The One That Got Away
Page 29
‘Still nothing?’ she asks. ‘I thought you might have remembered him. We had good times at the pub.’
‘And we will again, I promise.’ I put the photo down and look at her; drinking her in from the long legs she’s crossed so artlessly, up to that gorgeous dark hair. I still can’t believe that Stella Simons – this beautiful, magnificent, complex woman – is my wife. I must have done something right in my past life.
‘I know this is a long process,’ I say, ‘but, with your help, I’ll get there. I will. Once you’ve told me things, I can remember them. It’s not as if I have to write everything down just to remember who I am. It’s just a gap in my memory, and it’s only a year or so. Maybe it’ll all even come back at some point. And this—’ I point to my broken body ‘—the physio will get me there. They say I’ll make a full recovery.’
Stell’s smiling – a secret smile. Her whole face is alive; her eyes are dancing.
‘What’s up? Why are you smiling like that?’
‘It’s just something you said. About the pub.’
‘What? About having happy times there again?’
‘Yes.’ She clasps her hands together as if she can’t contain herself. ‘I’ve got some news for you.’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s about the pub! Derek’s selling it, and I’d like us to be the new owners.’
‘What?’
‘You always wanted to run a pub. A gastropub to be specific. This is perfect. The village is gentrified enough to enjoy my cooking. I’d cook and you’d be the landlord,’ says Stell. ‘It’s a fantasy we used to talk about all the time – a dream we had.’
I shake my head, taking this in. Me? A pub? ‘But what about my firm? My work?’
Stell looks down and fiddles with something on the arm of the chair; scratches at it with her nail.
‘Look, this isn’t going to be easy to hear but… before your accident, you were at rock bottom.’ She looks up at me. ‘Things weren’t going well at work. You were being investigated for charity fraud.’ I gasp and she holds her hand up. ‘It’s OK. It was all a misunderstanding. You didn’t do anything wrong. The CPS dropped the case due to lack of evidence. You’re in the clear.’
‘Thank God.’
She reaches for my hand and pats it. ‘It’s weird how you’ve forgotten all this stuff. It’s like you’re a brand-new person; like I have to remind you who you are.’
‘I’m so lucky to have you.’
She smiles. ‘Anyway, about the pub. We have the money to buy it because, when everything was going pear-shaped with the investigation, you decided it’d be better for Wolsey Associates if you pulled out, so you sold the business.’
‘I did?’ I can see it would make sense, but a part of me is glad I can’t remember this because I can imagine I wouldn’t have been happy about selling my stake in a business I’d built up my whole life.
‘So what do you think about the pub?’ Stell asks. She tilts her head and looks at me through her eyelashes with her hands clasped in prayer. On her wrist, a diamond bracelet flashes. ‘Pretty please with a cherry on top?’
‘Are you sure this is something I really wanted?’
‘With all your heart. We used to dream about it, talk about it and fantasise about it – and now we’re finally in a position to do it.’ She really is breathless with excitement and all I want to do is give this woman who saved my life everything that she wants. ‘What do you say? It’ll just be a family venture: you, me and—’ she pats the swell of her belly ‘—our baby. Maybe a dog. A fresh start. The villagers are all rooting for us. They can’t wait for you to come home.’
‘Wow,’ I say. ‘Seems like everyone’s on our side. Look, I trust you. If this is what you say we wanted, then let’s do it.’ It feels good to be making decisions again.
Stell jumps up and flings her arms around my neck, then kisses my cheek.
‘Thank you!’ she says. ‘We’re going to be so happy. I just know it.’
Acknowledgements
This book owes the initial spark of its creation to a school reunion I attended myself twenty-six years after I left school. Like most people, I’d been in two minds about going – but I was curious to see how they all turned out – so I went.
And I’m glad I did because the strangest thing happened that night: I made a lot of new friends. Now I wish I could tap my teenage self on the shoulder as she skulks shyly about the playground with her nose in a book, and tell her: ‘pay a bit more attention to her, and him, and her; they might turn out to be friends for life…’ So, to all my old-new friends from school: thank you for accepting the hand of friendship in adulthood. It’s wonderful to have got to know you at last.
As ever, I’m indebted to the team of people around me whose hard work and dedication go towards making my manuscripts the best they can be: to Luigi and Alison Bonomi; to my fantastic editor, Sally Williamson; to Charlotte Mursell, Alison Lindsay and all who work tirelessly behind the scenes at Harper Collins. There’s always a special place in my heart for the team at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature and Montegrappa, whose First Fiction competition in 2013 was my springboard to success: Isobel Abulhoul, Yvette Judge and Charlie Nahhas, thank you.
Thank you, too, to my little author posse here in Dubai: Rachel Hamilton and Charlotte Butterfield. Extra thanks to Rachel for those sweaty brain-storming meetings on roller-skates and for the patient reading of my first draft, and thanks to my core group of friends – my cheerleaders all around the world – who consistently lift me up.
Last but not least, thanks to my family. To my mum for always believing in me; to my wonderful husband, and to my ever-patient children.
Copyright
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2017
Copyright © Annabel Kantaria 2017
Annabel Kantaria asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Ebook Edition © September 2017 ISBN: 9781474050777