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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraphs

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Also by Anna Cheska

  Copyright

  For Rob

  As always, thanks to my family for being there. To my Mum and Dad for their support, to Luke for helping to make me computer literate, and to my beautiful daughters Alexa and Anna.

  Thanks also to all those who helped me write this book – though you might not have known it at the time! In particular, Jeannette, Peter and David for the original tennis inspiration and the American tournament. And to the Friday night tennis group at Davison – coach Graham, Gill, Pat, Sue et al for making me an honorary ‘offshoot’ of your group. I shall never forget chip and charge, though doubt whether I shall ever do it … Thanks also to Graham Baughan at West Worthing Tennis Club for information about tennis clubs – and I would like to stress at this point that the club in Love-40 bears no relation whatever to West Worthing (apart from the beautiful blue courts!).

  Special thanks must go to the marvellously successful John Otway, for agreeing to give away elements of his stage act to Michael in Love-40. Without Otway, Michael would never have been born. And here’s hoping that he gets the hit he wants for his 50th birthday.

  And to Rob Simons for all his help and support – not least his advice on aspects of musical performance and the music business.

  Finally, I should like to thank Teresa Chris for being a wonderful agent and Judy, Gillian, Jana, Russell and all at Piatkus Books for being such a pleasure to work with.

  Be wise with speed;

  A fool at forty is a fool indeed.

  Edward Young 1683–1765: The Love of Fame.

  Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs,

  Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes,

  Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers’ tears.

  What is it else? A madness most discreet,

  A choking gall and a preserving sweet.

  William Shakespeare 1564–1616: Romeo and Juliet

  Anyone for tennis?

  A typical line in a drawing room comedy

  Chapter 1

  Liam was scowling and so Suzi knew something was up. Even before her brother buried a simple backhand volley into the net.

  Something … But how big a something?

  Uh huh. She winced as he let rip his first serve to the woman who was supposed to be the love of his life. A big something.

  Estelle dodged neatly. Her light toss of the head and deprecatory shrug as she got back into position, spoke volumes.

  Uh huh. Suzi sighed. A big something closely connected to Estelle.

  ‘Shit,’ Liam breathed, thrashing the second serve into the tram lines.

  ‘Love fifteen,’ chirped Michael, Estelle’s tennis partner for the afternoon and Suzi’s lover for rather longer than that.

  ‘Fuck it,’ said Liam, glowering across the net at him.

  Mixed doubles, Suzi reflected, never used to be such a dangerous game. She felt a bit of sunshine being taken out of her day. It wasn’t fair, damn it. And she wasn’t sure if she felt safer being on Liam’s side or not. Safer still probably, to be in Chestnut Grove’s utterly gorgeous, though somewhat battered conservatory, sipping a well-earned G & T. And a heck of a lot more relaxing. Where had she gone wrong?

  She let her gaze wander past the men’s doubles being played on the next court, towards the clubhouse beyond; a building made of large honey-coloured bricks – Purbeck stone. The glass conservatory attached to the front of the building looked particularly inviting.

  And after the G & T? Would she be expected to sort out Liam and Estelle’s latest humdinger from hell? She wasn’t sure she could face it. Because maybe she was fed up with being stuck in the middle of these two. Maybe it was time to duck out.

  In the meanwhile, it was more a matter of ducking in order to avoid the firing line. Help. Suzi glanced a warning at Michael, who was very sweet but probably had no idea what was going on, poor lamb.

  Michael winked back at her. Ignorance is bliss, Suzi thought, even when you’re forty years old and should know better. But then, Michael hadn’t had the dubious benefit of growing up with Liam, she reminded herself. He imagined this was just a jolly game of tennis amongst friends. The man knew nothing.

  Still, the fierceness of the next serve took even Suzi by surprise. She blinked into the sun as the ball screamed past her. While Michael – all sticky-out arms and long, pale legs, in baggy white shorts and Elvis Costello T-shirt – swung a wild forehand and missed the ball completely. Though he’d willingly made up the four since becoming a regular weekend visitor to Pridehaven, Michael and tennis courts weren’t a match made in heaven. Suzi watched him sweep the fingers of his free hand through his thinning fair hair in a gesture of defeat.

  ‘Serve,’ he conceded graciously. ‘Didn’t even see it.’

  Estelle twirled her racket wearily. ‘I’m not surprised.’

  ‘Well played!’ Suzi went for enthusiasm. She was beginning to feel desperate. This was their first game for several weeks, since a grey January and February had drifted into March, and it had seemed almost impossible to coincide the free time of all four of them with the infrequent breaking of murky cloud cover. But today – apart from being a Sunday, so the antique shop Suzi ran with Estelle was closed, Liam was not teaching and Michael had not yet returned to Fareham – there had been a definite promise of spring in the blue and white lunchtime sky. Heat, even.

  And the courts of Chestnut Grove Tennis Club – four grass and four green hard courts – seemed to beckon. Spring, Suzi thought, was summed up by the gently dappled sunlight that crept through the leaves of the ancient horse-chestnut trees bordering the driveway that had given the club its name. Spring was the first time you got to play on the bouncy grass turf, though it was unusual, she knew, for the courts to be ready this early in the season. They had to be fertilised, rolled, marked out and the weather had to be kind. Suzi loved this place with a fierce passion. She turned her face upwards to the sun, felt the warmth, smelled the fragrance of freshly mown grass, heard the thwack of racket strings on slightly damp yellow tennis balls.

  But spring, it seemed, had not brought any warmth to the relationship of her brother and Estelle. It had brought heat of a very different kind.

  ‘Fifteen all,’ Liam said in a crisp tone, eyeing Estelle with hostility. ‘Ready?’

  ‘And waiting,’ Estelle called back, smoothing one hand along the length of her lycra shorts and bending to rub a grass stain from her white trainers. ‘Do your worst.’

  This time at least Liam’s serve dipped in, producing a sweeping forehand drive from Estelle that Suzi managed to reach with an athletic le
ap to her left and a slightly scary skid across the grass in the tram lines. She hobbled back into position, reminding herself to do an extra ten minutes of yoga tonight.

  She wasn’t exactly in the first hot flush of youth (the big four oh was looming round the corner and would belong to her body and soul before Christmas) so maybe her days of skidding across grass tennis courts were numbered. She didn’t want to have hip replacement surgery at her age.

  Meanwhile, the G & T in the sunny conservatory became an even pleasanter prospect. But she felt somehow, that Liam was depending on her. And how could she let him down?

  Michael just got to the next serve, but Suzi intercepted and put it past him. That was the great thing about grass. The serve/volleyer would always win through in the end.

  ‘Good girl, Suze.’ Liam grinned as he squinted into the sun to serve. ‘Now we’ve got ’em.’

  And some people thought tennis was a game? Suzi pulled in her pelvic floor and raced to retrieve what Estelle had probably assumed to be an outright winner of a return, slamming it across court with her two-handed backhand. Being small, she needed such techniques to match the power of the others. But had anyone ever proved that strenuous exercise was actually good for you, she wondered. Didn’t it have side effects like exhaustion, strokes and heart attacks?

  The shot was well placed, the ball hardly seemed to bounce at all and Estelle didn’t even bother to run for it. ‘Game,’ she said in a bored voice. ‘As per.’

  ‘And set, I think,’ Liam said, shooting her one of his hyena-smiles. ‘Change partners?’

  Here we go, thought Suzi. Trouble.

  ‘Maybe…’ Estelle began, as they gathered by the net, ‘… we need some new partners.’ She adjusted the strap of her black vest-top and began rubbing suntan oil into her pale skin. It might be only March, but Estelle was always prepared and she wouldn’t burn for anyone. ‘Completely new partners,’ she reiterated.

  Liam’s plastic bottle of mineral water bounced on to the grass, Michael said, ‘whoopsie, mate,’ as he scooped it back up for him, and Suzi went on red alert. ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘New blood,’ Estelle elaborated. ‘From the club.’ With a wave towards CG’s clubhouse, she proceeded to untie her pony tail and shake out the mass of dark red hair, before smoothing it from forehead to nape with one hand. This gesture held what was perhaps an unconscious sensuality, but Suzi saw Liam look sharply away, focusing his attention on the grip of his racket, which was worn and beginning to fray.

  ‘But we’re a foursome,’ Suzi said, just as Liam chimed in with, ‘Why the hell not? Suits me.’

  Michael looked from one to another of them, blissfully unaware. ‘What’s the big deal?’ he asked.

  Estelle made a little pout. ‘These two have won every match so far,’ she said. ‘It was a challenge to start with, but…’ she fixed Liam with an accusing eye ‘… it gets boring after a while.’

  To what degree, Suzi wondered, was Estelle referring to tennis? There were plenty of other club players, and some of the courts were also used by Chestnut Grove Youth Club, which had existed even before the tennis club had grown up by its side. It was the youth club, many of them felt, that stopped the tennis club from becoming too elitist. For tradition was all very well, but any club that didn’t accept change, youth and evolution was likely, Suzi thought, to die. The youth club kept the tennis club on its toes; prevented the old-school blazer brigade from taking over and elbowing them out.

  But if they were to change partners, who out of their foursome, Suzi asked herself, would be left out? And surely Estelle wouldn’t leave Liam – not after all this time?

  ‘Suze and I play well together,’ Liam said, flinging a protective arm around her as if Estelle’s criticism had been directed at her alone. ‘We’ve got complementary games. We understand each other.’

  Estelle pulled a face, but Suzi knew it was true. Brothers and sisters shared a special understanding, she supposed. And with their background none more so than they. But it wasn’t easy looking out for Liam’s interests when his girlfriend happened to be Suzi’s business partner. And Suzi couldn’t escape the feeling that this wasn’t one of Liam and Estelle’s regular sort of barneys. There was a bleakness in Liam’s green eyes that worried her. And an indifference in Estelle that was striking warning chords in Suzi’s heart.

  For they belonged together, didn’t they? Not just Liam and Estelle but Suzi too. A threesome begun when they were only nine and ten years old. She glanced across at Michael and gave her lover a reassuring smile. But it was a threesome that would always make it hard to admit another.

  * * *

  In the clubhouse afterwards, Suzi, Estelle and Liam made for the conservatory, while Michael went to the bar. Various club members had been drawn out of hibernation, Suzi observed, by the unusual combination of weekend and sunshine, and were dotted around the bar, clubhouse and conservatory, dressed mostly in shorts and sports shirts, rackets and kit bags at their feet, though a few hadn’t yet taken off their tracksuits to bare winter-white legs to the world. The place was alive and buzzing with conversation, with the promise of months of tennis ahead, of cool beers after long evening games, of virtuous thirty-, forty-, fifty- and sixty-somethings saying to their doctors – yes, I get plenty of exercise. Tennis, you know.

  Suzi spotted Erica Raddle and her sidekick Deirdre Piston sitting head to head at a far table by the bar. Deirdre was looking flustered – making notes with one hand, patting another stray and rebellious fluffy hair back into her perm with the other. Whilst Erica was laying down her law, her own crowning glory cut into a short, no-nonsense style that wouldn’t dare to rebel.

  As she threw down her sports bag and lowered herself gingerly into one of Chestnut Grove’s battered wicker chairs – whose faded floral cushion bore the imprint of many other behinds – Suzi wondered idly what great plan they were hatching. For Erica had what she called ambitions for CG’s. And they were likely to be controversial ones.

  Suzi had to admit, though, that the place could do with some tarting up. In the clubhouse itself, the Formica counter and lurid fluorescent lighting were about as intimate as a DHSS office. But the conservatory was something else again – a wonderful place to relax in. Even after this afternoon’s fiasco, five minutes in here restored that elusive equilibrium, gave Suzi a sense of blissful tranquillity.

  Probably an illusion, she thought, trying not to look at Liam or Estelle, stretching out instead in her creaky wicker chair, surveying the view. And it was one of the best – the grass tennis courts alongside, squared off by yew hedges that could, admittedly, do with a trim; green hard courts beyond and down a few steps, and beyond that, as the hill dipped, the village of Pridehaven, the river Pride itself which wound past her own little cottage, and eventually the sandstone cliffs and the sea. But it was an illusion that she’d enjoy for now. And a perfect place to get a drink at the end of play – or in this case, battle.

  She surveyed the main contestants. Estelle was staring out of the window towards the grass courts where two women of indeterminate age were slogging it out. Liam was staring in the opposite direction, towards the bar. Silence.

  Suzi decided on jolly. ‘What about this grand opening tomorrow, then?’

  More silence.

  Estelle absent-mindedly stroked a waxy leaf of the small lemon tree in the corner behind her. Suzi had never actually seen a lemon on it and as far as she knew, she was the only person who ever watered the plant. But she liked the fact that it – along with the asparagus fern, broad-leaved palm and variegated ficus – was here. And she liked to imagine the scent of lemon too, adding a Mediterranean feel to the place.

  ‘What d’you reckon it’ll be?’

  Even more silence.

  ‘A convenience store? Toys? A pound shop?’ New tenants had moved in next door to Secrets In The Attic, Estelle and Suzi’s antique shop, but so far they’d refused to reveal the nature of their trade. It was driving Suzi and Estelle mad with curiosity. Th
roughout February, lorries had unloaded mysterious contents under the cover of late afternoon winter darkness, and the front window had remained curtained and black.

  Estelle had tried a variety of tactics, such as loitering in their own shop doorway during delivery times, engaging the owners, Stan and Terry, in deceptively desultory conversations, even making a pot of tea and whipping up a chocolate sponge in an effort to gain entry and information. But they had no more idea now, the day before the opening, just what the mystery was all about.

  ‘A hairdresser’s?’ Suzi said desperately, glancing down at the blue and white tiled floor for inspiration. Someone had thrown a raffle ticket under the glass-topped table. ‘A bookie’s?’

  The silence was so palpable, Suzi almost felt she could gather it in her arms, take it home for a quick spin through the tumbledryer and give it back to them as freshly laundered conversation. ‘A sex shop?’ she said.

  ‘Sounds good to me.’ Michael returned with the drinks, Suzi was aware of the revolving door doing its thing, and then the atmosphere in the clubhouse changed radically as Amanda Lake walked in.

  The dial moved to cold for most of the women and hot for all of the men. Amanda Lake, tall, blonde and willowy in golden tan and immaculate tennis whites. Suzi groaned. Amanda Lake, envied by women, lusted after by men. Amanda was all they needed now to turn a bad afternoon into disaster. She grabbed her G & T, closed her eyes, made a wish.

  ‘Amanda! Coo-eee! How lovely to see you!’ Erica rose from her chair and hot-footed it to the bar counter as fast as her large bosom would allow. ‘And how is that delectable father of yours?’

  Wish not granted. Amanda was still standing there.

  Liam tore his hands through his dark curls, making them wilder than ever. ‘Parasites,’ he muttered.

  ‘Amanda or her father?’ Estelle enquired sweetly. ‘At least her father has an estate to run. What does Amanda do to justify a place in the world?’

  ‘Used to be a model, didn’t she?’ Michael leaned forward confidingly. ‘Wonder why she chucked it in.’