Authors: Rowan Coleman
After Ever After
Contents
Perfect for fans of Jojo Moyes, Dorothy Koomson and Liane Moriarty, this is an uplifting and heartfelt novel from the author of
The Memory Book
, which was featured in the Richard & Judy book club 2014
Kitty Simpson is a firm believer in fairy tales. And when Fergus Kelly kisses her under a shooting star (or perhaps a banking airplane), she simply knows that he must be The One.
But eighteen months, a storybook wedding and an adorable but accidental baby later, Kitty’s life isn’t the perfect idyll she thought it would be. She has her Prince Charming, her lady-of-leisure lifestyle and her longed-for escape from city life, but Fergus spends most of his time commuting, looking after Ella is surprisingly exhausting, and a quiet life in the country has her pining for London.
Suddenly confident, self-assured Kitty isn’t sure who she is any more. Cracks are appearing in her fairy tale. And when they’re compounded by her unexpected attraction to another man, happily ever after seems a long way off...
Rowan Coleman worked in bookselling and then publishing for seven years, during which time she wrote her first novel,
Growing Up Twice
, published in 2002. She left to write her second novel,
After Ever After
, and now lives in Hertfordshire with her husband and daughter.
Growing Up Twice
Growing Up Twice
‘
Growing Up Twice
is a fresh, warm and hugely enjoyable read... truly brilliant. Her captivating style leaps off the page, engrossing you from the first sentence’
Company
‘A fantastic first novel’
heat
For Erol and Lily, always
With huge thanks to Kate Elton for her wonderful support and amazing ability to know what I mean even when I don’t! And to everyone at Arrow and Random House who has helped me come this far.
To my friends Clare and Graham Winter, the entire Smith family, especially Lynn and Rosie, and to Sarah Boswell and Amanda Hamilton for their superbly practical support. Thank you to Naomi and George Benson for being just next door whenever I needed a coffee or babysitting. Also to Sue Gee for offering such great inspiration and encouragement. Thanks to Lizzy Kremer, who is always there when I need her.
Especial thanks to my mum, who has been fantastic and who says I couldn’t have written this book without her, and I have to admit I agree. And my final and greatest thanks to Erol and Lily, who give me so much love and joy every day.
‘I must say,’ Dora said, looking at her reflection in the mirror, ‘I never thought it would be possible to find a colour that would suit both a black woman and someone like me, you know, someone who permanently looks like they’re in need of a blood transfusion.’ Her expression of mild astonishment dimmed into a scowl as she remembered that a small crown of dark red rosebuds had been entwined into her glossy bottle-black bob. Camille stood beside her and together in the mirror they looked like the yin and yang bridesmaids, or maybe Superbridesmaid and her not quite evil twin.
‘I know,’ Camille said with a self-approving glance. ‘Say what you like about the stuck up old bag, she’s got great taste,’ she said with a giggle.
‘Shhhhhhhhhh.’ I looked hastily over my shoulder. ‘She’ll be back any moment with the dress!’ I pulled my mother-in-law-to-be’s oversized white towelling bathrobe around me even more tightly and breathed in deeply and then out deeply trying to remain calm and poised – a calm and poised bride-to-be.
‘What is this colour anyway?’ Dora said, ignoring me. ‘Is it puce?’
I remained calm and looked at her, a picture of serenity.
‘No. It is not puce. It’s Winter Cranberry,’ I said with deliberate calmness, tapping my foot and looking at the clock. ‘Where has she gone with that dress? It’s almost twelve; we’re supposed to be at the church by one.’ I closed my eyes and imagined Fergus in his hotel room, tying his cravat or trying to. I pictured him in the cranberry and gold brocaded waistcoat and smiled, thinking how dashing he was going to look in the long frock coat and Mr Darcy-style boots. Then I remembered that if my mother-in-law-to-be didn’t get a crack on I’d be marrying him in my knickers.
Suddenly it all made sense. My eyes flew open.
‘That’s it!’ I said. ‘She’s run off with the dress! It’s the last chance she’s got to stop her precious son from marrying a commoner from a council estate!’ Dora rolled her eyes, took a cigarette out of her fur-trimmed muff (‘muff!’ she’d giggled when mother-in-law-to-be had handed it to her) and put it to her lips. My jaw dropped in horror; any form of cigarette paraphernalia was strictly forbidden in the double-fronted 1930s Art Deco palace, Castle Kelly – Fergus’s birthplace. The thinly brittle façade of calm I had constructed for myself shattered at my feet.
I am afraid of Georgina, mother-in-law-to-be. She’s one of those women who look twenty years younger than they should and who dress better than I do. She’s all that and more, queen of her castle and her family, and then suddenly Cinders here breezes in from the cellar after her son, and she doesn’t like it. Not one little bit. I mean, she’s not tried to throw me in a dungeon or anything, she’s been perfectly polite up to a point, but you can just see it in the ice-cold gimlet eyes:
You are not good enough
.
Dora snorted with laughter at the look of horror on my face.
‘Don’t panic! I’m not smoking it, I’m just holding it; it helps me relax and forget you’ve got me dressed up like a Christmas tree.’ She patted my hand. ‘Anyway, she hasn’t run off with your dress. Can you imagine what the glitterati of wherever-the-fuck we are,
Berkhamsted
, would say if the social event of the year didn’t happen?’
I nodded, breathing in, breathing out. Dora was right. Georgina might have been taken aback by Fergus’s sudden announcement of his plan to marry a girl he’d hardly even mentioned let alone brought home for her seal of approval, but once the news had sunk in she had waded into the breach in full organisational battle gear, clearly determined to camouflage the unsuitability of the marriage in as much glamour and style as she could manage.
‘Well, you’ll need help, dear, you can’t possibly manage by yourself, what with no mother of your own,’ she had said, and I had been grateful to accept before I realised exactly what she meant – and it wasn’t ‘I’ll book your tickets to the Bahamas, no problem’.
‘Yeah, don’t be mad,’ Camille said, twirling one of her wedding-special ringlets. ‘Have you
seen
those shoes? No one buys Jimmy Choo shoes that they will never wear again unless they plan to go through with it. Anyway, she couldn’t run in those heels and that woman is
not
leaving
those
shoes behind. Not unless she really has got a heart of stone.’ She flashed me her traffic-stopping smile. ‘What colour is puce, anyway?’ Camille asked me, ‘I always thought it was green.’
Dora snorted.
‘No, you’re thinking of puke,’ she said. ‘Puce is more your Winter Cranberry kind of colour.’
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ I said, breaking into their conversation. ‘I mean, she’s Fergus’s mother, right? He is the fruit of her loins and he is just the most wonderful man, the best and kindest man. He must have some of that from her. He can’t have inherited all of his loveliness from his dad. And look at his dad! He’s lovely too and he married her. She must, somewhere deep inside, have a soul.’ I tried to conjure up an image of Georgina as a young mother nursing her only child, but somehow it wouldn’t come.
‘Yeah. Cor, Fergus’s dad is top banana. I fancy Fergus’s dad,’ Camille announced, so that anyone just on the other side of the door would be able to hear her. Everyone I know fancies Fergus’s dad, Daniel, because he looks like Fergus but sort of silvered and with a real Irish accent and an endless line in cuddly cable-knit jumpers. Somehow he and Georgina have stayed married for a million years or something, so she can’t be
that
bad. Either that or she is
really
bad in a feminist reworking of Bluebeard kind of way.
Deep calm breaths.
‘Stop panicking.’ Dora sat next to me on the bed. ‘The only thing that can stop this wedding now is if one of Fergus’s ex-lovers turns up mid-ceremony and shouts ‘No! He’s already married! To me! And these are his twins!’
I stared at her in horror.
‘Joke! It’s a joke! I’m only joking.’ At last she showed some sensitivity to my total sense-of-humour bypass on the subject and with a rare gentle smile leant her forehead against mine. ‘You know, your mum would be so proud,’ she whispered, before squeezing my hand. Our eyes locked for a moment and Dora let me stare at her for as long as I needed to, to battle back the threat of tears.
‘So listen,’ Dora said, breaking the moment with a wink to Camille. ‘You know all about sex, right? Anything you need me to brush up for you now?’
Camille settled on the bed behind me.
‘Yeah, any extra positions you think you might need to know, you know, to keep your marriage nice and spicy?’ she said with a giggle.
‘How about how to bring that overlong blow job to a speedy end?’ Dora interrupted her. I shook my head, laughing. ‘No? Sure? You know there is nothing worse than that fifteen-minute lockjaw feeling?’ She picked up an empty champagne bottle and shoved the neck of it into her mouth, making her cheek bulge.
‘Ohfferthuckffakegetonwiffit!’ she said, rolling her eyes.
I laughed and pushed her away, reaching for my glass of flat champagne.
‘No, I have no complaint in that area. Didn’t I tell you two why I am marrying this man? Because he’s hung like a very large horse and so dirty in bed that the first time he shagged me I thought we’d get arrested … Oh hi, Georgina.’
Fergus’s mother shut the door behind her and looked at me, flaring her nostrils as if she had come upon a terrible smell.
‘Just joking about, you know … Hen humour …’ I trailed off, avoiding eye contact with either smirking bridesmaid.
I watched Georgina compose herself, looking as if she were trying her best to shut out the reality of her future daughter-in-law.
‘Right, here we go. Come on now, Katherine. Spit spot,’ she said, unzipping the dress from its plastic bag.
‘I’d thought you’d lost it!’ I tried to joke in a poor attempt to dispel the tension, but her face never cracked, maybe because of the Botox. I took off the dressing gown and the cold air raised goosebumps on my arms and legs.
‘Brrrrr,’ I said with a hapless smile, suddenly feeling that my ivory basque and gold lace-topped stockings were the most inappropriate things imaginable.
‘I have never understood why you couldn’t have waited until the summer, at the very least, if not have had a proper engagement,’ Georgina told me, neatly dispensing with any pretence at friendliness. ‘A February wedding, I ask you. It makes it almost impossible for one to find anything worth wearing.’ I looked at her already decked out in a lilac and grey ensemble from some boutique in Kensington where you have to ring the bell to be let in, and they only do that if they like the look of you. I thought briefly of my mum in faded jeans and a cheesecloth smock and wondered what she would have made of all this.