MIRANDA DICKINSON

Welcome to My World

Copyright

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.

AVON

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

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www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright © Miranda Dickinson 2010

Miranda Dickinson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780007236183

Ebook Edition © October 2012 ISBN: 9780007352517

Version 2018-07-04

Dedicaton

For Phil Henley – who travelled round the world to find his heart.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedicaton

Chapter One - How It All Began . . .

Chapter Two - Best Friends

Chapter Three - All About Alex

Chapter Four - Recycle Your Man

Chapter Five - The Point of No Return

Chapter Six - Hide-and-Seek

Chapter Seven - A Question of Priorities . . .

Chapter Eight - You’ve Got Mail . . .

Chapter Nine - The Big ‘F’

Chapter Ten - I Never Normally Do This, but . . .

Chapter Eleven - If Only You Knew . . .

Chapter Twelve - Come Away With Me . . .

Chapter Thirteen - So Many Girls, So Little Time . . .

Chapter Fourteen - Business as Usual . . .

Chapter Fifteen - The Date From Hell . . .

Chapter Sixteen - Anyone but Her . . .

Chapter Seventeen - All I Want for Christmas . . .

Chapter Eighteen - Questions and Answers . . .

Chapter Nineteen - Truth and Dare

Chapter Twenty - Island Life . . .

Chapter Twenty-One - Raise Your Glasses, Please . . .

Chapter Twenty-Two - Stepping Out

Miranda’s next novel - coming in 2010

Chapter One - The Most Wonderful Time of the Year?

Welcome to My World - About the Author

Thanksgiving from Author

By The Same Author

About the Publisher

Chapter One

How It All Began . . .

Right at the start, there are two things you should know about Harri: one, she doesn’t usually make a habit of locking herself in toilet cubicles during parties; and two, she is normally one of the most sane, placid individuals you could ever meet.

But tonight is an exception.

Because this evening – at exactly 11.37 p.m. – the world Harri knew ended in one catastrophic event. In the space of three and a half minutes, everyone she loved collided in an Armageddon of words, leaving mass carnage in its wake – sobbing women, shouting men and squashed vol-au-vents as far as the eye could see. Powerless to stop the devastation, she resorted to the only sensible option left available – seeking refuge in the greying vinyl haven that is the middle cubicle in the ladies’ loo at Stone Yardley Village Hall.

So here she is. Sitting on the wobbly toilet, black plastic lid down, head in hands, life Officially Over. And she has no idea what to do next.

It was all Viv’s idea. Harri should have said no straight away but, being Harri, she decided to give her first Sunday school teacher the benefit of the doubt.

‘You know how useless Alex is at finding suitable girlfriends,’ Viv said, lifting a steaming apple pie from the Aga and in advertently resembling a serene tableau from Country Life as she did so. ‘He’s hopeless! I mean, twelve girlfriends in the last year and not two brain cells between them. Danielle, Renée, Georgia, Saffron, two Marys, three Kirstys, an India, for heaven’s sake – and the last two I can’t even remember . . .’

Harri smiled into her mug of tea. ‘Lucy the weathergirl and Sadie the boomerang.’

Viv looked up from her flour-dusted Good Housekeeping recipe book. ‘The boomerang?’

‘Yeah, you know, the one who keeps coming back when you chuck her,’ Harri grinned.

‘Harriet Langton, you can be awfully sharp for someone so generally charitable.’

Harri gave a bow. ‘Thank you, Viv.’

‘So, anyway, about Alex . . .’ Viv smiled – and then presented her Big Idea. So subtle in its introduction, it seemed so innocuous that nobody could have predicted the devastation it was about to cause.

It began with a nib feature in Juste Moi, Viv’s favourite women’s glossy magazine. Between articles on the latest fashions that Hollywood starlets were scrapping over, and scarily titled features such as ‘Over 50s and the Big-O’, was a small column entitled ‘Free to a Good Home’.

‘People write in,’ Viv explained, ‘and nominate a man they know, to be recycled.’

‘Recycled?’ Harri repeated incredulously. ‘Into what? That sounds horrific.’

‘It’s not like going to the bottle bank, Harri. It’s presenting a man who’s been unlucky in love – you know, divorced, recently separated or just plain rubbish at finding the right girl – to a whole new audience.’

‘I can’t believe that works,’ Harri giggled. ‘I mean, who writes in to a magazine to ask out a guy they’ve never met?’

Viv shot her a Hard Paddington Stare. ‘Plenty of people, apparently. You would be amazed at how many responses this column gets. Listen to this. “Our February ‘Free to a Good Home’ candidate, Joshua, received over two thousand letters from women across the UK, all keen to prove to him that true love is still very much alive and well. Josh thanks all of you who replied, and is currently whittling the responses down to his top ten, whom he will contact shortly to arrange dates. Good luck, ladies!” How about that? What does that tell you, Harri?’

Harri wrinkled her nose. ‘It tells me that there are too many desperate women out there. Two thousand sad, lonely and deluded individuals letting their dreams get abused in the name of journalism.’

Viv’s enthusiasm was unabated. ‘It does not. It means that concerned friends and mothers – like, well, me, for example – can have the opportunity to find someone truly worthy of the men they care about. After all, we mothers know our sons better than anyone else, so who better to pick the perfect girlfriend for them?’

‘It sounds kind of creepy to me. And what about the women who write in? How do you know that the guy you’re pinning your hopes on isn’t some sad loser who’s single for a very good reason – like halitosis, or strange hobbies, or an unhealthy aversion to personal hygiene?’

‘It’s all very well for you, Harriet, you have a lovely boyfriend. You’ve been in a relationship with Rob for so long that you’ve forgotten the pain of being single. Alex doesn’t have that luxury, remember. So I’m just acting in his best interests.’

‘You aren’t thinking about nominating Alex, are you?’ Harri felt like her eyebrows were raising so high they would soon be visible above her head, making her look like a Looney Tunes cartoon character. ‘No way, Viv! How would he feel if he knew his own mother had put him up for auction in this meat market?’

‘I’m not suggesting I nominate him, sweetheart,’ Viv said with a reproachful motherly smile.

‘I’m glad to hear it.’

‘I’m suggesting you nominate him.’

The suggestion hung in the air between them, sparkling in its audacity. Harri needed a few moments to take it in.

‘Sorry?’

‘Well, I can’t do it, can I? Al would instantly dismiss the notion on the grounds of me being an interfering mother.’

‘And he wouldn’t do the same with an interfering best friend?’

Viv looked sheepish and folded her hands contritely. ‘Harri, I honestly wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t the only way to help my son. I’m worried about him – despite what he thinks about me being a nosy old busybody.’

‘It’s a really bad idea. He’d be mortified by it – I know I would.’

‘But he doesn’t need to know about the magazine part. And we could vet all the replies he gets.’ She pointed at the picture of the last successful candidate. ‘Over two thousand replies for him – and, let’s face it, he’s not exactly a supermodel. Just imagine the choice we could have for Alex!’

Harri had to agree that Joshua the ‘Free to a Good Home’ nominee had a face only a mother could love. Alex, on the other hand, had no problem attracting the opposite sex. It was just attracting the right kind that he struggled with.

‘I know he needs help, Viv, but is this really the best option?’

‘You know better than most how woefully inept my son is at forming meaningful relationships. You’ve had the pleasure of living through each disaster with him. I know he confides in you.’

‘All the same, it sounds like a nutty idea to me.’

‘Well, my son seems to live his life by nutty ideas. You don’t just walk out of a perfectly good job and go travelling around the world for ten years if you’re in any way sane, do you? The point is, Harri, Alex is a lovely, honest, good-looking young man and he will be a fantastic catch for the right young woman. Besides, you’re always saying that he goes for the wrong sort of girls – so this is the perfect opportunity to find the right sort of girl for him. Don’t you think?’

Viv had definitely missed her true calling, Harri mused. She would have made a great prime minister, or UN negotiator, or crazed terrorist . . . But despite it all, Viv was right: Alex possessed a near legendary bad taste in women. It was also true that Harri suspected Alex deliberately pursued women he had little intention of settling down with.

Of course, if Harri could have seen into the future, she would have refused, point blank. She would have laughed it off, changed the subject, or just grabbed her coat and left. But right then, she decided it was better to be involved and keep Viv in check than it was to risk Alex’s mother doing it alone.

So Harri said yes. And that’s when the trouble started.

Chapter Two

Best Friends

‘Harri? Are you in there?’

Behind the locked cubicle door, Harri remains silent. There is an awkward pause on the other side, and the sound of kitten heels nervously tapping, as the woman standing by the basins appears to be debating her next line.

‘Um . . . listen, Harri, this probably isn’t as bad as it looks right now. I mean . . . um . . . OK, it does look pretty bad, actually, but if you just come out I’m sure we can discuss this calmly and rationally with everyone . . . um . . . well, with the people who haven’t left yet or . . . um . . . gone to hospital . . .’

Another pause. Then a large sigh.

‘Well, OK, I’ll . . . I’ll leave you to think about it, hon.’

The ladies’ loo door opens and the kitten heels beat a hasty retreat.

Harri shakes her head.

Stella Smith was Harri’s oldest and dearest friend.

They met on Harri’s first day at school, in the small playground at the front of Stone Yardley Village Primary. Harri was five and a half, and was beginning her schooling there six months later than most of her classmates, having recently moved to the area from her birthplace in Yorkshire.

Her first memory of Stella was of a tall, dark-blonde-haired girl in a red polo-neck jumper – which appeared both to accentuate her long fingers and elongate her neck like a Masai tribeswoman – heading confidently towards her, clutching a large bag of crisps.

‘Shall we be friends?’ Stella asked (although it was more of a command than a question).

‘Yes,’ Harri replied.

Stella smiled at her new friend. ‘Good. Have a Monster Munch then.’

And that was it.

Twenty-two years later, their taste in refreshments had matured from Irn-Bru and Wagon Wheels to lattes and Starbucks’ Skinny Peach and Raspberry Muffins, but Stella and Harri’s friendship remained strong as ever.

To the casual observer, Harri and Stella’s friendship might have appeared to be a strange mix. Stella was well-known for commanding attention wherever she went (now being nearly six feet tall with long bottle-blonde hair, cheekbones to die for and practically no inhibitions makes that easy). Harri, on the other hand, was quietly confident and assured; barely five feet four with wavy auburn curls, big blue eyes and more than a healthy dose of common sense. But when they were together, something magical happened. In Stella’s company Harri found she could be herself, whilst Stella felt safe, accepted and loved. It was, in many ways, the perfect combination.

Harri chose one of their frequent coffee-shop visits to tell Stella about Viv’s Big Idea.

‘She wants you to do what?’ Stella spluttered, almost choking on her macchiato.

‘Hmm, that was pretty much my reaction,’ said Harri.

‘No flippin’ way on this earth!’ Stella’s shoulders rocked wildly as she let out a huge guffaw. It was a truth universally acknowledged that Stella’s laugh had the potential to stop traffic.

‘Oh. My. Life! I hope you said no?’

Harri looked down into the foam of her cappuccino. ‘I should have said no . . . But she had a point.’

‘Her point being?’

Harri sighed. ‘Alex is rubbish at dating. No, actually, he’s very good at dating, it’s just that he’s rubbish at finding the right sort of women to date.’

‘Or brilliant at finding weird and wonderful bunny-boilers,’ Stella suggested.

‘Yeah, absolutely.’

‘It’s quite a skill he has there. Maybe he could offer his services for rooting out strange women. He could make a fortune!’

Harri grinned. ‘Honestly, Stel, I love Al dearly, but I’ve seen him devastated by his nightmare love life so many times . . .’

‘Usually at three in the morning, by the sounds of it.’

‘Don’t worry, after the last time he did that I made it perfectly clear that my emergency heart-to-heart service was only available during daylight hours.’

‘All the same, H, most people would’ve called time on him by now.’

‘Probably. But the problem remains that he doesn’t ever seem to learn from his mistakes. So maybe this crazy idea is worth a try. At least if Viv and I are vetting the candidates we can make sure the oddballs don’t get through.’

Stella snorted. ‘Oh, Viv’s promised to help you, has she? Well, I’ll believe that when I see it.’

‘No, she will, it’s all sorted.’

‘Yeah, right. I think I just saw a pig in a Spitfire overhead . . .’

Harri giggled. ‘You’re so cruel. I believe her this time.’

‘Good for you. But what happens if Alex – your Official Best Male Friend in the Whole Wide World – disowns you for nominating him in the first place, eh? I would be livid if I found out my best friend had put me up for a magazine love auction.’

‘I know. But knowing Viv she’ll concoct an even dafter plan than this if I don’t stop her. At least if I’m there to steer her I can protect Al from the wild vagaries of his mother’s imagination.’

During the following week, Harri mulled the Big Idea over and over, as she sat behind her desk at Sun Lovers International Travel.

The scratched metal name plaque on her MDF desk read ‘Travel Advisor’, but a more truthful (if prohibitively longer) description might have been ‘Travel Advisor Who Tries in Vain to Get Stone Yardley People to Visit Amazing Places She Longs to Go to Herself’.

Sun Lovers International Travel was not as grand and corpor ate as its name suggested. In fact, SLIT (as it was affectionately known by its owner – and acknowledged with a whole different connotation by its staff) was a small, single-fronted shop in Stone Yardley High Street. In its only window, carefully placed posters promised exotic adventures across the globe: Australia, Thailand, India and the USA, by luxurious air travel; whilst the handwritten offer cards Blu-Tacked to the window suggested altogether homelier destinations: Blackpool, Weston-super-Mare and Rhyl – usually by coach.

Business had been slow all week, and by Friday morning, with all of Harri’s jobs ticked off her list, she took the opportunity to lose herself in a glossy brochure for Venice.

Venice. The place that had started it all . . . She smiled as familiar images of the city she’d loved from afar for so many years met her eyes. Grand palazzi, elegant buildings reflecting in the deep green-blue canals, brightly attired carnival-goers milling amongst tourists and city dwellers, as if being swathed head to toe in opulent velvet was as commonplace as buying your daily coffee . . . She could almost hear the sounds of the city wafting up from the brochure pages, almost taste the plates of delicious cicchetti snacks or the tangy limoncello . . . One day, she promised herself, as she had done a million times before, one day I’ll be standing there . . .

She was brought sharply back to reality by Tom, SLIT’s trainee travel advisor and cultivator of some of the most impressive acne ever seen in Stone Yardley, who let out an enormous, adolescent sigh and flopped down on the chair opposite Harri’s desk.

‘Bored, bored, bored,’ he chanted, Buddhist-style, staring wide-eyed through his mop of oily, blond curls.

Harri quickly closed the brochure and smiled at him. ‘Loving your work again, Tom?’

‘Oh, totally. “Come and work in the travel industry, Tom, you get to see the world!” Yeah, right.’

‘Welcome to Sun Lovers International Travel,’ Harri smiled, reaching across to pat his hand. ‘So tell me, what exciting destinations have you dealt with today?’

Tom groaned. ‘Barmouth. Isle of Wight. And I almost sold a flight to Dublin.’

‘Dublin? Wow! What stopped the sale?’

‘Mrs Wetton didn’t realise it was outside England. She doesn’t believe in travelling abroad.’

Harri laughed. ‘Hmm, well, Dublin, that’s almost another time zone. I mean, they have different money and everything.’ Tom shifted his lanky frame awkwardly in the chair. At six foot four, he was almost a foot taller than anyone else on the staff, so wherever he stood or sat he appeared to have outgrown his environment like Alice in her Wonderland.

‘Why do you do this, Harri? I mean, you’ve been here for – how long?’

‘Nearly eight years.’ She could hardly believe it was true.

‘Yeah, exactly. And in all that time what’s the most exotic destination you’ve sold a holiday to?’

What was so sad about the question was that Harri didn’t even have to think about the answer. ‘Morocco. And the Harpers didn’t like it because it was “too foreign”.’

‘What is wrong with people in this town? If it isn’t a coach tour, they don’t want to know.’

‘Luxury coach tour, thank you,’ Harri corrected him with mock disdain.

‘Oh, yeah, luxury coach travel. Would that be Somers Travel Direct coaches, by any chance?’ Tom smirked. ‘STD coaches – they didn’t think about that one, did they?’

Harri laughed. She was certain that Albert Somers, local businessman, who had run his family coach firm for forty-five years, had never thought twice about the unfortunate initials. Yet it was a constant source of amusement to the staff when prim and proper elderly residents of Stone Yardley said things like, ‘We love STDs,’ or, ‘I don’t know what we would have done without STDs all these years!’ or, ‘I just couldn’t imagine a holiday without STDs.’

‘I guess we’re just unfortunate to be working with the most unimaginative travellers in the entire world,’ Tom sighed, stretching out his impossibly long legs and knocking over a pile of brochures by a neighbouring desk. ‘Oh crap!’

Harri left her chair to help him retrieve the brochures, casting a cursory glance across each shiny exotic cover as it passed through her hands: India, the Far East, the Caribbean, Hawaii . . . A brochure on Trinidad and Tobago fell open at a page of colonial houses surrounded by lush green palms and azure waters. Harri and Tom paused almost reverently and shared an unspoken moment of wistful awe.

‘I can’t understand why these people want to stay in the UK all the time when there’s this big amazing world out there,’ Tom said, shaking his head. ‘I just want to travel anywhere that isn’t here. So far, I’ve only managed Spain, Italy and France, but I’ve got so many more on my list that I want to see before I’m twenty-five. And I’m glad you understand, mate. I mean – case in point: you understand travel, right? So – where’s the most exotic place you’ve ever been?’

Harri winced. She hated this question and she felt her heart sinking to her toes. Because despite being so passionate about travel, despite knowing all she knew about destinations across the globe, Harri had only once set foot outside of the UK – on a day trip to Calais with her school. In fact, she had only ever been on a plane once: a small bi-plane that flew her round the local airfield on a half-hour trip, as a treat for her ninth birthday.

Tom’s jaw made a swift bid to meet the brown carpet tiles. ‘Seriously?’

‘Seriously. My parents were scared of flying, so we always had holidays in Yorkshire, Wales or the Lake District. I love it there – don’t get me wrong – but I’ve always dreamed of travelling.’

‘So how come you’ve never just done it?’

Harri loathed this question too. As usual, she dusted off the old excuses. ‘Life just didn’t turn out the way I planned it, that’s all. I got too involved in college, then Dad got sick and our holidays became respite care for him, with our relatives in Yorkshire and Cumbria.’

Tom flushed a spotty shade of crimson. ‘Right, and then your mum . . .’

Harri swallowed hard and looked down at the stack of brochures on the floor. ‘Yeah. So after everything with them I bought my house, got the job here and then I met Rob and started going camping with him.’

‘Camping?’ Tom laughed. ‘Wow, your fella knows how to give you a good time, doesn’t he?’ He ducked expertly, as Harri made a swipe at him with the last brochure.

‘Cheeky. I actually like camping, you know. Besides, Rob makes anywhere we go fun. I can’t tell you how lovely it’s been to have him in my life after feeling so alone without Mum and Dad. Yes, I’d love to travel, but right now, with Rob’s job the way it is, plus the recession and everything, going abroad just isn’t feasible for us. One day, it will be and then I’ll be off.’

‘Tell me about it. If I don’t save some money soon, I’m never going to be able to get out of this dump,’ Tom confided, lowering his voice in case their boss was earwigging from his office. ‘I mean, Georgie Porgie in there isn’t likely to give us a pay rise while he can use the “we’re in an economic downturn” excuse.’ His brown eyes twinkled and he jabbed Harri playfully with his elbow. ‘You really go camping with Rob?’

Harri smiled. ‘Yep. Every year.’

‘Thomas! In the unlikely event that you actually decide to do anything resembling work today, that window display needs refreshing sometime before the end of the twenty-first century.’

‘Yes, boss.’ Tom winked at Harri. ‘Ever get the feeling that George was trained by the interception squad at MI5?’

‘I can hear your sarcasm from here, Thomas!’

‘Right, fine. Sorry, H, better go before George busts a blood vessel or shops us to the KGB.’

Harri waved. ‘Have fun.’

‘Cheers. So – Rob does take you to different places camping, right?’

‘Of course! We’ve been all over – usually the Lake District but sometimes Snowdonia or Pembrokeshire too. We just drive around until we find a campsite and then explore the area for a couple of days before we move on. It’s nice to not be tied to a schedule, you know? And Rob’s great at planning little surprises for us. There was one time when we were staying at a site on a hill farm near Troutbeck and Rob arranged a candlelit meal for us, snuggled under travel blankets watching shooting stars in the sky over the mountains. I honestly couldn’t have been happier anywhere else on earth that night.’

Tom’s spotty face was a picture as he walked away. ‘Ugh. Pass me the sick bucket, purrlease . . .’

Harri’s tales of Rob’s makeshift romantic gestures were far better received by Stella, despite the fact that, as far as she was concerned, public displays of affection were nothing if they didn’t include luxury, indulgence and a hefty blow on a credit card.

‘I know your Rob is a sweetie, but why on earth hasn’t he taken you abroad yet?’ she asked, one Wednesday evening, when Harri had arrived for a chat after work. ‘He’s been in your life for seven years, Harri – you’d think he would’ve at least whisked you off to Paris or somewhere by now.’

Harri dunked a chocolate digestive biscuit in her tea. ‘He says he just doesn’t feel comfortable being somewhere where he can’t speak the language. But I suspect it’s because he doesn’t like flying. His mum told me that a couple of years ago – I’m not supposed to know, but it makes sense when you think about it.’

‘I suppose so. Hey, maybe he’ll spring a big trip abroad on you when he pops the question.’

Harri raised her mug. ‘I’ll drink to that!’

Every year, Stella promised to take Harri abroad with her. Around January or February, she’d beg Harri to bring home the latest brochures from work so that they could spend happy evenings poring over impossibly gorgeous destinations. Over countless bottles of wine, takeaways and coffee-shop visits they would plan their Big Girly Adventure: ‘like Thelma and Louise without the death or guns,’ Stella would quip. But somehow, as summer approached, she would find a new man and get so caught up in romantic stuff that Harri would inevitably get invited for ‘a really nice meal out’ and receive a tearful confession somewhere around dessert. This would generally go something like: ‘I know I promised I’d take you with me this year, but before I could say no I’d agreed to go with [delete as appropriate] Joe/Mark/Matt/Juan [yes, really], but I completely, honestly promise we’ll go somewhere next year . . .’

Despite the annual let-downs, Stella’s ill-timed romantic liaisons weren’t the problem. Neither was the recession, the weak pound or the rising cost of airport taxes. And, despite what Stella and Viv said, Rob wasn’t the problem, either. At the end of the day, it was down to her.

Every year, Harri would entertain the notion of choosing a destination from a travel brochure at SLIT, packing a case and heading off somewhere on her own. But when she thought it through, the reality of spending two weeks by herself began to tarnish the dream. What was the point of seeing wonderful places if you had nobody to share them with? Unlike Viv’s son Alex, who seemed entirely at home in his own company, for Harri the prospect held no allure. Ever since her parents died, she had become all too familiar with the sense of aloneness – why would she want to take that with her to another country? One day, she knew she would be able to do this and love it. But until she could overcome the fear of the unknown, she was content to stay as she was. Surely holidaying with Rob in the UK was far more fun than being abroad alone, wasn’t it?

In Harri’s world, there were two versions of herself: the confident, spontaneous one in her mind, who would throw caution to the wind and go wherever her heart desired; then the real Harri – thinking about things too much and planning imagin ary journeys from the safety of her little cottage at the far end of Stone Yardley village.

One day, she frequently told herself, one day I’ll stop worrying about it and just go.

So, instead, Harri would buy another travel book and spend hours poring over the intricate details of other people’s adventures across the world. She became an armchair traveller – fluent in three languages and a dab hand at pub quizzes whenever travel questions came up. The world in her mind was safe, constantly accessible and, most importantly, just hers – a secret place she could escape to without anyone else knowing. For years, this had been her solitary pursuit. Until she met Alex. Then, all of a sudden, she wasn’t alone.

Chapter Three

All About Alex

A cold breeze blowing through the gaps in the grubby skylight above Harri’s head increases and small drops of rain begin to hit the toughened glass. She shivers and hugs her thin cardigan round her, feeling goose bumps prickling along her shoulders.

Trying to take her mind off the cold, she looks around the vinyl walls of the cubicle, absent-mindedly reading the motley collection of graffiti. There’s quite a selection of revelations (‘Debbie is a dog’, ‘Kanye Jones luvs ur mutha’ and ‘Sonia likes it backwards’, to name but a few), along with some startling creativity (one wit has written ‘Escape Hole’, with an arrow pointing to a Rawlplugged scar where a toilet-roll holder once was). Over in one corner of the cubicle, by a rusting chrome door hinge, one small message catches her eye:

ALex woz eRe

Harri catches her breath and shuts her eyes tight.

When Alex Brannan moved back to Stone Yardley, Harri’s world suddenly became a whole lot bigger.

Viv’s only son had always been around when Harri was growing up, but she’d never really had that much to do with him; their paths rarely crossed. It was only when he returned from ten years of travelling the world that their friendship began in earnest.

It started with the closure of Stone Yardley’s traditional tea rooms, three years ago.

When the Welcome Tea Rooms closed, many locals declared it a sad day for the town, bewailing the loss of an institution. The truth was, however, that most of those who complained had not actually set foot in said institution for many years, largely because it was anything but welcoming. The proprietress, Miss Dulcie Danvers, was a wiry, formidable spinster who had inherited the shop from her maiden aunt. No amount of scalding hot tea or stodgy home-baked scones that made your teeth squeak could combat the frosty atmosphere of the place: so you ordered (apologetically), you consumed your food in self-conscious silence and you got out of there as soon as possible. Finally, at the age of seventy-three, Miss Danvers admitted defeat and retired to a sheltered housing scheme in the Cotswolds.

For several months the former café lay empty and lifeless in Stone Yardley’s High Street, a gaping wound in the bustling town centre, but then, at the end of October, the For Sale sign disappeared from the shop front and work began on its interior. Residents noticed lights ablaze inside and shadowy figures moving around late into the night. Three weeks later, a sign appeared on the door: ‘New Coffee Lounge opening soon.’

A week after that, Viv asked Harri if she’d like to go to the launch party of her son’s new venture.

‘You remember Alex, don’t you?’

Harri nodded politely, although what recollections she did possess were decidedly vague. ‘He’s in London, isn’t he?’

Viv pulled a face. ‘Well, he was, but the least said about that particular episode, the better. Anyway, the point is that he’s moved back to Stone Yardley and he’s starting his own business.’

‘What’s he doing?’ Harri asked.

Viv beamed the kind of proud smile that parents wear when watching their children performing in a nativity play (even if they’re awful). ‘He’s taken over the old Welcome Tea Rooms. It’s going to be quite different and I think he’s worried that nobody will turn up. Would you mind awfully?’

‘No, not at all. Rob’s away working this weekend so I have a free night on Friday.’

The moment Harri set foot inside Wātea, she felt at home. Alex had transformed the dark café into a relaxed, warm and welcoming coffee lounge. Large, comfy leather armchairs rested on a green slate floor, whilst a bar by the window – made from what looked like a large driftwood beam – offered a great view of the High Street outside. Travel books and magazines were stacked casually in wicker baskets by the sides of the chairs, and treasures from Alex’s travels adorned the walls: South American paintings, an African mask, Maori figures and Native American blankets.

But it was the photographs that caught Harri’s eye and made her heart skip. Beaches and rainforests, deserts and islands, snow-covered mountain peaks and azure ocean vistas. And the star of every picture, in various wildly dramatic poses – and always with a huge grin – was Alex.

While the other guests sampled coffee and ate tiny cocktail quesadillas, spicy chorizo and olive skewers, and shot glasses of intense gazpacho, Harri moved silently round the room, letting her fingers brush lightly against the richly woven textiles and ethnic sculptures as she gazed at the photos. She was looking intently at a picture of an Inca settlement when a deep voice close behind her made her jump.

‘Machu Picchu. I loved it there. The altitude is amazing, though – you have to move really slowly so you don’t get out of breath.’

Harri spun round. She came face to face with a wooden Maori-carved bead necklace and lifted her eyes till they met the huge-grinned star of the photos. Alex extended his hand quickly, suddenly self-conscious, running the other hand through his sandy-brown mop of hair. ‘Hi. Sorry to make you jump there. I’m Alex.’

Harri smiled and took his large warm hand in hers. ‘Hi, I’m Harri. This place is amazing . . .’

‘Ooooh, fantastic! You two have already met?’ Viv exclaimed, appearing suddenly between them, as if by magic. ‘Al, darling, you remember Harriet Langton, don’t you?’

Alex’s large brown eyes widened in surprise as he took a step back and looked Harri up and down, almost as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. ‘No way! Chubby Harri with the pigtails?’

‘Yes!’ Viv beamed. ‘Little Chubby Harriet!’

‘But . . . but the last time I saw her she was, ooh, this tall?’ Alex motioned to just above his waist.

‘I know!’ Viv agreed. ‘She’s a fair bit different now, though, eh?’

‘She certainly is,’ Alex replied, looking so intently at Harri that she could feel a blush creeping up the back of her neck.

Viv’s eyes misted. ‘Her mother would’ve been so proud of her. All grown up and standing in your new coffee lounge!’

Harri lifted a hand and waved weakly between them. ‘Hello? I’m actually here. And may I just remind you both that I was given that evil nickname when I was four years old?’

‘Aww,’ Viv gathered her up into a hearty embrace, which nearly expelled all the air from her lungs, ‘sorry, my darling. Harri works at the travel agent’s a few doors down from here, Al. She knows everything there is to know about, well, just about anywhere in the world. You should ask her over and show her all that strange stuff from your travels. Ooh, and your photos too! Wouldn’t that be lovely, Harri?’

It was Alex’s turn to be embarrassed. ‘Mum . . .’ he protested, rubbing the back of his neck and staring at the floor, ‘I’m sure she doesn’t want to see all that . . .’

‘No, no, I would. Really. It would be great,’ Harri said quickly.

Alex looked up at her, his expression a strange mix of amusement and genuine surprise. ‘Seriously? Nobody’s ever asked to see my stuff before – I usually just bore people to death with it whether they like it or not.’

Harri smiled. ‘Trust me, I would love to find out where you’ve been and what you’ve seen. My boyfriend says I’m an armchair-travel junkie, so you’ll be helping to fuel my addiction.’

Alex’s eyes twinkled and the broad grin from his photographs made another appearance. ‘Well, in that case I’d be happy to oblige. We’ll co-ordinate diaries and do it!’

Harri told Rob the following Monday evening about Alex and his invitation to dinner. Over the weekend, she had suddenly started to worry that perhaps Rob wouldn’t be pleased in this relative stranger’s interest in his girlfriend, but her fears soon proved unfounded.

‘I think it’s a great idea,’ Rob smiled over the top of Survival Monthly.

‘Are you sure you don’t mind that he’s invited me for a meal?’

‘Not at all.’ He shook his head, lowered the magazine and reached over to stroke her cheek. ‘You haven’t been worrying about that, have you?’

‘A little.’

‘Well, you don’t have to. An evening of travel gossip sounds right up your street and it will be good to chat to someone who shares your travel thing. Let’s face it – I’m not the best audience when it comes to that, am I?’ He smiled that deliciously crooked smile of his, which never failed to make her heart skip. ‘So you get a night of travel trivia and I get let off that duty for once. Everyone’s a winner.’

Encouraged by her boyfriend’s words, Harri began to look forward to the evening with Alex. But as the week progressed, a new concern began to root itself in her head: would they find enough to talk about for a whole evening? After all, she could barely remember Alex – for all she knew about him he might as well be a complete stranger. Added to this, how would she fare in the company of a bona fide traveller, when all of her knowledge was based on other people’s experiences? Would she feel a fraud by comparison?

It was still playing on her mind when she arrived at her aunt’s shop on Thursday lunchtime. Eadern Blooms had served as Stone Yardley’s florist for thirty-five years and, with the exception of a new sign over the door and an A-board for the street (which Harri had persuaded Auntie Rosemary to invest in the year before), the shop hadn’t changed. The sunny yellow tiles and white-painted walls were simple but perfect for making the flowers stand out – they were, after all, the stars of the show, as far as Rosemary was concerned. As she entered the shop, Harri said hello to Mrs Gilbert from the cake shop, who was leaving with a paper-wrapped bunch of deep purple lisianthus.

‘Hello, Harriet, how’s the world today?’ Mrs Gilbert smiled.

‘Quiet, as far as Stone Yardley’s concerned,’ Harri replied, holding the door open for her. ‘Having a good week?’

‘Manic! Dora’s introduced her new Irish Coffee Cheesecake this week and we’ve been run off our feet. Sugarbuds hasn’t been this busy since Christmas.’

Auntie Rosemary was in the workroom at the back of the shop when Harri approached the counter, so Harri tapped the hotel-style brass bell to summon her aunt’s attention. It was something she had done since she was little, relishing the thrill of ringing the bell when her parents had brought her into the shop. She called out, just like her dad had done, ‘Shop!’

Rosemary’s flustered face appeared in the hatchway, which opened to the workroom. ‘Hello, you. Let me just wrap this bouquet and I’ll be right with you.’

Harri absent-mindedly turned the rotating unit on the counter that held a selection of cards for inserting into floral arrangements. Most of them looked as old as the shop: faded painted pink and yellow roses, watercolour storks carrying blanketed babies, white arum lilies bending their heads in sympathy and linked horseshoes surrounded by fluttering confetti. Harri wondered if anyone actually chose to use one of these cards, or if they, like the brass bell and sunshine-yellow vinyl floor tiles, were simply irreplaceable elements of the shop’s heart.

Five minutes later, Auntie Rosemary bustled in, strands of silver-grey hair flying loose in all directions from the messy bun at the back of her head, and a roll of twine around her right hand like a post-modern bangle. ‘I’m here, I’m here,’ she exclaimed, placing her cool hands on Harri’s cheeks and kissing her forehead, ‘and so are you! So, the kettle’s on and I’ve got some sandwiches from Lavender’s – tell me all your news.’

They pulled up wooden chairs behind the counter and ate their crusty sandwiches from Stone Yardley’s bakery as Harri shared recent events with her aunt.

When she mentioned her concerns about dinner with Alex, Auntie Rosemary frowned and took a large gulp of tea.

‘I don’t think you need worry, Harriet, I’m sure you’ll have plenty to talk about.’

‘But he’s actually done the travelling thing. I’ve just read about it. I think I’m just worried that he’ll laugh at me.’

‘Don’t be so silly, sweetheart. From my scant experience of men, I can tell you that one thing they like is to be listened to. And if the person listening to them knows less about a subject than they do, then all the better. I would hazard a guess that Alex is no different. You’re a fantastic listener and you’ll be interested in all of his travel stories – what more could he want in a dinner guest?’

‘You’re probably right. I’m sorry, Auntie Ro. You know me, always thinking three steps ahead.’

Rosemary smiled and brushed crumbs off her fluffy grey cardigan. ‘In that respect you’re the spitting image of your mother. She was a born organiser – and so are you. Worrying ahead comes with the territory, I suppose.’

‘So you think I’ll be fine?’

Her aunt stood up and ruffled Harri’s hair. ‘I think you’ll have a fantastic time.’

In the end, it was Stella who – in classic Stella Smith fashion – allayed her fears by summing up the situation in one sentence.

‘He seems like a nice bloke, there’s free food and you get to overdose on travel stories. It’s a no-brainer: stop thinking too much and just go.’

So the next week Harri arrived at Wātea for dinner. Alex was just finishing for the day and looked shattered. She waited while he turned off lights and checked everything was ready for the morning.

‘Busy day?’ she asked, as he joined her by the counter.

Alex rubbed his forehead. ‘Yeah. It’s been crazy since we opened. I was worried people would stay away because we’re not like the old place.’

Harri laughed. ‘Did you ever visit the old place?’ Alex shook his head. ‘Then you don’t know what you’re missing! I mean, look around here: the place is far too welcoming. You should be putting the fear of God into anyone who dares set foot on the premises! And those sofas? Too comfy by far! What are you trying to do, make people want to stay here?’

‘Blimey, was it that bad?’

‘Yes, it was. Trust me, this place is just what Stone Yardley needs.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’

They exchanged shy smiles.

Alex pushed his hands into his pockets self-consciously. ‘So – if you’d like to follow me, I’ll sort out some food.’

Up in his flat above the coffee lounge, Alex made Singapore Noodles while Harri walked around, gazing at the photos that covered the walls. After they’d eaten, she sat cross-legged on the floor, cradling a steaming mug of jasmine tea and trying to contain her excitement like a kid at Christmas, as Alex produced box after box of treasures. Postcards, fabrics, sculptures, seashells and countless photo albums emerged and were spread out over the floor, while Alex recalled his travels and Harri listened, wide-eyed, her mind brimming over with images almost too wonderful to bear.

‘This shell came from Philip Island, in Australia – you should see the penguins there, Harri. It’s just mad to be surrounded by them on a beach! . . . An old priest in Belarus gave me this icon – he said it would keep me safe on my journey. Then he prayed over the coach we were travelling in, except he had to use a prayer for blessing a horse and cart because it was the only one for a mode of transport in the prayer book.’

Harri picked up a picture of Alex standing next to a Maori man, easily half a foot taller and almost twice as wide, with an enormous white smile that dwarfed even Alex’s grin. The smiley Maori had his arm slung around Alex’s shoulders and they looked like they’d just heard the most hilarious joke.

‘Who’s this?’ she asked, turning the photo towards him.

‘Oh, wow, that’s Tem – he’s a great guy I met on South Island in New Zealand. He ran the local bar and he gave me a job for three weeks when my funds were running low. He taught me some Maori – that’s where Wātea comes from. It means “to be open” or “free”. He said I was a free spirit and I had to stay like that, wherever I went. I learned a lot from him.’

Harri looked at the collection of mementoes laid out before her and shook her head. ‘Al, this stuff is amazing. How come you don’t have it all out on display?’

Alex shrugged. ‘Because, honestly, nobody wanted to look at them – until I met you again, that is.’

‘That’s crazy. This stuff is . . .’ she struggled for a moment as all the superlatives that came to mind seemed suddenly inadequate. ‘I think this is wonderful, Alex. You have no idea how lucky you are to have all these memories.’

Alex smiled, his dark brown eyes catching the light from the group of tealight candles on the coffee table. ‘I think we’re going to be great friends, you and me,’ he said. ‘Soul mate travellers, that’s what we are.’

Harri wasn’t exactly sure what a ‘soul mate traveller’ was, but she was happy to be called one nevertheless. This, she was to learn, was one of the things that set Alex apart from the others in Stone Yardley: he had a vocabulary for his world that surpassed the horizons of anyone else. Looking through his eyes, Harri saw the world around her in a new, altogether more attractive light. Alex was the ultimate dreamer – hopelessly optimistic about everything he surveyed. Even the most mundane thing became a magical mystery tour when he was involved – like the time he turned mopping the floor into a game of curling, using two steel buckets as stones and mops like the brushes. And while his unrealistic view of life lay at the bottom of many of his romantic problems, often landing him with a broken heart, at least when Alex was around life was never dull.

Over the next year, their friendship grew with each Wednesday night meal. Alex cooked dishes he had collected during his ten years travelling the world and Harri listened to his stories as the scents of spices, meats, fish and fruit fragranced the flat above Wātea.

‘Pad Thai,’ he announced, one evening, as spicy cinnamon, chilli and allspice-infused steam filled Harri’s nostrils. ‘They cook this everywhere in Thailand – little street stalls serving this up on almost every street corner. I got the recipe from Kito, a Japanese lady who moved to Phuket twenty years before when she married a local man – she was the landlady in the hostel where I was staying. Her Thai mother-in-law had insisted that Kito master the dish before she gave her blessing to the marriage, “so I know my son won’t starve” – and Kito had cooked it ever since.’

Meeting Alex was as refreshing as Welsh mountain air; his sense of humour, wry view of the world around him and intense interest in other people made him irresistible company. And as the weeks stretched to months, Harri found herself increasingly opening up to him – more than she had to Stella, Viv or even Auntie Rosemary. In turn, Alex’s trust in Harri grew – leading, eventually, to the subject of his not-so-wonderful love life one Tuesday evening when Harri received a text as she was about to go to bed.

Hey H, are you still up? Fancy a chat? Al ;)

Harri almost ignored it, the lure of her warm bed and favourite Venice book vying for her attention, but Alex had never contacted her so late before and that alone was enough to make her call him.

He sounded tired when he answered, the spark gone from his voice. ‘Mate, I’m sorry for texting so late.’

‘Is everything OK, Al?’

He gave a long sigh. ‘I’m fine, really. I just had my last date with Claudia – you know, the accountant I’ve been seeing for a couple of weeks?’

‘Oh, hon. What happened?’

‘Man, I don’t know. She just isn’t the woman I thought she was. Turns out the only reason she agreed to date me was because she wanted to make her ex jealous.’

‘Ah.’

‘And, apparently, the plan worked. Hence my final date. After all that I just needed to speak to someone normal, you know?’

Harri laughed. ‘Oh, let me guess: the normal person didn’t answer their phone so you had to call me instead?’

‘Yeah, something like that. No, actually, I value your opinion.’

Quite taken aback by this unexpected compliment, Harri took a few moments to respond. ‘Oh – right – er, thanks, Al.’

The ice thus broken on the subject, discussions about Alex’s love life began to pepper their Wednesday night conversations. Harri didn’t mind, really – it was worth it for her armchair adventures traversing the globe.

It was about this time that Alex took the brave step of tackling the thorny subject of Harri’s lack of travel.

‘OK,’ he said one Wednesday night as he passed a bowl of spicy, smoky Hungarian Goulash to Harri. ‘Imagine right now I could give you a plane ticket to anywhere in the world.’

Harri tore a strip of still-warm walnut bread and dipped it in the paprika sauce. ‘Then you’d be a millionaire and I doubt we’d be eating dinner in a tiny flat above a coffee shop.’

Alex pulled a face at her. ‘Seriously, think about it, H: if you could pack a bag right now and just go anywhere, where would you go?’

‘Well, it depends.’

‘Depends on what? Come on, H, you don’t need to plan an entire itinerary before you go. This is make-believe, OK?’

Harri scooped up a spoonful of goulash and blew on it, feeling cornered. ‘I don’t know how I’m supposed to just pick somewhere, Al. It doesn’t work like that.’

‘It does, Harri! I’m talking turn up at the airport – money no object – and choose anywhere in the world. Just like that.’

Harri dropped her spoon with a loud clank. ‘See, that’s so easy for you. Just pack your bags and go, without any thought for who or what you’re leaving behind. I have responsibilities, you know: my job, my cat, Rob . . .’

Alex held his hands up. ‘Whoa, Harri, my good friend, it’s not real.’ He observed her carefully. ‘OK, seeing as you’re so woefully inept at this, let me help you. Let’s go for somewhere not too far away to start off with, like . . . like Italy, for example.’ Harri felt her heart give a little leap and her face must have betrayed this as Alex’s smile broadened. ‘Ah, good, Italy it is, then. How about Rome?’

‘Maybe . . .’

‘Florence?’

‘I’d like to see Rome before Florence.’

Alex clapped his hands, clearly enjoying this new game. ‘OK, good. Now we’re getting somewhere. Er – Milan?’

Harri thought. ‘I’d like to see Rome and Florence before Milan.’

‘Excellent.’ He drummed his fingers on the table. ‘So, we need to find a destination to usurp Rome from the top spot.’ He screwed his eyes up, then opened them wide, snapping his fingers. ‘Aha! Got it! Venice!’

Harri recoiled. ‘No. Not Venice.’

Surprised, Alex leaned back in his chair. ‘Oh? Why not?’ She really didn’t want to be drawn on this, especially as Alex didn’t know about her secret longing to visit the city. ‘Just not, that’s all.’

‘But it’s meant to be beautiful, H.’

‘I know, but . . .’

His eyes narrowed. ‘What’s Venice ever done to you, eh?’

She wriggled uncomfortably in her seat. ‘Nothing. This is getting daft now. Can we change the subject, please?’

But her protestations were in vain. Alex had sensed the story beneath and wasn’t going to let go without a fight. ‘Nah. I want to know why not Venice. Let me guess: you don’t like canals?’

‘No.’

‘You think it’s too touristy?’

‘Of course not.’

‘You have an irrational fear of gondoliers?’

Harri had to laugh at that one. ‘You’re impossible.’

Alex smiled cheekily and took a mouthful of goulash. ‘So tell me, why not Venice?’

There was no point arguing with him when he was in a mood like this. Taking a deep breath, Harri told him the truth. ‘Because I don’t want to go there on my own.’

‘So get Rob to take you.’

She dismissed it. ‘He wouldn’t enjoy it, Al, you know that.’

He leaned closer. ‘So, you do want to go to Venice?’

‘Of course I do! I have so many books on the city that I could probably write a guidebook myself without ever having set foot there.’

He leaned closer. ‘Really? So where’s the first place you’d go when you arrived?’

Feeling her heart skip, Harri closed her eyes and she was there in the city she loved so dearly. ‘Santa Maria della Salute church and the Dorsoduro, where the maskmakers have their shops,’ she breathed. ‘Or anywhere. I’d just step off the vaporetto onto the fondamenta and head off in a random direction, so I could get lost – then have fun finding my way back.’

‘Blimey, you’ve really planned this, haven’t you? So I still don’t get it: if you love a place so much, why not head there first?’

Harri sighed. ‘It’s just that if I’m heading anywhere, like you say, leaving all my responsibilities behind, then that means I’m travelling alone, right?’

His expression clouded over. ‘Er, yes, but . . .’

She stared at him. ‘So why would I want to go to one of the most romantic cities on earth on my own? Venice should be somewhere you are taken to, by someone who loves you.’

‘I see. And if the person you love doesn’t want to take you there?’

Her heart sinking, she shrugged. ‘Now can we change the subject, please?’

Alex agreed, but sadness filled his eyes as he watched her eating.

Two years since their first Wednesday evening – and countless whirlwind romances, acrimonious break-ups and midnight heart-to-hearts later – Harri was well versed in the Alex Brannan Rollercoaster of Life.

A week after his mother’s Big Idea, Harri found herself rudely awakened by what sounded like a herd of frantic buffalo charging her front door. Struggling to focus, she grabbed her alarm clock and juggled it up to her eyes until its bouncing red numbers calmed down enough to make sense: 2.47 a.m.

Muttering murderously under her breath, she snapped on the bedside lamp (half blinding herself in the process), wrestled the duvet away from her legs and half ran, half fell down the stairs towards the unrelenting hammering of fists at the door.

‘OK, OK, I’m here,’ she grumbled, fumbling at the chain and wrenching the door open. ‘What do you want?’

The sight of the sodden, sorry figure on her doorstep stopped her anger in its tracks as torrential rain blew into the hallway, lashing her legs. ‘Alex? For heaven’s sake, it’s nearly three o’clock.’

‘I’m sorry. I just – I didn’t know where else to go . . .’

‘Whatever, just come in.’

Harri turned and strode through into her tiny living room, turning on lamps as she went and cursing as she stubbed her toe on a pile of books in the dim light. Alex followed behind, his soaked jeans and sweater leaving a trail of muddy water in his wake. Wincing as the kitchen strip light blazed into life, Harri filled the kettle and noisily pulled out two mugs from the cupboard overhead, throwing haphazard spoonfuls of coffee into each one. She let out a sigh and rubbed her sleep-filled eyes with clumsy fingers. For a moment the only sounds in the kitchen were the low buzz from the strip light and the hiss of water boiling. Then, Alex spoke from the doorway.

‘I’m sorry, mate.’

‘Al – look, it’s OK, just – just let me wake up for a minute, yeah?’

He sniffed and splodged over to the sink, twisting his sweater sleeve to release a thin stream of water. The pathetic sight made Harri laugh and Alex did the same, shaking his head as rain dripped off his brow.

‘Loser,’ she smirked, throwing a tea towel at him.

‘Thanks,’ he grinned, catching the towel and rubbing his hair with it.

Coffee made, they returned to the living room. Harri found an old T-shirt of Rob’s (several sizes too small for Alex) and spread a towel on the sofa so he could sit down. With much protesting, Alex surrendered his sweater and T-shirt to the tumble dryer, peeled off his socks to hang them over the radiator and rolled up the legs of his jeans, before donning the too-small T-shirt.

‘I look like a dancer in an Elton John video,’ he whined, flopping down on the sofa. ‘I’m going through a traumatic twist in my love life and you add insult to injury by making me wear this.’

‘Consider it your penance for waking me up at this ungodly hour.’

‘Fair enough.’

Harri sipped her coffee. ‘So what happened?’

Alex’s expression darkened and he stared at his bare feet. ‘Ellie.’

‘Who?’

‘You haven’t met her. She works for one of those citizen journalism websites, writing restaurant reviews.’

Harri stared at him blankly. ‘Right . . .’

Alex rubbed distractedly at his hair with the tea towel and avoided eye contact. ‘She wanted to review Wātea – you know, do an article on us – so I agreed. We’ve been meeting up for the past two weeks and it’s been . . . amazing. Like when you just immediately connect with someone on so many levels, you know?’

‘Um . . .’

‘Work with me, Harri. I’m trying to set the scene.’

‘Al, it’s a miracle I’m awake at this hour. I don’t do emotional empathy before the birds wake up.’

‘Duly noted. Anyway, she came over late last Thursday and we had a meal. Then she tells me the whole interview thing was a ruse to get closer to me. She said she’d been watching me for ages and all she wanted was to be with me.’

Harri shook her head. ‘Oh Al . . .’

‘Seriously, though, what was I supposed to do? I mean, here’s this – this beautiful woman, declaring her love for me . . . Well, one thing led to another and – let me just tell you – the sex was—’

‘Thank you, I get the picture.’

Alex’s grin was mischief personified. ‘Sorry, mate. Damn fine, though.’

‘So what went wrong?’

His expression clouded and his eyes dropped to the floor again. ‘She called me last night and told me she couldn’t see me any more. Just like that. Yet she’s been with me every night this week and I wasn’t aware of any problems. Every night, in my bed and then . . .’

Making a valiant effort to erase the unwanted mental image from her mind, Harri reached over and squeezed his arm. ‘I’m guessing you went to see her.’

He nodded. ‘I had to. I mean, I had to know. I arrived at her house and the lights were on downstairs, so I went to the door but, just as I got there, I saw them through the window. Her and some random guy—’ He broke off, ran a hand through his damp hair and stared at the ceiling.

‘Oh, Al . . .’

‘I wouldn’t mind so much if she’d just been honest, you know? Just wheeled out the old “it’s been great fun but that’s all it was” speech. But the stuff she was saying to me – even a few days ago – about me being the one she’d been looking for, about all the places we could go together . . . Why would she say all that if she had no intention of seeing it through?’

‘Hun, some people just say things to get what they want.’

‘Yeah, I know, but I thought she was different.’

‘Evidently, she wasn’t.’

Alex raised his head and looked straight into Harri’s eyes. ‘It’s always the same. Why can’t I find someone right?’

Watching her friend in the midst of dating agony, Harri thanked her lucky stars that she was so happy with Rob. Dating hadn’t been a priority in her life when they met – in fact, it had come as somewhat of a surprise when she found herself falling for him. How much better to have it happen that way than to endure the constant rollercoaster of hope and disappointment! Knowing that Rob loved her, and feeling the warmth of her complete trust in him was wonderful and she wouldn’t swap places with Alex for anything.

‘Just chalk it up to experience and be more careful next time,’ she smiled, wrapping her arms around Alex as his face crumpled again.

‘I can’t do this any more,’ he moaned against her shoulder. ‘Help me, Harri, help me to find someone. I’m done looking for them. I’m officially rubbish. I need help.’

Viv’s Big Idea appeared in her mind, sparkling like a Las Vegas sign. Harri knew she was going to regret what she said next, but she couldn’t let Alex go through this again. So, squeezing his shoulders, she said: ‘OK, Al. I’ll help you.’

Chapter Four

Recycle Your Man

Harri can’t think straight: too many voices competing for attention inside her weary mind. She looks down at her shoes – new and probably too expensive for her, bought especially for tonight – even though until the very last minute she wasn’t even certain she was coming to the party at all. They are gorgeous – and they were meant to make her feel special, which they do – or did, at least until about an hour ago. Sixty quid for a pair of purple high heels – more than she’d ever spent before. How times change . . .

‘That photographer bloke you like’s got a new book out,’ Rob said one Saturday morning as they were browsing the bookshelves in Bennett’s Pre-Loved Books in Innersley, the market town that lay five miles from Stone Yardley. Rob and Harri had spent most of the weekends of their relationship here, mooching about the farmers’ market, enjoying coffee at Harlequin Café or wandering round the various antique shops dotted along the main street, but since Rob’s promotion last year to Sales Team Leader in the specialist hydraulics firm where he worked, he had been working away most weekends – so this occasion was a notable exception.

‘I know, but it’s forty quid,’ Harri sighed. ‘I can’t justify that cost for a book. Even if it is Dan Beagle.’

Rob wrapped an arm around her shoulders. ‘I know it’s tough right now, but if I make good on the Preston job things’ll start to look brighter.’

Harri slipped her arm round Rob’s waist and leaned her head on his shoulder. ‘Reckon we can scrape enough change together for a coffee?’

Rob kissed the top of her head. ‘I think we can manage that. You go and grab a table and I’ll buy the drinks.’

Harri walked to the side of the bookshop where a few small tables were nestled between the bookcases. Choosing one near the large window that looked out onto Innersley’s Sheep Street, she sat down. The bookshop had a unique scent – dust, old leather, ink and coffee – and no matter how many times she came here, she was always bowled over by it. Watching the sun streaming through the window in swirling dusty splendour, she drank in the moment. It was days like this that she loved the most – just her and Rob, whiling away the lazy hours together.

As if he knew what she was thinking, Rob appeared, his figure cutting through the rays of sunlight as he walked towards her carrying a tray.

‘Nigel took pity on us,’ he grinned as he sat down. ‘He said he needed help finishing off these muffins, so I volunteered our services.’

‘Excellent. Good old Nigel.’ As Harri took a bite of raspberry and white chocolate muffin, Rob slid a green and white striped paper bag towards her.

‘And this is for you.’

Surprised, Harri stared at it. ‘You haven’t been spending money on me again, have you?’

Rob’s eyes were full of sparkle. ‘Might have. Open it and find out.’

Harri reached inside the bag and gasped. ‘Dan’s book! But – that’s so much money, hon – you can’t afford it.’

‘Yes, I can. You’ve had your heart set on this book for months, so I wanted you to have it. No arguments, OK? If Tierney, Gratton and Parr want me to work all hours to win their precious Preston contract then I think the very least they can do is fund your travel book collection.’

Harri hugged the book to her chest. ‘Thank you so much!’

‘Ah, here they are!’ boomed a deep voice as Nigel Bennett, owner of the bookshop, appeared by their table. Though it had been many years since he retired from the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon, his theatrical Shakespearean delivery was still impressive – every word correctly enunciated and every ‘r’ rolled. ‘Our semi-resident young lovers! How good to see the two of you – Lucien and I had all but given you up for lost.’ He reached down and lovingly patted a doe-eyed chocolate Labrador by his side. ‘Shall we imprison young Robert here to save him from Preston’s clutches, Harriet?’

Harri smiled. ‘Maybe we should. Thanks for the muffins – they’re wonderful.’

Nigel flushed with pride and proffered a flourishing bow. ‘My pleasure, dear lady. I shall leave you lovebirds to enjoy your Saturday. Adieu!’

Rob watched him go. ‘Got to love Nigel.’

‘Absolutely. It is great to have you all to myself this weekend, though,’ Harri admitted.

‘Yes, it is. Hey, I don’t like working away all the time, you know.’

‘I know.’

‘But it’s for us, Red, honestly. If I can land the Preston contract then it means we can start to think about – you know – the future and stuff.’

The sun streamed through the window of the bookshop in swirling dusty splendour as Harri leaned against her boyfriend. It was days like these that she longed for – where anything was possible and they were together. If only Rob’s company would grant him more free weekends . . .

In the past few months, Rob’s mentions of ‘the future’ had become noticeably more frequent, fuelling Harri’s hope that maybe he was leading up to formalising their commitment. He had occasionally alluded to them moving in together, but what Harri really wanted was for them to get married.

Truth be told, while Harri’s regular attendance at Stone Yardley’s parish church contributed to this decision, the main reason for her resistance to cohabiting was that she wanted to be proposed to. Old-fashioned it may be, but Harri maintained her hope that Rob would actually want to marry her. And despite the passage of seven years without any such monumental happening, Harri’s hope remained. After all, Rob loved her and he was working hard to provide for their future. Therefore it was only a matter of time before he proposed. Wasn’t it?

When Harri first met Rob, at a charity football match organised by Merv, Viv’s on-off gentleman friend, she had been completely bowled over by him. And, it seemed, the feeling was mutual.

Rob had been talked into joining the football team by his boss at work and, hoping for a promotion, he agreed. His case was greatly helped by the fact that he was pretty nifty on the pitch, scoring three textbook goals against a team of weedy solicitors from several local law firms. Athletically built and fast on his feet, Rob ran rings around their defence and Harri couldn’t take her eyes off him. He was perfect: his chestnut-brown spiky hair, hazel eyes and olive complexion, coupled with a smile that could melt chocolate, made for a killer combin ation. Harri couldn’t help thinking he looked like Frank Lampard – the reason she had watched several televised matches, even though she possessed very little interest in the beautiful game itself. When Merv called him over to meet Harri, Rob Southwood had looked at her like all his birthdays had arrived at once.

‘A redhead, eh?’ he had smiled. ‘I’ve heard they’re trouble.’

‘Well, you shouldn’t believe everything you hear.’

‘Oh, really? Then I wouldn’t mind dispelling the myth with you sometime.’

‘That sounds like fun,’ Harri had replied. ‘So how about this evening over a drink?’

‘Perfect.’

So they arranged to meet, Harri hardly believing her good fortune at securing a date with the handsome stranger. Drinks had quickly become dinner, which turned into a lively, animated discussion at his house late into the night. When Harri finally stood to leave, Rob escorted her to the door, opened it and then surprised her by placing an arm across the doorway.

‘You’re amazing, Harri. I have to see you again.’

‘I’d like that, Rob.’

Then he’d pulled her into his arms and kissed her in a way that made her toes tingle.

In the weeks and months that followed, Harri and Rob were practically inseparable. They spent every weekend together, exploring the local countryside, heading off on day trips to Cheltenham, Worcester or Oxford, walking, cycling or just sitting in coffee shops, talking for hours. Rob fascinated her – with his knowledge of nature and his endless opinions on just about everything. It became a kind of a never-ending game that Harri played, bringing up new topics to see how quickly he could form a viewpoint on them. Rob loved that she loved it too; he would answer her with a wry smile, his cheeks flushing slightly at her wholehearted interest in what he said. She still loved their discussions, but his workload had significantly lessened the times when they were possible. While her love for Rob burned as brightly as ever, she could feel a dark resentment at his growing obsession with work bubbling within her. Since the Preston contract had loomed large in their lives, their time together seemed to be dictated by the company that employed him, as it demanded more and more of Rob’s time.

Of Harri’s friends, Viv was the most vocal about Rob’s job.

‘Ooh, that man,’ she glowered, when Harri went to visit her a few days later, slamming a large bone-china teapot onto a cast-iron stand in the middle of the large pine table in her kitchen to emphasise her disgust. ‘If he put half the time he spends at that job into considering you, then you’d be married by now.’

Fearing for the teapot’s safety, Harri reached across the table and gently rescued it from Viv’s vice-like grip. ‘I’ll pour, shall I?’ She was beginning to wish she’d never mentioned how much Rob’s absence was upsetting her.

Viv grimaced, clearly rattled. ‘Sorry. That poor teapot – it’s a wonder it’s still here.’

‘Maybe we should get it some counselling,’ Harri said, pouring tea into two china mugs.

‘Do they do counselling for inanimate objects?’

‘Maybe they should.’

‘If they do then we can book your boyfriend in,’ Viv replied with a wicked smirk. ‘He’s about as inanimate as you can get when it comes to proposing to you.’

‘Viv, that’s not fair. Rob is a fantastic boyfriend and he’s working really hard for us. It isn’t his fault he has to be away so often. I just miss him, that’s all. And as for him proposing, well, I think that might be closer than we think. He bought me Dan’s book the other day – that’s the third present in a fortnight – and he keeps talking about “the future”. I honestly think he might say something, once this horrible Preston stuff is over. Anyway, the way things are at the moment, he’s fortunate to have a job at all, so I really shouldn’t be complaining.’

Viv’s expression softened and she patted Harri’s hand. ‘Oh, my darling girl, I only worry because I want you to be happy. It’s what your mum would have wanted too . . .’

It was time to change the subject, as Harri was feeling decidedly queasy. ‘So – I sent the letter.’

‘Which one?’

‘To Juste Moi. About Alex.’

Viv’s eyes lit up. ‘And?’

‘I haven’t heard anything yet.’

‘Does Alex know?’

Hmm, interesting question. Alex knew that Harri was going to help him find somebody – he just didn’t know how she was planning to do it. ‘I’ll tell him if they choose to feature him.’

‘Excellent,’ said Viv, rubbing her hands together like a silver-tressed, Laura Ashley-attired, fifty-something Bond villain. All that was missing was the large white Persian cat . . . ‘Then our plan is officially in action.’

‘Well, yes, if they accept him, that is,’ Harri warned.

‘Of course they’ll accept him! He’s gorgeous – way out of their usual league. I mean, you should see some of the sorry excuses for manhood they dredge up most months!’

‘Let’s just wait and see if they put our sorry excuse for manhood in their column, eh?’

Alex was back to his usual chirpy self when Harri arrived at Wātea that afternoon – an amazing feat considering it was ‘Mad Mothers’ Wednesday’, when the local young mums’ group descended on the café. Harri picked her way carefully through the minefield of baby buggies to the counter, where Alex was filling measuring jugs with warm water and carefully balancing feeding bottles inside.

‘Do me a favour, pass these to the table behind you, would you? Lady with the screaming baby.’

This description didn’t exactly narrow it down, as almost every woman at the large table appeared to be wrestling a noisy bundle of animosity. In desperation, Harri held the measuring jugs aloft one by one.

‘Purple stripe?’

‘Over here.’

‘Tommee Tippee?’

‘That’s mine, thanks.’

‘Mothercare?’

‘Which one?’

‘Er – pink bunny and yellow teddy bear.’

‘Bunny’s mine and teddy over there.’

Alex looked appreciative when she turned back to him. ‘You’re a natural, mate. Are you sure you don’t want to change your career and work for me?’

‘What, and leave my exciting jet-set lifestyle at SLIT? No chance!’

Alex returned to the espresso machine, grabbed a coffee arm and banged out the spent grounds. Filling it afresh from the coffee dispenser and tamping it down, he reattached the arm and set a mug underneath to catch the thick brown liquid as it dripped lazily from the machine. No matter how many times Harri watched him do this it never failed to fascinate her. There’s something incredibly powerful about watching someone work, Harri always found: Stella swiftly typing a letter without looking at the keyboard once; Viv cooking; Auntie Rosemary assembling a bouquet of flowers in one hand as she floated around her shop; even her completely barmy Grandpa Jim building some Heath-Robinsonish contraption in the small workshop at the bottom of his garden in Devon.

Alex poured milk into the long-handled steel milkpan and turned a handle on the machine to release steam into its base. It was such an evocative sound – bubbly, crunchy and metallic all at once. Once frothed, he let the pan stand for a while, before bumping the base smartly on the wooden worktop and pouring its contents into the mug, holding the froth back with a spoon and then scooping out snowy blobs onto the top of the cappuccino.

‘There you go. I think you’ve earned that today,’ he smiled, dusting the top with chocolate powder as he pushed the mug towards her.

‘Thanks. So how’s Mad Mothers’ Wednesday going?’

‘Mad. I swear there’s more of them in here each week. I think they’re cloning themselves. Honestly, it looked like a scene from Ben Hur: The Early Years in here earlier – all those chariots parked up everywhere. Some of the old dears couldn’t even get in through the door. I’ve been a bit sharp with them, to be honest.’

‘Ah. Not much chance of you scoring a date with a single mum anytime soon then?’

‘Yeah. I think I might’ve burned my bridges on that one.’

Harri feigned disappointment. ‘Oh, well, Plan B it is then.’ Amusement lit Alex’s eyes. ‘Excellent, maestro. So, what’s the plan then?’

Harri looked around her like a shady informant in a thirties gangster flick, leaned closer to Alex and tapped her nose. ‘Can’t reveal my sources yet. Suffice to say that your name has been circulated in the right – er – circles. We should know more very soon. Until then, there are things only I know that you can’t know until it’s the right time for you to know, understand?’

Alex held his hands up. ‘Crystal clear. Are you sure you’re capable of the mission, though?’

‘You doubt a woman of my obvious covert skills?’ Harri feigned astonishment. ‘I am a woman of infinite capabilities, I’ll have you know. I am a woman on a mission.’

‘With an unusual flair for dairy-related nasal adornment.’ Alex reached out to wipe a large glob of milk froth from Harri’s nose as they both descended into helpless giggles.

‘He is going to kill you when he finds out,’ Stella frowned, picking up a strange garment, allegedly masquerading as a T-shirt. ‘Which way is this supposed to go?’

‘I have no idea,’ replied Harri. ‘I think that’s the arm-hole.’

‘Oh, right,’ replied Stella absent-mindedly, adding the unusual creation to the pile of clothes slung over her arm as the next offering captured her attention.

It was Saturday morning and, with Rob away again, Harri had found Stella’s invitation to accompany her to the large out of town shopping centre appealing. And it had been fun, until Stella appeared to get stuck in TKMaxx. Harri loved shopping, but compared with her best friend, she was a mere amateur. When Stella was on a retail mission, nothing short of an act of God could move her from her path. Two hours after they first entered the store – and no closer to making a purchase – Stella and Harri made a slow advance along the narrow gap between the seemingly endless rails of clothes.

‘You won’t be able to take all those in with you, you know.’

‘I’ll leave some with the girl and keep swapping them,’ Stella breezed, adding another two garments to the pile on her arm, ‘and besides, you’re coming in with me so you can bring some in.’

And so Harri dutifully followed her best friend into the cramped changing room cubicle, oohing and aahhing in all the right places in the hope that it might encourage a decision. While she waited, she consoled herself with the thought of the large caramel macchiato waiting for her when they were finally released from the store’s clutches. Only thirty-nine garments to go and then it’s all mine . . .

‘Are you listening?’ Stella barked, as the glorious daydream dissolved like a sugar lump in hot espresso, snapping Harri back to reality. ‘I said, what do you think?’

It was the third pair of jeans Stella had eased her perfect figure into and Harri honestly couldn’t tell the difference. ‘How much are those again?’

Stella let out an exasperated sigh. ‘I told you, fifty-two pounds. I knew you weren’t listening.’

‘Sorry, hon. They’re nice, but I like the first pair the most.’

‘Really? You don’t think they make my bum look big?’

‘You don’t have a bum, Stella.’

‘Yes, I do. That’s why it’s a no-carb week this week.’

‘You’re crazy. You look great, hon. And those jeans – any of them – make you look great. But do you really need any more jeans? You’ve got about fifteen pairs at home.’

‘That’s a complete exaggeration, Harri! It’s only nine, and anyway these are Fornarina.’

It was going to be a long day, Harri groaned inwardly, as Stella rotated slowly, scrutinising every inch of her reflection from every conceivable angle. Harri closed her eyes and imagined herself alighting from a packed vaporetto water taxi into the buzzing throng of a Venetian quayside, then wandering through the streets, finding a pavement café and slowly sipping rich espresso as colourful waves of people washed past her . . .

‘So when do you think you’ll hear from Juste Moi?’

Daydream shattered, Harri shuddered. ‘I don’t know. Probably a few months or something. If they accept him, that is.’

‘Of course they’ll accept him,’ Stella insisted, echoing Viv’s words from earlier in the week. ‘He is a gorgeous man. Irritating as hell, but gorgeous. You wait and see.’

Harri didn’t have to wait long.

Chapter Five

The Point of No Return

The buzz from the fluorescent strip light above the cubicle seems to be getting louder as the rain on the skylight intensifies. The only other sound is the thumping of Harri’s heart, loud in her ears. It’s slowed a little since her flight into the ladies’, wow, thirty minutes ago. She wonders if the survivors of the Stone Yardley Armageddon are still in the hall; or maybe Viv has moved the remnant on, like a brisk police officer shooing onlookers away from a crime scene – OK, people, step away now, nothing to see here . . .

One thing’s for certain: Alex won’t be there. Not after that look. Harri feels a stab of icy pain at the memory. He hates me. I’ve lost my best friend. In all the time she’s known him, she’s never seen him so hurt, so angry. And every last atom of it directed straight at her. No, Alex will be long gone by now. If only she’d listened to her conscience when the letter arrived from Juste Moi . . .

Dear Ms Langton,

Many thanks for your nomination for our ‘Free to a Good Home’ feature.

Everyone here at Juste Moi loved your letter – your friend Alex is exactly the kind of candidate we want to feature in the magazine.

If you could provide us with a few more details on the form enclosed, we’ll set the wheels in motion to find the lady of his dreams!

Looking forward to hearing from you soon,

Chloë Sahou

Features Writer

‘What’s that?’ asked Tom, peering over Harri’s shoulder as she read the letter. It was lunchtime and Harri had finally plucked up courage to open the envelope with the Juste Moi frank that Freddie Mills, the friendly postman, had handed to her that morning.

‘Looks like an exciting one,’ Freddie had remarked, tapping the top of the envelope with a nicotine-hued forefinger. ‘London postmark, that. One of them fancy magazines, I reckon – they’re all there, you know. Any publication worth its salt is based in London.’

To Freddie Mills, a year and a half from retirement and the undisputed pub quiz champion at the Star and Highwayman – the small cosy pub at the far end of Stone Yardley – anything hailing from England’s great capital was worthy of note and due reverence. In all his sixty-three years, Freddie had only ever made the journey to London once: an away match of the Stone Yardley Darts Club on which his brother had managed to blag him a seat.

A non-player, Freddie managed to convince Big Bruce McKendrick, much-feared team coach and owner of Long and Winding Road Motorcycles, of his suitability with a near-textbook explanation of the finer points of the game. The team enjoyed an afternoon’s sightseeing and arrived at the match venue in Fulham, only to lose magnificently – but at least Freddie was able to revel in the delights of the city he had dreamed about since childhood.

Unusually for a Wednesday at Sun Lovers International Travel, business had been brisk. Tom, Harri and new girl, Nusrin, barely had time to pause for breath between each new customer, exchanging incredulous glances as they passed one another carrying brochures or escorting customers to their desks. The reason for this unexpected influx of custom remained a mystery until the late entrance of SLIT’s owner, George Duffield, just before midday.

‘Ah, the unmistakable power of advertising,’ he boomed, his thick Wolverhampton accent bouncing off the shabby travel-poster-covered walls. ‘It’s amazing what a little bit of local advertising can do for a reputable business like SLIT, you know. Best twenty-five quid I’ve spent this year.’

His mystified staff rewarded his enthusiasm with a selection of blank expressions.

‘You paid people to come into the shop?’ Tom ventured. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Thomas. A successful local business like SLIT doesn’t need to resort to bribery – and I resent the very implication, actually. No, I placed two hundred and fifty offer leaflets in the Edgevale Gazette yesterday. Twenty per cent off any booking made this week.’

‘You put leaflets in the free paper?’ Nusrin asked.

‘The very same,’ George grinned, his shiny, red head blushing with pleasure. ‘Genius, eh?’

‘I didn’t think anyone read the Gazette,’ Harri said. ‘Mine goes straight into the recycling box.’

‘Well, apparently there are people in Stone Yardley who don’t follow your woeful example, Harriet,’ retorted George, sailing into his office. ‘I think the hustle and bustle of this travel agency speaks for itself, don’t you?’

As he shut the door, Tom chuckled. ‘Shame nobody actually booked anything today then, isn’t it?’

‘Apart from the Wilkinsons booking their annual coach trip to Rhyl,’ Nusrin replied.

‘But we’ve done a brisk trade in brochures,’ Harri smiled.

Half an hour later, the impressive flow of browsing customers had all but vanished, allowing Harri, Tom and Nusrin to grab a well-earned lunch break. Nusrin had seized the opportunity to vacate the premises, ever-present mobile in hand and packet of cigarettes hastily shoved in her coat pocket, leaving Tom and Harri to eat their lunch in relative peace. And for Harri finally to read the letter. Trying to read its contents, Tom nodded knowingly. ‘Top secret communications, eh?’

‘It’s nothing,’ she said, folding the letter defensively to hide its contents from her prying colleague.

‘Not judging by your face it isn’t.’

‘Seriously, Tom, it’s nothing.’

‘Liar.’

‘Am not!’

‘So if it’s nothing you can tell me what it’s about then, can’t you?’ Tom smirked, mayonnaise glistening on his chin as he pointed his half-devoured sub roll at Harri. ‘Ha – get out of that one!’

Harri let out a sigh of resignation. ‘It’s something I’m doing for a friend.’

His eyebrows shot up as he lowered his voice. ‘Mafia?’

‘Sorry?’

‘They’ve hired you as a hitwoman and the letter is details of your mark.’

‘You watch far too many gangster films,’ Harri laughed.

‘My Uncle Jez says the Mafia has a base in Birmingham,’ Tom retorted. ‘It’s common knowledge.’

‘Oh, and your Uncle Jez is such a trusted authority on that kind of information, isn’t he? I mean, wasn’t it Uncle Jez who was convinced that the Ku Klux Klan were holding secret meetings in Ellingsgate last summer?’

Tom looked away. ‘He saw them meeting in that field.’

‘Hmm, yes, and when he called the police, what did they find?’

Tom’s greasy cheeks flushed scarlet. ‘Beekeepers,’ he muttered. ‘Exactly. Ellingsgate Beekeeping Society. So I don’t think we need to listen to your Uncle Jez, do we?’

‘So what is it you’re doing for a friend, then?’ Tom shot back grumpily.

Harri grimaced. ‘Something he might not thank me for.’

‘OK – interests. Um, travel, photography, dining out, cinema . . . Anything I’ve forgotten?’

‘Bugging people. Alex is particularly interested in that,’ Stella replied, emptying two sachets of sugar into her takeaway coffee cup.

Harri looked up from the form spread before her on the weathered wooden picnic table at which they both sat. ‘Be serious, Stel.’

Stella picked up the flimsy plastic stirrer and stirred her coffee with intense irritation. ‘I’m deadly serious. This is a bad idea. Alex is going to kill you,’ she added for the umpteenth time since Harri had first mentioned Viv’s Big Idea. This had become her mantra, destined to accompany every conversation.

‘You’re not helping, Stel.’

‘I wasn’t trying to. Can we talk about something else, please?’ Harri groaned and shoved the form back into her rucksack. ‘Fine. I’ll finish it later, when I won’t annoy anyone.’ She looked out across the country park at families enjoying the unseasonably mild March Saturday. Vale Edge Park was one of her favourite local places – a large area of woodland around a high sandstone hill about twenty minutes’ drive from Stone Yardley. Here she had spent most Sunday afternoons with her parents during childhood summers, riding bikes, having picnics and playing games. It was a popular destination for families, mountain bikers and dog-walkers, its trails offering something for everyone. Many of her first dates had taken place here; shyly holding hands by the lake or stealing kisses along the woodland paths through carpets of bluebells and bracken. In the early days, this had been the scene of countless laughter-filled walks with Rob, Harri pointing out wildflowers or birds and Rob identifying them with that confident, completely gorgeous smile of his.

In their more adventurous moments, Stella and Harri ventured here to walk up onto Vale Edge, before returning to the welcome retreat of the tiny log cabin that served as a refreshment kiosk. This afternoon, however, any thoughts of such exertions had been banished by Stella’s ‘urgent cake and caffeine craving’.

‘This chocolate cake is a-mazing, H. Are you sure you don’t want to try some?’

‘I wouldn’t dream of parting you from it,’ Harri replied, popping a piece of buttery flapjack into her mouth.

‘You know, I hoped you were going to say that.’

‘I thought as much.’ They exchanged smiles. ‘Look, Stel, I know this magazine column is a daft idea, but it might just work. Stranger things have happened.’

‘You honestly think it might bring Alex the woman of his dreams?’

Harri did her best to look convincing. ‘It might . . .’

‘I don’t know why you’re doing this if you aren’t one hundred per cent sure about it,’ Stella said, taking a long sip of coffee.

‘Because maybe Viv’s right that Alex needs help,’ Harri said, smoothing down a strand of red hair that the wind had worked loose from her ponytail. ‘I’d just like to see him happy.’

Two noisy children dashed past their table with a large dog, its fur dripping from a recent foray into the lake. Stella wrinkled her nose in disgust. ‘It could be worse, Harri. You could own one of those.’

‘A dog or a child?’

Stella pulled a face. ‘Either. Eeuwch. I am never having kids or dogs. Imagine spending your life trailing after that lot. Horrible, messy creatures – why in the world anyone would want that mayhem in their lives is beyond me.’

A harassed-looking woman appeared, stopping at their table and gripping it with both hands like a desperate lunatic from the asylum. ‘Have you seen them?’ she demanded, her eyes wide from too many late nights and hectic days.

‘Two screaming brats and a mangy mutt? They went that-a-way,’ Stella replied, and the woman hurried away.

‘Stella, you’re awful. Poor woman.’

‘Two words, Harri: “contraception” and “vet”.’

Harri shook her head. ‘You’re unbelievable. And I know you don’t mean it.’

Stella inspected her nails. ‘Oh, yes, I do. You wouldn’t catch me and Stefan signing up for that nightmare scenario.’

‘Ah, Stefan. How is the latest flame?’

Stella’s eyes lit up. ‘Gorgeous, H. Not gorgeous like Jase or Andy, of course, but with Stefan it’s the whole package, you know what I mean?’

‘I think I can guess.’

‘He’s caring and thoughtful – and his house is just to die for!’

Hmm. What attracted you to the millionaire Stefan, Stella? ‘Right, I see.’

Harri’s sarcasm was not lost on Stella. ‘His money isn’t the important thing, whatever you think. Honestly.’

‘Perish the thought.’

‘You’re such a cynic. This could be true love and all you can do is mock me. Just because you’re all loved-up, doesn’t give you the monopoly on happy-ever-afters.’

‘Sorry.’

Stella took a sip of her coffee and pulled a face. ‘This stuff doesn’t get any better, does it?’

Harri smiled. ‘Shh. Ralph will hear you.’ She looked round to see if the short, white-haired proprietor of the Vale Edge café was listening. Thankfully, he was engaged in an extremely animated conversation with the leader of a group of local ramblers, who were laying siege to most of the picnic tables around where Harri and Stella sat.

‘I don’t mind if he does. It’s high time our Ralphy learned about decent espresso.’ Stella flapped her hands as a thought blew into her mind. ‘Ooh, ooh, I meant to tell you, Stefan finally solved the problem of who you remind me of.’

Harri wasn’t aware this was a problem. ‘Oh?’

Clapping her hands Stella smiled triumphantly. ‘Amy Adams.’

‘I do not look like Amy Adams.’

‘Yes, you do. All that annoyingly gorgeous red hair of yours and your amazing blue eyes – you’re the total spit of her.’

Harri shook her head. ‘Just because I have auburn hair and blue eyes does not make me Amy Adams. Anyway, last month you thought I looked like Debra Messing and last year you said I was a dead ringer for Julianne Moore. Aren’t you just working your way through red-headed actresses?’

‘Nope. Not this time. Stefan and I were watching Enchanted and he said, “She looks like your friend Harri.”’

‘Hang on a minute – you were watching a Disney film with Stefan?’

Stella jutted her chin out. ‘He happens to be a fan of animation. There’s nothing wrong with that.’

Harri held her hands up to call a truce. ‘Hey, if your fabulously wealthy boyfriend wants to revere the House of Mouse, then who am I to question him?’

‘Exactly. So when does this form thingy have to be back with the magazine?’ Stella asked, expertly swinging the conversation back.

‘As soon as possible. They really like him, Stel.’

‘I told you they would. Of course, you could always just forget to send it back . . .’

The thought had crossed Harri’s mind, but now the magazine knew about him they were likely to pursue Harri for information. It was too late to back out. ‘That’s not going to work, mate. I’ve got to do it.’

There is something to be said for careful consideration and thought. Since the loss of her parents, Harri had relied upon her head to lead the way for every decision she made. As far as Harri was concerned, it was a much better option than trusting her heart, which often sent her in a different direction entirely. Unfortunately, she was surrounded by an entire clan of heart-followers – Viv, Alex, Stella and even Tom at work – none of whom seemed to agree with her cautiousness.

‘How are you ever going to do exciting things if you spend all your time just thinking about them?’ Stella often asked.

Secretly, Harri longed to be the type of person who threw caution to the wind and just went with the flow. Like Alex was. The tales of his spontaneity were nigh on legendary. He had just decided, one Monday afternoon thirteen years ago, whilst sitting at his desk in the large insurance firm he worked for, to quit and see the world. He typed out his resignation letter, walked straight into his boss’s office and, five minutes later, cleared his desk and left the building forever. Four weeks later, he was on a plane to Australia with only the next four months of his life planned. From there he met a friend who was travelling to New Zealand, so that’s where he went next, finding a job at a backpackers’ hostel for six months, doing general chores at first, then working in the kitchens. One of the girls visiting the hostel was the daughter of a hotel owner in Singapore who just happened to be looking for a sous chef for his busy restaurant, so Alex packed up again and went to work there. And so it continued, year after year; one spur-ofthe-moment decision after another, taking Alex all over the world.

‘How do you do it?’ Harri asked him one Wednesday night, as he expertly juggled steaming pans in the kitchen of his flat above the shop. This particular evening Malaysian Ginger Prawns were on the menu, stir-fried with fresh root ginger that made the tongue tingle and sweet honey to soothe the palate, served on a bed of fragrant jasmine rice. As Harri leaned against the breakfast bar, the aroma of the meal sent images of floating markets, bamboo houses and piles of multicoloured spices whizzing through her mind.

‘How do I do what?’ Alex replied through a cloud of ginger-infused steam as he lifted the wok lid.

‘The whole spontaneity thing.’

Alex let out a laugh that filled the whole room. ‘What kind of a question is that?’

‘I’m just curious.’

‘Considering becoming a spontaneity convert, eh?’

‘I didn’t say that. It’s just that I seem to be the only person in the entire world who can’t just do things.’

His eyebrows lifted slightly. ‘And that bothers you?’

Harri felt her defences prickle. ‘No, not really. It’s just – something I was thinking about, that’s all.’

Alex’s grin was mischievous but not unkind. ‘Ah, well, you see, that’s where the problem lies, H: if you’re thinking about being spontaneous then you’ve kind of missed the point.’

Harri shook her head. ‘Very funny, Mr Seat-of-His-Pants-Flyer. Forget I said anything, OK?’

‘Aw, mate, I’m sorry. You just make it too easy . . . Look, I can’t explain how to be spontaneous. It’s something you do, not something you psychoanalyse. Don’t question, don’t worry and certainly don’t deliberate. If it feels right, you just go with it.’

‘But don’t you ever worry about it all going wrong?’

‘Heck, Harri, you know me. Sometimes it does go wrong. Spectacularly wrong on several occasions, as you no doubt can recall. But I never worry about it: if it all goes belly up then I just deal with the consequences. If you think about things too much, you’ll never do anything, or go anywhere.’

Harri could almost imagine a version of herself setting off happily into the unknown – but quickly the questions and contingencies returned, blocking out the possibilities. ‘Well, who’s to say that my way isn’t the best?’

Alex thought for a moment, then lowered his voice as if to soften the blow of what he was about to say. ‘Nobody, I guess. You may very well be saving yourself from a shed load of failure by being cautious. But look at it this way, mate: would you rather be walking along a gorgeous palm-fringed beach somewhere or reading about it?’

It hurt, of course, but he was right.

Sitting in the cosy living room of her cottage the following Sunday evening, Harri stared at the completed ‘Free to a Good Home’ form in front of her. Though she said it herself, she had done a great job: Alex was well and truly described on the single A4 sheet. The woefully single readers of Juste Moi were going to tremble in their fluffy slippers at the mere sight of him. In fact, reading her description of him, even Harri was impressed.

She was about to file it safely away behind the clock on her mantelpiece (just so she could have a final think about it that night to make sure she was doing the right thing) when a thought hit her. If there was ever a time to practise spontaneity, this was it. She wasn’t going to post it in the morning, she was going to post it right now. True, no self-respecting postie was likely to be collecting mail from her local postbox at 11.30 p.m. but at least the form would be in the box and therefore safe from Harri’s second thoughts, which would doubtless halt its progress if it remained behind the clock. Kicking off her slippers, Harri grabbed the envelope and purposefully licked the flap, sealing it with a confidence that shocked her. Then she pulled on her wellies (the closest footwear to hand – hey, that was spontaneity in itself, wasn’t it?), threw on her coat over her pyjamas, grabbed her keys and ran down the stone path from the cottage, flinging open the small, white creaky wooden gate and walking the five steps it took to reach the small, red postbox nestled in the dry-stone wall over the road.

Five small steps for anyone else: five giant leaps for Harri-kind, she thought triumphantly, as she thrust the small white envelope decisively into the black abyss of the postbox . . .

. . . and instantly regretted her decision.

Harri stared at her empty hand, still hovering over the inky blackness of the postbox’s opening, feeling her heart sinking to the furthest end of her pink and white polka-dot wellies. ‘What have you done?’ a little voice demanded inside her head, accusingly. Harri felt her heartbeat pick up and an icy-cold pang shudder down her spine. Suddenly, spontaneity didn’t seem like the blinding idea it had been moments before.

Maybe, she thought in desperation, if she stared hard enough at the opening, the letter would magically reappear and everything would be fine. Perhaps the postman would just inexplicably miss the letter and it would remain forgotten at the bottom of the box for years to come. Or maybe she would wake up any second and find that it was all a terrible dream . . .

Harri’s train of thought was brought to an abrupt halt as the heavens opened above her. Large spots of rain began to pepper her head and shoulders, catching the light from the streetlamp as they fell: a shower of shimmering crystals splashing around her as she remained frozen to the spot. It’s done now: there’s no going back. As if to underline the sense of dread pervading her soul, a deep rumble of thunder rolled across the distant sky. Slowly, resignedly, Harri turned and walked back home.

Chapter Six

Hide-and-Seek

The door to the ladies’ opens with an unwilling creak.

‘Is she in here?’ a female voice asks.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ a young man answers from the corridor beyond, his tone uncertain. ‘Maybe she’s gone home.’

‘Well, I never saw her leave, Thomas, and not much escapes my notice.’

‘You can say that again – ouch!’

‘Less of your cheek, sunshine, thank you very much.’ The door opens a little wider and Harri can hear a step onto the dull magnolia tiles. ‘Harriet? Am you in here, chick?’

Harri holds her breath. She can’t face a conversation; not yet.

‘She isn’t there, Eth— Mrs Bincham,’ Tom whispers, his embarrassment as obvious as the acne on his chin.

‘Mmm. Well, maybe you’re right, Thomas, maybe she’s gone. Better just check the hall again then, eh?’

Harri breathes a sigh of relief as the voices disappear and the door closes.

Ethel Bincham was the cleaner at Sun Lovers International Travel. At least, that’s what it said on her contract. However, with eyesight as bad as hers, coupled with her penchant for long chats with the staff, and George’s unwillingness to let her go after her many years of more or less faithful service, cleaning was not exactly top of her list of priorities. She prided herself on her ability to listen and fancied herself almost a surrogate mother, provider of pure Black Country wisdom and nothing less than a soothsayer for the assembled workers each Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning, seven o’clock till nine. In days of yore, every village would have its local wise woman, a source of mystical wisdom, cures for all ills and an understanding ear in time of need; now, the fortunate residents of Stone Yardley had Mrs Bincham.

‘Would you run the Hoover round this evening before Mrs B comes in?’ George often asked Harri on a Tuesday afternoon (knowing full well that she would be the last person out of the office and probably the first in next morning).

The irony of the request was never lost on Tom. ‘Doesn’t that kind of defeat the object of having a cleaner?’

George couldn’t really argue with this reasoning, but knew that his initial lack of courage to let Ethel go when he realised she could hardly see the office, let alone the dust, had inevitably made a rod for his own back.

The morning after her late-night bout of ill-judged spontaneity, Harri arrived at work to find Ethel attempting to water the artificial aspidistra in the window.

‘It’s looking a bit peaky,’ Ethel informed her cheerily, ‘and no wonder – it’s bone dry!’

‘It’s artificial,’ Harri began, but Mrs Bincham was having none of it.

‘No, it’s an aspidistra, Harriet,’ she corrected, tutting loudly. ‘You youngsters don’t know anything about plants these days.’

Harri gave up and retreated to her desk. She switched her computer on and began to leaf through the morning post, most of which seemed to consist of stationery catalogues nobody could remember requesting and offers of business loans from banks she’d never heard of. As she worked, she was aware of Mrs Bincham surveying her carefully, although exactly how much Ethel could see was anyone’s guess.

Harri picked up a pile of new brochures and walked over to the display units, wistfully gazing at each cover as she restocked the shelves: azure harbours with dazzling white yachts and jade-green waves lapping against white sand beaches, as smug couples stalked possessively along the shore. A sharp razorcut of longing sliced through Harri’s heart at their blissful expressions. If only she could step into the pictures and leave everything far behind . . .

‘Thought you might need this,’ Ethel’s raspy voice said right by her ear, bringing her sharply back to reality. Harri jumped and almost knocked the mug of super-strong tea from Mrs Bincham’s hands as she did so.

‘Oh! I’m sorry, Mrs B, I was miles away.’

‘I could see that,’ Ethel replied as Harri accepted the mug. ‘Where was it this time, eh?’

Harri looked sheepish. ‘Grenada.’

‘Don’t they do Coronation Street?’ Ethel asked.

Harri stifled a giggle. ‘Um, no, that’s—’

‘No matter,’ Ethel cut in, rummaging in her tartan shopping trolley and producing a large off-white Tupperware box that looked at least a hundred years old. ‘I’ve been baking again.’

‘Oh . . . you really shouldn’t have . . .’

‘Tsk, nonsense, I love it! My Geoff says I missed my calling in life – should have been a baker, he reckons. Mind you, he also used to fancy Margaret Thatcher, so what does that tell you? Now, clap your chops round one of these.’

Harri peered dubiously into the fusty plastic-scented depths of the box and selected an overly browned, crunchy square of something. ‘Thanks,’ she replied, hoping she sounded convincing.

Ethel’s face was a picture of gleeful anticipation. ‘Well, go on then,’ she urged.

Harri took a bite. ‘It’s – um – different,’ she ventured, uncertain whether the odd concoction of tastes was pleasant or not. ‘What is it?’

Ethel’s wrinkled cheeks flushed with pride and she patted her recently set blue-rinsed curls. ‘My own recipe,’ she grinned. ‘I love Bakewell tart, see, and my Geoff’s partial to Chocolate Crispy cakes – big kid that he is – so, I thought, why not combine the two? Proper bostin’ stuff, that.’

Harri swallowed and reached for her tea. ‘So this is . . . ?’

‘Chocolate Crispy Bakewells!’ Ethel proudly announced. ‘Remarkable, eh?’

Harri couldn’t argue with that. ‘Absolutely.’

‘Ta.’ Ethel’s smile morphed into solemnity. ‘Now, are you going to tell me what’s up?’

‘I’m fine, Mrs B, just a bit tired, that’s all.’

Ethel’s eyes may have been lacking in physical performance but her perception was as sharp as ever. ‘Don’t give me that, Harriet. “Just tired” my backside. I know a troubled soul when I see one.’ She parked her ample behind on the edge of Harri’s desk and motioned for her to sit down. ‘Now, why don’t you just tell your Auntie Eth all about it, eh?’

In truth, Harri didn’t quite know what to say. She was tired: her whole body ached from only an hour’s sleep the night before and her eye sockets felt as if she’d been punched repeatedly in the face by a crazed boxer. Added to which, telltale shivers in her bones were heralding the unwanted onslaught of a cold following her late-night soaking by the postbox.

All night long she had wrangled with her thoughts, her mind abuzz with worry upon worry as she cursed her spontaneity, finally succumbing to sleep curled up on her sofa under a travel rug (which, like its owner, had never actually travelled much further than her armchair).

Harri wasn’t sure Mrs Bincham would understand (after all, this was the woman who thought an aphrodisiac was a flower, and the giant Egyptian statues in the Valley of the Kings were known as sphincters), but she found herself trying to explain it all anyway. Ethel listened calmly, nodding sagely every now and again as she munched a square of Chocolate Crispy Bakewell, her dentures clicking rhythmically as Harri recounted the events of the past few weeks.

‘I don’t know, Mrs B. Part of me still believes this could work for Alex, but since I actually posted the letter I can’t shake the thought of what might happen if it doesn’t. There’s nothing I can do about it either way now: I just have to get on with it, I suppose.’

‘I completely get you, chick. It’s very simple, really: you’ve got the Big F at work here.’

Given her current sleep-deprived mind, Harri blocked out the many possibilities appearing before her and asked the obvious question. ‘The Big F?’

Mrs Bincham peered carefully over her right and left shoulders as if checking for unwanted spies. ‘Fate, Harriet. You’ve trusted the situation to fate so’s you’re no longer in control. It’s only natural you should be a bit jumpy while you’re waiting to see what’s in store for you. I mean, anything could happen next – good or bad.’

‘You think so?’

‘I know so, chick. I’ve a feeling about this. My mother always said I was psycho, you know. Swore it blind till the day she popped off. “Your gran was a psycho, your Auntie Lav was a psycho and now the Gift’s passed to you, our Eth,” she used to say to me.’

‘Don’t you mean “psychic” . . . ?’

‘Now, I’ve never held much with all that mumbo-jumbo rubbish, to tell the truth. But every now and again I get my feeling and I have to say, stuff happens, like.’

Although Mrs Bincham was smiling, Harri didn’t exactly feel reassured. ‘So what do I do now?’

Mrs Bincham’s grin broadened. ‘Nothing you can do, our kid. Just got to sit it out, I s’pose. So you have another bit of Chocolate Crispy Bakewell while you’re waiting and I’m sure that’ll take your mind off it, eh?’

Harri surrendered to the inevitable and reached into the Tupperware box.

She should have been used to the Big F by now – although she had never really thought about it in that way before. She had become accustomed to the strange mix of joys and sorrows that twisted and twirled her from one event to the next, often unannounced. It was just life.

She remembered her grandma once saying: ‘Life is like a wild pony – you can never tame it. But if you grab its mane and hold on with all your might, it will be the most thrilling ride you’ll ever have.’ Grandma Langton had lived in a tiny cottage on the edge of Dartmoor, where Harri and her parents would visit during the summer holidays. As a little girl, Harri had liked nothing better than to hold tightly on to Grandma’s hand as they battled against the elements to climb the hill behind the cottage and gaze out across the windswept moor to where the wild ponies grazed. Even as a small child, she’d appreciated and envied the beautiful creatures’ freedom, walking and cantering wherever they pleased. The thought of jumping on one of their backs and taking off across the wildly undulating moor towards distant hills was at once impossibly exciting and ridiculously scary, but Harri longed to be as carefree as they appeared to be. As for Grandma, her own ‘thrilling ride’ had come to an abrupt halt when Harri was eleven – life throwing her from its back for the last time.

Life, or fate – or whatever you chose to call it – had certainly taken Harri for more than one breathless ride over her twenty-eight years – although it had to be said that most had been brutally scary rather than exhilarating. Losing one parent to cancer was bad enough; losing both was cruel in the extreme, not least because her mother’s malignant tumour was diagnosed while her father was enduring his last weeks of life. As Dad lay on the sofa in the family home, too weak to move, but still somehow able to smile and joke (which he accomplished with aplomb right up until he finally succumbed to unconsciousness), Mum made two sets of funeral arrangements – one for him, one for her – sitting at the kitchen table making copious lists for Harri ‘for when the time arrives’.

Dad’s cancer had taken him slowly, a long-drawn-out process over nearly six years, which crumpled the once strong and vital six-foot-three former rugby player into a pitiful heap of skin and bone arranged painfully across the old Dralon settee in the living room. In contrast, Mum’s illness took hold at lightning speed: five and a half months from the diagnosis to her funeral at St Mary’s, Stone Yardley’s parish church. Five months after burying her husband, Mum went to join him and Harri was alone in the world. Of course, she had friends. Viv and Stella rallied round, cooking meals (Viv) and getting her out of the house to go shopping or for walks (Stella), whilst Auntie Rosemary came to stay for three months, helping Harri to put the family home on the market and, eventually, find the tiny, ivy-covered cottage that was to become her own, bought with the money left to her by her parents.

Her father’s illness meant that holidays were spent near to home or at least a major hospital: the Lake District was about the furthest they dared travel and this was only because they had family living in Kendal, should an emergency arise. Towards the end, Langton family holidays became more like sofa transfers: Dad carefully transported from home in their old red Volvo to a different living room three hours away – the only difference being the mountain views from the window.

When Harri met Rob, just over a year later, she found herself returning to the Lake District for summer holidays. Rob viewed camping as ‘the purest form of holidaying’. Understanding Rob’s long-held passion for all things outdoors was part and parcel of loving him, as far as Harri was concerned. His father had been a scout master for years so Rob and his brother, Mark, spent weekends and holidays under canvas from an early age. When his father died five years ago, following the pursuits he had learned from him took on a whole new significance for Rob. It was almost as if being outdoors brought him closer to his father’s memory. Watching him pitch a tent, knot guy ropes and make a fire was strangely comforting for Harri – Rob’s capability and protectiveness made her feel safe.

‘If he’s so fond of camping, why don’t you go to one of these new glamping sites, with yurts and wood-burning stoves?’ Stella suggested during one of their many coffee-shop outings. ‘Or do it somewhere warm, like France?’

‘It just wouldn’t be his sort of thing,’ Harri replied, stirring her cappuccino with a wooden stirrer. ‘And actually, that’s OK.

It’s just part of who he is – like me with my travel book addiction. I don’t feel I have to like everything he likes and neither does he with me. We’re settled and secure enough with each other to be able to have different interests. When we go camping it’s like he feels he’s fending for us, I think. It’s that whole “protective caveman” instinct.’

Stella’s eyes lit up. ‘I have to admit, it’s quite sexy when guys get like that – all rugged and strong.’

‘Oh yes. I have no complaints there,’ Harri agreed as they clinked coffee cups in a mutual toast.

‘So I bet your beloved likes that Ray Mears bloke, doesn’t he?’

Oh, yes. To say Rob worshipped at the well-worn survival boots of Ray would be putting it mildly. When his father was alive, Rob had taken him on several of Mr Mears’ bushcraft weekends – something Harri was hugely relieved she hadn’t been invited on. Camping in the great outdoors was one thing; eating bugs and making shelters out of twigs and tarpaulin was definitely above and beyond the call of duty.

So, whilst Rob would indulge in copies of Survival Monthly or his extensive collection of Ray Mears DVDs, Harri knew she could always escape into the welcoming pages of Condé Nast Traveller and Lonely Planet magazine – and, of course, her favourite books on Venice and the Veneto.

For as long as she could remember, Harri’s imagination had been her sanctuary; she could escape into its endless possibil ities whenever she wanted to get away. As a little girl she would dream herself cycling past tulip fields in Holland, or twirling round an opulent Viennese ballroom in a beautiful gown to the swirling strains of Strauss; in her teens she would rollerskate along the promenade at Miami Beach, or spot multi-hued parrots in Brazilian rainforests; by the time she reached her twenties, she would be backpacking across Australia, bridge-swinging in New Zealand’s South Island, or riding galloping horses through the tide along Mexican beaches.

But Venice had always towered head and shoulders above the rest of her dreams. Its colour, opulence and uniqueness captured her heart and fired her imagination – her parents’ own dyed-in-the-wool romanticism alive and well, and coursing through her own veins.

When her parents were resting, or she just needed five minutes to herself, escaping was as easy as closing her eyes or opening a travel magazine. For a few moments, she could go wherever her heart desired. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t actually jump on a plane and visit these places; it was enough to imagine herself there. Where others would choose chick-lit, crime thrillers or historical drama to provide their escape, Harri chose a travel book. No matter where it was, as long as she could learn something new about the world, Harri eagerly consumed its contents, each new glimmering scrap of information adding to the growing travel library in her mind.

Fuelled by her daydreams, Harri’s longing to travel grew stronger as the years passed. The true extent of her desire to see the world was something she confessed to nobody but Ron Howard, the large ginger and white cat that had appeared in her front garden one December morning as a small, shivering kitten and stayed with Harri ever since. Harri had never considered herself a cat person, yet there was something she understood immediately about the tiny stray trying to shelter under the birdbath from the fast-falling snow. He was like her: adrift in a new, unfamiliar place, seeking refuge from the winter cold. Harri had not long moved into her cottage and was still feeling a stranger in her own home, surrounded by someone else’s curtains, carpets and paint colours. From the moment he made his impromptu arrival in Harri’s life, Ron Howard was a soul mate. Unlike Rob, Stella or anyone else, he didn’t mind watching awful foreign soap operas like Santa Barbara, or endless travel documentaries on cable. He liked nothing better than to curl up on Harri’s lap, purring or snoring loudly through hours of other people’s experiences. There was something uniquely comforting about a creature that required nothing more than food and fuss; no expectations, no conditions, no arguments – simply feed me and love me.

In many ways, Ron Howard was particularly un-catlike. He liked to play fetch with his toys or bits of screwed-up paper; he rushed to the front door whenever someone new appeared; he loved to have his tummy rubbed and never once thought to use the opportunity to sink his considerable claws into the unsuspecting tickler’s forearm; and he never, ever tucked his tail in – leading to many occasions where it was accidentally tripped over or stamped on. Washing, too, was something he took a long time to acquire the necessary skills for: Harri frequently had to wipe his nose and forehead after he had been eating his food, as it never seemed to occur to him to wash there. Auntie Rosemary once joked that he’d obviously left his mother before she could teach him all of these cat essentials. Harri was simply thankful he had turned up – the other stuff just made him who he was. Most importantly, he was a good listener. Well, as good a listener as a cat can ever be, snoring, purring and occasionally farting contentedly while Harri poured out her heart to him. Did Ron Howard understand? It didn’t matter. What mattered was that he was there when she needed him.

After a day of trying to distract her mind from her posting Alex’s profile to Juste Moi, Harri retreated to the safety of her cottage. With a bowl of home-made tomato, basil and chorizo soup (straight from the pages of her latest Food & Travel magazine) and a chunk of Gruyère ciabatta from Lavender’s Bakery, Harri and Ron Howard snuggled down for a night of rubbish television. She had just taken her first mouthful of soup when the phone rang on the bookcase, just out of reach. Much to Ron Howard’s disgust, she manoeuvred herself from underneath his furry frame to answer it.

‘Hello, may I speak to Harriet Langton?’ asked a well-spoken woman.

‘Speaking.’

‘Ah, Ms Langton, hello. Sorry to ring you so late, but it’s Chloë from Juste Moi. It’s just a quick call to check if you’ve sent us the form back for your friend Alex for “Free to a Good Home” yet?’

Harri felt the single spoonful of soup curdling in the pit of her stomach. ‘Yes – um – yes, I sent it last night, actually.’

The sense of relief from the other end of the conversation was palpable. ‘That’s great, thank you so much.’

‘I’m not sure he’s what you’re after, you know,’ Harri began, hoping that Chloë would say something like, ‘Oh I see. Best not to bother then, eh?’ and end the call.

Of course, she didn’t. ‘I’m sure he is, Ms Langton. After all, you must think he’s a worthy candidate, seeing as you nominated him.’

Touché. ‘Right, yes, I suppose I did.’

‘Trust me, Ms Langton, everyone has second thoughts about this. Believe me, I know. I’ve had more conversations with dithering best friends, sisters and mothers than you would ever imagine since we started this feature.’

Harri wasn’t convinced by this. ‘I’m just concerned that Alex might not be happy about it, that’s all.’

Chloë gave a long sigh and lowered her voice. ‘Look, I’ll level with you, OK? The feature is dying on its sweet arse here – my editor says I have to turn it around in the next two months or I’m back to “Celeb Gossip”. Do you know how awful that is? Trust me, it’s death to your career. I’ve been here for four years and nobody has ever gone back – do you understand what I’m saying?’

‘I – er – think so . . .’ Harri stuttered, momentarily stunned by the journalist’s sudden change of demeanour. ‘But I thought the last man got thousands of responses?’

‘Like crap he did.’ Another elongated sigh ensued. ‘I’m sorry, Ms Langton, forgive me. It’s just been a really long day.’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘OK, I’m being really honest here: your friend Alex is the first decent candidate we’ve had in two years. Most of the muppets who get nominated for this feature don’t know one end of a woman from the other – hence the fact that they are still single . . .’

Harri suppressed a smile, recalling her previous conversation with Viv on the matter.

‘. . . but Alex is – well, I mean, he’s hot as, for one thing. Then there’s the travel, the successful business . . . He ticks all the boxes, trust me. It’s just possible that he could save my career.’

Despite her inner conflict of panic and mirth, Harri couldn’t fail to feel compassion for the overstressed journalist on the line. ‘I see. Well, that’s OK then.’

‘You honestly won’t regret this, I promise! So your letter should arrive tomorrow and then it’s all systems go, eh?’

‘Great.’

‘Have a super evening! Bye!’

Harri replaced the receiver and flopped back down on the sofa as Ron Howard slunk heavily back onto her lap. The bowl of soup on the coffee table remained there, its temperature dropping steadily; Harri’s appetite had suddenly vaporised.

‘Looks like it’s happening, Ron,’ she whispered, stroking his vibrating back. ‘What on earth have I let myself in for?’

Ron Howard stretched his paws out and farted loudly. Enough said.

Chapter Seven

A Question of Priorities . . .

With all the excitement of tonight, Harri realises that she completely missed the buffet. Or, more precisely, the buffet completely missed her – considering that most of it was being requisitioned as ammunition at the point she fled the main hall. As the decision to attend the party was made at the last minute, there was no time for food beforehand, her time being taken up with trying to find a dress that wasn’t too large for her. Looking down at her arms, Harri is surprised at how much weight she has lost during the past fortnight. Thankfully, an emerald-green halter-neck dress donated to her by Stella two years ago and relegated to the deepest, darkest part of her wardrobe on account of its being too tight, came to the rescue. Teamed with the too-expensive purple shoes she bought from the boutique shop in Innersley, and a thin purple cardigan she found stashed under T-shirts in the ottoman at the bottom of her bed, the overall effect with her long auburn hair is impressive, if not exactly the warmest option.

Harri is suddenly acutely aware of the hunger gnawing away at her insides. Reaching into her handbag, she sorts through the detritus of her everyday life – purse, phone, keys, tissues, receipts and old shopping lists – until she finds a treat-sized Mars bar. She has no idea how long it has lain in the depths of her bag, but needs must. Tearing open the wrapper, she takes a small bite and leans back against the cold ceramic cistern behind her.

‘What are you doing this evening?’ Viv asked as soon as Harri answered her phone.

‘Um, I hadn’t decided yet . . .’ she began.

‘Excellent!’ Viv declared. ‘Dinner at mine, seven thirty. OK? Good. See you then!’

Harri opened her mouth to speak, but it was too late. Viv had been replaced on the line by a monotonous buzz. Shaking her head, Harri put down the receiver and stared at Ron Howard, who was lying at an impossible angle on the very edge of the sofa cushion.

‘Seven thirty? Let me just check my diary . . . Ah, yes, that should be fine. Thank you so much for the invitation . . . Honestly, Ron, it’s a good job I don’t have much of a social life. What would she do if I ever said no?’

Reluctantly, she picked up her bag and slung it across her shoulder.

‘Oh, well, I suppose I’d better go and see what she wants. Unless you have any objections, Ron?’

Ron Howard purred loudly and fell off the sofa.

It wasn’t that Harri minded doing things for Viv: she had known her for long enough to understand that beneath all the fuss and bluster lay a deep concern for her wellbeing. What Harri did object to was the way Viv assumed she had nothing better to do with her time than to jump at her every whim. Tonight would be no exception: whatever the reason for the urgent dinner invitation, it was bound to entail Harri doing something she wouldn’t normally have chosen. That said, there was something strangely comforting about having Viv in her life. Whilst Viv’s ideas were often outlandish, her concern for Harri was unquestionable. In many ways, she was a surrogate mother for Harri and relished every intricacy of this role. And Harri loved her for it. So, quickening her pace under the dusky evening sky, she walked straight towards the next thrilling episode of Vivienne Brannan’s Imagination.

To say Viv was excited would be like calling Everest ‘a bit of a hill’. As Harri approached Viv’s farmhouse on the long winding gravel drive that dropped steeply from the white gate at the roadside, she could see her friend standing in the front porch, peering impatiently out into the growing dark, arms folded like a shivering teacher on playground duty in winter. Her face lit up when she saw Harri approaching and she rushed out to meet her.

‘Oooh, this is so thrilling!’ she exclaimed, flinging her arms around Harri and expelling every last bit of air from her lungs in an enormous bear hug. ‘Come inside, come inside! You have to see this!’

Winded from her overenthusiastic welcome, Harri fought to regain her breath and slowly followed Viv into the farmhouse. A wonderfully heady brew of roasting meat, baking pastry and steaming vegetables met her nostrils as she stepped through the doorway. One thing you could always count on with Viv was her ability to make any meal occasion into a pièce de résistance. Even snacks or impromptu lunches were transformed into show-stopping culinary events; there was no such thing as ‘just a sandwich’ as far as Viv was concerned. It was easy to see from where her son had gained his considerable catering skills.

‘I didn’t realise we were banqueting tonight,’ Harri grinned as she entered the kitchen.

Viv dismissed the comment with a nonchalant sweep of her hand. ‘Oh, this? It’s nothing. Besides, you know me – I don’t do low-key.’

‘Couldn’t have put it better myself.’

‘I do hope you’re not mocking me, Harriet Langton.’ Harri held her hands up. ‘I wouldn’t dare, Viv.’

Viv surveyed her with suspiciousness. ‘Mmm. Anyway, it’s not important. What is important is something that happened to pop onto my doormat this morning.’ She opened a drawer in the vast central island of her kitchen and produced a magazine, then proceeded to perform a frighteningly energetic victory dance around the terracotta-tiled kitchen floor.

Harri saw the title Juste Moi and took a deep breath. ‘Right then. Let’s have a look.’

Viv could hardly catch her breath as she finished her dance with an elegant landing on a chair next to Harri at the kitchen table. ‘Oh, it is so much better than that!’

Harri surveyed her carefully. ‘How do you mean?’

Viv thrust the magazine at Harri. ‘Our darling boy only made the front cover!’

‘What? How? I mean, it’s just a column inside . . .’

‘Not any more!’ Viv was in serious danger of exploding in an effervescent shower of stars. ‘They’ve made him into a feature!’

Hands slightly shaking, Harri released the magazine from Viv’s maniacal clutches and read the main headline: ‘FREE TO A GOOD HOME SPECIAL: Our hottest candidate yet!’

‘That’s . . . that’s not possible . . .’ she stuttered. ‘When I spoke to Chloë she said the column wasn’t doing well at all . . . I – I don’t believe it . . .’

‘Believe it, sister,’ Viv replied, sounding like a gruff supporting cast member from Cagney and Lacey. All that was missing was a gun sling and a bad seventies suit . . . She whipped the offensive publication from Harri’s hands and flipped through it until she found the page. ‘Look at that!’

The formerly innocuous ‘Free to a Good Home’ column was now a double-spread, glossy feature, a picture of Alex gracing most of the right-hand page. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, the worst thing – the very worst thing – was a quote from Harri herself, glowing accusingly at her in vivid red letters:

Alex is gorgeous, talented and caring.

Any girl would be lucky to call him hers.

Harri Langton, Alex’s best friend

‘That’s such a sweet thing to say, darling,’ Viv gushed, clamping a hand on Harri’s arm. ‘Al will be so flattered.’

Panic was threatening to remove Harri’s capability of rational thought or physical movement. ‘But I didn’t say that,’ she protested, doubt gnawing at the edge of her assertion. ‘At least, I don’t think I said that . . .’

‘Well, you must have said it, darling, or else why would they print it?’

Viv’s blind acceptance of journalistic integrity was touching, if completely unfounded, especially in the light of Harri’s conversation with Chloë regarding the feature. The feature is dying on its sweet arse here . . . your friend Alex is the first decent candidate we’ve had in two years . . . Judging by the article’s considerable promotion in Juste Moi it appeared that Chloë was at least safe from demotion to ‘Celeb Gossip’ for the time being.

‘He’s going to kill me,’ Harri moaned, imagining the look on Alex’s face when he saw the article and the damning evidence of her involvement in garish red letters.

Viv tutted. ‘Stop being so melodramatic, Harriet! He is not going to kill you. He is going to thank you when all those lovely ladies start to reply. Trust me, I’m his mother. Nobody understands Alex like I do.’

Harri mentally activated everything crossable and hoped that, for once, Viv was right.

The week passed by in a blur as Harri tried to comprehend the new upgraded status of Alex’s ‘Free to a Good Home’ article. After the initial shock of seeing the feature so prominent in the magazine, her confidence began to bounce back. After all, what was the worst that could happen? Even if Alex did find out and was annoyed at first, surely if Harri had managed to find him the woman of his dreams as a result then that would be enough to make him forgive her. Besides, by the end of the week Harri had something else to occupy her thoughts – namely, an unexpected argument with Rob on Friday evening.

Knowing he was unlikely to be home until after seven that night, Harri decided to surprise her boyfriend by making dinner for him. He seemed to be working so much lately that she thought he deserved a treat. She spent a good hour cleaning the kitchen and preparing the meal, creating a selection of Spanish tapas for a starter, with a main course of lemon, thyme and garlic roast chicken with butternut squash wedges and Mediterranean roasted vegetables – a little more adventurous than Rob would normally choose (being a firmly English eater, suspicious of anything ‘foreign’) but still safely recognisable for him to take the risk.

At seven-thirty, just as Harri was beginning to wonder what could be keeping Rob, her mobile rang.

‘Hey, Red.’ Rob’s voice sounded weary.

‘Hey you. What time will you be home?’

There was a long pause. ‘I won’t. Not until Monday night.’ Harri’s eyes drifted over the dining table with its two perfectly prepared place settings, candles and open wine bottle. ‘Oh.’

‘That’s what I was ringing to tell you. Kingston Corp found a glitch in our proposal and we had to travel up straight away to try to save the deal. I know I should’ve called you earlier, but it’s been manic here since I arrived.’

Harri felt her heart plummeting. ‘I wish you’d called me, Rob. I made dinner.’

There was a long sigh at the other end of the line. ‘No, Red! Oh baby, I’m sorry. I had no idea.’

‘It’s fine, I understand.’

‘No, you’ve every right to be upset. But I honestly had no choice but to come here.’

Moving to the table, Harri began to clear away the cutlery. She could feel angry tears building but she was determined not to let them fall. ‘I know you didn’t. I’ll just be glad when you can finally tie up this Preston thing and get your life back. It seems a bit unfair that you’re always the one who has to go dashing up the M6 every time your company hits a problem.’

The weariness increased in his voice but his answer was gentle. ‘We’ve had this discussion before and it leads us nowhere, does it? I’m really sorry I didn’t ring you and I feel bad that you went to all that trouble for me, but I’m here now and there’s not much more I can do about it, is there?’

Harri hated it when things between her and Rob were tense. They had never been the kind of couple to bicker much in the past, but since the Preston job appeared in their lives it was as if a brooding tension was never far away from their conversations. Of course, she didn’t blame Rob – he was just doing what his bosses asked him to. But Harri could feel considerable resentment growing within her at the company which demanded his absence from her so often.

‘Well, maybe if you had a different job . . .’ she began, instantly kicking herself for saying it.

Too late. Rob’s irritation buzzed against her ear. ‘Oh like that’s going to happen with the way the job market is at the moment! You know how important this job is, Red – not just for me but for both of us.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that. I just think you deserve more than TGP give you. That’s all I’m saying.’

‘Oh, like you get from SLIT, you mean?’

Harri felt her hackles rising. ‘That’s completely different and you know it.’

‘How? How is it different? George has had you doing more or less the same job since you started. I’ve worked my way up at TGP and now I’m head of a sales team with four people under me. That brings responsibility. Which means having to work away from home when they need me.’

‘What about when I need you, Rob?’ Tears stung Harri’s eyes as the frustration of the past few months broke free. ‘I know you have to work but ever since this Preston job appeared it’s like I’ve been relegated to second place. And I’m sick of you working away at weekends. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth . . .’

Rob groaned. ‘Come on, Red, please . . .’

‘No. I’m not going to apologise for how I feel. I wanted to spend this weekend with my boyfriend, not be twiddling my thumbs at home. And yes, you should’ve called me. Because then perhaps I wouldn’t have wasted my time this evening.’

‘What do you want me to do, eh? Quit my job? Come home? I’ve said I’m sorry, and yes, I would much rather be spending this weekend with my girlfriend than be holed up in some crappy office in Preston. But I can’t change the situation and to be honest I don’t want to fight about this. I think I’d better go.’

‘Fine.’ Harri ended the call and threw her mobile onto the table with a loud cry of frustration.

An hour later, curled up on her sofa with Ron Howard lying expansively across her lap, Harri had calmed down sufficiently to call a truce. Reaching for her mobile, she sent Rob a text:

I’m sorry. Call me when you get this. H xx

After staring at the mobile screen for a long time, Harri came to the depressing conclusion that Rob wasn’t ready yet to accept her apology. Well fine, let him stew for a bit. In the meantime, she knew she had to do something, go somewhere – anywhere – to stop herself brooding over the argument. Who was likely to be around at ten o’clock on a Friday evening? Scrolling through the names on her mobile’s address book, she considered the possibilities:

Auntie Rosemary? No, she would be at her Knit’n’Natter group with friends she had met in antenatal classes when she was expecting Rosie and James, and had kept in contact with ever since. They took it in turns to meet at one another’s houses and put the world to rights over dry sherry, old movies and the brightly coloured knitting projects they never actually looked at as their needles clicked away.

Stella – now there was an idea. She’d mentioned earlier that Stefan was in Milan for the weekend so she would be at a loose end. Harri dialled the number and waited.

‘Hello?’

‘Hey, Stel, it’s me. Just – er – Rob’s busy so I’m free, if you wanted to do something?’

There was a muffled sound that bore a remarkable resemblance to a male laugh and Stella muttered something away from the phone. ‘Hey, hon, sorry, I . . . Something came up . . .’ Another stifled laugh, this time matched by Stella’s own. ‘Call you tomorrow, OK?’

Before Harri could answer, the call ended. Fantastic. Returning to her address book screen, Harri continued the search.

Viv? Harri stared at her number and took a deep breath. Viv would want to know why Harri wasn’t with Rob this evening. Which would, undoubtedly, entail her having to endure an endless commentary from Viv about Rob’s job. After all the upset she’d already experienced tonight, was she really ready to put herself in the Vivienne Brannan firing line of animosity? She shook her head and looked over at Ron Howard, who had jealously claimed ownership of the TV remote control by sitting on it.

‘What do you reckon, Ron, hmm? Face the wrath of Viv or sit here stewing over Rob?’

Ron Howard simply rolled over on his back and demanded a tummy tickle. Harri obliged, her thoughts cloudy and disorganised as she ruffled the thick, white fur on his substantial belly.

The only other option was Alex. After all, he’d called on her in a romantic emergency more than enough times in the past to warrant returning the favour.

‘He-llo.’

‘Hey, Al, it’s Harri.’

‘Hey.’

‘Just wondering if you’re up to anything tonight?’

‘That’s great.’

‘Right . . . I was thinking maybe a film, or grab a pizza, or . . .’

‘I see.’

What on earth was he playing at? ‘Al, are you OK?’

‘Ha! That’s right, you’ve reached my answerphone. And you thought it was me all along! Gutted! So, hey, leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Or will I?’ A loud beep sounded, followed by Harri’s own sigh of frustration.

‘Hey, Al, it’s me. Just wondering if you’re busy, which, clearly, you are. Very amusing message there. Hilarious. Catch you later, moron.’

Groaning, she tossed the phone to the other end of the sofa and wandered through to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Then she walked back into the living room and over to the large stack of DVDs in the corner. Discounting the romantic comedies – You’ve Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle, Because I Said So, et al. – she reached the travel-related selection. She needed to escape, wrench her mind from Stone Yardley for a few hours to regain her focus. Running her hand across the glossy spines of the cases, the world was, quite literally, at her fingertips: Thailand, Fiji, New England, Norway, Venice . . . She paused, her hand hovering over the title, the thud of her heart loud in her ears. No, not Venice. Not tonight. It was too precious to be sullied by any lingering thoughts of the argument. Finally, she settled on Dan Beagle’s Guide to India, snuggling down under a blanket on the sofa before hitting Play. Ron Howard curled himself over her feet as the famous adventurer, photographer and TV presenter’s face appeared on screen.

‘Hi, I’m Dan Beagle. For the next two hours, I want you to accompany me on a journey of discovery through this uniquely beautiful country. Welcome to my Indian Odyssey . . .’

A stab of loneliness jabbing inside, Harri smiled at her hero.

‘Thank you, Dan.’

Chapter Eight

You’ve Got Mail . . .

The door opens and Stella’s kitten heels click-clack onto the grubby magnolia tiles of the toilet floor. Harri holds her breath and wills her heartbeat to quieten in her ears, afraid that it might be loud enough for Stella to hear it echoing around the grey-green toilet walls.

‘Listen, Harri. I didn’t mean any harm by what I said, you know. I just wanted to be honest. Let’s face it: enough people here were bound by their dishonesty until tonight . . . Look, I know you’re upset, OK? I just never meant to hurt you. Dan and I – well, we’re going to move back here as soon as the royalties for his book come through. So I’ll be around again – just like old times, hey? Come out, would you? Please, Harri?’

Go away, Stella.

‘We can make this all OK, I know we can, if you just come out now?’

Harri shakes her head silently.

There is a long sigh from the other side of the cubicle door. ‘Well, for what it’s worth, I know I did the right thing. There. I’ve said it. I never meant to hurt you or embarrass you; for that I’m really sorry. But I won’t apologise for telling the truth. I can’t, you see. Absolute truth is the only pure thing we have in this life; to deny its place is to deny life itself – that’s what Lama Rhabten taught me . . . But I suppose you don’t need to hear that now. Look, here’s my new mobile number . . .’

A white envelope is pushed timidly under the door to Harri’s cubicle. ‘Just call me when you’re ready to talk, yeah?’

Harri waits until Stella has gone before she stoops to pick up the envelope.

When Harri had first agreed to Viv’s Big Idea, she hadn’t really considered how she was going to break the news to Alex. But now, with the ‘Free to a Good Home’ article making Juste Moi’s cover, the issue of how to tell him suddenly became a sticky subject. The easiest option was to tell him straight away, endure whatever initial reaction he might have and then just carry on. But the more Harri considered this, the trickier it seemed to be. Perhaps if Alex didn’t find out about it and Harri was able to arrange some dates from any replies to the feature then all might be well . . . On the other hand, in a place as small and gossip-fuelled as Stone Yardley, how likely was it that nobody else would see the article and show him the magazine?

For a week, Harri waited, anticipating the moment when Alex found out. But nothing happened: Alex was just his usual, jovial self whenever he called or texted her.

After a fortnight, she began to relax a little. Maybe Viv represented Juste Moi’s entire readership in Stone Yardley - after all, she had to subscribe to receive it. Or maybe Chloë’s worst fears had been proved founded and, following an unprecedented lack of response from the readership, she had been forced back into the prison otherwise known as ‘Celeb Gossip’ . . .

A little over a week after the argument, Rob finally sent a text:

I hate it when we fight. How about dinner at mine 2nite at 7ish? Rx

It was clear from the moment Harri arrived at Rob’s house that evening that the argument had been forgotten. Everything about her boyfriend seemed back to normal and she welcomed the return of the Rob she loved so much.

‘Things will be better soon, I promise,’ he murmured into her hair that night as she snuggled up to him. ‘Once the Preston job is sorted it’ll be back to me and you.’

The following Saturday morning, Harri got up early to give her cottage a much-needed clean. She was just scrubbing the bath (dreaming about wandering around Venice’s streets) when an excited knocking at her front door broke her reverie. She opened it to find Freddie Mills looking like he had just won the lottery, brandishing a large grey post sack. ‘London! Delivery from!’ he exclaimed, sounding for all the world like a Black Country Yoda.

Harri looked at her postman, then down at the sack. ‘Are you sure?’

Freddie nodded vigorously, a rebellious strand of hair breaking free from his careful comb-over and flailing about high above his head, like a waving antenna in the breeze. ‘I have an official delivery chit and everything! London deliveries to our little village . . .’ He shook his head in awestruck wonder and handed her a clipboard and pen. ‘Sign here, chick.’

Harri accepted the clipboard gingerly as if it were an incendiary device and checked the details:

TO: Harriet Langton, Two Trees Cottage, Waterfall Lane, Stone Yardley, West Midlands. SENDER: Juste Moi magazine, London W4

Stunned by this unexpected delivery, Harri signed the form and handed it back to Freddie, who grabbed the postbag and swung it heavily inside the hallway.

‘Thanks. See you, Freddie.’

‘No probs, Miss Langton. You just stay there and I’ll bring the others in from the van.’

Shock rooted Harri to the doorstep. ‘The others?’

But Freddie had already skipped down the path to his red Royal Mail van, and was flinging open the back doors with great gusto. When he reappeared, he was proudly pushing a red trolley back up the uneven path to Harri’s door, laden with three more sacks. Harri watched dumbly as he carefully wheeled the trolley over the threshold and into her lounge, sending Ron Howard scuttling under the coffee table in fright.

‘I’ll just dump ’em in here, OK?’ he said, shaking Harri’s hand as he retreated to the doorstep. ‘So much mail from London – well, I’ll be. Thank you for making this poor old sod’s day, Miss Langton! Ta-rar!’ And with that, he was gone.

Harri stumbled back into her living room as Ron Howard slowly emerged from his hiding place. Hardly daring to look, she opened the first bag. It fell forward as she did so, its contents spilling out across the carpet, and Ron Howard sprang onto the sofa to save himself from being engulfed by the tidal wave of letters. Harri bent to pick up a handful and saw, with mounting dread, that each envelope bore the same five terrible words: ‘Free to a Good Home’.

This was a nightmare: Alex was officially a hit with the desperate readership of Juste Moi – and now Harri must uphold the second part of her bargain with Viv: to find a girl for Alex from the vast selection of candidates.

It was going to be hell . . .

* * *

Getting too excited is perhaps not the best idea when you’re in your fifties with sky-high blood pressure and under strict doctor’s orders to avoid stress. But Viv was not likely to let some jumped-up locum’s opinion intervene at a time like this. Harri eyed her friend with concern as she bounced around the living room like a three-year-old on Haribo overload.

‘So . . . many . . . letters!’ she gasped, plunging her hands into the nearest postbag and throwing envelopes into the air like a lottery winner revelling in wads of banknotes.

‘Viv, calm down!’

‘Calm down? How on earth do you expect me to do that, Harri? I mean, look at this! All these beautiful, intelligent young women eager to meet my lovely son! It’s wonderful!’ She clapped her hands together.

‘Look at what you’ve done, Harri!’

Harri ignored her sinking feeling. ‘Shouldn’t that be we, Viv?’

Viv dismissed this with a flamboyant wave of her hand. ‘Ooh, that’s just details.’

Harri eyed her suspiciously. ‘You are planning on helping me go through all of these, aren’t you?’

Viv picked up a pale pink envelope and inspected the handwriting. ‘Of course I am, darling! I’m a tad busy this week, but after that I’m all yours.’

‘Right, well, I’ll wait until you’re free and then we’ll start.’

Staring at her, Viv dropped the envelope back into the postbag. ‘Harri, this is my son’s future happiness we’re dealing with – we can’t delay it any longer. He’s waited long enough, don’t you think? So you just make a start and as soon as the Summer Fair planning committee stuff is sorted I’ll be there to help.’

Harri folded her arms. ‘I am not doing this all by myself, Viv. This was your bright idea, remember? I don’t mind making a start but you’d better be around to help with the lion’s share – planning committee or no planning committee. Right?’

‘Absolutely, darling. You have my word on it. I’ll only be absent from duty for a week and then it’s Team Harri and Viv all the way. In the meantime, you have my moral support, dear. And all the apple pie you can eat.’

By Tuesday evening, when Auntie Rosemary came to visit, the postbags were still sitting unopened underneath the window. Ron Howard, most offended by their presence, had gone off in a huff and was now curled up in the washing basket in the kitchen. There was no use Harri trying to hide the bags before her aunt walked in; the cottage was almost too small for its furniture already, without accommodating four enormous sacks.

‘What, in the name of all that’s good, are those?’ Rosemary asked.

Harri groaned and shut the front door, following her aunt inside. ‘It’s a long story. Cup of tea?’

Rosemary bent down to inspect the sacks as Harri walked into the kitchen. ‘“Free to a Good Home”? What’s this all about?’

‘It’s nothing, really. Just something I agreed to help with,’ Harri replied, hoping that her breezy tone would appease Rosemary’s curiosity.

It didn’t, of course. ‘Wait a minute – Juste Moi magazine? The only person I know around here who reads that tripe is—’

Harri pulled a face and dropped two teabags into the pot. ‘Fancy a biscuit?’ she interjected weakly. ‘I think I’ve got some bourbons in the cupboard.’

Rosemary appeared in the kitchen doorway, face stern and arms folded. ‘What has Vivienne Brannan got you into this time?’

The kettle reached boiling point with a noisy whistling fanfare and Harri was glad of the moment it gave her to formulate her reply. ‘It’s just a project she’s got. A daft idea, really. I only said I’d help her to stop her nagging.’ She placed the teapot, mugs and milk jug on an old rose-printed tray that had been her mum’s. ‘Would you grab the biscuit tin, please?’

Rosemary followed her niece back into the living room. ‘Hmm. If I know Viv, this is probably going to entail you doing a lot of work and her getting off scot-free.’

Harri poured the tea. ‘To be honest, I wish I’d never agreed to the stupid idea in the first place. I should have realised that Viv would try to wriggle her way out of helping. But I have her word this time that she’ll pull her weight, so I intend to hold her to it.’

‘Well, I suppose you know what you’re doing.’ Auntie Rosemary placed a concerned hand on Harri’s arm. ‘But just be careful, OK? Viv’s ideas usually end in disaster and I don’t want you being caught up in the middle of another one.’

Harri smiled at her aunt. ‘I’ll be fine, honest. She’s just thinking of Al, that’s all.’

‘What’s all this got to do with Alex?’

There really was no point concealing the truth from Rosemary. Harri took a deep breath and told her aunt about Viv’s Big Idea. Rosemary listened for a long time, her steady expression masking her true opinion, although Harri could guess what it was. When Harri had told her everything, Rosemary shrugged.

‘I thought that woman couldn’t surprise me any more but I was wrong. That has got to be the most ridiculous idea I have ever heard. Honestly, I swear she never grew out of her teenage phase. Your poor mother was always bailing her out of daft situations. Well, no matter. What concerns me is you, Harriet. I just don’t want you losing a friend over this.’

Neither do I, thought Harri. ‘I’ll be careful, Auntie Ro, honestly. With any luck all the replies will be from complete psychos and Viv will give up the idea.’

Rosemary’s nut-brown eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t believe that any more than I do,’ she observed. ‘You may be setting yourself up for a fall, that’s all I’m saying.’

‘So the police said they weren’t going to investigate the unexplained lights over Innersley any more because of lack of evidence,’ Tom was saying as Harri arrived at work next day.

Nus and George were anything but the rapt audience he was obviously hoping for, but he appeared undaunted.

‘I mean, seriously, what does that say to you?’

Nus inspected her immaculate nails with an air of boredom. ‘That you need to get a life?’

Tom let out a groan and turned to his boss. ‘Aw, c’mon. George?’

George stifled a yawn and slid his ample backside off Harri’s desk, pulling up the sagging waistband of his trousers as he did so. Harri stifled a giggle, recalling a comment Stella had made about him last week: Forty-three with a beer gut to die for and he’s still single? Shockers!

‘Thomas, a busy travel professional such as myself has no time for indulging in idle tittle-tattle. I suggest you turn your overfertile imagination to the task of coming up with irresistible offers on our Summer Coach Spectacular, all right?’

Tom’s frame flopped resignedly. ‘I can’t believe there’s a blatant government conspiracy going on right underneath our noses and none of you is even remotely interested.’ He grabbed an empty brochure box and plodded into the stockroom.

Harri smiled at Nus. ‘What’s all that about?’

Nus leaned down to retrieve her mobile from her bag. ‘UFOs above Innersley, apparently.’ She started to text, her acrylic nails squeaking on the keypad as she did so.

George’s flushed face appeared in the doorway to his office. ‘Harriet, do you have a minute?’

‘Sure,’ she replied, standing up.

‘And bring us a coffee while you’re at it, eh, chick?’

‘Ooh, tea, please,’ Nus said, without looking up from her phone.

‘Hot choc for me.’ Tom’s voice floated in from the depths of the stockroom.

Groaning, Harri collected everyone’s mugs from the office and made her way to SLIT’s ridiculously small kitchen. In truth, the title ‘kitchen’ was incredibly generous for what the room actually was; calling it a cupboard with a stainless-steel sink squeezed into one corner would be more accurate. The green vinyl covering the floor looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in years and stuck to the soles of her shoes as Harri man oeuvred her way around the boxes of brochures that were haphazardly stacked by the entrance. A few brave shafts of light managed to break through the grey grime covering the tiny safety glass window as the old water boiler shuddered and bumped into life. Trying not to inhale the strong smell of mouldy plastic, Harri filled the mugs with hot water and balanced them on a ‘wood-effect’ tray that had once passed for mahogany (but now resembled grey-brown peeling chipboard) along with tea-bags, coffee jar, hot chocolate canister, slightly damp sugar bag and spoons, carefully navigating the boxes to emerge back into the office. Having worked at SLIT for as long as she had, she’d quickly learned that the safest way to prepare drinks was at her own desk rather than braving the kitchen’s cramped confines.

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