One Day in Cornwall. Zoe Cook

27

      

       Chapter 28

      

       Chapter 29

      

       Chapter 30

      

       Chapter 31

      

       Chapter 32

      

       Chapter 33

      

       Chapter 33

      

       Chapter 21

      

       Chapter 34

      

       Chapter 35

      

       Chapter 36

      

       Chapter 37

      

       Chapter 38

      

       Chapter 39

      

       Chapter 40

      

       Chapter 41

      

       Chapter 42

      

       Acknowledgements

      

       Zoe Cook

      

       About the Publisher

       Prologue

       September, 2005

       Can you believe that after all these years I have to write this in a letter because I can’t say it to you, can’t get the words out right?

       I know you think I’m running away. You’re probably right. But what do you think I have if I stay here? There are too many ghosts here, Tom, too many memories. It’s like walking around in my own nightmare sometimes, and it will drive me mad.

       I wish we weren’t fighting about this. I don’t know what I expected you to think or to say about it all, but I didn’t expect you to be so angry with me. I feel like you’re taking it the wrong way. It’s not you I want to leave; it’s this place.

       If you knew how many hours I’ve spent thinking about what the hell to do – honestly, the thought of being without you is unbearable. But I didn’t want to put you in this position, to do what I’m about to do now. I didn’t want to ask you to come with me, to leave everything you have here. This place means so much to you, and you have so many reasons to stay.

       But I guess I am selfish, like you say I am. Because I want you to come with me, Tom. I can’t do the London thing on my own, I don’t want to. I don’t want a life that doesn’t have you in it. I can’t really see the point in that. Is that pathetic? You are everything that’s good in my life.

       I know you’ll need time, but can you think about it? About coming with me? Starting a life away from here? It would be the adventure we’ve always talked about, wouldn’t it? I mean I know it’s not exactly South America or Thailand, but you know…

       I’m doing that jokey thing you get cross with me for, aren’t I? Trivialising things because I’m nervous and awkward.

       I’m rambling now. And I don’t even know if I’ll ever give this to you. Part of me thinks I should just go and leave you here to live your life without me. I think you might be better off that way. I want you to be happy, Tom. I love you more than words. If nothing else, I hope you always know that.

       Lucy

       1

      London, July, 2010

      Lucy tipped the white powder from a carefully folded lottery ticket onto the mirror of her compact. She scraped it into a neat line with her credit card and took the rolled bank note from the back of her wallet. She sniffed quickly and quietly, pausing for a second to feel the immediate hit of energy. She placed the folded paper and card in the zipped section of her purse, straightened herself up and walked out of the toilet cubicle back to her desk.

      It was 5:55pm before Lucy had time to check her personal emails on Tuesday. Work was manic, as it always was in the lead-up to an awards ceremony. For Spectrum, the Screenies were the event of the year, a real prestige project and a massive money-spinner. The grand-scale, live-broadcast awards show at the Metropolis on Park Lane, which celebrated all things TV, dominated spring at Spectrum, with a huge production team recruited, doubling the number of people in the office for the months leading up to the show. Emma had too many meetings to fit into each day and, as her PA, it was Lucy’s job to make them all happen – somehow. Emma’s mood alternated between manic happiness at the prospect of an evening of guaranteed attention, and sudden bursts of furious disappointment at the team she employed to run Spectrum TV’s events. Lucy had mostly escaped her wrath, instead taking the role of confidante, which she actually felt even less comfortable with. Every time she was called into Emma’s office she dreaded the instruction to ‘close the door’, which signaled an imminent verbal assassination. Lucy hated how Emma dragged her into her bitter inner world of hatred towards the production team, most of whom had absolutely no idea they had done anything to upset her. Already this week she’d heard how angry Emma was with Frankie, the lovely associate producer working on the awards, because she’d cut her long hair short so close to the event.

      ‘II would never have employed her looking so butch,’ Emma had spat.

      ‘We’ll have to reassign her role for the evening, she can’t be talent-facing now,’ she’d sighed, as if Frankie’s new hairstyle might