Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by Harper 2017
Copyright © Angela Woolfe writing as Lucy Holliday 2017
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Cover design and illustration by Jane Harwood
Lucy Holliday asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
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.
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Source ISBN: 9780007583836
Ebook Edition © January 2017 ISBN: 9780008175634
Version: 2016-12-12
Contents
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
Epilogue
Minimalism. That’s the look I’ll have to say I was going for.
Clean lines, a sense of space, the total absence of clutter.
All of which are actually perfectly sensible ways to keep your living space, especially if, like me, you’re a designer by profession. It’s just that in my particular case, the sense of space and total absence of clutter in this, my brand-new flat, are less to do with any creative sensibility and more because of the fact that my last flat was roughly the size of a broom cupboard. So I barely own any furniture. The handful of furnishings I do own, which used to make the old place feel over-stuffed and faintly claustrophobic, barely even make a dent here in the new one.
And, to be honest, it’s not the worst thing in the world to pretend that all this empty space is a Design Statement rather than a mundane necessity. In half an hour’s time my investor, Ben, who’s just flown into London for a couple of days, is dropping round for a meeting. Bringing his BFF Elvira with him.
Elvira being Elvira Roberts-Hoare: ex-model, bohemian aristocrat, Ben’s chief talent scout and also, as of yesterday, my brand-new landlord.
I mean, her own flat, just a short distance away in South Kensington, is practically a museum to her incredible vintage fashion archive, with Ferragamo shoes displayed in a custom-made Perspex sideboard and Alexander McQueen scarves draped artfully over the soft furnishings. I know this not because I’ve ever been invited, obviously, but because I saw it in all its glory in a recent issue of Elle Decor magazine. My own attempts at turning this gorgeous flat into something worthy of Elle Decor are being seriously hampered by the fact that I don’t have an incredible vintage fashion archive to display like artwork. And, even if I did, it would be let down by my crappy and – as I’ve already said – paltry furnishings: a futon, an IKEA wardrobe, a glass coffee table and – last but absolutely not least – a huge and ancient Chesterfield sofa upholstered in apricot-coloured rose fabric and smelling of damp dog.
Actually, now that I look at it, the mere presence of the Chesterfield, in all its chintzy, overblown glory, is a bit of a strike against my claims that I’m deliberately styling this place in a minimalist fashion.
Though I’m also being hamstrung by the fact that my sister Cass showed up ten minutes ago and is somehow, in her own inimitable way, cluttering up the place. Handbag slung on the floor, tea sloshing out of her mug, and just generally sort of filling the room up with herself.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ she’s shrieking now, peering down at her phone, and splashing yet more tea on the floor beside her. ‘Zoltan’s ex has been speaking to the Mirror. It’s all over their website.’
This, by the way, is the latest in the long-running series of Massive Dramas that make up Cass’s lifehsq. A week ago, my little sister was outed for the three-month-long affair she’s been having with a Premiership footballer. A married Premiership footballer, to be more precise. And while I may be wearily familiar with her nasty little habit of getting involved with married men, this particular married man’s wife was not. The whole thing came as such a horrible shock to the poor woman, in fact, that she bodily threw her cheating scumbag of a husband out of their home and went on a rant on Mumsnet – a rant that was then picked up by the Daily Mail … The rest, as they say, is history.
It’s even made its sordid way into this week’s OK! magazine, a copy of which Cass brandished at me, with something disturbingly close to triumph, when she showed up at my door. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure that triumphantly