Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend Read online

  Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend

  JENNY COLGAN

  Hachette Digital

  www.littlebrown.co.uk

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Part One - Now

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Part Two - Then

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Part Three - Now

  Chapter Eighteen

  Teaser chapter

  Jenny Colgan is the author of eight bestselling novels, most recently Operation Sunshine, which is also published by Sphere. She is married with two children and lives in London and France.

  For more information about Jenny, visit her website at

  www.jennycolgan.com

  Praise for Jenny Colgan

  ‘She is very, very funny’ Express

  ‘A delicious comedy’ Red

  ‘Witty and clever’ Heat

  ‘Fast-paced, funny, poignant and well observed’ Daily Mail

  ‘Hugely entertaining and very funny’ Cosmopolitan

  ‘A funny, clever page-turner’ Closer

  ‘A quirky tale of love, work and the meaning of life’ Company

  ‘A smart, witty love story’ Observer

  ‘A Colgan novel is like listening to your best pal, souped up on

  vino, spilling the latest gossip - entertaining, dramatic and frequently hilarious’ Daily Record

  ‘An entertaining read’ Sunday Express

  ‘The perfect summer sunbather, easy to read, packed with gags and truths’ Irish News

  Also by Jenny Colgan

  Amanda’s Wedding

  Talking to Addison

  Looking for Andrew McCarthy

  Working Wonders

  Do You Remember the First Time?

  Where Have All the Boys Gone?

  West End Girls

  Operation Sunshine

  Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend

  JENNY COLGAN

  Hachette Digital

  www.littlebrown.co.uk

  Published by Hachette Digital 2009

  Copyright © Jenny Colgan 2009

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  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, without

  the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated

  in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published

  and without a similar condition including this condition

  being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those

  clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance

  to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library.

  eISBN : 978 0 7481 1566 2

  This ebook produced by JOUVE, FRANCE

  Hachette Digital

  An imprint of

  Little, Brown Book Group

  100 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DY

  An Hachette Livre UK Company

  To Jo and Al. Thanks for everything!

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to my family, the board, the ever-supportive Feb mums, the École de Spectacle ghetto and especially my brilliant, gorgeous and patient Mr B, and the terrific wee Bs.

  Part One

  Now

  Chapter One

  Ever since I started working, I’ve always thought that everyone should get a day off the first time in the year that the sun shines. You know, the morning when you wake up and see blue in the corner of the window and smell spring in the air and your heart leaps. Don’t you think everyone should just automatically get the day off to go out and enjoy it?

  Obviously people might disagree on when this day actually occurs, and you’d maybe have to have an agreement about what temperature it had to be, and then everyone in Scotland would get really pissed off, and, well - it would probably be a bit difficult to administer, especially if the hospitals all suddenly shut down and things. OK. Maybe it’s not the best idea I’ve ever had.

  Right, how about everyone gets a ‘sunshine’ day a year and they choose when they take it, like some people get duvet days? Everyone just knows the day, don’t they? You can tell on the street; it’s weird, people smile at each other and stuff. Huh. So we’re back to the problem of losing all the hospitals and policemen - and traffic wardens, so I’m not saying it would be an out and out disaster.

  But, anyway. Today is a lovely day, and I am - we are - taking it off and going to the seaside!

  Well, maybe not strictly taking it off. There are a few advantages to being a freelance photographer - mostly being able to work in your pyjamas, but on the downside, it does get annoying when people say, ‘Hey, Sophie, do you go to work in your pyjamas every day?’

  Anyway, it means you’re always thinking about work, even on an official DAY OFF. But that’s OK, because I’ve figured out a way to combine things. Which is why, right at this moment, I’m jumping up and down on the bed. Persuasive tactics.

  ‘Come on! Come on! Let’s go to the beach! And I’ll do your pictures there!’ He slowly opens one eye. ‘Sophie. What on earth are you doing?’

  ‘Look! Look out of the window!’ I babble.

  ‘How old are you, six?’

  ‘What do you see that wasn’t there before?’

  ‘Uh, they’ve covered up the graffiti? The feral cats have all died?’ So, we don’t have the world’s nicest view.

  ‘Sunshine! There’s sunshine! Let’s go and take photos!’

  ‘Can I have breakfast?’

  ‘We could have an ice cream for breakfast!’

  He thinks for a minute. ‘Yeah, all right.’

  It’s hard not to get a little bit excited, walking against the flow of commuters as we leave for Southend with beach towels. Maybe I should go out with a beach towel all the time; I get as many envious looks as if I am carrying the latest Birkin, and it’s all I can do not to bounce up and down on the dusty, mottled train carriage seats as I watch the grey buildings of London fade behind us, and the flat lands of Essex spread out ahead.

  Apart from a few dog-walkers, the beach is deserted - and absolutely perfect. The air is a little fresher here, out of the city, but the sky is a soft scuddy blue, and the sun feels warm and life-giving, coming after such a long winter. I want to stretch out and luxuriate in it, like a cat. I turn my back to the sun so I can feel it through my clothes, and close my eyes.

  ‘Ahhhhh,’ I say.

  He smiles. ‘Happy?’

  You know, it seems such an innocuous question, but it makes me pause. I look around at the dunes, at the old-fashioned hotels that still line the front, looking dilapidated this early in the season. I watch a dog run after a seagull, the dog clearly barking its head off but too far away to be heard.

  Am I happy? It’s been such a long time since I could answer this question in any kind of a positive way. It’s hard to think about
the kind of person I used to be.

  I smile. ‘Well,’ I say, getting out my beloved Leica, ‘yes. Although I’d be even happier if you can find somewhere open that sells fish and chips.’

  He smiles. ‘You are just so high maintenance.’

  ‘But first,’ I order, brandishing the camera, ‘lots of you looking moody in the middle distance.’

  I study him through my lens. He’s not traditionally handsome, I suppose. Which suits me just fine, I’m not traditionally pretty. Pale, light skinned. I used to have long blonde hair I parted in the middle like Gwyneth Paltrow, until I met a drippy man at a party with exactly the same hair. Not only that, but he then dedicated a song to me on his acoustic guitar, which was mildly exciting until he opened his mouth and sounded like a twenty-four-wasp pile-up. The lyrics were something like ‘Oh woman, you ripped my heart into little pieces of shit’, which I wasn’t very impressed about since he’d only just met me and everything. I cut my hair quite soon after that.

  ‘Look solemn,’ I instruct, which is difficult to say to a man who has a small piece of ice cream on his cheek - a leftover from our Magnum breakfast (white chocolate, of course. Dark chocolate is very much an after-dinner Magnum).

  He sighs. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you have to look like a great artist eagerly awaiting inspiration for his next masterpiece. I’m taking some shots for your new brochure.’

  ‘Shh! Don’t jinx us. Can’t I just look like a cheerful artist eagerly awaiting his next cheque?’

  ‘No-oh. That’s a bad look.’

  ‘What about a starving artist who doesn’t know how he’s going to pay the water bill?’

  ‘Let me see it,’ I instruct. ‘Hmm. No. It’s a bit disappointed-looking. ’

  ‘I was very, very disappointed by our water bill.’

  ‘Shh! Look out to sea then.’

  ‘Oh, yes, that’ll be great. Then I’ll look like I’m about to start sculpting those stripy lighthouses you buy at the seaside. ’

  I put the camera down. ‘There’s money in that! That could work!’

  ‘No! We’ll pay the water bill. Somehow.’

  ‘I quite like those lighthouses,’ I muse. Oh, yeah, that’s the other downside to being a freelancer - always being skint.

  ‘Stop! Stop! Please!’

  ‘OK!’ I say. ‘Deranged! Passionate! Look just like that!’

  ‘You do talk some binkety bollocks,’ he complains, but keeps his head still as I shoot frame after frame. With the calm line of the sea behind him, and the sharp lines of his profile, I reckon they should come up rather well in black and white and if this mooted exhibition of his ever comes off, my pics can go in the programme.

  Eventually I think I’ve got my shot and we’ve both earned our proper breakfast, so he heads off over the dunes.

  I settle down on the sand to wait. OK, it’s not luxurious Mediterranean weather, but that’s kind of nice; there’s a freshness off the sea, just in case you forget for one second you are in England. But apart from the waves, it’s so quiet. I feel like we’re the first people ever to discover this beach. I rest my chin on my hands and just stare out to sea.

  Am I happy? Right here? Right now? Pff, it’s a big question, with a big answer.

  Chapter Two

  When I was eleven, my mum died. It’s all right, it wasn’t your fault - or was it? No, I’m kidding, sorry. It’s just people always look so upset. It’s now over eighteen years ago, and I still hate having to tell people. They always look really stricken and shocked, and I end up saying, ‘It’s OK,’ and somehow comforting them instead.

  Up to then I was pretty normal, or at least I think I was. I was quite a shy girl whose main hobbies were beads, Barbie and playing schools. I suppose I lived in a big house but I honestly didn’t notice that at the time. I thought everyone had a maid and their own dressing room. Anyway, as far as that goes, I would have traded the dressing room, every Barbie ever made and anything else I owned not to have the memory of the day the head teacher came into the classroom and, in an odd, strangled-sounding voice, asked if she could see me in her office.

  Here is how I try to remember her. One night, I must have been around seven, they were on their way out - they went out a lot, my mother loved balls and dancing and my father liked to indulge her. She was wearing my favourite dress - she had so many, but most she only wore once or twice. This one came out every year. It was a fuchsia-coloured silk (hey, it was the eighties) which she wore with her blonde hair curled up and a flower in it. My father would put the flower in. He would pretend it was a matter of utmost importance that only he could possibly get right, and would treat it like a serious operation, with lots of Kirby grips and hairspray. He would bend towards her, their profiles nearly touching, and carefully, fussily, arrange the orchid in her hair. Then they’d both turn to me, my mother’s eyes sparkling with excitement as she bent down.

  ‘Now,’ my father would say. ‘Sophia, you must decide. Is your mother acceptable to be seen in decent society?’

  And I knew somehow that I had to keep my face very serious as if I was doing a proper inspection. My mother showed me her hair all over, and I’d check it carefully and say, ‘Hmm . . .’

  And Mummy would say, ‘Please! Please tell me, Sophia, have I done enough to pass your inspection?’

  And Daddy’d say, ‘Yes, if we fail we will miss the party, and you know how your mother hates to miss parties!’

  And my mother would make a sad face. After I’d waited as long as I could, I’d finally say, ‘Weelll . . . I suppose you pass.’

  ‘Hurrah!’ And my mother’d kiss me, leaving sticky fuchsia lipstick on my cheek. My father made out that he was incredibly relieved and they’d promise to bring me back the best cakes from the party. Then my father would lend me his precious Leica and I would take their photograph.

  We’d always had these little rituals; the fuchsia dress is the one I remember the most. Later in life I thought how odd it was for them to go to every single party with a little bag and steal the petits fours. But they did, because they loved me, and because we were a family, and I think that’s when I first picked up my fondness for eating sweet things for breakfast.

  After she went, of course, we fell apart. Even though I was eleven, it’s a blur in my head. I hadn’t realised how well and gently my mother had run the household until she left. Without Esperanza, who helped us, we’d have been eating cold beans out of a can within the week.

  My parents’ many friends were very sweet, of course, and crowded round and brought casseroles and asked me over to play with their children all the time. Except, weirdly, I always felt that I had to be on my super-best behaviour, otherwise the mothers invariably started to cry, and I hated upsetting everyone.

  And after a bit of time had passed, even if I felt a little better and wanted to smile or join in with games, I could see the other girls and their mothers looking at me, as if to say, ‘How can that girl play when her mum has died?’ And that would make me feel guilty and sad all over again.

  Daddy coped with it all by throwing himself into his work. He ran some sort of personal investment blah blah fund blah thing. He’d tried to explain, but I’d never really listened. He hurled himself at it, in fact, and very successfully too, which meant he was always away from home. He felt I needed more structure to my life, and the best opportunities, so he made the decision to send me away to boarding school.

  Daddy really did think it was the best way, even though he cried so much saying goodbye to me I ended up patting him on the back. The maddest thing was that Kendalls was only about half a mile from where we lived in Chelsea. He didn’t want to send me away, he just wanted me to be looked after in a safe environment, somewhere that didn’t have memories of my mother spilling out from every face; from every dress, and gate and lamp post.

  I did have a romantic idea about boarding school that I personally blame on Malory Towers, and my mother’s favourite, What Katy Did at School. I wasn’t ave
rse to the idea at all. Whilst I wasn’t exactly expecting anything to be fun, I thought midnight feasts, pony rides, and playing pranks on the teachers might be quite interesting. Plus, nobody had a mother while they were there, so I’d fit in.