Take a Chance on Me: The perfect uplifting read from the TOP 10 bestselling author of Just The Way You Are

1

EMMA

I’ve been on thirty-seven first dates in the past three years. Five made it to a second. Two of those to number three. One of them even became a nearly-relationship, managing to limp along for seven weeks.

I’ve met men who never bothered dragging their eyes up above my neckline, tried to ‘loosen me up’ with shots, came right out with it and asked if I was going to sleep with them before we’d finished our first drink. Men who talked about their exes the entire time. Or about themselves. Men who lied, men who pretended to have forgotten their wallet or, on one delightful occasion, took one look at me, turned around and walked straight back out of the pub.

I’ve spent evenings with men I found eye-wateringly boring. Wasted hours with some who were rude, patronising, creepy or, in one instance, later revealed himself to be horrifically racist. I lost a whole afternoon on a pleasure cruise with a man who wore a balaclava to prevent non-existent government drones from getting a photo of his face. Two invaluable lessons learnt there: always ensure I have an escape route and never let my sister Orla set me up.

Around half my dates were fine. A good few were fun, interesting evenings, and I would have happily seen the guys again. But then he was busy, or I was busy, or he lived that little too far away or actually had just met someone else or was about to go travelling round the world for a year or…

So now, to this evening, and I was on what had turned out to be the Date of All Dates. Oh yes, this one topped them all. Not as in, ‘So, kids, this was how your father and I met.’ More like, ‘I will be retelling this terrible date story for the rest of my life.’

The man in question? My reasonably attractive neighbour, Ralph Hutchens.

The reason I was still here, with a man who had arrived drunk, proceeded to get even drunker, undone every button on his shirt because ‘it’s hotter than a brothel in this craphole’, asked the waitress for her phone number, then had the audacity to ask me why I was still single, at my age – ‘You’re what – forty?’ (I’m thirty-three) – then proceeded to fall asleep, while crying, face-first into his pasta?

Reason one: it was the Saturday after Valentine’s Day, and in my warped, semi-desperate mind even being out on a hideous date tonight somehow compensated for being at home alone every other night this week. Reason two: I wouldn’t be home alone if I’d stayed in. My littlest sister, Bridget, was getting engaged at that very moment in the apartment we shared. Reason three: I was hungry, the food here was delicious, and the least Ralph could do was buy me dinner.

Dinner was one thing – I wasn’t quite desperate enough to hang around for dessert. The instant he fell asleep I grabbed my coconut milk cheesecake, which the waitress had decanted into a takeaway box before I’d even told her I was leaving, handed her a decent tip and left Ralph Hutchens the bill.

I had, perhaps somewhat over-optimistically given my recent date track record, promised Bridget’s boyfriend, Paolo, that I would be out until late that evening. Having spoken, in person, to my charming, funny and stone-cold sober neighbour on multiple occasions, I had stuck out the ninety-minute date for eighty-nine minutes longer than it deserved, but it was still only nine-fifteen when I arrived back at the Victorian house containing the two-bedroom apartment we called home.

Tiptoeing barefoot down the hallway, praying the music emanating from our open-plan kitchen-living space would drown out the creak of my bedroom door, I crept inside, unpopped the button on my jeans and crawled under the duvet. Realising that I had no cutlery to eat my dessert with, I improvised with a credit card, then opened my laptop to Netflix. An hour later, as I prepared to turn out the light and hopefully enter blissful oblivion, the messages started pinging through to our SisterApp WhatsApp group:

Orla, second eldest sister after me:

Hey, Emma, howd your V-day date go with sexy neighbour???

Sofia, sister number three:

Did you get home ok?

Annie, older than Bridget by a full twenty-two minutes, and therefore sister number four:

Kiss goodnight after walking you home? Or walking INTO your home??

And then a text message from my Italian mother, who had no idea I’d been on a date, but always seemed to know when I least needed some ex-fiancé gossip, written in her trademark, near-indecipherable style:

Today Pam queuing at pharmacy tells me Jake and Helen having another baby. Pam say Helen is blooming again running marathons no sickness. Can you believe it Jake married and baby 3 coming and you still no man. Anyway, I gave them our love. See you Sunday, Mamma.

I sent a brief reply to my sisters, mainly to stop Sofia from worrying – she was supposed to be keeping her stress levels down:

Home safe and sound. Chose not to kiss neighbour, who seemed a lot less sexy after he had thrown up in plant pot. Will fill you in on Wednesday. You should all be too busy with your own men tonight to be worrying about my lack thereof xxx

I deleted my mum’s message. From my phone, at least. It wasn’t quite so easy to delete the pain jabbing between my ribs like a blunt pickaxe. Although, a nice long cry while working my way through half of my secret vegan chocolate stash helped. Okay, three-quarters of my secret stash, but hey – as the eldest of five sisters, three of whom were married before they turned twenty-five, and the fourth of whom was currently getting engaged, I was feeling the old-spinster-on-the-shelf pressure. That, with a big dollop of loneliness and disappointment thrown in. I had really liked sober Ralph Hutchens.

‘Morning, Old One.’ Bridget took one look at me, shuffling into the kitchen in my threadbare hoodie and faded pyjama bottoms, and jumped up to pour me a coffee, her dark bob swinging an inch above her shoulders.

‘Funny, that’s what our delightful neighbour called me last night.’ I accepted the mug gratefully, and slumped onto a chair.

‘I read the messages. Do I need to know details in case I cross paths with him in the foyer?’ Bridget slid a croissant out of the oven and onto a plate. She knew there was no point offering me one – I hadn’t eaten breakfast since Helen Richards called me The Emmapotamus in year seven.

‘He was smashed off his face. Had been with his workmates at another pub somewhere, but it’s hardly an excuse. I left as soon as he passed out. He probably won’t even remember it.’

‘That’s gross.’ Bridget’s tiny nose wrinkled in disgust.

‘It is. But this is your morning, if Paolo’s repeated messages ordering me to stay away last night are anything to go by. Tell me everything!’

She grinned, holding out her hand to show me the ring, and I breathed a silent sigh of relief at how similar it was to the ‘Dream Ring!!!!!!’ she’d put on the SisterApp a few months before. Just in case it ever came in useful for us to know what kind of engagement ring she liked. Of course, we’d immediately forwarded it on to Paolo, with #takethehint.

‘Wow, not a Haribo or a Hula Hoop! He must really mean it this time.’ I held her hand in mine, nodding appreciatively. ‘I hope he managed a better speech than the last time, too. What was it? Please don’t go to London, I want to marry you and have kids and stuff and if you go you might end up falling for some swanky southerner?’

Bridget rolled her eyes, her grin downgrading to a quirky smile. ‘This time, he said I was the most amazing person he’d ever met, he’d known we were meant to be together since we were kids and he couldn’t imagine not spending the rest of his life with me.’

‘You don’t sound massively thrilled to have been proposed to by the love of your life. Haven’t you been waiting for this for, like, twenty years or something?’

‘Well, yeah.’ Bridget furrowed her brow. ‘I think that’s it. Getting engaged isn’t some out-of-the-blue dream come true. I always knew we’d get married. I just, well, I suppose having had a couple of decades to plan it I thought he’d come up with something a bit more… memorable.’

‘Right.’

Even though we Donovan sisters had a pact to never compare anything, whether it be dress size, bank accounts, or proposals, I could understand how she felt. Annie got the top of the Empire State Building, and Moses hijacked an outdoor cinema and played Sofia a film where he’d listed all the reasons he wanted to marry her. Orla and Sam were nineteen, dealing with a surprise pregnancy, and he still took the time to make her a treasure hunt.

Even my proposal had been more effort than a meal in the flat and some roses. Although a moonlit picnic didn’t count for much when, three weeks before the wedding, I discovered Jake with his hand up my old school nemesis Helen Richards’ shirt.

‘Sorry. I sound like a spoilt bitch Bridezilla and it’s only been one day.’ She smeared an enormous blob of jam all over the remaining corner of her pastry.

‘No, I get it. You don’t want him to take it any more for granted, just because it’s inevitable. You still wanted your moment.’

She shrugged. ‘I guess it’s about time I accepted that I’ve not chosen a romantic, grand-gesture type of man. But I love him to bits, and he loves me, and I can’t wait to finally marry him. What does Mum always say? It’s not the grand gestures that make a marriage, it’s all the little ones in between.’

‘Have you told her yet?’

‘No. We thought we’d wait, get it all over with in one go at lunch.’

‘Mum’s radar’ll spot your ring the second you step into church.’

Sunday mornings, the whole Donovan tribe went to the church that Sofia and her husband Moses ran in a deprived corner of Nottingham. Well. Most of us did. My dad had come down with a horrible flu eighteen months ago, which then became post-viral fatigue, which then became something way more serious than that. As the weeks became months, instead of getting better, the chronic exhaustion and debilitating pain branched out into muscle tremors and agonising insomnia, and what was once lightning Irish wit became foggy and hard-going. After weeks of being told to wait it out and give it time, followed by months of tests and referrals and deeply offensive suggestions about wanting early retirement (to a man who arrived in England with nothing, and at the age of fifty-five owned a thriving hardware shop, which he loved only second to God, his wife and his girls), he finally got the answer we’d been dreading.

Dad had ME, otherwise known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Paolo took over running the shop, having worked there since he was fourteen.

Initially, Dad had made it clear that this was a temporary measure, repeating often to his regular clients, his family back in Ireland, the many, many friends he’d made since emigrating to Sherwood Forest, that it was only until he’d ‘got back on his feet’.

Over the past few months, those comments had been made less often. When Dad had days he could barely get up on his literal feet, the life he’d given his all to build for himself, and more importantly for his family, began to fade into the past.

Still, nobody mentioned retirement. Or disabled. Or selling up.

What does a self-made man do, when suddenly everything he worked so hard to make is taken from him?

My father, like so many men his age, grieved in private. But we saw the stoop in his once-straight shoulders, and how we missed the twinkle in his Irish eyes.

My mother, of that same generation who would fuss for weeks about a speck on the carpet but, when it came down to it, revealed themselves to have a backbone of solid steel, knuckled down and, in addition to carrying on as the shop bookkeeper and administrator, learnt how to fill the car with petrol, work the hedge strimmer, replace a tile on their farmhouse roof and all the other things you never learnt to do when you had a handyman husband. She took for better for worse, in sickness and in health as a given, and never complained once about all this greedy, grasping illness had stolen from them. She did, on the other hand, complain often – in person and in writing – to the NHS, the welfare system, and our local MP. Last June, she also raised several hundred pounds for ME research by converting the barn behind the farmhouse into a pop-up tea-room for the day. Having nagged and cajoled most of the village to stop by for what turned out to be a huge success, this year she was planning to go even bigger and better.

As for the Donovan sisters, we dealt with this as we did with everything else: we talked it out, we hugged and cried and argued and eventually apologised or told each other to buck up, or to give ourselves a break. We cooked and ate and fell apart and picked ourselves back up again. We loved each other with the fierce Donovan love. We loved our mamma, Gabriella Donovan, even as she drove us crazy, and we loved our dad, Bear Donovan, even as his sad smile and shuffling walk broke our hearts. And we told them that, often. In words and cups of tea and phone calls and lifts to hospital and cakes and snarky, family jokes that no one else could get away with.

Our family was crushed, yes. But we were not beaten.

But there was a space on the end of the row every Sunday, and I didn’t think we would ever get used to it. Or stop hoping that maybe next month, next year, Dad would take his place there again.

‘I’m skiving this morning. We’re having brunch with Paolo’s parents, then we’ll be over for lunch to break the news.’ Bridget, who could never be accused of resembling a Bridgetopotamus even after eating breakfast, brunch and lunch, stuffed in a bite of a second croissant.

‘I’d better go and sort myself out, then, try and look a little bit less like a washed-up old hag for the inevitable photos.’ I dragged myself back up off the chair.

Bridget stopped me as I went past, wrapping both arms around my waist. ‘I’m sorry that this means you’ll be last,’ she whispered into my shoulder. ‘I hope it won’t make it hard for you to be my matron of honour.’

‘Oh, Bridget.’ Was there anyone on this earth as sweet as my baby sister? I kissed the top of her head. ‘It’s not a race. I might never get married, and I’m fine with that. You’d better enjoy every second of this engagement, because I’ll be there doing all the planning and the organising and the ticking-off-checklist parts that you hate. And who knows? I might have a gorgeous man to bring to your wedding as my plus-one. Or maybe I’ll have fun flirting with the groomsmen.’

‘You never know, you could end up married before me! We’ve still got to save a deposit for somewhere to live, let alone a wedding.’

I pulled away to look at her, smoothing back the stray lock of hair that always fell over her face, as I’d done a million times before. ‘Maybe I will.’

That sister of mine always was the clever one.

2

‘Where’s Bridget?’ Mum’s Italian accent boomed at me from the end of one row of plastic chairs filling the community centre where the New Life Church, Nottingham met every Sunday morning and Tuesday night. ‘She isn’t going to miss lunch?’

Orla jerked her head round so fast her honey-blonde ponytail caught her husband, Sam, in the eye. Her raised eyebrows framed a curious smirk. Donovan Sunday lunches were mandatory, only to be missed on pain of death. Literally – when Orla was in hospital in labour with her first baby, Harry, who was now eleven, Mum took a gigantic spinach lasagne to the hospital waiting room in a cool-box, dragging us all along with her. She snuck loaded plates for Orla and Sam into the labour room, which Sam later reassured us he and the midwife very much enjoyed, Orla opting for gas and air instead.

Even Paolo had to leave an assistant in charge of Donovan’s DIY, despite it being the busiest day of the week. And living in New York wasn’t a good enough excuse, either. Annie video-called every Sunday, so Mum could show her that she’d made her favourite cannoli, as if this might prove so irresistible that Annie would hop on the next plane over. We’d given up trying to tell Mum that Annie didn’t even like cannoli that much, it was her twin, Bridget’s, favourite. Or would have been, had she not been served it every Sunday for fourteen years.

‘No, Mamma,’ I whispered back. ‘She’s busy this morning, but will be there for lunch.’

‘Busy doing what?’ Mum leant forwards, her gold and black striped ‘church blouse’ gaping to reveal far too much solid chest. ‘She better not be doing more work for that snotty boss of hers. I’ll be taking a visit to that university scientist department and reminding Mr Fancy Degree PhD Professor that there are laws about working on a Sunday.’

‘Sofia’s working today,’ Orla pointed out. ‘Those laws got overturned decades ago.’

‘Sofia never misses her family lunch!’ Mum’s eyes suddenly creased in sympathy. ‘Oh, is it her diarrhoea again? I’ve told her that vegan diet is not natural. And she can still come for dinner, we’ve got two bathrooms.’

I didn’t bother correcting her on any of those fronts, including that I was the vegan, not my sister.

‘I said she’ll be there. Shh, now! Sofia’s trying to get started.’

Mum dutifully turned to smile at Sofia, who was standing on the small stage holding a microphone. Dressed in denim dungarees, her long chestnut hair tied in a messy bun held back with a red bandana, she smiled patiently as she waited to welcome the sixty or so people filling the hall.

‘That’s my daughter,’ Mum whispered at full volume to the nearest rows, as if they didn’t know already thanks to Mum making the same announcement every week. ‘Always had the heart of an angel, right from a little girl. Working so hard to care for all the people in this church, she is married seven years and still not stopped to have her own family.’

‘Mamma, shut up,’ Orla hissed, to our mother’s consternation. ‘You’re distracting everyone.’

We all stood as Moses began to lead the congregation in the first song.

Orla was the only one of us who would dare to speak to Mum like that, and only then because what she knew, and Mum didn’t, and hopefully would never have to, was that Sofia and Moses had been trying to get pregnant for the past four years. The one round of IVF offered by the NHS had failed. Living on a pastor’s wage, supplemented by Moses’ occasional gigs as a wedding singer, going private was out of the question. Those of us who knew what they were struggling through could see the strain and the sorrow taking its toll on our beautiful sister and her husband. There had been many a SisterApp thread discussing the possibility of Moses going back to teaching music, Sofia finding something that paid enough to allow them to gradually save up. Any job that didn’t end up with them feeding, clothing and in a thousand other ways taking care of half the people in their neighbourhood would help.

But it was their life, and, even if they could afford it, the IVF had been brutal. It was hard keeping a secret like this from our mother, but her idea of a secret didn’t quite match most people’s definition, so for the sake of Sofia’s privacy we contained our mother as best we could.

Once the songs were finished and Sofia had given a talk, after Orla’s three children had come racing out of their kids’ group and I’d drunk a mug of tea while chatting with someone who kept calling me Brian while asking how my fish were getting on, we set off in the usual convoy out to Hatherstone, the village where we Donovan sisters had grown up. Riding in the back of Moses and Sofia’s ancient Ford Escort, as the houses faded into the fields and forest of my childhood, I felt the pressures of grown-up city life fall away.

‘I have another customer for you,’ Moses said, turning off the main road onto the lane that led towards Hatherstone. Moses originally came from Jamaica, although he had numerous aunts, uncles and cousins living in the East Midlands, some of whom were actually related to him. Moses was the kind of man who created family wherever he went, and he also believed in supporting each other whenever the opportunity arose. A considerable chunk of my cake business had been built on Moses’ family’s celebrations, for which I thanked him with a triple-layer fudge gateau every birthday.

‘Henry and Ruby have their diamond wedding anniversary coming up. Their great-granddaughter is going to call you.’

‘Diamond?’ Sofia whistled. ‘What, that’s like sixty years? I was impressed when we hit six.’

‘Thanks, Moses,’ I replied as we pulled up at my parents’ rambling farmhouse. ‘Tell her not to leave it too late. I’ve got a few weddings booked for March, and their ideas are ambitious to say the least. Nita’s going to be in her element.’

Nita was my business partner at Emma’s Cakery. I was the scientist, creating cake recipes that specialised in meeting various dietary requirements while also managing to bear the weight of Nita’s handiwork – she was the artist, who transformed the tasty into visual triumphs.

‘I thought you might bring a cake today,’ Sofia said as we made our way across the broad gravel driveway to the wooden porch.

‘Now, what possible reason would I have for bringing a cake?’ I asked, eyes wide with innocence. Mum would never let me bring dessert, even though that meant I could make something vegan, so could actually enjoy eating it for once. She did, however, in the interests of supporting a family business, allow me to bring a cake on special occasions.

‘I don’t know, Emma, why don’t we ask the lovebirds?’ She grinned, waving at Bridget and Paolo, who had just pulled up in his van.

‘Don’t go ruining their big moment, darling,’ Moses scolded gently.

‘I’m only waiting to say hello,’ Sofia replied, peering over at Bridget as if searching for a ring from twenty yards away.

‘You can say hello inside,’ Mum said, having flung the door open that second. ‘Why are you all hovering on the doorstep like salesmen?’

She stood back to let us into the stone-flagged entrance hall. ‘Moses, my second son.’ She kissed him European style before letting him through. ‘Singing beautifully this morning, as always. Emma. You look tired. Are you sure you’re not anaemic? A good spoonful of beef stufato will put colour back in your cheeks.’ She patted said cheeks as I walked past.

‘Mum, these are what Irish cheeks look like. We didn’t all inherit your Mediterranean complexion. And I’m tired because I’ve been working flat out all week.’

‘Now, Bridget!’ She had already moved on to the next sister. ‘Paolo! Church was so quiet without you. I hope it wasn’t your bowel problems again.’

‘I told you it wasn’t!’ I called back from the doorway into the enormous kitchen. ‘Oh, hi, Dad.’

‘Emma.’ My dad, who had been taking champagne flutes out of the dresser, put them down and came to give me a hug. ‘How are ye now, my best girl?’

I leant into the warmth of his enormous chest, my head snuggling several inches below his beard. My father was not called ‘Bear’ for nothing. Breathing in the familiar scent of wool, woodsmoke and the faintest hint of turpentine, I blinked back the sudden prickle of tears. ‘I’m fine.’

And I was – I was always fine, tucked inside his giant arms. ‘You guessed, then?’

‘Paolo came over last week to ask for my blessing. He might not do things fancy, that lad, but he does them right.’

‘Does Mum know?’

‘She’s trying really hard to pretend she doesn’t.’

‘She could have picked a less embarrassing ruse than Bridget’s dodgy stomach.’

‘And since when did your mamma understand the meaning of embarrassment?’

We breathed together for a few moments, ignoring the chatter and laughter drifting in from the living room.

‘Are you sure you’re okay, now? It’s been a grand arrangement, you girls sharing the flat together. I know you’ll miss her something fierce. And, well, it’s not expected, the eldest being last.’

‘Sure, and, as Bridget said, it’s hardly surprise news, is it? I’m thrilled for her.’ I frowned against his bobbly old jumper. ‘Possibly more thrilled than she is. Honestly, I’m fine. It’s not like we have a limited allocation of family weddings per year, and she’s taken mine.’

‘All right, then. Let’s not keep them waiting any longer.’

While I didn’t have a Sam, or a Moses, or a Paolo, with Bear Donovan’s rough hand in mine, I knew I would always be loved, utterly and unconditionally, and that was mighty fine indeed.

Due to patchy Internet connection, we made contact with Annie over dessert, the remains of dinner still sprawled across the oak dining table that Dad handcrafted after the twins had been born.

‘Show me the ring!’ she squealed through the laptop screen. ‘Not from there, up close. Move the screen if you can’t get any nearer.’

‘Was there anybody who didn’t know about this proposal?’ Paolo grumbled behind his spoon of blackberry crumble.

‘I think it’s a twin thing,’ I said.

‘You’ve been a hanger-on to this family for twenty years,’ Orla retorted, her four-year-old, Oscar, sitting on her knee while he scraped the remains of the custard jug into his bowl with rapt concentration. ‘Don’t pretend you didn’t know what you were getting into, little brother.’

‘Please don’t call me that ever again.’ Paolo grinned.

He ran a hand through his blond shock of hair and straightened his shirt before moving his chair closer to the screen. Even though Annie lived three thousand miles away, Paolo knew that for Bridget, having her twin’s approval was everything.

‘Where is he, then?’ Annie’s eyes darted across the screen, until she spotted Paolo waving.

‘I like how your first priority was the ring,’ he joked.

‘My sister’s stuck with both you and that ring for a long time. I already know what you look like.’

‘Fair dos.’

‘But seriously.’ Annie pointed one long, manicured nail at him. ‘While you may become Bridget’s other half at some point in the near future, she’s been my other half since we were twin blobs of gloop jostling for the juiciest section of womb wall.’

‘A lovely analogy as always,’ Bridget murmured.

‘In short, you’re marrying the joint top woman in the universe. Make her happy, treat her with the respect all women deserve, and you’d better love her nearly as much as I do.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Oh, and about bloomin’ well time. It’s weird me married and her not.’

‘Antonia, did you see I made lemon cannoli? With pistachio sprinkles?’ Mum moved us on to more important topics.

‘Yes, Mamma. It looks lovely.’

‘And where’s Greg? We haven’t seen him in so long I’m forgetting what his beautiful face looks like. Is he working? I keep telling you, he works too hard. You need to talk to him about this again, Antonia. I don’t know what is going on these days, all these people working on a Sunday.’

‘He’s gone to the deli to pick us up some bagels, Mum. And you have no idea what hours he works, so please stop worrying about it.’

We might not have to worry about how hard Annie’s husband worked – he was an accounts manager for an international advertising firm, of course he worked ridiculously long hours. But we sisters were starting to wonder about how rarely we saw him on Sundays, and how Annie’s gushing reports on her loved-up wedded bliss were noticeably absent lately. At forty-four, Greg was nineteen years older than Annie. They had met on holiday in Rome, and, after a couple of short visits to meet his family and ours, she had gone to the US on a three-month spousal visa, marrying as required within the ninety days before flying back to England a week later for a lavish wedding reception. As used as we were to Annie’s impulse decisions, we were also well used to them crashing down around her once the initial enthusiasm had worn off. We knew the pair wouldn’t have married so fast if they’d not had to in order to live in the same country. We worried that, given a little more time and consideration, they wouldn’t have married at all.

We liked Greg, and he had certainly seemed to love Annie. But a suit-wearing professional with a house in the suburbs who coached little league baseball was not who we’d envisaged her ending up with.

But we could hardly quiz her about it over roast potatoes and beef stew. I wondered if it