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Past Secrets
Cathy Kelly
The Sunday Times No. 1 paperback bestseller, warm and moving - another gem from the much-loved Cathy Kelly.Keep a secret too long and it will creep out when you least expect it…Behind the shining windows and rose-bedecked gardens of Summer Street, there are lots of secrets. There’s the one that hard-working single mother, Faye, hides from her teenage daughter, Amber. And there’s the one that thirty-year-old Maggie hides from herself.When fiery Amber decides to throw away her future for love, and when Maggie ends up back home looking after her sick mother, their secrets begin to bubble over.The only person on Summer Street who appears to know all the answers is their friend Christie. Wise and kind, she can see into other people’s hearts to solve their problems. Except that this time, the secrets she’s hidden from her beloved husband and grown up sons suddenly reappear.When the past comes alive for Maggie, Faye and Christie, they finally have to face it.
Past Secrets
Cathy Kelly
Copyright (#ulink_d8bd29ce-0a92-5a9f-88e1-07d83c4fdbc0)
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.
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Copyright © Cathy Kelly 2006
Cathy Kelly asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.
Source ISBN: 9780007268658
Ebook Edition © February 2012 ISBN: 9780007389353
Version: 2017-10-28
Praise (#ulink_c3d3fb5f-3da7-5924-83b5-f628a0f337b9)
Praise for Cathy Kelly:
‘A tear-pricking writer, capable of making you care about her characters.’
Daily Mail
‘Totally believable.’
Rosamunde Pilcher
‘An upbeat and diverting tale skilfully told…Kelly knows what her readers want and consistently delivers.’
Sunday Independent
‘Warm and delightful.’
New Woman
‘An absorbing, heart-warming tale.’
Company
‘Her skill at dealing with the complexities of modern life, marriage and families is put to good effect as she teases out the secrets of her characters.’
Choice
‘Kelly dramatises her story with plenty of sparky humour.’
The Times
‘Kelly has an admirable capacity to make the readers identify, in turn, with each of her female characters…’
Irish Independent
For Laura, Naomi and Emer
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u7efcf490-ae92-5308-8e72-8844897080e1)
Title Page (#ua0d3b00b-044b-5205-be56-49b090b54265)
Copyright (#u8d33d0c0-c860-55fa-af2c-203f15d7eca5)
Praise (#uf637a521-826f-59a3-8faf-e2ecf9ab4d90)
Dedication (#u70fbaf13-14da-52a6-9be9-2377412a476f)
CHAPTER ONE (#ue57440f9-27c2-589d-8bc0-879bb28efc76)
CHAPTER TWO (#ua1ec5428-c4ac-5e29-b958-14298aeb960e)
CHAPTER THREE (#u5f0d0406-08bd-5b06-a08b-6d6f3bcc5a00)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u0eb07061-32c5-520c-9211-2a9cc974d7e7)
CHAPTER FIVE (#udb671a83-1545-51a3-8969-3b8964b94b92)
CHAPTER SIX (#u9bd6585c-c427-58df-906a-6aacb8e70fce)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#u07100e42-10bb-58f5-86c2-ffcb888d683f)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
Excerpt from The House on Willow Street (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
By the same author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_1f63b9e1-887b-5b85-b673-1f6156ea07ba)
If a road could look welcoming, then Summer Street had both arms out and the kettle boiling.
Christie Devlin had lived halfway up the street for exactly thirty years in a small but exquisite red-bricked house that gleamed like a jewel in a necklace of pretty coloured stones.
Summer Street itself was curved and ran for half a mile from the crossroads where the café sat opposite a house which had once been a strawberry-ice-cream shade and was now a faded dusky pink.
From the moment Christie had seen the graceful curve of the street, where maple trees arched like kindly aunties over the pavement, she’d known: this was the place she and James could raise their family.
Those thirty years had gone in a flash, Christie thought on this beautiful late-April morning as she went about her chores, tidying, dusting, sweeping and wiping.
Today the sun streamed in through the windows, the house seemed filled with quiet contentment and Christie didn’t have to go to work. She loved her job as an art teacher at St Ursula’s secondary school, but she’d cut back her hours recently and was relishing the extra free time.
Her dogs, Tilly and Rocket, miniature dachshunds who had clearly been imperial majesties in a previous life, were sleeping off their morning walk on the cool of the kitchen tiles. The radio was playing quietly in the background and the old steel percolator was making the rattling death throes that signalled the coffee was nearly ready. All should have been right with Christie’s world.
And it was – except for a niggling feeling of disquiet. It had been simmering in her subconscious since she’d awoken at six to the joyous chorus of birdsong outside her bedroom window.
‘Happy Anniversary,’ James had murmured sleepily when the alarm went off at a quarter past and he rolled over in the bed to cuddle her, to find Tilly squashed between them. The dogs were supposed to sleep on their corduroy bean-bags on the floor, but Tilly adored the comfortable little hollow in the duvet between her master and mistress. James lifted the outraged dog and settled her at his other side, then moved closer to Christie. ‘Thirty years today since we moved in. And I still haven’t finished flooring the attic.’
Christie, wide awake and grappling with the intense feeling that something, somewhere, was wrong, had to laugh. Everything was so normal. She must be imagining the gloom.
‘I expect the floor to be finished this weekend,’ she said in the voice that could still the most unruly class in St Ursula’s. Not that she had ever had much trouble with unruly students. Christie’s love of art was magical and intense, and transferred itself to most of her pupils.
‘Please, no, Mrs Devlin,’ begged James, in mock-schoolboy tones. ‘I don’t have the energy. Besides, the dog keeps eating my homework.’
Panting, Tilly clambered back defiantly and tried to make her cosy nest in between them again.
‘The dog would definitely eat the homework in this house,’ James added.
Christie took hold of Tilly’s warm velvety body and cuddled her, crooning softly.
‘I think you love those dogs more than you love the rest of us,’ he teased.
‘Of course I do,’ she teased back. Christie had seen him talking adoringly to Tilly and Rocket when he didn’t think anyone noticed. James was tall, manly and had a heart as soft as butter.
‘Children grow up and don’t want cuddles, but dogs are puppies for ever,’ she added, tickling Tilly gently in her furry armpits. ‘And let’s face it, you don’t run around my feet yelping with delight when I get home from work, do you?’
‘I never knew that’s what you wanted.’ He made a few exploratory barking noises. ‘If I do, will you whisper sweet nothings to me?’ Christie looked at her husband. His hair was no longer a blond thatch. It was sandy grey and thinning, and he had as many fine lines around his face as she had, but James could still make Christie smile on the inside.
‘I might,’ she said.
