The Secret of Happy Ever After (40 page)

Anna was chatting away happily, which pleased Michelle, but as she turned to go back to the till, one of the babies let out a waking mewl and stretched its tiny hands into starfish. Michelle watched as Anna’s eyes squeezed shut and her own hands clenched into fists, which only tightened when the mother soothed and shushed it back to quietness. The naked anguish on Anna’s face made Michelle’s breath catch in her throat.

Anna stopped at once when she saw Michelle and adjusted her expression too quickly, like someone caught with their trousers down in a bad sitcom. But it was too late. She’d revealed a flash of something raw, something hidden.

Michelle felt hurt. She knew Anna was a bit broody, but not wild, like that. Why hasn’t she told me? she wondered. Does she think I won’t understand?

‘Are you OK?’ she asked when Anna came over.

Anna started to pretend that she was, then made a ‘not really’ face. ‘Love babies. Can’t bear to be with babies. Madness.’

Michelle wasn’t sure what the right thing to say was, given the sadness and anger mingling in Anna’s face.

‘It doesn’t always happen at once,’ she tried, repeating something she’d read in one of Rory’s Sunday supplements. ‘Don’t get disappointed if it takes a few months.’

Anna’s mouth hardened into a line that didn’t sit well on her soft face. ‘It’s very unlikely to happen at all, unless the Angel Gabriel pops in. I’ve never seen Phil so keen to buy condoms. And if someone’s terrified of getting their wife pregnant, Mother Nature likes to step in and help out, just to be on the safe side.’ She glanced down, clearly angry at her own indiscretion but unable to stop herself blurting it out.

‘But the girls are fine about Sarah now, aren’t they? I had Chloe in the shop the other day buying something for the baby.’

‘Yes, they’re fine about Sarah, but us? Off the agenda. Indefinitely. That’s Phil, by the way. The girls haven’t been consulted.’

‘Anna, that’s unfair. And selfish.’ Michelle felt on safer ground when it came to Phil’s failings. ‘He can’t make decisions about your fertility for you like that.’

She waved a hand. ‘No, it’s fine. It makes me feel less guilty about everything else. I binned a load of Chloe’s dead strawberry plants last night. I’m not a market gardener. And if he wants Piggy-Jo’s ears sewn back on, he can do it himself.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I’m right behind you cutting yourself some slack at home,’ said Michelle.

She made a fist of solidarity and Anna managed a weak smile.

‘What are the Malory Towers Mums discussing this week?’ Michelle asked, pleased to have got some reaction out of her.

‘
The Secret Garden
and how much better it is when you read it again and see all the beautiful symbolism about locked gardens and unwanted children being nurtured with love just like the flowers and . . .’ She tailed off, seeing Michelle’s blank face. ‘I loved it.’

‘Good,’ said Michelle, easing her stilettos back on. ‘Have you got lots of copies for them to buy?’

‘Yes. I found three in the back, and they’re ready on the shelves. Did you get the email?’ Anna went on. ‘From Nicky Oliphant at the
Longhampton Gazette
? About interviewing us for the Leisure pages?’

‘I thought you could do that. You’re the manager.’

‘They want us both, for the friends angle. You’ve got to say what your favourite book is.’ Anna gave her a resigned look. ‘I mean, I can make something up for you if you want. I guess it’s not that important.’

‘No,’ said Michelle, suddenly feeling bad. If Anna was abandoning her attempts to get her to read now, it was a really bad sign. ‘It is important. We run this shop together, don’t we? It’s just that I don’t have time.’

‘How about putting an audiobook on your iPod?’ Anna brightened up. ‘And you could listen to it while you were running?’

‘Good idea.’ An hour or so would do it. Michelle was an expert blagger.

‘What would you like? Something you read as a teenager? Jilly Cooper? Shirley Conran? I can ask Becca to download something.’

‘Jilly Cooper,’ said Michelle automatically. ‘Here’s my iPod. Tell Becca to knock herself out. But not if she’s busy. Obviously.’

Anna picked it up and Michelle sensed a slight tension.

‘Is everything going OK . . . with the exams?’ she asked carefully.

‘I think so.’ Anna fiddled with the controls. ‘I’m trying to make sure she does her revision at home and not round at . . . Well, you know what I mean.’ She paused and looked up. ‘I think we’ve both been teenage girls. And I can remember what twenty-four-year-old men are like.’

Michelle felt torn. ‘I have told him that Becca’s special, and that he needs to respect her, or face the wrath of you and Phil. And me.’

‘
And
Sarah. This isn’t an easy time for them, any of them. I don’t want . . .’ Anna seemed embarrassed but determined, in a mother hen-ish way that Michelle would have admired under other circumstances, but now struck her as painful. ‘I don’t want her to think she needs to find affection somewhere else. I’m bloody mad with Phil right now, but as far as the girls go, I’m doing what I can to keep things on an even keel at home. I just want her to get the results she deserves.’

‘Believe me, Anna, if anyone’s aware of how easy it is to mess up A-levels, it’s me,’ said Michelle tightly.

‘She’s not going to mess them up,’ said Anna. ‘I just think you could talk to Owen. Make sure he realises that. Did he go to university?’

Michelle raised her hands. ‘Fine. I’ll start calling round at the flat more,’ she said. ‘I’ll give
you
the keys if you want, to make some surprise visits to pick up stock? Call in at shag-worthy times? Shall I try to get a timetable? At least this business with Sarah might make them realise how possible a baby is, and what a headfuck it can be. I can’t think of anything more likely to put me off reckless sex with my boyfriend than the thought of my forty-year-old mother doing it, frankly.’

Anna’s face registered horror, then weariness. ‘God. I hope so.’

‘Anyway, if he is taking her back there, at least it’s forcing him to tidy up. I’ve never seen any room of his so clean.’

‘Becca’s very realistic,’ said Anna, as if she was reassuring herself. ‘They’re so much more . . . blasé about things these days than we were. Maybe talking
is
the new sex. Maybe they’re just having passionate discussions about the EU.’

‘Sensible girls are the ones who need looking after most.’

It slipped out, and Anna looked at her quizzically. ‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning . . .’ Normally she’d have left it, but for Becca’s sake, she said, ‘It can get boring being sensible. But I’ll talk to Owen again. Lay it on the line about Phil’s rugby-playing background.’ She scooped up her bag. ‘Listen, let me know if there’s anything I can do – for Becca, I mean. I was going to give her a bonus for all the extra work she’s done for the website.’

‘Actually,’ said Anna, ‘there
is
something. It’s her prom coming up at the end of June, and I wondered if you had any contacts in the flashy car department? Phil refuses to hire her a limo. He says he doesn’t want her looking like she’s in a reality show.’

‘Leave it with me,’ said Michelle, glad it was something as easy as that.

‘Thanks,’ said Anna, and touched her arm.

Michelle felt a bittersweet warmth. The fact that she was noticing how nice this moment was, just her and Anna, in their bookshop, was a sad reflection of how few and far between those moments had got lately.

Anna hoped the weather would break to make revision less of a struggle for Chloe and Becca, but it seemed to get hotter every day. The incessant hum of fans didn’t do much to help the bad mood already hanging over the McQueen house, and Sarah’s announcement that she and Jeff would be getting married in the summer holidays, with the girls as bridesmaids in Las Vegas as part of a big family holiday, only stoked things to volcanic levels.

‘She can get lost if she thinks I’m going to stand there like something off of Jeremy Kyle, being a bridesmaid to my pregnant mother,’ Chloe announced over dinner, flicking her new extensions so hard she whipped them in Lily’s eye.

Lily howled and stormed out, knocking over her glass and sending Pongo leaping from the sofa, barking in alarm.

‘Stop crying, you crybaby!’ yelled Chloe spitefully. ‘You’re just doing it for attention!’

Anna looked to Phil to tell Chloe off, but he was already pushing back his chair and going after Lily, before she could. ‘I’ll go.’

She pressed her lips together with annoyance. Phil had run out of ways to deal with Chloe’s simmering fury and now passed all responsibility for tamping it down to her. Meanwhile, he insisted on taking over Lily’s bedtime story – the one enjoyable part of her day – so she could deal with Chloe’s revision. What Phil didn’t know was that Anna was giving Chloe one iTunes download for every hour studied, from his account.

‘What?’ Chloe demanded. ‘What did I say that you’re not all thinking? It’s disgusting.’

‘Nothing,’ said Becca. ‘You keep going on like that. But you’re starting to make Mum look like the reasonable one.’

‘It’ll be a fab holiday, driving across California,’ said Anna. Sticking to the facts was her only tactic; if she thought too hard about the unfairness of everything, her head would explode. ‘You could all do with a break after your exams. And your granny and granddad will be going too – won’t it be nice to spend time with them?’

‘I’m only going for the first week,’ said Becca. She turned over a page in her book, and Anna was surprised to see it was Lily’s copy of
Ballet Shoes
. Becca had a French exam the next afternoon. She should have been reading
La Peste
.

‘What?’ demanded Chloe. She raised a finger. ‘No way.’

‘I totally can. I’m only going for a week. I’ve got reading to do, and I need to do some extra hours in the shop, and—’

‘I can’t stand being away from Ooooweeeeeen,’ Chloe sing-songed.

‘Shut up, tubby. Ow!’

‘Chloe, don’t kick,’ said Anna automatically. ‘You’re not eight. Becca, you can’t just go for a week. Your mum will be hurt.’

‘She didn’t think of whether we’d be hurt when she totally got pregnant without talking to us about it,’ retorted Chloe with another head toss. ‘Or if we’d want to be in her embarrassing wedding. I wish I could just leave this dump and go to London and . . . get a proper life.’

Anna wondered if there was a full orchestra in Chloe’s head that burst out into song and dance numbers whenever she made pronouncements like that. She watched a lot of
Glee
.

‘Get your A-levels, and you can go wherever you want,’ she said instead.

‘You should read this book, Chloe,’ said Becca. ‘It’s all about stage-school girls who get too big for their boots. Only they learn about Shakespeare and are nice to their wise old foster parents and don’t demand hair extensions or leave their moustache bleach in the shower.’

‘Shut up, Becca, you don’t understand.’ Chloe’s face was bright red; Anna knew she was trying to look dramatic, but beneath the eyeliner, she had the same overwhelmed tiredness in her eyes that Lily got when school became too much. ‘
None
of you understand, and I wish I didn’t have to live in this house!’

And with a mighty blare of invisible trumpets, she stormed out too.

The cellar door slammed and Becca and Anna looked at each other over the kitchen table. After ten seconds, the opening bars of ‘Toxic’ began, the Wii turned up to maximum volume.

‘She’s dancing away the pain,’ said Becca. ‘Just like the actor playing her will in the film about her life, at this point.’

Anna fought back a smile. ‘So that’s two girls down. What would you like to storm off about?’

‘Me? I’m fine,’ said Becca. ‘I’m cool with Mum’s wedding. If she wants to look back on her wedding photos and cringe, that’s up to her. I’m just not going to hang around for the honeymoon.’

‘OK, I’ll risk it, then,’ sighed Anna. ‘Have you told your dad that you’re going to the prom with Owen yet? Because you haven’t arranged that dinner, like I asked, and he wants to know what’s happening.’

That was a neat filleting around the truth.

‘Did you tell him?’ Becca asked.

‘I just gave him a name. What? I had to, he asked about Josh!’ Anna protested. ‘I don’t like keeping secrets in this house, from anyone. Becca, come on.’

Becca put the book down, gave Anna a reproachful look, then without saying anything, picked up her school bag and went upstairs. Pongo slunk out from under the coffee table and followed her.

Great
, thought Anna, refilling her wine glass. My parenting job here is done.

As Sarah’s wedding approached and one exam after another was crossed off, the weather got even hotter, tempers got shorter, and only Lily seemed oblivious to the tension criss-crossing the dinner table. That was because she was lost in her own little world, something else that Anna felt she should be worrying about. Eventually, after hours of sulking, sudden tears, midnight panics and endless chocolate supplied by Anna to the bedroom door each night, Chloe’s final exam, then Becca’s came and went, and Becca’s Year 13 prom night arrived.