Written in the Stars
Ali Harris is a magazine journalist and has written for publications such as
Red
,
ELLE
,
Stylist
,
Cosmopolitan
and
Company
and was deputy features editor at
Glamour
before leaving to write books and have babies. She lives in Cambridge with her husband and their two children. Follow Ali on twitter @AliHarrisWriter and on facebook at www.facebook.com/AliHarrisWriter
By the same author:
Miracle on Regent Street
The First Last Kiss
A Vintage Christmas (ebook-only)
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2014
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © Ali Harris 2014
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.
The right of Ali Harris to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
1st Floor
222 Gray’s Inn Road
London WC1X 8HB
Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney
Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Paperback B ISBN: 978-1-47112-552-2
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-47112-553-9
eBook ISBN: 978-1-47112-554-6
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
‘Shipping Good’ reprinted by permission of Lemn Sissay.
Typeset by M Rules
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
To my two little stars Barnaby and Cecily,
I love you to the moon and back
The clock clicks in a child’s hand
As she skips to the tics and tocs
Under the park tunnels run from the dark
While sun circles the clocks
Flowers grow for those that know
To bloom is to know your roots
To give the earth all it’s worth
Tend to the new shoots
And a horse on course its hooves
Drum beneath the earth
Where dreadnought’s sleeping seamen
Are weeping for the berth
While the marshes sigh at night
When sky dives into The Thames
Greenwich and I will sleep again
And wake again as friends
It is the thudding in my ear
Upon the pillow that sounds
Like a black mare churning
Dreams from the ground
As she charges towards
The Meridian Line
Leaps Sheperds Gate
And dives into time
Where an Ancient mariner
His guest no longer cross
Sings songs of his wrongs
To a circling albatross
(What you bring home and take away
Are the goods that become
The story of Royal Greenwich
And all she has done)
A coffee cup lifts to the face
In its reflection a woman sees the sea
Where a small girl in a boat smiles
She whispers
this must be me
And the girl cranes her neck
She sails the swirls in the cup
And smiles for a minute and frowns
And holds the flowers up
Here lies the beginning of time
Where the river cradles the land
Here lies the roundabout
About the sun and the sand
And the star rises on observatory hill
and watches them watching him
And the water spills on a quiet wharf
Where the silver mermaids swim
And a woman collects the crests
and takes them home to spin
She makes Sails for the high road
For our dreams to begin
‘Shipping Good’, Lemn Sissay
Contents
Prologue
30 April 2014
‘I didn’t intend to be a runaway bride. Honestly, I didn’t. I didn’t wake up that morning thinking: What can I do to cause as much shock and distress as possible to the people I love most in the world? The person I love most in the world . . .’ I trail off momentarily, unable to continue my well-practised speech. I look around at all the expectant faces shining as brightly as the tulips. Is it really worth dragging all this up again? Today of all days, when everyone just wants to celebrate this momentous occasion?
There are a couple of awkward coughs, a few whispers and I feel a rising panic in my chest, like I’m about to be sick, or worse, pass out. Oh God, please not that. Not again. Just then I feel a squeeze of encouragement to my left hand and I suddenly feel buoyed by warmth and support, anchored by familiarity and self-belief. I turn and look at him and he smiles and nods and I know that he’s telling me to trust my instincts.
‘The truth is, I’m not sure I was thinking much at all that day,’ I continue. ‘I knew I was nervous, but that was all. I was just focused on dealing with each “Got To” stage as it came. You know, got to get up, got to get ready, got to get in the car, got to walk down the aisle. And well . . .’ I pause and smile wryly. ‘We all know how
that
turned out.’
Laughter floats like petals through the air.
‘There were many times that I questioned myself,’ I go on. ‘Leaving my husband at the altar was the hardest decision I’ve ever made. Many people said it was the worst.’ I smile at my best friend, Milly, who nods and holds her hand up in a gesture of agreement. ‘But no matter how much I doubted myself, I knew that wasn’t true.’ I close my eyes momentarily, remembering a long-ago mistake. I will never forget, but now at last I
have
moved on. Even though it was heartbreakingly hard, I always
knew
it was the right choice.
I look around at everyone again and then back at the man standing next to me. It feels like he’s always been there; like this was all meant to be . . .
One Year Earlier
April
Dear Bea
I’ve never believed that ‘April is the cruellest month’. For me April has always signified new beginnings. It is truly Mother Nature’s New Year. Suddenly we witness beautiful displays of colourful flowers exploding like fireworks in our gardens. The grass glitters with golden daffodils, grape hyacinths burst through the earth like rockets, anemones dancing next to them like purple rain showers. Hellebores and tulips bop enthusiastically in the breeze like bridesmaids on a hen night.
