After Isabella

A heartwarming friendship that will capture your heart

Rosie Fiore

• Publisher: Allen & Unwin
• Year: 2017
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781925575217
• Subtopic: Women in Fiction
• Index: Literature

'Both heartwarming and sad, it's an insightful, thought-provoking glimpse into female friendships, love and loyalty.' - Julie Cohen

'After Isabella is a beautiful, absorbing novel that deals with the issues at the very heart of what it
means to be a woman.' - Tracy Buchanan

'I was lost in this powerful, poignant tale.' - Amanda Prowse

When Esther's childhood best friend Isabella dies of cancer, she is devastated. Years later, she is brought together with Isabella's sister Sally, who cared for Isabella in her last days, and who subsequently nursed their mother through years of dementia.

English professor Esther sees shy, innocent Sally emerge from a life of isolation and loneliness. But as Esther herself suffers blow after blow, and sees her carefully ordered life collapse around her, she is forced to contemplate the notion of friendship and trust. Do the ones we hold dearest always have our best interests at heart?

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. COVER PAGE
2. TITLE PAGE
3. COPYRIGHT PAGE
4. CONTENTS
5. PROLOGUE
6. CHAPTER ONE
7. CHAPTER TWO
8. CHAPTER THREE
9. CHAPTER FOUR
10. CHAPTER FIVE
11. CHAPTER SIX
12. CHAPTER SEVEN
13. CHAPTER EIGHT
14. CHAPTER NINE
15. CHAPTER TEN
16. CHAPTER ELEVEN
17. CHAPTER TWELVE
18. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
19. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
20. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
21. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
22. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
23. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
24. CHAPTER NINETEEN
25. CHAPTER TWENTY
26. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
27. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
28. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
29. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
30. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
31. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
32. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
33. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
34. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
35. CHAPTER THIRTY
36. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
37. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
38. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
39. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
40. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
41. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
42. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
43. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
44. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
45. CHAPTER FORTY
46. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
47. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
48. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
49. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
50. EPILOGUE

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For Alli and Annie Tibbatts with all my love

Published in trade paperback in Great Britain in 2016 by Allen & Unwin

Copyright © Rosie Fiore, 2016

The moral right of Rosie Fiore to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

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, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

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.

Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity.

Allen & Unwin

c/o Atlantic Books

Ormond House

26–27 Boswell Street

London WC1N 3JZ

Phone:[phone]

Fax:[phone]

Email:[email protected]

Web:www.allenandunwin.com/uk

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Trade paperback ISBN 978 1 76029 241 6

Ebook ISBN 978 1 92557 521 7

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

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

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

She’d been restlessly asleep for hours, her fingers plucking irregularly at the covers, her eyelids fluttering, her breathing rattly and noisy. Esther sat and watched her. She’d been told that these were all signs that the end was near. It was quite possible that she wouldn’t wake again. Her breathing would slow and then stop, and that would be it. Esther leaned back in her chair. She hadn’t slept for a long time and she was weary. She shut her eyes for a second, just to rest them.

The breathing stopped and Esther’s eyes flew open. The face on the pillow looked awake and alert, her eyes wide open and almost amused.

‘Caught you napping.’

‘Sorry,’ Esther said. ‘Can I get you anything?’

‘No thanks.’ She smiled a genuinely warm, attentive and lovely smile. ‘You must be knackered, sorry.’

‘I’m fine,’ said Esther. ‘Honestly. How are you doing? Want more morphine?’

‘No pain right now. But I tell you what, my feet are bloody freezing.’

‘Your feet? Really?’ The room was warm, and the bed was covered with a heavy, fluffy duvet.

‘Yeah.’

‘Can I get you some socks?’

‘I don’t think that’ll work. I think my body’s storing all the heat around what’s left of my essential organs. I don’t think I’m able to generate my own heat for my extremities. Maybe a hot water bottle… only I don’t think I own one.’

‘I don’t think you do,’ said Esther. She paused for a second. ‘I read somewhere, although I suspect it’s completely spurious, that when D. H. Lawrence was dying, he complained his feet were cold, and his wife, Frieda, put them in her bosom to warm them.’

‘Her bosom?’

‘I haven’t got much of a bosom, but I do generate quite a bit of body heat.’

The chuckle from the bed sounded lively, not at all like the chuckle of someone dying. ‘Would you? Would you do that for me?’

‘For you, Millais, anything.’

Esther folded back the duvet from the bottom of the bed and lay on her side. She lifted her shirt and drew the two cold feet to her, pressing them against her stomach, then drawing her jumper and the duvet down over them. ‘Better?’

‘Better. Thank you. Your belly is so soft. Squidgy.’ A smile, silence, and eyes that closed slowly.

Esther lay still, breathing softly and watching, until she too fell asleep for a time.

CHAPTER ONE

‘The first time I saw Isabella, I was nine years old. We’d moved from Richmond to north London. It was only ten miles or so, but it might as well have been the other side of the world. I knew I’d never ever see my friends again, and that I would be alone forever.

‘My mum took me for my first day at the new school, and they called Isabella to the office to take me to my classroom. The head, who was one of those touchy-feely enthusiastic types, leapt up and stood with her hands on Isabella’s shoulders as she introduced us. “Isabella Millais is one of our star students!” She beamed. “She’s just won a competition and had a picture published in a national magazine, fancy that!” She went on about how Isabella was a credit to her teachers, and Isabella looked straight at me. It took me a moment, but then I realized we were exactly the same height. We had the same long, straight, dark brown hair, and the same dark eyes. She had skinny legs and bumpy knees like me too. She could have been my twin sister. It was like looking in a mirror.

‘I must have been staring, because she stared back. She kept her face quite still, but then she very slightly crossed her eyes so she was squinting and stuck the tiniest tip of her tongue out of the corner of her mouth. I couldn’t believe her nerve. If the head had spotted her… She didn’t even seem to care that my mum, who was standing next to me, could see her. And as quickly as she’d pulled the face, she stopped, and said, “Welcome to St Mary’s. I’ll show you where the classroom is.”

‘I picked up my bag and followed her, and my mum stayed behind to talk to the head. Isabella and I walked down the corridor together. She walked fast, and she held her head high. She always walked like that, looking straight ahead. She walked like that for as long as I knew her. I had to trot a bit to keep up. We got to the classroom door and she stopped and checked her watch. Then she yanked my arm so we were bent double and couldn’t be seen through the glass panel of the door. She pulled me along, past the classroom and on down the corridor. We went down some stairs into the gymnasium, which was empty. She took me across the room to a huge pile of gym mats, and we sat on the floor behind them, so we couldn’t be seen from the door. “It’s fifteen minutes to lunchtime,” she said. “We’ll go back at one minute to, and then there won’t be time for embarrassing introductions and making you stand up in front of the class. We can just go straight to lunch.” She reached into her blazer pocket and brought out a squished chocolate bar. She broke it in two and gave me half. The bigger half. I knew then that she would be my friend for life.

‘And she was. All the way through school, and through university, even though we weren’t in the same city. She was always on the end of the phone, or sending me funny letters and pictures in the post, or turning up at my room in halls at eleven o’clock on a Friday night to stay for the weekend. She held my hair back the first time I got drunk enough to be sick. She was my bridesmaid when I got married, and she was godmother to my little girl, Lucie.

‘When she found out she was ill, she didn’t want to tell anyone. She had this idea that she could just carry on, live her life and have her treatment. She couldn’t bear the idea that anyone would pity her, or whisper about her, or think of her as “the one with cancer”. She didn’t even tell me. I only found out when Sally rang to let me know. Isabella was so sick, she couldn’t look after herself, so Sally moved in with her. Now to us, growing up, Sally was the annoying little sister, trailing after Isabella and me, wanting to join in our games – we used to hide from her, or send her on impossible errands. Sometimes we even locked her in the cellar. But when the chips were down, it was Sally Isabella needed. Sally gave up her job and looked after Isabella 24/7 for a year and a half until… Until the end.

‘And here we are. The end, the end of Isabella. The most vibrant, hilarious and brilliant person I have ever known. An amazing architect, cook and friend. I know she meant something different, something special to every single one of you, or you wouldn’t be here to say goodbye. It just seems… unbelievable that a light like that can have gone from the world. I know it’ll take me a very long time to get used to it. I’ll still expect to hear her voice on the end of the phone, to see her name popping up in my inbox with a crazy, witty message. I can’t believe I won’t get another one of her handmade birthday cards. I can’t begin to imagine how this feels for Sally, and Isabella’s mum, Joan. Our hearts are with you, Sally and Joan, and we’ll all be there for you, anytime of the day or night. Rest in peace, Bells. The sister I never had. I can’t believe you’re gone.’

Esther held it together until she read these last words from the pages gripped in her hand. She could feel the hot tears gathering, and then they spilled over, blurring her glasses. She had somehow got into the pulpit in this church, but she wasn’t sure how to get out. She turned ineffectually from side to side. She felt the priest’s hand take her elbow firmly but gently and guide her down the three little steps, and she slumped back into the pew next to Stephen.

The ridiculous shiny dark brown of the coffin intruded into her peripheral vision. How could Isabella, or what was left of Isabella, be lying silent and still in that box? She couldn’t look at it, hadn’t looked at it through her eulogy. It made no sense.

She was thirty-nine years old and this was only the third funeral she had ever been to. It seemed like a strange and archaic ritual, but she wasn’t terribly sure how it should be done differently. What are we supposed to do with dead people, she wondered. We have to put them somewhere, dispose of the bodies in a way that is safe and hygienic, assure ourselves that they really, truly are gone, and find a way of moving on. This odd agglomeration of words, music, a box and flowers seemed to be the accepted method. In this case, however, it seemed to have nothing to do with Isabella, who had been an atheist, unmusical, and rather averse to flower arrangements, preferring to decorate her home with minimalist, dramatic displays of bamboo or still lifes of sticks and stones.

The assembled people rose to sing a hymn, Psalm 23. It must have been Joan’s choice. Esther hadn’t sung it since primary school, and she had a vague memory, or thought she did, of last having sung it beside Isabella, who had a deep and rather gravelly voice and a t...

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