Free The Secret of Happy Ever After by Lucy Dillon Page A

because she couldn’t find a man tidy enough to live with . . .’
    Anna pointed a finger. ‘That’s not how it was.’
    ‘No? You’re her best friend and even you don’t know why she left.’
    ‘Go and make us a cup of tea or something.’
    With a grumble, Phil rolled off the sofa and padded away to the kitchen.
    Anna turned back to the phone. ‘I’m going up there to do the Reading Aloud group tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Eleven o’clock, before they all nod off after lunch.’
    ‘Can I come?’
    Anna tried to keep the incredulity out of her voice and failed. ‘You want to volunteer to read Jean Plaidy to a room full of oldies? Is this about getting your Christmas alibi straight for your mum?’
    ‘No! It’s my New Year’s resolution, to put something back into the community. I thought I’d start with your volunteer Reading Aloud to grannies group.’
    ‘Are you sure? I mean, I’d love it if you read – they really get so much out of it – but if you want to put something back you could donate some scented candles, or some flowers for the day room. A bit of Home Sweet Home would go a long way up there.’
    ‘Well, we’ll see,’ said Michelle. ‘Come round to the shop at quarter to. I’ll give you a lift.’
    ‘OK,’ said Anna. Phil had appeared in the doorway with a bottle of champagne left over from Christmas and a couple of glasses. ‘I have to—’
    He crossed the room in a couple of strides and took the phone from her. ‘She has to go now. Bye, Michelle.’
    While Anna was still laughing, he took the phone off the hook again and shoved it behind a sofa cushion.
    ‘You,’ he said, pushing the bottle and the glasses into her hands,‘are coming with me. To bed.’
    And with a groan, Phil picked Anna up, staggered slightly, then heaved her over his shoulder and carried her upstairs.

4
    ‘I still remember the goosebumps I felt when I read the beautifully melancholy Tom’s Midnight Garden , and how sad I was that our newbuild house wasn’t old enough to have proper ghosts.’
    Becca McQueen
    Anna knew it was a mistake, agreeing to meet Michelle at Home Sweet Home instead of at her house. It was tempting enough browsing there at the best of times, but with a hand-printed ‘Special Customer Sale Preview’ postcard burning a hole in her bag, she and her post-Christmas pull-our-belts-in budget were doomed.
    She pushed her purse firmly to the bottom of her handbag as she approached the shop; it probably wouldn’t stop her wanting to buy everything in sight, but it might delay her for a few vital, credit-card-saving seconds.
    Home Sweet Home was generally agreed to be the reason that Longhampton High Street was starting to pick up, a strong green shoot of good times amidst the charity shops and pound stores. The first thing Michelle had done was to rip off the plastic fishmonger’s signage and paint the neglected exterior a soft honey-cream, picking out the carved stone roses along the shop window in gold and crimson paint. No one had noticed the stone roses for decades. Within a month, three shops on the same side had refurbished.
    Anna put her hand on the door handle, steeled herself by visualising the epic phone bill she’d got that morning and went in. Immediately her eye lit on a delicious pile of glass baubles in a basket, and her resistance melted like a chocolate Santa.
    The shop was already packed out with shoppers carrying baskets loaded with filigree tree decorations and gingerbread hearts. Phil joked that Michelle pumped some kind of shopping nerve gas into the shop, but the truth was that she just had the knack of stocking what women wanted – the most beautiful, useful, unusual, pretty things; some expensive, some cheap, all presented as if they were precious, and just what you needed to make your home as welcoming as the shop. It didn’t matter whether you were eight and obsessed with ribbons like Lily, or thirty-one and unable to resist an organic beeswax lip balm like Anna