BLURRED LINES
Hannah Begbie
Copyright
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020
Copyright © Hannah Begbie 2020
Cover design by Holly Macdonald © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020
Cover photograph © Shuttershock.com
Hannah Begbie 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 author’s 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. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008283261
Ebook Edition © July 2020 ISBN: 9780008283278
Version: 2020-08-13
Praise for Hannah Begbie:
‘Compelling, fierce and all too believable … a heart-stopping portrayal of what it costs to speak out’
Clare Empson, author of Him
‘Deeply compelling and gripping, with characters so realistic you feel as if you know them, I couldn’t put it down’
Isy Suttie
‘A fast-paced, tightly-wound thriller with great dialogue and compelling characters. A brilliant page-turner perfectly designed for the #MeToo era’
Viv Groskop
‘Beautifully written, very timely, very honest – I read it deep into the night’
Emma Freud
‘Important and perfectly paced, this is one of the best books I’ve read this year’
Zoe West
Dedication
For my sons, Jack and Griffin
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Praise for Hannah Begbie
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Acknowledgements
Keep Reading …
About the Author
Also by Hannah Begbie
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
She feels the sales assistant looking her over, appraising her against the wine that she has delivered to the counter. It is a Burgundy, priced at sixty-five pounds, its provenance declared in elegant loops on a simple label. She couldn’t pronounce this château, and she suspects this man knows that perfectly well. Look at this woman, with her dull, errant hair and the catalogue-bought black trousers that reach for but never quite achieve a tailored fit: at how her slouch and the crease to her brow clash against the pin-straight, darkly varnished floorboards of this wine shop.
He wraps the bottle in crisp crepe paper, one finger cocked like he is taking an elegant tea, as if to tell her: this is how it is done. Granted, her wardrobe, her hairstyle, her whole life cannot be salvaged by a moment of his time, but perhaps the act of witnessing his precision and professionalism and his good taste might, in some small way, chip away at her roughness.
She has pulled this bottle from the shelf because a hand-written card describes it as ‘a classic example of the type’. Now she wishes that she had been bolder. That she had chosen something without a ready-made approval, to state firmly that she knows better than this man, than any man, how her desires are best met by grapes, and terroir, and time in the bottle. Imagine asking if they had the same wine but from another year. A better year, or worse. Knowing what the sun or the humidity or the rain had done to that corner of France in that year.
Why should she know? Who is asking her to know these things?
‘Any tips for drinking it?’ she asks, her demeanour easy and friendly, like she’s only really filling a spare minute while he wraps the thing. Like she has no need of his opinion, but chooses to seek it anyway. A generous gesture that allows for him to know more about this bottle than simply how to wrap it.
‘Are you drinking it straight away?’
She shrugs. She won’t be drinking it at all, unless she’s asked to share it. And even then, she’d only take a few sips.
‘Well don’t let it get too warm,’ he says. ‘Won’t hurt to decant it, but it won’t struggle straight out of the bottle either. Cash or card?’
Becky hands over her debit card. It is the same colour as when she was at school. The first-savings-account hue of somebody who agonizes over whether sixty-five pounds, which she really cannot afford, is enough to spend on wine for a man who might consider it midweek drinking, a bottle to open mindlessly before rushing off to a weekend away, leaving it to idle and spoil on the kitchen island. Is it enough, a bottle like this, for a man like Matthew?
Matthew pays her pretty well. She can’t complain. She knows there are others who make less and are worth far more.
Stop it, she tells herself. You are good at your job. You are.
‘Enjoy it!’ says the man behind the counter as he hands her the bag. Did he see the dismay in her eyes as the card receipt chattered through? Surely he knows that this is a gift, one meant to impress; a wine that she does not understand, intended for someone whose world she only fleetingly visits.
And yet, his smile seems sincere. Perhaps he is honestly grateful for her custom, even if the wine is wasted on her. The money is real enough.
Matthew taught her that, like so much else about their business: everything is only talk, only a possibility, until somebody writes you a cheque, or cashes one you’ve written them.
As she exits the shop she holds her head high. Today is a good day. She has come to West London to deliver a gift and the gift has been well-chosen. It will suffice.
Becky passes the wedding-cake white houses of Portobello,
