Milly Johnson is a very short – but damned attractive – author from Barnsley, South Yorkshire. She is also a poet, greetings card copywriter, columnist, after-dinner speaker and winner of Come Dine With Me Barnsley. When not working, her hobbies include: sailing on big ships, hobnobbing with the transatlantic wrestling community, buying red lipsticks, listening to very loud rock music, admiring owls and trying to resist buying crap from eBay.
She lives with her two sons, Teddy the Eurasier and a quartet of decrepit cats near her mam and dad in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. She is a proud patron of Haworthcatrescue.org and ‘The Well’, a complementary therapy centre associated with Barnsley Hospital. An Autumn Crush is her sixth book.
Visit her at www.millyjohnson.com
Also by Milly Johnson
The Yorkshire Pudding Club
The Birds & the Bees
A Spring Affair
A Summer Fling
Here Come the Girls
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2011
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © Milly Johnson, 2011
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.
The right of Milly Johnson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
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Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-84983-203-8
eISBN 978-1-84983-204-5
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Typeset in Bembo by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Cox & Wyman, Reading, Berkshire RG1 8EX
This book is dedicated to my greetings card copywriting ‘brothers’: Paul Sear, Alec Sillifant, Fraz Worth, Pete Allwright and Tony Husband. Boys, I absolutely adore you xx
Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within the reach of every hand.
Mother Teresa
Contents
August
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 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
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
September
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
October
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
November
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
August
‘Before the reward there must be labor. You plant before you harvest. You sow in tears before you reap joy.’
Ralph Ransom
Chapter 1
Things had been going swimmingly with Miss One O’Clock. Juliet and Coco were united in their decision, and both prided themselves on their razor-like intuition. She was fragrant, unlike Miss Twelve O’Clock, who drifted into the flat on the crest of a wave of armpit smell – and she had laughter lines, unlike Miss Half-Past Eleven who’d had so much Botox she looked like she’d escaped from Madame Tussauds. And she was well into her thirties, unlike Misses Ten Forty-Five and Five Past Nine, who were far too young and silly. Anyone who couldn’t remember The Karate Kid first time around was deffo off the list. She was beautifully plump and buxom too, unlike the heroin-chic-thin Miss Half-Past Twelve. Yep, the fact that Miss One O’Clock looked as if she would happily share a midnight cheesecake was the best indication yet of a good egg. People who relished their grub were more likely to have an accompanying joie de vivre than those who ate merely to fuel their bodies, Juliet believed. She sighed with relief that her search for a suitable flat-mate was finally drawing to a close, because trying to find someone to share your home and bills with when you were older and fussier had been the biggest imaginable pain in the bum.
Then Juliet offered her a chocolate digestive.
‘I don’t eat those,’ said Miss One O’Clock, her face contorting like Mr Bean’s. ‘They contain animal fats. And I’m a vegan.’
She made the word sound like she was from another planet, which in Juliet’s eyes she might as well have been. Vegans, Vulcans – no difference, give or take the pointy ears. Pure unadulterated aliens. Juliet and Coco exchanged knowing glances. Aw God, another one bites the dust, they said to each other via the language of eyeballs. Coco knew that Juliet would sooner have shared her flat with Harold Shipman than a vegan. She wouldn’t want someone glaring at her as if she was a mass murderer for enjoying a bacon buttie, with full-on Lurpak, or plodding around in sheepskin slippers.
Miss One O’Clock’s whole demeanour had changed now she was in the presence of established carnivores and milk-slurpers, and there was no point in going on with the interview. She gave Juliet and Coco a Siberian-winter smile goodbye and toddled off in her plastic shoes.
‘How can anyone get an arse on them that big just by eating celery?’ Juliet marvelled, when the door was firmly shut.
‘Beats me,’ said her fr
iend Coco, primping his dark brown New Romantic curls and pursing his full red lips in camp puzzlement. He was long and stick-thin himself, but Juliet forgave him that because he had always eaten like a starving horse. He just had an enviable metabolism. ‘Of course, if you’d had me as a flat-mate, you wouldn’t have any of this to go through.’
‘Coco,’ said Juliet firmly, ‘you and me not living together equals friendship. You and me living together equals me kicking your head in or you scratching my eyes out. I could not share a flat with you. Ever. And you could NOT share a flat with me.’ She employed the two words she always did when this argument reared up, as it had done quite a lot recently. ‘Remember Majorca?’
Two weeks in Spain with Coco and their mutual friend Hattie had been the best fun, but Juliet knew then that she could never have shared a flat with a man so anal about cleaning. And seeing as Hattie then ran off with Juliet’s husband Roger, she wasn’t in the running to be her flat-sharer either. Good luck to them anyway. Because underneath her ex-husband’s charming, shining veneer lay a dark soul heavily marinated in ‘miserable bastard’.
Which is why, having lived with him for six years, a man whose smile had ended up in a kidney dish with his tonsils at age ten, there was no way Juliet would ever take the business of choosing who to live with – flat-mate or partner – lightly again. The non-negotiable criteria were: smile-ability, body shape and that old stand-by, intuition. Juliet had no intention of sharing living space with anyone who tutted if she happened to stuff something in her mouth that didn’t include the whole five-a-day fruit and veg cocktail.
There were just two possible candidates left to see. Until Miss Two O’Clock arrived, Juliet and Coco killed time with three thousand calories’-worth of Thorntons.
Andrea arrived at two on the dot. The punctuality was impressive, but sadly little else about her was. She looked as if she had just caught a Tardis from 1962. She was willowy with angular features and wore a floaty frock in bogey-green and matching love beads, had a dated perm that made her look as if she’d been electrocuted, and she stank of very strong patchouli oil, which set Coco off on a coughing fit when he got a lungful at the door. He judged people by their fragrance. Scents had always been a passion of his and he owned a bijou fragrance shop in town: Coco’s Perfume Palace. He knew and loved his subject, but patchouli was right up there with Tweed and Charlie, and one notch down from Devon Violets.
Andrea immediately crossed to the far corner of the room and started clapping her hands up in the air.
‘You have a lot of negative energy stored in this space,’ she said, with the same level of distaste one would have used on finding mouse turds in the biscuit tin. ‘And is that a bin I see next to your dining-table?’ She made a few ‘deary-me’ tuts and carried on clapping.
‘Would you like a coffee?’ asked Coco, his eyes watering from the strain of keeping his laughter under rein.
‘Black. And only if it’s Fair Trade,’ said Andrea, swishing her way back to the sofa. ‘Has this flat ever been smudged?’
Juliet looked blankly back at her, not having a clue what she was on about.
‘It’s been blurred a few times,’ offered Coco. ‘After a few bottles of Shiraz.’
‘The energy residues badly need purifying,’ sniffed Andrea, ignoring his joke. Then she twisted her head sharply to her side and spoke to an invisible presence. ‘Yes, I totally agree.’
Coco ran into the kitchen and stuffed a tea-towel in his mouth. He found a sachet of Fair Trade coffee in Juliet’s cupboard after a forage. It had come free with a magazine.
‘So . . .’ began Juliet with a forced smile, though knowing inside she was on a highway to nowhere with this one. She just wanted someone normal, for God’s sake. Was that too much to ask? ‘Where are you living now?’
‘Myrtle Grove, off Huddersfield Road,’ replied Andrea, her eyes roving the room as if following something flying around it. ‘Have you ever cleansed your chakras?’
Cleansed me what? thought Juliet. Sounded too much like that colonic hosepipe up the bum thing for comfort.
‘Raven is asking me to ask you,’ Andrea smiled, turning her attention full on Juliet now.
‘Raven?’ asked Juliet, trying to ignore the sight of Coco’s head poking out of the kitchen doorway behind Andrea, with a towel jammed in his jaws.
‘My spirit guide,’ replied Andrea. ‘He’s a Red Indian Blackfoot chief. I consult him in all things.’
This really was too much.
‘Er, does he want a coffee?’ asked Juliet with wide innocent grey eyes. She heard a shriek from the kitchen as some of Coco’s hysteria escaped through the towel.
Andrea sighed and lifted up her bag which looked as if it had been home-made out of a couple of carpet tiles. Her nose was wrinkled up as if someone had just stuck a rotting fish under it.
‘I’m sorry. We couldn’t settle here. I can see that from the colour of your aura which is very blue-grey. I don’t think we would get on; you’re obviously not receptive to new ideas.’
Juliet bounced to her feet. ‘Oh, what a shame. You’re right though – traditional to the last, that’s me. You’re obviously a very perceptive lady.’
‘I am indeed. I am totally at one with myself.’ Then Andrea strolled out of the flat very regally, without a backward glance or a goodbye.
‘Silly cow,’ said Juliet, as the door hit the catch. ‘And she had appalling manners.’
‘What was all that about?’ A very puce-faced Coco strode into the same corner of the lounge which Andrea had recently vacated and started clapping his hands together like a flamenco dancer with severe anger management issues. ‘Feng Shui?’
‘Feng Shite, you mean. I haven’t a frigging clue what she was on about,’ tutted Juliet.
‘And that smell, ugh! It’s worse than the devil’s arse.’ Coco wafted the air trying to rid it of the strong scent.
‘Anyway, I for one was glad that “Dances with Ravens”, or whatever he was called, put her off the place. He’d have only set fire to the curtains with his smoke signals. I ask you, Coco, is there anyone normal left in this world?’
‘Me!’ Coco grinned.
‘I rest my case.’
There had been hardly anything to do to the flat when Juliet bought it from the middle-aged Armstrongs, just after her divorce in February, with the rather nice proceeds from selling her share of the marital home to Roger. ‘Two substantial bedrooms, airy, spacious lounge with applaudable dining area, newly refurbished kitchen, Hollywood-style bathroom and generous storage cupboards,’ the estate agent had bragged.
You could tell a dominant female had lived here before Juliet got her paws on the place. Mrs Armstrong must have wielded a whip over Mr Armstrong every evening and weekend with insatiable demands for shelves and stripped wood and wrought-iron curtain rails. And at the end of a hardworking day, it appeared they retired to their separate bedrooms with not even the prospect of a ‘thank you’ bonk for him. And just when Mrs A. had got it to her ideal, she spots a bigger place and poor old Mr A. has to start realizing her laminate-floor dreams all over again. But this flat was perfect enough for Juliet. It had lots of space and nice high ceilings, which was handy when you had a freaky-tall family like she had. And though the mortgage was a stretch – as was to be expected for a quality pad in such a nice area – a flat-mate would alleviate that problem.
The Armstrongs had put it on the market for a not-too-greedy price in the hope of a quick sale, which Juliet was in a perfect position to take advantage of. It was just a bit empty. Not furniture-wise but company-wise: nice girly Black Forest gateau in the middle of the night, face packs at nine o’clock, borrow your nail varnish, sloppy video with smouldering-gorgeous Darcy-like hero to fantasize about, bottle of Cab Sav and a curry sort of company. The sort of camaraderie she and Caroline and Tina had relished at college before they all grew up too much and found they didn’t have anything in common any more – not even enough to want to swap a Christmas card. Ju
liet tried not to think about Hattie, who had been her friend forever. She hadn’t even admitted to Coco how much Hattie’s deception had hurt her. She had her reputation as a hard, brazen bitch to consider.
So, a classified ad went into both the South Yorkshire Herald and the Barnsley Chronicle. She drafted: Flat-mate wanted for good-hearted, big-bummed, smiley, smart, bossy, dirty-joke-loving, chocolate-eating thirty-four-year-old. Candidates must not mind nosy Irish parents popping around far too often for comfort and a massive, genial but bloody clumsy twerp of a twin brother who is wont to annoying one with his repertoire of wrestling holds and kitchen creations being more or less permanently present in abode.
Then, on second thoughts, she went for a heavily abridged version so as not to alarm. Thirtysomething female flat-mate wanted to share a very smart second-floor flat with easygoing professional lady (straight). Own large, sunny room, quiet but central location. 3, Blackberry Court.
‘What if Miss Three O’Clock is as bad as the rest?’ asked Coco, taking a peek at his watch.
‘I don’t know, struggle on with the mortgage by myself. What else can I do?’
‘You overstretched yourself with this place, lovely as it is. Another coffee?’
‘Go on then,’ said Juliet. ‘And don’t lecture me.’
‘I could move in tomorrow,’ Coco threw over his shoulder.
‘I’d rather cut my own foot off and eat it in a French stick.’
‘Well, we haven’t had a rabid religious nutter yet. Maybe, in five minutes’ time, we will be thrilled with a medley of tambourine songs and some tin-rattling.’
‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised,’ sighed Juliet.
By quarter past three, no one had turned up. Coco was just about to say, ‘Well, that’s that then,’ when the entryphone buzzed.
‘Hello,’ said a breathless voice when Juliet picked it up. ‘I’m so sorry I’m late. I’ve just had to take a hedgehog to the vet’s.’
‘Do come up,’ said Juliet, through a rictus smile. She turned to Coco and shook her head. ‘I give up. It’s not religion, it’s hedgehogs. And she sounds a posh one.’
‘Oh dear Christ.’ Coco raised his eyes heavenward. ‘Bring back Big Chief Clapping Corners.’