‘Yes, and he said you were about to move back into the main house.’
‘I already have, into one bedroom and a small downstairs room at the back, while the decorators finish the rest. Jake’s an interesting young man – lively, intelligent and outgoing. You’ve done a good job with him, because he can’t have been easy.’
‘No, he certainly wasn’t that,’ I agreed.
‘Felix told me some of the tricks he used to play – very inventive!’
I reflected that Felix seemed to have been telling him way too much! ‘He’s grown out of them now and he’ll be going to university in the autumn, assuming he ever puts any revision in for his exams and gets the grades. But luckily his girlfriend’s keen on studying. They’re applying to the same universities, but I don’t know how that will work out.’
Raffy had now caught sight of the chocolate spell stuck to the cupboard door next to him and was reading it. ‘Interesting!’
‘According to Grumps, that’s some sort of magical incantation that the Mayans used when they were making their chocolate, and it was brought back by the conquistadores. He has a Spanish archivist chum who’s cataloguing the books and papers of an ancient, titled family and he found the manuscript among them. He and Grumps have deciphered most of it between them and now he insists I say it over every batch of chocolate I make, to improve it.’
‘And do you?’
‘Yes, though I don’t see how it could have any effect. They’re working on the last part now, though that may be a later addition. I only hope they don’t find any more after that, or I’ll be muttering like a witch over the cauldron for hours every time I make a new batch.’
Raffy laughed deep in his throat. I’d forgotten the way he did that but it made my heart do the flippy thing again. I realised I’d slowly relaxed while we were talking, and there was a pile of snipped, shiny Wishes in front of me that I didn’t remember cutting.
Raffy dug a hand into the pocket of his black greatcoat and handed me a small, tissue-wrapped package.
‘This is what I wanted Zillah to give you. I’ve been searching the packing cases for it, I knew it was in there somewhere. Jake told me you loved angels when we were in the church looking at the stained-glass window, and when I was here I noticed there are an awful lot of them in the cottage, so…well, I thought you might like one more for your collection. I picked it up abroad.’
I unwrapped it, disclosing an exquisitely carved dark wooden angel, perhaps three inches high, her beautiful face calm amid a swirl of delicately carved draperies.
‘But it must be terribly old and probably valuable,’ I protested, though I immediately coveted it. I expect that’s a sin: all the best things are.
‘The ribbon the angel’s holding says “Pax”,’ he pointed out, with a hint of the old glinting, Raffy smile. ‘So it’s a peace offering and entirely appropriate that you have it. An offer you can’t refuse.’
And he was right because somehow, although I wanted to, I couldn’t.
Chapter Twenty-four
Gift Bag
I kept going to look at the angel. Her serene expression amid the whirlwind of draperies, like the perfect stillness at the heart of a storm, seemed to epitomise how I would like to feel, however unattainable that now seemed. I had thought I’d won through to a quiet, happy, contented phase in my life after we moved here, until Raffy came along and tossed me back into the maelstrom.
But eventually I came to the conclusion that, by accepting the angel from him, I’d taken at least one faltering step in the direction of total forgiveness, and even finally acknowledged that what happened between us in the past wasn’t entirely his fault.
When I said as much to Zillah, she replied, ‘Then you can take another giant step tomorrow, if you like, love, because I told Raffy me and your grandfather are making something special for him and he’s to call for it in the morning.’
‘One step will do for me at the moment, thanks! And what sort of something special are you and Grumps cooking up? It’s not nasty, is it?’
‘No, the opposite,’ she assured me mysteriously. ‘I told him I’d leave it with you, because I’m going out in the morning and Gregory won’t answer the door.’
‘Out? Out where?’
‘I’m going to the cash-and-carry with Clive Snowball, just for the ride…and maybe a catering-sized jar of piccalilli and some biscuits.’
‘Then Raffy can collect it when you’re back.’
‘No, he might need it earlier,’ she said mysteriously, then added, ‘It’s your birthday soon.’
I stared at her. ‘Has that got anything to do with it?’
‘Nothing at all, our Chloe, I was just making conversation,’ she said, and since she was evidently in one of her more obtuse moods, I went to see if I could get any sense out of Grumps, though let’s face it, that was a forlorn hope.
I was still packing the day’s Wishes orders in the morning when Raffy tapped quietly at the door to Angel Cottage. I’d intended to hand him the small padded envelope Zillah’d given me without inviting him in, but there was a bitterly cold early March wind and the little white dog at his feet was shivering.
‘Come in,’ I said, opening the door wider.
Raffy hesitated. ‘No, that’s OK, thanks. I didn’t mean to disturb you, and anyway, I’ve got Arlo with me.’
‘Look, just come in out of the cold, will you?’ I snapped. ‘Grumps said I was to make sure you read the note with the package anyway and I’m not freezing on the doorstep while you do it. And why don’t you get your dog a coat? He looks chilled to the bone!’
In fact, he was now shivering pathetically all over my feet and, when I bent to pat him, licked my hand and gave me a piteous look.
‘Arlo won’t wear a coat, he rips them off and eats them. He’s putting all this on for your benefit. Look at him – he’s so greedy he’s got a layer of blubber two inches thick to keep him warm.’
Indeed, he was as fat and glossy as a seal, and once the door was shut he stopped shivering and looked perfectly happy to the point of smugness: I’d been had. Story of my life, really.
‘You’d better come through into the sitting room, because I shouldn’t really have animals around the chocolate workshop.’
‘But I’ve obviously interrupted you when you’re busy and that’s the last thing I wanted to do,’ Raffy protested.
‘I’m packing orders, but I’ve almost finished and I’ll be off to the post office with them shortly.’ In fact, another ten minutes, and I would have been on my way when he knocked at the door, so he’d have had to come back later, when Zillah had returned.
He followed me through and Arlo immediately curled up in front of the fire as if he belonged there, though his ears twitched when he heard the crackle of the envelope I handed to Raffy. He probably hoped it was biscuits.
I sat down and watched him open it. I had, of course, prodded and fingered the package and so had a reasonable idea of what it was.
He took out a small, square sachet, looked blankly at it, then passed it to me.
‘A herbal teabag?’
‘I don’t think so. Better read the note,’ I suggested, but from the look of it, it was just as I thought: several ingredients – probably herbs, but possibly something more revolting – had been pulverised and then enfolded in a small square paper packet on which Grumps would have written a spell. Zillah had then sewn it into a covering of white cotton.
‘Your grandfather writes, “I must insist that you carry the enclosed in the pen pocket of your shirt at all times, but especially when you visit Mr Mann-Drake later today.”’ Raffy looked up. ‘He doesn’t say why, and unfortunately, there’s a slight problem.’
‘I know – you don’t wear shirts, with or without pockets, do you?’ I said. He was wearing the black T-shirt with its printed dog collar, black jeans and trainers, and the long leather coat that Jake had so admired when he first saw him. He could have done with another, warmer layer on top of the T-shirt
on a day like this.
‘I only wear a real shirt for official occasions, when I have to. The other snag with your grandfather’s gift is that it’s presumably some kind of protection charm, which as a vicar I probably shouldn’t have anything to do with, though it’s a kind thought.’
I went into the kitchen to brew hot chocolate, but it was only two steps away, so I could carry on with the conversation while I made it. ‘Yes, and at least it means he’s got ill-wishing you out of his system, thank goodness, before you got more than a few bruises. I told him not to do it, and it didn’t do his sciatica any good, either.’
‘Ill-wishing me?’ he said, his voice sounding amused. ‘Can you possibly mean…when the angel fell on me?’
‘And when you fell in the trench. Poppy and Felix told me about that. I expect Grumps thinks it was his doing, but it was probably just coincidence.’
‘A series of unfortunate events? But thank you for calling him off, anyway.’
Arlo had heaved himself up and followed me into the kitchen, presumably in the hope of food, but he was so fat he rippled under his velvet coat so I hardened my heart…to the point where I only gave him half a biscuit.
I took the cups of chocolate through and put them down on the brass tray table.
‘I don’t see why you can’t carry the charm, since it’s a goodwill thing, Raffy. It can’t do any harm, can it?’
‘I suppose not. I could pin it inside my coat.’
‘That would be fine, except that you don’t wear it all the time and if you don’t take it off when you visit Mann-Drake he’ll think it odd. I know – you can pin it inside your jeans pocket, only you’ll have to remember to switch it over when you change clothes.’
‘Yes, and try not to blow my nose on it,’ he agreed gravely, though his turquoise eyes gleamed mischievously. ‘And, Chloe, it’s nice to hear you say my name again!’
My newborn state of forgiveness was still such a precarious thing that I wasn’t quite at the stage of replying to that yet, nor did I offer to help him attach the charm, in case I was tempted to ram the pin into a delicate area. I just handed it to him, silently. It would have been a lot easier if he’d taken his jeans off, but I certainly wasn’t going to suggest that, either.
I looked down at his bent head, where the long, black curls had swung forward exposing the strong, pale nape of his neck. His shoulders seemed broader and his back under the T-shirt more muscled than I remembered…
‘I wish you wouldn’t go to see Mann-Drake,’ I said involuntarily.
He straightened and pushed the hair back from his face with both hands in a familiar gesture. ‘Why, you don’t really think he has any magical powers, do you?’
‘No, but I do think he sounds a really horrible man and also terribly persuasive.’
‘I think that probably sums up how I used to be, doesn’t it? So I should be largely impervious,’ he said drily.
‘You were never horrible or evil, just young, hedonistic and totally self-obsessed.’
‘Thank you for that tribute: I feel so much better now,’ he said with un-Christian sarcasm, draining his chocolate and getting up. ‘I’ll be off on my dragon-slaying right away.’
Arlo seemed to want to stay put, which rather spoiled Raffy’s grand exit. In the end, he had to carry him out.
Unsurprisingly, I felt very unsettled after he’d gone, as if all my emotions and ideas were shifting about into new patterns, all on their own. And I was really on edge…
Felix was talking to customers when I passed his shop on the way back from the post office, so I didn’t stop, just went home and typed up Grumps’ latest chapter instead.
After a bit I wandered in to see Zillah, who was back and sitting at the kitchen table riffling the Tarot pack. Cartons of biscuits, catering-sized tins of fruit salad and giant jars of pickles surrounded the urban consumer squirrel. I only hoped I wasn’t getting any of that lot, gift-wrapped, for my birthday – especially the pickled eggs.
‘So, did you give Raffy the charm?’ she asked, looking up.
‘Yes, but wouldn’t he need more than that to protect him when he visited Mann-Drake?’
‘Stop fussing. The cards said he came to no harm, so it worked. Your grandfather, Hebe Winter and Florrie Snowball dreamed that one up between them. It was powerful.’
I felt the tension I’d carried round with me all day evaporate a bit. ‘Maybe God made him invincible and it was nothing to do with the charm?’ I suggested, and she gave me one of her looks.
‘You can ask him tomorrow,’ she said, for there was to be a general meeting of the villagers to discuss the future closure of the tennis court and lido field, and everyone would be there. Sticklepond has never needed much encouragement to party, so following the meeting there would be tea, coffee and a buffet, when everyone could chat.
Zillah’s reassurance still didn’t stop me walking back up the High Street later, on the pretext of giving Felix a jar of my chocolate and ginger spread, pausing at the vicarage gates for long enough to see that Raffy’s small silver car was parked before the door.
Physically, at least, he must still be in one piece, and I hoped for his sake that his immortal soul was still hanging on in there too.
And with a bit of luck, even if Mr Mann-Drake had taken exception to what Raffy had been saying to him, he would be too much occupied in the near future with all his moneymaking schemes to do anything about it.
Chapter Twenty-five
Mixed Bag
Apart from Zillah’s reassurance (for what it was worth) I knew Raffy really was OK because Poppy popped in after the latest Parish Council meeting and said his visit to Mann-Drake seemed to have been a bit of a damp squib.
‘I mean, I don’t know what Miss Winter and your grandfather were imagining would happen to Raffy, but he just said that Mann-Drake had been polite, but unforthcoming about both his personal beliefs and his business plans.’
‘I knew Mann-Drake hadn’t turned him into a frog, because he couldn’t have driven back if he had little stumpy legs and webbed feet,’ I said, and she giggled.
‘I can’t see Raffy as a frog, can you? Anyway, a queue of women a mile long would instantly form, ready to kiss him back into a prince. Effie Yatton would be one of them. She called him “dear boy” twice at the meeting and she keeps bringing him food.’
I pushed the box of truffles we were sharing back in her direction and she selected one covered in chopped nuts, then said, ‘We had some really good news for the householders on the Green that Mann-Drake is trying to extort money from. Miss Winter’s solicitor found a similar case that had been recently successfully contested.’
‘That is good news,’ I agreed.
‘Yes, and the Rights of Way Act was changed after it, so that if you’ve had at least twenty years’ right of access across common land, no one can impose a charge – and that’s all of the houses along there.’
I’d picked up another truffle, a rum one but, feeling slightly sick, put it back again: you can have too much, even of good chocolate. Poppy’s complexion, however, remained a healthy pink although she had eaten twice as many as I had. ‘So Mann-Drake hasn’t got a leg to stand on?’
‘Not even a little, green, stumpy webbed one,’ she agreed happily. ‘The solicitor is going to send a letter to him pointing this out, though he thinks he probably already knows about it and just hoped to panic everyone into paying the charge before they discovered it.’
‘So that’s one problem solved, at least,’ I said.
‘We’re going to announce it at the meeting tomorrow night in the village hall – you are going, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, it looks like we’re all going and I’m taking a big chocolate cake as our contribution to the buffet.’
‘Oh, good! I love your chocolate cake,’ she said, taking a last truffle and tucking it into her cheek like a hamster. Then she got up, dusting cocoa powder off her hands. ‘Better go,’ she said indistinctly. ‘See you tomorrow!’
>
I didn’t see Raffy again until the meeting, unless you counted brief, early morning glimpses when he walked Arlo past my window – or rather, dragged him past, since Arlo always seemed determined to come in.
I think I may have become what they call a curtain-twitcher.
We Lyons were out in force at the meeting: Grumps, Zillah and Jake had decided to go, and Kat was there with her parents, so we would all get to meet them at last – and vice versa. Janey arrived under her own steam and even Clive Snowball was there; he must have left his mother and Molly in charge of the pub.
Raffy chaired the meeting, with the whole Parish Council, including Felix and a very self-conscious Poppy, sitting on the stage and taking questions. As usual, Miss Winter answered most of them, though she did graciously defer to the vicar from time to time.
There was lots of indignation about this stranger daring to come into their midst and trying to change things, though one or two of the local businesses that he patronised were slightly more forgiving.
‘I spoke to Mr Mann-Drake myself,’ Raffy said, ‘and he was adamant that he intended selling the tennis court and the lido land for housing development. He seemed confident that he’d be able to obtain planning permission on appeal, because the areas are within the village boundary.’
‘The junior tennis club gives the kids something to do in summer,’ a man’s voice called from the back of the hall and someone else said, ‘That’s right, and most of us have learned to swim up at the lido, and the Guides and Scouts have their annual camp there.’
‘The tennis club problem is easily solved,’ Miss Winter announced. ‘The vicar is renovating the court at the rear of the vicarage, which he has generously offered to let us use instead.’
‘The court and pavilion should be ready by the end of next month, when the lease on the other site runs out,’ Raffy agreed. ‘I’m making access to it by the side gate onto Church Way, and Miss Yatton will have the keys and run it as before.’
Chocolate Wishes Page 21