The Time of Our Lives Read online

  Jane Costello was a newspaper journalist before she became an author, working on the Liverpool Echo, the Daily Mail and the Liverpool Daily Post, where she was Editor. Jane’s first novel, Bridesmaids, was an instant bestseller. The Nearly-Weds won Romantic Comedy of the Year 2010, while Girl on the Run was shortlisted for the Melissa Nathan Award for Romantic Comedy 2012. All The Single Ladies was shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists’ Romantic Comedy of the Year Award and her latest novel, The Wish List, is yet another top-ten bestseller. Jane lives in Liverpool with her partner Mark and three young sons. Find out more at www.janecostello.com, and follow her on Twitter @janecostello

  Also by Jane Costello

  Bridesmaids

  The Nearly-Weds

  My Single Friend

  Girl on the Run

  All the Single Ladies

  The Wish List

  First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2014

  A CBS COMPANY

  Copyright © Jane Costello 2014

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  ® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

  The right of Jane Costello 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

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  222 Gray’s Inn Road

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  www.simonandschuster.co.uk

  Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney

  Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  PB ISBN: 978-1-47112-923-0

  EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-47112-925-4

  TPB ISBN: 978-1-47112-924-7

  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.

  Extract from The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, published by Bodley Head.

  Reprinted by permission of the Random House Group Limited.

  Extract from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernières, published by Secker & Warburg.

  Used by permission of the Random House Group Limited.

  Typeset by M Rules

  Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

  For Isaac

  Acknowledgments

  Big thanks to the team at Simon & Schuster, especially my brilliant editor Clare Hey, and Suzanne Baboneau, Emma Harrow, Dawn Burnett, Sara-Jade Virtue, Alice Murphy, Ally Grant and Anneka Sandher.

  Thanks also to Darley Anderson and his angels, with a special mention for Clare Wallace and Mary Darby.

  Love and thanks as ever to my mum and dad, Jean and Phil Wolstenholme, and (Uncle) Colin Wolstenholme, for the number-crunching I’d be lost without.

  Finally, lots of love to my children Otis, Lucas and Isaac, and partner Mark, all of whom were put on earth to make sure that there’s never a dull moment.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Day One

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Day Two

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Day Three

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Day Four

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Day Five

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Day Six

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Day Seven

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Day Eight

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Manchester Airport, July 2006

  There is a universal rule of travel that applies to any holiday destination on the planet: the sunnier the resort you’ve visited, the more ferociously it will piss down when you land back in the UK.

  And Zante was sunny. So sunny that, as my friends and I step onto British tarmac, shivering in the drizzle, it feels as though the only thing in the world that isn’t grey is my nose, which is an alarming shade of red. Oh, and possibly my toes, which, courtesy of the flip-flops that seemed like a good idea when I set off, are now as blue and frozen as radioactive ice pops.

  Still, I can’t complain about the weather, which was the one element of the holiday that was excellent. That qualifies it as a rarity.

  ‘How are your bowels today, Imogen?’ enquires Meredith cheerfully as we step onto the travelator.

  The family of four in front spin round to get a good look at me.

  ‘Better,’ I whisper. ‘Though that’s not saying much.’ Twenty-four hours ago, I was gripped by the sort of cramps normally associated with unanaesthetised intestinal surgery, prompted – according to resort gossip – by a recurrent swimming-pool superbug for which our two and a half star hotel was rewarded a modest role on Watchdog last year.

  Meredith hadn’t mentioned that detail when she persuaded Nicola and me to book this two-night trip to celebrate her hen night. That is, her third hen night. She and her boyfriend, Nathan, have one of those on-off relationships – one that’s so on-off that if you try to keep up it makes your head spin. At the moment it’s on, but that guarantees nothing: by the end of the week, she could well have cancelled the 350-seat wedding marquee in Hampshire, fired the string quartet and sent her mother nose-diving to her third nervous breakdown.

  ‘I don’t know about you two, but I had a whale of a time,’ Meredith declares, apparently confident that we’ll answer in the affirmative. ‘I know it wasn’t luxurious, but you got used to those crawly things after a while, don’t you think?’

  I still have no idea what those ‘crawly things’ were – David Attenborough would have struggled to identify them – but I do know that I didn’t get used to them. Or the shower, with a choice of two heat settings (arctic and lava); or the hair I found in my food every meal (collectively, they’d have produced an entire toupee); or the walls that shook when the couple next door were throwing up, singing or shagging, the latter of which, judging by the speed and noise, involved a variety of moves that could have won them a part in Riverdance.

  I didn’t get used to any of it, and neither, judging by her heavy eyelids, d
id Nicola. ‘It was great, Meredith,’ she replies heroically. ‘I’m just glad you had a good time. That’s the most important thing.’

  Neither Nicola or I are flashy types by nature; we didn’t grow up surrounded by luxury of any description. In fact, we both grew up in the distinctly unpretentious surroundings of suburban south Liverpool, where we met at secondary school. But even we have standards.

  Which is why Meredith, my neighbour in London until recently, is an enigma. Her family appears to own half of the south coast, her father was a major in the British Army and all her other friends have names that belong in a P. G. Wodehouse novel. So my only explanation for her infinite tolerance of the hellhole we’ve just visited is that she sees it as a novelty.

  ‘You know, if you’d wanted to go somewhere a bit posher, I would’ve treated you both,’ she says merrily, as we arrive at the luggage carousel. ‘I really wouldn’t have minded.’

  ‘It’s very kind of you to offer, but we would’ve minded,’ insists Nic. ‘We’ll just have to save up for next time.’

  I look up and, with a sinking heart, realise the bag approaching us ominously on the carousel is mine. Unlike the chic weekend bag I checked in, this heap of canvas looks like an angry hippopotamus has used it as a prop for practising tae kwon do moves: a strap is missing; there is a yawning hole in one side; and my washbag is spilling out, revealing half a pack of Microgynon, enough make-up to put Clinique out of business and a burst tube of athlete’s-foot cream that’s now smeared on several surfaces.

  I haul it off the carousel as two women I recognise from our flight glide past. They look to be in their mid-thirties and are unfeasibly glamorous – all lustrous hair, French-manicured nails and foreheads that, from a certain angle, look as though they’ve been soaked in formaldehyde. I feel a stab of something unbecoming of me; I fear it may be envy. Not, I hasten to add, because of their appearance, gorgeous as they undeniably are. But because of where I know they were sitting on the flight: in business class.

  Nicola follows my gaze. ‘I’m sure business class is overrated.’

  ‘A ridiculous extravagance,’ I concur. ‘I’m sure No Frills is just as good.’

  Meredith shakes her head. ‘You’re wrong, you know.’

  We head for the gargantuan queue at the customer-services desk to report my luggage as damaged. After ten minutes of the line remaining resolutely static, I find the tattered copy of Hello! I bought for the flight and glance through its now-familiar pages.

  Flicking through pictures of minor European royals and Jane Seymour posing by the pool in a palace in Kuala Lumpur might not have been a good idea after spending two nights in an establishment with more wildlife than a Tanzanian nature reserve.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind a bit of luxury next time, I must admit,’ I confess, though I’m not sure when the next time will be. It’s not that I don’t enjoy going away with my friends – their company was the single highlight of an otherwise very challenging trip – but I’m currently in year one of a new job, not exactly rolling in money and, cheap and not-so-cheerful as it was, Zante has eaten into the funds for the main holiday I intend to take with my boyfriend, Roberto.

  My heart flutters to my throat at the thought that he’s on the other side of the Arrivals-lounge door, waiting for me to slide into his arms.

  My friends can’t really get their heads around Roberto and me, and the extent to which, after two years together, I still adore him.

  I don’t wish to sound schmaltzy, not least because I wouldn’t want to give you the impression that we’re perfect – we’ve had some positively operatic rows in the past (inevitable, really, when a feisty Italian falls for a girl determined to give as good as she gets) – but, two years on, I’ve come to realise something about why we were made for each other.

  He isn’t just the man I love: he’s the man who made me realise that I’m not all that bad myself. Despite the half-stone I’ve failed to lose over the course of the ten years. Despite my hair permanently refusing to do as it’s told. Despite the fact that I couldn’t keep a secret to save my life, grind my teeth in my sleep, find it difficult to say ‘I’m sorry’ and have a tattoo of a spider on my bum, from when I was life-guarding for Camp America, that now looks like a malignant melanoma.

  Despite these faults and a million others, he brings out the best in me and, even at my worst, I know he’ll still love me.

  ‘Maybe we should start saving up for something more special one day,’ suggests Nicola. ‘We could put a bit away each month. Then after . . . I don’t know, three years or so, we could have a proper holiday. A luxury one.’

  ‘Nicola, you’re a genius. Let’s do it!’ Meredith beams. ‘Top flights. Gorgeous hotel. Champagne all the way. It’d be amazing.’

  Obviously, she’s right. Although after the last two days, somewhere with a flushing toilet would be a bonus.

  Chapter 1

  Wandsworth, London, July 2012

  My make-up bag doesn’t look like that of a woman who’ll be checking into one of the world’s most glamorous hotels the day after tomorrow. Even I know that, with my stunted enthusiasm for these things. There are lots of lipsticks – the only cosmetics I ever seem to buy (intermittently in a bid to ‘make an effort’) – plus a Rimmel concealer, dehydrated mascara and something called a ‘chubby stick’ donated by Meredith. That’s pretty much it.

  It strikes me how bad I’ve become at the things girls are meant to be good at.

  I never used to be. Once upon a time, I was into this sort of thing. But for someone who takes their job as seriously as I do, flaunting your assets is not a good idea. Part of me thinks that if any boss has an issue with glamour and femininity in the workplace, then it should be the patriarchy’s look out, but the reality is it rarely works like that. If I turned up at the office all pouty lips and filigree undies, my reputation would never recover – and not just because letting my boobs off the leash of their control bra would be such a hideous distraction that I might as well go the whole hog and stick two Mr Whippy cornets on each one.

  But, if I’m honest, wanting to be taken seriously at work isn’t the whole story. The whole story is a long and complicated one, and can probably be summarised thus: I have other priorities now.

  Still, this trip will be good for me, as everyone keeps saying.

  Part of me can’t believe I’ve never been on a holiday as luxurious as this. Although, to be fair, I’ve had hardly any holidays in the last four and a half years, unless you count Center Parcs.

  ‘Mummy!’ my four-year-old daughter, Florence, cries from her bedroom. ‘Something’s . . . happened. But it was only an accident.’

  Florence, who was named after her father’s birthplace, might have the voice of an angel but there are few sentences capable of making my heart sink faster.

  I optimistically interpret her tone as being insufficiently urgent to qualify as a true emergency.

  ‘What kind of accident?’ I ask lightly, piling my clothes into the bag, deliberately stalling before I face whatever disaster has befallen her.

  ‘Well . . . will you be cross?’

  I take a deep breath. ‘I don’t know – what have you done?’

  ‘It wasn’t me. And, anyway, it’s okay because it was only an accident.’

  I abandon my packing and head across the hall to her tiny bedroom.

  We moved here last year because it’s in the catchment area of the exceptionally good state school where Florence will start in September. This monumental date in my daughter’s diary unfortunately coincides with our company’s most important day of the decade – a headache I have put off tackling because it involves an impossible choice: get my friend and neighbour Debbie to take her to school on her first day there, or face being burned at the stake by my boss – or something like that.

  Apart from location, the flat is unsuitable for our circumstances in every conceivable way: it’s too small, the garden consists of four potted gerberas, there’s an unshakeable smell o
f damp and it’s nowhere near as convenient for work as our old place in Clapham. This means my frenetic daily commute resembles a scene from Chariots of Fire, and our regular childminder is permanently threatening me with the sack, apparently unconcerned that it’s supposed to be the other way around.

  It’s also ludicrously expensive, not helped by the fact that the pay rise for which I’ve been holding out over the last six months has not yet materialised.

  Oh yes, and we have a dog. I don’t make life easy for myself. But it was only when Spud’s owner, Mary – our landlady – died recently that I discovered, to my abject horror, that she’d bequeathed him to Florence in her will. Her son, James – our new landlord – couldn’t have him because he’s allergic, and has his golfing holidays to consider. Spud’s a lovely little thing but, practically speaking, not what I need in my life right now. So I briefly considered packing him off to a rescue home, but didn’t have it in me, particularly as if Florence had found out, she’d have held it against me for the rest of her life. Plus, to Mary’s infinite credit, she also left us the funds for a dog-walker each day I’m at work for the next five years. Which goes to show what an optimist she was, given that Spud is already knocking on fourteen.

  Despite this chaos we do, just about, cope. I can’t claim to be mother of the year – there have been one or two low points, the most recent being Florence’s nursery’s Harvest Festival when, last-minute, the only items I could find in the kitchen cupboards as an offering were a tub of bicarbonate of soda, some cocktail sticks and three bottles of WKD.

  That doesn’t, of course, stop my mother from telling me every time we speak that things would be much easier if I’d just move back to Liverpool. Which I’ll never do – and not only because she lives there.

  The fact is, I love Liverpool and I’m proud to call it home – it’s the city that made me. But it’s London that will forever be the mad, glorious place I can’t ever imagine leaving, not when so many memories live here with me.

  I push open the door to Florence’s room with trepidation.