The Secret of Happy Ever After

by Lucy Dillon

  Detach, detach, detach.

  The hoover whirred with a blockage and she yanked out a stray sock with more force than was strictly necessary, because it was slowly dawning on her that actually, she might have to turn Michelle down after all. Because whether Michelle approved or not, she did have responsibilities: the children she’d always dreamed about having, the ready-made family that had seemed like a gift, but which now had to come first.

  That’s parenthood, Anna told herself – but didn’t kids love their parents? Didn’t they put up with them with that affectionate ‘Oh, Mum’ love? She didn’t get that. She got, ‘You’re not my mum!’

  Anna stopped in front of Chloe’s Hollywood-lit mirror and looked at herself in it, her hair sticking out of her collapsing bun, her nose shiny, her face pinched. Stop it, she told her reflection. You sound more like Chloe than an adult woman. Are you going to start singing about how shit everyone else is?

  Her reflection glared back, the bags under her eyes more noticeable since the concealer had worn off. Anna realised the bad mood engulfing her chest was too heavy to jolly away. Time was ticking on. She’d been twenty-four when she met Phil. Now she was in her thirties. She had open pores and the beginnings of crow’s feet. She’d be forty by the time Lily was leaving school.

  Anna thought of the packet of contraceptive pills in the bathroom, one tiny pearl remaining in the mangled foil rectangle. She hadn’t been to the surgery to get a repeat prescription. From now on, it was in the lap of the gods. And she’d written it down. It was going to happen.

  With a new tingle in her stomach, Anna directed the Dyson into Lily’s bedroom, the last room on her list, and the messiest.

  Lily’s bed, and most of the floor, was covered in soft toys. Being the youngest, she’d ended up with the teddies, tortoises and cats Becca and Chloe had discarded, as well as her own, all presided over by a regal pink creature called Mrs Piggle. After the divorce, Phil had overcompensated by giving her a new toy every visit, and now Sarah had started to do the same. The result was a herd of velour creatures that all had to be arranged in a comfortable position at night, since Lily was going through existentialist angst about whether they might have feelings, and thus, possible bad backs if left squashed up.

  As Lily wasn’t there to see her, Anna chucked them all unceremoniously on the bed and started making clean stripes on the carpet.

  Lily was the easiest, in many ways. She had all Phil’s affability, and a sense of humour, and she’d never blamed Anna for taking her dad away from her mum, because she had no real memory of her parents being together at all. Anna listened to Lily’s endless narratives of Mrs Piggle’s daily tribulations every bedtime, and she hoped she could turn that into shared reading time.

  Ballet Shoes when she comes back, Anna thought, hoping Lily had started to read One Hundred and One Dalmatians, which she’d hidden in her flight bag. We’ll start with Ballet Shoes if she’s sick of dogs, and I’ll let Pongo come up for bedtime stories as a special treat.

  Her mood perked up, and she pushed the hoover under the bed with renewed energy. It met some resistance, and on bending down to see what it was, Anna made out a stack of book-shaped shadows, piled up against the wall.

  She knelt and slowly removed them, her heart stinging.

  Ballet Shoes.

  What Katy Did.

  Charlotte’s Web.

  Tom’s Midnight Garden.

  The Sheep-Pig.

  One Hundred and One Dalmatians.

  All twelve of the books she’d given Lily for Christmas, including the one Lily had evidently carefully removed from her hand luggage, the same way she carefully removed concealed peas from her casserole. Hidden, so as not to hurt Anna’s feelings, but definitely left behind, unwanted.

  Anna sat back on her heels and bit her lip, crushed. At least Lily had hidden them. At least she hadn’t left them by the bin, like Chloe had.

  You’re failing them, said the voice in her head. They’ve been here six months, and you still haven’t got the first idea.

  Everyone said how well she was coping, but there was a difference between getting three girls off to school in the right clothes, and actually building a relationship with them. Anna had never tried to be the girls’ mother – they had a mum, a very visible one who’d made it clear from the start that Anna was surplus to requirements – but she’d hoped by now they’d have made a space for her in their lives. A friendly, warm, big sister-ish space. But even that seemed to be naively optimistic.

  I just want to be wanted, Anna thought, her heart aching. So often, when the girls were clinging to Phil, and he was pretending to be annoyed by their puppy-ish affection but secretly loving it, she felt as if she were completely invisible. Useful, but invisible in her own home.

  She turned over the cover of Charlotte’s Web and a whoosh of longing flooded her stomach. Her own baby would love reading. It would inherit her dreams of forests and pepperpots and magical gulls along with her DNA. Her own baby would love being tucked into bed by her – and her big sisters – and then they’d all sit there in the half-light, listening to Anna unfolding stories about giant peaches and magic carpets, like a proper family.

  And that’s going to happen, she told herself with a sudden fierceness. This year. That’s going to happen.

  Downstairs the door banged and Phil’s car keys jangled onto the hall table, followed by his briefcase clunking on the floor.

  ‘Anna? Anna?’

  She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand and stood up, still holding the books as Phil’s feet ran up the stairs. Quickly, she looked round and put them on top of the dressing table. She’d think about where to put them back later.

  ‘Hey!’ Phil met her as she was coming out of Lily’s room. He held out his arms to grab her for a kiss, then saw her struggling to hide her dismay. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Nothing! I just . . .’ She racked her brains. ‘I just found Mrs Piggle lying on her front. Very bad for her neck.’

  ‘I’ll phone Lily,’ said Phil seriously. ‘And let her know you’ve saved Mrs Piggle in the nick of time.’

  ‘Don’t tell her she was lying with Fat Duck, though.’ Anna managed a twisted smile. ‘Could cause ructions.’

  Phil held her at arm’s length and studied her face. ‘Have you been crying, honeybun?’ he asked gently. ‘Your mascara’s gone everywhere.’

  He looked so tender that the words spilled out of her.

  ‘They left their books,’ she wailed. ‘The books I gave them for Christmas. I packed one in Lily’s bag but she took it out.’

  ‘What books? Oh, those . . . Anna, don’t take it so personally.’ Phil pulled her in tight and stroked her hair, as he would stroke Chloe’s after some histrionic fall-out with a friend. ‘They’re on holiday. They won’t have time to read!’

  ‘On the seven-hour plane trip?’

  ‘They’re kids. They’ll be watching the film. Annoying the cabin crew. Even I don’t read on planes, and I’m nearly forty.’

  Phil always took their side, thought Anna. He didn’t mean to contradict her, it was just an automatic dad-reaction, the way she defended Pongo’s ‘enthusiasm’ to Michelle when she muttered about training classes. Was there any point pushing it? Trying to explain that it wasn’t about the books, it was about her? Her constant panic that she wasn’t giving them what they needed?

  Phil was looking at her as if she was being irrational, and Anna realised she didn’t want to leave it like that. They never really got time to talk uninterrupted any more.

  ‘I should have explained the presents better. I wanted to . . . share some things I loved with them,’ she tried. ‘Something more meaningful than just ticking stuff off a wish list.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Is this about Chloe’s iPad?’

  ‘No!’ Except it was. Sort of. He’d overridden the promises they’d made about not replacing the last one, which she’d broken on a school trip. Anna didn’t even have an iPhone.

  Phil
kissed the top of her head. ‘Look, it was a lovely present, but not everyone’s a big reader like you. I’m afraid you’re going to have to learn to live with our Philistine ways. I’ll talk to them when they get—’

  ‘Oh my God, no,’ Anna interrupted. ‘Don’t do that. “God. Daaaad. How to make things worse, or what?”’

  She said it in Chloe’s ‘Zero-to-outraged in two seconds’ voice, and he laughed again, quickly hugging her, then holding her at arm’s length so he could scrutinise her expression. ‘I take it back, you know us all too well already. How about a film tonight? Or dinner out?’

  Phil’s appetite for going out went into overdrive when the girls were away, as if he had to stuff a year’s worth of activity into a week. Anna liked it too, normally, but she’d forgotten how exciting it was to be alone with him. She didn’t want to share her freshly invigorated husband with a cinema audience.

  ‘I’m tired,’ she said. ‘And I need a shower.’

  Phil winked playfully. ‘In that case, you get in the shower while I take this suit off. Tell me what you’ve been up to today. Did Pongo crash into anyone in the park?’

  ‘Actually, I’ve been offered a job,’ said Anna. She followed him through to their room and lingered as he pulled off his tie, then slung his suit jacket over the chair. Phil had broad shoulders. She loved the feel of them through a thin office shirt, his muscles firm under the cotton.

  Phil stopped unbuttoning his shirt and turned round. ‘I didn’t even know you’d applied for anything recently.’

  ‘I didn’t. It’s out of the blue. Michelle’s taken over the bookshop on the high street, and she wants me to manage it for her.’

  ‘Anna!’ He widened his eyes. ‘You’ll be so good at that! Come here and let me show you how impressed I am.’

  She grinned and let herself be pulled into his arms again.

  ‘Mum’s going to laugh when I tell her,’ she said. ‘Apparently when I was little, I used to get all my Ladybird books out and arrange them in our Wendy House, then sell them to my friends.’

  ‘That’s so you,’ said Phil. ‘What was your mark-up?’

  ‘That’s so you,’ she said. ‘You and Michelle both.’

  ‘So when’s all this happening?’

  ‘Right now. The decorators are coming tomorrow – I’m supposed to be helping her sort out the stock. I haven’t . . .’ Anna hesitated. ‘I haven’t said yes, definitely. I wanted to run it by you first.’

  Phil stopped, mid-belt-buckle. ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, who’s going to take Lily to school and collect her, if I’m working shop hours? And get Chloe from dance class? And what about Pongo – he’s going to need walking.’

  ‘And my supper won’t be on the table the way it used to be.’

  ‘Well, that’s hardly . . .’ Anna realised he was winding her up. ‘I’m serious, Phil. It’s like running a taxi company and a hotel, keeping up with their social diaries. I’m assuming Michelle will want to have the same opening hours as her own shop and that’s nine till six.’

  ‘We’ll work something out,’ he said, slipping off his trousers and chucking them carelessly over the chair. ‘I can take the kids to school half the week. Michelle can let you nip out to get Lily, bring her back with you. Might do her some good, hanging out in a bookshop for a few hours. Chloe too, for that matter.’ He looked at her. ‘It might give you something to talk to them about as well, if you want to share an experience. You know how interested Chloe is in the world of retail therapy. That might be an easier way to get her attention than books.’

  ‘Maybe,’ she conceded.

  ‘Maybe? Definitely, if you can get her a discount at Michelle’s. Now, are we having this shower or what?’

  Michelle’s right: he doesn’t really have a clue, Anna thought, half amused, half despairing, as he sauntered into the bathroom. It all just happens, as far as Phil’s concerned. It happens because I’m running myself ragged sorting things out so he doesn’t have to worry about it, and the girls have no reason to whine to Sarah.

  ‘So you don’t mind paying for a dog-walker? And getting Magda back to do some cleaning?’ she called through, just so it was on the record.

  ‘Of course not.’ There was a pause while he turned the shower on. ‘I prefer Magda’s ironing to yours, anyway. Come and get in here with me, Mrs McQueen. I’ve missed you today.’

  Anna’s stomach fluttered, and in her head, she pushed the abandoned books to one side. For once, reality was more tempting.

  6

  ‘The time-travelling adventures of Charlotte Sometimes taught me to be happy with who you are, as you could be a lot worse off. Quite a few children’s books seem to have that message.’

  Charlotte Allen

  Anna thought it was impressive, but not surprising, that Michelle had the power to raise a team of builders to refit a shop at a time when most people couldn’t even persuade a plumber to leave his Yuletide sofa to unblock a U-bend.

  She wasn’t quite sure what she was doing herself, knee-deep in Mills and Boons on New Year’s Eve, but here she was, nonetheless, taking orders from a bright-eyed Michelle while Owen loitered in the background, waiting to do all the heavy lifting they required.

  He looked hungover already, his dark hair falling into his face, dressed in an old college T-shirt and jeans that showed off the top inch of his checked boxer shorts, but Michelle insisted that he was ready to work. If he ever stopped texting.

  ‘So, new stock in the front, second-hand in the back. And junk about four-fifths of what we’ve got here?’

  Michelle had to raise her voice over the sound of Lorcan the builder’s team of denim-clad decorators in the main area. It was only just gone nine o’clock, and they were already sanding, blasting, clunking, to the sound of Deep Purple – Anna didn’t know exactly what they were doing, but Michelle had a checklist and several copies of her Action Plan, so presumably she did.

  ‘Why not put new and second-hand together?’ Anna suggested. ‘Bring it out into the front, make it look vintage, not second-hand. It’d give the students a chance to get a cheaper copy of something, and some people like old editions.’

  Michelle frowned dubiously. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. They’ve got a bit of character to them. Like this.’ Anna picked up an old Penguin edition of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, its orange cover tattered round the edges. ‘Look how lovely and soft these pages are. Don’t you want to read that and imagine you’re in some coffee bar in Swinging London? I love old books like this. It’ll give the shelves an eclectic feel.’

  The word ‘eclectic’ seemed to mollify Michelle; it was one of her favourites. ‘OK. You’re the expert. I want this shop to have that . . . pick-up-ability.’ She rubbed her fingers in the air, trying to find the right words. ‘I want . . .’

  ‘Discovery. Adventure. Magic. I know.’ Anna smiled. ‘I get it. I saw your sketches for the shop sign.’

  Michelle raised her eyebrows, stretching the cartoon flicks of her eyeliner into Betty Boop wideness. ‘You like it?’

  Owen had shaped Michelle’s sketches into a neat image of a spotty dog leaping over a stack of novels, through a ribbon reading Longhampton Books.

  ‘I do,’ said Anna. ‘Dogs and books – what’s not to love? Pongo likes it even more. But you know people’ll be disappointed when there isn’t a Dalmatian in here?’

  ‘They’ll be relieved.’ Michelle grinned. ‘Owen, you could get going on clearing around the fireplace.’ She pointed towards the corner. ‘I want to get it unblocked and tidied up. The sweep’s coming in at two to check it’s safe to use.’

  Owen pocketed his phone. ‘Yes, miss. Do you want me to go up it as well, give it a clean?’

  He was skinny enough, thought Anna. His heavy biker boots were the only thing that might stick in the flue.

  She shook herself; Michelle was directing another stream of manager-instructions at her.

  ‘Lorcan’s got keys, so if you need to go out for lunch or whate
ver just give him an idea of when you’ll be back. What else? Oh yes, I’m aiming to get the floorboards sanded in here by the end of tomorrow, so we need to shift some of these boxes. Not sure where yet.’

  ‘Is there a flat upstairs like next door? Could you use that?’

  ‘There is, but it’s in use.’ Michelle sank onto a crate and looked thwarted for the first time since she’d started this project. ‘It’d be much easier to rent the whole building, but apparently it’s not available. I’m working on that.’ She flicked the pad, and Anna feared for both the solicitor and the tenant upstairs, whom they hadn’t met – surprisingly, given the amount of noise the builders were making.

  ‘I guess in the meantime we could use my flat,’ Michelle went on.

  ‘Er, no, we couldn’t,’ said Owen. ‘I’m virtually sleeping on boxes up there as it is, thank you.’

  ‘But you’re not going to be there forever,’ Michelle countered. ‘Are you?’

  ‘That depends on how long you make me do DIY instead of getting on with your website.’

  ‘That depends on whether you spend as long texting your girlfriends and chatting up my staff when you’re doing DIY as you do when you’re supposedly doing my website.’

  ‘Am I wrong, Michelle, or does DIY stand for Do It Yourself ?’

  ‘Shut up, Owen.’

  Anna watched the pair of them bicker back and forth, and felt a sort of envy at the easy sibling grumpiness they had. It was something she’d noticed with the girls; their rows reached levels of hysteria that shocked Anna, but then they calmed right down again, because they knew underneath it all there was a bond bigger than any disagreement. Anna hated conflict; it made her tense up inside. She sometimes hadn’t even been able to bring herself to charge the stroppier borrowers library fines.

  ‘Should I be making coffee for the builders?’ she asked, before Owen could retaliate.

  ‘Not if you’re busy. You can tell them there’s coffee and biscuits in the back kitchen, so they’ll have to come past you to have a coffee break. Which should keep that to a bare minimum.’