Praise for Veronica Henry

‘An exquisite story bursting at the seams with summer, hope and love’
MILLY JOHNSON

‘Gorgeous. A joy to read from start to finish’
JILL MANSELL

‘Joyful and beautifully written’
SUNDAY EXPRESS

‘Uplifting, inspiring and guaranteed to make you hungry’
SARAH MORGAN

‘Beautifully described’
GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

‘Warm, escapist and utterly uplifting . . .
Veronica Henry at her very best’
LUCY DIAMOND

‘Such a dreamy novel to cosy up with!’
PLATINUM

‘A multi-generational masterpiece brimming with Veronica’s elegance and wit’
CATHY BRAMLEY

‘A lovely, cosy, delicious read’
LIBBY PAGE

‘Heartwarming and optimistic’
PRIMA

‘Perfect escapism full of warmth, joy and a brilliant cast of characters’
ALEX BROWN

‘Delicious foodie moments and a story of hope for the future’
WOMAN

To my brother Paul
Because we’ll always have Paris!

‘It is better to forget me. It would be better to forget everything.’

Alain-Fournier, Le Grand Meaulnes

TO LET

Charming ‘chambre de bonne’ in the 2ème

Situated a stone’s throw from the glamorous Rue Saint-Honoré, with its chic boutiques and cafés, this former maid’s room is now a bijou apartment equipped with everything you need for your stay in Paris.

Available short or long term.

1

Juliet stood in the middle of the kitchen, overwhelmed by its emptiness. There wasn’t a single appliance out on the worktops. There wasn’t a cup or a plate in the sink or an empty bottle waiting to go into the recycling box. There wasn’t a jar of Marmite or peanut butter cluttering the island; no crumbs or circles of red wine or damp teabags.

It felt almost funereal, with no smell of toast or percolating coffee to soften the edges, just the faint whiff of Cif. Every surface shone, from the granite to the blank blackness of the induction hob. It was pristine, silent, with the perfection of a kitchen catalogue. Just like the picture Juliet had found on Pinterest when they did the extension. A Shaker kitchen painted Mizzle by Farrow and Ball, with vintage knobs Juliet had sourced from a reclamation yard so that it didn’t look like every other kitchen extension in Persimmon Road, with their skylights and bi-fold doors out into the garden.

The four of them had practically lived in the kitchen. They would sit there for hours over a platter of nachos, with a raggle-taggle assortment of multigenerational friends and neighbours, debating politics and the issues of the day, as well as more trivial dilemmas. Should Juliet get a tattoo? A unanimous yes. She hadn’t. Should Stuart? A unanimous no. He had: a Celtic band around his upper arm, to show off his newly toned bicep. Juliet had to admit it looked good. He looked good. Though it was strange. The fitter he had got, the more she’d drawn away from him. This sculpted, streamlined, sinewy version of him felt like a stranger.

Which was one of the reasons they were in this situation. Packing up nearly twenty-five years of life together in order to be apart. Last Saturday, they had thrown a farewell party for all their neighbours and the pair of them had sung along to ‘Go Your Own Way’ by Fleetwood Mac, seaweed arms waving, pointing at each other. But smiling. It was an amicable separation. There was no animosity between them at all.

They had both agreed it was the right thing to do.

Now, however, there was a lump the size of a squash ball in Juliet’s throat as she stared at the door jamb that led into the utility room. Dozens of names and dates written in pencil wormed their way up it. The highest was Nate, at least a head taller than she was, the details inscribed over four years ago. The ritual had started when he was a toddler and had his friends from nursery over for tea and it had ended on a pre-university pizza night when it had become clear they had all stopped growing.

What she wouldn’t give to have them here now, wrestling to be measured, Izzy worming her way among them and elbowing them out of the way.

‘We can’t leave this,’ she said, running her fingers over the ghostly names.

‘Just take a photo,’ said Stuart, who seemed to have lost every vestige of sentimentality along with his weight.

Her chin wobbled at the memory of a tiny Izzy stretching herself upwards as high as she could manage while Juliet rested the pencil on the top of her head and carefully drew a line, then wrote in her name and the date. It was more than just a growth chart. It was a diary. A guest book. Proof of the sanctuary this kitchen had provided to an endless stream of youngsters. A reminder of the meals she’d supplied to all and sundry, from turkey dinosaurs (she knew the other mothers judged her for them, but she didn’t care) to pasta puttanesca. The advice that had been doled out, the homework agonised over, the birthdays that had been celebrated. But now, Izzy and Nate were both away: Izzy on her gap year, somewhere in South America (terrifying), and Nate in the third year of his four-year business degree, in Copenhagen (not so terrifying).

Juliet flipped open the lid of the toolbox on the kitchen worktop and pulled out a screwdriver.

‘Oh no.’ Stuart knew her well enough to see where she was going with this.

‘They’re doing a complete refurb. They’re ripping everything out. I heard them when they came to view.’ Juliet started trying to prise the door jamb off.

Stuart took the screwdriver out of her hand and put a kindly hand on her shoulder. ‘They’ll complain to the solicitor.’

‘I don’t care. This is part of our family history.’

Tears blurred her eyes and she pushed the heels of her hands into her sockets. Stuart looked down at her.

‘I’ll take it off for you. I’ll nip out and get another one from Homebase and stick it on.’

She smiled up at him. He still couldn’t bear to see her cry. He still indulged her. And she still felt the overwhelming urge to look after him in return. How were they going to work without each other? Their life together had been a seamless partnership, each one supplying what the other needed without any fuss or debate.

Were they making a terrible mistake?

Or was this separation a sensible, mature, considered decision that gave them both the freedom to do what they wanted with the rest of their lives? A modern decision, and one that had been greeted with curiosity, if not envy, by many of their friends. Couples who had also drifted apart, whose differences became glaringly apparent once the nest became empty, but who tolerated each other because the alternative seemed too brutal.

There’d been no transgression. No infidelity. There weren’t even many arguments.

Juliet could track the fault line, though. It started when Stuart signed up for the charity marathon six years ago, press-ganged by some youngster in his office. The furthest Stuart had run before that had been to the off-licence at the end of the road, but something in the challenge had appealed. Perhaps the fact that he had gone from a thirty-two- to a thirty-four-inch waist of late and was mildly appalled by his middle-age spread. Juliet had caught him looking at himself sideways on, his face crumpled with anxiety.

‘I’ve got a paunch,’ he’d sighed.

‘It’s a beer belly,’ Juliet had told him. ‘The sugar turns to fat. Knock the booze on the head for a bit and you’ll be fine.’

She’d written enough articles about weight gain and miracle diets to know the science. It was, to her mind, pretty simple: eat less, move about more, cut out rubbish. She managed, just about, to hover between a twelve and a fourteen by being mindful about vegetables, avoiding bread and cakes and swimming twice a week. And giving her liver a break every few days. They drank too much. Everyone their age did. Making a decent inroad into a second bottle of wine (between two) on a ‘school’ night was the norm. It had an effect, on weight, on skin, on temper.

Stuart had let the side down by going over to the dark side and giving up drink completely. The marathon had kicked off an obsession. Parkrun every Saturday. Intense cycle rides every Sunday, whatever the weather; scantily clad, looking like an alien in his shiny Lycra and helmet. And now climbing, his latest passion, the thought of which turned Juliet’s insides to ice. What with keeping fit enough to haul his own body weight up a sheer cliff face, and monitoring his heart rate every second of the day, he really didn’t have time for anyone or anything else.

They never saw each other. Stuart went to the gym in the evening. Juliet went to private views, restaurant openings and book launches, an extension of her job as a freelance lifestyle journalist and ghostwriter. And when, just over a year ago, they began to talk about selling Persimmon Road – it had shot up in value because of the schools in the area, so it seemed the right time to cash in now that Nate and Izzy had left school – they both wanted something completely different.

Juliet wanted small, period, characterful.

Stuart wanted sleek, spacious, uncluttered.

‘We should take half each and do our own thing,’ Stuart had joked, and Juliet had looked at him as they both did the maths. What had begun as a throwaway remark was now a reality. A ‘conscious uncoupling’ that they now found themselves endlessly apologising for and over-explaining, even though the advantages outweighed the disadvantages: they were still firm friends, but they were going to split the proceeds from the house sale and each buy somewhere that gave them the lifestyle they wanted for the next phase. It felt natural, logical and easy.

It might appear unseemly, to walk away from a twenty-five-year marriage that wasn’t actually in ruins, but freedom of choice seemed better than constant compromise. Why should one of them have to live in the other’s dream home when they could each have their own? Why should they try to be compatible when they weren’t? Juliet had no more desire to go and join Stuart on a cycling weekend than he had to go to the latest play at the National. Wasn’t it better for them to do their own thing than feel guilty and have to make excuses all the time?

‘It means that when we do see each other, we really look forward to it,’ Juliet had explained to her spellbound book club. ‘It seems so much better than falling into a spiral of resentment and mutual disinterest. We still really like each other. And we’ll always love each other deep down. But we don’t want to spend our lives together anymore.’

She hadn’t written an article on it yet. After years of doing features on everything from pregnancy cravings to playground politics to perimenopause, she still wasn’t sure this experiment was going to work and she didn’t feel she could recommend it just yet. Maybe two years in, when the benefits were proven, she would share her template for an amicable midlife separation with the world. She could already imagine the reader comments. Eighty per cent acerbic judginess; twenty per cent ‘go for it’.

Stuart had bought a third-floor apartment in a newly built block near the river in Richmond and was putting a water-rower in the spare room, like Kevin Spacey had in The West Wing. Juliet had nothing yet. She had looked at over a dozen flats, but none of them was quite right. She didn’t know what she wanted – only what she didn’t want.

The tyranny of freedom was overwhelming.

2

By ten o’clock, everything was gone. Every last box, whisked away by the removers, to go to either Stuart’s flat or Juliet’s storage unit on a nearby industrial estate. The house was a shell, not a cobweb or a dust bunny in sight; not a streak on a window or a fingerprint on a mirror.

‘Well,’ said Stuart, ‘I’d better get over to the flat so they put everything in the right place.’ He held out his arms. ‘Hug.’

She stepped into his embrace yet again, squeezing him tight around his love-handleless middle, trying not to feel rising panic about saying goodbye. To the house. She wasn’t too worried about saying goodbye to Stuart. She would be able to see him any time she liked.

‘So,’ he said. ‘Single life starts today.’

‘Whatever you do,’ she said, ‘no Bycra photos on Tinder.’

‘Bycra?’ He was often puzzled by her buzz words. This particular one was her own invention.

‘Bicycle Lycra. No woman wants to see those shorts. Don’t take it personally. It’s just a general rule. No Bycra, and no photos with an oversized carp or pints of lager.’

He gave a laugh. ‘Fair enough.’ He squinted down at her. ‘Have you been looking already, then?’

He wasn’t jealous. Just curious.

‘God, no,’ she said. ‘It’s my job to know these things.’

‘Well, when you do start looking,’ he said, ‘know that you are drop-dread gorgeous and don’t let anyone make you feel otherwise.’

She swallowed. She felt mean for the Bycra advice now. It was a good piece of advice, though, as he wouldn’t have a clue. Whoever swiped right on Stuart would be lucky. Though she imagined he’d probably meet someone at parkrun. A willowy fitness freak who would make him protein balls and tofu stir-fries. She imagined them giving each other North Face jackets for Christmas and booking worthy, joyless holidays in a two-man tent on a wild and windy moor.

What had happened to the bloke she’d drunk a pitcher of Pimm’s with outside a Thameside pub that summer all those years ago? They’d walked back to her flat arm in arm, singing ‘Live Forever’, weaving along the Hammersmith pavements. He was safe and uncomplicated and funny. Safe, she realised, wasn’t as sexy as dangerous, but it was exactly what she had needed after everything that had happened. They’d had barely a cross word. Their relationship had never been passion-fuelled, but it was sustainable. No histrionics, no mug-throwing, no sulking.

For a moment, she panicked about what they were giving up. But, as Stuart kept pointing out, they weren’t giving it up. Just reframing it.

‘Bye, then,’ he said now, giving her a little squeeze on the shoulder.

She watched as he headed out of the door and jumped on his bicycle. She eyed his unfamiliarly narrow bum with a burst of affection, but nothing more. And off he rode, her dear, sweet, now ex-husband, cycling off into his new future with a BMI of 24 and a clear conscience.

As soon as he had disappeared down the road, she ran upstairs to the bathroom. She looked in the mirror and thought of all the versions of herself she’d scrutinised over the years at 42 Persimmon Road. The feisty young journalist. The newlywed bride. The exhausted mum of first one, then another baby. The chair of the PTA. The magazine editor who’d given up a proper job, at forty, to go freelance and write in the attic. The thrower of the best parties on the street because she didn’t stress about stuff that didn’t matter but made an effort with things that did. Who would host in her trademark dishevelled sexiness, in black leather jeans and a white shirt, half undone and off the shoulder, with bare feet and black cherry toenails, her dark hair in a messy bun. Could she still pull off that look? Or was it time for something more demure and groomed?

Right now, she was not looking her best. Her hair was scraped up into a tight ponytail. The ratty old T-shirt and jogging pants she’d worn to clean the house were heading for the bin. Her skin was grey with grime and the sweat from the exertion had dried on her. She wrinkled her nose, then reached into the bag she’d brought up with her, drawing out a pair of scissors.

She’d watched the YouTube video several times and reckoned it would work. She loosened her scrunchie and tipped her head upside down, then chopped the ends of her ponytail clean away. She stood up and shook out her hair, then grinned at her reflection. There it was, the perfect, just-got-out-of-bed, jaw-length bob. She snipped into the ends to soften the edges, fluffed it up a little and nodded in approval. Once it was washed, she’d be perfect. She reached into the shower and turned on the hot tap.

Half an hour later, she was looking at a new incarnation in the mirror. She wore vintage Levi 501s, a pristine white T-shirt and a tuxedo jacket. She slipped her feet into black ballet flats, then leaned forward to apply liquid eyeliner and her sexiest, reddest YSL lipstick.

She packed the last few things in her bag. A collection of mementoes: a battered A to Z, a faded paperback, a notebook half filled with scribblings. And a vintage Hermès scarf, the slippery silk cool on her fingers, the colours as bright as the day it had been made. She should wear it now, she decided. She tied it the way she’d been taught, spreading it onto her outstretched arm to fold it, then looping it round her neck, tucking in one end and leaving the other loose. It felt like a talisman. A ticket back to the past. She felt a shiver of excitement mixed with uncertainty.

What would she find, in her quest to rediscover herself? A new life? Peace? Contentment? Passion?

She heard her phone ping. Her Uber was here.

She grabbed her luggage and ran down the stairs. She slung on her cross-body bag – purse, phone, passport – and left the house. There was no time to get emotional. The cab was waiting. She couldn’t waste precious moments saying farewell to the place that had held her for so long. A clean break was the only solution.

Outside, she opened the door of the car and smiled in at the driver.

‘St Pancras?’ he asked.

‘Yes. Thank you,’ she said, sliding into the back seat, dragging her case in after her.

It was only small. If her time on women’s magazines had taught her anything, it was how to put together a capsule wardrobe. She could get anything else she needed when she got there.

Paris.

She was going to Paris.

Because Paris was always a good idea.

3

Two hours later, Juliet had checked herself through departures at St Pancras and climbed on board the train. She still found it incredible that in another two hours she would find herself right in the middle of the beating heart of the city. The last time she had been there, the Eurostar had been on the horizon, an exciting new possibility that no one could quite believe would really happen. A train all the way to Paris! It had seemed like a dream.

She settled herself in her seat, spreading her hands out on the tabletop. Pale, marbled with the occasional bump of a Roquefort-blue vein, a sprinkling of sun spots, her knuckles like wrinkly knees. She had two stacking rings on the third finger of her right hand, each with a diamond to represent Nathan and Izzy, given to her by Stuart after their births – she never took them off.

Her wedding ring was in a secret compartment in her handbag. She didn’t quite feel comfortable abandoning it altogether. She would always be proud of being Mrs Hiscox, whose name had been called out in the doctors’ surgery and at parents’ evening. For work, she had always used her maiden name. It was useful, having two identities. Mrs Hiscox did the nit checks and had the boiler serviced. Juliet Miller missed the last Tube home and had to get a cab she couldn’t afford. Now she would use Juliet Miller full-time. She only needed one identity now.

And here Juliet Miller was, going back to Paris to try to recapture her past, hoping it would kick-start her future. So often over the years, she had thought about going back, but she hadn’t wanted to complicate things, not while she was a wife and mum. She hadn’t wanted to revisit the memories, good and bad, with her family in tow, because she wasn’t sure what her reaction would be. Even now, her tummy flittered at the recollection of both the best and the worst of times.

At twenty, Paris had been her dream. It had changed her. It had shaped her. It had taken a naïve and unsophisticated girl and set her on the path to womanhood. So much of what had happened was wonderful. She had learned things she had never forgotten, found so many passions, discovered a whole new world. She carried all of that with her, still. But she carried the scars too, which was why she’d never gone back.

Until now. She knew Paris was waiting, ready to help her with her next metamorphosis. All of the things she had adored would still be there, to be explored anew, to help her find her new self and the person she wanted to become. Smart, sexy, chic, successful, interesting and interested, adventurous, playful, experimental – she thought of all the words she’d put down to try to manifest this new Juliet. Not that she wasn’t already lots of those things, but she needed to recalibrate. Maybe take some risks.

Like many people, Covid had chipped away at her and ground her down. The strain of having one child away at uni, bewildered and isolated, and another battling the on–off uncertainty of exams, had been enervating. She was used to working from home, but having Stuart there too had clipped her wings rather, and she’d hated having to actually think about lunch rather than idly dipping pitta bread into some ready-made hummus at her desk. And she’d missed trooping into the centre of London a couple of times a week, realised that her social life was a vital part of her identity, and no live screening was going to replace the buzz of queuing for a plastic beaker of wine during the interval. They’d had it lucky, emerging with their health and careers intact, but lockdown had diminished her more than she realised.

Lockdown. Menopause. Empty nest. The end of her marriage. It could have been a deadly cocktail, but Juliet was determined to rise from the ashes. She had no responsibility and no ties. No real money worries, thanks to the sale of the house. No work commitments, thanks to being freelance: for the whole of November, the next thirty days, she wasn’t taking on any commissions. No magazine articles, no ghostwriting. She had doubled up her workload the month before to make up for it, typing long into the night to hit deadlines and file features and keep the cash flow buoyant.

Now the only deadline she had was the one she had set herself. After ten years of writing books for other people, she was ready to write her own. And she knew that would be a lot harder. With ghostwriting, she always had source material to give her inspiration and structure and motivation. She would immerse herself in her client’s life, whether they were a celebrity or a member of the public with a compelling story, often living with them for a few days while they talked and talked about their experiences, answering her questions, reliving the lives that Juliet would put down into written words to give them a shape.

Some clients were more forthcoming than others. Some were difficult to draw out and she would have to find a way to make them trust her. More often than not, that involved breaking open a bottle of wine or two. Others were impossible to stop: once they had begun their confessions, an endless diatribe would spill out. Then it was up to Juliet to work out what to keep and what to throw out. Which anecdotes provided colour and which provided confusion. And which might end up in a lawsuit! Some of the stories she heard would never be printed; they were unfit for public consumption.

She would take those to her grave, for her greatest weapon was her discretion. The people she wrote for knew she was a consummate professional and that if, after a few glasses of vino, they did let something slip that they regretted later, it would go no further. She never told her friends and family who she was writing for. She never revealed any titbits of gossip or personal details: which famous actress wore no knickers; which celebrity had a secret cocaine habit. Anything they wanted to know, they could read in the books she wrote. More often than not, they were bestsellers. It was strange, seeing something you had poured your heart and soul into on the shelves of a supermarket or bookshop, with someone else’s name on the front. Sometimes she had an acknowledgement, sometimes no reference at all. You didn’t become a ghostwriter for the pleasure of seeing your name on the cover of a book.

‘Doesn’t it annoy you, not getting the credit?’ people often asked her, but that was the deal. And it had given her a good living, a good life. Money and, more importantly, flexibility; the chance to work from home most of the time, which had been invaluable when the kids were teenagers. Somehow, they had needed her there more as adolescents than when they were small, and she had wanted to keep them close as the perils of puberty had started creeping in. They’d always known she’d be up there in the attic, tapping away at her laptop, not like some of her friends who were still slaves to their jobs, not getting back until gone seven, by which time both they and their offspring were too tired and hungry to enjoy each other’s company. Whereas Juliet could break off from her work to make Nate and Izzy a quick cheese toastie or bagel and Marmite when they got in from school, listen to their gossip and complaints, then send them off to do their homework, so that by the time supper came around it was all done and they could relax and laugh.

Now, it was her turn to write her own story. Whether it would be of any interest to anyone other than herself was another thing, but she had spent her whole life wanting to write about what had happened. And even if it ended up in her bottom drawer, it would be a good exercise in seeing what she was capable of. A chance to find her own voice, instead of imitating someone else’s. She had a title – The Ingénue – for that was what she had been: a naïve young girl navigating a strange city. And a notebook of scribbled memories.

She was giving herself thirty days in Paris to dedicate herself to her own writing. To immerse herself in the place that had changed her so much, and to give the city a second chance. To put the bad memories behind her, and make some new ones. To walk along the banks of the Seine as the leaves fell, cross every bridge and look down at the glittering water, drink a glass of red wine on every pavement … see all the paintings, eat all the food, watch all the people she had missed over the past thirty – thirty! – years.

She reached into her bag to get her laptop, but the paperback she had tucked on top caught her eye and she pulled it out. As she leafed through the pages, the memories seeped back in through her fingertips. She remembered the very moment the book had been handed to her. Her knowledge of how precious it was. Her guilt at never having the chance to give it back …

‘I remember reading that in sixth form.’

The man’s voice made her jump. He was sitting opposite and she blushed, wondering how long he’d been watching her. She’d been so wrapped up in herself, she hadn’t noticed him. He was probably five or so years younger than she was, with close-cropped grey hair and a merino polo neck.

‘Did you like it?’ she asked.

‘How could you not?’ His right eyebrow twitched in query. ‘Le Grand Meaulnes is a classic. The ultimate tale of unrequited love.’

The irony of his observation wasn’t wasted on her. She smiled. ‘Well, quite.’

‘And I always feel it’s a warning not to revisit the past.’

Juliet swallowed, looking back down at the book, and didn’t reply.

‘That looks like an old copy.’

‘Mmm hmm.’

‘And in French. Impressive. Or are you? French, I mean.’

His eyes flickered over her and it pleased her that he might think she was.

‘God, no. But I thought it would help me improve. I haven’t spoken French for over thirty years.’

‘I must buy another copy. I lost mine years ago. Thank you for the reminder.’ He smiled. ‘I always think it’s the mark of a good bookshop, if they have it in stock.’

‘It is.’ She smiled back at him, beguiled by his remark. It wasn’t what she’d expected, to fall into idle banter about her favourite book with a stranger on a train. She sensed it would be all too easy for them to slide into flirtation. She checked out his left hand and there was no gold or silver band – not that its absence meant anything, as lots of men didn’t wear wedding rings. Stuart hadn’t.

But although she had carte blanche to embark on anything she liked with whomever she liked, she wasn’t ready yet. It would be unseemly, having closed the door gently on her marriage only that morning, to take up with the first person she met. She had written enough about rebound flings to know they had to be handled with caution.

Besides, she had a lot to do before she opened her heart again. With only thirty days to accomplish her mission, there was no time for distraction.

‘Excuse me,’ she murmured, bending down to pick up her laptop. ‘I have some work to do.’

He nodded and picked up his phone to scroll through his messages.

Juliet looked at her watch. She had two hours before they arrived at the Gard du Nord. She could probably write her first chapter, if she got on with it. She had trained herself not to overthink, because the more you thought about what you were about to write, the less inclined you felt to start. It was like getting into an ice-cold swimming pool. You had to take a deep breath and plunge right in.

ADVERT IN THE LADY MAGAZINE,
OCTOBER 1990

Kind, responsible au pair wanted for a French family with a new arrival in the centre of Paris to help with Charlotte 6, Hugo 4 and baby Arthur. Lovely sunny room and happy household in the 2ème – we speak a little English between us. Generous allowance and three hours’ language classes per week. Immediate start. Three months at least, please.