The Seven Secrets of Happiness Read online

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  The Seven Secrets of Happiness

  Praise for Sharon Owens:

  ‘Sharon Owens is an original, insightful new voice in Irish literature’ Sheila O’Flanagan

  ‘It made me refuse nights out in favour of curling up on the couch… dreaming of the mouth-watering delights the book so vividly describes’ Cecelia Ahern

  ‘Joanna Trollope meets Maeve Binchy… gives you a warm glow like a nice cup of tea’ Irish Independent

  ‘[A] heart-warming romantic novel in the spirit of Maeve Binchy’ Woman’s Own

  ‘A cosy, funny and heart-warming tale… a top read for snuggling up with on a chilly Sunday afternoon’ Family Circle

  ‘A delightfully warm read you’ll devour in one sitting’ Company

  ‘A life-enhancing tale’ Woman & Home

  ‘The Irish version of Chocolat’ New Woman

  ‘By the time I finished this book, I felt rather disappointed that I couldn’t step into the Tea House on Mulberry Street with its engaging, human characters and mouth-watering recipes. Sharon Owens has a talent for drawing the reader into her world. A world as warm and comforting as a really good afternoon tea’ Jojo Moyes

  ‘By entwining romance with food, Owens does for cake and coffee what Joanne Harris did for chocolate’ Big Issue

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Sharon Owens was born in Omagh in 1968. She moved to Belfast in 1988 to study illustration at the Art College. She married her husband Dermot in 1992 and they have one daughter, Alice.

  Her previous bestselling novels are The Tea House on Mulberry Street, The Ballroom on Magnolia Street, The Tavern on Maple Street and Revenge of the Wedding Planner, published in Penguin Books and by Poolbeg Press.

  The Seven Secrets of

  Happiness

  SHARON OWENS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank,

  Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  First published 2010

  Copyright © Sharon Owens, 2010

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject

  to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,

  re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s

  prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in

  which it is published and without a similar condition including this

  condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  ISBN: 978-0-14-192125-9

  For Dermot, and Alice

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  1 The Gift

  2 The Tree

  3 The Accident

  4 The Aftermath

  5 The Funeral

  6 The House

  7 The Shop

  8 Ravenhill Road

  9 The Velvet Handbags

  10 The First Secret

  11 The Maze at Camberwell

  12 The Second Secret

  13 The Village

  14 The Third Secret

  15 The Flower Show

  16 The Fourth Secret

  17 The Shy Guys

  18 The Phone Call

  19 Camberwell House

  20 The Anniversary

  21 The Fifth Secret

  22 The Date

  23 The Sixth Secret

  24 The Secret of the Maze

  25 The Talkers

  26 The Morning After

  27 The Mystery Man

  28 The Absent Mother

  29 The Letter

  30 The Lonely Father

  31 The Return of the Snow

  32 Some Things Are Best Kept a Secret

  33 Camberwell Revisited

  34 The Mystery Man Revealed

  35 The Beach

  36 The Cottage

  37 The Kiss

  38 The Lovers

  39 Breakfast at Tom’s

  40 The Stork

  41 The Engagement

  42 The Wedding

  43 The Baby

  44 The Odd Couple

  45 The Seventh Secret

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to everyone at Poolbeg, especially Paula Campbell and Gaye Shortland. Thanks to all at Penguin, especially Clare Ledingham, Mari Evans, Lydia Newhouse and Samantha Mackintosh; and to all my other publishers around the world. Thanks to everyone in the media for their continued support. Thanks to my family for believing in me. Thanks to my late great-uncle Benedict Kiely for being my inspiration. Thanks to my friends for emails, phone calls, lunches and laughter. Thanks to my husband, Dermot, for loving me all these years. Thanks to our daughter, Alice, for being the light of our lives. And, finally, thanks to the readers who make it all possible. I really hope you enjoy this story.

  1. The Gift

  ‘Oh, go on, Ruby! Why don’t you? They’re absolutely gorgeous,’ Jasmine said encouragingly. The two women were looking in the window of a fancy shop in Victoria Square shopping complex in Belfast. It was five o’clock on Christmas Eve, but the shops were still thronged with people enjoying the Salvation Army carol service and the general festive spirit.

  ‘I’d love to, but they’re so expensive,’ Ruby said.

  ‘Yes, they are. But didn’t you say that Jonathan needed a new pair of brogues?’ Jasmine replied.

  ‘I did. His favourite shoes have got a bit worn and these ones are so lovely,’ Ruby sighed. ‘Just look at the stitching. Perfect.’

  ‘Well then?’

  ‘But four hundred pounds for a pair of shoes?’ Ruby said doubtfully. ‘I always get Jonathan a coffee-table book about NASA or photography. Something small like that?’

  ‘Fucking hell! A book about NASA! Ruby O’Neill, you can’t give your husband a book for Christmas,’ Jasmine said, shaking her head in pity. ‘I mean, really, a book? Would you ever get real? Books are only stocking fillers.’

  ‘He likes books.’

  ‘Oh, Ruby.’

  ‘He does. He really likes those big, heavy, coffee-table books.’

  ‘Just buy the shoes.’

  ‘Our monthly mortgage is four hundred pounds.’

  ‘That’s it. I give up.’

  The two women had been firm friends for the best part of a year – ever since Jasmine had come to work alongside Ruby in a small but successful clothes shop on the elegant Ravenhill Road, close to the heart of Belfast city centre. Theodora Kelly owned the shop. She was a sprightly spinster of eighty-two and wore her hair in silvery-white waves like the Queen.

  Jasmine was twenty-seven years old. She was tall and super-s
lim with dark blue eyes and waist-length, honey-blonde hair. Ruby was thirty-one and had hazel eyes and a sleek, black bob. But sometimes she might as well have been fifty-one as far as Jasmine was concerned. Ruby was simply too sensible for her own good.

  ‘Lighten up, Ruby O’Neill! Scrooge himself wouldn’t have a look-in with you,’ Jasmine muttered under her breath. But Ruby heard her.

  ‘You single girls don’t have to be as careful with your money as the rest of us,’ she began, trying her best to be tactful.

  ‘Yes, we do, excuse me. We have rent to pay,’ Jasmine protested at once.

  ‘Well, yes. Rent, of course.’

  ‘Extortionate rent, I might add. I probably pay more to rent my one-bed apartment than it costs some couples to buy a big detached house. If they bought before the boom, that is. And I have nobody to split the utilities with.’

  ‘True,’ Ruby admitted, biting her lip with indecision.

  ‘Maybe I should start buying Lotto tickets again?’ Jasmine said in a dejected voice.

  ‘No, don’t do that! You said they were becoming addictive,’ Ruby reminded her.

  ‘Oh, so I did! Right! Let’s wrap this up. Can you afford the shoes?’ Jasmine asked matter-of-factly.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I can,’ Ruby replied.

  ‘Okay. Listen to me, Ruby. Why don’t you go mad for once in your life? I’ve only been in your house a few times but Jonathan has more than enough books already from what I can see. So nip in there immediately and buy your husband a decent present for Christmas,’ Jasmine commanded, elbowing Ruby through the crowds and straight up to the black marble counter.

  ‘I-I’d like to see that pair in a size eleven, please?’ Ruby stuttered, pointing at the shiny leather brogues. The young assistant duly placed the heavy black shoes in front of Ruby and took a deep breath. The sales pitch was long and complicated and she was very tired. But Jasmine was in a hurry.

  ‘They’re perfect. We’ll take them. And can you gift-wrap them as well? Thanks,’ she said firmly as Ruby meekly handed over her credit card. ‘Well done, Ruby. He’ll be so pleased he’ll be chasing you around the house all week,’ Jasmine said casually, tossing her long hair over one shoulder and checking out her glittery eye make-up in a huge Rococo mirror on the wall.

  ‘I hope so,’ Ruby whispered to Jasmine as she felt her own face begin to redden with excitement.

  ‘He will. He’ll totally love those shoes.’ Jasmine smiled. ‘Well, if that’s us done shopping, we can treat ourselves to a quick steak sandwich and a glass of wine in the bar next door. There’s live music on all day. And the lead singer’s quite sexy,’ she added with a laugh.

  ‘Yes, okay,’ Ruby agreed. She glanced at the sales assistant, who was still gift-wrapping the box. ‘You go ahead and order for both of us and I’ll be across in a minute. Just a fizzy apple juice for me, mind. I’m driving.’

  ‘Right,’ Jasmine said, clutching the giant carrier bag containing her fabulous new white mohair coat from River Island. She’d just got fifty per cent off in a pre-Christmas sale. ‘I love shopping, but I have to say I’ll be wearing flat pumps next time.’

  ‘Off you go then,’ Ruby told her. ‘I’ll be along in a minute. And try not to get into any trouble. Find out if that singer has a jealous girlfriend with a bad temper before you go batting your eyelashes at him.’

  ‘Hey, you watch it! I hardly ever get myself into trouble, Ruby. Nine times out of ten the trouble comes to me,’ Jasmine said resignedly. ‘Is it my fault so many guys seem to find me attractive?’

  But Ruby knew she was only joking. Or maybe half joking… ‘Okay, I’m sorry,’ she sighed. Jasmine was a great friend, really.

  ‘Right then. Don’t hang about in here chatting to the staff and keeping them back,’ Jasmine said, laughing. ‘I’ve a party to go to at eight thirty this evening.’ And off she went, marching across the street in her spike-heel boots, skin-tight jeans and short leather jacket. Her long legs were attracting discreet, appreciative glances from most of the men in the vicinity, Ruby noticed. Ruby didn’t get admiring looks nearly as often, though she was rather attractive herself. But when men glanced at her full-length black overcoat and her sleek black bob and biker-style boots they knew she wasn’t the type of girl to be chatted up on a windblown city pavement. Ruby wasn’t exactly intimidating, but there was something about her that was somehow simply unapproachable. She was aware of it, but she didn’t mind. Jonathan was the only man she ever wanted to notice her or fancy her or love her.

  Ruby was glowing with happiness as she sat down at her kitchen table later that evening to admire the fancy flock-style wrapping on Jonathan’s gift. There was also a big, black reflective ribbon on the box that caught the light from her little glass lantern and dazzled like a thousand stars. The gift looked very expensive indeed wrapped up like that.

  ‘How exciting,’ she said to herself, gradually getting used to the idea of splashing the cash. Even if it was only very occasionally.

  Jonathan would be home from work soon. They’d be having a few drinks in the office, no doubt. And giving each other silly or naughty gifts in the traditional Secret Santa. But Ruby knew her husband would never drink and drive. Or risk hurting anyone’s feelings by giving them condoms (for any man with more than two children) or a saucy peephole bra (for the office flirt) for Christmas. He’d be having only soft drinks. And he’d bought gift vouchers in M&S for the Secret Santa, knowing that the person he was supposed to be buying a gift for was a bit short of money that year. Jonathan O’Neill was the sexiest man Ruby had ever met, but he had impeccable manners and the kindest heart as well, it had to be said. And that was precisely why Ruby had fallen for him in the first place. Yes, her Jonathan was the perfect package.

  She touched the gift-wrapped box again lovingly and her heart gave a little wobble of excitement. Maybe Jonathan would chase her around the house all over the holidays. Maybe next year they would have their first child. Then she poured herself a very small glass of Merlot and sat happily for a minute admiring the glossy black and silver packaging. Outside the kitchen window the sky was an inky violet colour with just a smattering of stars visible between the ghostly clouds. Soon Jonathan would be home and they would have a cosy supper and later curl up together on the sofa to watch telly.

  Filled with a renewed sense of hope about falling pregnant that month, Ruby jumped up from the table and began to get things ready. She switched on the central heating and the various table lamps. She opened some last-minute Christmas cards and slotted them into her trendy wire cardholder in the hall. She set a beef casserole into the oven to heat through. She stacked the dishwasher and filled the washing machine and snapped them both on happily, thinking where she would be without her mod cons. She did a quick vacuum of the hall rugs and tidied up the coats on the hat-stand.

  ‘There,’ she said to herself. ‘The house looks perfect now. What else was I supposed to do? There was definitely something else. Oh yes, I’ve got to phone home.’

  Ruby took the phone into the kitchen and speed-dialled her parents’ large house in the countryside. It lay at the end of a very long, very dark driveway in County Fermanagh in the west of the country and Ruby had never liked it much when she was growing up. Her parents had made a lot of money selling off Ruby’s father’s family land in the 1980s so the council could build more social housing and they’d been living off the proceeds ever since.

  ‘Hello?’ Ruby’s mother said hesitantly.

  ‘Hi, Mum! It’s me,’ Ruby said brightly.

  ‘Hello dear,’ came the usual subdued reply.

  ‘Merry Christmas, Mum!’

  ‘Yes indeed, and the same to you.’

  ‘Have you got everything ready for tomorrow then?’ Ruby asked, hoping she could entice her mother into a cosy chat. It was a faint hope but it was always there.

  ‘Everything ready? What are you talking about? There’s only the two of us here,’ her mother said in a flat voice.

  ‘Yes, bu
t there’s still an awful lot to do, isn’t there? Pudding to set in the steamer, cream to whisk, tablecloth and napkins to press, and the turkey to stuff?’

  ‘We’ll manage well enough, Ruby. I’m only cooking a breast of turkey from the supermarket this year. Last year we couldn’t eat the half of it. It went in the bin on Boxing Day.’

  ‘But it wouldn’t be Christmas without a turkey,’ Ruby persisted.

  ‘Whatever you say.’

  ‘You sound a bit tired,’ Ruby said in her most sympathetic voice.

  ‘You phone me up and then tell me I sound tired? That’s not very nice of you. I’m fine.’

  ‘Okay, okay. I’m sorry I spoke.’

  ‘No, really, I’m fine,’ Ruby’s mother sighed.

  ‘What’s wrong, Mum?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong. Nothing at all.’

  ‘You can tell me if there is?’

  ‘I’m fine. Jesus!’

  ‘You could both come to me for Christmas Day? I have the whole house decorated,’ Ruby said hopefully. ‘You’re still welcome to join us tomorrow.’

  ‘You know I like to stay at home, Ruby. Burglars never take a day off.’

  ‘But you have the alarm now.’

  ‘I don’t like to use the alarm.’

  ‘Oh, Mum!’

  ‘It’s so noisy when it goes off.’

  ‘It’s meant to be noisy,’ Ruby said gently.

  ‘Anyway, what use is it? Nobody would hear it blaring and beeping: not all the way out here. The whole place would be ransacked and wrecked and nobody would be a bit the wiser.’

  This was familiar territory: Ruby’s mother’s lack of faith in her state-of-the-art burglar alarm.

  ‘And you’re sure you don’t want us to come and visit you instead?’ Ruby asked.

  ‘No, not at all. Are you out of your mind? I hear we might have snow coming, for heaven’s sake. I won’t have you both breaking down on the road and freezing to death. Not on my account! And if you did make it this length you might be stranded here for days and then your own home would be broken into.’

  They both sighed heavily.