by Shari Low
Luke and I were trying and failing to hold back howls of amusement.
Ida tapped the mike to make sure it was loud enough, before she went on. ‘We have a tradition in our family…’
I could see Val and Don shaking their heads in rueful wonderment.
‘And that is that I give you a wee song at every gathering. Today, I’d like to sing a number that was very special to me and another member of the family. Claudie, this is now your song too.’
And what could the rest of us do, other than laugh, cry, and join in on the chorus of ‘My Girl’.
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Acknowledgements
I owe a huge thank you to Sheila Crowley and Caroline Ridding, whose faith, inspiration and words of wisdom guided this book from an idea to a reality.
To the teams at Curtis Brown and Aria, much gratitude for everything you do to support my novels.
Thanks, as always, to my family and friends, who never complain when calls go unanswered and coffee gets cold because I’m locked away finishing the next chapter.
To my guys, John, Callan & Brad, and to Gemma - I know how lucky I am to have you.
I heart you all. Yes, I do.
Love, Shari xx
About Shari Low
SHARI LOWS lives in Glasgow and writes a weekly opinion column and Book Club page for a well known newspaper. She is married to a very laid-back guy and has two athletic teenage sons, who think she’s fairly embarrassing, except when they need a lift.
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Read on for a preview of The Story of Our Life:
So what would you do if your husband slept with another woman?
Colm strolled into my life fifteen years ago. If there’s ever such a thing as love at first sight, that was it for us both. A few weeks later we married, celebrating with those who cared, ignoring the raised eyebrows of the cynics. We knew better. This was going to be forever. The dream come true. The happy ever after.
Until it wasn’t.
Because a couple of months ago everything changed. We discovered a devastating truth, one that blew away our future and forced us to revisit our past, to test the bonds that were perhaps more fragile than they seemed.
So now I ask you again, what would you do if your husband slept with another woman?
Because this is what I did. I’m Shauna. And this is the Story of Our Life…
Can’t wait? Buy it here now!
1
Spring 2016
At the Church
Fifteen years ago, I walked up the same church aisle.
Back then, the first person I saw was Annie, my gloriously indomitable grand-mother, in dramatic purple and a hat that resembled a frisbee, disguising her tears because she was born of a stoic generation that was disdainful about crying in public.
Next to my grandmother were my parents. My father, resplendent in his best morning suit and golfing tan, no doubt keen to get the formalities over with so he could squeeze in nine holes in before dinner. Meanwhile, the woman who gave birth to me was preening, loving the attention being mother of the bride brought her, while breezily overlooking the fact that she’d shown no interest whatsoever in her daughter’s wedding. When I called her to tell her we’d set a date, she’d said, ‘Oh right, Shauna. Let me write that down so I don’t forget it. I think we were planning to be in Spain that weekend. I’ll check my diary.’ Still, she’d made it. My gain was the Marbella Golf Club’s loss.
In the rows behind the star attractions, a sea of smiles beamed at us as we walked down the aisle. Steps behind me, were my best friends, Lulu and Rose in matching pastel elegance. Was it okay to call them ‘best friends’ at our age? Did that belong back in the days of teenage territorialism? Okay, so my ‘closest’ friends, their grins masking hangovers that were crying out for a dark room and a box set of Grey’s Anatomy.
Rosie, a hopeless romantic, had been on board with the wedding from the start, but Lulu had been resistant, listing all the reasons I should wait and keep my options open. I was only 24. My catering company was growing and would demand lots of attention. I was an independent woman with a flat, a job I loved, a bank account that was (just) in the black. And besides, a piece of paper didn’t matter to a relationship. Marriage was an outdated institution. Married women inevitably dumped their friends in favour of nights in, pandering to their men while gaining five pounds a month and neglecting their roots – hair, not ancestry.
Not for the first time, I ignored her.
And the reason was there in front of me. Colm. My gorgeous Colm. Standing there at the altar, in a suit that fitted him to perfection, showing not a trace of nerves. His expression radiated enjoyment, like this was a party he’d been looking forward to for ages and now he was thrilled it was starting.
I was too.
I wanted to dance towards him, sashay and pirouette into his arms, skip straight to the kissing and cheering part.
I saw flowers, and light and love. I saw promise. Commitment. Belonging. Delight. Contentment. Lust. Excitement. The realization of dreams. An incredible future.
I saw happy ever after. Until forever.
But that was then. Before everything happened. Before time, like a well-worn yet inevitable cliché, took its toll. Before my heart was broken. Before one of those closest friends betrayed me. Before my husband slept with another woman.
Before death.
Fifteen years ago, I walked up the aisle in white.
This time, I’m wearing black.
2
2001
When Shauna Met Colm…
If he had been ten minutes later we’d never have met.
The bar was getting too crowded and too loud, with the sound of smug, boorish after-work suits trying to out-do each other.
‘Nailed six million, mate. The yen played a fucking blinder for me this week.’
‘Not bad. Keep it up and you’ll get to play with us in the big boy pool. My margin on pharmaceuticals this week is buying me a Porsche,’ his buddy gloated, his repetitive nose-rubbing suggesting he’d been celebrating with pharmaceuticals of a different kind.
Their chronic wankery didn’t detract from the fact that I loved this bar. The classic white colonial frontage sat on the bank of the Thames, supporting the huge wooden deck that overlooked the water and Richmond Bridge, only yards away to the left. Even on a chilly October evening, as we stood outside, getting jostled by the masses, there was something of a fifties romance about it.
We’d come here for celebration drinks with Vincent, a mate from college, who had decided to start up a corporate catering service on the other side of the city. He was now deep in conversation with a five foot ten Cindy Crawford lookalike who was eyeing him with such lust I expected her to unhinge her jaw and swallow him whole at any moment. Vincent had that effect on women. Except me. The dark-haired, chiselled jaw, brooding hunk thing wasn’t my type so I found it amusing to watch as he… yep, there it was. Cindy reached up and kissed him, then he gave me a wave, blew me a kiss and the two of them disappeared out the door.
Not a bad idea. It was time to go home.
It had been a long week. My feet hurt. I’d had three hours sleep thanks to a delightfully wealthy Battersea housewi
fe who’d booked me to prepare a banquet breakfast for a fundraiser, ignoring the fact that if they’d just gone for bacon butties the recipients of the charity would have been a few hundred pounds better off. Not that I was complaining. The wealthy housewife market had been a fantastic source of income in the two years since I’d launched the company. When I say ‘company’ I mean me. And a van. My only other assets were boundless optimism, enthusiasm, and a small but growing customer base, so I was thankful for the work, even if it did mean that the aroma of eggs Benedict and smoked salmon blinis had followed me around all day like a sinister yet appetizing stalker.
The following morning, I had a children’s party for thirty twelve-year-olds in Balham and those chicken goujons weren’t going to prepare themselves.
My bed was calling me until Lulu, in typical fashion, changed my plans.
‘Shauna, I’ll be five minutes. Cover for me if Dan arrives,’ Lulu hissed, before punctuating the request with a kiss on the cheek that definitely constituted coercion, possibly even conspiracy, with an added twist of emotional blackmail.
Every guy in the bar watched her as she wiggled her way past them. Captivating. Mesmerizing. I was probably the only one who noticed that she was actually following a tall, gym-formed Australian she’d been subtly flirting with across the bar all night.
A mental image of my bed faded. In Lulu’s world, five minutes could mean thirty, or longer. She’d once left me holding her drink while she popped out of a bar for a cigarette with a ski instructor, and called me the next day from Gstaad.
‘Bloody outrageous!’ I added to the list of descriptive terms for the Jessica Rabbit redhead who was heading to the back of the restaurant.
‘Who’s outrageous?’ Rosie asked, breaking off from the conversation she’d been having for the last fifteen minutes with Paul, the mature student. This was the third time she’d invited him to join us for a drink, and there was a spark there, but he was a very measured, analytical academic who was studying geology, or psychology, or zoology, or one of the ologies, so the spark was taking a long time to ignite into anything more than deep discussions about… actually, I had no idea what they were talking about.
‘Our friend,’ I whispered, smiling as I gestured to the departing wiggle. ‘Remind me to kill her at some point. I promise I’ll make it painless.’
‘I’d help dispose of the body but I’m a bit preoccupied,’ she replied, making sure Paul was out of earshot. I hoped he was good enough for her.
If ever there was an illustration of how there was no equality or fairness in the distribution of confidence and self-assurance, my friends were it. Lulu killed at life, at fun, at demanding attention and getting it. She took risks, and she grabbed what she wanted. Rosie, on the other hand, the eternal people-pleaser, quirky, with a huge heart, lived in hope of love and adoration finding her .
The restaurant was filling up now, the noise level increasing as Toploader finished ‘Dancing In The Moonlight’ and handed over to Kylie who was, for some inexplicable reason, ‘Spinning Around’.
‘Bugger, there’s Dan,’ Rose whispered, urgently.
Of course it was. Because, hey, the Gods of Reckless Friends loved this kind of shit. I should have left already, made the escape sooner, before the devastatingly handsome boyfriend of my darling friend was strolling towards me, while aforementioned darling friend was outside, undoubtedly doing something immoral, possibly illegal, definitely wild, with a tattooed Australian. Instead, I was about to give a performance that would win me an Oscar for “Best Liar In A Friendship Situation.”
‘Hey girls,’ he greeted us, with a kiss on each cheek. I’d always thought that Dan Channing was one of those enigmas, people who looked like they were something other than what they actually were. He looked like a square-jawed, impossibly handsome male model or an actor. Or at the very least, one of those firemen who strips naked with a strategically positioned hose in a Christmas calendar. But no, he was in sales of something I wasn’t exactly sure about. Car parts? Mechanical supplies? Anyway, he managed a sales team that travelled around garages flogging some vital component of a vehicular nature.
‘Where’s Lulu?’ was of course his first question.
‘In the ladies,’ I replied. ‘She might be a while. Think the cystitis is playing up.’
A mischievous lie but I couldn’t resist laying the seeds for a discussion that would make Lulu squirm. It was less than she deserved for putting me on the spot. My grin was quickly accompanied by a scarlet flush of the face, as he stepped to the side to reveal the curious gaze of green eyes of a tall, cute guy standing right behind him. ‘Guys, this is Colm. Colm, meet Rosie, Paul, and the one that’s talking about cystitis is Shauna.’
Ah, a resounding moment of dignity, one which Colm took in his stride by reaching out to shake my hand, saying, ‘Please to meet you. And just to get it out of the way, I have never suffered from cystitis.’
Yes, those were the first words the love of my life ever spoke to me. It wasn’t exactly Mills & Boon, but that didn’t matter. I’ve no idea whether it was the soft Irish accent, the rapid humour, or the way he smiled the most open smile I’d ever seen, but right there and then I decided he was mine.
3
2015
Shauna and life before everything changed…
We were a few minutes away from Lulu and Dan’s house and he still hadn’t asked me. Maybe he wouldn’t. I’d noticed that lately it was sometimes just taken for granted, a raised eyebrow of question in my direction when he opened the first beer. Invariably, I’d nod, almost imperceptibly, using fourteen-years-married coupledom telepathy to convey my agreement. Okay, you drink, and I’ll drive home. I didn’t mind, but sometimes it would be nice to be asked.
‘You okay?’ Colm asked, taking one hand off the wheel to put it on mine.
‘I’m fine, just tired. Been a long week.’
A definite understatement, yet I bit my tongue, determined not to do that thing where I listed all the tasks I’d carried out that week and pointed out that he was probably oblivious to them all. You know the one… ‘I worked six ten-hour days, took our daughter to school every day, ferried her to five after-school clubs, did two lots of baking for school functions, cleaned the house, organized flowers for your mother’s birthday, booked the car in for a service, spent hours researching a holiday that meets the needs of everyone in the family, cleaned the house from top to bottom, organized a sitter for tonight, cooked a meal in advance and left it ready for the sitter and our daughter to eat later, then rushed upstairs and got ready in five minutes, throwing on the first decent thing I could find, and slapping on a quick make-up job in the car so YES, IT’S SUNDAY NIGHT AND I AM BLOODY KNACKERED.’
Instead I just turned my attention back to staying awake while letting his touch soothe me out of ‘harassed working mother and wife mode’ and into me mode. Just Shauna. If I really tried, I might even summon up sociable Shauna, and enjoy our first night out in ages.
I felt myself responding to him, stroking my thumb against his palm, as I glanced at him and realized he looked tired too.
‘I think it’s time to have the chat again,’ I told him amiably, as I leaned my head back against the cream leather headrest, a motion that took my ponytail to a whole new level of messiness. With a bit of luck it would at least camouflage the fact that highlights for my dark blonde hair were long overdue.
Colm nodded. ‘The one where we say we have a crap work/life balance and we need to redress it?’
‘Yep, that’s the one.’
How often? Once a month? More? Probably as often as work allowed – and that was the problem. We’d slipped into ‘work to live’ instead of ‘live to work’. We had to sort it out. Definitely. And we would. When we had a spare five minutes to breathe. I mentally added it to the To-Do list. Defrost fridge. Arrange new school uniforms. Address roots. Have life-defining conversation with husband.
We pulled into the drive and I grabbed the bottle of Prosecco and
huge tub of eighties retro sweets – Lulu and Dan’s respective favourites – then headed up the path. Lulu and Dan’s home had a façade that belonged on a Christmas card. Left to them by Dan’s grandparents, the four storey, redbrick Georgian house overlooking Richmond Green had the beautiful white panelled windows that were typical of the era. The stairs up to the front door were bordered by wrought iron, and ivy wound its way around the red gloss door. Lulu and Dan lived on the ground floor and basement, with the upper levels split into two more apartments, which they rented out to give them a healthy monthly income. Dan had been meticulous in retaining as many of the original features as possible, so it still had the original tile floors, high ceilings and ornate cornicing. It was gorgeous, which made Lulu’s ongoing mission to persuade Dan to sell up and move to a modern, eye-wateringly expensive, high-tech shoebox down at the river so much more perplexing.
Exhaling, I slapped on a smile and shook off my fugue just as the door was answered by a giggling Lulu.
‘Come in, come in! Hey gorgeous, how are you?’ That was directed at Colm, not me, but it did make me laugh. Lulu, the irrepressible flirt, had barely changed in personality or looks in the two decades I’d known her. Eternally wild and reckless, she still had the long flowing red hair, the ridiculously curvy shape, the wide eyes that were designed for mischief and her alabaster skin was almost unlined despite the fact that, let’s face it, forty was on the horizon, ready to ambush us.