The Secret of Happy Ever After

  Chloe ignored her. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  Becca also seemed interested now. ‘Is she? Where?’

  ‘It’s not another Home Sweet Home,’ said Anna. Her friendship with Michelle was one of the few brownie points she’d scored with the girls. ‘It’s a bookshop.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Chloe, sinking back in her seat.

  ‘That I’m running,’ Anna continued. ‘And it’s next door to Home Sweet Home, and it’s going to be amazing. We’ve got lots of plans for it, author events and discussion groups, and I think we could do with a couple of keen and motivated Saturday girls to do a few hours at the weekend.’

  ‘I’d rather work next door, if I’ve got to work at all,’ said Chloe. ‘Can’t you get me a Saturday job there?’

  ‘No,’ said Anna. ‘And anyway, you’d just spend your wages on more wings for the dog.’

  ‘Not much chance of Chloe spending her wages in a bookshop,’ Lily piped up, sounding so much like Becca that Anna did a double take in her mirror.

  ‘Dad?’ said Becca. ‘I wouldn’t mind doing that too. Having a Saturday job.’

  ‘What about your revision?’ Phil looked concerned. ‘You’re working so hard already. You’ve already given up orchestra, and five A-levels is a lot.’

  ‘I can manage.’ Becca stared out of the car window. ‘I’ve been thinking about tuition fees and student loans, all that stuff. I think I should have an emergency fund built up. Just in case.’

  Just in case was Becca’s motto. Anna often wondered if she’d always been such a worrier, or if the divorce had made her look for disaster round every corner. Maybe wanting to be a barrister from an early age had skewed her expectations of life’s random cruelties. Anna had thought for a while now that Becca worked a little bit too hard. The more Phil told her how proud he was of her, the later her bedroom light seemed to stay on.

  ‘Becca, you don’t have to worry about money,’ said Phil. ‘We’ve got that under control. You just concentrate on getting your grades.’

  ‘But if you want to do it for a break from your revision, then I’m sure we could find you some useful stuff to do.’ Anna tried to keep her voice non-committal. ‘I find a bit of mindless stacking and selling and sweeping quite therapeutic.’

  Phil turned to her, beetling his brows into a silent no. ‘Do you think that’s . . .’

  Anna beetled her brows back. ‘And you can keep an eye on Chloe.’

  ‘Thanks, Anna,’ said Becca. She turned away from the window and flashed a sudden, sunny smile at her. ‘I’d like that.’

  ‘How much will this gig pay?’ demanded Chloe.

  ‘Gig?’ repeated Phil. ‘Gig?’

  ‘We can talk about it,’ said Anna. ‘You can come in and have a look round. Maybe even check out the stock?’

  ‘Mmm!’ said Becca, but Chloe didn’t bother to answer. She was already texting and singing to herself. Probably Tyra the stylist, or Bethany the backing singer. ‘I am back,’ she sang under her breath. ‘Back in my hood, back with my giiiiirls . . .’

  ‘Give it a rest, Beyoncé,’ said Lily, and Becca snorted.

  8

  ‘I longed to be in the Famous Five as a child, to the point where I constantly invented “mysteries”, just so I could solve them – and boss my sister around in the “investigation”.’

  Louise Davies

  Just ten days after she’d let herself and Anna into the grimy, unloved bookshop, Michelle pushed open the door and enjoyed a moment’s pride that between them, she, Anna and Lorcan the builder had transformed the place into the vision she’d seen in her mind’s eye.

  Longhampton Books was now a shop customers would want to linger in. The cream-painted shelves made the room seem twice as big and the stock twice as inviting, and the newly sanded floorboards kept a touch of the old amongst the clean new decoration.

  She’d fixed an old station clock between the front and back rooms, and hung up gold letters from a shopfront that spelled out the different sections on the simple whitewashed walls. The brass pendant lights that Lorcan’s electrician had sourced and wired in for her last night already looked as if they’d been there forever, and Michelle made a mental note to see if he could get her any more to sell next door.

  Also looking as though she’d been there forever was Anna, leaning on the counter reading a hardback copy of Little Women. She was wearing her bookish glasses, instead of her contact lenses, and didn’t look up until Michelle’s boots had clicked halfway across the room towards her. When she did she looked so guilty her hair nearly fell out of the bun she’d improvised with a pencil.

  ‘Sorry, Michelle, I was miles away.’ She gestured to the book. ‘It’s so lovely. I must have read this a hundred times when I was little. I used to pretend I had three sisters too. And long hair to sell in an emergency.’

  ‘Are there no kids’ books about girls who grow up with annoying brothers?’ Michelle got her notebook out and wrote ‘4. Get jangly bell for bookshop to keep Anna focused’.

  ‘The Famous Five,’ said Anna at once. ‘Julian and Dick were Anne’s brothers. And George wanted to be a boy. Who did you want to be out of the March sisters?’ she went on. ‘I always saw myself as Jo, loving books and being impulsive but fundamentally good-hearted.’

  ‘I don’t think I read it. Was it a film?’

  ‘Michelle! You didn’t read Little Women?’ Anna looked shocked.

  ‘No. I keep telling you, I didn’t have a reading sort of childhood. I had brothers. The house was full of Airfix kits and Shoot! annuals.’

  ‘You have to read it. You’ll love it.’ Anna thrust the book at her. ‘Go on, I’ll pay for it. Call it a present.’

  ‘I don’t have time to read,’ said Michelle. ‘I’m really not joking, Anna, I don’t.’

  ‘I can’t believe that,’ said Anna. ‘I sometimes lock myself in the loo if I can’t find ten minutes.’

  ‘Remind me never to borrow any books from you, then,’ said Michelle, turning her attention to the pen display on the desk. She knew there was no point trying to explain to a book lover why you didn’t have the time or the inclination to sit down and wedge yourself into a fantasy world for hours at a time.

  ‘So what do you do when you go home these days?’ Anna demanded, as if it had never occurred to her to ask before. ‘Now you’re not walking my dog or being forced to have dinner with my husband’s friends from work?’

  ‘I . . .’ Michelle hesitated. She was about to say, ‘I do my accounts’ but she realised how sad that sounded. Her next options were ‘I do some cleaning or ironing’ or ‘I go for a run’, neither of which were much better.

  She shook her head, as if there were just too many things to list. ‘I research new lines for the shop, I explore online boutiques, I check out design blogs, I make plans for the shop, and for this one too now . . .’

  Anna was looking at her, and Michelle thought for one awful second there was a trace of sympathy behind her black-rimmed glasses.

  That needed to be nipped in the bud. She didn’t want Anna feeling sorry for her.

  ‘We need to get on with our book bouquets.’ Michelle reached into her bag and brought out her to-do list book and a bag of satin ribbons and bows from the wrapping table next door. ‘I’m talking them up to the features ed on the paper. Choose me five books for someone in bed with some minor problem that you’d usually send flowers for. A woman, about our age. Nice big book to start.’

  ‘What kind of big?’ asked Anna. ‘Big like a serious novel? Or big in the sense of covering a long period of time?’

  ‘No. Just a big book. As in large.’

  ‘Here.’ Anna gave her Little Women again. ‘I don’t know a woman who wouldn’t love to read this. Sisters, tear-jerking deathbed scene, proposals . . .’

  It wasn’t quite as big as Michelle had hoped but it was a start. It would be a tall bouquet. ‘OK, good. Next one. Slightly smaller. Comforting subject matter. Take me away from Longhampton.’

&nb
sp; ‘Er . . . Anne of Green Gables? It takes you to the rural tranquillity of Prince Edward Island, Canada. Very cosy at this time of year.’

  ‘OK.’ Michelle took the book Anna passed her and frowned at the dust jacket: a red-headed girl in a pinny, laughing by an apple tree. ‘Is this another kids’ book?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s so lovely you can read it again as an adult and just feel . . . warmed through. It’s about an orphan girl adopted by a brother and sister who really wanted a boy, and she melts their crustiness with her love of life and her eagerness to learn, and her freckly nose. I used to pretend that I was called Anne with an ‘‘e’’ because it was so distinguished.’ Anna paused and narrowed her eyes at Michelle. ‘You’re sure you haven’t read Anne of Green Gables?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Michelle. ‘I spent most of my childhood dragging Owen out of trouble and getting make-up tips from Just Seventeen.’ She stacked the book on top of the first and held out her hand. ‘Another. Grown-up book, please.’

  Anna looked around. The front desk, Michelle noticed, was littered with paperbacks, most of which were children’s novels, going by the front covers. Anna’s hand reached out for first one Dahl, then another, then withdrew under Michelle’s warning gaze. Eventually she went over to the Humour section and grabbed a copy of Cold Comfort Farm.

  ‘There,’ she said. ‘I gave this to Becca for Christmas, but she left it by her bed. I picked it because she’s doing Wuthering Heights for A-level, and it’s such a funny parody of those sorts of brooding yokels novels. The heroine is a Bright Young Thing bossy-boots, another orphan who descends on a set of cousins and starts improving them whether they like it or not. I read it when I was about thirteen and re-read it now, whenever I need cheering up.’

  ‘Cheering up? With all these orphans? Did you only read novels about dysfunctional families as a child?’

  ‘Of course not!’ said Anna, then paused. ‘Although, I suppose The Secret Garden’s about an orphan, and so’s Ballet Shoes, and James and the Giant Peach, and Pippi Longstocking, more or less, and . . .’ She pulled a face, as if she’d only just made the connection. ‘If they’re not crippled with some disease, they do tend to be missing a parent or two.’

  ‘And you don’t think that’s scary for kids?’

  ‘A lot of children’s fiction’s scary, when you think about it,’ said Anna. ‘All those abandoned children coping with the world in their own way normalises the challenges of the adult world, and . . .’ She trailed off.

  ‘What’s up?’ said Michelle.

  ‘I just . . . I just wonder if that’s why Lily didn’t read those books I gave her. If she thought I was making some kind of point about them not having a traditional family? Do you think she might? Or that Chloe might have said something?’ She put a hand over her mouth and looked mortified.

  Michelle wished Anna wouldn’t take the blame for everything that happened in the McQueen household, as if she were the only one capable of making mistakes. ‘Hardly. I bet Chloe didn’t even bother to read the back copy of her own books, never mind Lily’s. Anna, you’ve got to stop over-thinking this parenting thing.’

  ‘Because I wasn’t trying to make a point. I never even thought about it like that.’

  ‘No one thinks you did. They just think you gave them boring presents,’ said Michelle firmly. ‘Look, you’re the grown-up in this situation. If you want Lily to read a book with you, can’t you just say to her, “Right, we’re having a bedtime story tonight. It’s Ballet Shoes. Pin your ears back.”?’

  ‘I can try,’ said Anna uncertainly. ‘I don’t like to be too prescriptive about—’

  ‘Kids need prescriptive. She’s eight, not eighteen. Now, I need another book. Same size or smaller? Hey, come on. Focus!’

  Anna shook herself. ‘It’s not going to be much smaller, Cold Comfort Farm’s a paperback.’

  ‘Well, different colour then.’

  Anna went over to the Humour shelf again and offered her another paperback, a jazzy Art Deco one this time. ‘How about Right Ho, Jeeves? Oh.’ She pulled the corners of her mouth down. ‘Maybe not.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Orphan. Albeit rich orphan with omniscient butler.’

  Michelle rolled her eyes. ‘Give it here, it’s a new book, we can charge full price. Last one, please. Short.’

  ‘Michelle, you do realise that most fiction books only come in two sizes . . . Peter Rabbit?’ Anna handed her a tiny Beatrix Potter hardback.

  ‘Seriously? For a grown woman?’

  ‘They’re lovely. The drawings are so detailed and you can see the expressions in the little bunny faces. And it’s all happy in the end. That’s what you want when you’ve got a bad back. Happy rabbits.’

  ‘You’re the expert.’ Michelle arranged the books with a deft movement and slid the wired ribbon underneath. With a few twists, she tied the stack up and fastened the lilac ribbon at the top, curling it into a rippling bow. She unrolled a silver ribbon, added an extra flourish and looked critically at the stack. ‘What else can we put in with this? Make it look like thirty quid’s worth of gift?’

  ‘Some hankies for weeping into?’ Anna held up a packet of delicate cherry-blossom print paper hankies from the bowl by the till, and a packet of organic chocolate buttons from another bowl by the cookery section.

  They weren’t the only things that had crept in from Home Sweet Home; dotted around the tables were all the book-related gift items Michelle could find. Pretty bookmarks, reading lights, bookends carved in the shape of owls . . . all designed to get customers in a buying frame of mind. And – although she hadn’t said so to Anna – also to give them something to buy if they couldn’t find the right book. It was Michelle’s mission to ensure no customer left her shop empty-handed. She didn’t trust the books to make it happen alone.

  ‘There.’ Michelle tweaked the ribbon and stepped back from the finished article. ‘Our book bouquet. Better for you than sweets, lasts longer than a bunch of flowers.’

  ‘Give the gift of nostalgia,’ said Anna, picking up her marketing drift at once. ‘Your childhood in an afternoon. Selected according to the preferences of the recipient and delivered by hand for . . . a fiver?’

  ‘Seven quid. Make it worth Gillian getting her moped out.’

  ‘I’ll make some fliers to leave by the till.’ Anna made a note in her book. ‘It’s a lovely present.’

  ‘It is,’ said Michelle, allowing herself a smile. She reached out and touched Anna’s arm. ‘Well done you, for coming up with it.’

  ‘Well, you really . . .’ Anna started, with typical modesty.

  ‘No,’ said Michelle emphatically. ‘Your idea. Take the gold star.’

  Anna looked pleased, and touched. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I’m really glad my useless gift-giving had some kind of happy ending.’

  ‘Now, how about a coffee from that machine you said was so vital?’

  Anna poured two cups of coffee from the jug, handed one to Michelle and smiled, her gentle face shining with enthusiasm. She looked younger suddenly, and Michelle realised she hadn’t seen her look so relaxed in months. Since before the girls arrived in her house, in fact.

  Anna sold the book bouquet within ten minutes of Michelle’s departure, to a woman looking for something to give a friend who’d been ordered to bed for the last two weeks of her pregnancy.

  ‘Lauren’s not allowed to do anything other than read and go to the loo,’ she said, falling on the display by the door with a delighted coo. ‘And she’s so sick of magazines, but she can’t concentrate on anything too serious. This is absolutely perfect . . . Oh my God, Anne of Green Gables! Have you got any more?’

  ‘I have,’ said Anna, and sold her one, plus What Katy Did.

  ‘I so wanted to be Clover,’ the customer sighed, flipping through the book as Anna put the card payment through. ‘Didn’t you? I loved the bit where they were allowed long skirts and to put their hair up for the first time. I used to pin towels round me with kilt pins an
d swish around the house in my brother’s boots, calling everyone ma’am.’

  Anna nodded. ‘Apart from the swing bit. It put me right off swings. My dad had only just put one up in the garden and I wouldn’t go near it for years.’

  ‘Me too!’ The customer widened her eyes. ‘That bit where the pin comes out with the terrible crack . . .’ She pulled a horrified face at exactly the same time as Anna did.

  That was the nice thing about children’s books, Anna thought as the woman left, promising to come back when she had ‘more time for a proper browse’. They weren’t like adult novels, where people pretended to have read the Booker short-list, but never did; everyone really had gobbled up the same Dahls and Blytons, and talking about them gave you that instant sense of something shared, that ‘secret society’ feeling that wasn’t very secret at all because nearly everyone you knew had read the same things, had invited the same characters into their heads, and had woven secret scraps of themselves and their own feelings and fears into those imagined faces and voices.

  She thought about what Michelle had said about Ballet Shoes and Lily, and decided she was right. There was no point waiting for other people; that was her motto for this year. And she would start the reading tonight.

  Inspired by the sale and by the two customers who came in to inspect the new look and left with a vintage thriller and a Complete Works of Shakespeare respectively, Anna started to put together more bouquets – a Sunday afternoon Bunch of Detectives, with Miss Marple, Lord Peter Wimsey, Hercule Poirot and the Famous Five; a Romance Posy of pink and white novels by Georgette Heyer, Barbara Cartland and Jilly Cooper, topped off with The Pursuit of Love and a pack of Love Hearts, and tied with a silver ribbon.

  She was threading a bag of toffee into the crime bouquet when a man in a suit entered the shop and marched straight to the front desk without bothering to browse.

  Anna looked up, ready to smile, and stopped. He wasn’t, as most customers did, pausing to gaze around the shop with an expression of admiration for Michelle’s muted but welcoming colour scheme. Rather, he seemed annoyed.