The Dream House Read online

  Rachel Hore worked in London publishing for many years before moving with her family to Norwich, where she teaches publishing at the University of East Anglia. She is married to the writer D. J. Taylor and they have three sons. Her previous novels are The Dream House, The Memory Garden, The Glass Painter’s Daughter, which was shortlisted for the 2010 Romantic Novel of the Year award, A Place of Secrets, which was picked by Richard and Judy for their book club, and the latest Sunday Times bestseller A Gathering Storm.

  Praise for A Gathering Storm

  ‘With a serious eye for exquisite detail, Hore’s latest, brilliantly crafted novel aptly follows a photographer, Lucy. She takes a journey to capture past, life-changing family secrets, embracing three generations along the way, across Cornwall, London, East Anglia and Occupied France’ Mirror

  Praise for A Place of Secrets

  ‘Sumptuous prose, deft plotting, lush settings, troubling personal histories, tragedy, heady romance and even a smattering of eighteenth-century scientific wonderment mark Hore’s fourth novel as her most accomplished and enthralling yet’ Daily Mirror

  Praise for The Glass Painter’s Daughter

  ‘Another of this year’s top offerings [is] Rachel Hore’s The Glass Painter’s Daughter. The main character, Fran has returned home to look after her dying father’s glass-cutting business. Overshadowing the central love affair with colleague Zac and an unfolding mystery involving a stained-glass window is the pall of imminent death’ Daily Mail

  Praise for The Memory Garden

  ‘With her second novel, Rachel Hore proves she does place and setting as well as romance and relationships. Tiny, hidden Lamorna Cove in Cornwall is the backdrop to two huge tales of illicit passion and thwarted ambition . . . Clever stuff’ Daily Mirror

  ‘Pitched perfectly for a holiday read’ Guardian

  Praise for The Dream House

  ‘A beautifully written and magical novel about life, love and family . . . tender and funny, warm and wise, the story of one woman’s search for the perfect life which isn’t quite where she thought she would find it. I loved it!’ Cathy Kelly

  ‘The Dream House is a book that so many of us will identify with. Moving from frenzied city to peaceful countryside is something so many of us dream of. Rachel Hore has explored the dream and exposed it in the bright light of reality, with repercussions both tragic and uplifting, adding her own dose of magic. It’s engrossing, pleasantly surprising and thoroughly readable’ Santa Montefiore

  First published in Great Britain by Simon and Schuster UK Ltd, 2006

  A CBS COMPANY

  This paperback edition 2012

  Copyright © Rachel Hore, 2006

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention

  No reproduction without permission

  ® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

  The right of Rachel Hore to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

  1st Floor

  222 Gray’s Inn Road

  London WC1X 8HB

  www.simonandschuster.co.uk

  Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney

  Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-84983-531-2

  eISBN 978-1-47112-716-8

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is purely coincidental.

  Typeset in Palatino by M Rules

  Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR04YY

  Acknowledgments

  Many friends have been supportive during the writing of this book. I would particularly like to thank Juliet Bamber and Dr Hilary Johnson for their sensitive comments on the manuscript, Dr Ann Stanley for advice on medical matters, and Bob and Janet Mitchell for photography, laptops and encouragement.

  In the publishing world, great thanks to my agent Sheila Crowley and to Suzanne Baboneau, Melissa Weatherill, Joan Dietch and the team at Simon & Schuster. Also, thank you to Nick Sayers for advice.

  Finally, it would have proved impossible to write this novel without the loving support of my family. I am particularly indebted to my husband David who helps in so many ways, and to Felix, Benjy and Leo, who occasionally allowed me use of ‘their’ computer.

  For my mother and to the memory of my father

  Contents

  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 1

  London, November 2002

  ‘Come on, come on, please answer,’ Kate mouthed into the receiver. Her eyes focused on the photo of her husband, Simon, with Daisy and little Sam on the wall of her grey, windowless office as she listened to the distant ringing. Finally she dropped the phone back onto its cradle. Where could Tasha be? Surely Sam wasn’t worse or the nanny would have rung her.

  Kate reached down, riffled in her bag for her mobile and hit Tasha’s mobile number. Straight to voicemail. Damn.

  ‘Tasha – it’s me, Kate. Hope you’re OK. I need to know how Sam is. Can you ring me at the office when you’ve got a moment?’

  She shoved the phone into the pocket of her jacket, trying to ignore her butterflies of panic. Sam probably just had a bad tummy bug but it had been so horrible seeing him hot and limp this morning, and he’d even thrown up the water Kate had given him. Of course, Tasha was more than competent, but . . . I should have stayed at home with him, she told herself fiercely, rung in sick myself.

  No, you shouldn’t, said an irritating voice in her head. Tasha can manage perfectly well by herself. What would have happened if you hadn’t been at the television studios this morning holding Susie Zee’s hand? Susie would probably have refused to appear on the chat show at all and there would have been an awful stink then, I can tell you.

  Kate had to agree that the uncomfortable voice of reason had a point. Susie, a sweet but very needy person, was a singer-songwriter and Kate’s employers, Jansen & Hicks, had just published her no-holds-barred autobiography. As publicist for the book, Kate had been shepherding Susie around London media-land for the last week, attempting to protect her from the fallout of her confessed affairs with various famous figures in the music business. Even now Kate had taken a huge risk by leaving Susie in the care of the London sales representative for a book-signing and, crossing her fingers that all would be well, hailing a cab back to Jansen & Hicks’s offices on Warren Street. Her plan now was to deal with the worst of the urgent tasks waiting for her and to sneak off home early
.

  Kate glanced at her watch – twelve fifteen already – and surveyed the horror of her desk. She’d only been out of the office for a morning, and look at it! Towers of new books, tottering piles of papers and magazines, even a heap of plastic toy trolls with Day-Glo hair to promote a children’s fantasy title. Why do people just dump things on me any old how? she thought, grumpily, brushing a strand of dark hair off her face and stabbing at the ‘on’ button of her computer. She wished, not for the last time, that she had an assistant but, alas, she was not high enough up the ladder for that.

  The telephone rang now and she snatched it up, hoping it was Tasha.

  ‘Kate? Adam here. Sorry to bother you with another problem, but . . .’

  Kate’s heart dived. Adam Jacobs was a first-time novelist in need of large dollops of TLC. Normally she would be happy to provide reassurance, but today she just wanted to get him off the line. As she listened to his latest complaint – his local bookshop not stocking his novel – she jammed the receiver between jaw and shoulder and started sorting through the mess. She balanced books in piles by the desk, swept the trolls into a box, stashed papers and circulars into various trays.

  ‘Adam, don’t worry, really, I’m sure there’s a simple explanation. Whoops!’ A pile of books fell crashing to the floor. ‘Look, I’ll e-mail the sales rep straight away. Yes, yes, yes, I know. Must go, I’m afraid. Bye, now.’

  She threw down the receiver, shuffled the fallen books into a pile then started plucking the Post-it notes off her computer screen.

  The phone rang again. ‘Kate, it’s Patrick. Where the hell were you?’

  Oh my God. How could she have forgotten? She was supposed to have been at that meeting with him and his best-selling crime author! Patrick, the publishing director, was pitching for a new contract and the author had badly wanted reassurance about the publicity side of things.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she gulped, ‘it just slipped my mind. I’ve been out of the office . . . I know, it’s too late, isn’t it. I’m sorry. It’s Susie . . . No, I know, Patrick – yes, I know it’s my fault. Yes. Sorry.’

  He slammed down the receiver and she buried her face in her hands, his angry voice still ringing in her ears. If they didn’t win a new deal with the author, he had hissed, it was all down to her.

  Well, it is your fault really, said the headmistressy voice of conscience once more. You shouldn’t try to fit quarts into pint pots.

  But I’ve got too much to do and no one to help me. How can I be everywhere at once? Kate countered.

  You could organize yourself a bit better. Say ‘no’ more often.

  Kate sighed. Yeah, and then they’ll say I can’t cope. ‘These working mothers, their brains go, you know.’ She’d heard Patrick say something along these lines only last week, the bastard. His assistant had left two months after returning from maternity leave because she ‘clearly couldn’t take the pace any more’. He meant being in the office until seven every night and taking work home, Kate presumed.

  At moments like that she wished she had a Harry Potter wand. Then she’d magically marry Patrick to a high-flying career girl followed swiftly by a high-flying mortgage and the arrival of triplets who only needed three hours’ sleep a night – different lots of three hours. That would fix him.

  ‘Hi, Kate. It looks like you’re off again,’ declared Annabelle, her boss Karina’s secretary, materializing at her office door in a cloud of Anna Sui perfume. ‘Karina’s just rung. She’s stuck on the train back from Leeds, so you’ll have to go to the James Clyde lunch instead of her.’

  Fussy, elderly James Clyde. The last person Kate could handle today.

  ‘Oh that’s great – just what I need,’ Kate groaned, running both hands back through her dark bob. She simply could not face the celebration lunch for his eighteenth political thriller, due to be held today in the company’s private dining suite upstairs. There must be someone else who could go instead . . .

  Annabelle understood immediately what was in Kate’s mind, for she said hastily, ‘There’s only me and you left – and I’m busy. Someone’s like gotta answer the phones round here.’

  Something snapped inside Kate. She rose out of her chair and leaned across the desk. Two spots of red suffused her normally pale Celtic complexion and her green eyes blazed with dislike. At five feet five, she just had the edge on little mini-skirted Annabelle. ‘Well, you’ll just have to answer mine for a change, then,’ she snarled. ‘And make sure you bring me up any urgent messages. Some of us have real work to do.’

  The main course had been cleared away and dessert served: a pretty strawberry mousse patterned with blackcurrant coulis and spun sugar. The select gathering in the small but elegant dining room of Jansen & Hicks included the company chairman, Robert Goss, James Clyde, a portly balding man in his mid-sixties, Clyde’s longsuffering editor, Felicity, two sales managers and Kate. So far, Kate had been invited to express her opinions on the following subjects: last Saturday’s Chelsea game, about which she knew nothing and cared less; the new décor in the reception area downstairs; Jeffrey Archer’s latest venture . . . She surreptitiously looked at her watch – one thirty – and felt for the mobile in her jacket pocket. Could she get away with excusing herself to go and try Tasha again?

  But James Clyde chose that moment to ask Kate archly, ‘And what other exciting projects are you working on at the moment, my dear?’

  Kate thought quickly. ‘I’m really pleased with the way our book The Lost Generation is going,’ she told him. ‘It’s about the highlife of the nineteen twenties. There have been some great reviews already. The launch-party is at the Oxo Tower. And then there’ll be the TV series—’

  But Clyde’s concentration had snapped back to its usual focus – himself.

  ‘That’s just what I wanted to talk to you about, Robert,’ he addressed the chairman in his reedy voice, jabbing his spoon in the air for emphasis. ‘I don’t seem to be getting the review coverage I used to. How about leaning on that fellow at the Sunday Times book pages a bit, eh?’ he chuntered.

  Kate remembered last week’s conversation with the journalist in question, who was, incidentally, not a ‘fellow’ at all. ‘James Clyde? God, is he still alive?’ she’d said.

  At this, Robert Goss calmly did what he always did in awkward circumstances. He delegated.

  ‘Well, Katherine? It’s true we’re not getting notices for James’s books. What are you doing about it?’

  Kate’s hand froze on her water glass. She replayed in her mind another conversation a couple of weeks ago in which she had actually pleaded with the editor of Motoring Monthly to photograph the portly Clyde in his silver Lamborghini holding his book aloft. It was the only piece of publicity anyone had managed to get for him.

  As her mind spun, searching for the right way to wriggle out of this one, the cavalry arrived in the unlikely form of Annabelle, who sashayed into the room without even a tap on the door.

  ‘Messages for Kate,’ she breathed, batting her long eyelashes and brushing against the chairman, she handed Kate a sheaf of yellow Post-it notes before dematerializing again.

  The male contingent took a moment to recover from this visitation and Felicity tactfully moved the conversation away from reviews.

  Kate sat and looked over Annabelle’s childish handwriting, her relief at the interruption quickly evaporating. The top one ran: Susie, Borders bookshop. Upset. Pl. ring. Oh well, that was predictable. The next message went, Yr husband rang. Crisis mtg work. Won’t get back for dinner party sorry. Oh no, something else she’d forgotten! She’d invited Liz and Sarah round with their husbands. Oh hell, not with Sam sick. She’d just have to cancel yet again! The third was a message from Tasha – at last. At doctor’s. But Sam much better. Thank heavens for that, Kate thought, feeling the tension finally leave her body. But then she stared at the last note and felt her stomach go into freefall. Urgent. Daisy’s school rang. Daisy has rash – meningitis??? Go to Chelsea & Westminster Hospital
.

  Later, Kate wouldn’t be able to remember exactly what happened next, though Felicity told her she’d committed the cardinal sin of interrupting one of Robert Goss’s shaggy dog jokes. She just remembered arriving down in the lobby, her heart thumping, her body shaking, gazing round wildly. She shoved at the revolving doors – why were they so slow? – and found herself on the pavement. Tube or taxi? Like a madwoman she waved frantically at every passing black cab until finally an empty one stopped. She snatched open the door and threw herself onto the back seat, then explained the crisis to the driver, who nodded sympathetically and swung the cab immediately across three lanes to make it through the right-turn filter light just in time. Kate clutched the strap for dear life as the driver dodged his way south-west through the traffic. There arose in her mind a picture of little Daisy, six years old, blonde and blue-eyed, with that funny lopsided grin that lit up her face. The idea of her ill in a hospital bed with tubes sticking out in all directions was too much after the tension of the day.

  After a moment, she searched with her free hand for her handbag to find a tissue to blow her nose. It was then she realized she’d left the bag in her desk drawer. This was just the final straw. How was she going to pay for the cab? She reached in her jacket pocket, pulled out her phone and brought up Simon’s office number.

  ‘Why are we putting ourselves through all this?’ Kate said wretchedly to Simon later – ten fifteen that evening, in fact. Her husband had walked in through the door of their terraced house in Fulham, exhausted and starving, twenty minutes ago and was now sitting opposite Kate at the kitchen/breakfast-room table shovelling down the Chicken Basque she’d cobbled together last night for tonight’s cancelled dinner party. ‘Life is like one long obstacle race at the moment.’

  Simon put down his fork and looked at Kate from under his blond cowlick. He rubbed his eyes, then reached across to squeeze her hand.