Rebecca Campbell was educated at the London School of Economics and the London College of Fashion. She and her mother, Paddy Campbell, run a clothing design firm that sells throughout Ireland and the United Kingdom. She lives in North London with her husband, a writer, and their son, Gabriel.From the Trade Paperback edition.Chapter 1The Way We WereAt five past six, every day, the same question:“Katie, what have you done?”For some people that might have been a question filled with foreboding. You know, what have you done with your life; or look what you’ve screwed up now. But from me, at this time, it always got the same answer, a smart answer:“Made coffee, chatted to the girls, tried (and failed) to make the printer print, had my nails done next door at the N.Y. Nail Bar, went for a latte at Gino’s (flashed my second best smile at the divine boy Dante, but I wouldn’t tell Penny that), chatted some more to the girls, thought about the collection, phoned the factory (why can’t they learn to speak English?), got a sandwich from Cranks, puked it up in the bog, had a spat with the French, sent reminders to Harvey Nicks and the new shop in Harrogate. Just the usual.”And Penny, breathing exasperation into the phone, always came back with, “You know exactly what I mean. What did you do?”And so I’d give up. “Three and a half.”“Not bad for a Tuesday.”“Bloody good for a Tuesday. But today’s Wednesday.”“Well, not bad for a Wednesday, either. What did you say you did?”“Three and a half.”“And what about Beeching Place?”“Just one and a half.”“Oh. Still, that’s . . . six thousand for the two shops.”“Five.”“You know I’m no good at fractions. What did you say you did?”The miracle is that I managed to stay sane for so long.I suppose when I first went to work for Penny she was pretty good. After all, she’d built up Penny Moss from not much more than a market stall into a perfectly respectable business, a business that people had almost heard of, even if they sometimes got us mixed up with Ronit Zilkha, or Caroline Charles, or, heaven forfend, Paul Costelloe. Two shops and a wholesale side that had taken off and was cruising at a comfortable altitude. People had worn our clothes on daytime telly. Penny, conspicuously without Hugh, had been in Hello!. Well, okay, OK! But, as Penny pointed out to anyone who’d listen, it’s got a bigger circulation anyway. A cabinet minister wore one of our suits at the party conference (a coffee tussah silk affair, like a funked-up Chanel) and, for the first time, looked more feminine than her male colleagues. Professional women who want to look chic and chic women who want to look professional wear our clothes. The next time you’re at a wedding, look around you. There, among the neuralgic pink and monkey-puke yellow, you’ll see our clothes: subtle, perfectly tailored, elegant.Where were we? Yes, just as we were beginning to make some real money, Penny started to get battier. She’d always had tendencies. Odd flights of fancy, a fondness for viscose. But now she was forgetting things. Losing things. The usual signposts in the foothills of senility. If I sound callous, it’s because she’s not my mum. She’s Ludo’s. Oh, God! It’s all getting complicated already. I’ll have to set it out straight, or you’ll never catch up.My name is Katie Castle, and this is the story of how I had everything, lost it all, and then found it again, but not quite all of it, and not in the same form, and, if I’m perfectly frank (which, I have to confess, doesn’t come naturally), not, in every single particular, quite so good. The story’s mainly about me, but it also involves, in no special order:•Penny, my employer, the wife of Hugh;•Hugh, the husband of Penny;•Liam, my Big Mistake;•Jonah, who was nearly an even bigger mistake, but who turned out to be a Good Thing;•Veronica, my loyal and faithful servant, up to a point; and•Ludo, who is the adored child of Penny and Hugh and who was, at the very beginning, the point at which you came in, my beloved, my betrothed.There’re lots of other people as well, friends and hangers-on, but you’ll meet them when you meet them. I’ve decided to be honest, so you might find yourself thinking me a madam or a minx, but even if I do some bad things, and some silly things, you must try to stay on my side, because in the end I turn out to be quite good, I promise.In the beginning. Like everybody else, I li Read Less