A Time for Friends - Softcover

Scanlan, Patricia

 
9781476704531: A Time for Friends
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1476704538 ISBN 13: 9781476704531
Verlag: ATRIA, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

From the #1 internationally bestselling author comes her next heartwarming and comforting Irish-set novel about the complexities of lifelong friendship, perfect for fans of Maeve Binchy and Cathy Kelly.

When are the boundaries of friendship pushed too far, and when is it time to stop flying over oceans for someone who wouldn’t jump over a puddle for you? There comes a time when Hilary Hammond has to make that call.

Hilary and Colette O’Mahony have been friends since childhood, but when irrepressible Jonathan Harpur breezes into Hilary’s life and goes into business with her, Colette is not pleased.

After their first encounter, Colette thinks he’s a “pushy upstart” while he thinks she’s “a snobby little diva.” And so the battle lines are drawn—and Hilary is square in the middle.

But as the years roll by and each of them is faced with difficult times and tough decisions, one thing is clear: to have a friend you must be a friend.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Patricia Scanlan lives in Dublin. Her books, all number one bestsellers, have sold worldwide and been translated into many languages. Find out more by visiting Patricia's Facebook page at Facebook.com/PatriciaScanlanAuthor.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

A Time for Friends

Chapter One

“See you tonight,” Niall Hammond said, planting a kiss on his drowsy wife’s cheek.

“What time is it?” Hilary groaned, pulling the duvet over her shoulders and burying her head in the pillow.

“Six thirty-five,” he murmured and then he was gone, his footsteps fading on the stairs. She heard the sound of the alarm being turned off, heard the front door open, then close, and the sound of the car reversing out of the drive.

Hilary yawned and stretched and her eyes closed. I’ll just snooze for ten minutes, she promised herself, before drifting back to sleep.

“Mam, wake up, we’re going to be late for school.” Hilary opened her eyes to see Sophie, her youngest daughter, standing beside the bed poking her in the ribs.

“Oh crikey, what time is it?” She struggled into a sitting position.

“Eight twelve,” her daughter intoned solemnly, reading the digital clock.

“Holy Divinity, why didn’t you call me earlier? Where’s Millie? Is she up?” she asked, flinging back the duvet and scrambling out of bed.

“She’s not up yet.”

“Oh for God’s sake! Millie, Millie, get up.” Hilary raced into her eldest daughter’s bedroom and hauled the duvet off her sleeping form.

“Awww, Mam!” Millie yelled indignantly, curling up like a little hedgehog, spiky hair sticking up from her head.

“Get up, we’re late. Go and wash your face.” Hilary was like a whirling dervish, pulling open the blinds, before racing into the shower, jamming a shower cap onto her head so her hair wouldn’t get wet. Ten minutes later, wrapped in a towel, she was slathering butter onto whole-grain bread slices onto which she laid cuts of breast from the remains of the chicken she’d cooked for the previous day’s dinner. An apple and a clementine in each lunch box and the school lunches were done. Hilary eyed the full wash load in the machine and wished she’d got up twenty minutes earlier so she could have hung it out on the line seeing as Niall hadn’t bothered.

She felt a flash of irritation at her husband. It wouldn’t dawn on him to hang out the clothes unless she had them in the wash basket on the kitchen table where he could see them. Sometimes she felt she was living with three children, she thought in exasperation. Typical that it was a fine day with a good breeze blowing and her clothes were stuck in the machine and would have to stay there until she got home.

Millie was shoveling Shreddies into her mouth while Sophie calmly sprinkled raisins into her porridge. Sophie was dressed in her school uniform, blond hair neatly plaited, and yet again Hilary marveled at the dissimilarity of her children. Millie, hair unbrushed, tie askew, lost in a world of her own, oblivious to Hilary’s hassled demeanor. At least they’d had showers, and hair washed after swimming yesterday, she thought, taking a brush from the drawer to put manners on her oldest daughter’s tresses.

Twenty minutes later Hilary watched the lollipop lady escort them across the road, and smiled as Sophie turned to give her a wave and a kiss. It was hard to believe she had two children of schoolgoing age. Where had the years gone? she wondered as she crawled along in the school-run traffic.

It shocked her sometimes that she was a wife and mother to two little girls and settled into the routine of family life that didn’t seem to vary much when the girls were at school. At least she’d spent a year au pairing in France after leaving school, and she’d spent six weeks on the Greek Islands with Colette O’Mahony, her oldest friend, having an absolute blast the following summer! That had been fun. Hilary grinned at the memory, turning onto the Malahide Road, and groaning at the traffic stuck on the Artane roundabout.

Colette would never in a million years be stuck in school-run traffic, she thought ruefully. Colette had a nanny to bring Jasmine to school in London. No doubt her friend was sipping Earl Grey tea in bed, perusing the papers before going to have her nails manicured or going shopping in Knightsbridge. Their lives couldn’t be more different. But then, even from a very young age, they always had been.

Colette, the only daughter of two successful barristers, had had a privileged, affluent childhood. Her parents fulfilling her every wish, but handing her over to the care of a succession of housekeepers, as they devoted themselves to careers and a hectic social life, before packing Colette off to a posh and extremely expensive boarding school.

In contrast, Hilary’s mother, Sally, had been a stay-at-home mother, although she did work a few hours on Saturdays in the family lighting business. Hilary’s dad, Mick, owned a lighting store and electrical business and Hilary had worked there every summer holiday, either in the large showrooms, that stocked lights and lamps and shades of every description, or in the office working on invoices and orders and deliveries.

Her parents, unlike Colette’s, were extremely family orientated. Hilary and her older sister, Dee, had grown up secure in the knowledge that they were much loved. Sally and Mick enjoyed their two girls and had bought a secondhand caravan so they could all spend weekends and holidays together. Hilary’s abiding memory of her childhood was of her mother making scrumptious picnics in the ­little caravan kitchen, and her dad lugging chairs and windbreaks and cooler bags down to the beach and setting up their “spot.” And then the games of rounders, or O’Grady Says, with their parents and aunts, uncles, and cousins joining in, a whole tribe of Kinsellas, screeching and laughing. And then the sand-gritted picnic with tea out of flasks, or homemade lemonade, and more often than not, a gale whipping the sand outside their windbreak as clouds rolled in over the Irish Sea, the threat of rain somehow adding to the excitement. And when it did fall, all hands would gallop back up the bank to the caravans, and Mick would laugh and say, “That was a close one,” when they’d make it inside before the heavens opened.

Sally enjoyed the company of her girls and, when time and work permitted, they would head over to Thomas Street, and ramble around the Liberty Market, browsing the stalls, especially the jewelry ones, oohing and aahing over rings and bracelets. Kind-hearted as ever, Sally would fork out a few quid for a gift for Hilary and Dee. Their mother had steered them through the ups and downs of their teen years and had urged her daughters to spread their wings and see the world and follow their dreams. She had been fully behind Hilary’s decision to go to France after her Leaving Cert and be an au pair and become fluent in French.

After her year of au pairing and her six weeks roaming the Greek Islands with Colette, Hilary had planned to do an arts degree with a view to teaching languages, but Mick had suffered a heart attack the August before she was to start university, and she had felt it incumbent on her to put aside her own plans for her future, especially as she’d been abroad for more than a year, enjoying the freedom to be carefree and unfettered. She had stepped up to the plate to help her parents in their hour of need. Her older sister, Dee, was in the middle of a science degree and there was no question of her dropping out of university.

Hilary was desperately disappointed at having to postpone her degree course; she had been so looking forward to going to university and enjoying the social side of life. Dee might study hard, but she partied hard...

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Verlag
ATRIA
Erscheinungsdatum
2015
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1476704538
ISBN 13 
9781476704531
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
480
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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