Weds 21 July Crawley Library

Weds 4 August Uxbridge Library

Weds 11 August Canary Wharf Library

Meanwhile, don’t forget to email me and let me know what you think of the book. Did you guess the secrets? Who was your favourite character? Have you entered the competition to win a holiday in the Italian Lakes?

Have a great weekend (I will be supporting Holland in the World Cup Final!) x

www.bookrabbit.com

Enjoy! And do check back soon for confirmed dates of a couple of August events with Dorothy Koomson (see our July dates on previous post)…

Sandhurst Library on Thurs 8 July at 7.30pm

Sittingbourne Library on Weds 14 July at 7.30pm

Crawley Library on Weds 21 July at 7.30pm

If you are in any of these areas, check your diary: we would love to meet you. Please contact the venue for information about tickets.

P.S. The Sandhurst event is publication day for me, so I will be in a REALLY good mood x

Also, watch this space for details of my July library events with the fabulous Dorothy Koomson…

Doing the Wrong Thing
by Louise Candlish

I don’t like to fly, never have. When I was going out with Neal, he would take me to the bar in the departure lounge and fill me with Dutch courage, as much as time allowed. Then he’d undo all the good work as soon as we were in the air by clutching me and hissing, ‘What was that weird noise? We’re going down!’ Just a joke, of course. He was young and crazy then, we both were. I bet they saw us coming.

These days, when I’m flying with Ed and the girls, it’s a little better. All that business of making sure the kids are where they should be – strapped in, not elbowing each other, keeping their feet away from the seats in front – it’s enough of a practical distraction to get me through the ordeal. And Ed is so cool-headed, which helps. (That was his appeal, after Neal; he was so incredibly considered.)

But on my own like this, I get very fatalistic; my mind thinks it can will things to happen. It makes me feel like it’s the last day of my life.

That’s why I almost pulled out of this weekend. Even now, at the check-in desk as I’m handing over my passport, I am ready to snatch it back and say, ‘Sorry, I’ve made a mistake. There’s an emergency at home I need to get back to.’ And I know that I could still do that even at the point of boarding. When you’ve just got hand luggage like I do this evening, it wouldn’t be the end of the world; they wouldn’t have to pull your suitcase out of the hold, miss their take-off slot, ruin everyone’s schedules.

But then I see him, a few desks down, and it makes me confident again. He’s dressed with care, you can tell; a nice shirt, a close shave. He has a nervous edge about him, a private focus that matches mine.

I wonder if he’s noticed me, if he might linger a little so I can catch him up on the route from check-in to security. Go through that arch one after the other, take off our watches and rings and belts together. It’s so intimate now at airport security; there must be people who enjoy all that enforced disrobing. You could easily forget yourself and start taking everything off.

I don’t see him at the gate. By the time I get there, the space has emptied.

‘Anyone else to board?’

I step forward. ‘Yes, sorry. Me.’

And that’s that: they close the gate behind me. I’m literally the last one on.

I take my seat at the back on the aisle and calm myself in the usual way: looking in the seat pocket for the safety instructions; counting the rows to the nearest exit; looking at the route map in the magazine. One thing I do is I try to picture the person who sat here before me, on the flight into London. I picture that person’s onward journey into the city, to a West End Hotel, a suburban house, or straight to a restaurant, maybe, for a big birthday celebration or a reunion. An invitation she knew she shouldn’t accept, but couldn’t stop herself.

I’m so preoccupied with my rituals that I don’t notice he is sitting as close to me as he is until we’re actually aloft. He’s only three rows ahead, on the same side as me. I can see his shoulder in its linen blazer, a bit of his ear, the whole of his right hand, with its long bony fingers, the sinews and veins and hairs. When he turns, I see his strong, frank profile and despite myself I feel a lurch, like breath catching, deep inside me.

‘Our flight time this evening is two hours and twenty-five minutes…’

It’s not that I’ve forgotten where I’m going, I’m not that crazy, but it does feel like a small surprise to hear the distance and flying time to Marrakech. I haven’t been there before, I didn’t go with previous boyfriends and since I’ve been married to Ed … well, it’s not the sort of place you take young children. I think of the gifts I’ll be able to find the girls, sequinned slippers with pointy toes and maybe masks or belts, things for their dressing-up games. They’ll miss me this weekend; already they’ll be asking when I’m coming back from my mums’
weekend.

That’s another reason why I’m especially nervous today. I’m supposed to be with Lizzie. She’s my lie, my alibi. If something happened to this flight and all the families went to the airport to wait for news, it would be nothing less than a second disaster. I picture Ed, ravaged with fear, he’s left the girls with our neighbours and he’s told them they should just go to sleep and in the morning he’ll be back and everything will be all right. He arrives alone but he searches at once for Lizzie’s husband Mark – they’ve met once before and even if they hadn’t it would be obvious they’d want to team up. But he wouldn’t find him, because Lizzie is not on this flight. It might not come out that night, but it would eventually, when they published the passenger list: the truth about my inglorious weekend, my sordid betrayal.

‘Excuse me, hello? The gentlemen a few rows ahead has ordered you this…’

The cabin crew member hands me a small bottle of champagne, one of those mini-bar ones with just a glassful in, and it seems such a lonely thing, a symbol of solitude, even though it is a gift from someone, a gift from a man to a woman.

‘Thank you. Please tell him thank you.’

It’s not very chilled and the bubbles expand in my mouth and pop all at once, until it feels hardly liquid at all. Four rows down, he raises his own drink in a quick gesture that only I will notice, his hand full of suppressed force as it encloses the plastic beaker.

Already you can feel the beginnings of the descent. It’s nightfall, an intoxicating time to arrive in a city like Marrakech. I feel my life, my family, my self fall from me with every metre of lost altitude, like I’m entering a spell. Maybe I can convince myself this isn’t me at all, that I’ve been possessed.

I have been possessed.

We’ve landed. There’s no fuss, when you don’t have to wait for luggage, you just walk through, and it gives you confidence, travelling light like that, like you have some insider instinct an ordinary person wouldn’t have. By the time I’m through the doors and into the arrivals hall I’m moving differently. I’m free.

That’s when we make eye contact for the first time. He’s already got the taxi ready, he’s holding the door open, he’s smiling. Then he’s kissing me on the lips and touching my face, making my skin sing.

He says, ‘I think we can stop pretending now, don’t you?’

I nod. ‘It was harder than I thought. Especially when you sent the drink.’

‘Well, no one knows us here. No more sneaking around. We can relax.’

And I get into the taxi and he closes the door after me and our mouths press together again as the car moves off. Neal and me, doing the wrong thing, just like we always did.

I think I’ll stop there.