The Secret of Happy Ever After

  ‘Why didn’t you say?’ Anna hugged her hard. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I thought . . .’

  ‘Because it’s finished. It’s in the past. I’m not going back.’ Michelle stared over her shoulder. ‘I move on from things, OK?’

  ‘Can you?’

  ‘I can,’ said Michelle. ‘I can, and I have.’

  That wasn’t her problem. Her problem was that no one else in her family seemed to want her to.

  Owen was only fifteen minutes late when he arrived at Swan’s Row on Saturday morning, which was a significant improvement on his usual time-keeping, but it still meant that Michelle felt behind as they hit the motorway.

  ‘Stop overtaking everything, Shell,’ said Owen, glancing up from his mobile as she passed another lorry. He’d been texting nearly all the way. ‘I feel like I’m in a car with Jenson Button.’

  ‘We’re going to be late. If we get there early, they can’t break out into a chorus of “Happy Birthday” when we walk in and make everyone stare at us.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you rather be late? Spend as little time with your adoring family as possible?’

  ‘It’s not that.’ She indicated and overtook another caravan. ‘I’ve got things to do later on. At home.’

  Owen stopped texting and looked at her. ‘Mum’s worried about you, you know. She asked me if she’d done something recently to upset you, because you never call.’

  That was rich, thought Michelle. Using Owen – the child she’d sent off to boarding school at ten because she’d had enough of child-rearing – to make her feel bad about her lack of family spirit. ‘I don’t call because I’m busy with work. If she was busy with work, she wouldn’t notice me not calling.’

  ‘She’s worried about you,’ he repeated.

  ‘Owen, she’s not. She’s just annoyed because she’d got my life nicely arranged, with a husband of her choice, and now it’s messy again. Give her another six months and she’ll start on you. “Owen, when are you going to get married? Owen, when will you give me grandchildren as lovely as you? Owen, have you had dinner with Jenny Lawson recently?”’

  He pulled a face. ‘If I wanted to go out with Dad’s accountant’s daughter I would have done it when I had that run-in with the Inland Revenue last year.’

  ‘Oh ho, that’s fighting talk, Owen. Be careful, we haven’t got an accountant in the family yet.’

  Owen stared out of the window and drummed his fingers against the side of the door. Then he said suddenly,‘Seriously, Shell, if she does start going on about Jennifer, can you steer her off it?’

  ‘Why? You’re seeing someone?’

  ‘Sort of.’ He corrected himself. ‘Yes. Yes, I am seeing someone.’

  Michelle glanced across the car, intrigued. ‘Who? Do I know her?’

  He didn’t meet her eye, but he looked unusually shy. ‘It’s very early days. I don’t want to talk about it.’

  She laughed out loud at that. ‘You don’t want to talk about it? Seriously? That is a first, Owen.’

  ‘Yeah. Maybe.’ He fiddled with his phone and Michelle realised he’d had it in his hand for the entire journey, as if he couldn’t bear to put it in his pocket in case it rang. It must be serious, she thought. Owen’s normal tactic was ‘very hard to get’, followed by ‘impossible to get’ and a move to a different country.

  ‘Is she a nice girl? Would I like her?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, then, unable to resist, added, ‘It’s Becca.’

  In one movement Michelle swerved into a lay-by, and the car behind her hooted as it sped past. ‘What?’ she said, yanking on the handbrake and swivelling round in her seat.

  Owen looked terrified. ‘What the hell was that for?’

  ‘Becca. You’re going out with Becca? Anna’s Becca?’

  ‘Yes! I thought you’d be pleased.’

  Michelle shoved her hands into her hair. ‘Owen, Becca is a sweet, talented, beautiful girl. I really like her. I don’t want to see her heartbroken and dumped just before her hugely important exams that will decide whether she gets into the university of her dreams. Which is also the university of her parents’ dreams.’

  ‘I’m not going to dump her!’

  ‘Aren’t you? That’ll definitely be a first.’ She gave him a clear-eyed look. ‘I’m your sister, Owen. I’ve made those phone calls for you. I do not want to have to make one of those calls to my best friend to explain why her much-loved stepchild is weeping into her pillow and refusing to eat just before the most important exams of her life. And have you seen the size of Phil? You fancy that coming after you when Becca finds out on Facebook that she’s no longer in a relationship?’

  ‘I’m not twelve,’ scoffed Owen.

  ‘No, you’re not. You’re twenty-four, and she’s eighteen. Eighteen.’

  Owen opened his mouth, then shut it, then opened it again.

  ‘Oh God. Tell me you’re not sleeping with her,’ said Michelle.

  ‘Michelle!’

  ‘Well. Are you?’

  ‘No,’ admitted Owen. ‘It’s not like that. You’re making out I’m some kind of serial shagger—’

  ‘Which you are.’

  ‘This is different. I wouldn’t even say we were dating yet. It’s . . . different. I really like her, I don’t want to rush it. I wouldn’t have said anything if you hadn’t asked.’ He actually looked affronted. ‘Anyway, you’re not exactly a relationship expert yourself, Michelle.’

  That hit a nerve, but she tried not to let it show on her face. ‘I’m not. But Anna’s my friend, she’s got enough problems keeping things on track in that family and I really, really don’t want her life made more complicated than it already is.’

  ‘Are you telling me to finish it with Becca because your friend’s busy?’ Owen’s eyes were sarcastic, but there was something else in there too, thought Michelle. She wasn’t sure what it was.

  Cars sped past inches away from them, making the car sway.

  She took a deep breath. She couldn’t tell him to break it off. He wasn’t a bad lad, just a thoughtless, free-wheeling one. Two things Becca wasn’t. She might be younger than him, but in many ways she was a lot more mature.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘But I’m asking you to be careful. And kind.’

  ‘I can do that,’ said Owen. ‘Why wouldn’t I do that?’

  ‘Good,’ said Michelle. She put the car back into gear. ‘Now, help me get through this nightmare of a birthday party.’

  Despite her best efforts on the A3, when she pulled into the car park, Michelle could see from the array of Nightingale dealership cars parked outside that her parents, plus her brothers and their families were there, but there was no sign of Harvey’s personalised plate, which gave her a small moment of relief.

  She plastered on a smile for the loud round of ‘Happy Birthday’ that rang out when she entered – making heads turn all round the gastropub – then they were shown into the family room, booked especially to accommodate all the Nightingales, including six children and their bits and pieces.

  Michelle’s stress headache started soon after the menus arrived and built steadily through the endless banter about her age, Ben’s bald patch and the pauses for various nieces and nephews to demonstrate their latest party trick. She’d sat as far away from her mother as she could, between her sister-in-law, Emma, and her dad, but such was Carole’s close relationship with my ‘darling extra daughters’, as she called her daughters-in-law, that she spent the whole meal leaning down the table to offer her opinions on whatever they were discussing, and Michelle could hardly escape the sighs and glances that swung her way every time the topic of children and families came up.

  Even Emma seemed embarrassed, and tried to change the subject as much as she could.

  ‘Michelle,’ she said, after they’d been discussing her son’s new piano teacher for what felt to Michelle like nine years, ‘you went straight to work from school, didn’t you?’

  ‘Um, yes,’ she replied, defences rising automatically
.

  ‘My best employee ever,’ said her dad Charles, straight away, with a proud look. ‘Wish I still had her on my team.’

  ‘My best teacher,’ said Michelle. Not because it was expected but because it was true. She and her dad didn’t talk much about emotional matters but they could chat for hours about minimising overheads, and that made her feel closer to him than an hour’s lecture from her mother about everyone else’s kids.

  ‘It’s just that my sister’s going through a bit of a rebellious phase,’ Emma went on, blushing, ‘and we’ve been warned she might not pass her exams, so I was wondering . . .’

  ‘She could take the Michelle Nightingale route – get expelled, have a summer off, then get a job polishing cars,’ her brother Ben butted in, from two seats down. ‘From public school drop-out to mug-tree mogul. Like Richard Branson with jute bags.’

  Ben had a very carrying voice. Michelle saw Carole’s lips had turned white and she was actually looking round to see if the waiters had heard.

  For God’s sake, Mum, she thought angrily. Still? That had been her sole concern at the time: ‘Oh, Michelle, what will people say? They all think you’re such a sensible girl.’ Carole had stayed indoors for a whole week, and had refused to discuss the reason for Michelle’s unexpected arrival home, so crushing was the burden of shame. Michelle had been grateful at the time, because she didn’t want to talk about the gory details either, but now she suspected that was more to do with Carole’s determination to wipe the whole incident from the collective family memory than from a desire to help.

  ‘Always looks intriguing on the CV, an expulsion,’ Ben went on, oblivious to the sudden blankness of his sister’s face. ‘Shows you’re a party girl under the business suit, eh?’

  ‘Shut up, Ben,’ said Michelle. ‘Do you want us to get onto the topic of hair transplants? Or vasectomy reversals?’

  Charles coughed uncomfortably. ‘Isn’t it time for the . . . thing, Carole?’ he asked, flapping his napkin.

  ‘What? What did I say?’ Ben demanded of no one in particular.

  Carole jiggled her eyebrows reproachfully at her husband. ‘No, not yet, Charlie. We’re not all here.’

  ‘We are,’ said Michelle.

  As she spoke, three waiters walked in with a glossy chocolate cake, covered with fizzing indoor sparklers. Michelle recognised them from Home Sweet Home and wondered if they’d ordered from her website.

  She felt a profound urge to be back in the stylish quiet of her shop, or on her sofa at home, or even in the bookshop with dribbly Tavish and Rory lecturing her on the right way to mash up dog food. Anywhere but here.

  ‘Happy Birthday to you . . .’ the waiters started, but one loud voice cut through them, a little bit flat, and her mother turned to her with a triumphant smile, as if she’d pulled off the biggest and best surprise of all.

  Michelle flinched. A huge cloud of metallic birthday balloons appeared over the top of the waiters and Carole clapped with undisguised delight, her tennis bracelets jingling as a figure stepped out from behind them.

  A broad figure in a sharp pin-stripe suit, the sort someone might wear if they had a lifelong fixation on Al Capone and the Prohibition gangsters, despite having gone to an expensive public school. The hand clutching the balloons had a big signet ring on the little finger, and the arm attached to it displayed a chunky gold Rolex, and fine golden hair that was occasionally waxed off in secret by a very discreet woman called Wendy in Cobham.

  Michelle focused on those bits because she didn’t want to look at the face just yet. Not till the last polite moment.

  ‘Harvey!’ her mother called out. ‘You made it! Oh, what sweet balloons! Look at the lovely balloons, Bella! Would you like one?’

  ‘Why did Mum invite Harvey?’ Michelle asked her dad under her breath, trying not to let it come out as an accusation. ‘We’re separated. Why does she think she can force us back together?’

  Her father looked uncomfortable. ‘He is my senior manager, love. Your mother asked him. She wants everyone to be friends.’

  Not for the first time, Michelle wondered queasily if her mother harboured more than a little crush on Harvey herself.

  ‘Does she invite all your staff to family birthdays?’ she demanded, her voice rising hysterically.

  She stopped as Ben turned round to see what the problem was. Harvey was coming towards her with the balloons, and she had no option but to look at him now.

  Michelle’s mother had gone through an annoying phase of calling Harvey ‘Bear’, on account of ‘his lovely big bear face. Like Winnie the Pooh!’ His features were very affable; he had a shock of blond hair, a large mouth that gaped open and big ears. But his eyes weren’t quite as bear-ish as the rest of him; they were pale blue, and small, like his hands and feet, and they took everything in with the quick assessing stare of a rattlesnake.

  Harvey had those eyes trained on Michelle now, and she felt herself go cold as he approached.

  ‘Happy birthday, darling,’ he said, planting a wet kiss on her cheek. Michelle recoiled at the intimacy of his hand resting on her hip. Harvey still smelled of too much aftershave and car wax, his hair was still thick and meticulously gelled, his nose was still red and his tie was still patterned with amusing turtles.

  She made a non-committal noise in response. It sounded like a squeak.

  ‘Look at you!’ he said, squeezing her waist as she tried to wriggle out of his reach. ‘You don’t look a day over thirty!’

  ‘No, she looks three hundred and sixty-five days over thirty!’ roared Ben right on cue, stopping just short of slapping his own thigh.

  ‘She looks a million dollars,’ said Harvey gallantly, then added, just loud enough for her to hear,‘Especially now you’ve lost a pound or two. Must be all that running around at work. Keep it up!’

  Michelle felt as if someone had yanked down her dress. Ashamed, self-conscious. Feelings she hadn’t had about herself in ages. As she turned her head, she saw her mother look at them both with an expression of supreme smugness, then nudge her husband as if to say, ‘Look what I did!’

  When she and Harvey had met ten years earlier – or when she’d finally given in and allowed her mother to set her up on a blind date with her dad’s star manager – she’d been twenty years old, and still struggling with what no one had wanted to call clinical depression. Michelle wasn’t a natural drop-out. In the parallel world where things hadn’t gone wrong, she was two years into her degree course as planned, making friends, eating Pot Noodles, having close encounters with Natural Scientists and other carefree fun.

  Instead of which, she’d been in Kingston, hiding from the world. Harvey had made her his personal project, and she couldn’t believe someone as handsome (her standards had been spectacularly low at that point) and successful could want a failure like her. Harvey tended to agree, but with his support she’d stopped running ten miles a day and inched back into something approaching normality – if watching someone else play golf and going to regional launches of new Fords was normal. She was happy to let Harvey take charge of conversations, happy to let him march her to Selfridges with his credit card, and dress her ‘appropriately’. He was an adult. He understood these things. And his attention was balm to Michelle’s very raw self-confidence.

  Michelle was a quick learner, and her dad was touchingly keen to teach her all he knew, since his university-educated sons showed no interest in his dealership empire. She was good at guessing what people wanted and then giving it to them, for a price. She also developed a confident persona when she was in her sales mode, miles away from who she was at home. But as she started to rebuild herself, she began to realise that Harvey wasn’t that keen on her recovering. He preferred her when she did what she was told. By then, it was too late. The marquee was booked. Her family were blatantly relieved that the awkward episode was finally over; the black sheep had been safely tinted blond and was back on track to more family success.

  Michelle watched as Harvey ki
ssed her mother and shook hands with her brothers and kissed their wives and made faces at their kids, and felt the familiar twisting sensation inside. She’d let the wedding happen because, in her still-numb heart, she couldn’t come up with one convincing reason not to marry him, other than he just didn’t feel right, and that felt outrageously ungrateful – and he would refuse to believe it – so she said nothing. In the years that followed, she came up with a whole series of very convincing reasons.

  ‘Pull up a chair, fella,’ said Ben, trying to sound matey. He was a chartered surveyor and had never come to terms with his lack of cool compared to Harvey and Owen’s natural charisma. ‘What can I get you to drink? You’ll need it with this lot!’

  ‘I’ll sit here,’ said Harvey easily. ‘Next to my lady – if she’s left me enough room. Move up, Shelley.’

  He was already pushing his way into the tiny gap between her and Emma, and Michelle knew that not moving would mean he’d sit her on his knee. She moved. She had no choice.

  Owen glanced at her, and she knew his sharp eyes had taken it all in. His expression was a mixture of confusion and sympathy, but for whom, she couldn’t tell.

  Sometimes, like now, Michelle really wanted to take Owen aside and tell him everything, bring him right up to speed on why everyone was the way they were. He’d missed so much. But she worried it would alter his opinion of her, and she couldn’t stand that.

  The rest of the meal passed in an atmosphere of forced good humour, though Michelle was sure she was the only one who felt the artifice. Harvey kept getting nearer, and at three thirty, after the cake and presents (a pedicure set, and a toy cat that purred when you stroked it, ‘to keep you company’), Michelle escaped to the loo with her mobile, ready to text Anna to call her with a shop emergency.

  ‘Going so soon?’

  Harvey appeared behind her chair the second she pushed it back, and she knew they had to have a short conversation. Better to concede that much. Her breath sped up and she fought to sound normal.

  ‘’Fraid so. I’ve got to get back,’ she said, waving her phone. ‘Stock emergency.’

  ‘What kind of emergency do bookshops have? Let me see.’ He made to take her phone playfully, but she pulled it away. They were out of sight of her family, so he grabbed her wrist hard to get it, but a waiter passed by, and while Harvey was smiling at him, Michelle yanked her arm back and stepped away. Her heart really was hammering now.