We pass a lit phone booth; there’s a pram parked beside it, and a young woman talking. What happened to that girl in the Bed and Breakfast place? People stay fixed in your mind, frozen at the moment you saw them, but in fact her baby will be a young child by now and she could be anywhere in Britain. Funny, the turnings you take. If I hadn’t turned off the M1, that Monday—if I’d driven straight on, back to the depot …

The other funny thing: I feel younger, nowadays, than I felt all those years I was married.

We stop outside the house and I switch off the engine. Edward gets out. He’s going to be taller than me, and darker; he’s already putting that gel stuff on his hair. But, when he smiles, you can see the resemblance.

‘My ankles are all achey from the pedals,’ he says.

‘That’s because you’ve just started. You’re just a little squit.’ I lock up the car. ‘But you’ll learn.’

About the Author

About the Author

Deborah Moggach is an English novelist and screenwriter. She graduated from Bristol University, trained as a teacher, and then worked at Oxford University Press. In the mid-seventies, Moggach moved to Pakistan for two years, where she started composing articles for Pakistani newspapers and her first novel, You Must Be Sisters. Her novels The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Tulip Fever were adapted for film in 2011 and 2017 respectively.

Moggach began writing screenplays in the mid-eighties. Her screenplay for an adaption of Pride & Prejudice starring Keira Knightley received a BAFTA nomination, and she won a Writers Guild Award for her adaptation of Anne Fine’s Goggle-Eyes. She has served as Chair of the Management Committee for the Society of Authors and worked for PEN’s Executive Committee, as well as being a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Moggach currently lives in the Welsh Marches with her husband.

DEBORAH MOGGACH

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