A Merry Little Christmas (41 page)

Authors: Julia Williams

‘Next year, remind me to emigrate,’ Catherine murmured to herself, as she propelled herself through the mince pie section. Bloody hell. Once upon a time people had bought (or most likely made) mince pies. Now Sainsbury’s had a whole section devoted to them: luxury mince pies, mince pies with brandy, mince pies with sherry, deep-filled, fat-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, probably mince-free for all she knew. The world had gone mad.

‘Me too.’ The woman browsing the shelves next to her gave a wry laugh in sympathy. She looked at Catherine curiously. Oh God, no …

‘Aren’t you—?’

‘Yes,’ sighed Catherine, ‘I’m afraid I am.’

‘I’m such a huge fan,’ said the woman. ‘I keep
all
your recipes. I don’t know what I’d do without your lemon tart.’

‘Thanks so much,’ said Catherine, guiltily hoping the woman wouldn’t notice what she had in her shopping trolley, otherwise her cover as the provider of all things home-made was going to be well and truly blown. ‘I’d love to stop, really I would, but unfortunately I’m in a tearing hurry. Places to go, people to see. I’m sure you’ll understand. Have a wonderful Christmas.’

Catherine felt terrible for rushing off. The poor woman had seemed nice and it was churlish of her to react like that. But couldn’t she have five minutes’ peace just to be herself and not the bloody awful persona who seemed to be taking over her life? She went to join one of the many huge queues that had built up as she’d wandered round the store, and caught sight of the latest version of
Happy Homes
by the tills. There she was resplendent in a Santa costume and hat (why, oh why, had she let herself be persuaded to do that shoot?), next to a headline that bore the legend, ‘The Happy Homemaker’s Guide to the Perfect Christmas.’

Any minute now someone in the queue was going to make the connection between the Happy Homemaker and the harassed woman standing behind them, and realise she was a big fat fraud. Catherine didn’t think she could stand it. She glanced over at the serve yourself tills, where the queues looked even more horrendous, and people were indulging in supermarket rage as the computers overloaded and spat out incorrect answers or added up the bills wrong.

Catherine looked in her trolley. She had been in Sainsbury’s for half an hour and all she had to show for it were two packets of mince pies, a bag of sugar, a Christmas pudding, and no brandy butter. At this rate she would be queuing for at least half an hour before she got served, by which time every sod in Sainsbury’s would probably discover her alter ego.

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

AVON

A division of HarperCollins
Publishers

77–85 Fulham Palace Road,

London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Julia Williams asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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

Source ISBN-13: 9781847560896

Ebook Edition © October 2012 ISBN: 9780007443253

Version 1

FIRST EDITION

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