The Secret of Happy Ever After

  Anna glanced at the list and winced. Michelle had been busy; every page was covered in her direct handwriting – notes and suggestions everywhere. For someone who didn’t read, she had very specific ideas about which books should be in the shop. Or not.

  ‘Right, then, I’m off next door. See you later.’ She wrapped her scarf round her neck and gave Tavish a last beady look. ‘Give the floor a sweep once he’s gone,’ she added to Anna. ‘Hairs. They get everywhere.’

  ‘And you’ll read the book?’ Rory prompted.

  ‘It can join the queue behind all the ones I’ve told her to read,’ said Anna, before Michelle could make something up.

  ‘Ha ha,’ said Michelle, and swept out in a jingle of bells.

  ‘What’s the book?’ Anna asked casually, as she dumped her satchel on the chair and checked the diary.

  ‘The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald. It’s short. It even has a poltergeist – I was reminded of it, last night.’ Rory looked faintly annoyed. ‘Is she always so touchy about people offering her reading material? Don’t bookshop owners have to come into contact with books now and again?’

  ‘Don’t take it personally,’ said Anna. ‘She thinks we’re forming a conspiracy of bookworms to undermine her non-reading stance.’

  ‘How can someone as smart as Michelle not like reading?’

  ‘Don’t ask me. I think she’s got a bit of a chip on her shoulder about not having gone to university, which hardly matters when you look at what she’s achieved.’ Anna realised she might be straying into indiscreet waters. ‘So, you found Tavish last night?’ She leaned against the wall as the coffee machine spluttered into life.

  ‘Yup. You’re not haunted, I’m sorry to have to tell you,’ said Rory. ‘We think he must have been hiding in the back for a day or two. Took a while to get the dust out of his coat. Tavish doesn’t care too much for grooming. You be good for Anna now, wee man.’

  Anna watched as Rory hitched up his trousers and folded his lanky frame down to giveTavish a goodbye scratch, revealing a sudden, unexpected flash of bright yellow sock between his trouser-leg and brogue. Tavish raised his head to accept the attention with a dignified pride, and Anna’s heart softened like ice cream.

  There was something reassuring about a man who got on well with dogs, she thought. Phil pretended that Pongo was the most stupid thing Sarah had ever given the girls, and that he was more trouble than an extra child, but Anna had caught him more than once, asleep with Pongo’s big head draped over his shoulder, the two of them snoring on alternate breaths.

  ‘I’m going up to Butterfields this lunchtime,’ she said impulsively. ‘Should I tell Mr Quentin about Tavish turning up here looking for him? Do you reckon that I might persuade them to bend the “no pets” rule?’

  Rory looked up at her, obviously wanting to agree but struggling with lawyerly reason. ‘I don’t know. It might upset him if they said no. And he keeps asking me if I know whether he’s been re-homed or not yet, so if he’s running away that’s just more to worry about.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Anna. ‘Best not.’

  ‘No more running away, Tavish,’ he said, then stood up. ‘Right, off to the coalface of justice. Bye now, Anna.’

  Rory smiled, but Anna thought his sardonic eyes had lost their usual sparkle. Not quite as sad as Tavish’s, but close.

  Tavish stayed so quietly under the front desk that Anna almost forgot he was there. She’d only had a couple of customers – one lady coming in to collect an overnight order that had arrived, and another browser, who didn’t come in for anything in particular, but left with a set of Sherlock Holmes mysteries, after a long conversation about why it was that everyone seemed to discover Sherlock Holmes while they were in bed sick with something.

  Tavish pricked up his ears each time the bell jangled, but settled back to a doze soon after, settling himself eventually on Anna’s foot like a warm cushion.

  He finished the shop off perfectly, Anna thought, as she flipped through her counter copy of The Jungle Book and ate her early lunch sandwich while Tavish chased rabbits in his sleep. A shop dog. Michelle might be furious about the hairs, but he added a quirky charm to the place, like the bunting pinned above the novels. Only Tavish had been there long before them.

  She peered under the desk and watched him sleeping. The silver hairs around his eyes and nose gave him a bespectacled, learned look, like a grumpy Scottish professor.

  Rachel hadn’t arrived by the time Kelsey came in to cover her lunch break, and Anna ran through the instructions, while Kelsey and Tavish eyed each other warily. Kelsey, by her own admission, ‘wasn’t good with animals’.

  ‘He’s not going to chew any books, is he?’ Kelsey asked. ‘Or attack anyone for coming in?’

  ‘What do you think?’ asked Anna, slinging her bag of reading books over her shoulder. ‘He’s worked here longer than we have. Call me if Michelle has any problems and don’t forget to let him out for a pee.’

  Mr Quentin was one of the residents already gathered in the circle of chairs for the story session when Anna walked into the big day room with Joyce and two of her daycare assistants.

  She smiled at him but he didn’t smile back immediately. There was a slight delay with all his reactions now, as if he had to think before each one. The crisp bookseller’s mind that had once had entire libraries of novels and reference books, tank details and Longhampton Cricket Club, lined up in neat cross-referenced rows was now messy, the facts all still there but in loose leaves, blowing around, disordered, like the back room of the shop, before they’d tidied it up.

  He’d been neat, too, in the bookshop, with a red hanky square in his top pocket and a Homburg hat for walking out with the dogs and his wife. Anna realised she’d forgotten that image until this moment – Mr and Mrs Quentin walking their two freshly clipped dogs past the town hall like something from an Ealing comedy. Two matching pairs like ghosts from a different Longhampton time, superimposed on a messier, less stylish street.

  Anna’s throat swelled, seeing the rumpled collar of Mr Quentin’s shirt beneath the lumpy jumper, but Joyce bustled her along with her brisk instructions to ‘get everyone’s hearing aids turned up and listening ears on’.

  ‘Lovely, everyone’s here. Apart from your mum-in-law,’ she added to Anna when they were ready.

  ‘Don’t call her mum,’ she muttered back. ‘She hates that.’

  ‘Does she? Well, she has some funny ways, bless her . . . Ah, Mrs McQueen!’ Joyce called across the room, as the door opened and Evelyn entered.

  ‘Am I late?’ said Evelyn, sounding more hopeful than sorry. She had finally discarded the hated Zimmer frame, and was walking with a stick that gave her a faintly menacing, regal air. ‘The stupid girl who does the hairdressing – is she on work experience? I had to tell her what to do myself. And you should speak to her about her language.’

  ‘Your hair looks lovely,’ said Anna. Chloe’s obsession with her hair was a genetic bequest from Evelyn, along with her need for constant attention.

  ‘No, it doesn’t,’ snapped Evelyn. ‘I look as if I’ve been set upon by apes. Apes with hairspray.’

  Joyce giggled, which was not Evelyn’s desired reaction.

  ‘I realise that hairdressing is probably wasted on most of the women in here, if you can still call them women,’ she began, without bothering to lower her voice, but fortunately for Joyce, someone’s hearing aid started to whistle and Anna seized the chance to begin while she was sorting it out.

  Evelyn stalked off to the furthest chair and pouted. Her lips, outlined today in lurid coral lipstick, looked deadly.

  ‘I thought I’d read some P. G. Wodehouse,’ said Anna, ignoring Evelyn’s bored sigh. ‘We’ve had a request.’

  ‘Makes a change from all those women’s books,’ said an elderly man, with feeling. He and Mr Quentin were the only men there, surrounded by old women like two droopy cockerels in a barn of hens.

  Mr Quentin finally smiled at her, and she
smiled back, and began.

  Anna’s voice lifted and wound around the circle of chairs as she read the story – yet another one about Bertie’s troubles with his ‘least favourite aunt’, Agatha – but it was only when she reached the part about Aunt Agatha’s West Highland White dog, Mackintosh, that she noticed Mr Quentin’s expression change from quiet enjoyment to sadness.

  Anna kicked herself. Now she’d begun it was impossible to turn back. She carried on, getting a few quiet chuckles out of the audience, and when she finished, Joyce immediately leaped in with her discussion questions, designed to keep their minds active for a little longer, while the memories were still freshly shuffled.

  Mr Quentin, Anna noticed, stayed where he was, gazing into space.

  ‘Ooh, I bet that brought back memories?’ Joyce prompted. ‘Who had an aunt like that? Florence? Didn’t you have a funny old stick of an auntie who was a nippy in a Lyons Cornerhouse?’

  ‘I still do!’ insisted Florence, and the conversation kicked off in that strange dimension between past and present, a mixture of half memories and startling comments, some of which, when they popped out of the speaker’s mouth, left them as surprised as the person next to them.

  Anna usually liked to stay and listen to the stories, but she was worried about leaving Kelsey in charge for too long. She stuffed the book back into her bag and hurried over to where Mr Quentin was sitting, not quite knowing what she was going to say, but wanting to say something.

  ‘Mr Quentin,’ she began, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to . . .’

  He beat her to it, lifting his watery eyes with a sad smile. ‘That brought back memories, my dear. Do you remember our Morag? Our Westie? She was quite a lady.’

  ‘She was a poppet,’ Anna managed, already feeling her eyes go hot.

  ‘Agnes was always much better with the dogs than I was, fussing about with boiled chicken and what have you, but you do miss them when they’re gone. I still look around expecting to see old Tavish.’ He sighed, and the sound said more than words could have done. It was the regret of a man who wasn’t supposed to miss a dumb animal quite as much as he did.

  ‘I . . .’ Anna’s voice stuck in her throat.

  ‘Will you do something for me, dear?’ he asked, and she knew it wasn’t going to be a query about the bookshop.

  She nodded.

  ‘Will you ask that nice lady at the rescue if she couldn’t keep Tavish herself? I’ve been thinking about him, you see, in that lonely place, being passed over for younger dogs who can run about and play, and such like. I don’t mind paying for his food and board, just so long as I know he’s with someone kind. Not having to try to get used to strangers, who don’t know his habits.’ His voice cracked. ‘He’s a grumpy old thing, like me, you see, and I can’t stand the thought of anyone being impatient with the daft old mutt. At his age.’

  Anna blinked. She’d seen some of the older rescue dogs waiting in the runs when she’d taken Pongo up for his holidays. Some of them looked up so hopefully each time a human entered the kennel block, then sank back down again, despondent, when they were passed over. Some didn’t even look up any more. Anna nearly left with an extra dog every time.

  Anna grabbed his hand and squeezed her lips together, trying not to cry. ‘Leave it with me,’ she said, and when Mr Quentin turned his face away, she had to hurry out of the room before he saw the tears rolling down her face.

  Her eyes were still blurry when she marched down the high street, en route to the bookshop, and bumped into Rory outside his office.

  ‘Steady on,’ he said, catching her arms. ‘Are you all right?’

  She shook her head. ‘Has Rachel been for Tavish yet?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve just nipped out for some lunch. What’s up?’

  Anna didn’t bother hiding her smudged eyeliner as he peered at her. Rory had a kind face, an old-fashioned one, with his clean-shaven jaw. He should be wearing a hat, she thought; he had that rather period drama sort of air.

  ‘Rory, we have to do something about Tavish,’ she gabbled. ‘We have to keep him somehow, I don’t know how, but poor Mr Quentin . . . he actually offered me money to make sure Tavish got a good home. And he’s already run away looking for his master once, and I’ve seen how far it is from the rescue. He’s old. He must be exhausted, sleeping rough and not being fed . . .’

  Anna was vaguely aware that she was now mingling One Hundred and One Dalmatians with the real story of Tavish, but she didn’t care.

  ‘You’ve been reading too many books,’ said Rory, but he squeezed her shoulders. ‘Look, I don’t want to see the old mutt passed from pillar to post either. Let’s think logically. Can you take him?’

  ‘I wish I could, but I don’t know if he’d get on with Pongo. He’s a ball of energy at the best of times. It would be like moving Prince Philip in with Jedward.’

  ‘Well, I’d have him, but I’m out all day.’

  Anna shook her head. ‘Rachel would never let you take him if you work full time.’

  ‘Fair enough. What about Michelle?’

  ‘No,’ she said at once. ‘She hates dog hair in her house. She won’t even let Pongo into the house unless he’s in his dog bag.’

  ‘Dog bag. Why am I not surprised?’ Rory pinched his eyebrows together as if he was thinking, then said, ‘Why don’t we go and have a chat with Michelle, anyway?’

  ‘She’ll just say no.’

  ‘Where there’s a lawyer, there’s a plan.’ He grinned, and his funny Brief Encounter face seemed boyish. ‘Maybe I can persuade her.’

  Michelle knew she shouldn’t start tempting herself until she had her shop plan fully thought out, but a supplier had sent her a preview email of the most gorgeous merino wool blankets she’d ever seen, and it was very hard not to whip out her business credit card and place a sizeable order then and there.

  I could get a few for Home Sweet Home, see how they go, she thought, scrolling through the email and mentally piling the cherry-blossom-pink blankets on the dresser where she currently had hand-knitted hot-water-bottle covers.

  The image shifted in her head to the big brass-framed bed she planned to have where the children’s section currently was next door, whereupon it turned into a much more lavish display, with matching hand-stitched quilts from the Pennsylvania craft co-operative she’d found online, and sheepskin booties from Cornwall arranged on the shelves behind. The bookshelves could stay: they’d be perfectly sized for nets of beeswax soap and a few cosily appropriate paperbacks. Lilac- and cream-coloured ones, ideally. Maybe a few of those vintage orange Penguins.

  Michelle jotted down ‘A Book at Bedtime?’ on her notepad and poked a fork into the remains of her pasta salad from the deli.

  Her New Year’s resolution not to work through her lunch break had slipped by mid January, but there was so much to do with two shops that she had no choice. Currently she was in the whitewashed office at the back of Home Sweet Home because she didn’t want to leave Gillian alone in the shop now Kelsey was next door covering for Anna.

  Anna, who – she checked her watch – should be back from her mission of reading mercy any minute now.

  She jotted down some more bedlinen thoughts, one ear cocked for sounds of retail emergency from the shop, then heard footsteps approaching the back office.

  Please not Owen, she thought. He’d already started making noises about needing a ‘temporary loan’ to cover some expenses. She wasn’t sure what they could be, either, since he seemed to turn up at her house for supper at least every other night and spent more time than she’d bargained for lounging around her sitting room. She didn’t mind that; since the fright she’d had in the shop, she was secretly relieved to have someone there, in case Harvey did turn up. But still there was no sign of a new website, despite her frequent prompts.

  She circled ‘Website – Owen!’ on her to-do list, then underlined it.

  ‘Michelle?’

  She looked up. Anna was standing in the doorway, looking
flushed and excited, strands of blond hair escaping from her knitted beret. Her eyes were shining as if she’d been crying, but she seemed happy, not upset.

  Anna’s face was like a plate-glass shop window into her soul, thought Michelle. No curtains, nothing. No wonder those girls ran rings around her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Um, can you come next door? There’s something I need to talk to you about.’

  ‘To do with the shop?’

  ‘Sort of.’ Anna hopped from foot to foot. ‘And no, I can’t do it here.’

  Michelle sighed and put the remains of her lunch back into the paper takeaway bag for later.

  It didn’t take Rory and Anna long to set out their suggestion and it took Michelle even less time to say no.

  ‘I don’t want a dog,’ she repeated, in case it hadn’t yet broken through their wall of pleading.

  ‘But why not? It’s not like you’re jetting off on minibreaks every weekend.’ Anna’s soft-as-butter heart was right out on display. ‘You said it yourself, you like staying in. Tavish could stay in with you.’

  ‘I might want to go on minibreaks.’ Michelle cast a sideways look at Rory, in case he was sniggering at her. ‘And anyway, I’m away most weekends, at trade fairs.’

  ‘You could take him with you. He’s small. You could get him a carrycase!’

  ‘I don’t want a dog who goes in a handbag,’ said Michelle. ‘That’s not what dogs do.’

  ‘He’s lived in a shop all his life,’ said Rory. ‘You and he are soulmates. You’re retail trained. You’re his ideal owner, even if you didn’t lease his old house. Which you do.’

  Michelle struggled against the feelings of tightness that were compressing her chest. It wasn’t just the sense of being ganged up on by two people who’d read one too many Lassie books, or even guilt that she was betraying Flash somehow, but a darker panic that filled up inside her like an inflating balloon. She didn’t like other people, other things, impinging on the calm order she’d built around herself. It was too hard to explain without sounding like a nutcase, so maybe it was easier to let them think it was about her carpets.