Sally
Page 29
‘It’s not funny!’ he hollers.
‘Yes it is!’ laughs Sally, tears streaming and breasts wobbling.
Richard concedes that it is exceptionally funny and they collapse into each other, shaking and giggling. Sharing the mirth and the moment.
‘May I say,’ Richard starts, most politely, ‘that this settee is giving me backache, that these cushions will make me sneeze very loudly very soon, and that cramp now threatens in my right buttock?’
Sally looks at him adoringly. ‘You may.’
‘Come then.’ He beckons with his head in the vague direction of her bedroom. Sally nods and kisses him twice with the gentlest of kisses; one for the tip of his nose, one for the innermost corner of his eye.
Tea for two remains untouched. Tea for two has spilt all over the carpet and the settee. To the bedroom they shuffle, Richard with his jeans around his ankles, Sally limping along at his side. Hand in hand. Still laughing. Richard sneezes.
There we shall leave them. They go to greet the climax of something started long ago. Last year in fact, Gracious Good Lord.
EPILOGUE
19 June
Highgate
Dear Ms Collins,
After careful consideration, I am afraid I really cannot take up the post as heroine in one of your stories.
Being the vampish vixen was such fun, but though I found the whole deportment so enjoyable, I must decline the role.
I did love the clothes, and I wear them still – with or without knickers, depending on my mood and the weather.
Seducing and being seduced is still, you might say, my chief leisure pursuit. Indeed, I find that I am now even more imaginative and abandoned. Please find enclosed a page of scenarios that I have enacted and can vouch for. You may use them if you wish but I would appreciate anonymity.
I have thought about this long and hard, I do assure you. (You may use ‘long and hard’ if you like.) The opportunity was so tempting for a while, but I have decided to pass it up.
Please do remember me to Ms Jong and Ms Hollander.
Though I am still a leopard of sorts, I must concede that Rudyard Kipling is much more my thing.
With best wishes,
Sally Lomax
AFTERWORD
I didn’t much like school – and I wasn’t a particularly obliging student – but a wonderful English teacher in my second year (Fanny Balcombe – thank you!) set a homework assignment to write the opening of a novel. Not only did I do it and even hand it in on time, I subsequently wrote a further 38 chapters. I entitled it Troubled Lives. It was dreadful – an angsty diatribe of teenage navel-gazing. I still have it hidden in my loft and no, I will never release it, not even under a pseudonym! Back then – as now – I was utterly enamoured of the process of writing: knowing the characters were waiting for me, dependent on me to tell their tale yet also providing me with this extra world into which I could dive, delve and, yes – hide.
Back in my school days, there was no further opportunity for creative writing after O-levels. Instead, I wholeheartedly embraced my studies in History of Art as an undergraduate at Manchester University and then a postgrad at the Courtauld Institute. I loved it. I was all set up to do a PhD – when I quite literally found myself writing a novel instead.
It was summer of 1991 and I was trying to figure my way around my first PC by opening files and saving them. I created a file called ‘Novel’ and I wrote the opening chapter of Sally. The freedom to write what I wanted, how I wanted, and then concealing it in this strange crunking grey machine was a thrill that quickly became addictive. Soon enough, it was all I wanted to do. I gave up the PhD (to much ridicule and consternation from family and friends – but support from my tutor, thank you Dr Garlake!) and for the next four years I wrote. And I wrote. I made ends meet with temping jobs and freelance work as a Picture Researcher (remember the dark green Virago Modern Classics covers? Mine!). I ignored the rejection slips from publishers, I turned deaf ears to my parents imploring me to ‘get a proper job’ and I brushed off my friends muttering “War and bloody Peace, eh!”. My heroine Sally Lomax wasn’t going to leave me alone until I’d written down her story – and I relished the chance to skip alongside her every day.
I’d loved the novels of Mary Wesley and Jilly Cooper, of Barbara Trapido and Joanna Trollope. With Sally, I wrote the book that I wanted to read but couldn’t then find on the shelves. A modern day romp in the vernacular of my generation – fusing a traditional larky girl-meets-boy adventure, but ripe with the vocabulary that my friends and I used, detailing the dreams and neuroses we were encountering and peppered with all the lusty fumblings and messy love affairs that defined our early twenties. It was fun to write, it was fun to read through. Sally became a pal of mine – doing the things I didn’t dare do and making the mistakes I hoped never to. I was chuffed that she should reappear, albeit fleetingly in my second novel Chloë (1998) as well as in my 7th novel Love Rules (2005). It’s odd, reading it recently, to find no text messaging, no emails within the book. How adventurous and imaginative she and Richard had to be! And, in retrospect, romantic too.
Funnily enough when, after four years of rejections, Sally was finally to be published, she didn’t actually have a title. I’d been fiddling with variations on Leopards and Spots – but nothing sounded feisty enough. My editor (then and now) Lynne Drew suggested calling the novel Sally. Genius! Then, a month before publication, I suddenly panicked about what my grandmothers would make of my novel. My agent (then and now) Jonathan Lloyd allayed my fears. “Darling – grandmothers are generally unshockable,” he said. Sally was published to acclaim in November 1996 – I felt really quite overwhelmed the first time I saw her, looking all sassy on the shelves of the Primrose Hill Bookshop. I’d had her to myself for four years – now she was out there, making friends amongst readers and flirting with the press. Though I have an enduring fondness for all my characters, I don’t have a favourite. But Sally Lomax and I? Well, we go way back –
Freya North
Spring 2012
About the Author
Freya North is the author of 12 bestselling novels which have, in a career spanning 16 years, been translated into many languages. From teenage girls to elderly gentlemen, Freya’s novels have won the hearts of legions of readers worldwide. In 2008, she won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award for Pillow Talk and was shortlisted for the RNA Contemporary Romantic Novel Award 2012 for Chances.
At school, Freya was constantly reprimanded for daydreaming – so she still can’t quite believe that essentially, this is what she is now paid to do. She was born in London but lives in rural Hertfordshire with her family and other animals, where she writes from a stable in her back garden.
To connect with Freya and hear about events, unique competitions and sneak previews of what she’s writing, join her at www.facebook.com/freya.north or log onto www.freyanorth.com and find out more.
Acclaim for Freya
‘Darkly funny and sexy – literary escapism at its very finest’
Sunday Independent
‘Secrets will make you smile, sigh and cheer as this story proves love can be found in the most unexpected places’
Sunday Express
‘… another sure-fire hit for Freya’
Heat
‘A breath of fresh air … fresh and witty’
Daily Express
‘A fab read’
Closer
‘Fast paced, page-turning and full of endearing, interesting characters. I defy anyone who doesn’t fall in love with it’
Glamour
‘Settle down and indulge’
Cosmopolitan
‘The novel’s likeable central characters are so well painted that you feel not only that you know them, but that you know how right they are for each other … the beauty of the North Yorkshire countryside contrasts convincingly with the bustle of London’
Daily Telegraph
‘North charts the emotional turmoil with a
sexy
exactitude’
Marie Claire
‘Freya North has matured to produce an emotive novel that deals with the darker side of love – these are real women, with real feelings’
She
‘A delicious creation … sparkling in every sense’
Daily Express
‘A distinctive storytelling style and credible,
loveable characters … an addictive read that encompasses the stuff life is made of: love, sex, fidelity and, above all, friendship’
Glamour
‘Plenty that’s fresh to say about the age-old differences between men and women’
Marie Claire
‘An eye-poppingly sexy start leads into a family reunion laced with secrets. Tangled mother/daughter relationships unravel and tantalising family riddles keep you glued to the end’
Cosmopolitan
‘You’ll laugh, cry, then laugh some more’
Company
‘Freya North manages to strike a good balance between drama, comedy and romance, and has penned another winner … touching, enjoyable’
Heat
‘An addictive read with a realistic view of home life, sisterhood and identity crisis’
Prima
Also by Freya North:
Chloë
Polly
Cat
Fen
Pip
Love Rules
Home Truths
Pillow Talk
Secrets
Chances
Rumours
Chapter One
Stella knew there was a private car park at Elmfield Estates, and that a space would have been reserved for her little Fiat, but she pulled into a side street some way off and stopped the car. Adrenalin ate away at her, like lemon juice on teeth enamel; the same fresh but sour sensation, excitement and dread churning into an audible curdle in her stomach. She needed to compose herself and turned the ignition back on so she could have the radio on low, providing a comforting soft din to an otherwise loaded silence broken only by the rumble of her stomach. She hadn’t eaten a thing at breakfast – usually her favourite meal of the day. This was so much more than first-day nerves. This job could be life changing. She’d done the figures and, with potential commission, they’d all added up. She checked her reflection – an early-morning hair wash and a brand-new mascara certainly made her look fresher than she felt, she thought to herself, as if judging the face of someone else. She knew she looked younger than she was, but no one else would know that she appeared brighter than she felt. If she could fool herself, hopefully she’d fool the office of new colleagues awaiting her arrival just around the corner. She ought to waltz on in and simply say, hullo! Stella Hutton! Reporting for duty! How lovely to meet you all! Right, where do I begin! After all, if ever there was a new beginning, a golden opportunity, a lifeline, then taking on this job was it.
The first day of March, the first day of the week; the sky startlingly naked of clouds; the sun a slightly harsh white light and rather unnerving, like bare legs revealed for the first time after hibernating behind opaque tights all winter. Stella thought it must be a good omen – sunshine to signify the change from one month to another, not least because February had been alternately drenched and then frozen. A positive nod from the universe, perhaps, to say, it’s a fresh start, Stella. Here’s some brightness and warmth to prove it. Winter’s receding, put spring in your step. Especially today. Of all days, especially today.
She shifted in her seat, flipped the sun visor back up, switched the radio off and the engine on, crunching the car into gear. My back aches, she thought. And then she wondered what on earth was being said behind it by the office personnel a few streets away.
I’d certainly have something to say about it, Stella thought, if I’d been told a person like me was starting today.
‘Apparently, she has very little experience.’
‘How can you go from being an art teacher to an estate agent?’
‘Chalk and cheese, if you ask me.’
‘No no – I don’t think she was an art teacher – I heard she owned a gallery and it went bust.’
‘How do you go from paintings to property?’
‘Well, it’s all sales, isn’t it.’
‘She did work experience here – during the summers when she was at college.’
‘Well – obviously that’s how she got this job. Her father is brother to Hutton Senior – apparently they don’t speak. Black sheep. Apparently she’s estranged from her father but really close with our Huttons.’
‘Dear God, You Three – you’ve never met the woman!’ Geoff looked up at Belinda, Gill and Steve, to whom he always referred as You Three. Every day that triumvirate of three interchangeable voices gossiped the air into an oppressive cloy around him. Mostly, he was able to filter it out, like dust in his peripheral vision. But not today. Today the talk wasn’t about Z-list celebrities or people he didn’t know, it concerned someone about to walk in through the office door any moment. New blood in the company. It made him more nervous than curious. There’d always been only four agents working here in the Hertford branch of Elmfield Estates, excluding the chairman Douglas Hutton Senior who came into the office infrequently, and Douglas Hutton Junior his son and managing director whose door was mostly closed though he heard everything. With this new person it meant five. And as he was the eldest and his sales were down, he wondered if it was true that she was being brought in to edge him out. New blood. New bloody person.
Belinda, Gill and Steve’s eyes were glued to the door, not so much a welcoming committee, but a panel of judges. This was the most exciting thing to happen at work since Douglas Hutton Junior sold Ribstock Place for over the asking price last spring. A year, therefore, of dullness and drudgery, with little selling, little coming on, prices falling and commission being squeezed lower than ever. How could Elmfield Estates afford to take on an extra staff member? What was she on, salary-wise? Commission only, Belinda reckoned. What of her bonus structure? They’d had a meeting at the beginning of the year to change from pooled to individual bonuses.
She’d better bloody well be given only the one-bedders then, this new girl, said Gill. Steve thought to himself he should have taken that position at arch rivals John Denby & Co. when it was offered to him last Christmas. But it would have only been a sideways move. He was on the up, he could feel it in his bones, he could sense it every morning when he tied his tie, when he’d decided to upgrade from polyester to silk. This Hutton niece – nothing but a blip, little more than something new to talk about. Not worth stressing over.
When she arrived, none of them thought that Stella was Stella. She looked nothing like Messrs Hutton, Senior or Junior. She had small features, a gentle waft of chestnut hair and a willing if shy smile, compared to the expressionless hard edges, the bristles which stuck both to the heads and faces of her relations, like coir matting. She was older than they’d expected – perhaps mid-thirties – but nevertheless, still younger than Belinda, Gill or Geoff were happy about. A pleasant surprise for Steve, though. Quite attractive.
‘Can I help you?’
‘I’m Stella – Hutton.’
She was stared at.
‘I’m the new girl.’
Belinda didn’t take her eyes off her when she lifted the phone handset, tapped in four numbers and said, point-edly, ‘Your niece is here to see you.’
Oh God, please don’t let Uncle Dougie kiss me.
Douglas Hutton had no intention of doing anything of the sort.
‘Welcome, Stella,’ he said with a gravity that was appropriate for any new agent starting with the company. ‘This is the team – Belinda, Gill, Geoff, Steve. This is your desk. You’ll be with Gill this morning – she has three viewings. Geoff will come with you this afternoon. There’s a one-bedder on Bullocks Lane.
He went to the whiteboard and added Stella’s name to the horizontal and vertical bands of the chart. A glance told her all she
needed to know about the team. Steve storming ahead, Geoff lagging behind. Belinda and Gill side by side, neck and neck, tête-à-tête – thick as thieves, apparently.
‘I like your bag,’ Stella said to Gill as they headed out to one of two dinky Minis branded with the agency logo. Gill looked at her, unconvinced. Stella was about to hone in on the woman’s shoes for added praise but she stopped herself. Crazy – it’s like being at school again – agonizing trepidation concerning The Older Girls. She decided not to talk, just to nod and smile a lot at the vendor, at the client, at Gill. The effort, combined with first-day nerves, was exhausting and she was glad of the silence on the drive back to the office at lunch-time.
‘I like your hairstyle,’ said Gill just before she opened the car door. But the compliment was tempered by a touch of resentment. ‘Wish mine had a curl to it.’ And then she walked on ahead of Stella, as if to say, that’s as much as I can be nice to you for the time being. And don’t tell the others.
Stella warmed to Geoff, with whom she was coupled after lunch, even though initially he was as uncommunicative as Gill had been. His silence bore no hostility, instead an air of resignation seeped out of him like a slow puncture. He looked deflated. He didn’t seem to fit his sharp suit; Stella imagined that faded cords and a soft old shirt with elbow patches were his weekend wear. The Mini stalled, seemingly disappointed to have Geoff behind the wheel. She glanced at him as he waited patiently at the lights, as if he never expected to come across anything other than a red light and that now, after years of life being like this, the predictability was acceptable rather than infuriating. She detected a shyness from him towards her that mirrored how she’d felt that morning, sitting by Gill.
‘Was art your thing?’ he asked, tackling the main roundabout cautiously.
‘Sorry?’
‘That’s what I heard – that art was your thing.’
‘Oh. Yes. Yes, it was – I studied fine art. And then I had a little – place.’