The Secrets of Sunshine

by Phaedra Patrick

  Praise for Phaedra Patrick

  ‘A wonderfully hope-filled story’

  Sarah Haywood, bestselling author of The Cactus

  ‘A gem of a book. I loved it’

  Sarah Morgan, Sunday Times bestseller

  ‘A story of self-discovery’

  Hello!

  ‘Wonderful… the perfect summer read’

  Woman

  ‘A charming story with thought-provoking themes’

  Candis

  ‘A feel-good story with oodles of charm’

  Daily Mail

  ‘This book is a balm for the soul and the heart’

  The Sun

  ‘A gorgeous journey’

  Heat

  ‘An unforgettable story’

  Harper’s Bazaar

  ‘As charming and witty as the title suggests’

  My Weekly

  ‘We love this sweet story about self-discovery’

  Take A Break

  ‘Eccentric, charming and wise, this will illuminate your heart’ Nina George, author of The Little Paris Bookshop

  PHAEDRA PATRICK studied art and marketing and has worked as a stained-glass artist, film festival organiser and communications manager. She is a prize-winning short story writer and her debut novel was translated into over twenty languages. She lives in Saddleworth with her husband and son, where she writes full time.

  Also by Phaedra Patrick

  The Library of Lost and Found

  The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper

  Wishes Under the Willow Tree

  The Secrets of Sunshine

  Phaedra Patrick

  ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES

  Copyright

  An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2020

  Copyright © Phaedra Patrick 2020

  Phaedra Patrick asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Ebook Edition © May 2020 ISBN: 9780008237684

  Version 2020-04-30

  Note to Readers

  This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:

  Change of font size and line height

  Change of background and font colours

  Change of font

  Change justification

  Text to speech

  Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008237677

  To my family and friends

  Contents

  Cover

  Praise

  About the Author

  Booklist

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Note to Readers

  Dedication

  The Lilac Envelope

  1. A Locked Heart

  2. Pizza Boxes

  3. Small Shoes

  4. Pink Fridge

  5. Angel House

  6. Earring

  7. Message

  8. Chocolates

  9. Green Bottles

  10. Office

  11. Sheet Music

  12. Campfire

  13. Carl’s Letter

  14. Stitches

  15. Mosaic

  16. Swing

  17. Dinner

  18. Ice-Skating

  19. Ghosts

  20. Chains

  21. Padlock

  22. Biscuits

  23. Pineapple

  24. Swimming

  25. Park

  26. Bench

  27. Family

  28. Pigeons

  29. An Unlocked Heart

  30. Project Padlock

  31. Wedding Day

  32. Last Dance

  33. Liza’s Letter

  34. The New Bridge

  Acknowledegments

  Extract

  About the Publisher

  The Lilac Envelope

  The night before

  As he did often over the past three years, Mitchell Fisher wrote a letter he would never send.

  He sat up in bed at midnight and kicked off his sheets. Even though all the internal doors in his apartment were open, the sticky July heat still felt like a shroud clinging to his body. His nine-year-old daughter, Poppy, thrashed restlessly in her sleep in the bedroom opposite.

  Mitchell turned on his bedside lamp, squinting against the yellow light, and took out a pad of Basildon Bond notepaper from underneath his bed. He always used a fountain pen to write – old-fashioned, he supposed, but he was a man who valued things that were well constructed and long lasting.

  Mitchell tapped the pen against his bottom lip. He knew what he wanted to say, but by the time his words of sorrow and regret had travelled from his brain to his fingertips, they were only fragments of what he longed to express.

  As he started to write, the sound of the metal nib scratching against paper helped him block out the city street noise that hummed below his apartment.

  Dearest Anita,

  Another letter from me. Everything here is fine, ticking along. Poppy is doing well. The school holidays start soon and I thought she’d be more excited. It’s probably because you’re not here to enjoy them with us.

  I’ve taken two weeks off work to spend with her, and have a full itinerary planned for us – badminton, tennis, library visits, cooking, walking, the park, swimming, museums, a tour of the city bridges and more. It will keep us busy. Keep our minds off you.

  You’ll be amazed how much she’s grown, must be almost your height by now. I tell her how proud I am of her, but it always meant more coming from you.

  Mitchell paused, resting his hand against the pad of paper. He had to tell her how he felt.

  Every time I look at our daughter, I think of you. I wish I could hold you again, and tell you I’m truly sorry.

  Yours, always,

  Mitchell x

  He read his words, always dissatisfied with them, never able to convey the magnitude of guilt he felt. After folding the piece of paper once, he sealed it into a crisp, cream envelope, then squeezed it into the almost-full drawer of his nightstand among all the other letters he’d written. His eyes fell upon the slim lilac envelope he kept on top, the one addressed to him from Anita that he’d not yet been able to bring himself to open.

  Taking it out, he held it under his nose and inhaled. There was still a slight scent of her violet soap on the paper. His finger followed the angle of the gummed flap and then stopped. He closed his eyes and willed himself to open the letter, but his hands began to shake.

  Once more, he placed it back into his drawer.

  Mitchell lay down and hugged himself, imagining Anita’s arms were wrapped around him. When he closed his eyes, the words from all the letters weighed down upon him like a bulldozer. As he turned and tried to sleep,
he pulled the pillow over his head to force them away.

  1

  A Locked Heart

  The lovers who attached their padlocks to the bridges of Upchester might see it as a fun or romantic gesture, but to Mitchell, it was an act of vandalism.

  It was the hottest year on record in the city and the morning sun was already beating down on the back of his neck. His biceps flexed as he methodically opened and squeezed his bolt cutters shut, shearing the padlocks off the cast-iron filigree panels of the old Victorian bridge, one by one.

  Since local boy band Word Up filmed the video for their international smash hit ‘Lock Me Up with Your Love’ on this bridge, thousands of people were flocking to the small city in the north-west of England. To demonstrate their love for the band and each other, they brought locks engraved with initials, names or messages and attached them to the city’s five bridges.

  Large red-and-white signs that read No Padlocks studded the pavement. But as far as Mitchell could see, the locks still hung on the railings like bees swarming across frames of honeycomb. The constant reminder of other people’s love made him feel like he was fighting for breath. As he cut off the locks, he wanted to yell, ‘Why can’t you just keep your feelings to yourselves?’

  After several hours of hard work, Mitchell’s trail of broken locks glinted on the pavement like a metal snake. He stopped for a moment and narrowed his eyes as a young couple strolled towards him. The woman glided in a floaty white dress and tan cowboy boots. The man wore shorts and had the physique of an American football player. With his experience of carrying out maintenance across the city’s public areas, Mitchell instinctively knew they were up to something.

  After breaking away from his girlfriend, the man walked to the side of the bridge while nonchalantly pulling out a large silver padlock from his pocket.

  Mitchell tightened his grip on his cutters. He was once so easy and in love with Anita, but rules were rules. ‘Excuse me,’ he called out. ‘You can’t hang that lock.’

  The man frowned and crossed his bulging arms. ‘Oh, yeah? And who’s going to stop me?’

  Mitchell had the sinewy physique of a sprinter. He was angular all over with dark hair and eyes and a handsome dorsal hump on his nose. ‘I am,’ he said and put his cutters down on the pavement. He held out his hand for the lock. ‘It’s my job to clear the bridges. You could get a fine.’

  Anger flashed across the blond man’s face and he batted Mitchell’s hand away, swiping off his work glove. Mitchell watched as it tumbled down into the river below. Sometimes the water flowed prettily, but today it gushed and gurgled, a bruise-grey hue. A young man had drowned here in a strong current last summer.

  The man’s girlfriend wrapped her arms around her boyfriend’s waist and tugged him away. ‘Come on. Leave him alone.’ She cast Mitchell an apologetic smile. ‘Sorry, but we’re so in love. It took us two hours and three buses to get here. We’ll be working miles away from each other soon. Please let us do this.’

  The man looked into her eyes and softened. ‘Yeah, um, sorry, mate,’ he said sheepishly. ‘The heat got the better of me. All we want to do is fasten our lock.’

  Mitchell gestured at the sign again. ‘Just think about what you’re doing, guys,’ he said with a weary sigh. ‘Padlocks are cheap chunks of metal and they’re weighing down the bridges. Can’t you get a nice ring or tattoo instead? Or write letters to each other? There are better ways to say I lov—well, you know.’

  The man and the woman shared an incredulous look.

  ‘Whatever.’ The man glowered and shoved his padlock back into his pocket. ‘We’ll go to another bridge instead.’

  ‘I work on those, too…’

  The couple laughed at him and sauntered away.

  Mitchell rubbed his nose. He knew his job wasn’t a glamorous one. It wasn’t the one in architecture he’d studied hard and trained for. However, it meant he could pay the rent on his apartment and buy Poppy hot lunch at school each day. Whatever daily hassle he put up with, he needed the work.

  His workmate Barry had watched the incident from the other side of the road. Sweat circled under his arms, and his forehead shone like a mirror as he crossed over. ‘The padlocks keep multiplying,’ he groaned.

  ‘We need to keep on going.’

  ‘But it’s too damn hot.’ Barry undid a button on his polo shirt, showing off unruly chest curls that matched the ones on his head. ‘It’s a violation of our human rights, and no one can tell if we cut off twenty or two hundred.’

  Mitchell held his hand up against the glare of the sun. ‘We can tell, and Russ wants the bridges cleared in time for the city centenary celebrations.’

  Barry rolled his eyes. ‘There’s only three weeks to go until then. Our boss should come down here and get his hands dirty, too. At least join me for a pint after work.’

  Mitchell’s mouth felt parched, and he suddenly longed for an ice-cold beer. A vision of peeling off his polo shirt and socks and relaxing in a beer garden appeared like a dreamy mirage in his head.

  But he had to pick Poppy up from the after-school club to take her for a guitar lesson, an additional one to her music class in school. Her head teacher, Miss Heathcliff, was a stickler for the school closing promptly at 5.30 p.m., and it was a rush to get there on time. He lowered his eyes and said, ‘I’d love to, but I have to dash off later.’

  Then he selected his next padlock to attack.

  Towards the end of their working day, Barry sidled up to Mitchell and wiped his brow. He crouched and packed up his toolbox before staring at his mobile phone. ‘Brilliant, a lady I’ve been messaging can meet me for a drink.’

  Since Barry had lost three stone at Weight Whittlers, he’d discovered the enticing world of dating apps and was now like a dog let off its leash. Mitchell had long since given up advising him quality was better than quantity when it came to women.

  ‘You have another date?’ he asked. ‘And we’re not supposed to finish work for another five minutes.’

  Barry smiled proudly. ‘Five minutes doesn’t matter, and going out beats sitting on my own all night. Tonight’s lucky lady is Mandy.’ He side-glanced at his friend. ‘Maybe you should get back out into the wild, too. Start to live a little.’

  Mitchell shuddered. ‘I’m fine as I am, thanks, just me and Poppy.’

  If he ever thought about going out with someone new, his head spun: getting dressed up, meeting someone in a bar, making light conversation, laughing politely at their jokes, debating who was going to pay for the drinks, going through that excruciating moment when you might offer to see them again, moving in for a kiss or not. And that was on top of the babysitting logistics, because his few family members lived miles away. Before he even went on a first date, he could already picture first arguments, awkward silences and accusations at him for being emotionally frozen. And the line ‘I’m a single dad to a nine-year-old girl’ wasn’t an ideal conversation starter. He looked at his watch. ‘You go enjoy yourself,’ he said. ‘Have a pint for me.’

  ‘Will do,’ Barry shouted over his shoulder as he walked away.

  Mitchell stared at his own trail of padlocks and at Barry’s petite pile on the other side of the bridge. A couple of lads from the Maintenance Team pulled up and began to shovel up the scrap metal. Mitchell gave them a wave and rushed off along the street that followed the edge of the river.

  As he hurried, he didn’t notice the clustered rows of black-and-white Tudor shops, or the intricate carvings on the twin towers of Upchester cathedral, the tallest building that loomed over the medieval walled city. He didn’t stop to admire the glistening River Twine that gushed fiercely a few metres lower besides him, or the architecture of the five bridges that spanned it. He had given his own nickname to each of them.

  The Slab was a drab concrete construction on the far side of the city. Built in the 1970s to ease traffic flow, it was more useful than attractive and, in Mitchell’s opinion, spoiled the aesthetics of its surroundings.


  Vicky was the next one along, the Victorian bridge he and Barry had been working on that day. It had handsome stone arches and ornate panels depicting flowers and leaves. It connected the cathedral on one side of the river to the library on the other.

  When he reached the third bridge along, his palms itched as he spotted dozens of fresh padlocks hanging there. This was the oldest bridge in the city, with parts of it dating back to the fourteenth century. Mitchell christened it Archie, because it had three pale stone arches.

  The newest bridge had been commissioned to celebrate the centenary of Upchester’s city status. Due to open soon, Mitchell named it the Yacht. It was supermodern, all sleek white railings and thin white struts that looked like the laces of a lady’s corset, securing two tall white masts to the road.

  He called his favourite bridge Redford, because of its red bricks. It was a sturdy construction, erected one hundred and fifty years ago. It might look dull and traditional, but it did its job.

  As he crossed over Redford, the people he passed came at him in twos, like animals boarding Noah’s Ark. They laughed and kissed with abandon, and Mitchell picked up his pace, finding it painful to witness.

  He still saw Anita sometimes, catching glimpses from the corner of his eye of her copper-brown curls in a crowd or a flash of her favourite tomato-red coat. Every time he felt as if someone had stabbed his heart. His breath would catch, and he’d crane his neck to look for her, desperate to see her one more time.

  As he strode on, Mitchell noticed a woman standing in the middle of the bridge’s pavement. Her dress was vibrant, a daffodil yellow. Everyone else was heading across the bridge, but she was stationary, absolutely still, so people had to part and move around her. As Mitchell drew closer, he noticed her nose had a bump on the bridge that made him feel an immediate kinship with her. Her walnut curls reminded him of Anita’s hairstyle.

  Her warm, familiar smile seemed to say, Oh, fancy seeing you here. But he was certain he’d never seen her before. He couldn’t help staring at her, as if catching sight of his own reflection in a shop mirror and doing a double take.