Coming Home: An uplifting feel good novel with family secrets at its heart. Fern Britton

boys barely looked up as they had started a ridiculous debate about whether to put chives on the new potatoes or mint.

      Ella sat on the rug next to Celia and Terry and rubbed their ears. ‘Don’t tell Henry,’ she whispered, ‘but I would really like to meet my mum. I wonder what she’s like? Do you think she’d like me?’ Terry rolled over so that she could tickle his tummy. ‘You don’t have a care in the world, do you, Terry.’ She turned to Celia who was in ear-tickle ecstasy, her eyes half-shut in bliss. ‘Celia, you’re a girl. What do you think my mum is like? Is she all bad? Selfish? Feeling guilty at what she did? Or is she funny and beautiful and clever and desperate for us to forgive her? Hmm? Do you think we could be friends? I’d like that. I really, really want to know. I want to see her. Is that too bad of me?’

      In Clapham, Henry had ditched his tea and started on the wine. The anger inside him was building. If that woman was thinking of coming back and playing happy families, she had another think coming. But if she did come back, at least he would have the satisfaction of her seeing that, despite the pain and the chaos she had created, he and Ella had survived and done very well without her. Who needed her? She needed to be told some home truths. She needed to face up to the carnage, the wrecked lives of her parents, God bless them. Let her come and take the money and piss off back to wherever she’d come from. He didn’t need her. Ella didn’t need her. And he’d like to say that to her face. She deserved to see what she left behind and know what it’s like to be rejected. He took another mouthful of wine and swilled it down as he picked up his phone and, in an impulse of fury, dialled Ella’s number.

      Ella stopped tickling the dogs and reached around for her phone. She checked the caller ID. ‘Hi, Henry.’

      ‘We are going to see her.’ Henry emptied the bottle into his glass.

      Ella felt her heart jump. ‘Really?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘I’m so glad …’

      ‘And I am going to tell her exactly what she’s done. I am going to look her in the face and really tell her what I think of her.’

       7

      

       Trevay, 1995

      Adela and Bill had taken the children to the beach. Adela loved her grandchildren dearly but she was exhausted looking after two little ones. They were growing up so quickly, she wished with all her heart that Sennen could see them. As the sun beat down on Shellsand Bay, Adela rested her eyes, just for a moment, listening to Henry’s squeals of laughter above the crashing of the waves.

       ‘Mama!’ shouted Henry stamping his little feet in the shallow ripples of the sea. ‘Mama!’

       Sennen crouched as well as she could with her burgeoning pregnancy, and said, ‘Smile, Henry. Smile for Mummy.’ She pressed the shutter on her Kodak disposable camera just as her one-year-old son scrunched his eyes and gave her the broadest of grins. ‘That’ll be a good one,’ she said, winding the film on.

       Adela and Bill were sitting a little way up the beach, using the cliff face as a windbreak. Bill was asleep, Adela was watching her daughter and grandson.

       ‘Darling?’ She shook Bill gently. ‘Darling?’

       Bill woke up. ‘Was I dozing?’ He stretched, then put a hand to his eyes to check on Sennen and Henry. ‘Are they okay?’

       ‘I think so,’ said Adela. ‘She’s being rather good with him today.’

       ‘I think you’re being very good with both of them.’ He looked at her affectionately over the top of his Ray-Bans.

       ‘I do worry. She’s only just coping with Henry and now another baby on the way.’

       ‘It’s not quite what we were thinking of, is it?’

       ‘No.’ Adela steepled her fingers under her chin. ‘Every child brings joy, we know that, but …’ She shook her head. ‘I do worry.’

      ‘What are you worried about, Granny?’

      Adela knew she’d been dreaming, but it was so real, so tangible, as she opened her eyes to see a smiling Henry standing in front of her with a crab net.

      ‘Did I fall asleep?’ She smiled at him.

      ‘Grandad wants to take me and Ella swimming but you have to come too, to help Ella because she’s not big like me.’

      She reached out and stroked her grandson’s soft cheeks. ‘No, she’s not as big as you, yet. Your swimming is coming on nicely. But you will teach Ella when she’s big.’

      Henry grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the nest of towels she’d created for herself against the cliffs where she and Bill always made camp.

      ‘Quick, Granny, or Ella and Poppa will be finished before we get there.’

      Henry pulled Adela down the damp and rippled sand to the water’s edge where Bill was bouncing Ella’s toes in and out of the shallow ripples.

      ‘Hello, old thing.’ He smiled at her. ‘The water’s not too bad.’

      ‘Granny was asleep.’ Henry told Bill.

      ‘Was she snoring?’ asked Bill conspiratorially.

      ‘She was more sort of blowing air through her lips. Like Bert when he purrs.’

      ‘Ah yes,’ said Bill nodding his head as if Henry had given him the most important piece of information. ‘She does that.’

      Adela wasn’t embarrassed. ‘Well, Poppa farts when he’s asleep.’

      Henry burst into laughter. ‘Poppa Farts! Poppa Farts!’

      Ella, catching the fun and laughter, stuck her bottom out and began blowing raspberries through her teeth.

      ‘That’s quite enough, thank you,’ said Bill, lifting Ella on to his shoulders. ‘Who wants to find the seahorses?’

      ‘Meeee!’ shrilled Ella holding tight to her Poppa’s ears.

      ‘And meeeee!’ shouted Henry running through the waves.

      ‘And meeeee,’ sang Adela as she skipped after them all, putting aside her post-dream sadness.

      That night, after Adela had bathed Henry and Ella and dressed them in sweet-smelling pyjamas, Bill came upstairs to read the nightly story. Adela kissed the children and sat on the floor between their beds as Bill settled down with Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree. He read one chapter and then, after much pleading, read another.

      ‘One more?’ asked Henry sleepily.

      ‘Ella is asleep. She’ll be cross if we read on without her,’ whispered Bill.

      Adela stood up and gently tucked Ella and her teddy a little more cosily. Then she dropped a kiss on Ella’s sleeping forehead. ‘Night-night darling.’

      Bill was settling Henry down. ‘Did you read Mummy that story?’ Henry asked, his bright blue eyes sharp with a need to know.

      ‘Yes,’ said Bill. ‘I did.’

      ‘Did she like Moon-Face best?’ Henry settled himself more deeply into his duvet.

      ‘Of course.’

      ‘Good.’

      ‘Sleep tight now. See you in the morning.’