Lisa Jewell - Vince and Joy

Lisa Jewell is in her thirties and was born and raised in north London, where she lives with her husband and their baby girl, Amlie Mae. She worked as a secretary before redundancy, a bet and a book deal took her away from all that. She is the author of four huge bestsellers: Ralphs Party, Thirtynothing, One-Hit Wonder and, most recently, Friend of the Family.

Thank you, as ever, to Judith and Sarah. My books would all be unfinished and unpublished if you two didnt have a hand in the early stages. Please dont; ever emigrate, die or go blind.

Thanks to Siobhn, who really had her work cut out for her trying to smooth out my wayward timelines. Thank you for ensuring that everyone was gestating, menstruating, marrying, divorcing and ageing at roughly the appropriate times. No one deserves to be pregnant for twelve months.

Thanks to Oh Paxton for the beautiful cover, to Rob for the brilliant words and to Louise for being the Best Editor in the World. Thanks also to Mel, without whom there would, literally, have been no book. And lastly thank you to Amelie, whose presence in my life has transformed me into a lean, mean, disciplined writing machine who can now throw out 5,000 words before lunchtime. Thank you for being such a good little girl and for all those afternoon naps when I managed to squeeze out another 1,000 words. You are my angel.

Vince threw his bag on to the bottom level of the stale-smelling bunks, pulled apart the papery curtains painted with ugly brushstroke daisies, and saw her for the first time.

She sat in a deck chair, her knees brought up to her chin, holding a magazine in her right hand while she picked absent-mindedly at black-painted toenails with the other. Her hair was dark brown and to her jaw, with a slight curl that kicked it across her cheeks like wood shavings. She wore all black a sleeveless vest, oversized army surplus shorts, a frayed canvas ribbon in her hair.

Vince give me a hand with the gas, mate. Chris popped his head around the cream melamine door and winked at him.

Yeah. In a minute. Vince turned back to the window and lifted the curtain again.

She was turning a page and rearranging her neat limbs. She fiddled with a small silver cross on a leather thong that hung around her neck and curled her toes around the frame of the deck chair.

Bangy, bang, bang.

A hairy fist thumping at the window disturbed his reverie.

Come on, mate. Chriss face loomed into view.

Yeah. OK. Vince let the curtain drop, and straightened up.

Shit.

There was a beautiful girl. In the caravan next door. Where for the previous four years there had been three boys, two Staffordshire bull terriers and a couple called Geoff and Diane from Lincolnshire. He stared at his reflection for a minute in the mirror above the gas fire in the living area. He was thrown. He hadnt factored the possibility of a beautiful girl into the prospect of two-weeks-on-a-caravan-site-in-Hunstanton. Thered never been a beautiful girl here before. Just an ugly girl. An ugly girl called Carol with an even uglier mate called Theresa who threw poorly phrased insults at him, then tried to get off with the sinewy guys who strode across the moving platforms of the Waltzers on Hunstanton pier, pretending to fancy ugly girls as they spun them masochistically in painted cups.

When Vince first came to Hunstanton with Chris and his mum, thered been other kids of his age to hang out with. Theyd gang together and mooch around the fairground, even went to a nightclub once. But as the years passed, they stopped coming. They stayed at home to hang out with their mates or their girlfriends, or they went on holiday with friends to places you needed a passport to get to. Even ugly Carol and Theresa seemed to have something better to do with their summer this year, evidenced by the drawn curtains of their caravan across the way.

Outside, Vince could hear Chris making friendly conversation with the mysterious girl. Fearing that he was missing out on something or, worse still, that Chris was embarrassing him in some way, he pulled his hands through his James Dean hair, ran a fingertip across the angry red scars beneath his jaw line and headed outside.

Just outside London, Chris was saying, Enfield. What about you?

Colchester, she said, sliding the silver cross back and forth across the leather thong. You know, in Essex?

Aye, said Chris, I know Colchester. Oh, look who it is. He turned to look at Vince. Vince, he said, come and meet our new neighbour. This is Joy

She was even more beautiful close up. Her skin was alabaster white, but there was something about her features that suggested something far-flung. Her nose was small and chiselled, and her cheekbones were set high in her face, but it was her eyes that held clues to the uncommon. Compact and wide-set, flat-lidded and framed with dense, dark lashes the eyes of a painted china doll.

Hi, he said, smiling his new, stiff smile.

Hiya, she said, resting her magazine on her lap and sitting on her hands.

He noticed her eyes stray to the scars on his jaw, and turned his hands into fists to stop them wandering protectively towards his face.

So, she said, are you two mates?

Vince looked at Chris in mock horror. God, no, he said, Chris is my stepdad.

Really? How come?

Well, he married my mum. He and Chris exchanged a look and laughed.

Oh, right. Of course. Just you look kind of the same age.

Yeah everyone says that. Chris is ten years older than me, though. Hes twenty-nine. Im nearly nineteen.

Right, she said, looking from one to the other, almost as if doubting their story. And wheres your wife? Your mum?

Shes at the Spar, said Chris, hauling the gas canister out of the little wooden cupboard and blowing some cobwebs off it. Getting us some tea. Should be back in a minute. Oh, talk of the devil, here she is.

Kirstys green Mini pulled up alongside the caravan and came to a halt with a crunch of gravel under rubber.

Give us a hand, you two, she said, heading for the boot.

Chris instantly dropped the canister and went to his wifes assistance. Vince nodded at Joy and rubbed at his scars.

God, is that your mum? said Joy.

Uh-huh.

Shes gorgeous.

Vince turned, expecting to see Beatrice Dalle or someone standing there, but, no, it was just his mother.

How old is she? She doesnt look old enough to have a son your age.

Thirty-seven, I think. Thirty-eight. Something like that.

Bloody hell. Shes younger than my mum was when she had me.

They both stared at Vinces mum for a while, and Vince tried to think of something to say. This was officially the longest dialogue hed ever exchanged with a girl who wasnt either in his class or going out with one of his mates, and the conversation felt like a flighty shuttle-cock he was trying to keep in the air with the force of his will alone. He wanted to ask her something interesting. Something about music maybe, or her intriguing slanted eyes. Or what a beautiful girl like her was doing on a shitty caravan site like this. A dozen potential conversational openers formed in his head and were discounted in a nano-second too personal, too naff, too boring, too much.

The silence drew out like a held breath.

Vince looked from Joy to his mums car and back again while he tried to think of the next thing to say. You staying long? he managed eventually, with a rush of blood to his head.

Another fortnight, she said, worse luck.

What happened to Geoff and Diane?

Who?

The people who own your caravan.

No idea, she said. Mum and Dad are renting it off someone or other. She pulled her hands out from under her and turned them upwards in a gesture of ignorance. She obviously didnt care about Geoff or Diane, or whose caravan she was staying in. He was officially the most boring man in the world.