State We're In Read online

  THE STATE WE’RE IN

  Adele Parks

  Copyright © 2013 Adele Parks

  Excerpt from Spare Brides © 2014 Adele Parks

  The right of Adele Parks to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in Great Britain in 2013

  by HEADLINE REVIEW

  An imprint of HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  First published as an Ebook by HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP in 2013

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  eISBN: 978 0 7553 7140 2

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About the Author

  Praise for The State We’re in

  Also by Adele Parks

  About the Book

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  1976

  1. Eddie

  1982

  2. Clara

  Wednesday 20 April 2005

  3. Dean

  4. Jo

  Thursday 21 April 2005

  5. Dean

  6. Jo

  7. Eddie

  8. Jo

  9. Dean

  10. Jo

  11. Dean

  12. Clara

  Friday 22 April 2005

  13. Jo

  14. Dean

  15. Eddie

  16. Jo

  17. Clara

  18. Dean

  19. Eddie

  20. Jo

  21. Clara

  22. Dean

  23. Jo

  24. Eddie

  25. Dean

  26. Jo

  27. Clara

  28. Dean

  Saturday 23 April 2005

  29. Jo

  30. Eddie

  31. Dean

  32. Jo

  33. Dean

  34. Jo

  35. Clara

  36. Dean

  37. Jo

  38. Jo

  39. Dean

  Sunday 24 April 2005

  40. Clara

  41. Jo

  42. Dean

  43. Eddie

  Monday 25 April 2005

  44. Clara

  45. Dean

  46. Jo

  47. Eddie

  Tuesday 26 April 2005

  48. Dean

  49. Clara

  50. Dean

  51. Clara

  2013

  Epilogue

  Keep the Secret

  Preview of Spare Brides

  About the Author

  Adele Parks worked in advertising until she published her first novel in 2000; she has since published twelve novels, all of which have been top ten bestsellers and her work has been translated in to twenty-five different languages. Adele has spent her adult life in Italy, Botswana and London until 2005 when she moved to Guildford, where she now lives with her husband and son. Adele believes reading is a basic human right, so she works closely with The Reading Agency as an Ambassador of the Six Book Challenge, a programme designed to encourage adult literacy. In 2011 she was a judge for the Costa Book Awards.

  For more information visit www.adeleparks.com where you can sign up to receive Adele’s newsletter. You can also find her on Facebook www.facebook.com/OfficialAdeleParks and follow her on Twitter @adeleparks

  Praise for The State We’re In:

  ‘Sweet, sharp and simply unforgettable’ Lisa Jewell

  ‘A must-read. Romantic, yet truthful, this is a moving love story with unforgettable characters’ Jenny Colgan

  ‘A heart-warming, heartbreaking tale of love and loss, with an ending that will knock you off your feet. This is Adele Parks at the top of her game’ Mike Gayle

  ‘Utterly engrossing and beautifully written’ Freya North

  ‘A fairy tale with bite. Sparkly, compelling and – ultimately unexpected’ Jane Fallon

  ‘Adele Parks’ wonderful and heartbreaking new novel with stay with you’ Chris Manby

  ‘Adele Parks is a deft observer of human nature’ Kathleen Tessaro

  By Adele Parks

  Playing Away

  Game Over

  Larger Than Life

  The Other Woman’s Shoes

  Still Thinking Of You

  Husbands

  Young Wives’ Tales

  Happy Families (Quick Read)

  Tell Me Something

  Love Lies

  Men I’ve Loved Before

  About Last Night

  Whatever It Takes

  The State We’re In

  Spare Brides

  About the Book

  What are the odds that the stranger sitting next to you on a plane is destined to change your life? Especially when they appear to be your opposite in every way.

  She’s a life-long optimist, looking for her soul mate in every man she meets; he’s a resolute cynic – cruel experience has taught him never to put his faith in anyone.

  People can surprise you. In the time it takes to fly from London to Chicago, each finds something in the other that they didn’t even realise they needed.

  Their pasts are such that they can never make one another happy and it’s when they get off the plane, that their true journey begins…

  For Jimmy

  Acknowledgements

  A huge thank you goes to my fantastic, supportive, generous editor, Jane Morpeth. I’m grateful to the entire team at Headline; you are – without exception – impressive, dedicated and, well, just lovely! Sorry I made you all cry when reading this one. Special thank yous are due to the hardcore team: the fabulous Georgina Moore, Vicky Palmer, Barbara Ronan and Kate Byrne who all work so tirelessly on my behalf. I also owe a huge thank you to the marvellous Jamie Hodder-Williams.

  Thank you, Jonny Geller, for another year of immense brilliance. That says it all really. This thank you extends to all at Curtis Brown for your amazing promotion of my work, home and abroad.

  Once again I’d like to thank my readers; I hope I always thrill and entertain you. Thank you to my family and friends, my fellow authors, book sellers, book festival organisers, reviewers, magazine editors, TV producers and presenters, The Reading Agency and librarians who continue to generously support me and my work.

  Thank you, Jimmy and Conrad – it’s still all about the two of you.

  Prologue

  ‘So you know all about love, do you?’

  ‘I know enough.’

  ‘Well, I know nothing. I don’t know anything about aliens, or ghosts, or any other empty phenomena either.’

  She laughed, as though she thought he was joking. The laugh flew out into their history. It was a strong, heartfelt laugh; bigger than her. He wriggled in his seat, uncomfortable that he found himself intrigued by her nonsense.

  ‘Why wouldn’t you believe in love?’ she asked, unable to hide her incredulity.

  ‘Oh, the usual. I think it brings nothing but pain,’ he said, pulling a well-practised, neatly deflective hound-dog expression. He mocked himself so tha
t she wouldn’t guess how serious he was.

  ‘Hating isn’t exactly a bag of laughs either, though, is it?’ she pointed out. ‘I’ve never met a happy cynic, or a miserable optimist, come to that. So obviously being an optimist is the way to go. Open-and-shut case.’ She beamed, content in her own reasoning, and he slowly moved his head from side to side, bemused. Amused.

  Interested.

  1976

  1

  Eddie

  Eddie stood on the step of his terraced house in Clapham and drew a deep breath. He took in as much of the chilly blue-black night as he could; slow, calming breaths that he hoped might rinse away some of the smells of good times that Diane was very likely to object to. Smoke on his clothes, whisky and beer on his breath; he’d need to shower to remove the scent of woman. As he paused, he noticed that the people next door were now also ripping up the black and white Victorian tiles that decorated the front steps. Eddie had got rid of theirs as soon as they’d inherited. They’d pulled out the old bath and replaced it with a more sanitary plastic suite, in avocado green. They’d installed central heating too, done away with the mess and inconvenience of real fires. He’d felt unshackled. Out with the old, in with the new. Progress. Looking forward, that was what it was all about. Not looking back. That had never been his style. Never would be.

  Diane hadn’t wanted to make the home improvements. She’d gone on about original features, insisting that they would one day come back into fashion; she hadn’t wanted to change anything from the way her mum and dad had had it when she was a girl.

  ‘Yeah, but when we want something bigger and need to sell on, no one will look at this dump in its current state,’ Eddie had explained. Frankly it irritated him a bit that she had no idea that everyone else in the world actually enjoyed living in the twentieth century. She’d become upset and unreasonable, which was often her way nowadays, especially after a glass of wine.

  ‘We don’t need anything bigger. We can’t afford anything bigger!’ she whined. Her voice was always whiny or screechy. Had been for a few years.

  It was true that they struggled to pay the bills on this place, but even so Eddie regretted Diane’s lack of ambition. Anyway, it was his house, even if they had inherited it off her parents. Law of the land. If he wanted to sell it, he could do just that. He found the old panel doors, parquet floors and stone sinks depressing. He’d told her he wasn’t going to live in a museum. So they’d all gone.

  Eddie sighed as he recognised that he hadn’t done much in the way of redecorating for over a year; he’d discovered that no amount of orange plastic chairs could turn number 47 into the home he wanted.

  He tentatively pushed open the front door and forced himself over the threshold; he was immediately hit by the smell of regurgitated breast milk and steeping nappies. He wanted to turn and run.

  Diane appeared in the hallway. She had a distinctly unwashed vibe. Her hair hung in greasy curtains about her face. She was wearing grubby jeans and a T-shirt stained with perspiration. That said, Eddie could not deny she still had a cracking figure, despite having given birth twice. He noticed it anew every time he looked at her. Even though she was feeding, she still had small breasts and so she never bothered with a bra; her tiny hard nipples were nearly always provocatively visible. She had long legs and a trim arse. It bemused Eddie how she could resist progress when her body seemed to be made for this decade. She’d have struggled in the sixties to warrant a second glance, because back then, men wanted something to grab on to, but her lithe, elongated body made her a goddess in this decade. Or at least she could be a goddess, if she ever washed.

  Wordlessly Diane thrust the baby into Eddie’s arms, causing him to drop his script on the floor. The sheets scattered like petals from an overblown rose; he regretted not numbering the pages. Diane shrugged indifferently and stomped straight into the kitchen. Words were no longer a nicety that either of them regularly bothered with. Eddie didn’t need Diane to tell him that she’d had a bad day; that the baby was teething and had been difficult to settle, that her nappies had been exceptionally pungent. Diane had said as much, often enough, with this baby and the boy, when he’d been younger; it seemed to be the same story every day. Over and over. Eddie could not help. Diane thought that he wouldn’t. Eddie barely knew whether there was a difference any more.

  Thoughtlessly he hoisted the grumbling baby on to his hip and leant his forehead against the hall wall. He was a little flushed. That would be the whisky. He should have stuck to pints. He shouldn’t have allowed himself to be tempted into drinking spirits at lunchtime, but it was difficult to resist. She was such a fun girl. Frivolous. Game. Plus, he knew whisky made her dirty. There was nothing better than a free and flippant afternoon in the sack, other than, perhaps, a filthy and risky one. The hall wallpaper was a smooth, cool vinyl; brown squares on a slightly paler brown background. The floor was covered with cork tiles. Eddie had picked them both out but now regretted his choices; momentarily, he felt like he was inside a cell for the mentally ill, but there was no padding.

  Eddie forced himself to look at Zoe. She was a fat baby. When old women peeked into her pram they oohed and aahed and swore blind that she was a cherub, a bonny baby, a proper baby. The women who gave these compliments had been mothers during the war and so liked fat kids. Eddie didn’t like the way his daughter looked. He wished she wasn’t quite so opulent. This child seemed to burst out of her nappies and smock dresses; hats popped off her head, tights wouldn’t quite pull up over her chunky thighs. Her brow melted into her nose and she had no neck at all. Dean was the same. Eddie had thought that once he was running around a bit, he’d slim down, but he hadn’t. He was five years old but he had to wear clothes for eight year olds; the bottoms of his trousers were always covered in mud because Diane was too idle to hem anything. Idle or incapable. Still, at least with a boy you could tell yourself he was stocky and hardy, you could console yourself with the thought that he might make a rugby player. It was 1976, for God’s sake. Lithe meant affluent, fashionable, desirable; chubby meant, well, the opposite.

  Eddie was a writer for the BBC; people expected certain things from him in terms of style and presentation. He was part of the it crowd. He knew people who would, no doubt, one day be described as iconic. It was assumed he would wear his hair inches past the collar, and he needed long sideburns; he had to wear corduroy trousers that fell dangerously low around his groin, with unforgiving polo-neck jumpers, which did not allow for an ounce of spare flesh. People presumed he would indulge in recreational narcotics and free love, that he’d have a wife who had once dabbled as a model but now was a little bit too dependent on Valium and vino; every night was a party.

  No one expected kids, but if there had to be kids then they should be skinny, whimsical types. They ought to wear fancy-dress costumes all day long and have long blond hair that made it difficult to discern gender. Scandi or American kids were the role models; Dean looked as though he was getting his vibe from Billy Bunter. Eddie blamed the copious amounts of tinned rice pudding, Angel Delight and Findus Crispy Pancakes that Diane spooned into him. He knew why she did it: kids couldn’t cry when their mouths were full. Lazy cow.

  His mother had warned him that Diane would not make a proper wife. That she couldn’t cook a decent meal, or sew or clean. He’d agreed; it was her improperness that he’d fallen for. He thought she was like him. Bold and irreverent. Selfish. And that had been attractive. Now it was just inconvenient.

  Eddie followed his wife into the kitchen. For a moment he allowed himself to hope she might actually have cooked something for supper. It was a ridiculous thought. Even if she had been the sort of wife to have his dinner waiting for him, he’d arrived home two hours later than he’d said he would, so it would be cold or burnt to a crisp by now. Anyway, there was no hint of home-cooked dishes; the kitchen smelt damp and dank, a mixture of drains and stale food. The only thing Eddie could ever taste in the kitchen was sour air and neglect.

  Diane alwa
ys had the radio droning on in the background. She turned the volume down low so as not to disturb the baby presumably, but this irritated Eddie. How was he supposed to enjoy the tunes or follow the news stories at that volume? He snapped the radio off and the silence was only interrupted by the sound of the hot tap dripping. He’d been meaning to get that fixed for a while. He doubted he ever would.

  Eddie thought it was bizarre that despite the lack of industry that occurred in the kitchen, the room was invariably a mess. The lino on the floor was sticky; it was like wading through a sea of Blu-Tack, his shoes making a strange squelchy sound as he walked about. The circular plastic table was crammed full of dirty pots and condiments, left over from the kids’ tea, lunch and breakfast. His critical eye noted the open packet of butter that was turning rancid. There were gummy jam jars, a bottle with souring milk, a gunky ketchup bottle and plates covered with greasy smears suggesting that Dean had been fed fried eggs tonight. They’d get mice again if she wasn’t more careful. They rarely sat down as a whole family at the table. Eddie didn’t care that they didn’t eat together on a Sunday – the family gathering for meat and two veg was bourgeois and staid, something the last generation valued – but he would have liked it if she’d sometimes made pasta or curry, neither of which was bourgeois because they were foreign; pasta and curry were cool. He’d have liked to invite friends round for supper. They could use the fondue set and drink red wine; they’d bought a carafe when they’d been on honeymoon in Spain. Where the hell was it? Eddie wondered. How come nearly every pot and pan they owned was left on a kitchen surface but he’d never laid eyes on the carafe? Had she put away all reminders of their honeymoon? It was only six years ago, but it was a lifetime back.

  The wooden clothes horse was a permanent fixture in the poky kitchen, a never-ending stream of damp clothes hung on it, draped in a way that always put Eddie in mind of dead bodies. There were two plastic buckets by the door that she used for steeping the fouled nappies. Dozens of mugs and glasses were dotted around the kitchen; they each had their own bioculture growing inside, and around them crumbs were scattered like confetti. Diane ate ten Rich Tea biscuits a day; with two apples and a couple of glasses of wine, she could stay under the thousand calorie mark and ensure that her hip bones continued to jut. Recently she hadn’t bothered with the apples but had had the odd extra glass.