The Corner Shop of Whispers Read online

  The Corner Shop of Whispers

  Debbie Viggiano

  The Corner Shop of Whispers © Debbie Viggiano 2017

  Kindle Edition published worldwide 2017 © Debbie Viggiano

  All rights reserved in all media. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical (including but not limited to: the Internet, photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system), without prior permission in writing from the author.

  The moral right of Debbie Viggiano as the author of the work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  Acknowledgements

  There are a few people I’d like to thank for helping me with this book.

  Firstly, my thanks to the lovely Jacqueline Steele Walkden for coming up with the fictitious village name of Lower Amblegate. To the fabulous Rebecca Emin at Gingersnap Books who always assists so brilliantly with producing both kindle and paperback versions. To Cathy Helms of Avalon Graphics for yet another terrific cover design. To my family for putting up with me dropping out of the real world and retreating into one of fiction for hours at a time. And finally, you, my wonderful reader, for buying this novel. I hope you enjoy!

  For my family

  Chapter One

  My husband flung his arms around me. Suddenly I was being whirled round and round the kitchen. I gasped and gave a nervous giggle. There can’t be many married couples who engage in a spot of Strictly Come Dancing early on a Tuesday morning in late April. But then again there aren’t many married couples like us. Only yesterday my immediate neighbour, Alison, had caught Marcus and me on our doorstep. She’d been hurrying out of Number 3 about to embark on the school run just as I was waving Marcus off to work – or, rather, my husband was kissing me good-bye. Except his cursory brush against the edge of my mouth had swiftly slid to my lips and turned into a lingering kiss which almost immediately had become a full-blown hungry devouring of my mouth.

  ‘Mmm, mmm. Oh, Florrie. Mmm, mmm. I need you. I need you so much. Mmm, mmm. I’ll miss the eight oh-seven and catch the eight thirty-two. Mmm, mmm. Get back in the house, Florrie. I can’t help it. Mmm, mmm. I simply have to have my wicked way with you and–’

  ‘Oh for goodness sake, Marcus!’ Alison’s cut-glass accent had sliced through the air instantly putting a stop to things. ‘What sort of message are you conveying to Tiffany?’

  Marcus had promptly released me. We’d gazed at Alison’s bespectacled daughter. Plugged into her iPod, Tiffany had been oblivious of her surroundings. The little girl had been neatly dressed in the uniform of Darwin Prep, the local private school. She was the most hot-housed child we’d ever met. The likelihood that Tiffany had been listening to iTunes was improbable, but there was every chance she’d been absorbing French vocabulary specifically downloaded for her by Alison. My neighbour had given her daughter a little prod in the back.

  ‘Get in the car, Tiffany. Mummy will be with you in two minutes.’ She’d turned back to glare at Marcus. ‘It’s high time you stopped this exhibitionist behaviour on your doorstep every morning. Do you really think the residents of The Cul-de-Sac want to witness borderline soft porn?’

  Marcus had smiled at Alison disarmingly. ‘There are only three houses in The Cul-de-Sac, Ali. It’s hardly the world and his wife watching. Do I detect a touch of jealousy?’

  Alison had pursed her lips and given Marcus a frosty look. ‘Most certainly not. However, behaving lecherously in a public place is a big no-no. It’s beyond uncouth.’

  ‘Uncouth, eh? You don’t fool me, Ali,’ Marcus had playfully retorted. ‘I don’t think old Henry is giving you enough attention. C’mon, admit it. We’ve seen the sweep of your hubby’s headlights along The Cul-de-Sac at midnight. What sort of time is that to be coming home from the office? Your Henry is so burnt out from City trading he’s not stoking your fire.’

  Alison had immediately looked like she’d swallowed a gobstopper. ‘My fire,’ she’d spluttered, ‘does not need stoking, thank you very much. And if Henry chooses to work long hours, that’s his business. At least we know Christmas will be in the Caribbean as usual.’

  And with that my neighbour had stuck her nose in the air and stalked off to her brand new four by four. Any onlooker would have been forgiven for thinking Alison, a vision in full make-up and high heels, had been heading off to a smart London office instead of simply keeping up with all the other high-maintenance mothers and their spoilt offspring at the gates of Darwin Prep.

  At that precise moment, Daisy, our other immediate neighbour at Number 1, had opened the door to her house. Husband Tom had stepped out, three children scampering around his legs. The kids had been wearing mismatched overcoats suitable for St Mildred’s Primary, the local school where Tom was headmaster. The children had also been arguing furiously. Tom had looked both henpecked and harassed as he shepherded his clamouring brood over to the family vehicle.

  ‘Morning, Florrie. Morning, Marcus,’ he’d called over his shoulder. ‘I saw you both through the window, by the way. Nice to see romance is alive and kicking, even if it is at Number 2, and not my house.’

  ‘I heard that,’ Daisy had called after her husband. She’d scowled at Tom’s back. ‘I’m ready, willing and available – just as long as it’s before nine in the evening.’ She’d shrugged and turned to Marcus and me. ‘After that I’m out cold. The kids are exhausting.’

  Tom had shut the car’s rear door on the still noisy children. Walking back to Daisy, he’d plonked a dutiful kiss on her cheek. ‘I have a pile of pastoral work to catch up on with the vicar this evening. I’ll grab a sandwich while I’m out, so don’t wait up.’

  Daisy had given an exaggerated sigh. ‘Story of my life,’ she’d grumbled. ‘No rumpy-pumpy for me this evening.’

  ‘When are you ever awake for rumpy-pumpy?’ Tom had countered.

  ‘I’m awake now, aren’t I?’ Daisy had said belligerently. With her bed-head hair and crumpled pyjamas splattered with that morning’s egg and baked beans, it was fair to say she hadn’t looked her most alluring.

  ‘You two should have a date night with each other,’ I’d suggested.

  ‘Ah, but you don’t have children,’ Tom had sighed. His expression had been one of long-suffering. ‘They change your life. Wear you down. Pretty much wear you out too. I can’t remember the last time Daisy and I managed to eat a meal peacefully together without one of the kids emitting a blood-curdling scream and all hell breaking out.’

  ‘Take no notice of him,’ Daisy had added hastily. She was fully up to date on my many attempts to get pregnant. And the many failures too.

  ‘All I’m saying,’ Tom had sighed, ‘is that the days of being a loved-up couple like Florrie and Marcus here are a thing of the past for us.’ He’d turned back to us with a deprecatory shrug. ‘I take my hat off to you both. Honestly. I don’t know any husbands and wives who have been married for five years still enjoying the honeymoon period.’

  He’d given a warm smile and for a moment his whole face had transformed. He was actually a very good looking guy. Seconds later he’d morphed back into put-upon Tom complete with drooping mouth and matching posture.

  ‘Forgive me for holding you both up. I must get the children to school and then,’ he’d perked up slightly, ‘have a
coffee in the staff room for ten minutes. It’s the one place where there is peace, quiet, and grown-up conversation.’

  He’d inclined his head by way of farewell and, like a man going off to his execution, opened the driver’s door. The Cul-de-Sac had briefly been filled with the din of still arguing children before Tom had pulled the door shut after him. From behind the steering wheel he’d raised a tired arm by way of farewell. Moments later he’d driven off in a cloud of exhaust.

  Daisy had turned to us and suddenly given a cheerful grin. ‘Hurrah! Peace until I collect the mini mob at half past three. I’m going to put the kettle on and watch a bit of Jeremy Kyle. Fancy joining me, Florrie?’

  ‘Are you trying to persuade my perfect wife to be a lazy good-for-nothing woman?’ Marcus had teased.

  ‘Excuse me?’ Daisy had instantly bristled. ‘The moment Jeremy has finished telling some poor cow that the father of her unborn child is an unfaithful lying bastard, I’ll be off the sofa and cleaning this house from top to bottom. I shall then tackle an overflowing laundry bin, work my way through a mountain of ironing, and finally head off to the supermarket for a mammoth shop that will leave my arms like stretched spaghetti for the rest of the week. My days are full to bursting, Marcus. Make no mistake about it.’

  ‘I’ll consider myself told off,’ Marcus had said graciously.

  ‘And I’m busy too,’ I’d reminded Marcus.

  Despite not having a litter of kids making demands upon my time, I did have a huge canvas awaiting my attention in the loft room. Whilst I’d yet to strike it big and be represented by an art gallery, nonetheless I’d recently started to make a decent living producing colourful works for a local restaurant.

  But all of that had happened yesterday. Sometimes things can change dramatically in the space of just twenty-four hours, which Marcus and I discovered on this particular Tuesday morning resulting in him dancing me around our kitchen. You see, after five barren years of marriage, I was pregnant. We gazed again at the double blue lines on the pregnancy tester before my husband squashed me into another hug.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ he murmured into my hair. ‘It’s nothing short of a miracle.’

  Suddenly I couldn’t think of anything to say. Already the enormity of the situation was starting to make itself felt. My heart quickened. Anxiety? No, Florrie, I told myself, just shock. Mentally, I took a deep breath. It would be fine. Everything would be fine. To the outsider my life was perfect. Enviably so. I lived in a desirable house in The Cul-de-Sac in the popular village of Lower Amblegate. I had fab neighbours and was married to a respectable man who was earning nicely thank you very much as a property surveyor. A little baby was the icing on the marital cake. I was the luckiest woman in the world. Wasn’t I?

  Chapter Two

  I spent the next couple of hours brushing oils onto a vast rectangular canvas. But as colour and form grew, my mind continuously wandered elsewhere. My brain was whirling. Thoughts of babies, conception, the gestation period, trying to work out exactly how pregnant I was, all kept tumbling over and over like an old-fashioned video tape stuck on a loop. This pregnancy was indeed a miracle. As soon as we’d shaken the confetti from our hair, Marcus had wanted to get down to the business of starting a family.

  ‘I want us to have ten children,’ he’d grinned. ‘Five boys and five girls.’

  I’d laughed and suggested we let Mother Nature take her course and that two children would be perfect. As twenty-five-year-olds we had no real qualms about money. We both did the daily commute to London. Marcus had an escalating salary, and I was a stressed PA. Together, we earned good money. Not long after becoming engaged, we’d driven through Lower Amblegate and spotted The Cul-de-Sac. Investigating, we’d noted the For Sale board outside Number 2. We’d wasted no time making an appointment to view. Walking through the front door, we’d fallen in love with the larger than average rooms and huge windows letting in streams of lemony sunbeams. We’d felt as though the house had embraced us. Even the branches of the fruit trees dotted around the paddock-like garden had seemingly wrapped their leafy boughs around our shoulders, hugging us, urging us to stay. In the misty recesses of my mind I saw a little boy hanging off a tyre that swung from one of the sturdy branches, while a little girl played tea parties with her dollies in a home-made treehouse.

  Buying it was, admittedly, a bit of a push. You don’t see many twenty-five-year-olds starting out in a four-bedroomed detached, but we opted for living on baked beans and toast in order to get the deposit monies together. It was more than a dream home. It was our dream family home. A year after moving in, the initial room we’d set aside as a nursery remained empty. Eventually I’d mentioned my pregnancy concerns to my doctor during a routine smear test.

  ‘You’re young and a busy working lady,’ he’d smiled reassuringly. ‘I suspect you’re living life in the fast lane, skipping meals and staying late at the office.’ The doctor had been more precise than Mystic Meg. ‘It’s time to slow down. Make some changes. Eat properly – no missing breakfast. Take your lunch hour in full and go out of the office. Stretch those legs. Do some walking and fill those lungs with gallons of fresh air.’ The “fresh air” bit hadn’t been quite so accurate. At the time I’d been working near Fleet Street. The air had always been thick with the diesel fumes of a hundred buses and honking black cabs, while a haze of exhaust belched from scores of immobile cars stuck in congested lanes. In fact, the pollution was so bad that one of my colleagues regularly used to have an asthma attack on the walk to Blackfriars Station. But I didn’t tell my doctor all that. Instead I hoovered up his words of hope. ‘Some women simply need to prepare their bodies for pregnancy. I would bet my stethoscope that you’re simply one of them.’

  After two years I went back to the same doctor, who also summoned Marcus for examination. That’s when the tests began. Apparently I had lazy ovaries causing an irregular menstrual cycle. This made it tricky to plot the most fertile time of the month. But, even trickier, Marcus’s tests revealed a very low sperm count. There were no obvious reasons as to why. It was just one of those things.

  ‘Try not to worry about it,’ the doctor had said kindly. ‘I’ve had many a man in my surgery with the same problem. They’ve all gone on to become fathers. I’m sure it will happen for both of you. One day. Meanwhile, try not to stress about it. Stress makes things much worse and, indeed, could even be the cause.’

  Marcus immediately suggested I give up work. Certainly my job was full-on and incredibly demanding, but initially I’d been reluctant to walk away from my work. It wasn’t simply a case of saying good-bye to the rat race; it meant saying good-bye to a lot of friends. No more gossip about who the married senior partner had secretly snogged at the Christmas party. No more jostling into the tiny rest room with the girls on a Friday night, fighting over the dingy mirror as we excitedly re-applied lipstick before setting off for an end-of-week drink at the hip local wine bar. But even more crucially, no more enjoyment of financial independence. Marcus, however, had been adamant.

  ‘I’m earning enough now to cover the mortgage and bills. Give up the commute, Florrie. I want you to relax at home. If you’re worried about being bored, take up a new hobby. Maybe knitting.’ He’d looked pleased at that idea. ‘Perhaps if you get those needles clicking away and churn out a few of those old-fashioned matinee jackets, it will get your body in homemaker mode. A baby is bound to follow.’

  Within a month I’d gone on to fully bond with Daisy and Alison, my immediate stay-at-home neighbours. Alison, despite being a roaring snob, was a good sort with her heart in the right place. Daisy, Alison’s complete antithesis, was scruffy and scatty but equally lovely. However, even their welcome friendship couldn’t stop the moments of downright monotony. My neighbours had children to keep them busy, and their social lives flourished through the school mum network. It didn’t matter how many times I was invited to join their respective coffee mornings with other school mums, my face didn’t fit. I didn’t have
the right badge you see. I wasn’t a parent. The only time I felt truly able to be myself with Alison and Daisy was when there weren’t any other school mums around.

  As for the home-making attempts, my foray into the world of matinee jackets had produced a single garment with so many holes from dropped stitches it had looked more like a dwarf’s string vest. And there is only so long one can make a house gleam before feeling utterly fed up. I’d always played with paint and charcoal, producing sketches and colourful canvases. With so much time on my hands I’d returned to my old passion, tinkering about with oils and water colours under the rafters of the loft room which had been turned into a working studio. Occasionally, through word of mouth, I’d sell a painting which would leave me glowing for weeks.

  Another year went by. We had a few attempts at IVF with no success. It was at this point I realised Marcus wasn’t happy. Outwardly he was the same. Jovial. Cheerful. Caring. Loving. But inwardly it was another story. Privately I suspected he was wrestling with turmoil that his inability to father a child was making him feel emasculated. This was confirmed when, about three months ago, I’d received a surprise letter in the post.

  The letter had been addressed just to me in bold flowing handwriting. I’d stood in my immaculate kitchen surveying the envelope, wondering who it was from. The writing wasn’t familiar. Eventually I’d tugged at the seal. And instantly recoiled in shock.

  The written contents had never been discussed with anybody. Not Marcus, nor my parents, and most certainly not my dearest friends, Alison and Daisy. Nobody. I suppose my reasoning was that if I didn’t discuss the letter, it didn’t exist. No doubt some clever counsellor with umpteen certificates on their study walls would declare such a tactic to be a coping mechanism. And perhaps they’d be right. I still had the letter. It was hidden in a shoebox, tucked away in the depths of my wardrobe. Sometimes I’d forage within the wardrobe and withdraw the note, studying the style of writing, trying to analyse the character of the author, looking for clues as to who had put pen to paper. But then I’d hide it away again and try and forget all about it.