God, he hadn’t got drunk and started an affair with that drippy girl who played the electric violin and sang in the Mummers, had he? I’d noticed she hadn’t been able to look me in the eye for months, but thought she’d maybe been one of his one-night flings. Evidently, he wasn’t going to tell me anyway.
I thought of something else. ‘Where’s your van?’
‘It broke down in a lay-by about twenty miles away. I had to get the garage to bring it in — think the gearbox’s had it. Now, any more questions? Only I need to finish this board because I’m off down to Cornwall at the weekend to deliver it, assuming the van’s fixed by then.’
I stared at him, thinking how normal a monster could look.
‘If you aren’t leaving immediately, you could make yourself useful and fetch that beer,’ he suggested.
‘Fetch it yourself! I’m going for a walk in the woods to think all this over, and then later I’ve got a Mystery Play Committee meeting, the first of the year,’ I said, and saw a flash of anger in his eyes.
As I left I heard the music restart, and the hissing of the spray.
Outside I practically fell over Polly Darke, our local purveyor of stirring Regency romances — and I use the term ‘Regency’ very loosely, since she never let historical facts come between her and the story. She gave me one of them once and I noticed the words ‘feisty’ and ‘lusty’ appeared on practically every page to describe the heroine and hero.
And now I came to think of it, she never let facts come between her and a
modern
story either, since she was always snooping about under one pretext or another, and twisting things she saw and heard into malicious gossip. Divorced, she had lived in her hacienda-style bungalow between Middlemoss and Mossedge for several years, and I’m sure was convinced that she was accepted everywhere as a local.
While I didn’t suppose she could have heard anything much through a wooden door, that wouldn’t prevent her from spreading lurid rumours about me and Tom around the three villages by sundown.
She was looking her usual strange self, in a severely truncated purple Regency-style dress, and with her hair cropped and dyed a dense, dead black. She clutched a small blue plastic basket of field mushrooms to her artificially inflated bosom, which might or might not be a fashion statement — are plastic baskets currently a must-have accessory?
Apart from the kohl-edged eyes and puffy, fuchsia-pink lips (which reminded me, strikingly, of a baboon’s bottom), her face was pale as death. Paler.
‘Oh, Polly, are you all right?’ I asked. ‘You haven’t been eating your own home-bottled tomatoes or anything like that, have you?’
From time to time she fancied herself as the Earth Mother type and tried her hand at jams, chutneys and bottled goods, which she then gave to all and sundry, in my case together with a generous dose of botulism or something equally foul. Just my luck to get
that
one!
‘Oh, no, I haven’t had time for any of that, Lizzy — I’ve got a book to finish, you know.’
‘Yes, Senga does like you to keep them coming, doesn’t she?’
Having fallen out with two agents and three publishers, Polly had been taken on by my own agent, Senga McDonald — and may the best woman win.
Her dark eyes slid curiously to the closed workshop door and back to my face. ‘I thought I heard raised voices — is everything OK with you and Tom? Only sometimes lately you haven’t seemed entirely happy, and you
know
you can always depend on me if you need a shoulder to cry on.’
Oh, yes, but only if I kneel down first, I thought, as she smiled at me in a horribly pseudo-sympathetic sort of way.
‘I’m fine,’ I said shortly. ‘We were just discussing business. Were you looking for me?’
She gave a start. ‘Oh, yes. I picked loads of mushrooms in the paddock this morning early and I thought you might like to swap them for some quail eggs? But if it’s inconvenient,
I thought of something else. ‘Where’s your van?’
‘It broke down in a lay-by about twenty miles away. I had to get the garage to bring it in — think the gearbox’s had it. Now, any more questions? Only I need to finish this board because I’m off down to Cornwall at the weekend to deliver it, assuming the van’s fixed by then.’
I stared at him, thinking how normal a monster could look.
‘If you aren’t leaving immediately, you could make yourself useful and fetch that beer,’ he suggested.
‘Fetch it yourself! I’m going for a walk in the woods to think all this over, and then later I’ve got a Mystery Play Committee meeting, the first of the year,’ I said, and saw a flash of anger in his eyes.
As I left I heard the music restart, and the hissing of the spray.
Outside I practically fell over Polly Darke, our local purveyor of stirring Regency romances — and I use the term ‘Regency’ very loosely, since she never let historical facts come between her and the story. She gave me one of them once and I noticed the words ‘feisty’ and ‘lusty’ appeared on practically every page to describe the heroine and hero.
And now I came to think of it, she never let facts come between her and a
modern
story either, since she was always snooping about under one pretext or another, and twisting things she saw and heard into malicious gossip. Divorced, she had lived in her hacienda-style bungalow between Middlemoss and Mossedge for several years, and I’m sure was convinced that she was accepted everywhere as a local.
While I didn’t suppose she could have heard anything much through a wooden door, that wouldn’t prevent her from spreading lurid rumours about me and Tom around the three villages by sundown.
She was looking her usual strange self, in a severely truncated purple Regency-style dress, and with her hair cropped and dyed a dense, dead black. She clutched a small blue plastic basket of field mushrooms to her artificially inflated bosom, which might or might not be a fashion statement — are plastic baskets currently a must-have accessory?
Apart from the kohl-edged eyes and puffy, fuchsia-pink lips (which reminded me, strikingly, of a baboon’s bottom), her face was pale as death. Paler.
‘Oh, Polly, are you all right?’ I asked. ‘You haven’t been eating your own home-bottled tomatoes or anything like that, have you?’
From time to time she fancied herself as the Earth Mother type and tried her hand at jams, chutneys and bottled goods, which she then gave to all and sundry, in my case together with a generous dose of botulism or something equally foul. Just my luck to get
that
one!
‘Oh, no, I haven’t had time for any of that, Lizzy — I’ve got a book to finish, you know.’
‘Yes, Senga does like you to keep them coming, doesn’t she?’
Having fallen out with two agents and three publishers, Polly had been taken on by my own agent, Senga McDonald — and may the best woman win.
Her dark eyes slid curiously to the closed workshop door and back to my face. ‘I thought I heard raised voices — is everything OK with you and Tom? Only sometimes lately you haven’t seemed entirely happy, and you
know
you can always depend on me if you need a shoulder to cry on.’
Oh, yes, but only if I kneel down first, I thought, as she smiled at me in a horribly pseudo-sympathetic sort of way.
‘I’m fine,’ I said shortly. ‘We were just discussing business. Were you looking for me?’
She gave a start. ‘Oh, yes. I picked loads of mushrooms in the paddock this morning early and I thought you might like to swap them for some quail eggs? But if it’s inconvenient,
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