*
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.
Chapter 118
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.
Chapter 119
They began to come three days later. The first postcard had a picture of Leeds Town Hall on the front.
Dear Ms Merryman.
I read your story on the internet and I felt compelled to write to you. My name is Daniel Fellowes and I’m eighteen and will be going to Oxford in September. I’m about to go off to the Greek Islands with friends for the summer to work before I settle down and be a good boy.
I read your story with much sadness – for you. My mum died two years ago –breast cancer. She would have loved to hear that I had a place at Oxford to read medicine. I intend to become a specialist in breast cancer and crack the code of that bloody awful disease. I would give anything to have written postcards to her to tell her where I was and what I was doing this summer.
With your permission, I would like to send you a postcard or two – the ones which I am sure your daughter Anne would have sent to you, and I hope you receive them with the same joy that my mother would have.
Very kindest regards
Daniel Fellowes.
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.
Dear Leonora
I’m on a gap year in Spain. I shall be going to Durham University to study English next year. I was orphaned at seven and grew up in care and I so wish that I could have written postcards to my parents to tell them that I’m doing fine.
I was deeply moved by the story I read on the internet about you and your daughter. I cried for you both and decided that I should brave a postcard to you from here in Seville, as your lovely Anne might have done. I don’t hope to fill the hole she left in your heart, but it would be a pleasure for me and I hope you might enjoy receiving it.
My best wishes
Maria Matthews.
Dear Mrs Merryman
May I write to you. My mum passed away . . .
Dear Ms Merryman
I read your story on the internet and it touched my heart so much because I wish I send postcards to my mother. She died last year and I miss her so much . . .
Dear Anne’s mum
Please accept this postcard from someone who wishes you well. I lost my mother three years ago . . .
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.
Epilogue
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 ou
t 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
Acknowledgements
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.
Milly Johnson
A Spring Affair
When Lou Winter picks up a dog-eared magazine in the dentist’s waiting room and spots an article about clearing clutter, she little realises how it will change her life. What begins as an earnest spring clean soon spirals out of control. Before long Lou is hiring skips in which to dump the copious amounts of junk she never knew she had.
Lou’s loved ones grow disgruntled. Why is clearing out cupboards suddenly more important than making his breakfast, her husband Phil wonders? The truth is, the more rubbish Lou lets go of, the more light and air can get to those painful, closed-up places at the centre of her heart: the love waiting for a baby she would never have, the empty space her best friend Deb once occupied, and the gaping wound left by her husband’s affair.
Even lovely Tom Broom, the man who delivers Lou’s skips, starts to grow concerned about his sweetest customer. But Lou is a woman on a mission, and not even she knows where it will end . . .
Paperback ISBN 978-1-84739-282-4
Ebook ISBN 978-1-84739-866-6
Milly Johnson
A Summer Fling
When dynamic Christie blows in like a warm wind to take over their department, five very different women find themselves thrown together.
Anna, 39, is reeling from the loss of her fiancé, who ran off with a much younger woman. Her pride in tatters, these days Anna finds it difficult to leave the house. So when a handsome, mysterious stranger takes an interest in her, she’s not sure whether she can learn to trust again.
Then there’s Grace, in her fifties, trapped in a loveless marriage with a man she married because, unable to have children of her own, she fell in love with his motherless brood. Grace worries that Dawn is about to make the same mistake: orphaned as a child, engaged to love-rat Calum, is Dawn more interested in the security that comes with his tight-knit, boisterous family?
At 28, Raychel is the youngest member of their little gang. And with a loving husband, Ben, and a cosy little nest for two, she would seem to be the happiest. But what dark secrets are lurking behind this perfect facade, that make sweet, pretty Raychel so guarded and unwilling to open up? Under Christie’s warm hand, the girls soon realise they have some difficult choices to make.
Indeed, none of them quite realised how much they needed the sense of fun, laughter, and loyalty that abounds when five women become friends. It’s one for all, and all for one!
Paperback ISBN 978-1-84739-283-1
Ebook ISBN 978-1-84983-102-4
Milly Johnson
An Autumn Crush
In the heart of the windy season, four friends are about to get swept off their feet . . .
Newly single after a bruising divorce, Juliet Miller moves into a place of her own and advertises for a flatmate, little believing that, in her mid-thirties, she’ll find anyone suitable. Then, just as she’s about to give up hope, along comes self-employed copywriter Floz, and the two women hit it off straight away.
When Juliet’s gentle giant of a twin brother, Guy, meets Floz, he falls head over heels. But, as hard as he tries to charm her, his foot seems to be permanently in his mouth. Meanwhile, Guy’s best friend Steve has always had a secret crush on Juliet – one which could not be more unrequited if it tried . . .
As Floz and Juliet’s friendship deepens, and Floz becomes a part of the Miller family, can Guy turn her affection for them into something more – into love for him? And what will happen to Steve’s heart when Juliet eventually catches the eye of Piers – the man of her dreams?
As autumn falls, will love eventually bloom for them all? Or will the secrets of the past turn the season’s gold to the chill of winter?
Paperback ISBN 978-1-84983-203-8
Ebook ISBN 978-1-84983-204-5
Milly Johnson
A Winter Flame
When Lou Winter picks up a dog-eared magazine in the dentist’s waiting room and spots an article about clearing clutter, she little realises how it will change her life. What begins as an earnest spring clean soon spirals out of control. Before long Lou is hiring skips in which to dump the copious amounts of junk she never knew she had.
Even lovely Tom Broom, the man who delivers Lou’s skips, starts to grow concerned about his sweetest customer. But Lou is a woman on a mission, and not even she knows where it will end . . .
Paperback ISBN 978-1-84739-282-4
Ebook ISBN 978-1-84739-866-6
The Teashop on the Corner Page 38
