For Better For Worse
A dramatic read from Sunday Times bestseller, Pam Weaver, filled with bigamy, scandal and friendships which bring hope in the darkness. The perfect read for fans of Katie Flynn and Maureen Lee.July 1948. As Britain recovers from WWII, Annie Royal is looking to the future. Recently married to Henry, and with a baby on the way, she and her new husband are happily settled in the seaside town of Worthing.But a knock at the door brings Annie’s world crashing down. On her doorstep stands Sarah and her two young children. As they talk, Sarah reveals that she is Henry’s wife – and she has been searching for him since he walked out on their family a year ago.Struggling to believe what she’s hearing, Annie is forced to accept the truth when Henry is arrested for bigamy. Alone, with no one to support her, and with the baby due to arrive imminently, Annie must look to the most unlikely of places to find support in her darkest hour…
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PAM WEAVER
For Better For Worse
HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers in 2014
This ebook edition published by HarperCollins Publishers in 2017
Copyright © Pam Weaver 2014
Pam Weaver 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: 9781847563637
Ebook Edition © July 2014 ISBN: 9780007480456
Version: 2017-03-13
This book is dedicated to Tony and Audrey Hindley and Polly McLelland. Thank you for all the times you’ve encouraged me. If they gave out medals for encouragers, you three would share the winner’s podium.
Table of Contents
July 1948
It was gone. Really gone. She’d spent the past hour hunting high and low for it, but it was no use. She couldn’t find it anywhere. She’d tried all the usual places first: the drawer, the kitchen dresser, her coat pocket, but she quickly drew a blank. She’d even been outside and looked down the street in the hope that it hadn’t fallen from her pocket, but she couldn’t see it. Her stomach was in knots. After everything else, this couldn’t be happening. Having tried the obvious places, for the past ten minutes she’d been looking in the pram, the toy box and the outside lav, places where she knew it couldn’t possibly be, and yet she hoped against hope that she’d find it.
‘Have you seen Mummy’s purse?’
Jenny pushed her silky brown hair out of her eyes and looked up at her mother with a blank expression. She was a pretty child with long eyelashes. Born in the middle of the war, she was Sarah’s first child.
‘My purse,’ Sarah said impatiently. ‘Have you taken it to play shops?’
‘Oh, Mummy,’ her daughter tutted, one hand on her hip and her mother’s scolding expression on her face, ‘I’m not playing shops. This is dolly’s tea party.’
Sarah frowned crossly. ‘Don’t get lippy with me, young lady. I asked you a question. Have you seen my purse?’
Her daughter looked suitably chastised. ‘No, Mummy.’
Sarah’s heart melted. She shouldn’t have spoken to her like that. She wasn’t having a good day either. Just an hour ago, Jenny had come into the shared kitchen with a worried frown. ‘Mummy, Goldie isn’t very well.’
Sarah had followed her back up to the bedroom and sure enough, her pet goldfish was floating on the top of the water. Slipping her arm around her daughter’s shoulder, Sarah had to explain that Goldie wasn’t ill; she had died and gone to heaven.
Jenny had stared at her mother, her wide eyes brimming with tears. ‘But why?’
Why indeed, thought Sarah. ‘It just happens, darling. Fish get old and die. It was Goldie’s time to go.’
‘Is that what happened to Daddy?’ Jenny’s words hung in the air like icicles and Sarah had swallowed hard. Her heartbeat quickened and she felt very uncomfortable. It was at that moment she realised she should have talked to her daughter before. She had no idea the poor little mite had been thinking that Henry was dead. ‘No, darling,’ she’d said, drawing her closer. ‘Daddy isn’t dead. Daddy went to live somewhere else.’
‘Why Mummy? Didn’t he like living with us?’
Sarah had taken in a silent breath, wondering how on earth she could answer that. She didn’t really understand herself, so how was she going to explain to a six-year-old why her father had simply packed his bags and walked out? Up until that moment she had thought Jenny was coping well. She’d seemed to accept that Henry had gone away, but as they’d talked Sarah could see that that Jenny hadn’t really understood after all.
