The Little Village of Happiness: A gorgeous uplifting romantic comedy to escape with this summer

by Martin, Holly

  Tabitha came over then with their food. She didn’t linger though, they were a bit too busy for that, which was nice to see. Their hard work was already starting to pay off in terms of getting the community to socialise more and that filled Andrew with a warm buzz of encouragement.

  ‘A live act would also be great business for this place too. And if it does well maybe Tabitha and Connor might be persuaded to do it more often.’

  Andrew nodded as he tucked into his food.

  ‘Have you seen Kitty and Ken today?’ Willow asked, waving her fork around. A bit of lasagne flew off and landed on his plate. ‘Oh god, sorry.’

  Andrew pierced the errant piece of pasta with his fork and ate it. She giggled. She had the most wonderful-sounding laugh.

  ‘No I haven’t, why?’ he said, bypassing her faux pas.

  ‘Ah, I’m desperate to know what the surveyors think of the castle. They’re coming today to see if it’s safe to open up to the public. But I don’t want to go up there and ask, it would be too pushy.’

  ‘They know you’re pushy, I don’t think there’s any point pretending you’re not.’

  Willow laughed in mock outrage. ‘I’m not pushy.’

  He cocked his head. ‘What would you call it?’

  She smiled as she chewed on a piece of garlic bread, clearly thinking it over. ‘Passionate.’

  He laughed. ‘OK, I’ll give you that. And I have to say, I do love your passion.’

  He watched her carry on eating, smiling to herself.

  He stared at her. This really wasn’t like any date he’d ever been on before, this was two people who got on really well, just chatting as if they’d known each other for several years. There was this ease between them that he’d never had with any of his previous girlfriends. There was no need to try to impress the other because it seemed both of them were already sold.

  She looked back up at him. ‘I’ve just realised we’ve spent the whole time talking about the gifts and the castle, we haven’t talked about anything… dateish.’

  ‘What counts as dateish topics?’ Andrew said.

  She grinned. ‘I don’t know, what was the name of your first pet? Who was your favourite teacher? That kind of stuff.’

  ‘It kind of feels like we’ve bypassed all of that. But in the interest of keeping this dateish, first pet was a rabbit called Muffin, favourite teacher was Mrs Gillespie.’

  ‘Why was she your favourite?’ Willow asked.

  Andrew didn’t want to tell her that Mrs Gillespie understood what it meant to be deaf more than any other teacher, that she always discreetly sat him at the front so he could lip-read more easily, made sure she was always facing him when she spoke to the class, used visual aids wherever possible and gave him handouts at the end of each lesson to go over what had been taught. He had found it hard to concentrate in class, his hearing aids picking up a lot of background noise, but for some reason her class was quieter, which made listening so much easier. He didn’t want Willow to know any of this. He didn’t want to appear less in her eyes.

  He shrugged. ‘She gave me sweets.’

  For a second he saw a flash of hurt in her eyes. She knew he was lying.

  ‘My favourite teacher was Mr Ray,’ Willow said after a while. ‘He loved drama and always had us dressing up to play different historical characters.’

  She was going to let him off the hook. She knew he didn’t want to talk about it and she was just going to let it go. He felt a bit bad but mostly he just felt relief that he wasn’t going to have to talk about that side of his life with her. Well, not now anyway.

  She looked up at him and he leaned over the table and kissed her briefly on the lips, something that was met with a resounding cheer from the other villagers. He didn’t even care.

  ‘What was that for?’ Willow asked.

  ‘Just because, I really like you.’

  ‘Well I really like you too but you know you’re just stoking the fire here,’ she gestured to their little impromptu fan club and he shrugged.

  ‘They’ll get used to it soon enough.’

  ‘I suppose it is a bit surprising for them. We are moving quite quickly.’

  He frowned slightly. ‘Are you having doubts?’

  ‘No, god no. This thing between us, it feels so right and maybe we don’t need to follow proper conventions. We need to do what feels right for us and to hell with anyone else. Did you know Ken proposed to Kitty after only a week?’

  He cleared his throat. Was that how Willow saw their relationship? If so, that was suddenly moving a lot quicker than he imagined.

  Willow laughed. ‘I’m not expecting a proposal from you. Hell, if you did propose now, I honestly don’t know what I’d say but I don’t think I’d be booking the church just yet. My point is, I’m very happy with how things are going right now, we don’t need to speed things up but I certainly don’t want to slow down either. In fact, I would love it if you came for dinner tonight. If three dates in twenty-four hours is not too fast for you.’

  He smiled. ‘That would be perfect.’

  ‘And we can deliver Connor’s gift after dinner and maybe we can give a gift to someone else if there’s something easy we can do tonight.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  ‘I’ve ordered a few things online for a few of the other presents, so that might take a few days to arrive,’ Willow said.

  ‘Well keep checking at the post office, you won’t get post delivered to your door here. Julia keeps a good log of everything that comes in so it won’t take her long to check if you have any deliveries.’

  ‘Yes she showed me the log, she was quite proud of it.’

  Andrew smiled; Julia was definitely proud of her post office.

  Willow finished her lunch and stacked her plate on Andrew’s already empty one. Then she took his hand.

  ‘Thank you for lunch, but I better be getting back, I have a number of orders I need to package up and take to the post office this afternoon. Come round about seven?’

  Ah crap. The date was over and he hadn’t mentioned Morgan. Although was a date really the right time to bring up an ex in the first place? But he knew he needed to tell her. He wanted to be nothing but honest with Willow.

  ‘Listen, I wanted to talk to you about something for a moment. I mean it’s not something, I mean it was. Well I wouldn’t exactly call it something even back then,’ Andrew started.

  Willow looked at him in confusion. ‘Are you going to spit it out or shall we play charades and I can guess it?’

  He smiled, slightly. He watched her across the table, this funny, brilliant, dazzling woman. He was enjoying himself way too much with her to want to throw a spanner in the works so early on. His semi-relationship with Morgan was in his past and there was no reason to bring it up now. To draw attention to what he’d had with Morgan would make it seem like her coming to the village was a much bigger deal than it was. She was here to do a job, there wasn’t anything more to it than that, so why did he need to upset Willow with something that was nothing?

  ‘Do you know what, it can keep.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Willow said.

  ‘It’s not important.’ And it really wasn’t.

  ‘OK, I’ll see you later.’ She stood up, kissed him on the cheek and then left him alone.

  He watched her go but he couldn’t help the uneasy feeling in his gut that he’d just made a terrible mistake.

  He pushed that thought away. Jacob was making him doubt himself, a man who had never had a serious relationship. Why would Andrew take advice from him?

  It was going to be absolutely fine, he was sure of it.

  Twenty-One

  Andrew rode his quad bike up towards the entrance to the village so he could meet Morgan. He’d left it to the last possible minute to go up there. He certainly didn’t want to be waiting for her to arrive as that would seem like he was keen to see her, but he also didn’t want to keep her waiting as that would be rude. Morgan was his friend and, altho
ugh he had no intention of picking up where they had left off, he didn’t want to be horrible about it.

  He shook his head as he drove along. She probably didn’t have any interest in him in that way at all. After all, she had stopped calling him, she had been dating a pilot for several months. It was rather arrogant of him to assume she was coming here to have sex with him. Just because she had sounded delighted that he had called, it didn’t mean anything. It could simply be because she was looking forward to catching up with an old friend. Although it had been a long time since they’d had that kind of relationship.

  He left the main high street and manoeuvred round the slopes leading up to the castle. He could see Morgan’s little van parked outside the four houses, where she was unloading her stuff, and he pulled up behind it.

  She straightened from unpacking a large bag and her face broke into a huge smile when she saw him.

  He climbed off the quad bike but the next thing she ran towards him, slamming into him and wrapping him in a huge hug.

  He hesitated. He wouldn’t think twice about hugging any of his female friends but this somehow felt different because Morgan was different to his friends. He had history with her. He had seen her naked, made her scream in the throes of passion. There was a reason why men and women couldn’t really stay friends after they’d slept together because it was awkward as hell. Although was it only awkward because he was with Willow now? Would it be this awkward if he wasn’t thinking of her the whole time? But, not wanting to hurt Morgan’s feelings, he gave her the quickest of hugs in return.

  ‘Andrew, how are you?’ Morgan stepped back to look at him, her hands still on his arms.

  ‘I’m good, really good actually. I live here now and I love it. I have a lovely girlfriend, Willow, I’m sure you’ll meet her later, but yes things are great.’

  He cringed a little at mentioning Willow. He knew it would seem as if he had deliberately shoehorned her into the conversation to make his status clear, which in many ways he had.

  ‘A girlfriend?’ Morgan seemed surprised at this, although she didn’t relinquish her hold on him. ‘I thought you didn’t really do girlfriends.’

  ‘Willow’s different. I really like her.’

  ‘So it’s serious?’

  ‘Yes it is.’

  ‘And she knows that you’re…’ she trailed off but signed the word ‘deaf’. She knew he didn’t really like to tell anyone.

  ‘Yes she does,’ Andrew said.

  ‘Wow, that is serious.’

  ‘Ah, things change. I suppose we grow up. I’m thirty-two next month. Maybe it’s time I settle down.’ He refrained from saying that when you met the right person then it was worth giving a proper relationship a chance, because he didn’t want it to sound like Morgan wasn’t the right person for him. He didn’t want to be mean. ‘You must feel the same, you’re with that pilot bloke, aren’t you? What’s his name, Jim is it?’

  ‘Yes. We broke up. He was sleeping with one of the air hostesses.’ She shrugged as if she didn’t care but he could tell that she did. ‘I guess not all men are ready to grow up.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Andrew said.

  She suddenly switched to sign language but he was used to the change with her.

  ‘Oh, I’m not the settling-down type,’ Morgan signed, trying to pull off an air of nonchalance she didn’t quite achieve. ‘I’m much more the having-fun, no-strings-attached type. That way no one can get hurt. You used to be so much fun, Andrew.’ She ran her hand down his chest in a gesture that didn’t need any sign language to understand. ‘Are you still fun?’

  Andrew stepped back slightly out of her reach. Her question was crystal clear and he wanted to be as direct with his answer so he didn’t reply with sign language as he normally would.

  ‘I’m very very happy with Willow. This is something serious for me and I can’t imagine being with anyone else but her. So if your question is am I still up for no-strings-attached sex then I’m afraid my answer is no.’

  Morgan stared at him for a moment. ‘Jesus Andrew, I was only joking. I’m happy for you, really I am.’

  She moved back to the van and grabbed a few more things and he could tell that he’d hurt her by his rejection. He felt horrible. But he knew she hadn’t been joking either.

  He cleared his throat and decided to move on to safer subjects. ‘So, what are your thoughts about the screens?’

  She paused for a moment as if she hadn’t been expecting the sudden change of direction in conversation, then she turned back to face him. ‘Well I’m going to use four separate screens, I simply can’t get screens that big to cover all four of the houses. But the picture will run across the screens so it will be continuous. I’ve ordered screens with a hilly background and I’ll paint the picture on top of that.’

  He nodded. ‘How can I help?’

  ‘Well I need to peg the screens open next to each other on the ground so I can ensure the continuity of the paintings and drawings across all four of them.’

  ‘OK, I can help with that.’

  ‘I’m only going to draw the castle and characters today and then I’ll start painting each screen separately tomorrow. Fortunately the weather is lovely and warm so I can leave the paint to dry in the late afternoons, early evenings, before putting the screens away overnight. The whole thing will take me a few days but we’re not in any great rush, are we?’

  ‘Not really. But the open day is in twelve days so it needs to be finished and erected by then.’

  ‘That’s no problem. It shouldn’t take me longer than a week.’

  ‘That’s great,’ Andrew said, but inwardly cursed that she would be here that long. This whole thing was uncomfortable and he didn’t know what Willow was going to make of it either.

  * * *

  Willow closed the shop door and locked it. She glanced down the high street towards where she knew Andrew was working, but there was no sign of him.

  She looked up the high street and saw Kitty coming towards her. She waved and headed over to meet her.

  ‘I hear you got a present last night,’ Willow said.

  ‘Yes, a beautiful scarf, thank you.’

  ‘Ah, I can’t even take credit for that. It seems there really are mystery gift-givers in the village.’

  Kitty looked confused. ‘So who was it?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ Willow said. ‘Maybe it was the fairies.’

  Kitty laughed. ‘Anyway, enough of that for now. I came down as soon as we heard. The surveyors have approved the castle to be opened to the public. Two of the towers are out of action – well we knew that one of them certainly would be, and in actual fact we need to block off part of the gardens immediately surrounding that tower – but other than that we are free to let people in.’

  ‘Oh my god, that’s great news,’ Willow said. ‘I really think this will help the village.’

  ‘There’s loads to do, paperwork and websites and advertising, but we might just be ready for the open day.’

  ‘Well I’m not sure what use I will be on that side of things but whatever I can do to help, just let me know.’

  ‘Thank you. I better go, I feel like we have a mountain to climb, but I just wanted to let you know as all this was your idea,’ Kitty said.

  ‘I hope it makes a difference, I really do.’

  Willow waved Kitty off and then did a little excited bounce on the spot. This would make such an impact on the village in a good way. She decided she would go and find Andrew and tell him the good news.

  She moved off down the road, heading in the direction of where all the work was taking place. She saw Jacob coming towards her and she waved to say hello.

  ‘Have you seen Andrew?’

  ‘He said he was going for a swim before your hot date tonight.’

  Willow smiled and then a thought occurred to her. Andrew said he swam naked.

  ‘Thanks Jacob. I think a swim sounds a lovely idea.’

  ‘I bet it does,�
� Jacob grinned and sauntered off to the pub.

  Willow made her way down through the village until the houses fell away and she was left with only fields and the old ruins. It was a gloriously warm summer’s day and the sea was a gorgeous turquoise green as it sparkled in the sunlight.

  She reached the top of the steps to the beach and quickly went down them, although there were a lot more steps than she’d thought. The beach was completely deserted, beautiful golden sands stretching right around the cove. It seemed such a waste that no one from the village came down here.

  She spotted Andrew out in the sea straight away. He wasn’t too far from the shore but, as she had hoped, he was completely naked. She could see his strong arms powering through the waves, the water glistening off his back and his bum, the occasional glimpse of that spectacular tattoo. For a few minutes she just stood and watched him; it was a dazzling sight.

  She noticed his pile of clothes and walked over to them, wondering whether she should wait there for him to come out or take off her clothes and go out and join him.

  Suddenly she had an idea. She had sworn revenge on him for making her curtsey to Kitty and Ken and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

  She started picking up his clothes and then hesitated for a second. He wouldn’t be swimming with his hearing aids in and she didn’t want to take them away from him. They would probably be in his clothes somewhere. Unless they were in his boots. She grabbed the boots and put her hands inside. Sure enough, she found a handkerchief inside one with the hearing aids wrapped up carefully inside. Putting them back inside the boot, she scooped up the rest of his clothes and his towel and quickly ran back to the steps.

  ‘Oi!’ Andrew yelled as he started wading out the water.

  She gave him a little wave and ran as fast as she could up the stairs. Sadly she wasn’t that fit and reached the top panting and heaving. She stopped for a few seconds to catch her breath before moving off towards her cottage, not running – she was too worn out for that – but walking quickly.

  She turned round to see if Andrew was in hot pursuit and saw him reach the top of the steps and start chasing after her. Finding a new lease of life, she broke into a run and raced back to the cottage, giggling so hard she could hardly catch her breath.