How to Fall in Love Again: Kitty's Story

by Amanda Prowse

  ‘Okay!’ She raced out of the workshop and back down the lawn. Kitty stood by the open door so she could watch her.

  ‘What’s going on, Elliot? What’s making you angry? It’s not like you to snap at your sister like that,’ Theo said gently.

  ‘Nothing.’ Elliot kicked the concrete floor.

  ‘Well, trust me when I tell you that a problem shared is a problem halved.’ Theo walked forward and leant on the workbench.

  ‘Grampy is right,’ Kitty said.

  ‘I just hate school. I don’t want to be a Vaizey boy!’ He briefly caught her eye.

  ‘You hate school or the people in it?’ Theo asked.

  ‘I just don’t want to go.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s one of life’s necessary evils, but there are things you can do to get through it and make it easier.’

  Elliot looked up at his grampy with such hope that Kitty’s heart flexed. ‘It’s okay for you, Grampy, you don’t have to go there every day.’

  Theo smiled. ‘Trust me, I wasn’t that fond of school either.’

  ‘Everyone tells me how much everybody loved it, and I know that’s where you met Gran!’

  ‘Yes, I did and that was the one good thing. And I made a good friend, other than your gran.’ He closed his eyes briefly and Kitty knew he was picturing Mr Porter. ‘Is someone being mean to you?’

  ‘Not really. One or two of the sporty boys are horrible to me, they laugh at me because I’m rubbish at catching, but it’s not just me, they’re mean to everyone.’

  ‘Can you tell your housemaster?’ Kitty suggested.

  Elliot shrugged as if that would be futile.

  ‘The thing is, Elliot, when people are mean, it’s usually not because they are bad people but probably because they are a bit sad inside. I used to have a boy be mean to me, his name was Wilson. And yet in the end we became quite good friends. It’s important to remember that you never know anyone’s story by looking at them; you never know what’s going on. They might be sad but making out to be happy, or angry or mean because they don’t know how to explain how sad they’re feeling.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘And you are so lucky, you have all of us, who love you very much and who will always fight your corner.’ Kitty walked forward and embraced the boy she loved. ‘And you know, Elliot, you can talk to Mum and Dad any time.’ She decided to tell Sophie.

  ‘Have you heard about the alphabet game, Elliot?’ Theo asked.

  The boy shook his head.

  ‘Well, here’s a neat trick that someone wonderful once told me all about, and I think it might help you.’

  ‘What is it?’ Elliot looked up at him.

  ‘If your thoughts are too loud, or you feel afraid or you just want to pass the time, you go through the alphabet and find things to match the letters and by the time you get to Z, things have usually calmed a little and you will have taken time to breathe.’

  Kitty could see Elliot was confused. ‘So for example in here we could have A… armchair, B… bench.’

  ‘C… chisel,’ Theo chimed in.

  ‘D… dog!’ Elliot pointed at Twitcher.

  ‘Now you’ve got it!’ Theo beamed. ‘It might help.’

  Elliot nodded. ‘I love you, Grampy, and I love you, Grandma.’

  The boy nestled in, laying his small head on Kitty’s bony chest and linking his hands around her waist. She inhaled the scent of the boy, evocative of summer meadows, and she smiled. This contact, this love was the very essence of joy. She felt the usual flutter of happiness in her chest at hearing those words. ‘And I love you. Now then, how about we go and see if there’s any more tea in the pot?’

  ‘Okay.’ Elliot smiled. ‘Come on, Twitcher! E… easel. F… frame. G… golf club!’

  Kitty winked at her husband.

  Sophie had taken a seat at the table on the patio and was sipping tea while watching Amelie by the hedgerow.

  ‘My friend said you were very rich,’ Elliot announced as he sat on his mum’s lap and spoke to his grampy.

  ‘Did he now?’ Theo half chuckled and sat in his favourite chair.

  ‘He said you were in a magazine article about people who had zillions of pounds and his mum saw it.’

  ‘Sounds about right – I know the mother.’ Sophie pulled a face behind her son’s back.

  ‘Here’s the thing, Elliot. I don’t quite have zillions of pounds, but more importantly, I would swap every penny of it to spend days like this with you and your grandma. Waking up with her by my side makes me the richest man in the world.’

  Kitty looked over at Theo and smiled at him from the wicker chair in which she reclined. The sight of him still sent a bolt of joy racing through her. It made her think of dear old Tizz, who had lost her battle with breast cancer only the year before and whom she still missed dearly. Ruraigh was still hiding away. Hamish and Flo were with him. She remembered Tizz telling her that she might have unrealistic notions about sex and that bodice-ripping and romance were overrated. Kitty had discovered that on this point Tizz was wrong.

  ‘Ignore your grampy, he’s an old fool.’ Kitty began cutting the Victoria sponge that sat on the tray in the centre of the table.

  ‘I might be an old fool, but I am your old fool.’

  Kitty beamed at him.

  ‘Oh, please, you two!’ Sophie tutted.

  ‘Darling, I only hope that you and Greg get to laugh and love every day, even when you are old fools like us.’ She refilled Theo’s cup from the teapot and handed it to him.

  ‘Because it’s the small things that count, Soph.’ Theo nodded. ‘Small things, shared with the person you love. It’s all you need.’ He took a sip and waved to his granddaughter, who waved back from the hedgerow. ‘That’s happiness. At least it is for me.’

  Me too, my darling man. Me too.

  Kitty stood and shielded her eyes as she looked out over the deep glen and beyond to the rolling hills. ‘Where are those kids?’ She was getting anxious. It was late afternoon and the sky had begun to turn mackerel-coloured.

  ‘There they are!’ Theo called out, pointing to the distant hill opposite.

  Kitty watched Missy weave her way across the slope with her two red plaits bouncing up and down. Morgan followed close behind, walking his pony across the field, where clumps of tall thistles and lichen-covered rocks littered the grass.

  ‘Go easy!’ she urged under her breath, knowing the terrain made the going a little tough along the sharp incline. Missy bent forward and patted her pony’s flank with the flat of her palm. At the top of the field, they both broke into a canter and cleared the ridge; it was now only a matter of time before they would make it round to the main bridleway and back home. She felt a wave of relief.

  ‘Well, I don’t know about anyone else, but I think I fancy a swim.’ Theo placed his teacup on the table and went off to change.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Kitty called, never able to resist a dip.

  *

  The two flung their towels on the back of the faded steamer chair and trod the Roman steps cautiously as they slipped into the warm water.

  Kitty swam lengths, pulling through the water until she was out of breath, then floating on her back. This pool was still her most treasured spot on the planet. She bit her lip and felt an unexpected wave of emotion. It happened on occasion, this jolt to her senses, as if time had been erased. It seemed like mere months since she was a young girl, swimming and lost to her watery world while Marjorie prepared food in the kitchen, her mum languished upstairs and her dad roamed the estate with Patrick and Champ by his side. Yet it wasn’t months; decades and decades had passed and she had to concentrate, wrinkling her nose, to figure out where all the time had gone.

  Theo swam over and placed his arms under her back. ‘You look a little thoughtful, my love.’

  She relaxed against him and let the water lap over her shoulders and ears. She didn’t know how long they stayed like that – minutes, an hour? Her hold on time was
skewed, so lost was she to the water, the sunlight, and the sensation of being held, carried, weightless and fragile, in the arms of the man she loved, her Theo.

  ‘I used to think a lot about the girl who swam here, the girl Angus courted, the little girl who didn’t know how to help her mum or support her daddy. I wanted to go back in time and take her in my wise arms and rock her until the sadness had passed, until the shape of that boy had slipped back through the gap in the hedge and the world had returned to a simple, sunny, ordinary day…’

  ‘And now?’ Theo leant forward and kissed her cheek.

  She smiled. ‘Now I want to go back and tell her to hang in there, that everything will turn out all right. That she will go on to meet a boy and she will like the look of him and he will like the look of her and they will fall in love and lead a simple life surrounded by the family they create.’

  ‘That sounds like a lovely way to live, Montrose.’ He spun her around in the water.

  ‘Oh it is, Montgomery. It really is.’

  THE END

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  AMANDA PROWSE is the author of several novels including the number 1 bestsellers What Have I Done?, Perfect Daughter and My Husband’s Wife. Her books have sold millions of copies worldwide, and she is published in dozens of languages. Described by reviewers as ‘the queen of family drama’, Amanda’s characters and stories are often inspired by real life issues. The research for her books has led to partnerships with ITV and Femail among others. Amanda lives in Bristol with her husband and two sons. As her many Twitter followers know, she almost never switches off. But when she does, she can be found drinking tea in her favourite armchair, scribbling ideas for her next book.

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  Amanda Prowse’s No Greater Love sequence is a series of contemporary stories with love at their core. They feature characters whose histories interweave through the generations: ordinary men and women who do extraordinary things for love. They are stories to keep you from switching off the bedside lamp at night, stories to remember long after the final page is turned…

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  Amanda Prowse’s No Greater Courage sequence stars women who have to find the strength to overcome adversity. The thread that runs through these novels is that they all feature extraordinary women who have to dig deep and find resilience they didn’t know they had, just to survive. They are not wealthy, stunning or massively successful, they are instead ordinary women who, when it comes to it, will do all they can to fight for what’s best for their family. Women like you and me…

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  First published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by Head of Zeus Ltd

  Copyright © Amanda Prowse, 2018

  The moral right of Amanda Prowse to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  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, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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  ISBN (E) 9781788542135

  ISBN (HB) 9781788542142

  ISBN (XTPB) 9781788542159

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