thanks were at the forefront of my mind when she and I had to take shelter in a bush prior to the start of one of the wettest, windiest runs of the winter last year. On those days I do think I might be a bit mad. But all that is more than made up for by the friendliness of the volunteers and other runners and I have to give a shout out to some of the people who I have mentioned in the book including Luciana Walker, who has inspired me so much and often keeps me going; the lovely Katie Haines, who answered my initial questions; and to Andy Evans, who set up the Tring Parkrun and also helped with my early research.
I’m afraid to suit the story I have to confess there are some areas where I have taken poetic licence with regard to the setting up of a Parkrun and I hope readers will forgive me. In fact it takes considerably longer than my characters did to set up a brand new event.
Sadly as I write this the Parkrun in the UK has been shut down by the pandemic but I sincerely hope it will be back up and running in the very near future to welcome yet more runne
rs. Why not give it a go, either as a runner or volunteer? It might just change your life, it’s certainly changed mine!
I wrote this book not long after I gave up my day job, and as a tribute to some of my former colleagues, I have shamelessly plundered their names and surnames for this books. Biggest thanks go to the real Claire Harrison, who has been a staunch fan since I was first published; and also to my lovely senior management team colleagues Louise, Claire and Gilly, whose surnames were stolen for my heroine’s work place, Wilding, Taylor and Cunningham. Love to all at the Grove Junior School where I spent eight very happy years with the best team you could possibly wish for.
As always writing any book is a collaborative effort and the birth of each one differs; this one was definitely a breech! But after a long labour, thanks to the persistence and dedication of my brilliant editor, Charlotte Ledger, we finally got there. And huge thanks to my superagent, Broo Doherty, who keeps me smiling and positive, even when that little voice inside is whinging ‘this is too hard’. I’d also like to thank some of the unsung heroes who work away in the background at One More Chapter to make everything happen, including Bethan Morgan, Mel Price and Claire Fenby, as well as the awesome HarperCollins Rights Team, Aisling, Emily, Iona and Zoe.
And behind the scenes, as always, urging me on, are my faithful friends: Donna Ashcroft, the absolute queen of pep talks and prosecco brainstorms; and my Messenger crew, Sarah, Bella, Philippa and Darcy, who all have the capacity to cheer me up with a single gif.
Special thanks go to my friend, Paulene, for her uncanny ability to spot those pesky missing words which I could have sworn I’d typed!
I’d also like to say a ‘wow’ and ‘aren’t you fabulous’ to the book blogging community who are so generous with their time, providing book reviews and sharing the love on social media. I value you all but a special shout out to Jenn Webley, Rachel Gilbey, Julie Morris, Kaisha Holloway and Kate Mclaughlin, who have been especially supportive. Many thanks ladies, reviews count and I appreciate every last one.
