The Secret of Happy Ever After

by Lucy Dillon

  ‘Oh, aren’t they gorgeous?’ said a breathy voice. ‘But, um, wouldn’t you be worried about Pongo eating one? Not being funny, but they do look like tomatoes. I couldn’t work out what was Christmassy about tomatoes till Michelle told me they were for the tree.’

  Anna looked up to see Michelle’s junior assistant, Kelsey, hovering by the table, and put the bauble down. Kelsey was lovely, like everything else in the shop, but about as useful as the glass baubles when it came to actual selling. She was mostly confined to dealing with internet orders, since she’d never managed to make the till work on her own, and had kindly talked Anna out of a couple of rash purchases – not, thankfully, while Michelle was around. Kelsey was like a golden-eyebrowed supermodel, or an angel whose wings had fallen off, and she drove Michelle insane with her unfortunate habit of missing shoplifters because she was unpicking her complicated love life on the phone to her friends.

  If Gillian, queen of the window display, hadn’t been so efficient, Kelsey would have been ruthlessly excised from Michelle’s empire long ago, but like the green fig candles burning in high alcoves, and the Ella Fitzgerald soundtrack, she added a certain aspirational ambience to the place.

  ‘Hi, Kelsey, is Michelle around?’ Anna asked. ‘She said she’d meet me here, at quarter to?’

  ‘She’s upstairs.’ Kelsey dropped her voice conspiratorially. ‘With a guy!’

  ‘A guy?’ Anna hadn’t meant it to sound so loud, but the way Kelsey was winking at her made it hard not to.

  ‘Yeah. A really good-looking guy. Bit young for her, if you ask me, but if you’ve got it, right?’ She stopped winking and pulled a face to indicate that she felt Michelle did still have it.

  ‘Are you sure he’s not a rep?’ asked Anna.

  Kelsey snorted. ‘Not unless he’s selling sexy hair.’

  ‘Michelle’s upstairs sorting out the website,’ called a voice from the room behind the main shop floor; a competent, older voice. ‘It’s gone down again, don’t ask me how or why. And she’s with her brother. She won’t be a moment.’

  ‘Her brother?’ mouthed Kelsey, shocked.

  ‘She’s got three brothers,’ said Anna, as Gillian appeared in her Christmas sale outfit: a red cardigan over her usual black shift dress, and an extra-rigid girdle flattening her Christmas excesses. There were no seasonal reindeer horns in here. ‘Which one is it?’

  ‘The hot one,’ said Gillian. ‘Pardon my French.’

  Anna heard two sets of footsteps clattering down the stairs that led up to the flat, and before Kelsey had time to do more than fluff up her hair, Michelle and Owen were standing in front of a three-woman welcome committee.

  ‘What?’ said Michelle, seeing the blatant curiosity on their faces. ‘Oh, I get it. Owen, let me introduce you properly. This is Gillian, who runs the shop. This is Kelsey, who posts out the website orders, and this is Anna, who stops me from going mad. Ladies, this is my little brother, Owen. He’s our new website geek.’

  ‘I prefer IT consultant,’ said Owen, with a smile that reached his brown eyes, making them crinkle attractively.

  Anna could see the family resemblance. Owen had the same dark chestnut hair as Michelle and the same sharp chin, but whereas her hair was cut into a geometric bob, his curled round his ears and over his collar. And his brown eyes flashed – she started to correct the Mills and Boon-ish word, then had to admit that actually, in this instance, it was fair enough – whereas Michelle’s eyes were more guarded, noticing everything but giving nothing away.

  Owen towered over his sister, with thin leather bracelets circling his wrists and long legs in skinny jeans. He looks as if he should be in a band, thought Anna, envying his long lashes. One of those ones that Becca likes, with a name that means something she was too out-of-touch to know about.

  ‘Owen’s going to be setting up the new spring web pages, and he’s got a lot to be getting on with, so don’t let him distract you,’ Michelle went on, checking through her to-do list and crossing off a few things, while he beamed affably at them all. ‘Owen, don’t let Kelsey distract you either. She’s got a lot to be getting on with down here.’

  Kelsey looked thwarted and closed her mouth. Owen winked at her, and even though the wink wasn’t directed her way, Anna felt a sort of passive flutter.

  ‘OK.’ Michelle clicked her pen. ‘You, upstairs. You,’ she pointed at Kelsey, ‘serve those ladies over there. You,’ she pointed at Anna, ‘let’s go and do some reading.’

  ‘Are you sure you can spare the time?’ Anna asked, as two more customers jangled the bell and made a beeline for the rack of handsewn cherry-print aprons.

  ‘So long as I’m back for the afternoon rush,’ said Michelle. She wound a scarf around her neck and pulled on her shear-ling jacket. It was buttery soft, and, like all her clothes, untouched by Dalmatian hair or accidental felt-tip pen marks. Anna envied the easy way Michelle made scarves hang right.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Kelsey asked.

  ‘Butterfields.’ Anna seized the chance to recruit some new volunteers. ‘I don’t suppose you’d like to volunteer a few hours a month, would you? All you have to do is read for about half an hour, and maybe discuss the book, share some stories about—’

  ‘No, sorry. I’m not really a book person,’ said Kelsey firmly. ‘I prefer to wait for the film.’

  ‘But reading’s such a lovely thing to do. Very relaxing. You end up enjoying it as much as the people you’re reading to,’ Anna persisted. ‘Don’t you remember being read to at school? Or by your mum? What an amazing feeling it is letting the story come to life in your head?’

  ‘No.’ Kelsey looked horrified at the thought of anything coming to life anywhere near her head.

  ‘Is it a council thing?’ asked Gillian. She was a keen monitor of council expenditure.

  ‘No, it’s a volunteer group we started in the library to reach people who’ve lost touch with words and stories. Maybe they can’t concentrate, or they can’t read, or see . . . all sorts of reasons. I do the old people’s home, my assistant Wendy ran sessions for the Learning Support Unit at the school, and there’s another one at the hospital.’

  ‘And you just . . . read?’ asked Gillian.

  Anna nodded. It was hard to explain how rewarding the reading scheme was without sounding holier-than-thou, but it made her feel she’d given something useful, which would last for hours after she’d left. ‘Sometimes they read themselves, sometimes we stop and discuss a passage, or they talk about some memory it’s brought back. I have to admit, I sometimes get a bit teary with the older folk. It’s like they’re waking up and you suddenly see their eyes look young again. All because of an idea someone had, then wrote down to share, and now that same idea is planted in memories all over the world, and it’s as if it can turn back time. Isn’t that amazing?’

  Kelsey looked unconvinced but Anna thought she saw a glistening in Gillian’s eyes. Next time she’s coming too, Anna decided.

  Michelle tapped her watch. ‘We’re cutting into their Jean Plaidy hour. Let’s go!’

  And with one backwards glance at a silk handbag covered in tiny chiffon butterflies, Anna let herself be swept out of the warm embrace of Home Sweet Home and onto the chilly high street.

  Anna had reluctantly got rid of her sports car to pay for the bigger people carrier, but she had kept the same energetic driving style. Michelle was relieved when she finally indicated down the tree-lined drive to an Edwardian mansion with a sweeping turning circle and neat box hedges marking out the lawn. No croquet hoops, just a discreet sign saying, ‘Butterfields Residential Home’ and a wheelchair-adapted minibus outside.

  ‘I didn’t even know this was here,’ said Michelle, admiring the ivy-covered frontage and long windows. ‘It must have been quite a place in its day.’

  ‘It used to belong to the town’s one and only captain of industry,’ said Anna, as she parked next to the only other car there. ‘Some of the older residents can remember the family. Don’t get th
em started on the Parrys. I’ve had to avoid any Catherine Cookson novels with servants in them, because some of the current residents’ forebears were disgruntled parlourmaids.’

  Michelle stood back from Anna as she marched across the gravel in her flat boots and announced their arrival via the security buzzer. She looked at them in the plate-glass of the entrance porch. They made a funny-looking couple, like a pair of comedians: sharp-edged Michelle in her jeans and leather boots, and graceful Anna in her long skirt, her blond hair stuffed under a knitted hat and her book bag slung over her shoulder.

  Their reflections hovered on the glass, somewhere between the crisp winter air outside and the dingy institutional walls inside. Like ghosts, she thought. Michelle didn’t want to say so to Anna, but old people’s homes gave her the creeps. If she hadn’t been set on charming Mr Quentin into changing his mind about the bookshop, there was no way she’d have got herself across the threshold.

  As Anna pulled open the door and directed her into the once-imposing entrance hall, the majestic first impression of the exterior dissolved in a whiff of boiled vegetables and cleaning fluid. Michelle cast her eyes around urgently for any shreds of elegance that remained. There wasn’t much to go on.

  Everything’s so grey, she thought – grey and thick. Where are the colours, the soothing smells, even some nice wallpaper?

  Oblivious to her friend’s reaction, Anna pushed open a heavy fire door and smiled at a helper in a nylon housecoat who was pushing a vacant-eyed man in a wheelchair down the corridor.

  ‘That’s Albert,’ she said, under her breath. ‘Only time I ever heard him speak was after we’d read some chapters of Atonement. At the end, without any warning, he said, “I met my Noreen in an air-raid shelter in Solihull, and I thought she was her sister. Had to marry her after that.” The nurses nearly fell over.’

  ‘And after that you couldn’t stop him chattering away?’

  ‘Well, no.’ Anna stopped at another fire door and pulled it open to let Michelle through first. ‘But it gave the carers something to think about when his family next came to visit.’

  They’d reached the main day room, a grand, high-ceilinged reception room with chintzy winged chairs arranged in a circle, containing hunched-up old men and women, some of whom turned to see who’d come in. The others just carried on staring into space, their hands clawed around the arms of their chairs.

  A chill went through Michelle at the solitude in the room, despite all the people in it. She loved living alone – couldn’t bear the thought of sharing her beautiful house with anyone – but this, as her mother kept reminding her, was where it could all end up. Slow, featureless days in a room with other unloved people, forced into cells of single old folk, without even a horde of cats to eat you.

  The fact that this house had once been loved too made it worse than one of those purpose-built retirement homes, she thought. Butterfields felt as abandoned as its residents. The plaster mouldings were partially boarded over, hiding what little decoration there was in the room. That marble fireplace would once have had invitation cards and photographs crammed on it. Those old ladies in their lumpy skirts once danced with hopeful boys, and wore seamed stockings, and had crushes, and told jokes. And now they were just sitting in their own closed-off worlds, waiting for what? Someone to come in and make them listen to bloody Jane Austen whether they liked it or not?

  It was so quiet. No one spoke, there was no music, no television burbling away, no radio blurting out traffic reports . . . nothing. Just the faint ticking of the radiators and the occasional shuffle of polyester slacks against cushions.

  Michelle pressed her lips together to stop herself saying something to Anna about the horrible mustard-yellow walls; she knew it sounded shallow, but she also knew it’d be the first thing that would drive her over the edge.

  This could be me, she thought, sick with panic. Harvey was right. Mum was right. This could be me.

  ‘Where’s your mother-in-law?’ she whispered instead.

  Anna was fishing in her bag for her book. ‘Not here yet. She’ll make her grand entrance just before we start, to make sure everyone’s looking at her.’

  ‘And what about Mr Quentin?’

  Michelle’s cunning plan seemed pretty loopy now, even in her own mind. There were no books here, she thought. No bookshelves, no magazines, no papers. Mr Quentin must be going mad. He’d be even more determined to preserve his shop.

  Anna looked around. ‘I don’t think he’s here yet either. Why?’

  ‘Oh, I thought I might have a word with him. About his shop.’

  ‘Really?’ Anna’s eyes opened wide; she was too trusting to suspect any ulterior motive. ‘Why?’

  Before Michelle could think of an appropriate response, a middle-aged lady in a tunic and leggings bustled over to them with a clipboard and a pen suspended from her shelflike bosom like a plumb line. She beamed with delight at Anna.

  ‘Anna, my duck! Have you brought a helper today?’

  ‘Yes, this is Michelle,’ said Anna. ‘Michelle, Joyce is the entertainments manager for Butterfields.’

  ‘For my sins!’ said Joyce, flapping her arm modestly. ‘They keep me busy, this little lot.’

  Michelle and Anna couldn’t help looking in disbelief at the silent room of silent old people.

  ‘So, what are we having this week?’ enquired Joyce. She raised her voice so that the nearest residents could feel included. ‘Something Christmassy?’

  ‘I thought I’d read something from Cranford.’

  ‘Ooh, lovely. That’s been on telly quite recently, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Anna.

  ‘It helps,’ Joyce confided to Michelle. ‘Though they sometimes get things confused with their families. Think they’ve had Joanna Lumley coming in to see them. They haven’t.’

  Joyce and Anna set about chivvying the residents gently, herding them like hens into a circle. Michelle felt awkward, but moved some chairs and sat down herself next to Anna, who introduced herself with an unselfconscious cheeriness, then began reading.

  Anna’s melodic voice easily filled the space around the chairs, and Michelle was surprised by how different it was from her usual conversational tone. She spoke more slowly and carefully, giving each phrase a rhythm that slid it directly into the imagination, building image on image, each character’s voice distinct.

  She’d read maybe a page when a white-haired lady appeared in the doorway, pushing a wheeled Zimmer frame with visible distaste. Unlike most of the others, she was wearing colours with a furious sort of defiance – a bright coral scarf round her neck and a pair of yellow trousers with plastic buttons. Her mouth was a horizontal slash of red lipstick, in a firm, unsmiling line.

  ‘You started without me,’ she said, glaring directly at Anna.

  ‘No, Evelyn, we didn’t,’ lied Anna.

  ‘Yes, you did,’ she retorted. ‘I’ve had a knee replacement, not a lobotomy. I could hear you down the hall. You can bloody well stop until I’ve sat down, thank you.’

  So this was the mother-in-law from hell.

  All eyes turned her way as she wheeled herself towards the empty chair furthest from the door. She might be an old bag, thought Michelle, but she knows how to work a room.

  ‘I don’t need a hand,’ she said, waving away Joyce’s attempts to help her into the seat. She took her time arranging herself, and Michelle saw Anna’s composure wobble. She felt cross on her friend’s behalf; no wonder she’d done a runner from her own Christmas Day if she’d had hours of this as well as the girls playing up.

  ‘Anna,’ she said in a bright voice, ‘I think everyone’s ready now.’

  Anna turned the page, switched on a smile and started reading again.

  When she began, a few of the more alert residents had their eyes fixed on her, hanging onto every word. Evelyn McQueen made a point of staring at the long windows, apparently intrigued by something in the garden. Apart from Anna’s voice and the occasional flutter of a
turning page, there was no sound in the day room, but it was a different sort of silence from the closed-off dullness that had blanketed the air before. Now there was a sort of tension springing between the chairs, and slowly more eyes turned Anna’s way, then closed, then opened with interest.

  Even Michelle found herself listening. It was as if there was someone else there in the room with them, someone comfortable and familiar. She felt herself relaxing into the chair, forgetting about its shabby covering as the story unfolded.

  And then it came to her.

  Anna. Anna could run the bookshop for a year.

  The idea was so sharp it was as if some helpful guardian angel had actually spoken the words in her ear.

  It was so obvious: Anna had loads of experience with books, and more importantly, she loved them. She came alive when she was talking about novels and words and the magic of storytelling blah blah blah. Her passion would make the shop sing, just like Michelle’s own passion for her house had made Home Sweet Home work so well.

  Michelle struggled to contain her excitement. She didn’t need to persuade Mr Quentin to let her change the nature of the shop after all. That snotty solicitor had said it was just for a year; all she’d have to do would be to get Anna to sell what stock there was already, and there seemed to be a good bit of it. If the sums didn’t add up in six months – and with the best will in the world, Anna wasn’t a miracle worker – well, there was the argument. She’d tried; it hadn’t worked out.

  I should call Flint and Cook now, she thought. Before someone else does.

  Michelle excused herself, but with Anna’s voice rising and falling in the air, no one noticed her leave.

  Slipping into a corridor, she got out her phone, dialled the solicitors and asked to be put through to Rory Stirling, trying not to read the notice about Type 2 Diabetes pinned to the wall while the hold music played.

  Abruptly, ‘Yesterday’ stopped, and Rory came on the line.

  ‘Ah, the Knick-Knack Queen of Longhampton High Street.’ He sounded as if he was eating at his desk; Michelle struggled to contain her annoyance. ‘How can I help?’