Every Woman For Herself: This hilarious romantic comedy from the Sunday Times Bestseller is the perfect spring read. Trisha Ashley
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worry about your stuff,’ she added, as ominous Burke-and-Hare dragging noises wafted up from the cottage. ‘Walter will bring it all in, and you can arrange it as you like later. I’ve put a couple of greenhouse heaters in the veranda to take the chill off, because there’s no electric in it yet, of course, and the floor’s just the old paving stones. Do you like the colour?’
‘Yes. It’s very bright.’
‘Walter’s choice. Gloria wanted dark green, but I thought that was a bit municipal. You can do your own thing with the inside of the cottage.’
Gloria is Walter’s sister, and they don’t so much work at the Parsonage as inhabit the space at odd hours between dawn and dusk, as the fancy takes them.
‘Where is Gloria? Where is everyone?’
‘Gloria is turning out Bran’s room, in case. Father’s in his study composing another epic.’
‘Oh God – who is it this time?’
‘Browning. Apparently, he didn’t produce much good work while he was married to Elizabeth Barrett Browning because he was actually busy writing all her poetry for her.’
‘The same line as usual then?’
‘He doesn’t change. But at least it’s lucrative; everyone loves to disagree with him. Otherwise, the mistress has gone out shopping, and then she’ll probably be picking up the two sprogs from school. Do you know, she wanted them to have Anne’s room because she didn’t like them sleeping in the attic? I told her that Anne locked her room between visits and even Gloria only cleaned when she was there, and that shut her up.’
‘Any word from Anne?’
‘No, but her answering machine’s changed: it just says, “This is Anne Rhymer, leave a message,” and doesn’t mention Red at all.’
‘Perhaps they’ve parted? Not that they ever seemed to be in the same country simultaneously anyway.’
‘Something’s happening – I can feel it.’
‘She will tell us if she wants to.’
‘Yes, or simply turn up. I’m starting to get the idea she might be coming home soon,’ said Emily, her eyes getting that strange, faraway expression. Then it was gone and she was saying briskly, ‘Funnily enough, I’ve had much more interesting foretellings than ever before since I made up my mind to embrace the Dark Arts, but I think I’m going to go ahead anyway. I’ve got three friends coming round soon to tell me about their coven. You know one of them – Xanthe Skye.’
‘I don’t remember anyone called Xanthe Skye.’
‘She was Doreen Higginbottom until The Change.’
‘Oh, yes? That will be nice,’ I said dubiously. ‘Didn’t she have a brief fling with Fa—’
I stopped dead, for the man himself, possibly attracted by the smell of freshly brewing coffee, had wandered in: big and broad-shouldered, in corduroys and a shirt rolled up to show muscular arms. He still had a full head of light, waving hair like Anne and Em’s, and though his face was looking a bit pummelled by time, the general effect was large, virile and handsome.
‘Hello, Father.’
‘Oh God! Keep the pans locked up, Em,’ he said resignedly.
Silently she poured out a mug of coffee and handed it to him, and he took two Jaffa Cakes out of the Rupert Bear tin and went back out without another word.
The study door closed behind him with a snap.
While I unburdened my soul to Em she baked a batch of sultana scones and made the biggest treacle tart you could fit in the oven, intricately latticed over the top.
She didn’t say much, but it was comforting all the same, as were the two hot, buttered scones she insisted I eat.
It was quite a while later before the front door slammed and a woman’s voice shrilled, ‘Hello everybody!’
Silence answered her. Even the zooming noise of Gloria Mundi’s Hoover stilled momentarily.
‘That’s her – Jessica. Can’t hear the sprogs; perhaps they’re out for tea or something.’
A woman staggered in and dumped a couple of bulging carrier bags on the table with a sigh of relief. ‘There you are!’
She was fortyish, with a firmly repressed dark downiness and an aura of elegant sexuality – a sort of hungry look about the shadowed eyes. Her body was diet-victim skinny, and the rather bird-billed face perched on top made her look like a duck on a stick.
‘Hello. You must be Charlie?’ she said, smiling.
‘Charlie, Father’s tart – Father’s tart, Charlie,’ introduced Em.
‘Fiancée,’ Jessica said, her smile going a bit fixed. ‘Is that your sweet little dog? Is she all right? She isn’t moving, is she?’
‘She isn’t dead, if that’s what you mean. She’s a Cavalier Queen Charlotte. They go into suspended animation at regular intervals.’
‘King Charles?’
‘Not unless he was a bitch.’
‘Take this stuff off my table, Jessie,’ Em ordered. ‘I’m trying to get dinner ready.’
‘I thought we could have something a bit different tonight,’ Jessica said, with a sort of determined jolliness. ‘The girls don’t really like all this meat and stodge, and I’m sure it’s not healthy for a man of Ranulf’s age. And there are vegetables other than mushy peas, you know! So I’ve got some pasta, and sun-dried tomatoes and pesto—’
With one sweep of her muscular arm Em cleared the table, and Flossie found herself under a sudden rain of Cellophane packages. She sat up, looking vaguely surprised.
‘Sod off out of my kitchen,’ Em said. I was relieved she was taking it so well.
Jessica laughed and began to retrieve her goodies. ‘Now, Emily, I know your bark is worse than your bite, so—’
‘No it isn’t,’ I assured her earnestly. One of Em’s bites from a childhood disagreement we had still aches in cold weather, and I certainly don’t come between her and anything she wants, any more than I’d come between a hungry dog and a big, juicy bone.
‘Perhaps we could have pasta tomorrow?’ persisted Jessica. ‘I’ll just put everything in the cupboard, shall I?’
‘You can put it anywhere you like, as long as it isn’t in my kitchen,’ Em said.
‘I – I think I’ll go and see Ran,’ Jessica said, backing towards the door.
‘Do that,’ Em said, and added, ‘Frost’s behind you.’
The great grey lurcher had indeed silently approached up the hall, and was now looming with his sad yellow eyes fixed on her.
Jessica gave a squeak of terror and shot off into the study, slamming the door.
They didn’t emerge until dinner was ready, when Father looked excited and exhausted in equal measure, which I don’t think was caused by writing the book.
The giggly little twins, Chloe and Phoebe, were decanted by someone’s mother at seven. They looked about nine, and were attenuated versions of their mother, with legs like liquorice laces. The presence of Father and Em seemed to subdue them, but once they were sent off to bed they could be heard giggling for ages.
Gloria Mundi (whose only comment on seeing my shorn, silver locks had been: ‘Well, I’ll go to the foot of ower stairs!’) stayed for dinner, but Walter had eaten a coddled egg and several scones in the kitchen and gone off to the pub.
Gloria would generally have gone too, by now, but had stayed in order to make sure I ate enough for ten people, and went