A Hundred Pieces of Me

Prologue

ITEM:

a red cashmere scarf

LONGHAMPTON, JUNE 2008

Gina wraps her new scarf tightly around her wrist, like a bandage. It’s a scarlet cashmere one that she bought on the way home from work two days ago, the color of lipstick and poisoned apples and danger. For something that cost so much, it took no time to buy: she was cold, she’d always wanted a beautiful big cashmere scarf, and the usual sensible voice of caution, reminding her of the gas bill or the council tax, had gone, and in the silence Gina could hear her own voice asking aloud, Why not?

Why not? always makes Gina feel anxious. She isn’t a why not? sort of person. But this whole week has felt like careering downhill on a sled, swerving and dodging as shock after shock has rushed at her. The price tag on the scarf didn’t even register.

The bright color is still taking her by surprise. Gina’s house and her wardrobe are calming shades of sea blue and cloudy lilac, but something in the bold scarlet feels right. It looks alive against her pale skin, somehow Spanish against her wavy dark hair, her brown eyes. This red is bold and definite, grabbing attention, fixing her against the grayness of the town.

Gina’s extravagant scarf is the only clue to the reason she and Stuart are sitting here. The red slash lurking at the corner of her eye whispers that now is the time to indulge herself. Now might be the last chance to do it.

She glances at Stuart again, to see if he’s noticed the scarf. He hasn’t. He’s frowning over some notes he made for today’s consultation: he sat up until 2:00 a.m. in bed with his laptop while she was pretending to sleep, the greenish light reflecting the planes of his handsome face, his forehead lined with concentration.

Stuart’s absorbing everything. There’s a lot of information to absorb, on the Internet, from the hospital, from the friends of friends. Words and terms are floating around her but nothing will settle in her brain. They melt away like snowflakes as soon as they touch her.

The door behind them opens and Dr. Khan hurries in, fresh from someone else’s crisis, full of apologies for keeping them waiting. Stuart stiffens in his seat. Gina remembers the suspended moment in school exams when the proctor coughed and told them to turn over their papers. Weeks and months hanging in the air, the desperate scrabble to go back, one more week’s study, but it’s too late. It’s already over. Half panic, half relief.

Now.

Hello, Georgina . . . Gina? he says, with an easy smile. Lovely, yes, Gina, and this is your . . . ?

Fiancé, Stuart Horsfield, hello, says Stuart, and Gina still thinks it sounds strange, but everything that’s happening to her seems to be happening to someone else. She grips his hand. It’s strong and comforting.

While Dr. Khan flips through his notes Gina makes herself look around the room so she won’t try to read the scrawled words in front of him. Maybe that’s why doctors make their handwriting so bad, she thinks, so it can’t be read upside down from the other side of the desk.

She notes everything deliberately. There’s a window, looking onto the car park, white gloss paint, a calendar and a candy pink cyclamen (very hard to kill off). There’s a mirror on the wall by the door, simple, unframed, too far from the desk to be intended for the doctor.

A cool shiver of fear runs over Gina’s skin. It’s for the patients. So they can adjust their faces, wipe away their mascara smears before they go back to the silent waiting area outside. Stuart’s fingers tighten around hers.

Dr. Khan clicks the lid back on his chunky silver fountain pen, pushing it in with his palm and letting a sigh escape from his downturned lips. He doesn’t smile. And that’s when Gina knows. She struggles to stay in the moment. Part of her is flying above it, her consciousness shooting backward, out of her head, detaching her. Is this really happening to me? she wonders. How can I tell?

A bleak longing to go back sweeps through her, and she has to force herself to concentrate on the now.

Now.

Now.

"So, Georgina, he says, I’m afraid I have some bad news."

Chapter One

ITEM:

a gold blown-glass Christmas-tree decoration in the shape of an angel playing a trumpet

LONGHAMPTON, DECEMBER 2013

Gina stands back and breathes in the sharp dark green scent of the Douglas fir, and thinks, Yes, this is why I bought this house. For Christmas.

It’s an extravagantly tall, old-fashioned tree and it fills what she’d earmarked from their very first viewing as a specific Christmas-tree space in the black-and-white-tiled entrance hall of 2 Dryden Road. The springy branches are ready to be hung with glass baubles, topped with a star, the special iron tree stand hidden by a pile of presents underneath. The final Victorian touch to a lovingly renovated Victorian family home.

Gina smiles at it, pleased. It’s taken a long time, this house, renovating themselves, after work, on weekends. The mental picture of this tree, of this moment, has kept her going through the endless months of sanding, plastering, builders turning the electricity off without warning, washing in a bucket: the backdrop to her own slow crawl back to normality. It’s been one tiny goal at a time—a finished room, a complete lap of the park—and now, finally, it’s here: Christmas in Dryden Road.

As she reaches for the first bauble, a memory skims the back of her mind, moving too fast for her to place it: she’s filled with a sudden glow of contentment, a deep red sort of Christmassy anticipation that wraps round her like a sudden soft blanket of joy. It’s more like déjà vu than a memory: the satisfying sensation of something clicking into place.

What is it? The smell of pine and cinnamon sticks? The slithery rustle of tinsel? The coziness of the central heating ticking into life as the afternoon shadows start to fall? Gina probes in the shapeless depths of her early memories but can’t find the exact moment. She doesn’t have a lot of childhood memories, and the precious few she does have are blurred by over-examination, and she’s never sure whether she’s remembering actual facts, or something her mother’s told her happened. But this happy feeling is familiar.

It’s probably dressing the tree, she thinks, turning back to the box of ornaments in their tissue nest. It’s a tradition: first Saturday in December, tree goes up. Decorating it was always something she and her mum, Janet, did, just the two of them, listening to a Christmas compilation tape and sharing a tin of candies, Gina handing the baubles to Janet, Janet fixing them in the same spots every year. They lived in lots of houses while Gina was growing up, but the tree routine was always the same.

Gina has a box of baubles, including some old favorites handed down by her mum, and she’s adopted Janet’s ritual of buying a new one every Christmas. She picks up the decoration she bought for this year: it’s a golden angel, playing a trumpet. Next year, she thinks, suddenly light inside with hope, will be better. It has to be. It’s a long time since Gina’s felt so simply content; the uncomplicated pleasure is so unfamiliar that she’s horrified by how long it’s been.

A few snowflakes blow past the window and Gina hopes it’s not snowing in the New Forest where Stuart’s office is on a Christmas jolly. Instead of their usual all-you-can-eat bonanza in the local Chinese restaurant, the whole sales department of Midlands Logistics has been treated to some sort of karting event, followed by a murder mystery dinner.

Stuart will almost certainly be leading one of the teams. He cycles; he plays cricket; he’s still captaining his football team at thirty-six, with his modest but determined attitude. The other football WAGs, most of whom have not-so-secret crushes on Stu, joke that he’s the Longhampton David Beckham. Without the tattoos. Obviously. Stuart’s not a fan of tattoos.

She hangs another silver bauble, then stops: it’d be nice to share this with Stu, she thinks. He shouldered the back-breaking part of the renovation when she wasn’t up to it; it’s only fair that they should share the fun stuff. Decorating the tree is something they should do together, a new tradition of their own they can start.

Gina puts the lid on the box so the cats can’t get into it, and goes through to the sitting room where she’s been ordering presents on her laptop. There aren’t that many shopping days left, and she’s barely started their shopping. She turns up Phil Spector’s Christmas album to an indulgently loud level, but has only got as far as Stuart’s aunts when her credit card’s declined.

She checks again. Declined.

Gina frowns at it. It’s their joint card, the one that’s supposed to be for household bills. Stuart must have bought something big, probably for his bike—she’d paid off the balance last month in full, ready for Christmas. The website says the cutoff date for presents to Australia is Monday; if Auntie Pam in Sydney wants her usual tin of shortbread, it’s got to be sent today.

Gina chews her lip, then dials Stuart’s mobile. Her card’s already at the limit with her car’s inspection and insurance, and Pam’s his auntie. After two rings it goes to voicemail, which doesn’t surprise her—if he’s karting, his mobile will be sensibly stowed in his locker—so she calls his workmate Paul, who picks up after a couple of rings.

Hello, Paul, it’s Gina, she says, wandering around the sitting room, drawing the heavy curtains, clicking on the lamps. Sorry to bother you—hope I’m not interrupting any murdering!

Hey, Gina. Paul sounds as if he’s somewhere noisy: she can hear Merry Xmas Everybody by Slade in the background.

I’m trying to get hold of Stu. When he finishes what he’s doing, can you ask him to give me a ring?

Stuart?

Um, yes. Are you supposed to refer to him as Hercule Poirot or something?

Sorry?

Gina pauses in front of the mirror over the fireplace and stares at her reflection in the age-spotted glass; as usual, after a trip to the hairdresser, she doesn’t look like herself. Her short dark hair is smooth, swooping across her long face in a sophisticated fringe that will last four more hours before curling back up. But the new haircut is part of her resolution to make more effort this year. More effort with her business, with Stuart, with . . . everything.

Gina? Sorry, I’m not with Stuart.

He’s not with you?

Not unless he’s stupid enough to be in Cribbs Causeway shopping! Paul pauses, then laughs. Oh, bollocks, I’ve probably blown his big surprise, haven’t I? He’ll be out getting your present from somewhere. What’ll it be this year? A kayak?

Yes, that’s probably it. Gina tries to laugh. She can’t. Her face feels heavy, her cheeks suddenly doughy. Ha! Sorry to bother you, Paul. Have a good weekend!

She hangs up and, halfheartedly, tries on Paul’s explanation, but it doesn’t fit.

Stuart packed a weekend bag; he ironed his own shirts. He told her several times—once too many, come to think of it—that it was a karting weekend, then a murder mystery dinner, and they’d be busy from Friday morning through to Sunday afternoon but not to worry if she couldn’t get hold of him because the hotel was in a forest with no reception, which is best for team building.

Too much detail. Stuart’s even an over-efficient liar.

Gina sinks onto the sofa, still gripping her phone, and Loki, the less disdainful of their two cats, shoots away from her.

She has to force the two concepts to mesh. Stuart: lying. Reliable, upright Stuart, who got the decorations down from the attic for her before he left, who emptied the trash cans and changed the cat litter.

All practical things, she realizes. Thoughtful, but housemate-y. That’s what they are, after five years of marriage, housemates. Her last birthday present had been a sander, for the upstairs floorboards.

The weird thing is, Gina doesn’t feel devastated, just . . . sad. It’s only confirmed something she realizes now that she already knew. Has known for months, but not wanted to acknowledge. She’s been buying how-to-fix-your-relationship books and hiding them in the airing cupboard; Stuart’s just been more practical, as usual.

She gazes at her half-dressed tree out in the hall. It’s making a cookie-cutter Christmas-tree shape against the pale blue staircase behind, and underneath the dull ache that’s filling her chest like gravel, Gina feels a faint flutter of that elusive happiness.

Something pushes her toward the tree, to finish decorating the branches. There’s at least half a day before he gets back when this house is going to be perfect. It deserves it. She deserves it.

Gina levers herself off the sofa and sleepwalks into the hall, to her box of decorations and memories. While the Ronettes harmonize in the background, she carries on slipping glass baubles onto the knotty pine branches, breathing in the rosemary-scented resin and letting the dark heart of the tree fill her senses until there’s no room for any thoughts about the future or the past.

Outside, beyond the glossy holly wreath and the brass knocker on the freshly painted front door, it snows.

•   •   •

It was no coincidence, thought Gina, gazing around her empty new flat, that Heaven was commonly assumed to be a big white room with absolutely nothing in it. Something about this clean, peaceful space made her feel calmer than she had in weeks.

She stepped toward the big picture window with its panoramic view over the brown and gray rooftops beyond the high street, and experienced a strange elation like sparkling mineral water rinsing through her veins. She hadn’t expected to feel quite so positive about the first day of her new life, single, in a new place. The last few weeks had been hard, and Gina’s bones ached with invisible bruises, but now underneath there was a first-day-of-school excitement.

Fresh paint. Empty rooms. Smooth walls, ready to be filled, like a brand-new notebook.

Some of it was adrenaline at having sold the house and rented this new flat in just a fortnight. Some of it was relief to be away from the atmosphere that had hung over Dryden Road after Stuart’s bombshell, which, like an actual bombshell, had left a sort of miserable crater where Christmas was supposed to have been. Even though he’d moved out almost as soon as he’d admitted where he’d really been that weekend (Paris), his presence had lingered in every stray sock and framed vacation photo, of which there were many. Almost overnight, Gina felt as if she’d woken up in the house of a happily married couple of strangers.

She knew that was her own fault, which only made it worse. She’d deliberately set out to make Dryden Road into a sort of scrapbook of her and Stuart’s life together: it was feathered with tiny mementoes of parties and anniversaries, and quirky collections in frames. Gina never met a shelf she couldn’t fill, which was why it came as a bit of a surprise to feel so instantly at home in the cloudlike emptiness of this modern flat, above the optician’s, next to the deli.

The flat at 212a High Street was the exact opposite of the house she’d just left in the desirable poets’ streets area of Longhampton, the neglected Victorian terrace that she and Stuart had coaxed from damp shabbiness to what interiors magazines liked to call a forever home. Gina was a conservation officer for the council; putting back the dado rails and molded ceiling roses was a labor of love. Two Dryden Road’s final gift to them for their split nails and silent hours’ sanding was a quick sale: it wasn’t their forever home but several other families wanted it to be theirs.

If Dryden Road was a busy Victorian scrapbook collage, 212a High Street was a blank page. It was an open-plan conversion, painted throughout in soft vanilla eggshell with brand-new carpets and wooden floors, resolutely featureless. No fireplaces, no skirting, no picture rails, just plain walls and double-glazed windows that turned the town’s skyline into a sort of living picture across one wall of the sitting room. It reminded Gina of a gallery, full of light and air, a place that invited you to pause and think. The moment she’d walked in with the estate agent, her eyes gritty from another sleepless night, a sense of stillness had come over her, and she’d handed over the rental deposit the same afternoon.

That had been a week ago, the last week in January.

Bright sunshine was warming the flat despite the chill outside, and Gina turned slowly on her heel, assessing the available space, and stopped at the long wall next to the window. It demanded one really powerful piece of art, something beautiful that she could sit, gaze at and get lost in. She didn’t have the right painting or print yet, but she’d formed a middle-of-the-night plan to get rid of everything she didn’t need or love from the old house, and use the money to buy something new, and special.

Everything from the old house.

This can be a positive experience, Gina told herself, as her stomach fluttered with nerves at the enormity of what lay ahead of her. The nerves tended to ambush her, creeping up when she wasn’t concentrating to dive-bomb her good mood, like seagulls. Once the novelty of her new place wore off, Gina knew it was going to be tough, dating again at thirty-three, unraveling her life from Stuart’s, and having to make new friends to replace the social life he would be taking with him. Gina had only one real mate, Naomi, whom she’d known since school; the rest of their circle had been Stuart’s football and cricket friends.

But this flat would help her start again, she told herself. Everything she loved would be on show, all the time, instead of hidden in cupboards. There wasn’t room for much, so she’d have to be selective. She’d have to choose every new detail of her life from now on; everything that came into this flat had to make her happy or be useful, or ideally both.

One of the self-help books Naomi had pressed into her hands had been about a man who’d got rid of all his possessions, except a hundred vital things. He’d felt spiritually freed by it, apparently. Gina wondered if she could do that. It did seem wrong to spoil the serene minimalism with clutter. And the discipline would be good for her. What hundred things did she actually need?

Could you get rid of that much stuff and keep anything of yourself? Or was that the whole point? That you’d have to focus on being you, instead of relying on your things to explain who you were.

The thought made Gina cold and light-headed, but not necessarily scared.

Her mobile buzzed in her pocket. It was the removal men, coming with the boxes from Dryden Road. She hadn’t been there for the packing. Naomi, in her role as cheerleader and supporter, had been firm about it. Well, bossy. In a nice way. You’ve been through enough, you’re exhausted, and they’re the experts, she’d insisted. Pay them to do it. I’ll pay them to do it. If you put your back out packing you’ll only have to fork out for massages later.

Naomi had been right. She was usually right.

Hello, Gina? It’s Len Todd Removals, and we’re about to leave your property. Just checking you’re in to take delivery of the boxes that aren’t going to storage.

Some of the bigger items, like Gina’s huge velvet Liberty sofa and her inlaid arts-and-crafts wardrobe, had gone straight to the Big Yellow on the outskirts of town, to wait until she could bring herself to sell them, or find a flat big enough to house them. The rest—the drawers, the cupboards, the shelves—was all on its way to her.

Gina checked her watch. Two o’clock. They’d arrived at Dryden Road before eight, but even so . . . A whole life bubble-wrapped and packed in under a day. You’re not finished already?

All in the van. You had a fair bit of stuff, though, love, I’ll give you that.

I know. She winced. Sorry. I should have had a clear-out.

Gina had assumed Stuart would take more than he did. Instead, he’d swept through in one morning while she was at work, packed a few small items and stuck Post-it notes on large articles (like the new bed, which he’d suddenly remembered he’d paid for) and left a note saying she could have the rest—he didn’t want to make life difficult.

At first Gina had been hurt by how little of their combined life Stuart wanted, and then it turned out that he didn’t need a lot because his new life already had a toaster. And a duvet. And other personal touches. Within two days of his big revelation, Naomi—whose husband Jason played football with Stuart—had ferreted out the fact that he had moved in with his Other Woman, the woman he’d taken to Paris. Bryony Crawford, a friend from his cycling club, who lived in the Old Water Mill development. As soon as Naomi told her that, Gina knew exactly what kind of person Bryony would be. Storage wouldn’t be a priority. Stainless-steel-surface cleaners would.

Gina pushed the thought away, as it started to unfurl into further, more troubling mental images. Everything coming into this flat, she reminded herself, had to be positive. Including thoughts. And she was glad none of her beautiful possessions would be ending up in Old Water Mill, even if it meant paying for them to be in storage for a bit.

Are you there, love? Len Todd sounded concerned.

Yes, she said. I’ll expect you in—what? Half an hour?

Great. The removal man paused. You’d better clear some room.

•   •   •

Len Todd, and his Removals, arrived at half past two, bumping the first of the cardboard boxes up the side stairs to Gina’s first-floor flat.

If you could put it in the spare room, she said, opening the door to the small second bedroom, so far bedless. The plan’s to fill that with boxes, with a few in the sitting room, if necessary, to keep as much of the flat as clear as possible.

No problem.

Len parked the box in a corner, and stepped aside to make way for a full-size wardrobe case, being lugged in by a second man. And then a third, with a fourth and fifth already dropping something heavy on the stairs outside with a muffled swearword.

Gina flattened herself against the hallway wall. Suddenly the calm white flat wasn’t feeling quite so spacious, with this stream of sturdy men hauling in boxes nearly as big as she was. A dark cloud passed over her bright mood and she braced herself against it. There were a lot of hurdles to get over in the next few days: solicitors, unpacking, name changes. She needed this positive forward motion to lift her over them.

As a box marked Kitchen went past, Gina had a sudden flash of her warmhearted house, the amiable third person in her marriage to Stuart, being cut up and broken down, packed into boxes and brought into this new place in chunks. All this stuff had made perfect sense in those rooms; it was why she hadn’t even tried to have a sort-out before she left. How could she have thrown anything away? Now, though, her old home was separated into individual bits, like a jigsaw she could never put back together in the same way.

It was the same with all the pieces of her life so far—they wouldn’t fit back together to make the same shape ever again. So which bits should she keep?

The removal man seemed to sense her panic. Gina guessed they’d seen enough marital divisions of property to know a breakup when they packed one. Why don’t you take yourself over the road for a cup of tea while we get on with this? said Len Todd, with a friendly nod. I’ll give you a ring when we’re done. Don’t suppose you’ve got a kettle, have you?

In the kitchen—there’s coffee and milk and, er, you’ll find mugs in the kitchen box. Naomi had packed Gina an emergency basket with all the essentials. The comforting simplicity of the single mug, single bowl, single spoon in her sleek Scandinavian-style kitchen had made her think that perhaps her hundred-things life plan might work. It was quite restful, the lack of choice.

We won’t be long. He patted her arm. And don’t you worry, love. It’ll feel like home in no time.

Yes, said Gina, with a bright smile she didn’t feel.

•   •   •

For the next hour or so Gina sat in the delicatessen next to her flat and drank two coffees, watching the late-afternoon bustle of the high street, an unmade to-do list started in the notebook next to her phone on the table.

She ignored a call from her mother and, more guiltily, from Naomi. Both of them, Gina knew, wanted to be supportive on this day of big changes, but her instinct was to focus all her energy inward, on herself. She tried to keep a vision in her head of her sunny, open flat and all its possibilities; what she was going to do with it; whether she should paint one wall a bright sunshine yellow to pin this positivity for days when she wasn’t quite so energized.

Len Todd rang at twenty to four, just as the first heavy dots of rain began to speckle the pavement, and she hurried round.

He was waiting at the foot of the stairs that led up to her flat, looking, it had to be said, shattered. All done, he said, and dropped the keys into her hand: her old keys, and the new ones. We got it all in in the end.

Gina laughed, and tipped him, but it wasn’t until she opened the front door that she understood properly what he’d meant.

The flat was completely crammed with cardboard boxes. Crammed, from floor to ceiling.

The movers had left a narrow corridor through the spare room so she could get inside, and they’d lined two walls of her bedroom with wardrobe crates. The sitting room was now two-thirds filled, the white walls lost behind brown ones. She had to turn sideways to get into the kitchen-diner. Her possessions loomed over her every way she looked.

Gina was stunned by the unexpected invasion. It felt crushing, claustrophobic. Before her shock could tip over into tears, she started pushing the boxes away from the big white wall, where her special painting was to go. She needed to be able to see that wall, even if every other one was blocked.

Her muscles ached as she dragged the heavy boxes around but she forced herself on. I’ve got to start sorting right now, she told herself, or I’ll never be able to sit down.

Gina’s previous vision of sitting in the empty flat, languidly considering one item at a time from a single box, evaporated. She tipped four boxes of bedding into the corner of her bedroom, and wrote KEEP, SELL, GIVE AWAY, and DUMP on the empty cases in big letters, lining them up in the limited space in front of the sofa. Then she took a deep breath and pulled the brown tape off the nearest box.

Everything was bubble-wrapped and at first Gina couldn’t work out what the first item was, but as she unrolled the plastic, she saw it was an antique blue glass vase. She had to think twice about where it had come from, then remembered that she’d bought it when she was at university.

I loved this, she thought, surprised. Where’s it been?

A memory slipped into the forefront of her mind, of stopping outside the window of a junk shop in Oxford . . . fifteen years ago now? It had been drizzling, she’d been late for a lecture, but something about the curved shape had leaped out of the cluttered display, a suspended raindrop of bright cobalt blue in the middle of a load of tatty brass and china. Gina could picture it in her rooms at college, on the window overlooking a courtyard, but she struggled to remember where it had been in Dryden Road: in the landing alcove with some dried lavender in it. There, but invisible, just filling a space.

She sat back on her heels, feeling the weight of the glass. The vase had cost twenty-five pounds—a fortune in her student days—and had always been full of striped tulips from the market, left until they decayed in that pretentious student style, falling in tissue thinness onto the stone ledge of her windowsill. Kit had started it: he’d brought her flowers on his first visit, and she’d been unable to bring herself to throw them out. And after someone had said, Oh, you’re the girl who always has flowers! Gina had made a point of keeping the vase full because she wanted to be the Girl Who Always Had Flowers.

At least I don’t do that anymore, she thought, with a twinge of embarrassment at how much she’d wanted to make some sort of impression on people at university. She wasn’t in touch with a single one of them now.

Gina started to put the vase into the GIVE AWAY box; over the years she’d collected lots of different vases, special ones for lilies, hyacinths, roses. She didn’t need one that reminded her of Kit, and of all the expectations she’d had at university of where her life would be by now. All her life, she realized, she’d been creating this paper trail of possessions, hoping that they’d keep her attached to her own memories, but now she’d found out they didn’t. The last years meant nothing. They were gone. All the photo albums in the world wouldn’t keep them real.

But as she held it, she stopped seeing those things and instead saw a vase. A rather nice vase that made Gina think that, actually, she’d had a bit of an eye for quality even as a student. Its bold sculptural shape had got lost in Dryden Road’s collage of color and detail, but it was perfect for this flat. The white background reframed it: it was still a beautiful frozen raindrop of glass, bright cobalt blue, ready for flowers to fill it.

Gina edged around the boxes until she was in front of the big picture window, and placed the vase squarely in the center of the windowsill, where the sun would shine through it as it had done at college, revealing the murky wet shapes of the flower stems, rigid below the papery petals.

She stood for a moment, trying to catch the slippery emotions swirling in her chest. Then a cloud moved outside and the last light of the day deepened the blue of the glass. As it glowed against the blank white sill, something twitched inside her, a memory nudging its way back to the surface. Not of an event but of a feeling, the same bittersweet fizz she’d felt when she’d unpacked her belongings in her university room, waiting for the happiest days of her life to roar around the corner, despite her secret worry that maybe she’d already had them, anticipation sharpened with a lick of fear. Was that a memory? Was it just the same feeling in a different place? Because her life was starting again now too?

Gina took a deep breath. She wasn’t going to keep the vase because it reminded her of college or because a visitor might be impressed with her good taste. She was keeping it because she liked it. And when she looked at it, it made her happy. It caught the light, even on a gray day. It was beautiful.

She hadn’t bought it for her student rooms. She’d bought it fifteen years ago—for this flat.

The blue glass vase glowed in the weak, wintry sunshine, and the white flat didn’t look quite so white anymore. Gina stood for a long minute, letting nothing into her head except the liquid swoop and the deep, jewel-like color.

Then, with a more confident hand, she reached into the box for the next ball of bubble-wrap.

Chapter Two

ITEM:

a brown leather satchel, with GJB embossed on the front

HARTLEY, SEPTEMBER 1991

Georgina is experiencing very mixed feelings about her new school satchel.

This morning, on the kitchen table, it had looked all right. Shiny and burnished brown, with brass buckles and a corrugated section inside for putting pens in. She could tell it was expensive—although Georgina wasn’t fooled by that. It was a Trojan satchel. A satchel containing a whole stack of her mother’s guilt about sending her to yet another new school although, nominally, it was a present from Terry.

Terry is her stepfather. Before he was her stepfather, he was the unmarried son of her grandmother’s friend-from-church, Agnes, and then he was the lodger in her mother’s spare room when they’d moved out of Gran’s house, where they’d been living since Georgina’s dad died. Now they’re living in their own house, near Terry’s new job, a few hundred miles away. Mum, Terry and Georgina, the new family. The satchel seems to have been Terry’s idea.

You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression, said Terry, when she inspected it over breakfast. He works in medical sales, and has meticulously ironed shirts that he presses himself, even though Georgina’s mum irons like a demon. Tea towels, pants, even socks, if they have frills on them.

Say thank you, Georgina, Janet had prompted her, before she’d even had time to think about not saying it.

Thank you, Terry, Georgina had said obediently, and looked down at her new school shoes, so as not to catch whatever variety of look her mum and Terry were exchanging.

Her shoes are navy blue, with the Mary Jane strap that everyone had wanted at St. Leonard’s. Mum had finally given in after months of pleading, but the shoes—exactly the right shade of blue—aren’t making Georgina as happy as she’d hoped.

Half an hour later, pretending to read safety notices outside the registration room, Georgina knows for definite that the shoes are wrong. The satchel is beyond wrong. The other first-years around her are wearing the exact same brown blazer and white shirt but her over-tidy newness is making her different—she can already pick out the kids with older brothers and sisters by their cool, worn-in, hand-me-down uniform and bags. And their confident manner, the way they’re laughing and bumping against their mates, at ease with teasing and physical contact.

Georgina wishes she knew how to make friends. How come some people have that knack, she wonders. What do they say? How do they know the right people to home in on?

Think about Dad.

The three photographs of Captain Huw Pritchard that she still has flash into her mind: Dad in his Welsh Guards uniform, Dad in shorts on vacation, Dad with an SAS mustache in a rugby shirt, holding a pint of beer. He looks handsome in all of them, happy and sociable. The sort of man who doesn’t even think about making friends, they just happen.

Georgina digs her nails into her palm. I can’t just be like Mum, she thinks. Dad fitted in everywhere he was posted. I must have some friend-making genes. What would he have done?

She ignores the fact that she doesn’t know what her dad would have done because she can barely remember him. A dark streak of unfocused longing sweeps through her and, as the bell goes, she dives forward, carried by the hope that she’ll look like she knows someone if she barges in with the rest, but when she gets a seat, no one comes to sit next to her.

The teacher—Mrs. Clarkson, flustered in a mohair jumper—arrives, and Georgina fiddles with her pencil case. She’s sat too near the front. Again. The next class, she’ll aim for the middle.

Did she hear the faint hiss of . . . satchel?

Good morning, first-years, Mrs. Clarkson shouts over the racket. Are we all here? Let’s make a start.

As she gets the register out, the door’s flung open and a small girl barrels in, wearing a blazer that’s so big her fingers are hidden by the sleeves. Her tie is knotted low and thick, more like a cravat, and she’s cradling her stack of books in one arm. No bag.

No bag, thinks Georgina, making a mental note.

Sorry I’m late, miss, the girl gasps. Missed . . . bus.

Oh, that bus, says Mrs. Clarkson, sarcastically. Never seems to stop for McIntyres. Which one are you?

Naomi, miss. The girl grins. She has two dimples. Georgina notes Naomi’s stubby plaits are the exact same color as her satchel, a bright chestnut.

Don’t be late again, Naomi. Now sit down. The teacher looks up and sees Georgina for the first time. She blinks. There. Next to . . . ?

Georgina Bellamy, miss, says Georgina, and someone definitely sniggers.

Quiet! snaps Mrs. Clarkson, but it’s too late. This time Georgina can hear satchel and Georgina.

Naomi slides into the seat; she smells strongly of Impulse. As the teacher starts dictating their timetable, Georgina’s aware that Naomi doesn’t have a pencil—silently, she passes her one of hers, her name stamped on it in gold (another gift from Terry).

They write down the unfamiliar new lessons—personal studies, RE, domestic science—then Georgina feels a nudge.

Naomi pushes a note at her. Her writing is round, with big circles over the is, something Janet has specifically forbidden Georgina even to contemplate doing.

Is this your satchel?

Georgina shrugs, not wanting to rise to the teasing, but Naomi nudges her again, nodding under the desk.

What’s the point in denying it? Everyone’s seen it. And anyway, Georgina thinks, with a flicker of defiance, so what? She writes, yes, in her neat cursive.

Naomi shoots her a sympathetic glance, and in that second, even though she is taller, bigger and probably older than Naomi, Georgina feels herself being taken under a wing.

My brother’s got a locker. You can dump it in there before next lesson if you want?

Georgina stares at her half-filled-in timetable, stunned at the way Naomi’s read her mind. She’d happily ditch the satchel but in it there’s something precious: an entry tag from Ascot racecourse, pale pink and gold embossed. She doesn’t remember her dad giving it to her, but apparently he did when he came back from the day’s outing with her mum, their anniversary treat. Dad tied the tag to her chubby toddler wrist and she paraded around like a lady at the races. It’s her lucky charm.

Georgina’s father died not long after the trip to Ascot. She doesn’t have enough things like the tag. Things that prove the stories her mum tells her actually happened. Not that Mum tells her much. Captain Huw Pritchard was on a secret operation for the army when he was killed.

Your father was very brave, is about as much as Janet’ll say before her lips go flat and her eyes glisten.

But the thought of ditching the satchel makes Georgina feel traitorous. She doesn’t want to be rude to Terry. He’s not awful, just a bit boring, and embarrassing with his old car. Her mum watches her like a hawk for signs of disrespect. Though if she has to take the satchel home bearing scars of a playground kickabout, won’t that be worse?

Rebellion doesn’t come easily to Georgina. If she can find a reason, though, that’s different. Swiftly, while Mrs. Clarkson is explaining about lunch queues, she reaches under the desk, unbuckles the hard clasps and gets the tag out from its secret place. She slips it into the inside pocket of her blazer, zips it up safely. Then she writes, thanks, on the note.

Naomi grins at her, dimpling, and Georgina feels something change in the atmosphere around her. The class has moved on, is whispering about Mrs. Clarkson’s funny eye, not about her. She smiles cautiously back at Naomi, feeling the warm tingle of being liked. It might be all right, this school.

Naomi flicks her gaze to the teacher, then crosses her eyes, and Georgina splutters in delighted surprise.

Georgina! Naomi! snaps Mrs. Clarkson.

They spin forward and Georgina sees the wall chart by the board: uniforms of the British Army from 1707 to the present day. It’s a sign. It makes her tingle again. Georgina is big on signs.

•   •   •

The next day Naomi arrived at Gina’s new flat at half past nine for their regular Saturday-morning coffee date. It was a routine they’d got into when Jason and Stuart were at football practice together, and now carried on while Jason took two-year-old Willow to the out-of-town supermarket for some father-daughter bonding and illicit Haribo.

Naomi wasn’t great