Chapters (40)
- Cover
- About the Author
- PENGUIN BOOKS
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- THE BEGINNING
Once upon a time, there was a woman who fell in love with a man and she really thought that, as in a fairy tale, they would live happily ever after. She believed that they would grow old together, and she wouldn’t ever be alone or lonely again. But the book doesn’t close there. Marriage is not the end of a story, just its beginning. Now she knew she was glad Adrian had left her, glad of the tunnel of grief she’d travelled through, glad she had no idea of where exactly she was going and what would happen to her next. Who was she going to become, over the next page?
‘Goodnight,’ she said softly.
She kissed Sasha on the top of her head and watched her pad like a cat from the room. She hugged Clem tight, noting her hectic cheeks, her sour breath. She bent over Aggie and gathered up the soft, squashy loaf of her, holding her close, breathing in her fresh baked smell.
‘Mummy,’ said Aggie, her eyes half opening.
‘Mmm?’
‘I love you.’
‘Me you too.’
‘How much do you love me?’
‘More than it’s possible and then some.’
‘Well, I love you – I love you like an owl on the moon.’
‘What!’
‘Like an owl on the moon.’
Irene went downstairs. Everything was quiet, but the quality of silence felt entirely different, now that her daughters had come home to her. She looked out of the window and saw the pink clouds in the darkening sky, and smiled to herself, remembering. Already the young moon was floating low among the chimney pots and London trees.
Like an owl on the moon, an owl on the moon. Her heart skipped a beat, for where would she rather be than here, in this small and run-down house where three girls slept peacefully, knowing that she was standing guard over them till the morning came? And who in the whole wide world was as lucky as she was, to be loved like an owl on the moon?
THE BEGINNING
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