A Family Recipe Read online

  Dedication

  To Paul and Lucy – key ingredients in my family recipe

  Veronica Henry

  Contents

  Cover

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Recipe Box

  Adverts

  Also by Veronica Henry

  Copyright

  Acknowledgements

  The biggest thank you of all to Claire Collins for the inspiration for this book. We’ve known each other since we were eleven, which is a pretty firm foundation to build a friendship on. I am in awe of her wonderful work as an interior designer and property developer and this book would never have happened without her. Also to Claire Lewis, the third in the Royal School triumvirate – our Annual Reunion fills my heart with joy. I’m not sure Bath is quite as happy about it …

  I’d also like to thank Marian McNeir for her Bath insight but mostly her encouragement – sometimes new friends are as good as old ones!

  I could not get through life without:

  Alice Wilson for dog walks, wine and the sagest advice on the planet. Claire Mcleish for cocktails, evil plans and reality checks. Julia Simonds for being in my heart on a Friday night with a bottle of Isabel. Teresa Mcdine for kindness and cream cakes. Fanny Blake for wisdom and writerly support.

  My mother Jennifer and my three boys, Jacob, Sam and Paddy – I’m prouder than proud of you all.

  But most of all my little brother Paul for knowing me better than anyone. Thank goodness for FaceTime!

  1

  1942

  The night sky was quiet and watchful, as it always was these days.

  The full moon slid out from behind a cloud to check up on the city beneath, like an anxious mother with a newborn baby. Bath was settling down to sleep: people were drawing up their bedcovers, reflecting on the day that had been. Prayers were said, thanks were given, and everyone hoped for sleep untroubled by nightmares, or worse.

  At Number 11 Lark Hill, the back gate opened. A figure stepped out onto the little lane that ran behind the terrace. Jilly Wilson drew her coat more tightly over her jumper and tweed skirt: late April still had a bite to it once the sun had gone. She would have worn something prettier, but she didn’t want to arouse suspicion. It was Saturday night but there was no call for her to be wearing her lilac dress again. It was still on the back of her chair from last night. It smelled of contraband Black Cat cigarette smoke and him.

  She and her parents had had supper at seven and by now she should be in bed, if not asleep. Her mother was already snoring lightly, her current read spread on her chest where it had fallen from her grasp. She would hardly read more than a page before conking out, worn out by her primary school charges whose ebullience never failed to both delight and exhaust her. Her father would still be in his study, reading through his patients’ notes, writing referral letters, all the administration of a busy doctor, though there was no light to be seen from his window.

  There was no light to be seen anywhere. The hills around Bath were filled with looming shadows, black under the pale moon. The magnificent crescents and terraces made themselves as inconspicuous as they could. In daylight, they could do nothing to hide their beauty and splendour, the yellow stone glowing in the spring sunshine. But come dusk they hunkered down, crouching fearfully, like every other city in England.

  Jilly crept along the alley behind the row of Regency houses that made up Lark Hill. Their front gardens were hidden behind a tall stone wall that reached to head height, the houses standing to attention behind, rows and rows of sash windows staring out over the road that swept down into the city. Once she was on Lansdown Road she relaxed a little. If she kept her head down and her hands in her pockets no one would recognise her or question what she was doing at this time.

  Halfway down the hill she darted off the main drag and along a side street, the houses here less grand, Edwardian rather than Regency and tightly huddled together, with only a small front garden each. Jilly’s legs wouldn’t move fast enough. She was breathing heavily now. She couldn’t wait to get there.

  Until yesterday, she’d had no idea it was possible to feel the way she did. She hadn’t had a chance to speak about it to anyone else. She wasn’t clandestine or duplicitous by nature, but she hadn’t even told Ivy. She didn’t want to break the spell by making it public. For the time being, she wanted to keep the wonder of it all to herself, which only added to the thrill she was feeling. And he felt the same. They’d agreed to keep their meeting secret.

  And to think that she nearly hadn’t gone to the dance! Ivy had egged her on – Jilly really hadn’t wanted to go, but Ivy wasn’t going to take no for an answer and when she was in that mood it was easier to say yes. Jilly had had every intention of making herself scarce as soon as Ivy homed in on a likely victim, which she always did within ten minutes of arriving at a social event. Boys – men – loved Ivy, and she loved them. She bubbled over in their company, even more than usual. Ivy was the fizziest person Jilly had ever met, an electric shock of a girl. Tiny and skinny as a rake but star bright. Next to her, Jilly sometimes felt lumpen and staid. No one had ever accused Jilly of being shy, but compared to Ivy she was the ultimate wallflower, a role she found interminably dull.

  The church hall near the Assembly Rooms was full to bursting on that Friday night. The onset of finer weather had lifted everyone’s mood. The boys had a swagger about them, and twinkling eyes, as if they’d all been reading Tennyson and the spring had turned their thoughts to love – though Jilly doubted that many of them were familiar with the poet. The girls had dug out their prettiest frocks, because it was lovely to have a reason to dress up. The band put a bounce in everyone’s step. A fruit cup laced with ill-gotten dessert wine was intoxicating and sweet. Within those four walls, just for one night, you could forget there was a war on.

  Ivy threw her arms up with a whoop and was swept up in the mass of whirling dancers. She had no inhibitions, as giddy as the mirror ball twirling above that threw shards of diamond light across everyone’s face. The room soon became hot with music and laughter and a peculiar energy that didn’t reach Jilly. She felt panicked by the mood of the crowd, unsure. Her shoes felt as if they were made of lead, whereas Ivy was dancing on air. She could see her friend waving at her, gesturing to her to come into the melee. Jilly watched as a lithe young soldier took her by the arm, and Ivy threw back her head and laughed up at him. White-gold hair, red lips, no shame. Oh for just a smidgeon of her confidence, thought Jilly.

  A persistent drum beat began, then the band burst into an exuberant tune that was impossible to resist. The soldier an
d Ivy began to dance, all elbows and knees and smiles, in perfect time, some secret signal between them synchronising their movements. Jilly had no such signal inside her, she knew that.

  ‘You just need to stop thinking and feel it,’ Ivy had told her repeatedly, but the more she tried to stop thinking, the more she thought, and the less her feet did as she asked. It had been the same on the netball court and the lacrosse pitch. She was, she decided, more cerebral than physical.

  She decided to head for the cloakroom, more for respite than any particular need. There was a young man of about her age leaning up against the wall in the hall outside. He flashed a smile and raised his glass to her in a gesture of conspiracy.

  She stopped in her tracks and smiled back, putting a hand up to smooth her hair. Ivy had set it into curls, with a roll at the front that was larger than she was comfortable with. It made her feel awkward and foolish. She preferred her shoulder-length hair loose. She wanted to run her fingers through Ivy’s handiwork and become herself again.

  ‘You look, like me, as if you wish you were somewhere else,’ he said. There was a sombreness about him as if something weighed too heavily on him to shrug off. He was tall and slender, his auburn hair swept back, his eyes Malteser brown.

  Jilly nodded. ‘Anywhere,’ she told him. ‘Dances aren’t my thing, but I don’t want to be a stick in the mud.’

  ‘One always feels such pressure to be jolly at these dos.’

  ‘I know. I think you’re either a dance person or you’re not.’ She gave a rueful smile. ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Snap.’ He held out his hand. ‘Shall we be stick-in-the-muds together?’

  She hesitated for a moment. She felt drawn to him. He had dark freckles on his pale skin. His eyes were roaming all over her, asking questions. There was something about him that unsettled her, though. Maybe it was to do with the glass of whisky? Was he drunk? He had the confidence of one who was, though he still seemed in control. But he made her tummy flip; made her feel not quite sure what was going to happen next. It wasn’t a feeling she was used to, but she rather liked it.

  ‘So what sort of a person are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Well,’ said Jilly, thinking. ‘A book person, mostly. I like books. I like people too, but I prefer talking to them than dancing with them. One to one.’

  ‘One to one,’ he mused, and she blushed.

  ‘I’m not keen on crowds.’

  ‘Why did you come, then?’

  ‘My friend forced me. Ivy won’t take no for an answer.’

  ‘You look perfectly capable of saying no.’

  ‘Of course I am,’ Jilly laughed. ‘But you don’t know Ivy. I’d never hear the end of it.’ She watched him drain his glass, though his gaze never left her face. ‘What about you?’

  ‘Same. I’m staying with a friend. He insisted. As a guest, it would have been rude to say no. This is much more his sort of thing than mine.’

  ‘So what’s your sort of thing?’

  He looked wary, as if it was a trick question, as if there was a right answer and a wrong one and he mustn’t get it wrong.

  ‘I like girls who like books,’ he said finally. He took out a cigarette case and offered it to her. She shook her head. Ivy smoked like a trooper, but Jilly couldn’t take to it. There was enough to worry about without trying to fit in a smoke as often as you could, which is what seemed to happen to everyone who took it up.

  She heard the whir of flint and smelled oil as he lit the end of his cigarette and drew on it.

  ‘Would you like to go for a walk?’ His full mouth wasn’t smiling, but his eyes were.

  Jilly gulped. Was it wise, to wander off with someone you had only just met?

  ‘A walk? It’s nearly pitch black.’

  ‘I want to explore the city. By moonlight. It’s my only chance.’

  ‘Only chance?’

  He blew out a ribbon of smoke. It left him in curls, drifting into the air. ‘I’m leaving on Sunday.’ His smile was tight. ‘I’m training to fly.’

  ‘How exciting.’ She could imagine him in a flying jacket. He looked like a fighter pilot. Some people looked like their jobs, she’d noticed. Her father looked like a doctor – suited, studious, concerned. Her mother looked like a teacher – round, kindly, comforting. Ivy looked like a hairdresser – glamorous, always done up to the nines, with red lipstick. Jilly didn’t look like anything yet. There was no point in her embarking on a career in wartime, even though she had done well at school. She was far more use helping her father in his surgery for the time being – making appointments and keeping notes – because it seemed the most patriotic thing to do.

  ‘Perhaps.’ He didn’t sound sure. He seemed perturbed. Perhaps he was just losing interest in their conversation. Jilly didn’t want him to lose interest. She needed to make more effort, she realised. Fizz a bit, like Ivy.

  ‘Come on then,’ she said, holding out her arm. ‘I’ll give you a tour.’

  He grinned, dropped his cigarette as they left the building and crushed it beneath his shoe, and placed his glass on a window ledge. Then he took her arm. She could feel the warmth of him under the wool of his suit jacket. It stirred something in her.

  There was silence for a moment.

  ‘The Circus is just round the corner,’ she offered.

  ‘Circus?’ He looked surprised. ‘With elephants and clowns and acrobats?’

  ‘No.’ She laughed. ‘Not that kind of circus. Just buildings. In a circle.’

  He feigned disappointment. ‘Oh. Doesn’t sound like much.’

  ‘You might be surprised. Come on,’ she said, leading him out of the hall and into the night air.

  The music from the band followed them as they walked along the street. The golden buildings had turned to grey, but they could pick their way along the pavement by the light of the moon. Moments later they were at the Circus: a solemn, silent circle of buildings around a green lawn. Jilly felt straight away that it was something of an anticlimax.

  ‘You’re right. I think a real circus would have been much more exciting,’ she said eventually. Handsome boys like this probably didn’t get excited about girls who admired architecture.

  ‘Shush,’ he told her, and led her across the grass to the cluster of plane trees in the centre of the lawn. The night breeze teased her skin. He sat down and leaned his back against a tree, then patted the space next to him for her to sit too. They sat for a moment, in silence. There was a stillness and a quietness and a gravity to him that she found alluring, and she wondered if he was always like that or if it came from the knowledge that this was his last weekend of freedom; his last chance to be carefree before he entered another world over which he had little control.

  ‘Talk to me,’ he said eventually. ‘Talk to me about things I can remember, when I’m up there in the sky.’

  Her mind raced. Her heart thumped. What on earth was she supposed to tell him?

  ‘The Circus was designed by John Wood the Elder.’ She began gabbling to fill the silence. She was nervous as she wasn’t sure of the rules or what exactly she was supposed to do or be. ‘It was his grand vision. His masterpiece. But he never lived to see it finished …’ She trailed off. This part of the story never failed to sadden her. And suddenly people not living to fulfil their potential seemed a tactless thing to mention. Presumably he had wanted her to tell him something to take his mind off his mortality, not remind him of it.

  He turned to face her. She could just make out his smile in the darkness.

  ‘Are you some sort of tour guide?’

  ‘No!’ She laughed. ‘I’ve lived in Bath all my life, that’s all. I know everything there is to know about it. The Romans, the Georgians, Beau Nash, Jane Austen …’

  ‘Tell me something about you,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘Something interesting about you that will give me something to think about. A reason to survive.’

  She blinked. That was a tall order. Nigh on impossible. What on earth could she tell him abou
t herself that could possibly be of interest?

  ‘That’s a bit unfair,’ she said.

  ‘Well, if you can’t think of anything to say …’ His fingers danced on the back of her hand. ‘Then think of something to do.’

  The night breeze shimmied in the branches overhead but Jilly remained still. What did he mean? She thought she knew. His eyes hadn’t moved from hers. She wasn’t going to tell him she had never kissed anyone. It was a source of exasperation to Ivy. There was barely anyone Ivy hadn’t kissed.

  ‘It’s the only way you find out,’ she’d told Jilly. ‘What sort of a man they are. When they get it wrong, it’s enough to turn your stomach. But when they get it right …’

  Jilly stared at his mouth. It would have been perfect on a girl, yet it didn’t make him look like one. A full lower lip and a curved top one. It was the same with his eyes: the thick dark lashes looked as if they’d been painted on. Yet put together with a straight nose and a strong chin, the combination was devastating. The more she looked, the more handsome she thought he was.

  For God’s sake, Jilly, she heard Ivy tell her. You’ll never get this chance again. Not the way this war’s going. It’s only a kiss.

  She shut her eyes. It was worse than plucking up the courage to dive into the water off the cliff at Maiden Cove, when they went to Cornwall on holiday.

  When her mouth found his, she knew straight away what sort of a man he was.

  His lips were soft and sweet. It was like devouring a firm, ripe peach, and kissing him felt as natural to Jilly as breathing, her body responding in a way that made her understand every book she had ever read and every song she had ever heard. She pulled him down onto the ground, the chill of the grass unnoticed. Their kiss seemed to last for ever, yet was over in a flash. Eventually they broke away, arms still round each other, eyes locked, their breathing ragged but in tandem.

  ‘Will that do?’ she asked with a shaky laugh. ‘Will that give you a reason?’

  ‘I think it will do very well,’ he replied. He stroked her hair away from her eyes and ran his hand over her head and down to her neck and she shivered in delight.