by Imogen Clark
Marlon did the honours with the champagne and soon we all had a tall slim bubbling glass in hand.
‘What are we drinking to?’ he asked.
Clio looked from me to him and then back to me.
‘To new beginnings,’ she said, and I could hear in her voice a silver thread of determination that sounded very familiar.
Lunch was a buffet, a mixture of things carefully selected so that no one felt awkward and everyone could find something they liked. Then Clio announced that we all needed to play a game.
‘It is Christmas, after all,’ she said when I groaned. ‘What shall we play? It needs to be something that Noah can manage.’
We settled on ‘Sorry’ and, after a quick skim through the rules, Clio put the board down on the rag rug and we all gathered around it, kneeling or sprawling as we chose. We were halfway through the second round when there was a tentative knock at the door. I threw an anxious glance at Clio, but she just shrugged and mouthed a quick ‘Sorry’ at me.
‘Come in,’ she called.
The door opened and there stood Grace, and behind her, wearing a ridiculous Christmas jumper with Rudolf’s head on it, was Hector.
‘Merry Christmas?’ asked Grace, as if she wasn’t entirely sure.
Well, there was no point me being sniffy about Hector showing up, despite the blatant breach of Clio’s promise. We were in Grace’s house, after all, and hadn’t we just drunk to ‘new beginnings’?
‘Merry Christmas,’ I said and beamed at them both.
‘We’re playing Sorry,’ explained Noah, ‘and I’m winning!’
He wasn’t, but no one picked him up on it.
‘I’m not much good at Sorry,’ Grace told him.
‘That’s because you’re too nice, Mum,’ said Clio. ‘Hector here is a master!’
And then Hector grinned. I did a double take. He looked so much like Dad.
‘Ruthless is my middle name!’ he said with a wolfish smile that was so very familiar to me that it was almost like Dad was in the room with us. Hector looked totally different when he wasn’t scowling. His eyes lit up and his features were softer somehow. I mean, I still thought he was a bit of a dick, but at least I could see that there might be a future for us.
So, we all sat on Clio’s rag rug playing Sorry and Clio kept the drinks flowing and the kids sloped in and out depending on whether they were winning or not. The next time I looked up it was dark outside. All Clio’s lovely little tea lights had burnt out, but she just replenished the holders with a new supply. Imagine that, I thought. Having enough tea lights that you could just keep lighting them without even thinking about saving any for the next time.
Finally, we fell to just chatting, and one by one we climbed back up on to Clio’s huge sofas. I leaned into Marlon, my spine against his chest and our legs intertwined. I was too tipsy now to care what Grace and Hector might think of our relationship, but it didn’t seem to worry them any.
‘You do realise,’ said Clio, as Noah curled himself up in a little ball at her feet and started snoring gently, ‘that you’re all going to have to stay over.’
This had clearly been her plan all along, the scheming little minx, but I was too chilled to object.
‘I’ve made up a couple of rooms upstairs,’ she added, raising an eyebrow at me and then winking at Marlon. He’d been drinking all afternoon so he must have been in on it too. This would be a first for us. I’d not let him stay over at the house in case the kids wandered in.
‘I thought me, Poppy and Noah could have a sleepover here, and you and Marlon could go and stay with Grandma Grace.’
God bless her. Was there nothing she didn’t think of? I wasn’t sure about the Grandma Grace thing, but a quick sideways glance told me that Grace herself had no issue with it at all.
‘Would it be terribly corny if I put some Christmas carols on?’ asked Clio.
‘Yes!’ I replied.
‘Well, I don’t care,’ she said. ‘I’m going to do it anyway.’
I had to admit, though, that the carols were the perfect touch. It was almost like we were a real family.
Later, just as we were thinking about turning in, Grace handed me an envelope.
‘Merry Christmas, Leah,’ she said. ‘There’s no need to open it now. It’s just a letter telling you that I have transferred the title of the house over to you. It makes no difference, really. I would never have made you leave, but this way if anything happens to me there can be no question of you having to move out. I know it’s not really a gift, seeing as to all intents and purposes the house was yours anyway, but still . . .’ Her voice trailed off as she met my eyes with hers.
I didn’t know what to say. Grace was right. It only confirmed everything that I’d always thought I knew, but since the day on the beach all sense of certainty had been snatched from me. It would be nice to feel secure again.
Grace smiled that kind smile that I remembered from the days when she had been Mrs Newman to me. Now that I knew the whole story, what she had done for me seemed even more compassionate. I could only imagine how much pain she must have gone through to help alleviate mine. Nothing about the situation that I’d found myself in had been Grace’s fault and yet she had made the trip to Whitley Bay twice a month for years. I only knew one other woman who would have done the same.
Clio had scooped a sleeping Noah up in her arms and was heading for the door with him, Poppy trotting along after her.
‘Well, goodnight everyone,’ she said. ‘Sweet dreams.’
58
CHARLES
Charles was on a high. The concert had gone like a dream and now he was jammed full of adrenaline that he had nowhere to put. It was always the same. After performing he would be soaring like a kite and was always desperate to find somewhere to have some fun and unwind, but the rest of the orchestra seemed content to pack up their instruments and head home, job done.
Carefully he laid his violin into its tooled leather case. The instrument had been a gift from Grace. The violin he had been playing when they’d met had been more than adequate, but this one was without equal, certainly in the Apollo Philharmonic and possibly in the country.
The first oboist was just slipping a coat over his dinner jacket. He was a nice enough bloke, Charles thought, although he could be a bit glass-half-empty for Charles’s liking. Still, he was the only person left in the room and beggars couldn’t be choosers.
‘Fancy a drink, Jim?’ Charles asked hopefully.
‘Sorry, Charlie,’ the oboist said, shaking his head. ‘It’s a bit of a drive back for me and you can never be sure what the traffic will be doing, can you? Another night, though, maybe. If you give me a bit more notice.’
Charles shrugged. Who worried about the traffic at ten-thirty on a Saturday night? ‘I’ll hold you to that,’ he said with a cheery wave, although he knew he wouldn’t.
And then Charles was alone. He pulled his jacket on, feeling the familiar hard place in the breast pocket where his notebook lived. Back when his life had been more complicated, this little blue book had been the mechanism by which he kept everything afloat and it was always on his person. Even after Charles had driven away from Whitley Bay for the very last time, paranoia had made him keep the tell-tale notebook safely with him in case anyone looking at its contents would instantly understand what he had been up to.
Now that his life was simpler, Charles still liked to have the book with him although whether out of force of habit or because he saw it as a talisman of sorts, he wasn’t sure. He knew he should probably have destroyed it but that would have been like wiping Ray Allen away, like a chalk mark or a spilled drink, and either vanity or sentimentality had stayed his hand. Even his name still made Charles smile. No one who had met Ray Allen had ever commented that he shared his name with a vaudeville act, a ventriloquist whose dummy was, amusingly, named Lord Charles. The alias was such a stroke of genius that it was all Charles could do not to share it with everyone he spoke to. But that woul
d never do, would it? And he had altered the spelling too, just to be on the safe side. Grace would probably have thought it funny, been entertained by its cleverness if he’d ever been able to tell her, which obviously he hadn’t. The joke would have gone totally over Melissa’s pretty head.
Charles left the changing rooms, flicking the light off as he went. His lonely footsteps echoed down the empty corridor.
‘Night, Mr Montgomery Smith, sir,’ said the security guard on the door.
‘Goodnight, Eric. See you next week.’
Charles pushed out into the darkness. It was warm for May, the air almost balmy; too nice to hurry to his car. With his violin case swinging at his side, he set off towards the Quayside where the night would just be getting going.
Down by the Tyne it was almost as busy as daytime with people enjoying the bars and restaurants that had sprung up, and Charles walked straight into the midst of them, relishing the proximity of strangers who neither knew nor cared who he was. He was tempted to go for a drink somewhere but he had told Grace that he wouldn’t be late, so he would just have a stroll and then head back to the Hall. He tried always to be where he said he was these days.
The various bridges that spanned the river were lit up in a multitude of colours, and the lights reflected in the moving water. It was like being in an Afremov painting, he thought, so vital and alive. If only he were thirty years younger. He would have loved this part of Newcastle back then. Then again, if it had been here, he might never have wandered into that grubby pub and then he wouldn’t have met Melissa, beautiful, simple Melissa with her curves and ready laugh and her unquestioning love for him.
Leaving Melissa was Charles’s one regret in life. Of course, it couldn’t have been helped. As soon as that picture had appeared in the paper, he had known that the game would probably be up, even if he hadn’t made the mistake with Leah’s friendship bracelet. If he could have kept Melissa safe in a bubble, undisturbed by the rest of his life, then he would probably have still been with her now. After all, he had made things work for nearly twenty years without a single soul working out what he was up to. But that photograph had raised the stakes. That had been the catalyst for change.
For months Charles had lived on a knife edge, expecting Melissa to turn up at the Hall at any minute, shouting the odds. He had wracked his brain for explanations that he could trot out when she arrived, but his devious mind had finally let him down. If Melissa had come to the Hall, then it would all have been over, and he would have had to confess to both of them.
But she had never arrived. Weeks had run into months and then years and there was no sign of her. Melissa was uncomplicated, he thought, but she wasn’t stupid. She could have tracked him down if she had chosen to, so Charles had to conclude that she had just let him go.
Part of him was hurt by this. Did he mean so little to her that she could forget him so easily? But he knew that wasn’t true. For reasons he would never fully understand, she had released him from his obligations, and for that he loved her even more. His darling girl had let him fly away into the blue, as free as a lark.
Charles stopped walking and looked out across the water to Gateshead. People were gathering around him. The peculiar Millennium Bridge must be about to tilt to let a ship pass beneath it. Melissa would have loved that, a tilting bridge. He had spent so long explaining how things worked to her, and although he was never quite sure she had grasped the concepts, she would always nod and smile and tell him how very smart he was and how much she loved that about him. Grace never had to turn to him for explanations. She was far more likely to be the one doing the explaining but, for all her brains, Grace had never really seen what was going on under her nose. He really had been remarkably smart.
Sometimes Charles thought about going back, just turning up on the doorstep of the little terraced house in Whitley Bay. He could picture Melissa’s face when she saw him. She’d be angry at first, furious probably, but then later, when she’d screamed and shouted at him, she would forgive him like she always did. Charles was certain of it.
He wondered what she had done with her life since he’d gone. He hoped that she had met someone new, although it broke his heart to think of his Melissa with another man. And what about lovely Leah? She would be an adult now, the same age as Clio. What had she made of herself? he wondered. In these days of the internet, Charles could probably just look her up, but he had promised himself the day he left that he would never look back, and although it had been hard and his heart had ached for them both, he had kept his word. There was no point torturing himself with what he couldn’t have and anyway, Leah would probably be better off without him after all this time.
The bridge finished its tilt and people began to wander away. Charles turned and headed back down the Quayside towards the car park and home. He should probably throw the little blue book away, he thought. It was silly hanging on to it now.
He’d do it tomorrow.
BOOK CLUB QUESTIONS
When Grace discovers that Charles is having an affair, she decides to repeat her mother’s response to infidelity and turn a blind eye. Do you think this was the right thing to do?
Leah is determined to make the most of her life by leaving her home town, but ends up staying in the house where her mother lived. Do you think her life is diminished by this?
Clio struggles to find a purpose in her life even though she is wealthy and loved. What do you think are the ingredients of a happy and fulfilled life?
Leah and Clio both stay close to home. If you could choose, would you rather have the experience of living in lots of different places or the stability of just one?
Clio believes that she is the sole custodian of her father’s secret. How do you think Grace would have reacted had she known that Clio was carrying this burden? Would they have told Hector?
Do you think Charles’s behaviour is understandable or forgivable?
Which of the characters is your favourite, and why? Who do you like the least?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The trigger for this book was an article in the newspaper about a bigamist. I found it hard to believe that anyone could get away with living a double life but when I dug a little deeper, I discovered that bigamy is not that uncommon. However, I struggled to accept that nobody involved would have an inkling as to what was going on. Surely, I thought, someone must have been suspicious? This led me to think about who might know what, and from there the four women in my book sprang to life.
I wanted to set the book near the sea and it didn’t take me long to settle on Whitley Bay. Whilst some of the locations are accurate, I have taken liberties with others for the purposes of the story. I did find the perfect house to be ‘number 5’ when I visited, though, so that is a real place. However, unlike Clio I didn’t knock on the door and ask to look round. Who knows? Maybe I should have done. Hartsford and the barony, however, are entirely my creations.
There are a few people that I would like to thank. Firstly, Paddi Cunningham, who helped make sure my version of the life of a musician’s wife wasn’t too wide of the mark. Paddi was like a second mum to my brother and me when we were growing up, and we seemed to spend almost as much time at her house playing with her four children as we did at home. Her husband, Peter, was a violinist with the Hallé Orchestra and some of my memories of him have been adapted in the creation of Charles, although I have to say that as far as I know Peter was only married to Paddi!
Thanks must also go to Susan Saville, my friend and a wonderful midwife who helped me make sure my description of a forceps birth rang true, as luckily I had no personal experience of one.
Thanks also to Alex Warren, who listened to me ramble on one Christmas evening as I fumbled my way from initial concept to reasonable story and made helpful suggestions as I talked, steering me away from my less successful ideas.
Of course, it’s not just my hard work that makes a novel what it is, and I need to thank everyone at my publishers Lake Union, and partic
ularly my wonderful editors Victoria Pepe and Celine Kelly for keeping me on track and not letting me go off on tangents.
Finally, to my children, who are my first readers and biggest fans, and my wonderful husband John, who held the fort when I disappeared off to first research and then edit the book. Without their faith in me I’m not sure I would now be putting the finishing touches to my third novel.
If you have enjoyed Where the Story Starts then please leave me a review on Amazon or Goodreads, and if you’d like to get in touch then go to my website, imogenclark.com, where you can find links to all my social media pages.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2017 Karen Ross Photography
Imogen Clark lives in Yorkshire, England, with her husband and children. Her first burning ambition was to be a solicitor, and so she read law at Manchester University and then worked for many years at a commercial law firm. After leaving her legal career behind to care for her children, Imogen turned to her second love – books. She returned to university, studying part-time while the children were at school, and was awarded a BA in English literature with first-class honours. Her first two novels, Postcards From a Stranger and The Thing About Clare, reached number one in both the UK and Australian Kindle charts. Imogen loves sunshine and travel and longs to live by the sea someday.