The Secret Life of Luke Livingstone (47 page)

‘He’s better at diving than at cricket,’ replied Simon. ‘But, frankly, that’s not saying much. He learned from an expert, though I do say so myself. Watch this!’

He dumped the towel on a chair, took a run-up to the pool and hurled himself in, curling up into a ball so as to create a small tsunami. His wife and children cheered, but the women on the terrace shrieked as water cascaded over them. One of them—freckled, and with auburn hair—flapped her novel to dry the pages.

‘Vandal!’ she cried. ‘You’re just a big kid!’

Simon laughed at them, then grabbed a floating ball and began to play pig-in-the-middle with his family. The two grandmothers tried to go back to their books, but after a few minutes they laid them down on their chests. It was too perfect a day to be buried in a thriller.

I reached for my glass. It was ice cold. Beside me, I heard Lucia drop her book onto the ground, sighing contentedly.

‘Well,’ I said. ‘We made it.’

She knew what I meant. Of course she did. After all, we were as close as it’s possible for two human beings to be.

‘We made it,’ she said.

That sunlit garden rang with splashes, shouts and the gentle slapping of water against the tiled edge of the pool. Lucia and I sipped our drinks and chatted quietly about this and that. I was beginning to feel a little sleepy when the vineyard’s owner walked by. He glanced over the garden wall, nodding affably at us two grandmothers.

‘
Ciao, signore
,’ he called.

Perhaps this is the end of the story, but I doubt it. We have adventures to come, Lucia and I. Maybe our tale will end when death parts us. I doubt that too.

Girl meets boy. They fall in love. They marry. For thirty years, they share one another’s lives. Thirty years.

And then a new journey begins.

About the author

Charity Norman was born in Uganda and brought up in successive draughty vicarages in Yorkshire and Birmingham. After several years’ travel she became a barrister, specialising in crime and family law in the northeast of England. Also a mediator, she is passionate about the power of communication to slice through the knots. In 2002, realising that her three children had barely met her, she took a break from the law and moved with her family to New Zealand. Her first novel,
Freeing Grace
, was published in 2010 and her second,
Second Chances
, in 2012 (published in the UK as
After the Fall
), was a Richard and Judy pick.
The Son-in-Law
, her third novel, was published in 2013.