The Secrets of Happiness Read online

  The only crumb of comfort was that Luke and Scarlet seemed to have been here, done this, a number of times before. Once inside the children’s waiting area they both made a beeline for a big doll’s house in the corner, as if it was a familiar friend by now, and one of the nurses even greeted them by name. So there had obviously been other occasions of accidental nut ingestion before this. Other fuck-ups, hopefully by Rachel, if that wasn’t too horrible a thing to think. Even so, she was dreading having to own up to her sister what had happened. You did what? You gave him what?! Hmm, maybe she’d save that confession for when Rachel was feeling much better. Like in six months’ time, or something; preferably when Becca was a safe distance away.

  ‘Don’t beat yourself up about it,’ the doctor said, when Luke was finally looked over. She was younger than Becca, tanned and hearty-looking, as if she’d never made a mistake in her life, but there was a kind sincerity about her that was reassuring. ‘It happens all the time. You aren’t the first person and you certainly won’t be the last. The main thing is that you acted quickly, you did all the right things, and young Luke here seems absolutely fine now. Okay?’

  Becca hung her head, not wanting to admit that actually it had been Scarlet and Mrs Keyes who’d done all the right things, not her. She’d take it as a lucky escape, though, and chalk it up to experience. And from now on, she would keep all Snickers bars for herself. ‘Thanks,’ she said shakily, giving Luke a cuddle. ‘Let’s go home.’

  Back at the house, Becca was relieved to see Mabel had arrived home sans boyfriend – although moments later she spotted what was most definitely a livid red love bite on her niece’s pale neck. Lovely. But did she have the energy to have a go at her for it? Not today. No. She looked the other way instead and pretended to be fussing around with glasses of orange squash for everyone. The younger two went out into the garden, where Luke began bouncing about on the trampoline in a satisfyingly not-dying sort of way, while Mabel perched on the kitchen table and let her school shoes drop to the floor. ‘So what the hell is Mum doing in Manchester, anyway?’ she asked.

  God, yes. With all the drama, Becca had clean forgotten that particular mystery. ‘Manchester? I was going to ask you the same,’ she replied. ‘Has your mum got friends there, or . . . Some business thing going on?’ She hesitated, not wanting to admit she’d been snooping on the laptop. ‘Has she ever mentioned Didsbury Library to you?’

  Mabel looked blank. ‘Nope,’ she said, twisting a skull bracelet around her wrist. ‘And it can’t be a business thing, anyway. Didn’t you hear? She lost her job last year. Well. Dad kind of fucked it all up, by the sound of things.’ She gave Becca a sidelong glance, as if waiting to be told off for her bad language, then went on. ‘I’ve been trying to think all afternoon why she would be there. A meeting, she told us yesterday, like it was no big deal. But her “business”, as you call it – I mean, it’s just her persuading unfit people to go jogging around the park, that sort of thing. She wouldn’t be going to Manchester for it.’

  Becca frowned, none the wiser. ‘Well,’ she said eventually, opening the fridge and wondering what to cook for tea, ‘I guess we’ll find out when she’s back, won’t we? And in the meantime, we really should let your dad know what’s going on. Do you have a number for him?’

  Mabel flipped through her phone and passed it over with the contact details on screen. ‘We’re going to Welsh Grandma’s tomorrow anyway,’ she said with a shrug. ‘It’s his weekend to have us, so you could always wait until then.’

  But Becca had made enough mistakes with the Jacksons for one day. Tempting though it was to avoid her brother-in-law for another twenty-four hours, she decided to get it over with. ‘I’ll give him a call,’ she said decisively, taking a deep breath.

  It had been a long day to end all long days and that evening, once the children were fed, showered and finally in bed, Becca opened the cheapest-looking bottle of wine in her sister’s collection, poured herself a massive glass and went to collapse in a deckchair in the garden. And relax. God, that felt good. The wine was cold and refreshing, the grass cool and silky beneath her bare toes, and the evening air was scented by a nearby flowering lilac and the velvety white roses in full bloom. If she had a garden like this, Becca vowed, she’d never watch a single thing on television ever again; she’d be out here every evening, breathing out the cares of the day and marvelling at the peace and quiet, watching how the colours in the sky slipped from blue to peach to gold.

  She shut her eyes and leaned back, listening to the gentle pattering of a garden sprinkler nearby, a faint snatch of music through a neighbouring window, the wind whispering in the leafy trees. It seemed as if she’d been in Hereford a lot longer than a single day and night, somehow. This time tomorrow, the children would be off in the care of Lawrence and their grandma, and she’d be back in her real life for the weekend. It was so long since she’d had a Friday night without working in the pub that she wasn’t sure what she would do with herself.

  Lawrence had been quite curt on the phone, surprised and almost seeming suspicious to hear from her at first, before going on to bark a load of questions down the line. ‘She’s what? In Manchester? Well, what the hell was she doing up there?’ Like it was Rachel’s fault she’d ended up in hospital, like there was something fishy about the whole affair. ‘Are the children all right? Should I come over?’

  Ugh, no, that was the last thing she wanted. She told him she was fine to look after them tomorrow, and she gathered he was having them for the weekend anyway. She decided not to mention the fact that they too had ended up in A&E that afternoon as she said goodbye. Job done.

  Tiredness spread through her as the sun finally slid below the horizon and the garden was bathed in cool shadows. She drained the rest of her glass and folded the deckchair, locked the back door and checked that all the children were asleep (yes) and then double-checked that Luke was definitely still breathing (yes). Then, with a silent promise to wash all the bed linen the next day, she curled up for the night in Rachel’s huge comfortable bed and fell fast asleep within seconds.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Rachel lay in her hospital bed, unable to sleep with the pain still ever-present along her jaw. For some reason, she found herself thinking about how it had all started, the day they first met Wendy.

  Ironically, Rachel was the one who’d caused it to happen, who brought them together in the first place. If only she hadn’t been such a brat about wanting a special bakery birthday cake, like her two best friends, then everything might have been different. But no, Julia Dobbs had had a cake in the shape of a rabbit with marshmallow teeth for her recent birthday party, and Lorraine Browning a Kermit cake with amazing lurid green fondant icing – and Rachel was desperate to keep up. ‘Please,’ she had begged her father, putting her palms together in a little prayer. ‘Please, Dad, can I?’

  Terry was hopeless in the kitchen (somehow the two of them had survived on Fray Bentos meatballs and powdery Angel Delight this far), and Rachel knew he was always trying to make it up to her on the Not Having a Mum front, so he wasn’t too hard to persuade once she turned the tears on. So off they went to the All You Knead bakery on the high street, breathing in the heavenly scents of cake, gingerbread and sausage rolls, neither of them suspecting that everything was about to change.

  ‘We’d like a cake in the shape of ballet shoes, please,’ Dad had said to the bakery lady. ‘For next Friday. It’s my daughter’s tenth birthday.’

  The lady behind the counter had a cloud of curly auburn hair and a smudge of flour on her cheek. Even now, Rachel could remember the way she had smiled at Terry’s words. ‘Your birthday? Well, fancy that,’ she said. ‘It’s my birthday on Friday too.’ Her nose gave a funny little crinkle as she directed her gaze at Rachel. ‘I love the way people always set off fireworks on our birthday, don’t you?’

  It was as simple as that. A coincidence, a shared bonfirenight birthday, a cake order, a glint in Terry’s eye. The lady had tried
to talk to Rachel – ‘So you’re a ballet dancer, are you? Go on, give us a twirl!’ – but she had felt shy, leaning her head against Terry’s waist, not wanting to dance there on the bakery floor. If she had known what was to happen, of course, she’d have dragged him right out of the shop. She’d have said, Do you know what, I’m happy with an ordinary cake after all, Dad, one from the Co-op is fine. Come on, let’s go.

  Too late for that, though. Terry put down a deposit and the lady – Wendy – gave him a written receipt. ‘It’ll be ready to collect on Friday morning,’ she had said, with a twinkly smile.

  ‘Friday morning,’ Terry replied shyly. ‘Well, I’ll be sure to come back then.’ He had cleared his throat, sounding unusually awkward. ‘Will you . . . I don’t suppose you’ll be working yourself that day, seeing as it’s your birthday too?’

  Wendy blushed, her cheeks turning as pink as her frosted lipstick. ‘Oh, I’ll be here,’ she said. ‘I’ll look forward to seeing you then.’

  And so the wheels were put in motion. Terry said no more about it to Rachel, but as she went up to bed that night she heard him talking to Pete, his friend, who’d dropped by. ‘She was a very attractive woman,’ he’d said, cracking open a can of Guinness. ‘And it’s been a while.’

  A shiver went down Rachel’s spine as she crept into bed a few minutes later, and she tucked her knees up tight inside her nightie, a sixth sense twanging a warning. Danger, danger. But there was no turning back. The date was set, their paths converging. A very attractive woman.

  By dint of further eavesdropping on her dad and Pete that weekend, Rachel learned that Terry had taken a bunch of flowers along when he went to collect the cake, and suggested he and Wendy meet up for coffee sometime. The following week, Sonia, the lady next door, was roped in to babysit while Dad and Wendy went out for scampi and chips and a knickerbocker glory at the Harvester. And then, almost before Rachel knew it, the happy little Me-and-Dad twosome was no more, and she was being fitted for a bridesmaid dress in apple-green taffeta (she had hated the colour ever since). ‘And guess what?’ Dad had told her, beaming. ‘Wendy’s got a little girl too – Rebecca – so you’re going to have a sister!’

  ‘Oh,’ Rachel had said uncertainly. Her friend Julia had a little sister – Tracey, who was always whingeing and telling tales and interrupting their games. She wasn’t sure she wanted a new sister, or a stepmother. Why couldn’t things just stay as they were?

  Everyone made such a fuss at the wedding – a new mummy! Wasn’t it exciting? What a lucky girl she was! – and to be fair, Rachel enjoyed the dancing and the buffet and being given a special silver bangle as a bridesmaid present. But then all of a sudden there was a big clamour and Dad and Wendy were setting off on their honeymoon, without her. It felt wrong to be standing in the crush of people, hardly able to see as the two of them drove away in Dad’s car. Someone had tied tin cans to the back, and everyone was laughing as they rattled along the street. ‘Don’t worry, chick,’ Sonia Next Door had said, putting an arm around her. ‘You stick with me. They’ll be back in no time.’

  As it happened, Sonia’s words turned out to be true. Dad and Wendy were back sooner than expected – the very next day, in fact. Unfortunately for Rachel, though, their early return was for all the wrong reasons.

  ‘Hello there, is everything okay?’ a nurse said just then, drawing back the curtains around Rachel’s bed and seeing that she was still awake. Rachel hadn’t even realized she’d been crying again until the nurse leaned over her and gently dabbed the tears away with a tissue. ‘Can I get you anything? Some water? Are you in pain?’

  This nurse was older and more matronly than the others she’d seen, with short, silver-flecked hair and kind, brown eyes. Somebody’s mum, Rachel guessed as the woman carried out her checks and topped up Rachel’s pain relief; somebody’s grandma, even. How she wished she had a mum to lean against right now! A mum to smooth back her hair and hold a glass of water to her lips, who would promise that everything would be okay!

  ‘Try to sleep,’ the nurse said, straightening the bed covers and giving Rachel’s shoulder a friendly pat. ‘That’s it, eyes closed. You’ve had a rough time of it, haven’t you, love? But it’ll all seem better in the morning. These things always do.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Rachel mumbled. She lay still until she heard the curtain being swished back and the nurse move on to her next patient. It’ll all seem better in the morning, she repeated to herself. She really hoped so.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The following morning, Becca felt as if she knew the weekday drill a little better, even remembering that Scarlet had her early violin lesson that day. Breakfast, school uniform, packed lunches, out the door, hugs goodbye at the school gates . . . and then BREATHE. Go, Becca, she thought, mentally high-fiving herself for this feat of wits and stamina. Gold star for you. Today was going to be a better day, oh yes.

  It was only on returning to the house that she remembered with a horrible lurch her rash promise of the day before to Rachel’s client Adam, the grumpy man who’d left all those cross phone messages. Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit. She must have been insane, offering to stand in for her sister like that. Why had she said such a foolish thing? And why, she thought, cursing, couldn’t she find the scrap of paper on which she’d scribbled down his sodding number, so that she could call him back and cancel? She should at least have mentioned the fact that she was in no way a qualified fitness instructor yesterday; she definitely should have offered him a refund, or a huge discount. At the time she’d just assumed that Rachel would be back and able to take up all her appointments as usual. But no.

  Ten o’clock, she’d said, and it was a quarter to nine now. It was almost laughable how ill-prepared she was to give any human being an actual fitness session. She and Debbie had once owned a Davina McCall DVD, bought by one of them in a burst of January virtuousness, to which they’d jumped around a few times before deciding that they’d rather go to the pub instead. Back further still, when she’d been in her early twenties, her mum had begged her to go along to some aerobics classes with her, and she vaguely remembered doing box steps and grapevines and sweaty star jumps in a chalk-smelling church hall. But if this Adam bloke was half as fierce as he sounded, he would laugh in her face if she started demonstrating Davina moves or box steps in front of him.

  Her cheeks burned at the thought, and she wished more than ever that she hadn’t blurted out her offer so stupidly. Bigmouth strikes again. When would she learn to think first, speak second?

  Sod it, though: she was just going to have to go through with it, having failed to track down the elusive phone number. She couldn’t have him stood up again, and then endure another tirade of moaning. He would sack Rachel and demand his money back, and that would be a client lost. Becca had already made so many mistakes as her sister’s stand-in – she had to give it her best shot this time.

  Firing up the laptop, she typed ‘Boot camp exercises’ into Google with a sigh. If she had to do this – and she didn’t appear to have a choice – then she could at least be prepared.

  An hour later, she had put together a rigorous warm-up routine, plotted a course for him to run, and practised a few cool-down stretches for afterwards. She had cobbled quite a lot of it from a website set up by a former Royal Marines commando, and if that wasn’t good enough for Rachel’s client, then she didn’t know what was. Prepare to sweat out that bad mood, Adam, mate, she thought, scribbling down the schedule with a flourish.

  Obviously there was no way she would be able to keep up with him as he ran, star-jumped and press-upped his way through the routine – she often got out of breath simply trudging up the three flights of stairs to her flat, she was so wheezily unfit – but she’d already thought that far. Her plan was to borrow Rachel’s bike and cycle along next to him, calling out words of encouragement now and then, and pretending to be checking his technique the rest of the time. She had discovered a stopwatch app on her phone and everything. Faster, she would ba
rk. Keep going! Knees UP!

  Becca, she imagined him saying admiringly at the end of the session as they parted ways, him still panting, her quietly triumphant. You’ve thought of everything. Amazing workout. Thank you!

  Even Rachel might be pleased when she told her what she’d done. That would be a first. Wow, good initiative, Becca. Thanks, Becca. You’re a star, Becca.

  Yeah, well, maybe that was pushing it, but you never could tell. A bang on the head might just have shaken out some of Rachel’s coolness towards her. Perhaps.

  Cycling into town on Rachel’s slightly-too-big bike a short while later, Becca felt an unexpected sense of joie de vivre dazzle through her. It was ages since she’d been on a bike and although she was a bit wobbly to begin with, she soon found a natural rhythm, her legs pumping circles, the sun warm on her bare arms, and it actually made her feel quite strong and good about the world. Yes! Endorphin rush! She should do this more often. Like . . . ever, in fact. Except her bike had been nicked about four years ago, and . . . well, they were only two stops from New Street on the train, and you’d have to be some kind of maniac with a death wish to want to cycle around the Birmingham ring road for the lolz.

  Never mind: she was enjoying this now, and that was enough. Her hair streamed out from under the sweaty cycle helmet as she passed the magnificent cathedral in its grounds and she smiled to herself, not even caring any more that her plump thighs were jiggling in her borrowed shorts. So what! Let them jiggle; who cared? It was a beautiful morning, the trees were in full leaf, and the air smelled of hot tarmac and blooming roses. It made a change from the smells she was used to back home: diesel and drains, and the next-door kebab shop.

  They had arranged to meet in Bishop’s Meadow, which her map app informed her was near the river, and she was starting to feel, if not confident, then at least less terrified than earlier. As she crossed the river on an old stone bridge, she kept her eyes peeled for the parkland she’d seen on the map. Turning left, she saw tennis courts and some kind of office building and the wide, serene river once more. There was a bloke in a baggy T-shirt and cycling shorts typing into a phone by the start of the riverside path. Ahh – might that be him? He had gleaming white trainers on, Becca spotted, marking him out as a exercise newcomer. Hey, it took one to know one, after all.