Joanna Glen - All My Mothers: The heart-breaking new novel from the author of the Costa-shortlisted debut, THE OTHER HALF OF AUGUSTA HOPE

The Borough Press An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2021 Copyright Joanna Glen 2021 Jacket design by Andrew Davis HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021 Jacket images: Shutterstock.com Author photograph Eva Tarnok Joanna Glen 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 authors 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.

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One of those rarest of books: so beautiful I almost couldnt bear it, and so moving I was reading through tears STACEY HALLS Uniquely witty, beautifully observed, intricately woven MIRANDA HART A truly glorious life-affirming book, in which love, hope and friendship trump sorrow DINAH JEFFERIES Honest, heartfelt and hopeful MARIANNE CRONIN,
author of The One Hundred Years of Lenni and MargotA moving meditation on motherhood, family, friendship and love CELIA REYNOLDS Beautiful ANNE GRIFFIN, author of When All Is SaidA beautifully human story of fragility and resilience GRINNE MURPHY, author of The GhostlightsWorth every tearWOMAN & HOMEBoth exquisitely tender and powerfully compelling SARAH HAYWOOD, author of The CactusA joy to read ANNE YOUNGSON A love song to women everywhere ERICKA WALLER, author of Dog DaysA glorious journey into loving & longing, rich with colour & warmth ANSTEY HARRIS Heartrending and heartwarming CELIA ANDERSON, author of The Secret Gift of Lucia LemonThe most exquisitely written story of human love in all its forms JESSICA RYN, author of The Imperfect Art of CaringA deep delight of a book that vibrates with love and longing HELEN PARIS, author of Lost PropertyA therapeutic dose of high-strength emotionGUARDIANThis gem of a novel entertains and moves in equal measureDAILY MAILKeep the tissues closeGOOD HOUSEKEEPINGAn irresistible message of redemption and belongingRED magazine Full of the reality of hope and despair in everyones lives MIRANDA HART Heartening and hopeful JESS KIDD, author of Things in JarsIts going to be all over every book club in Britain before you can say BurundiTHE TIMESMesmerizingly beautiful SARAH HAYWOOD, author of The CactusAn extraordinary masterpiece ANSTEY HARRIS Gutsy, endearing and entertaining DEBORAH ORR Absolutely brilliant GAVIN EXTENCE, author of The Universe Versus Alex Woods In memory of my beloved mother,
Jennifer Simmonds. Contents To Beth from Eva March 2008 From the beginning, there were bumps under the rug where things had been swept, which meant I couldnt walk the way other people did. Free and easy. With a bounce in my step and my head held high.

Thats the way I want you to walk, Beth. Ive swept nothing under the rug in this story. Our story. The story of you and me and your mother.

Were supposed to begin as the apple of our mothers eye. But I was more the maggot in the apple.

Speaking of my mothers eyes, they were always darting about, as if she was following a fly, and not seeing me properly. My father (who veered between London and his familys estate in Jerez de la Frontera) seemed to see me better. We liked to talk, he and I, and I often had the feeling that he was on the cusp of telling me something important and deciding against it. Perhaps youd like to hear about the little girl I was. I was full of the most unbearable longing. The Portuguese have a word for it: saudade a yearning for a happiness that has passed, or perhaps never existed.

My saudade was like travelling in a car on a dark road and seeing, for a second, a lit window, and then, very quickly, not seeing it. I grew up in a smart part of London called Chelsea, like the football team, although I cant imagine that any of our neighbours were interested in football. They were interested in expensive cars and chauffeurs and the shape of their bay trees, which sat on highly polished steps around our private lawned square, in which there was a golden-rain tree, a row of cherry blossoms and beds of tall tulips in spring. Our big posh house, at the corner of the square, was four storeys high, with a shiny black front door. My fathers domain within the house was painted white with splashes of multicolour made by his modern Spanish paintings. It included the tiled hall, his study, packed with books from floor to ceiling, and the garden room, which led onto a courtyard.

When we first arrived in Chelsea from Spain, my father asked Rory the gardener to turn our courtyard into an Andalusian patio, sending him off on an aeroplane to Crdoba because the patio-gardeners of Crdoba are the best of anywhere in the world. (And, although he was wrong about most things, my father was right about this.) On the ground floor there was a large kitchen, for which my father had bought black chairs with chrome-tubed legs that didnt meet my mothers approval. Next to the kitchen, there was a small apartment I never visited, where Mean Mary, our housekeeper-nanny, lived. The rest of the house (except the roof terrace) was my mothers domain, and from the first floor to the fourth, it was rouge-pink, with ruched rose curtains and pink velvet sofas, my mother having rejected the teak and oatmeal fashionable in London circles at the time. There were thick carpets and fat cushions and triple-lined curtains, too heavy for my small hands to draw. The school I went to was St Hildas a smart little private school, where smart little girls wore olive-green and grey uniforms.

I started there on 5 September 1979, the same day as Lord Mountbattens funeral, which was taking place down the road at Westminster Abbey. The queen is extremely upset, said my mother. Did she phone you? said my father, not looking up from his enormous newspaper, which he held in his outstretched arms. The backs of his hands were covered in black hair. In fact, all of my father was covered in black hair. It burst out of his shirt collar and the tops of his socks, like those chimpanzees they used to dress up for tea adverts.