Whatever It Takes Read online

  Copyright © 2012 Adele Parks

  The right of Adele Parks to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2012

  Front photograph © Craig Fordham

  www.sarahkaye.com

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  eISBN : 978 0 7553 7136 5

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About the Author

  Praise for Adele Parks

  Also by Adele Parks

  About the Book

  Dedication

  July

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  August

  Chapter 5

  September

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  October

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  November

  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

  January

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  February

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  July

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  September

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  October

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Acknowledgements

  Preview of The Stranger In My Home

  Adele Parks worked in advertising until she published her first novel, PLAYING AWAY, in 2000, which was the debut bestseller of that year. All of Adele’s novels have been top ten bestsellers and her work has been translated into twenty-five different languages. Having lived in Italy, Botswana and London, Adele now lives in Surrey with her husband and son. Adele works closely with the Reading Agency as an Ambassador of the Six Books Challenge, a programme designed to encourage adult literacy. In 2011 she was a judge for the Costa Book Awards.

  Follow Adele on Twitter @adeleparks or visit her website www.adeleparks.com

  Praise for Adele Parks:

  ‘A beautifully written, thoughtful exploration of love and loss . . . This is Parks at the top of her consistently excellent game and is one of those rare books you won’t stop thinking about until long after you turn the final page’ Daily Mail

  ‘Sweet, sharp and simply unforgettable’ Lisa Jewell

  ‘A wonderful exploration of love’ Katie Fforde

  ‘Well observed, original and wonderfully crafted’ Sun

  ‘A sweet, moving and romantic story that will captivate you from the first page’ Closer

  ‘Adele Parks’ novels are a fabulous mix of comedy, real life and emotional depth’ Daily Express

  ‘Deliciously down to earth’ The Times

  ‘Full of emotional set-pieces and real insight into relationships between men and women’ Heat

  ‘Dark, funny and observant’ Cosmopolitan

  ‘When it comes to fiction reflecting feminine issues, Adele Parks has her finger on the pulse’ Glamour

  ‘Guaranteed to keep you hooked until the end’ She magazine

  ‘Entertaining and sophisticated’ Marie Claire

  ‘Compulsively addictive’ Elle

  ‘One of the great things about Parks’ characters is that even though you don’t know them, you feel like you very well could do . . . brilliantly written, engaging and a pleasure to read’ Daily Mail

  ‘She is a particularly acute observer of relationship ups and downs, and her stories are always as insightful as they are entertaining’ Daily Mirror

  ‘Parks writes with wit and a keen eye for detail’ Guardian

  ‘Crisp dialogue and canny details make this a novel you might actually relax with: no need to call it a guilty pleasure with someone this experienced at the helm’ Independent on Sunday

  ‘Parks’ skill for tackling big relationship issues makes this an enjoyable yet enlightening read’ Prima

  ‘Observant, sensitive and funny, we like this a lot!’ Closer

  ‘A wicked pleasure’ Woman & Home

  By Adele Parks

  Playing Away

  Game Over

  Larger Than Life

  The Other Woman’s Shoes

  Still Thinking Of You

  Husbands

  Young Wives’ Tales

  Happy Families (Quick Read)

  Tell Me Something

  Love Lies

  Men I’ve Loved Before

  About Last Night

  Whatever It Takes

  The State We’re In

  Spare Brides

  For Londoner Eloise Hamilton, there can be no greater sacrifice than uprooting to Dartmouth, leaving her perfect world so that her husband Mark can live in his. Good marriages need compromises, don’t they?

  Eloise’s friend Sarah is desperate to have a baby. She’s tried everything – without success. So Eloise comes up with an extreme plan to help her. Because isn’t that what best friends do?

  Mark’s mother Margaret feels like she’s losing her mind. But when the true extent of her problem is revealed and a life-changing secret emerges, Eloise suddenly finds her world imploding as she struggles to hold everything together for the people she loves. Someone is bound to be overlooked, and the damage might be irreparable . . .

  For Alex King and Will Moore.

  JULY

  1

  Sun-faded, handmade bunting fluttered in the breeze. The floral triangles artfully framed the patio door that led out to the small but stylish deck, the prequel to a minute patch of grass that only Londoners (and very ambitious estate agents) would dare describe as a garden. There was a slim border around the edge of the garden that in February boasted delicate snowdrops and in March hosted stout daffodils and tulips; sadly the roses never took. There was only one tree, a birch tree, and on close inspection it became apparent that even it didn’t belong to the Hamilton family but was, in fact, rooted in their neighbours’ garden. It was not pruned and, like an errant and curious cat, it had jumped the fence and adopted them. The overhang effectively took up a third of their space but the Hamilton girls were all too happy to nurture and call it their own. Nurturing, in this instance, took the form of adorning it with vast amounts of white fairy lights that caused the burdened branches to bow and scrape.

  There were several pretty pastel-coloured lanterns lined along the garden walls. Like the fairy lights, the lanterns would come into their own after dark, they’d glow beautifully later that evening; everyone was expecting it to be a long party.

  Their last party.

  Eloise glanced at the barbecue that was beginning to sizzle tantalisingly. She reassured herself that the table was stacked with cheerfully coloured plastic plates, beer and wine glasses and that there was a huge tub of ice tucked neatly underneath. People did not eat from sagging paper plates at Eloise’s events, she always hired in. She tutted as she noticed a small and incongruous assortment of discarded toys scattered about, including a slightly deflated football, a cracked plastic bucket (with turrets) and a doll that had clearly had the dubious ‘benefit’ of being victim to one of her daughters’ make-over sessions – she was bald and wore glitter eye shadow on her protruding plastic belly. These toys had obviously fallen beneath the children’s notice and had not made it into the packing boxes. It had been a ruthless cut. Other than the abused toys the effect was perfect. Just what Eloise had hoped for. The bunting, fairy lights and lanterns said whimsical, yet fun and inviting. She always worked hard at recreating the sort of tableaux that might be seen in glossy magazines.

  The Hamiltons threw a lot of parties. They always had. They were party people through to their souls. The house-warming party – way back when – had been legendary. They’d bought food
from the Bluebird food emporium and only served champagne (which set a precedent for all their subsequent dos). The Bluebird didn’t have a food emporium now; it had been replaced by a frighteningly exclusive designer shop that sold expensive clothes and, somewhat disconcertingly, chandeliers. Eloise frankly preferred it if a shop did one thing or another and she was always baffled when they didn’t abide by this rule. Of course, John Lewis sold both clothes and chandeliers but only very ordinary versions of both, which upset her less. Over the years, Mark and Eloise had thrown lavish Christmas, birthday, Easter and summer holiday parties here in Muswell Hill. The accent on the impressive catering had been modified on occasion. For a while, when the girls were tiny, the sushi was swapped for mushy but they’d continued to serve champagne and El always took care to do something notable; a bubble machine, colour themes, a magic show, a bouncy castle (squeezed into the postage stamp-sized garden). She once hired a lady who gave manicures and another who gave massages for one of her birthday parties, and they’d had pole-dancing lessons in the sitting room for their tenth wedding anniversary (Eloise still harboured vague feelings of disquiet about that one; she thought the guests loved it and she hoped they knew she was being ironic). Yes, the Hamiltons’ parties were something of an event among their many friends. Eloise was known for her attention to detail and generous hosting. She wouldn’t want to disappoint. Especially not today. First impressions, last impressions. It’s what it was all about.

  Of course, this wasn’t going to be their last party ever, at least, God, she hoped not. But it was their last here in their Muswell Hill home. The home Mark and Eloise had bought when they married. The home that they’d scampered back to following the hospital births of their three babies. Eloise could barely recall the tiny, precious, overwhelming bundles when she looked at the faces of the confident girls, now aged eleven, nine and seven. This was the home that, in a constant attempt to be ahead of the curve and impressive, they’d initially decorated with oxblood red and royal blue, then with impractical ghostly white hues and finally muted taupe and complementing mauves. Would the next owners redecorate? The thought caused Eloise to gasp. Probably, she admitted to herself. Face facts.

  Eloise didn’t hold the fanciful notion that a house was one of the family; not exactly. But she did think of it as the backdrop for the family, the safety net. It was the measure of their aspirations (their debt), their triumphs (their disasters). It had acquired a personality of sorts and, certainly, a pulse.

  And Eloise had loved it here. Loved being here. Being in the true ‘to be or not to be’ sense; the sense of existing, living. Here. They were moving out. Not just out of the street or even out of Muswell Hill but out out. Out of London. Out of the M25 concrete girdle and, frankly, she was terrified. Yes, of course she knew there were other places to live in the world. She was aware that there were almost seven billion people on the planet and the last census showed that only approximately seven million of them lived in London, but the problem was . . . the truth was . . . she wasn’t sure there were other places for her to live in the world.

  By contrast, Eloise’s husband Mark had wanted to move out of London practically since the day he’d moved in. His heart was in Dartmouth where he’d grown up; bobbing on boats, clambering over hills and paddling in the sea. Yes, Eloise realised that, put like that, a Dartmouth life did seem idyllic – probably was idyllic and exactly where their family ought to be – but she’d grown up in the urban jungle and she maintained it had never done her any harm. Mark always raised an eyebrow when she said as much but resisted mentioning the fact that, following a spate of violent break-ins in their road, she slept with her handbag and the fact that she couldn’t swim – water terrified her (unless it was the sort she was sluiced with at a state-of-the-art spa). He didn’t need to say these things; they were a deeply intimate couple who knew one another inside out and as such they understood the value of not pointing out one another’s frailties on too regular a basis.

  Eloise was a Londoner, born and bred, and that was fundamental and formative. If she was to be cut wide open, the traditional system of nerves and arteries wouldn’t be revealed, rather it was more likely that the Tube map would be found. She knew the roads, the parks, the shops, and the signature of the individual zones that made up the whole. She could describe in detail the fastest way from any London destination to any other. It was her party piece. If someone were to say, ‘Tate Britain to Camden Market’, she’d say, ‘Exit Tate Britain, six-minute walk to Pimlico Tube station (nine-minute if you were an out-of-towner), take the Victoria line – five stops – change at Warren Street, a further two stops on the Northern line, get off at Camden Town station and the market is just a few minutes’ walk along the high street.’ And that was not even a route she’d deigned to follow for over a decade (she was rather more Islington High Street than Camden Market now). London was what Eloise knew. What she was.

  Mark had long since argued that Londoners were some of the most closed-minded people on the planet because they didn’t want to travel the world. Eloise always counter-argued that was because London was the destination, it was the world.

  ‘Where else can you find streets with dozens of different cuisines, numerous places of worship for various denominations, couture as diverse as the sari, the mini, and the burka and yet still expect a decent cup of Earl Grey?’ she’d demand.

  Mark also often commented in passing that it would be nice not to have to park his car approximately two miles away from his home because of the overly enthusiastic yellow-line daubing that the local council seemed to indulge in. He’d frequently mentioned that it might be grand to have a garden where the trees were actually rooted.

  ‘But there are beautiful parks in London,’ argued Eloise.

  ‘Yes, but trying to secure a space in one of them, any time from April to late August, requires SAS tactics and foreign office diplomacy skills.’

  It was true that sometimes when they were picnicking on Hampstead Heath, they’d had to sit so close to other families that it looked as though the two families were dating or even mating. ‘Space is at such a premium in London,’ Mark had stated, with increasing regularity, over the past year or so.

  ‘Proving I’m on to something with my theory that everyone wants to live here,’ Eloise would counter swiftly.

  ‘But the problem isn’t just in the parks, streets, Tube, bars, shops and schools, we’ve run out of room in our house too.’

  Eloise couldn’t deny this. When they’d moved in they’d had so much space, entire spare rooms, but they’d since stuffed those rooms with babies and, well, plastic things. Mark was a solicitor and as such he often needed a space to work from when he was at home so they’d had to turn the box room into an office. There was room for his desk, books and files although when El took him a cup of coffee she did find it a bit claustrophobic, especially if the cats followed her. It was such a small room that some might call it a large cupboard – indeed, before all the breeding, they’d used it as a cupboard.

  The girls had two bedrooms between the three of them. Officially, Poppy and Erin, the younger two, shared one and Emily, the eldest, shared the other with the toys (and spare jackets, boxes of old CDs, books, photo albums and the camping equipment). Over the past year Emily, in particular, had become increasingly resentful of how everyone’s possessions seemed to smudge and bleed into someone else’s personal space, and her resentment had often taken the form of her flinging her family’s things out of her bedroom window. El had been particularly embarrassed when the elderly gentleman who lived next door returned a bundle of her greying knickers; they’d been in a laundry pile that had found itself on the wrong end of one of Emily’s tantrums.

  ‘We need more space,’ was the sentence Mark uttered most frequently (that or maybe ‘Have you seen my iPad?’). Eloise finally stopped arguing with him and simply sighed.

  ‘I know, you’re right. You almost always are, which, frankly, can be as annoying as it is useful. I don’t think any of us could bear to live through Emily’s teenage angst years without at least two more rooms to which we might be able to run for cover.’

  ‘Fact is, we simply can’t afford two more rooms in London. Last time I checked we didn’t have a spare several hundred thousand pounds in loose change hiding down the back of the sofa,’ stated Mark. ‘And then there’s the school problem.’