Prologue

      Amsterdam, 1997

      Daisy adjusted the focus on the camera and zoomed in. He was waving his hands about as if to say ‘ta-dah, look at us, in Amsterdam, without a care in the world’. He made her laugh when he tried to be the joker. He wasn’t a joker at all, he was quiet, reserved, and serious, but her heart soared at his efforts to always make her happy, and she clicked the shutter over and over again, as if wanting to impress this moment on her mind forever.

      ‘Beautiful lady, what are you doing standing over there?’ He smiled at her and then, much to her horror, and in a very un-Hugh-like manner, he gestured to a man busy making his way to work, his briefcase in one hand. ‘Isn’t she one of the most gorgeous women you’ve ever set eyes on?’

      The man grumbled, looked momentarily in her direction and gave a small smile and a nod.

      ‘Hugh!’ she shrieked, dying internally of embarrassment whilst also secretly enjoying the attention.

      ‘Well,’ he called over the cobbled street to her. ‘They all need to know!’ He paused, fumbled in his pocket. ‘You think that was embarrassing, wait for this!’

      Her heart quickened. What was he doing?

      He stopped, looking briefly serious and said more quietly, ‘Daisy, come over to this side.’

      He brushed his foppish fringe out of the way with his free hand, the other remaining firmly in his pocket. ‘Curtains’ he had told her gravely, ‘they’re called curtains.’ She knew he was dying to cut them off but, again, he wanted to fit in with her friends.

      ‘How can a hairstyle be called curtains?’ he’d asked the day before. ‘I mean that’s a house furnishing, not a haircut.’ She had kissed him all over, inhaling deeply the scent of Ralph Lauren Polo and told him he should have the haircut he wanted. Eventually, he agreed; post-Amsterdam, he would visit his favourite barber and get rid of said house furnishings.

      She watched him steadily now, refusing to go over to his side, teasing him. She swallowed a laugh as he shuffled from side to side impatiently in his Skechers. Skechers had been another display that he was a ‘man of the time’. The fact that they were still alarmingly white and new made them even more conspicuous. They didn’t suit him and he hated wearing them but as he told her, ‘I don’t want you to think I’m just some boring finance guy who wears chinos and boat shoes.’ Even though they both agreed that he was in fact all of the above. Maybe not boring, just well behaved. Daisy, on the other hand, was a party animal that flitted between the gym, clubbing – she had to show Hugh ‘big box, little box’ – and the odd lecture. Why exactly she had chosen French, she had no idea – and as she had pointed out to her main lecturer, her classmates were French; where was le justice in that?

      ‘Excuse moi, uhh…’ She had paused, given herself time to think with the old ‘uhh’ trick and said, ‘Mes amis…’

      Her lecturer had cut in, smiling kindly. ‘Just speak English.’

      ‘OK,’ she agreed. ‘My classmates are all French, where’s the justice in that?’

      Mr Faron smiled. ‘Why did you choose French?’

      Truthful answer: she thought she might finish the three years as a cultured, thin, beautiful, long-fingered, cigarette-smoking woman who rattled off the language to her sexy French friends.

      ‘I want to go into business with the French,’ was what she had actually said.

      What her teacher didn’t understand was that she came from the back end of beyond, in other words a farm in Gloucestershire, and she had never really had a penny to her name. So she had wanted to better herself.

      It was partly the reason she had fallen for Hugh. He was intelligent, very serious and could talk about stocks and shares and GDP something or other in his sleep; actually, come to think of it, Daisy knew he actually did talk about those things in his sleep.

      She brought herself back to the now, and after a moment or two more of watching Hugh, she couldn’t bear it any longer. Why did he look so nervous?

      She jogged over to the other side of the bridge towards Hugh, who went to take her hand, but instead she teasingly dipped down to sniff a display of perfectly formed yellow tulips. As she bent over, she was aware of Hugh’s eyes on her and she pretended to study the flowers. She knew he was undressing her with his eyes. Not much guesswork involved, really, as she wore a crop top and bike shorts. She was lucky, she guessed, that she hadn’t piled the weight on at university – she was, as Hugh affectionately called her, a gym bunny. They had met in their second year; the most unlikely couple, according to her friends. Yet, here they were, at the end of their three-year degrees, in Amsterdam, carefully avoiding the subject of what they planned to do next.

      Eventually, she looked up and took a sharp intake of breath; it was as if he had read her mind.

      ‘Hugh, what are you doing?’

      He was down on one knee holding open a box. Inside, lay a simple silver ring with a diamond.

      ‘Hugh!’ she squealed. ‘What on earth are you doing?’

      He still hadn’t spoken, red creeping up his neck.

      Finally, he cleared his throat. ‘Daisy, would you do me the greatest honour and become my wife?’

      She stood, mouth agog. Her life flashing in front of her. Wasn’t she too young? Hadn’t they only just left university?

      She shook her head and his face crumpled but then she grinned; he looked confused. What was she thinking? She loved this man. They could spend the rest of their life together, have children, live happily.

      ‘Yes,’ she shrieked and hugged him so hard he wobbled and fell onto the pavement. ‘Yes, you silly, funny, beautiful man. I will marry you!’

      She had lost all previous inhibitions and smiled at the now small gathering of onlookers who clapped her decision.

      Hugh gathered himself, relief written across his features and he took her into a firm embrace, kissing her deeply.

      ‘We’ll be together forever,’ he whispered and she melted into his arms, as she breathed in the smell of cologne on his skin. She thought she could die happily as long as she was never separated from Hugh.

      She had never felt so safe in her life.

      Of course, she didn’t know that she would lose Hugh to cancer twenty years later.