Fern Britton

Coming Home


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       Copyright

      Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

      Copyright © Fern Britton 2018

      Cover photographs © Jan Bickerton/Trevillion Images (cottage and path); © Shutterstock.com (additional images)

      Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018

      Fern Britton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9780007563005

      Ebook Edition © June 2018 ISBN: 9780007563012

      Version: 2019-03-01

       Epigraph

      ‘A mother is always the beginning. She is how things begin.’

      Amy Tan

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Copyright

      Epigraph

      Prologue

      Part One: Adela’s Only Love

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

       Chapter 8

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Chapter 14

       Chapter 15

       Part Two: Sennen Comes Home

       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

       Part Three: Ella’s Wedding Day

       Chapter 33

      Chapter 34

      Chapter 35

      Chapter 36

      Chapter 37

      Chapter 38

      Chapter 39

      Chapter 40

      A Year Later

      Acknowledgements

       About the Author

      By the same author

      About the Publisher

       PROLOGUE

       Trevay, 1993

      The house was still.

      Her heart was hammering – she could hear it in her ears, hear her breath whistle in her nostrils.

      She tried to quieten both.

      In the dark of her bedroom, she strained her ears to listen for any noise in the house.

      The church bell rang the half hour. Half past eleven.

      She’d gone up to bed early, her mother asking her if she was feeling all right.

      ‘Yeah. I’m fine.’ She’d shrugged off the caring hand her mother had placed in the small of her back.

      ‘If you’re sure?’ Her mother let her hand rest by her hip. ‘Is it your period?’

      She had hunched her shoulders and scowled at that. ‘I’m just tired.’

      ‘Ella and Henry had a lovely day with you on the beach,’ said her mother, bending her head to look up into her daughter’s downcast eyes. ‘You’re doing so well.’

      Sennen shrugged and turned to head for the stairs. Her father came out of the kitchen. ‘Those little ’uns of yours asleep, are they?’

      ‘She’s tired, Bill,’ replied her mother.

      ‘An early night.’ Her father smiled. ‘Good for you.’ She could feel her father’s loving gaze on her back, as she ascended the stairs. She wouldn’t turn around.

      ‘Goodnight, Sennen,’ chirped her mother. ‘Sleep tight.’

      Her parents had finally gone to bed almost an hour ago and now she picked up the heavy rucksack she’d got for her fifteenth birthday. It had been used once, on a disastrous first weekend of camping for the Duke of Edinburgh Bronze award. Even now the bone-numbing cold of one night in a tent and the penetrating rain of the twenty-mile hike the following day made her stomach clench. Back home she refused to complete any more challenges and