Prologue
* * *
2017
The shoes were a big mistake. Her toes had gone numb and every time a stiletto heel crunched on to the unforgiving surface of the pavement, it set her teeth on edge. Once again vanity had taken precedence over comfort. Nice one, Lana.
She was tottering up Bessemer Place, which ran along the side of St Theodore’s. Decades earlier the lane had been a teenage haunt for them, a place for slurping sweet cider and smoking in secret. She sighed, heart heavy, weighed down by loss and the searing pain of grief. All exacerbated by the discomfort in her feet.
Approaching the corner where Bessemer Place met the main street, she saw several figures dressed in black heading for the church – some solitary, some in couples, some in groups, all united in their loss. The service would no doubt be packed and Lana’s heart lurched like a stalled engine at the prospect of what lay ahead: the funeral of her most wonderful friend.
‘Lana.’ A voice behind her.
Cautious. Sad.
It was Judith.
Inevitable that they should see each other – today of all days. Uncertainty fizzled between them, and they hesitated on the verge of a hug before both deciding against it.
‘Can’t believe it’s happening, can you?’ asked Lana, her voice shaking as she fumbled in her bag for a small bottle of Rescue Remedy and swigged back its contents like whisky.
‘The family wants us down the front,’ said Judith.
‘Oh Christ, I’m not sure I can handle that …’ replied Lana, panicking. ‘So close to the coffin and … I’m just not very good with—’
Judith trampled over her words. ‘Today’s not about you though, is it, Lana? It’s about Catrin.’
Lana bit her lip and refrained from reacting as the awkwardness between them grew. Then, without warning and with the worst possible timing, Lana felt the familiar surge of heat spread across the back of her scalp and down her neck as if she’d been plugged into a wall socket. ‘Bloody hot flushes,’ she mumbled, and pulled off the black silk wrap that was draped over her shoulders before flapping the neckline of her dress.
‘Here y’are, borrow this,’ said Judith, reluctantly rustling in her bag for a Spanish-style fan.
‘Cheers,’ said Lana, flicking it open with flamencan flair and cooling herself in its welcome breeze. A minute later the flush had passed.
‘Shall we go in then?’ asked Judith, a tad more gently.
‘Yes,’ said Lana as she held Judith’s gaze. ‘We can do this. Can’t we?’
Part One
* * *
1986
Thirty-one years earlier
1
Catrin
Catrin’s father was doing his Sensible Face. This was the face that forty-eight-year-old, half-Welsh, half-Irish Huw Kelly adopted whenever Catrin or her brother were about to embark upon any kind of trip without their parents.
Catrin had first encountered Sensible Face aged five, before her school visit to Coed Celyn museum in Mrs John’s class. After that, the Face appeared before all hockey, netball and swimming tournaments, Guide camps or youth-club jaunts to Belgium, church pilgrimages to Lourdes, and sixth-form skiing trips to Austria. Sensible Face was also known as Here-Are-the-Practicalities Face and What-To-Do-in-an-Emergency Face. But underneath it lurked the precariously hidden face of Terrified Dad, looking down at this precious cargo, which grew more valuable with every day that passed, and who was currently thinking, If anything happens to you, my life will be over.
Huw had reason to worry, because Catrin was about to head off on the Big Trip – island-hopping for a month in Greece, accompanied by Judith Harris and Lana Lloyd, her best friends since she was five. The three girls were as different as chalk, cheese and chocolate. But they knew and loved each other inside out and were as close today as they’d been in the first week of infant school. During their thirteen-year friendship they’d barely spent a single day without seeing each other and all three knew that when they returned from the Big Trip, they’d be heading off in very separate directions – Catrin to study medicine at Cardiff, Judith to read economics in London, and Lana to train as a musical theatre actress. So what lay ahead was more than just a holiday. It was their final hurrah, their last chance to stock up on each other’s company before beginning the next chapter of their young lives. Deciding where to go on the Big Trip had been far from easy: backpacking in Australia? Campervanning in New Zealand? Fruit picking in France? Judith had suggested interrailing – drawn to the history and might of great European cities like Hamburg and Nice – whereas Catrin longed to see Paris and Rome. ‘It’s so romantic,’ she said wistfully.
‘It is if you’re loaded!’ Lana had warned, instantly dampening her friends’ enthusiasm. ‘But us three are on a budget of ten quid a day. And I’d rather wash in the sea and sleep on a beach than spend a month in a manky train full of horny stoners.’
‘Classy,’ Judith had said sarcastically and Catrin sighed.
‘Look,’ said Lana, softening. ‘What about island-hopping? There’s shed-loads of history and stuff in Greece, so that’s that box ticked for you, Jude. And Cat, if you want all the romantic bollocks, then what’s more idyllic than a sunset on Skiathos? I’ll be sorted with a beach and a bar, so Bob’s your uncle. What d’you reckon?’
They had begrudgingly agreed. Both of them were used to Lana getting her own way, but frustratingly she was usually right.
‘Excellent!’ Lana had said with a smile. ‘Island-hopping it is.’
‘Now you’re to keep it on you at all times, d’you hear? Even when you sleep!’ said Huw as he held out a highly unattractive khaki-coloured money belt.
‘But I can’t wear it swimming, Dad, or in the shower. All the travellers’ cheques and cash will go soggy,’ Catrin replied.
‘She’ve got a point mind, Huw,’ said Liz, Catrin’s mother, who was peeling a price tag off the sole of a new flip-flop.
‘We’ve discussed this, Elizabeth.’ Huw always used his wife’s full name whenever he was trying to be serious. ‘Catrin is to locate the nearest safety deposit box at every location – be it an Athenian youth hostel, or a taverna in Kos, whatever …’
‘I don’t think they have safety deposit boxes in crack dens mind, Dad,’ said Catrin’s twenty-one-year-old brother Tom as he sloped sleepily into the kitchen in search of Shredded Wheat.
‘Not helpful, Tom,’ sighed Huw.
‘Weren’t you meant to be in work at nine?’ asked Liz. She loved the fact that her student son had a summer job at the bakery – he brought home all sorts of lovely treats.
‘Taken the day off, haven’t I? To say goodbye to Frog Head.’
‘Oi!’ Catrin laughed and threw a toast crust at him. Tom had called her Frog Head ever since she was brought home from hospital at one day old. Aged three, he’d stared at her in silence for ten seconds, then announced to the world that she looked like a frog.
Catrin Kelly couldn’t look less like a frog if she tried. She’d inherited her grandmother’s pale Irish complexion, ‘which must be protected with Factor Fifty when you’re out in that sun,’ Liz had warned her, over and over again. She’d also inherited Nana Kelly’s laughing green eyes – which she liked – and her strawberry-blonde hair – which she didn’t. Mainly because it stubbornly grew in an unruly abundance of corkscrew curls. They’d appeared when she was two and had never left her since, defying gravity and copious amounts of hair-straightening products. ‘I wish I had your hair!’ people would say. And Catrin would smile politely, thinking, ‘No you bloody don’t – it’s like walking round with a Highland cow on my head.’ Catrin had a catalogue of complaints when it came to her physical attributes: she thought her nose was ‘pixie-ish’, her legs were too short and her knees turned inwards – none of which anyone else could see, of course. She was also blind to her other endearing features – such as her open-heartedness, her massive capacity for compassion and her staunch loyalty to those she loved. But Catrin’s parents thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world, both inside and out.