Praise for From Notting Hill With Love… Actually:
‘Perfectly plotted, gorgeously romantic, has some great gags and leaves you with that lovely gooey feeling you get at the end of a good Hollywood rom com’ Lucy-Anne Holmes, author of The (Im)Perfect Girlfriend
Ali McNamara attributes her over-active imagination to one thing – being an only child. Time spent dreaming up adventures when she was young has left her with a head constantly bursting with stories waiting to be told. When stories she wrote for fun on Ronan Keating’s website became so popular they were sold as a fundraising project for his cancer awareness charity, Ali realised that not only was writing something she enjoyed doing, but something others enjoyed reading too. Ali lives in Cambridgeshire with her family and two Labradors. When she isn’t writing, she likes to travel, read and people-watch, more often than not accompanied by a good cup of coffee. Her dogs and a love of exercise keep her sane!
To find out more about Ali visit her website at
www.alimcnamara.co.uk
or follow her on Twitter: @AliMcNamara
Also by Ali McNamara
From Notting Hill with Love… Actually
Breakfast at Darcy’s
From Notting Hill to New York… Actually
Step Back in Time
From Notting Hill with Four Weddings… Actually
The Little Flower Shop by the Sea
COPYRIGHT
Published by Sphere
978-0-7515-5864-7
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 © Ali McNamara 2016
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
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.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
SPHERE
Little, Brown Book Group
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London, EC4Y 0DZ
www.littlebrown.co.uk
www.hachette.co.uk
Letters from Lighthouse Cottage
Table of Contents
Praise for From Notting Hill With Love… Actually:
About the Author
Also by Ali McNamara
COPYRIGHT
Dedication
Summer 2016
Part One: June 1986
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Summer 2016
Part Two: December 1992
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Summer 2016
Part Three: 2001
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Summer 2016
Part Four: August 2012
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Forty
Forty-One
Forty-Two
Summer 2016
Acknowledgements
For Scamp, Sam and Jake.
Gone, but never ever forgotten.
Dear Reader,
Life is never easy.
We all have many life-changing experiences every day. Some of which appear to us to be good, some we think of as bad.
Wouldn’t it be so much easier if we had someone to help us along the way, to guide us on to the right path, to give us advice when we needed it, and to always be there looking out for us.
We do.
We just need to open our eyes and find them.
This is the story of what happens when that help comes to us in a very unusual way…
Summer 2016
Sandybridge Hall is happy today. I know it is.
The house and its grounds are packed with visitors, all enjoying themselves on this beautiful July day. I’m amazed we’ve been able to attract so many people away from the delights of the local town and its beaches, which have been a popular seaside resort since Victorian times. But the hall, which stands a short distance from the centre of Sandybridge, is proving these days to be of equal value in the tourism stakes.
I gaze up at the Tudor manor in front of me; its golden yellow brickwork positively glows under the spell of today’s warm sunshine. Sandybridge Hall was always happy when it had guests. When there were people walking through its beautifully manicured gardens, and exclaiming with joy at its perfectly restored interiors, the lattice windows lining the heavy brick walls shone that little bit brighter, and a warm, welcoming atmosphere radiated from the many corridors and furnished rooms the house contained.
Sandybridge Hall and its extensive grounds were made for people to enjoy, and people in turn had visited here in their thousands every year.
‘Grace, there you are!’ Iris, my young assistant, comes rushing towards me along the neatly trimmed grass. ‘I have those papers for you to sign.’
‘Thanks, Iris,’ I tell her as she arrives next to me. ‘Sorry to abandon you in the office alone, but I had to step out for a bit. I love to watch the house when it’s in full flow. It always seems at its best then.’
‘Well, we are pretty busy today.’ Iris looks around her while I quickly squiggle my signature over the papers she’s provided me with. ‘In fact it’s been like this all week.’
‘That can only ever be a good thing.’ I hand the papers back to her. ‘This house has stood empty far too often in the past. I’m just happy to see it flourishing again.’
‘All thanks to our glorious benefactor,’ Iris says, winking at me.
‘Indeed,’ I say, thinking of him fondly.
‘Oh, that reminds me…’ Iris digs into the top pocket of her dungarees. ‘Danny was trying to get hold of you earlier. He rang the office because he said you weren’t answering your mobile. I guess this is why,’ she says, raising her eyebrows at me and passing me my phone. ‘You left it on your desk.’
‘Sorry,’ I tell her, taking the phone. ‘I do that a lot.’
‘So I’ve realised.’ Iris wrinkles her nose and a tiny gold stud twitches. ‘I don’t know how you can leave it lying around. My phone is like my right arm.’
‘That’s because you’re young,’ I reply smiling. ‘Mobile phones might as well be attached to you, you have to check them so often. But you have to remember, when I was your age the only telephones we used were attached to the wall, not ourselves. You couldn’t take them anywhere!’
‘Don’t!’ Iris places her hand on her forehead dramatically. ‘I can’t bear the thought!’
‘And even when we did finally get mobile phones, they were only for making telephone calls, you couldn’t use them like the little computers you do today!’ I continue to tease Iris, who lives for her gadgets.
‘You’ll be telling me next you had one of th
ose huge beige box computers in your house,’ Iris says, playing along. ‘I’ve seen them in museums. Did you play Pac-Man and Space Invaders on it? No, wait!’ She waves her hand at me. ‘I bet you didn’t even have one of those – you probably had a typewriter to do your homework on!’
My stomach twists sharply. Iris has come a bit too close to the truth, and unknowingly hit a nerve – a particularly raw one today.
‘More people!’ I announce, glad of the distraction, as two large coaches slowly pass through the big black gates of Sandybridge Hall and pass along the gravel drive in front of us.
‘Yeah, school trip,’ Iris says, wrinkling her nose again. ‘Teenagers. Doubt many of them will be interested in the history of the hall. Probably only here for the day out.’
‘Nothing wrong in that,’ I say, fondly remembering some of my own school trips. ‘You never know, something they see today might spark an interest in history.’
‘You think so?’ Iris pulls a face.
I shake my head. ‘Probably not. All I was interested in at their age was boys and getting away from Sandybridge.’
‘Really?’ Iris asks, genuinely surprised. ‘I thought with your background you’d have been the school swot, nose deep in your history books all day.’
I laugh. ‘Nope, definitely not. I hated history when I was at school. It wasn’t until I was fifteen that everything changed.’
‘Ooh, what happened when you were fifteen?’ Iris asks, her interest sparked.
‘Long story. I’ll tell you sometime. Now I guess we’d better get back to the office – things to do and all that. Plus, I have to go out later.’
‘Do you?’ Iris asks as we set off towards the house. ‘I don’t have anything in the diary.’
‘I have an important meeting,’ I tell her without elaborating further. ‘I’ll be gone a little while.’
Iris shrugs her acceptance, and silently we walk along the gravel path, towards where the two coaches have dropped off their passengers.
A young teacher is attempting to gain control of his pupils, most of whom aren’t taking the slightest bit of notice of what he’s saying. As we pass by, I hear one particularly loud girl announce: ‘I bloody hate history!’ And immediately my mind is cast back to the summer of 1986…
Part One
June 1986
One
‘Grace!’ my mother calls from the next room. ‘Will you get in here and help me with this stuff, please. I’ve asked you twice already.’
I sigh, and stop gazing at the photos on the wall. Photos of places I’ve never been, but the person staring back at me from the photos had, and she looked like she was enjoying herself. The woman in the photos is as much a stranger to me as the places, but in the mad world I inhabit with my parents, I’m currently sifting through her belongings in the hope some of them might be worth something.
‘OK, I’m here,’ I tell my mother as I appear at the door of the sitting room she’s busy clearing.
‘About time. Now help me lift these boxes out to the van, will you? And, Grace…?’
‘Yes?’
‘Stop daydreaming! There’s a time and a place, and this most certainly isn’t it. We need to get on!’
‘Yes, Mum,’ I mumble, and I begin carrying the cardboard boxes full of junk outside to our battered, pale blue van.
Harper’s Antiques & Collectables
it states proudly on the side in ornate white writing.
Buy • Sell • Valuations • House clearances
4 Lobster Pot Alley, Sandybridge, Norfolk
02163 492445
This was generally my lot at weekends, either helping Mum and Dad serve customers in their little antiques shop, or helping them as I was today with a house clearance, which is where they got most of their stock. Occasionally we would go to an auction, which was a bit more interesting, but it didn’t get much more stimulating than that. Sometimes – but only sometimes, mind – I was quite pleased when Monday came and school gave me an excuse to get out of dealing with old tat.
But old tat sold. It never ceased to amaze me how many customers Mum and Dad got in their shop, eager to purchase someone else’s cast-offs – be it locals on the lookout for a bargain, or tourists visiting Sandybridge for a day out at the seaside. The customers kept coming, so my parents kept trading. Just as well really; they were hardly going to make their fortunes clutching mobile phones and Filofaxes to their chests, trading on the stock exchange. No, my parents were as far away from embracing the brash, colourful world of the eighties as I was from travelling the world. Mum and Dad preferred to remain very much in the past, and that was how they intended to stay.
‘Can I go now?’ I ask my mother, as we load what I assume is the last of the boxes into the back of the van.
‘Go where?’ My mother turns to face me, a puzzled expression on her face.
All right, don’t rub it in! I think, just because I don’t have the biggest of social lives here in Sandybridge. Actually, you could probably make that the whole of Norfolk, possibly even the world! No one could do less ‘teenage’ things than me – that I was quite sure of. I was fifteen and the most excitement I’d ever had was when I was almost caught bunking off school; except no one believed I was. The teacher who saw me popping into the corner shop to buy Just Seventeen magazine (in fact it was Cosmo too, but I hid it under the other) assumed I must be ill if I was taking a day off school, and offered me a packet of Lockets and a paracetamol from her bag.
My dealings with the opposite sex were virtually non-existent too. The most attention I’d ever had from a boy was the day Will Granger attempted to set fire to my crimped hair by dangling it, unbeknown to me, over a lit Bunsen burner when we’d been forced to do an experiment together in our chemistry class.
So while all the other teenagers in Sandybridge appeared to be constantly out partying, pushing the boundaries of life and the patience of their parents, I had barely left the pram, let alone the nursery.
‘I said I’d watch the football later with some mates,’ I tell Mum proudly. This was a very loose take on the truth. The ‘mates’ in question weren’t really my friends, but I’d been in the classroom waiting for registration on Friday morning when it was being discussed by the ‘cool’ kids, and I’d kind of found myself included in the general invitation. This didn’t happen often, and I was keen to make the most of it – even if it did mean watching overpaid men kick a ball around a field for ninety minutes, and topple over in performances worthy of a prima ballerina.
‘Since when were you interested in football?’ Mum asks, a hint of surprise in her voice.
‘It’s the World Cup, isn’t it? How can you not be, it’s everywhere right now?’
She narrows her eyes at me, and plants her hands firmly in the pockets of her blue dungarees.
I counter her suspicion with an innocent stare.
‘Well, it’s good to see you going out, I suppose,’ she eventually concedes. ‘Whose house are you going to watch this match at?’
‘Duncan Braithwaite’s,’ I mumble, hoping Mum won’t hear me.
Her eyes now do the opposite and widen in shock.
‘Duncan Braithwaite? I’m not sure I want you hanging around with the likes of him, Grace. I heard he was trouble.’
‘Mum, it’s not just me; there’s a whole gang of us. I’ll be fine.’
Mum looks unsure, but nods her agreement. ‘If that’s what you want to do, I guess it’s OK with me. But promise me you’ll be careful, Grace. Fifteen is a difficult age, especially when boys become involved. I remember when I was fifteen I —’
‘Mum!’ I protest.
‘Sorry, sweetie. You know I worry about you; you’re my little girl, my only child. I’m allowed to worry a little, aren’t I?’
I nod. ‘But only a little, mind!’
Letters from Lighthouse Cottage Page 1