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Chapters (86)
  1. Title Page
  2. CONTENTS
  3. Love
  4. Before
  5. One
  6. ONE
  7. Two
  8. TWO
  9. Three
  10. THREE
  11. Four
  12. FOUR
  13. Five
  14. FIVE
  15. Six
  16. SIX
  17. Seven
  18. SEVEN
  19. Eight
  20. EIGHT
  21. Nine
  22. NINE
  23. Ten
  24. TEN
  25. Eleven
  26. ELEVEN
  27. After
  28. One
  29. ONE
  30. Two
  31. TWO
  32. Three
  33. THREE
  34. Four
  35. FOUR
  36. Five
  37. FIVE
  38. Six
  39. SIX
  40. Seven
  41. SEVEN
  42. Eight
  43. EIGHT
  44. Nine
  45. NINE
  46. Ten
  47. TEN
  48. Eleven
  49. ELEVEN
  50. Twelve
  51. TWELVE
  52. Thirteen
  53. THIRTEEN
  54. Fourteen
  55. FOURTEEN
  56. Fifteen
  57. FIFTEEN
  58. Sixteen
  59. SIXTEEN
  60. Seventeen
  61. SEVENTEEN
  62. Eighteen
  63. EIGHTEEN
  64. Nineteen
  65. NINETEEN
  66. Twenty
  67. TWENTY
  68. Twenty-One
  69. TWENTY-ONE
  70. Twenty-Two
  71. TWENTY-TWO
  72. Twenty-Three
  73. TWENTY-THREE
  74. Twenty-Four
  75. TWENTY-FOUR
  76. Twenty-Five
  77. TWENTY-FIVE
  78. Twenty-Six
  79. TWENTY-SIX
  80. Twenty-Seven
  81. TWENTY-SEVEN
  82. Twenty-Eight
  83. TWENTY-EIGHT
  84. Eleven Months Later
  85. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  86. Copyright

‘I had to go for a walk after she told me because I didn’t want my parents to know how upset I was. I went and sat in the Enclosures for a while and when I got back, Mum said that Dad was in his study, on the phone to the home my grandmother was in. I could hear him crying and I knew.’

‘Oh, Poppy.’ I bring her hand to my mouth and kiss it. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘I’ve never been to a funeral.’ She laughs again, but it’s just as hollow. Like canned laugher. ‘Then I went to two funerals in a week.’

‘Poppy, I’m sorry.’ I kiss her hand again.

‘I’m OK. Really.’ She waits for me to look at her, then nods at me with a brave smile. ‘I loved my grandmother. She was amazing. She was seventy-two and she did it all. Everything. She trekked through Nepal and saw Hendrix at Woodstock and was a member of Greenpeace. I mean, she walked from London to Paris when she was pregnant with my dad to protest nuclear testing in France. She had this long, incredible life, you know?’

I don’t, actually.

‘I thought it was so cruel when she was diagnosed with MS and had to use a wheelchair, but how can I be now?’ Her smile is a little more honest this time. ‘She’s so lucky, Ash. She did all of that stuff, everything she ever wanted to do, and now she’s with my grandfather, where she belongs.’

I bring her hand up to my mouth and kiss it again.

‘Hey,’ she says when I do. ‘Can I play you a song?’

‘Sure,’ I say as she takes her phone out of her coat pocket and holds it up.

‘They played it at her funeral. It was the first song my grandparents danced to at their wedding, but it reminded me of you.’

‘Me?’

‘Yeah. I started bawling as soon as I heard it because it made me think of us, on New Year’s Eve. Hang on,’ she says, unlocking her phone. She has a string of messages that she ignores, opening a playlist. She scrolls through it and smiles when she finds the song that she’s looking for, then looks up at me, waiting for my reaction as it starts playing.

I vaguely recognise it.

It sounds like something from an old movie.

‘Do you know it?’ she asks. ‘“The Way You Look Tonight” by Frank Sinatra.’

‘Yeah.’

It’s the song Chris and Lorelai danced to in Gilmore Girls.

Her smile fades as quickly as it came and I wonder what she’s thinking.

If she’s realising that she’ll never have that.

Never have a first dance.

I don’t even think about it, just clamber to my feet and hold my hand out.

‘What?’ she asks, her cheeks pink as she looks at my hand.