Keep You by My Side Read online

  Keep You By My Side

  Callie Langridge

  Bombshell Books

  Contents

  Also by Callie Langridge

  Prologue

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Part II

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Part III

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright © 2018 Callie Langridge

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

  First published in 2018 by Bombshell Books

  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 publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

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

  www.bombshellbooks.com

  Also by Callie Langridge

  A Time to Change:

  A heart-wrenching love story

  “I would rather love passionately for an hour than benignly for a lifetime.”

  In a house full of history and secrets, the past will not stay where it belongs…

  Lou has always loved Hill House, the derelict manor on the abandoned land near her home. As a child, the tragic history of its owners, the Mandevilles, inspired her dream to become a history teacher. But in her late twenties, and working in a shop to pay off student debts, life is passing her by.

  That changes when a family disaster sends Lou’s life into a downward spiral and she seeks comfort in the ruined corridors of Hill House. The house transforms around her and Lou is transported back to Christmas 1913. Convinced she has been in an accident and is in a coma, Lou immerses herself in her Edwardian dream. With the Mandevilles oblivious to her true identity, Lou becomes their houseguest and befriends the eldest son, Captain Thomas Mandeville, a man she knows is destined to die in the First World War.

  Lou feels more at home in the past than the present and when she realises the experience is real she sets out to do everything in her power to save her new friends.

  Lou passes between 1913 and 2013, unearthing plots of murder and blackmail, which she must stop no matter the cost.

  On her quest to save the Mandevilles by saving Thomas, Lou will face the hardest decision of her life. She will learn that love cannot be separated by a century.

  A Time to Change is a beautifully written and utterly compelling time slip romance novel

  * * *

  A Time To Change - Order Your Copy Here

  Praise for Callie Langridge

  "This book is a compelling read and I highly recommend it!!!" Linda Green - Books Of All Kinds

  * * *

  "'A Time To Change' is the most enchanting, heartbreakingly beautiful and soulful novel that I have read so far this year." Kaisha Holloway - The Writing Garnet

  * * *

  "In all honestly I couldn't give this book anything other than 5 stars, it is a book that moved me and will stay with me for a while and very few of the books I read actually do that - for me it was a completely compelling read that I very highly recommend!" Donna Maguire - Donnas Book Blog

  * * *

  "Callie Longridge has crafted a very special story here, and something about this book still lingers on after I've finished reading it - always a good sign for me." Kate Noble - The Quiet Knitter

  * * *

  "A stunning portrayal of history, love and life from start to finish. I was spellbound." Alison Daughtrey-Drew - Ali - The Dragon Slater

  * * *

  "An engaging, captivating and moving tale which I thoroughly enjoyed and I can highly recommend." Vanessa Wild - Goodreads Reviewer

  * * *

  "A Time to Change is wonderful and I just loved everything about it." Nicola Smith - Goodreads Reviewer

  For Jenny, Ethel & John,

  With love, always x

  Prologue

  Gertie - Tuesday 8 May 1945 – Morning

  The day had dawned to a perfect spring morning. Just as the announcer on the wireless had predicted, an unbroken arc of blue stretched across London. But through the open window of her small upstairs flat, Gertie only vaguely registered the warmth and the chatter of her neighbours on the street below. She sat, transfixed by the contents of a letter which had landed on her doormat earlier that morning.

  Outside, crockery chinked, and women and girls laughed while they laid places at the trestle tables arranged down the middle of the road. A group of boys shrieked, their shoes slapping on the pavement, charging up and down in a high-spirited game of British Bulldog. Up on ladders, men whistled and joked, calling instructions to each other as they strung out bunting, connecting each red-brick semi to its neighbour and its neighbour’s neighbour. After six long years a cloud had lifted from the world and today was a day for celebration. A day to look to the future, not to the past. Or so Gertie had thought that morning when she woke early, so eager to prepare her contribution for the party that she hadn’t bothered to dress.

  While still in her dressing gown and slippers, she had cracked two precious eggs into a week’s ration of butter and flour and beat it to a fluffy yellow batter. She had been halfway through dividing the mixture between two greased tins when the letterbox rattled in the shared hallway downstairs.

  Now the mixture for her sponge cake sat pale and wet and raw, half in the mixing bowl and half in a tin. The kettle she had boiled to make a cup of tea had long since gone cold. For the last hour, she had not moved from her chair. She held a sheet of paper in one hand and clutched a small photograph in the other while, on the table, a tiny wilted flower lay beside the cracked eggshells. Once again, she read the single page written in the hand of the man in the photograph.

  She put her hand to her neck and felt the pulse in her throat. She had never expected to see him again. Now here he was. In her kitchen. Captured in a spilt second in time, his cap tucked neatly beneath the epaulette of his uniform, his head thrown back, mid-laugh. He looked even younger than she remembered.

  The grind of a key turning in the lock downstairs brought her back to her senses. Hastily, she folded the letter and forced it back into the envelope with the photograph and flower. Gripping the edge of the table, she eased up from the chair, the sound of the footsteps on the stairs hastening her progress. She clutched her stomach and shuffled as quickly as she was able through to the small parlour. She took a box of matches from the mantelpiece, fumbled to strike one and, as it sparked, she took a final look at the handwriting before putting the match to the envelope. As the flame licked around the edge of the stamp, the front door to the flat opened. In the same moment, a crippling pain in her stomach made Gertie bend double and she sank to her knees on the hearthrug, still gripping the envelope.

  Part I

  1

  Abi – Wednesday 22 January 1986

  ‘O
i, London!’ a voice yelled from the back row of the school coach. It was followed by a crushed Ribena carton, which narrowly missed Abi’s head, and landed on the empty seat beside her. A dribble of purple soaked into the faded orange fabric. Abi grabbed her satchel and pulled it onto her lap.

  Less than a week at her new school and she already had a nickname. She wasn’t even from London. Not that Thug would take any notice, even if she could be bothered to explain that she was from Middlesex. The massive boy in her year with hair like a brown Brillo pad had about as much in the way of brains as the stinking cow muck that filled his dad’s fields.

  ‘Where’s your apples and pears?’

  It was a girl’s voice this time. Tracey Evans – the only girl in Thug’s gang. She was almost as big as Thug, with peroxide highlights that looked like a bird had perched on her head and messed all down her greasy ponytail.

  Everyone on the back row laughed like Tracey had told an award-winning joke. Didn’t they know that apples and pears meant stairs? There was nothing funny about that. Abi really, really wanted to turn around and tell them all that they were a bunch of country bumpkins, and if they thought that wearing their school ties so only the thin end showed was cool, then they were completely tragic. Instead she slumped down in her seat. Making an enemy of the school bully and his gang was probably not the brightest idea. Not if she was going to have to spend the next few months with them on the stinking coach that bussed the farm and village kids to and from school each morning and afternoon.

  ‘Oi, Squirt!’ Thug shouted. Abi glanced across the aisle at the first-former with a pudding-bowl haircut and blue-rimmed NHS specs. Staring straight ahead, he hugged his plimsoll bag like it was a teddy bear.

  ‘Squirt,’ Thug shouted again, ‘I’m talking to you. What have I told you about respecting your elders?’

  The look on the poor kid’s face said everything. Abi was in no doubt that he’d rather put on a PE skirt and play for the girls’ netball team than do anything Thug asked of him. Slowly he peered around. No sooner was his head beyond the safety of the manky seat than he was showered with chewed up paper pellets blown through empty biro tubes. Thug and his mates did an impression of a pack of hyenas.

  ‘You all right?’ Abi mouthed across the aisle. Squirt shrugged before pulling his anorak hood over his head and tucking his knees to his chest.

  Abi rubbed a hole in the condensation dripping down the window. She stared out at the fields stretching for miles in a patchwork of squares. If she were at home now – Twickenham home, proper home – she would be walking back from school with Nisha and Sarah, sharing a ten pence mix-up from the newsagent. She had written to them twice a week for the last six weeks. They had replied once; a short Christmas card, hastily scribbled as they were on their way out shopping. The highlight of Abi’s Christmas holiday had been a trip to the school outfitters in Dorchester. While Nisha and Sarah had been rummaging through Chelsea Girl and Top Shop, she had been standing in her bra and knickers behind a curtain suspended between the Girl Guide blouses and Cub Scout jumpers, listening to Mum and Nan bicker because Mum wanted to buy everything on the school uniform list but didn’t want to borrow the money from Nan. In the end, Nan made Mum accept by agreeing that the money was a loan, which Mum could pay back when her new catering business started to make a profit. With that sorted, they kitted Abi out in an horrific assortment of grey, along with five pairs of navy belly-warmer knickers that weren’t even on the list.

  Something made a splat on the window just above Abi’s head. A blob of chewed up paper slipped down the glass in a trail of spit.

  ‘Got off lightly there, London,’ Thug shouted. ‘Wouldn’t want to spoil your shiny new blazer. Or should that be shitty blazer. Was that satchel your best Christmas present?’

  The hyenas on the back row erupted again. Only first-formers had new blazers and satchels, not fifth-formers. Mum should have painted a target on her forehead and been done with it.

  The coach stopped on a narrow country road, framed on both sides by tall bushes, stripped of their greenery by winter. Abi grabbed her duffle coat and satchel and got down from the coach. As it pulled away, she heard the sound of the hyenas knocking on the back window. She yanked her satchel onto her shoulder, hugged her coat for warmth, and turned into the lane leading from the road. The lane was barely wide enough to drive a car down. Although Mum had managed to squeeze the Cortina through on the first day of the Christmas holidays. It was the first time Mum had driven down to Dorset. Not that she had any choice; Dad had spent the entire journey in the passenger seat, barely able to stare out of the window.

  Abi kicked a clod of dried mud. It shattered into pieces. She walked slowly downhill and pushed open the gate at the end of the lane. As she stepped onto the gravel path, the view opened up before her. Grass swept down to the cliff edge. The only thing separating the grass from the coastal path and the cliff edge beyond was a low white wooden fence. Way down below, foamy waves lapped at the pebbly beach and further along the coast, waves crashed against a rocky outcrop. All around, birds hung in the grey sky. A seagull swooped low over the angry waves. At the very last moment, when it looked like the wave might rise up to pull it under, it caught a breeze and floated higher and higher until it soared above the cliffs, its wings outstretched. Higher it went, skirting the very edge of the horseshoe bay, swooping over the fields undulating like a giant green roller coaster all the way round towards Bridport.

  Abi watched the seagull float over the fields of cows and sheep until it was just a speck in the distance before she turned towards the whitewashed cottage perched high above the bay. Cliff Cottage. It was miles from its nearest neighbour or the closest village. Abi had always thought it looked like a group of cottages had gone for a day out at the beach and left one of their little cousin cottages behind.

  Making her way around the back, Abi found the kitchen door open a crack. With the range belching heat, it was often too hot to keep the door closed. She was about to step inside when she heard voices. Nobody talked about anything that mattered in front of her any more. Tip-toeing towards the door, she paused just short of the step so that nobody inside could see her.

  ‘Do you think we can cancel the order for that side of salmon?’ She heard her mum say. ‘I don’t want to end up stuck with it now the christening’s been cancelled.’

  ‘Couldn’t we cut it up and put it in the freezer?’ Nan said.

  ‘I can’t afford to pay for it. I was counting on the money from the buffet. I can’t keep the deposit. Not when the baby’s ill.’

  ‘Let me pay for it. I can treat the girls to some nice salmon sandwiches at our next bridge night.’

  Mum sighed. ‘You can’t keep bailing me out. If I’m going to make a go of this catering business, I’ve got to do it properly.’ There was a pause and Abi strained to hear. ‘Why am I even bothering? It’s a disaster from start to finish.’

  ‘Now listen to me, Rose,’ Nan said. ‘I won’t have you talking like that. You’re doing a wonderful job. I couldn’t be prouder of how you’re coping.’

  ‘Coping? Hanging on by the skin of my teeth, you mean.’

  ‘You know it’s only your hard work that’s keeping your family together, don’t you? Look at me. A frown doesn’t suit you. That’s better. I’ll have a word with Jim at the fishmongers. See if he won’t cancel the salmon order. His mum does the church flowers with me. He’s a good lad.’

  ‘Don’t go paying for it behind my back.’

  ‘Don’t be daft.’

  Abi peered through the gap between the door and the frame. She watched Nan reach across the kitchen table and take hold of Mum’s hand.

  ‘Some days I feel I’m only just clinging onto sanity, Mum. I sometimes think Mick’s not the only one going round the…’

  ‘What did the doctor say yesterday?’

  ‘He’s got to carry on taking the pills. He’s been referred to the psychiatrist at the hospital. The GP said it will take time… Time d
oesn’t pay for Abi’s new school uniform, does it? It doesn’t put food on the table… and it doesn’t bring back our home and friends and…’

  ‘I know, love.’

  ‘Abi worked so hard to get into St Margaret’s. Got the headmistress’s prize for art at the end of term awards.’

  ‘Don’t do this to yourself, Rose.’

  ‘What was the point in any of it now she’s at that awful comp? She’s got her O-levels in a few months. She should have her desk in her room back home, not shoved up in that old attic bedroom… Oh Mum, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful after you’ve taken us in–’ Abi’s mum sobbed, and Abi took a step back.

  ‘You stop right there, Rose. Who else could you turn to but your old mum, hey?’ Nan smiled and rubbed Mum’s hand. ‘I couldn’t be more thrilled to have you all here. It’s been so lonely since your dad… well since then. Don’t go worrying yourself about Abi. She’s a good girl. She’ll do well wherever she goes to school. Just so long as she’s got you and Mick.’