Chocolate Shoes and Wedding Blues

Having got to ninety-two, why shouldn’t she make her century? I simply found it impossible to accept that there was nothing to be done, so one evening I decided desperate measures were called for and I’d go up to Winter’s End and consult Hebe Winter.

Hebe’s reputed to dabble in the Dark Arts, though that doesn’t seem to stop her being a keen churchgoer. But actually, Aunt Nan always said she was more of a herbalist than a witch, unlike Florrie. (And I was sure she must be wrong about Florrie, and Gregory Lyon was really just running some kind of witchcraft folklore group, not a coven at all!)

Anyway, many people made the trip at twilight up to the side door of Hebe’s still room at Winter’s End and came back with a potion or lotion – love philtres in some cases, I’d heard! Perhaps I should have tried one of those on Justin, who’d said it was too late to cancel the hotel for the previous weekend and had taken Mummy Dearest instead!

I’d told Aunt Nan I was going out to meet Bella, but instead I walked up the back way to Winter’s End, cut across the bottom terrace and knocked at the side door to Hebe’s stillroom, which she opened as if she’d been waiting for me. She was not at all surprised at my request, either.

‘I understand what you want,’ she said, ‘but if I knew of something that would prolong your aunt’s life, I would already have given it to her. There are things that can help with the pains and aches of old age, but nothing that can cure it.’

She herself was no spring chicken, but still tall, beaky-nosed and upright; I didn’t think death would be creeping up on her any time soon.

‘That Meddyg, as she calls it, is probably what has kept her going this long. I’d love the recipe …’ hinted Hebe, when I asked her about payment for the consultation. ‘I can guess what several of the herbs she uses are – like mint, for instance – but there’s a little extra something in it?’

‘I’m sworn to secrecy,’ I told her firmly. ‘But perhaps I could do with a love philtre to make my fiancé love me for what I am,’ I half-joked, ‘rather than all the things he would like me to be.’

She looked searchingly into my eyes. ‘But would you want the love of a man who cannot see your finer points and with whom you cannot be your true self?’ she said acutely and accurately, then insisted on mixing up a bottle of greenish fluid for me, because she said I needed a special tonic and I was to take four drops in a glass of water every morning. Then she charged me a huge amount for that and sent me on my way.

I’d told Immy (via email, the main way I communicated with my mother) about Aunt Nan being ill, but she’d shown little interest. Lars, who heard the news when he phoned the flat and Justin told him what had happened, was much more concerned and sent a huge basket prettily planted with pink hyacinths in moss.

Aunt Nan said he was a great daft lump, wasting his brass like that, but I could tell she was delighted and the flowers perfumed the whole house with the promise of spring to come.

I started taking Hebe’s tonic, because it was kind of her to give it to me, but it tasted quite foul and I didn’t feel any different, so I quickly gave it up.

I’d dashed up to Sticklepond without much thought about how long I would be there, but with Nan fading gently by the day, I soon knew I wanted to stay with her.

I explained this to Justin when I rang him and he was very understanding, though he said he missed me and this time actually sounded as if he meant it! Since I’d explained to him how I was feeling, I thought that he’d stopped taking me for granted quite so much.

Then I asked him if he’d told his mother yet that he wouldn’t be funding her extravagant lifestyle any more and he said no, he’d found it impossible face to face, so he’d sent her a letter, instead!

Honestly! Still, at least he had done it.

‘I’ll try and get back for a night soon to see you,’ I promised. ‘I need to pick some more clothes up and the stuff for the latest book, if I’m going to be here for a while.’

Justin was amazingly quiet for a few days – not even firing off texts asking where his favourite socks were, or his best silk tie, or that kind of thing – so I assumed that Mummy Dearest was giving him a bit of trouble over the letter. I hoped he wouldn’t buckle under like he always had in the past, especially without me to give him support, so, since Aunt Nan insisted that she could manage for a night without me, I decided to dash down the very next weekend.

It was, in any case, the anniversary of our engagement – not that he would remember that, without prompting!

‘You do right to get back and see what that man of yours is doing,’ Aunt Nan urged me. ‘It’s fatal to leave them on their own for too long.’

‘I think what with his work, his mother, and his golf, his time is pretty well occupied,’ I said. ‘I’m going down more because I need to fetch all the stuff for my new Slipper Monkey book than anything, but I still don’t like leaving you, even for one night.’

‘Florrie’s Jenny will be in as usual, and then Florrie herself is coming to spend the night, so you’ve no need to worry about me.’

‘I’m sure that will be lovely,’ I said a bit doubtfully, because Florrie was even older than Aunt Nan, though amazingly spry and active. ‘And Bella will be in to mind the shop on the Saturday, though she will have to bring Tia with her, if you don’t mind, because her parents are off to some function or other.’

‘Not at all: Tia’s a sweet little thing, and Florrie and I will amuse her in the kitchen. That’s settled, then. In fact, I will enjoy the weekend, because Florrie and I have no secrets and it’s good to share memories of when we were girls. Mind you,’ she added with grim humour, ‘I’ve not many secrets left from that Cheryl Noakes now, either! She’s a good listener, I’ll say that for her, and she’s promised to give you a set of the archive recordings when I’m gone.’

‘I’m really looking forward to listening to them, Aunt Nan.’

‘I hope you think the same after you have,’ she said enigmatically. ‘Now, the sun would be over the yardarm if we had one, so why don’t we have a nice glass of Meddyg? Cocktail frock optional,’ she added with one of her sudden grins.

‘I think this dress I’m wearing probably was a cocktail dress once,’ I said, looking down at my gold chiffon layers, ‘only the original owner wouldn’t have worn it with a tapestry waistcoat, striped tights and Birkenstock clogs!’

‘Oh, I thought it was one of those Gudrun Sodastream ones you get from that catalogue.’

‘Sjödén,’ I said, and went to fetch the Meddyg.

Chapter 5: Charlie’s Aunt

My sister Rosina, who died of diphtheria as a toddler, had black curly hair and dark eyes like Father and me, and though she didn’t grow up enough to tell, I expect she’d have been a bit on the short side, too. Tansy now is very much what I was at her age, so clearly the darker Bright genes are reasserting themselves, just like they said in a telly programme I watched, when they were going on about that monk.

No, I don’t mean Rasputin, lovey – he was a Russkie. It was Mendel, and he worked something out about genes by looking at his pet rabbits.

Middlemoss Living Archive

Recordings: Nancy Bright.

There were no parking spaces near Justin’s flat, so I had to leave the Mini round the corner and hope to move it closer when I loaded my things up next day.

Justin seemed pleased to see me, sweeping me off my feet and giving me a big hug and kiss, and then he pretended he hadn’t forgotten it was the anniversary of our engagement when I mentioned it. He said he’d booked a table at our favourite local Greek restaurant already, which I expect he had once he knew I was going to be home that night, because we often went there on a Saturday anyway.

‘And since you’ve had things out with your mother, we can celebrate being rid of one financial burden, too,’ I suggested.

‘Yes … she’s gone a bit quiet since I wrote to her explaining, but I’m sure she’ll realise why I can’t carry on helping her out to such an extent when she’s thought it over,’ he said optimistically. ‘But you mustn’t even hint that you knew about me lending her money, Tansy – promise?’

‘Of course I won’t. Not that I’ll ever get the opportunity anyway,’ I said, because Mummy Dearest always puts the phone down without speaking if I answered it and she never visited the flat when I was there.

In fact, it had been lovely to come back and not find all my belongings in the boxroom! Justin had tidied things away a bit, so no brightly coloured pipe-cleaner monkeys swung from any of the shelves or light fittings, but it was a definite improvement.

This flat had always been his rather than ours, so setting up home together somewhere else would, I thought, be so much better. I could assert my love of colour a bit more and Justin would just have to get used to it.

When I went into the kitchen to make coffee, I thought how little of me there was in this flat even when Justin’s mother hadn’t been here hiding any sign of my existence. Most of my belongings and the majority of my shoe ornament and vintage wedding shoe collections were stored in my bedroom in Sticklepond.

I was dreamily conjuring up a mental picture of a little country cottage in the Home Counties somewhere, roses round the door and maybe a baby buggy in the hall, when the doorbell pealed, breaking my reverie.

I put another cup on the coffee tray in case we had a visitor and took it through into the living room – just in time to hear the unmistakable high-pitched voice of my stepsister Rae exclaiming furiously from the direction of the hall.

‘Justin, you bastard! I’ve only just got your message because I’ve been away – and if you think I’m going to let you shirk your responsibilities and cut my maintenance payments just so you can swan off and marry Tansy, you’ve got another think coming!’

I stopped dead, ice trickling down my spine, and then carefully put the tray on the table.

‘Quiet!’ hissed Justin urgently. ‘Are you mad, coming round here like this?’

‘Oh, come on, Daddy told me that Tansy’s up in Lancashire with the old bat, so you don’t get rid of me thateasily.’

She must have barged past him because suddenly she was in the room. She caught sight of me, frozen to the spot, and her jaw dropped.

‘The “old bat” was well enough to leave overnight,’ I said evenly, in a voice that didn’t sound in the least like my own. ‘What did you mean, Rae, about Justin paying you maintenance money?’