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       Copyright

      Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      1 London Bridge Street

      London, SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in the UK by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

      Copyright © Beth Morrey

      Jacket design by Claire Ward. Illustration © Stefania Infante/Richard Solomon Artists

      Beth Morrey asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

      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.

      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, down-loaded, 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.

      Source ISBN: 9780008334024

      Ebook Edition © February 2020 ISBN: 9780008334048

      Version: 2019-10-15

       Dedication

      To Mum, Dad and Ben – my first oikos

       Epigraph

       Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back.

      Attributed to Plato

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Copyright

      Dedication

      Epigraph

      PART 1

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

       Chapter 14

       Chapter 15

       Chapter 16

       Chapter 17

       Chapter 18

       Chapter 19

       Chapter 20

       Chapter 21

       Chapter 22

       PART 3

       Chapter 23

       Chapter 24

       Chapter 25

       Chapter 26

       Chapter 27

       Chapter 28

       Chapter 29

       Chapter 30

       Chapter 31

       Chapter 32

       PART 4

       Chapter 33

       Chapter 34

       Chapter 35

       Chapter 36

       Chapter 37

       Chapter 38

       Chapter 39

       Chapter 40

       Chapter 41

       Chapter 42

       Chapter 43

       Chapter 44

       Chapter 45

       Chapter 46

       Chapter 47

       Chapter 48

       Chapter 49

       Acknowledgements

       About the Author

       About the Publisher

       PART 1

       ‘Let your hook always be cast; in the pool where you least expect it …’

      Ovid

       Chapter 1

      It was bitterly cold, the day of the fish-stunning. So bitter that I nearly didn’t go to watch. Lying in bed that morning, gazing at the wall since the early hours, I’d never felt more ancient, nor more apathetic. So why, in the end, did I roll over and ease those shrivelled feet of mine into my new sheepskin slippers? A vague curiosity, maybe – one had to clutch on to that last vestige of an enquiring mind, stop it slipping away.

      Still in my dressing gown, I shuffled about the kitchen making tea and looking at my emails to see if there were any from Alistair. Well, my son was busy, no doubt, with his fieldwork. Those slippers he bought me for Christmas were cosy in the morning chill. There was a message from my daughter Melanie but it was only to tell me about a documentary she thought I might like. She often mistook her father’s tastes for mine. I ate dry toast and brooded over my last conversation with her and for a second bristles of shame itched at the back of my neck. It felt easier to ignore it, so instead I read the newspapers online and saw that David Bowie had died.

      At my age, reading obituaries is a generational hazard, contemporaries dropping off, one by one; each announcement an empty

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