first to find herself with the odd hour not spoken for – the time hers to do with as she wished. With both Tom and Suzie out working now, time to call her own had increased. Time that Anthony had already suggested she used to get more involved with the constituency, take on more of the paperwork for him – in effect become even more of a full-time politician’s wife. Of course, Vicky supported Anthony in every way she could, but she didn’t relish the thought of taking on more responsibility in his political life. Politics was his life, not hers.
Although it had to be said that Anthony himself didn’t seem that happy these days either. His initial euphoria the day he’d won his seat and promised ‘to do his best for everyone’ had gradually disappeared. Killed, Vicky suspected, by the mountain of bureaucracy he was faced with on a day to day basis. If she did take on more of the office side of things, it would free him up to concentrate fully on the things that were important to him. And leave her life still in the rut she was beginning to feel desperate to escape from.
Vicky sighed. After all the years of being a mum and a wife, surely it was her turn now? She wanted, she realised, to be Vicky Lewis again. To find the girl she’d once been. To pick up the pieces of the life she’d abandoned when she became pregnant and married Anthony. She’d enjoyed her short foray into the world of books and publishing after university, but she didn’t particularly want to go back into that world. At least not from the same angle. She’d always longed to write and she’d had this idea for a novel for ages now. Had even started to scribble sentences and scenes down in a notebook she kept hidden in her bag but there always seemed to be something more important to attend to when she had time to spare.
She searched the wooden cabinet underneath the television where they kept their collection of DVDs. A Facebook advertisement she’d seen a few days ago for a competition to win a retreat type holiday in the South of France had reminded her of one of her all time favourite films, Enchanted April. While Anthony was in Westminster this evening for a crucial vote and both the children were out, she was going to pour herself a glass of wine and lose herself in a gentle story set in a world she suspected sadly no longer existed. Bliss.
Two hours later as the closing credits faded away, Vicky sighed. Italy in the 1920s must have been wonderful. Replacing the DVD back in its case, she picked up her laptop and logged on to Facebook. Looking at the competition questions again, she briefly wondered whether it was genuine or just a con to bombard people with dodgy internet holiday sites.
The question who wrote the book was easy – Elizabeth von Arnim – rumoured to have been the lover of H. G. Wells at one time.
Which character did she identify with the most? Lady Caroline Dester was too young. Lottie Wilkins? A bit perhaps, but she didn’t have children. Mrs Fisher was too old, so it would have to be Rose who spent a lot of her time with children and did good works.
Vicky smiled to herself. Apart from two mornings a week in the local charity shop, she didn’t do good works per se, she left that to Anthony, but she’d done her child rearing duties – anyway, she had a soft spot for Miranda Richardson, the actress who played Rose, ever since her days of Queenie in Blackadder.
But as for the reason why she should win a holiday, that was difficult. The question made her feel selfish and self-indulgent. There were far more deserving people out there; people who couldn’t afford to go away; people who needed to get away. She simply wanted some time on her own to gather her thoughts and make a plan of what she wanted to do. Not necessarily for the rest of her life, but for the next few years at least.
A holiday in a retreat would give her the ideal opportunity to think things through, have time to concentrate on her writing and to decide whether or not she could actually write a novel. Shame it wasn’t in Italy like the film, but the South of France was a good substitute. And those particular days at the beginning of summer were perfect. Tom and Suzie would be busy at work and Parliament would still be sitting, so Anthony wouldn’t have much free time to miss her. It wouldn’t hurt the three of them to look after themselves for once. Maybe she’d ask Anthony’s mother to come and stay.
The fact that the competition questions were based around a favourite film must surely mean she’d be on the same wavelength as other people should she win? Which was unlikely as she’d never won anything in her life – oh wait. Once, on holiday, she’d hooked a plastic duck at a fairground to win a goldfish in a plastic bag, but her mother had vetoed accepting it as it would only die before they could get it home and into a proper bowl. She remembered howling all the way back to their holiday chalet.
Oh, blow it. She’d send an entry off in her maiden name, Vicky Lewis. The chances of her actually winning were what? Probably as high as the odds of her winning the lottery. But, and it wasn’t a big but Vicky realised, when she didn’t win, she’d find a cheap B&B somewhere on the coast and do an Agatha Christie for those ten days at the beginning of June.
2
Hiding away from the world every evening in her small flat after the mammoth fallout that had occurred in her life, Chelsea Newman spent a lot of hours on her laptop. She flipped through endless Facebook pages, read all the fake news and entered mindless giveaways and competitions. None of which helped her to forget how stupid and gullible she’d been, behaving like a teenager rather than a twenty-three year old woman with her own business. At least her father hadn’t heard about the disaster that was her personal life yet, and she prayed every night that he never would. She could imagine his sorrow, mixed with disdain at her actions, if there were to be repercussions for the business. Especially after the way he’d supported Elsie and her.
She and Elsie, best friends since catering college, had been keen to set up their own bijou cordon-bleu catering business. When the bank had taken one look at their business plan and refused them the necessary loan, her father had made them an offer they couldn’t refuse, despite Chelsea wanting to do things independently.
A successful and shrewd businessman, Simon Newman offered to bankroll them and give them six months interest free credit to help them get the business underway. Chelsea accepted only after she’d extracted a promise from him that he wouldn’t interfere with the way she and Elsie ran it. So far, he’d stuck to his word.
They’d done very little advertising, relying on their cooking to be their best advertisement for spreading the word. Just two years later, and they’d found their niche in the growing demand for weekday lunchtime functions and the occasional evening cocktail party. They employed one full-timer, Tina, who helped in the kitchen and two casual part-timers to help serve the food at functions. They were paying back the loan and Chelsea was planning to move out of her rented flat at the end of summer and buy one of the apartments in the new development on the edge of town.
To celebrate the anniversary of the business Simon had taken her out for an expensive evening – theatre followed by dinner – telling her how proud he was of her success. Neither of them mentioned her mother. Elsie had, of course, been invited but couldn't come the only evening Simon was available.
Meeting Kit three months ago had been the icing on the cake for her. Tall, blond and too handsome for his own good, she kept pinching herself at her good luck in meeting him. Chelsea couldn’t believe that he liked her as much as she adored him. Of course, with him working and travelling a lot as a publishing representative, they didn’t see each other as often as Chelsea would like. Kit did text or phone every evening though and that kept her going from one date to the next.
Her own life was in a happy place but she was becoming increasingly worried about Elsie. On the surface she was still the same, but Chelsea had sensed that something was troubling her – something that Elsie had refused to talk about when Chelsea had tackled her. She’d simply shrugged and insisted there wasn’t anything wrong. Chelsea
