Echoes of Love (5 page)

‘A lot. I want to see him a lot.’

‘Right,’ Shannon said, licking the last remnants of sugar from her fingers. ‘So for once, do what you want. You’re eighteen, for God’s sake – you can do what
the hell you like.’

‘It’s not as simple as that.’

‘Oh Anna, those are the very words you said to me way back when everything blew up in your face, remember? And I told you then that things are as simple or as difficult as you choose to
make them. Fancy another coffee?’

‘I’ll get them,’ Anna said hastily, as Shannon backed her wheelchair away from the table.

‘Don’t you dare,’ Shannon replied amicably. ‘I can manage. Just sit there and make a plan.’

Not for the first time, Anna reflected on the irony of their friendship. There was Shannon, who following a horrendous accident when she was thirteen, spent most of her waking hours in a
wheelchair, and who was about the most feisty, go-getty girl she’d ever known, never letting her disability stop her from doing whatever she wanted. She was a great keyboard player, and a
leading light of the county wheelchair basketball team. And here was she, Anna Eliot, with everything going for her and the chance to put her whole life back on track, and she didn’t have the
guts to tell her father that, even if he had to go to Sussex, she didn’t have to follow him.

The trouble was, irritating though he was, she loved her dad, and she knew that underneath all his blustering and pomposity, he still missed her mum dreadfully. Alice Eliot had been his rock;
his nickname for her had been Pebble, because he said she was too dainty and too beautiful to be a rock. Alice had always been there to pick up the pieces when Walter messed up, always took his
side and made excuses for some of his more outrageous behaviour, and one of the last things that she had said to Anna before she died had been, ‘Look after everyone, darling. Especially your
daddy. You’re my sensible girl – I know I can rely on you.’

She’d failed her mum once already. She’d been the cause of all her father’s recent problems. She didn’t dare upset him again. And yet . . .

Her thoughts were interrupted by her mobile phone vibrating in her pocket.

‘Hi Mallory, what’s up?’

‘You’ll never guess, it’s so amazing, I could die from happiness.’

‘Why? What is it?’ Anna laughed.

‘I’ve got a job!’

If Mallory had said that she was about to fly to the moon, Anna couldn’t have been more surprised. Work was normally something she expected others to do for her.

‘It’s so cool,’ she babbled. ‘I’m going to work in the tearoom at Uppercross Farm. It was my idea and Charlie sorted it with his mum and guess what?’

‘What?’

‘They say I can live with them all summer till I go back to school. I can have the spare bedroom as my own. And they’re going to let me try out recipes for the café and
everything. Isn’t that just the best thing?’

‘Yes, I guess,’ Anna replied hesitantly, trying to suppress the surge of jealousy. ‘But have you asked Dad?’

‘Not yet, and I shan’t ask him, I shall tell him,’ Mallory replied decisively. ‘He can’t complain; it’s his fault we’re in this mess. And besides,
it’ll look good on my CV for when I go to catering college. Anyway, got to go; Charlie’s waiting. Laters!’

For a moment, Anna sat open-mouthed, staring at her phone. While she couldn’t for one moment imagine her sister sticking at a job day in, day out, and knew that her latest idea of going to
catering college had only come from spending a day on the set of
Ready, Steady, Cook!
when Walter was the guest celebrity, she had to admire Mallory for taking matters into her own hands. In
the past, she’d always looked to Anna to take care of stuff and now she was the one getting a life.

That did it. If Mallory could do it, so could she. She’d tell her father today. She wasn’t going to Eastbourne either. What’s more, an idea was forming in her mind that just
might make everything easier.

‘I’m not going,’ she announced as Shannon wheeled up to the table balancing a tray of coffees on her lap. ‘I’ve decided.’

‘Halle-blooming-luljah!’ Shannon cheered, punching the air and slopping coffee everywhere. ‘So what’s the plan?’

‘I’m going to ask Marina to let me live with her till I go to uni,’ she went on, finally verbalising the idea that had been drifting at the back of her mind for the past two
days. ‘I mean, I’ll go and visit Dad and everything, but if I’m up here, we can still do our gigs.’

The Barn Theatre, on the outskirts of Fleckford, which had grown from a tiny amateur effort in a couple of disused cowsheds into a thriving enterprise that was famous across three counties, had
a policy of letting student music groups play in the foyer before shows. Wild Chicks had managed to get slots every week in the summer, as well as the chance to help out from time to time at the
theatre’s music and drama workshops for kids.

‘That’s great, but of course not half as vital as being in a position to see Felix when he turns up,’ Shannon teased. ‘I take it you’re not planning to mention that
part of the plan to the rest of the family.’

‘As if,’ Anna replied. ‘I guess they’ll find out soon enough once he’s back home – he’ll hook up with Charlie and he’s bound to say something to
Mallory and once she knows, the entire universe will be informed. Until then, I’m just going to do what the hell I like for once.’

‘Too right,’ Shannon replied. ‘There is, however, a teeny flaw in your plan.’

‘Which is?’

‘Use your brain, Anna! Let’s say you and Felix do manage to get back together. You hang out with one another, text, phone, go clubbing . . .’

‘Marina would find out, go mental, tell Dad . . .’

‘Exactly. Now, I think you were totally wrong to give in to your family over the whole business last time round, but don’t go making it harder for yourself – at least not till
you and Felix are together again.’

‘But what other choice do I have? I’ve got to live somewhere.’

‘When things really get going, you could always come and stay at my place.’

Anna’s mouth dropped open and she stared at Shannon.

‘With you? But . . .’

‘OK, so I know it’s not a patch on your place – we could fit our whole house into your dining room – but we’ve got a spare room and Mum would be over the moon. I
told you she’s seeing this guy, Clive?’

Anna nodded.

‘He’s always asking her to go off for weekends and stuff, and she won’t leave me, even though I tell her I can cope. But if you were there . . . you’d be doing us both a
favour.’

‘It would be brilliant but my dad . . .’

‘Hear me out,’ Shannon interrupted. ‘OK, so you ask Marina if you can move in with her, because that’ll keep your dad off your back and keep your godmother oblivious
– but as soon as Felix is back and dying to see you . . .’

‘Yeah, right.’

‘Be quiet. As soon as that happens, you say that my mum wants you to spend some time with me because she’s going away. Marina falls for that, you two are totally free to snog
yourself senseless and everyone’s happy. So go on, ring her.’

‘What? Your mum? I can’t.’

‘Not her, silly; I’ll sort her out when the time comes. Ring Marina.’

‘Now?’

‘Yes – that way I know you’re not going to back out and change your mind.’

Anna dialled Marina’s phone. ‘Hi Marina, it’s me. Um . . . there’s something I wanted to ask you . . . I was wondering, I mean only if it’s OK, but . . .’

‘Sound decisive!’ Shannon hissed. ‘You either want this or you don’t. Just do it!’

Three minutes later, Anna snapped the phone shut and grinned at Shannon. ‘Sorted!’

‘Great!’ Shannon spun her chair round to face the door and grinned over her shoulder at Anna.

‘And I promise to make myself scarce when you bring Felix back to our place!’ she giggled.

The smile faded from Anna’s face.

‘Like that’s ever going to happen,’ she sighed. ‘I know we don’t have a future after what happened, but I just want . . .’

‘Stop right there!’ Shannon ordered. ‘Think positive, imagine yourself in his arms, hear him saying he can’t live without you.’

Anna burst out laughing. ‘You don’t change, do you? You really believe you can make things happen just by wanting them enough?’

‘Sure do,’ Shannon said. ‘I managed ten steps yesterday. On my own. Just one stick. Compared with that, seducing Felix Wentworth should be easy.’ She eyed Anna with
amusement. ‘Hey – you’ve got that faraway look in your eyes,’ she laughed. ‘Working out your strategy, I hope?’

Anna shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I was just thinking about the day we met. Have I told you how he . . . ?’

‘Loads of times,’ Shannon interrupted. ‘I reckon I know more about that evening than if I’d been there myself. But, somehow, I get the feeling you’re going to tell
me anyway.’

CHAPTER 3

T
HEY HAD MET AT
C
HARLIE
M
USGROVE'S EIGHTEENTH
birthday party sixteen months ago.

Anna had noticed Felix the moment she arrived: for one thing, he was the only black guy in the crowded marquee that had been erected on one of the paddocks at the Musgroves’ farm; and for
another, he was seriously hot. With skin the colour of mocha and short curly black hair, he reminded her of the lifeguard she had been totally besotted with on holiday in Barbados when she was
fourteen. He was standing slightly apart from everyone else under one of the patio heaters borrowed from the village pub in anticipation of the wintry weather, wearing faded jeans, a T-shirt and
that expression of studied boredom that guys adopt to cover up feelings of awkwardness. She hung back in the entrance as Gaby and Mallory dashed ahead of her, air-kissing everyone in sight and
telling them how great they looked (although Anna knew that the following day, Gaby would be glued to her mobile, mouthing off about their apparent lack of style to anyone who would listen), and
watched him out of the corner of her eye. He looked about as uncomfortable at the prospect of the evening ahead as she was.

She had never been good at the whole party scene; more than two drinks and she felt sick, and she was useless at the kind of frothy small talk that came as second nature to Gaby. There had been
a moment when she almost decided not to come; her attempts earlier that day at colouring her hair Burnished Bronze with Kissed Copper highlights (which
Fab!
magazine had assured her was the
look for that season) had been an unmitigated disaster; she looked like a cartoon cockerel and she felt self-conscious and awkward. She was only here because Charlie and his sisters were among her
closest friends; the families had known one another since childhood and Uppercross, the Musgroves’ farm (which made more money from its self-catering cottages, tearoom and ‘Farm
Experience’ rides than it did from the cattle and sheep that roamed the fields) adjoined the Eliot property and was like a second home to Anna. During her mother’s long illness, it had
been Bea Musgrove who had made half-terms and holidays more bearable, having the girls to stay and boxing Anna’s pony to Pony Club camps and gymkhanas. Anna had even been out with Charlie for
a short time in the days when that meant holding hands in the cinema and kissing with lips squeezed firmly together. Not that she’d ever done much kissing with lips apart; she was the only
one of her set at her old boarding school who had never had boys texting and emailing twenty-four seven and there had always been those who took delight at the start of every new term in asking
whether she had managed to pull over the holidays.

And here she was again, at a party without a boy in tow. Gaby was already wrapped around Zac Harville, with whom she had had a somewhat volatile relationship for the past six months. Mallory,
arm in arm with her best friend Olivia, was heading across the marquee towards a group of Charlie’s old school mates, and would, Anna knew, within seconds have cornered a partner for the
evening. Zac’s sister, Phoebe, one of Anna’s longstanding mates who lived in the neighbouring village of Drayton Magna, was wearing her usual slightly bored expression as Jamie Benwick
gazed at her with his brown, puppy-like eyes. Charlie’s sixteen-year-old twin sisters, Louisa and Henrietta, home from boarding school for half-term, were hanging out with a group of boys who
were trying to outdo one another in an attempt to show off.