The Windfall

By Jeanne Whitmee

Monica, Sharon and Anna are complete strangers until they share the Lottery jackpot and meet at the presentation ceremony.

They are three very different characters who all have very diverse plans for spending their new riches (Three million pounds each)

Anna plans to buy the beauty therapy clinic where she works and make a success of it.

Sharon is desperate the escape from her disastrous marriage and become independent, whilst Monica has plans to become a socialite and enjoy a life of leisure and luxury.

Steady Anna takes things slowly and makes a success of the business but loses the boyfriend she loves because he feels threatened by her new found wealth.

Sharon finds that her husband and his family take it for granted that she will invest the money in the family business and it takes all her courage to stand up to them and leave to make a new life for herself.

Monica finds that even three million pounds will not go far enough to attain her dreams and it doesn’t prevent her from being ripped off by a ruthless con man.

The windfall doesn’t make their dreams come true in quite the ways they expected. There are problems to be solved as well as ambitions to be achieved. But their windfall does bring out qualities none of them knew they had and in the end all works out for the best.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeanne Whitmee
• Release date: Jun 7, 2012
• ISBN: 9780957164918

Jeanne Whitmee

Jeanne Whitmee originally trained as an actress and later taught speech and drama until taking up writing full time. After writing short stories and serials for magazines she began to write novels and has since written over forty under various pseudonyms. She lives in England, in Cambridgeshire, and her hobbies are watercolour painting, music and, of course the theatre.

Book preview

THE WINDFALL

By Jeanne Whitmee

Copyright acknowledements

© Jeanne Whitmee 2012

Published on Smashwords in 2012 by Jeanne Whitmee

ISBN 978-0-9571649-0-8

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Author.

These stories are entirely works of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in them are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

First published in Great Britain

~

With grateful thanks to my wonderful agent, Dorothy Lumley

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

About The Author

Copyright Acknowledgements

Chapter One

It is a recognised fact that everyone remembers exactly what they were doing at the time of world shaking events – like the assassination of JFK or nine-eleven for instance. For Monica Mitchell this occasion though hardly world shattering was to be no different. She knew she would never forget that very ordinary Saturday evening, sitting alone with her microwaved ‘dinner for one’ and watching T.V.

It was all so routine, just like any other Saturday evening. She had bought her Lottery ticket along with her frozen dinner-for-one at the corner ‘mini-market’ on the way home from Fashion Planet where she worked.

She always had the ticket there ready and waiting on the arm of the chair as she ate her supper. She used the same numbers every week so she hardly needed to look as the results came out. She’d never won anything, not even as much as a fiver; she didn’t really expect to. Buying a ticket had become a habit and the only reason she watched the draw was for the quiz that preceded it and the fact that her favourite programme, Casualty came on next.

This Saturday it was different. The first two numbers were on her ticket. That had never happened before. Her supper suddenly forgotten, she put her tray aside and began to pay proper attention. She had the next two as well! Her heart in her mouth she waited till all the balls had been ejected by the machine then she stared down at the ticket on her lap. All of them – she had all of them – no need even to wait for the bonus ball. She took a deep breath to try and stop her heart pounding. ‘Calm down,’ she told herself aloud. ‘You’ve probably got it wrong. You weren’t even looking when they first started. You must have misheard.’

She stared intently at the ticket in her trembling hands till the numbers began to dance a mad jig in front of her eyes, then in a sheer panic, without stopping to put on her coat she ran out of the flat and down the street to the mini-market.

Mrs Patel was just closing up for the night. ‘Sorry dear, we’re closing,’ she said as Monica tried to push her way into the shop. ‘We do need to rest sometimes, you know, just like anyone else. I’ve been on my feet since five o’clock this mor...’

‘But this is important – really important!’ Monica gasped, still out of breath from running.

Mrs P looked with concern at Monica’s ashen face. ‘If it’s that frozen meal you bought I can assure you they were fresh in yesterday.’

‘No, no.’ Monica waved the lottery ticket under her nose. ‘Nothing to do with the meal. Look, I know it’s closing time but you have to check this for me. I – I think – think I might have won.’

With a resigned sigh the woman let her in. ‘It’s probably too soon for us to have received the winning numbers yet.’ She smiled ruefully at Monica and shook her head. ‘Can’t you wait till the morning to collect your tenner dear?’

‘No! No, I can’t. It might be more than a tenner.’

‘They’ll show the numbers again later this evening,’ Mrs Patel pointed out. It’s not so long to wait, is it?’

‘Look – it’s the jackpot,’ Monica said in a hushed whisper. ‘If I’m right I think I might have won the jackpot! I have to know.’

Mrs Patel shook her head in disbelief. ‘The jackpot? You’ll be lucky.’

‘I know. I know!’ Monica bit her lip in an effort to contain herself. ‘I’m probably wrong but I have to know - now.’

‘I copied the numbers down off the telly. Wanna look?’ Vikram, the Patel’s thirteen-year-old son stood in the doorway at the back of the shop. He came forward and put a scrap of paper torn from the Radio Times on the counter. The three of them pored over the lottery ticket, comparing the numbers. It was Vikram who looked up first; a mischievous grin lighting up his dark eyes.

‘Hey, cool! Looks like you’ve won, miss,’ he said. ‘It’s a rollover too. Six million they said. All you gotta do now is phone the hotline and find out how many punters you gotta share it with.’ He raised his shoulders. ‘Probably thousands. I bet you’ll only get a couple of hundred quid.’

******

Sharon had been entertaining her mother-in-law all afternoon and she was exhausted. Forcing herself to be nice to Thelma, fielding her snide remarks and thinly veiled criticisms always drained her. They’d never hit it off. Right from the day David had brought his pregnant fiancée home from university to meet his parents there had been an atmosphere of deep seated resentment. Nice girls didn’t get themselves pregnant till after marriage was the general attitude. As though she’d managed it all on her own without any help from their precious only son.

David was out – as usual. He’d been playing golf all day and now he’d be eating or more likely drinking with his friends at the clubhouse – all on the pretext of it being ‘good for business’. Women were not allowed at his golf club. Sometimes Sharon felt as though she’d taken a step into a time warp when she’d married David and come to live here.

The Trubshaws and their circle of elite friends seemed to exist in a parallel universe that had got stuck somewhere back in the fifties. The suggestion that she might find herself a job was met by stony disapproval. Trubshaw wives did not work, especially pregnant ones. It would be a slur on their husbands’ ability to support them. As for divorce; it would be tantamount to suggesting robbing a bank.

Thrubshaw Motors sold expensive, top-of-the-range cars. It was a long established business in the town and the family who had founded and still ran it had social standing and a reputation for upright integrity to maintain. (Not to mention hypocrisy), Sharon added under her breath. Back to the time warp!

She had a theory about the Trubshaw way of life. Give any of the wives independence and God alone knew what they would do with it. Dump their chauvinistic husbands for a start? Probably not. Becoming part of the Trubshaw dynasty seemed to be the ultimate in fairytale dreams among the young women in this town. She visualised David’s two aunts, the wives of his father’s two brothers and business partners. Childless Hilda, Frank’s wife was small and mouse-like, a real yes-woman. She wouldn’t last five minutes outside of the Trubshaw circle. The word independence wasn’t even in her vocabulary, whilst Bill’s wife, Moira, large and overbearing, ruled her household like a matriarch. Her two daughters had long since escaped, one to Australia and the other to the far north of Scotland, as far out of their mother’s reach as they could get. Now that they had gone she ran every committee she could get her teeth into from Childcare to the WI.

Like Moira’s daughters Sharon often dreamed of escape – especially since the tragedy that had almost broken her spirit as well as her heart. Often when she was alone like this evening, she would fantasise about what she would do if she had money of her own. As it was she was doomed to be a Trubshaw doormat for the foreseeable future and if she were honest with herself she would have to admit that it was a trap she had fashioned herself. I think ‘hoist with my own petard’ is the expression, she told herself bitterly. A couple of years studying sociology wouldn’t get her a job – not without further training and after all that had happened she had neither energy nor enthusiasm to fight the inevitable fight.

Making herself a sandwich and a cup of tea she switched on the television. Although Thelma had gone and taken her gratingly shrill voice with her, the house still seemed to echo with her pointed remarks and she needed another human voice to erase them.

She watched You’ve Been Framed, marvelling at the stupid things some people did – not in the mood to laugh at them. Washing up her cup and plate in her pristine ‘space-age’ kitchen she thought of the evening that stretched ahead of her. David, she knew, would stay out until the small hours and roll into bed beside her, demanding unfeeling, mindless sex before dropping into a coma-like sleep which would last till lunchtime tomorrow.

Back in the lounge In It to Win It was just coming to a close. Time to spin the balls for the big draw. Sharon suddenly remembered that she’d bought a ticket. At the supermarket last Thursday doing her weekly shop she’d passed the lottery machine near the cigarette counter and decided on impulse to buy a ticket. She supposed she might as well check. She found her bag and rummaged in its depths for the unfamiliar ticket among the miscellaneous till receipts and junk that she always seemed to accumulate. She found it just as the first ball landed. A few minutes later she was still staring at the ticket. She had ticked all the numbers. It couldn’t be right. She couldn’t possibly have won the jackpot. What had they said? A rollover –six million pounds? It wasn’t possible – not for her, Sharon Trubshaw with her very first Lottery ticket – it couldn’t be.

******

The Miracle Makeover beauty clinic stayed open late on Saturday evenings. It was nine o’clock by the time Anna was ready to dismiss her little band of girls and lock up. The MM clinic as most people liked to call it catered for male as well as female clients and Anna, being particularly skilled at waxing and depilation was always in demand by male clients, many of whom the girls dubbed, ‘specials’; men who were secretly undergoing the preliminary treatment for sex-change operations.

Anna felt an affinity and a deep sympathy with these men. Most people assumed that they were gay or wrote them off as just plain ‘weird’ but it was very far from the truth as Anna had soon learned. Mostly they were nice gentle guys doing normal jobs and working hard. Polite and kindly, there was nothing ‘weird’ about any of them. In most cases they had grown up feeling like misfits – people born into the wrong body. Recognising that Anna understood them they often confided their hopes and fears to her, knowing that what they said would be taken seriously and not ridiculed.

Ever since she’d been widowed at the tender age of twenty Anna had felt like a misfit herself. She felt that she had lived the whole of her life in one short year and that, emotionally, there could be nothing left for her. It was not that she wasn’t content with her life. She loved her job, for which she had trained hard and obtained good exam results. She’d been working at the MM clinic ever since she’d qualified and running it for Sybil Tennant, its owner for the past two years. Till recently the clinic had been her life. She respected her clients and the girls working under her and enjoyed being busy.

But for the past few months, since meeting Simon her free time had been less lonely and she’d had more in her life than just work. They’d first met at a concert. Finding themselves sitting in adjacent seats, they began to talk during the interval. He had invited her to join him for coffee, walked her home and asked to see her again before they parted. She learned that he owned a small bookshop in the town, specialising in new and second-hand books for students studying at the university. Tonight he was waiting for her outside as she locked up for the weekend.

His brown eyes lit up when he saw her and he kissed her. ‘You look tired. I thought we’d drive over to Ely and eat outside near the river. We shan’t get many more of these lovely evenings.’

Anna really wanted nothing more than to go home and soak in the bath, but he looked so pleased with his idea that she nodded. ‘That would be lovely,’ she said tucking her hand into the crook of his arm.

He was right about the evening. It was warm and mellow with a gentle breeze wafting off the river as they sat at their table under the willow trees watching the boats from the nearby marina sailing past. They ordered seafood salads followed by raspberries and cream. By the time they had finished the light was fading and the gentle breeze had turned into a chill wind.

‘Shall we go into the bar?’ Simon suggested. ‘We could have coffee and a brandy. I don’t think I’d be over the limit with just one drink.’ He was always careful when he was driving which was why they hadn’t had wine with the meal.

In the bar Anna found a table while Simon went to the bar for the drinks. On the wall over the fireplace a large plasma screen T.V. was showing the news whilst locals sat patiently waiting for Match of the Day. At the end of the news the Lottery weekend draw results were shown. Feeling in her jacket pocket for a tissue, Anna’s fingers closed round the ticket she’d bought a couple of days ago. Pulling it out she smoothed the creases and laid it on the table. Then, as she compared the numbers her heartbeat quickened. Simon returned with the drinks.

‘What is it? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’

She looked up at him, wide-eyed. ‘I don’t know for sure but I think I might have won something,’ she said.

He sat down and took the crumpled ticket from her, his face characteristically composed. ‘That’d be nice. How many matches did you have?’

‘Well – all of them.’

He stared at her. ‘All?’

‘Yes, but they’d already started when I found the ticket so I could be wrong.’ She swallowed hard, conscious that her voice had become shrill with tension. She swallowed hard and took a deep breath. ‘Let’s not count any chickens. The numbers will be in the Sunday papers. I’ll check them again tomorrow.’ She thrust the ticket into her bag and took a much needed sip of her brandy.

‘I’ll take you home. You’ve had a long day.’ Simon smiled at her with his melting brown eyes and she shook her head. ‘You make me sound about seventy.’

‘No, I only meant…’

‘Are you staying over?’

‘Well – if you’re sure.’ Simon never took anything for granted. That was what she loved about him. She paused. Love was a powerful word. She knew that Simon loved her. He told her so often enough. But could what she felt for him really be the love she’d been so certain she would never experience again? Yes, she told herself with sudden certainty. Yes, she did love him. Leaning across she covered his hand with hers.

‘Let’s go home,’ she said softly. ‘And you can help me check the Lottery numbers in the morning over breakfast.’

******

Back to Contents

Chapter Two

It seemed to have lasted all day. The confusing battery of cameras, flashing bulbs; microphones thrust in front of their faces; The BBC; ITV The Daily Mail - Express; The Mirror and The Sun. It was endless. They were photographed together and singly; shaking a bottle of champagne and spraying the foam; sipping it and toasting one another. Then there were the interviews.

‘Are you going to give up your job?

‘Are you married?’

‘Have you any children - what does your family think?’

‘What is the first thing you’ll buy?’

But most of all, ‘What are your plans for all that money? Two million each! That’s an awful lot of dosh.’

By the time it was over all three were exhausted. Left to themselves at last in the hotel lounge they felt like fishes, washed up on a beach, breathless and gasping in an alien environment. The curious sidelong glances of the other hotel residents made them feel like exotic animals on exhibition in a zoo.

Sharon looked at the other two. There had been no time to get to know one another. She had arrived late last night, the other two early this morning and they’d been flung together with the briefest of introductions by the Lottery rep’. She knew that the dark one was Monica – an old fashioned name if ever there was one. She was rather an unusual looking girl, though well groomed and fashionably dressed. Of course they had all made an effort for the occasion. It wasn’t every day that one was invited to receive a cheque for two million pounds. Her head still reeled at the thought.

Monica had thick dark hair and a small oval face, dominated by a rather large, high-bridged nose. She had a nice figure though, Sharon decided, and her eyes were wide and clear; an interesting shade of dark green. The other one, Anna was blonde – naturally so, Sharon decided; tall and willowy with beautiful cheekbones. She had a slight air of aloofness. Or maybe she was just shy.

As they stood there awkwardly glancing at one another Sharon decided that somebody had to take the bull by the horns and it might as well be her.

‘Phew! Thank goodness that’s over,’ she said. Shall we have dinner? I don’t know about you two but I’m starving.’ She held out her hand. ‘We didn’t have time to be properly introduced. I’m Sharon in case you’ve forgotten. Sharon Trubshaw.’

The other two smiled and began to look less awkward. Monica was the first to respond. ‘I’m Monica Mitchell, she said. ‘Monica’s a horrible name, I know. I was christened Monique but at school it was considered far too presumptuous so I was always addressed as Monica. It stuck and no one’s ever used my real name since.’

‘What a shame. I think it’s unusual and distinctive,’ Anna said as she shook hands with her fellow winners.’ She smiled, her blue eyes sparkling in a way that quite transformed her face. ‘If I were you I’d start using it from today. Oh and by the way, I’m Anna – Anna Bennett.’ She looked at Monica. ‘I’m all for dinner - haven’t really eaten all day.’

In the restaurant they chose a banquette table in a corner, away from the curious eyes of the other diners. Each ordered from the oversized red leather menus and Monica suggested more champagne.

‘After all, it is a celebration,’ she said. ‘Most of what we had earlier was wasted.’ She laughed. ‘And hey, we can drink champagne for breakfast lunch and dinner from now on if we want to, can’t we?’

The three looked at each other and fell silent. At last Anna said,

‘Two million. It’s odd but it still hasn’t sunk in. I can’t even visualise it, can you?’

‘Who needs to visualise it,’ Monica said. ‘I’m just looking forward to spending it?’

The wine waiter appeared with the champagne and opened it with a flourish. He smiled as he filled each flute with the sparkling liquid then placed the bottle in its ice bucket. ‘I think congratulations are in order,’ he said with a shy smile. The three lifted their glasses.

‘To us,’ Sharon proclaimed. ‘All three of us. This is the day we’ll always remember – the first day of the rest of our lives as the saying goes.’

By the time they had eaten and finished the champagne the strain and fatigue of the day had passed and they all felt relaxed and refreshed. Sharon suggested they drank their coffee in the lounge and maybe finished off with a nightcap or two.

It was late and quiet by now in the hotel lounge. They ordered coffee and liqueurs and sat back to relax.

‘There’s still so much I want to know about you,’ Sharon told them. ‘It’s bizarre. To think that this time last week none of us knew of the others’ existence and here we are sharing the Lottery jackpot. That sort of thing just doesn’t happen to people like me!’

‘Or me, except that it has,’ Monica said. ‘And tomorrow we’re going to have to start thinking very seriously about what we’re going to spend it on.’

‘It’s a bit more than just spending money,’ Anna added. ‘It’s quite a big responsibility. Thank goodness we’ll be put us in touch with people to advise us. I wouldn’t know who to trust.’

But Sharon wasn’t ready yet to start thinking about getting financial advice or even about tomorrow. She was still sailing on a cloud of euphoria – for her the longed-for independence was actually within reach. It was a heady prospect and she wanted to savour the moment. ‘If you had to sum up in one word what this win means to you what would that word be?’ she asked. ‘Apart from ‘change’ of course.’

Anna and Monica looked at each other. Anna shook her head. ‘I don’t really want any changes to my life,’ she said slowly. ‘Ten years ago I would have but they wouldn’t have been the kind that money could buy.’

‘No? What changes were they?’ Sharon asked, intrigued.’

‘I’d have wanted to turn back the clock,’ Anna said. ‘To before my husband was killed.’

The other two stared at her. Sharon had picked up her glass. Now she put it down again. ‘Oh God! You poor love. You must have been so young.’

‘Twenty. We’d been married just ten months.’ Anna shook her head, suddenly embarrassed. ‘Money can’t fix everything, she said quickly. And maybe it’s just as well.’

‘And who knows,’ Monica put in. ‘Maybe you were too young. Maybe you wouldn’t have been together by now anyway.’

Sharon was shocked by Monica’s brashness. Suddenly grave-faced, she said, ‘But you’ll always have his memory to cherish. To you he’ll always be that young and vital guy you married.’

‘Oh, let’s not get maudlin at this stage,’ Monica said. She took a sip of her Cognac and looked at the other two. ‘Does either of you remember the name Michelle De Angelo?’

Anna shook her head but Sharon frowned. ‘I remember that name. My mum was always poring over the fashion magazines when I was a kid. She’d always wanted to be a model herself – won a few beauty competitions when she was a teenager and this Michelle De Angelo was her idol.’ She looked at Monica. ‘She was a top model, wasn’t she? Mum even made a scrapbook with all her photographs and cuttings. She was married by then with a baby – me, so her dream of becoming a model was over. Married women with kids never even thought of a career back then. But she still devoured all the fashion mags. They were her treat. And she idolised her favourite, Michelle De Angelo.’ She looked at Monica. ‘What made you ask?’

‘She was my mother.’

‘No kidding!’ The other two stared at her. Sharon said, ‘But your name is Mitchell. How come?’

‘It’s our real name. Michelle was born Angela Mitchell; not nearly exotic enough for a fashion model, not in those days anyway.’

Sharon frowned. ‘So - you’re no stranger to money and life in the fast lane then. Michelle was on the cover of all the fashion mags – always in the gossip columns – T.V. ads, the lot. Mum never stopped talking about her. She even used to nick pages out of the magazines at the doctor’s if there was something about Michelle in them. She lived the high life and must have been worth a fortune.’ She stopped suddenly. ‘Oh – Monica, I’m sorry. Don’t listen to me rabbitting on. Something obviously happened to her - she’s not..?’

‘Not dead, no,’ Monica said. ‘Her career just came to a sudden end. I said she was my mother, and she still is, although we hardly ever see each other – hardly ever did see each other come to that.’

‘What happened?’ Anna asked. ‘Did she have an accident of some kind?’

‘Yes.’ Monica met her eyes. ‘Me! She had me. I was the worst thing that could have happened to her. I wrecked her career and she never forgave me – not just for being born and messing up her life but for having the audacity to be born ugly.’ She shook her head and swallowed the rest of her liqueur. ‘We’ve never really had much to do with each other. Michelle had a nervous breakdown after I was born and the medication they put her on made her put on weight. I was sent to boarding school at an early age and Michelle sold our home and took herself off to Italy. She lives in a villa on the shores of Lake Garda that she bought during the good years. As far as she’s concerned I hardly exist.’ She looked at the others with a rueful smile. ‘Sorry guys. It was me who said don’t let’s get maudlin and here I am telling you about my non-relationship with my mother, the most boring subject on the planet. Let’s change the subject. What about you, Sharon? You haven’t told us anything about you yet.’

Sharon looked from one to the other and suddenly felt as though all the stuffing had been kicked out of her. Was it really time to come down to earth? She’d enjoyed today. She been able to put the Trubshaw clan and her useless, hopeless marriage aside for the day and enjoy being herself – the old Sharon; the girl who grew up on an Essex council estate and made her parents proud by getting a place at university – who thought she was clever to have snared the most eligible guy in her year and climbed what she thought was the ladder to success and a lift up the social ladder. How naïve had she been? How stupid and shallow and weak.

She decided to tough it out. She hardly knew these two anyway. Why should she bare her soul to them?

‘My husband, David and I met at university,’ she began. ‘We fell in love and married. His father and two uncles own and run Trubshaw Motors. They’re based in Northampton and they’re dealers for all the up-market autos, BMW and Mercedes as well Lexus and Rolls. Maybe you’ve heard of them.’

‘I have,’ Anna said. ‘I live in Cambridge and I’ve seen their ad’ in the county magazines.’

‘So you’re hardly a stranger to wealth,’ Monica said. ‘That’s surely a flourishing and profitable business.’

Sharon laughed. ‘Well, it is of course. Not a lot of it comes my way though. There are four families to be kept out of the profits.’

‘Oh, come off it. I’ll lay bets that you live in a luxurious house with every mod con and gadget, a gardener, a daily woman and all the trappings.’ Monica looked at Sharon’s salon haircut and perfectly manicured hands. ‘I bet you live like a Wag - don’t do a hand’s turn. One long round of lunches with the girls, shopping and theatre trips.’

‘She’s probably got a job,’ Anna put in. She looked at Sharon. ‘Maybe the firm employs you too?’

Sharon shook her head. She knew suddenly that she wasn’t going to be able to keep up the façade – not with these two. ‘No, the Trubshaw men are funny about their women working. They like us to stay at home.’

‘For Christ’s sake! They sound like something out of a Dickens novel.’ Monica said, eyebrows raised.

‘What a waste of your education,’ Anna remarked. ‘What did you study at Uni? You must feel you’d like to make use of your degree.’

Sharon flushed. She felt she was being tied in knots now. There was no pulling the wool over the eyes of these two. It was almost worse than the television interview. At least the papers had only wanted superficial details. She bit her lip and looked down at the clasped hands in her lap. ‘I didn’t actually get a degree,’ she admitted. ‘I got pregnant instead.’

Monica frowned. ‘So you’ve got kids then?’

‘No. My little boy was born severely handicapped. He died soon after his second birthday.’

‘Oh, no!’ Anna reached out to put her hand over Sharon’s, tightly clasped ones. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘We shouldn’t have pushed you.’

Monica sighed and lifted her shoulders. ‘Sorry, babe; my fault for probing. I said we shouldn’t be maudlin but I reckon you don’t get to our age without the proverbial having hit the fan at some stage.’ She looked hopefully at Anna.

‘We know you were married young and lost your husband so we’ve got that bit out of the way. Obviously things have looked up since because you said you didn’t want to change anything.’

Anna laughed. Monica’s difficult childhood had clearly made her hard-boiled and a bit brash but nevertheless she found herself warming to her. Underneath it all she could sense an underlying vulnerability. ‘Yes, she said. ‘They have. Patrick was killed in a motorbike accident ten years ago and for a long time I felt that my life was over. I didn’t get the chance to go to university or college but I did train as a beauty therapist. I threw myself into the work and qualified well. Now I manage the clinic