The Museum of You Page 29
Stepping away from the window and down the stairs, she is bursting, literally, with the feeling that there is so much happiness coming. It’s just a matter of time. Of patience. Of waiting. And she is used to waiting. At the beginning of every year, she and Dad wait for the soil to soften and warm; for the planted seeds to show their heads; for flowers; for fruit. Each part of the wait has its own happiness. And sometimes it’s the wait that’s the best bit, isn’t it? Knowing something’s coming and enjoying the feeling of it being about to happen – like Christmas Eve, which is always better than Christmas Day.
Acknowledgements
I’d like to say some great big thank yous to some lovely people:
To Sarah Franklin for reading the novel at various stages of development. Thank you so much for your feedback and for our many conversations about Darren and Clover. I’m so glad we met – it’s not often one finds a kindred spirit.
To Rodge Glass for reading the novel in draft. Thank you so much for your feedback and for our subsequent conversations over coffee.
To my bus driver friends Rob and Beverley for talking to me about your jobs. Thank you, Beverley, for reading through the bus bits, having me round for coffee and allowing me to pester you on Facebook.
To Eleanor Moffat, Curator of Maritime Collections at Merseyside Maritime Museum. Thank you so much for talking to me about your fascinating job.
To David and Lyn, my parents, for telling me about your three years in the Czech Republic and for sending me pictures and postcards. And to Iveta Kolková for chatting to me on Skype about learning to speak English.
To Rachael Sellers for pointing me in the direction of information about denied pregnancies.
To Deb and Bob at Retreats for You for looking after me so well.
To my Facebook friends for being so entertaining as you answered questions about biscuits, beer, slang and a multitude of other things.
To my agent, lovely Veronique Baxter. Thank you for listening to me talk about Darren and Clover when everything was still fuzzy around the edges and for all your help and encouragement.
To everyone at Hutchinson for making me feel so welcome. To my splendid editor Jocasta Hamilton. Thank you for letting me get on with the writing when it was going well and for talking things through with me when I got stuck. Thank you for your quick responses to what, at times, probably seemed like an endless stream of emails. Thank you to Rose Waddilove. And thank you to Laura Deacon and Laurie Ip Fung Chun at Windmill Books. Also, thank you to Charlotte Bush for being such a lovely companion on some of the best adventures I’ve ever had. And to Millie Seaward and Jess Gulliver.
To various members of my family for providing linguistic mix-ups, including the following: ‘He burned a jock-stick’; ‘They’ve got an own-suite’; ‘It was a racist Shloer’; ‘I don’t like rice pudding, I prefer salmonella.’
To Lizzy and Esther, my brilliant sisters, for our online chats and for listening to me worry.
Love and thanks to Sam, Daniel, Joseph and Alice for being utterly fabulous.
And to Neil. For everything.
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Epub ISBN: 9781473536708
Version 1.0
Published by Hutchinson 2016
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Copyright © Carys Bray, 2016
Carys Bray has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
Grateful acknowledgement is made to Rebecca Lindenberg for permission to reprint lines from ‘In the Museum of Lost Objects’ and ‘Obsessional’ taken from Love, An Index by Rebecca Lindenberg.
This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Hutchinson
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9780091959609