Excerpt from Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Suddenly she turned her head and stared at me hard.

'Hello, miss,' she said. 'It's me, miss. Sheila O'Neil,' and then I realised. Taught her English in the fourth and fifth years, she was in Eleanor's form, she'd been an amazing gymnast, famous for doing strings of cartwheels all round the playground, more of a firework than a girl I remembered thinking: blazing colourbursts and fizzing bright light and long freckled legs where her head should be, mad bouncing curls, livelier than life. She'd left at sixteen. I tried to talk her out of it. 'I've got to get on with my future, miss.'

'Sheila.' I crisped myself. 'How lovely to see you!'

Thanks, miss. You too. You think it's no smoking?'

'Oh I do, yes. You know what churches are like.'

'Yeah, boring.'

The priest sidled back over to us. I stood up. 'Your daughter wonders if you would consider being Lily's godmother, whether that might be something you'd... ?' He brought the palms of his hands together apologetically.

Whoever heard of a grandmother being godmother? But it didn't matter, and I had heard of aunts and uncles being godparents; big sisters and cousins and so on, so I said, 'Thanks. I'd love to.' The priest nodded in Eleanor's direction. He looked relieved.

'And if there's a reading you'd like to do, or a poem, or even if you've a mind to, a song perhaps... ' He was embarrassed now; he let it show with a small mock wince as if the blame was all his and he really ought to know better. I was grateful it didn't seem to occur to him to humiliate me. 'Short notice, I know,' he cringed. He was so polite he almost made you feel you were the priest. Bless you my son!

The other godparent hadn't materialised– Ben nipped out to telephone him from the phone box by the big Sainsbury's. There didn't seem to be anyone from Ben's family either. He had at least a mother and a brother to his name, a sister in Edinburgh who was doing tough love, but not today.

Father Pat was pacing up and down looking at his watch for answers. That was the thing, you started off hell-bent on a rescue mission and before you knew it you got mashed up.

I whispered to Eleanor, 'Who's the most sensible person here?'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'Sorry, the kindest then, that was what I was thinking, what I meant to say. Sorry.'

She pointed to Sheila.

'Well"... ' I said. Sheila was not currently conscious. 'Well... I'm not entirely—'

Eleanor's grey-blue eyes sent out flares of contempt. The scorn of an angry saint almost. Now and then when I have received that look of hers I have wondered if I could still keep going. I took a rapid step back and bowed my head a little, as if to show that any insolence she detected in me was just a case of mistaken identity. We had to find a way to carry on, that was all I wanted to convey. the priest's arms were beginning to flail about. the handsome goodwill he was obviously so proud of– we all were– was growing threadbare. I caught his eye and mouthed the words 'so sorry', but if he saw me he did not respond. the whole occasion was about to fall to bits. What did he expect?

'OK, well, that's great, I mean you've known her for fifteen years, more than half your lifetime, so let's go with Sheila then. I know, why don't you ask and I'll nip out and get her a coffee, if you like, to... to help her, you know, everyone likes a coffee, don't they, before a big... ? Shall I get you one too? I'll do that.'

'OK,' Eleanor said in her ice voice.

I deposited Lily into Father Pat's startled arms and walked to the café next to the Sainsbury's, where there was a queue in front of the long glass cabinet behind which two waitresses were buttering fawn-coloured bread. A small basket of dimpled plastic oranges was balanced on the counter, a charity tin – Save the Children. What about the mothers? One of the waitresses tilted her head at me, and although it wasn't my turn I asked if they did coffees to take away and she said no. I told her it was a bit of an emergency and I wouldn't normally ask but we needed to revive someone fast who was under the weather, in order to be godmother at a christening over the road that was already promising to be, threatening to be, fraying at its edges, quite likely to disintegrate altogether, or implode – did I really say all that?– and the extremely nice priest was running out of patience with everyone, not his fault, but... and a tear jumped out of my eye because there was only so much you could take sometimes, and as luck would have it something in my voice made a deep appeal with the woman behind the counter and I was no longer a demanding customer, I was a situation, and that meant different rules came into play. I could have sunk down on my knees to thank her. She made me milky coffees for Eleanor and Sheila in pristine polystyrene cups and I brought them back to the church, hot mauve liquid bubbling through the tiny holes in the lids, scalding drips on the inside of my thumbs. Good for them to get a few calories down them as well, little stick insects, stick people, sick people.

Excerpted from Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt. Copyright © 2023 by Susie Boyt. Excerpted by permission of New York Review Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.