Welcome to My World

MIRANDA DICKINSON

Welcome to My World

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

AVON

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

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www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright © Miranda Dickinson 2010

Miranda Dickinson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780007236183

Ebook Edition © October 2012 ISBN: 9780007352517

Version 2018-07-04

Dedicaton

For Phil Henley – who travelled round the world to find his heart.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedicaton

Chapter One - How It All Began . . .

Chapter Two - Best Friends

Chapter Three - All About Alex

Chapter Four - Recycle Your Man

Chapter Five - The Point of No Return

Chapter Six - Hide-and-Seek

Chapter Seven - A Question of Priorities . . .

Chapter Eight - You’ve Got Mail . . .

Chapter Nine - The Big ‘F’

Chapter Ten - I Never Normally Do This, but . . .

Chapter Eleven - If Only You Knew . . .

Chapter Twelve - Come Away With Me . . .

Chapter Thirteen - So Many Girls, So Little Time . . .

Chapter Fourteen - Business as Usual . . .

Chapter Fifteen - The Date From Hell . . .

Chapter Sixteen - Anyone but Her . . .

Chapter Seventeen - All I Want for Christmas . . .

Chapter Eighteen - Questions and Answers . . .

Chapter Nineteen - Truth and Dare

Chapter Twenty - Island Life . . .

Chapter Twenty-One - Raise Your Glasses, Please . . .

Chapter Twenty-Two - Stepping Out

Miranda’s next novel - coming in 2010

Chapter One - The Most Wonderful Time of the Year?

Welcome to My World - About the Author

Thanksgiving from Author

By The Same Author

About the Publisher

Chapter One

How It All Began . . .

Right at the start, there are two things you should know about Harri: one, she doesn’t usually make a habit of locking herself in toilet cubicles during parties; and two, she is normally one of the most sane, placid individuals you could ever meet.

But tonight is an exception.

Because this evening – at exactly 11.37 p.m. – the world Harri knew ended in one catastrophic event. In the space of three and a half minutes, everyone she loved collided in an Armageddon of words, leaving mass carnage in its wake – sobbing women, shouting men and squashed vol-au-vents as far as the eye could see. Powerless to stop the devastation, she resorted to the only sensible option left available – seeking refuge in the greying vinyl haven that is the middle cubicle in the ladies’ loo at Stone Yardley Village Hall.

So here she is. Sitting on the wobbly toilet, black plastic lid down, head in hands, life Officially Over. And she has no idea what to do next.

It was all Viv’s idea. Harri should have said no straight away but, being Harri, she decided to give her first Sunday school teacher the benefit of the doubt.

‘You know how useless Alex is at finding suitable girlfriends,’ Viv said, lifting a steaming apple pie from the Aga and in advertently resembling a serene tableau from Country Life as she did so. ‘He’s hopeless! I mean, twelve girlfriends in the last year and not two brain cells between them. Danielle, Renée, Georgia, Saffron, two Marys, three Kirstys, an India, for heaven’s sake – and the last two I can’t even remember . . .’

Harri smiled into her mug of tea. ‘Lucy the weathergirl and Sadie the boomerang.’

Viv looked up from her flour-dusted Good Housekeeping recipe book. ‘The boomerang?’

‘Yeah, you know, the one who keeps coming back when you chuck her,’ Harri grinned.

‘Harriet Langton, you can be awfully sharp for someone so generally charitable.’

Harri gave a bow. ‘Thank you, Viv.’

‘So, anyway, about Alex . . .’ Viv smiled – and then presented her Big Idea. So subtle in its introduction, it seemed so innocuous that nobody could have predicted the devastation it was about to cause.

It began with a nib feature in Juste Moi, Viv’s favourite women’s glossy magazine. Between articles on the latest fashions that Hollywood starlets were scrapping over, and scarily titled features such as ‘Over 50s and the Big-O’, was a small column entitled ‘Free to a Good Home’.

‘People write in,’ Viv explained, ‘and nominate a man they know, to be recycled.’

‘Recycled?’ Harri repeated incredulously. ‘Into what? That sounds horrific.’

‘It’s not like going to the bottle bank, Harri. It’s presenting a man who’s been unlucky in love – you know, divorced, recently separated or just plain rubbish at finding the right girl – to a whole new audience.’

‘I can’t believe that works,’ Harri giggled. ‘I mean, who writes in to a magazine to ask out a guy they’ve never met?’

Viv shot her a Hard Paddington Stare. ‘Plenty of people, apparently. You would be amazed at how many responses this column gets. Listen to this. “Our February ‘Free to a Good Home’ candidate, Joshua, received over two thousand letters from women across the UK, all keen to prove to him that true love is still very much alive and well. Josh thanks all of you who replied, and is currently whittling the responses down to his top ten, whom he will contact shortly to arrange dates. Good luck, ladies!” How about that? What does that tell you, Harri?’

Harri wrinkled her nose. ‘It tells me that there are too many desperate women out there. Two thousand sad, lonely and deluded individuals letting their dreams get abused in the name of journalism.’

Viv’s enthusiasm was unabated. ‘It does not. It means that concerned friends and mothers – like, well, me, for example – can have the opportunity to find someone truly worthy of the men they care about. After all, we mothers know our sons better than anyone else, so who better to pick the perfect girlfriend for them?’

‘It sounds kind of creepy to me. And what about the women who write in? How do you know that the guy you’re pinning your hopes on isn’t some sad loser who’s single for a very good reason – like halitosis, or strange hobbies, or an unhealthy aversion to personal hygiene?’

‘It’s all very well for you, Harriet, you have a lovely boyfriend. You’ve been in a relationship with Rob for so long that you’ve forgotten the pain of being single. Alex doesn’t have that luxury, remember. So I’m just acting in his best interests.’

‘You aren’t thinking about nominating Alex, are you?’ Harri felt like her eyebrows were raising so high they would soon be visible above her head, making her look like a Looney Tunes cartoon character. ‘No way, Viv! How would he feel if he knew his own mother had put him up for auction in this meat market?’

‘I’m not suggesting I nominate him, sweetheart,’ Viv said with a reproachful motherly smile.

‘I’m glad to hear it.’

‘I’m suggesting you nominate him.’

The suggestion hung in the air between them, sparkling in its audacity. Harri needed a few moments to take it in.

‘Sorry?’

‘Well, I can’t do it, can I? Al would instantly dismiss the notion on the grounds of me being an interfering mother.’

‘And he wouldn’t do the same with an interfering best friend?’

Viv looked sheepish and folded her hands contritely. ‘Harri, I honestly wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t the only way to help my son. I’m worried about him – despite what he thinks about me being a nosy old busybody.’

‘It’s a really bad idea. He’d be mortified by it – I know I would.’

‘But he doesn’t need to know about the magazine part. And we could vet all the replies he gets.’ She pointed at the picture of the last successful candidate. ‘Over two thousand replies for him – and, let’s face it, he’s not exactly a supermodel. Just imagine the choice we could have for Alex!’

Harri had to agree that Joshua the ‘Free to a Good Home’ nominee had a face only a mother could love. Alex, on the other hand, had no problem attracting the opposite sex. It was just attracting the right kind that he struggled with.

‘I know he needs help, Viv, but is this really the best option?’

‘You know better than most how woefully inept my son is at forming meaningful relationships. You’ve had the pleasure of living through each disaster with him. I know he confides in you.’

‘All the same, it sounds like a nutty idea to me.’

‘Well, my son seems to live his life by nutty ideas. You don’t just walk out of a perfectly good job and go travelling around the world for ten years if you’re in any way sane, do you? The point is, Harri, Alex is a lovely, honest, good-looking young man and he will be a fantastic catch for the right young woman. Besides, you’re always saying that he goes for the wrong sort of girls – so this is the perfect opportunity to find the right sort of girl for him. Don’t you think?’

Viv had definitely missed her true calling, Harri mused. She would have made a great prime minister, or UN negotiator, or crazed terrorist . . . But despite it all, Viv was right: Alex possessed a near legendary bad taste in women. It was also true that Harri suspected Alex deliberately pursued women he had little intention of settling down with.

Of course, if Harri could have seen into the future, she would have refused, point blank. She would have laughed it off, changed the subject, or just grabbed her coat and left. But right then, she decided it was better to be involved and keep Viv in check than it was to risk Alex’s mother doing it alone.

So Harri said yes. And that’s when the trouble started.

Chapter Two

Best Friends

‘Harri? Are you in there?’

Behind the locked cubicle door, Harri remains silent. There is an awkward pause on the other side, and the sound of kitten heels nervously tapping, as the woman standing by the basins appears to be debating her next line.

‘Um . . . listen, Harri, this probably isn’t as bad as it looks right now. I mean . . . um . . . OK, it does look pretty bad, actually, but if you just come out I’m sure we can discuss this calmly and rationally with everyone . . . um . . . well, with the people who haven’t left yet or . . . um . . . gone to hospital . . .’

Another pause. Then a large sigh.

‘Well, OK, I’ll . . . I’ll leave you to think about it, hon.’

The ladies’ loo door opens and the kitten heels beat a hasty retreat.

Harri shakes her head.

Stella Smith was Harri’s oldest and dearest friend.

They met on Harri’s first day at school, in the small playground at the front of Stone Yardley Village Primary. Harri was five and a half, and was beginning her schooling there six months later than most of her classmates, having recently moved to the area from her birthplace in Yorkshire.

Her first memory of Stella was of a tall, dark-blonde-haired girl in a red polo-neck jumper – which appeared both to accentuate her long fingers and elongate her neck like a Masai tribeswoman – heading confidently towards her, clutching a large bag of crisps.

‘Shall we be friends?’ Stella asked (although it was more of a command than a question).

‘Yes,’ Harri replied.

Stella smiled at her new friend. ‘Good. Have a Monster Munch then.’

And that was it.

Twenty-two years later, their taste in refreshments had matured from Irn-Bru and Wagon Wheels to lattes and Starbucks’ Skinny Peach and Raspberry Muffins, but Stella and Harri’s friendship remained strong as ever.

To the casual observer, Harri and Stella’s friendship might have appeared to be a strange mix. Stella was well-known for commanding attention wherever she went (now being nearly six feet tall with long bottle-blonde hair, cheekbones to die for and practically no inhibitions makes that easy). Harri, on the other hand, was quietly confident and assured; barely five feet four with wavy auburn curls, big blue eyes and more than a healthy dose of common sense. But when they were together, something magical happened. In Stella’s company Harri found she could be herself, whilst Stella felt safe, accepted and loved. It was, in many ways, the perfect combination.

Harri chose one of their frequent coffee-shop visits to tell Stella about Viv’s Big Idea.

‘She wants you to do what?’ Stella spluttered, almost choking on her macchiato.

‘Hmm, that was pretty much my reaction,’ said Harri.

‘No flippin’ way on this earth!’ Stella’s shoulders rocked wildly as she let out a huge guffaw. It was a truth universally acknowledged that Stella’s laugh had the potential to stop traffic.

‘Oh. My. Life! I hope you said no?’

Harri looked down into the foam of her cappuccino. ‘I should have said no . . . But she had a point.’

‘Her point being?’

Harri sighed. ‘Alex is rubbish at dating. No, actually, he’s very good at dating, it’s just that he’s rubbish at finding the right sort of women to date.’

‘Or brilliant at finding weird and wonderful bunny-boilers,’ Stella suggested.

‘Yeah, absolutely.’

‘It’s quite a skill he has there. Maybe he could offer his services for rooting out strange women. He could make a fortune!’

Harri grinned. ‘Honestly, Stel, I love Al dearly, but I’ve seen him devastated by his nightmare love life so many times . . .’

‘Usually at three in the morning, by the sounds of it.’

‘Don’t worry, after the last time he did that I made it perfectly clear that my emergency heart-to-heart service was only available during daylight hours.’

‘All the same, H, most people would’ve called time on him by now.’

‘Probably. But the problem remains that he doesn’t ever seem to learn from his mistakes. So maybe this crazy idea is worth a try. At least if Viv and I are vetting the candidates we can make sure the oddballs don’t get through.’

Stella snorted. ‘Oh, Viv’s promised to help you, has she? Well, I’ll believe that when I see it.’

‘No, she will, it’s all sorted.’

‘Yeah, right. I think I just saw a pig in a Spitfire overhead . . .’

Harri giggled. ‘You’re so cruel. I believe her this time.’

‘Good for you. But what happens if Alex – your Official Best Male Friend in the Whole Wide World – disowns you for nominating him in the first place, eh? I would be livid if I found out my best friend had put me up for a magazine love auction.’

‘I know. But knowing Viv she’ll concoct an even dafter plan than this if I don’t stop her. At least if I’m there to steer her I can protect Al from the wild vagaries of his mother’s imagination.’

During the following week, Harri mulled the Big Idea over and over, as she sat behind her desk at Sun Lovers International Travel.

The scratched metal name plaque on her MDF desk read ‘Travel Advisor’, but a more truthful (if prohibitively longer) description might have been ‘Travel Advisor Who Tries in Vain to Get Stone Yardley People to Visit Amazing Places She Longs to Go to Herself’.

Sun Lovers International Travel was not as grand and corpor ate as its name suggested. In fact, SLIT (as it was affectionately known by its owner – and acknowledged with a whole different connotation by its staff) was a small, single-fronted shop in Stone Yardley High Street. In its only window, carefully placed posters promised exotic adventures across the globe: Australia, Thailand, India and the USA, by luxurious air travel; whilst the handwritten offer cards Blu-Tacked to the window suggested altogether homelier destinations: Blackpool, Weston-super-Mare and Rhyl – usually by coach.

Business had been slow all week, and by Friday morning, with all of Harri’s jobs ticked off her list, she took the opportunity to lose herself in a glossy brochure for Venice.

Venice. The place that had started it all . . . She smiled as familiar images of the city she’d loved from afar for so many years met her eyes. Grand palazzi, elegant buildings reflecting in the deep green-blue canals, brightly attired carnival-goers milling amongst tourists and city dwellers, as if being swathed head to toe in opulent velvet was as commonplace as buying your daily coffee . . . She could almost hear the sounds of the city wafting up from the brochure pages, almost taste the plates of delicious cicchetti snacks or the tangy limoncello . . . One day, she promised herself, as she had done a million times before, one day I’ll be standing there . . .

She was brought sharply back to reality by Tom, SLIT’s trainee travel advisor and cultivator of some of the most impressive acne ever seen in Stone Yardley, who let out an enormous, adolescent sigh and flopped down on the chair opposite Harri’s desk.

‘Bored, bored, bored,’ he chanted, Buddhist-style, staring wide-eyed through his mop of oily, blond curls.

Harri quickly closed the brochure and smiled at him. ‘Loving your work again, Tom?’

‘Oh, totally. “Come and work in the travel industry, Tom, you get to see the world!” Yeah, right.’

‘Welcome to Sun Lovers International Travel,’ Harri smiled, reaching across to pat his hand. ‘So tell me, what exciting destinations have you dealt with today?’

Tom groaned. ‘Barmouth. Isle of Wight. And I almost sold a flight to Dublin.’

‘Dublin? Wow! What stopped the sale?’

‘Mrs Wetton didn’t realise it was outside England. She doesn’t believe in travelling abroad.’

Harri laughed. ‘Hmm, well, Dublin, that’s almost another time zone. I mean, they have different money and everything.’ Tom shifted his lanky frame awkwardly in the chair. At six foot four, he was almost a foot taller than anyone else on the staff, so wherever he stood or sat he appeared to have outgrown his environment like Alice in her Wonderland.

‘Why do you do this, Harri? I mean, you’ve been here for – how long?’

‘Nearly eight years.’ She could hardly believe it was true.

‘Yeah, exactly. And in all that time what’s the most exotic destination you’ve sold a holiday to?’

What was so sad about the question was that Harri didn’t even have to think about the answer. ‘Morocco. And the Harpers didn’t like it because it was “too foreign”.’

‘What is wrong with people in this town? If it isn’t a coach tour, they don’t want to know.’

‘Luxury coach tour, thank you,’ Harri corrected him with mock disdain.

‘Oh, yeah, luxury coach travel. Would that be Somers Travel Direct coaches, by any chance?’ Tom smirked. ‘STD coaches – they didn’t think about that one, did they?’

Harri laughed. She was certain that Albert Somers, local businessman, who had run his family coach firm for forty-five years, had never thought twice about the unfortunate initials. Yet it was a constant source of amusement to the staff when prim and proper elderly residents of Stone Yardley said things like, ‘We love STDs,’ or, ‘I don’t know what we would have done without STDs all these years!’ or, ‘I just couldn’t imagine a holiday without STDs.’

‘I guess we’re just unfortunate to be working with the most unimaginative travellers in the entire world,’ Tom sighed, stretching out his impossibly long legs and knocking over a pile of brochures by a neighbouring desk. ‘Oh crap!’

Harri left her chair to help him retrieve the brochures, casting a cursory glance across each shiny exotic cover as it passed through her hands: India, the Far East, the Caribbean, Hawaii . . . A brochure on Trinidad and Tobago fell open at a page of colonial houses surrounded by lush green palms and azure waters. Harri and Tom paused almost reverently and shared an unspoken moment of wistful awe.

‘I can’t understand why these people want to stay in the UK all the time when there’s this big amazing world out there,’ Tom said, shaking his head. ‘I just want to travel anywhere that isn’t here. So far, I’ve only managed Spain, Italy and France, but I’ve got so many more on my list that I want to see before I’m twenty-five. And I’m glad you understand, mate. I mean – case in point: you understand travel, right? So – where’s the most exotic place you’ve ever been?’

Harri winced. She hated this question and she felt her heart sinking to her toes. Because despite being so passionate about travel, despite knowing all she knew about destinations across the globe, Harri had only once set foot outside of the UK – on a day trip to Calais with her school. In fact, she had only ever been on a plane once: a small bi-plane that flew her round the local airfield on a half-hour trip, as a treat for her ninth birthday.

Tom’s jaw made a swift bid to meet the brown carpet tiles. ‘Seriously?’

‘Seriously. My parents were scared of flying, so we always had holidays in Yorkshire, Wales or the Lake District. I love it there – don’t get me wrong – but I’ve always dreamed of travelling.’

‘So how come you’ve never just done it?’

Harri loathed this question too. As usual, she dusted off the old excuses. ‘Life just didn’t turn out the way I planned it, that’s all. I got too involved in college, then Dad got sick and our holidays became respite care for him, with our relatives in Yorkshire and Cumbria.’

Tom flushed a spotty shade of crimson. ‘Right, and then your mum . . .’

Harri swallowed hard and looked down at the stack of brochures on the floor. ‘Yeah. So after everything with them I bought my house, got the job here and then I met Rob and started going camping with him.’

‘Camping?’ Tom laughed. ‘Wow, your fella knows how to give you a good time, doesn’t he?’ He ducked expertly, as Harri made a swipe at him with the last brochure.

‘Cheeky. I actually like camping, you know. Besides, Rob makes anywhere we go fun. I can’t tell you how lovely it’s been to have him in my life after feeling so alone without Mum and Dad. Yes, I’d love to travel, but right now, with Rob’s job the way it is, plus the recession and everything, going abroad just isn’t feasible for us. One day, it will be and then I’ll be off.’

‘Tell me about it. If I don’t save some money soon, I’m never going to be able to get out of this dump,’ Tom confided, lowering his voice in case their boss was earwigging from his office. ‘I mean, Georgie Porgie in there isn’t likely to give us a pay rise while he can use the “we’re in an economic downturn” excuse.’ His brown eyes twinkled and he jabbed Harri playfully with his elbow. ‘You really go camping with Rob?’