The Art of Love. Elizabeth Edmondson

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      ELIZABETH EDMONDSON

      The Art of Love

      COPYRIGHT

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2008

      Copyright © AEB Ltd

      Elizabeth Edmondson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

      This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

      HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

      Source ISBN: 9780007223787

      Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2008 ISBN: 9780007283705 Version: 2016-12-28

      DEDICATION

      For Rosie Buckman

      With love and gratitude

      CONTENTS

      Title Page

      Copyright

      Dedication

      PART ONE

      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

      PART TWO

      TWENTY-FIVE

      TWENTY-SIX

      TWENTY-SEVEN

      TWENTY-EIGHT

      TWENTY-NINE

      THIRTY

      THIRTY-ONE

      THIRTY-TWO

      THIRTY-THREE

      THIRTY-FOUR

      THIRTY-FIVE

      THIRTY-SIX

      THIRTY-SEVEN

      THIRTY-EIGHT

      THIRTY-NINE

      FORTY

      FORTY-ONE

      FORTY-TWO

      FORTY-THREE

      FORTY-FOUR

      FORTY-FIVE

      FORTY-SIX

      FORTY-SEVEN

      FORTY-EIGHT

      FORTY-NINE

      FIFTY

      FIFTY-ONE

      FIFTY-TWO

      FIFTY-THREE

      STOP PRESS

       Keep Reading

      About the Author

      By the Same Author

      About the Publisher

PART ONE

      ONE

      ‘If I’m not Polly Smith, then who am I?’

      ‘What a profound question,’ said Oliver Fraddon.

      The two of them were standing side by side in a gallery at Somerset House, home of the Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths for all the counties of England.

      ‘The world in little, one might say,’ Oliver went on, looking along the floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with thousands of large red ledgers that contained the transitions of millions of lives, present and past. ‘All of us written down here, captured, immortalized. Volumes full of names and identities, A to Z, plain and extraordinary. We’re born, we marry — or some of us do — and we die, and each time we are set down on a page in here. A frightening thought.’

      ‘Never mind the frightening thought, what concerns me is that I’m not among those immortalized here,’ Polly said.

      ‘Very true. I suggest we go back to the desk and ask the recording angel for help.’

      He led the way down the metal spiral staircase, warning Polly to watch her step. ‘Or you’ll end up as a new entry under Deaths.’

      The clerk standing behind the long wooden length of the main counter had not a touch of the angelic about her. She wore pince-nez attached to a thin chain and had a harassed air. Oliver addressed her. ‘This young lady seems to have gone missing.’

      The clerk looked at Polly with worried, faded grey eyes, eyes that were kinder than her pinched mouth. ‘Oh dear. Can’t find yourself? Not where you should be? Your name is Smith, you say. Well, there are rather a lot of Smiths, but in the end there’s only one of you. It comes down to having the right dates and the right address. Once we’re sure of that information, we can find you. Unless,’ she added, her voice sharpening, ‘unless you’re a foreigner.’

      ‘Do I look like a foreigner?’ Polly asked, indignant, not because she minded being taken for a foreigner, but because she wanted to assert her rightful place, numbered among all her fellow citizens here, in those large red books.

      ‘No, but if you were born abroad, even if you were as English as me and Mr Grier over there, then you wouldn’t be in the main part of the registry, but in the records we keep elsewhere.’

      ‘In the nether regions?’ suggested