Full House [Quick Read] (10 page)

Imagine
.

By the time the twenty-fifth wedding anniversary came, everything had settled down.

Rosie was the happiest wife in Dublin. She and Ronan came every Sunday to lunch in St Jarlath’s Crescent, where nowadays they were joined by Simon who was very much together with Helen, and Babette, who was a saxophonist much fancied by Anthony.

Nobody used the back room now, so Lily and Angela had installed yet another nurse in there. The rent coming in was substantial. It had all been saved carefully in the post office, and would be spent on a holiday in Sicily.

But first there was a party.

It was in Ennio’s, the restaurant belonging to Marco’s father. All kinds of people were there: Miss Mason, of course, and Josie and Harry, and half of St Jarlath’s Crescent. Anthony’s girlfriend Babette was dressed as a Goth.

Liam and Dee had to make speeches, of course. Everyone else had toasted them and said what a wonderful couple they were and how they had done everything right all their life.

This was so far from being true, but at a party, in the middle of a celebration, people did not want to hear of the hard times, the mistakes made and the wrong turnings taken.

They spoke simply of the life they had lived and the joy of their three children. It had been a happy home, but then, like in every home, just as the leaves fall from the trees, the children had left to set up lives for themselves and this was a source of great happiness to them.

They could only wish their two daughters and son as happy lives as they had lived themselves.

In the crowd, Rosie, Helen and Anthony stood there astounded. What was this Mam and Dad were saying – that their children had left
like the leaves fall gently from the tree
? That wasn’t how
they
remembered it.

It had been sudden and shocking and upsetting. Mam and Dad had painted up the scullery and put all their children’s clothes there. Their visits had been more or less reduced to Sunday lunch. Rent had been mentioned in what was supposed, after all, to be their home …

But in the end what did it matter?

Their parents were happy and smiling. They actually
believed
all this ‘leaves-falling-off-the-trees’ thing. Tomorrow they were going to Sicily for two weeks.

Raise the glass, drink their health.

Maybe it had all been for the best.

Say nothing, now or any time, about the sudden dismantling of the full house. Maybe the wind had needed a little help to blow the leaves off the trees.

That’s all there was to it.

Quick Reads

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Quick Reads

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Quick Reads

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Amy’s Diary

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Orion

A young woman finds her way in a world at war.

On 3rd September 1939 Amy Browning started to write a diary. It was a momentous day: Amy’s 18th birthday and the day her sister gave birth to a baby boy. It was also the day Great Britain went to war with Germany.

To begin with life for Amy and her family in Opal Street, Liverpool, went on much the same. Then the bombs began to fall, and Amy’s fears grew. Her brother was fighting in France, her boyfriend had joined the RAF and they all now lived in a very dangerous world …

Quick Reads

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Barbara needs a story. A struggling journalist, she tricks her way into the home of former soap star Margaret Reynolds. Desperate for a scoop, she finds instead a terrified woman living alone in a creepy manor house. A piano plays in the night, footsteps run overhead, doors slam. The nights are full of strange noises. Barbara thinks there may be a child living upstairs, unseen. Little by little, actress Margaret’s haunting story is revealed, and Barbara is left with a chilling discovery.