Perhaps it was Ken Smollett’s face – his mouth had been hanging open for so long while he goggled at Lili that his tongue had dried to something you could sole shoes with.
He was even oblivious to the evil eye his wife was casting on him from her seat further along, but at least for once she wasn’t glaring at me. So restful after a week of it – and did she really believe that I had been trying to wrest her little tub of lard away from her?
Lili glided up to the empty chair next to Ken with the sort of oiled motion you only see in vampire films, and passed a tissue-wrapped parcel across to me.
‘Happy birthday, sweetie. Frankly, I don’t even want to be reminded such things exist, but Vivi did say this was a birthday dinner, so . . .’ She shrugged, and the strap of her dress shifted to Indecency Point and hung there.
Ken went puce and missed his mouth entirely with his glass, without noticing the stream of wine trickling down his chin.
‘Thanks, Lili,’ I said, unwrapping the parcel to find one of her historical novels, the cover featuring a big, blond man entwined with a swooning redhead. The title was Some Day My Prince Will Come.
How does she get away with these things?
Inside, under the usual birthday greetings, she’d written: ‘Get a piece of the action before it’s too late.’
‘I’ve already had a piece of the action, thanks, Lili,’ I assured her, wrenching my eyes away from the lurid cover with some difficulty, for there was something tantalizingly familiar about the man . . .
‘Yes, but not in living memory, darling. Blow the dust off it and have another,’ she suggested.
She means well, but she’s addicted to love.
I had more presents to open, the first an excellent reproduction of an antique vase depicting the poetess Sappho made by Vivi, who is a very talented potter, and the second a joint present from the Creative Breakers of a jingling little bracelet of fake coins. It chimed every time I breathed.
I now know how the belled cat feels.
I knew what was in the last parcel because Mu had warned me about it, but in any case I helped design the packaging for Fantasy Flowers when she set the business up two years ago, so it was instantly recognizable.
She’d really gone to town: the long, shiny black box contained a lot of purple tissue paper, adding a sepulchral effect to the bouquet inside, which was constructed of very artistic and lifelike silk flowers and leaves. We tried dried, at first, but finding sources for, say, dried hemlock, is difficult.
‘Oh, urgh!’ Vivi said, leaning over for a closer look. ‘The yellow roses are all right – but against that purple! And what are these things that look like weeds? And those spiky things? And look, here is a little book.’
I handed Meanings of Flowers and Foliage to her, and pointed out the message in my bouquet: yellow roses for jealousy, rosemary for remembrance, rue for obvious reasons, wormwood for absence, begonia for dark thoughts and hemp for fate.
Isn’t it ironic that the nasty little objects Dave dispatched to me from time to time over the years should have inspired Fantasy Flowers? (We literally did say it with flowers.) And the wheel had now come full circle, with Dave using our service to send something to me!
Lili was frankly envious: ‘You must have made quite an impact on someone to get that kind of message!’
I shrugged. ‘Just an old boyfriend who likes to remind me of what I loved and left behind me.’
‘Was he so awful he put you off men for ever?’ she asked.
‘He was dark, tall, handsome, and the “I’m-totally-incapable-of-faithfulness-but-forgive-me-because-I-love-you” type.’
His main asset was his undiluted and rampant sexual magnetism. He had the power. The force was with him. And he wasn’t selfish with it, either – he would sleep with anyone youngish and female who was up for it.
‘He sounds so Heathcliff,’ sighed Lili. ‘And he must still be mad about you if he keeps sending you these things.’
‘I think he’s mad at me, not about me – or even just plain mad, going by the nature of his little offerings.’
She should have seen one or two of his early gifts, like the sealed plastic package containing a rotting pig’s heart that had followed me out here the year I was helping Bob to set up the place. He got more subtle later, but not much.
‘Beware Englishmen bearing gifts,’ Vivi said merrily, her eyes taking on a new, assessing look. I hoped she wasn’t going to bring up the eligible bachelor from Athens again. ‘Sappho, always you stride through life as though you were a goddess above such things, when all the time you have a Past.’
‘The Greek goddesses don’t seem to have been above earthly pleasures,’ I pointed out. Still, at least I didn’t have to explain myself to Bob, who went to the same university – so restful.
He gave me a lazy smile now and said, ‘I suppose it’s Dave again?’
Vivi stared at him open-mouthed: ‘You knew? And you never told me? Bob!’
He shrugged. ‘I’d forgotten, or thought he’d given it up, or something.’
‘This is all so intriguing,’ Lili exclaimed, eyes shining. ‘You must tell me more about this – what was his name? Dave?’
‘There isn’t really anything much to tell. His name’s Dave Devlyn, and—’ I began.
‘Not Dave Devlyn the portrait photographer?’ she gasped, with unflattering amazement.
I nodded.
‘My God – he’s gorgeous! You have to be really famous to be photographed by him . . . and wasn’t there some scandal recently about him and a foreign princess? He was photographing her, and he—’
‘Very, very likely,’ I broke in before she could recall the more sordid details. ‘Have you met him?’
‘No, but I’ve seen him. Darkly sexy,’ she added hungrily.
‘Yes, he’s all of that – or was. I haven’t actually clapped eyes on him for quite a while.’ He was also, despite his intuitive way behind a camera lens, vain and shallow, and permanently unbalanced by yours truly. He hadn’t seen me for quite a while, though, so maybe if he did, horror at my time-worn carcass would send him recoiling upon something younger and more nubile.
Lili’s heart-shaped, slightly raffish face wore quite a tinge of the child-at-the-sweetshop-window. ‘Why you?’ she asked, puzzled. ‘Not that you aren’t attractive,’ she added hastily, ‘but Helen of Troy you’re not.’
‘I don’t really know, unless it’s an extreme form of pique at my being the only woman to chuck him and walk away – even after he’d proposed to me. I keep expecting it to wear off. I suppose if I’d been around all these years instead of globetrotting, it would have done.’
She sighed again, wistfully. ‘If I hadn’t just fallen in love with an angel I’d ask for his address.’
‘You’ve married again? I hadn’t heard.’
She always married them – for love. Then divorced them once she’d worn the bloom off. (Except the first, I give her that, who died on her: literally, the way she tells it.)
‘Not yet, but I met this amazing man in London at a big craft exhibition, where I got all this lovely barbaric jewellery. Look.’
She swung a heavy pendant from between her Twin Peaks and dangled it like a pendulum.
‘Rose quartz is so good for my love chakra. I sent you a letter, with his photograph – didn’t you get it?’
‘Of course – I’d forgotten.’
‘If you’d seen him in the flesh you wouldn’t forget him! Fortunately he was having a huge argument with this dreary girl in hand knitting and big boots, who he’s had something going with for years – since art college! But he hates London and she loves it, so they’ve split up. The only snag is, he lives in South Wales, so I’ve had to buy a holiday cottage down there to be in with a chance.’
‘Oh, yes – Miranda Cotter mentioned that. And he really must be something else if you’re prepared to buy a cottage in the country just to get to know him!’
‘Well, softly softly catchee hunky – and I don’t mind too
much, the Gower is terribly trendy: all the mags say so, and everyone’s buying cottages down there. We all get together at Miranda Cotter’s house on a Saturday night when her husband’s down for the weekend – they throw good parties.’
Lili turned to Vivi, who was following all this with wide-eyed interest, and explained: ‘The Gower’s this sticky-out bit near Swansea, in South Wales. My cottage is at Rhyss, near Bedd.’
‘I think it’s pronounced “Beth”, Lili,’ I said.
‘Not by me, it isn’t. People would think I had a lisp. Anyway, how do you know? You’re not Welsh, are you?’
‘No, but as it happens I’ve owned a cottage in Bedd for years and my tenant’s just died, so I’m going to be spending a lot of my time there from next spring.’
‘Really?’ She looked genuinely pleased. ‘Oh, do come, darling. The place is littered with arty-farty types, so the more civilized company the better. Only you mustn’t steal my Potter.’
‘Is that his name?’
‘No, it’s what he does. He has a workshop in this sort of big craft centre made out of part of an old castle. Terribly romantic.’
A potter seemed an unlikely choice for Lili, but if she’d spotted him at a major London exhibition I expected he had many talents.
‘If he’s a handsome blond he’s definitely not my type, so I can promise not to steal him even if I could. He’s all yours.’
‘He looks like the hero on the book cover I just gave you,’ she said, slightly piqued.
‘Oh?’ I looked at it doubtfully, and that same sense of familiarity nagged at me again.
‘He’s very big,’ offered Lili.
‘I can see that.’
‘No, I mean tall,’ she giggled.
‘Right. Not my type, though I do feel I’ve seen him somewhere before.’
‘You have: I told you – that photo I sent you.’
‘Of course, that must be it,’ I said slowly. Big, broad-shouldered, blond . . . it was Dragonslayer! Clearly my subconscious had taken one glance at the photo from Lili and filed him away for future reference! Wonder where I put the photo . . .
Lili went on about the Gower to the others for a bit, while I pondered whether the magic place I remembered would all be totally spoiled. I hoped not. As to her potter . . . well, by next spring she’d probably have sucked him dry and be ready to sink her fangs into fresh meat, so if Dave came around bothering me I might be able to set her on to him. She’s sort of a female version of Dave, only intelligent, and you really don’t want to see her in a feeding frenzy.
‘There are two things in life I’m serious about,’ she confided to me later when we’d both drunk too much wine, though not as much as Ken, who had subsided under the table and was snoring.
‘Sex, of course, and my writing, which released me from the sheer hell of teaching. Or maybe they’re the same thing?’
She upended the bottle into her glass and watched the last glistening viscous drops trickle down in the candlelight.
‘The sex is research for the novels – impure research.’ She grinned. ‘And wouldn’t that be a Chair everyone would want to occupy if I endowed it at Oxford or Cambridge? The Lili Ford Jakes Chair of Impure Science. You could lecher in it.’
‘Oh, Lili!’ I groaned, but I knew she was serious about her writing, at least. Professional and meticulous. I wouldn’t know about the sex, but that was probably well researched, too.
Now she poked the supine figure of Ken with the toe of her Manolo Blahnik and said: ‘I just hate snoring men, don’t you, Sappho? Too pig-like for words. Shall we stick an orange in his mouth and ask Eleni to prepare him for dinner tomorrow?’
‘I think he’d be a bit fatty.’
She plucked an orange out of the bowl and looked at it thoughtfully.
‘Better not, it might stop him breathing,’ I warned.
‘Don’t tempt me, darling,’ she said with a grin, turned, and threw it with surprising force at the only young, unattached man among the Breakers, who caught it from sheer nervous reaction.
‘Well, does anyone want to bowl a maiden over?’ she asked brightly.
Back in my room I searched out Lili’s letter with the grainy black-and-white photo of her potter, which she’d had copied from the exhibition brochure.
He did look a bit like Dragonslayer, but it was only a general likeness. He couldn’t possibly have Dragonslayer’s strange, crystal-clear eyes, or white-blond hair . . . or any other of the interesting attributes I’ve given him, so no one would be able to recognize him from the novel.
Chapter 4
Dipped Wicks
Mu and I were booked into a small hotel on Rhodes which, while comfortable and inexpensive, was not really luxurious enough for Mu’s tastes.
Since she married Ambler (he saw, he was smitten: he didn’t hang about) she’s never roughed it anywhere, having had more than enough of that in a childhood spent being shuffled from one foster home to another.
This lack of parents made an instant bond between us when we met as students, for even though mine didn’t die until I was twelve, they were so wrapped up in themselves and their delvings into ancient Greece that I already looked on Jaynie and Pops’ home in Portugal as my own during the school holidays.
I’m not complaining – Pops and Jaynie always made me feel loved and secure, and also managed to instil a sense of tolerance for others that has stood me in good stead during my travels. Now I feel at home wherever I am, with the possible exception of Japan, where I stood out like the lead in Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman.
And at least I know who my parents were. Once, when we were watching a performance of The Importance of Being Earnest, Mu said she always envied him having been found in something as classy as a handbag, for she’d been dumped on some convent steps in a mere Woolworth’s carrier bag.
‘And a paper one, at that. I’d peed in it by the time a nun found me, and when she picked up the bag the bottom fell out and me with it.’
Mu hadn’t been to Rhodes before, although I know it very well, and we strolled about companionably on the first evening looking for somewhere to eat.
We tended to attract attention even before I stopped a man leading a heavily laden donkey and applied a salve I always carry with me to a small open sore on its neck, amid much good-natured banter from the onlookers as to where I should apply it next.
‘Why is everyone staring at us?’ Mu asked plaintively when we’d moved on, and I was busy rejecting the first restaurant we came to as smelling of drains, even though the proprietor assured me he hadn’t got any. There was clearly no point in inspecting his kitchen.
‘Why are they staring? Could it be because I’m six feet tall, with hair down to my ankles and breasts the size of the Great Pyramid, and you look like a small Albino Goth Mushroom in that outfit?’
She adjusted her black, vintage-straw coolie hat with much fluttering of gauzy dark draperies. ‘I’d burn up without it, my skin’s so pale. Anyway, it would ruin my look.’
‘Which is?’
‘Small Albino Goth Mushroom.’ She gave my arm a squeeze and added: ‘This is fun, isn’t it? Just you and me for a few days. I mean, I’m not really expecting the pilgrimage to work, but once I’ve done it tomorrow we can relax and have a holiday.’
‘You’ve just been to Egypt,’ I pointed out.
‘Yes, but that was work. Ambler needs me to hold his hand while he sets up his little adventures, and I like to do some sketches for the book on the spot.’
‘This one could be tricky, though – aren’t there still crocodiles on the Nile? A canoe isn’t much protection.’
‘He can beat them off with a paddle or something, and there has to be an element of danger or the books wouldn’t be interesting,’ she pointed out callously. ‘Anyway, he always comes out safely – then thinks up the next one. And goodness knows what that will be: “Hang-Gliding Down Everest with My Yak” probably.’
‘It would have to be a big hang-glider to carry a yak, Mu
.’
‘I was joking – but for God’s sake don’t mention it to Ambler, or it might give him ideas.’
Eventually we found a pleasant café where I chose lobster while Mu had stuffed vine leaves. She said she’d no intention of eating something that had been happily swimming round a tank only moments before. If she’d lived in some of the places I have, where they kill your dinner in front of you and you have to look pleased about it, I think she wouldn’t be so picky.
Once we were eating and well oiled with local wine, I prepared the ground to Confess All about my cottage.
‘Mu, you remember when we were students, and we spent that holiday in Miranda’s house on the Gower while her parents were away?’
‘Of course – it was wonderful, wasn’t it?’ She sighed. ‘Before I met Ambler, or you became involved with Dave, and Miranda was going through boys faster than she thought up new recipes.’
‘Yes, life seemed so uncomplicated, then,’ I agreed.
‘Absence of any feeling of responsibility, I suspect, though we all had our plans for the future.’ She unrolled a vine leaf, inspected the contents, then rolled it up again and began to eat it.
‘We’ve pretty well done what we wanted to, haven’t we?’
‘You have – you wanted to travel the world and write, and even Dave couldn’t deflect you from that,’ she said. ‘And I suppose Miranda started out OK, with The Stuffed Student published before she even left college, but she hasn’t done anything else, what with Chris leeching all the talent out of her. As for me – well – I get regular illustrating work, especially anything feline, but I expect I could have got out there and done more if I hadn’t had Ambler’s security and money to fall back on. Cushioned.’
‘He’s a very nice cushion.’
‘Yes, he is,’ she said rather restlessly. ‘He doesn’t change, either: Forever Ambler.’
‘Groan.’
‘How did we get on to men, anyway?’
‘I don’t know; we digressed. I was asking you if you remembered the Gower, and Bedd, where Miranda lived.’
‘Why?’ She examined me with green-eyed suspicion. ‘What are you up to?’
A Leap of Faith Page 3