A Proper Family Holiday (39 page)

‘What!’ Mark had exclaimed. ‘You mean I’ve only got two weeks left as a free man?’ He had winked at Sophie as he said it and then told Ronnie that even two weeks seemed too long to wait until she could be his wife.

‘We’re going to be a proper family at last.’

Even Sophie refrained from saying, ‘That’s lame.’

Ronnie knew she had a second chance, and she was going to make the most of it.

Chapter Sixty-One

Chelsea

Chelsea had another day to kill before she needed to present herself at Arrecife Airport. It didn’t seem right to be at the Hotel Volcan alone. The place was eerily quiet as the staff made preparations for a new influx of guests later that afternoon. For once, the pool was quiet enough to swim lengths in. Chelsea decided to try to do twenty.

She didn’t get very far. Instead, she floated on her back right in the middle of the water, enjoying the contrast of the warm sun on her face and the cool water underneath. She thought to herself that she would miss Lanzarote. She would even miss the Hotel Volcan. It was unbelievable given how negative she had felt about the place when she first arrived, to find it sandwiched between the amusement arcade and the kebab stand. Maybe she would even come back …

Floating in the pool, Chelsea recalled the events of the week just past. It was still bizarre to think that there might have been three of them: three Benson girls. Ronnie would have been the middle child and Chelsea even more the baby than she’d always been. What would happen next? Chelsea wondered if this sister stranger ever thought about whether she had siblings. Would they ever meet? Would they like each other if they did? What a terrible secret for her parents to have kept through all those years. How painful it must have been for her mother as the anniversary of that uncelebrated birthday passed.

Chelsea promised herself she would arrange to go up to Coventry as soon as she was able. There was so much to talk about. Perhaps there was even something to be done to make the Benson family complete. She’d start investigating as soon as she got back to London.

Chelsea was just drying off on a sunlounger when a tall, man-shaped shadow blocked out the sun above her.

‘I hoped we’d find you,’ said Adam.

Lily was beside him. She was carrying two Cornettos.

‘Lily thought you might like one of these, because you didn’t get to taste Jack’s Cornetto the other day.’

Chelsea took the ice cream graciously.

‘That’s very thoughtful, Lily. Thank you.’

‘And we wondered what you were planning to do for the rest of the day?’

‘I thought you’d never ask.’

So Chelsea spent her last twenty-four hours in Lanzarote with Adam and Lily. They hired a car and drove to all the beauty spots Chelsea hadn’t found time to see. They lunched at a restaurant on the beach. Fresh fish and salsa. No radioactive-looking ketchup to be found.

That evening, they enjoyed the hotel’s weekly entertainment. Lily insisted that Adam and Chelsea take part in a dancing competition, for which they won a voucher for a bottle of wine. They shared the wine on the balcony of Adam’s room, while Lily slept inside.

They shared more stories too. Chelsea told Adam about the origin of the blackcurrant-stained dress and how, when she had finally confessed to
Society
’s fashion editor via email, attaching a picture of Jack in his costume for good measure, the fashion ed had gone crazy for the idea of a spread featuring the children of the rich and famous in fancy dress made from designer clothes.

‘So I guess I’ll have to resign rather than be fired.’

Adam was also dreading going back to work but his office was based in South London.

‘So perhaps, you know …’

‘What?’ Chelsea asked him.

‘Perhaps we could meet up when we’re back at home?’

Adam put down his wineglass and leant forward in his chair. Chelsea subconsciously followed.

‘Go on a date?’ Chelsea asked him.

‘I suppose you could call it that,’ he told her.

Their lips were almost touching now.

‘I think I’d like that very much,’ Chelsea murmured.

‘Good,’ said Adam. ‘Because I would like that tremendously.’

He leant a little further forward and their lips met at last.

Chapter Sixty-Two

Daisy

As Dave turned the car into the driveway of their house, Jacqui took a deep breath. She had been away from home for just a week and yet it felt as though she had been through a lifetime’s worth of changes. There had been moments when it seemed as though she was about to lose everything she valued. She had thought her daughters would turn away from her when they learnt the truth about their sister. Now she knew differently.

There was just one piece missing from the picture now. Acknowledging the secret that she and Dave had carried for so long had gone some way to lessening the ache in her heart, but only some way. Forty-two years was a long time not to know what had happened to the girl she had carried for nine months and known for just five weeks.

While Dave unloaded their luggage from the back of the car, Jacqui opened the front door. It didn’t open smoothly. A small landslide of post had built up behind the door. Ordinarily, Ronnie would have been looking after the house, making sure no one knew they were away. Jacqui scooped up the post: bills, bills. The bills kept coming, even on your sixtieth birthday. Fortunately, there were some cards too. Jacqui opened those as she pottered about the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil. She laughed at a rude card from one of her cousins. Way too rude to be put on display now that Jack seemed able to read just about everything.

Then she came to an envelope addressed in handwriting she didn’t recognise. She tucked her thumb under the edge of the flap and eased it open. Inside was a single sheet of A4. She pulled it out. At the sight of the address at the top, Jacqui’s heart almost stopped. It was from one of the adoption reunion registers they’d signed up to so long ago. Jacqui held the letter to her chest.

‘Dave,’ She called him into the kitchen, ‘Dave, quick. I think it’s happened.’

They sat opposite each other at the kitchen table, the letter between them in a circle of light. Jacqui couldn’t look at it. Dave did the honours, though his hands were shaking as he picked it up and started to read.

‘It’s about Daisy,’ he confirmed. He reached across the table to take his wife’s hand. ‘Our baby girl has decided she’d like to meet us.’

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book has been through many incarnations and has passed through many hands. For all their efforts to bring
A Proper Family Holiday
to your beach bag, I’d like to thank the lovely team at Hodder, especially Francesca Best, Eleni Lawrence, Emilie Ferguson, Veronique Norton, Sarah Christie, Isobel Akenhead, and Harriet Bourton, and my agent, Antony Harwood. Thanks also to Victoria Routledge for listening to the endless mid-book moans. And they were endless … Finally, I’d like to thank Mark, for always being there. With tea. And my lovely family, for being nothing like the family herein.

The next hilarious novel in the Benson family series is

A PROPER FAMILY CHRISTMAS

Chrissie Manby

KEEP CALM, IT’S ONLY ONCE A YEAR

Annabel Buchanan has it all. A privileged life. Pots of cash. Looks and manners born of generations of fabulous breeding. At least, that’s what she likes people to think. But Annabel’s carefully created image is about to come crashing down.

With her beloved daughter Izzy in need of a kidney transplant, Annabel is desperate to find a suitable donor. That’s how she comes to admit that before Annabel Buchanan there was Daisy Benson, given up for adoption by her teenage mum and dad.

Hoping her biological family will be able to help, Annabel traces the Bensons and is horrified by the embarrassing, chavvy bunch she discovers. They’re definitely not her kind of people. And she is equally baffling to them.

But as Christmas approaches and Izzy’s situation brings the Benson and the Buchanan families closer, will Annabel discover at last that blood is thicker than water?

Out in paperback and ebook in November 2014