Seeing Stars
The only child of a schoolteacher and a circus clown, Christina Jones has been writing all her life. As well as writing novels,
Christina contributes short stories and articles to many national magazines and newspapers. Her first novel was chosen for
WH Smith’s Fresh Talent promotion, and Nothing to Lose, was short-listed for the Thumping Good Read Award, with film and television
rights sold.
After years of travelling, Christina now lives in Oxfordshire with her husband Rob and a houseful of rescued cats.
Find out more about Christina Jones and her books by visiting her website:
Going the Distance
Running the Risk
Stealing the Show
Jumping to Conclusions
Walking on Air
Nothing to Lose
Tickled Pink
Hubble Bubble
Published by Hachette Digital
ISBN: 978-0-748-12919-5
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © Christina Jones 2005
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
Hachette Digital
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London, EC4Y 0DY
Many thanks to all at Piatkus, especially my brilliant editor
Gillian Green; to my agent Sarah Molloy; to Vivid for
another wonderful cover design; to all my friends in The
Romantic Novelists Association; to Mags and Wendy for
keeping me going; to Rob and Laura for being them; and to
my Dad for his Oscar Wilde ‘looking up at the stars’ take
on life.
For Berkshire’s original JB Roadshow: Del, Dolly, Richard,
Dave, Snib, Alan, and the late David ‘Totty’ Tinson – soul-
singer and front-man extraordinaire.
Thanks for the memories.
The Journal of Mortifying Moments
‘Amber Parslowe! You can’t do this! You’re a northern lass! You’ve never been further south than Rhyl in your entire life.’
Amber nodded sadly. It was true.
‘Listen, Amber, you do clubbing in Manchester and shopping in Liverpool and hen nights in Blackpool. You can’t go south. You’ll
be like a duck out of water.’
‘Fish,’ Amber muttered over the rim of her glass. ‘And no I won’t.’
Her friends, Emma and Jemma, Kelly and Bex, crowded round the wine bar table, ignored her.
Jemma leaned forward. ‘Look, we’re not stupid. We might be Oop North but we still know all about the global village and stuff
– but hell’s teeth, there are limits!’
‘Exactly what I was going to say.’ Bex interrupted loudly. ‘Amber, listen to us. We’re your closest friends. We’ve known you
since forever. We’ve your best interests at heart here.’
Emma wasn’t going to be left out. ‘And not to put too finer a point on it, if you’re serious about this, then you must be
totally barking. I mean, why go
south
to do
this?
Even if you don’t want to leave England with your family – although God knows why not – and you really don’t want to stay
here, which we find very hurtful, you’ve still got plenty of choices.’
‘Yeah – you could get a job on a cruise liner and travel and get paid at the same time.’ Kelly’s eyes were dreamy. ‘Or move
to London as an au pair, or live by the sea as a beach bum, or – well, millions of things.’
‘The world’s your, um, thingy. You could do, well,
anything.
Anything rather than this.’
They all stared at her, willing her to change her mind.
‘Are you going to let me say anything at all?’ Amber grinned at them.
Bex shook her head. ‘Only if it’s to say you’re not going. There’s still time to say no. We really don’t want you to go anywhere.
We’ll miss you. Why don’t you stay here, get a nice little flat in that new warehouse complex thingy—’
‘They’re luxury loft apartments for the rich kids,’ Amber chuckled. ‘I couldn’t even afford the front door key to one of those!’
‘OK,’ Bex conceded. ‘But what about a flat-share? Or bedsit?’
‘Please,’ Amber shook her head. ‘If I could even afford to do that I’d have already done it, wouldn’t I? Wouldn’t we all?’
They nodded. They were all in the same boat.
‘OK – but what about shopping? I bet you haven’t even thought about shopping!’ Kelly almost choked. ‘What on earth are you
going to do about shopping? There won’t be any shops, or wine bars, or clubs or well, anything, will there?’
‘Or nail bars and hairdressers!’ Emma flicked her dead straight glossy fall away from her eyes.
Jemma looked horrified. ‘Ohmigod! Yes! Amber, have you even considered not having a hairdresser? You won’t be able to get
your bone-straight blonde highlights and lowlights done in some hick-stick place, will you? If there is a hairdresser – which
I doubt – it’ll be someone called Cynthia who still does bubble perms and mullets and uses hood dryers.’
‘And work?’ Emma butted in again. ‘ Have you actually
thought about where you’ll work? It’ll be all farming and wellies and mud and cack. You won’t be able to sign on with an agency
and pick and choose your office jobs there. You’ll probably end up serving in the village post office – if they’ve got one
and then only if you’re very lucky and the postmistress hasn’t got several hundred inbred relations waiting in line to grab
the opportunity.’
‘Or mucking out pigs.’
‘Or driving a tractor.’
‘Exactly.’ Jemma sat back. ‘Listen to us, Amber. We care about you. We, um, love you. You’re only twenty-seven, and you’re
a townie girl through and through. Listen to what we’re telling you. Who, in their right mind, would choose to leave town
and go and bury themselves down south in some godforsaken village when they’ve got everything they need right here on their
doorstep?’
Amber tried to stop the flow. ‘What if I said I’m bored with all this? Oh, not with you, not ever, but with all this …’ she
waved her arms vaguely round the wine bar. ‘What if I said I wanted a change – just for a little while? I’ve temped for the
last five years since we all got made redundant from Bellamy’s – and to be honest, one admin desk, one reception area is much
like another … And now, with what’s happened …’
They all looked at her in sympathy. OK, life had dealt her a bit of a double-handed punch recently – but even so …
Kelly shook her head. ‘Still don’t see why you have to go and bury yourself in the country. What do you know about actually
living in the
country?
I mean, the country’s fine for – well – looking at once in a while, but no one wants to live there, do they?’
‘Amber does.’
‘Amber’s completely crazy, then.’
Amber laughed and rather unsteadily raised her umpteenth glass of Chenin Blanc. ‘Nice to know I’ve got the wholehearted support
of my dearest friends. But
seriously, this is what I want to do. I’m really looking forward to it.’
They all stared at her.
Bex still wasn’t convinced. ‘OK then, this place you’re going to? Is it scarily remote? Like Wales or Cornwall?’
Amber drained her glass. ‘I’ve never been there, remember? But it’s in Berkshire. Almost civilised. They have huge towns like
Reading and Newbury and Bracknell and Ascot and—’
‘Reading? Isn’t that close to London?’
‘Close-ish, I think.’
Jemma looked more cheerful. ‘Oh well, maybe it won’t be
too
bad then … And this village – is it near Reading and Newbury and wherever else you just said?’
‘Not that close, no. The nearest places are called, um, Winterbrook and Hazy Hassocks and – oh, yes – Bagley-cum-Russett …’
Emma was clearly appalled. ‘Dear God!’
‘When are you going?’
‘Next week.’
‘And you’re going to be living with someone you’ve never met?’ Kelly’s slender eyebrows skittered upwards. ‘Some mad old bat?’
‘My Gran’s best friend from when they were young, yes. She’s always written to us, sent us cards and postal orders on our
birthdays and at Christmas, that sort of thing. She’s been like a sort of surrogate long-distance grandmother. She wrote to
us when Gran died and we’ve been in touch ever since. And I’m only going as a lodger – not as some sad Jane Austen type companion.’
Bex was clearly still not impressed. ‘Jesus, Amber. You’re really going to live with a wrinkly, in a village, with no job,
no shops – and no men?’
‘After Jamie the last bit will come as something of a blessing.’ Amber continued to grin. ‘I’ve had enough of two-timing,
spineless, commitment-phobic men to last a lifetime. In fact it’s one of the main reasons I’m going.’
They all pulled sympathetic faces. Jamie had broken Amber’s heart, everyone knew that, but was that really any reason for
her to up sticks and bury herself in the middle of nowhere with some very, very old lady she’d never met?
Normal women would make do with getting roaring drunk and then indulging in a bit of retail therapy before dusting off their
stilt-heels and finding another, far better, man.
‘I’ll give you a month at the most,’ Kelly smiled. ‘Then you’ll be back.’
‘A week. She won’t last more than a week.’
Amber said nothing. What was the point? She’d made up her mind. It was all her parents’ fault anyway. Well, and Jamie’s of
course. But mostly her parents.
Like all her friends, she was a SLAHWP: Still Living At Home With Parents. The lack of well-paid jobs and crippling house
prices, and the fact she spent every penny of her salary before it arrived in her bank account, had seen to that. So when
her parents decided to take early retirement and, overexcited by the surfeit of Change Your Lifestyle programmes on the television,
chose to sell up and move to rural Spain, she’d been left with few choices.
At first she’d thought she’d move in with Jamie. They’d been together for nearly two years. It made sense.
Jamie, however, had nearly passed out at the suggestion and muttered feebly about being far too young to settle down and not
being ready for that sort of commitment and, well, to be honest, Amber living in might just cramp his style, because – er
– she wasn’t actually the only woman in his life. He’d hoped she wouldn’t find out this way, of course, but …
Renting was out of the question on her own; house-shares were few and far between. Her much-younger twin sisters, Coral and
Topaz, at sixteen, had been thrilled at the thought of living in a tumbledown goat shed about three million miles into the
hinterland of Andalucia and attending the local college and learning Spanish and being able to chat up
waiters. Amber, who felt that luxuries like electricity, running water, drainage and a roof were fairly important, was simply
horrified.
Then she’d had the letter from Gwyneth Wilkins, her grandmother’s friend.
Why didn’t Amber come and live with her for a while? Maybe just for the summer? Until she could sort out what she really wanted
to do with the rest of her life?
Amber, still smarting from Jamie’s rejection and deception, and her entire family’s embracing of the Spanish peasant lifestyle,
had thought about it for all of two minutes and then said yes.
Her friends all looked at her sorrowfully.
Kelly pushed another bottle across the table. ‘Well, when it all falls apart, don’t say we didn’t warn you.’
‘It’s not the other side of the world,’ Amber said. ‘You could always come and visit me.’
‘Get real!’ Bex frowned.
Jemma patted Amber’s hand kindly. ‘Yeah, well – we might … One day …’