The Woman in the Middle

the perfect escapist read from the much-loved Sunday Times bestseller

Milly Johnson

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781471199028
• eBook ISBN: 9781471199011

THE NEW MILLY JOHNSON NOVEL, THE HAPPIEST EVER AFTER, IS OUT NOW!

Shay Bastable is the woman in the middle. She is part of the sandwich generation – caring for her parents and her children, supporting her husband Bruce, holding them all together and caring for them as best she can.
 
Then the arrival of a large orange skip on her mother’s estate sets in motion a cataclysmic series of events which leads to the collapse of Shay’s world. She is forced to put herself first for a change.
 
But in order to move forward with her present, Shay needs to make sense of her past. And so she returns to the little village she grew up in, to uncover the truth about what happened to her when she was younger. And in doing so, she discovers that sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to find the only way is up.

Praise for The Woman in the Middle:

'An unputdownable tale of redemption and hard-won wisdom, this is a book that speaks for us all wherever we are in our lives.  Milly Johnson always delivers an absolutely cracking read' Katie Fforde
‘The main characters are wise, loveable and so relatable. The humour is down to earth, the emotions are real and the storyline compelling. No one else writes quite like Milly and, with The Woman in the Middle, she has produced yet another winner’’  Jill Mansell
'Written from the heart ... honest, inspirational and great fun ... I loved it' Janie Millman
'This book is delicious. As moreish as a freshly made sandwich, full of your favourite filling. It's well worth the wait and joyous to bite into' Jo Thomas
 ‘Immensely relatable, tender and wise; Milly’s magic sparkles from every page’ Cathy Bramley
‘A complex family drama with a big heart, a light touch and lots of surprises’ Veronica Henry
'The perfect pick-me-up that you won't be able to put down. I loved it' Matt Dunn

Praise for Milly Johnson:
‘The feeling you get when you read a Milly Johnson book should be bottled and made available on the NHS’ Debbie Johnson
'Every time you discover a new Milly book, it’s like finding a pot of gold' heat
'A glorious, heartfelt novel' Rowan Coleman
‘Absolutely loved it. Milly's writing is like getting a big hug with just the right amount of bite underneath. I was rooting for Bonnie from the start' Jane Fallon
‘Bursting with warmth and joie de vivre’ Jill Mansell
 

Rising

Chapter 27

After packing a case and a couple of boxes of essentials, Shay dropped a spare key off and a forwarding address with her neighbours Dave and Sylvia who promised to keep an eye on the place while she was away, and send on any mail until further notice. They didn’t ask any questions although they figured something was wrong, and Shay was touched by their concern that she take care of herself and to call them should she need anything and not to worry as they’d put the bins out for her. They’d been living there when she and Bruce moved in; Dave had often had a kickabout with baby Sunny in their garden – more than Bruce had ever done – and Sylvia had attempted to teach a young Courtney to knit. She’d made some bright green nunchucks and never another thing.

While she loaded up her car, Shay’s thoughts tried to drive her into reverse thrust. Why would you think of going back there after all this time? What if you’re recognised? What if you rake everything up again? She didn’t have answers, all she knew was that she needed to at least try and straighten out her life and for that she had to go back to the beginning of when it all went wrong. Candlemas was empty and waiting like an open pair of arms to receive her. She had no idea what to do when she got there, but this was the first step and she’d suss out the next one when she was in situ.

As she was heading out of the door, she knocked over Bruce’s stompy wellington boots in the hallway and righted them. They stood next to her jolly red ones, Courtney’s pink ones with the flowers on them and the largest of them all, Sunny’s plain, sensible blue Hunters. The sight of all four pairs lined up together in their family formation made her eyes sting and she shifted her gaze away from them quickly. She had to concentrate on herself, for once, and she couldn’t do that while she was still the squashed flat middle of a sandwich. She was lost and she needed to find her place, anchor herself to where she belonged – if she could find it; she had to locate her future in her past.

---

She drove through Sheffield, avoided the motorway, took the scenic route. Millspring was just a hop away from Penistone where she picked up the key for the cottage from the estate agent. As she drove down the High Street, her eyes slid over the buildings and shop fronts she remembered and snagged on the new; a curious blend of recognisable and much changed, as if she’d been here before, only in a previous incarnation, which in a way she had.

Her mother had made a steady income, but not a massive profit, from the cottage rental because it was managed by the agent who was paid extra to oversee the deep clean upon vacation, look after the general maintenance and field any niggles from tenants, but the arrangement had worked well over many years. Candlemas was a dear little place, the end in a row of five cottages all of which her parents had owned at one time: 1, Milk Lane. When she parked up in front of it, it looked smaller than she remembered, the strip of front garden longer. Time warped some memories, but not others which stayed forever in perfect form and dimension. Some in her mind were as sharp as the day they were made, which the years had not managed to soften or smooth.

Shay hefted a case out of the car and down the path. She dropped the key when trying to open the door, realised her hand was shaking and wasn’t sure if that was because she was nervous or had hardly eaten anything all day. Most likely it was a mixture of both. She had to push on the door with her shoulder because the wood had swollen in the jamb and if her dad had been with her, she knew he would be itching to get a plane to it. A rush of old cottage smell greeted her when it eventually gave and as she walked into her new temporary home she felt the years peel back to when she had been on course for a different future than the one she had ended up with.

She was a teenager the last time she’d been inside Candlemas, helping her mum to clean it in between tenants for extra pocket money. It never took very long. It only had two equal-sized downstairs rooms, the front one doubling up as both kitchen and lounge and the back one as a more formal sitting room with a desk under the window and a large leather Chesterfield sofa. There was a bijou toilet and handbasin under the steep staircase and a bathroom and two bedrooms on the first floor. She decided on the quieter back room with the views of the Pennines in the distance and closer, the edge of Millspring woods. It had a single bed in it which was better because anything larger felt terribly lonely at the moment, the space screaming that the husband who should be in it with her was sleeping with her best friend.

A silver kettle stood to attention on the kitchen worksurface, polished to a shine by a meticulous hand. After she had brought all her stuff in from the car, she filled it up from the tap and switched it on, made herself a coffee. She settled on the fancy cabriole sofa that sat in front of a functional, but not pretty, gas fire. Her mother had bought the piece from an antique shop years ago for the Old Rectory and when they moved house, it hadn’t come with them. She always wondered what happened to it because she’d liked it, but presumed it had been given away. The sofa wrapped around her like a welcome and she felt calm, cradling her mug, sitting there in the silence, as if her brain had given her a temporary ledge to rest on, in order to gather some strength.

She switched on her phone to find a string of texts and missed calls from Courtney, all on the same theme,

Mum, I’m sorry. Are you okay? xxxxxxxxx

She replied with a simple message. She might not have wanted to engage, but neither did she see any sense in worrying her loved ones stupid by totally ignoring them.

I’m okay, don’t worry. I’m just taking some time out. I’ll be in touch soon. Love you. Mum x

There were also a couple of missed calls and texts from Morton.

Hello r u in?

Calld to av a natter. Nieghbor says you av gone away. Hope you is allright. Al ring tomoz.

She sent him a quick text too, that she had gone away for a break. As much as she felt sorry for him, she would not be drawn into being a plaster for someone else’s wound. She was overdue some ‘me’ time and she was going to spend it wisely, whichever way that might be.

She yawned, hoped that tonight she’d get some sleep, sleep that didn’t involve too-real dreams that jerked her awake to an unsettling few moments where the lines between fantasy and reality were horribly blurred. She swilled her cup under the tap, it was still early but she would go to bed, wake up with no particular plan in mind; she just wanted life to carry her like a leaf downstream for a while. Tomorrow was another day, but tonight she wanted only space and nothingness.

Chapter 28

Shay slept until ten o’clock the next morning in the small, but cosy bed. It was softer than the one they had at home because Bruce had insisted on an orthopaedic mattress for his back. She wondered if he’d do that with Les and then dragged her thoughts from them. There was no sense in moving away and bringing them with her.

She had a shower which was very different from the one in their bathroom at home, a much weaker flow bordering on a dribble, but it did the trick, even if she didn’t have any soap and made a mental note to add it to a shopping list. She had a coffee and a slice of toast from the loaf and tub of butter she’d brought with her, then thought she’d brave the supermarket on the High Street, if it was still there. The thought of venturing out, mingling with people she might recognise – who might recognise her – brought a ball of dread to her stomach, even though it had been twenty-nine years since she was last here. She fought the fear, picked up her handbag, put on her shoes, locked the door behind her.

The High Street was a mere left and immediate right turn away from Candlemas and for every change she spotted, there was a counterbalancing familiarity. The archetypal village post office had been extended into the buildings at either side and through the large windows, it was unrecognisable with its four counters. Back then, there had just been two hatches and behind them either the wizened Enid Leathem or her sister Maud. Both of them had fuelled gossip about her in this village, tipped petrol on the smallest spark, embroidered salacious stitches into the tapestry of the tale, whipped up hostility, twisted the lies until they were even bigger and more warped. She supposed they must have died by now and be franking letters in hell. The quaint old ironmongers had gone, replaced by a card shop; Olive’s bridal boutique was now a newsagents, Mr Clegg’s newsagents was now a Chinese takeaway. The Yorkshire Rose Tea Room was still there but now it was called Bees n Cheese and the roses painted on the plate glass window had been replaced by buzzing bees, honeycombs and hives. It looked busy; a young waitress in a black dress and white apron was delivering scones to a table of two. The menu stuck in the window featured a lot of cheese and honey: honey cakes, afternoon tea with honey, honey scones. Also apple pie baked with Yorkshire Crumble cheese, the same cheese featuring in a variety of toasted sandwiches. She’d passed this tea room too many times to count. She and Denny had gawped through the windows at the cakes in the glass case and vowed that when they were a bit older they’d come in every Saturday and sample every one of them in turn. There had never been a reason to think it wouldn’t happen.

The supermarket was still in the same place but much bigger. She filled a small trolley with shopping and a local newspaper. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see her photo splashed on the front page and the headline ‘Local Killer Returns’. As she walked up and down the narrow aisles, she felt her anxiety levels twitch up, as if she were waiting for a siren to begin wailing and everyone’s attention to swing to her. She couldn’t get out of there fast enough. It was too early to be brave, right now she was an animal who needed to curl up into a ball and lick her wounds, let herself adjust to the respite of not being beaten.

She made herself an omelette and read the Pennine Times, the Millspring edition, cover to cover, but there were no names she recognised. There was mention that plans had been approved to build a sixth-form wing onto St John’s School. The name was enough to flood her with memories, whizz her back into her dark blue uniform, Jonah Wells strolling towards her in the corridor with the wall of lockers in it, feeling her heart rate begin to increase in response. He rocked that uniform. He rocked everything, especially her world. She wondered where he was now. He’d have gone on to uni and then probably on to some high-powered job abroad. He’d have a glamorous wife, a son and a daughter both set to follow in his footsteps and she’d flit across his mind once every ten years, if at all. She hoped she’d got that right for him. He’d done nothing wrong, only she’d been blamed. Only she’d been lied about.

---

For the next week, her routine was simple, regimented. She got up when her internal alarm clock went off, she had a coffee, walked up to the High Street supermarket to buy a newspaper and whatever else she might need. She checked her phone periodically in case her father’s care home had rung. She’d had a text message from Sunny as Courtney had obviously been in touch with him, though how much she’d told him was anyone’s guess.

Hope you’re okay, mum. Giving you space but ring if you need me x

To which she’d replied:

Thank you, I will. X

She set up a temporary office in the front lounge and did whatever Colin sent her to do from there. She made work for herself when her prescribed jobs ran out: updating spreadsheets and learning her way around the new version of Word, Excel, Powerpoint. She checked out what was happening with the company pages on social media and made some suggestions for change. ‘JoMint Media’ who were managing it for Colin weren’t great and they were charging an absolute fortune for their services; she knew that because she processed their invoices.

Even she, with her limited knowledge, could do a better job and she watched a few YouTube videos on how to do what on Insta, but there was too much to learn. Courtney was a wizard on it. She knew everything about engagements and reaches and how/when/what to post. She knew about hashtags and archiving, framing, layouts, geo-tags, it was as if her brain was made specifically for showing off to the world via a screen. Sunny had never been one for giving up his every move to strangers though, and Bruce didn’t have the want or need for promoting himself or his business online.

Shay found herself unable to resist looking up Les on Facebook but couldn’t find her any more, suggesting that she’d probably been blocked. Pre-social media days were so much kinder on dumpees, she thought. There were no glossy loved-up photos to torment the rejected, no air-brushed new partners to smash an already damaged ego to pieces. Les had done her a lesser kindness by shutting her out, if that’s what she’d done. A very lesser kindness.

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She had been living in Millspring for a week and a half when she saw the postman wandering up the path with a large white envelope in his ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Prologue
• Falling
• Rock Bottom
• Rising
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Copyright