The Unwelcome Guest Read online

  THE UNWELCOME GUEST

  Amanda Robson

  Copyright

  Published by AVON

  A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2021

  Copyright © Amanda Robson 2021

  Cover design by Andrew Davis © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021

  Cover photographs © Natasza Fiedotjew / Trevillion Images (woman); Shutterstock.com (window and plants)

  Amanda Robson 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: 9780008430597

  Ebook Edition © August 2020 ISBN: 9780008430603

  Version: 2021-07-09

  Dedication

  To mother-in-laws everywhere.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Praise for Amanda Robson

  Chapter 1: Saffron

  Chapter 2: Caprice

  Chapter 3: Hayley

  Chapter 4: Saffron

  Chapter 5: Aiden

  Chapter 6: Caprice

  Chapter 7: Hayley

  Chapter 8: Saffron

  Chapter 9: Miles

  Chapter 10: Caprice

  Chapter 11: Hayley

  Chapter 12: Caprice

  Chapter 13: Miles

  Chapter 14: Saffron

  Chapter 15: Caprice

  Chapter 16: Saffron

  Chapter 17: Hayley

  Chapter 18: Saffron

  Chapter 19: Aiden

  Chapter 20: Saffron

  Chapter 21: Hayley

  Chapter 22: Saffron

  Chapter 23: Miles

  Chapter 24: Hayley

  Chapter 25: Saffron

  Chapter 26: Aiden

  Chapter 27: Saffron

  Chapter 28: Miles

  Chapter 29: Saffron

  Chapter 30: Miles

  Chapter 31: Aiden

  Chapter 32: Saffron

  Chapter 33: Caprice

  Chapter 34: Miles

  Chapter 35: Saffron

  Chapter 36: Miles

  Chapter 37: Saffron

  Chapter 38: Caprice

  Chapter 39: Saffron

  Chapter 40: Aiden

  Chapter 41: Saffron

  Chapter 42: Aiden

  Chapter 43: Miles

  Chapter 44: Caprice

  Chapter 45: Saffron

  Chapter 46: Hayley

  Chapter 47: Caprice

  Chapter 48: Saffron

  Chapter 49: Miles

  Chapter 50: Caprice

  Chapter 51: Hayley

  Chapter 52: Caprice

  Chapter 53: Hayley

  Chapter 54: Saffron

  Chapter 55: Aiden

  Chapter 56: Miles

  Chapter 57: Hayley

  Chapter 58: Saffron

  Chapter 59: Caprice

  Chapter 60: Miles

  Chapter 61: Caprice

  Chapter 62: Hayley

  Chapter 63: Hayley

  Chapter 64: Saffron

  Chapter 65: Miles

  Chapter 66: Hayley

  Chapter 67: Miles

  Chapter 68: Hayley

  Chapter 69: Saffron

  Chapter 70: Hayley

  Chapter 71: Caprice

  Chapter 72: Miles

  Chapter 73: Saffron

  Chapter 74: Miles

  Chapter 75: Caprice

  Chapter 76: Hayley

  Chapter 77: Saffron

  Chapter 78: Caprice

  Chapter 79: Hayley

  Chapter 80: Miles

  Chapter 81: Saffron

  Chapter 82: Hayley

  Chapter 83: Caprice

  Chapter 84: Saffron

  Chapter 85: Caprice

  Chapter 86: Saffron

  Chapter 87: Caprice

  Chapter 88: Saffron

  Chapter 89: Hayley

  Chapter 90: Caprice

  Chapter 91: Hayley

  Chapter 92: Caprice

  Chapter 93: Saffron

  Chapter 94: Caprice

  Chapter 95: Hayley

  Chapter 96: Caprice

  Chapter 97: Saffron

  Chapter 98: Hayley

  Chapter 99: Saffron

  Chapter 100: Hayley

  Chapter 101: Caprice

  Chapter 102: Miles

  Chapter 103: Saffron

  Chapter 104: Caprice

  Chapter 105: Saffron

  Chapter 106: Caprice

  Chapter 107: Saffron

  Chapter 108: Hayley

  Chapter 109: Saffron

  Chapter 110: Caprice

  Chapter 111: Miles

  Chapter 112: Saffron

  Chapter 113: Saffron

  Chapter 114: Caprice

  Chapter 115: Hayley

  Chapter 116: Caprice

  Chapter 117: Hayley

  Chapter 118: Saffron

  Chapter 119: Caprice

  Chapter 120: Hayley

  Chapter 121: Miles

  Chapter 122: Hayley

  Chapter 123: Aiden

  Chapter 124: Saffron

  Chapter 125: Aiden

  Chapter 126: Saffron

  Chapter 127: Aiden

  Chapter 128: Miles

  Chapter 129: Saffron

  Chapter 130: Miles

  Chapter 131: Caprice

  Chapter 132: Hayley

  Chapter 133: Miles

  Chapter 134: Saffron

  Chapter 135: Caprice

  Chapter 136: Saffron

  Chapter 137: Hayley

  Chapter 138: Caprice

  Chapter 139: Hayley

  Chapter 140: Miles

  Chapter 141: Saffron

  Chapter 142: Miles

  Chapter 143: Saffron

  Chapter 144: Miles

  Chapter 145: Saffron

  Chapter 146: Miles

  Chapter 147: Saffron

  Chapter 148: Miles

  Chapter 149: Saffron

  Chapter 150: Miles

  Chapter 151: Hayley

  Chapter 152: Miles

  Chapter 153: Saffron

  Chapter 154: Hayley

  Chapter 155: Miles

  Chapter 156: Hayley

  Chapter 157: Aiden

  Chapter 158: Saffron

  Chapter 159: Miles

  Chapter 160: Saffron

  Chapter 161: Hayley

  Chapter 162: Saffron

  Chapter 163: Hayley

  Chapter 164: Saffron

  Chapter 165: Hayley

  Chapter 166: Saffron

  Chapter 167: Aiden

  Chapter 168: Miles

  Chapter 169: Aiden

  Chapter 170: Miles

  Chapter 171: Saffron


  Chapter 172: Aiden

  Chapter 173: Saffron

  Chapter 174: Miles

  Chapter 175: Hayley

  Chapter 176: Saffron

  Chapter 177: Miles

  Chapter 178: Hayley

  Chapter 179: Hayley

  Chapter 180: Saffron

  Chapter 181: Hayley

  Chapter 182: Miles

  Chapter 183: Hayley

  Chapter 184: Saffron

  Chapter 185: Hayley

  Chapter 186: Miles

  Chapter 187: Hayley

  Chapter 188: Miles

  Chapter 189: Saffron

  One Year Later

  Chapter 190: Hayley

  Chapter 191: Hayley

  Chapter 192: Saffron

  Chapter 193: Hayley

  Chapter 194: Saffron

  Acknowledgements

  Keep Reading …

  About the Author

  Also by Amanda Robson

  About the Publisher

  Praise for Amanda Robson

  ‘A fabulous rollercoaster of a read – I was obsessed by this book’

  B A Paris, author of Behind Closed Doors

  ‘Fast-moving, compulsive reading’

  Jane Corry, author of My Husband’s Wife

  ‘An addictive, compelling read, full of tension’

  Karen Hamilton, author of The Perfect Girlfriend

  ‘Compelling and thoroughly addictive’

  Katerina Diamond, author of The Heatwave

  ‘Characters you will love to hate and an ending that will make your jaw drop’

  Jenny Blackhurst, author of Before I Let You In

  ‘A taut thriller full of page-turning suspense’

  Emma Flint, author of Little Deaths

  ‘Expertly injects menace into the domestic’

  Holly Seddon, author of Try Not to Breathe

  ‘No one does toxic relationships quite like Amanda Robson’

  Sam Carrington, author of The Open House

  ‘Twisty, taut, vibrant and addictive.

  The queen of the page-turner’

  Caroline England, author of My Husband’s Lies

  ‘A compelling page-turner on the dark underbelly of marriage, friendship and lust’

  Fiona Cummins, author of Rattle

  1

  Saffron

  I look across the breakfast table at my husband, Miles, and the reasons I married him move towards me with certainty. We are in tune, both physically and mentally. Why do I ever doubt him? It’s not Miles I have problems with, but you, Caprice. His mother. A frail and lonely widow, with kind eyes and a swan-like neck? Or the mother-in-law from hell with a witch’s cackle for a laugh? Whichever, you have infiltrated our lives.

  You were living in the self-contained annexe that abuts our house, built especially for you. But you have decided it no longer suits. It’s suddenly become too poky, so you’ve moved in with us. And you’re here, at breakfast time, sitting next to me, cracking the top of your boiled egg with sledgehammer ferocity.

  As my husband frequently points out, you are still a beautiful woman. I like to reply for your age, just to remind us both that I am young and you are old. Youth is more powerful than age, I hope, for our relationship has become a battle.

  Over the years I have tried so hard to make you like me. But it was difficult from the start. You made it quite clear I wasn’t your sort of person the first time we met, when Miles invited me to your family home for Sunday lunch. A painful affair in your large, medieval hall of a dining room, which looked out onto a garden that never ended. It blended into the horizon, dripping with thousands of pounds’ worth of showcase flowers. Rupert, Miles’ father, was still alive then, presiding at the head of the table carving a succulent joint of beef.

  Miles sat opposite me. A low-slung crystal chandelier dangled between us. His eyes glistened into mine, trying to encourage me to relax. Aiden, Miles’ younger brother, was sitting next to me. The silence in the room was suffocating.

  After a while, you leant towards me. ‘Well, Julie,’ you said.

  Julie. Miles’ ex-girlfriend, and now Aiden’s current squeeze.

  ‘It’s Saffron,’ I replied, with what I hoped was a wide friendly smile.

  ‘Well,’ you coughed. ‘Sa … a … a … ffron. Tell me how you two met.’ Too much emphasis on the a. Long and slow. As if my name was difficult to pronounce.

  I couldn’t tell you the truth. No mother wants to hear her son was seduced at a party when he was drunk and then didn’t leave his new girlfriend’s room for over a week because they were smoking dope and having experimental sex. So I just smiled and explained that we met at college.

  ‘Oh. Are you at the poly?’ you asked.

  Aiden and Miles both laughed.

  ‘Polys don’t exist anymore. Haven’t for almost twenty years. You know that, Mum. They’re new universities now. Cambridge poly is Anglia Ruskin University,’ Aiden said through a mouthful of homemade Yorkshire pudding.

  ‘Is that where you’re studying, Anglia Ruskin, dear?’ you asked, with a strong false emphasis on the word dear that made me squirm inside.

  ‘No. Actually I’m at the old university; Trinity College with Miles.’

  Your lips tightened. ‘A bluestocking, then?’

  ‘She doesn’t exactly look like a bluestocking, does she?’ Rupert trumpeted from the end of the table.

  Annoyed by this attempt at a compliment, you thwarted your husband with your eyes. The room fell silent again, interrupted only by the scraping of knives and forks across fine china. After a while you leant towards me again. ‘Now, Cinnamon …’ you said.

  After a heavy Sunday lunch of roast beef with all the trimmings, followed by apple pie, which settled like lead on my stomach – I was already well on the way to being a vegetarian and subsequently a vegan – you asked me to help clear the table and wash up, while Miles’ father invited his sons to admire the new dahlia border in the garden. A sexist division of duties. A throwback to the 1950s. But, on my best behaviour with the family of the man I was besotted with, I didn’t comment or complain.

  As we were loading the dishwasher I saw the men walking along the path at the side of the house, past the kitchen window.

  Rupert’s voice crashed towards us. ‘Your girlfriend’s a pretty filly. Taut and muscular like a fine racehorse.’

  Sexist again. My stomach tightened. So he thought I was pretty. Despite the sexism of the comment, that pleased me. But I sensed your body stiffen with envious displeasure. I guessed that, as far as you were concerned, it was unnecessarily flattering.

  We continued our chores. You washed the pans and I dried, racking my brains for something to say, wanting to fill the airwaves with friendship and conversation.

  ‘It’s a lovely area. How long have you lived here?’ I tried.

  ‘All my life.’

  ‘So you were brought up around here?’

  ‘That’s what “all my life” means, yes.’

  The silence expanded. Ask open, not closed questions, I told myself. ‘Where do you work? Tell me about your job,’ I persisted.

  You stopped washing up, pulled off your rubber gloves and stepped towards me, pouring your angry eyes into mine. ‘I’m a wife and mother. It isn’t a job. It’s a privilege and a pleasure. I would have thought a girl like you with brains sprouting out of your ears would have realised that.’

  2

  Caprice

  ‘Have a good day at work, dear,’ I shout as you leave. ‘I’ll tidy up, and then I’ll take the children to school.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ I mutter beneath my breath as the front door bangs shut.

  You never really thank me for all I do with the children. Difficult to work with, getting through nannies like cannon fodder, you are coming home from work early tonight to interview yet another one. In the meantime, I take the flak and help you out. And recently your ingratitude has ramped up a notch. Since I could no longer bear being cooped up in the
poky annexe at the back of the house like a factory-farmed chicken, and insisted on moving into the guest suite of the house I paid for in the first place, you have been even more sparing with your thanks.

  Saffron, why, when he had a homemaker for a mother, did my son choose to marry you? A selfish career-obsessed woman?

  I sigh inside and begin to clear the breakfast table. I wouldn’t mind so much, but you are such an intellectual snob, looking down your nose at me because I went to secretarial college. You may have a double first in philosophy from Cambridge University, and have set up your own boutique law firm, but you live in an intellectual bubble; no empathy with real people. You talk to Miles endlessly about politics and legal issues but you never ask my opinion about anything. I am irrelevant. Invisible.

  It’s not as if you have any redeeming features. I can’t understand why Miles finds you physically attractive. Your clothes are too masculine. Sharply tailored trouser suits for work. Jeans, Doc Martens and T-shirts riddled with designer holes for home life. I have to admit, you have long bleached blonde hair, which is nicely conditioned, and pretty cheekbones. But why do you spoil your face with thick horn-rimmed glasses? Haven’t you heard of varifocal contacts?

  Table cleared, dishwasher loaded and rumbling, I take off my apron and walk towards the playroom. Even though you have washed and dressed the children, and given them breakfast when you got up at 6 a.m., I expect you have left them watching a boring educational programme again.

  Upper middle-class children can be as underprivileged as those on benefits. ‘Quality time’ is a fallacy that deprives in its own way.

  3

  Hayley

  I want this job. It pays well. It’s in a good neighbourhood. The agency I’m with informed me that the nannies who’ve worked here have enjoyed the experience, and have felt cherished and respected by their employers.

  When I commented, ‘But there’s been a high turnover,’ the agency boss replied, ‘It’s just been one of those things. The last two nannies had trouble renewing their work permits. Our government has been tightening up on immigration.’

  I ring the doorbell, feeling nervous. A young woman with razor-blade cheekbones and sharp glasses opens the door. She looks a bit like Margot Robbie. I would so like to look edgy and sexy like that. Super-skinny. A real clothes horse. The sort of woman who would look good in anything, even a bin bag.

  ‘Welcome. Do come in,’ she says.

  I step into this modern mansion. The hallway is laced with thick-pile carpet. A designer dresser built of metal and mirrors stands to the right of me, displaying a crystal vase bristling with flowers: lilies, roses, agapanthus and delphiniums. They fill the air with scent. A spiral marble staircase with a curved mahogany handrail coils upwards from the back of the hallway. Impressionist paintings adorn golden rag-rolled walls. I drink it all in to write about in my diary later. The diary I’m keeping to show my mother when I get home.