Happy Birthday and All That

by Rebecca Smith

  ‘Come back Daddy! You’re leaving us behind!’

  ‘Bye Daddy!’

  ‘Bye Daddy!’

  The roar of the gas drowned their voices. All he could do was yell ‘Sorry!’ and spread his hands, pantomiming helplessness.

  Isobel was whimpering. Posy had to act fast or they’d all be sobbing. James helped her to cram Lettice back into the rucksack. She wrestled Isobel back into the pushchair.

  ‘Let’s all go and ride on the biggest carousel. I’m sure we’ll all get to ride in a balloon another time,’ she said. ‘And how would you like to go to Cornwall for the whole summer and look after the donkeys and hens and be ice-cream people in the café?’

  ‘Yeah, Mum, yeah!’

  ‘Come on then, kids, let’s go.’

  They all looked up and saw their daddy’s balloon drifting away over the trees, heading east.

  ‘Dad can find his own way,’ she told them.

  ‘What by balloon?’ asked Poppy.

  ‘By baboon,’ said James. They all laughed.

  ‘It was an accident,’ said Posy. ‘He didn’t mean to leave us behind. But never mind.’

  They passed a bin overflowing with ice-cream wrappers, cans, popcorn boxes and the sticky polythene bags that had held candyfloss. Wasps buzzed around it. Posy pushed off her bendy M & S sandals and chucked them in.

  ‘Mum! Your shoes!’ Poppy was horrified.

  ‘I’m getting new ones,’ Posy explained.

  The shoes of the future were dancing towards her: sun-bleached sandy canvas deck shoes, a pair of sparkly jellies for the rock pools, some ankle-length wellies like the ones her aunts favoured, some red velvet ballet pumps that somehow she really would buy. Here they came, dancing towards her over the shards of all her broken dreams.

  Acknowledgements

  I am very grateful to Arts Council England South East and

  The K. Blundell Trust for their assistance.

  I would also like to thank Alexandra Pringle, Sarah

  Lutyens, Victoria Millar, Chiki Sarkar and Susannah Godman.

  Thanks also to Matthew Smith who inadvertently

  gave me the title.

  A Note on the Author

  Rebecca Smith is the author of one other novel,

  The Bluebird Café. Born in London in 1966, she lives

  in Southampton.

  By the Same Author

  The Bluebird Café

  Praise for The Bluebird Café by Rebecca Smith

  ‘A complete delight; a sure-footed, beautifully written blend of eccentricity and pathos’

  Marie Claire

  ‘Her freshness and zest are immensely appealing’

  Daily Mail

  ‘I loved it - it completely charmed me … her writing is so light and effortless, her style so gentle yet with an underlying bite … it is so witty, full of little images that made me smile’

  Margaret Forster

  ‘Hipply-dippily innocent and sweet; a millennial take on The Good Life … a funny, quirky, irreverent perspective on a consumerist label-led world’

  Irish Independent

  ‘Turns contemporary urban life into a magical confection … full of tiny, acute insights that make a delightful read … Smith’s novel has a brightness, whimsy and humour that set it apart’

  Literary Review

  ‘A funny, engaging and recognisably true picture of a kind of English life that rarely finds its way into modern fiction. The wit of its observation is both sharp and gentle, rather like Ealing comedies … She has a singular talent’

  Harpers & Queen

  ‘Smith makes an impressively convincing case for the argument that small is beautiful in this exquisitely and wittily observed portrait of homely ambition and the search for love’

  The Times

  ‘Down to earth, gently humorous and effortlessly paced’

  Scotsman

  ‘Rebecca Smith shares Jane Austen’s clarity and gentle irony … a beguiling romance, and a winning debut’

  Independent

  First published in Great Britain 2003

  This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  Copyright © 2003 by Rebecca Smith

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  All rights reserved

  You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

  Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

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  London, WC1B 3DP

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is

  available from the British Library

  ‘It’s Over’ (page 137) Words & Music by Roy Orbison & Bill Dees

  © Copyright 1964 (renewed 1992) Roy Orbison Music Company/Barbara

  Orbison Music Company/Acuff-Rose Music Incorporated, USA.

  Warner/Chappell Music Limited, (50%)/Acuff-Rose Music Limited, (50%).

  Reproduced by permission of International Music Publications Ltd,

  All Rights Reserved, and Music Sales Limited, All Rights Reserved.

  International Copyright Secured.

  eISBN: 9781408837252

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