Happy Ever After Read online

  Cornish Village School - Happy Ever After

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  Cover

  Table of Contents

  Start of Content

  For Rob and Andrew, the best wedding of the year. ♥

  Chapter One

  Marion glanced at the kitchen clock as she was prepping supper; her son Rafe was later than usual. He was out walking Darcy – a Weimaraner, who was the size of a small tank and possessed a similarly destructive nature – and it was unlike him to be more than fifteen minutes. He had been gone nearly an hour.

  However, nothing was going to bother her this afternoon, neither her sons nor Darcy, whom Richard had bought as a puppy to keep her company whilst he was working away. Today she was thoroughly loved up, happy to indulge her husband’s bizarre thought processes, happy to turn a blind eye to her son’s tardiness, so excited was she about the upcoming anniversary weekend she and Richard had planned. February was such a romantic month for the two of them, with their anniversary followed by Valentine’s Day the week after.

  She was still staring into space when Rafe wandered in, the dog bounding beside him, unspeakably grubby as if he had been rolling in every slurry pit within a five-mile radius.

  ‘Rafe, no! Take him into the garden; he can’t come in like this.’ Just as she was gesturing at a muddy footprint – Disneyesque in its perfection – upon her wall-to-wall white carpeting, a howling scream came skittering through the house. It was rapidly followed by a thud, thud, crash down the stairs, as if an escaped racehorse had become trapped in one of the bedrooms and was making a run for it, risking its ankles on every step and going heavy and fast to get it over with.

  Only it wasn’t a racehorse, it was a small boy followed by a slightly larger one. Loud words, hard to decipher, tumbling over each other as both raced to be the first to get to their mother.

  None of which was helping Rafe control the dog, who, at the sound of the other two Marksharp boys, had begun to whirl around, his tail thrashing from side to side, trying to join in the rumpus. Mud flew from him as he scampered around the room barking with joy, his lead still attached.

  ‘Boys!’ Marion bellowed, to little avail. Why was it that she was respected in this village, could quell an entire school with an eyebrow and shape a whole community into doing what she wanted in under five seconds, but marshalling her own sons – Rafe, who was twelve years old, Rupert, who was ten, and Rufus, the baby, at six – felt like a task akin to Napoleon attempting to invade Russia? If the members of Penmenna PTA could see her now, they wouldn’t believe this was her home life. They may never follow another order.

  ‘Boys!’ she shouted again, one more attempt to halt the noise, mud and general hubbub occurring in her living room.

  Nope, nada.

  Rafe was trying to drag the dog out, far from easy with Darcy weighing as much as he did and blessed with a determination matched only by her sons. Rupert was trying to grab hold of his younger brother, Rufus, who was enjoying evading him, giggling as he nipped here and crouched down there, turning and twisting just out of the grasp of his increasingly frustrated sibling.

  She took a deep breath, counted to ten and prepared herself for battle.

  ‘I swear to…’ Marion rarely actually swore. Only in a dire emergency where her humanity took over from her innate and embedded sense of control. Control that sadly wasn’t extending to her offspring at this moment.

  Her words were interrupted by the high-pitched call of the laptop, open on the table.

  Like a siren to a sailor it pierced the chaos and the three boys spun to look at it.

  A video call from their father. A rare treat at this time of day.

  Rufus, small, wiry and with a twisty form that Houdini would have been proud of, was first to reach the table, the other two and Darcy – who Rafe had now completely given up on getting outside – shortly behind him.

  ‘Dad!’ came the chorus of three as they clicked the answer icon and Richard’s beautiful face filled up the screen.

  Marion indulged in a brief sigh at the sight of him. Things were so wonderfully back on track at last, something she had feared could never be after the run-up to Christmas last year. Then her eye caught the state of the living room.

  This would not do.

  She hauled the dog – whose excited turn up and down on the sofa had given it a unique print pattern – and booted him unceremoniously out of the back door whilst the boys talked to their father. A man they all equally adored, to the point that when they were little Marion felt that if they could have unzipped his skin and climbed in they would have done and still not felt close enough.

  The unexpected video chat was extra special as Richard was a man very frequently absent these days. He’d been working away in the city for the last couple of years, leaving Marion the joy of parenting practically by herself but without the support network that other single parents in the village seemed to have created.

  Dog dealt with, she quickly grabbed the lipstick sitting on the mantlepiece. She applied it perfectly and in under two seconds before heading to the table, patting her hair into place as she went.

  She joined the boys at the laptop, glimpsing her husband’s face through a gap between Rafe and Rupert’s shoulders and able to catch his smile as his eyes lit upon her face.

  ‘Boys, I’m sure you’ve got a whole heap of homework to be doing,’ Richard said as Marion utilized her very best serene agreement face, successfully masking the truth that chance would be a fine thing. It normally took her a good ten minutes to round them up just to leave the house. Getting them all to sit down to do their homework took a good half hour.

  ‘Go make a start and be good for your mother, you know how lucky you are to have her. I love you all so very much but right now I need to have a chat with Mum, just her and me. I’ll be back next weekend and we shall do something wonderful just the five of us. With any luck the sun will smile and it will be glorious; you can think of things you’d like to do.’ Richard always managed to make everything sound as if they still lived in a world in which the Famous Five reigned supreme. Mi
nd you, he did keep a picnic basket in the car, along with lashings of ginger beer, so maybe in his they did.

  Like perfect Stepford children, the boys brushed their fringes out of their eyes, and chorused ‘Of course, Dad, that’ll be awesome, love you, see you soon’ before heading up the stairs far more decorously than they had come down, aware that their father’s eyes were tracking them across the room as they did so. Marion didn’t know how he did it but was grateful that he could. She just wished he was home a bit more often, using his magic for everyday good.

  ‘Such good boys, a credit to you, darling, I don’t know how you do it.’ Richard smiled at his wife as she pulled out a chair and sat down, holding his eyes and grinning right back.

  God, she loved this man.

  She had been attracted to his tall frame, tightly curled short hair and overall nerdiness when she first set eyes upon him, all those years ago, during her first term at Oxford. He had embodied geek chic before such a thing even existed, with his thick-rimmed glasses, love of books and stuttering discomfort around women.

  The last couple of years though had been tricky, not because their love – which was strong and passionate and true – had dimmed over time but because his work necessitated his absence, despite his promise that he’d be able to take early retirement any day now. A hope that hovered over them and their family as his absences were prolonged, the promise never fully realized. Marion felt more and more isolated, abandoned, desperate even as she struggled in this village raising the boys and presenting the archetypal picture of the perfect family.

  There had been a couple of low points, points where she had seriously considered leaving him. Where she had begun to believe that things would be easier if she were on her own; she’d know that everything was on her, without the burden of disappointment, failed expectations of another person contributing. Maybe the people in the village would help more, take off some of the pressures that she piled upon herself.

  In summer, her resentment had built so high that she’d escaped to where she knew she would be welcomed and had jetted off to Morocco, boys in tow, to spend the summer with Hector, a mutual friend from their uni days; but her love for Richard had brought her right back again. Determined to try one more time.

  Then this year at Christmas, she had been on the receiving end of a particularly spiteful campaign by another mother at Penmenna School who had told her that Richard’s colleague, Claudia, was desperately in love with him. Her husband, who was now staring out from the screen, running his fingers around his collar and smiling at her nervously. The husband who spent every day in his office, over two hundred and fifty miles away with Claudia’s raven-haired beauty beside him.

  ‘Darling, how have you been? Sorry to be calling at this time of day but the Texans are landing later and I’ll be tied up with them all evening. Not tied up, you know that’s just for you and me…’ Richard gave her a wink – she felt a shiver trail down her spine – and then changed the subject. ‘What’s new? I see the boys are thriving.’

  ‘They are.’ She angled the laptop screen slightly away from the muddy footprints she spotted on the sofa, just to the top right of the screen. That bloody dog. It was going to take her ages to brush all that out. She wondered if there was anyone she could call to come and do it for her.

  ‘I’m fine, everything is running smoothly here. But…’ She dropped her voice, making it sultry, promising. ‘I cannot wait until this weekend. We are going to have the best time.’ She gave him her most practised look, the one that normally had him fumbling at his belt buckle as if he and she were still twenty.

  She meant it. After a big blow-up at Christmas he had promised her this weekend to show her how much he cared, how she was his everything, had been since he was nineteen and continued to be now.

  ‘Oh, Marion.’ He drew out her name in the same way he had always done, a word that when said in that tone had a languidity to it that conjured up decades full of loving. Then he broke eye contact, looking down at the keyboard just for a second before bringing his eyes up to meet hers again, jiggling his glasses as he did so. That was a tell. ‘Marion, I don’t know how to say this so I’m just going to come out with it. Look, this is crucifying me, I wish it were different…’

  ‘Nooo!’ Marion heard herself let out a low sound before sharply trying to pull herself together, but it was a struggle and she couldn’t contain the words that followed. ‘Not this weekend. Oh, Richard, you promised.’

  ‘I know, sweet pea, I know. I said I’d hand in my notice before I let anything stop us from celebrating our anniversary, I know I did. But honestly, it’s just this meeting. The Japanese have finally agreed to fly in and negotiate terms face to face. I tried, I did try, I told the CEO that he needed to reschedule, that I couldn’t possibly be here, that I ran the risk of losing my wife.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And he said that my wife could… well I won’t say what but he suggested something most unpleasant and he still wouldn’t let me skip the meeting. He said after this deal was finished I could afford five wiv… um… yes, maybe not… but I begged, I really did. And he’s right, he is. We’ve been working on it for so long now and this meeting is pivotal; if we can just pull this off then that will be it. I can come home and we can be together, like I always promised. One more weekend. I’ll make it up to you, I swear.’

  Marion took a deep breath. She could have predicted this, had predicted this and then told herself off for being so pessimistic. He couldn’t help it, and as she looked at the deep brown of his eyes she knew he was feeling as bad as could be, knew he wouldn’t have done this on purpose.

  ‘Marion, I love you so desperately, please understand, please don’t be angry at me. It’s tearing me to bits.’

  And she knew it was true. She knew it. The very bones of her knew it.

  It was just that after all the rumours of an affair last year, she had crowed high and wide about this special anniversary away, triumphant about how Richard was choosing her over work. She had told anyone that would listen. And a fair few that wouldn’t. Childcare had been arranged, the dog-sitter had been booked. She couldn’t bear not to see him, but even more she couldn’t bear the look of pity on people’s faces when she cancelled. The look of superiority of the Serenas and the Jennys of this world, with their ever-present husbands. She couldn’t and she wouldn’t.

  An idea formed in her mind, an idea where she could still be the perfect wife, still see her husband and keep the respect and envy of those catty-tongued women in the village. She smiled at Richard. God, she loved him. Of course he couldn’t help it.

  ‘Darling, I understand. It’s not your fault. I know you’d be with me in our hotel, in our plush five-star four-poster bed, watching me take off the most insane lingerie I have ever bought or in the private hot tub out on the decking if you could…’ She lowered her tone suggestively again; no harm in getting in what he was missing out on. ‘Of course you can’t help it. I understand, I really do.’

  Her husband gulped and she thought she saw a tear well in the corner of his eye.

  ‘Marion Marksharp, I love you. You are the best wife any man could ever have.’

  She smiled knowingly; after all she couldn’t help but believe that he was absolutely right.

  Chapter Two

  Marion stood on Jenny’s doorstep waiting for her to answer the door. She wasn’t sure what was taking so long – the woman knew she was coming and Marion was never late. Surely the least she could expect was that the person she was entrusting her children with for the weekend could answer a door promptly.

  She glanced across at the boys and wondered, just for a millisecond, if she should brief Jenny on the worst possibilities that could occur whilst she was away. But having surreptitiously checked the boys’ bags thoroughly before they left she figured that she would carry on maintaining the perfect-family myth. No need to explode what she had worked so hard at maintaining over the years. If anything, she took comfort from the fact that
her boys were bright enough to cover their tracks effectively.

  Rupert didn’t seem to have any matches, lighters or any other implements upon him and she was fairly sure he had grown out of his brief dalliance with arson. She suspected the vicar’s shed going up the way it had a couple of years ago had been enough to put paid to that. Or at least she hoped so, if just for this weekend.

  Rafe was banned from going to Whispering Pines, the old people’s home up the road, and had been respecting the ban for a few months now. Indeed, he was banned from going anywhere where he could fleece people of money or otherwise engage in gambling. His fear she would tell his father had proven a very useful deterrent. He didn’t need to know that she already had. The two of them had no secrets. However, she had set up parental controls on their tablets that Edward Snowden would have trouble getting past, and changed her bank details again to be on the safe side.

  And as for darling Rufus, the baby of the bunch, he seemed to have stopped biting and Jenny had received the same training at Penmenna School that she, Marion, had.

  She could hear voices approaching the door, at last!

  ‘But no one likes her, and she’s mean to you.’ The muffled words came from inside the house and were hard to make out. Marion cocked her head to see if she could hear more but all she heard was Jenny’s entreaty for her daughter to be quiet and then a fumble at the door. Was the voice referring to her? More than likely. You couldn’t please all the people all the time.

  ‘Ahh, hello, sorry. I was in the garden.’ Jenny pulled the front door wide open and bestowed a smile upon the Marksharp family as they stood there, ushering them all in with a wave of her hand.

  In the garden? When she knew she was arriving? Marion had trained Jenny up to the highest of standards and she had proved the quickest and most reliable of all her PTA ladies but even now, sometimes, she had her doubts about the woman’s competence.

  As she entered the hallway Jenny leant forward and the two engaged in the traditional air kiss, double-cheeked, at least six inches away from actual flesh and as false as Serena Burchill-Whyte’s perfectly perky bosom. Marion had seen Jenny’s husband, a local fisherman, so there was no way she would ever allow Jenny’s lips to come into contact with her own skin.