The Secrets of Happiness

by Lucy Diamond

  ‘Everyone needs a little art project,’ Becca had said, and Rachel was starting to think she might just be right. She hadn’t told her sister yet – imagine the crowing! – but she had actually picked up a few tester pots of paint herself the other day. A soft rose pink. A dusty mauve. A light, bright aquamarine that reminded her of swimming in the sea. Becca was always taking the mick out of her and her ‘middle-class beige home’, and Rachel was prepared to concede that she had a point. Maybe the time had come to leave the dull neutrals behind and cheer the place up with some colour.

  Meanwhile, Scarlet, too, was an infinitely happier child now that the dog was home. Her violin playing had changed from frenetic, angry sawing to softer, more mellow lullaby-type tunes. She had taken her Grade 2 exam that week and seemed quite confident that it had all gone okay. She had also put herself forward for the end-of-term school talent show, and she could be heard laughing again, her face no longer quite so pinched and pale. It was so good to have that infectious laugh ringing through the house once more.

  As for Luke, she had seen a change in him as well. He had apparently told Lawrence about the forthcoming karate lessons and to Rachel’s surprise (and delight), Lawrence had found some short karate move videos on YouTube and downloaded them onto his iPad so that he and Luke could both have a try. Parenting teamwork, she thought, sending Lawrence a mental high-five of gratitude. Just learning a few simple moves seemed to have boosted her son’s fragile confidence already, even if it did mean endless ‘Haiiii-YAH!’ screams as he went around karate-chopping cushions, his bed, the sofa. She could live with it, though, if it meant he was happy.

  Maybe, just maybe, she thought, the Jackson family were collectively on the mend at last.

  The doorbell rang as Becca was blowing out the candles on her birthday cake. The birthday cake, by the way, that had been a complete triumph, right until Scarlet had dropped it on the (less than spotless) kitchen floor, and Rachel had bit back a scream of frustration, somehow managing to say, very calmly, that they would have to throw this one away and bake another. That was why it was now seven-thirty in the evening, and really, Luke should have been in bed.

  ‘Who’s that at the door?’ Mabel asked as Becca scurried off to answer it.

  Good question. Who, indeed? Why, it was Adam, the previously detested client, who was now apparently taking her sister out for a drink. Talk about a change of heart – this was a tyre-screeching U-turn if ever Rachel had seen one. Laid-back Becca had actually become quite flustered earlier, panicking about what to wear, how dressy she should go, was it a bit much if she wore earrings and a necklace? Could she borrow Rachel’s black sandals? For someone who had always bitched and moaned about Adam, she was certainly making an unheard-of effort for this one single drink.

  ‘It’s someone for Aunty Bec,’ Rachel replied to her children’s inquiring faces, before plunging the knife into the cake and cutting the first slice. ‘Let’s see if he wants to stay for some birthday cake, or if he wants to whisk her away.’

  ‘Is it a boy? Is it her boyfriend?’ Scarlet and Luke asked in loud voices, just as Becca came back into the kitchen followed by Adam.

  Becca was wearing her nicest jeans and a teal-coloured floaty chiffon top with jingling gold bangles on her wrist. Her pale freckled skin surged with colour as she heard her niece and nephew’s questions and she shot them a fierce sort of look. ‘Guys, this is Adam. Adam, you know Rachel, of course, and these rapscallions are Mabel, Scarlet and Luke.’

  ‘Wait,’ Scarlet said in confusion, ‘I thought you didn’t like Adam?’

  ‘Well –’ Becca stuttered, shooting her niece an even more ferocious ‘shut up’ look.

  ‘Adam the PooHead?’ Luke echoed. ‘I don’t like him either.’

  Oh God. Out of the mouths of babes, and all that. Loyal, protective babes who had memories like elephants, no less. ‘Different Adam,’ Rachel said quickly, because Becca seemed to have temporarily lost the power of speech. ‘This is nice Adam, not Adam the, um, PooHead. All right? And he’s going to have a piece of cake – well, I hope he is, if you lot haven’t just frightened him away – so can we all remember our manners, please.’

  Adam’s mouth was twitching as if he found the whole thing hilarious. ‘This Adam PooHead guy sounds a bit of a douche,’ he commented, as Rachel went back to cutting slices.

  ‘Yeah. Aunty Bee hates him,’ Scarlet said. ‘She said she wanted to punch him but—’

  ‘Scarlet, that’s enough,’ Rachel warned in her most severe voice, easing out the first slice of cake on a plate for her sister. ‘Here you are, Bec,’ she said, passing it over.

  Becca was still squirming. First lesson of living with children, Rachel thought: be careful what you say when small ears are flapping. They remembered everything, and you could never tell when it might be used against you for future humiliation. ‘Thanks,’ she said in rather a strangled voice.

  ‘Where are you two going, then?’ Rachel asked, before Scarlet could pipe up with some new tactless comment or other. Thankfully the children all had their eyes glued to what was happening with the cake, monitoring with forensic precision how big each slice was and which they were hoping for.

  ‘I thought we’d drop in at Leo’s,’ Adam said, accepting the plate she handed him. ‘Do you know it? Little wine bar on a side street near the cathedral. It does really great tapas.’

  ‘Oh, good idea,’ she said, and smiled at her sister, whose high flush of colour was only just starting to ebb away. ‘There’s a lovely courtyard garden, it’ll be perfect on an evening like this.’ She turned back to the children and started doling out cake to them all, feeling a disconcerting twist of emotion inside. Envy? Was that really envy she was feeling? Not because Becca was out with Adam, per se, just that she was about to head out on a date with this man who was smiling so attentively at her, laughing at the crumb of chocolate cake that appeared to be welded to her top lip, his eyes soft with affection as he brushed it away. It was the romance that she envied, she thought, turning so as to hide her face. The romance of putting on lipstick, your heart beating a little bit faster, wondering what might happen at the end of the night. Hoping that an evening together and a bottle of wine might just lead to something else . . . And Leo’s Bar was gorgeous. The garden would be festooned with little lanterns, and the climbing roses would be in full bloom and smelling heavenly, and the night sky would darken around them, from a gauzy shade of peach to an inky midnight blue . . .

  When had she last sat in a warm, scented pub garden and held hands with a man across a weathered wooden table? It had been years. Too many summers had somehow slipped by while she and Lawrence were too busy, too tired, too whatever to make romantic gestures for one another.

  ‘Thank you so much, everyone, that was delicious,’ Becca said, putting down her empty plate and licking her lips appreciatively.

  ‘It was excellent,’ Adam agreed. ‘Very good. Which bakery did you say it was from again?’

  Aww. The kids’ faces. ‘We made it!’ Luke cried.

  ‘It wasn’t from a bakery,’ Scarlet added gleefully.

  Even Mabel, who was wise to the fact that he was clearly flattering them, looked chuffed and then promptly tried to take advantage. ‘We take commissions, by the way,’ she said, batting her eyelashes. ‘Only twenty pounds for a cake.’

  ‘Twenty-five,’ Scarlet said immediately.

  ‘Fifty,’ Luke said in the next breath.

  Adam laughed. ‘I think you three could teach your Aunty Becca here a few entrepreneurial skills,’ he said, then dodged out of the way as she pretended to swipe at him. ‘It was a spectacular cake. My compliments to the bakers.’ He tilted his head towards the front door and smiled at Becca. ‘Shall we?’

  ‘Let’s,’ she said. ‘Thanks, everyone, I’ve had a fab birthday so far. See you all in the morning. Don’t wait up!’ And then with a kiss blown for each of them, she winked at Rachel and left. Rachel could hear their laughter floating down the hallway as th
e front door closed behind them.

  ‘So who is Adam PooHead?’ Scarlet wanted to know, wiping a wet finger around her plate in the vain hope of catching any last molecules of cake she might previously have overlooked. ‘I’m completely confused.’

  ‘That was him, imbecile,’ Mabel told her. ‘Which wasn’t embarrassing at all for Aunty Bec, having you two slagging him off right there. God!’

  Scarlet’s jaw dropped for a full five seconds. ‘But I thought . . . I thought she hated him? Why is she going out with him if she hates him?’

  ‘Well, I like him,’ Luke pronounced. ‘Especially if he gives us fifty pounds.’

  ‘He’s not going to give us –’ Scarlet said, exasperated. She still looked baffled by the whole sudden turnaround, though.

  She’d learn, thought Rachel, stacking plates. ‘That’s just one of the mysteries of love,’ she told her. ‘Love and hate can be closer than you think.’

  ‘Eww,’ Scarlet said with a shudder. ‘Well, I hate Josh Rawlins and I’m telling you now, there’s no way I’m ever going to love him. So there!’

  Rachel gave a wry smile as her daughter put her nose in the air and stalked off. Love and hate . . . she had experienced both of them during her marriage, but felt as if she might just have come out the other side now. Her love, then hatred, for Lawrence had given way to a sort of grudging acceptance these days. Civility. Not that that was anything a romantic young dreamer would aspire to, of course, but it was way better than previous hostilities.

  She loaded up the dishwasher, wondering how Becca and Adam would get on together, if they were still laughing, if they would manage to nab one of the tables outside at Leo’s. Was this the start of something exciting for her sister? She really hoped so. Becca deserved the best, and Adam seemed a good bloke. Just as long as his PooHead ways were behind him now, of course. Because if not, he’d have big sister Rachel and her three gobby children to contend with – and then he’d really have something to be sorry about.

  Rita Blackwell had come to consider her daughter in a new light recently. After all, if it hadn’t been for Carol’s arranging for Rita to have a series of exercise sessions, she would never have met the delightful Rebecca and been able to return to her allotment this summer, just in time for the soft fruit season. And of course, she wouldn’t have been re-introduced to Michael Jones either. That alone was almost worth the indignity of having to do jumping jacks in the car park of Willow Lodge that one and only time, with Malcolm Banks sniggering out of the window.

  But now there was Michael, back in her life. Lovely-as-a-Welsh-cake Michael Jones! To say she’d been surprised to see him was an understatement. She’d actually gone a bit fluttery with the shock, thought for a moment it was her angina plaguing her again, before she realized that it was in fact sheer delight causing her to feel so giddy. Goodness, she hadn’t felt this way since her beloved George took her dancing at the Hillside Ballroom back when she was a teenager! It was funny how circular life could be, it really was. By the time you were into your seventies, you became better at predicting a course of events, you’d seen life’s recurring patterns all before. But nobody could have predicted that she would be helping Michael Jones out in his overgrown garden, and that the two of them would be chatting away about their respective daughters as if Shona and Carol were both still in knee socks with their hair in bunches.

  ‘Goodbye,’ they had said rather awkwardly at the end of that initial reunion last week, when Becca had looked down at her watch and said they had to go because the staff at Willow Lodge would be wondering where they had got to. It had been such a pleasant afternoon, Rita had found herself dragging her feet, not wanting it to be over. ‘Well, ta-ta, then. Lovely to see you,’ they said on the doorstep, eyes on each other; a whole other silent conversation unfolding.

  A second passed, then two. There was the chime of an icecream van in the distance somewhere, an old familiar tune – Oh where, oh where, has my little dog gone? – and the sound made Rita feel nostalgic for her youth, all those years gone by. How many ice-cream summers did they have left? she wondered. She’d never been one to waste time if she could help it.

  ‘Maybe we could—’ she began, just as he said, ‘How about we—’

  Becca had moved a discreet distance away to her car, and was checking something on her phone.

  ‘Ladies first,’ said Michael, gallant as ever. Tall and spry, still with that twinkle in his eye and that lovely Welsh lilt to his voice. She had always liked that voice of his.

  ‘Well, I was thinking,’ she began, nervous all of a sudden. (Nervous! Her!) ‘It’s been so nice seeing you again, maybe we could catch up some other time too? Perhaps we—’

  ‘Yes,’ he said shyly, just as she was wondering if she was about to make a fool of herself. ‘I would like that.’ The years seemed to melt away as his gaze remained on hers, steady and sure. ‘Same time next week? I could make us some biscuits, I’m a dab hand at this baking now, you know.’

  ‘And I could give that vegetable patch of yours a proper dig-over, get some beans going there for you.’ She could feel her smile stretching, a gladness filling her up inside. ‘Same time next week, then,’ she said.

  And so here they were again the following Friday, she and Becca, having been made to swear she wouldn’t tell Carol or Rachel that they weren’t actually doing any proper exercises today. As Becca knocked on the door of Michael’s bungalow, Rita felt positively girlish at the prospect of seeing him again. Girlish – yes! As she had told Joan, who had the room next door to hers in Willow Lodge, he was a good-looking chap, make no mistake. So what was a woman supposed to do in this situation? You go for it, doll, Joan had advised, putting down three queens with an air of triumph. They were playing poker, a game that sharp-eyed Joan always seemed to win. (Rita suspected she’d been a hustler back in the day, and had already vowed never to start betting with anything other than cocktail sticks.) Bloody well go for it, Joan repeated, collecting her winnings with a shaky hand. A second chance, at our age? Make sure you do it for us girls!

  Do you know what, Joan? she thought, as she saw Michael’s figure looming towards them through the bobbly glass. I think I jolly well will, too.

  It was just as lovely to see Michael second time round as the first. He had baked some scones for the occasion – rather undercooked, doughy scones, admittedly (bless him for trying though, Rita thought, determinedly chomping her way through and hoping the gluey texture wasn’t about to do for her dentures) – and he had bought a few plants from the garden centre, on which she was all too happy to advise. Rita had always prided herself on her sharpness, her observation skills – in another life, she’d have been a detective; nothing got past her – but even so, with all this going on, it took her a little while to realize that something was odd about Becca that day. She had this goofy, dreamy expression on her face the whole time and kept staring into space, smiling to herself, as if Michael’s flower beds were the most delightful visions she’d ever laid eyes on. (Take it from Rita: they weren’t. The man’s gardening skills were almost as abysmal as his scone-making attempts, and that was saying something. Not that she had the heart to tell him as much, of course.)

  Michael noticed it too. ‘Hello, hello,’ he said, narrowing his eyes and considering her. ‘Away with the fairies today, are we, Becca, love? Lost in a dream, hey?’

  Becca blushed and went all coy, looking down at her lap, her eyelashes fluttering demurely on her pale cheeks. That was when the penny dropped for Rita. ‘If I didn’t know better, I would think this one was in love,’ she guessed aloud, which caused the girl to turn even pinker. Aha. Right first time, she thought with a sideways smile at Michael.

  ‘In love? New boyfriend, is this?’ Michael wanted to know. ‘Who’s the lucky fella, then?’ He began to hum ‘Some Enchanted Evening’, and Rita joined in.

  Becca burst out laughing. She was such a pretty thing anyway, but today she had an especially lovely light shining in those green eyes, and lo
oked so happy. ‘Oh, he’s just this guy I went out with last night. Stop it, you teasers,’ she said, as their humming got louder.

  ‘Well,’ said Rita, arching an eyebrow. ‘Looks like I’m going to need a new hat at this rate. I do love a summer wedding, don’t you, Michael?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ he said.

  ‘You two!’ Becca scolded. ‘It was only one date. Come on!’

  ‘Ahh, but when you know, you just know,’ Michael said. ‘Isn’t that right, Rita?’

  He was smiling at her, his eyes soulful and lingering, and she felt her stomach turn a slow somersault, her breath suddenly catching in her throat. Goodness, Rita, old girl, she thought to herself, her knees feeling deliciously wobbly. You must have had too much sun. ‘Yes,’ she heard herself saying, in a voice so far-away-sounding, she wasn’t sure for a minute if she had actually spoken. ‘Yes, I think sometimes you just do.’

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Just one date, Becca had told Rita and Michael, laughing off their teasing expressions. Just this guy. But – oh! What a date it had been, and – oh, what a guy!

  She’d been hit by a flurry of nerves beforehand, unable to help thinking back to the last disastrous date who’d got her name wrong, and the smelly football bore before that. But as it turned out, there was actually something quite relaxing about going on a date with a man who had already seen you at your absolute worst – red-faced, shouting, throwing balled-up paper at his face. Somehow it took the pressure off, somehow there seemed no need to bother with the usual desperate like-me! Like-me! attempts of pretending she was cool or sophisticated or ladylike – because they both knew she wasn’t. And so she got stuck in to the patatas bravas and the breaded whitebait with gusto, the albondigas and chorizo and Spanish beer, licking her fingers with each salty olive. They swapped funny childhood stories and bad-date experiences, and she found herself laughing so loudly at one point that a man on the next table turned round in surprise. It didn’t matter, though; Adam laughed too. And her heart, which had seemed so fossilized until now, mossed over from under-use since her dad had died, gave a joyful I’m back! kind of flutter inside.