The Secret of Happy Ever After, Page 2

  ‘No, I don’t.’ Michelle reached into her bag and pulled out a spotted cotton handkerchief. She had to shake the sugar off it first, which made Anna groan. ‘I’m sorry, have I said something . . . ?’ Michelle asked her.

  Anna blew her nose automatically, then looked askance at the hanky.

  ‘Keep it,’ said Michelle. ‘I’ve got lots.’

  ‘You should stock these, they’re nice.’ Anna blinked hard and pulled her smile back on. ‘Bit of a sore point, that’s all. I’m only a mum at the weekends. My husband, Phil, has three girls from his first marriage, and they’re round at our house now. We have them every other weekend and one weeknight.’

  ‘Right,’ said Michelle. Kids were out of her range of experience. She didn’t mind them, but then again she didn’t mind zebras or Marmite. ‘Are you here . . . because they’re there?’

  ‘Sort of. I’m giving them some dad time. As requested by their mother. We’ve only been married a year and a half, we’re still kind of feeling our way through the whole stepmother thing.’ Anna pressed her lips together. ‘It’s . . . challenging for everyone, but we’re trying.’

  ‘And the dog?’

  ‘Is theirs. I think he was the final straw.’ She glanced down at Pongo. ‘It’s not his fault no one bothered to train him. He sees the dog-walker more than he sees the girls, poor boy. I suggested we all went for a family walk this afternoon, but when I got to the front door, it turned out that only I was on it.’

  ‘Do you prefer him to them?’ Michelle wondered if that was the reason for the tears. Given the choice, she’d take a dog over three of someone else’s resentful kids.

  ‘No, no! I like all of them. I love children,’ Anna insisted, apparently surprised at the question. ‘It’s easier for me to walk Pongo when they’re not arguing about who holds his lead or throws the ball, but . . .’ Her voice trailed off as Natalie reappeared and put two coffees and another slice of cake in front of them.

  When she’d gone, Anna sighed. ‘It’s just not quite how I pictured it. But then things never are, are they?’

  ‘What did you picture?’ Michelle was skilful at asking questions so she didn’t have to supply answers herself. She didn’t want the subject to get round to her own marriage, which definitely hadn’t lived up to expectations, hers or anyone else’s.

  ‘Something between Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music?’ Anna half laughed at herself. ‘I mean, I’m an only child, I’ve wanted a big family since I was a kid. And when I married Phil, I read all the parenting books, you know, I wasn’t going to be the wicked stepmother, I wasn’t going to try to replace anyone, but in the end . . .’ She shrugged and looked sad. ‘If you could wave a magic wand and make people love you we’d all be at it, wouldn’t we? Waving away.’

  An unexpected lump filled Michelle’s throat.

  Anna stirred some sugar into her coffee, dissipating the froth. ‘Sorry, that’s too much information, isn’t it? Boring! Tell me about this new shop. What are you calling it?’

  ‘I haven’t decided.’ Michelle felt the warm beam of Anna’s attention turned on her, and she started to feel excited about the place again. The fishy smell receded in her mind. ‘I need something . . . comforting, and a bit magical. Happy. Any suggestions?’

  ‘Home Sweet Home, then. Isn’t that what we’re all trying to create?’ Anna grinned and pushed the cake plate towards her. ‘Help me eat this,’ she said. ‘It’ll be fifty per cent fat free if we share.’

  The next morning, when Michelle arrived at the shop with her builder, her tape measure and her project file, there was a box on the step, tied roughly with raffia and bearing a label which read simply: ‘Michelle’.

  For a nauseating moment, Michelle wondered if Harvey had somehow found her, but it wasn’t his style. He didn’t do handwritten if gold-plated was available. She undid the raffia to find a packet of nice biscuits and a homemade Thank You card; in Anna’s round handwriting was her address and phone number, and a request from Pongo to come over for a walk the following weekend, ‘when I promise I’ll behave myself’.

  Anna had added her own note, inviting Michelle to drop in at the library where she worked so she could take her out for lunch and show her the high spots of Longhampton. ‘A short lunch should do it!’ Anna had added.

  Michelle stood outside her new shop, and at that exact moment, the sun came out over Longhampton High Street. Already she felt better, and she hadn’t even started decorating.

  Two and a half years later . . .

  1

  ‘I loved the magical Christmas Eve in What Katy Did – wishes sent up the chimney, and families being Grateful and Loving. Proper Christmas!’

  Anna McQueen

  Anna McQueen had planned her Christmas down to the last homemade gingerbread robin dangling from the tree, but her meticulously prepared vision of festive bonhomie certainly hadn’t involved escaping from her own house using the dog as a getaway vehicle.

  This isn’t how it is in the books, she thought, letting a delighted Pongo lead her out of the wrought-iron park gates and down towards the canal, humiliation and resentment making her strides extra long. The wicked stepmother was supposed to cast her overworked stepdaughters out into the snow while she toasted her toes in front of a roaring fire, not the other way round.

  Well, she amended, to be fair the girls weren’t toasting their toes exactly. They were videochatting on Skype to their mum, Sarah, in her enormous new house in Westchester, NY. Sarah was probably toasting her toes. Or having them French pedicured by Santa’s beauty elves.

  That had been why Anna had ended up running herself ragged – trying to give them the best Christmas ever to make up for their mother taking a two-year job contract in the US back in July. Ironic, since Sarah still felt like more of a presence in the house than she did herself.

  Anna blinked hard at the mental image of Chloe, Becca and Lily clustering round the laptop with squeals of delight at the exact moment she’d tried to start a new family tradition with a pan full of gold-leaf-topped mini mince pies that had given her a finger burn and stress-related indigestion. The mince pies – or the mass family ignoring of them – had been the final straw, sealed by a comment from Phil’s mother, with her merciless timing.

  ‘Did you make these?’ Evelyn had enquired, her pencilled eyebrow arched to its fullest, most damning, extent. It was the first direct comment she’d addressed to Anna all morning, and when Anna had modestly nodded that yes, she had, Evelyn paused a beat, then said witheringly, ‘Oh. In that case, I’ll pass.’

  Old witches, on the other hand, weren’t in short supply.

  Pongo bounded ahead of her on his new Christmas lead, thrilled to be getting the sort of energetic workout he normally only enjoyed when Michelle took him running. He was as glad to get out of the house as she was. If Anna hadn’t texted Michelle from the loo where she’d hidden herself during the row about the iPad, she was fairly sure Pongo would have done it himself.

  Anna’s phone buzzed in her pocket, and she smiled when she read the message: ‘Wine poured, chocs open, ears pinned back. Hurry hurry! M xxx’

  At the end of the main road, Anna turned towards the grid of Victorian terraces that sloped gently down to Swan’s Row, a line of small Georgian cottages facing the banks of the Longhampton canal. They’d been dingy for years, but were now quickly becoming the hottest properties in the area. Pongo practically towed her down to the bright red door at the end, which was garlanded with a generous holly-and-ivy wreath around the brass lion’s-head knocker, and Anna felt a pang of decoration envy.

  Michelle did Christmas properly. Magazine-properly. If she were being honest, Anna’s own Christmas vision had been based on her ‘What Would Michelle Do?’ decorating principle. In addition to the splendid wreath, which Anna was pretty sure Michelle had made herself, she could see a perfectly symmetrical tree in the downstairs window, speckled with tiny candle lights and ruby-red glass baubles.

  Her own tree was a bit wonky,
because Phil had forgotten to go to the tree place until five minutes before they closed, then Chloe shut the car boot on the end of it, and the baubles were mainly on the bottom half, since she’d only managed to persuade her youngest stepdaughter, Lily, to help with the decorating. But it was loved, Anna told herself. That was the main thing.

  She knocked, enjoying the satisfying weight of the knocker. Already her irritation was ebbing away. It always did when she called round at Michelle’s. Michelle’s house was like the room you were supposed to imagine when the hypnotherapist tells you to ‘go to a calm place’.

  The door swung open and a large glass of wine was thrust at her.

  ‘Quick,’ said Michelle, looking like a very businesslike elf in a pale sheepskin gilet and knee-high boots. ‘Drink this. How long have I got to restore you to normal service?’

  ‘Forty-five minutes? I can pretend Pongo ran away for a bit.’

  ‘You’ve got your story straight already. I like it.’ Michelle grinned and opened the door further. ‘Come in, come in.’

  Anna stepped forward, then paused. ‘Even Pongo?’

  Despite his deep love for Michelle and her grudging fondness for him, Pongo was only ever allowed to wait with the coats and boots in the porch – the holding bay between the grubby outside world and her spotless home. Beyond the tiles it was a shoe- and paw-free zone.

  ‘He’s had Chloe trying to Sellotape her angel wings on him since eight this morning,’ Anna went on, ‘so she could use him as a prop when she called her mother. To sing at her. To sing, Michelle. She couldn’t just say “Happy Christmas” like everyone else, she had to perform it.’ She paused. ‘She made us hum. Phil, humming.’

  Michelle raised her hands. ‘In that case, I’ll have to make a seasonal exception. Hang on to him, I’ve got something he can try out for me . . .’ She put Pongo into a ‘sit’ with a single pointed finger, then disappeared inside the house.

  Anna sipped the wine, and was struck as she always was by a magical sense of going through a normal door that led to something unexpected. From the outside, 1 Swan’s Row looked tiny. Only the twin box-tree balls on the steps were a clue to what was inside: an impossibly airy interior, with long views into ice-cream-coloured rooms filled with big glass vases of cloudy white flowers and pale sofas and enormous gilt-framed mirrors reflecting the light back and forth in an endless parade of beautiful things.

  Since it was Christmas, Michelle had warmed up her colour scheme to include some tumbling pine garlands down the banister and deep berry throws over the chairs, but the overall effect was the same: clean, easy, calm, gently fragranced with unseen hyacinths and spicy candles. Anna loved it. Nothing was too precious or expensive; it was just the way she wished her own house would look, if she’d had time to do all the things style sections suggested. And if she had an eye for colour, an unflappable builder, perfect taste, a knack for finding stuff in auctions, and a homewares shop in the high street.

  She gazed round. It was hard to believe that it was the same mildewed cottage Michelle had first invited her to for coffee nearly three years ago, after Pongo had dragged them both round the town’s dog-walking lap. Well, no, Anna corrected herself – it was quite easy to believe, once you got to know Michelle. She was the most determined, organised person she’d ever met. Michelle had a daily list, a monthly list and a yearly list, and she calmly accomplished the lot, without any fuss. Once Michelle had written it down, it happened.

  Anna felt a twitch of homework guilt: this year, Michelle had suggested that she made a list at the same time, ‘to spur each other on’ – by which Michelle meant, ‘to spur Anna on’. She hadn’t had time to start it. She’d been too busy falling behind with the current week’s round of parenting chores, plus seasonal extras like in-law wrangling and mince pie failures.

  Michelle reappeared with a large green bag and caught Anna staring at the latest addition to the hall table – a big reed-woven basket of paperwhites that Pongo would have smashed to the ground round at theirs within ten minutes.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she said at once, a frown creasing her smooth forehead. ‘Too big? I’m thinking of stocking that for spring.’

  ‘No. It’s perfect. Perfect. The whole house is perfect.’ Anna took a large gulp of wine and prised off her right boot with her left toe, not bothering to undo the zip. ‘Even if I moved my husband, the three kids, the dog and every item of furniture out of ours, it wouldn’t look like this.’

  ‘Well, it helps not having a husband, three kids or a dog in the first place.’ Michelle bent down and was doing something to Pongo with the bag, but Anna no longer cared. The wine and the paperwhites were spreading a festive goodwill-to-most-men through her system; the first glimmer of real Christmas spirit she’d had all day.

  Christmas Eve had been quite festive, she thought wistfully. Before the girls had opened their presents. When she still thought she’d got them something brilliant and clever, something they would all bond over. Anna’s skin crawled with embarrassment.

  ‘There.’

  She looked down to see Pongo encased in what looked like a babygro. He wagged his tail – or, at least something moved inside the bag.

  ‘What on earth’s that?’ she demanded.

  ‘Dog bag. I’m trialling them for the shop. If you’ve got carpets and you’ve got a dog, you need a dog bag,’ Michelle went on, to Anna’s amusement. ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘I don’t let people take their shoes off in our house – their socks would end up a different colour from all the dog hair.’

  ‘You can get an attachment for your Hoover that . . .’ Michelle started, then good-naturedly accepted Anna’s roar of ‘not listening!’. She clicked her tongue and Pongo shuffled into the house after her, with a devoted display of attention he never bothered to bestow on any of his owners.

  ‘Why don’t you get your own dog?’ Anna called, as the pair of them vanished into the kitchen. ‘A non-shedding one? Something beige, to go with the decor?’ She lined up her boots next to Michelle’s running shoes on the wrought-iron boot rack. All storage accessories looked better when they weren’t actually storing very much.

  ‘It’d keep you company,’ she added, not quite as loudly.

  Anna and Phil had tried to set Michelle up with every single friend they had, only for each one to meet with a polite rebuff. Until the girls had moved in with them, Michelle had been a regular fixture round at the McQueens’ for dinner, but now diaries were harder to co-ordinate, the matchmaking dinners had fallen by the wayside, and Anna felt bad about it.

  Phil didn’t. ‘Michelle’s hardly lonely,’ he’d insisted when Anna had suggested inviting her round for Christmas Day. ‘She’s got that big family of hers, and she’s always jetting off for the weekend. Where was it last week? Paris? And Stockholm before that.’

  ‘Those were buying trips,’ said Anna. ‘And you know what she thinks about her family.’

  ‘Buying trips?’ He’d seemed surprised. ‘She told me it was a minibreak.’

  Anna had marvelled, not for the first time lately, that a twice-married man with three daughters and a mother could understand women – and families – so badly.

  ‘Company?’ Michelle appeared at the kitchen door, her face defensive. ‘Don’t tell me. Phil has another freshly divorced mate who needs a woman to operate his washing machine? I haven’t forgotten the Ewan incident.’

  ‘Ewan wasn’t . . . That was a misunderstanding.’ Anna thought about backtracking; Michelle could get touchy about her singleness, and, now she thought about it – stupid Anna – this wasn’t the best day to bring it up. But she hated the idea of funny, generous Michelle, here in her lovely house, all on her own.

  ‘I just thought, you know, New Year’s resolutions? You could adopt a rescue dog. Walk it with me and Pongo.’ She tried a smile. ‘It’s been so hard to catch up with you now I’m on the school-run treadmill. And I need your conversation. You’re my one connection with the non-Bieber world.’


  Michelle’s expression softened. ‘I can still walk with you.

  We need to make it a priority. Look, come through – I put some mince pies in to warm up.’

  The kitchen–diner had been at least two poky back rooms before Michelle had worked her magic on the house. Layers of 80s rag-rolled wallpaper had been peeled away and replaced with dove grey Farrow & Ball paint, and handmade cupboards filled with Swedish porcelain. In a nod to the Christmas she wasn’t celebrating on her own, big gold stars were propped between the plates. The plates hadn’t been used for as long as Anna could remember; despite her gorgeous home, Michelle didn’t go in for entertaining.

  Anna sank down at the kitchen table and let the last of her tension go as she watched Michelle moving from cupboard to cupboard, assembling plates and knives. Her forty-five minutes were going too fast.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d be here on your own? I thought you’d be going to your parents’ for Christmas Day,’ she said, helping herself to a rose cream from the box of chocolates opened, as promised, on the table. ‘Don’t they have a big get-together?’

  ‘They do. That’s exactly why I’m not there.’ Michelle brought the bottle of wine over to top up their glasses. ‘They get so competitive at Trivial Pursuit that if someone isn’t crying by teatime they start an argument about who’s got the best car so everyone gets a chance to be upset. I’ll have to go at some point. Just . . . not today. Anyway, what on earth happened chez McQueen that you’re hiding out here at half three? Did Phil fall out with his mum again?’

  ‘Not yet. He may well be doing that now, though.’ Anna put her elbows on the table and rested her eyes on her palms. ‘It’s me. I had to get out.’

  ‘Well, you’ve been preparing this Christmas for the last three months . . .’

  ‘No. It wasn’t that.’ She struggled to put her feelings in the right order, so she wouldn’t sound selfish. ‘I just feel like a bit of a spare part in my own home. I had a total disaster with the presents, for a start. I heard the girls laughing about them to Sarah.’ Anna glanced up. ‘Don’t tell Phil that. He doesn’t know.’