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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

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Also by Anna Cheska

  Copyright

  For Alexa

  A big thank you to my lovely family, especially Mum and Dad, Luke, Alexa and the other Anna Cheska.

  Thanks also to everyone who offered help, advice and insight, in particular, Pat James, Helen White, Claire Rodgers, Caroline Neilson, Jeannette Boniface and Rob Simons. Drop dead gorgeous, every one of them …

  And to Teresa Chris for her perceptive eye, for her empathy and support and for The Goddess Without.

  ‘This above all, to thine own self be true’

  – William Shakespeare, Hamlet

  ‘Beauty is the lover’s gift’

  – William Congreve, The Way of the World

  Chapter 1

  Imogen West took a shudder of a breath as she opened the door to Edward’s study. His sanctuary. She stared into the gloom, almost seeing his figure, his hand … reaching up to pluck the Encyclopaedia Britannica from the top shelf of the tall glass-fronted bookcase perhaps. Almost hearing his voice. Don’t speculate, Imogen. Look it up. Every fact can be at your fingertips. Every fact? Imo shivered. What about the fact of death? ‘Don’t give me all that stuff,’ she said aloud.

  Shadows weren’t capable of emotional blackmail, but even so … In one swift movement, she reached for the light switch. Better. The bulky and the black became his mahogany desk, his bookcase, his favourite leather chair. Not so dark, she told herself, releasing her breath with a pouf of liberation. Not so unknown, though still a touch scary.

  Solid, traditional, a little fusty – to be honest, rather like Edward himself – the furniture stared back at her, as though aware that its days were numbered.

  Imogen didn’t want to do this. She laced her fingers together, feeling the pressure of her wedding ring against her little finger. It felt too soon. The shock of his death had left her numb – functioning with only a part of her brain, doing the necessary tasks and forgetting all others, battling with divided emotions and wondering why she couldn’t cry.

  She glared around the room, hands thrust into the pockets of her jeans. But she had to do it. John Grantham, her smooth, dark solicitor, had asked her to sort out the paperwork. ‘Get things moving,’ he’d said. ‘We have to get things moving.’

  So Imogen moved. She straightened her back, pushed a stray hank of nut-brown hair behind one ear and strode into the study. It had to be. Her husband had died three days ago. Sooner or later, life without Edward must begin.

  * * *

  ‘Loosen up, Imo.’

  ‘Mm … grmph.’ Imogen was in a beauty salon a few streets west of Market Cross, the imposing stone structure marking the meeting point of East, West, South and North Streets in Chichester city centre. The salon was on the ground level of a three-storey building whose Georgian façade concealed a black-and-chrome interior that was, Imo thought now, thoroughly no-nonsense contemporary.

  It was the following afternoon and Jude’s fingers were gently but firmly massaging Imogen’s scalp. Joe Cocker was crooning from a speaker above the black hand-basin about that elusive Something … and Imogen was trying to relax. She wasn’t just here for a massage. Jude was both the owner of the salon and her closest friend.

  ‘You’re so tense, sweetie.’ Jude’s eyes were half closed in concentration, her honey hair hanging loose around her ample bosom this morning, displaying no hint or tint of the raven black it had been when they’d met up the week before. ‘But who wouldn’t be? It’s dreadful, so dreadful.’ Rather like a dentist, Imo reflected, Jude could be relied on for continuous monologue if necessary. ‘Edward … I still can’t believe it, you know.’

  Neither could Imogen. OK, his cholesterol level had been high enough for Edward to alter his diet – though not radically – and for him to consider having the tests in London that somehow he’d never quite got round to. But even so … The fact of his death, the cold, hard fact, was hard to assimilate, and Imo blinked agreement since she was too efficiently swathed in Jude’s fluffy black towels to do much else.

  ‘I mean, a massive heart attack. Out of the blue like that. He wasn’t old.’ Unthinking, Jude began to hum along with Joe, before stopping abruptly. ‘How old was he anyway?’

  Imogen breathed in the pungent scent of jojoba oil and mumbled an indistinct, ‘Forty-five.’ She might once have considered this a reasonable life span, but now, halfway through her thirties, it seemed painfully meagre.

  ‘You poor love. What an awful shock. I suppose it hasn’t sunk in yet?’ Jude relieved Imogen’s jaw-line of one of the towels. Her eyes were dark blue and sympathetic. But while Imo could believe in the sympathy – for Jude was one of the most compassionate women she knew – the colour was another thing entirely. Jude’s collection of coloured contact lenses (not to mention hair dyes, mousses, sprays, hair extensions and wigs) meant that sometimes her best friend was hard to recognise, should Imo pass her in the street. But that was Jude for you – a woman of many different colours, Imo would be the first to admit, but with a heart of pure gold.

  She sighed. ‘It’s the study I can’t face.’ For all her good intentions last night, she’d stood for ages in front of the mahogany desk, just staring at the wedding photo of herself and Edward, squatting in self-satisfied manner inside its silver frame.

  She’d finally picked up the photo, scrutinised the Imogen and the Edward of ten years ago and wondered about love. Had she loved him? She’d certainly thought so at the time. The photograph showed a perfect couple, and perhaps that was why they had become one. They never argued, they listened to one another’s point of view, they were kind, considerate and careful of one another’s feelings. But love?

  She’d replaced the photograph with a sigh. It was one thing telling yourself to knuckle down and get on with it, but the study was so much Edward’s that moving anything felt like an intrusion, as if she were dismantling his life, dismissing his value. And that didn’t seem fair.

  Tentatively, she’d opened first one drawer, then another. Papers, folders, books, all neatly filed as per Edward’s customary habit. Until the top drawer. She pulled at the worn handle. The drawer was locked. He’d shut it once, quickly, when she’d brought in coffee. She’d smiled and thought, Secrets … Now it seemed to have an invisible label on it – MY LIFE. ALL YOU EVER NEEDED TO KNOW TO UNDERSTAND ME, it seemed to say. That was it for Imogen. She had marched straight out again. Enough. More tomorrow.

&nbs
p; She’d retreated to the bedroom, stripped off her jeans and jumper and wrapped herself in her old and comforting towelling robe. This was the room in which he had died. But it still felt kinder somehow …

  ‘I’ll help you one night after work, if you like,’ Jude offered now, wiping her palms on the short, black shift she always preferred to work in. ‘It must be ghastly.’

  Imogen tried to shake her head but her neck was stuck in the constricting curve of the basin. ‘No.’ Jude had already offered her a bed in the crowded flat that she shared with her mother and daughter above the salon. She had offered a shoulder to cry on and a listening ear, not to mention this wash, massage and blow dry. ‘You’re a darling, but I can manage,’ Imo told her. She had to do it alone.

  But she appreciated the offer, appreciated Jude with her warmth and the big smile that helped a friend achieve instant perspective on her troubles. Imo reached out a hand and briefly squeezed her friend’s. Was Jude everyone’s confidante as well as the woman they expected to make them beautiful? she wondered, remembering yesterday’s phone call. ‘Come and see me,’ Jude had said. ‘I’ll sort you out.’

  Imo shifted in the squashy, black chair of Jude’s unique beauty salon, The Goddess Without. She smiled, recalling the night she and Jude had shared a bottle of Beaujolais and come up with the name, one that suggested you could indeed simply walk in and emerge cheerful, transformed, attractive, desirable, what every woman wanted to be on the outside, what every man wanted to have … someone drop dead gorgeous. Huh!

  Jude’s capable hands were working away just above eye level, smoothing in the jojoba oil shampoo, lathering and moulding as if Imo’s head were made of clay. Gorgeous? Imo frowned. The salon was good but it wasn’t that good. Still, Jude’s choice of decor had created a kind of well-lit cave. It drew you in. Like Jude, it seemed to promise the magic touch.

  ‘Shout if you change your mind.’ Jude reached for another bottle. ‘I’m here if you need me.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Imo peered upwards but Jude’s expression gave nothing away. Was she remembering recent times, usually in Jude’s flat after work, when they’d talked about Imo’s leaving Edward? About Imo’s taking the final step and becoming free and single once more. The parties and the clubs, the blind dates that Jude promised made you feel like a teenager again. The independence, the fun …

  Imo breathed in deeply. Hair spray, nail polish and jojoba, underscored with bleach. Yes, she had begun to think of leaving Edward. She couldn’t even remember the beginning of their end, just the time when she’d sat opposite him at yet another dinner party, in yet another little black dress, played the perfect hostess and thought, There must be something more … Just the time when her father had died and she had turned to Edward for support and found something missing. Some closeness. Something that had been lost or maybe never been there at all.

  So she took a step back from him, then another. But it was failure, wasn’t it, to admit defeat?

  Imogen closed her eyes. She had never talked to Edward about all this, never broached the subject of separation or divorce. How could she have suggested such a final step without the dubious impetus of serial arguments, daily bickering or at least a good old-fashioned row? Something to propel her, as it were, from dissatisfaction into action. Half-wanting to be free … no longer in love … needing a bit of passion and plate-throwing from time to time, did not seem to be reasons enough.

  Imogen sneaked open one eye. But, thank goodness, Jude had sufficient tact not to yell ‘Hypocrite’ as she lathered in the protein conditioner.

  ‘How are you managing with the shop?’ she asked instead.

  ‘Okay.’ Thank goodness too for Say It With Flowers. Imogen’s florist’s business had always been her refuge, even more so now. ‘I’ve opened the same as usual,’ she added. Her assistant Tiffany was holding the fort this afternoon, and tomorrow was half-day closing anyway. ‘It distracts me and gets me out of the house.’

  Jude nodded sympathetically as she ran experimental fingers through Imo’s hair. ‘Best thing.’

  ‘It feels so empty,’ Imo blurted. As did she.

  ‘It’s been less than a week.’ Jude’s voice became brisker to match the movements of her hands. ‘You know what they say about time and healing.’

  Imogen was acutely aware of the pressure-edge of long finger-nails – in Jude’s case acrylic and allegedly suitable for An Active Life – like a deceptively tender cut-throat razor against her skin. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the funeral’s tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes.’ Perhaps Imo was doomed to monosyllables for the rest of her life. Perhaps Edward’s death was a punishment for all that singles-speculation. ‘The singles market is a minefield,’ Jude often said. Both materially inclined and extremely dangerous then.

  Jude’s fingers stopped their work and were still for a moment, poised above Imogen’s conditioned head. ‘Even if you didn’t love him…’ She broke off.

  A strong jet of warm water hit Imogen’s scalp making her jump with sheer shocked pleasure. You knew it was coming but it never felt exactly how you expected it to feel. ‘What?’

  ‘You still have to grieve, Imo. It’s only natural.’

  Even if I didn’t love him? That was quite shocking. She was grieving, yes. That was what the feeling of emptiness was all about, the waking at four a.m. in a bed grown suddenly too big, waking with night-sweat and a dry taste in the mouth. It was so damned quiet. Ridiculous – the grappling with silence, the talking to herself, the inability to open a locked desk drawer … ‘But what am I grieving for?’ she asked them both. ‘Is it losing Edward? Or am I mourning what might have been?’

  ‘Both probably.’ Jude worked on. ‘But what difference does it make anyway? Let the guilt trip leave without you, Imo. Grief can’t be analysed.’

  Ah, sensible Jude. Imogen closed her eyes once more. Outside The Goddess Without this grey December afternoon, she had paused in the drizzle to read the black lettering on the white board Jude kept as a permanent window display, surrounded by various beauty products, all claiming to transform your life. She changed these messages regularly. Imo had peered through the small square panes of the traditional Georgian bay to find today’s.

  TENSE? NERVOUS? HEADACHES? she read. LET ME GET MY HANDS ON YOU. And despite herself, she’d smiled. If the population of Chichester had any idea how good Jude was, there would be pre- and post-menopausal women queuing from here to Market Cross.

  Imogen sank back slightly under the pressure of the glorious hot water. It was wonderful to come here for the pure luxury of feeling Jude’s practised hands on her head, fingers working out the tensions in a hair wash and scalp massage that was so good it was otherworldly.

  With Edward gone, Imogen felt split in two. There was one woman sitting here in Jude’s beauty salon, dressed in black jeans and black sweater, with a pale face and no make up. (Jude had looked up disapprovingly as she’d walked in the door this afternoon, announcing, ‘You look like a ghost, Imo,’ with not a hint of irony.) That woman had come here for comfort rather than beauty. That woman knew she must grieve. But looking down on her was another woman wearing a scarlet halter-neck dress. This woman had thought about leaving her husband, of paddling in the shallows of a single life once more. A woman no longer in love. Imogen gave herself a mental shake. Which one was she?

  ‘I didn’t love him enough,’ she announced when the water stopped.

  ‘Wallowing in self-pity won’t help you either.’ Jude wrapped one of the towels around Imogen’s head, bent suddenly and kissed her cheek. Her honey-blonde hair brushed against Imo’s skin in an echo of the kiss. ‘But mahogany low-lights might do wonders.’

  ‘What’s that? Some sort of bizarre dining experience?’

  ‘You know perfectly well.’ Jude led her from the washbasin to her usual chair in front of a mirror. ‘Like I said, you’re so pale you need some colour, sweetie.’

  ‘Maybe I don’t want colour.’ Imogen peered into the mirror. The number
of illuminated mirrors in the salon was frightening. Everything was on view and from every angle too. You were multifaceted and simultaneously naked. And her face was literally a whiter shade of pale.

  ‘What’s wrong with colour?’ Jude, she knew, was trying to be patient.

  ‘Nothing. I just don’t want it.’ Imogen basked in her own stubbornness. Colour was frivolous. If she wanted to be dingy for a while, she would be.

  ‘You mean you don’t want to be seen.’ Jude eyed her critically in the glass as she dug her thumbs into the nape of Imogen’s neck.

  It felt like heaven. She groaned.

  Jude continued her attack. ‘You want to slink away from the funeral, pale and invisible. You want to be the grieving widow everyone feels sorry for.’

  ‘Jude!’ If she hadn’t been trapped by her friend’s steely fingers, Imo might have walked out. And if there hadn’t been a grain of truth in what she was saying …

  ‘But that’s not you.’ Jude sounded fierce now. Intent blue eyes met Imo’s in the mirror. ‘You’re not some dry and dusty widow. You’re going to be strong, Imo.’ Her hands pressed harder.

  She was right, of course. It had to be faced.

  ‘Everyone will be staring at you even though you don’t want them to. And although you do look terribly ethereal in black…’

  ‘You’re not touching my hair.’

  Jude held up a strand experimentally and pulled a face. ‘Lacklustre.’ She peered into the mirror. ‘I’ve got a marvellous new range, Imo. Barely streaking, they call it.’

  But Imogen was used to her tactics. ‘When I feel the urge to streak I’ll take my own clothes off, thanks.’

  ‘It’s completely natural—’

  ‘No.’ Jude had wanted to get her tinting gear on to Imogen’s crowning glory for as long as she could remember. She submitted to a makeover from time to time to keep Jude quiet – although even that went against the grain. And she had occasionally been lured into manicures and pedicures, though not nail art of the acrylic variety. But no, she would not submit to major changes such as body piercing – one in each ear was sufficient – or Titian over, under or anywhere-else-tones in her hair. Furthermore, since she was long and thin whatever she ate or drank, she required neither toning tables nor Jude’s latest muscle-stretching and massage machine, known affectionately as ‘the rack’.