Private Lives

1 July 2019

For once, Bry isn’t late. She is waiting outside the Nettlestone Primary School gates at exactly 3.30 p.m. She’d tiptoed out of her vinyasa flow class a little early, been stern with herself when she was tempted to nip into a shop on the short walk to her goddaughter’s school, Elizabeth’s request in her ears: Please don’t be too late, Clem panics if she thinks she’s been forgotten. Bry has to admit it feels kind of leisurely being early, to be one of the first at the school gates, simply waiting, the afternoon sun warm on her face. It’s a relief not to feel a flood of panic rising in her; not to run. So this is how it feels to be Elizabeth. More parents start to gather, a few faces Bry recognises from around town, parents she knows are friends with Elizabeth, but no one Bry knows well enough to say hello to. They acknowledge her vaguely and turn back to their conversations. Bry can see why Elizabeth fits in perfectly here, leading the chats about school trips and nit treatments.

Suddenly the school doors open and there’s a rush of noise: small, high voices shrieking, laughing; a couple of teachers’ voices lower, louder, warning, ‘Slow down!’ A fast-moving cloud of children fills the little playground, all clamouring towards the gates. Bry sees Clemmie immediately. Her red hair, the same colour as Jack’s, makes her easy to spot. Today it’s plaited, the plait moving side to side like a fox’s tail as Clemmie runs. Her rucksack is too big and full for her small six-year-old frame; it moves awkwardly on her back, out of time with her run, but she’s laughing, her blue eyes and freckled face creased in joy. Clemmie’s not laughing at anything in particular; she’s laughing at the feeling of release, the novelty of Auntie Bry collecting her from school, the chaotic speed of her running. Bry bends, opens her arms, and laughs too. Clemmie runs into her with a gentle thud. Her hair smells of pencil shavings and strawberry lip balm.

‘Auntie Bry!’

Bry holds her and closes her eyes briefly. Clemmie wiggles away before Bry is ready. She wipes a few strands of hair from her face with her palm and says, ‘My class did the song today in assembly, we did.’ Her rucksack starts falling off her shoulders. Bry lifts it on to her own back and reaches for her goddaughter’s hand. Clemmie starts singing a song, presumably the one she sang in assembly, about baking a cake for her friend. She looks up at Bry, dimples showing as she beams. Bry swings their held hands so Clemmie knows she loves her song as they start the short walk through the narrow, hilly old streets of Farley, towards Saint’s Road, where both their families – the Chamberlains and the Kohlis – live. She gives Clemmie a two-pound coin, which she drops into the cap of a man busking on the cobbled bridge.

‘Cheers, girls,’ he says with a wink, and they both wave to a friend who works in the health food shop.

‘Bry! Yoo-hoo! Bry, Clemmie, wait for us!’ Bry turns, slow and reluctant, as her friend Row, still in her yoga leggings, steams up the tree-lined pavement behind them, her daughter Lily tinkling along by her side.

‘Told you you didn’t have to leave yoga early,’ Row says as she catches up with them. Clemmie peels away from Bry and greets Lily enthusiastically, before the two girls run ahead a couple of paces.

‘But I guess Elizabeth would have killed you if you’d been late,’ Row adds, her bangles jingling as she loops her arm through Bry’s. ‘Where is she anyway?’

‘She has a meeting with the council about that petition she got everyone to sign, about reducing the speed limit on Saint’s Road to twenty.’

‘Oh yeah, right. I was wondering what was going on with that,’ Row says, her tone slightly tinted with disdain, as though Elizabeth has been sloppy letting the issue slide when Elizabeth does more for the whole community than anyone else, a fact that people seem to admire yet also pisses them off in equal measure. Bry is used to Elizabeth being divisive. She understands it – sometimes Elizabeth pisses her off too – but she still bristles slightly at Row’s tone. Like a sibling, she feels that she is justified in highlighting Elizabeth’s failings – how uptight and controlling she can be – but she can’t abide anyone else doing so, even her own husband, Ash.

‘Lil, shoelace!’ Row calls to her daughter, and the four of them stop so Lily can retie her lace before Row continues, ‘So, does it feel weird doing school pick-up? Alba will be here in September, won’t she?’

Bry tries to picture her four-year-old daughter not in her usual choice of outfit – yellow wellies and pink tutu, perhaps – but wearing the same blue gingham dress and black shoes as Lily and Clemmie. She imagines Alba shaking her little brown head and saying, ‘Not wearing it, Mumma.’

It makes her heart flood and break simultaneously. ‘God, don’t. It’s such a weird thought.’

‘I know, I know. But everyone feels like that, trust me. I cried and cried after I dropped Lil off the first time. But then, you know, suddenly you have all this time and it’s amazing, so …’

Bry nods; she does this a lot when she’s with Row.

Loves giving advice, whether you ask for it or not, doesn’t she? Elizabeth said about her once.

‘Clemmie, what do you think about Alba coming to Nettlestone after the summer holidays?’ Bry asks.

Clemmie’s head shoots up from her hushed conversation with Lily and she says, ‘Baby Alba’s coming to my school?’

Bry nods, smiles, and Clemmie jumps up and down a couple of times. From her kneeling position on the pavement, Lily watches Clemmie, confused.

‘Why do you like her so much?’ she asks.

‘Baby Alba is like my little sister,’ Clemmie explains patiently, still celebrating. ‘Isn’t she, Auntie Bry?’

Bry leans forward, kisses Clemmie on the top of her head, and says, ‘Oh, that’s a lovely thing to say, Clem, so nice for Alba to have a big sister … Just make sure she doesn’t hear you call her Baby Alba,’ she adds with a wink, as though it’s their secret how cross Alba gets when people do that.

Clemmie turns to Lily and says seriously, ‘Alba hates being called a baby.’

The girls start to skip on and Row’s about to take Bry’s arm again when Bry notices the corner shop on the other side of the road is open.

‘Actually, Row, I think we’ll leave you here. I’ve got to pick up a few bits.’

‘Oh, OK,’ Row says, pulling her arm away. ‘See you on Saturday then?’

‘Saturday?’

Row laughs at Bry, her eyes widening in genuine surprise as Bry adds quickly, trying to cover up her forgetfulness, ‘Oh yeah, yeah, Elizabeth’s barbecue.’ She lifts her eyebrows, to show that she exasperates herself sometimes, before calling to Clemmie, holding her small hand in her own as they cross the quiet road.

‘Bye, Lily, bye, Row!’ Clemmie waves; Lily waves back and Row blows them a kiss before taking her phone out of her pocket as she shoos Lily on.

In the shop, Bry heads straight to the ice cream fridge. ‘Choose whatever you like.’

‘Anything?’ ‘Anything.’

They spend the next five minutes agonising over whether Clemmie would like chocolate with sprinkles or strawberry ice cream more, before she decides to have the same multi-coloured ice lolly as Bry.

Bry pays, forgetting the bread and milk Ash said they needed at home, and the two of them leave hand in hand, their ice lollies already melting in the afternoon sun, a medley of red, orange and yellow creeping down their wrists.

‘There you are!’

Elizabeth is standing, hands on hips, outside the Chamberlain family home, a Victorian house, the sun casting dappled shadows through the magnolia tree in the small front garden. She looks like a mother from the past in her red striped apron, her dark blonde bob held back from her face by two clips, and she’s wearing proper make-up – eye-liner and lipstick – presumably for her meeting. She’s also holding a bottle of white wine Bry immediately recognises as the Sancerre Ash buys in bulk.

‘Mummy!’ Clemmie skips towards her, presses her lips to Elizabeth’s.

Elizabeth takes her hand and says, ‘Poppet, you’re so sticky!’ ‘Auntie Bry and me had lollies,’ she says, sticking out her colourful tongue as evidence.

‘Auntie Bry and I, pops, and yuck, I don’t want to see your tongue, thank you,’ Elizabeth adds in mock horror over Clemmie’s head to Bry, ‘Lollies before supper, Auntie Bry?’

Bry shrugs. ‘Godmother’s privilege,’ she says, showing Elizabeth her own coloured tongue before kissing her friend’s cheek.

‘I’ll remember that when I return the favour,’ Elizabeth replies, picking a bit of leaf out of Bry’s dark hair. ‘I’ve just been over to yours. Ash and Alba are coming over in a bit. The meeting finished earlier than I thought, so I had a few minutes to make a fish pie.’

Bry thinks about the can of baked beans she’d planned for Alba’s supper and the bread she suddenly remembers she didn’t buy, and feels simultaneously grateful to Elizabeth and ashamed of her own forgetfulness. But it doesn’t last long because Clemmie takes Bry’s sticky hand in her own and says, ‘Yay! Baby Alba is coming for supper!’ and Elizabeth and Bry smile at each other and say at the same time, ‘Don’t call her Baby Alba!’ before they head into the familiar warmth of Number 10 Saint’s Road.

Summer is already in full swing in Elizabeth and Jack’s garden. Max and Charlie have set up their cricket stumps at the end of the lawn, their gloves, pads and bat left on the grass waiting for their return from school. Clemmie’s pink paddling pool sits a strategic distance away at the other end, half full of water. The lawn, recently mown, is emerald, and the apple and pear trees at the bottom of the garden next to the wall that leads to the woods beyond are in full leaf. Max and Charlie will be home soon; the kids always eat together at 5 p.m., so Clemmie skips upstairs to change out of her uniform, and Elizabeth steps out of the kitchen French doors and gestures to Bry to join her at the garden table in front of the knobbled flint wall that is covered in creeping jasmine.

‘I know it’s early, but it’s your husband’s fault . . .’ She hands Bry a glass of the Sancerre.

‘He is such a bad influence,’ Bry agrees.

Bry closes her eyes, feeling the July sun pour over her skin like warm cream while Elizabeth starts to tell Bry about her ‘meeting from hell’, and Bry thinks, Yes, yes, this is what the long winter wait was for, these simple, beautiful pleasures.

For Bry, being with Elizabeth is the easiest, most natural thing in the world. But it hasn’t always been this way. When they’d first met at university, Elizabeth had been dating a friend of Bry’s called Adam. No one in Bry’s friendship group understood why laid-back, crumpled Adam was dating this tall, statuesque blonde who looked Norwegian but was actually from Essex. She was organised, cynical, and hated recreational drugs and excessive drinking, which made her – in Bry’s misted view – an uptight pain in the arse.

It wasn’t until Adam dumped her and Bry heard Elizabeth crying in the next-door cubicle in the pub toilets (I’m only upset because he got there first ) that Bry started to like her. She passed her loo roll under the cubicle door and after that they’d got steadily and thoroughly pissed together. It revolutionised Bry’s life. She discovered in Elizabeth a relationship where there was no room for competition, for comparisons or envy, simply because they were so different. They weren’t exactly chalk and cheese; more like cheese and pineapple – a weird, unexpected pairing that just worked. She’d never met someone her own age who was like Elizabeth: she was into politics, wasn’t ashamed to say she wanted to make money, but she laughed easily and cared more about others than anyone Bry had ever met. Whereas Bry wanted to be an artist, was in love with all things bohemian and hated politics. Bry wore a hemp scarf wrapped around her head and Elizabeth carried a little black handbag, which held her phone, a book, a fold-up hairbrush and her perfectly organised wallet. Elizabeth kept all her receipts; Bry stored fivers in her bra. Bry held her hands in the air, swaying her whole body when she danced, while Elizabeth sidestepped, buttocks clenched hard as a walnut, and kept a close eye on her watch. It was as if each was discovering a fascinating new country in the other, a place they’d never choose to live but somewhere they knew they could always seek refuge when their own world was shaking.

‘Bry, you’re not even listening to me!’

Bry opens her eyes. Elizabeth has her phone in front of her and is pecking away at her calendar with one finger.

‘So obviously, it’s July already, and with the fete, barbecue, Clemmie’s birthday and end-of-term stuff, there aren’t any free weekends left. So how about we organise your birthday camping trip early August – say, the weekend of the third?’

Bry had suggested way back in the safety of February that perhaps a camping weekend would be the best way to celebrate the fucking appalling fact that she was turning forty, and Elizabeth, of course, hasn’t forgotten. Bry flushes, hot and uncomfortable.

‘Can we talk about it another time?’ she groans. ‘Prefer- ably never.’

Elizabeth puts her phone down, keeps her blue eyes on her friend as she takes a sip of wine, and says, ‘Look, Bry, I know you won’t believe me, but you’re actually in very good shape for forty.’

‘I’m telling you, it’s all the yoga.’

‘Bollocks to yoga. I mean, you’re married to a great man you love who just happens to be very rich; you have a brilliant daughter, you live in an amazing house in an amazing town opposite your amazing friend, and when your brilliant daughter goes to school you’re going to find a new career – some arty, hippie nonsense that I won’t get but you’ll make a huge success of, so you know, I just don’t think there’s any cause to freak out. Your life is on track.’

‘You freaked out when you turned forty.’

‘I did not!’

‘Yes, you did; I just wasn’t allowed to say anything about it. Remember when I came over the night before your birthday and you were ironing the kids’ pants?’

Elizabeth grimaces.

‘Oh yeah, now you mention it, that was a bit of a low point …’ Elizabeth takes another sip of wine, changes tack. ‘Fine. Freak out if you want, but let’s confirm this date first so I can figure out …’ Her eye is drawn to a streak of bright pink and yellow as a small red-headed bird flaps her arms across the grass towards the paddling pool.

‘Clem, really? Now?’ Elizabeth calls to her daughter, who has changed into her swimsuit, her bare skin the colour of milk.

But Clemmie isn’t listening; she’s stopped dead by the edge of the pool and is staring down at something in the water. At the same time, there’s a shout from inside the house: ‘Mum! We’re home!’ The boys are back and Elizabeth goes to them in the kitchen, like a first responder ready to take on the triumphs and challenges of their day.

Bry goes to kneel next to Clemmie, who is now cupping her hands in the pool and saying softly, ‘Poor baby ladybird, poor ladybaby.’

Inside her hands, swirling in the water with its stocky legs waving absurdly in the air, is a ladybird.

‘She’s drowning, Auntie Bry, she’s drowning!’ Clemmie’s voice lifts in panic, tears close.

‘No, look, we can save her.’ Bry flips the insect over like a tiddlywink and lifts Clemmie’s hand towards the flailing legs. The ladybird immediately starts trudging up Clemmie’s wrist as though nothing at all has happened, leaving tiny puddles of water as it goes.

Clemmie giggles and says, ‘Tickles!’

‘Well done for spotting her just in time, Clem.’

‘Do you think she’s hungry, Auntie Bry?’

The two of them gather daisies and leaves to make a nest for the rescued ladybird. Clemmie calls her Dandelion, and they’re just about to introduce Dandelion to her new home when Bry spots Alba running across the grass towards them. Her daughter’s little chest is puffed out with effort, her chubby legs pumping away as fast as they can, her brown hair a chaos of curls around her – she’s like a lovely typhoon. She’s grinning widely, her eyes fixed on Clemmie, laughing in anticipation of her joke, her fingers already together and straight, just like her dad showed her. She clatters to a stop and lands both prepared hands over Clemmie’s eyes. This might not go well.

‘Guess who, ’lemmie?’ Alba squeals, breathing hard.

But Clemmie twists easily away and says, ‘No, Alba, you have to shh. Look, we’re showing Dandelion her new house and all her new things.’

Alba squats on her haunches next to Clemmie, like a stout mechanic checking over a vehicle. She looks from Clemmie to the bundle of leaves and back to Clemmie again.

‘Ohhh,’ she says before her face twists in confusion. ‘But beetles have wings, not things!’

Elizabeth brings out the fish pie a few minutes later, and Max and Charlie follow with plates and cutlery, shoelaces flapping, their uniforms crumpled and askew after the school day. Charlie calls, ‘Hi, Auntie Bry,’ and Max waves. Ash arrives soon after. He holds Bry’s shoulder as he gives her a kiss, before topping up Bry and Elizabeth’s glasses and pouring himself a large one. Bry opens a bag of vegetable crisps for the adults to share, and Clemmie hides Dandelion on her lap under the table while Elizabeth’s busy getting water.

‘How was yoga?’ Ash asks, sitting next to his wife as Elizabeth settles Alba on a cushion. Max and Charlie start arguing about some cricket match in the West Indies, and the girls pass secret little pieces of mashed potato to Dandelion.

‘Was mad old Emma there leading the oms?’ Elizabeth asks, pulling her apron over her head and adding, ‘Elbows off the table, please, Max.’ Max rolls his eyes and hovers his elbow just above the table. Charlie giggles and looks nervously towards Elizabeth, who, having taken her seat opposite Bry and Ash, only needs to raise her eyebrows at her eldest son for him to submit and lower his elbows off the table.

‘No, no, she wasn’t, actually. Apparently she’s been a bit unwell.’

One side of Elizabeth’s mouth curls up and she raises her wine glass as she says, ‘Aw, is one of her chakras playing up again? That woman is not in my good books – she offered to do some research into local traffic-calming initiatives and has completely flaked out on me; not that I’m surprised.’

‘When was she ever in your good books, Elizabeth?’ Bry counters, trying not to get defensive. Ash and Elizabeth love nothing more than taking the piss out of Bry’s hippie friends.

Elizabeth nods in agreement. ‘Yes, that’s fair.’

‘I saw her in Waitrose yesterday,’ Ash says, leaning forward for a crisp. ‘I was at the cheese counter and heard her beads and bells and whatever clanking together all the way over from the vegan bit. I tried to pretend I hadn’t seen her, but she caught me.’

‘Clemmie, eat some fish, please,’ Elizabeth interjects before turning to Ash and continuing, ‘I fear for you, Ashy, there is no escape in Farley.’ Only Elizabeth gets away with calling Ash ‘Ashy’.

‘Don’t I bloody know it,’ he says. Elizabeth frowns briefly at his swearing in front of the kids, but neither Ash nor the kids notice. ‘I’ll never get used to bumping into people. I just don’t understand why anyone would want to have a bollocks, awkward conversation in the street about nothing when we could just nod or wave or something. Seriously, if I want to see you, I’ll message and arrange to meet up, but why do we have to stop and talk about the weather just because we happen to live close to each other and be walking down the same bit of pavement at the same time? I don’t get it.’

Elizabeth is frowning openly at Ash now, before she shakes her head and says, ‘It’s called community, Ashy.’

‘No, it’s not; it’s called a waste of bloody time.’

Elizabeth keeps talking, ignoring Ash.

‘It’s called getting to know your neighbours, being responsible, caring for one another.’

Ash wrinkles his nose in mock distaste.

‘Nope. Not for me.’

‘Honestly, you can take the boy out of North London but you can’t take North London out of the boy.’

‘Amen to that.’

They’d moved to Farley two years ago, leaving Ash’s beloved North London, where his elderly parents have lived ever since they moved to Britain from New Delhi fifty years ago. Ash had lived every one of his first forty-five years in London but he left willingly because Bry promised clean air for their daughter, less stress for Ash, and more like-minded people. Ash’s suits have been replaced with shorts and flip-flops; he’s grown a beard which is more grey than black, and he seems to have his old Ray-Bans welded to the top of his head. Before they moved, he’d sold the online digital marketing company he’d spent over a decade building, a company that cost him his first marriage and means he can only talk about his two sons’ early years in a vague way, like a kindly uncle and not their dad. When everything broke down with his first wife Linette, Ash had pretty much sworn his life away, decided he’d marry his work. He’d make a lot of money, buy all the best shit and intimidate his employees. He’d live in Zone 1 and date women to make other men jealous. It would be a cold existence but it would be reliable. But then all this had gone to hell when Bry, with her long, dark hair and chocolate eyes, bounced into his life at a work event. He promised Bry – actually swore and cried – that he’d never, ever let work take priority over everything else again. So he didn’t take too much convincing to move to Farley – a town they knew they both liked after visiting the Chamberlains for weekend breaks from London.

The Chamberlain kids have all finished their fish pie, but they know they have to wait for Alba to finish before getting the fruit salad that’s waiting for them in the kitchen. Three sets of eyes watch as Alba crams the last forkful of smudgy potato and fish into her mouth before clattering her fork down and clapping.

Charlie clears all the plates into the kitchen before coming back out with the fruit salad, and punches Max on the arm when his elder brother starts spooning their pudding into the waiting bowls – ‘Max knows it’s my favourite job!’ he wails to his mum.

With an aggravated sigh, Elizabeth says, ‘Max, you know the one who clears the table gets to serve pudding. Stop upsetting your brother.’

Once peace is restored and the kids are bent over their bowls again, a large figure fills the French doors to the kitchen, and Jack calls out, ‘Surprise!’

There are cries of ‘Daddy!’ from around the table before Jack Chamberlain makes loud smacking noises as he kisses all four of the kids, pausing to be introduced surreptitiously to Dandelion as Elizabeth says, glancing at her watch, ‘You finished early!’

Jack’s cheeks redden slightly, but he doesn’t say anything. Once he’s done with the kids, he makes a show of kissing all the adults too – even Ash on both cheeks – making Charlie and Max laugh. Ash pours his friend some wine and Jack tugs his tie, loosening it from around his neck. He’s not ready to sit down, not yet, the energy from the city still quickening through him. Bry offers him some crisps but Jack shakes his head and pats his only slightly domed stomach.

‘No thanks. Big lunch.’ Jack works for a Chinese property developer in London, something that Bry always finds incongruous with his foppish, affable nature. Ash reckons that’s why the Chinese hired him in the first place (They fucking love him, he’s their ginger Hugh Grant ).

‘Busy day?’ Elizabeth asks, taking a crisp herself.

‘Always,’ Jack says, without meeting his wife’s eye. ‘So, is this what you lovely lot get up to, drinking wine in the sun while I’m slogging away at work?’

‘Pretty much, mate, pretty much,’ says Ash, leaning back on the bench, tipping his sunglasses down from his forehead as he drapes an arm over Bry’s shoulders.

Elizabeth laughs as if Jack’s suggestion is the most ridiculous thing she’s ever heard, and she launches into the story about her meeting at the council. ‘So apparently we need to fill out yet another application that no one ever mentioned before today’s meeting, which is just typical …’

While Elizabeth talks, Bry feels Ash’s warm hand on her shoulder and tries to remember the last time she came home energised and buzzing from a day’s work. When she met Ash, she had been a documentary producer, working on what Ash called ‘medium-brow social commentaries’, which was a nice way of saying ‘fairly shit fly-on-the-wall stuff’. She made behind-the-scenes series about hospital wards and prison blocks, and had just set up her own company with a director colleague of hers when she discovered she was pregnant. Her colleagues didn’t find out until Bry burst into tears after refusing a glass of champagne in celebration of their first commission – a documentary slated for a 3 p.m. Sunday slot about people who work on the Underground. Bry was nearly eight months pregnant when they started filming, and eight months and one week when she finally accepted she wasn’t going to finish the film. She would have gone back to it if they’d stayed in London, but now Pool Productions is flying, Bry seamlessly replaced by someone else.

In the beginning, Bry’s life had been absorbed by her relationship with Ash – their move out of London, visits from Theo and Bran (his two sons with Linette), Alba, the house renovations. When they’d been in Farley a few months, she’d tried putting Alba into a nursery, stating she was going to train to be a yoga teacher. But Alba cried when Bry did her best to cheerfully wave goodbye and she would spend the day a tight ball of anxiety, trying to learn about yogic breathing and meditation while all she could see was Alba red-faced and wailing, ignored by staff in a lonely corner of the nursery. She decided yoga could wait; she’d focus on transforming herself into a brilliant mum. She’d keep Alba at home and focus on learning how to bake, imaginative play and curtain patterns. But the transformation she imagined hadn’t happened, not yet at least.

And now this last year, especially with Alba in preschool, the extra time in her life has seemed more of a hindrance than a blessing. Bry has noticed how it seems to take her at least three times as long as Elizabeth to complete a simple task, such as making sandwiches or paying a bill. Time seems to spill around her, messy and uncontainable. She sees the same thing in Ash. How life sags around him like excess skin. True, Ash does a couple of days’ consultancy work a week from home, and he did oversee the renovations of their new home, but still, they see too much of each other. That’s their problem.

Ash lifts his arm away from Bry and tugs at his short, grey beard, which means he’s uncomfortable about something; perhaps he senses what she’s thinking. He gets up from the table and Alba laughs as she stands on her chair to spoon fruit salad into his mouth. Clemmie asks Elizabeth’s permission to get down before she runs over to sit in her dad’s lap. Max kicks Charlie on the bottom as they carry the empty bowls inside, laughing, and then run, shouting, all the way to their cricket stumps. After the boys have left, Alba asks for some more, and after batting Ash away she sits quietly, nodding seriously and singing a made-up song between mouthfuls of orange and banana. Bry sees Elizabeth cast a quick glance at Alba. If she was one of Elizabeth’s kids she’d be told not to sing with her mouth full, but Bry catches her eye, reminds her silently about their agreement to respect their different ways of parenting. They’ve done this for twenty years, after all – recognised a difference between them, talked about it as much as they could bear and then, like respectful warriors, put their swords down and quietly backed away from each other.

‘Quick, Auntie Bry, quick, Baby Alba! Come and look – Dandelion has a family!’ Clemmie calls from the apple tree at the bottom of the garden. Alba puffs out her chest, makes her hands into fists and steams into her fastest run, Bry following behind, her toes cool in the grass and a warmth in her chest.

Yes, this is it, she thinks, this is my happiness, and her whole life suddenly feels like one long joyful moment.

Enjoyed this extract?

Click below to order the ebook!

SHOP NOW