But it isn’t. It isn’t nothing. To have found her, and to have her here, in the home I shared for many years with a man we once knew.
‘Can I help?’ she asks, appearing in the kitchen doorway. ‘It’s a lovely home you’ve got, Mabel.’
I hand her a mug and follow her through to the front room. I watch her looking at things, peering in close at a photograph of me and Arthur on our wedding day, picking up a shell I keep on the bookcase that I found, once, on a beach in Cornwall. She is really here. Her blonde hair is grey, now, and the curls have gone. It’s cut short, not unlike Erin’s. I think Erin calls hers a pixie cut. She’s heavier, too, her body more rounded and feminine.
‘I missed your wedding,’ she says.
‘And I missed yours.’
She snorts. ‘If you’d come to mine, you might have told me I was doing the wrong thing. That it wouldn’t last more than a few years.’
I don’t say anything, and I know we’re both thinking about my marriage, about whether or not it was the right thing. Whether or not it was what you might call a success.
‘Dear Arthur,’ she says. ‘He was a good man.’
I nod.
‘Were you happy together?’
It’s such a big question. And I hope I’ll get the chance, in the coming days or weeks, to answer it fully. For now, I hesitate.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I mean, good days and bad. But mostly good.’
‘And no children,’ she says.
‘No. No children.’
Ask me, I think. Ask me why, or whether I wished he was you. You were always the bold one, Dot, and I need you to be bold for both of us, now.
It’s as if she hears my thoughts, because she looks at me, really fixes me with her eyes, and I see that they haven’t changed. They still contain glitter and sparkle and the promise of mischief.
‘When you kissed me, that day, after Bill died…’
‘Yes?’ I can barely breathe.
‘Did you… did you mean it? Because I was so sure you did, and then there was something on the day of the funeral when I couldn’t think straight, but then never again, and when you said you were going to marry Arthur, I thought perhaps I’d imagined the whole thing. I didn’t imagine it, did I?’
I stand still, taking her in. There is fear in her voice, and sadness. Could it have all been different? And would I have wanted it to be?
‘Is that why you left?’ I ask. ‘Is that why you didn’t stay in touch?’
She bows her head. ‘You’d made your choice. I couldn’t stay to watch it play out.’
‘You didn’t imagine it,’ I say.
‘All these years,’ she says, taking my mug from me and putting them both down on the coffee table. ‘A whole lifetime, and we could have…’
I don’t need her to finish her sentence. It’s too painful. We could have been together, could have experienced more of that raging bliss, could have let our passion and desire carry us through the years. Could have broken our families’ hearts, could have been discovered, and punished by the law. Could have walked that fine line between pleasure and pain, between love and loss. And there would have been no Arthur, for me. And her sons and grandchildren would not exist. It isn’t possible, to erase the lives we’ve lived. We only have today, and whatever future we’re granted.
‘We’ll have a second life,’ I say. ‘Starting now.’
She nods, and I see that she understands everything I’m asking her to honour. ‘A second life,’ she says.
And when she touches my hand, it feels like fire.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have a lot of people to thank for their help with this novel. When I started writing it, I was at a low ebb, and it wouldn’t have become the book it is today without the support of some very special people. Here goes.
Thank you to my agent, Jo Williamson, for believing in this book and helping me to believe in myself again. Thank you to my editor, Isobel Akenhead, for falling for Mabel and helping me to make the book as good as it could be, and for such encouraging editorial notes. And thank you to the rest of the Boldwood team for such a warm welcome.
Thank you to Sam Humphreys, who read the manuscript and was so enthusiastic about it when I was almost ready to give up. Thank you to Sara Cox, who sensed I was struggling and offered me a free coaching session. The next day, she’d read my entire draft and she spent a long time talking things over with me and helping me to find a way through. Thank you to Louise Dean and the Novelry – you know what for. Thank you to Susie Lynes, Rowan Coleman and Jen Faulkner, who read parts and offered wise advice.
Thank you to Paul Burston and Karen McLeod, and my fellow participants on their creative writing course, who helped me to realise this story about a handful of women was actually Mabel’s to tell. Thank you to the people at the Bishop Beveridge Club in Barrow upon Soar, for talking to me about life in the 1950s. Any mistakes are my own.
Thank you to Nikki Smith, Lauren North and Zoe Lea, for the reading of drafts, the motivational Zoom calls, the no-nonsense hand-clapping gifs, and for generally keeping me going. Could I do it without you? I’m not sure. But I’m glad I don’t have to.
Thank you to the many writer friends who are so generous with their time and their encouragement.
Thank you to Jodie Matthews, Abi Rowson and Lydia Howland for holding me up every day. Thank you to my parents and my in-laws, for their support, their interest and their enthusiasm.
Thank you to my husband Paul Herbert, who couldn’t be more supportive. Thank you to my children, Joseph and Elodie, for always asking which book I’m now writing （‘Still?!’） and thinking I’m the best author in the world.