Not without Anna.

As she moved to the front of the line, Elle put a fist up against her mouth, trying to stifle a sob, and push away the grief that was building afresh.

On approach from this vantage, Elle thought, as the taxi snaked its way along the coast road through Mulberry Bay and up the hill towards her childhood home, the hotel always suggested the splendour it once had been.

There was no sign of any obvious wear and tear: you couldn’t see the paint peeling in flakes from the exterior window frames, the worn carpets at reception, the scuffed ballroom floor, or the hopelessly outdated wallpaper. You definitely couldn’t see that the ballroom chandelier was lightly coated with dust, missing small jewels, or that the staircase creaked unmercifully when you took the wrong step.

Elle recognised that the 1800s architecture of the building was completely outdated, and guessed that her colleagues in London would no doubt chuckle at the high ceilings lined with dark wood, the large imposing doorways, and the turreted ceiling of the bar’s sitting room, which she had so loved as a child. How glamorous, she had thought then, and although she knew she should dismiss it, the hotel hung off her heart like a fishhook, pulling painfully when she least wanted it to.

Her taxi pulled up to the entrance, and here was the moment she’d been dreading. She stepped onto the gravel and saw her sister waiting for her in the doorway. Penny came towards her, arms outstretched and Elle could tell that she was already crying. It struck her suddenly how much like their mother her sister was: slightly plump, blonde, easy in her body.

It was only when she saw Penny coming towards her that Elle finally broke down, letting out all the feeling that had built up over eight hours and six hundred kilometres.

Chapter 3

A few days later, for the first time in an age, the hotel was full of people, all talking and laughing with the kind of relief that comes after intense periods of feeling. It had seemed fitting to Elle and Penny that Anna’s final farewell should be held here, after the church burial service.

The whole Mulberry Bay community had turned out, and they were moving in small, dark swathed circles, catching up on old times. It seemed to Elle almost like a duller reproduction of older celebrations the hotel had seen over the years.