11 The Teashop on the Corner (48 page)

*

Ryan had bought a newspaper on the way home from school and read it on the bus. When he rushed into Thorn Cottage, Leni was putting his tea on the table. He threw his arms
around her waist and squeezed her with all his might.

‘I love you. You’re like the best mum in the world,’ he said.

And that was all he needed to say on the matter.

There was nothing further mentioned in the newspaper. Leni didn’t open up the Teashop on the Corner on Friday morning, but by the afternoon Carla noticed her outside
watering the pots of plants. She threw together a bunch of frilly pink flowers and ran over to her.

‘I’m not staying, I’m just giving you these and then I’m off,’ she said, leaning over and kissing Leni on her cheek as she pushed the blooms into her arms. The card
read, ‘We love you.’

Shaun saw Carla leave the teashop and he couldn’t believe that Leni had opened up. He strode over and in through the door, nearly knocking her flying as she was standing behind it. She was
in the process of unpinning the postcards and dropping them into a carrier bag, destined for the bin.

‘Sorry,’ he said.

She laughed. She was pale and tired looking but she was wearing a smile, even if it wasn’t as wide as the one her lips usually carried.

‘I’m still alive,’ she said.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Better than yesterday,’ she answered him. ‘Trying to think what to do with Ryan in the holidays, if the authorities let me keep him. I rang them this morning and explained why
he was in my care. I can’t do anything else, can I?’

‘The boy loves you. He won’t want to live anywhere else than with you. I’ll make sure that happens. Somehow.’

She didn’t doubt it for a moment. Shaun McCarthy was ridiculously rude, rough, emotionally scarred, a man of paradoxes and yet she understood him completely. He was treading through life
as if it were covered in snow that was disguising deep pits, just as she was. They were going the same way. Forwards, but slowly. Company on the journey would be good.

‘Here, let me help you,’ he said, reaching the postcards that were too high for her. ‘Then you can serve me some of that award-winning cake and coffee.’

‘That I didn’t get an award for in the end,’ added Leni.

‘Oh and they stopped your cheque. Doesn’t matter anyway, because I noticed they’d made it out to Leonora Merryfield. I’ll write you a cheque for the five hundred pounds
myself. Bastards,’ he snarled. Then, as he smiled down at the face of the loveliest woman in the world, words sister Rose-Maria had once said came again to him as clearly as if she were
standing at his shoulder:
we are at our most vulnerable when we trust, but if we cannot trust we cannot find joy or love. Open your heart, Shaun. And give
.

They began to come three days later. The first postcard had a picture of Leeds Town Hall on the front.

Leni read it with tears raining down her cheeks.
Of course you can write to me
, she said.
For your mother, for Anne.
She pinned it on the empty board by the
door where it was joined, the following day, by three more.

A week later there were thirty postcards from all over the world as Leni’s story went viral on the internet. Many more followed from students who just wanted to send a
postcard to ‘Dear Mum’ but, for whatever reason, they couldn’t.

Anne’s wall was full within four weeks.

I

Five weeks later

‘Look at this one,’ raved Pavitar. ‘It’s from Venice. If you tilt it, the gondola moves. Ryan, you need to remind Leni to buy more drawing pins. You have only a few left
in the box.’

‘We need another wall,’ grinned Ryan, well aware that another giant pinboard was on order.

‘There are some very kind people in the world,’ said Molly, lifting the cup of tea to her smiling lips. ‘Such lovely postcards from these dear young people.’ She was
going to Venice herself at the weekend – with Harvey. His final journey. At least in this world.

‘I’ll send you loads when I’m on a gap year and going around America,’ said Ryan, carrying two buttered scones over to Molly and Pavitar’s table.

‘Oh, and who is going to be paying for all that, I wonder?’ laughed Leni, her hands coming to her waist. ‘You better get some serious washing up done, my lad.’

‘Mr Mac will stump up a bit, I bet,’ said Ryan, winking at Leni. He was under no illusion whatsoever that something special was blossoming between the woman he thought of as mum but
daren’t quite say it to her face yet, and the once-scary Irishman who looked at Leni with the same deep affection that Ryan reserved for his Kindle. And Mr Bingley.

Ryan had had a meeting with social workers and the speech he had delivered to them about how happy he was with Leni was worthy of Rumpole of the Bailey. He cried with relief when they said that
he could stay with her, subject to periodic review. But he wasn’t afraid that he’d be moved. Mr Mac had said he would stay with Leni, and what Mr Mac said seemed to happen.

‘Made the
Daily Trumpet
eat their words, too,’ said Molly. Much kinder stories had been written in the
Barnsley Chronicle
and the magazine
Woman’s
World
and others had followed suit. Leni hadn’t enjoyed being interviewed for them, but had been encouraged to do so by her friends, to redress the balance of the
Trumpet
’s cruel reportage. And now she had a wall of wonderful postcards to show off and would soon have another. Local people were even popping in to deliver bags of stamps for the
Guide Dog collection and then stayed for tea and bought things from the cabinets. Business was booming.

The teashop door opened and Shaun’s head appeared around the edge of it.

‘You ready?’ he asked.

‘As I’ll ever be,’ said Leni.

‘Here you go,’ said Carla, leaning over to kiss her cheek before placing the pink and cream flowers in her arms. ‘We’ll lock up for you and take Ryan home.’

‘Time to say goodbye,’ nodded Leni and followed Shaun out of the Teashop on the Corner.

II

‘Her favourite colours,’ said Leni, straightening up after placing the flowers on her daughter’s grave. ‘She had a thing about pink and cream. Every
birthday I used to make her a pink cake with cream icing. She would have eaten the whole thing at one sitting if only I’d let her.’

‘Want me to leave you alone for a wee bit?’ asked Shaun.

‘No.’ Leni shook her head. ‘I want her to see you. She’d approve, I think.’ Anne would be happy that her mother had found a man to love as much as he loved her.
They fitted each other exactly, Leni and Shaun. Both damaged creatures, but not quite broken. And they would heal with each other, for each other.

‘Well, I’ll do my best, Anne, to make your mother happy. You have my promise on that,’ said Shaun, directing the words towards the pink-marble headstone.

ANNE MERRYMAN, BELOVED DAUGHTER

AGED 18

ALWAYS LOVING, ALWAYS LOVED

‘Goodbye my darling,’ said Leni and blew a kiss up into the air. ‘Until we meet again.’

She felt Shaun’s large hand come around her shoulder and his warmth sink through her coat and into her skin.

Together she and Shaun began to walk back to the car. These two people whom life had kindly nudged together. Against any odds that even Harvey Hoyland would have risked, big Shaun
McCarthy’s heart had opened and Leni Merryman and her cakes and her stationery and her big ginger cat and the O’Gowan boy who read books had strode in, kicked off their shoes, switched
on the light and lit the fire. And he had walked into hers and found home.

It’s never too late to have a happy ending

HARVEY HOYLAND

Writers couldn’t do this job alone – so many people are involved in getting a book into your hands and I would like to say thank you to a whole host of them.

To my family at Simon & Schuster, because that’s what you feel like: God (or Ian Chapman as he’s better known), Suzanne Baboneau, Clare Hey, Alice Murphy-Pyle, Gill Richardson,
Jo Dickinson, Carla Josephson, James Horobin, Nico Poilblanc, Sara-Jade Virtue, Ally Grant and also Rik Ubhi for helping me with Mr Singh’s details. Sorry I had to ask daft questions like,
‘Are Sikhs allowed to eat chocolate?’ Thanks also to Sally Partington for her superb copyediting. I only wish I had her eyes!

To my wonderful agent – and friend – Lizzy Kremer and all at David Higham. You’re mint, as my sons would say.

Thanks to Nigel Stoneman – for being simply smashing.

To Karen Brookes, solicitor extraordinaire from Wosskow Brown for her advice.

To Gail Lawrence Evans at Flowers of Distinction for her flowery tips.

To the Literary Gift Company (www.theliterarygiftcompany.com) for giving me lots of inspiration and supplying me with must-have author stationery.

To the press for their fabulous continued support – Andrew Harrod and Steph Daley at the
Barnsley Chronicle
, Jo Davison at the
Sheffield Star
, Liz Smith at
My
Weekly
, Natasha Harding at the
Sun
, Sadie Nicholas and the gang at Radio Sheffield.

Special thanks to the girls and manager at WH Smiths in Barnsley and Mike Bowkett at Gardner’s for being such great support.

To the people I love most in the world – my mum and dad, Uncle John, Tez, George and Pete without whom I wouldn’t have written a single word.

And to Molly and Harvey Clemit who wanted to be immortalised in book form. I only wish you were here to hold this book in your hand, darling Molly. You’re so very dearly missed.

And last, but definitely not least, to those wonderful teachers who gave me a love of learning and fun and made me realise I just might catch the stars if I aimed for them: Miss Kate Taylor,
Miss Mary Walker, Mrs Sykes, Mr Fewster, Mrs Fairclough, Mrs Crockett, Mrs Stuart, Mr Jerome, Mr Nelson, Mrs Gunsen. You made my schooldays a joy.