The Chocolate Collection

‘I’m not surprised you made an excuse and left!’

‘Oh, but there’s more! He said the reason he’s sure she approves is because they had an open marriage – and open in more ways than one, because they both liked having sex in the open air, even if not always with each other.’

‘He didn’t!’

‘He certainly did – he came right out with it, as if it was really everyday. That’s why they had the summerhouse built: to screen their activities. The back of it is towards the road. And then, Chloe, I was so startled I blurted out that I remembered his lonely hearts advert saying he liked outdoor pursuits and now I could see exactly where he was coming from! And unfortunately that seemed to encourage him, because he pulled his chair round to my side of the table and said he thought a riding mistress sounded fun and he was always open to new ideas. Then luckily Felix rang, and that’s when I said I had to go. I’m sure I left with more speed than manners.’

‘Serves him right – and he looked so nice too,’ I commiserated.

Having got it all off her chest, Poppy was beginning to find it funny. ‘It’s a pity he didn’t have a date with Mum instead of me. She’d have given him a run for his money,’ she said, with one of her sudden giggles.

‘You never know with Janey,’ I agreed. ‘He could have been thrown, hogtied and branded before he knew where he was.’

‘Still, it’s taught me a lesson. I’m starting to think you and Felix are right, and I’ll never find a man this way. They’ll all be weird.’

‘Maybe that’s because all men are weird and most women simply settle for the least weird one they can find,’ I suggested cynically.

‘No, they’re not. Felix isn’t weird, for a start,’ she protested.

‘Any man who is so engrossed in books that half the time he doesn’t notice that he’s buttoned his jacket up wrongly, or is wearing odd shoes, is just a little on the weird side, even if he’s nice, don’t you think?’

‘Lovable eccentricities are different,’ she said firmly, then hesitated and added, ‘Chloe, have you thought lately that Felix seems to be…sort of looking at you in a different way? I thought I was imagining it, but then the other night…’

I sighed. ‘Oh, you’ve noticed? I thought I was imagining it, too – I hoped I was. Now he’s suddenly decided he wants to settle down, he seems to have fixed on me, for some mad reason. I think it dates back to last year when he bought those old Kate Bush albums at auction in a mixed box with some books, and decided I looked like her picture on the cover. It made him see me in a different light.’

‘Yes, I think you might be right,’ Poppy said thoughtfully. ‘It was about then I began to notice it. I expect it made him suddenly realise how pretty you are too – and you do get on well together.’

I ignored the pretty bit, which is just Poppy being loyal, and said, ‘Of course we do, all three of us get on well, we always have – so it would be just as logical to have a ménage à trois, wouldn’t it?’

She grinned. ‘When you put it like that, I can see how ridiculous it is. He’s been a big-brother figure all our lives, it would take quite a bit of doing to make us see him in a new light.’

‘Yes, some very strong magic!’

Poppy giggled again: ‘Actually, I’ve twice found Felix watching an old clip of Kate Bush on YouTube, when she’s singing that “Wuthering Heights” song, so she’s magic as far as he’s concerned.’

‘I absolutely do not look like Kate Bush!’

‘Most people wouldn’t mind if they did. I certainly wouldn’t!’

‘I think I just have an inbuilt aversion to having a doppel-gänger. Come on, let’s go through into the cottage and have coffee. I’ll post these later – there aren’t any urgent ones.’

I got out some truffles that I’d been experimenting with. Though I only sell hollow chocolate shapes, I still like to make (and eat) the filled sort – one shelf of my fridge is usually full of them. And there’s nothing quite like chocolate for cheering the troubled mind. Poppy went off back to Stirrups with most of her bounce restored.

I trundled my trolley off to the post office with my parcels, trying to think of a way of transferring Felix’s interest to Poppy and of making her see him in the light of a lover, not a brother.

But since there was absolutely no chance of making her look remotely like Kate Bush, or him like George Clooney, I was on a bit of a sticky wicket.

Chapter Fourteen: Fairy Dust (#)

Poppy told me that Hebe Winter had received a brief note from the bishop’s secretary giving her the date when the new vicar was to take up his duties, which was much sooner than everyone had expected.

So when two huge removal vans rumbled by on the Friday afternoon of that week, heading in the direction of the old vicarage, sheer naked curiosity drove me to walk up there on the pretext of buying a loaf from the Spar on the Green, even though I realised it was probably only the new incumbent’s possessions arriving, rather than the man himself.

The drive of the vicarage is quite short, most of the large grounds, which back onto Angel Lane, being behind the house. From the open front gates I could see the vans parked in front of the open porch and men carrying things in through the big central door, though mostly just quite ordinary-looking furniture, apart from a huge, dark, carved wooden headboard that looked very old. But it was hard to tell from that distance and anyway, I saw only that much because the wind lifted the blanket that was draped over it for protection.

There were what might have been large statues too, but they were also enveloped in so much packaging that it was hard to make out what form they took. Still, there’s something fascinating about other people’s belongings, like a TV game where things slide past you on a conveyor belt and you don’t know what’s coming next.

But I couldn’t stand there for ever, so in the end I had to carry on walking. Perhaps I should get a dog? They are such a good excuse for nosy-parkering! Only then I don’t suppose Tabitha would ever speak to me again.

When I got back I knew Jake was home from college and had brought Kat with him, because his long black coat and her half-unravelled-looking woolly wrap thing had been tossed over the back of a chair and then I fell over their bags. There was no sign of them in the cottage, but I could hear Grumps’ voice in the museum, so thought they were probably with him.

I had a quiet sit-down with a mug of hot chocolate and then poured out three more, added hot milk, and took them next door to see what they were up to.

Jake was at the top of a stepladder, hanging masks high up on the wall, with Kat steadying it. As usual she was dressed in a frothy, short black frock, black tights and big boots, like a rare species of pretty Goth fairy. So far, Grumps did not so much tolerate her presence about the place as seem entirely unaware of it, but I expect she would impinge on his consciousness eventually.

Grumps was up at the other end of the room, where workmen were finally installing the tracking for the heavy velvet curtains that would divide off the pentagram area, and had pulled up his Gothic-backed wooden chair to the centre of the floor so he could watch them. This they seemed to find unnerving, but I expect that was because he’d already expressed his displeasure in no uncertain terms about all the delays and broken promises.

Fortunately, the rest of the curtains had been hung in time for the first magical rite of the season, as it were, so it had gone ahead. (Jake and I had taken care not to venture into the museum while the faint sound of chanting could be heard.)

Tabitha was sitting bolt upright on Grumps’ knee, her yellow eyes fixed unblinkingly in the same direction as his. I handed out the hot chocolate and then asked the two workmen if they would like some too, or a cup of tea.

They declined, saying they just wanted to finish the job and get off, which in my experience is almost unheard of. I’d automatically expected a response along the lines of, ‘Tea – milk and three sugars, love.’ I could entirely see where they were coming from, though – and also that their stay would be indefinitely prolonged if they kept nervously dropping things the way they were doing – so I stayed chatting to Grumps to distract his attention. Not that Grumps really chats; he just makes pronouncements, but if you can get him started on a series of those he can keep going for ages.

The museum was really beginning to take shape and most of the glass cabinets were crammed with all kinds of peculiar things, labelled in Grumps’ almost unreadable handwriting. (I can read it, but that’s from long practice, transcribing his letters and chapters.) His collection was already catalogued, so he was now compiling a glossy brochure and several pamphlets from it to sell to the visitors. I anticipated having to type those up before they went to the printers too.

I had to leave eventually in order to have time to eat something before getting ready to meet David, though both Jake and Grumps’ unexpressed disapproval made me feel like that song where a husband is begging his wife not to take her love to town. Jake even declined my offer of cooking him and Kat a pizza first.

Their attitude may have coloured my choice of clothes, for while I didn’t want to look as if I had pulled out all the stops, I did feel it would be very satisfying if I could instil a tinge of regret in David that he’d let so much gorgeousness slip through his fingers.

Pretty impossible really. In the end, I just chose my newest jeans and a very pretty top sprinkled with sequins in pink and turquoise, and paid a bit more attention to my face than my usual five-minute makeover.

A pair of turquoise earrings that Mags brought me back from Goa last time she was there completed the ensemble. I suspected a guilty conscience, since her presents to me are always nicer than she gives Poppy – or even Felix, who is her own son. But I suppose it was kind of her to bring me back a gift at all, because my own mother never did…and I wondered if Mum really was in Goa, as I suspected, and that was the reason Mags kept jetting off there for solitary holidays, just like she used to do to Jamaica right after Mum vanished.

That started me thinking about Mum’s blackmailing activities and wishing I hadn’t seen the letters and still thought Chas was my father, instead of all this uncertainty. I wanted it to be him, but I couldn’t just sweep under the mat the possibility that it might not be.

By the time I put on my jacket and went across to the Falling Star, David’s red sports car was already parked outside. This was a wiser move than parking in the courtyard, because it doesn’t have a lot of manoeuvring room, due to the small meteorite, after which the pub is named, sitting right in the middle of it.

There was no sign of Mrs Snowball behind the little desk that evening but her son, Clive, lifted the flap and came through from the busy public bar just as I entered the snug. David was the only person in the room and had been sitting in the window, but got up when I came in and kissed my cheek.

‘Hi, David. I hope you haven’t been here long?’

‘No, I’ve only just arrived. What would you like to drink? I thought I’d wait until you got here.’

Behind Clive, who is a small, portly, middle-aged man with hair like grey wire wool, something hissed fiercely. He shifted to one side, proudly revealing a gleaming monster of a coffee machine.

‘You might like a coffee, Chloe?’ he suggested. ‘We’ve got one of these now. The tourists all seem to want coffee these days, don’t they? And I thought there’d be a lot more of them once your grandfather’s museum opens. It’ll be right good for business at the Star.’

‘Yes, I suppose it will, I hadn’t thought of that. And I’d love a coffee!’