It Had to Be You
Life after Deborah reaffirms Nobbs as the best writer of comedy and observer of the nuances of human nature that there is today.One man, five very different women.James Hollingshurst is a man shaped by those who surround him. And in James's case, it's some very different women. Be it his trusty wife Deborah, his hapless PA Marcia or his ex-girlfriend Jane. And there's one woman in James's life who looks set to upset the status quo…But a tragic accident is about to shake the bedrock of life as James knows it. An event sets a train in motion, which will challenge everything he's ever known and everyone he's ever loved. It will also bring his beloved daughter, Charlotte who he has not seen for fifteen years, tantalisingly close to him…
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David Nobbs
It Had to be You
For the Goddard and Stubbs families, who have brought
so much pleasure into my life
Contents
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Other Books by David Nobbs
Copyright
About the Publisher
A husband and wife were driving, in separate cars, towards two very different luncheon appointments. It was a glorious June morning, quite unsuitable for sudden death, yet only one of them would arrive.
Deborah Hollinghurst was driving along a quiet country road. She was in danger of being early, and she really didn’t think it would be stylish to be early, not today, not yet. So she was driving sedately, at a steady forty-five miles an hour along the winding road, to the irritation of the drivers of a couple of vans that had once been white. Her car was a convertible, but the roof was not down. She didn’t want the wind in her hair, not today. Next month she would be forty-seven. She was still lovely, but she was beginning to feel that her loveliness needed all the help it could get. Especially today. She felt excited, but also a little fearful. The fear was only faint, but it was getting stronger with every mile that she drove. She felt as if she was about to step off the edge of the world. Her world, anyway. She told herself that she didn’t have to step off. Nothing had been decided. She didn’t believe herself. She knew that everything had been decided.
A rabbit with myxomatosis stood at the side of the road, blind, impervious, a stone statue, like a ghastly garden sculpture of a rabbit. Deborah swerved to put it out of its misery, shuddered at the squelch of the tiny impact, on that glorious June morning, so unsuitable for sudden death.
A heron flapped slowly, contentedly across a field beside the road. Soon, if it had its way, a fish would meet its sudden death. The calm of the morning was illusory, its beauty marred by a thousand little tragedies.
To James Hollinghurst the morning had no beauty. The windows of the totally unnecessary 4 x 4 were closed, the air conditioning was on, his world was a mobile fridge, summer had no place in it, summer had been banished as a frivolous nuisance. He was on the M1, in the middle lane. He was in danger of being late, and he didn’t think it would be wise to be late, not today.
He was anxious. It was not going to be an easy meeting. He put his foot down. Eighty-five. Ninety. Ninety-five. He didn’t want to be caught on a speed camera, but anything was better than being late today.
He was listening to Classic FM. The adverts began, and he leant forward and pressed a button, which switched the radio over to another channel. He didn’t like the adverts. Their repetition irritated him. He had dark, unruly hair, thick untamed eyebrows, a high forehead and a low boredom threshold.
The next station that he found had music on it, or what passed for music. ‘Call that music,’ he shouted. He shouted at the radio a lot. It was what he had it on for. He was forty-eight. He was on quinapril, amlodipine and bisoprolol hemifumerate for his blood pressure, and simvastatins for his cholesterol.
Unfortunately the music stopped, and the DJ announced that he was going to speak to Tracey from Doncaster. James groaned. It was very possible that Tracey from Doncaster was a lovely girl. He often met people who were much nicer than the towns they lived in. But he didn’t think Tracey could tell him anything that he really needed to know at this moment. He switched back to Classic FM. The adverts were almost over.
‘We’ve more relaxing music for you in the next hour,’ purred the presenter in the honeyed, reassuring, faintly patronising tone adopted by almost all the announcers on Classic FM.
‘Relaxing?’ groaned James. He desperately needed to relax. Packaging was the first thing to suffer in a recession. If people had bought less, they had fewer things to pack. But he didn’t want to listen to relaxing music. He wanted to be transported into another world by great music. ‘I know you’ve done a lot for classical music,’ he told the presenter sorrowfully. After all, the man sounded nice and was probably kind to his wife. ‘But really, is that what you think great music is about? Did Beethoven say, “Darling, I think I created something memorably relaxing this morning”? Did Mrs Mahler find Mahler spark out as she brought him his morning coffee? “Sorry, Ingeborg, this symphony I’m writing is so relaxing I must have nodded off.” Give me great music. Stirring music. Please.’
He reached forward to press the button again, feeling a stab of pleasure at reducing the announcer to impotence. How he wished people could feel it when he switched them off. ‘Bad news, Monty. We’ve lost James Hollinghurst. The bastard was distinctly unimpressed. He’s switched over to BBC Radio 3.’
He accelerated with a sudden surge of impotent anger, and swung out into the fast lane. Surely, the way James was driving, if one of the Hollinghursts was to have a fatal accident that day, it would be him?
