The Last List of Mabel Beaumont

Laura Pearson

Description

THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER

The list he left had just one item on it. Or, at least, it did at first…

Mabel Beaumont’s husband Arthur loved lists. He’d leave them for her everywhere. ‘Remember: eggs, butter, sugar’. ‘I love you: today, tomorrow, always’.

But now Arthur is gone. He died: softly, gently, not making a fuss. But he’s still left her a list. This one has just one item on it though: ‘Find D’.

Mabel feels sure she knows what it means. She must track down her best friend Dot, who she hasn’t seen since the fateful day she left more than sixty years ago.

It seems impossible. She doesn’t even know if Dot’s still alive. Also, every person Mabel talks to seems to need help first, with missing husbands, daughters, parents. Mabel finds her list is just getting longer, and she’s still no closer to finding Dot.

What she doesn’t know is that her list isn’t just about finding her old friend. And that if she can admit the secrets of the past, maybe she could even find happiness again…

A completely heartbreaking, beautiful, uplifting story, guaranteed to make you smile but also make you cry. Perfect for fans of A Man Called Ove, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, and The Keeper of Stories.

Readers are loving The Last List of Mabel Beaumont:

‘Tender and beautiful… As hopeful as it is heart-breaking… I loved it.’ Amy Beashel

‘This beautifully written story of friendship, love, loss and second chances captured my heart. I adored Mabel and her unlikely gang of colourful characters… Leaves you feeling warm, hopeful, and satisfied.’ Lisa Timoney

‘Mabel Beaumont is an absolute treasure… Laura Pearson cleverly, gently, peels back the layers of Mabel’s and her friends’ lives in a way that hurts, then soothes, your heart… An uplifting, life-affirming joy of a novel!’ Emma Robinson

‘I’ve been inundated with books in the uplit genre but this is by far the best I’ve read… moving, life-affirming and utterly wonderful.’ Matt Cain

‘I absolutely loved this book… I adore an older protagonist… who is feisty and not afraid to speak her mind. The story is like a warm hug – but it had spark and wit and humour too. I was bereft when I finished it (far too) late last night!’ Clare Swatman

‘Wow. Seriously. Just beautiful. So many wonderful elements… So many memorable characters… Beautiful and utterly affecting.’ Louise Beech

‘Charming, warm and moving… A beautifully written story about love and longing, and a poignant reminder that it’s never too late to follow your heart.’ Holly Miller

‘I adored it… A heartbreakingly beautiful story about love in all its different forms. (And she made me cry again, of course). Bravo.’ Nikki Smith

‘I finished this in the same 24 hours as I started it. Oh… what a beautiful story… Poignant and inspiring!’ Jennie Godfrey

‘Such a poignant story. Brought a lump to my throat… Will really appeal to fans of Joanna Cannon.’ Karen Angelico

‘A beautiful book about truth, love, relationships and how it's never too late to follow your heart… Moving, funny and emotionally clever.’ Alison Stockham

‘Wonderful… Uplifting… A brilliant book… Clever and unforgettable. Dive in, and prepare to be inspired.’ Ross Greenwood

Sujets

• Mashups
• LGBTQ+
• Women
• Reino Unido
• 21st century
• Friendship
• General officer
• Woman
• United Kingdom
• The Women
• Great Britain
• General
• Family Life
• Romance
• Fiction
• Royaume-Uni

Informations

• Publié par: Boldwood Books
• Date de parution: 04 août 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785136047
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE LAST LIST OF MABEL BEAUMONT


LAURA PEARSON
For Mum and Dad. Thanks for everything.
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

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42


More from Laura Pearson

Book Club Questions

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Laura Pearson

About Boldwood Books
1

I’ve been standing by this kettle, making tea for Arthur and me, for sixty-two years. Two different houses, god knows how many different kettles, but always me, always him, always a morning cup of tea. He’s at the kitchen table, pen in hand, tackling the crossword. He’s opened a window and I can hear birds chirruping in the garden. A blackbird, I think, and a robin. A whole conversation going on that means nothing to me. When I sit down, Arthur will fold the paper over and put his pen down and say ‘Well’, and we’ll talk about what we’re going to do with the day. A walk or a job or nothing much. In our working years, it was only the weekends we had to make these decisions, but now it’s every day, stretching out ahead, hour stacked on hour.
I drop in the teabags, the milk already in my cup but only added to his at the very end of the process. Half a sugar for him. Used to be two, then one. He would say, ‘Why deprive yourself, at this age?’ But I got it down, all the same. Olly’s sniffing around my feet, looking for crumbs I might have dropped. I reach down to pat his head but he dodges out of the way, goes back to Arthur, like always. He smells like the river, and I make a mental note to give him a bath soon. There’s bread in the toaster and butter and jam on the side, waiting. And there’s something I want to say, something I’ve been wanting to say now for decades, about this life we’ve built, but the words are stuck. They’re always stuck.
I take the mugs over to the table, noticing how the steam rises and then drags itself in the direction I walk.
‘Well,’ Arthur says, folding the paper. ‘Any plans for today?’
I shake my head, and the toast pops up with a quiet clatter.
‘I’m going to that funeral,’ he says. ‘Tommy Waites.’
There’s always a funeral when you get to our age. Arthur used to cut Tommy’s hair, when he had the barber’s shop, and they drank together at the conservative club sometimes. He’s been to funerals with less of a connection than that. I never know whether he’s going to pay his respects or just because it’s an outing of sorts. Finger sandwiches and slightly stale crisps, a couple of whiskeys for the road.
‘You go,’ I say. ‘I barely knew him.’
‘I’m sure Moira would be glad to see you.’
‘You see, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you his wife’s name. So I’m quite sure my presence wouldn’t make a difference to her one way or the other.’
His shoulders rise just a fraction and I know he’s annoyed. I’m an expert in his body language, as I’m sure he is in mine. You don’t live side by side, alone, for more than six decades without learning a thing or two.
‘So what will you do, while I’m gone?’
I could read, or do some knitting, or look through old photographs. I could just sit and think, go back over my memories, have a rake through my life. Our lives. But Arthur doesn’t approve of that kind of thing, thinks it’s maudlin. Always look forward, that’s his motto. Or one of them. Me, I’m more about looking back, especially now there’s so much back and so little forward left. What’s wrong with spending your last few years in quiet contemplation? It’s too late to change the world, isn’t it? That’s the trouble between us; I’m winding down and he’s still trying to go full throttle.
‘I need to sort out that kitchen drawer that’s sticking,’ I say.
‘Oh yes, that’s been driving me round the bend.’
I don’t say that it wouldn’t have got stuck in the first place if he didn’t keep putting things in it when it’s clearly full. Takeaway menus we’ll never use and buttons and rolls of sticky tape and who knows what else. I’ll throw 80 per cent of it away, and he’ll be pleased and won’t notice any of the things he was hoarding have disappeared, which goes to show he didn’t need them in the first place.
When he comes down in his funeral suit, he holds his arms out in front of him for me to do his cufflinks.
‘Bill’s old cufflinks, these,’ he says, as he always does.
I nod, don’t say that after sixty-odd years, they feel more like his to me than Bill’s, despite the initials. WM. William Mansfield.
He’s had that suit more than thirty years, and the trousers are a bit too tight. He smells like soap and water. Just clean. Just him.
‘You’re sure I can’t change your mind?’ he asks.
I look at him, right in the eye, and wonder when I last did that. You spend so much time talking from different rooms, or one of you on the sofa and one in the doorway. When do you ever stand inches apart like this, and really focus on each other? He’s still got a full head of hair, though it’s thinning, and it’s still got a touch of sandy colouring mixed in with the white. His eyes are as blue as they were on our wedding day, when I looked into them at the altar, still hoping for a reason to back out. He’s put weight on, of course. He’s not that compact, muscular man I first knew. He’s got jowls and a belly. It suits him, age. Because he’s got a magical smile, always has, and when he flashes that, you don’t really see anything else.
‘I don’t fancy it,’ I say.
He nods. And I know he’s thinking that I never fancy much any more. That I’ve mostly given up on life. And it’s true. It’s funny. When you’re choosing who to spend your life with, you don’t think about how you’ll both feel in your eighties. Whether one of you will be ready to sit and wait for the end while the other one’s keen to cram in as much living as possible. But even when we were younger, this difference raged between us. Him, always thinking he could make a difference, me knowing I’m just one person in a wide world, and it doesn’t much matter what I do.
‘Well, I’ll see you later, then.’
‘I’ll do a sausage casserole,’ I say, and we both know it’s an olive branch.
‘Right you are.’
I follow him to the door and wait for him to speak, knowing he won’t go until things are patched up between us.
‘I won’t be too long,’ he says, putting his arms around me. I feel the scratch of his stubble on my cheek and hope he’ll pull away.
And then he’s gone. I take sausages – paired and neatly wrapped in clingfilm – out of the freezer and put them on the side to defrost. Next, I tackle the drawer, being ruthless. If I don’t know what it is or it’s not been used for months, it goes in the bin. It only takes half an hour, and then I’m about to get my book out but Olly keeps going over to the door and looking mournful, and I know he’d reach up and put his lead on himself if he could.
‘Come on then, boy,’ I say, and I get us both ready for a walk.
It’s one of those bright, cold October days. Dry, at least, but I know my hands will be stiff and cold as stone by the time I get home. We go to the end of the lane and then towards the centre of town. I’ve lived here in this small Surrey town my entire life, walked this route so often I’m sometimes surprised my footsteps aren’t imprinted on the tarmac. Olly doesn’t care, as long as there are things to sniff, other dogs to growl at and somewhere he can relieve himself. Which he’s doing now. I wait for him to finish and then reach down with a bag and for a horrible minute I think I’m not going to be able to get up again, but then something clicks and I’m upright. I look at Olly, who’s eager to get going again. How long until we can’t look after him? When Arthur talked me into getting him three years ago (after writing a very well-considered pros and cons list) I said he might well outlive us both and Arthur shook his head at me as if he simply didn’t understand why I’d bring that up.
‘Sometimes you talk as if we’re already dead,’ he said.
I’ve always remembered that.
We go on, Olly and me. Past that new fancy bakery that smells of icing sugar and ginger and the hairdressers where Arthur’s barber shop used to be. Past the little supermarket with its sliding doors that open even if you’re just walking by, as if they’re part of a plan to lure people in, and the Carpenters, which is probably where the wake’s being held. Cigarette butts litter the pavement. I pull my wool coat a bit tighter around me and hurry along, hoping Arthur won’t see me through the window and come out.
It’s changed a bit, Broughton, over the years. It’s always had everything I need, though, with the occasional trip to Overbury for clothes or furniture. London is less than an hour away, but I’ve only ever been about once a year. Broughton is mostly enough. The shops thin out and I cross the road, take the little path up to the church. I walk among the gravestones until I find them; my family.
There’s Bill, who went first, though he shouldn’t have. Full of life one day and gone the next, one of those hidden heart conditions you hear about and never expect your brother to fall victim to. Then Mother, ten years later. She never got over his death, and though she officially died of cancer, it was quite clear to me that she gave up and started dying very slowly the day she heard her boy was gone. And then Dad, less than a year after her. Stroke. All over in a minute. Does it count as being orphaned if it happens when you’re in your thirties? Arthur’s mother treated me like one of her own but I was always aware of th