The Secret of Happy Ever After (56 page)

Michelle was looking forward to Christmas for the first time in years, but she didn’t have time to do half of her usual decorating. Normally she set aside two weekends to wind the garlands around the banister, fix pine cones along the mantle-pieces and make her Christmas cards, as well as trimming the tree and pinning stars and baubles into place. It took hours and hours, and felt more Christmassy than the lonely day itself, despite what she’d pretended to Anna in the past.

This year, Michelle had only time to get a tree, and that was it. Even the tree was a last-minute panic; things were so busy in both shops she hadn’t had time to order her usual majestic pine from the specialist, and her evenings were taken up with Rory and Tavish. In the end, they’d grabbed the last wonky fir in the garden centre on their way back from a country walk and pub lunch, stuffing it unceremoniously into the back of her car, much to Tavish’s disgust at the needles in his car crate.

Michelle looked at the lopsided tree, relatively plain with just gold baubles and a big gold star, and decided that she liked it. Minimalist. Like the minimal decor in the house this year. An under-decorated home, she decided, was a busy, happy one.

Her mother had started the guilt trip about where she’d be spending Christmas early in December, but Michelle had got her story straight, thanks to a surprise present from Rory.

‘Would you like to go to Paris for Christmas?’ he asked, coming into Home Sweet Home one lunchtime. ‘It’s just that I’ve always wanted to go to Notre Dame on Christmas Day and if I go on my own, I’ll look like a sad man from an E. M. Forster novel.’

‘And if you go with me?’

‘I’ll look like the romantic hero in a Richard Curtis film.’

‘Are you saying that because you think I can only do films?’ said Michelle, ignoring Gillian’s ‘wedding hat’ face behind Rory. ‘I’ve actually read
The Da Vinci Code
, you know. I know about Paris.’

Rory winked at her, but underneath the teasing, she knew he was thinking about what she’d told him about Harvey, and about her nightmare family Christmases. He’d been horrified by them too, and had obviously been thinking about how he could rescue her.

‘I’m going to see Zachary the weekend before,’ he added, before she could ask. ‘Let’s get the family duty done first, then we can enjoy the holiday.’

‘Ho ho ho,’ said Michelle, and smiled.

The following weekend, she took the bull by the horns, packed her car full of presents and drove down to her parents’ to surprise them.

Her mother wasn’t that thrilled to be surprised. She was, she explained, right in the middle of making a complicated trifle, with two kinds of custard and fruit layers, for some dinner party the following night. Michelle looked at the apparatus, arranged on the kitchen counters like a set of operating instruments, and for once she didn’t feel like a domestic failure. It just looked like a lot of washing-up. For a trifle.

‘Michelle!’ Charles looked pleased to see her. He was restricted to a corner of the kitchen, thanks to the freshly mopped floor, but he stood up and opened his arms and mimed a hug.

‘Shoes off, please,’ snapped Carole as Michelle went to hug him. ‘Well, this is an honour. We weren’t expecting to see you without at least four phone calls first. Is there something wrong?’

‘No. It’s just that I won’t be here for Christmas Day,’ she said, ‘so I’ve brought everyone’s presents now.’

‘Oh, not again? I thought after last year you might make the effort – to help me, if nothing else.’ Her mother looked cross, apparently forgetting that Ben and Jonathan regularly begged to be allowed to have Christmas on their own. ‘And please don’t tell me you’re helping out in an old people’s home. At least be honest and say you’re spending the day in bed watching films.’

‘No, I’m going to Paris,’ said Michelle happily. ‘Minibreak.’

‘Paris?’ The crossness turned to sympathy. ‘You can’t go to Paris on your own, not for
Christmas
. Is it one of those singles’ events? Because you could be
here
with—’

‘I won’t be on my own, Mum,’ said Michelle. ‘I’m going with a friend.’

‘Really? I thought your friend had that complicated family situation? Won’t she be with them?’

‘No, Carole.’ Michelle’s father stepped in before Michelle could reply. ‘It’ll be a bloke. Paris at Christmas – how romantic, Michelle.’

‘We’re staying in the Marais. I’ve never been. Apparently the shops are gorgeous. Although,’ she added, ‘I’ve been told I’m not allowed to do much shopping. Even if anything’s open.’

‘That sounds marvellous,’ said Charles. ‘Good for you. Any room for a little one?’

‘Don’t even joke, Charles. I need all hands on deck. Ooh. Is that the phone?’ said Carole, tipping her head to one side.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Charles. ‘Would you like your hearing aid turned up?’

‘I don’t have one. As you well know. I think it was the phone. Will you excuse me?’

Michelle knew from the artificial way her mother was pantomiming concern for the phantom missed phone call that she was up to something; it didn’t take much to work out what.

‘Dad . . .’ she said casually, when Carole had scurried out – if her mother was putting in a call to Harvey, she didn’t have much time before he appeared at the front door, all smiles and tactics – ‘this is a bit awkward, but a friend of mine bought a car from the Kingston dealership, and she had a bit of a problem with the money side of things. She was charged for something she didn’t get, or there was some issue with the finance agreement? Anyway, she was worried that something didn’t seem quite right about it all, so I said I’d mention it, find out what was going on.’

‘I hope you told her we’d put things right,’ said Charles. He seemed uneasy. ‘That’s not the first time someone’s mentioned Kingston to me. The accountants weren’t very happy with the last quarter, between you and me.’

‘Really?’ It wasn’t a complete fabrication; Michelle had rung one of the girls she used to work with at the main dealership for a chat, on the hunch that Harvey might have something to cover up. You didn’t buy new cars like his on commission alone; it must have cost five times what hers had, and she knew what commission she’d been earning.

Michelle hated seeing her dad worried, but it was better than the alternative; letting Harvey get away with scamming him. ‘I thought I’d tell you rather than Harvey so there’s no embarrassment if someone is . . . up to something. I know what a team player he is.’

‘That’s thoughtful.’ Charles was reading her face shrewdly. He knew what she was trying to say; they didn’t always have to put things into words. ‘I could do with someone like you to oversee all this,’ he said, with a hopeful smile. ‘No chance of persuading you back, I suppose?’

‘Not at the moment.’ For an instant Michelle panicked that Harvey had been telling the truth – that her dad
was
ill and
did
want them to take over to let him retire. But his expression was concerned, not exhausted.

‘Thought not,’ he sighed. ‘Had to ask, though. From a selfish point of view, there’s no one else I’d rather see running it, but I’m glad you’ve got your own business. It’s good to grow something for yourself. We’ve been telling everyone about that website of yours. I think your mother must have sent everyone in the golf club a what do you call it? A link.’

‘Really?’ said Michelle. ‘Mum was telling people?’

‘She was.’ Charles ignored Carole’s clean floor and came over to put his arms around his daughter. ‘I don’t tell you enough, Michelle, but we’re so proud of you. I know things weren’t easy after that business at school, but the way you’ve pulled yourself up, and worked so hard . . . That means a lot more to an uneducated grafter like your dad than just getting on some corporate escalator. Don’t tell your brothers.’

‘I won’t.’ Michelle was moved. It was the first time he’d ever referred directly to her expulsion. She’d never even mentioned it to him after it happened, much less discussed the reason for it. She wondered what had prompted it now. ‘But I’m sorry, Dad. For embarrassing you and Mum. For wasting that money and time and . . .’

‘What? You’re apologising for that? To be perfectly honest, love, we blamed ourselves for years. Your mother and I . . . Well, we had a bit of a falling-out before we sent you there. It doesn’t matter now, all water under the bridge, but your mother didn’t want you and Owen listening to us arguing. We thought a school like that would be the best place, till we worked things out.’ He seemed determined to get it out, though he clearly felt uncomfortable.

‘You were arguing?’ A door opened in Michelle’s head, and suddenly she saw it from an adult’s perspective. ‘That was why Mum was away a lot?’

‘I’m afraid so. But you see, we patched it up. It’s probably why your mother’s so keen for you to try again with Harvey. She knew how bad things were for us, but we pulled it around.’

‘Dad,’ said Michelle, only just keeping the tears out of her voice. ‘Harvey and I . . . It’s not like you and Mum. Please believe me.’

‘We shouldn’t have sent you away,’ he said, his voice crackling.

Charles held her at arm’s length. His weathered face, toughened by years in the sun and rain of garage forecourts, tensed with emotion, and she could see tears around the edges of his eyes.

She looked into his familiar old face and wondered if he knew. He would never have said. But there was something in his eyes that hinted at a sharper pain; that something had happened to his golden girl that he hadn’t been allowed to fix. Not even allowed to try.

He pulled her into his chest again and said, sadly and fiercely, into her hair. ‘It doesn’t matter how old you are, Michelle, you’ll always be my little girl. My perfect little girl. There’s
nothing
you could do that would stop us loving you. I’d go to the end of the world and back for you.’

She hugged him tight. ‘I know. I know.’

For a second, she was eighteen again, when there was nothing her wise, bullish father couldn’t sort out with his money or his contacts or his savvy. But Michelle didn’t want to go back. Now she was her own fixer and sorter. It had taken a long time to get there.

‘What’s going on in here?’

Carole appeared at the kitchen island, the cordless phone ostentatiously in her hand. It looked like a prop.

‘Bit of seasonal emotion,’ said Charles, reaching into his pocket for a spotted hanky. ‘Just telling Michelle here how proud we are of her.’

‘Of course we are,’ said Carole. Her face didn’t quite match the words. ‘And we’d be even more proud if—’

‘Carole!’

‘What? You don’t know what I’m going to say.’

‘I do, Mum,’ said Michelle. She tried to temper her words by thinking of what her dad had just told her. ‘You say it every time I come here. And the answer is, sometimes things can’t be fixed. Sometimes, with the best will in the world, they’re just not right.’

‘I can say what I think in my own house, Michelle.’

Michelle looked at her mother and wished she could tell her. But Harvey had spent much longer charming her than she had.

‘Anyway, this hanky?’ said Charlie, shaking it out to blow his nose. ‘The ones you gave me for Christmas last year? Best present I got. You always did know what people needed before they knew themselves. Even when you were little.’ He smiled, and Michelle gulped.

‘Did you say you’d brought presents for Ben’s children?’ Carole asked. ‘Is it a good idea to leave them in the car?’

‘I’ll go and get them,’ said Michelle. She saw her parents exchange a silent eyebrow raise and frown, and knew that Harvey was probably on his way over to ‘drop in’. She was prepared for that, though. She’d rehearsed it with Rory until she was confident she could deliver it calmly.

Although that had been at home, in her lovely ordered house with swans outside and Tavish inside. She scanned the street nervously for signs of Harvey’s car, then shook herself. She could do this.

‘Oh, Michelle, you’ve gone a bit overboard,’ her mother said reproachfully when she brought in the fourth bag of ribbon-tied gifts. ‘What if the boys haven’t got as much for you? They’ll be embarrassed.’

‘I’m sure you can manage it,’ Michelle said. ‘They always get me the same thing anyway. Space NK voucher from Ben, Argos voucher from Jonathan. Is that meant to be a joke, by the way? Because you can tell him I always end up spending it on printer cartridges.’

Have I caught Anna’s reckless tongue syndrome? she wondered. Because it was all coming out now.

Carole sighed. ‘It’ll be so quiet this year. You won’t be here, Owen isn’t coming . . .’

‘Owen’s got his priorities right,’ said Charles. ‘He’s where he should be, spending Christmas with the in-laws. Getting to know his new family.’ He beamed at Michelle. ‘Very charming, aren’t they? Lovely girl, Becca.’

‘
If
you think that’s the right thing to be getting involved with,’ muttered Carole. ‘Teenage mothers . . .’

‘Mum, you weren’t much older when you had Ben,’ said Michelle. Another door opened; was that why she and her dad had hit that bump? Had Carole got to her mid-forties with four children and wondered where her life had gone?

‘I was
married
. And I wasn’t trapping your father into anything – I’m sorry, but it’s true. I’m only saying what everyone else is thinking.’ Her face was alive with self-righteous disapproval and Michelle felt sorry for Owen. And for Becca. And for Anna. Maybe if her mother was now sharing her disapproval between her and Owen it might lessen the impact for both of them, but she doubted it.