Every Woman for Herself

by Trisha Ashley

  Perhaps the love philtre didn’t have anything to do with it, and Mace really did fall for me? Only when I look at him, tall, dark, handsome, brooding and way out of my league, I just find it very hard to believe.

  Later, Father, Chris and Mace got their heads together in a corner, having what looked like a very serious conversation: but being men it was just as likely to be about something totally trivial, like sport. Or the pros and cons of marriage – Jessica had gone distinctly orange-blossom and yearning as the day wore on.

  ‘That Mace!’ Gloria said, bobbing up beside me suddenly like a cork as I watched the three little girls chasing each other around the room, flushed and overexcited, their home-made wreaths of gilded bay leaves slipping over their eyes. ‘He wasn’t the dark man with the child, bringing trouble and dividing the family, like I saw in the leaves – I don’t think. It must have been that Brendan Furness. He was dark, and he brought trouble, turning out to be your dad, and all.’

  ‘He hasn’t broken up the family though, has he?’ I pointed out. ‘We’re still together. If anyone breaks us up, it’s clearly going to be Jessica, because Father is putty in her hands; and since he found out about Bran and me he seems to have lost all power to resist her.’

  ‘You must all stay here in your place; not let that Mace lure you off to London with him again.’

  ‘He seems to want to stay here, too, and marry me, but I don’t see the point of marriage any more. I don’t really see myself housekeeping in his cottage either, do you? Such a waste of time when I could be writing magazine articles and painting!’

  ‘I need to read your leaves again,’ she muttered thoughtfully. ‘And his.’

  * * *

  ‘Gloria just made me drink one of her disgusting cups of tea,’ Mace complained later. ‘It hardly goes with champagne and good brandy, does it? Then she said I was “a great streak of nowt”, and went off with the cup.’

  ‘Oh good. I’m glad she’s getting to like you, now she knows you better.’

  ‘I wasn’t glad to see Chris’s friend getting to know you better,’ he said darkly, putting his arm round me and pulling me close. ‘I’m jealous as hell. Is that what you wanted?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ I assured him, though actually it was still an enjoyable novelty. I wonder if that extreme Goth look frightened men away before? Or perhaps it was just that I hadn’t thought to try flirting? ‘I don’t see why either of you find me interesting. I’m not young or particularly pretty, or sophisticated, or—’

  ‘Don’t fish for compliments; you’re beautiful in your own strange way – and unique – that’s why I love you. You aren’t like anyone I’ve ever met before.’

  ‘I don’t suppose Em or Anne are like anyone you’ve ever met before, either.’

  ‘But I haven’t fallen in love with either of them – only you. You are what I’ve been searching for always, only I didn’t know it until I found you,’ he said poetically.

  I was putty in his hands. A voice that beautiful could make baked beans sound like the food of the gods.

  Caitlin panted to a halt in front of us and stared from underneath her lopsided festive wreath.

  ‘Daddy, you’ve got your arm round Charlie!’

  Mace put his other arm round Caitlin. ‘It’s because I’m trying to persuade her to marry me.’

  Caitlin peered across him at me, her eyes wide: ‘Are you going to marry Daddy?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I think you ought to,’ she said firmly. ‘Then Anne and Em and Bran and everybody will be my family too, won’t they? And I’ll belong here.’

  ‘Yes, but wouldn’t you mind my marrying your daddy?’

  ‘Not really – he won’t love you as much as he loves me, but he does like you a lot, really.’

  She bestowed a kind smile on us and skipped off.

  I stared after her. ‘Isn’t the stepmother/stepdaughter relationship supposed to be excruciatingly difficult?’

  ‘Only when they hit adolescence, I think, and then they’re so awful it all hardly stands out against the rest. Anyway, now you’ve received royal dispensation, are you going to say yes?’

  ‘No – I still don’t think it would work long-term, Mace, so there isn’t any point.’

  ‘Why not? What do you really want out of life, Charlie?’

  ‘To stay here in Upvale, and be successful with the paintings and magazine – which it looks like I’m going to be – and for the Parsonage to stay the same, with my family around me. Only nothing ever does stay quite the same, does it?’

  ‘No. Your family’s changing already, now Jessica and Chris are becoming part of it. And what about me now you’ve turned me upside down? Do you want me?’

  ‘You know I do, but … well, I want to live my life, not be a minor satellite orbiting yours.’

  ‘I think it’s the other way round – I’m the one being sucked into orbit around Planet Rhymer, and there’s no escape now.’

  ‘Daddy,’ Caitlin said, reappearing. ‘We have to come back on Christmas Eve, Em says, for dinner and Snapdragon and Hunt the Mouses. And I can come tomorrow too, and help Febe and Clo and everyone bring in the holly, and the ivy and mistletoe, and make decorations, and do the tree.’

  ‘Snapdragon?’ he queried, looking down at me, eyebrow raised. ‘Mouses?’

  ‘You’ll see,’ I said.

  ‘Time to go home to bed,’ Mace said, picking Caitlin up. ‘You’ve got a busy day tomorrow – you’ve got our tree and decorations to put up too, don’t forget.’

  ‘I’ll get lots of holly,’ she said sleepily.

  * * *

  When everyone had gone I retired to my chaste couch, and there discovered an early Christmas present, tied up in gay wrapping paper and gold cord.

  The label on it was from Gloria.

  Open this first thing tomorrow: not before, not after.

  Another spell?

  Chapter 27

  Present Magic

  After I opened Gloria’s present next morning, as per instructions, her magic had such a powerful effect on me that by the time I shook off the spell and went upstairs with Flossie everyone had had breakfast and gone, except Anne and Em.

  Anne was still sitting lazily over a cup of coffee, since she’s finished her course of treatment and so doesn’t have to rush out every day to the hospital, and Em was making Christmas stollen at the other end of the table, hence the delicious, spicy aroma.

  ‘We’d given you up,’ Em said. ‘Thought you might have gone down to Mace’s, or something.’

  ‘No. I was a bit … a bit occupied,’ I said distractedly. ‘And I’m not very hungry so I’ll just have some toast.’

  ‘You’ll have more than toast,’ Gloria said, suddenly popping her head in from the scullery. ‘You need to keep up your strength. Am I right?’

  ‘I don’t know how on earth you knew, when I had no idea,’ I told her.

  ‘No idea about what?’ Em demanded, looking up.

  ‘Gloria gave me an early Christmas present last night – a pregnancy kit. And I’ve just done it, and it’s positive.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Chaz!’ Anne exclaimed.

  ‘Well! And you asked me if I knew about safe sex,’ Em said. ‘How pregnant are you?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. You know how erratic my periods have always been – probably why I’ve always found it difficult to get pregnant. It seems ages since my last one, but I sort of thought I was heading into an early menopause.’

  ‘Not yet, my chicken,’ Gloria said. ‘You’re much too young for that.’

  ‘But aren’t I a bit old for pregnancy? And I don’t even feel pregnant. I wonder if the test was wrong?’

  ‘No, it’s right,’ Gloria assured me. ‘I could see it in the leaves.’

  ‘Oh well,’ I said, sitting down. ‘There’s no point in getting excited. I expect I’ll just lose it like the others.’

  ‘Not this one you won’t,’ she assured me.

  I looked at h
er hopefully. ‘It says I’ll have the baby in the tea leaves?’

  ‘Yes – it was there all along, only when it came out about that Brendan Furness being your real dad I got confused and thought he might be the dark stranger bringing trouble and a baby, and nothing to do with Mace. But I kept looking again, and it’s still there.’

  ‘You’ll have to tell Mace, it’s only fair,’ Em pointed out.

  ‘I can’t! He only married Kathleen because she was pregnant! I don’t want him to think he has to marry me.’

  ‘Since he wants to marry you anyway, that doesn’t matter, does it?’

  ‘I don’t think he really does – I’m just a whim. I seem to have some sort of novelty value for him, though I don’t know why, and it can’t last.’

  ‘You’re a bloody expensive and long-lasting whim, Chaz!’ said Anne. ‘Face it – the man loves you.’

  ‘And he could have anyone, but he’s chosen you,’ Em pointed out. ‘Is it because he’s been married before? Anyone can make a mistake.’

  ‘Mistakes – he’s had two previous wives, don’t forget.’

  ‘You were married before, too.’

  ‘But only once!’

  ‘Well, you aren’t operating a “two strikes and you’re out” policy, are you?’

  ‘No…’ I agreed. Everything just seemed too much to take in at the moment. ‘Let’s just keep this to ourselves for a few days – I’m finding it all hard to get my head around. And until I get over the three-month stage I’m really not going to really believe it’s going to happen.’

  ‘All right,’ Anne agreed.

  ‘You must tell Mace on Christmas Eve, though,’ Gloria insisted. ‘That’s the right time.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Yes,’ confirmed Em, looking up with that familiar, far-seeing, ‘the lights are on but there’s nobody home’ expression. ‘Mace is going to make decisions on Christmas Eve that will affect us all.’

  ‘Changes are coming,’ agreed Gloria.

  ‘They certainly are,’ I said, looking disbelievingly down at my still-flat stomach.

  I mean, if they call mothers over thirty elderly, what are they going to call me? Geriatric?

  ‘Hurry up and eat your breakfast,’ Anne said. ‘The girls will be down in a minute, ready to go for the Christmas tree. We’re picking Caitlin up on the way.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Em. ‘There’s lots to do. I’ve got all the sugar mice to make for the hunt later, and I need some string for the tails, and more silver balls for the eyes. Oh – and Bran says will someone take him shopping for his Christmas presents?’

  ‘I’ll do that then, and get the stuff for the mice,’ I offered.

  Bran may be last-minute with his present-buying, but he solves it by going into one shop and buying the same thing for everyone.

  The year it was a cobbler’s and we all got small shoe-cleaning kits in tins was particularly memorable, but the year of the chemist was even more so.

  ‘He’s on the phone,’ Em said. ‘Can’t you hear him shouting?’

  There was a far-off bellowing going on, now I came to think about it, but I’d just sort of thought it must be Father, as usual.

  ‘Won’t hold it next to his ear in case the bloody demons pop into his head,’ Anne explained.

  ‘I thought that was just mobile phones?’

  ‘So did I, but it seems we were wrong. His girlfriend phoned up.’

  ‘Isis? You mean she’s real?’

  ‘Sounded real. They started talking some weird language or I’d have left the door open so we could have had a listen.’

  ‘I’d better put her on the present list,’ I said. ‘Let’s hope Bran chooses something easy to post this year because it’ll have to go straight off.’

  ‘Done all mine,’ Anne said complacently. ‘Order one day, arrive the next. Sorted.’

  ‘Speaking of orders, I’d better just see how the magazine’s doing,’ I suggested.

  ‘It’s okay – Chris has it in hand,’ Em assured me. ‘You’d better start writing issue two: it’s taking off.’

  * * *

  A strange letter arrived from Matt, who had apparently been sent all the magazine cuttings of me in London with Mace, and the newspaper article about setting up the magazine with Anne and Em.

  Angie must have sent them as a last spiteful gesture before setting off on her cruise.

  Matt seemed to be insinuating that I’d been underhand and devious in being happy and successful without telling him, and I should be paying maintenance to him, or something.

  However, as I learned recently, what I actually signed was a clean-break divorce agreement, giving me no further right to Matt’s money and vice versa. Not even a duck.

  There is something deeply satisfying about Matt knowing that not only have I set up a successful business without him, but I am going out with a man who is so far up the desirability ladder he’s fallen off the end. Had I wanted revenge, this is surely the best sort.

  He also included a threat to tell Mace (and the newspapers) that I’d killed Greg, so I sent him a ‘publish and be damned’ note back: Mace knows, and no one can say it was anything other than an unfortunate domestic accident – or not without being sued by my personal Barbarian Horde.

  Now, had anyone noticed that the mousy little nanny hovering in the background of one of Kathleen’s wedding feature photographs was me, that might have been a different kettle of fish. But even I can’t recognise me in that outfit.

  Skint Old Cook

  When buying lemons for gin and tonic, buy large unwaxed ones, slice them thinly, and freeze. This way when you add them to a drink you get both ice and lemon instantly, and it is economical since you never have green-furred lemon halves on saucers at the back of your fridge.

  Christmas seemed to hurtle towards us, a whirl of activity and excited children; and excited me, too, nursing my secret to myself.

  It’s just as well Chris is now running the magazine efficiently, for after the article about Skint Old Northern Woman was published, with a photo of ‘the three daughters of Ranulf Rhymer, the biographer’ (‘Botticelli’s Three Effing Graces,’ as Anne put it), we were swamped with orders and enquiries. People now want to subscribe regularly, so we’re having to do a bit of long-term planning. I’ve started writing new articles for the next one.

  I’m also painting like mad, too: a London gallery saw the article, and wants to show my work, though what they will make of my current ‘Adam and Eve’ series, goodness knows. Still, thank goodness for Chris’s managerial skills.

  You know, it feels like Chris has always been one of us – he’s just naturally fitted in, and Em looks terribly happy. We’re all doing an ostrich thing about what will happen to the family after Christmas, because it looks increasingly like the unthinkable is going to happen and Father will sell the Parsonage and move into a smaller place with the Treacle Tart.

  Mace and Caitlin are here every day, too – in fact if you took a film of the Parsonage and the bit of track leading to Mace’s cottage, and speeded it up, it would probably look like an ants’ nest. Sometimes Caitlin goes off with the girls and Mace and I get a bit of time together. It is difficult otherwise, because I won’t spend the night at the cottage with Caitlin there, and he can’t leave her and come here. But he hasn’t mentioned marriage for days.

  He’s probably seen how impossible it would be, and decided to settle for what he can get – which I’m afraid in my case is almost anything he asks for. And he’s already given me the best Christmas present in the world, even if he doesn’t know it.

  Why does everyone insist that I have to tell him? He’ll start going on about marriage again, even if he has changed his mind. It seems a pity …

  We’ve now had a delirious postcard from Angie, who’d flown out to the Caribbean to start her cruise, and a birth announcement from ex-spouse and wife number two, but no duck. (Still, there were no veiled threats either, this time.) It didn’t upset me as much as Mace thought, but
I let him comfort me again in the way he does best.

  Nobody does it better.

  * * *

  The Christmas landslide swept us all along to Christmas Eve, and paused for that still moment when even the house seemed to be holding its breath on the edge of something momentous.

  The Parsonage was garlanded, bedecked and scented with fir and spices. Presents were wrapped and piled under a huge tree, and Walter stoked every roaring fire in rotation, because there was no skimping on firewood at Christmas.

  The night before Christmas Eve we all went down to Mace’s cottage to add some finishing touches to his decorations (and, from Em, some edible gifts to his larder) so it now looked, and smelled, like an extension of the Parsonage.

  Chris had closed the magazine office for the holiday, leaving the diminishing little poltergeist thing as caretaker, and was down at the church helping his temporary replacement with the celebrations.

  Em communed with her kitchen, performing traditional rites of her own, and on Christmas Eve manufactured an excuse to get everyone out of the house for an hour while Gloria hid the sugar mice.

  Then six o’clock came, and the Rhymer family and guests assembled for what we all knew in our hearts to be the last Christmas in the Parsonage.

  Chapter 28

  Snapdragon

  As always, one of the oddest things about the Christmas Eve party was seeing Walter with a flossy white beard, eyebrows and hair; but then, bald Father Christmases are not traditional.

  He has to take the beard off to eat his dinner, and on one memorable occasion his eyebrows kept dropping off into the food.

  Mace and Caitlin would be going back to their cottage tonight after dinner followed by the Mouse Hunt and Snapdragon, but coming back tomorrow morning. Mace wanted me to stay too, but I wouldn’t: this Christmas morning it should be just Mace and Caitlin, the stocking, and three million presents.

  Not that she didn’t seem to have a lot of presents under our tree, too.

  While we were all drinking mulled wine and eating a Christmas cake depicting Stonehenge under snow, with Druids, set in a garland of gilded oak leaves, the girls ran in and out shouting out how many presents they had under the tree, and begging to open just one now.