Heartbreak and Happiness Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  A Selection of Recent Titles From Rosie Harris

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  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

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  A Selection of Recent Titles from Rosie Harris

  LOVE AGAINST ALL ODDS

  SING FOR YOUR SUPPER

  WAITING FOR LOVE

  LOVE CHANGES EVERYTHING

  A DREAM OF LOVE

  A LOVE LIKE OURS

  THE QUALITY OF LOVE

  WHISPERS OF LOVE

  AMBITIOUS LOVE

  THE PRICE OF LOVE

  A BRIGHTER DAWN

  HELL HATH NO FURY *

  STOLEN MOMENTS *

  LOVE OR DUTY *

  MOVING ON *

  THE MIXTURE AS BEFORE *

  HEARTBREAK AND HAPPINESS *

  * available from Severn House

  HEARTBREAK AND HAPPINESS

  Rosie Harris

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  This first world edition published 2016

  in Great Britain and the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2016 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD

  eBook edition first published in 2016 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2016 by Marion Harris.

  The right of Marion Harris to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Harris, Rosie, 1925- author.

  Heartbreak and happiness.

  1. Female friendship–Fiction. 2. Domestic fiction.

  I. Title

  823.9’14-dc23

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8585-2 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-631-2 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-748-6 (e-book)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk,

  Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  For Simon and Susie, Luna and Ellis Randall

  Acknowledgements

  With many thanks to Kate Lyall Grant and her colleagues at Severn House, and to my agent Caroline Sheldon.

  One

  ‘That new supermarket that’s opened up the road is definitely affecting our turnover, we’ll have to try to do something about it.’

  Bill Peterson was a tall, lean, handsome, dark-haired man in his forties. Usually he was very good-humoured, but at the moment his dark brows were drawn together in a heavy frown.

  He held out the account book he had been poring over to his wife, Sandra, who was busy ironing.

  ‘See for yourself. Look how much the takings were over the last three months, and then compare them with the same period last year.’

  Three years younger than her husband, Sandra was an attractive blonde and although rather glamorous, she was far more practical than he was.

  ‘All businesses have their ups and downs,’ she murmured with an encouraging smile as she paused in her ironing and placed the iron on its stand before taking the ledger from him.

  ‘We’ve got to do something. I don’t intend letting that upstart at the new supermarket put me out of business,’ Bill said with determination.

  ‘You can’t really blame him,’ Sandra argued. ‘He’s only young. And anyway it’s not his business, he’s only the manager. I don’t suppose for one minute that it was his decision to open in Shelston.’

  ‘I know, I know. But he’s the one in charge, he’s the one running the place and ruining our business. Shelston is not really a town, only an overgrown village. We don’t need a supermarket here.’

  ‘Very true,’ Sandra agreed as she passed the ledger back to him and resumed her ironing. ‘And that’s why you can’t expect to do a roaring trade like you might be able to do in a large town. If that’s what you want, then perhaps we should move. Find a shop in a town, or even in a city somewhere, so you can expand the business.’

  ‘Leave Shelston? Not likely!’ Bill said heatedly. ‘I was born and bred here and so were you. We both went to the village school, it’s our home and it was our parents’ home before us, and it’s where we’ll stay until we die.’

  Sandra carefully folded the shirt she’d ironed and placed it on the table, before reaching for another one from the crumpled pile in the laundry basket on the chair beside her.

  ‘Can you imagine leaving here, one of the prettiest villages in the West Country, to go and live in some dirty, noisy town?’ Bill persisted. ‘Would you want to live all cramped up in one of those streets in a town, with houses on either side of you, when we can live here in a lovely old stone cottage surrounded by trees and a couple of acres of ground?’

  ‘No, not really,’ Sandra agreed. ‘But if it was what you wanted, then of course I’d do it.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be able to have any hens running around to provide you with fresh eggs, and there would certainly be nowhere for a vegetable garden.’

  ‘Then stop worrying about how much our shop takings are. We s
upply most of the people hereabouts with their meat and eggs. And from now on, since we’ve made that arrangement for the Masons to provide us with produce from their farm, we’ll have butter and cheese as well.’

  ‘Yes, I know that,’ Bill agreed. ‘In fact it’s already proving to be very popular and we’ve only been doing it for a couple of months.’

  ‘Precisely! So stop worrying.’

  ‘What I’m saying is, what do we want with a supermarket? We’ve already got a baker’s, a fruit-and-vegetable shop, a post office, and a newsagent’s that does cards and fancy goods. So what do we want with another shop, and a supermarket at that?’

  ‘It’s progress, I suppose,’ Sandra murmured.

  ‘Progress! Load of codswallop that is. Who wants to buy their meat all cut to a standard size and wrapped in cling film so they can’t tell whether it’s going to be what they want until they get it home? Oven-ready they call it, or so they tell me down at the pub, but when it’s all wrapped up like that you can’t tell whether it’s pork, beef or old mutton. The bacon’s the same. And the mince is packed in little plastic trays, and when you open it up all the rubbish is at the bottom and the bright-red meat on top.’

  ‘People think that having it packed like that is very hygienic, though,’ Sandra pointed out. ‘There’s no problems with flies—’

  ‘Even the pub trade is being affected because of that damned supermarket,’ Bill interrupted. ‘Only the other day, when I dropped in for a pint, Jack Smart at the Red Lion was complaining about them selling drinks and spirits at cut prices, as well as soft drinks. Give that supermarket another six months of trading and they’ll have put all of us out of business.’

  ‘Oh come on, Bill, things aren’t that bad!’ Sandra insisted. ‘Your reputation as “Bill the Butcher” is far too well known in Shelston and for miles around for that to happen. Folk who shop with us have always liked to know where their meat and poultry comes from, and you just said yourself how delighted they all were when we started stocking butter, cream and cheese from the Masons’ farm.’

  ‘I’d like to think so,’ he agreed. ‘But I’m not so sure it’s going to last. I’ve seen them coming out of that damned supermarket loaded down with plastic bags bulging with stuff they’ve bought in there.’

  ‘Well, they do sell a wide variety of things, you know, not just meat and dairy products. Mavis Mason was telling me she goes in there for her soap powders and a good many other odds and ends she had to go into Gillingham or Yeovil or even Salisbury to buy before they opened.’

  ‘You both managed well enough in the past, and you enjoyed the chance of going out for the day,’ he said dismissively.

  ‘True enough, but I had far more time then. I wasn’t helping out in the shop so much, as we had Maggie Gray working for us.’

  ‘Yes,’ Bill snorted, ‘that’s another reason to hate that supermarket! Offered her better money and more hours than I could afford, but she puts on her coat and walks out after working for me ever since she left school.’

  ‘Maggie’s planning to get married next year,’ Sandra reminded him. ‘So she probably needs every penny she can get to save up for a deposit on a house.’

  ‘That’s as maybe, but I was the one who trained her and taught her all she knows about meat and such like.’

  ‘It’s the end of the school year, so I’m sure we can find another young girl to take her place.’

  ‘No,’ Bill said gloomily, ‘we can’t afford to take anyone else on, not even a school-leaver. At the moment we are barely covering our overheads, and if we are going to be able to afford to send our Becky to university then we’re going to need more money, and no mistake.’

  ‘Worrying about it isn’t going to do any good, and Rebecca hasn’t had the results of her exam yet,’ Sandra said mildly.

  ‘Maybe not, but she will be doing so any day now.’

  ‘Yes, but she may not have good enough marks. Even if she does, she may not want to go to university. At one time she could talk of nothing else but coming to work here in the shop when she was old enough to do so. Remember how she used to dress up in one of your striped aprons and that cream straw hat and pretended to be taking over the business and changing the name to “Becky the Butcher”?’

  ‘Don’t talk rubbish! She was just a kid then and fooling around. Of course she will go on to university. And as for coming to work here, that’s ridiculous. Whoever heard of a woman running a butcher’s shop?’

  Sandra bit down on her lower lip. She wanted to point out that she did almost as much work in the shop as he did, but she knew that wouldn’t go down well with Bill.

  ‘Of course Becky will pass her exams,’ Bill repeated forcefully. ‘She’s as bright as a button, and she spends hours up in her bedroom night after night studying and working away on her computer.’

  Sandra was about to argue with Bill, then she mentally shrugged her shoulders and let it pass. She was pretty sure that although Becky might be ‘working away on her computer’, as Bill put it, she wasn’t always studying or doing anything connected with schoolwork. Telling Bill that would only start a full-scale row between him and Becky, and if that happened it would make Becky more argumentative than she already was.

  Bill didn’t know half of what went on, she thought resignedly as she folded yet another shirt, because his mind was so fully occupied with the shop and the figures it generated.

  Ever since Rebecca had been a tiny tot, he’d put her on a pedestal and thought her incapable of doing anything wrong. It had been at his insistence that Rebecca had gone to a high school, even though it had meant they sometimes had to draw their horns in and spend less on themselves.

  Sandra prayed that Rebecca would do well in her exams after all the sacrifices they’d made, but she was nowhere near as confident as Bill. She knew only too well that their daughter craved independence and even if she did pass her exams there was no guarantee she would agree to go to university.

  Sandra suspected that Rebecca, like her closest friend, Cindy Mason, didn’t always enjoy studying and longed to leave school. These days both girls seemed to regard Shelston as a dull backwater and longed for bright lights and excitement. Becky would probably have been pleased if the family moved to Salisbury or some other busy town where she could enjoy the nightlife.

  She had tried to tell Bill this several times, but he always dismissed it as nonsense. ‘It’s just her age, she’ll grow out of it. She’s ambitious and once she gets to university she’ll settle down and study. I want to see her become a doctor or lawyer or something like that.’

  Sandra was pretty sure he was going to be bitterly disappointed. Rebecca was certainly ambitious, but not in the way Bill thought she was.

  Sandra put the hot iron down on its stand and switched it off. ‘This is supposed to be our half-day, Bill, so put those damned account books away and I’ll go and make us both a cup of tea.’

  ‘Becky will be needing a car soon. I thought we could give her one for her twenty-first birthday.’

  ‘A car!’ Sandra was conscious that her voice had risen. The idea of giving their daughter a car was outrageous.

  ‘Becky can’t even drive! And anyway what about me having a car before she does?’ she exclaimed in a voice that was far more accusing than she intended it to be.

  ‘You don’t need a car. You use the van whenever you want to go anywhere, the same as I do. You know that.’

  ‘The van, yes, that’s what I have to use. A van with a grinning pig’s head on the side! How do you think that makes me feel?’

  Bill’s eyes widened and he stared back at her in shocked surprise. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again and jumped up abandoning the ledgers and other papers.

  ‘Don’t bother with making tea for me. Finish the ironing or whatever it is you are doing,’ he told her as he reached for his jacket, which he had hung on the back of his chair.

  Grabbing Sandra’s face between both his hands, he gave her a smacking
big kiss on her forehead. ‘You’ve given me an idea. I’m going for a walk to clear my head of those damn figures and devote some thought to a great new way of increasing our profits.’

  Two

  Giggling nervously, Cindy Mason and Rebecca Peterson stood on the pavement outside the village post office waiting for Paddy Atkins, the postman, to return from his rounds.

  They were both tall and slim, but quite different in looks. Cindy had shoulder-length straight dark hair and dark-brown eyes. Rebecca had honey-coloured hair and grey eyes.

  Both girls were casually dressed in jeans and T-shirts. Rebecca’s was a pale leaf green, Cindy’s a jazzy mix of red, green, purple, blue and black. It was mid-August and they were anxiously waiting for the results of their A-level exams.

  Their apprehension increased as the mail van drew up alongside them.

  ‘I hope he’s remembered what we asked him to do,’ Rebecca murmured.

  ‘Of course he has,’ Cindy said confidently as the postman leaned out of the van and with a broad smile handed each of them an official-looking envelope.

  ‘There you are, girls, I hope the results are what you want them to be,’ he grinned as they took the letters from him and thanked him profusely.

  They smiled nervously. They both knew their futures depended on what was in the two envelopes. It was why they had arranged for him to keep the letters back when he delivered the post to their homes, so not only would they be the first to read them but they could do so away from their families.