Every Woman For Herself. Trisha Ashley

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 to bed early. But then, I always was her favourite – probably because I was the runt of the litter.

      She sat opposite, smiling at me, her pale bright eyes glowing in her crumpled face like stars in a net. She was about as close to a mother figure as we’d ever got, and it was comforting that night to have someone trying to mollycoddle me, even if, as predicted, she did make me drink a herbal brew that tasted as if it had been strained through an old sock.

      Miss Grinch had been an absolute tower of strength, but Gloria was glorious.

       Skint Old Cook, No. 1

       How to Tell Your Mushy Peas from Your Pease Pudding

       These two northern delicacies are easily distinguishable from each other. Mushy peas are simply, as the name suggests, dried marrowfat peas soaked overnight and then cooked until they go mushy and give off liquid. Much runnier than pease pudding, they are often served with chips or pies. The canned variety can be an interesting shade of green – try them with potatoes and gravy for an enticing mixture of colour combinations. Your dinner guests will never forget it!

       Pease pudding is a solid, grey-greenish stodge, sometimes sold in little tubs. Made from split yellow peas boiled to a thick СКАЧАТЬ