ONE CHRISTMAS MORNING, ONE SUMMERâS AFTERNOON: 2-SHORT STORIES
One Christmas MorningOne Summerâs Afternoon
Tilly Bagshawe
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
77â85 Fulham Palace Road,
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk
One Christmas Morning First published in Great Britain by Harper 2012
One Summerâs Afternoon First published in Great Britain by Harper 2013
Copyright © Tilly Bagshawe 2012, 2013
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2013
Cover images One Christmas Morning © Simon Wilkinson/Getty Images (woman); Shutterstock.com (illustrations)
Cover images One Summerâs Afternoon © Keith Wright/Getty Images (woman); Shutterstock.com (background)
Tilly Bagshawe 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 authorâs 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: 9780007472543, 9780007472550
Ebook Edition © December 2013 ISBN: 9780007564279
Version: 2014-07-31
ONE CHRISTMAS MORNING
TILLY BAGSHAWE
Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
77â85 Fulham Palace Road
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk
This ebook first published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2012
Copyright © Tilly Bagshawe 2012
Cover images © Simon Wilkinson/Getty Images (woman); Shutterstock.com (illustrations)
Tilly Bagshawe 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 authorâs 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.
Epub Edition © December 2012 ISBN: 9780007472543
Version: 2014-07-31
âAll right, Michael, letâs try it again, shall we? And this time maybe without the finger up your nose.â
Laura Tiverton gave what she hoped was an encouraging smile to the six-year-old boy on stage. The child glared back at her sullenly. For a Christmas angel in the Fittlescombe village Nativity play, Michael OâBrien was sadly lacking in festive spirit. Not that Laura blamed him for that. At this point she wanted nothing more than to go home, lock the door, pour herself an enormous Laphroaig and eat an entire bowl of Cadburyâs chocolate buttons in front of Downton Abbey.
ââWe Three Kings of Orient Areâ, from the top.â She forced the jollity into her voice as Mrs Bramdean launched into the familiar chords on St Hildaâs Primary Schoolâs famously out-of-tune piano. What on earth possessed me to agree to direct this fiasco? Laura thought despairingly. Iâm a screenwriter, not a schoolteacher. I donât even like children. Then she thought about the baby sheâd miscarried in the summer â Johnâs baby â and for the hundredth time that week found herself fighting back tears.
Twenty-eight years old, with a mane of curly hair the same blue-black as a crowâs feathers, pale skin and soulful, dark eyes like two wells of oil, Laura Tiverton was both attractive and successful. After three years spent working as a writer on two BBC dramas, last year sheâd finally produced a pilot of her own, a show about a newly qualified teacher from the shires left to sink or swim in a failing inner-city comprehensive school. Although the series wasnât ultimately commissioned, Laura was already winning praise for herself as an innovative and talented young TV writer. Her love affair with the BBCâs very handsome, very married Head of Drama, John Bingham, had only served to raise her profile further as one of the corporationâs brilliantly rising stars.