Peterson Ten Years On

An unmissable small-town romance about love lost and secrets kept
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-83501-201-7
Verlag: Bedford Square Publishers
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 304 Seiten

Rebecca is happily married and content with her job in a London art gallery. But when tragedy strikes and her life comes crashing down around her, she flees to her childhood home in the country, hoping time will help her heal. Born in the same country town, Joe had a falling out with Rebecca and hasn't seen or spoke to her in a decade. Now he's the successful owner of a wine bar, and is breaking local hearts. Rebecca finds living with her parents again a challenge. Nor is it easy to discover that Joe lives and works too close for comfort. When she sees him again, bittersweet memories rush back to haunt her, along with unanswered questions. Will she ever be able to forgive, forget and move on?

Growing up, Alice was always known to family and friends as, 'Alice, the tennis player'. Aged 18, she was on the verge of signing a tennis scholarship to America, but fate had other ideas. She began to experience pain in her right hand, which then developed into rheumatoid arthritis - an autoimmune condition which has been life-changing in every way. Alice's writing career began in her early 20s, encouraged by a friend who believed she might find it therapeutic to process the loss of her tennis and old life. Alice's books are infused with her experience of adversity and grief, and the love, support and friendship she has received. This all finds its way on to the page, along with a lovely dose of humour. Alongside Alice's writing, she is now a fully qualified psychotherapist. This was something she always wanted to do as she never forgot her first counsellor, who helped her to rebuild her life after her diagnosis. Finally, Alice loves dog walking, a glass of white wine and winning a game of cards. At heart, she will always be competitive. 'Alice the tennis player' is still in her, seen in her courageous fighting spirit.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Peterson, Alice

Leseproben

1

Ten Years Later

‘He will live on in spirit, forever with us,’ Kitty says tearfully. After her reading, she returns to her seat.

Olly’s mother, Carolyn, sits next to me, my father on my other side. I stare ahead. This can’t be happening. I want to stand up and scream, tell my family and friends to go. There’s been a terrible mistake.

‘Mrs Sullivan?’ I see the policeman standing at our front door that evening. It was late, about eight o’clock, and I couldn’t understand where Olly was, since he’d promised to be home by six thirty. ‘I’ll pick up a bottle of wine on the way,’ he’d said in his message.

‘May I come in?’ the policeman asked.

He refused a cup of tea.

‘I’m so sorry, I’m afraid I have bad news,’ he said. ‘Your husband was involved in a road accident earlier this afternoon.’

Carolyn touches my arm, encouraging me to stand for the next hymn, ‘Dear Lord and Father of Mankind’. She looks frail, her fine brown hair scooped back from her face with a comb, tears in her pale-blue eyes. Her skin is ashen. Halfway through the verse she grips my hand, as if we will get through this together. But any moment now, I will wake up and the only touch I shall feel is Olly’s arms around me. I’ll be able to tell him how vivid my dream had all seemed; how the church was packed with friends and family. How sad Olly’s father Victor had looked in his suit and glasses. He appeared smaller, greyer, stooped in grief, and I saw deep regret in his eyes. It was too late for him to get to know his son. There was a price he’d paid for putting work before his family.

‘You’re making it sound scarily real,’ Olly will say.

We’ll laugh and hold on to one another, kiss, make love, stay in bed for at least another hour. Then we’ll go for a walk in the park, enjoy a lazy lunch, and I won’t take anything for granted again.

I am brought back to reality when I hear the sound of footsteps echoing against the stone floor. Simon, Olly’s elder brother, is walking to the front of the church, clutching notes. He’s a bigger build than Olly, darker hair. He gave up the police force to move his wife and two children to Northumberland a year ago, to be closer to Carolyn and Victor. ‘He was always the action man, and the bossy one,’ Olly used to tell me.

I like him. He’s brave. I could not stand up there today.

‘Olly was the musical one in our family,’ he begins. ‘He started learning the piano when he was six. There was I, busy playing army and building dens in the garden when Olly was playing Chopin and composing music in his head. His other passion was writing.’

I shut my eyes and try to listen, but images of the morning before he’d died keep on coming back to haunt me.

‘Surprise!’ I’d said.

Olly helped himself to a croissant, saying, ‘What a treat.’ Rarely did we eat breakfast together before work; I was always in too much of a rush. ‘By the way, the shower-curtain rail thingy collapsed, I’ll fix it later,’ he said.

‘Did it? Oh well,’ I said, pouring the coffee.

‘Becca? Are you feeling guilty? Have you had an affair with Glitz?’

Patrick van Glitzen, or Glitz as I call him, is my sixty-five-year-old boss. In his late fifties he set up a modern British art gallery on New Bond Street. It’s now one of the most successful galleries in the country.

‘Oh shucks, is it that obvious?’ I leaned across to kiss him. ‘I’ve got some exciting news.’

‘We don’t have to visit your parents this weekend?’

‘Cheeky sod. You know Norman Graham?’

‘The guy who paints blocks of colour.’

‘That sell for thousands. Yesterday I sold a series of six. Six, Olly!’

‘That’s great. So, you must have got a beefy commission?’

‘Yep, but it’s even better, Ol. Glitz is going to review my pay and give me a small bonus at the end of the summer.’

Olly smiled. ‘That’s incredible.’

‘So, I was thinking…’

‘Uh-oh, that’s dangerous.’ Olly poured himself another coffee.

‘I was thinking it’s time we moved out of here—’

‘Not that again.’

‘Olly! That’s not fair.’

‘It’s just you keep on going on about it.’

‘Well, that’s because we live in a shoebox and I’m sick of it.’

‘I know,’ he said, wounded pride in his voice. Olly felt uncomfortable talking about money. He felt he should be the one earning more, but teaching music and writing a novel in the hope it was going to get published one day was never going to get us on to the property ladder. So, I’d given up my freelance illustrating to work for Glitz. Olly felt guilty that I was the one giving up my dream. I’d been passionate about painting since childhood and had studied art in Florence. He kept on promising that he’d make it up to me. He would finish his script and get a publishing deal.

‘There are a couple of witnesses,’ the policeman had continued. ‘Your husband overtook on a corner…’

‘No,’ I uttered. ‘That’s so unlike him! He was always careful, he promised he’d be careful…’

He nodded with respect, but continued nevertheless. ‘He didn’t see the oncoming vehicle until it was too late. There was nothing the driver could have done.’

‘Olly drew people towards him,’ Simon continues, his voice wavering now, ‘with his infectious enthusiasm and charm.’

I touch the photograph on the back of the service sheet. Olly is smiling; there’s warmth in his eyes. This picture was taken the night we moved into our one-bedroom apartment. It seemed so grand and grown-up four years ago. We were eating takeaway and drinking cheap champagne by the fire.

‘It isn’t hard to see why he has so many friends here today.’ Simon gestures to the packed congregation.

But I know one person who isn’t in the church. Joe Lawson. Joe should be here. He was Olly’s best friend. The three of us used to hang out together.

And then I destroyed us.

‘Oliver was kind,’ ten-year-old Barnaby is saying to me, clutching his mother’s hand. Olly used to teach piano privately, and Barnaby was one of his star pupils.

My best friend Kitty thanks him for me, saying he’d played his Chopin piece beautifully and Olly would have been very proud.

I move through the crowded church hall, pushing past people drinking tea and eating cake. Mum catches me up, dressed in a simple grey outfit. ‘Darling, there you are.’ Pippa joins us, holding on to one of her twins, Oscar. Oscar’s three. He has chocolate brownie smudged around his mouth. Pippa doesn’t know what to say. Nor does Mum. No one does. How can they? I force a smile. ‘I need some fresh air. I’ll be back in a minute.’

I can feel them watching me helplessly as I walk away.

Outside, I lean against the wall and take a deep breath. I see the policeman again, standing in front of our fireplace. ‘He didn’t see the oncoming vehicle… it was too late.’ Why was he so reckless? What was he thinking about? I feel angry, and when I’m not angry I feel so sad, as if I’ll fall apart, break into a thousand tiny pieces. I wish with every beat in my heart that I could rewind time, go back to that day. Maybe if I’d waited till the evening to talk to him about moving out of the flat, he’d still be alive.

‘We could rent somewhere more central,’ I’d said, showing him the two properties that I’d circled in the brochure the night before, when Olly had been out playing poker with his friends. ‘I reckon with what we’re both earning, and if we tap into our savings, we could afford it.’

Olly glanced at the flats, but was quiet. I watched him put on his jacket. ‘What do you think?’ I pressed, trying to hide my frustration. ‘Both flats are close to the river and to your work.’ Olly worked in the music department of a school in Chiswick.

‘We could have an extra half-hour in bed,’ was my last attempt to get something positive out of him.

‘We’ll talk about it later.’

‘Is everything all right?’

‘Fine. Listen, got to run.’ He grabbed his motorbike helmet off the sofa. Detecting my disappointment, he came back to me, pressed his forehead against mine. ‘I’m tired. Hungover. Entirely self-inflicted,’ he added.

I stroked the back of his neck. ‘You want to move, don’t you?’

‘More than anything.’ He brushed a greasy crumb from one corner of my mouth, kissed me. ‘I’m so proud of you.’

I wipe my eyes with the sleeve of my jacket.

‘I’ve been looking for you,’ says Kitty.

‘He was keeping something from me.’

Olly had left a...