Real?

L. Billingham

Description

Do we have a choice about whom we love?Are some people just easier to love than others?What shapes our lives...fate or choice? Or the lies that people tell us?Asking questions about the nature of love, the power of guilt and the fragility that comes with being human, Real? confronts questions of equality, not only in the workplace, but in every aspect of life.Set in London predominantly and Yorkshire occasionally, Real? revolves around a young woman, Frances, whose body, marriage and life are slowly and painfully disintegrating.And all because she chose the wrong man when she was seventeen. Or so she thinks.When that 'other' man steps back into her life, a wealthy and successful businessman, she resolves to turn back time and seize hold of the life that was meant for her - his life, in fact. But is that life real? Is he? What does 'real' mean anyway? Frances, both deeply flawed and desperately fragile, tries to reinvent herself but for what and for whom? And won't life trip her up anyway?

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 31 mars 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528986229
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Real?
L. Billingham
Austin Macauley Publishers
2020-03-31
Real? About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Acknowledgment Chapter One Chapter Two Three Weeks Earlier Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine 27 December Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-One Chapter Thirty-Two Chapter Thirty-Three Chapter Thirty-Four Chapter Thirty-Five Chapter Thirty-Six Chapter Thirty-Seven Chapter Thirty-Eight Chapter Thirty-Nine Chapter Forty
About the Author
L. Billingham grew up in West Yorkshire in the 1970s and 80s and worked in administrative roles in a bank, the civil service and for a construction company before finally heading off to Aberdeen University in her mid-twenties to study law. After qualifying as a lawyer, she worked predominantly for, and in the oil and gas industry, reaching the legal executive team of a FTSE 100 company. She has always championed inclusivity and a ‘level playing field’ meritocracy. She left the corporate life to pursue her dream of being a writer and life coach. She is still pursing those dreams. She is married with a teenage son and enjoys many and various sporting and non-sporting activities.
Dedication
For my family and friends.
Copyright Information ©
L. Billingham (2020)
The right of L. Billingham to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528917810 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528986229 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Acknowledgment
I would like to thank Austin Macauley publishers for all their endeavours in supporting unknown authors and for welcoming my work into their fold.
I could not have persevered this far without the unwavering support of my family and friends. I am truly lucky to have them all in my life.
Alison Russell was the first reader of my work. Suzie Turner, Ginny Lightman and Ann O’Neil read it shortly afterwards. Jo Oxley texted me regularly to make sure that I was still writing. Michelle Hilton gave me a talking to when I questioned whether pursuing my dream was actually worthwhile. My friends, Rachel Taylor, Nikki Jones, Debbie Jarvis and Alison Glover, have given me unrelenting practical support and have listened to all my misgivings, often on a weekly basis!
My sister, Alison, brother-in-law, David, and nieces Annabel, El and Lize, not only wrap me in their love but inspire me to do what I can to make the world a more equal and understanding place.
Finally, I would like to thank my wonderful husband, Lee, for giving me the time and space to pursue my dreams, and my equally wonderful son, Ollie, for being proud of me even when I don’t feel as though I have achieved very much at all. Loving them is, without question, the best part of my life. Not forgetting our black cat, Skinny—not exactly lucky, but ours!
Chapter One
“I don’t want children, Frances,” Shaun, my husband, did not meet my gaze as he said this but simply stared at the TV screen, which just gazed darkly back at him. Involuntarily, my mouth began to move and my heart pounded in my chest, as though it would suddenly burst out and land in a soggy heap on the rug in front of us and I would look at it and say:
“Oh, look! There’s my heart! No, don’t worry. Just go ahead and trample all over it. I can put it back. It’ll be fine. It’ll still work.”
I said nothing and stilled my heart as best I could.
Shaun was sitting on the sofa, the only piece of furniture in our living room bar the TV, an easy chair, an old chest of drawers and a couple of glass coffee tables, the only light in the room being from the street lights outside. It was 4 in the afternoon and it was already almost dark. Our curtains were not drawn; we lived on the third floor of a block of flats and were not overlooked, not even by the double-decker buses that ground out a never-ending loop in this part of London.
Shaun’s long legs were stretched out in front of him; his hands were interlaced neatly in his lap. To a casual observer, he would appear a picture of relaxation, a man at home with his wife late on a Saturday afternoon, but then again, I was not a casual observer. I had spent long hours studying Shaun, hours when I’d had nothing else to do. His jaw displayed tiny signs of tension and his dark eyebrows were beginning to knot. Suddenly, rain rattled against the window, breaking the silence. There was a storm brewing outside.
I shivered in my place on the rug, leant, as I was, with my back up against the sofa. I hated rain. I hated storms. I wanted to put my hands over my ears and shut it out. Instead, I wrapped my arms around myself and turned my gaze to the TV too, as though there would be some clue on its screen as to why my husband, the man I had shared a home with for more than ten years, would suddenly tell me that he didn’t want children. But inspiration did not flash across the TV screen in bright neon letters; I would just have to work it out for myself.
I began to stare fixedly at the side of Shaun’s face.
“Stop it, Frances. I know what you’re doing.” Shaun did not look at me.
“Sorry.” Quickly, I cast my eyes downwards.
“Look,” he stifled a sigh, “you don’t have to keep saying sorry, all right. Just stop! Stop staring at me.”
But I couldn’t stop myself and whilst I kept my eyes downwards for a few moments, they were drawn to his face, imploring him to look back at me. If he would only do that, if he could just see how my face pleaded, how my eyes spoke what my lips could never say, I knew that his face would soften and that his mind would change. He always used to smile at me when we first met, an instant smile that lit up his whole face and mine too. It lit up everything around him.
Where was that smile of Shaun’s now? He didn’t think that I noticed. He thought that the forced smile he had trained himself to produce was enough. Of course, a good training is worth a lot. Isn’t that what they say? An education is never wasted? But I did notice and it was wasted. But it was fine, just fine.
“This flat would never work, for one thing,” Shaun waved a finger about the place. My eyes followed. It wasn’t large, by any means, and it was the only living space that we had; the kitchen and dining table were also in that one room.
“The people next door have kids and they manage,” my voice sounded hollow and strained, my heart still beating rapidly in my chest. I didn’t want to have this conversation. I didn’t want to talk about space or the flat. I just wanted to take him by the shoulders and scream into his face:
“What the hell’s happening to you…what the hell’s happening to us?”
He was Shaun, and I was Frances. We’d been together since we were seventeen. He had made me a promise. He had made me several promises. He would never leave me, that was one. I licked my tongue across my lips; they felt dry as sticks.
“And have you heard the noise they make? Like a herd of baby elephants!” Shaun crossed his arms across his body. I resisted the urge to do likewise.
“I quite like it.” I lied, of course. There was many a day that I was awoken by the sound of stampeding feet and wished myself a big game hunter. But our child would be different. Our child would be perfect.
“Oh really?” there was a hint of a sneer in Shaun’s voice. I clenched and unclenched my fists and watched as Shaun uncrossed his ankles and straightened his jeans, reaching down and pulling on the hem of each leg. I grabbed a cushion from the sofa and hugged it to my body. I would have preferred to hug Shaun instead. At one time, that would have worked. That would have done the trick. At one time, I would have been up there on the sofa, curled next to him, my arms woven with his. But somewhere along the way, I had forgotten how. I could have reached out and touched him, both sitting as we were, but there was a moat around him and no obvious way across. I hugged the cushion tighter.
“And you know that Harrisons will only pay the basic maternity pay. We couldn’t manage on that, even for a few months. We can barely manage on our current salaries.”
I shrugged. “We’ll find a way; people find a way all the time.”
“What with you still training to be a quantity surveyor at Harrisons? How many years has it been now?”
I squeezed the cushion so tightly I thought the stuffing would burst out.
“The baby will give us both an added incentive to work harder. I’ll qualify then, I promise.”
“No, Frances, you won’t. You know you won’t and don’t start talking about ‘the baby’ either…just…”
The oven timer pinged at the same time as my jaw hit the floor.
“That will be dessert,” I stuttered, “it’s your favourite…lemon soufflé.” I unwrapped myself from the cushion and stood up, pain shooting up my right leg