Every Woman For Herself. Trisha Ashley

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СКАЧАТЬ that excrescence on the beautiful face of Upvale?’

      Icy fingers of Arctic wind undulated my numerous layers of loose black drapery, and I had to claw a web-fine woollen scarf out of my eyes before I could see the man who’d spoken.

      He was very tall, even taller than Em, and his dark, heavy-lidded eyes regarded me with a sort of weary wariness, as though I was a surprise gift he didn’t want. He was also carrying a giant teddy bear.

      ‘I don’t think a man who walks about wearing a red duvet and a jester’s hat has any right to criticise my cottage,’ I informed him coldly, although his strange garments didn’t actually look quite as ludicrous on him as they might sound, while my veranda, as Walter would call it, certainly did.

      I didn’t mention the teddy bear in case he was sensitive about it. Bran always takes his soft toy, Mr Froggy, everywhere in his pocket with him, but at least it’s small.

      ‘It’s ski-wear,’ he said, looking down his remarkably straight nose at me.

      ‘Not in Upvale it isn’t. You might as well have “Oft-Comed Un” stamped across your back; but I suppose you’re the actor – Em said we’d got one in the cottage down the track,’ I said, making him sound like a disease. ‘I don’t think she mentioned your name.’

      And the bit of him I could see, between upturned collar and pulled-down hat – high sculptured cheekbones and slightly slanting, droopy-lidded eyes – did look vaguely familiar, even to someone who rarely watched TV or films.

      ‘I’m incognito.’

      ‘It’s all right with me. I don’t expect the urge will come upon me to boast about meeting you. Or your teddy bear,’ I added, throwing caution to the winds.

      ‘My teddy bear?’ he echoed, looking at me strangely, but that might have been because my knitted coat was flying up behind me like black bat wings.

      ‘Am I not supposed to mention the teddy bear? It’s moving,’ I added, fascinated.

      Indeed, it was now not only moving, but muttering. The head turned and I saw a little face screwed up in sleep, framed by honey-brown fur and round ears. Then it snuggled back into the red duvet.

      What with that and the Mediterranean veranda I was starting to feel quite freaked. Upvale had always previously stayed the same, my one fixed constant in a threatening world. It was a relief when the actor edged past me without another word (unless you count what sounded like a muttered ‘Crackers!’) and strode off up the lane with his little furry friend.

      I prised my little furry friend out of her warm nest in the car, and she looked around her with a sort of vague surprise: the world had moved while she slept, again.

      The door key was in the mouth of the stone frog as usual, together with some small wooden tablets inscribed with what looked like runes, and a bunch of dried herbs. I left those where they were.

      We went through Walter’s Folly, and I opened the door of the cottage to be met and embraced by a warm miasma of lavender, furniture polish and bleach. There was no leftover redolence of mistress here, for Gloria Mundi had clearly excised every last iota of their existence. It simply smelled like home.

      Flossie pattered across the flagged floor behind me as I climbed the stairs up to the Parsonage kitchen and opened the strangely silent door.

      There was a delicious aroma, easily identified as steak and kidney pie with suet crust, and Em was sitting coring baking apples at the kitchen table, and plopping them into a big earthenware bowl of water.

      ‘You’ve come, then,’ she stated, without looking up from her task. ‘Put the kettle on – you must be frozen. Where’s Flossie?’

      With a wheeze like a small pair of bellows Flossie hauled herself up the last step, looking vaguely around, then made straight for the wood-burning stove in the corner like a shaggily upholstered heat-seeking missile.

      ‘She must be cold,’ said Em fondly. ‘I’ll warm her some milk.’

      ‘She isn’t cold – she’s been fast asleep in her igloo all the way here. I’m the one who’s absolutely brass-monkeyed, because I had to have the roof open for the plants. Where’s Walter?’

      As if on cue the door swung open and in hobbled a gnarled and cheery little goblin. The bridge of his over-large glasses had been bound with a great wodge of Sellotape, and his baggy corduroy trousers were held up by Father’s old school tie.

      ‘Hello, Walter,’ I said, giving him a kiss.

      ‘I’ve got no eyebrows.’

      ‘I know. How are you?’

      ‘No eyebrows. No bodily hair whatsoever!’ he proclaimed happily. ‘I’ve made you a veranda, and now I’m going to put your plants in it and make a jungle.’

      ‘It’s a wonderful veranda, Walter – it’s the best one I’ve ever seen. Thank you!’

      Beaming like a lighthouse he hobbled off towards the cottage stairs, muttering, ‘No eyebrows … no bodily hair whatso …’

      Em plopped the last apple into the bowl and got up. ‘There we are, now we’ll have a hot drink. Don’t 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? СКАЧАТЬ