An Endless Cornish Summer Read online

  AN ENDLESS CORNISH SUMMER

  Phillipa Ashley

  Copyright

  Published by AVON

  A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2021

  Copyright © Phillipa Ashley 2021

  Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021

  Cover illustrations © Hannah George/Meiklejohn

  Phillipa Ashley 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 ebook 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.

  Source ISBN: 9780008371630

  Ebook Edition © June 2021 ISBN: 9780008371647

  Version: 2021-05-14

  Dedication

  For the Cambridge COG UK team

  With thanks

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Keep Reading …

  About the Author

  Also by Phillipa Ashley

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  ‘OK, love?’ Rose’s gran waved through the window of the isolation ward. Granny Marge hadn’t moved from her post outside for the past two hours.

  She wasn’t able to enter the sterile room where Rose was lying in bed. At seventy-nine years old, and not in the best of health herself, Marge had often remarked that she should have been the one lying in the hospital bed. Yet it was Rose who was vulnerable.

  Rose’s mother Stella would be back in a moment – maybe. She’d come over from California on a rare visit to see her daughter before the transplant. She’d gone for a coffee – another one. Rose knew she couldn’t cope and needed an excuse.

  Rose understood that it was hard to deal with someone being so ill, especially your own daughter, even if you’d grown apart over the years. Rose’s mother had been on the threshold of a glittering career as a TV producer when she’d become pregnant with Rose after a one-night stand. Her father had been an actor, apparently, and Stella hadn’t even had time to tell him about Rose before he’d been killed in a motorcycle accident, after a night of drinking.

  Stella had come back to the UK to have Rose, but returned to America when she’d been offered a dream job on a long-running series. Rose had stayed in the UK, and her mother had provided for her financially, coming home when she could.

  It was Granny Marge who had taken on much of the responsibility for bringing Rose up. Stella had wanted her to go to school in an English village and have the stability that staying with her grandmother could bring. Rose had missed her mum, but she’d enjoyed being at school in England and had been excited to get a place at Cambridge to study archaeology, which had made her gran almost burst with pride. Rose’s late grandfather had been a librarian and was very keen on history. Sadly, he had passed away when Rose was still at nursery school but one of her few recollections of him was being taken to a castle by the sea. They’d arrived by boat, she recalled, but the rest of her memory of him was hazy. Her grandad had sailed them there and Rose had later discovered it had been St Mawes Castle in Cornwall. He’d loved to sail in his spare time but had died before he could teach Rose.

  Granny Marge spoke of him often and fanned the flames of Rose’s own passion for the past, especially ancient worlds. It helped that there were books everywhere in the cottage, spilling out of bookcases, piled up by beds and stacked by sofas like literary Jenga blocks.

  Eventually, Rose had studied A-level history at the local high school, and, encouraged by her gran, had applied to read archaeology at Cambridge. To her amazement, she’d got a place. She’d never forget the day she walked into the college hall, dressed in a black gown and carrying her mortar board. She’d half-expected to find Professor Dumbledore waiting at the High Table to welcome her and the other students. In reality, it was a woman about her mother’s age with green hair and a Geordie accent.

  Rose resolved to make the most of her opportunity and one day, perhaps, stand in front of a new intake of freshers herself, ready to teach them the wonders of archaeology.

  The thought of those happy – naive – times brought back bittersweet memories. She’d no idea, then, of the storm waiting beyond the horizon. It was several years later before she’d begun to feel ill and more until she got a final diagnosis.

  At first, she’d expected them to tell her they knew exactly what was wrong with her and how to treat it, but it had taken months to diagnose her condition as aplastic anaemia.

  ‘That doesn’t sound so awful,’ her gran had said, sitting by her side. ‘Lots of people are anaemic. You can sort that out, can’t you?’

  The consultant’s brief, kind smile had given Rose the answer even before she’d explained. Besides, Rose had been on Dr Google too many times not to realise what her symptoms could mean … what the worst-case scenario was.

  ‘Aplastic anaemia isn’t the same as other types, I’m afraid,’ the consultant had told her gently. ‘It means your bone marrow isn’t making any of the blood cells your body needs to function healthily, which is why you’re feeling so tired and light-headed.’

  ‘Does that explain the bruises and headaches?’

  ‘Y
es, it does.’

  Rose remembered her gran’s hand tightening around her own, hurting her fingers as the consultant went on to explain that she would need a bone marrow transplant – also called a stem cell transplant – or her condition would deteriorate and that without one, the outcome wouldn’t be good. Rose knew what that meant. She could – would – die without a transplant.

  ‘I can donate my stem cells!’ her mother had said when the news had been broken via phone call.

  ‘You’re too old, Mum,’ Rose had explained. ‘I don’t have any close relatives so I’ll probably have to hope there’s a match on a global register.’

  Her gran had managed to contact several second cousins and anyone of the right age in the village, while Rose’s best friend Maddie had organised a campaign to get all her student friends to be tested. No one proved a match, so Rose had no choice but to hope for someone from the bone marrow donation register. She’d tried to be positive and not let her grandmother know how worried she was, but she knew that her gran wasn’t fooled and that the worry must be bad for her own health.

  Even though she’d tried to stay optimistic, those long weeks between going on the register and waiting to hear if a donor was suitable were an exquisite form of torture. Her whole life was on hold. With her studies paused, there was nothing to do but wait, while the weeks ran out as slowly and surely as sand in an hourglass. Then came the moment she was told that a match had been found – and quicker than Rose had ever dreamed. She’d wept with relief at the news but had immediately been overwhelmed with the weight of expectation. Granny Marge and Maddie had been in tears and her mother had been jubilant, but Rose knew it was only the start of a long process with no guarantee that the outcome would be a success.

  For the past few weeks, she’d had conditioning therapy to remove her existing blood stem cells, so that the donor’s cells could be added to her blood as soon as possible and start to rebuild her immune system. The treatment had ended the day before and she’d been in isolation in her own hospital ward since then, to protect her from infection and prepare her for her stem cell transplant. It was hard to know if the sick and weak feeling was from fear and excitement, or side effects of the chemotherapy drugs used to destroy her stem cells.

  Granny Marge waved again and mouthed ‘I love you’. Rose recalled the conversation they’d had the previous day. Her mother had been flying over from LA at the time, but Rose wouldn’t have wanted to have the conversation with her mum anyway.

  ‘What if it doesn’t work?’ she’d said to her grandmother.

  ‘It will. Your donor match was excellent. Your consultant said so.’

  ‘But what if it doesn’t? What if …’

  ‘No “what ifs”. It will work and you will get better.’ Granny Marge’s blue eyes had twinkled. ‘I intend to see you finish that PhD and be a professor. You’ll be on Time Team with that Baldrick bloke next.’

  ‘Gran, they don’t make Time Team any more.’

  ‘Well, whatever. You can be on something with that nice Neil whatshisname. The Scottish one with the lovely hair.’

  ‘I’d rather be on TV with Alice Roberts,’ Rose said, amused at her gran’s description of Neil Oliver. ‘But I’d settle for just getting my PhD one day and any job in archaeology.’

  Her grandmother had smiled and patted her hand. ‘You will never have to just settle for anything, my love. You’re a star.’

  Smiling back, Rose had accepted a kiss on the forehead and a hug, knowing that it would be the last physical contact she would be able to have for quite a while. She’d be in isolation for weeks after the transplant while her immune system rebuilt itself, with the aid of the donor’s stem cells.

  She closed her eyes, imagining what he must be like. Tall or short? He was British, she knew that, and most donors tended to be fit, healthy and under thirty. Fit young men made the best donors and Rose had absolutely no quarrel with that.

  She hardly dared dream that she could resume her PhD. Her brain was like cotton wool these days. It used to be sharp and adored learning; she had loved studying for her degree in archaeology, and her master’s but she’d had to give that up when she became ill. Lately, she’d barely had the energy to open a book, let alone take in complex ideas. The headaches hadn’t helped either.

  It was almost impossible to remember what normal life was – or that it would ever come again. She had to cling on to it, not let it slip away, give up hope …

  The nurse came in, dressed from head to toe in full PPE. She smiled with her eyes and her voice was matter-of-fact, but kind. There was no hint that Rose’s life was about to be saved.

  ‘Well, Rose. It’s time for your very special cocktail,’ she said in a cheerful voice. ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘As I’ll ever be.’

  ‘Good …’ The nurse looked at her. ‘But it’s OK, you know, to feel apprehensive as well as excited. It’s a big moment.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘So, do you have any more questions before we start the procedure?’

  Of course she did, but they were the same ones she’d asked before, and had answered by the consultants. The same ones that she turned over in her head a hundred times, never really being satisfied with the answers. Her fate was as unknowable as an object lying buried in the earth. No one could tell her the answer to her biggest question: would she live or die?

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ she replied. ‘I think I’d just rather get it over with.’

  The nurse’s eyes crinkled. ‘OK. Then, let’s get the show on the road.’

  Rose smiled and tried not to worry about the way her pulse rate had shot up as the nurse connected up the bag to her central line.

  Let’s get this show on the road. Should there not be fanfares? A circus parade? Party poppers and fizz spraying high into the air?

  Instead, there was only the whirr and beep of monitors, and the occasional comment from the nurse, explaining what she was doing.

  It didn’t hurt at all. The nurse simply connected a fresh plastic bag to the drip stand next to her bed.

  Just a bag. A plastic bag of orangey-red liquid that reminded her of the tomato soup sometimes served by the college.

  It could have anything in it.

  Rose stared at it, fascinated. A bag of life.

  She giggled.

  ‘What’s amused you?’ the nurse asked, with only the briefest glance while she concentrated on adjusting the tubes connecting Rose’s central line to the stem cells bag.

  ‘That.’ Rose nodded at the life-saving fluid. ‘It’s a bag of life, rather than a bag for life. Like you get in Tesco’s when your old one’s worn out.’

  The nurse’s eyebrows met in confusion and she hesitated before nodding and laughing. ‘Oh, yes. I see what you mean.’

  Yet Rose knew she didn’t really. She could have no idea of what that bag meant, no matter how many patients she’d connected up before, how many she’d helped, or how much training she’d had in patient care.

  No one could know unless they’d been through it themselves.

  The nurse finished setting up the drip, constantly asking if Rose was OK, staying with her to talk a while longer to make sure Rose understood what to expect during her isolation over the coming weeks and the treatment she’d have to counter the effects of the transplant.

  Then, she left. Rose looked around her. There was no one at the window. Even though a chance for life was literally flowing into her veins, she had a sense of being utterly alone in the world. There was only her now.

  Then, suddenly, Granny Marge was back at the window, waving, her arm around Rose’s mother, whose face was streaked with mascara. Her mother blew her a kiss and Rose lifted a hand to blow one back but felt too weak. She really wanted to sleep … She’d had none the night before.

  She watched the bag drip, drip, drip the precious gift into her veins, and felt a surge of hope and fear that almost made her shout out. Today was the start of her new life and if she survived
, she vowed to make the most of every moment.

  Chapter One

  Four years later, early March

  ‘Rose, honey …’

  Rose glanced up. Her mother was standing by the armchair with a china cup and saucer.

  ‘Here’s your tea.’ She wrinkled her nose while handing it over. ‘It’s that Yorkshire stuff you can stand a spoon in. I couldn’t find anything else.’

  ‘Gran wouldn’t have anything else,’ Rose said. ‘She loved a good strong cuppa.’

  ‘I brought some herbal with me just in case,’ her mother said, sipping a brew that Granny Marge would have described as ‘cats’ pee’.

  The thought brought a smile to Rose’s face; one of the few that she’d enjoyed over the past few weeks since her grandmother had passed away. Even now, with her mother by her side, the clock on the mantelpiece seemed to tick more loudly than it had before, emphasising the emptiness of the space. Rose drank her tea, while her mother answered a phone call. Knitting still lay on the workbox; a pile of Mills and Boon paperbacks were piled by the armchair, with her grandmother’s tablet on top of them.

  Rose didn’t think she would ever get used to her grandmother not being in that chair, even though it had been two weeks since they’d laid Granny Marge to rest.

  Her mother had flown over for the funeral and stayed at the cottage since.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Rose’s mother said as she finished her call. ‘It was one of the executive producers. I hate to say this, but I can’t stay here forever. I’m going to have to get back to work.’

  Although Stella Vernon’s American accent had become more pronounced over the years, the East Anglian popped out from time to time, especially when she was agitated or upset.

  ‘It’s fine,’ Rose said mechanically. ‘I’ll be OK.’

  Her mother patted her hand before surveying the sitting room. ‘At least your gran left you the cottage so you won’t be homeless. It must be worth quite a bit, even though it’s not actually in the city. I heard Cambridge house prices have rocketed.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been checking the property pages lately.’