A Good Heart is Hard to Find

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘It doesn’t look healthy. Why don’t you use some blusher?’ she suggested.

  ‘Because I dare to be different, and at least I’ve got cheekbones. It must be such a puzzle for you to decide where yours are when you’re doing your make-up.’

  ‘All my bones are going to stand out a mile if I don’t get some real food soon,’ she said pathetically.

  ‘They already do: you look like you’ve been constructed from coathangers. But if you want to go out and forage, feel free. Otherwise you’ll have to wait for tonight: I eat my dinner at the pub most evenings.’

  ‘I wonder how Max could stand it!’

  ‘He brought his own food and drink, and he liked the King’s Arms. It was one of the few public places we went to together.’

  It occurred to me that we were talking about him as if he was dead.

  … the way his hair curled on the back of his neck, his stance, the way he moved … Yes, it was Sylvanus, his own dear self! thought Keturah, her heart leaping. Then he turned, those familiar hazel eyes a dead two-way mirror for the unspeakable evil that rode within him like a golem charioteer …

  ‘You could at least keep some supplies in for visitors. I don’t like pizza, or peanut butter,’ Jane complained.

  ‘Tough titties, blossom: I didn’t invite you,’ I told her, but it was all water off a duck’s back to Jane.

  She pouted like a little girl, and while pouting made Orla resemble Marilyn Monroe, Jane just looked like a very skinny fish.

  ‘If you’re interested, Max rang while you were asleep,’ she said casually now, smiling angelically as is her wont while doing the cat-and-mouse stuff.

  ‘What?’ I stared at her. ‘Why on earth didn’t you wake me? What did he say?’

  ‘Not much when he realized it was me and not you, except that the funeral is on Thursday. Oh, and he’s flying back to California on Saturday, so obviously he’s not planning on spending much time with you, is he?’

  ‘Saturday?’ I repeated like a parrot. Maybe it was just as well I hadn’t spoken to him, because I was still trying to suppress conflicting urges to confess my descent into Dante’s inferno the other night, and to demand to know the truth about his relationship with Rosemary, and I was not one hundred per cent certain I’d got my mouth under control yet on either count.

  ‘Yes. He said he’d try and get over for a couple of hours on Friday if he could.’

  ‘Big of him,’ I said sourly. ‘Though maybe knowing you’re staying here put him off?’

  ‘No it didn’t, because I told him I was leaving tomorrow.’

  ‘And are you?’ I asked hopefully.

  ‘Yes, I’ve booked the train, and Clint’s meeting me. You can drive me to the station in the morning, can’t you?’

  ‘Gladly!’

  ‘Well you needn’t sound so pleased about it. You’re lucky anyone comes to stay, when you’ve got no food in the house and only a manky outside toilet!’

  ‘The toilet’s right outside the back door, Jane, so I really don’t see your problem. I mean, it’s not like I hand you a spade and a roll of loo paper when you arrive, is it? And I have got an indoor bath and washbasin.’

  ‘You must be mad and I can’t imagine why Max never made you install an inside toilet in all these years!’

  ‘He couldn’t make me do anything to my own house, and anyway, it doesn’t bother me. Although the Plague of Frogs the year before last was a bit of a nuisance,’ I conceded. ‘I don’t know what I did to deserve that.’

  Jane shuddered melodramatically. ‘Oh, don’t! I can’t even bear to think about it.’

  I’d forgotten that one of her rare visits to me had fortuitously coincided with the frogs. It was one of her shortest visits ever, and clearly she’d never forgotten the experience.

  ‘There were frogs on the seat, frogs in the pan, frogs on the floor … ugh!’ she said.

  ‘They were cute little green ones, though,’ I pointed out. ‘I managed to get them all out eventually, three whole bucket-fulls, and took them up to the pond in the woods. The garden was still covered in them even so, and I had to block up the gap at the bottom of the outhouse door until they’d all gone. Where they appeared from in the first place is one of life’s great mysteries. Didn’t you see I’ve given my cottage a name sign on the door?’

  ‘No, what?’

  ‘Frog’s Bottom.’

  ‘You are joking aren’t you, Cass?’

  ‘No, I really have. Go and look if you don’t believe me.’

  … their soft jewelled green bodies gave under her feet as she drew closer to her goal, each shuddering, crunching step a small, precious life extinguished …

  ‘Cass? You’ve gone into a trance again. I said, the vicar also phoned, to remind you about the slave auction. Is he mad? What on earth did he mean?’

  ‘It’s a charity thing. Every year some of us put ourselves up for auction and people bid for our services for a day of their choice.’

  ‘Sounds weird. What kind of services?’

  ‘Just any skills you might have, like gardening, cleaning, babysitting, that sort of stuff.’

  ‘What on earth could you offer!’

  ‘Light cleaning, dog-walking, chauffeuring, and shopping, though old Miss Gresham bid for me last year, under the mistaken impression that I could read fortunes, and invited all her cronies round to have their bumps read.’

  ‘You can read fortunes – and minds.’

  ‘You know I can’t read fortunes in the “crystal ball, cross my palm with Euros” way like a party entertainer. It’s just that if I take someone’s hand and concentrate hard, sometimes I get a flash of premonition. But, of course, that’s only because life is a sort of Mobius strip, and what goes around comes around. The Newsflash from the Future is also a Newsflash from the Past … sort of.’

  ‘You are seriously weird. Did they know you could read their minds too? And doesn’t that work the same way, so you don’t know which you will get?’

  ‘No, it’s a different door in my head to the Newsflash door, and it just gives me a sort of random sample of what emotions are bubbling under the surface, not really what they are thinking about.’

  ‘Pity! You could make a fortune in blackmail if you could read minds!’

  ‘Only if you were morally depraved,’ I said coldly.

  My Romany gift – if gift it was – was quite enough. I suddenly remembered reading Dante Chase’s exceedingly chill undercurrents and shivered: touching him that time had been like dipping my hand into dark, cold water, not knowing what was swimming around in there with me. Well, that time it had; but touching him later had been equally amazing in its way, but quite, quite different …

  I shook the forbidden image away and said briskly: ‘I don’t do it much, because I don’t want to know how people feel … mostly.’

  ‘You should try Max if he deigns to visit on Friday,’ she suggested. ‘Could you tell if he’s been faithful to you, or is going to marry you or dump you?’

  I didn’t answer, because I’d already decided I was going to, even though I’d once promised Max I wouldn’t do it again.

  But then, he’d promised me a lot of things too, and now I needed to know how he really felt. This was the best way.

  Mind you, it was just as well this mind-meld thing wasn’t a two-way street, or I’d be in big, big trouble.

  11

  Gone, but Not Forgotten

  As usual, the choice selection of slaves-for-a day at the vicar’s annual charity auction includes our own resident author, Cass Leigh, Marilyn Monroe look-alike Orla Murphy and Clara Williams, whose talk at the WI on recycling knitted garments was voted the most popular of the year …

  Westery and District Voice

  I almost forgot that I had a Crypt-ogram to do early that evening.

  Orla had talked me into carrying on (but not as Wonder Woman), though I was adamant I wouldn’t do stag nights any more, and if it weren’t for keeping the Batmobile on the road I would
have given up after the fiasco with poor old Clive.

  This one was a children’s party in the next village, so I tried not to look too alarming: no greenish pallor, just my natural ashen complexion, and my hair flowing its own dried-blood red over my shoulders.

  When I sang ‘Monster Mash’ only one little girl cried, and they were all amazingly quiet. One of the mothers offered me a job as her permanent nanny on the way out, but I expect she was joking.

  Jane was waiting for me in the car, since we were going to the King’s Arms for dinner straight afterwards. She’d seemed strangely reluctant to be seen driving about the lanes with a vampire, and on the way there had swathed her head in her pashmina like a pastel-tinted babushka. Now she insisted I took my teeth out before carrying on.

  Fussy.

  I twisted my hair up and secured it with a big diamante comb that I kept in the glove compartment for the purpose. ‘There, perfectly normal,’ I told her, wiping a layer of crimson from my lips with a tissue.

  ‘Don’t you want to go home and change?’ she suggested. ‘It won’t take long, and that crinkle velvet dress you’re wearing not only makes you look like a superannuated hippie, but it clings so much you look twice as big as you are!’

  ‘Jane, I’m not fat, just naturally curvy, and if I like my clothes I don’t care what anyone else thinks.’

  ‘Max?’

  I considered it. ‘He used to like the way I dressed, it’s only in later years when he started to go stuffy that he complained. But we never actually go out much when he visits except to the pub, so there’s nothing to dress up for. Besides, I choose clothes I like and feel comfortable in, not dress to please him.’

  ‘And I suppose you told him so?’

  ‘I certainly did.’

  ‘I don’t think you have ever had the least idea how to get and keep a man,’ she said acidly.

  ‘Well I must have done something right or it wouldn’t have lasted this long.’

  ‘If you’d played your cards right when he first fell for you, he’d have left Rosemary and married you.’

  ‘Yes, I think he would: but how could I have insisted that he left her, when she was an invalid? And I tried not to fall in love with Max – that’s why I got the job and moved here without telling him. But he found me eventually.’

  ‘You always were putty in his hands,’ she said scathingly.

  ‘That’s the problem – there’s just something about Max.’ I frowned. ‘There was something about Max. I mean, no matter how logically I thought things out and realized I ought to end our affair, as soon as I saw him again I just couldn’t do it. It’s still a bit like that when he phones, if he puts himself out to be charming, but he doesn’t always bother any more.’

  ‘Why should he? He’s got you anyway.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ I said with dignity.

  As we walked into the bar I said: ‘Orla and Jason are probably already here, so I’ll introduce you, and then—’

  I stopped dead, because standing at the end of the bar was a tall man with his back turned to me, and an awfully familiar, broad-shouldered back it was too. A mane of too-long, glossy dark hair fell over his shoulders, hair that would feel like springy silk to the touch …

  My mouth went dry, and waves of hot and cold swept over me like a speeded-up version of the four seasons.

  ‘It never happened, Cass: all you have to do is shut that door on the whole thing and convince yourself it never happened. You were drunk, so maybe you only imagined it anyway.’

  Yeah, right. Easy. Thank you, voice of my conscience.

  If Jane hadn’t been right behind me I’d have bolted.

  ‘What’s up?’ she said in her rather piercing voice. ‘Why have you stopped?’

  Casting a nervous glance at the bar I muttered: ‘Nothing – come on, Orla and Jason are over there in the corner.’

  ‘Is that Jason? He’s not bad, is he, you dark horse!’

  The feeling seemed to be annoyingly mutual, because Jason stood up as we got there and eyed Jane approvingly. I felt like hitting him with the ashtray, because if he had a sudden yearning for a blonde he might at least have the good taste to choose Orla; and going by her sour expression Orla thought so too, though she quickly hid her feelings: ‘Hi, Cass! Gig go OK?’

  ‘Yes, fine: I much prefer children to stag parties, because at least they are only little monsters. Oh, and speaking of monsters, this is my sister, Jane. Jane, Orla and Jason. I know you’ve heard me mention them.’

  ‘This is your twin sister?’ exclaimed Orla predictably. ‘I can’t believe it! You’re such absolute opposites.’

  ‘Yes, in every way,’ Jane said, smiling sweetly at Jason.

  He smirked fatuously back until Orla and I kicked him under the table from opposite sides, but although it wiped off the smirk it didn’t stop him leaning over and saying, like no one had ever noticed before: ‘You look so unlike each other it’s hard to believe you are sisters, let alone twins.’

  ‘Ho-hum, boring conversation,’ I said to Orla. ‘I see Marilyn Monroe is making an appearance tonight: where are you going?’

  ‘Oh, I just love the dress!’ Jane said. ‘But doesn’t bleaching your hair like that ruin it?’

  ‘It’s natural,’ Orla said coldly.

  ‘Of course it is,’ I agreed hastily. ‘Where are you going? Or have you been?’

  ‘It’s a private party later, which sounds respectable, and it’s not far away so I don’t have to leave for another hour.’ She nodded and lowered her voice: ‘Did you see who is at the bar? I’ve just introduced him to Jason.’

  ‘Does Cass know who he is?’ Jason demanded, overhearing. ‘How come? He’s only been here a couple of days, and he seems to have spent most of those sorting his house out and setting the police on to Jack Craig!’

  ‘I bumped into him the other night when I was out ghost-hunting,’ I said vaguely. ‘He introduced himself.’

  ‘Who?’ demanded Jane, and twisted to look over her shoulder.

  Dante’s face was half-turned towards us, giving me a glimpse of an arrogantly aquiline nose and angular cheekbone. His hair looked like the most attention it had had in months was having fingers run through it (including mine), and it didn’t so much need cutting as shearing.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ I hissed at Orla, and she widened her eyes innocently at me.

  ‘Why not? This is his local now too, you know. Shh … he’s coming back.’

  ‘Coming back—’ I began, half-rising to my feet in a panic. Then I sat down again, because if the man was actually going to live here I was going to have to get used to meeting him.

  There’s supposed to be a time and a place for everything. The one for meeting large, morose strangers you have irrationally done intimate things with is probably not while under the suddenly suspicious eyes of your sister, close friend and would-be lover.

  It was too late for escape anyway. Dante put a pint down in front of Jason (male bonding rite) then took the chair opposite me and next to Jane, which I now noticed too late had a bulky scuffed leather jacket draped over it.

  All his clothes hung on him a bit, like they belonged to someone bigger, and I could see that even Orla, the most unmaternal of women, was looking at him as if she wanted to take him home and feed him up. And then maybe eat him up.

  I sort of half met his eyes and smiled, like you do when you vaguely recognize someone but can’t quite remember who, what or when. Inside, though, I was doing the hot and cold thing again during which some evil gremlin in my head ran an edited Highlights of the Night tape at fast speed.

  ‘Hello, Cass,’ he said as easily as though we’d known each other for ever, and if there were any gremlins in his head they were in the back room asleep. ‘I was beginning to think you were a figment of my imagination. Would you like a drink?’

  Yeah, but only if they stock Instant Cup’a’ Poison: Just Add Hot Water And Stir, I thought, trying hard not to succumb to the urge to look at him. />
  Some hope.

  ‘No, it’s OK, thanks, I’ll get one in a minute when I order some food,’ I mumbled, stealing a glance at him only to discover that he was looking so unconcerned and even, truth to tell, uninterested, that I began to seriously doubt that anything intimate had ever taken place between us.

  Was it a dream after all? Or something that was, to him, so unimportant that it was instantly forgettable?

  Quite unaccountably, considering I was hellbent on pretending the whole sorry thing never happened, I began to feel piqued and stopped switching on and off like a thermostat.

  Instead I set Jane on to him so I could watch him unnoticed while she worked her mojo on him. ‘This is my sister, Jane. Jane, this is Dante Chase, who’s just inherited Kedge Hall, the lovely old manor house outside the village.’

  The total stranger I slept with the other night.

  ‘Hi,’ she said alertly, bestowing on him her full panoply of winsome, white-toothed charm. ‘You look so familiar: now where do I know you from?’

  ‘No idea,’ he said curtly, and turning abruptly met my eyes. His were the greeny-blue of a Caribbean sea – or a glacier’s depths – and showed a momentary glint of some emotion.

  I couldn’t for the life of me decide what it was.

  Can glaciers burn?

  ‘Jane’s Cass’s twin sister: isn’t it amazing how different they are?’ Orla asked, changing the subject, because Dante was clearly not about to regale us with jolly tales of his hostage days.

  He shrugged, seemingly uninterested. ‘It often happens that way with non-identical twins.’

  ‘Dante has been telling me his plans for the Hall,’ Orla told us, persevering.

  ‘You mean, about setting up in competition with your B&B?’ I said helpfully.

  ‘It’s not a B&B,’ Dante said shortly. ‘My sister, Rosetta, just aims to run themed ghost-hunting weekends, so there’s no competition. There seem to be more alleged ghosts per mile round here than anywhere in the country, most of them haunting my house,’ he added distastefully.

  ‘It’s noted for it,’ I agreed. ‘And Hanged Man Lane runs right past it.’

  ‘There’s the Haunted Well too, but it’s not really haunted, we made that one up,’ Orla confessed. ‘It’s in my garden, and passers-by love to throw money down it. It’s great!’