The Way to a Woman's Heart

by Christina Jones

  Introductions were made – Ella noticed that Ash greeted fairy-Trixie with some disappointment – and then everyone started to talk at the same time.

  ‘Soup OK?’ Ash raised his eyebrows at Ella.

  ‘Fine. I sieved it when you weren’t back in time.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Ash pulled up the extra chair. ‘You’re a star.’

  Ella tried very hard not to stare as Onyx slid her eighteen miles of incredibly slender legs under the table beside her.

  ‘I still feel like the world’s worst gatecrasher,’ Onyx confided happily, leaning closer to Ella in a waft of gorgeous scent as Poll bustled between them to dish up more soup and rolls. ‘I know how important this get-together is to Ash. He already adores Poll.’

  ‘We all do,’ Ella said, still trying to block out the image of the stunning Onyx entwined half-naked round a pole, or, even worse, round Ash.

  ‘Yes, he said so – Oh, wow!’ Onyx said, spooning up the soup. ‘You can tell this is one of Ash’s recipes, can’t you? He’s a genius in the kitchen.’

  And no doubt in the bedroom, Ella thought, trying really, really hard not to be childish and failing miserably.

  For the first time since she’d arrived at Hideaway she really regretted not having used her hair straighteners and her almost make-up-free fresh-faced look. Onyx’s glossy short black hair was tousled and designer-layered, her make-up was flawless and her eyelashes – false, surely? – were like long ebony feathers.

  Ella sighed.

  As they moved on from Ash’s soup and Billy’s herby rolls to the non-steak-and-kidney pie and more wine, Poll seemed to have commandeered the conversation at the other end of the table. It seemed, Ella thought, to be revolving around the joys of being a vegetarian. Trixie, Billy and Ash – carnivores to a man – were exclaiming happily over every mouthful. Ella sighed with relief. There really had been no need for Poll to worry.

  ‘So –’ Onyx leaned across to Ella again ‘– Ash tells me you’re all foodies here. That must be so much fun. I’m a hopeless cook.’

  Good, Ella thought. Nice to know you’re not totally brilliant at everything. ‘Well, no, we’re not foodies, as such. Ash, of course, is a proper chef and Billy had his own bakery, but the rest of us are just happy amateurs.’

  ‘Still –’ Onyx swallowed a mouthful of non-steak-and-kidney with obvious enjoyment ‘– it means you all have something in common. Lovely for you all, living here, sort of communally. I know Ash was devastated when he lost his flat, and he says Poll has welcomed you all in with open arms.’

  ‘Yes, she has –’ Ella pushed her fork through her potatoes ‘– and she’s amazing. Although I wasn’t homeless – I came here to work for Poll.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Ash told me that, too. He’s told me all about all of you.’

  Ella, not sure whether to be pleased that Ash had talked about her or not, decided to shift the conversation towards less personal matters. Poll would never forgive her if she started a cat-fight.

  ‘Has he? Then you’ll know we’re a pretty mixed bunch and –’

  Onyx laughed then lowered her voice. ‘I know – actually I thought he was making it all up to start with, but –’ she glanced round the table ‘– obviously not. Mind you, he’s probably said plenty about me, too. Ash is a terrible gossip.’

  ‘Is he?’ Ella manfully attempted to do the grown-up supper-party thing and catch the conversational ball. ‘Well, yes, he’s told us something about you.’

  ‘I bet he has!’ Onyx chuckled. ‘He’s a bad boy!’

  The bad boy shot a scorching glance across the table. Ella gulped her water.

  ‘Go on, then,’ Onyx continued, ‘what’s he said?’

  ‘Oh, nothing, um, personal, really. Just about you being, er, friends and you being a dancer.’

  Onyx shrugged. ‘Not much more to tell, really. I’m pretty boring.’

  Yeah, right.

  Ella concentrated on her meal for a moment. ‘So, is Onyx, um, your professional dancing name?’

  ‘Nah!’ Onyx giggled. ‘It’s real. And I’ve got an older married sister called Pearl and a younger single sister called Ebony and a brother called Jet. All on the black stone theme, see? My parents are very proud of their roots, but they’ve also got a sense of humour. Sadly our surname doesn’t follow the trend.’

  ‘No?’ Ella raised her eyebrows.

  Onyx giggled again. ‘No. It’s Smith. How disappointing is that?’

  Ella laughed. She couldn’t help it. It was almost impossible not to like Onyx. Damn it. And she still itched to ask why Ash hadn’t moved in with Onyx when he lost his flat. It seemed a little early in the supper-party conversation to throw in a casual-but-tasteless ‘why isn’t he shacked up with you, then?’ line. But the itch wouldn’t go away.

  ‘So,’ she tried to sound non-committal. ‘You and Ash? How did you, er, get together? Did you meet at one of your, er, shows?’

  Of course Ella was sure it had been; probably at some drunken stag do. In some sleazy club. Probably one that specialised in lap dancing. With Onyx glistening and wearing tassels and a G-string and Ash, completely trollied, lusting disgustingly.

  ‘Oh, no. We met ages ago, at uni.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ella choked on a baby carrot. Onyx, the exotic dancer, had been to uni? Goodness, wasn’t that almost exactly like Belle de Jour or something? Hadn’t she been a high-class call girl by night and some massively well-qualified and respected scientist by day?

  Was Onyx the world’s leading expert on particle physics or nucleonics or marine biology or something equally mind-boggling?

  ‘Uni?’ Ella said weakly. ‘I didn’t know Ash had been to uni.’

  Onyx nodded. ‘Oh, yes. We were both at Reading, living in halls, and met when we were first year neighbours. Ash was doing Food Marketing and Business Economics – with the intention of one day running his own restaurant. I was reading English – with the intention of doing who knows what, actually. Despite heavy partying, we both graduated with good degrees.’

  Ella eventually swallowed the baby carrot. ‘Really? Then why the, um, dancing?’

  Onyx shrugged. ‘Oh, natural greed I suppose. And a bit of laziness on both our parts. You see, we’d both been doing evening jobs while we studied to make ends meet – Ash was cooking in other people’s restaurants, and I’ve always danced, so I found it easy to get club work – and once we graduated we just slipped into making our part-time jobs full-time and carried on. A waste of our education, as my parents keep telling me.’

  Ella exhaled and chased another carrot round her plate. Onyx, the pole dancer, was way, way better educated than she was… As was Ash…

  Oooh!

  ‘I’ve promised my mum and dad that I’ll settle down and use my degree one day when I get too old for the bump and grind,’ Onyx continued happily. ‘And hopefully, Ash will get the recognition he deserves and open his first restaurant. But until then, me being a nightclub hoofer and Ash being a Maxi’s mobile ice-cream vendor will pay our bills.’

  ‘Er, yes, I suppose it will.’ Ella didn’t know what else to say.

  Well, she had a trillion things just waiting to trip off her tongue but none of them would have been remotely suitable. She settled on something safely non-committal that wouldn’t lead to hair-pulling and nail-gouging. ‘And fancy you and Ash knowing each other for such a long time. Since you were eighteen.’ Ella did the maths. A long-term relationship then. Far, far longer than she’d been with Mark. Oooh, Lordy… ‘That’s a lifetime.’

  ‘Yeah, it does seem like forever.’

  ‘And yet he was staying with his friend, Joe, and didn’t move in with you when he lost his flat?’

  Oooh, nooo. Ella cringed. Why had she said that? ‘Sorry –’ she shook her head ‘– none of my business. Forget it.’

  Onyx chuckled. ‘Oh, ask away. I don’t mind. But as I still live at home with my parents, as do Jet and Ebony, because, one, we’re all broke, and, two, we’ve b
een brought up to believe family is king, and because our house is a three-up two-down and Ebony and I share a bedroom and Jet’s room is like a shoebox, even if I’d wanted to move him in, it would have been an impossibility.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Ella did a little mental air-punch. Lots of questions answered there. Great.

  ‘Oh, thanks so much.’ Onyx smiled at Poll as she collected up the plates. ‘That was amazing. The best pastry I’ve ever tasted. And as I’m a veggie, I ate every single scrap – as you can see.’

  Poll looked at the empty plate with pleasure. ‘I’m so pleased you enjoyed it. Are you and Ella getting to know one another?’

  Onyx nodded happily. Ella simply nodded.

  Poll raised her eyebrows and swished away. ‘Good, good – now let’s hope you all have room for Ella’s fab pud.’

  There was a mock groan round the table and a joint declaration that they couldn’t possibly eat another thing. Except Onyx who smiled again at Ella.

  ‘I can’t wait for your pudding. I love food, and Ash says you specialise in retro puddings.’ Onyx stretched like a well-fed cat. ‘He says you’re very, very good at them. He says you could turn pro.’

  Ash seemed to have said an awful lot on a very short acquaintance, Ella thought, wondering again if this was a good thing or not. She supposed it was.

  ‘Really? That’s very kind of him. But yes, I do enjoy making old-fashioned puddings.’

  ‘Which is exactly why you should go on Dewberrys’ Dinners,’ Onyx said as Poll dished up the Brown Betty. ‘All of you. As soon as I saw the posters in Winterbrook today I told Ash. They’d love you on there.’

  ‘We’ve seen the posters too,’ Ella said. ‘But we’ve already discounted it. We all decided we couldn’t put ourselves through it.’

  ‘Really?’ Onyx looked surprised. ‘But if you won it, you get the opportunity to open a restaurant and the Dewberrys have mega-zillions to invest and –’

  ‘Custard?’ Poll passed the jug down the table. ‘It’s real. Not packet or powder. Ella made it from scratch with vanilla pods and what have you.’

  Everyone helped themselves to custard.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Ella continued after her first tentative mouthful of Brown Betty. It had worked perfectly. Thank goodness. ‘But we don’t want a restaurant and we don’t want to look stupid on telly.’

  ‘Oh, this is fabulous.’ Onyx waved her spoon over the Brown Betty. ‘Really fab. The whole meal is incredible. Which is exactly why you should apply to go on Dewberrys’ Dinners. You’d kick the rest of them into next week. And you might not want a restaurant, but Ash does.’

  ‘Are you talking about me?’ Ash looked across the table.

  ‘Yep,’ Onyx said cheerfully. ‘Don’t listen. I’m just going to tell Ella all about your disgusting habits.’

  Ash laughed.

  Oh, Lordy, Ella thought, he was soooo gorgeous. And he was having to waste all his culinary talents by working on an ice-cream van when he sooo wanted a restaurant…

  Chapter Seventeen

  Poll sat back in her chair and gazed happily round the table now strewn with empty bowls, crumpled napkins and discarded cutlery. She sighed with deep contentment. It had been OK. It had been very OK. The meat-eaters hadn’t minded it being veggie, and no one had complained about it being a meal more suited to a freezing winter’s night. There were no leftovers and everyone was relaxed and happy.

  Who could ask for anything more?

  Tonight was everything she’d ever dreamed of. The farmhouse was cosily filled with noise and people and the smells of delicious food. Her Hideaway family was complete – together, safe, and chatting in post-prandial bliss.

  Nirvana.

  She smiled fondly at Ella, Onyx and Ash talking and laughing together. It was wonderful that Ash had a job at last. And what a lovely one. Out and about in the fresh air throughout the summer, meeting people… Lucky Ash. Although, she thought, it probably was an awful waste of his considerable talents. If only she could magic up a restaurant for him as easily as she’d been able to provide him with a home.

  And of course Onyx was devastatingly beautiful, and clearly she and Ash were very close, but Ella, obviously remembering Mark, was handling the situation in her usual sunny easy-going way. Bless her.

  Such a shame Ash wasn’t available, though. It would have been wonderful if Onyx wasn’t on the scene, and if the frankly blokeish-sounding and selfish Mark could just fade away and then there could have been a romance between Ash and Ella – maybe even a Hideaway wedding…

  ‘Um, right, are we all done?’ Poll managed to drag herself back from her daydream of a gauzy ceremony in Hazy Hassocks church, with Ash and Ella looking radiant, and umpteen tiny bridesmaids in floaty rainbow chiffon, and George as a pageboy, and Billy and Trixie beaming proudly from the front pew and herself in a layered frock in shades of gold and cream and possibly a big floppy hat with matching ribbon streamers. ‘Everyone finished?’

  ‘Ah, right full up.’ Billy patted his stomach. ‘That was a feast fit for a whole royal family. A great joint effort. Thanks, Poll, love.’

  Poll smiled at him. He returned the smile and she gave a little shiver of delight. Billy had such a lovely smile. And he was obviously going to become indispensable round Hideaway, being able to turn his hand to anything that needed doing. He was such a lovely gentle man. The sort of man she should have met years and years ago. Although, she reminded herself sharply, if she had, and hadn’t met Dennis, then there would be no George. And that was simply horrifying.

  Still, she hoped Billy was happy and never wanted to leave Hideaway. Life without Billy, even if he was completely unaware of it – and Poll fervently hoped he was – would, for her, be unthinkable.

  ‘Yes, a really lovely meal, dear.’ Trixie interrupted the dreamy thoughts, her copious rows of beads rattling with enthusiasm. ‘Absolutely lovely. Couldn’t have done better myself.’

  Poll heaved a sigh of relief. ‘I’m so glad you enjoyed it. Now I’m sure both you and Billy must be tired after your journeys, but as soon as I’ve got George off to bed, I’m going to make some coffee. I thought we’d have it outside because it’s such a lovely evening. I know it’s getting dark, but I’ve got lots of candles.’

  ‘I make candles,’ Trixie said, carefully wiping her mouth on her napkin. ‘I ask the fairies to help me to pick fresh herbs – always with the dew still on them, of course – and add them to my candles when the wax is wet with a few spell words to ward off the evil spirits and make nice things happen. I do love a bit of a flickering flame.’

  ‘Ah, so that’s how you burned your house down, was it?’ Billy said, chuckling. ‘One too many flickering flames?’

  Trixie bridled. ‘Indeed it was not! That was a cooking accident, pure and simple. I just took my eye off the ball for a moment, so to speak, and whoosh! Terrible, it was. Terrible.’

  Billy nodded. ‘It must have been. Losing everything like that. I’m really sorry for you. Mind, we’re all in the same boat here.’

  ‘Hardly.’ Trixie patted her plentiful curls. ‘You weren’t burned out, were you? I was left with nothing. My past was gone in a jiffy. Everything – photos, letters, me little trinkets and mementoes – all burned to a crisp.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Billy looked mollified. ‘I didn’t mean to demean your tragedy, love. I know that must have been really awful for you. Didn’t you manage to save anything from your cottage?’

  ‘I only managed to salvage a few books and whatever other nearby bits and bobs I could grab, and the clothes I was standing up in.’ Trixie gave a shudder. ‘It was terrifying. The flames and the smoke were something chronic. They rampaged everywhere – so quick, it was… so terrifyingly quick…’

  ‘Ah,’ Billy nodded, ‘it must have been. So, if it wasn’t your, er, fairy candles, was it a bit of, um, mystical cooking you was doing at the time of the inflagration? A clash of magic ingredients?’

  ‘Mystical cooking?’ Trixie stiffened. ‘Magic ingre
dients? Let me tell you it was normal cooking, plain good home cooking – that’s my forte. Yes, I may brew one or two little herbal tinctures – solely for my own consumption, in the privacy of my own home – but if you’re alluding to my herbs and fairies and whatnot in a mockery way then I’ll have to ask you for an apology.’

  Billy chuckled softly. ‘Wouldn’t dream of mocking you, Trixie. Each to his own, that’s what I always say.’

  Trixie was still looking slightly miffed. ‘When I’ve settled in proper like, I’ll show you what the fairies can do – then you’ll be laughing on the other side of your face.’

  ‘Probably literally if the spell goes wrong.’

  Trixie huffed and straightened her necklaces. ‘Because I’m a lady and because we’re all having such a lovely time here and I know my manners, I’ll ignore that. But just to prove that you’re wrong to mock, I’ll let you into one of my little fairy secrets, shall I?’

  Billy stifled a snigger.

  Poll shot him a warning glance. ‘Go on.’ She smiled encouragingly. ‘Oh, and yes, George, go and find a lovely book for your bedtime story, sweetheart, I’ll be up in a minute. No, go on Trixie, tell us about the fairies.’

  ‘Well –’ Trixie rearranged her beads and fussily smoothed the front of the floral frock ‘– fairies are good people. There are fairies for every occasion. Fairies who can be called on to help out when earthly methods simply don’t work.’

  ‘Really? And can we actually see them?’ Poll looked expectantly at her.

  ‘Oh, yes. But everyone sees them differently. Most people just say it’s like a vivid swirl of fast-moving light, or a cascade of falling stars, or simply a sense of light and movement and colour.’

  ‘Oh.’ Poll was entranced. ‘How very lovely! It sounds so beautiful.’