The Day My Husband Left: An absolutely gripping and emotional page-turner Read online

  The Day My Husband Left

  An absolutely gripping and emotional page-turner

  Amy Miller

  Books by Amy Miller

  The Day My Husband Left

  They Call Me the Cat Lady

  Wartime Bakery Series

  Heartaches and Christmas Cakes

  Wartime Brides and Wedding Cakes

  Telegrams and Teacakes

  As Amy Bratley

  The Girls’ Guide to Homemaking

  The Saturday Supper Club

  The Antenatal Group

  Available in Audio

  They Call Me the Cat Lady (Available in the UK and US)

  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

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue

  *

  They Call Me the Cat Lady

  Hear More from Amy

  Books by Amy Miller

  A Letter from Amy

  Heartaches and Christmas Cakes

  Wartime Brides and Wedding Cakes

  Telegrams and Teacakes

  The Girls’ Guide to Homemaking

  The Saturday Supper Club

  The Antenatal Group

  Acknowledgements

  *

  For my mum, Anne Cook

  *

  The Bournemouth Gazette

  Death Notice

  EAGLE, Johnny, 54, of Southbourne-on-Sea, Bournemouth died suddenly on 12 April. Wonderful husband to Heidi and fantastic father of Scarlet and Zoe, Johnny will be desperately missed. A private cremation will be held and his life celebrated, always.

  One

  A week earlier

  When Heidi Eagle felt worried, she hummed the theme tune to the TV show Dallas. In the year since her husband Johnny’s heart attack, she had hummed the tune over and over again. And, that day in April, when Johnny had gone out without her, she was humming it again. The best thing she could do to stop worrying was shift her focus and work hard in the workshop, until her back ached and her fingers were sore. Dressed in her white upholstery apron and elbow-deep in fabric, twine and tacks, she was doing just that.

  Immersed in stripping a wingback chair back to its wooden frame, Heidi distracted herself by thinking about what life would be like when her daughters, Scarlet and Zoe, left home. It wouldn’t be long now before she and Johnny would be alone together, rattling around the house like marbles in a biscuit tin. A prospect that, a year ago, she thought might never happen.

  She paused to take a deep breath, pushing away an ever-present bubble of anxiety, and was grateful for the arrival of a client, Annie Young, carrying a pink vintage cocktail chair that she’d booked in to be reupholstered.

  ‘Let me help you carry that,’ Heidi said, dusting off her hands. ‘We could have collected this in our van.’

  Together, they placed the chair down and Heidi ran a hand appreciatively over the chair’s elegant fantailed back. She could see that the webbing had snapped, and the springs had fallen out of the bottom. Rather than having a plump seat, it was pancake flat.

  ‘I thought I’d save you the bother,’ Annie smiled, before turning her attention to the chair. ‘It’s lovely, isn’t it? My husband bought it from a second-hand shop when we were furnishing our first ever apartment, years ago. We lived in London, and the singer Barry Manilow was staying in the property next door. One evening he popped by to borrow something and he sat on this chair. We’ve called it the “Barry Chair” ever since.’

  Be it an Ercol armchair found in a vintage shop, a Victorian nursery chair passed down the generations of a family, or a set of mid-century dining-room chairs, Heidi loved the variety of furniture that came into the workshop. Things people loved and couldn’t part with. Heidi knew, without hesitation, what item she couldn’t part with: the brightly painted dancing-clown musical trinket box given to her on her seventeenth birthday. Wrapped in tissue paper, tied with string and locked in a rusty old money tin, it was hidden on top of the haberdashery unit in the corner of the workshop. Inside it was her heart’s deepest secret.

  ‘It’ll be a pleasure to work on this,’ said Heidi, locating a label, writing on Annie’s name and the date before tying it onto one of the chair’s legs.

  ‘Thank you,’ Annie said, peering over Heidi’s shoulder, deeper into the workshop. ‘What a great studio.’

  Heidi smiled as she followed Annie’s gaze to the rolls of upholstery fabric, in colours from eggshell to garnet, the tools on the fabric cutting table and the wingback chair stripped to its bones. Eagles Workshop was housed in a large outbuilding situated down one side of Johnny and Heidi’s garden in Southbourne-on-Sea, a suburb of Bournemouth on Britain’s south coast. The outbuilding, once a two-storey, old-fashioned garage, had been converted and extended for their small, family upholstery business. An open-plan space and with large windows, it was flooded with natural light. Offering modern and traditional upholstery, Eagles worked with both domestic clients and on contracts with interior designers and joiners. The grand plan was to offer upholstery courses one day too, but until Johnny was one hundred per cent better, that was on hold.

  ‘I’m not sure where I’d find another chair like this. We bought it forty-odd years ago,’ Annie said. ‘Makes me realise that we’ve been together forever.’

  Heidi laughed gently and tucked her grey wavy hair behind her ears which were studded with blue button-shaped earrings – a gift from Johnny. They matched her signature blue denim work dungarees, which she wore with a grey jumper and black Dr Martens boots.

  ‘You’re lucky, really,’ she said quietly, with a small smile. She and Johnny had been married for twenty-five years but together for a dozen more. Over the years they’d shared some highs and, also, some gut-wrenching lows. Johnny’s heart attack a year ago had come like a bolt out of the blue, stopping them both in their tracks, and now, nothing felt certain.

  ‘I suppose I am,’ said Annie, as if she wasn’t so sure. And Heidi had to remind herself that not everyone had been through what she and Johnny had been through. Not everyone felt a huge sense of relief every time their husband opened his eyes in the morning.

  ‘It’s still beating,’ Johnny would say patiently, hand on his chest, smiling, when she asked after his heart.

  ‘I better make a dash for it,’ said Annie, glancing out the window at the rainclouds gathering overhead. ‘Thank you again.’

  The bright workshop was plunged into sudden gloom, sending a shiver up Heidi’s spine. She showed Annie out and checked her watch, wondering why Johnny wasn’t yet home. Chewing the inside of her cheek, she tasted blood.

  ‘Don’t start worrying,’ she instructed herself, resisting
the urge to call him. Earlier, when Johnny had left to catch the train to Poole to view a potential job at a client’s home, he could hardly contain his excitement. He’d smiled at her with bright eyes, a single dimple on his left cheek. Dressed in his uniform of desert boots, utility trousers and a vintage khaki army jacket, he was thrilled to be getting out on his own again after a long recuperation. The last year had been tough and Johnny had gone through spells of feeling low. He’d fall silent for long periods or sit staring glumly at his phone. She’d suspected he was anxiously googling his health condition, but when she’d once asked him what he was looking at, he’d mumbled something about a surprise birthday present – she was going to be fifty-four in June. Johnny knew better than anyone that she didn’t like to celebrate her birthday, but this year he said he was doing something special and that she wasn’t to ask questions, or she’d spoil the surprise.

  I don’t like surprises, Heidi thought now, checking her watch again – and again – when Simone English, a woman Heidi had met at one of Johnny’s numerous hospital appointments, came in. Simone’s husband, Richard, had suffered a heart attack at the same time as Johnny and the women had kept in touch to compare notes. In one hand, Simone held a footstool with a cloud of horsehair billowing out of it. In the other, she had her poodle, Roxy, on a lead. Heidi welcomed them both.

  ‘I spoke to Johnny about this, on the phone,’ Simone said. ‘Richard stood on it thinking it would take his weight! Johnny said you might be able to squeeze it in?’

  The footstool was a lovely old thing. Small and round, with a blue velvet cushion (covered with dog hair) and finished with brass tacks, she guessed it to be from the 1930s. She ran her hands over the gently curved wooden feet.

  ‘Of course,’ Heidi smiled. ‘How’s Richard doing? Still eating his greens?’

  ‘He’s fine, but we do worry about him, don’t we, Roxy?’ Simone sighed, patting Roxy’s head. ‘Where’s Johnny today?’

  Heidi swallowed and checked her watch for the fourth time.

  ‘He’ll be back shortly, expecting applause,’ she said, forcing levity. In truth, he was late. ‘He’s out on his own viewing a job, so he’s in his element.’

  She rolled her eyes and smiled conspiratorially. But mid-smile, her stomach turned over and she had a strange sensation in her scalp. As if someone was yanking her hair. She fell silent. Sudden torrential rain beat against the workshop windows, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up as a feeling of absolute dread washed over her.

  Simone continued to talk, but her words seemed slow and strange. All-consuming darkness crept into Heidi’s heart when, in her mind’s eye, she saw an image of Johnny’s lifeless body. In that instant, she knew that her worst fear had been realised. Her darling Johnny had gone.

  Two

  After Johnny’s first heart attack, Heidi felt utterly helpless. She didn’t know what to do with all her worries, so she obsessed about Johnny’s diet. Ordered a weekly organic fruit and vegetable box. Banned biscuits, burgers and beer. Cooked healthy meals from scratch and monitored his every mouthful. Food was something to focus on because, in truth, Johnny’s heart attack had stunned everyone. They were used to him hauling around armchairs and sofas without breaking a sweat, and for the first few weeks after it happened, Heidi, Zoe and Scarlet watched his every move. Despite the awful shock and realisation that life can change at any moment, in time they tried hard to look on the bright side. It was a one-off, they told themselves; a warning. They had been given a second chance. Johnny insisted that he had been lucky and that, with a few tweaks to his lifestyle, he would be back on track. But though Heidi tried to be brave, every day she worried terribly that it would happen again.

  ‘Johnny suffered a cardiac arrest caused by a heart attack,’ the doctor at the hospital had told her. Apparently, he said, Johnny had died on Main Street in Poole at approximately 2 p.m. He had been on his way home.

  I knew it, she wanted to say. I felt it. But she’d listened in silence, tears sliding from her eyes.

  Now, back at home with Scarlet and Zoe, she felt bewildered and guilty somehow. As if, by dreading this happening, she had caused it.

  ‘He seemed so much better,’ Scarlet, Heidi’s eldest daughter, said now, her eyes red with bemused tears. Her make-up – black eyeliner that flicked up at the edges in wings – was smudged and her normally pink cheeks drained of colour.

  ‘I know,’ Heidi said, sniffing. ‘But the doctor said that the statistics show there’s an increased risk of a second episode up to five years after the first.’

  ‘We’ve only had a year…’ Zoe, their youngest daughter, said in a faint voice, twisting her long auburn hair in her fist.

  The three of them huddled together on the old dark-green leather Chesterfield sofa in the living room. Reupholstering it had been one of the first projects Heidi and Johnny had worked on together. The curtains were pulled. Zoe had lit the wood burner and Heidi had found blankets for them to wrap up in. A plate of toast sat untouched on the coffee table – none of them could eat. A lamp was on. It stood on an old glass-fronted cocktail unit which housed a collection of blue vintage Milk of Magnesia advertising bottles, a jug in the shape of a peach and a bundle of old Penguin books tied with lace. ‘Junk-shop chic’ Johnny liked to call Heidi’s curations.

  ‘I should have gone with him today,’ said Heidi, staring into the flames. ‘If I’d been there, I could have done something.’

  ‘It’s not your fault, Mum,’ said Zoe. ‘He didn’t want to be wrapped up in cotton wool. Don’t blame yourself.’

  ‘I bet he overexerted himself,’ she said, feeling another wave of tears rush into her eyes. ‘I should have gone with him. I knew this would happen!’

  Zoe held Heidi’s hand and squeezed. Since coming home from hospital, the three women had moved around the house together as if attached by string. It had felt safer that way. They held hands in the hospital too, like a family paper chain, when a bereavement counsellor had spoken to them in a soft, kind voice about bereavement services and death certificates and funeral directors. The words were so upsetting that Heidi had had to break the chain and go outside to breathe in the fresh air – and Scarlet stepped in.

  ‘He was fine this morning, eating muesli, happily chatting away,’ started Heidi, registering the sound of a mobile phone coming from her bag. It was Johnny’s phone, beeping to indicate low battery – she had been given it at the hospital, along with his watch, wallet and keys.

  Bleary-eyed, she lifted the phone from her bag and typed in Johnny’s pin. It had fifteen per cent battery remaining. She opened his text messages. The first one that flashed up was addressed to her, but it was in italics – indicating that it was unsent. There was a photo attachment. She frowned and tapped the screen and stared at the photo. It was a slightly blurred image of a busy street. She looked at it for a moment and recognised it as Main Street in Poole. There were people on the pavement holding umbrellas; a row of shops and a café – called the Blackbird. She remembered going there once for carrot cake.

  She sat up straight. The message didn’t say what time it had been composed, but she opened the photo gallery and found the photo. It had been taken at 1.54 p.m. Heidi’s stomach cramped.

  ‘What is it?’ said Zoe, moving closer to look over Heidi’s shoulder at the screen. Heidi trembled.

  ‘I think Dad tried to send me this photo,’ she said, her voice cracking. ‘It was taken just before he—’

  ‘Can I see it?’ said Scarlet, peering over her other shoulder.

  Heidi held out the phone so Scarlet and Zoe could see the photo.

  ‘It’s Main Street in Poole,’ Heidi said. ‘He would have walked this way back to the train station. He was coming home. I don’t know why he’d take a photo.’

  ‘Perhaps he didn’t mean to take it,’ said Zoe quietly. ‘You know when you accidentally take a photo? He might have been holding the phone, trying to ring… for help… or something… or call you to say—’

&
nbsp; Goodbye.

  Zoe burst into tears, and Heidi put the phone down on her lap, feeling sick. Had Johnny been trying to call for help? They did have an emergency procedure planned between them. Any shortness of breath or pain – even a twinge – and either one of them would ring 999 immediately. Had he got confused? Had he known he was going to die? She sat there in shocked silence, listening to the crackle of the fire.

  ‘I think you should delete it,’ said Scarlet, taking the phone from Heidi’s lap. ‘It’s too horrible to think that this is his last moment on earth.’

  ‘No,’ said Heidi, quickly taking the phone back from Scarlet. ‘No, don’t delete it. Leave it for now.’

  Heidi slipped the phone into her pocket and sat stiffly back in the Chesterfield, putting her hands over her lips. She had to physically hold in her grief, because if she started to cry, she thought she’d never stop.

  ‘Mum, don’t worry,’ said Zoe. ‘You’re not on your own and I won’t be a burden.’

  Zoe’s fear was written across her face. Heidi swallowed and put her arm across her daughter’s shoulders and kissed the side of her head. Zoe’s use of the word burden had not escaped her. She’d had this irrational sense of wrongdoing her whole life.