Page 1 of Love Letters on Hazel Lane

Prologue

‘No-one will ever buy it,’ said Mrs Thorp, wrestling the pinafore dress over the mannequin’s bald head, ‘but it’ll look good in the window.’

‘It was there for six weeks when it first came in,’ the manager said. ‘Nobody even tried it on.’

‘We just need one customer who’s going to a fancy-dress party.’

‘Or someone who’s crazy about Scrabble and happens to be a size 12.’

The pinafore was way too large for the ludicrously thin dummy – they ought to get some more realistically sized ones but new mannequins were a luxury the charity shop couldn’t afford. Mrs Thorp pulled the waist in, securing it at the back with a pin, and fluffed out the skirt before going outside to see how it looked from the pavement.

It was certainly eye-catching, she thought. The dress was made out of fabric printed to look like a Scrabble board. It seemed fitting for the shop’s board-game-themed window; the small Pennine town of Hebbleswick had gone board games crazy since that board game café had opened in neighbouring Essendale, yet she doubted that anyone would want that dress. Well, where would you wear it?

She’d barely been back inside the shop for ten minutes, when she noticed a red-haired young woman do a double take as she passed by. The woman stopped and gazed at the dress, taking a step closer so that her breath steamed up a small circle on the pane. She raised her hand, touching her fingertips against the glass. This small gesture reminded Mrs Thorp of a film she’d seen once; a woman had been visiting her wrongly incarcerated husband in an American gaol and they’d both put their hands against the reinforced window between them, desperate to touch. She knew then that the dress had found its new owner.

1

Friday evening. Everyone else had somewhere to go.

The younger members of the production team had spent half the afternoon in the ladies’ toilets, changing their outfits and applying lip gloss, before disappearing at six on the dot for their night out. They’d stopped inviting her along since Leona joined the team.

David, executive producer of Pop! Productions, left at quarter past in a haze of overpowering aftershave.

‘Hot date,’ he said as he passed Jo’s desk. ‘You should give Tinder a try.’

Tinder! She had plucked up the courage to try one of the gentler dating apps, but she definitely wasn’t ready for Tinder.

Caroline, the production manager, was the only other person left now in the open-plan office, eerily silent except for the occasional whirr of the printer.

Jo had completed all her work so reached for her phone and opened the WordPals app. She had loved Scrabble since she was a child and the app was almost identical. You could play against the app itself, against your Facebook friends – not that Jo had that many – or against random strangers. Few things in her life beat the thrill of playing on a triple word score. Particularly if the word contained a J, X, Z or Q, the highest scoring letters in the game. She began a game against someone in Tokyo.

Caroline was usually the last to leave, but even she was rushing away now as her husband was treating her to dinner in a new restaurant in Didsbury. A first wedding anniversary celebration.

‘Paper,’ she said, pausing by Jo’s desk.

For a second, Jo thought she was referring to the state of her workspace. When she’d first arrived in this job several years ago, Caroline had wasted no time in telling her that her notebooks, printouts and Post-its would have to go. Jo saw them as essential to the way she worked, the way she kept everything organised. Caroline saw them as a fire hazard.

‘Paper?’

‘The anniversary. Like twenty-five years is silver and fifty is gold. The first is paper.’

Jo sighed. She should have known. She and her ex-husband had got as far as their third anniversary. She’d given him a pint glass, personalised with his name, but she’d never seen him use it. He’d given her a set of crystal wine glasses from John Lewis, which were too ostentatious for Jo’s tastes. A few months later, she’d broken one of them washing up – they were too delicate for the dishwasher – and Si had berated her for days afterwards, accusing her of being clumsy. Jo had ordered a small apple tree for their fourth anniversary – fruit and flowers – but they’d divorced shortly before reaching it and she’d been single ever since.

Being single was fine, of course, if you wanted to be single. But now Jo had reached her mid-thirties, she longed to have someone to share her life with. Or at least, her evenings and weekends.

Caroline reached into her bag and pulled out a newspaper. ‘My anniversary gift for Paul. What do you think?’

‘A copy of The Times?’

‘From the day we met.’

‘Romantic.’

If she was ever lucky enough to get to a first anniversary with someone again, Jo thought, she’d like to be given paper too. Preferably containing a hearty portion of fish and chips, purchased from a proper chippy at the seaside.

‘Have a lovely time,’ she called to Caroline’s disappearing back. ‘Can’t wait to hear all about it on Monday.’

Jo was lying. She didn’t want to hear about her colleague’s romantic dinner – it would only remind her that she had no-one – but it was true that she couldn’t wait till Monday. At least in the office there were people around.