Welcome to My World

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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