Chocolate Shoes and Wedding Blues (21 page)
‘I haven’t
got
bad nerves,’ he snapped. ‘I just need a bit of peace and quiet!’
‘That’s all right. It’s good for pretty well anything, really,’ I said, biting back a sharp answer. ‘And there’s some bara brith in the plastic box. It’s a peace offering.’
He looked taken aback and muttered ungraciously, ‘Oh … well, sorry if I snapped your head off.’ He looked doubtfully at the bottle and then added reluctantly, ‘I
suppose
you’d better come in.’
‘Oh, no, that’s all right – you take these and I’ll leave you in peace …’ I began, but he’d already turned and gone, leaving the door wide open, so after hesitating a moment I followed him in, closing it behind me, and went on into the long room that adjoined my cottage.
I knew it, of course, since before the house became a holiday home it had belonged to a family who, like the Brights, had been here for ever. But now, apart from the huge beams across the ceiling, it was transformed, full of lovely small pieces of furniture and mellow old rugs in muted rich shades.
Ivo walked across to the further window and placed a blotter over the papers that lay on his desk, as if I might rush over and read all his secrets. There was what looked like an old pink leather-bound diary too, open and face down … Maybe he was writing his memoirs as well as the novels, but just hadn’t told Bella that?
I set the basket down on the carved chest that served as a coffee table and took out the Meddyg and plastic box.
‘What did you say that stuff was?’ he asked, eyeing the bottle dubiously.
‘It’s an old Welsh remedy called Meddyginiaeth Llysieuol, passed down from the Welsh side of my family.’
He took the bottle and held it up against the light, so that it glowed a pale, oddly greenish amber. ‘“Thy tongue makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penn’d,”’ he said absently.
‘We usually just call it Meddyg. It’s a kind of mead with herbs infused in it and it’s very good. Aunt Nan always gave it to invalids, and her friend Florrie Snowball from the Falling Star says it’s what’s kept her fighting fit into her nineties.’
Aunt Nan always reckoned it was pure cussedness, though, and said it was a wonder Florrie’d never caught her death of cold long before, prancing about outdoors naked from time to time with the other members of her magic circle until recently, when these events had begun to be held indoors.
‘I’ve heard of mead, but not Meddyg.’
‘Then you try it and see what you think. And the bara brith is a type of fruit loaf, sliced and ready buttered.’
‘Your friend Bella said you’d written one or two children’s books,’ Ivo said, suddenly seeming to lose interest in the food and drink.
‘The odd one,’ I said modestly, since the latest would make it well over twenty. ‘They’re the
Slipper Monkey
books – I don’t know if you’ve come across them? Probably not, if you don’t have children.’
A sharp spasm crossed his face, so I seemed inadvertently to have hit on a nerve.
‘No, I haven’t heard of them,’ he said shortly. ‘So, did you go to art college when you left school?’
‘What do you mean, “when you left school”?’ I demanded, surprised. ‘I was nearly nineteen and about to start art college when I met you!’
He looked at me strangely. ‘No, you were only sixteen – your sister told me.’
‘What?
Which
sister?’ I demanded. ‘I don’t
have
any sisters!’
‘Stepsister, then – Marcia Anderson. She said we’d met at an audition, though I didn’t remember it. But oddly enough, a couple of years later, when I got married, it turned out she was my wife’s best friend …’
‘She’s my
ex
-stepsister now
;
my mother’s remarried again,’ I told him. ‘And are you saying she told you I was still at school? Was that why you stood me up and I never saw you again?’
‘I didn’t stand you up,’ he insisted. ‘I rang your house to tell you I couldn’t meet you that day after all, and that’s when I spoke to Marcia.’
‘And you believed her when she told you I was practically jailbait?’
He ran a hand through his hair again. ‘You did look young for your age, so yes, I believed her. I mean, why would she lie?’
‘Because she and her sister, Rae, delighted in making my life a misery from the moment I moved down to London to live with them. And even if you believed her, why on earth didn’t you
tell
me you weren’t going to see me again, and why?’
‘I … couldn’t,’ he admitted. ‘Marcia said she’d tell you I’d rung, and pass on the message that since I was moving out of town, I thought it would be better if we didn’t meet again.’
‘Well, she didn’t say anything at all – and I sat in that café the whole afternoon, waiting for you. They threw me out when they closed. I couldn’t believe you’d stand me up.’
‘I’m really sorry – I’d no idea,’ he apologised. ‘Blame my “salad days, when I was green in judgement” and with a head crammed full of dreams of becoming part of the Royal Shakespeare Company. But I did think of you from time to time later.’
‘Big of you!’
‘No, really,’ he insisted. ‘I even called your house again, a couple of months later, thinking we could just chat …’
‘And got the lovely Marcia again?’ I guessed.
‘No, someone who told me you’d moved in with “the boyfriend”.’
‘That would be Rae, then, my other ex-stepsister,’ I said bitterly. ‘And I
had
moved in with one of my oldest friends, Timmy – and note “friend”, not “boyfriend”, because he’s gay.’
Ivo shrugged. ‘Oh, well, it’s all water under the bridge now.’
‘If Marcia was your wife’s best friend, you must have seen quite a bit of her. Didn’t she ever mention me?’
He shook his head. I expect I’d been long forgotten by the time he’d met his future wife and her best friend, Marcia.
‘She’s been very kind, since the accident,’ he said. ‘Too kind, in fact – a bit smothering. When I felt I needed to take a break from the acting world and decided to move here, she offered to come and help me settle in, but I didn’t want any visitors, especially someone reminding me of the past …’
‘Yes, I’m sorry about your wife,’ I said awkwardly. ‘She’d just been offered a part in
Cotton Common
, like Marcia, hadn’t she?’
‘Yes. She’d been angling for one for a long time, so that was another of life’s little ironies, that she should be killed just as she’d got what she most wanted.’ A dark shadow seemed to pass across his face.
‘Tragic,’ I agreed sympathetically.
‘Marcia means well,’ he continued, following his own train of thought, ‘but I’m taking a six-month sabbatical from the theatre world to think things through.’
‘You do look as if you need a break,’ I agreed frankly.
‘After Kate was killed I put everything into storage and moved into a flat, then went straight back to work. I thought it was best to keep busy …’ Again that introspective, haunted look visited his eyes. ‘And it seemed to work … Then suddenly one night, right in the middle of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, I dried.’
‘Dried?’
‘On the stage – forgot my lines. It’s not something I’d ever done before and it wasn’t just once. In fact, it seemed to be a vicious circle, because after a few times I started to worry about it, which seemed to make it even worse.’ He stopped and looked surprised. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you this!’
‘Well, it’s not like you’ve just confessed to a crime, is it? Delayed shock can affect you in different ways, that’s all. I expect you’re quite right about a change of scene doing you good. You can rest and recuperate – and write your autobiography,’ I added brightly and he looked at me enigmatically.
‘I didn’t recognise you right away. You wore your hair loose and were going through some kind of Goth phase when I last met you.’
‘Oh, yes, I’d forgotten about that,’ I said. He didn’t mention that I was also currently a couple of stone heavier, too, but that might have been tact. Not that he’d shown a lot so far …
‘Have you been angry with me all these years for standing you up?’
‘No, of course not! I’d hardly thought about you,’ I lied, because him intruding into my wedding dreams didn’t count, did it? It wasn’t like I’d invited him in to play the role of princely spouse. ‘It was all such a long time ago.’
‘And even if you were eighteen, that was still way too young, so I expect it would have ended badly,’ he suggested.
‘Yeah, well, thanks for helping me avoid that, then,’ I said sarcastically, getting up (though until that moment, I hadn’t actually realised I’d sat down – he must have thought I’d settled in for the day). ‘I’ll leave you in peace.’
I knew I’d chosen the wrong word the moment it left my mouth. His face went all tense again and he said, ‘Peace? That would make a nice change! Even without all the shop noise, your damned cockerel crows for hours every morning and that insane dog yaps incessantly.’
‘Cedric’s just greeting the dawn, and Flash hardly barks at the cat at all now.’
‘I’ve got workmen coming this week to put a solid fence up above the top of the wall, so I won’t have to worry about your dog chasing Toby in his own garden,’ Ivo said.
‘Good – though that isn’t going stop your cat hopping over and tormenting Flash and messing in
my
flowerbeds, is it?’
He gave another of his shrugs. ‘I expect we’ll just have to learn to rub along with each other – and so will Toby and Flash. I’m sorry I’ve been shouting at him, because he’s obviously got a nervous disposition,’ he added unexpectedly.
‘He was badly treated by his previous owner,’ I explained. ‘He seems to be afraid of everything except your cat! But well before your six-month sabbatical is up you’ll probably be dying to get back to work, so the problem is short-term. What will you do with this place after that – keep it as a holiday cottage?’
‘I don’t know. It’s certainly not the quiet haven of tranquillity I was expecting!’
‘You did buy a cottage in the middle of a large village, right next to a shop,’ I pointed out.
‘Yes, agreed – but a run-down shop with hardly any customers, in a quiet courtyard well off the main street.’
‘Aunt Nan had lots of regular customers
and
she did a steady trade in satin bridal shoes,’ I began. But he carried on over me,
‘A shop that my estate agent assured me I would be able to buy eventually.’
‘He’d no reason to do that. Bright’s has been in the family for generations, but I expect he just wanted to make a sale.’
‘Then suddenly the place is heaving with people and noise – especially that damned doorbell playing “The Wedding March” every five seconds.’
‘That was only a technical hitch. It drove me and Bella mad, too,’ I admitted. ‘It’s turned right down now to muted mode, and I doubt you’d hear it even with the windows open. But things won’t be so hectic from now on. And look on the bright side: no one can park in the courtyard, they have to walk down Salubrious Passage to get here.’
‘I suppose that’s something. And my front garden means no one can see directly into my windows.’
‘There you are, then.’
‘Right.’
‘Right.’ I picked up the empty basket. ‘I’ve got to go: I’ve a dog to walk.’
I left, not sure how solid our truce was, and brooding over the past and might-have-beens. I also really,
really
wanted to kill Marcia … and then Rae, slowly and horribly.
I’d have rung Bella up to discuss it all, except I remembered she was out with Neil and Tia, so I rang Timmy and told him instead.
‘Oh, yes, I remember you being heartbroken about some boyfriend just before you moved into the flat with me,’ he said. ‘I hadn’t realised who it was, though!’
Then he was suitably indignant on my behalf and said all the right things, like that both my stepsisters were cows. Then he added that when he and Joe had seen Ivo’s Hamlet they’d thought he was sooo dishy
and
a very good actor.
‘If he’s that good, why have I never heard of him all these years, or seen him in any films?’
‘Because he’s stuck firmly to the RSC, I expect, though he’s been in one or two West End theatre runs that you’ve obviously managed to miss. If I’d
known
you’d had this boy-girl thing, I’d have told you,’ he said helpfully. ‘Oooh, star-crossed lovers, just like Romeo and Juliet!’
‘Step-sister-crossed lovers, and no one died, they just moved on,’ I said sadly, though actually, someone
did
die in a later act: Ivo’s wife, Kate Windle.
When I got home I put Mortal Ruin (Raffy’s old group) on the CD player and listened to ‘Dead as my Love’ while hardening my heart and deleting unread the latest batch of emails and texts from Justin.
Violet was glad enough to see me when she was poorly, but ashamed of me once she felt more herself. When I left, I told her to think of her good name and of her poor husband, out in the Far East, still fighting for his country.
Middlemoss Living Archive
Recordings: Nancy Bright.
Monday, our first real day of trading, started quietly. We’d expected that, though we hoped business would quickly pick up through word of mouth, adverts, the coverage of the opening ceremony in the local papers and also the website, which was already giving us an internet showcase and point of contact, even if Bella was still constantly tweaking it.
I expected when the article and pictures in
Lively Lancashire
finally came out that would give us a boost, too. And then Winter’s End was due to open to visitors at Easter, and the Witchcraft Museum, then open only at weekends, would open for five afternoons a week: so there should, with luck, soon be much more passing trade.
I opened up the shop with Bella, and then left her to it while I went to do some work on my latest book. Whenever the shop door opened I could hear ‘The Wedding March’ playing so I could tell if Bella was busy and needed help.