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the pages. There was a poem called ‘Margaret’, there was a poem called ‘Harry’, there was a poem called ‘My House’. I didn’t read them then and there. I wanted to be alone. Just Emily and me.
    Geoffrey wasn’t at his hotel. He was probably out on a book search himself. We’d decided to split up on our hunt for Emily’s poems. I left the copy I’d bought for him at the reception desk.
    Back home once more, the phone off the hook, I settled down by the wardrobe. And, curled up in the spot where I’d read of her life, I opened Emily’s book.
    On the very first page was the dedication:
    For Harry, who taught me that love
    Is the very last breath that we take.
    The breath that we share and then, beyond.
    To the richness we leave in our wake.
    I heard her voice. And I continued to hear her voice all through that night as, page after page, Emily spoke to me …

    It’s nearly twenty years since all of that happened and the little old house is no longer mine. I’m married now – I live in England and my name is Margaret Brigstock. (Although my friends still call me Nancy.) But Geoffrey and I kept the wardrobe and everything’s stored inside. There’s the cardboard box and the biscuit tin. And the hot water bottle covers and Harry’s gown. And, wrapped in tissue, the christening robe, which has been worn three times since then.
    I’m no longer a struggling journalist – these days my work’s in demand. And, though I never did write that epic novel, I think Grandma Rose would be proud. Because I did become an author of sorts. I did see my words in print. I wrote a story and I called it ‘The Wardrobe’, and Emily guided the pen.

Bonus Sample Chapter
Maralinga by Judy Nunn

C HAPTER O NE
    Elizabeth couldn’t understand her father’s passion for oleanders.
    Alfred Hoffmann had shifted from London to the leafy county of Surrey, where all forms of glorious flowering shrubs thrived, and yet in the impressive conservatory at the rear of his house he’d chosen to grow nothing but oleanders. A veritable forest of them, in all shapes and sizes. Some remained gangly bushes while others towered to a height of eighteen feet, their leathery leaves sweeping the arched dome of the conservatory. Their pink and white blossoms were not unattractive, but the overall impression was one of unruliness. They were cumbersome plants, there was no denying it, and very much at odds with the surrounding countryside.
    The entire situation was bewildering to Elizabeth. For as long as she could remember, her father had been a businessman, and a highly successful businessman at that. If, in his semi-retirement, he’d developed an interest in horticulture, which itselfwas surprising, why was he limiting himself to just one species? And why a species as mundane as the oleander, considered by some to be little more than a noxious weed – perhaps even poisonous, if she were to believe her colleague at The Aldershot Courier-Mail.
    ‘Don’t go chewing on the leaves, Elizabeth,’ Walter had warned her during an afternoon tea-break, ‘you’ll end up as sick as a dog.’ When she’d laughed, he’d assured her he wasn’t joking.
    ‘Why on earth did Daddy choose oleanders?’ she finally asked her mother.
    ‘I’ve no idea.’ Marjorie Hoffmann had accepted her husband’s idiosyncratic behaviour without question, as she always did. ‘Perhaps it’s his love of travel.’ Noting her daughter’s mystified expression, she drifted a typically vague hand through the air as if she were conducting a heavenly choir. ‘I mean they’re so … Mediterranean , aren’t they?’
    Mother and daughter were very alike in appearance. Above average height and regal of bearing, both had dark eyes and auburn hair offset by the fairest of complexions, creating an overall effect that was striking. They were the sort of women people referred to as handsome. In character, however, they could not have differed more greatly. Elizabeth was already