Everything is Beautiful Read online

  Praise for Everything is Beautiful

  ‘This book quietly took hold of me and wouldn’t let me go

  until I turned the final page. I loved stepping into Amy’s world, with all its treasures, and it was a joy to see her beginning to make space for herself’

  Beth O’Leary, author of The Flatshare

  ‘My book of the year! An absolute must read. Everything is Beautiful is everything you’ll want in a book. I was pulled into this story from the very first page and didn’t want it to end’

  Lauren North, author of The Perfect Betrayal

  ‘Heart-warming and thought-provoking, a mystery with a difference. It’s beautifully constructed around the everyday items its central character hoards, as she slowly uncovers the secrets of her past. I loved it’

  Andrea Mara, author of The Other Side of the Wall

  ‘A truly remarkable book that had me hooked from the start and racing to the end. Beautifully written’

  Jenni Keer, author of The Hopes and Dreams of Lucy Baker

  ‘A gently absorbing entry into the mystery-uplit canon’

  Vaseem Khan, author of The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra

  ‘I loved this charming, endearing novel . . . it will melt even the hardest of hearts . . . If ever there was a time for a book like Everything is Beautiful to lift us above the everyday doom and gloom, it is now’

  Joanna Nell, author of The Single Ladies of Jacaranda Retirement Village

  ‘A stunning book – intricate, beautifully written and thought-provoking. Packed with psychological realism, Eleanor Ray has perfectly captured how it feels to not quite fit in, to live with emotional baggage, to not know how to let go of the past. It’s heart-breaking in parts but ultimately delivers one of the most poignant and heart-warming stories in recent years. Absolutely brilliant and a must-read’

  MW Craven, author of The Puppet Show,

  CWA Gold Dagger winner

  ‘This book is a tonic for the soul’

  Lesley Kara, author of The Rumour

  ‘I loved every bit of it. I think the term in book reviewer lingo is “utterly captivated” – and I was, as it was not only so beautifully written but the story was so good, too’

  Fliss Chester, author of A Dangerous Goodbye

  ‘Beautifully written and thought-provoking’

  Katie Fforde, author of A Rose Petal Summer

  ‘A charming debut that glints in the sunshine just waiting to be found and cherished. A mystery that keeps you guessing until the end, a chocolate box of supporting characters, and a leading lady who you’re rooting for with every page. A joy to read, and very beautiful indeed’

  Lisa Dickenson, author of My Sisters and Me

  PIATKUS

  First published in Great Britain in 2021 by Piatkus

  Copyright © Eleanor Ray, 2021

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated 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.

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

  ISBN: 978-0-349-42740-9

  Piatkus

  An imprint of

  Little, Brown Book

  Group Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  An Hachette UK Company

  www.hachette.co.uk

  www.littlebrown.co.uk

  Contents

  Chapter one

  Chapter two

  Chapter three

  Chapter four

  Chapter five

  Chapter six

  Chapter seven

  Chapter eight

  Chapter nine

  Chapter ten

  Chapter eleven

  Chapter twelve

  Chapter thirteen

  Chapter fourteen

  Chapter fifteen

  Acknowledgement

  For Susan, Teddy and Violet

  It really was too much. Amy’s colleagues were nice enough, in their way, but she’d spent all the working week with them. Surely on Friday evening she should be free to go home, take off her shoes and relax on her sofa. Alone.

  But here she was. Standing in a cloud of cigarette smoke outside a crowded pub, shoes cutting into her feet, being jostled by people struggling to carry a round of three pints in two hands.

  Something was bound to get broken. Amy felt her body tense in anticipation, and she clutched her warm glass of Prosecco closer to her chest.

  ‘It’s a lovely change to have you out with us, Amy,’ said Mr Trapper, one of the eponymous partners in Trapper, Lemon and Hughes, the medium and not-at-all-growing firm of financial advisers where Amy ran the admin team. ‘Good to let our hair down once in a while.’ He laughed, tapping his balding head to signal it was a joke at his own expense. Amy’s dark hair stayed tightly pulled back in a ponytail. ‘Builds morale,’ he added. He had a Prosecco bottle in hand and proceeded to refill Amy’s glass.

  ‘I couldn’t miss Emma’s leaving drinks,’ said Amy. She’d tried. When five o’clock came she’d stood up, shaken Emma’s hand and wished her all the best for the future. Duty done. But Emma had clung to her, insisting that she come to the drinks. Amy couldn’t for the life of her work out why Emma seemed to think they were friends; Amy had been nothing but businesslike. She’d given her adequate instruction on what her role was to be and what was expected of her. She’d declined all the meeting requests for awfulsounding ‘girls’ lunches’, and she’d certainly ignored all of the little messages with smiley-face emojis on the office instant-messaging system that some of the team used to waste their time.

  Thinking about it, she had made the mistake of once making Emma a cup of tea when she found her crying in the toilets, presumably the result of a boyfriend’s actions. She’d even patted her gently on the back. And now in return she could see her plans for a comfortable evening dissolving like the Alka-Seltzer poor Emma would need the next morning.

  Mr Trapper moved on to refill more glasses, and Amy was left on her own for a moment. She glanced at her watch. She’d been here forty-five minutes. Now was the perfect time to make her escape. ‘Hey Amy,’ said a voice. Amy spun around and found herself face to face with Liam, the new head of marketing. ‘I haven’t seen you out for drinks before,’ he said, smiling at her.

  ‘I’m usually busy,’ she replied, stepping backwards. ‘And actually, I need to—’

  An arm snaked round her waist from behind. Before Amy had time to react, she felt a wet warmth by her ear. She spun round again; people from the office kept sneaking up on her. Thank goodness at work she had a desk with its back to the wall.

  ‘I’ll miss you,’ said Emma, her voice already a little slurred as she leaned into Amy. Amy smelt Red Bull and Jägermeister on Emma’s breath and was suddenly reminded of the Christmas party she’d been forced into attending two years ago. Emma looked at Amy’s expression and laughed, giving her a wet kiss on the cheek. ‘You’re special.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Amy, disentangling herself. ‘Indeed.’ Carthika appeared, and Amy successfully transferred Emma across. They swayed together in what Amy assumed was meant to be some kind of dance. ‘Just nipping to the loo,’ she said, as she sa
w Liam approaching her once more.

  The swarm around the bar was four people deep, but the rest of the pub was quiet. It was a warm day in early July and people had chosen the pavement rather than the dark pub room. An abandoned wine bottle sat on a sticky round table, with two empty glasses for company. Amy paused and glanced at the bottle. It looked almost black in the dim light of the pub, but Amy could tell it would have a beautiful green translucence if held to the light: like the limeflavoured boiled sweets Tim used to enjoy.

  Amy climbed the steps to the loo and sat down in the cubicle, thankful for a few moments to herself with the weight off her feet. She thought about the bottle again. It had a perfect shape to it: a long elegant neck and straight body. Symmetrical. Perfect. It couldn’t just go in the bin. It wouldn’t be right.

  She went back downstairs and discovered that the bottle still sat there. Empty. Forlorn. Amy made sure no one was watching. Thankful for her large handbag, she grabbed the bottle and popped it inside. The neck peeped out like a little lapdog, but Amy didn’t think anyone would notice. She fought the urge to take the glasses too. They looked so sad, sitting there. No. That would be stealing.

  But the bottle wasn’t stealing. No one wanted it.

  She’d make sure it was taken care of.

  Amy found she was glad she’d come after all.

  Normally, the train home on Fridays was less busy than the rest of the week. People paused for drinks after work, spreading the usual five p.m. commuters thinly as butter across the evening.

  Not today.

  Two trains in a row were cancelled. Amy joined the throngs of people staring up at the departures board as if it were a movie screen. Every once in a while a new number appeared, and a portion of the throng separated and rushed to their platform. A collective sigh of disappointment was released by those left behind.

  Finally, Amy’s train was announced and Amy allowed herself to be carried along in the commuter current. She boarded, spotted a single seat in a group of four, made her way towards it gratefully and sank down. The train filled up, and she noticed a man near her. He was standing a little awkwardly, and Amy looked at him more closely.

  His arm was in a sling.

  Of course, there was only one right thing to do. Amy immediately stood up, stepped to one side and gestured with a silent half-bow that he should take the seat. It was only fair. Before he could, a young woman with a nose ring pushed past him and hurled herself into the new vacancy. Somewhere a whistle blew and the train started to move.

  Amy looked at the man. He was maybe in his late forties, about ten years older than Amy herself, and he seemed tired. She noticed that his shirt was wrinkled and she felt a little flicker of recognition in her heart. He had no one to iron it for him while his arm was out of action.

  The man caught her gaze and gave Amy a good-natured shrug, accompanied by a little ‘the youth of today’ eye roll. He stoically held on to a pole with his good hand.

  Perhaps it was the warm Prosecco. Perhaps the blister developing on her heel. Perhaps the way the wrinkled-shirt man just accepted his fate. Amy found she just couldn’t bear it.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Amy, her voice polite. The woman was peering at her phone, completely engrossed. She didn’t look up. Amy coughed. ‘Excuse me,’ she said more loudly. Some of the other commuters glanced at her. Still the woman ignored her. Amy stepped forwards, entering the sacrosanct space between the facing seats. Knees on both sides of her recoiled as if they were snails retreating into their shells.

  ‘She can’t hear you,’ said a man sitting next to the nose-ring girl. He was wearing a pretty floral shirt. ‘She’s got earphones in.’

  Amy looked. Sure enough, the woman had bright white wireless earphones nestling snugly in her ears. Feeling bold, Amy reached forwards and tapped the woman on the shoulder. Finally she looked up.

  ‘What?’ the woman asked. She removed one of the earphones and frowned at Amy.

  ‘That man has a broken arm,’ said Amy. ‘I gave up my seat for him. And you sat down.’ She waited for the woman to jump up and apologise.

  ‘This isn’t a disabled seat,’ said the woman, not moving.

  ‘I’m not disabled,’ ventured the man with the sling. ‘I just fell down some stairs.’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ said Amy. ‘It was his seat. I gave it to him because he needed it.’

  ‘I don’t see his name on it,’ said the woman. The other commuters, sensing the start of some unexpected drama, looked up to watch.

  ‘But he’s got a broken arm,’ said Amy.

  ‘It’s actually my wrist that’s broken.’ Both women ignored him.

  ‘He can have my seat,’ said the man in the floral shirt. He made to get up.

  ‘She should stand up,’ insisted Amy.

  ‘Make me,’ said the woman, a latent threat lacing her voice. Amy stepped back, alarmed by the escalation.

  ‘Calm down, love,’ said a suited man sitting by the window, glancing up from his paper. Amy looked at him, and to her surprise he was looking back at her. He was telling her to calm down, after that woman had clearly threatened her.

  ‘I’m not the one who needs to calm down,’ she said, realising her voice was starting to crescendo. ‘That woman stole a seat from a man who needed it and now she’s threatening me. You all heard her.’ She looked around the train carriage. A silence took hold, as if people had suddenly remembered that no one was meant to speak to strangers in the city. Certainly not on public transport. ‘Didn’t you?’ she asked. Her voice sounded too loud, even in her own head.

  ‘I’m fine to stand,’ said the injured man, looking embarrassed for his part in the drama.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ the seat thief asked Amy.

  As if complicit with the commuters, the train jolted. Amy was thrown forwards. She clutched a pole and regained her balance, but her bag swung from her shoulder and the empty wine bottle fell out. It hit the floor of the carriage with a thump and rolled under a seat.

  ‘She’s drunk,’ declared the seat thief, as if that justified her own actions.

  ‘I am not drunk,’ said Amy. ‘I just . . . ’ She saw everyone staring at her.

  It was none of their business why she had that bottle. It was none of anyone’s business.

  Amy bent down to escape their gaze and retrieve the bottle. It rolled further away from her and Amy found herself on her hands and knees on the sticky floor, surrounded by shoes. She saw a blue M&M, an empty Coke can and a half-eaten burger under the seats. It smelt of pickle. The bottle had gone, rolled out of sight as if it were embarrassed by her too.

  It was too much.

  The train came to a halt, the doors opened, and Amy felt fresh air rush into the carriage. It was three stops early but Amy knew she had to get into that air. Away from these people. Away from the bottle that had abandoned her.

  Maybe it didn’t deserve to be rescued after all.

  She stood up, pushed her way off the train and stepped out into the July evening.

  It had taken three full trains to go by before Amy was finally ready to reboard. A ten-minute walk from the station later and here she was.

  Home.

  Amy felt better just seeing her front garden. Her beautiful pots guarded the house faithfully. She held her key ring tightly in her hand as she finally slid her key into the lock. Amy went in and closed the door behind her, ready to forget that the evening had ever happened.

  She stepped forwards into her hallway and tripped. Damn. One of her giant stacks of newspapers had fallen over. Again. Newspapers were mingling with unopened mail and dried petals. The debris lined the floor like autumn leaves. She shuffled through; she couldn’t face clearing up the mess. Not this evening. Some of the other towers of newspapers looked precarious too, reaching floor to ceiling like Doric columns. Her hallway reminded her of the Acropolis.

  The Acropolis after a party, she thought, stumbling over an empty wine bottle. She used to store her collection of green bo
ttles in the kitchen, but she’d had to move some so she could get into the fridge. Ten or twenty privileged bottles sat neatly on her hallway shelves; a couple had even been transformed into vases with stems of honeysuckle. But that had been some time ago, and the flowers had dehydrated into crunchy brown husks.

  Many of the bottles lounged empty on the floor, still waiting for a purpose.

  A second chance.

  Most of Amy’s clothes were in a wardrobe that she could no longer access. Tim’s clothes would be in there too. He hadn’t taken any of them. After it happened, Amy had used the base of the wardrobe for extra storage, then a few things had accumulated in front of it. Mirrors, bottles, a couple of indoor pots. She’d tried to get an outfit out one morning a few years ago, and realised it wasn’t worth the effort. She didn’t really want to wear bright colours now, in any case, so she’d just left their old clothes in the wardrobe and replaced them with an assortment of grey and black essentials; some smart for work, others comfy for home. She kept her ‘active wardrobe’, as she called it, spread on top of one of her boxes, and made sure that she could always still get to the washing machine and the iron. She didn’t want to waste more money on clothes than she had to, not when there were so many beautiful things that she wanted to buy.

  It was Saturday morning, so Amy picked up her jeans and a black T-shirt. She made a special effort not to catch a glimpse of herself as she dressed. It was a challenge, as many mirrors lined the room. She knew that mirrors were meant to make a room feel spacious, but today it felt as if they were making the room smaller. Piles of boxes were reflected back at her, towering up and reaching for the ceiling. But even so, many things could not fit in a box and instead littered the room. Vases, unopened bottles of hand lotion, stacks of ashtrays. And the mirrors themselves, of course, mocking her with infinite reflections.

  Amy swore under her breath as a shot of pain flew up through her foot. She looked down; she’d just trodden on a cigarette lighter. Good. Nothing damaged. She sat down again to pull her slippers on. Slippers seemed to be the thing that took the most delight in hiding from her in the house, so she’d taken to buying several pairs at a time.