Trisha Ashley 3 Book Bundle. Trisha Ashley

Felix put in, grinning.

      ‘Raffy saw Grumps this afternoon,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘I don’t suppose that had anything to do with it.’

      ‘I know your grandfather is a gentleman in a velvet jacket, just like the old Jacobite toast, but he’s no mole,’ Felix said. ‘Didn’t he and Raffy get on well?’

      ‘I don’t know, but that’s not what’s bothering me. If Zillah told Grumps about Raffy and me, he might be impelled to try and take a bit of revenge on my behalf.’

      ‘But there isn’t anything he can do really, is there?’ Poppy said. ‘Magic doesn’t really work, we know that.’ But she didn’t sound entirely convinced.

      ‘Of course it doesn’t,’ agreed Felix uneasily. ‘It’s a load of mumbo jumbo.’

      ‘It would be pointless anyway now, because Raffy came to see me after he’d been next door and we – well, we’ve cleared the air,’ I confessed, though I didn’t mention that there was still a sulphurous haze hanging about.

      ‘Oh, I’m so glad,’ Poppy said. ‘Are you friends again?’

      ‘No, I think it would be going quite a bit too far to say that, but I understand now that he didn’t behave as badly towards me as I thought he did.’

      Then I explained about Rachel’s lies, and Poppy, her soft heart stirred, said, ‘So it wasn’t really his fault, then? Oh, but it’s all so terribly sad!’

      ‘Yes, that’s what Jake thinks now I’ve told him about it, but only because he’s devastated to think he missed out on having Raffy for a brother-in-law! But I don’t suppose our relationship would have lasted anyway, he wasn’t the constant type. I mean, look at the way he took everything Rachel told him at face value and then slept with her.’

      ‘That was pretty bad,’ Poppy allowed, ‘but he told you he was drunk and angry at the time.’

      ‘Maybe, but even when he was sober it never seemed to have occurred to him to come to Merchester and look for me – and, since there was only one family of Lyons in the place, wouldn’t have been hard to find.’

      ‘But you didn’t go and look for him, either, did you?’ Felix said.

      ‘I couldn’t. He was brought up by an aunt and I had no idea where she lived. What was I supposed to do, follow the band around the country like a groupie, hanging out at stage doors in the hope of a word of explanation?’

      ‘No, I see what you mean,’ Poppy said, ‘and by then, of course, you’d accepted Rachel’s version of what happened – and what a truly horrible person she must be!’ She sighed. ‘Oh, well, it’s all past now, isn’t it?’

      ‘Yes, all passion spent, and the rest of it,’ I said wearily. ‘Raffy said he was going to the church to pray after we’d had our talk and I expect that’s when the angel nearly fell on him. I only hope, wherever Rachel is, one fell right on top of her.’

      ‘And I hope that now you and Raffy have talked things over, you can both draw a line under it,’ Felix suggested optimistically.

      ‘You keep saying that, but it’s easier said than done. How would you both feel if your past turned up on the doorstep? I mean, you’ve never told us any details about your divorce, Felix, except that your wife was unfaithful, but what if she suddenly moved to Sticklepond with the man she left you for?’

      ‘Actually, it was a woman,’ Felix confessed. ‘That seemed to make it even worse.’

      ‘Oh, poor Felix,’ Poppy said sympathetically. ‘My horrible experience in Warwickshire wasn’t half so bad, even if it was hideously embarrassing. I didn’t think anyone had noticed I had an almighty crush on that riding instructor until I overheard him laughing about it with his friends – and his wife! He used to flirt with me too, and try to kiss me, but he didn’t tell them that. And yes, I would loathe ever having to see him again.’

      ‘It’s funny how we all went through a different sort of hell, more or less at the same time, isn’t it?’ I said.

      Poppy nodded. ‘And even stranger how we’ve all ended up living so near together.’

      ‘There does seem to be a congruous pattern to our lives,’ agreed Felix.

      ‘I don’t know about you two, but I could do with a stiff drink,’ I said, with a sigh. ‘Perhaps a double whisky will magically fill me with magnanimity?’

      ‘Or make you maudlin,’ Felix suggested. ‘But I’ll join you anyway and we’ll risk it.’

      ‘I’d better not, I’m driving,’ Poppy said. ‘By the way, it’s the first Parish Council meeting with Raffy as vicar tomorrow. I’ll pop in afterwards and tell you what happens, Chloe.’

      ‘Always supposing another angel doesn’t get him first, fair and square,’ I said.

      I didn’t so much fall asleep that night as plummet into a dreamless stupor, waking up with eyelids ruched like Viennese blinds and a headache so powerful I felt as if my head was nailed to the pillow.

      I staggered to my vantage point behind the workshop curtains just in time to watch Raffy walk past with his dog, and thought resentfully that he didn’t look like someone nearly felled by an angel, though the marks of a sleepless night showed where the blue shadows lay like bruises under his eyes.

      Good.

      Once Jake had gone off to college I went to collect the latest chapter from Grumps. I hoped this book was nearly finished, because it seemed to me to be much longer than usual. But every time it appeared to be winding up to a conclusion, it galloped off again at a tangent.

      ‘What did you think of the new vicar?’ I asked him, gathering scattered pages.

      ‘Oh, surprisingly intelligent. Can keep his end up in a conversation. I don’t mind if he visits again…if he is able to.’ And then he shifted a little in his chair and winced.

      ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked suspiciously.

      ‘Just a touch of sciatica. What are these?’ he added, prodding the biscuits in his saucer.

      ‘Lemon cream puffs.’

      ‘I can’t dip a lemon cream puff into my tea,’ he objected.

      ‘Yes you can, but it will taste pretty weird,’ I said, and left him to it.

      ‘Zillah,’ I said on the way back through the kitchen, ‘a marble angel nearly fell on the new vicar yesterday in the churchyard, soon after he left here: was that Grumps’ doing?’

      Zillah was sitting in the old armchair by the hearth, in front of the flat-screen TV, with Tabitha limply draped across her lap like a small, moth-eaten fur rug.

      ‘How would he be able to cause that, in a churchyard, on hallowed ground?’ she asked, the inevitable fag hanging out of the corner of her mouth barely moving as she spoke.

      ‘I suppose it is silly, when you think about it,’ I conceded.

      ‘I read the vicar’s leaves and the Tarot – did he say I gave the cards to him to hold?’

      I shook my head. ‘How did you know I’d seen him?’

      ‘I know everything,’ she said complacently. ‘The cards showed me clearly that he has a heart washed clean of sin and a vital part to play in the events that will unfold.’

      ‘His heart must have been through a carwash on Extra Long, then,’ I said sourly, then told her what had happened between us the previous afternoon. ‘So I’m still furious with him,’ I concluded, ‘because he was so credulous and never gave a thought about me afterwards. He even slept with Rachel! And I certainly haven’t entirely forgiven him, either, though maybe I’ll be able to get my head around it eventually…in a decade or so.’