After the Honeymoon
Read After the Honeymoon Online
Authors: Janey Fraser
Contents
Three couples. One honeymoon destination...
Emma never wanted to marry Tom, let alone go away without the children. But then the girls at work pay for a honeymoon in Greece. Enter Yannis, the local lothario.
Winston is the nation’s Keep Fit darling. Newspapers are agog when he marries Melissa, newly divorced mother of two. But when her teenagers disrupt their honeymoon, his past is revealed.
Rosie was homeless and pregnant when she arrived at the Villa Rosa sixteen years ago, but now she’s the owner. Winston might not remember her, but she’s forgotten him...
By the end of the week, none of their lives will be the same. But how will they cope after the honeymoon is over?
Janey Fraser has been a journalist for over twenty-five years and contributes regularly to national newspapers and magazines including the
Daily Telegraph
and
Woman
. This is her fourth book. She has also published books under the pen name Sophie King.
The Playgroup
The Au Pair
Happy Families
This book is dedicated to my husband and our not-honeymoon (who needs one when you live by the sea?)
Also to Giles, who refused to go away with us (see above)
Lucy and Andi (who lived it up in the Maldives)
William (who loves the beach)
Little Jack (ditto)
My sister, whose third honeymoon (Spanish villa for twenty) was a ball
This book is
not
dedicated to
My missed flight at Stansted
Post-holiday mobile phone bills
Airport luggage scales (never in my favour)
Holiday rain
Lost passports (why didn’t I look under the photocopier?)
Thanks as always to my agent Teresa Chris and our seaside business meetings. Also to my editor Gillian Holmes, Citizen Sigmund, Sarah Aratoon and all the team at Random House.
Finally, I’m indebted to ex-Royal Marine Bill McDermott for being so generous with his time; to my cousin Finni for her tales about life in Greece; to all the dinner ladies who shared their nuggets (literary, rather than chicken); friends and students who contributed real-life honeymoon stories; and to my fellow writers at the Romantic Novelists Association.
THE HONEYMOON
Norse legend has it that honeymoons used to take place before marriage. According to one version, a man would kidnap a woman he fancied (hence the meaning behind ‘swept her off her feet’) and carry her around on horseback for a month of moons. The couple would drink mead (a honey-based drink) while in hiding, as this was said to improve the chance of having sons. Then, when the bride’s relatives caught up, they would have a marriage ceremony.
Idyllic holiday cottage on the stunning, unspoilt Greek island of Siphalonia – suddenly available for the last week of July, due to last-minute cancellation.
Very reasonable rates!
Perfect for couple or small family. For more details, please contact Gemma Balls, head of pastoral care at Corrywood School, or leave a message with the school secretary.
EMMA
‘So,’ asked Bernie chirpily, handing her a serving of pasta curls, chipolatas and broccoli through the hatch, ‘where are you going for your honeymoon then?’
Emma carefully placed the bright green plastic platter in front of a little girl from Year One with buck teeth and clear-framed glasses, before replying. Why did people keep asking her? ‘We can’t afford one, actually. Weddings are so expensive. Tom says we might have a bit of a break next year instead, with the children.’
Bernie, or Big-Boned Bern as she was sometimes known (though Emma, with her size-sixteen meringue wedding dress, could hardly talk), rolled her eyes. She smoothed down her Corrywood Juniors pinny and passed the next green platter over the counter that divided the cooking area from the dining room. ‘Thought that was the whole point of waiting all these years before tying the knot. You know, to save up for a big do.’
Emma, who was wearing a matching yellow pinny like the rest of the team, felt a little shiver go through her: it happened every time someone mentioned the wedding. When she and Tom had first started planning all this, it hadn’t seemed real enough to be scary. But now there was only a week to go and frankly she felt sick as a dog.
‘That’s right, love, eat up the broccoli too,’ she urged. ‘It’s good for you.’
The kindly advice to the little girl in glasses bought her time to compose herself before turning back to Bernie. ‘We’ve been putting aside as much as we could, but with the mortgage, it’s really tight.’
Her friend and workmate popped a sausage in her own mouth (strictly forbidden, for hygiene reasons) and gave a sympathetic nod. ‘Not easy, is it?’
She leaned across and picked out a pasta curl that had somehow got stuck in Emma’s naturally wavy, honey-blonde hair. Stray bits of food on your person was one of the hazards of the job, along with the noise from the kids, which made your ears ring until you got used to it.
Emma
loved
being a dinner lady, or rather, a ‘mealtime assistant’, as they called it now. She liked nothing more than to help the little ones to cut up their food or sort out an argument because someone claimed to have a bigger sausage than someone else. It was even an exciting challenge to coax fussy eaters into ‘just one more mouthful’.
‘Mrs Walker, Mrs Walker! What happens to food when it goes into your tummy?’
It was an earnest little boy who was rather small for his age, bless him. Always asking questions. Like all the others, he addressed her as ‘Mrs’. It seemed inconceivable to them that a mother could be anything else. ‘It gets eaten up by your body,’ replied Emma promptly, before adding encouragingly, ‘Then you get big and strong and clever.’
‘But
how
does your body eat it up?’
Bernie rolled her eyes and mouthed something that looked like ‘Rather you than me’.
‘It’s all to do with digestion,’ Emma began, recalling her A grade in biology GCSE.
‘Die jest on.’ The little boy looked as though he was memorising the words carefully. ‘But
how
?’
It would be so easy to say something wishy-washy like ‘It just does’, but Emma always felt that when a child was bright enough to be curious, they deserved an answer. Even when it wasn’t easy.
‘It’s like this, you see,’ she patted her tummy. ‘The food goes round your body and then it ends up in something called the colon.’
The little boy’s eyes lit up. ‘Like in English?’
Bernie spluttered with laughter behind her. Emma ignored her. ‘No, although that’s a good question. This kind of colon is different.’
‘
Then
what happens to it?’
‘I know! I know!’ One of the older children was jumping up and down, arm up in the air. ‘It comes out as poo!’
Emma flushed.
‘Cool!’ The earnest kid was nodding. It certainly hadn’t put him off his food, judging from the way he was wolfing down those pasta twists.
Why was it easy to get other people’s kids to obey, but not your own? It had been fine at the beginning when her son had been little, but Gawain had become much more demanding since his sister had been born.
Emma stifled a yawn as she reached for a plate of veggie nuggets to deliver to table two. She’d spent hours trying to get her eldest to bed last night. Not only had he refused to be peeled out of his Spider-Man costume for bath-time but he’d also kept swooping – arms wide out at the side like an aeroplane – in and out of the tiny bedroom that he shared with little Willow, waking her up.
It was only when she’d lain down next to him in his new bed that he’d finally dropped off. Then Tom had gone and spoiled it all by declaring Gawain was far too old for all this fuss now he was four. ‘When are we ever going to have an evening to ourselves?’ he’d said gently.
‘He’s still very young,’ Emma had retorted, wondering at the same time what she and Tom would actually
do
with a whole evening on their own.
Still, the great thing about her little job at Corrywood School was that she felt wonderfully useful. Every time one of the children finished their plate or gave her an impromptu cuddle the way little ones did, she got an electric buzz. She was really appreciated here – far more than at home, to be honest.
The other big plus was that the hours fitted in with her own kids. There was just time when they finished at one-thirty, after sweeping up and stacking the little red tables, to collect Gawain from pre-school and Willow from Mum’s round the corner. Tight, but just about possible.
Rather like copping out of the wedding.
Emma knelt down next to a little boy with muddy knees (‘Shall we make a picture out of these sausages?’), grateful for another distraction. She’d have been quite happy not to get married at all. Mum and Dad’s example had proved there was no such thing as a happy ever after. But Tom was more traditional.
For a minute, she found herself thinking about the boy she’d met at the community club disco all those years ago. Even though she’d been barely fifteen – ridiculous really – and Tom had been so much older (twenty-two!) she’d known he was the one. It wasn’t just the way he’d asked her to dance with that shy smile. It was how he’d carefully asked for her number before kissing her. Her first kiss!
Picking up a squashed veggie nugget from the floor, Emma found herself blushing at the memory. It had been a rather awkward meeting of mouths, as though he wasn’t sure what he was doing either, despite his age, especially when his glasses had got in the way. But she’d liked that. The last thing she’d wanted was a slick smoothie. Someone who couldn’t be trusted. Someone like her dad.
They’d gone out together for the rest of her time at school. ‘Don’t you want to see what it’s like with other boys?’ demanded Bernie, who’d sat next to her in class since primary, sharing her sweets surreptitiously under the desk.
No, she didn’t. It was all right for her friend, whose parents still held hands when they walked down the street. But when you’d witnessed the arguments that had gone on between
her
two, you needed stability. Yet at the same time, you were scared of committing for ever, just in case the same thing happened to you.