STRIKE A LIGHT! MILLY JOHNSON

Can jilted Suzy’s landlady succeed in bringing some pop and sizzle back into her life this Bonfire Night?

Suzy used to love November the fifth. She loved the smell that lingered in the air from the fireworks and the noise of a crackling bonfire. She loved standing around eating hot dogs – but this year she was dreading it.

The last five bonfire nights she’d spent with David and their friends. At least, she thought they were their friends, but it turned out they were his friends. When David told her last November the sixth that he wanted them to split up because he’d found someone else, their loyalties remained with him.

She’d heard on the grapevine that David and her replacement were quite the new couple gracing her ex-friends’ barbecues and dinner parties.

“You didn’t like them much anyway,” said her friend Lou. ‘Can’t you remember when you moved down there and first met them all? You said you felt as if they were looking down on you.”

Suzy did remember. When she was first introduced, one of them had been rather sniffy that she came from a place better known for coal mines than caviar.

“I wish I could take you out for a gin and a curry,” sighed Lou over their Zoom call.

“I wish you hadn’t fallen for a farmer and moved out to Australia,” Suzy sighed back at her.

Suzy didn’t want to stay in the small village where there were too many reminders of David. She moved back up north to her home town, stayed with her parents for a while before renting a flat in a quiet avenue. She was lucky that she could take her job with her so easily. She wrote romance books, and the irony wasn’t lost on her that she could conjure up all those happy endings but not a real one for herself.

The flat in Oak House, Leafy Lane was lovely, and well named as in these autumn days, leaves of all colours from the many trees around, carpeted the avenue, drifted into the long gardens. Most of the houses on the street had been converted into flats. Single people seemed to gravitate here. Maybe it should have been called Lonely Street, thought Suzy.

Kitty, the old lady who owned Oak House occupied the whole of the downstairs. She was a jolly little woman, always up ladders trying to maintain the house in a rather haphazard fashion.

“My father was a builder,” she told Suzy as she wielded a trowelful of plaster. “He subscribed to ‘slapping two broken things together and if they were meant to stick, they’d stick’ school of architecture.” He must have done well, though. Apparently Kitty owned a few properties, no doubt inherited from him.

On the first floor were two flats, Suzy’s and Joshua’s – a man who was tall, dark and sullen. Suzy tried to have a conversation with him once when they met on the stairs. He’d looked at her as if she were an alien so she didn’t try again.

She had no doubt that, when Kitty’s invitation for the annual Leafy Lane bonfire party came through, Joshua wouldn’t be there.

He didn’t seem the mixing type.

Suzy didn’t really want to go either – but it was a bit hard to get out of without seeming rude.

The party was held in Kitty’s garden. She had one every year, invited a few friends, so she told Suzy. But there were more than a “few friends” on the lawn when Suzy arrived. Kitty must have invited the whole street.

The place was teeming with people. Professional caterers were grilling sausages and burgers, sending lovely smoky aromas up into the air.

Kitty was easy to spot in an orange kaftan, looking not unlike a stray flame from her bonfire.

Suzy stood by the fire, hoping she didn’t look like a spare part. She stared into the flames and tried not to think about last year when it had been Olivia and Simon’s turn to host the fireworks party. Even though David’s group were all supposedly friends, they were determined to outdo each other.

Suzy had been sure David was going to propose that night. He’d been more smiley than usual and a little hyped up.

But the evening had come and gone with no ring, and she realised now that it wasn’t her making his eyes sparkle.

“Suzy, Suzy, come and meet my ex-neighbours.” Kitty appeared at her side. For such a tiny woman she had a voice like a foghorn.

Suzy found herself pushed forward into a group of six. She felt immediately uncomfortable, shunted back in time to that night when she met David’s friends.

“Really nice to meet you, Suzy,” said one of the women. Her smile was genuine, warm.

“You haven’t got a drink,” said the man she was standing with. ‘Let me fix that.”

“Kitty’s mulled cider is lethal,” said another. “Jim, make sure you get Suzy a proper full glass.”

The six people were so nice and cheerful – Jim, Cindy, Nita, Sanjay, Alice and Peter. She didn’t feel at all as if they were weighing her up, but merely wanted

“Kitty’s mulled cider is lethal. Make sure you get her a full glass”

alone and hurt. Then Kitty had thrust on him a woman to heal his broken heart. If only it were that easy.

“Her timing was off,” he said. “And I reacted. And I could have kicked myself.” Suzy told him she was in a similar position and that he had nothing to worry about because the last thing she wanted was to do was hook up with another guy.

“Well, I have indoor fireworks, if you wouldn’t mind turning out the light?”

The fireworks were so bad they made them laugh. He had a nice smile, thought Suzy. He wasn’t that sullen after all.

“Have I made it up to you then?” asked Joshua, when the night was over.

“You have,” said Suzy. “Thank you, I’ve had a lovely time.”

Joshua gave her a friendly peck on the cheek to say goodnight.

Two weeks later Suzy’s frown had turned completely on its head. Life, despite the dark cold nights, felt warm and full of sunshine. She was even looking forward to Christmas, and a bright, shiny new year. She was just getting out of her car with some shopping when she spotted Jim and Cindy across the street.

“We were on our way to yours,” Cindy smiled. “We’d like to invite you to dinner. You and Joshua. Kitty told us you’ve been seeing each other.” She laughed at Suzy’s face. “It’s what she does, puts people together. Jim and I went to her party a couple of years ago. Both newly divorced, both renting in the street. She dumped us on each other and the rest is history.”

“The year before it was Nita and Sanjay, Joe and Steve, Briony and Bertie. Peter and Alice last year,” added Jim.

“Most of the houses around here are flats filled with single people. Kitty owns most of them,” Cindy went on. “She made her fortune running the Soulmate Dating Agencies. They were countrywide before the birth of the internet.”

So, Kitty’s fortune didn’t come from her father, and his slapping-two-brokenthings-together school of architecture. But she had inherited some of his skills, thought Suzy with a smile.