The Little Things Read online

  First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2015

  A CBS Company

  Copyright © Jane Costello 2015

  Extract from The Love Shack Copyright © Jane Costello 2015

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  ® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

  The right of Jane Costello to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-47114-994-8

  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.

  Contents

  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 16

  Chapter 17

  The Love Shack

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 1

  Do you ever wake up with the inescapable feeling that today is going to be a Good Day? No, a magnificent day – the sort of day when the sun is shining, the birds are singing and life couldn’t be improved even if Jamie Dornan rang your doorbell and offered to give you a foot massage?

  No, me neither. At least, not usually. Most of the time, I’m fairly grounded; there have been occasions when I’ve been accused (rather uncharitably) of being a cynic. But this morning I’m so overcome with bright, wide-eyed optimism you’d think it was Christmas morning.

  I am on my way to a meeting at the headquarters of my company, Panther, which is a luxury-car manufacturer where I’ve worked for the past five years. And I think I’m about to be promoted.

  If this sounds presumptuous, I promise I’m not the kind to take anything for granted – I’d never count my chickens, even if I had any. But I’ve had, on the face of it, a cast-iron tipoff from the personal assistant of Panther’s CEO, Keith Blanchard, who just happens to be my friend Julia.

  In fairness, it wouldn’t be a complete surprise. I’ve been standing in as head of consumer marketing while my immediate boss was on maternity leave. A company reshuffle has been on the cards for months and Keith (he told me to call him that) has hinted openly that, when Maria returns, I’m the girl he wants to fly out and help expand the company’s Middle Eastern operation.

  Oh, yes, did I mention? The job that has my name on it is in . . . Dubai!

  It’s not somewhere that I’ve ever particularly aspired to go, but I love travelling, and, given that this is home to some of the most luxurious hotels in the world, I can’t help but think it’s my kind of place.

  There’s just one big question: whether Keith can be persuaded to let my fiancé James, who works alongside me in the marketing team, come too. We’re technically at the same level, even if all the extra responsibility and experience has come my way in recent months. Despite this, he’d make a brilliant deputy; at least I think so. I just hope Keith agrees.

  I wrestle my hair into an up-do, loosening it enough to avoid looking schoolmarmish, then grab my keys, pausing to breathe in the ghost of James’s aftershave on the coats he hangs by the door. Like every morning, he’s been up at 5.30 to hit the gym, honing a six-pack Wolverine would be proud of.

  When we first met two years ago, James’s quest for physical perfection could be unsettling at times, I must admit. Sleeping with someone so physically impressive can have the unfortunate by-product of making you focus neurotically on your own wobbly bits, of which I have copious amounts.

  But I have since developed a brilliant, orgasm-guaranteed sex tip that Cosmo would be proud of, one anyone should remember if they find themselves in this situation: DON’T. Don’t focus on anything other than the fact you’ve scored a hottie. Life’s far easier in the long run.

  James and I live in Liverpool city centre, in a small but unfeasibly slick apartment in which my boyfriend looks significantly more at home than I do. Every flat I’ve ever had before has been on the ramshackle, crumbling side, boasting ‘original features’ like noisy floorboards and windows that get stuck when you try to open them.

  I still can’t get used to the fact that everything works in this place, from the ludicrously proportioned flat-screen TV to the integrated stainless-steel wine fridge. It’s the antithesis of shabby chic – there is literally nothing shabby about it, me aside.

  When I get downstairs, I discover that the sun is not in fact shimmering incandescently across the city. On the contrary, the sky has taken on an ominous, thunderous hue. But my mood refuses to dampen as I walk, heels a-clicking, to my company car, a gleaming Panther G-type – which might be a long way from top of the range, but it’s still flashier than anything I ever thought I’d end up driving.

  When I get to work twenty minutes later, I stop for a chat with Bernard, our treasured security guard, who’s managed to hold down his job for fifty-four years, despite the fact that, in a real-life security crisis, you’d be safer with a teddy bear in charge. Then I head upstairs, to the tenth floor.

  A couple of my colleagues are already at their desks when I arrive.

  ‘Hi there, Hannah,’ Adele says, smiling and looking up from beneath her heavy fringe. She’s twenty-four, a Geordie, and, although she started only a few months ago, she’s made a big impression for all the right reasons. ‘Wow – you look nice. Love the hair.’

  ‘Oh . . . um, I just threw it up,’ I lie.

  ‘Sounds like the curry I had this weekend,’ adds Emilio, who, despite any impressions given by the name, is actually a slightly burly, rugby-league-loving redhead from South Manchester.

  ‘And how are you this morning, Gary?’ I say with enforced pleasantry to Gary French, whom I’ve had the misfortune of sitting next to for the past year. It’s not that Gary is fundamentally a bad person, although there’ve been times when I’ve come to the conclusion that he should’ve been sorted into Slytherin at birth. It’s that, since Keith made the decision to let me stand in for Marie, he’s despised me.

  ‘Fine, thank you,’ he replies curtly, refusing to make eye contact.

  There’s a split second, a mere moment, when I’m tempted to let this get to me, but I feel a hand slipping into mine and it has the instant effect of taking my mind off it.

  ‘Hey there.’ James’s soft breath whispers against my ear and I turn to look at him. He’s wearing a suit the colour of granite, one he bought for his sister’s wedding a couple of years ago. It wasn’t expensive, as I recall – he was broke at the time – but he looks slimmer, sharper than his amplified biceps sometimes allow. ‘Don’t be nervous. I have a feeling today’s going to be a pretty big day,’ he says.

  ‘Thanks, but I’m presuming nothing,’ I whisper back.

  ‘Well, you look gorgeous.’ He smiles softly, circling the tip of his thumb against my wrist. ‘On that basis alone you deserve a promotion.’

  A smile flickers to my lips. ‘
Well, I’m only going if you get to come with me. I mean that.’

  His head moves slowly from side to side. ‘Let’s not have this conversation again, Hannah. You’d have to go, whether they wanted me or not. There are other jobs in Dubai. If you get promoted and I don’t, I’d look for other work out there, then follow you over. I’d take anything.’

  I frown. ‘Do you really mean that, James?’

  ‘Of course. We’re getting married, aren’t we? It’s kind of the least I could do.’

  I glance at the engagement ring James gave me three months ago, on holiday in Venice. When he says, ‘We’re getting married’ the words still take me by surprise sometimes. It’s not that we aren’t getting married – we just weren’t one of those couples who race out to book the venue the day after the question is popped. In getting engaged, we simply agreed that one day we’d have the massive do, the massive cake, the Jenny Packham dress and the slightly presumptuous gift list. But, given that we’re both still in our twenties, there’s never been a rush.

  I look at the clock. ‘I’d better go,’ I say, straightening my skirt.

  ‘Good luck,’ he says. ‘Here’s to our future together. Whatever happens.’

  I’m not the nervous kind, outside the realms of driving tests and first dates. But, as I head up to the fifteenth floor, I must admit my stomach is churning as if I were attempting to make organic goat’s cheese.

  As the lift opens, Julia is sitting at her desk like a twenty-first-century Mad Men siren, all flicked eyeliner and pillar-box-red lipstick. To the untrained eye she is the epitome of glamour; what the untrained eye doesn’t know, however, is that she has run four Tough Mudders and one marathon, and would’ve made it into the RAF had she not failed the eyesight test.

  At twenty-seven, she’s a year younger than I am, but – endurance sports aside – we have a lot in common: from our taste in men (though she’s currently single) to our eclectic taste in books. We read anything and everything and enjoy dissecting them afterwards over a macchiato as much as the reading itself.

  ‘So, has anybody else been called into a meeting this morning?’ I ask, lowering my voice.

  She looks around to check her boss’s door is firmly closed. ‘I’m making the call as soon as you go in,’ she whispers, her eyes twinkling with meaning.

  My eyes dart around shiftily. ‘To whom?’

  She clamps her teeth into her lips, as if she simply has to keep quiet. ‘I couldn’t possibly say.’ Then she winks.

  ‘James?’ I hiss.

  She nods excitedly. ‘God, I’ll miss you two. I really will, but if anyone deserves this break, it’s the pair of you. I’m so jealous.’

  ‘Julia, it hasn’t happened yet,’ I remind her.

  She smiles and sits back in her seat. ‘Yet,’ she repeats, tapping her nose. ‘Just promise me you’ll have a good leaving do. You know, the kind where everyone gets up to dance, makes a complete show of themselves and someone finally gets drunk enough to snog Bernard.’

  The phone rings, then she picks up, clearing her throat. ‘Good morning, Mr Blanchard,’ she purrs in vowels that couldn’t be more plummy if she were Benedict Cumberbatch’s little sister. ‘Yes, Ms MacFarlane is right here. I’ll send her in.’

  She places down the phone. ‘Right, sister, you’re on. I’ll get the Slaughterhouse pub on speed dial.’

  When Keith Blanchard took up the job of CEO a year ago, one of the first things he did was to rip out our old boss’s office, knock through two of the meeting rooms and redesign the entire thing.

  Some saw this as an ominous sign from a man who quickly developed the nickname the Silent Assassin, due to his quiet, unnerving manner and the fact that he instigated his first round of cost cutting in week three of his tenure.

  But, for a reason I couldn’t define, I always kind of liked Keith, uncompromising as he seems.

  The interior of his office is gleaming and glassy, but not as understated as its designer probably imagined: the walls are replete with photographs of Keith shaking hands with the great and good – everyone from Bill Clinton to Jeremy Clarkson.

  ‘Take a seat, Hannah.’ I step forward and pull in my chair, and Julia supplies me with a glass of water, before leaving.

  Then I sit and wait in silence as he leans back in his seat ponderously and, for the first time since I met him, I notice that his stomach is impressively flat for someone his age.

  A silence descends upon the room. As usual, I feel as though I were on a blind date with someone I’ve got literally nothing in common with – yet have to restrain myself from filling the copious gaps. I dig my nails into my palms and clamp shut my lips.

  Then something spills out of my mouth.

  ‘Very rainy today, isn’t it?’ I grin inanely, glancing up as I realise he’s started talking, too. ‘Hmm? Eh? Sorry?’ I add.

  He narrows his eyes. ‘I was about to explain some changes we’re making in the company.’

  For the first time ever, I have to admit the absence of a smile intimidates me. As does the lingering silence. I mentally wire shut my mouth until he addresses me again.

  ‘You’re obviously aware that we’ve been conducting a company review over the last few months. We’ve had to make some very tough decisions in order to push through some major positive changes. We’re ambitious for the company – and for the marketing department.’

  ‘That’s great to hear,’ I say. He ignores me.

  ‘There are going to be some fairly big plans happening in the Middle East shortly,’ he continues, and I lean forward in my seat, awaiting the detail.

  But, as a sullen quiet descends on the room, I can virtually feel the tumbleweed tickling my toes.

  I desperately need to do something to stop myself from speaking, to stop nonsense spilling out of my mouth, so I lean in, pick up my glass of water and take a polite sip.

  At least, that’s the intention. In reality, I miss my mouth entirely and tip half the contents of my glass onto my blouse as if I were attempting to recreate a Paul Hollywood recipe in my cleavage.

  As he continues talking, oblivious, I do my best to conceal the fact that my front is now covered in self-administered dribble by leaning forward in my seat and crossing my arms. This does give the impression that I have some sort of muscular-skeletal defect to my shoulder, but at least it covers the damage as I realise I stopped following what he was saying about thirty seconds ago.

  ‘In order to be able to fulfil our ambitions in some areas, we’re having to cut back in others. You’ve been around long enough to know how it works.’

  ‘So you’re cutting back again?’ I ask, trying to buy some time.

  He nods. And, for a second, I actually wonder why he’s telling me this.

  Until the usually muted Keith Blanchard begins talking again.

  ‘I’m very sorry, Hannah. It’s unavoidable.’

  I swallow. ‘So . . . to recap . . .’

  He crosses his arms with the vague shadow of regret in his eyes.

  ‘There’s no longer a position here with Panther for you, Hannah.’

  My throat goes dry as I repeat his words in my head, trying to make sense of them.

  ‘You’re . . . you’re getting rid of me?’

  ‘Everyone here is really grateful for your contribution,’ he says, and for a pathetic split second I almost believe him. ‘But in order to take the company in the direction we want, we have to make some difficult decisions.’

  ‘And I’m one of them? I’m one of your difficult decisions?’ I croak. He doesn’t need to respond. ‘But who are you sending to the Middle East if it’s not me?’

  ‘We have someone in mind for that position already.’

  My jaw clenches as I try to hold it together. ‘Okay,’ I croak, straightening my back. ‘Thank you for the opportunities,’ I add, hoping this sounds incredibly dignified. ‘I can’t pretend I’m not very sorry to be going but obviously I will relish the chance to discover all the new doors that will open for
me.’

  ‘I’m sure there’ll be many, Hannah,’ he says.

  ‘Me too,’ I reply pointedly. ‘Hundreds, in fact. Or . . . um . . . a respectable amount anyway.’

  I close the door behind me to see George from IT hovering over Julia’s computer, where he’s been a near permanent fixture lately. He’s a lovely guy – soft-spoken and nice-looking in a certain light, or at least I think he is underneath his recently grown beard, which is on the luxuriant side these days.

  She looks up expectantly and I am at a loss as to what to say.

  So, in order to stop myself crying, I tell myself loud and clear that – in the words of a song Bernard had playing on Radio 2 this morning – I am strong. I am invincible. I am woman!

  And surely I’ll be snapped up in another high-flying career in no time.

  Chapter 2

  Five months later

  It’s amazing how much use one person can get from a single dressing gown. This time last year, I hardly used mine. It was just something my mum bought me for Christmas, a fluffy pink affair that makes me look like a giant, radioactive candyfloss.

  Yesterday, I got to the opening credits of Loose Women before I realised I was still in it. And it was only when, a couple of weeks ago, I actually considered opening a bottle of Sauv Blanc before I’d got out of it that I registered how much standards had slipped.

  At least James isn’t around to see, though – either the state of me, or the flat. Oh, I’m not saying the place looks like one of those programmes about hoarders, featuring the sorts of houses where the body of a dead yak could remain hidden for months without anyone noticing the smell over everything else.

  But things aren’t how they were. I leave teabags at the side of the drainer, globules of toothpaste stuck on the bathroom sink. And I even leave it two days – sometimes several – before I use the Cif on the hob. Oh, this is dangerous living indeed.

  I glance at my watch and realise it’s nearly time to Skype James. I plod into the bedroom, pull on some jeans and a nice top, before applying makeup and a dollop of dry shampoo, which makes my hair look almost passable if I close the curtains and position the webcam next to the dimmest lamp in the living room.