The Secrets of Happiness

by Lucy Diamond

  If Rachel had found it hard to forgive, her dad and step-mum were a different case altogether. Oh, they let Becca off every single time, however awfully she behaved: babying her, rescuing her from this plight and that, letting her get away with murder, basically, while Rachel was slogging away, the diligent first-born, quietly acing a degree in Newcastle, getting married, becoming a mother. She had done all the right things and yet it was her unruly stepsister that commanded the limelight. There was justice for you – not.

  As for what Becca had done more recently, what she’d been up to with Lawrence, their double betrayal . . . Well. Rachel should not have been surprised, frankly. She might even have predicted it, if she’d had her wits about her. It wasn’t the first time her stepsister had behaved inappropriately around men, after all – there was that cringeworthy scene at Mabel’s christening, where Becca had been drunk and flirted atrociously with Lawrence’s friend Sam, and that Christmas Eve at Dad’s a few years ago when she’d snogged the barman in their local pub. ‘There was mistletoe! And it’s Christmas!’ she’d said when she saw Rachel’s disapproving expression, like that made it any better. Grow up, Becca, she’d thought, pursing her lips.

  Obviously being a bit wild was one thing. But to go after your own brother-in-law like that . . . To be so shameless, so don’t-give-a-shit . . . It took your breath away, it really did. Especially as she’d now shown up in Rachel’s house, apparently, as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Talk about a cheek.

  Rachel realized she was gripping the bed covers, knuckles white and pointy as the nurse went away, checks completed. This time tomorrow, she’d be home and in her own bed, she reminded herself, letting go. And even if she had to put up with her stepsister for a few hours, it would all be worth it eventually. Wouldn’t it?

  Becca drove back to Hereford that evening, her mind churning. There was a lot to digest and not just the enormous roast she’d put away, courtesy of the local pub. The way her mum had spoken to her . . . it had never happened before. Not since she was nagging on about GCSE revision and life choices and the fuss she’d made discovering a packet of fags in Becca’s jacket pocket once, anyway. But as an adult, Mum had always seemed proud of her. She and Dad had helped Becca move into the flat, they’d bought a bottle of fizzy wine and a pot plant, saying how pleased they were that she was standing on her own two feet and making a go of things. (The subtext being, of course, thank God you’re not sponging off us any more and have finally given us an extra spare bedroom, but you know, the main thing was they supported her.) She’d gone along when Becca and Debbie did their first trade fair at the NEC, even though it was a bridal fair and she was not exactly the ideal customer. Becca had always felt so loved by her parents, so adored, that to have Wendy now telling her she had to buck up her ideas – it was like being slapped round the face. In the kindest possible way.

  Her mum thought she was a loser. You’ve lost your way. (What even was her way, anyway? How was she supposed to know how to find it?) Her flatmate clearly agreed with her mum. Oh, are you still doing that? Her brother-in-law viewed her as a slut. Well, hello there. Her nieces and nephew now knew better than to trust her with their lives after Snickers-gate. And her sister – sorry, stepsister – had been all too quick to cut any slim ties and walk away. It felt, in short, as if she had nobody left who thought she was any good. Maybe just a sweet, elderly Welshman in his lonely bungalow, although even he might have forgotten by now that she had ever been there.

  The worst thing was, she knew her mum was right. She had stopped in her tracks since losing her dad. Her heart had calcified, the laughter had died away, the light had vanished from her life. She’d had a boyfriend at the time, Ben; they’d been living together for six months when the accident had happened, but he’d dumped her pretty quickly and moved out, unable to cope with the emotional deluge that poured from her incessantly, embarrassed and awkward when she kept bursting into tears on his shoulder. Her world had shrunk down to a pub job and the safety of her flat. Meredith had answered her Room to Let advert and moved in, head-in-the-clouds Meredith, who was kind, and thankfully didn’t seem to mind if her flatmate started crying for no apparent reason. Becca had become like a bad queen in a fairy story, banishing joy and letting brambles grow up around her in a thorny tangle, too dense for anyone to break through.

  We’ve got to move on, Mum had urged, earnestness shining from her eyes. Becca found herself sighing as she drove.

  Why, though? Why did they have to? The thought of throwing herself back into the world, of dancing at parties, putting on lipstick, flirting – it all seemed disrespectful to her dad’s memory. Inappropriate for a bereaved daughter. But then Wendy had come out with that killer line – he wouldn’t want us to go moping around forever, or however she’d phrased it – and the words had sunk right into Becca’s skin, sharp with pertinence. It was true. Dad would have hated them to stay sunk in gloom for ever. He had been a cheerful, busy man, never happier than when solving a problem or fixing something mechanical. Maybe he’d been gazing down at them all this time, aghast at their mournful ‘Dad dinners’. Come on, girls! Turn those frowns upside down, for goodness’ sake. Hopers, not mopers!

  She smiled to herself ruefully. Hopers, not mopers, indeed. It had been his catchphrase when she did her exams and she could hear him saying it now, his voice ringing with optimism. ‘All right, all right,’ she muttered under her breath as she approached the turn-off for Rachel’s street. ‘I’ll give it a whirl.’ Tomorrow her sister would be home again, and Becca could return soon after to Birmingham and get stuck into Life, Part Two. She would do some serious thinking, draw up a plan, decide where she went from here, rather than rushing straight into the first menial job that came her way. Maybe she could go back to college, retrain, feel excited about work again. She would make an effort to reconnect with the friends she’d neglected, perhaps organize some kind of night out for her birthday at the end of the month. And just to get her mum off her back, she might even ask Meredith if Baldrick, or whatever his name was, had any sexy mates. Positive thinking from here on in, she told herself. No looking back.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It was Monday and Rachel had been deemed well enough to go home. Boxes had been ticked, papers signed, medication prescribed; she had almost made it, the end in sight. In a matter of hours she would be back with her children again, she would hug them and mother them, sink into her own sofa, sleep in her own bed. She had never been one for gushing or kissing random strangers, but it took every last scrap of self-control she possessed not to fling her arms around the registrar’s neck as the news was confirmed.

  ‘We’ll send your notes on to Hereford and get them to contact you with your first follow-up appointment at the fracture clinic,’ he said. He was a tall, balding man with a wonky tie. ‘In the meantime, rest up, and don’t push it in terms of exertion. No exercise for six weeks, obviously no driving until your arm’s out of plaster, and I’ll get one of the nurses to give you some leaflets on various things – looking after the cast, eating, keeping your teeth clean, all that sort of stuff.’

  ‘No exercise for six weeks?’ she repeated dumbly. He was already walking away and she felt like grabbing that wonky tie to stop him. Hold on a minute, sunshine. She hadn’t actually thought beyond getting home and seeing her kids again, but of course there were all of her new clients to consider – Adam, Hayley, Elaine et al. – people who had paid in advance for fitness sessions. If she wasn’t allowed to exercise for six weeks then her fledgling career was in danger of falling from the sky, wings clipped, before it had even had a chance to really take off.

  ‘Definitely not. Lots of rest while the fractures heal. Gentle walks are fine when you feel up to it, but nothing high-impact for the time being.’ He gave her a smile, not seeming to notice how devastated she was by this news. ‘Think of it as a chance to put your feet up for a change, let everyone else look after you, okay? All the best.’

  Rachel tried to smile as s
he thanked him, but inside she felt nothing but dismay. Let everyone else look after her? What, her three children? There was nobody else to look after her, no loving husband, no doting mother on hand; had he not considered that? Sure, she had friends nearby, but . . . A sigh whistled from between her lips. Well, she had her pride, didn’t she? Nice as her friends were, she had never been one to accept charity – not six weeks’ worth, anyway.

  If only her dad was still there! He would drop everything to help, she knew it – rolling up his sleeves at once, mucking in with his Fray Bentos pies and tinned potatoes for tea every evening, just as it had been when she was young. God, how she missed him still; a full year after his death. Back in the spring she had marked his birthday by lighting a candle for him at the dinner table, and Luke had asked, ‘Will we ever see Grandad again?’

  ‘No, darling,’ she’d had to reply. ‘We won’t ever see Grandad again, I’m afraid.’ It was one of the saddest sentences in the history of the world.

  Her heart sank as the registrar went away, and panic began to balloon inside her about how she would cope. Even a mundane chore like dropping the children at school every morning seemed beyond her right now. The thought of leaving the house, so battered and disfigured, the bruises still purple and black around her jaw, made her break out into a sweat of anxiety.

  A tear rolled down her cheek. What was she going to do?

  ‘Jesus Christ. Oh my God. Rachel, it’s me. Are you all right?’

  Rachel had drifted into a light doze, but was woken by the incredulous-sounding voice of her stepsister some hours later. She opened her eyes, trying to keep her composure as a complicated mix of feelings swirled up inside: relief and anger and hurt. Surprise, too, at how much weight Becca had put on, how puffy her face seemed. ‘Hi,’ she said, through clamped lips. Go on, then, say it, she thought. Tell me how horrendous I look, let’s get it over with.

  Becca was staring, aghast. ‘Bloody Nora,’ she gulped. ‘Shit, man. This is worse than I thought. They said you were a bit bashed up, but I never expected . . .’ She put a hand hastily to her mouth. ‘Sorry. Me and my big gob. I’m not helping, am I?’

  ‘No. Not really.’ Not at all, in fact. Rachel had never exactly considered herself a raving beauty, but when she had glimpsed herself in the mirror after the operation and seen for the first time the bandaged, swollen new version of herself gazing back in horror, she’d had a similar reaction. She had stared and stared, trying to reconcile the bruised, stitched face in the mirror with the fact that this was actually her. ‘A face like a bag of spanners,’ her dad would have teased. One cheek was so grotesquely swollen, you could probably have fitted an entire socket set in there.

  ‘Do I need to sign anything, by the way? Do you have anything else with you?’ Becca was asking, and Rachel snapped back to the here and now.

  ‘No,’ she said dully. ‘They took my bag.’

  ‘Of course they did.’ There was a new ferocity in Becca’s eyes and she reached out a hand as if she wanted to hug Rachel, then seemed to change her mind about it. ‘The bastards. The bloody sods. Have the police said anything? Was there CCTV at the station, or – ?’

  ‘No,’ Rachel replied. A couple of police officers had appeared by her bedside on the Thursday – or was it Friday? – but she hadn’t been able to give them a shred of detail, other than to say, two men, average height, one possibly wearing a black T-shirt. She could see in their faces that it was a hopeless cause. They had urged her to cancel her bank cards as soon as possible and left her to it, probably filing the whole interview in the bin upon leaving the ward.

  ‘Oh, God. I’m so sorry. What a horrible experience,’ Becca said, and Rachel shut her eyes for a moment. Don’t start being nice now, she thought. Not after what you did.

  ‘But let’s get you home, yeah?’ Becca went on. ‘The kids are all desperate to see you. They’ve been brilliant,’ she added quickly, as Rachel’s eyes jerked open and tears started to swell again. ‘Absolute troupers. And I’m sure everything will seem much better once you’re back. Here, I brought you some clothes to change into, I hope these are okay. Shall I help you?’

  ‘No, thanks.’ Slowly and awkwardly, Rachel fumbled to undo the ties of her hospital gown and attempted to dress herself. My God, doing up a bra strap with only one working hand was seriously difficult. Infuriatingly difficult, in fact. Hating her own helplessness, she eventually muttered, ‘Could you just . . .?’ and turned her back so that Becca could do it for her.

  ‘There. Shall I help you with the top as well?’

  ‘No.’ It was bad enough that she would have to accept favours from anyone while she was recovering, but from Becca . . . It was like the universe was rubbing her nose in it. So, tell me, she imagined herself saying, did you rate my husband in the sack as highly as he rated you? You nasty little back-stabber. Couldn’t resist, could you? First you muscle in on my dad and ruin his life. Then you set your sights on my husband. Fuck. Off.

  Finally she was clothed and decent again, and got gingerly to her feet, the world swinging and swaying around her as she made her first tentative steps. ‘You take care of yourself,’ said the nurse on duty, swooshing the curtains back, then starting to strip the bed. ‘No bungee-jumping for a while, eh?’

  Off they went, Rachel clutching some heavy-duty painkillers in a paper bag along with several leaflets on how to care for her recovering body parts. It was a relief to be vertical again after five days of doing little else but lying flat, drifting in and out of morphine dreams and pain; but it felt odd, too. She had always been a strider, Rachel, couldn’t bear dawdling along at a snail’s pace, but she was now reduced to a shuffler, feeling vulnerable and broken with her wrist in a sling, frightened all the metalwork in her head would start rattling if she went any faster.

  Becca offered her arm and Rachel said she was fine, she was not a cripple, in perhaps too snappy a voice because Becca flinched and backed off. But once they were outside and Rachel felt fresh air on her face for the first time in what seemed like weeks, the rest of the world came crowding in – vehicles, people, the distant wail of a siren – and she felt an unexpected panic seize her. It came back in a flash: the fear, the shock, the pain of impact on that cold hard floor – and she felt herself shivering and breathing hard, as if braced for the same thing to happen all over again.

  ‘We’re parked just over – are you okay?’ Becca asked uncertainly. Probably thought she was about to get her head bitten off again for daring to ask another question.

  Rachel’s shoulders were tight and hunched, her body rushing with adrenalin. Goosebumps prickled up her arms and her head began to pound, sweat wetting her armpits and back. ‘I’m fine,’ she managed to say, gulping in air. She was not about to confess her sudden alarm to Becca, that was for sure.

  ‘Right. ’Cos you really look it,’ Becca said dubiously, but didn’t comment any further. Thankfully they reached the car and she opened the passenger door so that Rachel could cautiously swing herself inside, lungs heaving with the effort. Breathe, she told herself. It’s all right. Don’t get hysterical now, for goodness’ sake.

  Becca’s car smelled of cheese and onion crisps mingled with cheap perfume. A psychedelic My Little Pony figure swung from the rear-view mirror, and there was an empty Diet Coke can in the passenger footwell. As Rachel tried to get comfortable, something rustled beneath her – a sweet packet, she discovered, reaching around with her good arm to investigate. Lovely.

  ‘Sorry about the state of this shit-heap,’ Becca said as she hopped into the driver’s seat and clipped on her seatbelt. ‘Ready to go? Wagons roll!’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The journey back from Manchester felt rather uncomfortable. Becca had imagined herself bursting into the ward and hugging her sister, tears of emotion pouring down their faces perhaps, but somehow even in a hospital bed, having recently been mugged, Rachel was still able to give off distinct Don’t You Dare Pity Me vibes and so Becca’s arms had flapped uselessly
by her side. No hugs allowed, that was clear. Take your sympathy and shove it.

  Becca had never been one to stick too closely to any rules, though – and besides, it was impossible not to pity her sister right then. Not with those purple and black bruises around her eye sockets and her face so swollen. As for when she talked in that strange, can’t-open-my-mouth way, so different from her usual assertive tone . . . it was enough to break your heart. She was thin, too. Rachel had always been slender and sporty, lucky thing, but in a healthy, athletic sort of way. Now she looked positively scrawny.

  Not that Becca dared say any of this out loud, obviously after her initial shocked outburst. She might have a big gob on her, but she wasn’t a complete moron.

  ‘So I hear you’re a fitness instructor!’ she said breezily as she pulled out of the car park and headed back towards the ring road. ‘That sounds good. I’ve been getting lots of phone calls from your clients.’

  ‘Who?’ Rachel asked, although it sounded as if she didn’t care all that much. With a broken wrist, cheekbone and jaw, she was banned from pretty much everything bar sitting still for the next few weeks, and certainly wouldn’t be able to do any fitness instructing for a while. Whoops. Maybe this had been the wrong conversational topic after all.

  ‘Let me think. A lady called Rita was the first one – ringing to cancel,’ she replied. ‘Mabel said she’s done that before.’

  ‘Mmmm.’

  ‘And a lovely old man called Michael rang, and then this guy Adam, who was moaning about a missed appointment –’ She broke off, not wanting to talk about Adam. Ever since their acrimonious parting, she had bristled at the thought of him. ‘What a great idea, anyway, setting up your own business,’ she prattled on quickly. ‘Being your own woman – very impressive.’