The Teashop on the Corner Read online

  Milly Johnson is a joke-writer, greetings card creator, newspaper columnist, after-dinner speaker, poet, winner of Come Dine with Me, Sunday Times Top Ten author and recipient of the RNA’s Romantic Comedy Award of 2014.

  She is half-Yorkshire, half-Glaswegian and is proud patron of two fabulous charities: www.yorkshirecatrescue.org and thewellatthecore.co.uk, which is a complementary therapy centre for cancer patients.

  She likes cruising on big ships, Sciolti chocolates and Peller’s Cuvée Ice Wine. She does not like marzipan or lamb chops.

  She lives happily in Barnsley with her two massive lads, Teddy the dog and two very spoilt cats. Her mam and dad live in t’next street.

  The Teashop on the Corner is her tenth book.

  Find out more at www.millyjohnson.co.uk or follow Milly on Twitter @millyjohnson

  Also by Milly Johnson

  The Yorkshire Pudding Club

  The Birds & the Bees

  A Spring Affair

  A Summer Fling

  Here Come the Girls

  An Autumn Crush

  White Wedding

  A Winter Flame

  It’s Raining Men

  First published by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd 2014

  A CBS COMPANY

  Copyright © Millytheink Ltd, 2014

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  ® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  The right of Milly Johnson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

  1st Floor

  222 Gray’s Inn Road

  London WC1X 8HB

  www.simonandschuster.co.uk

  Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney

  Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi

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

  Export TPB ISBN: 978-1-47111-463-2

  PB ISBN: 978-1-47111-464-9

  EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-47111-465-6

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Typeset by M Rules

  Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

  This book is dedicated to the lovely Molly Clemit who died 15 March 2014. May she find heaven full of books, friendly cats and teashops xxx

  Things will always get better.

  After all, when you’ve hit rock bottom,

  there’s nowhere to go but up.

  ANON

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  ‘Man, cl-that is born of a woman, hath-cl but a short time to live, and is-cl full of misery. He cometh up, and is cl-cut down, like a flower; he fleeth-cl as it were a cl-shadow, and never continueth in one cl-stay.’ The Reverend Duckworth relished the grave drama of his monologue as he sprayed the principal mourners on the front row with a light shower of saliva.

  Behind Carla, her eighty-three-year-old neighbour Mavis Marple muttered under her breath to whoever was sitting next to her. ‘He sounds like Louie Spence.’

  Mavis Marple didn’t do discreet very well. Still, she did love a good funeral, and a wedding. She’d attend anyone’s in the hope of getting invited to the post-event buffet.

  ‘They should have umbrellas on the front row.’

  ‘Shhh,’ someone else attempted to whisper, although the angry-python hiss echoed just as loudly around the church.

  ‘Well he does,’ went on Mavis. ‘All those cl-sth sounds.’

  ‘Thou knowest-cl, Lord, the cl-secrets of our hearts-cl,’ the Reverend Duckworth went on, raising his left hand heavenward in a grand sweep. In his own head he was Laurence Olivier holding up Yorick’s skull.

  But the words were mere white noise to Carla, whose sad dark brown eyes were fixed on the coffin behind him. She couldn’t believe that Martin, her husband of ten years, was in there. In a wide wooden box. She had the mad urge to run up to it and prise off the lid with her fingernails to see him again, just one last time, to touch his face and tell him that she loved him. He had been torn from her too quickly. One minute he was eating a pork pie and mint sauce in the kitchen, the next he was dead on the garage floor. She wanted to see in his eyes that he knew how much she lo
ved him and how much of a hole he had left in her heart.

  ‘Arshes to arshes, dust to dust.’

  ‘Did he just say “arses to arses”?’ Mavis Marple asked no one in particular and set off a ripple of involuntary giggling. Carla wasn’t angry though. Funerals were a powder keg of pressure. Had she been watching all this on a sitcom, she would probably have giggled too. The pantomime effect wasn’t lost on her: old Reverend Duckworth in his thick brown wig attempting a National Theatre delivery, doing his best to enunciate all those elusive pure ‘s’ sounds. But this wasn’t a sitcom, it was real life. This time last week she had been a loving wife to Martin, washing his socks, waiting for him to come home to her on Friday nights after a hard week working all around the country; and now she was a widow, holding a fat red rose that she would place on his coffin which would soon be incinerated with him in a giant oven.

  Someone’s stomach made a loud gurgling noise as if water was rushing down a plughole.

  ‘Sorry,’ said the stomach’s owner.

  At the back of the church the huge heavy door creaked open and banged shut again, making a sound that wouldn’t have been out of place on a Hammer Horror film. Pronounced tappy footsteps followed. Carla sensed people shifting in their seats to turn and see who the latecomer was, but she didn’t join them. It couldn’t be anyone important. There was no one here who meant anything much to Martin. There were a few neighbours, including Mavis Marple, who might have been inappropriately loud, but was also a good woman and kindness itself. There was Martin’s cousin Andrew over from Bridlington, whom they hadn’t set eyes on since their wedding; a few people that Carla didn’t recognise, some probably men from the local club where Martin used periodically to play darts; and someone who looked suspiciously like a tramp who had come in for the warmth. Martin didn’t have friends and there was no one from his workplace, at which Carla’s disappointment edged towards disgust. Her husband had given Suggs Office Equipment a lot of hard-working years and yet when Carla rang them up to inform them of his passing, the woman on the switchboard didn’t even seem to have recognised his name. She’d said she’d email the head of sales, and took Carla’s number, but no one rang her back.

  Carla mouthed a silent message to her friend Theresa. Oh, I wish you were here. Theresa was in New Zealand with her husband Jonty, visiting their son. How could she have rung them with her news and spoilt their holiday? Even though a little part of her wanted to spoil it, wanted to smash up their holiday with a hammer because she suspected they were going on a fact-finding mission, to learn if they could live over there. Their daughter-in-law was pregnant with her first child, in a part of the country that had all-year sunshine, so who could blame them? Selfish as it made her, Carla wished she could teleport her friend over to sit at her side today, instead of Andrew and his overpowering odour of sweaty feet.

  Forty-eight was no age at all to die. Carla and Martin had been robbed of many happy years together. Carla had been saving up to take him on a cruise for his fiftieth birthday, at least until she’d been made redundant last month. It was so unfair. Martin had worked too hard – all that driving every day, constant stress to sell to clients and meet targets – no wonder he’d had a massive heart attack. Carla dabbed at her tears with her black gloves. Her foundation stained the material. She didn’t care. She didn’t care about the swish of whispers that was rising behind her like a tidal wave. She didn’t care about anything at that moment in time. Martin had gone out to the garage alive and well to carry in the dressing table which Carla had finished stripping down and hand-painting. Wait for me, it’s too heavy, Carla had called after him. Just let me finish basting this chicken. But he hadn’t waited. He had lifted it single-handedly then collapsed and died on the spot. Their marriage, snuffed out, just like the candle on a birthday cake.

  ‘The Lord bless-cl Martin Pride, the Lord maketh-cl his face to cl-shine upon him and give him peace-cl. Amen.’

  There was an echoed chorus of Amens.

  ‘I now invite Carla to lead you to cl-say your goodbyes-cl to Martin before he leaves-cl us to join his Lord in eternal peace-cl,’ said the Reverend Duckworth, holding out his arm towards her to head up the final acknowledgement.

  Carla pulled herself wearily up from the pew. She was totally distraught and felt twice as old as her thirty-four years. She was clinging on to her long-stemmed red rose as if it was the only thing keeping her on her feet. She walked slowly over to the coffin and laid the rose gently on top of it.

  ‘Goodbye, Martin. Goodbye, my love.’

  Then it all happened so quickly. Before anyone else could stand, a tall, grim-faced woman in a black coat and high red heels flounced forwards, picked up Carla’s rose, threw it on the floor and placed her own red rose on the coffin instead. It had a head the size of a football. There was a churchful of gasps as Carla turned to her with shocked confusion and both women locked eyes.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing? Who are you?’ Carla asked.

  ‘I’m Martin’s wife,’ the woman in the red shoes replied. ‘Or should I say “widow” now.’

  Chapter 2

  ‘Mrs Williams, I am on my knees. Just one more week, please. I am begging you.’

  Will Linton was indeed on his knees as he pleaded with Mrs Cecilia Williams from the West Yorkshire Bank. He was desperately playing for time, even though he suspected an extra week wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference. He had exhausted every avenue which might have saved his company from closing and his workforce from the dole. The bank had been more than fair, really. They’d given him two extensions already and no miracle had occurred to save him, however hard he had prayed for one. His accountant had warned him that they wouldn’t listen and it was time to give up and throw in the towel, but Will felt duty-bound to try to give it everything he had.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Linton,’ said Mrs Williams, her voice firm but not unkind. ‘We can’t.’

  She was probably a good woman who was nice to animals, a mother, a wife, a convivial host at dinner parties, but at work her job was to know when to say, ‘No. It’s the end.’

  Will opened his mouth to remonstrate, but he knew it was over. He could hear faint strains of Simon and Garfunkel in the back of his mind. Cecilia, you’re breaking my heart. This Cecilia had also broken his balls. But he didn’t blame her – the fault was entirely his.

  The massive Phillips and Son Developments had gone into receivership and in turn had taken down Yorkshire Stone Homes who, in turn, had taken down Linton Roofing, whose director had been idiot enough to put all his eggs in the Yorkshire Stone Homes basket. A chain of businesses had toppled like dominos, but this was no innocent child’s game. Men were going to be out of work – good men with families and mortgages. He’d intended to retire in ten years max, when he was forty-eight. Throwing his all in with Yorkshire Stone Homes should have set Will up for life. It was a no-brainer whether or not to trust them – they had been a rock solid and highly profitable business for over fifty years. Oh, the irony.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Williams, for all you’ve done. I appreciate it,’ he said, his throat as dry as one of the bags of cement in his builders’ yard.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again, and sounded it. ‘I’ll send you a letter confirming our conversation and advising of the next steps to be taken.’

  He didn’t say any more before putting the phone back on the cradle. He didn’t know what those next steps would consist of. He couldn’t handle even thinking about them just yet. He had a big wall inside his head, holding back the questions, the fears, the confusion, the shame. It was going to crumble at any moment, but until it did, he would savour the blankness.

  He heard the front door open and close and smelt his wife Nicole before he saw her as she swept in on a wave of her perfume, something sickly and sweet and reminiscent of chocolate limes, which she used as liberally as if she were crop-spraying. He hated that smell, not that he had ever told her that.

  She had shopping bags in her hands, o
f course. He wouldn’t have recognised her had she not had bags in her hands. And all the bags had names on them: Biba, Karen Millen, Chanel. Actually, he didn’t recognise her at all for a moment – the last time he had seen her she’d had short blonde hair, now she looked like bleedin’ Rapunzel.

  ‘So, what did they say?’ she asked. There was no softness in her voice. ‘I’m gathering by you kneeling on the floor that it isn’t good news.’

  Nicole had dropped the bags now and was standing with her arms crossed, her artificially inflated lips attempting to pucker.

  ‘It’s the end,’ he said, turning his face towards her. He wanted her to stride up to him, put her arms around him, tell him that it was all right and they’d weather it. Instead she said, ‘Fuck.’ And looked furious.

  ‘We’ve lost the lot, love.’ He shrugged and gave a humourless dry chuckle.

  Nicole’s head jerked. ‘Don’t “love” me.’

  She’d had hair extensions put in and had been in the hairdressers’ all day. It was two hundred pounds a pop to have a squirt of shampoo at Mr Corleone’s in Sheffield – especially as Nicole always had the head stylist, the don himself: so with that in mind, what had those extensions cost? And God knows how much she’d spent shopping. Then again, daddy cleared her Visa bill every month. She was a married woman of thirty-two and yet daddy still gave her pocket money, although Nicole didn’t know that Will knew that.

  ‘I’ll get it back. Everything,’ said Will. ‘I might have lost it now, but I’ll bounce back stronger than ever. If I let them take the lot – the house, the car, the company, clear the accounts, I can avoid bankruptcy. I can start again.’

  Nicole didn’t say a thing in response. She just flicked her new hair over her shoulder. The irony didn’t bypass Will that at least one of them had been successful in getting some extensions today.

  ‘You’ll be living in a mansion this time next year,’ he said, trying to coax a smile out of her. ‘It’ll make this place look like a pig-sty.’

  Her expression didn’t falter.

  ‘It’s the end of Linton Roofing. There’s nothing I can do.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. There has to be something.’

  Ridiculous? She didn’t know the meaning of the word. He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept properly, without waking up in a sweat of panic. Or eaten a meal that he didn’t want to throw up again. His anxiety levels were off the scale: he’d lost two stone in weight, he got dizzy if he climbed past the fifth rung of a ladder, and yet his darling missus was always out sitting under a dryer, shopping in House of bloody Fraser, having someone put false nails on the tips of her fingers or being wrapped in seaweed as if she hadn’t a care in the world. That was ridiculous.