How stupid she had been. How naïve. You couldn’t make someone love you just because you wanted it so badly. You couldn’t get down on one knee in the middle of the village pub, accidentally flashing your knickers because your new bought-specially-for-the-occasion dress is too short, and ask a question like that in front of all your friends and neighbours and embarrass someone into saying yes. The look on his face had said it all. He was more than shocked. He was appalled. And the only person left feeling embarrassed was her.

Joe had not come after her when she ran outside. Only Sian had done that, wrapping her arms around her in the car park, muttering words that Prue had not really taken in. Words about fish in the sea, and his loss, and heartless bastard, all merged together in the fog of hurt that had settled over her, and had still not fully lifted.

Prue sighed and slowly lowered herself deeper into the water, bending her knees and dipping her head back so her whole face went under. She breathed out, a steady stream of tiny air bubbles breaking the surface, until her lungs were empty and she had no choice but to bob back up again. Wash him away, Prue, she told herself. What did they sing in that old film? Wash that man right out of your hair. She slicked her wet curls back over her scalp and sat up, reached for her now almost cold coffee and drank it in one big gulp.

‘Don’t do it, Adeline,’ she said, staring at the cover of her book. ‘Don’t say yes. Men aren’t worth the hassle. You’ll be better off on your own.’

Chapter 8

MADI

Madi had been living in Shelling for four days when she finally forced herself to check her emails and social media pages. Much as she was relishing being alone, she did have to keep her future in mind, and her future revolved, just as her past and present always had, around her work. There could be news from her agent, offers of a part in a play, maybe even some messages from fans. Those were few and far between these days, but they never failed to lift her spirits.

There were none of those waiting for her when she logged on that Thursday afternoon. A couple of junk ads offering her the sort of products only a mastectomy patient might need leapt out at her. How did they know these things? Sometimes it felt as if Big Brother really was watching her, or more likely watching everybody, these days. Even at home sometimes she got the shuddery feeling that someone else was there. A fleeting shadow on the wall, an unexpected creak of the floorboards, a tiny flutter of a curtain when the windows were all closed. Of course, it was just her imagination. There was nobody there. Nothing to be scared of. Her home was her castle, her sanctuary, and always had been. Jeremy had made sure of that. She was just feeling jumpy lately. It was what came of living by herself, and getting older, she supposed, her memory playing its silly cruel little tricks, the cancer forcing her to face the biggest fear she had ever had to face, and the restless nights and crippling tiredness that resulted from all that. And with her son nowhere in sight, it all made her suddenly aware of her own vulnerability and how alone she was in the world.