Chloe stands and folds her coat over her arm. She kisses the top of the gravestone so tenderly, it could almost have been Nan’s very own head.

‘Sleep tight, Nan,’ she says. ‘You were one of the very best.’

She knows her way out of the cemetery from here. There are, after all, several of Chloe’s nans, grandmas and grannies dotted around. Grace was the first with dementia, though, and that had made things a lot less complicated. Who would question the sudden appearance of a granddaughter who had arrived to take care of her confused grandma? It might even sound sinister if she’d had anything to gain except the company. A family to call her own, for a while. An invented history more palatable than the one she had lived, waiting for parents who never came, a life spent in foster homes, never properly putting down roots.

She leaves the cemetery and walks back to town to the bus station. Maureen won’t mind her being a little later than the others; she knows she can rely on her, after all. Or as much as you can rely on anyone living.

She waits outside the bus station, and there beside it is a newsagent’s. She arrives in time to see a new bound batch of the local weekly newspaper arrive. Advertising is down so much they’ve dropped it from its evening circulation. She’s heard that half the reporters have been made redundant, so it wasn’t just the archive that had to go. She hands over seventy pence to the cashier in return for a thinning copy of her once beloved newspaper. She flicks through as she waits for the bus; it’s more adverts than news now. Although there is one story that catches her eye:

WIDOW’S PLEA: DON’T TAKE MY ALLOTMENT

The old woman looks sweet in the photograph. A curly-haired grandmother with kind eyes and a pearl necklace. She hasn’t a soul left in the world. The only pleasure she gets is growing her tomatoes, she tells the reporter. Chloe feels that familiar tug at her heart.

She folds the newspaper just in time for her bus to pull up, and soon blends in among all the other passengers. As the city passes at the window, she sees that old lady in her mind’s eye. She has always fancied an allotment of her own – and a grandma just like that.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This novel would not have been possible without a whole bunch of people behind both it and me. My name may appear on the cover, but publishing a novel is in fact a huge team effort.

First thanks go to Sue Armstrong, my extremely kind agent who waited five patient years for this book to be delivered, offering positive affirmations and encouragement throughout – especially when I wanted to give up. I am so pleased I didn’t.