Everything is Beautiful by Eleanor Ray (best classic romance novels txt) 📕

She’d lost her daughter, Amy reminded herself. Grief makes people behave in odd ways.

Still, it left Amy feeling uneasy. She wished she’d had the chance to speak to Toyah herself, after all. The unease mixed with another emotion. Sadness. She realised that it wasn’t just Chantel she’d missed from that family.

It was Toyah too.

Amy paused. She could hear a noise coming from outside her house. People talking. She made her way carefully through her little ravine to the window.

It was six o clock, but still light in the middle of the summer. Three women and a man were standing just outside the gate to her garden. Amy peered at them. Rachel and Nina, loitering there as usual. The man she didn’t know. He looked bored and was glancing at his watch. The third woman she recognised. Floral trousers again. It was the woman from the council.

The woman looked over and Amy tried to duck, but there was a box in the way. They locked eyes.

‘She is home,’ said Leah loudly.

‘I told you she would be,’ said Nina. ‘She’s always in, of an evening.’

There was nothing for it. Amy made her way to the door. She opened it. ‘This is a surprise,’ she said.

‘It shouldn’t be,’ said Leah, sounding cross. ‘We sent you a letter.’

Amy found herself rather pleased that she’d cleared out her hallway, and left the door a little ajar. ‘Must have got lost in the post,’ she said, thinking of all the mail she’d dumped into Richard’s recycling.

‘I hope now is a good time,’ said Leah. ‘We know you are in fulltime employment so we scheduled an out-of-hours visit.’

‘What for?’ asked Amy.

‘To look at your house,’ said Nina. ‘All that stuff, the pots, the mice. It’s for your own good, Amy. I think I saw a rat the other day.’

‘A rat?’ said Leah, making a note. ‘That’s not good.’

‘Come on, Nina,’ said Rachel. ‘There was no rat. And just one very small mouse, and that could have come from anywhere.’ She smiled at Amy. ‘I have a cat,’ she explained. ‘He fetches them from all over.’

Amy gave Rachel a grateful smile, but Nina was scowling at her friend. ‘It’s a menace to the children, her being here,’ she said.

‘Really?’ said Rachel. ‘I thought the children were rather taken with her.’

‘That’s not the point,’ said Nina.

‘Quite right,’ added Leah. ‘This is about your house, Amy, not about your character.’ She paused. ‘Have you had a chance to clean up, at all?’

‘The hallway,’ said Amy. She opened the door a little more and all three women peered in. The man stayed back, leaning on his van, his fingers twitching. He looked very much like someone who wanted a cigarette.

‘That’s quite a lot of stuff I can see on the staircase,’ said Leah. ‘Can I come in and take a better look?’

‘No,’ said Amy, feeling panicky again. ‘There’s no point. I’m going to clear the rest of the house,’ she lied. ‘But I’ve only done the hallway so far.’

‘OK,’ said Leah, making a note. ‘That’s a shame.’

‘But we’ve got a schedule, don’t we Amy?’ interjected Rachel. ‘The hallway was this week’s target, then next week we’re going to do the living room, then the kitchen before we move upstairs in August. We’ve hired a skip.’

Amy’s heart sank at the thought of her beautiful belongings higgledy-piggledy in a horrible skip.

‘Isn’t that right, Amy?’ prompted Rachel.

‘Are you OK, dear?’ asked Leah.

Amy pulled herself together. ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said. ‘And yes,’

she added, looking at Rachel, ‘I have help.’

‘Well, that’s good to hear,’ said Leah. ‘But I do think we should take a little look now, just to know what we’re dealing with.’

‘She clearly doesn’t want us here,’ said the man. Amy had forgotten he was there. ‘And she’s got a plan. That’s all we need. Let’s write that up and check back in say, two weeks?’

‘Three,’ said Rachel.

‘Great,’ he replied. ‘Come on, Leah. The match starts in ten.’

‘We will be back,’ warned Leah, looking a bit miffed at being overruled. ‘To do a further assessment. And the chimney will still need to be repaired.’

‘You’re just going?’ asked Nina. ‘You’re leaving it like this?’ ‘There’s not much else we can do, for the moment,’ said Leah, regretfully. ‘But don’t worry. The council’s wheels are in motion.’

Nina snorted and disappeared back to her house. Leah and the man got back in their van.

‘Thank you, Rachel,’ said Amy.

‘No worries. I used to be employed by the council, so I know how it works.’

Amy waited till the van had driven off. ‘I’m not going to get a skip,’ she whispered.

‘I know,’ said Rachel. ‘But I’m sure there’s something we can do.’ She grinned at Amy. ‘I’m off to feed Smudge,’ she said. ‘We wouldn’t want him getting an appetite for any more mice.’

‘I always hoped I’d meet you one day, but I thought it would be with my son on your arm.’ Amy found herself in a hug that lasted too long. It was a Saturday afternoon and she’d spent all morning travelling here, but she suddenly wished she could turn around and go home again. Eventually Tim’s father released her. ‘We should have met years ago,’ he added. ‘All that time. Wasted.’

‘Thank you for seeing me, Mr Carver,’ said Amy. He’d been easy to track down on Facebook; he was the generation that embraced the technology without understanding privacy settings.

‘Call me Alan.’ They looked at one another, assessing the damage. Alan was in his late sixties. Tim told her that he’d been young when he’d married his mother. Love at first sight, apparently. And it had lasted until Tim’s mother died, twelve years later. Alan had disappeared into his own grief, having little love left to deal with his devastated ten-year-old. Tim had never forgiven him for that, made all the more bitter when Alan eventually remarried. Amy hadn’t met Alan or his new wife in all the years Amy had been with Tim.

‘Come in,’ said Alan, with