Annie's Lovely Choir By The Sea Read online

  Annie’s Lovely Choir by the Sea

  A Heart-warming Feel-Good Romance

  Liz Eeles

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  A Note from Liz

  Acknowledgments

  For Tim, my very own handsome hero

  Chapter 1

  There’s a hand on my arse – and it isn’t mine. Some pervert in this sauna-hot Tube carriage has clamped his sweaty fingers to my left buttock, like a climber clinging on to a rock face. And as the three men squished up against me in this London transport hellhole are all looking shifty, it’s hard to tell which one of them is the groper.

  Fortunately I’m wearing comfortable big pants today which means that, as well as my jersey skirt, there’s a substantial layer of easy-wash polyester between me and skin-on-skin contact.

  As luck would have it, I’m also wearing my best shoes. Black, shiny shoes with two inch spiky heels, just perfect for my last day at the charitable trust where I’ve been working as a PA to the chief exec – and ideal for spearing the fleshy upper part of a man’s foot.

  The sour-smelling businessman behind me, whose breath is warming my neck, gives a high-pitched yelp as my heel hits home, and the hand slides off my backside. Result! And lucky first time, too. Years of living in London have sharpened my instincts when it comes to identifying the dodgy bastards, from crack addicts and lairy teenagers to middle-aged, married businessmen who get a thrill from touching up strangers.

  ‘Nice one, love,’ whispers the large perspiring woman crushed against my boobs, giving the buttock-clamper a glare. ‘They should all be thrown off the train, preferably while it’s moving.’

  We grin at one another while I slip my hand into my bag and feel around for my lip salve. Chilly January winds are drying out my skin. But I pull my fingers out quickly when they brush against the edges of an envelope. I’m not sure why I’m still carrying the letter around with me, especially as it’s been in the dustbin twice, so the thick cream-coloured paper is stained with tomato sauce and grease.

  ‘I promise that I’ll throw the damned letter away properly when I get home,’ I mutter under my breath. And I won’t almost upend myself in the dustbin trying to get it back out again.

  Once I’m rid of the letter I can get back to my lovely, carefree life in the thriving, beating heart of the nation – where we pile into tin tubes and whizz round the city’s arterial system, deep underground with the rats and the gropers. London might be dirty and noisy and a ridiculously expensive place to live, but it’s been my home since I was born in Ealing twenty-nine years ago and I love it.

  * * *

  There’s plenty of city centre dirt and rush-hour noise when I emerge, blinking, from the Tube station at King’s Cross. A police siren is wailing in the distance and a fug of car fumes drifts like mist around the people hurrying along the packed pavements. The small bouquet of hothouse roses presented to me by staff at the Trust is looking decidedly droopy but the flowers might revive if I shove them into water at Maura’s flat. I’ll probably let Maura keep them because she could do with a treat.

  Three months ago, when Harry was born, Maura’s tiny flat was filled with flowers. But since then the heady scent of fresh blooms has been replaced by a faint aroma of last night’s tea, dirty nappies and rubber. The rubber whiff comes from the cycle shop underneath whose clientele is made up of whippet-thin women in neon-striped Lycra. Or ‘lucky cows without kids who still have a life’, as Maura refers to them. Though I know she loves Harry to pieces, even when he’s projectile puking like something from The Exorcist.

  ‘Come in,’ says Maura, yanking open her front door and tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. ‘Don’t worry about taking off your shoes. The place is a total tip so I’m not worried about mud on the carpet.’

  I slip my shoes off anyway and follow her through an obstacle course of baby paraphernalia piled up in the narrow, dark hallway. The lounge is equally cluttered, with a pushchair in the corner and a boxed travel cot. Maura has to move a mountain of cloth nappies onto the floor so I can sit down. There’s so much stuff everywhere I feel claustrophobic, especially when a pile of baby clothes falls into my lap.

  ‘So how was your leaving do, then?’ asks Maura, rubbing her eyes. Without waiting for my answer, she gives the nappies a kick. ‘Sodding things! It’s all very well saving the planet by not using disposable nappies but where are the eco-PC brigade at 3 a.m. when I’m scraping shit off terry towelling with my eyes shut?’

  She stifles a yawn and grimaces when Harry starts squealing in the small bedroom next door.

  ‘Paul!’ she yells, putting her head round the door and shouting towards the galley kitchen. ‘Harry’s crying and it’s your turn.’

  ‘Bloody useless,’ she mutters under her breath when Paul drops pans into the sink with a passive-aggressive clatter and stomps into the bedroom. ‘I was up all night doing feeds so the least he can do is pull his weight during the day.’ She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. ‘Anyway, enough about my domestic bliss. How did it go with the big goodbye? Did you cry?’

  ‘Hardly! I’ve only been there a year and it was time to move on.’ I think back to my low-key leaving do with tea and cake and people giving me awkward hugs. ‘I’ll miss them but I don’t feel sad about it.’

  ‘No, you really don’t,’ says Maura with a puzzled look. ‘Personally, I’d hate all the chopping and changing you do with your jobs but I guess you’re just brilliant at goodbyes.’

  She’s right. If there was a degree in saying goodbye and moving on, I’d have a double first. Moving on is underrated by people who opt to put down roots and – shudder – settle down. Mortgage, marriage, babies, lunch with the parents. It’s fine if that’s what you want but keeping on the move when it comes to jobs and relationships makes life far less complicated. Particularly if, like me, you have no family ties at all.

  Maura squeezes in beside me on the sofa and puts her hand on mine. ‘But will you be OK without a job? I know you like these short-term work contracts but they seem stressful to me.’

  She looks so concerned, my heart suddenly feels fluttery with panic. But I quickly get a grip on myself.

  ‘Of course, I’ll be fine,’ I reassure her with a smile. ‘I always knew the Trust job was a maternity cover contract. It’s nothing to worry about, and certainly nothing to spoil our evening out. I’m planning on celebrating the end of my contract and the start of my freedom. Who knows what’s next? That’s part of the fun.’

  ‘Ah yes, our evening out.’ Maura stands quickly and kicks shut the door of an overflowing cupboard. ‘I’m really sorry, Annie. I know we were supposed to be going out but Paul has suddenly remembered that he’s got a works do this evening –’ she moves closer to the door and raises her voice ‘– which is
really inconvenient and inconsiderate and unfair when I so rarely get out of the flat these days.’

  ‘Oh, do give it a rest, Maura,’ shouts Paul from the bedroom, which starts Harry wailing all over again.

  ‘Sorry, Annie,’ says Maura, seeing my face fall. ‘I’d love to go out, but you’re welcome to stay here and we can get a takeaway and watch telly instead.’ She stifles a yawn. ‘Though I won’t be vibrant company, what with Harry not sleeping through. My mum thinks he’s teething which is terrifying if one tooth causes so much chaos. He’s got another nineteen of the little buggers waiting to carve their way through his gums between midnight and dawn. I kick Paul to get up and do his bit but he lies there and pretends he’s dead.’ She lowers her voice and leans towards me. ‘I so miss what I had.’

  ‘Before you had Harry?’

  ‘No, before I got feckin’ married,’ says Maura darkly, picking up one of Paul’s socks from the floor and twisting it viciously into a tight knot. ‘You are so lucky, Annie.’

  I nod sympathetically and try not to look smug because I know I’m lucky. I’ve got my own life. OK, so I don’t have a job at the moment but something will come up, it always does. But I’m mortgage-free with a lovely, handsome boyfriend who doesn’t cramp my style, and no family to tie me down. An image of the grease-spattered letter nestling in my handbag floats into my mind but I bat it away.

  ‘Here!’ Maura waves a takeaway menu for the Terrific Thai Palace in my face. ‘Pick what you fancy and I’ll give them a call. Order as much as you like because Paul’s paying.’

  In the end I stay for the takeaway and a cuddle with Harry, who smells of milk as he dribbles onto my shoulder. But I give Maura a hug and leave when she starts nodding off into her pad thai. What Maura needs is an early night and my change of plan means I can pay a surprise visit to Stuart.

  Normally, Stuart and I never see one another on Fridays because we go out with our own friends instead – it’s become a kind of rule. But he told me he was having an evening in tonight, and rules are there to be broken. Plus I’d really like to see him. We’ve been going out for more than six months now, which is a bit of a record for me, and I’m getting used to having him around.

  It’s dark and chilly when I hobble down Pentonville Road to the station, with my earphones in and my favourite Ed Sheeran tracks playing. My weapon-grade shoes are pinching my toes and all I can think of is sinking my throbbing feet into a hot bath. Maybe I’ll have one at Stuart’s, in his gleaming tub with its jacuzzi jets, and he can join me. I smile at the thought and a young man lolloping towards me with his jeans at half-mast smiles back and winks.

  The traffic is still crazy busy at King’s Cross and I ferret through my handbag for my Oyster card while waiting at the crossing for the green man to appear. It never ceases to amaze me how much crap can fit into a small bag – a half-eaten tube of Polos, hand cream, a tatty notebook, a ton of tissues, the lip salve I couldn’t find earlier.

  My fingers close round the letter again, and this time I give in and pull out the thick envelope which has ‘Miss Annabella Trebarwith’ in black type above the address of my Stratford flat. It arrived almost a week ago and, after I’d quickly scanned through the letter inside, it’s been in my handbag ever since – apart from a couple of forays into the bin. Out of sight, out of mind, though that doesn’t seem to be working too well. I’m usually great at ignoring things that upset me but the letter keeps niggling at the edges of my brain, like a panther waiting to pounce.

  ‘Why can’t people leave me alone?’ I murmur, shoving the letter back into my bag as the green man beeps and I’m swept across the road by a surge of impatient commuters.

  Chapter 2

  There’s no one in the foyer of the mansion block near Earl’s Court station, where Stuart lives. Ageing concierge Peter is usually at the front desk but he’s nowhere to be seen, though curls of steam are wafting from his coffee cup so he can’t have gone far. Taking advantage of his absence, I run my fingers across his desk and stand for a moment absorbing the atmosphere. I love this glorious 1930s building; the cherry wood panelling on the walls, twisting banisters and thick smell of furniture polish. Visiting Stuart is like stepping back in time into a bubble of art deco elegance, while people with heads buried in their iPhones hurry by outside.

  I usually take the stairs – especially now I’m approaching thirty and determined to get fit – but my feet are killing me. So I wait for the creaky lift instead and take it to the fourth floor. If the weather’s nice tomorrow, I’ll slap on some blister plasters, put on my comfy trainers and go for a run round the Olympic Park to make up for it.

  The burgundy carpet outside Stuart’s flat is worn but his door is a freshly painted navy blue with a gleaming gold letter box. I turn my key in the lock and creep inside, keen to surprise him with the jumbo bar of his favourite chocolate that I bought at the station.

  The TV’s on so I tiptoe through the hall, past the art deco floor lamp with its black and white dragonflies picked out in glass across the shade. The hall walls are a delicate shade of duck-egg blue which contrasts beautifully with the snow-white coving and cornicing. Stuart has the most amazing taste – particularly when it comes to women, he reckons, and I’m hardly going to argue with that.

  The front room door is closed but I fling it open and jump inside with the chocolate held out ahead of me like a magic wand.

  ‘Behold, I come bearing Toblerone!’

  ‘Oh fuck!’ Stuart’s head bobs up over the back of his black, corduroy sofa which is facing away from me towards the flat-screen TV. His white shirt is unbuttoned, his face is sweaty and there’s a lipstick-red rash on his neck.

  ‘Stuart?’ I stride round the side of the sofa and there’s Melinda, the woman who works in his office at Base and Harwood Financial Accountancy. I met her at Christmas in the pub, where she was looking beautifully turned out in a taupe trouser suit and perfect make-up with a Chanel bag. She intimidated the hell out of me.

  She’s not looking as self-possessed right now. Her white-blonde hair is mussed up and her cashmere jumper, scarlet to match her lips, is on the floor along with her skirt and red-soled shoes.

  Though I feel like someone’s punched me in the chest, I’m still with it enough to notice that the bra and tiny pants she’s wearing are matching. They’re probably Myla, damn her. She’s undoubtedly the type of woman who never wears big pants, even on days when she doesn’t expect to be shagged by her boyfriend. Or rather, my boyfriend.

  ‘Look, Annie, I can explain,’ blusters Stuart, rubbing a hand across the faint stubble on his chin and smearing the lipstick marks on his neck. ‘It’s not how it looks.’ He winces. ‘Well, I suppose it is but I was going to tell you.’

  Melinda is cowering in the corner of the sofa, hands across her breasts and genitals which are inadequately covered by scraps of exquisite lace. She doesn’t meet my eye when I pick up her clothes and shoes and shove them towards her.

  ‘Um, thanks,’ she mutters, grabbing them, leaping off the sofa and running into the hall. I follow her and watch as she wrenches open the front door, clothing still draped over her arm, and slams it shut behind her. She’ll be getting dressed in the communal hallway then, which will liven up Peter’s day no end when he reviews the CCTV footage later.

  Stuart’s not in the front room when I stomp back in and sink onto the sofa. I still feel as if someone’s sitting on my chest so I let off steam by punching one of his beige Habitat cushions. I was with Stuart when he bought them, so I give it another hard whack with the Toblerone and clasp the cushion across my stomach as Stuart comes into the room.

  He’s wearing blue tracksuit bottoms, the white T-shirt I bought him from Gap, and a sheepish expression. The marks on his neck are gone apart from faint red outlines.

  ‘I’m really sorry you saw that, Annie,’ he says, pushing a hand through his short, fair hair which is standing up in spikes.

  ‘Sorry I saw it or sorry you’ve been shagging Melinda behind
my back?’

  ‘Don’t start twisting my words. This is difficult enough as it is.’ He pulls an unopened bottle of whisky from the cupboard underneath the TV and twists off the cap. ‘I need a drink. Do you want one?’

  ‘You know I don’t like whisky.’

  ‘I forgot.’ Stuart pours a triple into a crystal glass, perches on the edge of the cupboard and takes a large swig. ‘Look, this is really awkward.’

  ‘You think?’ The panicky fluttering I felt at Maura’s is back, though this time my heart is being jumped on.

  ‘Don’t be snippy, Annie,’ says Stuart sharply.

  ‘How should I be? We’ve been going out for months and I’ve just found out you’re cheating on me. I think I have every right to be snippy.’

  In more ways than one: a vision of large kitchen scissors poised around Stuart’s testicles springs into my mind.

  ‘Look, I’m really sorry, Annie.’ Stuart puts down his glass, sits beside me on the sofa and stares at his knees. ‘I’ve behaved like a shit and I should have told you sooner but, be honest, our relationship was never going anywhere, was it? It was just a bit of fun for both of us. You’ve made it very clear that you like being independent and doing your own thing. We spent most of Christmas apart and there was no way you were ever going to move in or do the marriage thing.’

  The back of my neck starts prickling because I hate these heavy conversations.

  ‘You seemed happy enough with the way things were going,’ I say bitterly.

  ‘I was and you’re a great girl, Annie.’ Stuart touches my cheek and drops his hand when I flinch. ‘But I’ve started to feel differently now I’m in my thirties and Melinda wants the same things I do.’

  ‘What kind of things?’

  ‘More long-term stuff: commitment, maybe a family one day. And I know you don’t do family.’

  ‘You should have told me.’