The Sunshine and Biscotti Club

JESSICA (#litres_trial_promo)

LIBBY (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Endpages (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

LIBBY (#ulink_caceeb9a-e57c-538c-9dfc-4b90ca94927f)

As the church clock struck midnight, Libby Price was attempting to haul a double mattress up a flight of stairs on her own.

Now halfway up, the decision to begin the process was beyond regretful. The night was sweltering. The stairs were narrow. She was exhausted. But she’d had to do something. Something that strained every part of her being, because otherwise she would have lain in her bed contemplating her afternoon.

Still she kept being plagued by visions of herself striding purposefully to the bottom of the endless garden. Seeing Jake lounging in one of the deckchairs. Legs up on the metal table, eyes half closed as they soaked up the sun, bottle of water in one hand, sweat trickling off his forehead.

He’d rolled his head in her direction when he’d heard her footsteps. And she knew he thought she was coming out to admire the new outhouse he’d just finished building. To admire all its sharp angles and big metal framed windows.

He hadn’t expected her to swipe his legs angrily off the table. A move which, admittedly, even Libby had been quite surprised by. He hadn’t expected the fury and the anger, the shouting, and the piece of paper that she’d thrust into his view.

‘It’s a website, Jake,’ she’d half shouted. ‘A website with the slogan: Marriage is dull, have an affair! And guess whose credit card and email address is linked to it? Don’t look all innocent, Jake. It’s been bloody hacked. One of my blog followers sent me the link. Do you know how that makes me feel? Do you?’ She’d actually stomped her foot just for some physical manifestation of how furious she was. ‘How could you do this to me? How dare you do this to me? God, I’m so angry.’

That bit she was quite proud of. It wasn’t like her at all. She had somehow summoned this fiery strength from the devastation and even Jake had seemed momentarily startled by the force of it.

The mattress teetered precariously as the memory made her concentration lapse. Her arms strained under the weight as she tried to heft it onto the next step so she could take a break. Sweat was pouring off her. She was boiling hot. The hotel felt stuffy. The scent of the lemon grove next door, usually exquisite, now made her feel like she was trapped at a perfume counter, the smell too sickly and heady. She tried to get her breath back but could feel her muscles screaming. She was so tired.

The mattress wobbled. Leaning it back against the wall, Libby squeezed herself alongside it, trying to keep it in place with her bodyweight, as she decided to try and shove it up from the bottom.

With her shoulder against the shiny new material she made a move to push but it didn’t budge. The top of the mattress now caught against the step.

Why had she started this? Had it been as much to stop the loop of memories as to test whether she could do all this on her own?

She put her hands over her face. The weight of the mattress was pressing against her body. There was so much that needed doing before the hotel was ready, and getting a mattress up the stairs seemed like one of the more minor items on the to do list. If she couldn’t shift that, what could she do? Perhaps this was a painfully stupid exercise that would prove, as she suspected, there was simply no way she could do it by herself.

Her body slumped.

The mattress slipped a step.

She shouted in annoyance.

A mosquito buzzed around her ear.

She thought about all the plans she and Jake had made for the renovations. All their hopes and ambitions scribbled in notebooks and on napkins. When they’d first turned up at the dilapidated hotel, he’d squeezed her hand and said, ‘Don’t worry, we’re in this together.’ That was how it was meant to be. Him squeezing her hand, her squeezing his.

How was it possible that could turn so suddenly to such anger and shame buzzing like the cicadas as she’d marched down the garden path?

She squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her face into the mattress, as she thought about the moment when, after her outburst, Jake had stood up, looked down at the lush grass then up to meet her eyes and said, ‘Libby.’ Taking a step towards her. ‘I think actually this might have needed to happen. I think actually it’s a good thing, you know. For me.’

She hadn’t really listened. Instead she’d replied, ‘When you were doing it, when you were shopping online for a mistress, did you think about me? Did you think about hurting me?’

He’d shaken his head. ‘No. Honestly, Libby, I was just thinking about me. And it seemed—I don’t know—separate from you. Libby, I feel like shit but I think it’s right that this has happened. This …’ he’d pointed to the beautiful new outhouse, the garden, the hotel, ‘is all too much. I thought I’d be OK with it, but I’m not. Living here—it’s too remote. I feel like I can’t breathe,’ he’d added with a huff.

‘You feel like shit?’ she’d said. ‘Jake, you’ve shattered me.’

He’d looked at her with pity in his eyes. ‘I miss my life, Libby. I miss life.’

‘But this is our life.’

‘No.’ He’d shaken his head. ‘No. I’m going to go away for bit I think. I’m sorry.’ That was when she had crumpled. When the air had been knocked out of her.

That was the reason why she was hauling a mattress up the stairs like a carthorse, arms stretched behind her as she tried once again to tug it to the top. So that she didn’t have to go to sleep, so that she didn’t have to close her eyes and see herself begging him to stay.

If only she hadn’t cried. If only she hadn’t held on to his arm and tried to pull him back.

She yanked the mattress.

Stupid, stupid Libby.

He’d paused and hugged her when she’d sobbed. Just for a couple of seconds. Enough time for her traitorous mind to think that this could all be forgotten, that they could just focus on the hotel, on the renovations and the imminent arrival of the guests.

But then he’d let her go and held her by the shoulders and said, ‘Will you be OK? Should I call someone?’ in a voice that suggested she was some weak Victorian maiden. With a surge of anger she had bashed his arms off her.

‘I’ll be fine,’ she’d hissed, and he’d had the nerve to look sympathetic. ‘Just go.’

She’d watched him jog up the steps to the terrace and thought, Come back.

Then she’d made herself remember the website, the affairs, the fact she’d found out through her own blog.

Go, you bastard.

No, stop. Come back.

Now as she stood on the staircase, the harsh halogen lights burning above her, she found herself smacking the mattress, thumping it with all her frustration, humiliation, and anger. It felt quite good until it slipped from its perch mid-step and, as she fumbled to catch it, careered down to the bottom like a sledge thumping hard on the floorboards, smashing into the side table and shattering a glass bowl filled with lemons.

‘Bollocks.’

Libby sat down on the step, chaos on the floor around her. She stared at the lemons rolling along the gaps in the floorboards like trains on a track, stopping when they hit a stack of old mirrors about to be relegated to the garage. She glanced up from the lemons to her own reflection. Tired, sad, angry. Who was this person, she wondered as she stared, if she was no longer one half him?

EVE (#ulink_c946f1fb-e502-5de3-acd1-146ef29d12ef)

‘Do you think the kids are getting enough kale?’ Eve asked as Peter walked into the kitchen having just put their four-year-old twins to bed.

‘Yes. Because I don’t think anyone actually eats kale.’

‘But it’s a superfood. I don’t know if they’re getting enough superfoods. A woman today said that she gets up at five every morning to make superfood smoothies for her and her kids’ breakfasts and then meditates for half an hour before they wake up. I don’t have the energy to get up and meditate.’

Peter was flicking through the local paper open on the table and splattered with spaghetti Bolognese. ‘Is this Bolognese? Did the kids have Bolognese? Are we having Bolognese as well?’