Trisha Ashley 3 Book Bundle

‘But you didn’t go and look for him, either, did you?’ Felix said.

‘I couldn’t. He was brought up by an aunt and I had no idea where she lived. What was I supposed to do, follow the band around the country like a groupie, hanging out at stage doors in the hope of a word of explanation?’

‘No, I see what you mean,’ Poppy said, ‘and by then, of course, you’d accepted Rachel’s version of what happened – and what a truly horrible person she must be!’ She sighed. ‘Oh, well, it’s all past now, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, all passion spent, and the rest of it,’ I said wearily. ‘Raffy said he was going to the church to pray after we’d had our talk and I expect that’s when the angel nearly fell on him. I only hope, wherever Rachel is, one fell right on top of her.’

‘And I hope that now you and Raffy have talked things over, you can both draw a line under it,’ Felix suggested optimistically.

‘You keep saying that, but it’s easier said than done. How would you both feel if your past turned up on the doorstep? I mean, you’ve never told us any details about your divorce, Felix, except that your wife was unfaithful, but what if she suddenly moved to Sticklepond with the man she left you for?’

‘Actually, it was a woman,’ Felix confessed. ‘That seemed to make it even worse.’

‘Oh, poor Felix,’ Poppy said sympathetically. ‘My horrible experience in Warwickshire wasn’t half so bad, even if it was hideously embarrassing. I didn’t think anyone had noticed I had an almighty crush on that riding instructor until I overheard him laughing about it with his friends – and his wife! He used to flirt with me too, and try to kiss me, but he didn’t tell them that. And yes, I would loathe ever having to see him again.’

‘It’s funny how we all went through a different sort of hell, more or less at the same time, isn’t it?’ I said.

Poppy nodded. ‘And even stranger how we’ve all ended up living so near together.’

‘There does seem to be a congruous pattern to our lives,’ agreed Felix.

‘I don’t know about you two, but I could do with a stiff drink,’ I said, with a sigh. ‘Perhaps a double whisky will magically fill me with magnanimity?’

‘Or make you maudlin,’ Felix suggested. ‘But I’ll join you anyway and we’ll risk it.’

‘I’d better not, I’m driving,’ Poppy said. ‘By the way, it’s the first Parish Council meeting with Raffy as vicar tomorrow. I’ll pop in afterwards and tell you what happens, Chloe.’

‘Always supposing another angel doesn’t get him first, fair and square,’ I said.

I didn’t so much fall asleep that night as plummet into a dreamless stupor, waking up with eyelids ruched like Viennese blinds and a headache so powerful I felt as if my head was nailed to the pillow.

I staggered to my vantage point behind the workshop curtains just in time to watch Raffy walk past with his dog, and thought resentfully that he didn’t look like someone nearly felled by an angel, though the marks of a sleepless night showed where the blue shadows lay like bruises under his eyes.

Good.

Once Jake had gone off to college I went to collect the latest chapter from Grumps. I hoped this book was nearly finished, because it seemed to me to be much longer than usual. But every time it appeared to be winding up to a conclusion, it galloped off again at a tangent.

‘What did you think of the new vicar?’ I asked him, gathering scattered pages.

‘Oh, surprisingly intelligent. Can keep his end up in a conversation. I don’t mind if he visits again…if he is able to.’ And then he shifted a little in his chair and winced.

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked suspiciously.

‘Just a touch of sciatica. What are these?’ he added, prodding the biscuits in his saucer.

‘Lemon cream puffs.’

‘I can’t dip a lemon cream puff into my tea,’ he objected.

‘Yes you can, but it will taste pretty weird,’ I said, and left him to it.

‘Zillah,’ I said on the way back through the kitchen, ‘a marble angel nearly fell on the new vicar yesterday in the churchyard, soon after he left here: was that Grumps’ doing?’

Zillah was sitting in the old armchair by the hearth, in front of the flat-screen TV, with Tabitha limply draped across her lap like a small, moth-eaten fur rug.

‘How would he be able to cause that, in a churchyard, on hallowed ground?’ she asked, the inevitable fag hanging out of the corner of her mouth barely moving as she spoke.

‘I suppose it is silly, when you think about it,’ I conceded.

‘I read the vicar’s leaves and the Tarot – did he say I gave the cards to him to hold?’

I shook my head. ‘How did you know I’d seen him?’

‘I know everything,’ she said complacently. ‘The cards showed me clearly that he has a heart washed clean of sin and a vital part to play in the events that will unfold.’

‘His heart must have been through a carwash on Extra Long, then,’ I said sourly, then told her what had happened between us the previous afternoon. ‘So I’m still furious with him,’ I concluded, ‘because he was so credulous and never gave a thought about me afterwards. He even slept with Rachel! And I certainly haven’t entirely forgiven him, either, though maybe I’ll be able to get my head around it eventually…in a decade or so.’

I remembered something she’d said. ‘And what did you mean, he has a vital part to play?’

Zillah shrugged, and the lime-green shawl she was wearing slid off one shoulder. It would have looked quite racy, except for the double layer of pink and magenta cardigans beneath.

‘As vicar, I presume. Gregory says we must all join ranks together against Digby Mann-Drake, and Raffy can’t do that if he’s been flattened by an angel, can he?’

‘It would certainly make it difficult,’ I agreed.

Chapter Twenty-one Garnish (#ulink_46a1e859-b6af-5af0-bbf1-03165e724dad)

While I was in the post office sending off the latest batch of Chocolate Wishes I heard that notices had been posted on the gates of both the lido field and the tennis courts overnight, saying that when the leases expired in April the current owner, Mr Mann-Drake, intended closing them to the public.

Everyone was up in arms about this and I detoured on my way home to read the notice on the tennis court gate. It was on laminated fluorescent orange card so it would have been a bit hard to miss, but I was only just in time, since Effie Yatton drove up in her old green Morris and removed it just as I’d finished.

An energetic, grey-haired woman with a thin, eager face like a whippet, she nodded to me and said concisely, ‘Disgraceful! I’m taking the notices to the Parish Council meeting later, to see what can be done!’

Then she tossed the notice onto the passenger seat on top of another one, presumably from the lido field, and drove off. I have a feeling taking them down was illegal, but when I told Felix about it while scrounging a free cup of coffee, as usual, he said he expected she would return them later and it looked like being an interesting Parish Council meeting, for once.

I had to wait much longer than usual to find out whether it was or not. In fact, it was getting so late by the time Poppy arrived that I’d just about given her up, but she explained that she’d gone to church afterwards.

‘Raffy says evening prayers at five thirty every day except Sunday, so he was going straight there, and Felix and I thought we would go too.’

‘Felix went?’

‘Yes, he likes Raffy; they seem to get on really well. There were one or two other people there and it was a short service: he read out a daily office, a bit like an extended “Thought for the Day”. He has a lovely speaking voice, hasn’t he? Sort of deep and mellow and warm…It was lovely and peaceful and I felt so much better afterwards. You should try it, Chloe.’

‘I don’t think so!’

‘Perhaps not,’ she conceded contritely. ‘Sorry, I wasn’t thinking!’

‘That’s OK.’