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Boldwood Books - Calman Claire

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255 pages

English

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'A beautiful book, so compassionate... and ultimately very hopeful. I enjoyed it hugely.’ Marian Keyes

‘A clever, bittersweet, uplifting novel’ Sophie Kinsella

'Writing with proper heart' Rachel Joyce

It’s not easy being a grown-up, but Eleanor hoped she’d be better at it by now...

When Eleanor waves her daughter off for a gap-year trip, she finds herself stuck as a satellite wife, spinning in faithful orbit around her domineering husband, with only her clever but judgmental father Conrad for comfort.

Andrew isn’t mastering the art of growing up either. But when he finds his belongings dumped in bin bags on the drive, even he can see that his girlfriend is hinting he should move out. With no other options, he moves back in with his parents.

Backing onto their garden lives artist Cecilia, living in chaotic clutter and dreaming of her ex-lovers, still acting like a stroppy teenager at the age of 66.

Four lives are drawn together by long-buried secrets of the past, and it is time for them all to grow up... before it’s too late.

What readers are saying about Growing Up for Beginners:

'The characterisation is brilliant, and the astute storytelling, punctuated by stiletto-sharp wit, produces an effervescent and spirit-lifting story.' Sunday Mirror

'A poignant and beautifully articulated tale of love and loss, memory and forgetting, grief and guilt, new love and letting go. I was engrossed, often tearful, and finally, uplifted.’ Isobel Wolff

‘Simply wonderful. I was totally enchanted, devoured it in a day, and have been raving about it ever since.’ Fiona Walker

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Publié par	Boldwood Books
Date de parution	04 juin 2020
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781838894993
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0065€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

GROWING UP FOR BEGINNERS
CLAIRE CALMANC O N T E N T S
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Acknowledgments
More from Claire Calman
About the Author
About Boldwood BooksFor our wonderful son, Leo –
you will always be my favourite.The Untold Want
The untold want by life and land ne'er granted,
Now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find.
? WALT WHITMAN1
ELEANOR
For as long as Eleanor can remember, she has snuck a look at the end of a book
before reading it. In her head, it was rather like when you go swimming and you want to
know exactly how deep the water is before you get in. She was embarrassed by her
need to do this – and it was unquestionably a need – realising that other people might
find it an odd thing to do, foolish even. When she was little and her father was reading
to her at bedtime, even then she would reach out and peep at the last page to see. She
could still recall his saying, ‘Well, it’s your book, little thing, so you can read it any way
you choose.’
She wanted to know that the terminus would definitely be there before embarking on
the journey. When she read a novel, which was only rarely nowadays, she liked to turn
to the final page at once, read the very last sentence, then the whole of the last
paragraph, then the final page and perhaps a paragraph or two of the penultimate
page. If dissatisfied – the ending seemed ambiguous or inconclusive – she abandoned
it; if intrigued, she felt it was safe to commit to it. She was sure that this peccadillo must
reveal something deep and meaningful about her warped psyche but she didn’t care.
Why shouldn’t she read a book back to front, upside down, or perched on the branch of
a tree if she so chose? It didn’t harm anyone else, after all.
Before she married Roger, he used to tease her about this habit, often mentioning it
to other guests at parties or dinners if ever the conversation turned to books. Eleanor
flushed and tried to redirect the subject away from herself and back onto what people
liked to read, which was surely much more interesting anyway.
But his remarks were limited to teasing at that point, even if at times she thought the
teasing had a note of something else that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. The first
occasion he went further was while they were on their honeymoon, over twenty years
ago now.
Roger has booked a fortnight for them in southern Italy. It is July and Eleanor is looking
forward to it, of course, but with some reservations, chiefly about the fact that it would
be so very hot. She does not function well in heat and feels like a wilted flower unless
she can skulk in the shade, while Roger basks and stretches in the baking sun like a
freshly sated lion.Anticipating that she might spend a fair amount of time sitting beneath a tree, she
has packed eight books, all novels she had been saving up for their trip. Roger is
clearly taken aback when she unpacks their suitcases and sets out her book stash on
top of the bedroom chest of drawers.
‘You do know we’re not relocating, just here for a fortnight?’ he teases, and she
laughs.
He has brought just two books: a thick thriller and a political biography.
‘Darling,’ he says, pulling her to him, ‘I do hope you won’t spend the entire time
reading?’
‘Of course not.’ She smiles invitingly and stretches up to kiss him.
‘And you’re not going to be a naughty little wifey and read the ending first, I hope?’
His tone is still teasing and she assumes he is joking.
‘No, I’m planning to read it upside down.’
They go off on long excursions the first two days and return exhausted, so in fact it
isn’t until the afternoon of the third day that she opens one of the novels to begin it.
Roger has gone to lie by the pool while Eleanor has opted to rest in their room for a
little while, desperate for time out of the heat. As usual, she turns to the end. Odd. The
last sentence seems… not final. Intermediate, not conclusive. She reads the last
paragraph. Disappointing. It doesn’t even seem like a proper ending at all. She really
dislikes books where the story simply peters out or stops. And the reviews were so
glowing, too. She sets it to one side and selects another. This one she picked up at the
airport, read the last paragraph right there in the bookshop and found it irresistible. But
still she wants to refresh her memory.
She jolts back as if she had been slapped. That isn’t the right ending. How can that
be? Besides, now it breaks off mid-sentence. It makes no sense at all.
A horrible thought strikes her but she pushes it away and drops the book with a
bang as if it has burned her. Thinks for a minute, recalling her husband’s expression,
that strangely knowing smile this morning when she came out of her lovely long
shower. No. No. Slowly then she picks up the book and turns to the final page again;
cracks the spine to open it as wide as she can. It couldn’t be true surely? And yet it is:
the last page has been excised from the book. Now fully spread, the remaining tell-tale
stub is visible. It has been cut with something very sharp: a razor blade or – her mind
racing now, breath catching in her throat, imagining – a knife. A penknife, to be precise.
She thinks of the ever-present bulge in Roger’s left-hand pocket: his red Swiss Army
knife, with its useful corkscrew, nail file, scissors, pliers, and blades. She swallows and
blinks, a rabbit noticing the yellow glint of the fox’s eyes suddenly very nearby.
No doubt Roger means it as a joke of sorts. Sometimes his sense of humour is
really rather different from her own. She has no problem with being teased, but this is
different. There is something very deliberate about it that unsettles her. Still, she would
tell him that he has upset her, albeit inadvertently, and he would understand and never,
ever do such an awful thing again.
She wonders how best to broach the subject. Roger could be a bit… prickly at times
if one happens to catch him at a bad moment, rather like her father in that way, so she
knows how to manage such a man. Perhaps a teasing comment would be best,
showing she understands that it is clearly no more than a misguided joke that has
overstepped the mark?Out on their bedroom balcony, having an aperitif before dinner, looking out to the
sparkling sea, she steels herself.
‘Such a curious thing has happened in this heat,’ she says, clinking her glass
against his.
‘Oh, yes?’ Roger leans back in his chair and stares out at the view.
‘Yes. Some of the pages in my novel seem to have melted away! But only the last
one or two – isn’t that odd?’
He smiles and pats her leg.
‘You’ll thank me soon enough.’ Behind his sunglasses, his expression is
unknowable. ‘Go on and read it in the normal way. You’ll love it, I promise you.’
‘But I already love reading my way.’ She sits more upright. ‘Roger?’
‘Oh, darling!’ He waggles her leg to and fro with his hand. ‘Come along now. It’s so
peculiar to read the end of the book first. Don’t you realise it’s abnormal behaviour?’
‘I don’t care if it is. It’s not bothering anyone else.’
‘Well, it bothers me, as you very well know.’ He takes a long swallow of his gin and
tonic. ‘And I think you ought to care about that, if nothing else. I am your husband, after
all.’
‘That doesn’t entitle you to… to… defile my things!’
‘Oh, don’t be so ridiculously emotional! That’s inflammatory language. No one’s
defiled anything. So I temporarily removed a page or two from the books so you’d read
them normally, like everyone else. Big bloody deal. It’s not as if I chucked the pages
away. For God’s sake!’ He stands up and marches into the bedroom and comes back a
minute later with a sheaf of pages scrunched in his fist. He drops them from a height
into her lap.
‘Have them now if you’re really such a baby you can’t manage without them.’ He
sniffs and turns to go. ‘I’m going down to the terrace to have my drink and a cigar. I’ll
see you at dinner in twenty minutes. Don’t be late.’
The bedroom door slams.
Eleanor’s whole body is shaking. She picks up the pages from her lap, the table, the
floor and does her best to smooth them out, crying uncontrollably now, great gulpy
sobs lurching